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#26 2025-11-03 12:00:26
- GW Johnson
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
I see in the news that NASA finally threw open the lunar lander thing to all of industry, seeking a "plan B". So far, there have been 2 responses, one from SpaceX, the other from Blue Origin, the same original HLS contractors NASA selected, then finally downselected to SpaceX. The news reports provide no clue as to what SpaceX and Blue Origin "plan B" items really are.
You can pretty much bet that the SpaceX "plan B" is still some variant of its Starship modified to land on the moon, which is exactly what they were contracted to do in the first place. You can also bet that the Blue Origin "plan B" will be based on the "Blue Moon" lander they were designing right up until the downselect. They both have too much effort invested in those ideas to switch horses now. Simple as that!
Both are too tall to be stable for rough field landings on the moon (they violate the "stance wider than the cg is tall" criterion that was successful with Surveyor and the Apollo LM). And, you have to worry also about landing pads sinking deep into the lunar regolith, because it is no stronger than an Earthly sand dune! I do not know how loaded the Blue Origin pads would have been, but as of yet I have seen nothing out of any SpaceX designs that take dynamic (transient) bearing pressures during touchdown into account. They only have touchdown experiences on a hard pad or steel deck.
NASA needs somebody else to respond with a different idea from either of these two. But, with the landing scheduled for only 1 or 2 years way, there is no reality to NASA's plans, either! The Apollo LM took 4 years paper to flight, and that was a crash program where money was secondary. This is not. The downselect was driven by insufficient money in the first place. This lander cannot be done "from scratch" in 1-2 years, even if it were a crash program.
The original SpaceX and Blue Origin ideas have about 2 years under their belts now. Some variants of those are the only feasible things that might get done in another 2 years. And that could ONLY happen if NASA funded both contractors at a crash program level, from now until then. That's the only way to have a viable option AND a viable backup option! Common sense says so!
But it ain't going to happen that way, people!
All you need do is look at what is happening to JPL to understand what has already been happening at the rest of NASA. So far, 25% of workforce laid off, and they were by far NASA's most capable people! Demonstrably so! THAT is what this government is really doing!
Just as I have always recommended: "look ONLY at what they really do; do NOT listen to what they say or promise!"
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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#27 2025-11-19 15:36:02
- SpaceNut
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
Leaked Document Shows Elon Musk’s SpaceX Will Miss Moon Landing Deadline. Here's What To Know
According to the original Artemis plan, we should have already put people on the Moon. Artemis III should have gone and come back by now. Instead, it is currently tentatively scheduled for no earlier than mid-2027. However, the mission is almost certain to be delayed again. The reason for the delay lies with SpaceX's Starship rocket: a leaked memo states that the vehicle won’t be ready until mid-2028, at least.
During the first Trump administration, the mission to bring humans back to the Moon was christened Artemis. It was going to involve the already-in-construction Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion capsule, as well as a privately built Human Landing System. Orion and SLS were tested with Artemis I in 2022.The original selection for the Human Landing System spacecraft was SpaceX's then-planned Starship. This actually created legal troubles for NASA. Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, a rival space company, filed a complaint in federal court against NASA, escalating its original complaint that NASA unfairly awarded the lunar lander contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
At the time, the legal trouble seemed to be a major delaying factor. Issues with the spacesuit designs and problems with the heatshield of Orion added to the delays of both crewed missions: Artemis II, which will launch next year and travel around the Moon, and Artemis III, the mission that is going to bring the first woman and first person of color to the surface of the Moon. The next Moon landing was first envisioned to happen in 2024, then this year, and then it was postponed to next year. At the end of 2024, a mid-2027 date was put down, which remains the currently agreed target.
Before that agreement, an analysis published over a year ago by the US Government Accountability Office was skeptical that it would be possible to make that date, and posited it would be pushed to 2028. The major delaying factor now is Starship. The vehicle suffered multiple explosions this year. Despite the most recent successes, the vehicle is well behind schedule to safely carry astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon's surface and back.
A few weeks ago, acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy went on TV to announce that the space agency was open to other companies to provide a lunar landing system. “[SpaceX and Musk] push their timelines out, and we’re in a race against China,” Duffy told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” at the time. “So, I’m going to open up the contract. I’m going to let other space companies compete with SpaceX.”
