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NASA’s Orion spacecraft reaches the moon, flying 81 miles above the surface
- texaslonghorn5 4y agohttps://archive.ph/99rIO https://archive.ph/99rIO
- actionfromafar 4y agoIs it just me who can't muster any enthusiasm over it because the rocket is so wasteful? Not very Tintin to trash the entire booster and everything for every launch.
- ProAm 4y agoHuman spaceflight is wasteful, but were still going to spend money on it.
- jamesgreenleaf 4y agoShort-term wasteful, long-term critical.
- barbazoo 4y agoCritical in which way in your opinion?
- WarOnPrivacy 4y agoExposure to things humans haven't ruined is uniquely inspirational.
- jamesgreenleaf 4y agoIt's critical that intelligent life on Earth learns to adapt and survive in the greater universe. Staying on this one planet is a virtual guarantee of extinction in the long-term.
- evanlivingston 4y agoWhy is it critical that intelligent life on earth survives?
- trap_goes_hot 4y agoI agree - 'critical' is sorta meaningless in this context. But the general response is - because organisms adapt for their own survival and our genes are selfish.
- OkayPhysicist 4y agoThat's easy: because literally everything else is contingent on it. Either we survive and flourish allowing any of our other actions to matter, or we doom ourselves to extinction, in which case literally nothing we do matters.
- idlewords 4y agoWe're already all individually doomed to extinction, yet this doesn't prevent most of us from finding meaning in our lives. And in the long run, any civilization, no matter how flourishing, is doomed. Conditioning whether anything we do matters on the existence of an infinite chain of future progeny is a losing game.
- natch 4y ago>infinite chain of future progeny is a losing game. There's no need to take it to infinite extremes. There are always plenty of values in the slider between short-medium-long term to choose from to find meaning in life… whatever floats someone's boat.
- micromacrofoot 4y agoCritical for the species on the universal timescale maybe, humans as we know them have been fine without it for ~300,000 years. Horseshoe crabs have been around for over 400 million years. We might be better off spending the next couple hundred years focusing on making sure we don't destroy our own home before trying to move on to the next (or at least more comprehensive threat detection). There's a very good chance we'll off ourselves before we have to start worrying about anything at even a solar system scale, let alone galaxy or universe.
- goddtriffin 4y agoIf we don't experiment with getting off of this rock, we're dooming the lives of all known living organisms in the known universe. An entire universe, void of all life, that doesn't get to experience itself deeply saddens me. Though that might just be the fitness-function within me talking.
- idlewords 4y agoThinking you have to infect the universe or otherwise perish is the mentality of a virus.
- twawaaay 4y agoI would like to point out that if United States won't do it then other countries and large companies will take the lead. And in fact they are already doing it. And while it might not be bringing a lot of tangible returns for US citizens right now, it is projected to overtake practically every single other industry including electronics at some point in the future. Even without returns, it is simple matter of security. With another country like China taking absolute control over space US would be quickly incapable to take care of its interest here on Earth. Just imagine China deciding to incapacitate all US satellites and US having no way to respond to it. So it is same old weapons race, it is just trying to score some extra side quests a bit outside of the main quest. Haven't you ever tried to do side quests to get some extra exp to help you with main quest line?
- adql 4y ago> it is projected to overtake practically every single other industry including electronics at some point in the future. projected by who and how many % of his guesses turned out to be right ?
- kibwen 4y agoPresumably because somebody pointed to an asteroid somewhere and calculated that it contains a volume of platinum/gold/unobtanium that would be worth a hundred zillion kajillion trillion dollars, without taking into account that if you actually brought that much of a given precious metal into the market the price would crash to zero and we'd all be drinking Coke out of disposable platinum cans.
- cwillu 4y agoOn the one hand, this is technically true. On the other, this is effectively because the gains to such a large windfall cannot be captured by a single entity: Aluminium becoming so cheap as to become a nearly disposable material is a massively _good_ thing. It's not inconceivable that having platinum become plentiful might also be such a boon.
