All Systems Go In Houston As Nasa Prepares Return To Moon
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Rick LaBrode has worked at NASA for 37 years, but he says the American quest to return to the Moon is by far the crowning moment of his career.
LaBrode is the lead flight director for Artemis 1, set to take off later this month—the first time a capsule that can carry humans will be sent to the Moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972.
"This is more exciting than really anything I've ever been a part of," LaBrode told journalists at the US space agency's Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas.
The 60-year-old confided to AFP that the eve of the launch is likely to be a long night of anticipation—and little rest.
"I'm going to be so excited. I won't be able to sleep too much, I'm sure of that," he said, in front of Mission Control's iconic giant bank of screens.
Artemis 1, an uncrewed test flight, will feature the first blastoff of the massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which will be the most powerful in the world when it goes into operation.
It will propel the Orion crew capsule into orbit around the Moon. The spacecraft will remain in space for 42 days before returning to Earth.
[...] Korth, who has worked on Orion for more than a decade, said everyone in Houston is excited for the return to the Moon and for NASA's future.
"Definitely, I feel like it is like a new golden age," she said.
No, Seriously, NASA's Space Launch System is Ready to Take Flight
No, seriously, NASA's Space Launch System is ready to take flight:
It's actually happening. NASA is finally set to launch its massive Space Launch System rocket, and barring catastrophe, the Orion spacecraft is going to fly to the Moon and back.
The space agency's final pre-launch preparations for this Artemis I mission are going so well, in fact, that NASA now plans to roll the rocket to Launch Pad 39B as soon as Tuesday, August 16, at 9 pm ET (01:00 UTC Wednesday). This is two days ahead of the previously announced rollout schedule.
This earlier date for the rocket's rollout follows completion of a flight termination system test over the weekend. This was the final major test of the launch system and spacecraft prior to rollout and marks the completion of all major pre-launch activities. NASA continues to target three dates to attempt the Artemis I launch: August 29, September 2, and September 5.
The flight termination system is an isolated component of the rocket. In the event of a problem during liftoff, ground-based controllers can send a signal to the flight termination system to destroy the rocket before it flies off course and threatens a populated area.
Because this termination system is separate from the rocket, it has an independent power supply that is rated only for about three weeks. This limit is determined by the US Space Force, which operates the Eastern Range, including Kennedy Space Center. The problem for NASA is that one of its proposed launch dates, September 5, fell outside this prescribed limit.
(Score: 2) by mmlj4 on Wednesday August 17 2022, @02:32PM (2 children)
Having watched the Apollo missions in glorious black-and-white as a kid, I'm glad they're finally going back to the moon, 50 YEARS LATER. Sigh...
Need a Linux consultant [joeykelly.net] in New Orleans?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2022, @04:24PM
What are you talking about, uncrewed [soylentnews.org]??
(Score: 2) by Rich on Wednesday August 17 2022, @05:00PM
But they'll send a sheep: https://www.aardman.com/latest-news/shaun-the-sheep-esa-artemis-i [aardman.com]
BAAAA!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 17 2022, @02:38PM (3 children)
Well, that sounds pretty darn confident. Maybe make sure the thing can actually make it to orbit first before you say you're going straight to the moon? The N1 would've been an impressive rocket too, if it didn't explode every time they tried to launch it.
Would be significantly less embarrassing if it doesn't work...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday August 17 2022, @03:06PM (2 children)
What would be the point?
Remember, it costs 2+ billion per launch. Pretty F'ing wasteful to launch it to orbit just to see if it can make it. Besides which this isn't SpaceX with their "move fast and break things" philosophy. It's being developed under the old school "failure is not an option" NASA paradigm - it's unlikely to leave the ground until they're *sure* it will work correctly. I mean, if I recall correctly they're planning for the second ever launch to carry astronauts
As for mission planning - if SLS continues to fail, Falcon Heavy is quite capable of handling the entire Artemis mission profile. It only has about half the payload capacity as the SLS, but that's still plenty for all the Artemis missions currently being planned.
And we've probably got Starship just around the corner - that'll have a slightly higher payload to LEO than SLS and, assuming they get orbital fueling working, about 4x the payload to trans-lunar injection.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Wednesday August 17 2022, @07:50PM (1 child)
SLS has been developed under the 'no contractor left behind' model - widget number 607 gets a new factory in Bumfart, Nebraska, etc
for capability, see here [inverse.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2022, @08:14PM
I sure hope Starship lives up to its hype. It is the proposed solution to essentially every problem we have. It's also a floor wax and a dessert topping.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 17 2022, @02:42PM (11 children)
Just asking, this time we wanna get in on the ground, after all.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 17 2022, @02:47PM (10 children)
It's more the Chinese now, I think. Whatever they can do, we have to prove that we can "reach there" too...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 17 2022, @03:15PM
Could someone explain to me what for? Last I checked it was dictatorships that needed to show their people they have such huge balls that they win in sports and other dick-measuring contests to distract from domestic probl.... ok, I withdraw the question.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday August 17 2022, @03:31PM (8 children)
I suspect it's slightly more than just a dick-measuring competition this time around though.
