9 ms·

I think you might have the chain of causality mixed up. From what I've seen, the sheer scale of the company creates large committees because you've got lots of

I think you might have the chain of causality mixed up. From what I've seen, the sheer scale of the company creates large committees because you've got lots of managers and they all know that getting involved in the project is essential to their career advancement. And then that creates scope creep. Partially due to design by committee effects, but also because the manager in charge of flobnix realizes their opportunity for career advancement by shoehorning problems that need to be solved with flobnix into the requirements. I also suspect that, if the folks leading this effort at Boeing are smart, they will sit back and let it happen. Large bureaucratic organizations like Boeing are ruled by office politics and largely run by people whose individual priorities are not particularly well-aligned with large scale company priorities. Pushing back risks making enemies (a dangerous thing to have in such an environment) and tends to have no real immediate upside. Concrete example: why is the Lunar Gateway such an essential part of the Artemis project's mission architecture when we didn't need anything like that for Apollo? Many reasons have been given, but I suspect the real one is that 2020s NASA has a lot of people who specialize in space stations on staff and 1960s NASA didn't.

mrguyorama 1y ago
>why is the Lunar Gateway such an essential part of the Artemis project's mission architecture when we didn't need anything like that for Apollo? The explicit reason is: Why would we pay another $200 billion to just do Apollo again? People were bored of Apollo before it even finished its original set of missions.
- kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
  Gateway is also a trial run for conducting operations at a Mars/Phobos/Diemos station.
  - bunderbunder 1y ago
    But then you've got to ask why would we want an orbital Mars/Phobos/Deimos station?
    - mschuster91 1y ago
      Because Elon. Snark aside: the goal is Mars because it might be possible to colonize the planet and to have a place that acts as a reserve for humanity should shit really hit the fan (i.e. WW3). The moon isn't suitable as much for that purpose due to a complete lack of any atmosphere and because it's too close to Earth.
      - PaulHoule 1y ago
        That’s not Elon’s plan. He’s too smart for that shit and wants to aerobrake down to the surface where there is abundant CO2 and probably H2O somewhere to make fuel for the return trip.
      - bunderbunder 1y ago
        That's surface habitation, not an orbital station around the planet or one of its moons. The problem with using a space station as a waypoint on the way to and from the surface of a remote body is that it make the mission more expensive. For example, the Lunar Gateway increases the delta-v requirement by 15-20% (can't remember exact number) compared to a more direct mission. Which then, all else being equal, increases the total mission cost by much more than 15-20% because the rocket equation always wins. And that's just the actual visit, we're not even considering the cost of putting the station there in the first place. So I keep going back to, why a space station? If we're going to spend all that extra money on turning hydrogen and oxygen into hot water, why put it toward a space station out in the middle of nowhere instead of, say, more time or more equipment on the surface of the body? Also, IIRC, none of Elon's proposed mission architectures for going to Mars involve an orbital station. And, while SpaceX did get the Artemis lander contract, they weren't involved in the decision to have a Lunar Gateway.
        NetMageSCW 1y ago
        The Lunar Gateway exists so that SLS and Orion have a way to get to the Moon, because with it SLS can’t get into LLO and return to Earth, so they need another craft to finish the trip and a place to meet up with that craft. A reasonable question might be why not make Starship HLS act as its own gateway but then you start getting into why is SLS and Orion even needed.
- wongarsu 1y ago
  We'd pay $xxx billion to have a permanent moon base, something Apollo never had. If that can't efforts excite people enough to keep funding flowing I doubt a space station in lunar orbit will move the needle To add another data point: the Chinese lunar program also plans to land humans on the moon and later establish a manned research outpost on the surface. But there don't seem to be any plans for an orbital stations, despite China having very successful space stations in LEO
  - ipython 1y ago
    What does a moon base get us, though? It was cool to get bragging rights by being the first to land and come back - in the ultimate show of “soft power” against the Soviet Union. But a permanent moon base? We can’t even fund the ISS.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - bluGill 1y ago
      Frankly, a moon base might be cool, but nobody has sold me on it is worth having for any other reason. Some smart people have given good arguments that it isn't worth having. And here I'm sitting in my basement not working on space projects and realizing money spent on space is money I don't have for something else I want (even it is is only $.10 that is still money that adds up).
    - Teever 1y ago
      A moon base gets us a platform to test what long term low gravity does to a human body, and an environment to test ISRU for various materials like water, oxygen, iron, titanium, etc... Being able to prove that people can live in an environment like the moon long term and develop materials that can make their stay there sustainable by reducing consumables and developing replacement parts from lunar material is a great stepping stone. Being able to demonstrate the doubling of usable pressurized space by building and burying modules that can be stocked with equipment brought from Earth would be a remarkable accomplishment.
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  In the 1980s I read articles in the “science fact” columns in Analog Science Fiction Magazine that told me that NASA sold out a much more ambitious lunar program for something that was little more than a stunt. The reality was that Von Braun looked at dozens of mission architectures before discovering one that was much more feasible than any of the others and made it possible to realize Kennedy’s dream. The moon is not far away in terms of miles but in terms of energy and momentum it is very far away if your goal is to fly there and fly back. Right now the best idea we have for a moon lander is to hope that SpaceX gets Starship to orbit and masters orbital refueling it’s not like they can fly 100 tons there and back, but rather they can land about what Apollo did with a much bigger spacecraft that’s really tall and tippy, needs an elevator, can get the ascent rockets smashed on rocks, etc. if they had a set of those chopsticks on the Moon or Mars they could land it easily but on generic inner solar system bodies covered with boulders, craters and stuff good luck. Plan B is basically the same from Blue Origin. If you could refuel there the math changes, maybe you can, there might be usable ice at the poles but nobody has seen it, unless we have a Drexler machine we’re going to have to launch a huge number of missions with a marginally effective system until we have a system in place that can reliably deliver fuel. So it’s tough, any honest analysis of space colonization makes you come to the conclusion that Drexler did, rocketry has very little to do with it, being able to pack a self-sufficient industrial civilization into the smallest package has everything to do with it.
  - NetMageSCW 1y ago
    That starts from the false premise that you have to go from zero to self-sufficient colony all in one go. The reason cheap launch is foundational is because your initial bases will need lots of resupply and will gradually migrate to needing less over time.

