24 ms·

NASA announces overhaul of Artemis program amid safety concerns, delays

293 points by voxadam 8mo ago

kwertyoowiyop 8mo ago
Every new story about Artemis gives me even more respect for the Apollo engineers.
- cratermoon 8mo ago
  More frequent launches with less ambitious progress per launch makes good sense, and follows the old-school approach used through Apollo to mitigate risk. Having a lunar lander test in earth orbit, for example, is roughly the same mission as Apollo 9, is a good call. Validating everything works together has been a sort of sore spot for the Artemis program.
  - mandevil 8mo ago
    And even the Apollo 10 mission which went 99.99% of the way from the Earth to the moon, just 15km from the surface (but couldn't have landed on the moon- LM structure was too heavy) was incredibly important step. The sort of thing that people today would want to skip, it doesn't seem flashy or necessary. Why take all the risk of going into lunar orbit and separating the modules (requiring the very first rendezvous not in in Earth orbit) but not actually land on the Moon? It was about getting all of the ground crew proved and worked out, and proving that the rendezvous would work and they could get home, so that the actual landing mission could focus their efforts on just working out the last 15km, confident that all of the other problems were already dealt with. Trying to do all of that in one mission would have been a gigantic mess- A11 crew felt a lack of training time as it was.
    - lukeschlather 8mo ago
      Orion doesn't seem operationally or financially capable of launching more than once a year. It's not that they don't want to do test flights, it's that they can barely do anything.
      - mandevil 8mo ago
        Which goes back to the Pork-on-a-stick requirement that everything be about keeping the workers still employed.
- bamboozled 8mo ago
  I’d say we’ll look back in a few decades and recognise the Apollo programs as the peak of the USA. Those people did truly amazing things. I recommend “Space Rocket History” podcast if you like Apollo. It’s a wonderful and highly detailed podcast and covers the US and Soviet space race in great detail.
  - NetMageSCW 8mo ago
    In a few decades we will look back and say now is peak (space) USA with SpaceX launching successfully, creating Starlink, Blue Origin finally reaching orbit, Rocket Lab reaching for Neutron, even ULA making BVlcan work.
    - bamboozled 8mo ago
      Yeah, it's a wonderful time for private companies doing things in space using research paid for by tax payers and for billionaires aiming to become trillionaires. Outside of that, it's technically interesting but totally boring compared to the hope and excitement of the Apollo era. We came in peace for all mankind...more of that would be nice.
      - NetMageSCW 8mo ago
        None of the private companies are making billionaires become trillionaires but if SpaceX going public does create a trillionaire it will be at cost of saving the taxpayers billions of dollars. And if you don’t think landing and reuse of F9 first the isn’t exciting, I don’t think your priorities are right.
        bamboozled 8mo ago
        None of the private companies are making billionaires become trillionaires but if SpaceX going public does create a trillionaire it will be at cost of saving the taxpayers billions of dollars. Just like the way privatizing utilities companies had led to much lower energy / water ? These people aren't working for free...
- elteto 8mo ago
  I think the main difference was political: for Apollo you had the most powerful nation in history throw their economic and political will into pushing a project forward. NASA programs today are mainly about creating/maintaining jobs and keeping private industry contractors busy. They lost the political agency and freedom to move fast that they had in the 60s.
- vonneumannstan 8mo ago
  Well to be fair Nasa isn't nearly as good as it once was. The quality of engineer during the Apollo era was far better and more like what can be found at Spacex
  - mmooss 8mo ago
    What is that based on? NASA's recent accomplishments are far beyond anyone. Off the top of my head: The many Mars missions, JWST, Europa Clipper (still in progress), etc. SpaceX hasn't left Earth orbit, afaik.
    - itishappy 8mo ago
      DART is an example of both an incredible NASA accomplishment and a SpaceX launch that left Earth orbit.
    - NetMageSCW 8mo ago
      SpaceX launched a Tesla Roadster to Mars orbit.
    - servo_sausage 8mo ago
      If you had your pick of launch systems to work on, I don't believe you would pick any of NASA's platforms since the shuttle. Their explorer robotics are interesting, something I would be proud to work on; but a pretty different nitch. So NASA is not drawing from the best people anymore.
      - mmooss 8mo ago
        That is only looking at (mostly orbital) launch systems, such a minor part of NASA's R&D and missions that the Obama administration decided to contract it out. NASA doesn't develop or build lots of technology that has become mature enough that private industry can take it on and NASA can focus on the past-the-bleeding-edge stuff.
    - vonneumannstan 8mo ago
      >What is that based on? Reality? Outside of JPL the talent level at Nasa is frankly very poor. You really want to claim that the current version of Nasa could pull off the Apollo program today?
- GorbachevyChase 8mo ago
  You meant cinematographers, right?
- dirasieb 8mo ago
  to be fair they had way less requirements on making the CGI look good back then TVs weren't that popular and those that had one were stuck with very low definition video, today our 2k and 4k screens would be able to spot their flaws easily
TheChaplain 8mo ago
If you visit US, I really recommend a detour to the Kennedy Space Center if you can, there's a ton of interesting stuff especially about the Apollo program.
- cucumber3732842 8mo ago
  Make sure you look at ALL the stuff in the rocket garden and make sure you take the bus to the Apollo center and make sure you do them in that order. If you've never seen a gator then looking in the ditches by the road during the bus tour is a good bed.
- iancmceachern 8mo ago
  Yes! I just got to go there earlier this month for the first time. They even have the lectern from the Kennedy speech (and the speech itself)!
