3 ms·

It’s been really interesting watching Trump II dismantle programs established by Trump I. Trade deals, cybersecurity initiatives, election integrity programs,

It’s been really interesting watching Trump II dismantle programs established by Trump I. Trade deals, cybersecurity initiatives, election integrity programs, and this, the Artemis program created by Trump’s administration in 2017. We are betting the farm on SpaceX now. All in on Starship, throwing away the only component of the return to the moon that was proven to actually work. If the next IATF ends in RUD then Starship probably isn’t getting to the Moon any faster than when it was part of Artemis.

sidewndr46 1y ago
I'm not much of a SpaceX fan or critic, but when it comes to manned space flight in the US we have been going "back to the moon" since around the time the Saturn / Apollo program was shuttered. I've never produced a calendar of these announcements, but it's almost a constant theme in US politics. The main reason we haven't gone back to the moon is it not really that appealing. There were some valid scientific reasons for going to the moon originally and the final Apollo mission took a geologist. Beyond that, there isn't much reason to be there. It's substantially less inhabitable than Antarctica and we don't bother living there in a permanent fashion, although it does notionally have a population there 365 days a year. Cancelling manned moon missions would potentially free up more resources for robotic missions, which NASA and their partner agencies have an excellent track record of.
- huxley 1y ago
  “Substantially less inhabitable than Antarctica” is true of every single place that we know of outside our planet.
  - kjkjadksj 1y ago
    Which is exactly why humans are a terrible tool for the job of space exploration. Really a political sacrificial lamb more than something useful. A robot doesn’t need to sleep. It can take radiation. It doesn’t need to develop some long term farming system. It doesn’t need to come back home either.
- kemotep 1y ago
  Well tragically this isn’t just canceling Artemis, this executive order calls to gut nearly all scientific missions and significantly reduce the budget of NASA.
- panick21_ 1y ago
  > The main reason we haven't gone back to the moon is it not really that appealing. They can say that, but the reality is once Apollo and Saturn V is gone, and you have Shuttle, all deep space exploration, moon or otherwise, is dead.
  - sidewndr46 1y ago
    The current "back to the moon" missions are built around the shuttle hardware, so I don't find this technical argument very convincing. The orbiter was just a convenient way to hang out in LEO and bring back some engines on each flight. It's like saying that since my truck is rated to tow 7000 lbs, any discussion around towing 8000 lbs is impossible. Using shuttle hardware to get beyond LEO requires compromises and design changes, but it isn't impossible. The RS-25 on paper appears to have a higher specific impulse than the F-1 engine. The Saturn V rocket family isn't some once in a civilization accomplishment. It's mostly just unique in that the safety record of it is really, really good.
    - panick21_ 1y ago
      You analysis just complete ignores finances. Sure you can turn almost anything into anything else if you ignore costs. The Shuttle bound the US to LEO because while the Shuttle was active, its upkeep used up most of the budget and large projects to use that hardware for something else wasn't likely. And even if you went that route, the cost of such a redesign, has has been seen multiple times now, is so expensive and impractical that it cost more then designing something new. > The RS-25 on paper appears to have a higher specific impulse than the F-1 engine. Comparing individual parts of the architecture on one specific state isn't a useful analysis. > The Saturn V rocket family isn't some once in a civilization accomplishment. Nobody said it was. Even in 2011 every analysis NASA did suggest that a upgraded Saturn V was going to be cheaper and result in a far more powerful rocket far faster and with much lower long term operation cost. Despite this analysis NASA selected SLS because congress clearly wrote into legislation that existing contractors had to be selected. Feel free to look up those NASA studies. Many years ago on reddit I compiles a long post with all the sources for that stuff but I would have to look for it.
- WorldMaker 1y ago
