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NASA

Artemis: NASA's Orion Capsule Breaks Distance Record (bbc.com) 37

Posted by BeauHD from the record-breaking dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The US space agency's Orion capsule has reached a key milestone on its demonstration mission around the Moon. On Monday, it moved some 430,000km (270,000 miles) beyond the Earth -- the furthest any spacecraft designed to carry humans has travelled. The ship is uncrewed on this occasion, but if it completes the current flight without incident, astronauts will be on the next outing in two years' time. [...] The previous record for the most distant point reached by a human-rated spacecraft was set by the Apollo-13 mission in April 1970. It went out to 400,171km (248,655 miles) from Earth as its crew fought to navigate their way home following an explosion in their capsule's service module. Monday's milestone marks the middle point of the mission. "This halfway point teaches us to number our days so that we can get a heart of wisdom," said Mike Sarafin, Nasa's Artemis mission manager.

"The halfway point affords us an opportunity to step back and then look at what our margins are and where we could be a little smarter to buy down risk and understand the spacecraft's performance for crewed flight on the very next mission."
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Artemis: NASA's Orion Capsule Breaks Distance Record More

Artemis: NASA's Orion Capsule Breaks Distance Record

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  • ... spacecraft designed for human flight? (Score:5, Funny)

    by paul.schulz ( 75696 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2022 @06:38AM (#63087984) Homepage

    What about Elon's Tesla? Has it made it to Mars yet? (Also unmanned and designed to cary humans.)

  • the furthest any spacecraft designed to carry humans has travelled

    If you don't count the ones that bounced off 75 years ago and are still headed out.

    (Reportedly.)

  • Awesome! (Score:3)

    by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2022 @07:45AM (#63088058) Journal

    I'm glad that they finally got the ting off the ground and that testing of human rated systems. When combined with all the stuff SpaceX and other commercial operators doing I gotta say this is exciting.

    I'm glad it is going well and I hope it is a success.

    • The US gov just had to fly a bigger toy than anyone else. Flying this monster is not really about space travel and science. It is a pity though that the CCCP N1 rockets all blew up. If they worked, the space race would have been far more exiting.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by MrKaos ( 858439 )

        The US gov just had to fly a bigger toy than anyone else. Flying this monster is not really about space travel and science.

        Seems to me they learned a lot and despite the launch delays, it flew.

        It is a pity though that the CCCP N1 rockets all blew up. If they worked, the space race would have been far more exiting.

        Except there was no way that they were going to get that many rockets engines going simultaneously on the N1 especially with the amount of pressure that the politico put the project under. A shame, the concept of smaller and more engines was good for redundancy which is adopted by SpaceX today in Starship.

        • They were also just a bit ahead of their time, a system like that really benefits and likely requires modern digital computing systems and sensors to keep every engine running smooth and not out of bounds with so many of them crammed in a small space.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by MrKaos ( 858439 )

            They were also just a bit ahead of their time, a system like that really benefits and likely requires modern digital computing systems and sensors to keep every engine running smooth and not out of bounds with so many of them crammed in a small space.

            For sure. I think it *could* have worked with an analog system if their political masters had backed off and let the engineers do the testing properly. They were ahead at that stage in the space race however that political push to demonstrate dominance was ultimately what destroyed the project.

            Considering that Korolev's work in Soyuz is still in use today and that his opponents interference contributed to the demise of the N1 perhaps the world of space launchers may look a whole lot different if Americ

      • The US gov just had to fly a bigger toy than anyone else. Flying this monster is not really about space travel and science. It is a pity though that the CCCP N1 rockets all blew up. If they worked, the space race would have been far more exiting.

        Elon is carrying the N1 rocket concept forward, and will reap the glory that the Soviets did not have the ability to do.

        There will be nothing ever to compare when the Mighty Starship lifts from the pad to usher us in a new age of Space travel, and the nxt step of human evolution, as he dawns the age of homo galacticus.

