totm dec 2023 Artemis Discussion Thread

[Exoscientist]

NASA safety panel is not happy the approach NASA is taking to the Artemis missions:

Safety panel urges NASA to reassess Artemis mission objectives to reduce risk.
by Jeff Foust
February 1, 2025
https://spacenews.com/safety-panel-urges-nasa-to-reassess-artemis-mission-objectives-to-reduce-risk/

  The ”risk” being discussed is not just safety risk but also the technical risk of such a complex approach. The negative review is not all due to the Starship HLS lander but a big chunk of it is.

  Bob Clark

[tater]

Wonder if it can be repurposed to something useful?

[Exoscientist]

 Further support for the belief SLS will be cancelled:

Key NASA officials' departure casts more uncertainty over US moon program
By Joey Roulette
February 20, 202510:17 AM ESTUpdated 8 hours ago
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/key-nasa-officials-departure-casts-more-uncertainty-over-us-moon-program-2025-02-19/?utm_source=reddit.com

 Then we should be working now towards replacement architectures for getting to the Moon.

  Bob Clark

[DAL59]

I think both SLS and Starship are unnecessary- rather than relying on super heavy lift launch vehicles, we should rely on the other spaceflight advancement we've seen in recent year-  extremely frequent launch cadence + reliable automated docking.  In the 2000s, there was an analyse that said a Delta IV based EOR moon architecture could put a crew on the moon every 6 months; this was optimistic then, but with FH, NG, and Vulcan Centaur in operation,  Earth Orbit Rendezvous really could let us do a crewed mission twice a year.  

 

Edited February 21 by DAL59

[RCgothic]

The point of Starship *is* extremely frequent launch cadence.

By being able to reuse the second stage, that decouples launch cadence from production rate.

The reason it's so big isn't for ultra-heavy lift, it's because the square cube law is favourable to larger vessels for reuse. Extra payload is a happy side effect.

[Exoscientist]

 There is much handwringing at NASA as it appears the Artemis missions will be cancelled. However, in point of fact we are now at a point in the development of spaceflight that manned lunar missions can be mounted for what we are now spending just for flights to the ISS, as long as they are commercially financed.

Then we now have the capability to be at the long-desired position of having a sustained, habitable presence on the Moon:

Could Blue Origin offer its own rocket to the Moon, Page 2: low cost crewed lunar landers.
https://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2025/02/could-blue-origin-offer-its-own-rocket.html

As part of the calculations I came to a surprising conclusion, the production cost, as opposed to the price charged to the customer, of a manned space capsule might be only a few ten's of millions of dollars.

  Bob Clark

Edited February 21 by Exoscientist

[tater]

[Exoscientist]

REVISING ARTEMIS
Long-time advocate of SLS rocket says it’s time to find an “off-ramp”
“A revised Artemis campaign plan should be a high priority for the new NASA Administrator.”
ERIC BERGER – FEB 26, 2025 9:52 AM |
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/long-time-advocate-of-sls-rocket-says-its-time-to-find-an-off-ramp/

 

  Bob Clark

[SunlitZelkova]

8 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

REVISING ARTEMIS
Long-time advocate of SLS rocket says it’s time to find an “off-ramp”
“A revised Artemis campaign plan should be a high priority for the new NASA Administrator.”
ERIC BERGER – FEB 26, 2025 9:52 AM |
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/long-time-advocate-of-sls-rocket-says-its-time-to-find-an-off-ramp/

 

  Bob Clark

Very curious comment about a Mars flyby being possible within the next five years. Honestly, given that Artemis will be thrown into so much chaos by SLS being cancelled (what do we do with Orion? how are we going to employ HLS? etc.) I would not be surprised if a crewed Mars flyby appeared as a "cheap and easy" option for the current administration to score some "ooh ah space is cool" points of itself (I get the vibe POTUS might be the kind of guy to actually throw resources at something for that reason).

Yes, it is disappointing compared to a landing. But a flyby would allow the gathering of data on humans in deep space for a prolonged period of time. It would be a way to send humans out there without having to deal with all of the complex landing stuff. A historical case illustrates how easy a flyby can be: the Soviets got very close to being able to flying cosmonauts on their 7K-L1 spacecraft, but were never anywhere near landing cosmonauts on the Moon with the N1 (the command ship hadn't even been flown or certified by 1974 when the last launch occurred).