The only company that is ready to compete is Blue Origin. The company has not been advertising what they have been doing with their Blue Moon human lander, but it is expected that an actual space test will happen in the first half of next year. Blue Moon is supposed to be delivered in 2030 for Artemis V
Elon Musk did not take the news of NASA shopping around well. He turned to social media to post school-yard insults regarding Duffy (called him “Sean Dummy”) and wrote that: “The person responsible for America's space program can't have a 2-digit IQ.” Duffy retorted that “great companies shouldn’t be afraid of a challenge.”
In the leaked memo reported by Audrey Decker at Politico, SpaceX will be ready to land humans on the Moon in September 2028, more than a year after the mid-2027 goal of NASA. Before that, Starship needs to demonstrate in-space refueling, currently scheduled for June 2026, and an uncrewed landing on the Moon in June 2027.
To make that schedule work, nothing can go wrong. While Starship has achieved certain success as defined by the specific tests from SpaceX, it has yet to demonstrate the capabilities of flying to space and landing back on Earth safely. To state the obvious, a safe landing is the crucial part of a Lunar Human landing system.
NASA’s plans for the Moon missions continue to shift. The Trump administration’s budget has proposed canceling SLS, Orion, and the Lunar Gateway – the next-gen international space station currently under construction to replace the ISS – that is supposed to orbit the Moon to help facilitate both Moon landings nd further space travel. The administration's goal is to rely more on commercial partners, but it's an ever-changing race which ones they will be.
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#28 2025-11-24 19:52:26
Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
Blue Origin is rapidly advancing in its space capabilities. It plans in first quarter 2026 to test land a cargo lunar lander in the Blue Moon Mk1, capable of transporting 3 tons payload to the lunar surface. Because of its large cargo capacity, Blue Origin is investigating it as a crewed lander to do Artemis III.
If it succeeds at this test landing in 2026 it will be a watershed moment. Not only is the landing important, but the lander uses hydrolox. In order for this to work the Mk1 will have to employ low boiloff tech. Others have speculated on accomplishing this, notably ULA with their proposed ACES hydrolox upper stage. Blue Origin having a stage with this tech would open up cryogenic stages being used as propellant depots and even for longer missions such as to Mars.
Beyond that, Blue Origin has announced a larger version of the New Glenn capable of 70 tons to LEO. I’m trying to find out if this is with partial reusability, i.e., recovering the booster. If it is, then its expendable payload would be ca. 100 tons. This is important because this is the range commonly thought needed for a “Moon rocket”, one capable of single launch manned Moon missions, a la the Saturn V. Eric Berger has written the upgraded new Glenn might cost only ca. $200 million and be ready by 2027:
Blue Origin revealed some massively cool plans for its New Glenn rocket
“The iterative design from our current 7×2 vehicle means we can build this rocket quickly.”
ERIC BERGER – NOV 20, 2025 1:06 
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/11/b … nn-rocket/
If Blue succeeds at this, it again would be a game changer. This is scarcely more than what we spend just sending astronauts to the ISS. If manned Moon missions could be launched at costs this low it would finally open up the Moon to sustainable habitation and development.
Bob Clark
Last edited by RGClark (2025-11-25 08:45:44)
Old Space rule of acquisition (with a nod to Star Trek - the Next Generation):
“Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”
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#29 2025-11-25 10:59:35
- Void
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
It is so good to see results for Blue Origin. They seem to have a working relationship with Rocket Lab as well. In the current situation they both do not have reusable 2nd stages, (Yet).
An interesting thing would if rocket Lab eventually size up their Neutron, if it works well.
So, it may be interesting to see if two cores SpaceX and Blue Origin, may gather others to their "Sphere of Influence".
I am fairly sure that NASA does not want just one major player.
If I am wrong, then perhaps a Blue Origin moon lander could be hosted by Starship.
If I am right, then I think that perhaps Stoke Space will enter the sphere of influence of SpaceX, and Starship/Superheavy might host a Starboat sized version of the 2nd Stage of Stoke Space, or Superheavy might lift a supersized Hydro-Lox, 2nd Stage of Stoke Space.
