NASA Postpones Plans To Send Humans To Moon (theguardian.com) 71
NASA has postponed its plans to send humans to the moon after delays hit its hugely ambitious Artemis programme, which aims to get spaceboots bouncing again on the lunar surface for the first time in half a century. From a report: The US space agency has announced the Artemis III mission to land four astronauts near the lunar south pole will be delayed a year until September 2026. Artemis II, a 10-day expedition to send a crew around the moon and back to test life support systems, will also be pushed back to September 2025.
NASA said the delays would allow its teams to work through development challenges associated with the programme, which partners with private companies including Elon Musk's SpaceX and Lockheed Martin and uses some largely untested spacecraft and technology. "We are returning to the moon in a way we never have before, and the safety of our astronauts is Nasa's top priority as we prepare for future Artemis missions," said the Nasa administrator Bill Nelson. Washington wants to establish a long-term human presence outside Earth's orbit, including construction of a lunar base camp as well as a space station that circles the moon. Its ultimate plans are to send people to Mars, but it has decided to return to the moon first to learn more about deep space before embarking on what would be a months-long voyage to the red planet.
NASA said the delays would allow its teams to work through development challenges associated with the programme, which partners with private companies including Elon Musk's SpaceX and Lockheed Martin and uses some largely untested spacecraft and technology. "We are returning to the moon in a way we never have before, and the safety of our astronauts is Nasa's top priority as we prepare for future Artemis missions," said the Nasa administrator Bill Nelson. Washington wants to establish a long-term human presence outside Earth's orbit, including construction of a lunar base camp as well as a space station that circles the moon. Its ultimate plans are to send people to Mars, but it has decided to return to the moon first to learn more about deep space before embarking on what would be a months-long voyage to the red planet.
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The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth (Score:5, Funny)
It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
Where's my pod bay door, DAVE?!! (Calhoun) (Score:2)
If it's Boeing^W ULA , you're not going.
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Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950.
My copy of the King James Bible—which you can take from my cold, dead hands—disagrees with you [biblegateway.com]. You, sir, are clearly a wolf in sheep's clothing, a Commie trying to split patriotic Americans apart, and I will not stand for it!
I will, however, sit and enjoy some popcorn.
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Congratulations. You have been Poe'd.
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Have I, or have you?
Mine, as yours, was meant to be tongue in cheek. I thought yours was hilarious. Sorry that mine was not more obviously intended to be parodic.
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No problem. I concede.
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Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950.
My copy of the King James Bible—which you can take from my cold, dead hands&mdash disagrees with you.
The so-called King James Bible wasn't actually written by King James; it was written by Robert Jordan over a weekend in Honduras in 1972. He couldn't sell it as a fantasy novel-- I guess editors thought that the fake "early modern English" style was too hard to read-- so he pretended it was a translation of a purported "original" document written in obscure ancient languages and published it under a pseudonym. It got so popular that there's a whole fandom devoted to it that likes to pretend that it actually
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a translation of a purported "original" document written in obscure ancient languages and published it under a pseudonym
That's what you get for trying to translate the Pnakotic Manuscripts while drunk. You should have seen the stuff the publisher carefully excised from the KJV before it went to print. Knowledgeable readers can still find some of the hidden references in other places in the text.
Re: The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth (Score:2)
orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time
Not only that, it is the same size as the sun. (Witness the so-called "total solar eclipse".)
Almost like someone designed it that way... isn't that too much of a coincidence!
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Although not quite as eloquent, this prominent politician agrees. [reddit.com]
Re: The Moon: A Ridiculous Liberal Myth (Score:1)
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Re:Moon is a lie (Score:4, Interesting)
No, we spent 4% of GDP getting to the moon in the 1960s, if my math is correct, in 1969 alone that was around $40,000,000,000.
Inflation has been roughly a full order of magnitude since then. Are you prepared to spend $400,000,000,000 to send a half-dozen people to the moon?
Re:Moon is a lie (Score:5, Informative)
Close. NASA was about 4% of the federal budget back in the 1960s, not 4% of GDP (1). These days NASA is about 0.5% of federal spending. But yes, NASA peaked in 1966 at about $45bn/year in 2022 dollars. Wikipedia: Budget of NASA [wikipedia.org]
Also from that entry:
Right order of magnitude, anyway.
(1) Federal spending is ~23% of GDP these days, in the 60s it was like 18% [ref [stlouisfed.org]].
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Also you would think a lot of that budget was R&D that we should already have, you know how working out how to build rockets to get into space, keeping people alive in space, guidance system, ... that should largely be worked out, we also have computers that can that fit in a pocket that probably took a building back then. Yet somehow with all this amazing technology we still can't seem to do it.
To me the main reason that is that our main "advancements" have been in bureaucracy and intellectual property
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Nobody is trying to recreate the Saturn V nor do they need to. The lack of a launch vehicle isn't the issue. The SLS is similar in capabilities to the Saturn V and successfully flew in 2022 (although it hasn't with humans yet).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It is the vehicle slated to launch the Artemis mission. The delays relate to the crew module and overall integration, plus the slow launch cadence of the SLS.
