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Sea_Perspective6891 t1_j9z896z wrote

Even though I have been somewhat critical of the SLS rocket because of its high cost & delayed development & lack of innovation I hope it happens & doesn't end up like yet another Constellation program. I'd like to see humans on the moon within my lifetime.

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247world t1_j9z9ez6 wrote

I was a kid during the Apollo missions, my grandfather used to bring me stuff from the rocket Center in Houston. I never understood why they never carried forward with the plans to build a permanent base, of course there were some other things they didn't do as well including a orbiting space station. I'd like to believe the government would get this done but I'm starting to think we're going to need these billionaires to do the right thing instead. The second anyone starts making money off of mining in space it'll blow up

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Doc_Shaftoe t1_j9zinvr wrote

It was a combination of the expense, a percieved victory over the Soviets, and Nixon wanting to end Kenney's legacy.

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JimmyJuly t1_j9zqz99 wrote

Skylab was an orbiting space station the US built in the 70’s. It wasn’t in use for very long, but it was built and supported several missions. NASA credits it with paving the way for the ISS.

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PurpleSailor t1_ja0ad6d wrote

Skylab was built using parts from Apollo 18, 19 and 20 that never flew to the moon as it was supposed to. The Apollo program got cut short due to politics, costs and waning public support. Skylab is what became of Apollo's leftovers.

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Gwtheyrn t1_ja0k61c wrote

The Apollo program got cut short out of SPITE. Richard Nixon absolutely hated John F. Kennedy with every fiber of his being and canceling Apollo was about taking the one single shot he could take at a dead man's legacy as soon as the situation allowed.

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PurpleSailor t1_ja0np1h wrote

Lol, like I said: politics ... and ...

Tricky Dicky despised his political opposition and ran a smear campaign out of the Whitehouse involving other government agencies. I was a kid but I still love the fact that he had to resign, it was great to watch on TV!

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247world t1_j9zrbue wrote

Skylab, was an abomination compared to what was originally planned. It was basically the US saying we give up

MIR was a better program and I don't believe the ISS as much of anything to skylab

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JimmyJuly t1_j9zs51r wrote

You claimed Skylab didn’t exist. You were wrong, moving the goalposts doesn’t change that.

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247world t1_j9zusna wrote

Please tell me when and where I said Skylab didn't exist. I said the planned space station did not exist and it didn't, you might want to do a little research into what Warner von Braun had actually planned and it wasn't Skylab

Edit: and please keep demonstrating your character by down voting me, apparently you're unable to understand common English if you think I ever said Skylab didn't exist, I don't consider it to be the space station that was talked about, even NASA wouldn't say that, if I recall correctly it was nothing but a modified third stage of a Saturn 5 rocket, or maybe you want to call it the first stage I truly don't remember but Skylab was nothing like what was originally planned, it was the US giving up and doing the least amount of work they could to try to pretend that they hadn't

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Chairboy t1_j9zxsku wrote

> Please tell me when and where I said Skylab didn't exist.

They're probably referring to when you wrote this:

> of course there were some other things they didn't do as well including a orbiting space station

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247world t1_j9zze04 wrote

Skylab wasn't really an orbiting space station it was just one module off of Saturn 5. The project that was designed was nothing like Skylab. I was alive at the time as I said in the earlier comment, there was a lot of people saying that Sky lab was a joke at the time and has become more of a joke overtime.

My favorite Skylab story, is that one of the crews got fed up with the work schedule and staged to work stoppage for a day. I don't remember which one of the Skylab Cruise it was, I think there was only three so I'm going to randomly choose three

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Chairboy t1_j9zzida wrote

> Skylab wasn't really an orbiting space station

It was literally an orbiting space station, just not as sexy a station as you would have perhaps liked. If you wanted to say 'didn't build a rotating Clarke wheel' or something, then say that, but you said space station and that's what that other poster was responding to I think.

