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Slashdot Scrubs Artemis Article because???

Did we piss off the gods of North American Aviation, Rocketdyne and that bunch? Awwww. How sensitive.

I'm still sore RS25s are being sacrificed to the God of Inefficiency, the US Gov't.

Slashdot Scrubs Artemis Article because???.

Slashdot Scrubs Artemis Article because???.

Because the former post's title.... "Watch the Artemis launch, live" was embarrassing considering the scrub.

The Slashdot editor committed Assumicide.

Meh, I've seen this bunch of eds do far worse..

Could've amended the title, and not memory-hole the discussion.

Could've amended the title, and not memory-hole the discussion.

Could've amended the title, and not memory-hole the discussion.

No kidding. The normal procedure here is just to add an edit/update after the original text of the article. Even just changing the title is a bit extreme.

https://www.popularmechanics.c... [popularmechanics.com]

They've built dozens and have at least 16 sitting around, so what would be a better use? Keep them mothballed for decades until and unless some application for reuse comes along? They're bound to be overtaken by evolution eventually. For example, "The Raptor has slightly more power at sea level than the RS-25 and is designed for dozens of uses. According to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, it costs less than $1 million to bu

What's the deal with the main body looking, well, like a rusted old hulk of a rocket?

Because the body is covered with orange foam insulation, the same as the Space Shuttle tank. On the early shuttle launches, they painted it white, but then they decided that the paint was unnecessary and weighed down the rocket.

The main thing they seem to have learned from 45 years of working with and rearranging space shuttle hardware has been: For this iteration, move the crew *above* the falling chunks of foam.

I agree, it needed at least a snazzy paint job. That thing looks OLD and shabby.

The problem is that a "snazzy paint job" adds cost and hundreds of pounds (the paint on the Shuttle before they ditched it weighed 600 pounds).

I'm still sore RS25s are being sacrificed to the God of Inefficiency, the US Gov't.

I'm still sore RS25s are being sacrificed to the God of Inefficiency, the US Gov't.

Or more accurately, industry lobbyists. Constellation was created as a way to keep money flowing to Shuttle contractors. When that (unsurprisingly) ended up being catastrophically over-budget and behind schedule, the Augustine commission was appointed to recommend a rational way forward for US manned space exploration, and that commission came up with three viable long term strategies. All of these strategies were ignored by the politicians and replaced with a program which prioritized continuing near-term spending rather than any kind of coherent long term vision.

For a publicly traded company, I'd personally find that concerning as an investor when its supposed to launch people next year

For a publicly traded company, I'd personally find that concerning as an investor when its supposed to launch people next year

Whew! What a relief that SpaceX is privately owned, then, and NOT publicly traded, right?

..NASA doesn't get to blow up rockets anymore or fumblefuck about like Musk does with vague promises with little thought into how it will be delivered. NASA is just expected to deliver what was originally planned, no mess-ups allowed. That assurance costs money and time.

You've put your finger on it exactly. When SpaceX has a failure, they say "that didn't work, we'll try again." When NASA has a failure, there's a congressional investigation and the NASA Inspector General adds a layer of mandatory safety checks.

The best way and fastest way to make progress is to try, fail, and learn from your failure (note that the last step, "learn from your failure," is critical.). But NASA is not allowed to fail. As you say, "That assurance costs money and time.".

To quote Beckett, "“Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

That's not the takeaway from Challenger. For a manned launch, you DO listen to your engineers' concerns -- you don't shut them up. In both Challenger (and to a lesser degree, Columbia) engineers had identified the problems.

For an unmanned rocket, build it fast and cheap to test your technology, listen to your engineers, and if they have a concern that can't be quickly addressed, make absolutely sure you have instrumentation relative to their concerns, then launch anyway and collect the appropriate data rela

Starship is not a direct competition to SLS, Falcon Heavy is

Starship is not a direct competition to SLS, Falcon Heavy is

What a lame take. You're being intellectually dishonest in your argument because: 1. We don't have an actual published rating for how much a finished Starship will be able to tow into any orbit, only the loose assumptions mentioned by Musk which can be taken as accurate as his claims for FSD and Tesla

2. SLS is in Block 1 configuration with several more interactions that intend to more than double the capability of Falcon Heavy

Lastly, if a smaller rocket was suitable, then there wouldn't have been a nee

I actually don't mind NASA blowing stuff up. I do mind it being late, over budget and losing its way on a program. As for vague promises -- a concrete milestone promise with no real commitment to deliver or consequences for failure is vague too.