It's possible that SpaceX could actually leapfrog Artemis with a crewed lunar flyby if the Sta
Re: Moon is a lie (Score:2)
The reason Artemis is expensive is two fold.
1. Bureaucracy, as you say. All that pork barrel funding in SLS when everyone knew it was a terrible solution.
2. The goal is different. The goal isnâ(TM)t to put boots on the moon and go âoelook, itâ(TM)s a man on a rock, nyah nyah Russiansâ, itâ(TM)s to build a base there so that we can have a long term station for research. Thatâ(TM)s much more complexz
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2. The goal is different. The goal isnâ(TM)t to put boots on the moon and go âoelook, itâ(TM)s a man on a rock, nyah nyah Russiansâ, itâ(TM)s to build a base there so that we can have a long term station for research. Thatâ(TM)s much more complexz
And going to the moon is easy peasy compared to proper Unicode support on a web site. Or avoiding using Unicode characters on a site that doesn't support them.
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You forgot
3. Jobs in legislators' districts.
There was an interesting proposal to develop a second stage for ULA's Vulcan rocket that could act as a space tug and propellant depot for a variety of orbital uses but Senator Shelby threatened to cancel a bunch of programs if that happened because it might take missions away from SLS and thus jobs from his state.
Re:Moon is a lie (Score:4, Insightful)
No, we spent 4% of GDP getting to the moon in the 1960s, if my math is correct, in 1969 alone that was around $40,000,000,000.
Inflation has been roughly a full order of magnitude since then. Are you prepared to spend $400,000,000,000 to send a half-dozen people to the moon?
Oh it's totally worth it because "The Artemis programme seeks to land the first woman and first person of colour on the lunar surface."
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Oh that's easy. Because they've suffered so much, asking questions and doing archaeological research would just be forcing them to suffer all the more. Plus, Indigenous knowledge is on an equal footing with rigorous scientific research [whitehouse.gov] and thus there is no more need for further examination.
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So we figured it out 60 years ago but we can't now?
i bet we could land people there in six months if we *had* to for some reason, but I the biggest thing apart from the complexity of the newer technology is that the safety expectations are so high compared to what was tolerated in the 60s.
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Well, back then, NASA did more of its own work, and the contractors had teams run by engineers.
One of the major problems is the Orion capsule was found to have *tons* of flammable insulation, which is a NO NO, presumably because the MBA managers cut costs.
You know, the way the MBA managers at Boeing cut costs, resulting in that panel ripping out of the plane last week.
I mean this was inevitable. (Score:2)
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My understanding is that they're being produced again for SLS. Is this not in fact the case?
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My understanding is that there's a contract to design an updated version but I don't think they've actually ordered any new motors.
Yeah, it's $3.5 BILLION [nasa.gov] for 24 measly engines, or about $150 million per expendable engine. Meanwhile, SpaceX can make their reusable Merlin (Falcon) engines for about $1 million each and claim that the larger Raptor (Starship) engines will be cheaper than that. ULA was buying the Russian RD-180 for $9.9 million each and reportedly the Blue Origin BE-4 that is replacing it is 30-40% cheaper. SLS is just more piggies feeding at the trough, supposedly reusing previous technology to save costs but waaay more
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The SLS is designed to use leftover Shuttle motors and there aren't enough of them, and several parts of the project are far behind schedule.
And now Peregrine failed. That happens, but it's certainly embarrassing considering how many countries have planted probes on the moon in recent years.
Don't be terribly shocked when the whole project is scrapped. Afterwords, we'll get some vague assurances that we'll eventually walk on the Moon again, but I simply don't think the government is up to the expense and gargantuan effort needed just to replicate what we did in 1969. The only reason to go back to the Moon on manned missions is to learn how to live there for periods of time, as we do in the space station. And we're nowhere near that level of commitment, because brother, that's going to be expens
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If the funding lasts long enough for SpaceX to complete their lander, then they would probably do a moon landing without NASA, as there's really no need for SLS or Orion once Starship is working. (They might use Falcon/Dragon to get the crew up to the Starship after refueling to avoid any risks, as well as for landing, so Starship still doesn't have to be human rated for the trips through the atmosphere.)
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Going back to the moon isn't going to be anywhere near the undertaking it was in 1969. One big difference is there is a commercial market for orbital launches, and a heavy launch vehicle like the Falcon Super Heavy can be more economical per ton to orbit than a smaller one (plus get things to orbit that smaller vehicles can't).
If SpaceX can get the Starship up and running for commercial launches, devoting a couple to a lunar mission will be at least an order of magnitude less expensive than a Satun V launch
Planted on the moon [Re:I mean this was inevitable (Score:2)
And now Peregrine failed. That happens, but it's certainly embarrassing considering how many countries have planted probes on the moon in recent years.
"Planted" is right. Of eleven attempted (robotic) lunar landers since 2013, seven failed (the four that didn't were three Chinese lander/rovers and one Indian)
Surprise, Surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
To the surprise of absolutely no one, NASA finally admits their previously announced schedule was overly optimistic.