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bookers555 t1_ja0ja5k wrote

>It was literally an orbiting space station

No, what he's saying is true. The original plan was much different and was a far more complete station, instead they made the equivalent of making a boat out of pieces of plastic.

All they did was hollow out the second stage of a Saturn V, slap some solar panels on it and call it a day. And it didn't even work well, the Solar panels couldn't extend fully, and parts of it got damaged during launch which lead to it operating way hotter than it should have.

It was an underbudgeted mess held together by ductape, built from the scraps of the cancelled Apollo 18, 19 and 20 missions.

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Chairboy t1_ja0k7rx wrote

Yes, but it was a space station. If you read the full conversation you’ll see the user doesn’t believe anything flown yet qualifies as a space station.

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja0s6mp wrote

Sometimes, you work with what you got. Speaking of Werner von Braun, nobody would ever have walked on the moon if it wasn't for that man. The Saturn five never failed. In testing or use

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bookers555 t1_ja0skmp wrote

Oh I'm not blaming NASA, I'm blaming Congress for just cutting the flow of money once the Moon landing was achieved.

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja0tzx1 wrote

Exactly. Thank you pardon my poor communication skills. If miss communication was an Olympic sport, I would be on the Wheaties box!

See when I get there? 😂🙈

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247world t1_ja04b5r wrote

No, it was not a space station it was a converted module of an Apollo launcher. If you want to call that mold infested thing a space station you go right ahead but even the astronauts that were on it wouldn't say that. Look at the plans von Braun had originally drawn up and then tell me how Skylab is a space station, it's basically an orbiting toilet

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Chairboy t1_ja06gf8 wrote

It sounds as if you have your own definition of space station that differs from NASA’s and that’s fine. When I was a NASA contractor I didn’t get to interact with folks like you but everyone I knew who did had their own stories.

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247world t1_ja07qyp wrote

I am going by the things that used to come to me via my grandfather from the Huntsville space flight center, Skylab had absolutely nothing to do with the space station that it was envisioned by von Braun Warner von Braun. Rather than a full-blown space station that could support many people they basically sent up a porta John. I don't know if you were alive at the time but I was and there was great dissatisfaction in those of us who were very interested in the space race. You can paint whatever picture you want but Skylab was sort of an orbiting science station it was not a space station. A space station in my opinion still doesn't exist. The ISS while a noble project, still falls far short of what von Braun had envisioned and I'm guessing could have made happen had they allowed him to do so.

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Chairboy t1_ja08ael wrote

> Skylab had absolutely nothing to do with the space station that it was envisioned by von Braun Warner von Braun

Nobody here said it was, and up above you didn't say that either, you just said 'space station'. Words have meaning, and your opinion on what is and isn't a space station is something to which you're entitled. In the meantime, I think most of the world will probably go with definitions by the people who actually go to space. Russians, Americans, and Chinese currently all have space station hardware on orbit but no doubt there's possibly a contingent of folks who will take an anonymous redditor's definition over theirs. I can't quantify how big of an audience that is because I don't know what kind of relationship you have with your parents and other folks who want to encourage you, but it's totally possible it exists.

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247world t1_ja09lg6 wrote

Well I hate to break it to you but I and many other people like me don't consider Skylab to have been a space station, it was an orbital Porta John. Many of the astronauts that were in it didn't have very good things to say about it afterward. It was the we give up move by the United States space agency and here we are 50 years later and we barely have launched systems when we should have established bases on the moon

My parents? Did you not understand me saying I was alive when they landed on the moon? I was really into this stuff and I'm here to tell you that no one considered Skylab a space station at the time. We were actually told it was a stopgap measure until they could put up a real space station and once again based on what von Braun wanted to do there is still nothing in orbit resembling that, there's nothing up there that's even close.

Now maybe it's not feasible, it's not my area of expertise, but von Braun believed it was doable in the 60s so I'm going to go with him. America had the best Nazis you know

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Chairboy t1_ja0a6xj wrote

> Well I hate to break it to you but I and many other people like me don't consider Skylab to have been a space station

At NASA we considered it a space station, but it's exciting to see folks out in the community with their own takes because even if their conclusions don't match that of the nations flying stuff to space, they're still engaged.