mrguyorama 1y ago

>why is the Lunar Gateway such an essential part of the Artemis project's mission architecture when we didn't need anything like that for Apollo? The explicit reason is: Why would we pay another $200 billion to just do Apollo again? People were bored of Apollo before it even finished its original set of missions.

kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
Gateway is also a trial run for conducting operations at a Mars/Phobos/Diemos station.
- bunderbunder 1y ago
  But then you've got to ask why would we want an orbital Mars/Phobos/Deimos station?
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    Because Elon. Snark aside: the goal is Mars because it might be possible to colonize the planet and to have a place that acts as a reserve for humanity should shit really hit the fan (i.e. WW3). The moon isn't suitable as much for that purpose due to a complete lack of any atmosphere and because it's too close to Earth.
    - PaulHoule 1y ago
      That’s not Elon’s plan. He’s too smart for that shit and wants to aerobrake down to the surface where there is abundant CO2 and probably H2O somewhere to make fuel for the return trip.
    - bunderbunder 1y ago
      That's surface habitation, not an orbital station around the planet or one of its moons. The problem with using a space station as a waypoint on the way to and from the surface of a remote body is that it make the mission more expensive. For example, the Lunar Gateway increases the delta-v requirement by 15-20% (can't remember exact number) compared to a more direct mission. Which then, all else being equal, increases the total mission cost by much more than 15-20% because the rocket equation always wins. And that's just the actual visit, we're not even considering the cost of putting the station there in the first place. So I keep going back to, why a space station? If we're going to spend all that extra money on turning hydrogen and oxygen into hot water, why put it toward a space station out in the middle of nowhere instead of, say, more time or more equipment on the surface of the body? Also, IIRC, none of Elon's proposed mission architectures for going to Mars involve an orbital station. And, while SpaceX did get the Artemis lander contract, they weren't involved in the decision to have a Lunar Gateway.
      - NetMageSCW 1y ago
        The Lunar Gateway exists so that SLS and Orion have a way to get to the Moon, because with it SLS can’t get into LLO and return to Earth, so they need another craft to finish the trip and a place to meet up with that craft. A reasonable question might be why not make Starship HLS act as its own gateway but then you start getting into why is SLS and Orion even needed.
wongarsu 1y ago
We'd pay $xxx billion to have a permanent moon base, something Apollo never had. If that can't efforts excite people enough to keep funding flowing I doubt a space station in lunar orbit will move the needle To add another data point: the Chinese lunar program also plans to land humans on the moon and later establish a manned research outpost on the surface. But there don't seem to be any plans for an orbital stations, despite China having very successful space stations in LEO
- ipython 1y ago
  What does a moon base get us, though? It was cool to get bragging rights by being the first to land and come back - in the ultimate show of “soft power” against the Soviet Union. But a permanent moon base? We can’t even fund the ISS.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - bluGill 1y ago
    Frankly, a moon base might be cool, but nobody has sold me on it is worth having for any other reason. Some smart people have given good arguments that it isn't worth having. And here I'm sitting in my basement not working on space projects and realizing money spent on space is money I don't have for something else I want (even it is is only $.10 that is still money that adds up).
  - Teever 1y ago
    A moon base gets us a platform to test what long term low gravity does to a human body, and an environment to test ISRU for various materials like water, oxygen, iron, titanium, etc... Being able to prove that people can live in an environment like the moon long term and develop materials that can make their stay there sustainable by reducing consumables and developing replacement parts from lunar material is a great stepping stone. Being able to demonstrate the doubling of usable pressurized space by building and burying modules that can be stocked with equipment brought from Earth would be a remarkable accomplishment.
PaulHoule 1y ago
In the 1980s I read articles in the “science fact” columns in Analog Science Fiction Magazine that told me that NASA sold out a much more ambitious lunar program for something that was little more than a stunt. The reality was that Von Braun looked at dozens of mission architectures before discovering one that was much more feasible than any of the others and made it possible to realize Kennedy’s dream. The moon is not far away in terms of miles but in terms of energy and momentum it is very far away if your goal is to fly there and fly back. Right now the best idea we have for a moon lander is to hope that SpaceX gets Starship to orbit and masters orbital refueling it’s not like they can fly 100 tons there and back, but rather they can land about what Apollo did with a much bigger spacecraft that’s really tall and tippy, needs an elevator, can get the ascent rockets smashed on rocks, etc. if they had a set of those chopsticks on the Moon or Mars they could land it easily but on generic inner solar system bodies covered with boulders, craters and stuff good luck. Plan B is basically the same from Blue Origin. If you could refuel there the math changes, maybe you can, there might be usable ice at the poles but nobody has seen it, unless we have a Drexler machine we’re going to have to launch a huge number of missions with a marginally effective system until we have a system in place that can reliably deliver fuel. So it’s tough, any honest analysis of space colonization makes you come to the conclusion that Drexler did, rocketry has very little to do with it, being able to pack a self-sufficient industrial civilization into the smallest package has everything to do with it.
- NetMageSCW 1y ago
  That starts from the false premise that you have to go from zero to self-sufficient colony all in one go. The reason cheap launch is foundational is because your initial bases will need lots of resupply and will gradually migrate to needing less over time.