totm dec 2023 Artemis Discussion Thread

[cubinator]

I don't think that moon lander would fit in the interstage!  Here's another nice comparison:

Also not quite to scale, but interesting because the perspective is almost exactly the same.

[Beccab]

8 minutes ago, cubinator said:

I don't think that moon lander would fit in the interstage!  Here's another nice comparison:

Also not quite to scale, but interesting because the perspective is almost exactly the same.

Shame they didn't rollout in the same time of the day, the light was perfect in the Saturn V one

[tater]

 

[SunlitZelkova]

13 hours ago, tater said:

The two Artemis vehicles to scale, today.

I checked in photoshop, and SLS is actually a little too large I think (~same dia, should be several pixels smaller).

 

I wonder if this will ever become a real thing (SLS on 39B and Starship at 39A simultaneously).

[Beccab]

42 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

I wonder if this will ever become a real thing (SLS on 39B and Starship at 39A simultaneously).

That's the plan, the Starship pad at 39A is under construction. Even if HLS doesn't end up launching from there, some of the tankers for Artemis III definitely will, barring the cancellation of HLS, SLS or Artemis in the next 3/4 years

[Beccab]

Who wants to bet on Glover being part of the first Artemis lunar landing? He was the Crew-1 pilot, has a lot of experience and now says that he is an HLS representative and part of the design team for the HLS interior, which makes him very qualified for the job

[RCgothic]

Confirmation B4 and S20 aren't flying. Could still launch before SLS though.

 

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by RCgothic

[Beccab]

Just now, RCgothic said:

Confirmation B4 and S20 aren't flying. Could still launch before SLS though.

 

 

Wrong thread

[tater]

31 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Wrong thread

This is the Artemis thread, Starship is officially part of Artemis.

Would be wrong for the Orion/SLS thread, however.

[SunlitZelkova]

4 hours ago, Beccab said:

Who wants to bet on Glover being part of the first Artemis lunar landing? He was the Crew-1 pilot, has a lot of experience and now says that he is an HLS representative and part of the design team for the HLS interior, which makes him very qualified for the job

My world/story/fictional history/alternate history where the current global health crisis never occurred has it like this.

Artemis III crew has Victor Glover becoming the "next man" and Anne McClain becoming the "first woman". The latter is just bias of me being raised in the Pacific Northwest.

My story has Artemis I and II happening on time, but Artemis III is delayed to 2025 because both Starship HLS and the National Team HLS get funded and both have their own development delays. Also as a result of this, those two mentioned above are the only ones that land during Artemis III, because the latter HLS is used.

[RCgothic]

This second lander had better go big or there's no point in it whatsoever:

 

 

[RCgothic]

Also:

 

 

 

[SunlitZelkova]

Artemis I will be carrying two mannequins to enable a look at the radiation the crew will receive during the flight. What happens if it is really bad? Will everybody who flies on SLS Blk 1 just be "done" after that final mission?

1 hour ago, RCgothic said:

This second lander had better go big or there's no point in it whatsoever:

Would it be possible to do this modularly? Otherwise, New Armstrong will be needed sooner than anticipated.

Of course no one else would really be able to do anything either if it can't be done modularly because there are no other launch vehicles large enough.

[tater]

1 hour ago, RCgothic said:

This second lander had better go big or there's no point in it whatsoever:

Big, or really sustainable.

If I were bidding something like the Dynetics Alpaca, I would include SpaceX mission compatibility with alternate LV systems as options. Ie: if Starship is a thing, then USE this capability, else alternate systems.

Dump the stay on the surface living and working out of Alpaca entirely. Lander only needs to sustain crew for transit, plus contingencies and margin.

1. Push the modular cargo delivery to the surface (small cargo pods the size of the central crew area).

2. Crew delivery is literally like commercial crew. Crew to the surface, egress, and spend the rest of their stay in the lunar habitat already on the surface (LSS, a built structure, previous pods delivered by SpaceX or Alpaca, etc).

3. Logistics pod (prop depot) is delivered to Gateway. If not-Starship, then multiple small ones at huge expense, if Starship, then a huge depot capable of props for multiple Gateway/surface round trips.