        The silly little SLS is going to look like the pointless toy it is, and then people will see just who is the master of space among humans.

        • I can see you kept your job at Twitter and signed on for the work hard for a billionaire plan....

          • I can see you kept your job at Twitter and signed on for the work hard for a billionaire plan....

            It's a grind, but Elon tells me when I die, I can worship him for eternity in Heaven. S I got that going for me!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megane ( 129182 )
        It's not a pity, it's simple incompetence. The N1 engine design could not be fired more than once, so they couldn't be test-fired. They had to all work the first time or else, which is not a good idea with that many engines.

  • Lets ask the excperts (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 29, 2022 @08:24AM (#63088096)

    Hey Flat earthers, what do you think? Did they poke a hole in the dome and now we are all going to suffocate?

    Mods, don't be facebook, recognize a joke.

  • and breaks cost records as well (Score:3)

    by cjonslashdot ( 904508 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2022 @08:49AM (#63088140)
    At $4 billion per launch, Artemis is the most expensive rocket ever!!! On a per-pound basis, it is 30 times more expensive than the Falcon Heavy, and 2000 times as expensive as the upcoming Starship system. And Artemis can only be launched once every 18 months - whereas the turnaround time for Falcon rockets is weeks. Way to go Artemis - it's 1970 all over again!

    • This is what you get when government interferes, makes sure the contracts get offered to companies in their state, interferes all the time

      NASA invented nearly all the technology SpaceX uses, years ago, and much more, and it was cancelled by government to go back to the most conservative and safe option, farming it out to as many subcontractors as possible, which makes it expensive

      • Yes I agree mostly. SpaceX actually did invent a lot of new things. They figured out how to land rockets. And their Raptor engine uses a design that no one has used before in an actual system - the only other use of that design previously was in Russia. But you main point is spot on - that NASA is driven by politics and maintaining funding in politicians states :-(

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )
      The 18 months is the time it takes to build a new one. Meanwhile, Falcon 9 rockets have launched hours apart, with the limitation being available launch pads. The "turnaround time" becomes irrelevant because they are rarely dropped into the ocean, so they always have multiple rockets ready to go.

  • NASA is taking their sweet time with this. In the 1960s they would not have taken that long from having a man-rated vehicle to actually flying the thing with a crew. Also, the SLS seems overpriced compared to the Saturn V and is not even much more capable it terms of payload.

  • "uncrewed"? Is "unmanned" politically incorrect now? Sigh.
    • why would something so trivial cause you to become upset?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kackle ( 910159 )
        I'm not upset, just sighing. 1000 cuts, though... When will "mankind" be shelved, and for what reason?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      "uncrewed"? Is "unmanned" politically incorrect now? Sigh.

      Nobody is actually offended by "unmanned", but many are scared that somebody may be.
      You can be sure the NASA style guide tells their staff to avoid it for any official communication. But nobody is telling you or me what to say. Yet.
      Meh, as woke language changes go, this one is harmless. Let it slide.

      • I don't want to let it slide, because it is one of a million changes in vocabulary being made for no good reason.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by kackle ( 910159 )
          Amen. Oops, that's solely religious now. My bad... Oops, now I'm mocking Chinese basketball stars who speak broken English. Oy... Dang, now I've usurped the Jewish culture. I think I'll be quiet now.

    • Haha. I'm waiting for the NASA "crewed" capsule to arrive.

      "NASA today sent its first crude spaceship to the moon in over 50 years..."

  • Orion capsule has reached a key milestone ... On Monday, [it is] the furthest any spacecraft designed to carry humans has travelled.

    Manager: That's great, everything is working just fine -- finally. Now to bring them back home.

    Lead Engineer: ... What?!? Back home? Wait a minute, weren't they going to stay?

  • SpaceX was wasteful when they launched a Tesla into space, until NASA launched a 12billion capsule to the moon
  • Anybody else notice that the Artemis program manager was quoting Psalm 90? It's a lovely sentiment, from one of the great poems of Western literature. Look it up.

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