whew. i’ve rolled the dice on my life, but i’ve never gotten on a boeing spacecraft. and the shitter’s already clogged.
You’re thinking of Starliner. This is SLS (Space Launch System).
Right, my mistake. Shitter is clogged tho. Seriously. I know how to design a clogproof shitter (you need a mashing stick) and look what they did.
Space toilets are complicated. They don’t have gravity assisting the flush. You’d be surprised how even simple stuff we take for granted on Earth is complex when you take away gravity.
SLS is mostly designed by Lockeed-Martin and NASA SRC. Boeing was a private contractor too though. This is also the first space toilet we’ve put in a spacecraft and exactly why we’re doing this test flight.
I wonder how Flatearthers are going to explain this one.
I’ve already seen “it’s AI generated”.
Frog lenses
Same way moon landing denier’s do.
“The whole thing is staged! Nobody actually flew anywhere! They just put some guys in costumes and filmed them on a sound stage in Hollywood!”
I would guess they’d explain it the same way they explain other rocket launches.
Can’t we get a single article without mentioning how shitty the U.S is right now? Half of the comments here aren’t even ontopic.
Going back to the moon is still an engineering feat, even if we’ve done it before. That was a generation ago, and all of those engineers are retired or about to.
I don’t see the point of sending people to the moon or Mars. It will always be insanely expensive to do anything there, always. What is there to discover that can’t be done with robots? Doing it for the poetic sake of doing it--“going where no man has gone before”-- seems impractical and wasteful.
Yes, we’ve done it in the past, exploring, that doesn’t mean we must keep doing it as it becomes more impractical, and with what benefits, exactly? Exploiting whatever resources are there? Is that really what we should be doing?
The moon is a good stopping off point for the rest of the solar system. Launching interplanetary missions from the moon is much easier assuming a moon base exists
Why waste billions when we can waste trillions!
you guys realize NASA probes have already gone beyond the solar system?
Im on the same page. I feel we should concentrate on discovery with probes or rovers and such and automation. trying to mine something robotically on an asteroid. if we can do that then see if we can smelt it. See if we can create fuel in space and such. I don’t think we will progress at all till we can be sourcing and manufacturing in space.
Asteroid mining is ridiculous. Ignorance of both asteroids and mining.
if thats the case then going into space is rediculous because if we at some point can’t source and build our there then there is no future out there.
Yeah, why do things! Let’s just sit on our ass and stagnate!
Stop trying, idiots, things are hard!
Yeah, why do things! Let’s just sit on our ass and stagnate!
Let’s do the same thing over and over again and call it progress! Next time you are in a hospital watching a loved one dying of cancer, you can tell them how many times we flew around the moon!
We can’t breathe, the earth is on fire…let’s do another moon victory lap!
Can’t we get a single article without mentioning how shitty the U.S is right now?
So you concede this is all about distraction.
Let’s discover antibiotics again!
I’m surprised that Trump didn’t sign an EO declaring that it was now the Trump space mission rather than Artemis II.
I don’t care what we call it, as long as we keep funding the science and engineering. The amount of people who don’t understand why we should do this stuff is astounding. And I’m honestly not the best at articulating why we should do it.
Can’t we get a single article without mentioning how shitty the U.S is right now? Half of the comments here aren’t even on topic.
My friend, the toilet was clogged on the rocket.
Toilet= shitty
Seems on topic to me
AFAIK, the service module is European, built by the ESA, so this is not 100% an American accomplishment.
I mean I kinda see manned missions as pointless. I would like us to remotely create destinations before going through the added expense of people and I think the technology gains would be bigger.
Lucky for you, we have sent probes to the moon.
Unluckily, the next probe is set for Uranus…
I’m going to ignore the obvious Kindergarten joke (which I’ve made myself).
I would be happy to send a probe to Uranus. We know a lot less about the outer planets bcz we’ve really only done a few flybys of them.
The kindergarten joke was the entire point of the comment.
In your rush to get mean dig in on the previous commenter, you willfully misunderstood or misinterpreted their point.
This gives mission me hope. A diamond in the rough.
In 1969, the cold war filled the hearts of the world with dread. Today, we live in times that echo this sentiment.
The launch of 1969 was made with the hope of a better future, and though we cocked it up a drainpipe the first time, maybe we’ll take the right path and echo the sentiment “for all mankind”.
This launch included a bunch of “American superiority” drivel, and was done on a rocket that is unsustainable and uses leftover parts from the last millennium.
I wish they’d gone with “for all mankind” — instead they went with “America America” even though one of the mission specialists is Canadian and the module was made in cooperation with the ESA.