- qingcharles 8mo ago
  Especially if you can time your visit to Florida with a launch. Seeing the Shuttle launch in real life made me realize what a poor medium television is to actually show you reality. (I don't know what the current policies are but you used to be able to apply in advance for VIP tickets, or buy them on the secondary market, which gives you much closer viewing of the launch)
- bregma 8mo ago
  Went to Florida some years ago when my kids were all teens and pre-teens. Did Disney World, Universal Studios, Sea World, the works. We unanimously agreed KSC was by far the best of all. If you only do one thing in Florida, that would be it.
  - bamboozled 8mo ago
    Been once as a kid and once as an adult. Wonderful place. The rocket garden is wonderful.
Rooster61 8mo ago
I'm very, very concerned for the astronauts piloting this upcoming trans-lunar flight. Given that Boeing, well, does Boeing things, the current state of NASA in this political climate, and the fact that problems keep arising with this current stack, it makes me feel that there is a significant chance of issues mid-flight. Godspeed to them, hopefully I'm being overly dour.
- unethical_ban 8mo ago
  Sadly, the worst thing I'm worried about is the current president pushing for a landing before he leaves office in order to have that feather in his cap. Isaacman seems competent and this article shows they are responding to the concerns of the plan and are "shortening the steps in the staircase" to a landing.
  - lukeschlather 8mo ago
    So far, Isaacman's competence has mostly consisted of (rightfully) throwing is predecessors under the bus. The real test will be if there are problems on his watch, but also it seems likely the result of having backbone will not be good for Isaacman and sycophants will end up running the agency again.
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
    - mmooss 8mo ago
      > Isaacman's competence has mostly consisted of (rightfully) throwing is predecessors under the bus. That's irresponsbility and incompentence in any position, especially at that level of management.
      - Miraste 8mo ago
        How? He essentially said that the program would not work as designed and would probably kill people. That is both true and necessary to say in order to fix it--these are exactly the lessons NASA (allegedly) learned from Challenger.
michael_pica 8mo ago
I'm glad this is getting overhauled, the existing plan was a bit of a mess and NASA can't afford mistakes on a program of this scale. Hopefully we get safer and more effective result out of this.
daymanstep 8mo ago
Relevant: https://idlewords.com/2024/5/the_lunacy_of_artemis.htm https://idlewords.com/2024/5/the_lunacy_of_artemis.htm
- disillusioned 8mo ago
  I knew a lot of this, and had a good idea of how bad this whole thing was but... damn, how comprehensively horrible a parade of bad, multi-decade decisions this is turning out to be.
AniseAbyss 8mo ago
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bhouston 8mo ago
On the surface, the changes appear logical. The difference in philosophy between NASA's current approach and SpaceX is quite stark. SpaceX has launched 11 Starships in the two and a bit years, with a lot of them blowing up. Where as Artemis is trying to get it near perfect on each run. I wonder if NASA could start to adopt SpaceX like approaches? Where one doesn't try to get everything correct before acting? I wonder which approach is more capital efficient? Which is more time efficient? (It seems that Artemis cost is $92B, where as SpaceX's Starship costs are less than $10B so far, give or take. So it seems that SpaceX is a more efficient approach.)
- bregma 8mo ago
  If NASA switches to the Space X approach of just blowing up its rockets it would soon need to change its name to "Need Another Seven Astronauts".
  - panick21 8mo ago
    Except of course that SpaceX is launching Astronauts right now and has a perfect safety record and operate the safest space vehicle ever built.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 8mo ago
  They've blown up 11 Starships without any of them making it to orbit. Artemis I flew around the moon and came back already. And don't compare costs because Starship does not and may never work so I dont care how much cheaper it is. If we are comparing fictional rockets I have a $1 rocket that can fly to Jupiter.
  - bhouston 8mo ago
    > They've blown up 11 Starships without any of them making it to orbit. They purposely were not trying for orbit from my understanding. The last one did orbit the earth at suborbital heights and release satellites. It did seem to do what they wanted it to do, it wasn't a failure.
kiratp 8mo ago
Same contractors (Beoing) who built Starliner... Explaining Why NASA's Starliner Report Is So Bad > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L96asfTvJ_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L96asfTvJ_A
tiahura 8mo ago
Did we ever get clarification as to how the Dragon 8 crew member got hurt and why SpaceX got warned? https://www.popsci.com/science/nasa-spacex-safety/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CBoth%20NASA%20and%20SpaceX%20need%20to%20maintain%20focus%20on%20safe%20Crew%20Dragon&text=NASA%20subsequently%20confirmed%20all%20four%20Crew%2D8%20astronauts%20required https://www.popsci.com/science/nasa-spacex-safety/#:~:text=%...
dyauspitr 8mo ago
Why does it seem like we can’t do shit anymore? Was it always like this and there was no news coverage of all the failures? If not what is the main cause of failure right now? Is it onerous regulations and bureaucracy? Stressed work environments?
- ericmay 8mo ago
  We're doing really complicated stuff. And think about it though, in the 60s/70s we had one organization - NASA. That was it. Today, we have RocketLab, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and NASA, plus Boeing I guess.
- michaelsshaw 8mo ago
  Essentially, neoliberalism. The goal of everyone on the project is now higher and higher profits. Delivering a working product doesnt necessarily mean best profits anymore. Spacex would rather drag the project along with ships that dont work than to just make something that works. The government has privatized so much of their workload into so few specialized companies that they really can't stop them from doing this.
