Nasa's Orion Capsule Reaches Moon on Way To Record-Breaking Lunar Orbit (theguardian.com) 60
Nasa's Orion capsule reached the moon on Monday, whipping around the back side and passing within 80 miles of the surface on its way to a record-breaking lunar orbit. From a report: The close approach occurred as the crew capsule and its three test dummies were on the far side of the moon. Because of the half-hour communication blackout, flight controllers in Houston did not know if the critical engine firing went well until the capsule emerged from behind the moon, more than 232,000 miles from Earth.
It's the first time a capsule has visited the moon since Nasa's Apollo program 50 years ago, and represented a huge milestone in the $4.1bn test flight that began last Wednesday after Orion launched into space atop the massive Artemis rocket. Orion's flight path took it over the landing sites of Apollo 11, 12 and 14 -- humankind's first three lunar touchdowns. The moon loomed ever larger in the video beamed back earlier in the morning, as the capsule closed the final few thousand miles since blasting off last Wednesday from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, atop the most powerful rocket ever built by Nasa. "This is one of those days that you've been thinking about and talking about for a long, long time," flight director Zeb Scoville said while waiting to resume contact. As the capsule swung out from behind the moon, onboard cameras sent back a picture of Earth, a blue dot surrounded by blackness.
It's the first time a capsule has visited the moon since Nasa's Apollo program 50 years ago, and represented a huge milestone in the $4.1bn test flight that began last Wednesday after Orion launched into space atop the massive Artemis rocket. Orion's flight path took it over the landing sites of Apollo 11, 12 and 14 -- humankind's first three lunar touchdowns. The moon loomed ever larger in the video beamed back earlier in the morning, as the capsule closed the final few thousand miles since blasting off last Wednesday from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, atop the most powerful rocket ever built by Nasa. "This is one of those days that you've been thinking about and talking about for a long, long time," flight director Zeb Scoville said while waiting to resume contact. As the capsule swung out from behind the moon, onboard cameras sent back a picture of Earth, a blue dot surrounded by blackness.
record-breaking (Score:1)
What record did it break? First capsule to go around the moon? Nope. Maybe highest pole vault jump.
Re: record-breaking (Score:2)
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+1
I think that sending dummies would be a lot cheaper than sending astronauts. It is all automated anyway, astronauts are obsolete technology.
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NASA could add a vagina to one, and make them multi-coloured, and thereby tick all the woke boxes they so desperately want ( or are obliged ) to tick
Re: record-breaking (Score:1, Funny)
Go Elon!
Re: record-breaking (Score:1)
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What record did it break?? That one's too easy: "Least accomplished for the most time and money;" Fuck ULA. Go Elon!
You left out the part about using outdated and recycled Apollo era technology.
Re:record-breaking (Score:5, Informative)
Distance
This coming weekend, Orion will shatter NASA's distance record for a spacecraft designed for astronauts — nearly 250,000 miles from Earth, set by Apollo 13 in 1970. And it will keep going, reaching a maximum distance from Earth next Monday at nearly 270,000 miles.
https://www.npr.org/2022/11/21... [npr.org]
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they really had to dig the big book of pointless space records to come up with that one. anyway ... 8% more distance! completely and utterly shattered! :'D
Re:record-breaking (Score:5, Funny)
they really had to dig the big book of pointless space records to come up with that one. anyway ... 8% more distance! completely and utterly shattered! :'D
In a world where people break sports records by .001s and get gold medals and pharmaceutical companies tweak the formula of a drug by this ->.<- much and extend their patent by 20 years ...
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Pretty sure that app patent "extension" applies to the new formula, but NOT to the old formula. If you make the old formula, you would not be violating the patent....
You're correct, of course. Although many of the newer drug versions are only marginally more effective, if at all, etc... but come with, usually, huge markups over the previous version and, of course, all the advertising, and prescribing incentives, shifts to the newer drug. Two that come to mind, for example, are Prilosec vs Nexium.
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I doubt NASA is using the adjective of "shattered", bit of flowery newspeak there.
Reminds me of Jon Stewart mocking this very thing years ago: The Daily Show: Destroyer of Worlds [cc.com]
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no doubt that's newspeak, not nasa. and i'm too clumsy at mocking!
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Not taking anything from this achievement, the funny thing is that they will set up this record, because Orion is not powerful enough to reach a Lunar orbit similar to Apollo, hence this highly elongated orbit, which is being "sold" as a special and purposeful record.
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> Also, didn't Musk's Tesla "capsule" make it beyond the orbit of Mars, or doesn't that count because it's not officially an airtight capsule?
Indeed it did, and although the Roadster was open top, the occupant was wearing a spacesuit. So, furthest distance from Earth for a spacesuited mannikin?