It took the Apollo program 8 years to get to the Moon from its first Saturn 1 launch to landing on the Moon; in that 8 years it had 11 launches. At its current pace, SLS, assuming it meets all its deadlines (which it has never done yet), SLS will return us to the M

Don't worry. A dupe will be posted shortly.

"including a potential crack in material in the main body of the rocket"

sounds like end of mission to me for a while at least.

Isn't that what they thought just before the launch of Columbia?

I happened to be watching that clip the other day. Do you know for sure how fast the impact speed was? I was trying to figure out how much the (lightweight?) foam could decelerate (with respect to the air) before the wing hit it,

I think the 530mph figure is based on the video footage of the incident. Knowing where the foam broke off, where it impacted, and how long it took allows you to estimate the impact speed.

At the time, the shuttle was traveling at a speed of nearly 1600mph - for a non-aerodynamic chunk of insulation foam, the air resistance at that speed would be like hitting a wall and it would decelerate very quickly indeed. It's very lightweight, so it has little momentum.

...this "including a potential crack in material in the main body of the rocket" sounds like end of mission to me for a while at least.

"including a potential crack in material in the main body of the rocket"

sounds like end of mission to me for a while at least.

Better to find out this way than the much harder way.

I dunno, man. After all this time and all this money, the very least the government owes us is a fiery explosion.

This whole SLS project seems doomed anyway. Just as well finish it with a bang.

It's just a flesh wound.

...this "including a potential crack in material in the main body of the rocket" sounds like end of mission to me for a while at least.

"including a potential crack in material in the main body of the rocket"

sounds like end of mission to me for a while at least.

A little bondo should fix that right up...

I was thinking duct tape.

...this "including a potential crack in material in the main body of the rocket" sounds like end of mission to me for a while at least.

"including a potential crack in material in the main body of the rocket"

sounds like end of mission to me for a while at least.

I was kind of hoping they'd launch it anyway regardless of the problems, just to test their safety tolerances. It's an unmanned launch. If it works, great. If not, you learned something.

That said, I was pretty certain it wouldn't go up today. After all, I happened to be in Cocoa Beach to visit family nearby, leaving on the day of the launch. So that pretty much guaranteed that there was no chance it would go up today. Sorry, everybody. It was entirely my fault. :-D

On the plus side, I got to see the S

But if the known issue causes a problem before any hidden problems emerge it's a waste.

Here's what I don't get, though. Artemis 1 rolled out to the pad twelve days ago. It failed the wet dress rehearsal because of a fuel leak that prevented them from doing a bleed test on the engines. Was there really no way to do a bleed test during those twelve days? Did they really have to wait until just four hours before the start of the launch window to make sure the fuel system (that leaked before) was actually functioning? :-(

Here's what I don't get, though. Artemis 1 rolled out to the pad twelve days ago. It failed the wet dress rehearsal because of a fuel leak that prevented them from doing a bleed test on the engines. Was there really no way to do a bleed test during those twelve days? Did they really have to wait until just four hours before the start of the launch window to make sure the fuel system (that leaked before) was actually functioning? :-(

Perhaps they figured it couldn't be accurately tested until they got an actual fill started? Maybe they hadn't taken delivery of enough Liq. Hydrogen and/or LOx earlier? The Liquid Hydrogen has to be kept fairly close to Absolute Zero; so I doubt they just have big ol' tanks of that just stashed around Cape Canaveral.

Here's what I don't get, though. Artemis 1 rolled out to the pad twelve days ago. It failed the wet dress rehearsal because of a fuel leak that prevented them from doing a bleed test on the engines. Was there really no way to do a bleed test during those twelve days? Did they really have to wait until just four hours before the start of the launch window to make sure the fuel system (that leaked before) was actually functioning? :-( Perhaps they figured it couldn't be accurately tested until they got an actual fill started? Maybe they hadn't taken delivery of enough Liq. Hydrogen and/or LOx earlier? The Liquid Hydrogen has to be kept fairly close to Absolute Zero; so I doubt they just have big ol' tanks of that just stashed around Cape Canaveral. Just guessing.