4. Cargo depot. Similar to 3, this is a truss system on Gateway where Starship (or other vehicles) leave pods capable of being carried by Alpaca to the surface.

[Flavio hc16]

9 hours ago, tater said:

Big, or really sustainable.

If I were bidding something like the Dynetics Alpaca, I would include SpaceX mission compatibility with alternate LV systems as options. Ie: if Starship is a thing, then USE this capability, else alternate systems.

Dump the stay on the surface living and working out of Alpaca entirely. Lander only needs to sustain crew for transit, plus contingencies and margin.

1. Push the modular cargo delivery to the surface (small cargo pods the size of the central crew area).

2. Crew delivery is literally like commercial crew. Crew to the surface, egress, and spend the rest of their stay in the lunar habitat already on the surface (LSS, a built structure, previous pods delivered by SpaceX or Alpaca, etc).

3. Logistics pod (prop depot) is delivered to Gateway. If not-Starship, then multiple small ones at huge expense, if Starship, then a huge depot capable of props for multiple Gateway/surface round trips.

4. Cargo depot. Similar to 3, this is a truss system on Gateway where Starship (or other vehicles) leave pods capable of being carried by Alpaca to the surface.

This, NASA basically need an econobox lander that is compatible with the semi that is the Starship.

Make it refuellable by starship ( aka use methane) , so that a depot starship can refuel for a lot of sorties .

It has to be small, even somewhat cramped, but it need to carry 4 astronauts.

It has to be swappable between crew pod and cargo pod

 

 

[tater]

5 hours ago, Flavio hc16 said:

This, NASA basically need an econobox lander that is compatible with the semi that is the Starship.

Make it refuellable by starship ( aka use methane) , so that a depot starship can refuel for a lot of sorties .

It has to be small, even somewhat cramped, but it need to carry 4 astronauts.

It has to be swappable between crew pod and cargo pod

Yes.

 

[tater]

 

 

[RCgothic]

Figure this probably goes here:

 

 

[RCgothic]

Wow. No 2nd landing until Artemis V in 2028:

 

Show of hands: who thinks SpaceX won't land *any* commercial lunar astronauts in the 3 years following its first crewed landing? Anybody?

The Artemis program beyond Artemis III is making itself totally irrelevant. Who cares if they onboard a 2nd lander if this is the timeline?

[Beccab]

11 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

Wow. No 2nd landing until Artemis V in 2028:

 

Show of hands: who thinks SpaceX won't land *any* commercial lunar astronauts in the 3 years following its first crewed landing? Anybody?

The Artemis program beyond Artemis III is making itself totally irrelevant. Who cares if they onboard a 2nd lander if this is the timeline?

Not even commercial astronauts - the second lunar landing being awarded to SpaceX that was talked about in the last days will probably happen in Artemis IV imo. 2026 will be a very sad year though, 2027 too maybe with Block 1B's inevitable delay

[RyanRising]

15 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

Wow. No 2nd landing until Artemis V in 2028:

 

Show of hands: who thinks SpaceX won't land *any* commercial lunar astronauts in the 3 years following its first crewed landing? Anybody?

The Artemis program beyond Artemis III is making itself totally irrelevant. Who cares if they onboard a 2nd lander if this is the timeline?

Put me in the doubters camp then - if there is such a gap (between NASA missions), I don’t think SpaceX will put any additional people on the lunar surface during it. I doubt a viable market will exist for selling people trips to the moon when they’re just starting to have the capability, and putting more boots on the moon isn’t as close to the The Mission as putting additional work into getting starship ready for Mars.

While those two goals aren’t necessarily contradictory, I don’t think putting people on the moon outside of NASA’s program so early on advances the latter goal enough to be worth the extra development and support you’d need to make it happen.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

31 minutes ago, RyanRising said:

Put me in the doubters camp then - if there is such a gap (between NASA missions), I don’t think SpaceX will put any additional people on the lunar surface during it. I doubt a viable market will exist for selling people trips to the moon when they’re just starting to have the capability, and putting more boots on the moon isn’t as close to the The Mission as putting additional work into getting starship ready for Mars.

While those two goals aren’t necessarily contradictory, I don’t think putting people on the moon outside of NASA’s program so early on advances the latter goal enough to be worth the extra development and support you’d need to make it happen.