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Xaqv t1_ja0b982 wrote

Have about zero knowledge of what either of you are debating about, but enjoy the discourse and thank both for not using profanity to defame each other!

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247world t1_ja0bhet wrote

We at NASA... Oh I didn't realize I was speaking to someone so exalted

Once again, von Braun, the man who was behind the program and envisioned the real space station didn't envision orbiting Porta John. You can call it whatever you want to that doesn't make it that. Although a child at the time I was highly interested in the space program and had everything I could get my hands on about it. We dropped the ball. Now you can pretend we didn't but I'm here to tell you that we did and we still haven't really picked it up again.

I'm going to say that in the end the science fiction guys from the 40s and 50s got it right, it's going to take private individuals with more money than they ought to have to get it going again. Although in the case of science fiction they were the ones that got it going in the first place. Eventually someone is either going to mind something on the moon or figure out how to mine an asteroid and then it's going to blow up. At that point in time you will see real space stations.

Calling Skylab a space station is like calling Plymouth Massachusetts in 1621 a metropolis. I get it you work for NASA and you're butt hurt that somebody out in the general public doesn't think that that joke of a project was a real space station, I don't even think they called it that at the time. They obviously didn't value it because they could have kept it in orbit much longer rather than letting it crash back into the Earth, Australia if my memory serves

I followed the Skylab missions, I even had a copy of the orbiter. That's the word it was an orbiter. I knew if I ran my mouth long enough the words would find me. You're not going to get me to change my mind and I'm sorry your feelings are hurt however calling Skylab a space station would be like calling Scott's expedition to Antarctica a success, he wasn't even first, nor did anyone live from his party.

You can defend Skylab all you want it was viewed as a failure of initiative by those of us in the public who were firmly behind the program. I don't even think the space station was occupied for a full 6 months total, that's hardly a space station, you couldn't even call it an outpost.

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Chairboy t1_ja0dnhu wrote

I’m not gonna tell you what to think, just letting you know that your own personal definition of what constitutes a space station is not matched by anyone in the industry. Well, to be specific, your definition here that Skylab, the Salyut stations including Mir, ISS, and the current Chinese station are not space stations. That opinion is not shared by people in the industry, but you are absolutely welcome to your own fan theory/head canon. 

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247world t1_ja0kjfl wrote

It wasn't accepted by a lot of people at NASA. I keep telling you my grandfather brought me all that stuff from the Huntsville rocket center, why do you think he had all that stuff?

It's not what von Braun envisioned it was an orbiter it was not a space station

You know anything about the dry centaur project? That was an alternative floated during the space shuttle years and also never got off of the ground.

Do you have money on getting me to change your mind is somehow your life goal to convince me and everyone else that Skylab was some sort of space station when it was nothing more than an orbiter. An aircraft carrier could be called a city on the ocean but it's not.

NASA for whatever reason be it public opinion, or political apathy lost its vision Skylab was not a space station it was an orbiter, not much better than a porta John

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dern_the_hermit t1_ja0a53m wrote

Why can't an Apollo module be converted into a space station?

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247world t1_ja0c4sg wrote

It very well could have been, there was a plan for that 0,to convert the modules into a complete space station not simply a one-off orbiter. During the space shuttle program several former astronauts put forward a program called dry centaur, the idea was it would be possible to boost the large tank into orbit and convert them slowly into a larger space station, more like something von Braun had envisioned.

I think the real problem was that the public after the moon landing simply lost interest in the space program. Von Braun had envisioned an orbiting space station, we would launch from Earth to the space station then transfer to a lunar transfer module which would launch to the Moon and then a landern would go to and from the Moon and then that lunar transfer vehicle would come back to the space station.