To be fair, NASA is often forced to announce success oriented schedules due to funding issues, and to push teams forward (no team wants to be the cause of a delay, but almost all teams are happy when a delay happens so they can finish their deliverables by the new later target dates; it is an organizational game of chicken).
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I hate the whole, "everyone knows it's bullshit but all the 'important' people will pretend it isn't" thing.
Shouldn't adults be able to handle reality right out of the gate instead of playing pretend until it's no longer possible?
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I hate the whole, "everyone knows it's bullshit but all the 'important' people will pretend it isn't" thing.
Shouldn't adults be able to handle reality right out of the gate instead of playing pretend until it's no longer possible?
Adults, sure. Politicians, not so much.
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I know right! I didn't see that coming!
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All true, but this doesn't exonerate NASA either.
Just because they're good at playing "Bureaucracy 2024 edition" isn't a cover for a mission plan that from the start begged huge questions that haven't even been addressed now, a couple of years before the landing mission for this program fires off.
For example exactly how many fuel launch missions will be needed?
For an agency whose expertise really is about precision at every level, this is an embarrassingly difficult integer to pin down. To be clear
second-system syndrome (Score:3)
If you believe what Destin Sandlin says (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJsPvmFixU) Artemis has become waaaaay to complicated. His rapier stab to make the point was a graphical comparison between the Apollo flight plan and the Artemis flight plan, using NASA-released promotional documents. He then suggested that the actual constraints imposed by the Artemis plan for in-orbit fueling were not known --- no one had an accurate estimate of how many fueling ferry flights would be required before Artemis could leave LEO. While he was being nice about it, he made it clear that it's a pretty damning criticism that the planners haven't nailed down basic parameters.
My impression is that he's right. Far too complicated. Artemis suffers from second-system syndrome.
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It's almost as if it was planned by clueless politicians... oh wait!
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It's perfectly planned : contractors secured years of income.
Re: second-system syndrome (Score:2)
It was brilliantly planned to produce pork.
If you do it efficiently then how will you create the maximum number of jobs?
Re: second-system syndrome (Score:2)
The problem is that heâ(TM)s making assumptions about the goals that are not true. Heâ(TM)s assuming that Artemis is Apollo II the re-steppening. Itâ(TM)s not. The goal is to be able to build a base there. You canâ(TM)t do that if you can only land a couple of hundred kilos at a time. To land more than that, you need something more than what Apollo did. It *may* be that the plan is overly complex (SLS being involved at all makes no sense for example), but to say âoeitâ(TM
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Regarding second-system syndrome, I've seen multiple MS-Access apps that took about 2 weeks to get going, but taking almost half a year in web stacks. Web stacks shot YAGNI and KISS bloody dead. Many say, "that's just the way the web is".
I believe we could have GUI/CRUD-friendly web standards to leave the focked up DOM far behind, but nobody in IT seems interested. Bloat is job security. Sad humans.
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It does seem like a terrible idea to do new things, like refuel in orbit. We should stick with the simplest possible program to achieve the goal: putting a woman on the moon before the end of the president's second term.
The reason Artemis is so complicated is because (a) it has to use a bunch of cobbled together old stuff to make politicians happy and (b) NASA actually wants to get something useful done.
Outside of a few space station thrusters, in-orbit refuelling hasn't really been done. It's pretty necess
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Trump will plant a flag on a cheese molded to look like the moon, and call it a day.
Oh, and the whole trip to the moon was started by Democrats, and canceled by the GOP (Nixon). And they launched Challanger, in spite of the weather, because Raygun wanted to mention it in his state of the union speech. And Columbia died under W.
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The point Sandlin was making is that there are basic, fundamental parameters (like the number of flights) that are critical to the plan and thus schedule and budget that have not even been estimated, let alone nailed down. In software development terms, these are blocking bugs.
The other point is that there are serious, and dubfounding, limitations on capability that are forcing very complex orbital dynamics that were completely avoided with Apollo.
Which, by the way, landed 15,000 kg on the surface of the m
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The point of the "complex orbital dynamics" is to build a space station that serves as a base for exploring the moon. You don't want it in low lunar orbit because that makes it expensive to go anywhere that's not right under that orbit. The "complex orbital dynamics" aren't really that complex.
He's certainly making a valid point that there is no possible way the lander is going to be ready by 2025. Or 2026. When Artemis was announced there was no possible way it would be landing humans on the moon in 2024.
It's dead, Jim (Score:3)
And nothing will revive it.
Competition Will Drive it (Score:2)
I'm sure it will slip again, but this time there is more competition to be up there first to stay. Once it becomes a national pride priority then more will be invested into it.
Also Space X is not going to wait for NASA and more likely they will get there first.
Can we volunteer other people for Mars? (Score:2)
Yes, i know I will be downmodded into oblivion for mentioning this. Go ahead, I have my asbestos underwear on today.
el dumpstero (Score:2)
This program is a dumpster fire. They should cancel it before it becomes a poster child for US decline.