Accomplishing such a mission would require some really "cowboy"-type, gung ho attitude to engineering and mission planning not seen since the 1960s. If the mission is intended to happen during the current administration, Q4 2028 would be the transfer window opportunity. That puts 31 months or so between now and launch. That may sound like not a lot, but it is important to remember that Skylab was actually envisioned launching as early as 1969 (!!!) after having been approved in 1967 but was delayed due to the Apollo 1 fire. The decision to switch from wet workshop to dry workshop caused further delays.

Arguably, bureaucracy, NASA's cautionary mood, and regulations would be an even bigger challenge than engineering... but there's an organization that's been created to help cut that stuff away, isn't there?

I know the Boeing proposal for a flyby was ridiculed in the SLS thread just a week ago or so, but from SpaceX's POV, a Mars flyby would not only help provide funding for the real crewed Starship (all-up and capable of landing on Mars, not HLS) but could also be used in the future as ammo in an argument in favor of establishing a proper crewed Mars exploration program.

And finally, a crewed Mars flyby would be a major victory in the supposedly ongoing Second Space Race. Quite frankly, the US is probably going to lose the race to put people on the Moon (again). If SLS is really going to be thrown out, that could create a myriad of delays and problems:

• A new launch vehicle will need to be found for Orion. Redesigning an existing vehicle and crew-rating it will take time.
• If Orion is cancelled too, a replacement will need to be created. It can be assumed the new vehicle will be a commercial one. If NASA insists on having two providers for redundancy, the agency will be awarding smaller amounts of money to two different companies trying to do the same thing, making the process slower.
• If instead of directly replacing Orion, the entire architecture is redesigned to use EOR with Crew Dragon (or, just to be nice, let's say Starliner), this will still take time to run through NASA approval and so forth (because I haven't seen that idea seriously considered by anyone besides people on this forum). It would also probably involve mangling with ISS program officials, because there are a limited number of Crew Dragons now that production has ended and that may result in Artemis and ISS having to share.

As much as people like to say that a Second Space Race is going on, the US is doing a horrible job of competing in it. In fact, it is behaving in a manner very similar to the Soviets. The reason why the US won the last space race is because it stuck with one goal and really ran for it. But beneath the Second Space Race is what was supposed to be a sustainable lunar architecture. And sustainability and racing don't mix. An athlete doesn't pace himself during a race so he can run it again immediately afterwards... he just runs a full at full speed to the goal. Moreover, the US stuck with one design and ran for it. A big part of why the Soviets never sent people beyond LEO is because they split their funds between two engineering organizations in the name of "socialist competition" (a real thing created by Khrushchev for dealing with the weapons industry). You can still try to build two spacecraft at the same time and get good things out of it, but it just isn't going to be as fast as if you focused on one thing.

(I'm basically saying that if properly funded, Ares I + original Orion would have entered service sooner than Crew Dragon, and obviously Starliner, did in real life. I'm aware it is a questionable notion. But I am also saying that trying to build "Commercial Lunar Crew" now is for sure going to put an American landing on the Moon behind the first Chinese, even if the Chinese don't land until 2032 or 2033).

Worse, a candidate vehicle for the lunar architecture (Crew Dragon) is being hogged by the space station program. This is exactly the same problem the Soviets faced; part of why the command ship for their lunar rocket never flew was because LEO Soyuz was constantly hogging the funds.

In contrast, the Chinese are aiming for one thing and gunning for it: a landing and nothing more. They are throwing in partial-reusability into it, but it is entirely optional (it really doesn't matter if they lose first stages after the rest of the stack is on its way). In contrast, Artemis is entirely dependent on not only an entirely new technology (large scale in-orbit refueling) but cannot afford to ignore this technology in the same way the Chinese can ignore their reusability attempt, because if the lander doesn't have fuel... it won't get there. I am NOT saying in-orbit refueling is so risky it should be abandoned like Exoscientist loves to, I am simply saying that in-orbit refueling is an awful design choice for something intended to win a race.

All of this is why I liked the 45th administration's insistence that there was no race and hated when Ballast Bill started talking about one. If you are in a race, the entire philosophy of your program has to change. Because if you just do your own thing at your own pace, you are going to lose because you aren't focusing on where your competitors are on the leaderboard. This is why China, in the context of not only space exploration but other things as well, constantly insists it has no intention to compete with any country and is taking its "own path" for development.