Here's what I don't get, though. Artemis 1 rolled out to the pad twelve days ago. It failed the wet dress rehearsal because of a fuel leak that prevented them from doing a bleed test on the engines. Was there really no way to do a bleed test during those twelve days? Did they really have to wait until just four hours before the start of the launch window to make sure the fuel system (that leaked before) was actually functioning? :-(

Here's what I don't get, though. Artemis 1 rolled out to the pad twelve days ago. It failed the wet dress rehearsal because of a fuel leak that prevented them from doing a bleed test on the engines. Was there really no way to do a bleed test during those twelve days? Did they really have to wait until just four hours before the start of the launch window to make sure the fuel system (that leaked before) was actually functioning? :-(

Perhaps they figured it couldn't be accurately tested until they got an actual fill started? Maybe they hadn't taken delivery of enough Liq. Hydrogen and/or LOx earlier? The Liquid Hydrogen has to be kept fairly close to Absolute Zero; so I doubt they just have big ol' tanks of that just stashed around Cape Canaveral.

From memory (I haven't been out near the pads since I was in middle school), they have huge tanks probably about half a mile away from the pad, or maybe a mile.

Okay, just looked it up. They had to rebuild it because it wasn't big enough for Artemis. The new tank holds 1.25 million gallons of LH2. It's that giant ball in the picture on page 1 [nasa.gov]. Or maybe that's the old one. They all pretty much look like giant white metal spheres, and I can't tell size from a photo. :-D

Presumably it has been full since th

Beyond the PR hit of NASA looking like they're unprepared, these sorts of failures are expensive for other reasons. Half a million people came down for that launch, and if they had just checked the engines a week earlier, it likely would have been scrubbed in time for folks to cancel or change their plans (or perhaps fixed in time for it to launch). Probably a quarter billion dollars was collectively wasted by people going down to see that launch failure, all of which could probably have been avoided by actually finishing the bleed test and any other skipped parts of their wet dress rehearsal during those twelve days that Artemis sat on the pad. That's why it seems bizarre to me that they didn't. It made NASA look unprepared, wasted a lot of time and money for a lot of people, and wasted far more resources (both personal and governmental) than it would have wasted having only the personnel needed for a non-launch test of the engines. Anyway, I hope they fix their problems. But on the other hand, I hope SpaceX succeeds in pulling off the short turnarounds that they're targeting for Starship and the Super Heavy booster. If they are successful, the forty-year-old space shuttle technology that Artemis was built around will be thoroughly obsolete before Artemis 3 even launches.

Beyond the PR hit of NASA looking like they're unprepared, these sorts of failures are expensive for other reasons. Half a million people came down for that launch, and if they had just checked the engines a week earlier, it likely would have been scrubbed in time for folks to cancel or change their plans (or perhaps fixed in time for it to launch). Probably a quarter billion dollars was collectively wasted by people going down to see that launch failure, all of which could probably have been avoided by actually finishing the bleed test and any other skipped parts of their wet dress rehearsal during those twelve days that Artemis sat on the pad.

That's why it seems bizarre to me that they didn't. It made NASA look unprepared, wasted a lot of time and money for a lot of people, and wasted far more resources (both personal and governmental) than it would have wasted having only the personnel needed for a non-launch test of the engines.

Anyway, I hope they fix their problems. But on the other hand, I hope SpaceX succeeds in pulling off the short turnarounds that they're targeting for Starship and the Super Heavy booster. If they are successful, the forty-year-old space shuttle technology that Artemis was built around will be thoroughly obsolete before Artemis 3 even launches.

I agree with all of that; but with the number of battle-proven STS engines they have just sitting-around (120?), it does sort of seem reasonable to try and re-use all those tax-dollars, and give those "old soldiers" one more chance for glory. . .

And, from what I have read, Starship has its share of problems, too!

But is still soooo cool to see SpaceX actually land those reusable boosters straight on their tail, just like all those cheezy 1950's SciFi movies!

Of course, this once again proves (as if we needed it) that Elon Musk is a delusional fraud that does absolutely nothing but take credit for other people's work.

Of course, this once again proves (as if we needed it) that Elon Musk is a delusional fraud that does absolutely nothing but take credit for other people's work.

How does the rocket that NASA has been forced to use by the US Government not launching its first test flight prove anything about Musk (who, despite my feelings towards him, has a company that has actually reliably put people in space) being a fraud?

" ... Of course, this once again proves (as if we needed it) that Elon Musk is a delusional fraud ..."

Please explain this bizarre twist of logic (Sure, we'll go with logic)

They clearly seem to believe that SLS was built by Elon Musk and SpaceX.

SpaceX is involved in the development of the lander for this, right? So maybe the parent is anticipating problems in 2025 when they get to the moon...

Elon Musk pisses people off, so therefore if a mosquito bites them on Tuesday evening, clearly this demonstrates Musk's hubris.

