Recent comments in /f/space

OlympusMons94 t1_j6arh8y wrote

Reply to comment by Correct_Inspection25 in NASA's 'Mega Moon Rocket' aced first flight and is ready for crewed Artemis II launch by sasko12

I fail to see what crewed launch/landing of Starship from/on Earth with crew has to do with anything I said. Or for the most part, Falcon Heavy going to the Moon either. Once the upper stage, be it Falcon's or ICPS, performs the TLI burn in LEO parking orbit, its job is done. They don't need to do anything at or near the Moon.(Perhaps you mean Dragon launched by FH, but I'm not suggesting that either.)

What I am saying is that you can't land people on the Moon without a moon lander, which is a spacecraft capable of supporting humans in deep space. SLS and Orion being ready first or not doesn't change that. Between the generic Moon lander requirements, and the requirements imposed on the HLS (by waiting in NRHO for Orion then going back and forth from there to the surface), the HLS must be a very substantial spacecraft.

If the HLS Starship is capable of supporting humans in NRHO and to and from the Moon, it is just as capable of supporting humans in space between LEO and NRHO. The delta-v required to go from LEO to NRHO and back to LEO is much less than required by the actual lander. So a spacecraft identical to the HLS could serve as the ferry between LEO and NRHO. We already have capsules capable of taking crew to and from LEO, and docking with spacecraft (be it the ISS or the HLS copy). Therefore, by the time the HLS is ready and SLS/Orion have a use, SLS/Orion could be replaced by a copy of the HLS and currently existing vehicles.

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Gerald98053 t1_j6ar4zw wrote

Reply to In the event of a fatal manned mission (example Artemis 2), would exploration stop in this period? by damarisu

The pauses in space exploration after Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia and Soyuz 1, Soyuz 11 and the Cosmodrome were all relatively brief. We’ve experienced disaster in space travel and to some extent have accepted that it will occur. There are always the naysayers who declare any disaster the occasion to quit.

Likely people declared loudly in 1522 that the loss of Magellan and most of his crew should put a permanent end to sailing ships.

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Correct_Inspection25 t1_j6ap550 wrote

Reply to comment by Kellymcdonald78 in NASA's 'Mega Moon Rocket' aced first flight and is ready for crewed Artemis II launch by sasko12

Apologies, I was using short in reference to the maximum amount of time SpaceX allows unused Dragons to be docked in LEO to the iSS for 119 days before risk of radiation wear on systems violates crew safety risk parameters in powered down safety mode. Looks like one dragon’s ( maybe Endeavor?) panels maintained their solar production up until 210 days before failing threshold. Active use for dragon is 10 rated for 10 days in LEO.

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Correct_Inspection25 t1_j6ambib wrote

Reply to comment by OlympusMons94 in NASA's 'Mega Moon Rocket' aced first flight and is ready for crewed Artemis II launch by sasko12

Hey I love all the money invested in the commercial flight program and the possibility of 100 tons to LEO in a fully reusable vehicle even if it looks like it will take as long as the SLS to develop and test. Me pointing out Starship starting in 2015 and launching a fully crewed rocket and landing it reusably in 2023 is a compliment [Edit: Looks like Elon says crewed test launch of starship wouldn’t be until 2025 most likely but my point still stands]. SpaceX and the odyssey of Falcon Heavy to BFR and Red Dragon to Starship was great, just saying SpaceX steps on its own toes like NASA did when over promising timelines on unproven technology and manufacturing, and the public misses how much they truly moved the ball forward. Two steps forward, one step back and all that. My argument was with the statement that 3-4 day transit to lunar orbit with even a Block I SLS payload would never have worked with Falcon Heavy and it looks like the press and NASA asked SpaceX the same question and the response a few months later with scrapping Falcon Heavy and Red dragon completely for Starship’s 150ton and later once the raptors were proven, 100 ton to LEO platform which will meet SpaceX’s original price per kg/LEO goals back in 2014 or beat them.

SpaceX has had access to NASA’s data on hypersonic active cooling systems for decades, but it didn’t stop them from spending several years of Starship R&D on ablative cooling before abandoning it. I can’t explain the SpaceX admin avoiding building flame trenches and shockwave deluges systems for the largest rocket ever built when China, India and USSR all followed NASA’s Saturn V lead. All I can guess is they are gonna do what the executives want the engineers to do, and in that order. Good news is after all the partial fire pad damages in Starbase, SpaceX last week is shipping deluge and flame trench equipment on barges to Starbase hopefully before the full test.

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mcarterphoto t1_j6aln46 wrote

Reply to In the event of a fatal manned mission (example Artemis 2), would exploration stop in this period? by damarisu

Why don't you look at the history and see if it answers your question?

Apollo 1: Three astronauts die in a horrific fire incident, during a launch pad test. Senate inquiries and review boards, including non-NASA personnel. Fucks-up are discovered and dealt with. Many systems are re-designed and many more potential safety hazards are uncovered and solved. The program wasn't "stopped", but manned flights were put on hold. In fact, the fire gave NASA time to sort out myriad issues with other flight hardware like boosters and so on. About 5 months after the fire, the next manned mission launched and the program carried on.

Challenger: pretty-much the same thing. A two year and 8 month hiatus from launch. Problems addressed (sorta), things redesigned, replacement orbiter built.

Columbia: pretty-much the same thing, and a flight hiatus of about the same time as Challenger.

So, 17 dead astronauts, programs all continued after inquiry boards, redesigns, and some re-structuring of chains-of-command and so on. Don't know hwy an Artemis tragedy would be any different, other than the program isn't as well established as the shuttle program was at the times of those accidents, and Apollo was its own lightning-in-a-bottle thing. IMO, we won't see anything with all the supporting factors of Apollo until we (a) discover a doomsday object heading for earth, and (b) develop a program to stop it.

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