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Just another Apollo? Part two (2005)
- uncertainquark 4y agoRelated shameless plug: I've been tracking the progress of NASA's Artemis plans to return humans to the Moon on my one-of-a-kind, technical newsletter Moon Monday https://blog.jatan.space/s/moon-monday https://blog.jatan.space/s/moon-monday It also covers global lunar exploration, science and commercial developments to show that our return to the Moon this is truly worldwide and how valuable each vertical is. Thoughts?
- ncmncm 4y agoThey are going about the Artemis program in about the worst way imaginable. The lunar gateway notion is about as terrible as I have ever heard of.
- uncertainquark 4y agoThe lunar gateway has largely independent goals to the crewed landing missions part of Artemis. IMO only the legally mandatory use of SLS+Orion part is a screw up for Artemis but most of the rest of the hardware and infrastructure will be on commercial models extended from successful ones at LEO, including the at least two spacecraft capable of landing humans on the surface.
- colineartheta 4y agoMay you please elaborate on why you feel this way? I think statements like these would be very valuable to casual observers (i.e. 'me') of the Artemis program if you could provide some more detail that possibly counters the relatively successful Artemis PR.
- ncmncm 4y agoThe "lunar gateway" has no legitimate technical purpose, beyond that it is an orbit that SLS can get to, but Falcon can't. It is not an orbit that is favorable for moon landing: first you need to get from there to "low lunar orbit". And stopping there on the way to another planet would be hugely wasteful. Essentially, its only purpose is to ensure there is something SLS will be needed for.
- WorldMaker 4y agoMy understanding is that the "lunar gateway" is a politically expedient chance to get an ISS replacement on the budget ledgers. It has good technical reason to exist just as an ISS replacement (which must deorbit a lot sooner than we'd all like; some of its warranties are "coming due" as they say). > And stopping there on the way to another planet would be hugely wasteful. My understanding is that the scientific missions are less what they'd "stop there on the way" and more what they could eventually consider to "start there". At least some of the "lunar gateway" plans I heard had some complex "fabricator" goals, to assemble and build bigger modules in a "cheaper" in orbit than if they built it on the ground and shipped it all at once straight to the moon. I don't know how many of such plans remain on the books and I don't know enough of the science behind some of the proposals to know how viable they are (I do know that the growing body of inflatable modules research on ISS was pretty neat and supposedly related).
- ncmncm 4y agoThere is literally nothing that could done in high moon orbit that would not be overwhelmingly better done in low earth orbit. The only reason to even consider using the high moon orbit is to have something, anything for SLS to do. Every conceivable mission scenario is better staged from low earth orbit, but they wouldn't need SLS for that. And the whole point of SLS is so they can hand out $2B in plums to mil contractors for every mission, that they couldn't for a measly LEO launch.
- WorldMaker 4y agoI'm very willing to believe SLS itself is mostly a political boondog, but I'm also still willing to give Nasa the benefit of the doubt that they're trying their best to get useful science/engineering out of projects like the Lunar Gateway. My understanding is that the lunar orbit they want would give a lot of interesting science opportunities and technical opportunities (simpler communications versus the "tin can on a string that blacks out for worryingly large periods of time" of Apollo communications). If anything the Lunar Gateway sounds to me a lot like "classic" Nasa risk aversion and over-preparedness. It isn't strictly necessary, probably, but it sounds like it makes lunar projects overall safer (in communications access at the very least, but also reusing ascent stages, and providing more backup habitat space in cases of disaster readiness) and that's still good science to prepare for risk. (They don't want a second Apollo 13, and who can blame them for that?) > The only reason to even consider using the high moon orbit is to have something, anything for SLS to do. It seems like that is already disproven. The first few missions to setup Lunar Gateway modules have already been scheduled on SpaceX Falcon Heavy launches (in 2024) so clearly even Nasa understands they may have to rely on SpaceX even for access to Lunar Gateway orbits because the SLS has already missed deadlines. The "traditional" flipside to political boondoggle politics is "standard" commercial bids and contracts, and Nasa is far too pragmatic to rest important pieces of a scientific mission waiting for the SLS as the "only option".
- jabl 4y agoIt's producing $$$ for the 'old-school' space companies, which seems to be the whole idea. The more elaborate they can make it and the longer they can drag it out and suck up taxpayer money the better.
- wiremine 4y agoSomewhat related: I've been enjoying the series "For All Mankind" on Apple TV+. Really fun alt-history drama that explores these topics.
- ArtWomb 4y agoI'm sure spec scripts in this vein already exist, but it would be cool to do a 1970s "parallel history" in retro futurist style where NASA fully realizes Werner von Braun's concept for a Kubrikian spoke-and-wheel spinning mega space station ;) 1952 Colliers' article: "Man Will Conquer Space Soon!" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Will_Conquer_Space_Soon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Will_Conquer_Space_Soon!
- xwdv 4y agoIs this show like a prequel for The Expanse?
- freeflight 4y agoThat's a fan theory I've heard based on both shows trying to keep the space action mostly realistic.
- MarcScott 4y agoExcept that the moment they enter the Jamestown base, gravity suddenly seems to be 1g.