  - panick21 8mo ago
    This is just nonsense. First of all, the companies in the 1960s were all there for profit and all made profit. And the politicians in power back then also tried to get contracts to companies in their districts. Why do you think the NASA control center is in Houston? SpaceX is on a fixed price contract. Dragging the project along is literally costing them money. By literally any analysis you can do, you will see that in the last 15 years SpaceX was by far and away (its not close) the best contractor to NASA in terms of delivering what NASA wanted. In fact, by far and away the project that have done the worst, are the project NASA does in the old style where they remain the main designers and operate and only work with private companies as builders. That's exactly why SLS is such a shit-show.
    - michaelsshaw 8mo ago
      It isn't a fixed-price contract. They've been granted multiple "milestone" extensions as well as new contracts for things they're not capable of, clearly. One thing is for sure, no matter what happens to the mission (it'll probably fail), Elon and his buddies will still get to scrape a couple hundred million for themselves while telling the rest of us we need to be "more hardcore" and preach more austerity bullshit. Funnily enough, the person who decided to grant SpaceX this contract, Kathy Lueders, did so and then immediately decided to quit NASA and work for SpaceX. Nothing to see there. >In fact, by far and away the project that have done the worst, are the project NASA does in the old style where they remain the main designers and operate and only work with private companies as builders. That's exactly why SLS is such a shit-show. How could SLS, a rocket that literally worked the first time, be worse than Starship, a rocket that does not work?
GMoromisato 8mo ago
This is a good change. To summarize for those not following closely: SLS, a rocket derived from Shuttle tech, takes astronauts on the Orion spacecraft to the vicinity of the moon. From there, a lander built by either SpaceX or Blue Origin will take the astronauts to the surface and then back to Orion. The astronauts will then return to Earth in Orion. Artemis I flew a couple of years ago and took an uncrewed Orion spacecraft around the moon and back to Earth. Artemis II, which should hopefully fly in April, will take 4 astronauts around the moon--the first time humans have been that far in space in 50+ years. Artemis III was going to be a crewed moon landing, planned around 2028, but between delays in the lander development and the complexity of this mission, no one expected it to happen on time. The major change that NASA has announced is to launch SLS more often--ideally once every 10 months. There are two major advantages to this: 1. More frequent launches will improve reliability because the team/engineers will understand the system better. There will be more commonality between launches. 2. With more launches before the end of the decade deadline there are more opportunities for intermediate milestones. In particular, Artemis III will turn into an Earth-orbit mission in which Orion will dock with one or both of the landers. This will test out the system before heading to the moon. Moreover, NASA plans to have at least two lunar landing attempts in 2028, which means that even if the first attempt is scrubbed, they will still have a chance to land before the end of the decade.
trothamel 8mo ago
A couple of new posts by Nasa Administrator Isaacman: Launch cadence across NASA programs: https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2027456699175497741 https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2027456699175497741 An infographic showing the new architectures: https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2027456713507356713 https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2027456713507356713 It's interesting how Artemis III (the new one) will try to prove out both HLS landers in one LEO mission.
t1234s 8mo ago
I made sure to watch the first SLS launch in person as I'm not confident they will be able to launch again.
Robdel12 8mo ago
They're getting slightly bullied into following their own rocket certification process. Wild they're going right to human flight without their three unmanned certification flights, etc. NASA themselves will not allow mission critical payloads on rockets that don't meet that process. But they're (trying) to skip it with Artemis.
belter 8mo ago
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dmbche 8mo ago
Fun read on Artemis https://idlewords.com/2024/5/the_lunacy_of_artemis.htm https://idlewords.com/2024/5/the_lunacy_of_artemis.htm
ThinkBeat 8mo ago
I have been awake too long so I am probably stupid. Please have mercy. I don't understand. NASA says they goal of landing on the moon in 2028 is not realistic. They are adding a launch in 2027 to do more testing. Great. It will be followed by one possibly two lunar landings in 2028. Are the now 2028 landings primarily testing SpaceX integration? The Artemis rockets are huge, and extremely expensive. And the build time is considerable. Now they are planning 3 rockets in two years, each of which is not reusable? Then they have to build those in parallel, which makes sense but incorporating wha you learn in 2027, into rockets you have already nearly finished seems an odd approach
tiffanyh 8mo ago
Does this vindicate Destin from Smarter Every Day? 2-years ago he presented concerns to NASA. https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU
- dewarrn1 8mo ago
  Had the same thought. NASA already cracked this nut with Apollo; if you’re gonna crack it again and differently, be real sure your solution is better.
- panick21 8mo ago
  No it doesn't. Because literally anybody who knows anything about NASA and follows the Space industry in detail has known about most of the issues since 2015 or even in 2011 when this whole new Post-Constellation shit-show started. And many of the problems have been talked about since the day NASA created Artemis. Destin is just more famous then many of the people in nerd forums. Destin analysis is ok and he makes a number of good points, but it very pro-Alabama (Mafia) inside NASA and contractors since he very clearly is influence by the strong Albama presence and those are the parts of the industry he interacts with. So Destin misses a huge amount of the relevant puzzle pieces, or he simply doesn't talk about them. He also simple makes a few assumptions that are fundamentally wrong, namely the different targets of the program. The goal was never to repeat Apollo and landing a few people a few times is totally different from the original goals of Artemis.
