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.
Very often, I was like “I don’t think I need to watch this shuttle launch, they might have to scrub it” and then they’d actually launch and I was was like “damn, I should have watched that shuttle launch”.
So I was like “naaah, I don’t think I need to watch this launch, they might scrub it” and now it looks like they’ve launched and I was like “shit, I fell for that again, I’m really stupid”
The shuttle is Lucy holding the football and you live in a Charlie Brown world. ✌
It was awesome
I forgot I received this a few years ago from volunteering… let’s go Artemis!
Heck yeah!!!
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.
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.
You: complains rocket isn’t reusing enough stuff
Also you: complains rocket is reusing stuff.
deleted by creator
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.
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.
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.
railgun or spinlaunch system.
Not for manned launches though. Unless the goal is to send 280kg of meat paste to orbit.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
I’ll take a delayed success over a rushed failure every day of the week
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).
“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)
deleted by creator
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.
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
To the Moon Alice!
Ah and the meme makes its way to lemmy
whew. i’ve rolled the dice on my life, but i’ve never gotten on a boeing spacecraft. and the shitter’s already clogged.
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.
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.
Please don’t let it be cancelled and returned early because of a toilet That would just be too much. This is the first thing that has made me legitimately excited since having to unexpectedly say goodbye to my soul-dog last month. I need this, dammit.
Yeah, they should piss out a window like the rest of us.
How exactly do you think they’d return prematurely? Hit the reverse button?
Its the entire reason they did a full orbit before firing the lunar injection burn, so that if something was wrong they could jettison the service module and perform a deorbit burn for an early splashdown in the pacific.
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.
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.
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.
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.
deleted by creator
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.
💎 🙌
I wonder how Flatearthers are going to explain this one.
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.
Frog lenses
I’ve already seen “it’s AI generated”.
Oh what’s next, will Spain send three wooden boats to the New World, take a few pictures, and come back?
“If I told you once, Chris, I told you a thousand times: slaves go in the other direction.”
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?
I can’t feel excited about this This feels like part of a new US expansionist agenda.
This is the culmination of a lot of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears from a lot of engineers. It is the furthest thing from expansionism.
Its probably the only decent thing the U.S. is doing right now that I don’t feel bad about.
What is the reason for needing to go to the moon?
They’re looping around it, going farther than any humans ever, and scanning the whole thing for mineral deposits and possible base construction sites. The plan is to build a base then shipyard to go out farther from there.
sounds expansionist
But why? What is it that we need that isn’t on Earth already?
Space. The final frontier.
We’re floating on a tiny pebble in the infinite ocean of space, why not explore?
we dont have healthcare and homelessness still exsists?
There’s a Canadian on board, we have healthcare.
Neither of those things has anything to do with this. You can eliminate the NASA budget and you still won’t have healthcare lol. You have to actually fight for that.
The current administration lacks any ability to build, or latch onto anything in that vein long term. Most they could do is drop a tesla on the moon advertising a new grift.
God you people are insufferable
Imperialism is wrong. Expansionism is perfectly fine. There’s nothing wrong with a nation or people improving their standard of living by gathering more resources and increasing their capabilities. It’s only wrong when that expansion is at the cost of other human beings or the environment.
I’m all in favor of space expansion. Maybe some day we can move our most polluting industries off the Earth’s surface. Hell, my dream would be a world where most people don’t even live on the planet itself. You want to live a big resource intensive life, the equivalent of modern suburban living? Do it in space. Want to do industrial agriculture? Do it in space. Want to run a giant factory? Do it in space. If you want to live on Earth, you have to abide by strict resource utilization and environmental impact rules. Everything else goes to space. The Earth becomes one big nature preserve with a few dense cities and organic farms scattered about.
I’ve said this in the past, the earth is the only place with life we actually know of. We can speculate about life elsewhere but earth is the only confirmed source of life we should do everything to preserve life on earth and the natural forces that govern it.
But this ain’t that. This lands, to me, lands more in the “we’re staking a claim to the moon and these are the first steps in that process”
I hope I’m wrong but right now I can’t get excited about this.
Sir, this is Lemmy. All we are allowed to do here is
complaincritique
Same, I just read it like: Somewhere under some fascist ultra right regime they achieved something. Can’t really get hyped about nazis doing cool stuff, because they do it for nazi reasons.
Oh look kim yong un built a park. Putin openend a new school for gymnasts. Trump built golf resort on the moon. Yawn 🥱
ESA built the service module which keeps the crew alive, and one of the Astronauts is Canadian. This is probably the most insulting response I’ve seen yet.
This has also been in the works since 2017, through three administrations. All Trump had to so was not try to cancel them like a dumbass.
I saw this from my front porch yesterday. Nothing like it. Godspeed.
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.
it must be one thing to experience living near an airport. then it must be another thing to experience living near a rocket launchpad
