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Loss of crew tolerance is not what it used to be. The Apollo astronauts were given about a 10% chance of not coming back. In Apollo 13 they very narrowly avoi

Loss of crew tolerance is not what it used to be. The Apollo astronauts were given about a 10% chance of not coming back. In Apollo 13 they very narrowly avoided. Which was considered acceptable for the time period. I'd argue that mission failure tolerance is also considerably lower, in todays political environment. Again, Armstrong said their chances of actually landing were maybe 50/50. So if they get there and have a frack up and can't land, calls to defund NASA, etc. will start to reverberate. So thats what we're paying double for. Which I'd think, is fairly cheap.

boxed 2y ago
If you're paying double for it, why are you getting the SLS for that price? Which, as the article painfully shows, INCREASES risk. By a lot.
- p_l 2y ago
  Because it's not called Senate Launch System without a reason. Just like with Shuttle, which was seriously technically compromised due to issues with budgeting, NASA can not operate according to their best knowledge as if they just had that money. The money has strings, many of them.
idlewords 2y ago
According to NASA's own advisory panel, the chance of losing the crew on just the SLS/Orion portion of the mission (so not including the landing, Gateway, or the trip to and from the lunar surface) is 1 in 75. If you make the reasonable assumption that the landing is at least as risky as the trip over, you get a 1 in 30 chance the crew dies. The Shuttle towards the end of its life had an estimated chance of loss of crew of 1 in 90, and two administrations decided that was untenable. The standard for missions to ISS is 1:250. If a goal of Artemis is to meet modern safety standards, it's falling way short.
- gus_massa 2y ago
  IIRC from the Feynman apendix, Nasa claimed in the official reports that the SLS had 1/10.000 or 1/1.000.000 chance of failures, but the real numeber was close to 1/100. If they now claim 1/75 in the official reports, I'm very worried.
Panzer04 2y ago
A good part of the article argues that we aren't getting that safety, though. Spending a week around the moon to make up for hardware shortcomings is not encouraging. It appears by and large that most of the components being used for this will be lucky to have been tested in action more than once before they have to carry astronauts...

boxed 2y ago

If you're paying double for it, why are you getting the SLS for that price? Which, as the article painfully shows, INCREASES risk. By a lot.

p_l 2y ago
Because it's not called Senate Launch System without a reason. Just like with Shuttle, which was seriously technically compromised due to issues with budgeting, NASA can not operate according to their best knowledge as if they just had that money. The money has strings, many of them.

idlewords 2y ago

According to NASA's own advisory panel, the chance of losing the crew on just the SLS/Orion portion of the mission (so not including the landing, Gateway, or the trip to and from the lunar surface) is 1 in 75. If you make the reasonable assumption that the landing is at least as risky as the trip over, you get a 1 in 30 chance the crew dies. The Shuttle towards the end of its life had an estimated chance of loss of crew of 1 in 90, and two administrations decided that was untenable. The standard for missions to ISS is 1:250. If a goal of Artemis is to meet modern safety standards, it's falling way short.

gus_massa 2y ago
IIRC from the Feynman apendix, Nasa claimed in the official reports that the SLS had 1/10.000 or 1/1.000.000 chance of failures, but the real numeber was close to 1/100. If they now claim 1/75 in the official reports, I'm very worried.

Panzer04 2y ago

A good part of the article argues that we aren't getting that safety, though. Spending a week around the moon to make up for hardware shortcomings is not encouraging. It appears by and large that most of the components being used for this will be lucky to have been tested in action more than once before they have to carry astronauts...