panick21 8mo ago
The SLS and Orion project have been so incredibly deeply flawed from the start. Its a huge mistake that they exists. The were bad designs to begin with and they are badly executed. Constellation was a bad program by Bush Jr that was aimed at the moon, it would have been 4 expensive project, a human rocket, a big cargo rocket, a earth-moon capsule and a big new moon lander. Most of it Shuttle based, because everybody knew Shuttle was going to die, but they wanted to keep the workforce. Of these the human rocket was one of the dumbest human rocket designs ever, and it was so absurdly hilariously over-budget that the program basically had to kill itself. Orion was being worked on but was also over-budget and behind. The never even got to the big rocket or the moon lander. Obama and his space team had some better idea, namely using commercial rockets and new contracting structures. You only need normal commercial rocket if you simply invest in distributed launch. Any analysis shows that this was going to be cheaper but NASA was never allowed to explore that. So they wanted to cancel the incredibly expensive badly designed Constellation program and did so. But Congress, Republicans and Democrats lead by later NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Alabama-man Richard Shelby wouldn't let it happen, they saved Orion by giving it a mission it was not suited for and transformed the Ares 1 and Ares 5 rocket from Constellation (the horribly over budget complete shit-shows) into SLS. The way this happen is funny. NASA did a bunch of analysis on different very big rocket. And NASA analysis was perfectly clear, the cheapest and long term best option would be a RP-1 fueled first stage with big engines. So basically a Saturn V modernized. So basically going away from Shuttle legacy (Of course commercial rockets and distrusted launch would have been even cheaper, but they were not allowed to investigate that). Commercial companies were also never asked for suggestion, despite both SpaceX and ULA offering. Congress lead by Richard Shelby and friends wouldn't allow that. So they specifically wrote the bill in a way that made it absolutely impossible to do anything other then a Shuttle derived. They wrote in 2010-2011 that the a rocket with 70t to LEO had to launch by 2017 and then later be upgraded to much more then that. And that made it clear no engine other then already existing RS-25 and the Shuttle Solid boosters could work. But of course, Constellation was dead, SLS was literally just a rocket that didn't have a mission. Literally non, it had no uses. So Obama space team just came up with some mission that didn't really made sense, but at least they could pretend in marketing material that SLS was anything other then job creation. Of course the program has just continue to done badly and done all the things anybody with a brain could have predicted already in 2012. Its incredibly expensive legacy hardware. Every aspect of the design makes it not only expensive but also incredibly hard and slow to produce. Every aspect of it makes it hard to operate. SLS had the best possible budget, often getting more money in the Budget then they even asked for. It has been the darling of congress. SpaceX is delayed, and there are congressional hearings and questions. Tons of paid for media and so on. SLS that consumes more money per year then SpaceX received for the whole moon-lander barley gets mentioned. Under Trump 1 Bridenstein tried to launch an investigation if Orion could be launched on anything other then SLS. This was a pretty bad idea, likely mostly don't to pressure Boeing. Shelby basically told him that he would have to resign if he continued investigating this. Jared Isaacman just like all the NASA Administrators before him know that this program is incredibly stupidly designed. Its program designed around a bunch of legacy hardware. And really dumb requirement. Really dumb contracting structure. And so on. Isaacman is at least trying to contain how much money gets drained into the SLS money-pit, by dropping the also late and also over-budget EUS upper stage. This stage would likely have been just another endless money pit inside the money pit. And instead they might get away with a somewhat smaller money pit. All of this is just an embarrassing shit-show from beginning to end. Between Shuttle derived vehicles and Orion NASA has spent already something on the order of 100-150 billion $ and what they got out of it was 1 SLS launch and a few Orion tests that never tested the whole system. Its going to cost much more and its not gone get much cheaper anytime soon. On the meantime, the complete development of Falcon 1, Falcon 9, re-usability and human rating Falcon 9 plus Falcon Heavy, plus Cargo Dragon 1, Cargo Dragon 2 and Crew Dragon cost on the order of 5 billion $ conservatively. And I'm not saying this as a SpaceX believer who wants all money to go to SpaceX. Distrusted launch (including refueling) where many companies can compete is the right answer specially for launch.
LorenDB 8mo ago
Jared Isaacman is the best possible person to have as NASA admin. He genuinely cares and is trying to revitalize NASA to its glory days.
omegadynamics 8mo ago
Is it time to start sending delivery bots into space.
dmix 8mo ago
I watched an interview with the current NASA admin and he seems very competent. Good choice there. He basically implied SLS was a dead end outside Artemis and other options will be the future. It was also clear the influence of the Congress jobs program seems to be making him choose his words carefully.
genxy 8mo ago
If Artemis fails does that mean it goes ...
deleted 8mo ago
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e1ghtSpace 8mo ago
I honestly wonder why NASA bothers. To me it seems like a massive waste of money when SpaceX can do it much cheaper.