- 0xf00ff00f 4y agoThe rocket equation is unforgiving.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoThe rocket equation is far more forgiving to big rockets than small ones, and this is the biggest one yet.
- PointyFluff 4y agoHonestly, I think it's just silly that we are still trying to make these things on the ground.
- Vecr 4y agoIn my opinion the ground is the best place to make them. It's much harder to do independent inspections of the work when you have to fly the expert who wants to look at the assembly into space and train them how to do EVAs.
- giantrobot 4y agoYeah why don't we just place an order at the first available orbital facto...oh no such thing exists. Well we can order some aluminum from an asteroid mining smelt...oh that doesn't exist. Well I'm sure the useful payload entirely built in orbit is...oh. There's no infrastructure in space to do anything. Even if you built a rocket in orbit that doesn't do you any good if the payload in sitting on a pad on the ground.
- dekhn 4y agoThe two things I think would be interesting to demonstrate in space is aluminum extrusion production (standardized framing) and fuel production. To do either of those sustainably in space would be an impressive accomplishment.
- LeifCarrotson 4y agoIn fact, it's less wasteful in terms of absolute mass to trash the rocket. Carrying fuel, parachutes, etc. to booster separation that you don't use to boost the rocket, or worse, carrying fuel, heat shields, aerodynamic surfaces, etc. to LEO for re-entry in addition to your payload, are wasteful. Non-critical mass to lunar orbit is even more extravagant. When your rocket engine is constructed by the the best TIG welders you can find carefully fitting Inconel parts together, or your tanks made by composite experts hand-laying carbon fiber in cleanrooms, yeah, it feels a waste to see that work crash and burn (or, I suppose, the other way around - first the burn, then the crash). If your booster is as disposable as a paper cup, with new ones flying off the assembly line faster than you could hope to rework anything, perhaps either the materials or the fuel are wasted but not so much work is wasted.
- jcims 4y agoThink of what it represents in the long term vs what it represents in the instance. The Saturn V operated the same way.
- RetpolineDrama 4y ago>long term vs what it represents in the instance. I did, and that's why I couldn't care less. SLS is abandonware. Starship makes it completely irrelevant
- jcims 4y agoSLS created a mission context in which Starship could become economically viable much sooner than it would have on its own.
- jeffdn 4y agoSLS has just put a capsule into orbit around the moon, however, while Starship has yet to embark on its first orbit of the Earth, with no date in sight. Additionally, pinning the entirety of the American space program on a single private company seems like a recipe for disaster.
- onepointsixC 4y agoSLS put a capsule into orbit for an absolutely princely sum of $4.1 billion per launch. That's after the over $20 billion program cost. All using technology largely designed in the 70's. But at least those the designs of the 70's were meant for reuse were as SLS is completely disposable. The entire program makes the space shuttle seem like a bargain. Now that's an accomplishment. > Additionally, pinning the entirety of the American space program on a single private company seems like a recipe for disaster. That's exactly what happened here. America pinned the entire project on Boeing Space. With disastrous results.
- jeffdn 4y agoNASA has not pinned the entire manned space program on Boeing, however — now there are two competing companies who can provide that capability!
- robertlagrant 4y ago> Is it just me who can't muster any enthusiasm over it because the rocket is so wasteful? Not very Tintin to trash the entire booster and everything for every launch. If your instincts come from how SpaceX have done it, then I can imagine it feels extremely wasteful. But SpaceX needs to try and turn a profit, so they have a different set of incentives to NASA.
- kwhitefoot 4y ago> SpaceX needs to try and turn a profit, so they have a different set of incentives to NASA. How so? Surely if NASA can do something cheaper it should have more money to do other things or find it easier to get money for more things?
- ceejayoz 4y agoIt doesn't necessarily work like that. SLS is expensive in part because it scatters jobs around to various important Senators and Representatives' districts. It's in part a jobs program.