Unfortunately NASA is always tied up with politics. I would not be surprised if the whole ego stroking speech was a mandate by the current American administration.
Or, if not a mandate, pandering. Because if the politicians in charge of giving NASA its funding don’t like what’s being said, they will likely cut their funding, even in the middle of a long-term successful project.
I mean, how exactly do you create a “sustainable” rocket? Genuinely curious, as the sheer amount of energy it takes to escape the earth’s gravity well would render this an almost impossible feat.
Sustainable rocket program.
Like SpaceX does it.
The current launch used supplies and technology that can no longer be produced, is single use, and has enough potential points of failure that it’s taken them months beyond the original launch date to achieve conditions for a reliable launch.
At least Isaacman has them on a path to achieve something repeatable in the future.
SpaceX’s “sustainable” rocket program is mostly used to litter in low earth orbit, though.
Indeed… the program is sustainable at the expense of the environment.
But it’s a step up from not sustainable at all.
I really really hope the moon program gets beyond both those issues (figuratively and literally).
SpaceX’s only current launch capability is to LEO and it took them 20 years to make it ‘sustainable’. This rocket is going to the moon today.
Everything you say is correct, and it’s great that the mission is actually in progress.
But that is neither here nor there with the point I was making.
I’m just glad that things have the potential to turn around at NASA now. I’d love to see them back at the forefront of space exploration and technology.
If SpaceX realllllllly wanted to, Falcon Heavy could likely pull off a lunar return trip like this (edit: with modifications), but ya, SpaceX designed their existing rockets around reusability in LEO.
When you don’t have to think about reusability, it’s a lot easier to do things, as so many problems become a lot simpler and weight savings are substantial.
Falcon Heavy is quite a capable rocket, with about 60% of the SLS’s payload capacity to LEO when the side boosters are reused (although it’s almost never used for LEO, since no one actually needs that large of a payload there…).
New Glenn can reuse it’s whole first stage, but currently has only 47% of the SLS’s payload capacity to LEO. (with plans for a larger variant)
Starship… has been kind of a mess. At least with how their timeline has compared to their goals. They have demonstrated several successful launches, but with the reliability of their past few, I doubt anyone will trust them anytime soon.
China seems extremely close to having a partially reusable heavy lift rocket, they have said that they’ll test it in the first half of this year (LEO payload a little bit higher than Falcon Heavy, but they plan to go to the moon with something very similar). India has some looser long-term plans.
As a spaceflight nerd, I was thinking today about why I (and everyone else) don’t care that much about the Artemis launch. I think it’s largely because it’s not demonstrating anything new; they already did basically the same mission but without the people in it, and even more advanced missions with people in them were done in the 1960s. The rocket itself though isn’t helping, the only things it has going for it compared to other modern rockets are that it’s large and probably reliable. The technology is basically just re-used space shuttle parts, there’s nothing that seems particularly innovative, and reusing old technology hasn’t prevented it from being extremely expensive compared to basically everything else (~20x the cost of New Glenn, Falcon Heavy, or Starship per launch…). It’s also worse for the environment in basically every way (expendable, and has solid fuel boosters).
I kind of agree with what some other people have been saying about NASA for a while now. They should probably just stick to the satellites, rovers, and technology tests, making their own launch vehicle is not really helping anyone. The usefulness of being a government funded thing is that they can do the type of science to help humanity that doesn’t turn a profit. They don’t really need their own launch vehicle to do their science, and the vehicle itself is so conservative that I’m sure they aren’t really learning anything from it. If they were actually capable of producing something economical and better than the corporations then it wouldn’t be a problem, but that will never happen with Congress pushing rocket designs that “seem like they would be cheaper” and forcing NASA to route all work through insanely inefficient military contractors.
Starship has been a mess because they’re constantly changing things and experimenting. They got v1 working then moved to v2 which had some issues, they get v2 working and they immediately move to v3. There are so many changes in v3 I imagine its going to have its own teething problems as well.
Until they decide they are happy with something and commit to that as a launch vehicle and test other variations separately from their launch version, its probably going to keep happening and keep people wary of wanting to use it.
Edit: they’re already talking about making changes so it can do 200t to orbit. But if they just get v3 working then switch to that, it’ll be the same problem all over again.
Edit: working excluding rentry heat shield anyway, they haven’t proven they can make starship reusable yet.
Yeah, just the 2 identical failures on Starship V2 I think destroyed a lot of trust
and afaik they still haven’t had a reentry that hasn’t seemed at least somewhat like a miraculous survival… I know they were testing out different types of heatshield tiles on the last launch though which was where a lot of the weirdness was from
What I was referring to though was the very… optimistic timelines they’ve had in the past. HLS was supposed to be ready last year.