I beat them by 1 month ! (Score:2)
I orbited the moon last month. I've even orbited the sun, at least once.
Well, you did too. And so did you, and every one on earth orbited the moon
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If you pick the right frame of reference, I suppose so.
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Farthest distance from Earth for a crew capable spacecraft.
Hard to believe no communications relay in orbit (Score:1)
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You would think by now that someone would have put a set of small comm relay satellites in orbit around the moon to eliminate the blackout issues
No real need yet. Its like putting a payphone 100 miles deep into the wilderness where nobody goes. Is it worth installing something that gets used less than once a decade or two? Have we even sent anything to the far side of the moon in this century? The last one for sure that I know of was I THINK 1972?
Now when there are more frequent visitors to the location, then absolutely YES! Put one in place. It just doesnt make sense to go to the trouble and expense for one until its a regular thing.
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But this is boud to change. With China (and maybe Russia) sending new missions, the world needs more eyes there.
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Isn't NASA testing cube-sat's for that purpose? [space.com]
Quote: "CAPSTONE is a cubesat weighing just 55 pounds (25 kilograms) and is about the size of a microwave oven, according to NASA(opens in new tab). The craft is kitted out with solar arrays, a camera, and antennae that facilitate communication and navigation."
Re:Hard to believe no communications relay in orbi (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought that's what was happening with the CubeSats they were deploying with this mission (https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/11/artemis-i-cubesats/), but apparently not. Maybe next time.
Re:Hard to believe no communications relay in orbi (Score:4)
Competition (Score:5, Interesting)
But the honest truth is we went to the moon in the 60s because the Russians beat us into orbit with Sputnik. We're going back because of the Chinese space programs making significant progress. The current ramping up geopolitical competition between China and the US has it's downsides, but you can't ignore the benefit that a little competition does to spur innovation and scientific discovery.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
We should have kept Apollo and improved it instead of throw-it-out-and-start-over. Soyuz is cheap and reliable because Russia chose to incrementally improve what worked. The Space Shuttle failed to live up to its economic promise, and we ended up reinventing a slightly bigger Apollo anyhow. (I don't even think it needs to be bigger, as merge-in-orbit allows incrementally-shipped big payloads.)
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We should have kept Apollo and improved it instead of throw-it-out-and-start-over.
That is essentially what we are doing now. The Orion capsule is nothing but a Apollo design with some modern updates. The SLS itself is nothing more than recycled space shuttle technology, all but the engines. They are actually old space shuttle engines with the exception instead of reusing them, they simply throw them away after each launch.
No matter how you shake it the SLS is nothing more than a giant step backwards.
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What was wrong with the Saturn V rocket design that couldn't be tuned?
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What was wrong with the Saturn V rocket design that couldn't be tuned?
I've heard so many things about why we can't build a Saturn V anymore. Most of them range from myth to bullshit.
In the bullshit category is we no longer have the blueprints to the Saturn V or its engines. I call this one bullshit because anyone can look up the blueprints to the SV and its engines.
One reason that goes into pure myth is since each rocket was basically hand built the people building each part of the rocket added personal touches to the components they worked on. Since most of these eng
Re: Competition (Score:2)
So giving all the time that has passed it would indeed probably be to expensive to go back and re-invent the Saturn V. On a personal note, I do wish they would go down that path. Imagine seeing another one of those beasts launch.
That would be especially pointless, given that the SLS is more powerful anyway.
Re: Competition [reusing Saturn V] (Score:2)
> the SLS is more powerful anyway.
As I mentioned earlier, constructing/merging ships in orbit means you can divide up your launch load. It's how they built the ISS. It's a good skill to perfect anyhow if we want deep-space ships.
As far as the Saturn V being "undocumented", instead of working on the shuttle, they could have paid the original Saturn builders to document and formalize the plans, and then test launch a plan-based build to make sure something wasn't missed. It would have been far cheaper tha
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Did they assume somebody would invent better glue in a couple of years?
They did and that is what happened. Just to be clear, I think gluing the tiles on was a monumentally stupid idea. But as the space shuttle program proceeded tiles falling off became less and less of a problem. The two catastrophic space shuttle failures were not caused by losing a tile.
The Challenger failure was caused by a defective 'O' ring design and NASA stupidity. If NASA had followed the engineer's recommendation not to launch in cold weather the flight wouldn't have terminated with a boom."
T
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Well, okay, but IIRC the tiles were expensive to maintain and inspect.
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Complete agreement. The tiles themselves were marvels of technology. Gluing them to aluminum airframe and subjecting them to repeated 3g launches, a stunningly stupid beyond comprehension.