- bumby 4y agoJobs, I think, is part of it but not the whole story. Imagine if NASA was solely located in Alabama where von Braun set up shop. I think it would have been defunded in short order and there would be no NASA and, by extension, no SpaceX (since they are so reliant on govt contracts)
- ceejayoz 4y agoThat's the same story, isn't it? You'd only have two senators and a handful of reps really caring about maintaining NASA jobs. Put JPL in California, mission control in Texas, launches in Florida, and a bunch of manufacturing at Boeing and you've got a much, much wider Congressional support base. Look at https://www.nasa.gov/specials/ESDSuppliersMap/ https://www.nasa.gov/specials/ESDSuppliersMap/ - they've even managed to spread suppliers around to Alaska, Montana, and Hawaii. Every single state has at least some jobs that depend on SLS.
- runarberg 4y agoI think you are right, but on a more abstract level. I don’t think it is the rocket per-se (people don’t care about the specifics of technology), but a lot of people are asking: “whats the point”. We know what the point is with James Webb Space Telescope, we know that the point is with each successive Mars rovers. But the moon seems just so pointless. We’ve been there, there is nothing there. We’ve also seen how capable robots are in space, and we continue to be excited to see each generation of robots outperform the previous, bringing in new and exciting discoveries and confirmations. For the moon, there is nothing to be excited about.
- natch 4y agoYou’re making the common mistake of thinking that because you don’t see any good reasons, there are no good reasons. One good reason is that the moon is a relatively close jumping off point for other operations and missions to other destinations. It has a great combination of ample space and very low gravity, so it’s (relatively, compared to earth) easy to get off of. So a fantastic choice for future bases, mining operations, labs, materials storage, and possibly manufacturing. It also has problems of course, which is well known. You don’t have to accept this for it to remain a good reason to people in the know about the opportunities of developing beyond earth and the dangers of not doing so.
- dev_tty01 4y agoThere is no reusable rocket available with 8.8 million pounds of thrust. And there certainly wasn't anything available when SLS was started. Falcon Heavy is about half the thrust of SLS. I agree that reusable would be much better, but reusability is a relatively recent innovation by SpaceX. SLS will get there. SpaceX is forcing everyone to up their game. In the meantime, no need to condemn them for not getting there yet during these transition years.
- cpcallen 4y agoYou are getting a lot of downvotes, but I agree with you. It's true that the rocket equation is unforgiving, and it's not surprising that our early ventures into space all involved a lot of disposable hardware. But SpaceX has definitively demonstrated that reusable first stage boosters are viable from both a physics and economics point of view, and there is little that they will soon succeed in demonstrating the same for a fully-reusable orbital launch system. In contrast, SLS is predicated on taking actual engines (and boosters) from the Space Shuttle program—ones which were once at the very forefront of reusable spacecraft technology—and trashing them. Sure: reusing the Shuttle and its boosters turned out to be much (much) less economically advantageous than hoped, and it is great that NASA eventually retired it. But the remaining Shuttle hardware is a monument to the engineering talent and production effort that produced the most sophisticated spacecraft ever flown, and to take the surviving engines, each of which has flown on multiple shuttle flights and _intentionally_ send them to a watery grave in the Pacific (Atlantic, for the booster segments) is a total travesty, and a shameful destruction of historic artefacts. Indeed, the whole program is a boondoggle. SLS is based on the Shuttle hardware not for compelling engineering reasons so much as because it keeps the contractors that built the shuttle in business, and that keeps money flowing into the campaign funds of the politicians in Washington. Its exploration goals are laudable, but the approach taken has been fundamentally an exercise in job creation and military R&D subsidy before all else.
- mikro2nd 4y ago
- BitwiseFool 4y agoYou actually want them to use metric? Okay, comrade. /s Edit: I'm being sarcastic and mocking anti-metrication...
