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Moon NASA

After 25 Days in Space, NASA's Orion Moon Capsule Successfully Splashes Down (nasa.gov) 42

Posted by EditorDavid from the giant-leaps dept.
Splashdown successful. The announcer on NASA's livestream called it a "text-book entry" for "America's new ticket to ride -- to the moon and beyond."

After flying over 239,000 miles — and 80 miles over the surface of the moon — NASA's uncrewed "Orion" capsule has returned from its 25-and-a-half day test flight in space.

NASA is still streaming its coverage. And CNN had emphasized that "This final step will be among the most important and dangerous legs of the mission." "We're not out of the woods yet. The next big test is the heat shield," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told CNN in a phone interview Thursday, referring to the barrier designed to protect the Orion capsule from the excruciating physics of reentering the Earth's atmosphere. The spacecraft will be traveling about 32 times the speed of sound (24,850 miles per hour or nearly 40,000 kilometers per hour) as it hits the air — so fast that compression waves will cause the outside of the vehicle to heat to about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius)....

As the capsule reaches around 200,000 feet (61,000 meters) above the Earth's surface, it will perform a roll maneuver that will briefly send the capsule back upward — sort of like skipping a rock across the surface of a lake.... "By dividing the heat and force of reentry into two events, skip entry also offers benefits like lessening the g-forces astronauts are subject to," said Joe Bomba, Lockheed Martin's Orion aerosciences aerothermal lead, in a statement....

As it embarks on its final descent, the capsule will slow down drastically, shedding thousands of miles per hour in speed until its parachutes deploy. By the time it splashes down, Orion will be traveling 20 miles per hour (32 kilometers per hour). While there are no astronauts on this test mission — just a few mannequins equipped to gather data and a Snoopy doll — Nelson, the NASA chief, has stressed the importance of demonstrating that the capsule can make a safe return.
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After 25 Days in Space, NASA's Orion Moon Capsule Successfully Splashes Down More

After 25 Days in Space, NASA's Orion Moon Capsule Successfully Splashes Down

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  • News from 2011 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by echo123 ( 1266692 ) on Sunday December 11, 2022 @12:50PM (#63121690)

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry... [huffpost.com]

    If only we knew then what we know now.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So is this Obama’s fault or Fauci’s?

      • If anyone, Obamas. He was president and that office has major influence in the mission and funding of our maned space flight progress. I see your facetious comment and offer a retort!

    • Re:News from 2011 (Score:4, Interesting)

      by slack_justyb ( 862874 ) on Sunday December 11, 2022 @01:41PM (#63121834)

      Fun thing. The whole idea is Bush (II) era thinking. The SLS, and basically NASA as a whole, while being scientific which we shouldn't downplay, is also Government jobs. There's a reason that the SLS creates a ton of jobs in Washington State, Utah, Oregon, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida because that's what Congress wanted the program to do, create those jobs. This is why it's always so amazing to see folks go "Oh well we put a rover on Mars, but people will go hungry. Great job NASA." That program to put that rover on Mars and this program to put that spacecraft around the moon, they exist to give a shit ton of jobs to this nation. We didn't put billions of dollars of gold inside the cargo hold of the rocket, we put that money into US citizens' pockets.

      Obama came along and saw the program for what it was and was like, "Nah let free market take that shit." And thus the entire space program in a single swoop became political. It's not that Obama made it political, it's been one of those both sides kinds of thing. Obama obviously knew a string to pull that a lot of red states cared about and the knee jerk from those states and Congress was one that they decide would be a giant one. Basically Obama said "I'm going to make rockets private" and Congress said, "I'm going to Government even harder now."

      And basically this BS between the two basically meant that SpaceX gets to run free and clear while the SLS becomes a political play thing, MASSIVELY setting back progress made by these companies that were involved in the program and NASA in general. Literally 2008-2015 becomes a do nothing period for NASA. Towards the end Obama sees the bickering not helping the situation and grossly over estimated the readiness of the private rocket sector. Long story short, we get the current "dual path" where we have Government funded rockets and private rockets. Because why burn through cash like crazy one way when you can do two different ways. But you know what? So be it. Makes it interesting in my opinion and means more people getting money in their pockets, who exactly is getting the money is always the moral debate for all time, but that whole debate aside for another time, I guess.

      Point being the SLS history has been one of the most "interesting" ones thus far, but I think it also points out something that's been growing in the US Government. Nothing seems safe from a good old fashioned blue and red fight. Maybe that's problematic, maybe this is just a period where people need to learn that these fights don't really produce anything and we'll "grow as a nation", or whatever.

