NASA Launch Today

[Hunt anything]

Was glued with my parents to the TV in 1969 - you know - the one the nut jobs on the web claim never happened. Stayed absolutely engrossed through the next six landings (plus the heroic return of Apollo 13) through 1972. Somehow the conspiracy clowns seem to overlook the following five successful landings. I was despondent when we walked away from that magnificent achievement. I'll admit to a tear in my eye this evening watching the launch.

Like many I was glued to the TV as well.

One of my local delivery guys doesn’t believe we have ever been anywhere near the moon, he says it is all a hoax, I just tell him some good people died trying to get there and some did. I would argue with him but he will argue until the couple of teeth he has left fell out.
Of course he believes everything he sees on the net, from big foot to the troll living under his porch. I kinda like the idea of big foot and aliens though.

 

[Tundra Tiger]

I'm all for space exploration ... with a valid purpose. The only purpose I can see to this is spending a whole lot of money to make the US (or its president) look important. Build a better telescope, yeah I can see some purpose in that. We send exploration robots to the nether regions of our solar system and beyond. I'm okay with paying for that too. But this just seems to make no sense. What's the point? Grandstanding with a very grand pricetag.

What's the point? Pushing our boundaries, things like that come in incremental steps. This is one such instance. And, IMHO, the technology and the people - especially those 4 up there right now - should be celebrated.

Honestly, what came to mind for me when I read your negative response was those famous lines from Roosevelt's speech.

 

[FlyGuy]

I was watching a very interesting YT clip the other day…
The F1 engine that was used in the Apollo missions is still one of the cheapest and most efficient rocket engines ever built.

Apparently we no longer have the “human skills” capability to build an F1 rocket engine in today’s world. They’ve tried with modern technology and just cannot get it right.

From the welding, to being able to hammer a pipe juuusst enough to ensure perfect fuel flow, we simply don’t have people with that level of hands on skill anymore.

Reminds me of a pre vs post Winnie.

 

[thi9elsp]

Caught it from the gulf coast. It was special. I was 9 back in ‘69.

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

Flat earthers must be in crisis mode

 

[BryceM]

Well, I have really conflicting thoughts about this:

For:
- We watched this at work. I was the only one present who was alive when the last human left low earth orbit. The others (mostly people in their 20s and 30s) were about as excited and awe-struck as could be. That's pretty cool, says I.
- Man is mean to push boundaries, explore, and discover. Americans are great at doing cool stuff.
- I've been a space and science nerd my whole life. I am extremely impressed by what SpaceX has done the last decade. I'm impressed by NASAs planetary and solar science missions of late. I'm somewhat impressed by NASAs manned program.
- 'Merica!

Against:
- The Artemis program is something NASA more-or-less pieced together from leftover hardware from a dozen or so under-funded and prematurely aborted programs over the years. This is a horrible (and very expensive) way to prop up an agency looking for a mission. The current Artemis program wasn't necessarily devised to achieve a specific goal.... more like " wonder what can we do with all this stuff?" For example, the main engines are actual leftovers from the shuttle program, designed in the 1970s and built in the 1980s. Many of them have already flown many times, but they'll be jettisoned into the ocean and lost during these Artemis missions. The Orion crew capsule was designed for the cancelled Constellation program and repurposed for this one. The SRBs are repurposed from the Shuttle program. Again, 40 year-old designs......... Across the street, SpaceX is designing new stuff on the regular, with their own money.
- What is the actual goal?
- To actually land on the moon with Artemis, one attempt at landing will require between 6 and 10 SpaceX Starship launches (each larger than an Apollo Saturn V launch) to haul enough fuel into low earth orbit for a single lunar rendezvous with the Orion capsule. This is for a single attempt at landing. 50 years ago we could do it all in a single mission with one smaller rocket.
- The Artemis 2 crew consists of a black person, a woman, a Canadian, and an American white dude as the mission commander. Perhaps these are the 4 most qualified people for the job. If so, that's great. It seems a bit contrived to me. Don't misunderstand me, because "that" is NOT what I'm saying. I truly don't care who they are, as long as they're the best crew for the job. If the 4 best people are all women, or all Latino, or all Native American, that's fine with me. It just seems like NASA is trying to make a perfectly balanced, woke, hipster, modern Hallmark movie. That rubs me wrong. I hope "what" they are didn't factor into the decision -- only "who" they are. If someone with actual information can set me straight on this point, I'm all ears. I would be very happy to be wrong about this.

Final thoughts about flat earthers and Apollo conspiracy people. 10% of them are "true believers." The other 90% enjoy getting a rise out of others, and persist at it only for that reason. It works.

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

Well, I have really conflicting thoughts about this:

For:
- We watched this at work. I was the only one present who was alive when the last human left low earth orbit. The others (mostly people in their 20s and 30s) were about as excited and awe-struck as could be. That's pretty cool, says I.
- Man is mean to push boundaries, explore, and discover. Americans are great at doing cool stuff.
- I've been a space and science nerd my whole life. I am extremely impressed by what SpaceX has done the last decade. I'm impressed by NASAs planetary and solar science missions of late. I'm somewhat impressed by NASAs manned program.
- 'Merica!