How, exactly, does this prove that Elon Musk is a "delusional fraud"? Setting aside the fact the Gwynne Shotwell runs SpaceX- SLS has cost $23 BILLION so far, will cost approximately $4 BILLION per launch, and has been under development for over a decade despite basically being a remash of old STS parts (e.g. the engines, main fuel tank, and SRBs). Starship, meanwhile, has cost less to develop, has taken less time to develop, has greater lifting capacity, and will be reusable.

Elon Musk is a twat- but that d

After re-reading your comment several times I just realized that you seem to believe that SLS is built by SpaceX don't you?

I hate to break it to you but SLS is a NASA project- and it's years late and way over budget.

To everyone who replied to the above post -- I suppose irony/sarcasm doesn't get through to you much, right?

I'm an Elon fanboi! Really!

Let me reword/rephrase: If this had been a development on a project headed by Elon Musk, we would no doubt have read (maybe here, certainly elsewhere) about how totally shady, shaky, unreliable that anything Elon Musk does. And fraudulent. Dangerous Etc. We don't need any facts or objective history to interfere with that opinion. Certainly not the fact this i

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

If that was meant to be irony, you clearly didn't get the point across well enough. I would recommend some tags next time. I think you'll also find that most of the people who replied to you are not Elon Musk "fanboi[s]". There are plenty of reasons to find Musk himself a bit dubious, but SpaceX itself is overall pretty positive although I personally have to deduct points for some incidents of firings and employee relations. Such incidents always seem to involve Musk directly for some reason.

You know that Musk and SpaceX have absolutely nothing to do with SLS, right? And that this is a Boeing boondoggle that costs 10x or more than any launch SpaceX does, even while sitting on the pad not launching?

Probably don't speak unless you actually know something about the subject.

Probably don't speak unless you actually know something about the subject.

Probably don't speak unless you actually know something about the subject.

But then, so little would ever be said around here.

Meanwhile, SpaceX is making everyone else look like dogshit. If they can get Starship into orbit, all similar projects should really be mothballed immediately.

Meanwhile, SpaceX is making everyone else look like dogshit. If they can get Starship into orbit, all similar projects should really be mothballed immediately.

Single-sourcing any mission-critical item is a bad idea. We need multiple independent services who are able to provide heavy lift.

Single-sourcing any mission-critical item is a bad idea. We need multiple independent services who are able to provide heavy lift.

Single-sourcing any mission-critical item is a bad idea. We need multiple independent services who are able to provide heavy lift.

Right, but it's hard to see how SLS accomplishes this. It seems to have been a very obvious boondoggle right from the start.

That seems to be a rather premature assessment. SN10 was an early prototype design, which has been very much superseded by subsequent revisions. Those early starship prototypes were practically designed to fail. Plus, why would they spend a lot of time showing off the interior right now? They are tying to get the actual booster into proof of concept into orbit, and no astronauts are expected to fly until 2024 at the earliest. If successful, the Starship has a lot more potential than the SLS given its comple

why would they spend a lot of time showing off the interior right now?

why would they spend a lot of time showing off the interior right now?

Since people will ride on this thing, that happens to be one of the most important things to design. If Musk intends to support 100 passengers on this thing (laughable in my opinion), then its pretty damn important to determine how much those systems are going to weigh and how they are going to be implemented. It shouldn't be a secondary priority.

If successful, the Starship has a lot more potential than the SLS given its complete reusability and lower launch costs.

If successful, the Starship has a lot more potential than the SLS given its complete reusability and lower launch costs.

Theres a lot left to accomplish before determining that its cheaper and more viable than SLS.

I don't see how you can say it's any less viable than the SLS, which has already failed in its first launch attempt.

I don't see how you can say it's any less viable than the SLS, which has already failed in its first launch attempt.

Are you really trying to suggest a launch scrub as a launch failure? A

A spacecraft like this is necessarily going to be configured in different ways. Some Starships will be cargo only (like for launching satellites), others will be LEO for small crews, others might carry 100 one day. There's no point to designing a 100-passenger layout version when the first versions almost certainly WON'T be used in that capacity. In fact, I doubt it will actually be used in the 100 person capacity, something that won't be viable any time in the next 10-15 years as a minimum unless it's only

even if Starship ever flies, 99% of the public will never be wealthy enough to step foot on one.

even if Starship ever flies, 99% of the public will never be wealthy enough to step foot on one.

Let's see: 1% of 8 billion people ("the Public") is still a healthy 80,000,000 potential passengers.

Sounds like enough to me.

Wow, may to be pedantic in the most unintelligent way. Do you honestly think 80,000,000 people will be able to afford a ride on Starship? You're incredibly naive if you think that to be true.