Your thoughts seem like they make sense in the current system, and it kinda does, I see where’s you’re coming from. But what you’re basically saying is “privatize spaceflight and let open scientific research and the progress of humanity be dependent on the whims of billionaires”.
Obviously, with all the problems the US government has, this thought of yours might even be kinda good in this current situation. But if you actually go to implement it, you’re doing a really bad thing for the far future of spaceflight. What should actually happen is that the US government should be changed to let NASA be effective and efficient without dumb political constraints.
And SpaceX and other private actors should only be allowed to continue what they’re doing if they share their technology/expertise with NASA.
That would have the same good effect as what you propose, just without this shitty system staying like it is.
I’ll take a delayed success over a rushed failure every day of the week
Define “sustainable rocket”. There are greener fuels, like hydrogen peroxide, but I don’t think they give enough push to get to orbit.
But if you’re willing to drop the “rocket” part, you can remove the propellant entirely, and use a railgun or spinlaunch system. (Strictly speaking you’ll still need some kind of propellant for corrections and orbital maneuvering, but you’re not burning a fuckton of propellant just to beat gravity.)
There is also the question of the reusability of the rocket itself, but SpaceX and others have fairly well proven that by now.
hydrogen peroxide
The fuel is the least concern. They’re using H2+O2, which burns to water and can be completely created by using the excess solar energy during peak times of the day. The costly/unsustainable thing is the huge rocket that is destroyed each launch and must be completely rebuilt from scratch each time.
railgun or spinlaunch system.
Not for manned launches though. Unless the goal is to send 280kg of meat paste to orbit.
No one but SpaceX has proven they can do it so far, Blue Origin has only landed one, but hasn’t reused it yet. They’re close, but not quite there yet.
Having re-usable parts is the obvious bit. But actually the worst part for the environment from a lot of rockets is the solid fuel boosters, those leave a ton of weird stuff in the atmosphere that a liquid fueled thing wouldn’t (like the Falcon Heavy, Starship, Delta 4 Heavy, New Glenn, Long March 9 and 10…)
Even Starship is going to leave a lot of CO2 behind, but they could technically make their own methane and be carbon neutral, but they aren’t as they can’t make enough of it fast enough for their plans, even if they do make some.
Interestingly apparently water vapor from rocket launches can be similarly harmful to CO2. Water vapor doesn’t usually get into the upper atmosphere, and has a hard time exiting, but still acts as a greenhouse gas.
Wow, we really cant catch a break on getting off this rock without consequences.
Yeah I kinda cringed on that “god bless america” speech before the launch. Isn’t there 2 Canadians on board and a big part of the Orion was made/designed by ESA? All they got “and our partners around the world” in that speech.
I’m happy that “we” are going back there but this propaganda sillyness is disappointing. I know its always been a part of governments doing space projects, after all I think the only reason “we” are going back there is because the Chinese are going back there. The disappointing thing is that when I was a kid I really thought we would be over ourselves by now, but turns out that seems to be impossible and we are just going back to throwing rocks at each others. Plaaargh.
Anyway. Cool launch, that thing jumped off the pad as if someone kicked it in the nuts. Impressive stuff.
You: complains rocket isn’t reusing enough stuff
Also you: complains rocket is reusing stuff.
Theres a difference between reusing parts and reusing technology.
It could be worse. It could be Trump claiming all the glory for himself and jinxing it to miserably fail like everything else that orange pedophile clown touches.
Jesus, the shudder this comment just elicited gave me a crick in my neck… Someone distract the mango before he gets the astronauts killed…
that is a terrible insult and you should be ashamed of yourself! Mangos have never done anything to deserve being compared to our pedophile in chief
“Canadian” is actually an American DEI category.
Sadly, NASA has to appeal to the Trump admin for funding.
The cost of the Artemis II mission is estimated to be $4.1 billion
Each day of the Iran war is estimated to cost $2 billion.
There is plenty of money, just not the will.
And this is not just a Trump thing: all US Administrations in the last couple of decades spent many, many times more in war than space exploration - for example the Iraq War was estimated to cost in total $1100 billion, whilst the one in Afghanistan was $2300 billion, which would be a lot more money in today’s terms (a conversion I can’t be arsed to do).
Just not going to Iraq would, directly (so, not counting indirect costs due to increased terrorist threats as result of the growth of ISIS that happenned due to Iraqi military being put in the same prisions as Islamic extremists) have financed 275 Artemis II missions and that’s without taking in account Inflation (if done back then Artemis II would’ve been cheaper)
To the Moon Alice!