Against:
- The Artemis program is something NASA more-or-less pieced together from leftover hardware from a dozen or so under-funded and prematurely aborted programs over the years. This is a horrible (and very expensive) way to prop up an agency looking for a mission. The current Artemis program wasn't necessarily devised to achieve a specific goal.... more like " wonder what can we do with all this stuff?" For example, the main engines are actual leftovers from the shuttle program, designed in the 1970s and built in the 1980s. Many of them have already flown many times, but they'll be jettisoned into the ocean and lost during these Artemis missions. The Orion crew capsule was designed for the cancelled Constellation program and repurposed for this one. The SRBs are repurposed from the Shuttle program. Again, 40 year-old designs......... Across the street, SpaceX is designing new stuff on the regular, with their own money.
- What is the actual goal?
- To actually land on the moon with Artemis, one attempt at landing will require between 6 and 10 SpaceX Starship launches (each larger than an Apollo Saturn V launch) to haul enough fuel into low earth orbit for a single lunar rendezvous with the Orion capsule. This is for a single attempt at landing. 50 years ago we could do it all in a single mission with one smaller rocket.
- The Artemis 2 crew consists of a black person, a woman, a Canadian, and an American white dude as the mission commander. Perhaps these are the 4 most qualified people for the job. If so, that's great. It seems a bit contrived to me. Don't misunderstand me, because "that" is NOT what I'm saying. I truly don't care who they are, as long as they're the best crew for the job. If the 4 best people are all women, or all Latino, or all Native American, that's fine with me. It just seems like NASA is trying to make a perfectly balanced, woke, hipster, modern Hallmark movie. That rubs me wrong. I hope "what" they are didn't factor into the decision -- only "who" they are. If someone with actual information can set me straight on this point, I'm all ears. I would be very happy to be wrong about this.

Final thoughts about flat earthers and Apollo conspiracy people. 10% of them are "true believers." The other 90% enjoy getting a rise out of others, and persist at it only for that reason. It works.

The DEI/identity politics part is incredibly disappointing. Wonder when the crew was picked?

 

[matt85]

I would love to ride into space! Heck i would happily "settle" for a ride in a fighter plane!

At the moment i have to make due with my zx-10r. Sometimes (when no one is around) ill whack the throttle wide open in second or third gear. The acceleration is a unique and pleasing experience.... I can only imagine what a rocket would be like!

 

[fourfive8]

Accelaration on most of these things is a veritable piece o cake. It’s the deceleration that can get ya. How the test pilots on the Holloman sled survived those early trials is a miracle.

Watching the coast phase of the flight is interesting as the vel of the craft slows until, IIRC, the variable straight line L1 point is reached at about 20-40k miles from the moon.

 

[Corylax18]

I don't know man.....private space travel could be comparable to viewing the Titanic in a private submersible. Always a high probability of something going wrong

You're deeply misinformed. We've been to the Titanic over 225 times. James Cameron himself has been over 30 times. We've been to the Challenger Deep (more than twice the depth of titanic) several dozen times. Other sites in the 12,000'+ depth range have also been visit more than 200 times. One idiot, with one very poorly designed submersible shouldn't over shadow the nearly perfect safety record of every one else.

No doubt there’ll be an issue or two before they get it lined out. I think there was some operator error involved with that tragedy?

More bad design than operator error. Everyone else in the deep submersible community had been telling that guy for years that the design was bad. It wasn't "If" but "when" that thing was going to implode. Carbo fiber is a very bad choice for deep submersibles. Mixing materials is even worse. He did both. Titanium end caps and woven carbon fiber tube were glued together. They expand/contract at different rates, stressing the carbon fiber. With each dive, the pressure vessel was weakened, just as the math said it would be. Instead of redesigning the entire rig, they installed an "acoustic safety system" which essentially allowed them to hear the carbon fiber tear itself apart. A lot of good that did.

Mr. Cameron explains it much more eloquently than me:

 

[Brent in Az]

You're deeply misinformed. We've been to the Titanic over 225 times. James Cameron himself has been over 30 times. We've been to the Challenger Deep (more than twice the depth of titanic) several dozen times. Other sites in the 12,000'+ depth range have also been visit more than 200 times. One idiot, with one very poorly designed submersible shouldn't over shadow the nearly perfect safety record of every one else.



More bad design than operator error. Everyone else in the deep submersible community had been telling that guy for years that the design was bad. It wasn't "If" but "when" that thing was going to implode. Carbo fiber is a very bad choice for deep submersibles. Mixing materials is even worse. He did both. Titanium end caps and woven carbon fiber tube were glued together. They expand/contract at different rates, stressing the carbon fiber. With each dive, the pressure vessel was weakened, just as the math said it would be. Instead of redesigning the entire rig, they installed an "acoustic safety system" which essentially allowed them to hear the carbon fiber tear itself apart. A lot of good that did.

Mr. Cameron explains it much more eloquently than me:

On one of those dives, Cameron and crew came very close to not returning, as well as a Russian submersible on a dive to the Titanic

I'm not misinformed, I simply don't play Russian Roulette with space vehicles or Submersibles.

I'll stay right here on Terra Firma.

 

[fourfive8]

Agreed, I too have no desire for adrenaline/ego stunt tourism. Carbon fiber wrap poly material has a very high strength to weight ratio. But it can’t be checked for flaws or damage after pressure cycles. Predictably- oops!

As far as Artemis 2? Seems to be going pretty well so far. After the TLI burn, they are on pretty much a free return trajectory all the way there, around and back. No major burns required, only minor course corrections with normal attitude control and testing. The biggest question for this flight remains, in my mind, did the engineers figure out how to prevent the gas spallation of the heat shield avcoat as experienced on Artemis 1? It shouldn’t have happened on Artemis 1 but did.

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

 

[Wishfulthinker580]

About to splash down. Sorry for late notice

 

[Tundra Tiger]

I watched!