      Point being:

      If only we knew then what we know now.

      It's a lot more complex a topic than "Government contractors are a waste of money" or "Senate Launch System". The SLS and the craziness that it's been through is just a clear symptom of a much bigger underlying disease of the US government, namely the ability to make pretty much anything a cat fight. So let's keep that in mind. But hey, a lot of US workers got years and years of income from this whole project. Hell some started this under the Bush era and they'll likely retire from the program before the program hits it stride (and reduced need for workers) with the Lunar Gateway to Mars rockets.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by echo123 ( 1266692 )

        Good point. Now imagine if all that technical talent and human-energy had been directed towards improving renewable, zero-emission, carbon-reducing energy science, without long-term nuclear waste. ...Now imagine our current relationship with energy-independence and global current war funding.
         
          Because science says we're killing the planet we live on the way we're doing things now..

        • Good point. Now imagine if all that technical talent and human-energy had been directed towards improving renewable, zero-emission, carbon-reducing energy science, without long-term nuclear waste.

          The US usually has on budget $15 billion in discretionary funding for renewable energy per fiscal year. That's usually $12b in research and $3b in deployment. And as far as carbon reduction, that gets more complex because it wasn't until September 16th of 2022, that the EPA had been given clear mandate to begin calculations on cost and reduction of that (because yes, that's how long of a road we've absolutely HAD TO GO DOWN to get final resolution on the whole EPA and climate change matter). For pretty m

      • "And thus the entire space program in a single swoop became political."

        And all that while I thought your point, YOUR point, was that the program was already political. Hence job creation and such.

        What did I miss?

      • One point that you miss is that NASA isn't a single entity. Part of NASA is human space flight. Yes, they're using 1980s-era tech, it's badly politicized and basically a large government jobs program. Although, SpaceX isn't quite there yet. While it's looking good, they haven't succeeded at Starship. If they do (and I think they will) it'll be conclusive proof that corporations should be at the forefront of human spaceflight, and the government can drop SLS and just pump money into SpaceX. SpaceX might

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jhon ( 241832 )

      "We refuse to return to the moon not because it is hard, but because to not go is easy"

      https://www.cbsnews.com/news/r... [cbsnews.com]

    • Thanks... Now let's launch Starship please.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tragedy ( 27079 )

      https://www.huffpost.com/entry... [huffpost.com]

      If only we knew then what we know now.

      While it certainly seems to be true that the political design by committee that happened with the SLS created an overpriced monstrosity, the politics of the article are a bit off. For example, the author's objection to government involvement in space exploration and his objections to "socialism" would ring a little less hollow if his own foundation wasn't funded by NASA. Also, the author seems to be ignoring that the SLS very much is "private space". It's the same old private government contractors who alwa

  • Non-reusable (Score:4, Interesting)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Sunday December 11, 2022 @12:59PM (#63121714)

    Ever since congresscritters canceled DC-X because of a singular test failure due to a faulty landing leg, NASA has been doubling down on non-reusability. Blue Origin hired away the DC-X people. And of course, it was up to Masten Aerospace, Blue Origin, and SpaceX to show VTVL was possible for private companies. Even after that, NASA has STILL shied away from telling Boeing and Lockheed to develop reusable systems. Why the heck are we paying for non-reusable systems? Even a billionaire won't throw away their car after each ride, yet taxpayers are expected to do so?

    • If the whole point is to have a jobs program, isn't it smarter to have non-reusable craft?
    • Ah, but the Millionaire is throwing HIS car away if her does that. The government is throwing OUR money away. Always easier to throw OPM (Other People's Money) away than to throw your own money away.

      And what with NASA throwing a lot of OPM at diverse problems, Congress (who decides who the money is thrown to) is happy (buying votes with OPM is a great way to have a long career in the House or Senate).

      In other words, it's a win-win...

    • Non-reusable: a little more background and context (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Sunday December 11, 2022 @01:32PM (#63121800) Homepage

      Ever since congresscritters canceled DC-X because of a singular test failure due to a faulty landing leg, NASA has been doubling down on non-reusability.

      You've simplified the facts to the point where they're not really correct anymore

      BMDO (the "Star Wars" project) cancelled the DC-X because the proposed use for it was to launch a thousand-satellite constellation, and that approach had been rejected as the architecture for the missile defense system. NASA picked up the abandoned project because they thought it was cool. After the landing failure (due to a hydraulic actuator not deploying one landing leg), they doubled down on reusability, and solicited a follow-on project to make a reusable SSTO subscale technology demonstrator, the X-33.