I had everything that you used to come out of the Huntsville rocket Center about this unfortunately when I left for college my mother threw it all out as junk. I'm sure it's still available somewhere and it was fascinating they put a lot of thought into what they wanted to do. I don't know if it's true or not but I was told the whole purpose of the Germans who were building rockets for Hitler was really to launch rockets to the Moon. I often wonder what would have happened had the United States in the Soviet Union collaborated since we split up the German scientists involved

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JimmyJuly t1_j9zwseu wrote

Werner, not Warner.

Werner von Braun built models of notional space stations as early as the 50's. He drew sketches. And he had some interesting ideas about how might work. NASA and the US gov't had no plans to build these. The technology did not and does not exist. Even modern space stations are nowhere near what von Braun was touting. The idea that NASA planned to build these is purest fantasy.

In other news, you should call NASA and tell them they're wrong to say: "Skylab Paved Way for International Space Station." I'm sure they'll immediately recognize your superior knowledge on the subject and recant.

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247world t1_j9zz4d9 wrote

I'm using speech to text I'm surprised it didn't misspell more words, I think there's quite a few people at nasa that know what a disaster Skylab was and that it had nothing to do with the international space station, but you believe whatever you want to

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja0scb8 wrote

As if it was yes his fault that they got cut off?

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247world t1_ja24iao wrote

No, it was multiple factors, the public believing that we were shooting a lot of money into space and politicians needing to line their pockets in different ways. If we let the scientist run it we'd have been on Mars years ago. All things being equal the US would have only continued to fund a lunar program at the rate they had if the Soviets had gotten there first.

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja0rt4c wrote

The ISS is not exactly a worthwhile project

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harkuponthegay t1_ja1hn0p wrote

What makes you say that? Pretty much all research and experimentation on human life systems in space has come from ISS, not to mention that the only vehicles that have undergone enough development to be human rated exist purely because the ISS gave them a reason to.

People can talk about space tourism all they want but the real dollars come from government contracts— and the government has spent a lot of money to build and maintain the ISS, that money isn’t wasted— it was paid to the contractors and industries that have now matured to the point of being able to make their own decisions about investment in space (see: satellite internet constellations, and SpaceX starship). We wouldn’t have a mature private space industry or nearly as much knowledge about living and working in space as we do now without the ISS.

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja1hwmy wrote

It's not really relevant to traveling through interplanetary space. Little bit of physiology knowledge gained. Not much else.

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harkuponthegay t1_ja5nhyp wrote

Great—Im glad that you’ve seen all the research from ISS and determined that it was not much. Must be true.

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja1i6vc wrote

Taxpayer funding of such endeavors is not the hill you want to die on. The entire miniature electronic world we live in now is completely due to the moonshot. And about 36 people are monetizing it. The taxpayer has been fucked over time and time again. Case in point The current situation with Moderno grossing over 36 billion on the vaccine +10,000,000,000 paid by the taxpayer upfront and paying a $400 million fine on government research that is essential to their product. It's morally bankrupt and any civilized society would either criminalize or under no circumstances, accept such behavior

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harkuponthegay t1_ja1ub0p wrote

I don’t understand your gripe here— the taxpayers are benefitting from the miniature electronic world existing— that is no small benefit, and it is enjoyed in equal measure by everyone. We all get to live in a world with better technology. In my opinion that’s worth the small percentage of my income that went towards those efforts.

If you are upset that there are people or companies that are reaping more of the profits from those technologies, then that is a complaint against capitalism… not science/technology or government investment and support for these things.

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Sea_Perspective6891 t1_ja04nbh wrote

Artimes is supposed to make this happen. They want to establish a moon base sometime after the landings. They will also want to build a lunar orbital station called Gateway which will be used as a gas station for reusable landers & visiting spaceceaft. Constellation program was supposed to lay down the groundwork for a permanent moon base but was axed for both political & bugetary reasons mostly.