It's looking like we're finally preparing to start developing the solar system. And any country that gets a significant head start on that endeavor will have a potentially insurmountable lead toward becoming the next unrivaled superpower. China seems to be getting serious about it, and the US certainly doesn't want to give up the crown, though our politicians are mostly too short-sighted to really take it seriously.
Yeah, we've got a treaty saying neither countries or people can lay claim to celestial objects - probably a big part of the reason the space program stagnated for half a century. But the minute someone is able to actually develop them that's likely to go out the window. Historically, treaties only last so long as nobody has much to gain by breaking them.
On the moon it'll be a race to claim the choicest spots - you can already see that in China's planning toward establishing a base near the equator. What such a location lacks in near continuous solar power, it makes up for in the vast regions of reachable terrain around it. Something severely lacking near the peaks of eternal sunlight at the poles - which by definition are at the top of extremely high landforms, and thus severely isolated from the surrounding terrain. At least by the sort of wheeled vehicles you'd want for convenient industrial growth. Good for proof-of-concept experimentation, but any infrastructure built up is going to be mostly wasted in the long term.
And in the asteroid belt a small handful of asteroids contain almost all the mass, with Psyche being the obvious candidate for metals, and Ceres for ice and organics. Both still big enough for multiple nations to claim a slice, but if one gets firmly established before anyone else they're not going to have a lot of incentive to share. I mean Psyche is only 200km across - not exactly hard to defend, especially when you can see any invasion coming months in advance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2022, @03:42PM
Not with the SLS, we aren't.
At > $2 billion per launch, and a launch cadence of not more than once a year or so, even if everything goes perfectly, we won't be able to do more than put flags and footprints (of women and minorities, of course) on the moon.
If Starship works, then we will have the primary tool we need to develop the solar system. SLS is just an embarrassing boondoggle.
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday August 17 2022, @04:18PM (1 child)
I like the sci-fi aspect of this, but we're not even close to having the tech to develope anything on another celestial body. The best we can do is shove people into a can and have it orbit something. Even then they'd destroy it rather then risk a voyage with it.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday August 17 2022, @09:57PM
No? I'll mention to you one of many recently demonstrated technologies towards that goal: the electrolytic steel refinery developed for NASA by Dr. Sadoway. Lunar regolith is 5-13% iron by mass, and about 40% oxygen, and you can literally dump raw molten lunar regolith (easily heated even with inflatable parabolic mirrors) into Sadoways electrolytic tank, apply electricity, and pull out oxygen and steel. With plenty of now-castable molten rock left over. The technology is still more expensive than our existing refining practices on Earth, but it's already gaining attention for its lack of innate carbon emissions. (traditional steel refining is an *incredibly* carbon intensive process) There's also 7-13% aluminum to be had, though at about 6x the electricity/kg
That's technology that could literally be deployed out of a Starship along with an electric bulldozers or two and start producing refined raw materials within weeks or months. Castable steel and stone for construction, and oxygen for both life support and to export as propellant for orbital refueling (oxygen is ~80% of a methane rocket's propellant mass). Even without any other industrial capacity, there's a *lot* of basic infrastructure you can make with sand-cast steel and stone. Including the the major structural components for all sorts of equipment built with a relatively small mass of more sophisticated components from Earth. Add a few Starship loads worth of machine shop and 3D printers and you would vastly increase what you could produce.
Heck, Relativity space is already 3D printing rockets - containing an atmosphere should be no big deal compared to those pressures. You can always import the airlocks from Earth for now.
The dust is going to be the big problem - it remains to be seen if the various technologies we're developing will be able to deal with it. Seems like recent rovers haven't been having too much trouble.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 17 2022, @05:27PM (1 child)
Those treaties aren't worth much if one party can get to the Moon with industrial scale equipment and the other party can barely drop a ping pong ball on it.
If you remember your Dr. Strangelove: "Mr. President, we cannot allow a mineshaft gap!" it was all about "gaps" during the first space race, and not just in space. The US/USSR settled on LEO manned capabilities in the 1980s, no gap. Now China is making noises about a kilometer long spaceship, colonizing the moon, and what-all-else, and actually developing capabilities in that direction: gap approaching.
It's not just the UK that minds the gap.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday August 17 2022, @09:59PM
Exactly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2022, @06:07PM
Ah, but you forget that those who command the high ground have the tactical advantage. We can initiate a cannonade from there and keep them from toppling our defenses.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday August 17 2022, @10:09PM (1 child)
If it doesn't pay off within four years it's of no interest to American politicians.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday August 18 2022, @01:19AM
Or more accurately, if it doesn't pay off in the next quarter it's of no interest to the corporations that fund American politicians.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2022, @06:12PM (1 child)
A golden shower of pork.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17 2022, @06:25PM
For God and country!
(Score: 1) by MonkeypoxBugChaser on Thursday August 18 2022, @11:29PM
They need to send mining robots and not manned missions. There is 0 point to a person being on the moon when the country is going broke and inflation is what it is.
Its a several hundred billion propaganda video. My gas is over $1 a therm and winter is going to be a wake up call. Whatever god you believe in better help you if you live in europe.