- adql 4y agoJust be fucking happy they are not using football fields or multiples of some tall building length as unit. The worst I saw was some cook telling the amount of pepper in recipe in cranks of pepper grinder.
- zikduruqe 4y agoOr Smoots. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot You have: 81 miles You want: smoots * 76599.403 / 1.3054932e-05
- BitwiseFool 4y agoTo play devils advocate, most cooking does not require the kind of precision that warrants getting out a small scale to measure the weight of crushed peppercorns. Not just because these things are season-to-taste, but also, because the average person cooking a meal can instantly translate cranks of pepper compared to a small unit of weight. Most home recipes also measure ingredients by volume rather than weight, so I can understand this.
- skykooler 4y agoI agree. And it's far faster to measure something by scooping it via measure spoons than to try and match a desired weight on a scale.
- thebigman433 4y ago> Why won't the press report in real units instead of frankenunits Probably because its an American focused news site, reporting to American people, who use and will understand miles as a measurement. It really isnt hard to understand.
- geuis 4y agoOne issue that I really don't understand is why the onboard cameras are so bad and are badly positioned. A huge part of this program is to generate buzz and interest in the public about the human space program. A large part of that is pretty pictures, to be honest. The onboard video quality looks like 720p at best and the exposure is for the Orion vehicle, not Earth or the moon. And the video seems horizontally distorted. I'd have to look, but I'm guessing this is an engineering camera meant to primarily view the physical state of the craft. That being said, after billions of dollars to get this thing into space, they should have accounted for the need and benefits of better footage.
- witx 4y agoNever worked on this domain, so I might be wrong, but what I've heard is that usually for space stuff the hardware is chosen well in advance and "locked". So even if a new shinny thing is out probably it won't make it into the project
- tintor 4y agoQuality digital cameras existed for more than 10 years.
- dylan604 4y agoThey've been working on SLS/Orion for much longer than 10 years. They're just we tad bit behind schedule
- witx 4y agoI'm pretty sure they've been working on this, hence hardware locked, for 10 or more years. Not saying I agree with the choice as I'd prefer better quality images, but I understand their reasoning (if it really is as I said)
- nradov 4y agoWe had high-quality cameras used on the Space Shuttle and International Space Station for years before the Orion design was locked.
- areoform 4y agoThere are some people saying that the onboard cameras are very bad and badly positioned. While the imagery is breathtaking to me, it's just a tiny taste of what's yet to come — most of the images/videos haven't been downlinked yet. Orion is the most media consumption focused craft that NASA has ever sent out. There are 16 cameras on the mission, ranging from, — 7 COTS GoPro Hero 4 Black derived cameras that shoot video in, 4k/30fps, 1080p/120fps, 720p/240fps. 4 of these are mounted on tips of the solar panel. Most of the pictures that you are seeing are from these cameras. - Cameras around the service module and the Orion capsule that are (mostly, AFAICT) wired cameras derived from PixeLINK PL-D725, these shoot in color and B&W, and record at 75fps on a single channel. - 3 internal Cameras that are a part of Callisto a Lockheed Martin thing. On the ground, we've gotten used to fairly high bandwidth communications system, but Orion is using NASA's Deep Space Network. There just isn't enough bandwidth to downlink the kind of pristine imagery that people want. We'll have to wait until the capsule comes back home to watch all of the 4k video that this machine is capturing. We have come a long way though, when the Apollo missions were going on, all they had were grainy TV broadcasts. They had to wait for weeks to get those gorgeous images out.
- iJohnDoe 4y agoThanks for the information. Very helpful. My conspiracy side thinks NASA wants the opportunity to review the high resolution photos and video before they are revealed to the public.
- WalterBright 4y agoThey have to paint out by hand the wires that enable the astronauts to walk like they're in low gravity. This takes time.
- UnpossibleJim 4y agoAutomation is their friend. Just "hot pink" those wires and batch the process =P
- mindcrime 4y ago
- PointyFluff 4y agopff...whatever. I was a merely 4000 Meters from the moon's surface in KSP just lasts week.