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247world t1_ja04vwl wrote

That is great to hear, it would really be nice to see our expansion into space finally become a everyday reality and not a hobby

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja0serg wrote

Why? Terraform earth

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247world t1_ja24kyw wrote

I'm not sure I understand your comment. I suppose in a way we are but it's more like we're deterriforming it

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bookers555 t1_ja0iq2i wrote

Because the whole point was to rub it on the Soviet Union's faces. When they realized the Soviet Union couldn't get to the Moon, they just sliced the budget and stopped production of the Saturn V.

If the Soviet N1 had worked, the space race would have probably kept going.

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247world t1_ja0kz8n wrote

Yeah I think you have something there. I don't know if you've seen that show on Apple TV but that's part of the basis of it that the Soviets actually got there first.

Given how valuable everything from the space program produced it's a shame that we let some ignorant politicians say oh we're launching all that money into space when every penny was spent on the ground.

As I've said elsewhere the second somebody gets a successful mining operation going in space or build some sort of orbiting factory the race will be on again and it won't be just governments this time. At this point it's not only governments at this time

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ithappenedone234 t1_j9zd61y wrote

I think the entire premise of the current mission design shows that Starship will pick up the ball if SLS drops anything and when SLS is inevitably retired. There will be no landing on the moon without Starship and that fact they plan on Starship getting itself to lunar orbit, it seems NASA is pretty convinced it can do the entire thing itself, you just need to increase stores aboard for a longer period of crew residence.

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binary_spaniard t1_j9zv67x wrote

Starship by design is hard to crew rate with current standards, like the Space Shuttle, Starship would not satisfy the requirements that Crew Dragon and Starliner have to satisfy. At least without serious changes.

EDIT: The biggest the escape system.

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Ragnar_DanneskjoldSr t1_ja0spgr wrote

Boeings junk? They can't even keep a plane in the sky. They should be removed from any government contract even associated with their subcontractors.

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ithappenedone234 t1_ja062hr wrote

Crew Dragon isn’t meant for moon flight and Starliner hasn’t really done a convincing job of staying in orbit, so let’s not start making assumptions it’s going to keep a high rate while Starship fails.

Certainly with cost factored, Starliner and SLS don’t look to be economically viable. Just like Shuttle. Partially because of Shuttle parts they just can’t rid themselves of, culturally at least. Nothing about Shuttle should be repeated. It was a failure in many of its core design concepts and never was inexpensive nor very reusable, with thousands of parts needing refurb in the boosters, the tank being lost and the shuttle providing no capability that a capsule and a supply rocket couldn’t provide; and a lot less expensively.

The cost is going to kill SLS eventually.

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binary_spaniard t1_ja07ihm wrote

> Nothing about Shuttle should be repeated.

Like a crew launch system without emergency escape mechanism? It is going to be hard to get NASA to accept one if there are alternatives.

What I mean is that Starship, like the Shuttle, doesn't satisfy that requirement that NASA put on Commercial Crew.

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ithappenedone234 t1_ja0ewcc wrote

So criticize Starship on that point. That’s fair.

But the cost to risk ratio is absurd. The risk is nearing commercial airlines and they take the masses who are untrained in emergency anything, and doing so with crews that are nearly equally unable to actually pilot the craft without the computer. Or the back up computer. Or the back up to the back up computer. A trained crew with better systems will handle any issue better, and the reuse of Raptors (it appears so far) increases the assurance of safety, while keeping costs low.

The NASA requirement for escape comes directly from NASA’s own incompetence and bureaucratic inertia leading to multiple fatal errors, one of which at least was likely criminal.

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BlueKnight17c t1_ja2mo2x wrote

>The risk is nearing commercial airlines

That's just blatantly not true

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ithappenedone234 t1_ja2yyqg wrote

When was the last death in spacefaring?

As aircraft had major accidents from incompetent admins, incompetent engineers and institutional hubris, and only got better from lessons learned; the spacecraft have gotten better and survived NASA’s and the Soviet’s incompetent admins, incompetent engineers and institutional hubris.

Most of the deaths are blood on NASA’s hands for preventable reasons and is not a recommendation of them, it’s an indictment. The admins and engineers killed Komarov with their incompetence.

