Thursday Throughput: Artemis Delayed Edition
[ThTh1] I had hoped that I would be writing this week about the successful launch of the Artemis program. However, after a fuel leak, it looks like the program will be delayed for another month. NASA will have a press conference today to discuss the future of the mission.
The program, started by President Bush as Constellation, cancelled by President Obama and then resurrected by President Trump as Artemis, has been somewhat contentious. It has fallen behind schedule. The SLS launch system will cost at least $2 billion per launch. Other proposals would be quicker and cheaper. But, the money having already been spent and the rocket having already built, having a successful launch would be something for the taxpayers to enjoy.
I am very positive on returning to the moon, this time for good. The potential benefits to science, technology and space exploration are profound. We seem to have lost some of our national will to do bold things. Hopefully, a successful Artemis mission — in combination with the great strides being made in private space exploration — will help light that fire again.
[ThTh2] One thing I’ve done in the occasional Intro Astro class is have student track the sunset over the course of the semester. We don’t often appreciate how the Sun waxes high in the sky in summer and low in the winter. Here’s a good demonstration of this phenomenon.
My neighbour has made these solargraphs over the woodland behind our house. A single long exposure. The top line is summer solstice, the bottom line is winter solstice. Lines in between are a day each = the sun’s path. Dark lines are cloudy days. Brilliant. Left 2021. Right 2022. pic.twitter.com/WQdhCgeO7p
— Dr Fabian Wadsworth (@WadsworthFabian) September 5, 2022
[ThTh3] This week in JWST news: absolutely stunning images of the Tarantula Nebula. The nebula — also known as 30 Doradus — is one of the most active regions of star formation in the local universe and hosts what may be the largest star in the nearest few million light years.
[ThTh4] Oh … and we found carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere.
[ThTh5] RIP, Frank Drake.
[ThTh6] The Midwest is growing so much corn, you can see it from space.
For me, I really like corn…
It's CORN! 🌽 🎶
A big field of corn, @NASA can see it from space! pic.twitter.com/cLvgiW0PHr— NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) August 29, 2022
[ThTh7] Great news. The Green Bank Observatory will continue its amazing work.
[ThTh8] And speaking of West Virginians …
People will sometimes tell you that internet friends are not the same as “real” friends. I find that phrasing curious since many of my friends I’ve made in real life have become “internet friends”. There are people I haven’t seen in person in years (especially with the pandemic) and communicate mostly through e-mail or social media. But they are no less friends than they were when I went to school with them or grew up with them or drank irresponsible amounts of gin with them. I can’t be there for them if they have an emergency, yes. But I can share their lives, trade the occasional quip and let them know that I haven’t forgotten about them.
Only a few times before had I met with people I got to know online. But meeting some of the Ordinary Times writers in person last weekend was … well, as Em said, like meeting old friends I hadn’t seen in many years. Some were who I expected them to be; some were a bit of a surprise. But all of them now have a face and a voice to go with their online avatars.
The expansion of our social circles to the online has not diminished us. Nor has it erased the importance of in-person interaction. What it has done is allowed for a little more human interaction in our busy hectic lives. What is had done is allowed people to not feel isolated in a society that can be fragmented. What it has done is introduced us to people we might have never have met in a million years. And for all the problems that social media and online interactions bring with them, I am grateful for the gifts that they sometimes deliver.
I listened to much of the press conference. I could not shake the feeling that NASA was saying, “We’re stuck with LH2. Like the Shuttle, launches will be hit or miss — sometimes we’ll get through the countdown and launch, many times we’ll drag it back to the assembly building and futz with the plumbing.”
I know that NASA didn’t make the decision — this is what you get when Congress chooses to make fundamental design decisions. I know that NASA has shifted as much of the Artemis moon program to RP-1 and methane as they can — the SLS will not haul anything to the moon except the Orion capsule itself.
You hoped for a successful SLS/Artemis launch this week. I was terrified of it all going horribly wrong as NASA starts cutting corners. If they get a quick fix to this leak, they’re going to ask for an unprecedented second waiver on the battery life for the flight termination system. If they get that, they are slowly but steadily creeping up on the already-extended rated lifetime for the seals between the solid-fuel booster segments.Report
[ThTh8]: I had a lot going on this past weekend, but I really wish I could have made this LeagueFest. I really enjoyed the Portland one. Hopefully, the next one won’t be in 6 years!Report
Re: The Moon
When you you say returning “this time for good” what do you mean exactly? Building a moon base? Colonizing? Something else?
How long do people stay on the ISS or whatever space stations we have up there now? Would it be harder/easier/the same/just different to have folks live for a similar amount of time in a base on the moon?Report
My understanding is that the goal is development of a permanent station where people would stay for at least 3 months which then ultimately serves as a staging point for manned missions to Mars.Report
Standard tour of duty on the ISS is about six months. SpaceX charges NASA about $60M per seat to haul astronauts up and return them. ULA, once Boeing’s Starliner capsule is in use, will charge about $90M per seat. Orion seats up to seven, and at $2B per launch will cost almost $300M per seat for delivery to lunar orbit if all seven seats are used. There will be some additional charge to haul fuel for the lunar lander by some separate means. Absent some drastic change in plans, a tour on a lunar base this decade will be at least a year, simply because Boeing has flat said the launch tempo for SLS will be no more than once per year until at least the 2030s.
Regular readers know my opinion — Congress has fallen into the sunk cost fallacy with SLS. Also the jobs program that comes with it. Just from a systems perspective, if you start from the goal of a crewed mission to Mars and return, or from the goal of a permanently staffed base on the Moon, and then work backwards to what Earth launch capabilities you want, SLS is not where you end up.Report
Thanks, though this didn’t quite get at my question.
If we can keep folks alive for 6 months on the ISS — a structure that (as I understand it) can’t provide them any of the basic necessities they need for life — can we more or less do the same on the Moon? I understand we need to create the structure and that is obviously a whole thing. But once we have a moon base, will it just be a matter of sending someone there with whatever they need to survive for however long they’ll be there? Or are there different things that need to be done to keep people alive inside a structure on the moon compared to keeping people alive inside a structure in orbit? Is it just “Bring your food and clothes and water. The structure has a way of managing CO2 and O2. See ya when ya get back?”Report
So far, for the next decade (assuming schedules don’t slip — see, I can be funny if I try), NASA plans a habitat in lunar orbit. Like the ISS, only about ten times the cost for each supply mission and each astronaut trip. From time to time astronauts will take a lander down from orbit for a few/several days to do stuff, then return to orbit. There are certain… inconsistencies, shall we say, in the plans.
Late last year NASA’s IG reported that NASA and Boeing were fudging on the SLS accounting and that the actual price per launch was so large as to be unsustainable. This past week the GAO issued a report that said NASA’s Artemis project was a bunch of pieces with no overall scheme.Report
Deindustrialization of Europe sure sounds like a big project to me.
Elections have consequences, and the Artemis issues are just one of them.Report