293 points by voxadam 8mo ago

kwertyoowiyop 8mo ago

Every new story about Artemis gives me even more respect for the Apollo engineers.

cratermoon 8mo ago
More frequent launches with less ambitious progress per launch makes good sense, and follows the old-school approach used through Apollo to mitigate risk. Having a lunar lander test in earth orbit, for example, is roughly the same mission as Apollo 9, is a good call. Validating everything works together has been a sort of sore spot for the Artemis program.
- mandevil 8mo ago
  And even the Apollo 10 mission which went 99.99% of the way from the Earth to the moon, just 15km from the surface (but couldn't have landed on the moon- LM structure was too heavy) was incredibly important step. The sort of thing that people today would want to skip, it doesn't seem flashy or necessary. Why take all the risk of going into lunar orbit and separating the modules (requiring the very first rendezvous not in in Earth orbit) but not actually land on the Moon? It was about getting all of the ground crew proved and worked out, and proving that the rendezvous would work and they could get home, so that the actual landing mission could focus their efforts on just working out the last 15km, confident that all of the other problems were already dealt with. Trying to do all of that in one mission would have been a gigantic mess- A11 crew felt a lack of training time as it was.
  - lukeschlather 8mo ago
    Orion doesn't seem operationally or financially capable of launching more than once a year. It's not that they don't want to do test flights, it's that they can barely do anything.
    - mandevil 8mo ago
      Which goes back to the Pork-on-a-stick requirement that everything be about keeping the workers still employed.
bamboozled 8mo ago
I’d say we’ll look back in a few decades and recognise the Apollo programs as the peak of the USA. Those people did truly amazing things. I recommend “Space Rocket History” podcast if you like Apollo. It’s a wonderful and highly detailed podcast and covers the US and Soviet space race in great detail.
- NetMageSCW 8mo ago
  In a few decades we will look back and say now is peak (space) USA with SpaceX launching successfully, creating Starlink, Blue Origin finally reaching orbit, Rocket Lab reaching for Neutron, even ULA making BVlcan work.
  - bamboozled 8mo ago
    Yeah, it's a wonderful time for private companies doing things in space using research paid for by tax payers and for billionaires aiming to become trillionaires. Outside of that, it's technically interesting but totally boring compared to the hope and excitement of the Apollo era. We came in peace for all mankind...more of that would be nice.
    - NetMageSCW 8mo ago
      None of the private companies are making billionaires become trillionaires but if SpaceX going public does create a trillionaire it will be at cost of saving the taxpayers billions of dollars. And if you don’t think landing and reuse of F9 first the isn’t exciting, I don’t think your priorities are right.
      - bamboozled 8mo ago
        None of the private companies are making billionaires become trillionaires but if SpaceX going public does create a trillionaire it will be at cost of saving the taxpayers billions of dollars. Just like the way privatizing utilities companies had led to much lower energy / water ? These people aren't working for free...
elteto 8mo ago
I think the main difference was political: for Apollo you had the most powerful nation in history throw their economic and political will into pushing a project forward. NASA programs today are mainly about creating/maintaining jobs and keeping private industry contractors busy. They lost the political agency and freedom to move fast that they had in the 60s.
vonneumannstan 8mo ago
Well to be fair Nasa isn't nearly as good as it once was. The quality of engineer during the Apollo era was far better and more like what can be found at Spacex
- mmooss 8mo ago
  What is that based on? NASA's recent accomplishments are far beyond anyone. Off the top of my head: The many Mars missions, JWST, Europa Clipper (still in progress), etc. SpaceX hasn't left Earth orbit, afaik.
  - itishappy 8mo ago
    DART is an example of both an incredible NASA accomplishment and a SpaceX launch that left Earth orbit.
  - NetMageSCW 8mo ago
    SpaceX launched a Tesla Roadster to Mars orbit.
  - servo_sausage 8mo ago
    If you had your pick of launch systems to work on, I don't believe you would pick any of NASA's platforms since the shuttle. Their explorer robotics are interesting, something I would be proud to work on; but a pretty different nitch. So NASA is not drawing from the best people anymore.
    - mmooss 8mo ago
      That is only looking at (mostly orbital) launch systems, such a minor part of NASA's R&D and missions that the Obama administration decided to contract it out. NASA doesn't develop or build lots of technology that has become mature enough that private industry can take it on and NASA can focus on the past-the-bleeding-edge stuff.
  - vonneumannstan 8mo ago
    >What is that based on? Reality? Outside of JPL the talent level at Nasa is frankly very poor. You really want to claim that the current version of Nasa could pull off the Apollo program today?
GorbachevyChase 8mo ago
You meant cinematographers, right?
dirasieb 8mo ago
to be fair they had way less requirements on making the CGI look good back then TVs weren't that popular and those that had one were stuck with very low definition video, today our 2k and 4k screens would be able to spot their flaws easily

TheChaplain 8mo ago

If you visit US, I really recommend a detour to the Kennedy Space Center if you can, there's a ton of interesting stuff especially about the Apollo program.