Maybe having spacefaring institutions that are not beholden to political pressures is the safest thing.

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BlueKnight17c t1_ja3x4cl wrote

You could fit every person who's ever been to space on a single Airbus A380 very easily. You simply can not make a comparison with such a tiny sample size.

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ithappenedone234 t1_ja4vi18 wrote

Even with different population sizes, you can still draw conclusions. We can still conclude that they are developing along similar paths. The two development timelines parallel each other.

Both suffered from bureaucracy and hubris and bad engineering. They both have seen significant drops in the death rates as the tech progressed and the admin debacles were cut down. We can see that airlines suffered from death rates linked to untrained passengers and spacecraft have not. Comparisons and contrasts can be seen.

We can still see that 0 deaths in decades are 0 deaths.

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BlueKnight17c t1_ja5041z wrote

Let me put this another way, according to Wikipedia, the entire history of human space travel is 367 flights. From 2011-2020, there were just 47.

On average, there are almost 10,000 planes in the air carrying over 1.25 million people at any given moment.

A single Boeing 787 is designed to be able to fly 44,000 times in its life.

Even if there were no deaths in the 367 flights, which obviously isn't true, you are still many orders of magnitude away from having enough data to show the safety is the same as air travel.

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ithappenedone234 t1_ja51eru wrote

> to show the safety is the same as air travel.

Which I never said was the case. Try again.

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BlueKnight17c t1_ja6lfc5 wrote

What? The first comment I replied to, I was replying to this

>The risk is nearing commercial airlines

Wtf does that mean if not that you think the risk of space travel and air travel are similar?

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ithappenedone234 t1_ja6oadc wrote

> What? The first comment I replied to, I was replying to this

I know, but you’re vasilating between two phraseologies, which are both different from mine. You’ve said “to show the safety is the same as air travel.” And now you’ve said “the risk of space travel and air travel are similar?” I said “nearing.”

“Nearing” ≠ “the same as.”

“The same as” ≠ “similar.”

Your first use was an absolute comparison that I never made. Your recent phrasing of “similar” is a more fair representation of what I said, but still not right:

Spacefaring is in its tween years and is only nearing commercial travel, as it is so vastly more expensive and technologically difficult. The developmental progress of one does however parallel the other, even if spacefaring is behind the curve for the reasons stated. It took ~a decade after the Wright Flyer for the first airlines to come around. But airlines didn’t get big until ~50 years later. The first “spaceline” is yet to be, 60+ years after the first manned space flight. But we can see how the two modes of travel do relate in terms of “ability to cost” ratio.

We are only now beginning to see mass space travel as a theoretical possibility on the horizon. As the systems improve and the volume of space passengers looks to skyrocket in the mid-term, we can see that spacefaring is on a trajectory to have numbers close to where commercial air was in its tween years. That’s the “nearing“ part.

It’s not there now, but 20 years without a fatality is a good place to be to match commercial airs’ safety rating and the space passenger capacity looks like it will dwarf the current number of those that have been to space.

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kog t1_ja0fwzm wrote

Artemis isn't going to be using Starship for launch any time soon, integrating it into the program would be a massive effort.

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ithappenedone234 t1_ja1cjd4 wrote

Integrating? More like replacing.

As NASA currently expects Starship to work, Starship can replace Artemis entirely. Not that either are yet mission capable.

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kog t1_ja1eh9e wrote

Artemis 2 is slated for next year, what are you even talking about?

Starship has literally years of testing to go before NASA will consider it human safe for launch and return, and they aren't even working on a human safe launch and return vehicle right now, they're working on launching payload into orbit.

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ithappenedone234 t1_ja318p6 wrote

> Artemis 2 is slated for next year, what are you even talking about?

So not mission capable then. Like I said.

> Starship has literally years of testing to go before NASA will consider it human safe

So not mission capable then. Like I said.