  The Lunar Gateway gets a lot of flack for being a part of how SLS and Orion budgets ballooned because of the requirements to build/operate the Gateway steps, but Gateway is also under-appreciated for how much it was trying to do in terms of giving us new scientific reasons to visit the moon. It's polar orbit would give us a platform for some interesting scientific studies of the moon that weren't possible with Saturn/Apollo. It would also be a place to test our knowledge gained from maintaining a human presence in ISS further out from LEO and further away from easy repairs. It's certainly easy to dislike Gateway or think it was wasteful, but it was also driving the scientific ambitions of the whole project, and pushing SLS to not just be a worse Saturn V and Orion to not just be Apollo 2: Electric Boogaloo (and pushing competitors like SpaceX and Blue Origin to try for some of those same high-minded, scientifically ambitious requirements).
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > It would also be a place to test our knowledge gained from maintaining a human presence in ISS further out from LEO and further away from easy repairs Yup. The Moon is a laboratory for advancing our understanding of low-gravity colonisation. We don’t, for example, know how to do trauma medicine in space, accommodate anyone who isn’t in perfect physique or sustainably grow food. That said, you don’t need a gateway to do that science. Just a Moon base.
    - WorldMaker 1y ago
      Sure, but Gateway Nasa can build a lot faster than Moon base using now institutional knowledge from ISS modules for bootstrap. Nasa and its collaborators have built one ISS already. To date no one has built a moon base yet. Even in (harder) science fiction, a station like Gateway is almost always a first step towards building a first moon base, because orbiting in a bunch of cramped Apollo-style "command modules" is a bit silly if you can build a mini-hotel waystation with a shared orbit instead and in theory save on extra modules. The Apollo-style was considered wasteful in the long term at the time, too, it was just easier and faster in the short term. The predictions that Apollo would not lead to a continued presence on or even near the Moon were rather right on the nose. We did the short term version once already, I can't fault Nasa for trying to do the real long term route if we're going back. (Because yeah, let's go back for good, this time.)
- wpm 1y ago
  We are at a point where exploration does not necessarily have to have a direct, clear, objective, obvious cost-benefit analysis in order for it to be a worthwhile endeavor. Apollo also generated little science that couldn’t be done by machine. We have returned samples from comets, doing so from the Moon isn’t that hard comparatively aside from delta-v requirements. The Space Shuttle? Massive waste of money just to put some satellites and telescopes up in orbit. A massively overcomplicated, and dangerous vehicle system that cost way more in the long run than the “disposable” rockets it was meant to replace. None of it matters. The frontier on Earth is all but gone. There is no line to tow, no limit to push against and hang your ass over the ragged edge. But doing so forces us to figure out solutions to problems we would’ve never faced otherwise, solutions that often have incredible utility back home. Artificial limbs. Insulin pumps. Camera phones. Aerogel and memory foam. Photovoltaics. CAT Scans. The list goes on. Innovations that either started or aided by the problem of making it lightweight/storable/safe for space flight, both manned and unmanned. The list of problems that will need to be solved in materials science, computer science, rocketry, mechanical engineering, etc etc, of putting humans on the Moon for long term stays isn’t even written yet. It is the only worthy effort of our society to pursue it, after and during ensuring everyone is fed, housed, and educated here. Otherwise, what the hell are we doing here? Toiling away, making the funny numbers in the computer go up? The universe has made it clear that if you aren’t busy growing, you’re busy dying.
tekla 1y ago
> We are betting the farm on SpaceX now When hasn't that been true? Artemis is useless for landing on the moon without Starship. BO has a contract but thats still years in the future and considered secondary.
panick21_ 1y ago
No its not betting the farm on SpaceX anymore then they already have. The reality is, SLS/Orion don't do much that is useful while together consuming a huge part of the budget. It has consumed huge parts of the budget for 10+ years and would do so for another 15-20 years. The real bet is on commercial launch in general. And that is a really good bet given how the launch market has developed. Its also a bet on staging in LEO so you can use existing vehicles to get there. > Starship probably isn’t getting to the Moon any faster than when it was part of Artemis. The goal should not be to rush somewhere. The goal should be to develop a space flight program that is best for the next couple decades.

