Fly me to the Moon: NASA reshuffles the Artemis card deck NASA has reshuffled its Artemis program, pushing the first crewed lunar landing in more than half a century back to Artemis IV, with Artemis III performing a check-out of the lunar lander in Earth orbit. The timeline remains aggressive. Artemis III is penciled in for 2027, Artemis IV for 2028. The mission change follows …
Inquiring minds want to know.
Many are skeptical this exists for the sake of press releases and government contracts to Trump-associated NASA contractors, at the expense of a huge backlog of hard science objectives.
Just days ago we heard the Hubble Space Telescope was slated to burn up in the atmosphere without the money to boost it to a longer-term orbit, long before money was available for a more modern replacement.
At the end of the day, Congress is responsible for NASA's budget. SLS allows Government money to go to NASA contractors not associated with Trump, and spreads the money across the country. The lander (whichever one is selected), will, as you say, funnel money to Trump supporters and be concentrated in certain areas.
America has signalled that it's not interested in scientific research unless it somehow says that vaccines are dangerous, or that fat is good for you, or that burning oil doesn't cause global warming, so there's an opportunity for the rest of the world to reduce its dependence on America and to fund scientific research tthemselves.
Congress is no longer an independent branch of government. It just does whatever Trump demands by tweet, as the nominally-elected lawmakers have no spine and live in fear of the Republican Party base saying mean things about them on social media.
As you noted, Congress doesn't give a damn about the actual science.
NASA will be broken for at least three more years.
How do they plan to avoid being truncheoned by the gas stoves living there?
They could put dimes into the coin slot, instead of shillings, jamming it and then waiting for the meter to run out, but doing that relies on catching the beasties: do any of the announced Artemis crew ski?
I knew NASA was broken back in 2004 when at the KSC tour they were still referencing the X-33 / VentureStar cancelled back in 2001. It's a perfect example of sincere individuals being employed by a make-work government programme.
On the other hand, I'm hardly enamoured by the corporate-welfare nonsense that has supported SpaceX et al down the years.
Maybe just as much as "Space is hard", "Funding Space is hard" should be the watch word.
I would have put Boeing first on the welfare list for SLS.
ULA is working hard to catch up with Boeing. So far Vulcan is keeping pace with Boeing's Starliner money pit but they have hired Bridenstein to get a law passed that limits NASA's spending on SpaceX launches to 50%. ULA are struggling to get to 1½ Vulcan launches per year. All but one launches to to SpaceX and ULA get paid the same amount for one launch? If the law passes that will put ULA in second place on the welfare list.
Blue Moon Mk1 is sometime in 2026 but still no scheduled date, I believe the lander is currently undergoing vacuum testing. Aiming for around 3ton cargo compared to Apollo'w 1 ton.
Blue Moon Mk2 which is human lander has no date and no confirmation that construction has even started. Its a multi vehicle mission involving multiple in space refuelling and use of an uprated New Glenn 9x4 configuration (9 engines on 1st stage, 4 on second with 8.7m fairing, 70 ton payload)
There is rumours of a Mk 1.5, based on Mk 1 but with human rating, single launch mission that can do a limited mission without refuelling. Its has more capability that Apollo but still basically limited to footprints and flag type mission. I assume this is what they are planning to use for Artemis III. Is it an accurate representation of Mk2, who knows.
"Blue Moon Mk2 which is human lander has no date and no confirmation that construction has even started. Its a multi vehicle mission involving multiple in space refuelling and use of an uprated New Glenn 9x4 configuration (9 engines on 1st stage, 4 on second with 8.7m fairing, 70 ton payload)"
The mission architecture has been modified and BO may wind up being the first lander used so there's a bunch of modifications to incorporate. The upgrades to New Glenn would also allow more mass so some options could be put into the MkII lander.
I'm anxious to see Mk1 or 1.5 sent on sooner rather than later. Better is the enemy of good enough and all that. BO needs to make sure they can set down safely on the moon and take off again before they go whole hog with a crew-capable lander and more expensive craft. They don't want to get there and tip over, twice.
"Its has more capability that Apollo but still basically limited to footprints and flag type mission. "
I'm all for that at a location that's equatorial and has some features worth investigating. Tire prints would be good too. There's only so much regolith that can be bunny-hopped across in a day.
> SX or BO ?
Neither but especially SX which has yet to get a fully fuelled up rocket with maximum cargo into a stable orbit, never mind doing that a dozen times and refuelling in space.... who the hell dreamed this idea up ?
At this rate they will pull out an Apollo lunar lander from some long forgotten storage shed and plonk that into orbit to be picked up.
One standout feature of the Starliner was just how good the PR was for the project. This was definitely IT, the one capsule that would make everything else obsolete etc. Those of us who understand modern corporate America and especially the engineering side where you just can't fake it until you make it, knew it was likely an accident waiting to happen because of the way that previous tests had been hailed successes when they quite clearly weren't. NASA's recent report on the debacle was unvarnished -- "scathing" would have been an euphemism -- but unfortunately a close second to their PR department is their lobbying capability.
Artemis seems to be following the same path. Not to put too fine a point on it, its a lash-up. Its a political stunt which left to its own momentum would send an inadequately tested system into space just to pretend that we're #1. Meanwhile worthy projects, ones that have been nurtured over years, are allowed to wither for lack of resources.
I'm running scared of systematic failure. So much of our world is visibly decaying, things we'd assumed to be sorted aren't working quite right any more, its like we're sleepwalking into a disaster. Its not that there aren't capable people out there but we've lost the ability to organize, substituting fluff and PR for substance.
" I'm running scared of systematic failure."
This!
When every "new" tool is worse than what it replaces, when marketing's call: "Customers want New Features, not Fixes" combines with Agile over Waterfall, when perfectly usable and perfected over the years mouse/keyboard based GUIs are being replaced with crap ported from "How many extra clicks does it take to do the same thing?" smartphones, when the only people who understand system details and interoperability are being forced out (dino-babies) or retiring in droves, when the number of things which "will never work right" increasingly outnumbers the things which "still kinda work", all that's left is hoping that you, too, can get out before its too late.
RTFA
> Aerojet Rocketdyne, told The Register: "We've got 16 total engines from the Shuttle program, so we can get to Artemis IV."
> Going beyond requires new RS-25 engines, which are currently under development.
Under development presumably means a renewed funding hose directed at one of Trump's supporters.
No, I don't think it'll be ready in time either.
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