  1. NASA won’t be going to the Moon or Mars without Starship, because their own eval was that it was the best option.
  2. NASA is not the sole arbiter of what is human safe. We are in an era surpassing the bureaucratic largess and technical incompetence of NASA that has gotten people killed and results in running grossly over budget (again) and running years late (again) and wasting so many repair parts that died on the shelf.
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kog t1_ja4ward wrote

Artemis 2 will be launching and returning humans. The vehicle is already mission capable. Starship cannot do that.

NASA is absolutely the sole arbiter of human safety for the Artemis program. If Starship were to be the launch vehicle for Artemis, it would have to meet their standards. Starship HLS will have to meet NASA's human safety standards to be part of Artemis 3.

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ithappenedone234 t1_ja516a4 wrote

> will be

Do you know what those words mean?

“Will be” ≠ “is.”

Claiming a system designed to carry humans to the the lunar surface is mission capable when it’s lunar space station isn’t built, it’s lander isn’t ready…. systems haven’t been approved for humans space flight. Calling it mission capable seems a bit of a stretch, when it isn’t actually capable of getting human or even a bot to the the lunar surface.

> NASA is absolutely the sole arbiter of human safety for the Artemis program.

Lol. Nice try. Flip flopping from Starship to Artemis.

You were talking about Starship when you spoke of NASA’s human safety analysis, remember? But who cares? Artemis is another monument to the failures of NASA. It is grossly over budget. Grossly behind schedule. It is a national shame and should be canned.

So, the question is if Artemis will, in NASA tradition, kill its crew on launch AND by burning up in the atmosphere upon reentry, NASA being the only entity to do both. NASA having been so incompetent that they caused both the Challenger and Columbia catastrophes.

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kog t1_ja51zdd wrote

I said Artemis is capable of launching and returning humans.

> You were talking about Starship when you spoke of NASA’s human safety analysis, remember?

Yes, what are you confused about? If Starship were to be NASA's launch vehicle, they will have to meet NASA's safety standards. SpaceX recently did this with Crew Dragon.

The rest of your comment is frankly just nuts.

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ithappenedone234 t1_ja53voo wrote

> I said Artemis is capable of launching and returning humans.

Well then you sure confused the issue by saying:

> The vehicle is already mission capable.

Because the implication is that it is capable of launching and returning humans during a mission. It is not. Artemis is far from being able to get a person to the Moon and back again.

> Yes, what are you confused about?

Nothing, I’m just pointing out that after talking about Starship not meeting NASA specs, you flipped to saying that Artemis is meeting NASA specs, and now you’ve flopped to talking about Starship again.

You’re not sticking to one topic.

But Starship doesn’t have to meet NASA specs to take people, only if NASA wants their staff to catch a ride. Starship is not beholden to NASA. They don’t even have to launch from the US. It’s quite reasonable to expect Starship to get to lunar orbit from wherever they care to launch from, hem have Starship HLS come get the passengers for the trip to the Moon, and reverse process to get everyone home.

NASA can’t say the same without Starship HLS and Falcon Heavy. And why? Because NASA thought Starship HLS was the best option. Finally, they’ve picked a system not from their cronies and it might actually work in the longterm. NASA needs to get out of the spacecraft game and just pay for rides to where they want to go.

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kog t1_ja54v12 wrote

> Well then you sure confused the issue by saying:

I said Artemis 2. You're so confused.

> Because the implication is that it is capable of launching and returning humans during a mission. It is not. Artemis is far from being able to get a person to the Moon and back again.

Artemis 2 is going to be doing that.

> you flipped to saying that Artemis is meeting NASA specs, and now you’ve flopped to talking about Starship again.

I haven't flipped at all, you're just extremely confused.

> Starship doesn’t have to meet NASA specs to take people

You're the one talking about NASA using Starship. You said:

> As NASA currently expects Starship to work, Starship can replace Artemis entirely.

EDIT: LOL he blocked me after realizing that he said NASA would use Starship and I was responding to that.