So long as we are in race, with a program that was not designed for a race (much in the same way the Soviet N1 was never intended to be a direct competitor to Saturn V and Apollo!!!), we might as well take a que from the Soviets: for as much as two years after Apollo 11, they considered attempting a crewed Mars landing by 1980 as a means of "leapfrogging" the US. The Soviets just didn't have the money or political interest.

But today, the US a) has the money and b) has the political interest. But instead of promising a crewed Mars landing in 2029, which has about as much realism in it as Artemis III in 2024, why not at least cook up something at least slightly more realistic?

The alternative is potentially losing the Second Space Race. If the powers at be are okay with yet again being bested by their main competitor, so be it. But are they really?

[darthgently]

39 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

option for the current administration to score some "ooh ah space is cool" points of itself (I get the vibe POTUS might be the kind of guy to actually throw resources at something for that reason)

Strange. I get the opposite vibe. He’d see no ROI and move on quickly.

[tater]

2 hours ago, darthgently said:

Strange. I get the opposite vibe. He’d see no ROI and move on quickly.

A Starship flyby would certainly test ECLSS. That said, a better place to test Starship ECLSS would be in LEO, then run it with maybe the astronauts swapping out, but no unreasonable resupply (total supplies added by crew/cargo deliveries would not exceed expected mass to TMI).

[darthgently]

5 minutes ago, tater said:

A Starship flyby would certainly test ECLSS. That said, a better place to test Starship ECLSS would be in LEO, then run it with maybe the astronauts swapping out, but no unreasonable resupply (total supplies added by crew/cargo deliveries would not exceed expected mass to TMI).

Yes, testing ECLSS via manned Mars flyby would be too possibly a very destructive test to failure. Not necessary.  There are far more failsafe options in LEO with perhaps some high orbit tests beyond the protection of the Van Allen belts later

[SunlitZelkova]

7 hours ago, darthgently said:

Strange. I get the opposite vibe. He’d see no ROI and move on quickly.

The exact ROI I was describing was basically the effect on hearts and minds and that thing is hard to measure. I concede it could easily go the other way, but I think a positive appraisal of the idea is a possibility too.

Note that by some accounts the Moon landing itself had little to no effect on hearts and minds. By the time it happened most were itching to shut the whole thing down, and to some it was a symbol of the country doing something useless instead of choosing to use money on something more worthwhile. Other accounts put it differently, of course.

[tater]

There are no "short" (still ~2 years!) free return trajectories to Mars until the 2030s anyway.

[DAL59]

Could an SLS 1B do a cramped Mars flyby? Send Orion on a free return trajectory alongside a habitat module as its co-manifested payload?  

[darthgently]

14 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Could an SLS 1B do a cramped Mars flyby? Send Orion on a free return trajectory alongside a habitat module as its co-manifested payload?  

I simply can’t imagine any sane astronaut willing to take such a long voyage and settling for a flyby and no boots on the ground when we are quite capable and close to a boots on the ground presettlement and manned surface science mission.  If Apollo was mostly a PR stunt a manned Mars flyby would be even further down that dead end

The existing SLS hardware could be devoted to following up Pioneer long range probe launches?

Edited February 28 by darthgently
spellig and autoabject correktions

[tater]

2 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Could an SLS 1B do a cramped Mars flyby? Send Orion on a free return trajectory alongside a habitat module as its co-manifested payload?  

No.

10-ish tons comanifested. The free windows in the next few years would literally come home next decade I think. (1600+ days).

2 hours ago, darthgently said:

I simply can’t imagine any sane astronaut willing to take such a long voyage and settling for a flyby and no boots on the ground when we are quite capable and close to a boots on the ground presettlement and manned surface science mission.  If Apollo was mostly a PR stunt a manned Mars flyby would be even further down that dead end

The existing SLS hardware could be devoted to following up Pioneer long range probe launches?

It would be completely insane, yes. They'd probably need the 10 tons just for ECLSS replacement parts.

I can't recall what the Mars DRMs said for per capita supplies, but I want to say it was on the order of 2kg/day per astronaut. So even with just 2 astronauts they'd need half the 10+ tons just in consumables.