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I wonder why the "glue" issue wasn't identified as a cost bottleneck early. They should have stress-tested a smaller model before signing the contract.
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While there are a lot of bullshit reasons, there are also real reasons.
1. Some parts (the trivial stuff that the Saturn V builders would have bought instead of made) are no longer available. This ranges from primitive 1960s semiconductors to fasteners made to obsolete specifications.
2. Being a 1960s design, the Saturn V contained lots of stuff we would do differently today. A famous example is the F-1 engine nozzle, which was hand-brazed from thousands of small tubes. We moved to production methods more ame
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What was wrong with the Saturn V rocket design that couldn't be tuned?
It is pretty simple: such a design does not exist - and never existed. The missiles, aka each missile, was basically build by expert knowledge for which either:
- no plans exist, or even existed
- existing plans got modified, but not version controlled - so no one really knows except for lucky circumstances which paper plan actually was used in which Saturn
- plans with modifications exist, but see above: no one knows in which Saturn they ac
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In case anyone reads the parent and believes it:
BULLSHIT
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Soyuz is getting its ass kicked by Falcon. Slow and incremental has some advantages, and some very big disadvantages. Neither system, nor any other, had the construction capabilities of the shuttle.
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"you can't ignore the benefit"
I suppose you must have somehow benefited. I'm happy for you.
This particular $100 billion adventure hasn't benefited me at all. Nor any of my neighbors, as far as I can tell. Nor any starving people in my city or Somalia or around the world. It hasn't moved forward research on medical cures or climate modification. $100B for one space flight seems excessive in light of other things that money could accomplish.
Please tell me about the people who benefit from the new 'space race'
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Re: Competition (Score:2)
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Denying China the high ground benefits you.
Additional technological progress benefits you.
Stimulating future generations' interest in science benefits you.
The better question is: what the hell do you benefit them?
Re: Competition (Score:2)
Denying China the high ground benefits you.
In what possible way? This takes nothing away from China. That's like if your neighbor buys a fancier car than you, thinking that hurts you somehow.
The better question is: what the hell do you benefit them?
Why would anyone care about that? What a strange question. You have odd priorities.
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Fly-by-wire, which is used in all modern airplanes.
Freeze dried foods.
Integrated Circuits - it didn't start with Apollo but it created an enormous need and tremendous capability that fed every sector that IC's now support.
Fireproof materials (namely PBI) used in firefighting suits today.
Thermal Blankets.
Advanced (for the time) cameras bas
In related news ... (Score:4, Interesting)
I saw this tidbit at the bottom of this NPR article, NASA's Orion capsule buzzes the moon in a last step before humans revisit lunar orbit [npr.org]:
The 322-foot rocket caused more damage than expected, however, at the Kennedy Space Center launch pad. The force from the 8.8 million pounds of liftoff thrust was so great that it tore off the blast doors of the elevator.
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I read that they were not allowing press to take photos of the launch site afterward because the damage was extensive.
If so, that's seems kinda dumb. Pretty sure people, especially in Florida, can understand (basically) wind damage. Don't get the point of "hiding" this kinda stuff...
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They didn't make a clean transition from the full sized rocket prop to the studio model ascending in front of the green screen.
Blackout? (Score:2)
First time a new capsule visited. (Score:2)
It's the first time a capsule has visited the moon since Nasa's Apollo program 50 years ago
TFS means the first time a new capsule from the US has visited the moon. The capsule from the Apollo 11 lunar lander (the Ascent Stage) is very possibly still in orbit around the moon: https://www.smithsonianmag.com... [smithsonianmag.com] ... among the plentiful reporting on James Meador's original research, some of which is available at https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.100... [arxiv.org] and https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.25... [aiaa.org]
https://www.discovermagazine.c... [discovermagazine.com]
Cancel the waste of money (Score:2)
At $4.5 BILLION per launch (not even including development costs) and rising this monstrosity should be canceled and its funds redirected to fixed price commercial contracts to replace it. You could literally launch about 40 falcon heavy's for the price of a single Aretmis flight. A few commercial partners could probably cobble together a partially reusable orbital transfer vehicle (a beefed up space station module and a modified ACES stage for example) and SpaceX could handle crew flight on a Falcon 9 an
Where is the breakthrough? (Score:1)
July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC: THIS has been a real breakthrough, deserving a huge "WOW!"
More than 50 years ago, with computers much less powerful than a cheap smartphone today. These people, men AND women, at that time were real heroes.
More recently, I consider the Cassini–Huygens mission as a huge breakthrough also. Landing a probe on Titan, going through the disks of Saturn. This deserves indeed a big Wow!
But going around the Moon has been done successfully already a long time ago, with a minimum tec