cucumber3732842 8mo ago
Make sure you look at ALL the stuff in the rocket garden and make sure you take the bus to the Apollo center and make sure you do them in that order. If you've never seen a gator then looking in the ditches by the road during the bus tour is a good bed.
iancmceachern 8mo ago
Yes! I just got to go there earlier this month for the first time. They even have the lectern from the Kennedy speech (and the speech itself)!
qingcharles 8mo ago
Especially if you can time your visit to Florida with a launch. Seeing the Shuttle launch in real life made me realize what a poor medium television is to actually show you reality. (I don't know what the current policies are but you used to be able to apply in advance for VIP tickets, or buy them on the secondary market, which gives you much closer viewing of the launch)
bregma 8mo ago
Went to Florida some years ago when my kids were all teens and pre-teens. Did Disney World, Universal Studios, Sea World, the works. We unanimously agreed KSC was by far the best of all. If you only do one thing in Florida, that would be it.
- bamboozled 8mo ago
  Been once as a kid and once as an adult. Wonderful place. The rocket garden is wonderful.

Rooster61 8mo ago

I'm very, very concerned for the astronauts piloting this upcoming trans-lunar flight. Given that Boeing, well, does Boeing things, the current state of NASA in this political climate, and the fact that problems keep arising with this current stack, it makes me feel that there is a significant chance of issues mid-flight. Godspeed to them, hopefully I'm being overly dour.

unethical_ban 8mo ago
Sadly, the worst thing I'm worried about is the current president pushing for a landing before he leaves office in order to have that feather in his cap. Isaacman seems competent and this article shows they are responding to the concerns of the plan and are "shortening the steps in the staircase" to a landing.
- lukeschlather 8mo ago
  So far, Isaacman's competence has mostly consisted of (rightfully) throwing is predecessors under the bus. The real test will be if there are problems on his watch, but also it seems likely the result of having backbone will not be good for Isaacman and sycophants will end up running the agency again.
  - deleted 8mo ago
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  - mmooss 8mo ago
    > Isaacman's competence has mostly consisted of (rightfully) throwing is predecessors under the bus. That's irresponsbility and incompentence in any position, especially at that level of management.
    - Miraste 8mo ago
      How? He essentially said that the program would not work as designed and would probably kill people. That is both true and necessary to say in order to fix it--these are exactly the lessons NASA (allegedly) learned from Challenger.

michael_pica 8mo ago

I'm glad this is getting overhauled, the existing plan was a bit of a mess and NASA can't afford mistakes on a program of this scale. Hopefully we get safer and more effective result out of this.

daymanstep 8mo ago

Relevant: https://idlewords.com/2024/5/the_lunacy_of_artemis.htm https://idlewords.com/2024/5/the_lunacy_of_artemis.htm

disillusioned 8mo ago
I knew a lot of this, and had a good idea of how bad this whole thing was but... damn, how comprehensively horrible a parade of bad, multi-decade decisions this is turning out to be.

AniseAbyss 8mo ago

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bhouston 8mo ago

On the surface, the changes appear logical. The difference in philosophy between NASA's current approach and SpaceX is quite stark. SpaceX has launched 11 Starships in the two and a bit years, with a lot of them blowing up. Where as Artemis is trying to get it near perfect on each run. I wonder if NASA could start to adopt SpaceX like approaches? Where one doesn't try to get everything correct before acting? I wonder which approach is more capital efficient? Which is more time efficient? (It seems that Artemis cost is $92B, where as SpaceX's Starship costs are less than $10B so far, give or take. So it seems that SpaceX is a more efficient approach.)

bregma 8mo ago
If NASA switches to the Space X approach of just blowing up its rockets it would soon need to change its name to "Need Another Seven Astronauts".
- panick21 8mo ago
  Except of course that SpaceX is launching Astronauts right now and has a perfect safety record and operate the safest space vehicle ever built.
2OEH8eoCRo0 8mo ago
They've blown up 11 Starships without any of them making it to orbit. Artemis I flew around the moon and came back already. And don't compare costs because Starship does not and may never work so I dont care how much cheaper it is. If we are comparing fictional rockets I have a $1 rocket that can fly to Jupiter.
- bhouston 8mo ago
  > They've blown up 11 Starships without any of them making it to orbit. They purposely were not trying for orbit from my understanding. The last one did orbit the earth at suborbital heights and release satellites. It did seem to do what they wanted it to do, it wasn't a failure.

kiratp 8mo ago

Same contractors (Beoing) who built Starliner... Explaining Why NASA's Starliner Report Is So Bad > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L96asfTvJ_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L96asfTvJ_A

tiahura 8mo ago

Did we ever get clarification as to how the Dragon 8 crew member got hurt and why SpaceX got warned? https://www.popsci.com/science/nasa-spacex-safety/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CBoth%20NASA%20and%20SpaceX%20need%20to%20maintain%20focus%20on%20safe%20Crew%20Dragon&text=NASA%20subsequently%20confirmed%20all%20four%20Crew%2D8%20astronauts%20required https://www.popsci.com/science/nasa-spacex-safety/#:~:text=%...

dyauspitr 8mo ago

Why does it seem like we can’t do shit anymore? Was it always like this and there was no news coverage of all the failures? If not what is the main cause of failure right now? Is it onerous regulations and bureaucracy? Stressed work environments?