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ithappenedone234 t1_ja5c7k5 wrote

You can’t remember what you said.

You said “Starship has literally years of testing to go before NASA will consider it human safe for launch and return”

I then explained that NASA is not the sole arbiter of ‘human safe.’ Then you flipped and said Artemis was. Then you flipped and said Starship will have to comply.

> Artemis 2 is going to be doing that.

But hasn’t. It’s not yet mission capable.

> You’re the one talking about NASA using Starship. You said:

As NASA currently expects Starship to work, Starship can replace Artemis entirely.

Which is an incontrovertible fact that NASA currently expects to Starship to work. That’s why they contracted for the Starship HLS.

A series of non HLS models can replace the rest of the Artemis program. If NASA wanted to be timely and on budget.

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robertojh_200 t1_ja0foxf wrote

SLS needs to work for now, but for the mission statement Artemis is setting for itself, they’ll need to replace the SLS entirely with something else. The space agencies want a permanent presents on or around the moon, and that simply isn’t going to happen with the rocket that costs 4 billion a launch.

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JayR_97 t1_ja0inxp wrote

Yeah, i've gotten too used to projects being cancelled when a new president comes in. TBH I didnt even expect Artemis 1 to happen

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Chadnarok1337 t1_ja0sj9n wrote

If you don't like it why don't you make your own rocket? Armchair astronauts.. 😒

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Shrike99 t1_ja0yl7o wrote

>If you don't like it why don't you make your own rocket

People criticizing the SLS aren't usually contending that they themselves could do better, but that someone else could - typically SpaceX, though I personally also like making comparisons to the Saturn V.

People criticizing the SLS program are usually pointing out the corruption/pork barreling, rather than anything technical about the rocket itself. Though of course, these two criticisms aren't mutually exclusive.

>Armchair astronauts

This should be armchair engineer or at least armchair rocket scientist, no?

Astronauts ride rockets. They don't build them.

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Chadnarok1337 t1_ja102f2 wrote

If you don't know how rockets work you're not qualified to critique them or know who would build them better. Don't play pseudo intellectual anymore. Nice try though.

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Shrike99 t1_ja1bcje wrote

There's a huge gap between knowing enough about rockets to critique their merits and knowing enough to build one entirely yourself. I doubt many car reviewers could build a car from scratch, but they can still make an informed choice between two options by analyzing and comparing various criteria.

As it happens though I do know a fair bit about rockets, so I'm quite happy to discuss any specifics you want.

 

I'd also point out that it's not just random people on reddit levying criticisms at the SLS program, there are some people with serious credentials saying similar things. The Government Accountability Office issued a pretty harsh report on it, and Lori Garver, former Deputy Administrator of NASA, has also had some choice comments and insights.

Perhaps the most notable example is Charlie Bolden, who was the head of NASA under Obama, and as such oversaw the SLS program for about 5 years. In 2014 he (in)famously said:

>“Let’s be very honest, we don’t have a commercially available heavy-lift vehicle. The Falcon 9 Heavy may some day come about. It’s on the drawing board right now. SLS is real.”

At that point in time he clearly had a very high opinion of the SLS program and believed it would come to fruition well before Falcon Heavy. However, after Falcon Heavy ended up launching before SLS (by almost 5 whole years), he had to reevaluate his stance. In 2020 he said:

>“SLS will go away. It could go away during a Biden administration or a next Trump administration, because at some point commercial entities are going to catch up. They are really going to build a heavy lift launch vehicle sort of like SLS that they will be able to fly for a much cheaper price than NASA can do SLS. That’s just the way it works.”

Note that comment was made before the 2020 election results, so when he says "during a Biden administration or a next Trump administration" he's talking about the period from 2021-2024.

And while he doesn't explicitly say who or what rocket, SpaceX and Starship are really the only ones that fit his description.

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ithappenedone234 t1_ja3e4i6 wrote

They are a self described “rage baiting” troll and not going to say anything of any relevance.

It’s just childishness, not any intellectually honest discussion.

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