Wow, may to be pedantic in the most unintelligent way. Do you honestly think 80,000,000 people will be able to afford a ride on Starship? You're incredibly naive if you think that to be true.

Hey, I'm not the one that pulled a statistic out of my ass!

the LOX and LH tanks share a common bulkhead

the LOX and LH tanks share a common bulkhead

Well there's where you are wrong, because they are LOX and LCH3 tanks. LH2 needs a good bulkhead between it and LOX simply to keep it from freezing the LOX. You really don't want your LOX icing up, especially in the pipes, that's "crossing the streams" bad. The LCH3 and LOX are kept at roughly the same temperature. There's also the whole other problem of hydrogen embrittlement that goes away with methane.

Life support systems? That's putting the cart before the horse. Do you know what "prototype" means? Tha

I want this launch to be a success, but really I am thinking SpaceX ought to be the winner. I don't think we should be stuffing cash into Boeing's pocket when reusable rockets are the way to go. Even a billionaire wouldn't throw away his Rolls Royce after each trip. Now, if someone wealthy won't do that, why should poor taxpayers? It ought to be a felony to throw away a rocket after using it one time. I can't believe we're okay with our elected officials being cool with it. Do you realize the whole non-reus

Yess ... and Rocketdyne was recently given $600 million to design the Orion Main Engine as non-reusable. What possible excuse does NASA have to be giving out a such a large contract to design non-reusable engines? It's madness. I can understand them doing that maybe 20 years ago using a lame excuse that they didn't know engines can be reused. But now we need some sort of legislative prohibition against this clear corruption.

Problem with the Space Shuttle was the "reusability" didn't actually add all that much value. There was so much mass devoted to allowing the winged reentry that it ended up needing way too much fuel relative to the payload. The solid boosters were an awkward kludge to cope with the tyranny of the rocket equation. The SpaceX rockets with vertical landing capability are really the first rockets that live up to the promise of reusability as they only need minimal additional fuel to be reused.

Even Goddard developed military applications. He effectively invented the bazooka, for example.

Hmm .. really? Like what? You don't think they will make it to orbit this year? What's your upper limit of "anytime soon" .. 2025?

I'm re-posting this question to you since the original article was scrubbed, and I never did get an answer:

I have to admit, I'm a bit curious JockTroll, are you a 300 lb geek who lives in his mother's basement stuffing his face with cheetos? Could you even run a mile without collapsing and maybe vomiting? I just picture that as highly, highly likely.

Soooo.... Going by that video, you are a 300 lb geek living in your mother's basement _and_ you have an enlarged prostate?

Considering the ridonculous cost of one SLS launch, it's hard to get excited about Artemis. Consider, it's estimated that it costs $4.1B to launch 95 tons to LEO with SLS compared to $97M to launch 63 tons to LEO with one Falcon 9 Heavy. That is, for the price of one SLS, you can launch about 27 times the mass to LEO with FH.

I can well imagine Artemis landing on the Moon, only to find that SpaceX is already there.

The shuttle era featured delays quite frequently (in addition to this being a "new" system). A quick search brings up this article from Space.com [space.com] quoting data from an AP study:

"A 2007analysis of shuttle launch delays by the Associated Press found that the NASA spacecraft launched about 40 percent of the time. The AP analysis found that of the 118 shuttle flights that had flown at the time, 47 lifted off on time. More than half of the delays were caused by technical malfunctions, while foul weather made up about a third of the delays, the Associated Press reported then."

"A 2007analysis of shuttle launch delays by the Associated Press found that the NASA spacecraft launched about 40 percent of the time. The AP analysis found that of the 118 shuttle flights that had flown at the time, 47 lifted off on time. More than half of the delays were caused by technical malfunctions, while foul weather made up about a third of the delays, the Associated Press reported then."

Every commercial airliner you have ever flown on failed in multiple ways on its first flight, some better, some worse. Rooting out flaws is the the purpose of the program, everything is proceeding as it should.

You know what the prototype of the Apollo CSM did? It killed three people [wikipedia.org]. But we learned from it, and finally several revisions later put two people onto the moon.

This is a minor engine problem. It's obviously fixable because the other engines are working fine.

SLS is not perfect. But I'm getting tired of hearing "Huhuh wE sHoUlD lEt sPaCe kArEn tAkE oVeR" type takes because it's the usual mess that a project has to be if it's to have a hope in hell of passing Congress. What matters is whethe

"Oh noes, another delay that will earn us a billion cost-plus dollars."

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