- irrational 4y ago> President Nixon rejected the ambitious Space Task Group plan, choosing instead to develop the infamous, loved and hated space shuttle. So, he really was a crook.
- Sharlin 4y ago(2005), mind, which is relevant given the main topic of the essay is NASA’s contemporary moon program which was originally introduced back then.
- sambeau 4y agoCan I recommend "Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race" by the BBC. It's a fascinating deep dive into this, and the difference in long-term goals between the USA and the USSR. It explores how close the USSR were to getting to the moon first, the reaction of the USSR's team (some swearing, some shrugging), the grief over the loss of their chief rocket scientist, and why there was no need for a "pivot"—the long term goal had always been to populate and explore space. The interviews are great and there is some amazing footage. It is a testament to their long-term plan that, despite the collapse of the USSR, the Russians were—for a long time—the only country capable of putting anyone into space. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04lcxms https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04lcxms
- wolverine876 4y ago> despite the collapse of the USSR, the Russians were—for a long time—the only country capable of putting anyone into space. For a few years?
- adolph 4y agoAbout 9. > Space Shuttle which retired from service in 2011. > 30 May 2020 (crewed) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon_2 EDIT: Sorry, I forgot the capability of China. I mentally equated "putting anyone in space" with putting people into the ISS. With China in the picture, the Soviet-only gap would be between Skylab and Shuttle, I guess? China's first crewed mission in space on October 15, 2003, which carried Yang Liwei in orbit for 21 hours and made China the third nation to launch a human into orbit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Manned_Space_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Manned_Space_Program
- UncleSlacky 4y agoMore like between Apollo-Soyuz and Shuttle, so about 6 years (1975-81).
- DylanSp 4y agoI'm curious what the BBC doc has to say about the Soviet lunar program; my impression (mostly from reading Asif Siddiqi's history Challenges to Apollo) is that the lack of political support and focus post-Gagarin lead to a late start on a lunar landing program, plus lack of funding and splitting resources between Korolev's N1-L3 architecture and Chelomei's programs. Between those factors, the uncertainty caused by Khrushchev's overthrow, and Korolev's death, it doesn't seem like the Soviets had much of a chance of beating the US to a lunar landing.
- cratermoon 4y agoNixon, who was president by the time the US landed on the moon, in case you've forgotten, hated JFK, and had ever since he lost to Kennedy in the 1960 election after Nixon's disastrous appearance at the debate vs JFK. So of course, when Nixon became president, he considered Apollo to be JFK's program and killed it. Not all at once – first by cancelling missions after 17, then more so. Also, Nixon wanted the money for his expansion of the war in Vietnam after the Tet Offensive, as well as money for his other imperialist interventions around the world. The reason why we got the Space Shuttle was, bluntly, Air Force involvement in wanting a reusable, crewed vehicle to deploy and retrieve spy satellites. That's why the shuttle bay got to be so big[1] 1 https://www.thespacereview.com/article/1960/1 https://www.thespacereview.com/article/1960/1
- BitwiseFool 4y agoAdding on to the Air Force thing, the shuttle program was being starved of money so the decision was made to accommodate the Air Force to get some money from the DoD. It wound up seriously disfiguring the original design of the shuttle and it never ended up doing any of the kind of missions the Air Force required the changes for.
- cratermoon 4y agoThere was a shuttle launch pad at Vandenberg, SLC-6, which never saw a launch. After the loss of Challenger on STS-51-L, the Air Force gave up on the shuttle anyway, leaving it as an albatross around NASA's neck.
- arnaudsm 4y agoIf you like this subject, I highly recommend the show For All Mankind (on Apple TV). I don't want to spoil the premise, but it's an amazing alternate history along the consequences of investing in science.
- thrown_22 4y agoI strongly don't. It's an extremely presentist view of the 1960/70s. spoilers The idea that the US of the period would have cared about putting minorities on the Moon because the USSR did it is a fantasy. The USSR's first female cosmonaut flew in 1963, two years after Gagarin's first flight. By contrast the first US female astronaut didn't fly until 1983, 22 years after the first US manned spaceflight. The US of the 1960s didn't go for copy cat tokenism, their response to losing the Moon race would have been to start the Mars race. It's a sad indictment of current American mentality that this blindingly obvious escalation wasn't the response of the writers of the show. It's a side effect of living in a country which hasn't been able to build anything more complex than a sports stadium in 40 years. We have no new ideas and neither does our fantasy. end spoilers
- wolverine876 4y ago> a country which hasn't been able to build anything more complex than a sports stadium in 40 years. We have no new ideas and neither does our fantasy. What are you writing this on? If you flew out to L2, what would you see? Etc. Seriously, what forum are you in?
- thrown_22 4y ago>What are you writing this on? A glorified BBS. >If you flew out to L2, what would you see? Nothing much since the 1960s plans of massive space stations never materialized.
- Veedrac 4y agoYou mean James Webb? That's a prime example of how we've failed. It's a decent $500m telescope with a moderate but not particularly ambitious scope, that overran its budget by a factor of 20 and launched fifteen years late. That so many people think unfolding a sunshield is a pinnacle of human achievement just underlines how much ambition we have lost. We could have had an in-space constructed telescope ten times the size, if the government still actually knew how to build things.