Ah and the meme makes its way to lemmy
omfg can yous not enjoy a moon mission without falling into doomerism and talking about the epstein files
Some people seem to think about political issues every day. It seems unhealthy and unhappy.
But that’s the joke.
Yeah, but MAGAs believe the earth is flat and space is Fake News, so the administration is walking a fine line as regards speaking about it.
Hopefully the shitters work.
What about universal healthcare instead of moon missions.
The entire NASA budget is less than 3% of the US military budget. NASA or moon missions are really not the reason the US can’t afford health care
Neither is the military. Spending on healthcare as % of GDP is higher than many countries with universal health care.
Insurance, hospitals and honestly even a lot of doctors are against it.
Trump said they’re going further than we’ve ever gone before! Checkmate Apollo moon landing believers!
Technically he is right about this.
are they doing a further away turn around the moon than before?
The previous moon missions all went into orbit around the moon (except for Apollo 13). This one only does a free return trajectory without completing a full moon orbit.
Which means it loops around at greater distance and will be further away from the moon and from earth than previous manned moon missions.So they’re doing less than before and making it sound like it’s a new milestone.
Ah, okay. That is still pretty cool though even if it is less.
The moon is slowly moving further away from Earth
So I didn’t know that, but I looked it up and its 3.8cm a year.
The moon isn’t always the exact same distance from earth either, so that extra distance is pretty negligible compared to where it was on any given previous mission, that his statement isn’t necessarily true.
My wife doesn’t think 3,8cm are negligible. She says it’s very big.
Artemis II will loop around the moon on a trajectory that will take it about 4500 miles further away from Earth than any of the Apollo manned missions.
Ah okay that makes more sense than it slowly drifting away.
Yes, they do around a 4500km height flyby at the back side of the moon, Apollo I think did below 1000km at the highest, so like 3500km farther away (+ moon orbit perturbations).
Before this mission the furthest humans have been was Apollo 13 which essentially did a flyby like this one. This one will do a similar manoeuvre but slightly further away from earth.
Yeah but you can see the obvious absurdity in stating it. Hope they don’t get fried by the intense solar weather or smashed by one of these fireballs from the apparent debris field we’re traveling through.
Why is it absurd to state a fact? Oh, because it’s Trump. Nevermind.
It wasn’t just trump saying it. They repeated it many times in the NASA stream before the launch. Regarding moonlanding deniers, they are just gonna misunderstand it on purpose and say “see! They never went to the moon with Apollo! Why would they be saying they have never went so far before!” etc. They are already doing it… >_>
Its really not absurd at all. Its the truth and a historic milestone.
And you shouldn’t speak on topics you’re on uninformed about.
You don’t think it sounds funny to say “We’re going to the moon! A distance nobody has ever gone before!”?
Space is big, they’ll probably be fine
I wonder how all that space debris compares to the probability of all the commercial airliners ascending and descending through birds and what not. Comparative damage aside.
It doesn’t.
💎 🙌
This seems like a pretty big deal, why am I only now finding out about this
I don’t know, we need to do a better job of advertising this stuff if a lot of people don’t know about it. This is one of the few decent things the U.S. is doing.
Probably because all the horrible shit trump does takes up all the space.
I caught it through NPR maybe a couple weeks before it happened, and some science YouTubers were hype about it, but other than that I caught very little coverage. Not a lot mentioned on here that I saw til the day of or the day before. Not that it wasn’t talked about here before that, but just what I noticed.
Oh what’s next, will Spain send three wooden boats to the New World, take a few pictures, and come back?
Moon spices must flow
Greetings Moon Men! We mean you no harm. We simply come in search of delicious herbs and spices. And to help you run your own longstanding society, about which we clearly know best. Cough, cough. Sorry, we are a bit under the weather with some Earth pathogens - you ARE immune, are you not?
“If I told you once, Chris, I told you a thousand times: slaves go in the other direction.”
I saw this from my front porch yesterday. Nothing like it. Godspeed.
it must be one thing to experience living near an airport. then it must be another thing to experience living near a rocket launchpad
Had the live stream on all day, I jumped up when the clock hit T-0 yelling “fly girl FLY!” Most powerful rocket NASA has launched, I definitely teared up. We need more of this. The possibilities to show what good humanity can do.
What good does colonizing the moon do? Genuinely curious.
SLS has gotten a lot of well-deserved hate for being an expendable money pit. All that aside, damn, it lifted off with humans in it and off to the moon! There’s no other currently available rocket that can do that, including Starship.
They launched the integrity of the USA off the planet, so it won’t bother them anymore for a few days.