ericmay 8mo ago
We're doing really complicated stuff. And think about it though, in the 60s/70s we had one organization - NASA. That was it. Today, we have RocketLab, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and NASA, plus Boeing I guess.
michaelsshaw 8mo ago
Essentially, neoliberalism. The goal of everyone on the project is now higher and higher profits. Delivering a working product doesnt necessarily mean best profits anymore. Spacex would rather drag the project along with ships that dont work than to just make something that works. The government has privatized so much of their workload into so few specialized companies that they really can't stop them from doing this.
- panick21 8mo ago
  This is just nonsense. First of all, the companies in the 1960s were all there for profit and all made profit. And the politicians in power back then also tried to get contracts to companies in their districts. Why do you think the NASA control center is in Houston? SpaceX is on a fixed price contract. Dragging the project along is literally costing them money. By literally any analysis you can do, you will see that in the last 15 years SpaceX was by far and away (its not close) the best contractor to NASA in terms of delivering what NASA wanted. In fact, by far and away the project that have done the worst, are the project NASA does in the old style where they remain the main designers and operate and only work with private companies as builders. That's exactly why SLS is such a shit-show.
  - michaelsshaw 8mo ago
    It isn't a fixed-price contract. They've been granted multiple "milestone" extensions as well as new contracts for things they're not capable of, clearly. One thing is for sure, no matter what happens to the mission (it'll probably fail), Elon and his buddies will still get to scrape a couple hundred million for themselves while telling the rest of us we need to be "more hardcore" and preach more austerity bullshit. Funnily enough, the person who decided to grant SpaceX this contract, Kathy Lueders, did so and then immediately decided to quit NASA and work for SpaceX. Nothing to see there. >In fact, by far and away the project that have done the worst, are the project NASA does in the old style where they remain the main designers and operate and only work with private companies as builders. That's exactly why SLS is such a shit-show. How could SLS, a rocket that literally worked the first time, be worse than Starship, a rocket that does not work?

GMoromisato 8mo ago

This is a good change. To summarize for those not following closely: SLS, a rocket derived from Shuttle tech, takes astronauts on the Orion spacecraft to the vicinity of the moon. From there, a lander built by either SpaceX or Blue Origin will take the astronauts to the surface and then back to Orion. The astronauts will then return to Earth in Orion. Artemis I flew a couple of years ago and took an uncrewed Orion spacecraft around the moon and back to Earth. Artemis II, which should hopefully fly in April, will take 4 astronauts around the moon--the first time humans have been that far in space in 50+ years. Artemis III was going to be a crewed moon landing, planned around 2028, but between delays in the lander development and the complexity of this mission, no one expected it to happen on time. The major change that NASA has announced is to launch SLS more often--ideally once every 10 months. There are two major advantages to this: 1. More frequent launches will improve reliability because the team/engineers will understand the system better. There will be more commonality between launches. 2. With more launches before the end of the decade deadline there are more opportunities for intermediate milestones. In particular, Artemis III will turn into an Earth-orbit mission in which Orion will dock with one or both of the landers. This will test out the system before heading to the moon. Moreover, NASA plans to have at least two lunar landing attempts in 2028, which means that even if the first attempt is scrubbed, they will still have a chance to land before the end of the decade.

trothamel 8mo ago

A couple of new posts by Nasa Administrator Isaacman: Launch cadence across NASA programs: https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2027456699175497741 https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2027456699175497741 An infographic showing the new architectures: https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2027456713507356713 https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2027456713507356713 It's interesting how Artemis III (the new one) will try to prove out both HLS landers in one LEO mission.

t1234s 8mo ago

I made sure to watch the first SLS launch in person as I'm not confident they will be able to launch again.

Robdel12 8mo ago

They're getting slightly bullied into following their own rocket certification process. Wild they're going right to human flight without their three unmanned certification flights, etc. NASA themselves will not allow mission critical payloads on rockets that don't meet that process. But they're (trying) to skip it with Artemis.

belter 8mo ago

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dmbche 8mo ago

Fun read on Artemis https://idlewords.com/2024/5/the_lunacy_of_artemis.htm https://idlewords.com/2024/5/the_lunacy_of_artemis.htm

ThinkBeat 8mo ago

I have been awake too long so I am probably stupid. Please have mercy. I don't understand. NASA says they goal of landing on the moon in 2028 is not realistic. They are adding a launch in 2027 to do more testing. Great. It will be followed by one possibly two lunar landings in 2028. Are the now 2028 landings primarily testing SpaceX integration? The Artemis rockets are huge, and extremely expensive. And the build time is considerable. Now they are planning 3 rockets in two years, each of which is not reusable? Then they have to build those in parallel, which makes sense but incorporating wha you learn in 2027, into rockets you have already nearly finished seems an odd approach

tiffanyh 8mo ago

Does this vindicate Destin from Smarter Every Day? 2-years ago he presented concerns to NASA. https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU

dewarrn1 8mo ago
Had the same thought. NASA already cracked this nut with Apollo; if you’re gonna crack it again and differently, be real sure your solution is better.
panick21 8mo ago
No it doesn't. Because literally anybody who knows anything about NASA and follows the Space industry in detail has known about most of the issues since 2015 or even in 2011 when this whole new Post-Constellation shit-show started. And many of the problems have been talked about since the day NASA created Artemis. Destin is just more famous then many of the people in nerd forums. Destin analysis is ok and he makes a number of good points, but it very pro-Alabama (Mafia) inside NASA and contractors since he very clearly is influence by the strong Albama presence and those are the parts of the industry he interacts with. So Destin misses a huge amount of the relevant puzzle pieces, or he simply doesn't talk about them. He also simple makes a few assumptions that are fundamentally wrong, namely the different targets of the program. The goal was never to repeat Apollo and landing a few people a few times is totally different from the original goals of Artemis.