- whoopdedo 4y agoThe Apollo missions took only 3 days to reach lunar orbit. Why is this taking longer?
- hungryforcodes 4y agoThe space race is over?
- api_or_ipa 4y agoApollo 17 launched at 12:33am on Dec 7th 1972, and entered lunar orbit at 2:47pm EST on Dec 10th, so, roughly 3.5 days. Artemis I launched at 1:47am EST on Nov 16 and entered lunar orbit on Nov 20th at 2:09pm ET so roughly 4.5 days. Remember too that Artemis I isn't meant for a landing, instead it entered a distant retrograde orbit which orbits at a considerably higher distance from the surface. Spacecraft move considerably slower at higher apogees, so I don't think there's anything suspect about Artemis I taking a bit longer to reach it's planned orbit around the Moon.
- ehsankia 4y agoAlso, maybe the original launch date a month ago was more optimal? I'm sure it's hard trying to time the perfect launch trajectory while also juggling weather and a bunch of other variables.
- adsfqwop 4y agoI'm not an expert, but I think there's pretty much an infinite number of ways to execute space trajectories. Just looking at it visually it seems Orion is (perhaps?) taking a more roundabout (slower) route, and it's also ending up at the moon in a different orbital configuration than Apollo. Another factor, I am sure, is cost. The faster you want to get there, the more fuel you need to burn. I'm also going to guess it's not a linear equation, which means the faster you want to get there, the fuel requirements will increase in something like an exponential proportion. Therefore slower is cheaper, to a point. If you go TOO slow, your astronauts will starve, or you need to bring more food and provisions, which will cancel the cost savings on speed reduction. So somewhere in there is going to be an optimal cost/fuel/food/provision trajectory for each mission. So, in summary: different mission, different parameters for optimal execution.
- TechBro8615 4y agoWhy has no human stepped foot on the moon for 50+ years? This never made sense to me.
- kristianp 4y agoThe Space Shuttle and the International Space Station were hugely expensive. They became the focus, despite not providing much bang for buck.
- q1w2 4y agoThere also wasn't sufficient scientific justification. The focus (pun intended) has been space based telescopes and study of more distant planets and objects.
- MystK 4y agoIts very expensive.
- Maursault 4y agoAnd very dangerous.
- troutwine 4y agoFor a little more context, there were Apollo flights planned out to 20, Nixon cut those. The Apollo Applications Program aimed at building a lunar base and observatories up through '76 but the Johnson administration declined to fund it partially to fund of Great Society programs but also partially because no one could adequately explain what a lunar base would be worth. We did get Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz project, so it's not like project ground entirely down to a halt but what we did eventually get was a far cry from the heady dreams of the mid-60s, that's for sure. And, as cool a vehicle as the Shuttle was the STS did not at all deliver on its promises, further sapping resources. Why haven't we gone back to the moon? Funding dried up real quick once it was clear the Space Race could be won with the existing amount of money spent, new projects had to answer "why" in a concrete way to compete for limited resources and it was not at all clear what we'd go to the moon for compared to, say, building the ISS. Space theorists in the 30s - 50s assumed that you would have to build up on-orbit Earth infrastructure before the moon could be sustainably reached, meaning you could go back whenever just because. That is, you need stable communication, transit hubs, refueling, space-based construction went the thinking. Both the US and the Soviets took big, expensive shortcuts in the Space Race but I find it hard to believe that the original analysis -- space is only as reachable as its infrastructure allows -- hasn't been showed true in the last 50 years.
- spoonfeeder006 4y agoI'm just imagining being one of those astronauts in 2024
- tempera 4y agoCan we get confirmation that the Flag planted by the Apollo team is there?
- yeeeeeehhhaw 4y agoWhere else would it be? The moon didn't just forget it had gravity.
- tempera 4y agoI dunno, but a picture of the USA flag on the Moon will be glorious to watch!