- jmyeet 4y agoThe Apollo missions were awe-inspiring, particularly given the tech at the time. But the Saturn V as a launch vehicle was simply too expensive. I see inflation-adjusted numbers putting the Saturn V launch cost at just over $1 billion but I honestly think the equivalent is way more than that. The ironic thing is that Congress cancelled the Apollo program and approved the Space Shuttle program and that was even more expensive (in $/kg to LEO terms). Payload costs are now <10% of the Saturn V/STS costs in real terms. That's what we need. If Satrship lives up to expectations, that'll drop even further. In addition to that there are important advancements in scalability (ie how many launch vehicles you can product and that really translates to how many launches you can do per year) and reliability. My point is that whatever NASA wanted to do after Apollo was never going to happen and wasn't sustainable. Lots of people like to say things like we'd already have put a man on Mars if we didn't cancel Apollo but that was never going to happen.
- cnlevy 4y ago> My point is that whatever NASA wanted to do after Apollo was never going to happen and wasn't sustainable There was a project to make the Saturn V partially reusable, see http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum29/HTML/000880.html http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum29/HTML/000880.html
- CWuestefeld 4y agoThe ironic thing is that Congress cancelled the Apollo program and approved the Space Shuttle program and that was even more expensive There's no contradiction here. It's resolved because, relative to its original promise, the STS program was a complete failure. Yes, it did wind up doing a bunch of useful stuff. But it didn't achieve nearly as much as was promised, and what it did do cost vastly more than anticipated. Source: my grandfather. He was a project manager on the Hubble, and specifically on the ill-fated mirror, this being simultaneously his greatest pride and greatest embarrassment. We talked about this stuff often. According to gramps, and not denying that there were major errors in the Hubble mirror management, they wound up getting screwed by the STS failures. It was always understood that the mirror wouldn't be perfect because they expected to be unable to perfectly compensate for the deflection of the mirror due to gravity while it was being manufactured. The STS promised the ability to deliver the Hubble to orbit to test it, and bring it back down again to correct if necessary. In the end, something like this was eventually required, but only many years later, and not in the fashion that the initial STS mission would have allowed.
- timdiggerm 4y agoWouldn't those crews have all had big problems with cancer and muscular atrophy?
- dotancohen 4y agoNo.
- sbierwagen 4y agoMuscle loss isn't the big problem in long term microgravity, bone loss is.
- Dave3of5 4y agoInteresting that NASA is now pursuing something similar right now. I wonder if some of the then junior engineers started work on this back then and were cut off by Nixon to work on the space shuttle and have now climbed into a position of power and want to complete that initial work they started. Or I could be reading way too much into this.
- otter-rock 4y agoThis sort of already happened when some of the Apollo engineers came out of retirement for the Constellation Program. The program was cancelled and they went back into retirement. Nobody came back for the Space Launch System because it was just a jobs program with no real substance. Also, they were very old at that point.
- Dave3of5 4y agoYeah seems like a lot of the programs aims were to build a moon base of sorts and get a person to mars. They obviously haven't met those goals and have now been heavily defunded, enough that it'll be impossible for them to actually follow through. The latest goals are the same and I can't help but be sceptical if they'll ever get back to the moon.
- otter-rock 4y agoYup. The "missions" are an excuse for funding. But the funding is insufficient and misallocated to support the stated missions in earnest. If NASA gets to the moon again, it'll be on a cheap ride they buy from SpaceX.
- jankeymeulen 4y agoThey'd be retired by now, even the most junior engineer in 1970 would be into their seventies.
- 0xffff2 4y agoMost of them, yes, but there were some serious geezers wandering the halls before the pandemic. One of my coworkers started at NASA the same year I was born, and she doesn't show any signs of retiring any time soon. These folks don't usually end up directly in management positions, but they often hold advisory roles that give them the ear of those calling the shots.
- towaway15463 4y ago> The only reason it was not done is because politically it was inexpedient for the Nixon administration to continue supporting the Apollo program, which it saw a legacy of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Politicians would do well to remember the quote by Picasso “Good artists copy; great artists steal!” If you try to make a name for yourself by creating your own rendition of a space program while scrapping your predecessor’s then you’ll only be remembered for your limited success or spectacular failure. If you take what’s already there and make it your own by expanding upon it and pushing it further then you will look like a genius who advanced the art far beyond where it was before.
- gumby 4y ago> The only reason it was not done is because politically it was inexpedient for the Nixon administration to continue supporting the Apollo program, which it saw a legacy of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. What shortsighted thinking! Yet another reason to hate the Nixon administration. The one month limitation due to CSM seems crazy. I can’t imagine spending a month in the CSM.
- chernevik 4y agoIt's a sleight-of-hand to shift blame for NASA's failure to articulate a mission to Nixon.
- messe 4y ago> The one month limitation due to CSM seems crazy. I can’t imagine spending a month in the CSM. From the article, it sounded like the CSM would be unmanned during that time, as they planned to carry a crew of three down to the surface.