sidewndr46 1y ago

I'm not much of a SpaceX fan or critic, but when it comes to manned space flight in the US we have been going "back to the moon" since around the time the Saturn / Apollo program was shuttered. I've never produced a calendar of these announcements, but it's almost a constant theme in US politics. The main reason we haven't gone back to the moon is it not really that appealing. There were some valid scientific reasons for going to the moon originally and the final Apollo mission took a geologist. Beyond that, there isn't much reason to be there. It's substantially less inhabitable than Antarctica and we don't bother living there in a permanent fashion, although it does notionally have a population there 365 days a year. Cancelling manned moon missions would potentially free up more resources for robotic missions, which NASA and their partner agencies have an excellent track record of.

huxley 1y ago
“Substantially less inhabitable than Antarctica” is true of every single place that we know of outside our planet.
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  Which is exactly why humans are a terrible tool for the job of space exploration. Really a political sacrificial lamb more than something useful. A robot doesn’t need to sleep. It can take radiation. It doesn’t need to develop some long term farming system. It doesn’t need to come back home either.
kemotep 1y ago
Well tragically this isn’t just canceling Artemis, this executive order calls to gut nearly all scientific missions and significantly reduce the budget of NASA.
panick21_ 1y ago
> The main reason we haven't gone back to the moon is it not really that appealing. They can say that, but the reality is once Apollo and Saturn V is gone, and you have Shuttle, all deep space exploration, moon or otherwise, is dead.
- sidewndr46 1y ago
  The current "back to the moon" missions are built around the shuttle hardware, so I don't find this technical argument very convincing. The orbiter was just a convenient way to hang out in LEO and bring back some engines on each flight. It's like saying that since my truck is rated to tow 7000 lbs, any discussion around towing 8000 lbs is impossible. Using shuttle hardware to get beyond LEO requires compromises and design changes, but it isn't impossible. The RS-25 on paper appears to have a higher specific impulse than the F-1 engine. The Saturn V rocket family isn't some once in a civilization accomplishment. It's mostly just unique in that the safety record of it is really, really good.
  - panick21_ 1y ago
    You analysis just complete ignores finances. Sure you can turn almost anything into anything else if you ignore costs. The Shuttle bound the US to LEO because while the Shuttle was active, its upkeep used up most of the budget and large projects to use that hardware for something else wasn't likely. And even if you went that route, the cost of such a redesign, has has been seen multiple times now, is so expensive and impractical that it cost more then designing something new. > The RS-25 on paper appears to have a higher specific impulse than the F-1 engine. Comparing individual parts of the architecture on one specific state isn't a useful analysis. > The Saturn V rocket family isn't some once in a civilization accomplishment. Nobody said it was. Even in 2011 every analysis NASA did suggest that a upgraded Saturn V was going to be cheaper and result in a far more powerful rocket far faster and with much lower long term operation cost. Despite this analysis NASA selected SLS because congress clearly wrote into legislation that existing contractors had to be selected. Feel free to look up those NASA studies. Many years ago on reddit I compiles a long post with all the sources for that stuff but I would have to look for it.
WorldMaker 1y ago
The Lunar Gateway gets a lot of flack for being a part of how SLS and Orion budgets ballooned because of the requirements to build/operate the Gateway steps, but Gateway is also under-appreciated for how much it was trying to do in terms of giving us new scientific reasons to visit the moon. It's polar orbit would give us a platform for some interesting scientific studies of the moon that weren't possible with Saturn/Apollo. It would also be a place to test our knowledge gained from maintaining a human presence in ISS further out from LEO and further away from easy repairs. It's certainly easy to dislike Gateway or think it was wasteful, but it was also driving the scientific ambitions of the whole project, and pushing SLS to not just be a worse Saturn V and Orion to not just be Apollo 2: Electric Boogaloo (and pushing competitors like SpaceX and Blue Origin to try for some of those same high-minded, scientifically ambitious requirements).
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > It would also be a place to test our knowledge gained from maintaining a human presence in ISS further out from LEO and further away from easy repairs Yup. The Moon is a laboratory for advancing our understanding of low-gravity colonisation. We don’t, for example, know how to do trauma medicine in space, accommodate anyone who isn’t in perfect physique or sustainably grow food. That said, you don’t need a gateway to do that science. Just a Moon base.
  - WorldMaker 1y ago
    Sure, but Gateway Nasa can build a lot faster than Moon base using now institutional knowledge from ISS modules for bootstrap. Nasa and its collaborators have built one ISS already. To date no one has built a moon base yet. Even in (harder) science fiction, a station like Gateway is almost always a first step towards building a first moon base, because orbiting in a bunch of cramped Apollo-style "command modules" is a bit silly if you can build a mini-hotel waystation with a shared orbit instead and in theory save on extra modules. The Apollo-style was considered wasteful in the long term at the time, too, it was just easier and faster in the short term. The predictions that Apollo would not lead to a continued presence on or even near the Moon were rather right on the nose. We did the short term version once already, I can't fault Nasa for trying to do the real long term route if we're going back. (Because yeah, let's go back for good, this time.)
wpm 1y ago
We are at a point where exploration does not necessarily have to have a direct, clear, objective, obvious cost-benefit analysis in order for it to be a worthwhile endeavor. Apollo also generated little science that couldn’t be done by machine. We have returned samples from comets, doing so from the Moon isn’t that hard comparatively aside from delta-v requirements. The Space Shuttle? Massive waste of money just to put some satellites and telescopes up in orbit. A massively overcomplicated, and dangerous vehicle system that cost way more in the long run than the “disposable” rockets it was meant to replace. None of it matters. The frontier on Earth is all but gone. There is no line to tow, no limit to push against and hang your ass over the ragged edge. But doing so forces us to figure out solutions to problems we would’ve never faced otherwise, solutions that often have incredible utility back home. Artificial limbs. Insulin pumps. Camera phones. Aerogel and memory foam. Photovoltaics. CAT Scans. The list goes on. Innovations that either started or aided by the problem of making it lightweight/storable/safe for space flight, both manned and unmanned. The list of problems that will need to be solved in materials science, computer science, rocketry, mechanical engineering, etc etc, of putting humans on the Moon for long term stays isn’t even written yet. It is the only worthy effort of our society to pursue it, after and during ensuring everyone is fed, housed, and educated here. Otherwise, what the hell are we doing here? Toiling away, making the funny numbers in the computer go up? The universe has made it clear that if you aren’t busy growing, you’re busy dying.

tekla 1y ago

> We are betting the farm on SpaceX now When hasn't that been true? Artemis is useless for landing on the moon without Starship. BO has a contract but thats still years in the future and considered secondary.

panick21_ 1y ago

No its not betting the farm on SpaceX anymore then they already have. The reality is, SLS/Orion don't do much that is useful while together consuming a huge part of the budget. It has consumed huge parts of the budget for 10+ years and would do so for another 15-20 years. The real bet is on commercial launch in general. And that is a really good bet given how the launch market has developed. Its also a bet on staging in LEO so you can use existing vehicles to get there. > Starship probably isn’t getting to the Moon any faster than when it was part of Artemis. The goal should not be to rush somewhere. The goal should be to develop a space flight program that is best for the next couple decades.