panick21 8mo ago

The SLS and Orion project have been so incredibly deeply flawed from the start. Its a huge mistake that they exists. The were bad designs to begin with and they are badly executed. Constellation was a bad program by Bush Jr that was aimed at the moon, it would have been 4 expensive project, a human rocket, a big cargo rocket, a earth-moon capsule and a big new moon lander. Most of it Shuttle based, because everybody knew Shuttle was going to die, but they wanted to keep the workforce. Of these the human rocket was one of the dumbest human rocket designs ever, and it was so absurdly hilariously over-budget that the program basically had to kill itself. Orion was being worked on but was also over-budget and behind. The never even got to the big rocket or the moon lander. Obama and his space team had some better idea, namely using commercial rockets and new contracting structures. You only need normal commercial rocket if you simply invest in distributed launch. Any analysis shows that this was going to be cheaper but NASA was never allowed to explore that. So they wanted to cancel the incredibly expensive badly designed Constellation program and did so. But Congress, Republicans and Democrats lead by later NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Alabama-man Richard Shelby wouldn't let it happen, they saved Orion by giving it a mission it was not suited for and transformed the Ares 1 and Ares 5 rocket from Constellation (the horribly over budget complete shit-shows) into SLS. The way this happen is funny. NASA did a bunch of analysis on different very big rocket. And NASA analysis was perfectly clear, the cheapest and long term best option would be a RP-1 fueled first stage with big engines. So basically a Saturn V modernized. So basically going away from Shuttle legacy (Of course commercial rockets and distrusted launch would have been even cheaper, but they were not allowed to investigate that). Commercial companies were also never asked for suggestion, despite both SpaceX and ULA offering. Congress lead by Richard Shelby and friends wouldn't allow that. So they specifically wrote the bill in a way that made it absolutely impossible to do anything other then a Shuttle derived. They wrote in 2010-2011 that the a rocket with 70t to LEO had to launch by 2017 and then later be upgraded to much more then that. And that made it clear no engine other then already existing RS-25 and the Shuttle Solid boosters could work. But of course, Constellation was dead, SLS was literally just a rocket that didn't have a mission. Literally non, it had no uses. So Obama space team just came up with some mission that didn't really made sense, but at least they could pretend in marketing material that SLS was anything other then job creation. Of course the program has just continue to done badly and done all the things anybody with a brain could have predicted already in 2012. Its incredibly expensive legacy hardware. Every aspect of the design makes it not only expensive but also incredibly hard and slow to produce. Every aspect of it makes it hard to operate. SLS had the best possible budget, often getting more money in the Budget then they even asked for. It has been the darling of congress. SpaceX is delayed, and there are congressional hearings and questions. Tons of paid for media and so on. SLS that consumes more money per year then SpaceX received for the whole moon-lander barley gets mentioned. Under Trump 1 Bridenstein tried to launch an investigation if Orion could be launched on anything other then SLS. This was a pretty bad idea, likely mostly don't to pressure Boeing. Shelby basically told him that he would have to resign if he continued investigating this. Jared Isaacman just like all the NASA Administrators before him know that this program is incredibly stupidly designed. Its program designed around a bunch of legacy hardware. And really dumb requirement. Really dumb contracting structure. And so on. Isaacman is at least trying to contain how much money gets drained into the SLS money-pit, by dropping the also late and also over-budget EUS upper stage. This stage would likely have been just another endless money pit inside the money pit. And instead they might get away with a somewhat smaller money pit. All of this is just an embarrassing shit-show from beginning to end. Between Shuttle derived vehicles and Orion NASA has spent already something on the order of 100-150 billion $ and what they got out of it was 1 SLS launch and a few Orion tests that never tested the whole system. Its going to cost much more and its not gone get much cheaper anytime soon. On the meantime, the complete development of Falcon 1, Falcon 9, re-usability and human rating Falcon 9 plus Falcon Heavy, plus Cargo Dragon 1, Cargo Dragon 2 and Crew Dragon cost on the order of 5 billion $ conservatively. And I'm not saying this as a SpaceX believer who wants all money to go to SpaceX. Distrusted launch (including refueling) where many companies can compete is the right answer specially for launch.

LorenDB 8mo ago

Jared Isaacman is the best possible person to have as NASA admin. He genuinely cares and is trying to revitalize NASA to its glory days.

omegadynamics 8mo ago

Is it time to start sending delivery bots into space.

dmix 8mo ago

I watched an interview with the current NASA admin and he seems very competent. Good choice there. He basically implied SLS was a dead end outside Artemis and other options will be the future. It was also clear the influence of the Congress jobs program seems to be making him choose his words carefully.

genxy 8mo ago

If Artemis fails does that mean it goes ...

deleted 8mo ago

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e1ghtSpace 8mo ago

I honestly wonder why NASA bothers. To me it seems like a massive waste of money when SpaceX can do it much cheaper.