So, I am wondering about "In-Flight-Hot-Staging": 
By working with Stoke Space, SpaceX might get a Hydro-Lox 2nd Stage into their tool kit. And possibly with that different heat shield method. Although there is a question about if that heat shield could cope with speeds from the Moon, it perhaps would do OK with coming back from LEO.
And a Stoke Space 2nd Stage might work OK on the Moon. perhaps even landing into a cradle the shape of its heat shield.
I think it is possible that Blue Origin may create a Jarvis being a bit like the Stoke Space 2nd Stage as well.
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … &FORM=VIRE
Quote:
Stoke Space Second Stage: High Performance and Reusable within 24 Hours of Landing
YouTube
Space Startup News
5.4K views
Just a wish. With all the water which supposedly is not said to exist on the Moon, the 2nd stage might work rather well on the Moon and might support efforts with Starship itself.
Ending Pending 
Last edited by Void (2025-12-03 09:11:36)
Is it possible that the root of political science claims is to produce white collar jobs for people who paid for an education and do not want a real job?
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#30 2025-12-02 15:45:19
- GW Johnson
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
I am glad to see Blue Origin entering the orbital launch fray. They do have an impressive design in New Glenn. It's smaller than Starship/Superheavy, so it fills a different payload mass niche.
Meanwhile, SpaceX has been proving out the "rideshare" concept with its Falcon-9. That is to be the technique by which the giant Starship/Superheavy can address the market for smaller payloads.
A rocket sized about right for a given payload offers the possibility of a sooner date to launch, but at a somewhat higher price. The "rideshare" option offers the lowest price, but at a longer wait time before launching, trying to fill the "seats".
I think both are good approaches, and actually the two companies will offer services that are as much complimentary as they are competitive.
Being so much bigger with an upper stage that is also a fully-qualified entry vehicle, I think SpaceX has the longer row to hoe, before their vehicle is considered safe and reliable. Blue Origin still has a similar row to hoe with New Glenn, but not one quite as long as Spacex's, because Blue Origin's upper stage is not reusable.
It's apples and oranges. I did the best I could to compare in a realistic way.
GW
GW Johnson
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"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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#31 2025-12-03 09:16:44
- Void
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
I like your evaluation Dr Johnson.
I think that Starships that land and stay on the Moon may have value, and those the loiter in orbit of the Moon may have value.
If it is true that the Moon has lots of water from ancient volcanism, then if Starship stopped off in orbit of the Moon and Carbon might be supplied by some efficient freighter, then a Hydro-Lox, Moon vehicle could act as a tanker to bring water to Lunar Orbit, where a space station might generate propellants for the Starship.
The Starship could bring freight to Lunar orbit and get refilled to either return to Earth, or go to another destination.
The Tanker could bring water up and freight down.
Ending Pending
Is it possible that the root of political science claims is to produce white collar jobs for people who paid for an education and do not want a real job?
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#32 2025-12-03 10:19:19
- GW Johnson
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
Copied from my post 26 above:
"NASA needs somebody else to respond with a different idea from either of these two. But, with the landing scheduled for only 1 or 2 years way, there is no reality to NASA's plans, either! The Apollo LM took 4 years paper to flight, and that was a crash program where money was secondary. This is not. The downselect was driven by insufficient money in the first place. This lander cannot be done "from scratch" in 1-2 years, even if it were a crash program."
Now see this from the Wednesday 12-3-2025 issue of AIAA's "Daily Launch" email newsletter:
"Ars Technica
NASA seeks a “warm backup” option as key decision on lunar rover nears
By the time the second group of NASA astronauts reach the Moon later this decade, the space agency would like to have a lunar rover waiting for them. But as the space agency nears a key selection, some government officials are seeking an insurance policy of sorts to increase the program’s chance of success.
-----
My take on it:
Told ya so, didn't I? No reality at all to the Artemis plan and schedule.
They announced a landing date without a working prototype for a lunar lander, and no fruitful effort at all toward a rover. What kind of "planning" is that? What kind of "management" is that? None, I would say!
And just how are they going to address these needs while laying off 25-50% of their workforces? Answer -- they cannot!