Given the delta-v requirements and proximity, doesn't figuring out the moon work as an iterative step toward Mars?  (There's a LOT of stuff needed to be done before we can have 'regular' congress with our nearest neighbor... and figuring that stuff out and normalizing it makes Mars a fairly easy next-step, doesn't it?)

Further - I think people want to go to the Moon.  From a simple emotional connection standpoint, to those wanting to 'do the thing' (like Everest tourists) to say they did the thing, to the potential for... whatever... I think the number of people who would do Moon (returnable) vs Mars (nope) in the short term is probably more economically viable than doing a suicide run to Mars because you can.

Or are you suggesting that the challenges are effectively equal, and so SX as an entity might entertain NASA's interest in the moon as a side-project but stay focused on their Mission for their own work?

[SunlitZelkova]

7 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Wow. No 2nd landing until Artemis V in 2028:

 

Show of hands: who thinks SpaceX won't land *any* commercial lunar astronauts in the 3 years following its first crewed landing? Anybody?

The Artemis program beyond Artemis III is making itself totally irrelevant. Who cares if they onboard a 2nd lander if this is the timeline?

What are you expecting? Space programs since the end of the Space Race have always been slow. The only reason we got a Moon landing roughly twice a year with Apollo was because it was riding on the cash the came from the hey day of the Space Race (~1964-1966). The Shuttle was just the Shuttle, Soyuz and it’s stations happened to be relatively cheap and easy. But Energia had a wait of two years between its launches and the ISS took over a decade to complete. Large programs take time. Especially considering the economy is still not totally back on track.

Contrary to passing comments from executives and what space fans like to think, NASA and SpaceX are not competing. NASA has no reason to go fast at all for now *glances at LM-5DY and LM-9*. As long as SpaceX relies on commercial customers (none of which currently have the wherewithal for a full scale lunar exploration program), it won’t be going to the Moon either- it’s whole thing is Mars. So Artemis is still very relevant as a major crewed lunar exploration program.

We can definitely expect (slightly) higher flight rates once the ISS is finished in 2030, by the way. NASA needs government money to pay its employees and they aren’t going to get a lot from just sending crews to commercial space stations every now and then. The lunar program is minor at the moment but will become their flagship project eventually.

I wouldn’t be surprised if SpaceX knows that too and is deliberately ignoring the Moon not only to focus on Mars, but to give NASA something to do.

6 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Given the delta-v requirements and proximity, doesn't figuring out the moon work as an iterative step toward Mars?  (There's a LOT of stuff needed to be done before we can have 'regular' congress with our nearest neighbor... and figuring that stuff out and normalizing it makes Mars a fairly easy next-step, doesn't it?)

The consensus is “no”. From an economical point of view, there isn’t really much reason to go to the Moon first. If you look at all of the post-Apollo NASA proposals that involved Moon and then Mars, the justification for going back to the Moon was total weak sauce when compared with the cost.

Which is probably why NASA is so quiet about crewed Mars exploration, because if they lump that in with Artemis Congress starts to raise its eyebrows.

[jinnantonix]

I always thought that the idea of Artemis was to investigate fuel manufacture on the Moon, and staging missions from moon orbit, to see if this would improve the economics of deep space missions - including, but not exclusively, for, crewed or uncrewed Mars missions.  This isn't about landing lots of folk on the Moon, that isn't the goal, although proving the capability is part of the overall requirement for establish fuel production on the lunar surface.  Artemis 3 is just a step in a very long process.  Have I misunderstood?

Edited March 29, 2022 by jinnantonix

[tater]

Artemis was lipstick on a pig. The pig is SLS/Orion. The problem with SLS was always that it is a rocket to nowhere (certainly when paired with Orion, which needs a substantial mass trim to the capsule to be useful for anything if on top of SLS).

They had nothing for SLS to do, so they decided to do ARM. ARM was always stupid, the part that mattered having been done by a robot, they sense Orion with SLS... "because reasons." So now we have the useless rocket about ready to fly, and lesse:

 

On this chart we have 8 flights in 10 years, and only 7 of those are "all up" flights (Artemis I is not a complete Orion).