      ...unfortunately, they picked exactly the wrong time. The solicitation required cost sharing by the company selected: NASA wanted the company to make something with the goal of a commercial product, not a company to do a NASA project with the goal of making a profit from doing a NASA project, and the way to do that was to require the company show they were serious about producing a product by putting their own money at risk. But, unfortunately, McDonnell Douglas (the company that did the DC-X) was in the process of selling the company to Boeing at the time. They didn't want to include a possibly multi-billion-dollar promise to fund an experimental rocket on the books when they sold to Boeing; the bookkeeping would list that as a liability, and a liability that big would lower the purchase price or even kill the deal entirely. So the McDonnell Douglas proposal in response to the X-33 solicitation was very cautious, and had only the absolute minimum contribution from the corporation.

      Instead, Lockheed Martin Skunkworks won the project with their VentureStar [nasa.gov], a much more ambitious, and technically challenging, design. The technology proved to be a bit more difficult than initially expected, and analyses ended up showing that the path to economically practical SSTO would be harder than expected. It turned out to be a little too technically ambitious, and the project was terminated in 2001.

      (Hard to say what would have happened. I really would have liked to see X-33 fly, even it it wasn't a path to a viable SSTO, I think we would have learned valuable things. But it didn't happen.)

      But the statement that "NASA has been doubling down on non-reusability" after the landing failure of DCX simply isn't accurate.

  • Apollo 2.0 (Score:3)

    by jwhyche ( 6192 ) on Sunday December 11, 2022 @01:10PM (#63121740) Homepage

    Welcome home Apollo 2.0.

  • They did successfully with the Mercury capsules in the sixties. Sure, they could screw it up, but it does not seem to that big an achievement. None of this really did anything that the Apollo missions did not do.

    • Orion has ten times the pressurized volume of Gemini.

      But thanks for spewing in ignorance.

      • It would be the cross-sectional area that would be the relevant dimension if size mattered. I do not see why it should, the entry velocity should be about the same as would be the temperature. There have been a lot of improvements in refractory materials in the last 60 years, too. I do not see anything in this that is really new although we can hope it is improved over the technology that they used for the space shuttle.
  • SLS is a political project that has created a horrible out-of-date dinosaur based on throwing away reusable - reused even - rockets.

    It is RIDICULOUS waste of money.

    Cancel it and - if you don't want to put all the eggs in Spacex's fine basket - give Old Space some new-space-style FIXED PRICE contracts to research REUSABLE alternatives.

    Then, when Old Space, inevitably, fails again, simply send the vaginas and other tokens to the Moon and Mars with Spacex's Starship at ooh, a TENTH the price of SLS.

    • They did all that. Starship has the HLS contract and once it gets to orbit I imagine they get even more and once that is a viable platform SLS can be shuttered as there will be something to match its capability (right now there isn't, not even Falcon heavy)

      They also gave $1B to ULA (and by proxy Blue Origin) to develop the Vulcan rocket which should be making it's debut launch next year and is likely to get human rated after that.

      The second funding round for the HLS system is in review with BO and Northrop

  • 239 thousand miles doesn't seem far enough

  • This is probably the most exciting thing NASA has done in my adult lifetime. Even if the only technical achievement here is "we made a really big rocket with modern parts" I want it anyway.
    I so badly want to see a man on the moon again. I don't want to believe that the era of human space exploration beyond low-earth orbit ended before I was born.

    As Gen X kid grown up on SciFi, it is sad that, in my lifetime, human space flight was just chilling at SkyLab, and then the Interational Space Station.

    • Even if the only technical achievement here is "we made a really big rocket with modern parts"

      Shuttle main engines. 1970s tech. Modified SRBs 1970s tech. 1st stage fuel tank - modified shuttle external tank - 1970s tech. Maybe some new stuff on the higher stages. Shuttle basic design dates to the 1970s not the 80s. So not a lot of modern parts on that first stage. Even the launch platform is shuttle era if not Apollo.

      The shuttle was somewhat exciting for the things that could have been done with it. But ultimately little was. The REAL excitement has been SpaceX. Landing and reusing 1st s

    • I feel like I really lucked out by managing to get a bit more time than the doctors anticipated. I really wanted to progress on that front too. And for all the rough stuff in the past handful of years I actually got to see humanity pushing for the stars more seriously than any time in my adult life. At least how I measure progress there. This, Tiangong, even getting to hear the sound of wind on mars. I'm really grateful I managed to get to see this.

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