[SunlitZelkova]

7 hours ago, darthgently said:

The existing SLS hardware could be devoted to following up Pioneer long range probe launches?

I would honestly vote in favor of just scrapping it, or cleaning it out of all the sensitive stuff and trying to give it to JSC or wherever for sideways display.

Not only is the cost of launching any remaining rockets going to be too high to attract any commercial interest, keeping all the hardware in a ready state would eat up a lot of money in the meantime until any probe or commercial interest could come to fruition.

Given SLS was passed over in favor of FH for Europa Clipper, as a probe designer/design organization I'd be wary of choosing it when it would make so much more sense to use FH or wait on Starship.

Sometimes a rocket just comes along at the wrong time. To draw on another Soviet example, if Energia had come along a decade before it did it would have had plenty more mission opportunities and done lots of interesting stuff. But it came at a time when it didn't align with the USSR (and then Russia's) space priorities, so it was thrown away despite all of the investment in it. SLS just doesn't align with US space priorities anymore and ought to be thrown away.

[DAL59]

They should go through with SLS 2 for Artemis II,  use SLS 3 for Project Lyra, scrap the rest.  

[darthgently]

9 hours ago, DAL59 said:

They should go through with SLS 2 for Artemis II,  use SLS 3 for Project Lyra, scrap the rest.  

Wrt Project Lyra…

Sometime in 2047:

”Uh oh.”

”What?”

”That primitive species in the Sol system has managed to catch up to and rendezvous with our stealth probe!”

”You are kidding, right?  It must be someone else.”

”Nope.  Signature matches.  Notify the Office of Diplomacy.” <sigh>

Edited March 1 by darthgently

[RCgothic]

If the soviet space budget hadn't collapsed, Energia would have had a lot of missions I'm sure.

The problem(s) with SLS is it's too expensive for any commercial interest, and would shake to bits any scientific payload. ICPS severely limits it's LEO payload due to low TWR. EUS is never coming now. Is crew really its only possible payload?

Genuinely struggling to think of an effective use for the built hardware.

Is it bulk to fame (notoriety?) / accomplishments ratio even worthwhile for museums to display?

No idea how a design process produces a rocket that's only use is to send crew capsules not quite far enough BLEO for far far too many dollars a pop.

[SunlitZelkova]

15 hours ago, RCgothic said:

If the soviet space budget hadn't collapsed, Energia would have had a lot of missions I'm sure.

The problem(s) with SLS is it's too expensive for any commercial interest, and would shake to bits any scientific payload. ICPS severely limits it's LEO payload due to low TWR. EUS is never coming now. Is crew really its only possible payload?

Genuinely struggling to think of an effective use for the built hardware.

Is it bulk to fame (notoriety?) / accomplishments ratio even worthwhile for museums to display?

No idea how a design process produces a rocket that's only use is to send crew capsules not quite far enough BLEO for far far too many dollars a pop.

My understanding is that SLS could have been used for Europa Clipper but it would have required extensive bracing to handle the forces involved. That extensive bracing would have added a couple billion to the price tag of the mission so they went with FH.

I feel like SLS Blk 1B Cargo could have been useful, considering it was basically an Ares V, but at this late in the game there is no reason to build a cargo launcher using Shuttle parts because Starship is coming soon.

Anything Shuttle-derived made (at least some) sense and should have happened in the 90s or 2000s. Constellation was the last stand for something useful using Shuttle hardware (part of why I love it).

But even if SLS had flown in 2016 or 2018, it still would have no real goal attached to it and in any case, Starship would be launching several years later. Assuming all the hardware gets delivered on time but the same teething issues still occur, that would put “EM-1” in 2018, and then “EM-2” in 2022 or so- if even then. SS/SH would be having its first integrated flight a few months later, and SLS Cargo would still be a long ways off.

I can’t see SLS ever having the opportunity to be useful because in the same way Energia was born right at a time when Soviet/Russian space priorities radically changed, so too was SLS born right when American spaceflight was beginning to shift to privatization across the board. If SLS was all the US had, it would certainly find some way to use it, but it isn’t the only kid on the block anymore.

[FleshJeb]

ARTEMIS RISK ASSESSMENT - Industry Experts Panel and Discussion