All of which proves my point here: the NASA we knew and loved no longer exists.
It was slowly being destroyed by Congress using it for porkbarrel politics the last several decades, and here in the last several months, the destruction has been sped up enormously by this administration, which is demonstrably anti-science, and also apparently only interested in warfighting technologies it can purchase more over-the-counter than by developing them.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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#33 2025-12-03 10:27:24
- GW Johnson
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
There may or may not be large quantities of easily-recoverable ice on the moon near its poles. We still do not know with real ground truth. Remote sensing still often lies to you, precisely because too many inferences have to be made.
But if easily recoverable ice exists, then LOX-LH2 should be producible powered by a mix of solar and nuclear electricity (remember, the day/night cycle is a month long!). All it takes is electricity to do purification, electrolysis, and liquifaction.
If you have a single stage, reusable lander rigged to use LOX-LH2 propellant, you can use it to ferry some of that same LOX-LH2 propellant to orbit. You refuel the lander on the surface. It uses less propellant to launch cargo into lunar orbit and return, done that way.
That being the case, what purpose does a lunar space station serve? Why build 2 propellant production plants? Just use the one you need on the surface, and ship product to orbit for transit elsewhere.
That approach makes more sense to me, because you get the same effect while building less infrastructure.
Now, if you intend to use LOX-LCH4 propellants, you will have to ship carbon from Earth or elsewhere, and it needs to be pure, and in powder form. There is no easily recoverable carbon on the moon.
Extremely dilute concentrations of anything are not easily-recovered resources. That is why sea water has never been "mined" for the uranium that is there, in extremely dilute concentrations.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2025-12-03 10:30:39)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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#34 2025-12-03 12:32:51
- Void
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
Yes, what I suggested is contingent on there being large amounts of ice and very little CO2.
https://www.snexplores.org/article/ice- … tion-water
Quote:
Space
Ancient volcanoes may have left ice at the moon’s poles
The eruptions may have produced several temporary atmospheres that held water vapor
So we have a bit of a logic tree.
If Ice and No CO2, then lift H20 to Moon orbit refill station, and bring Carbon to Lunar orbit. (Starship needs Methane).
If Ice and CO2 (Dry Ice) on the Moon, make O2 and Methane and bring to orbit of the Moon to refill Starship.
An alternative would be to have a Hydro-Lox Booster that might give Starship a kick from the Moon.
We need to have facts about available resources as I know you have always maintained.
Ending Pending
Last edited by Void (2025-12-03 12:37:43)
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#35 2025-12-05 11:55:37
- GW Johnson
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
Regarding post 32 above, more "I-told-you-so" stuff showed up in today's (5 Dec 25) "Daily Launch" from AIAA:
Ars Technica
Congress warned that NASA’s current plan for Artemis “cannot work”
In recent months, it has begun dawning on US lawmakers that, absent significant intervention, China will land humans on the Moon before the United States can return there with the Artemis Program. So far, legislators have yet to take meaningful action on this—a $10 billion infusion into NASA’s budget this summer essentially provided zero funding for efforts needed to land humans on the Moon this decade. But now a subcommittee of the House Committee on Space, Science, and Technology has begun reviewing the space agency’s policy, expressing concerns about Chinese competition in civil spaceflight.
-----
My take:
Finally, it is just beginning to dawn on the politicians running NASA's show that they have been seriously miss-running it! About time! Actually, far too late! Announcing an expected landing date without a lander (and a rover) almost done with development, was just UTTERLY STUPID! But that's EXACTLY what you get when you let incompetent politicians be the top managers. Always has been, always will be.
This return-to-the-moon thing should not be another space race in the first place. The US put boots on the moon 56-53 years ago. It should no longer be about "who does something first". It should actually be about going there to do something significant and perhaps even useful.
Congress took over managing NASA by the end of Apollo. We have spent the last half a century puttering around with men in orbit (WITHOUT doing artificial spin gravity work !!!), while sending probes to other planets from the one part of NASA not so badly micromanaged by Congress until recently. Before Nixon killed all manned spaceflight outside LEO (not just Apollo!!!), the plan was US boots on Mars in the 1980's!!!
EDIT UPDATE same day: NASA killed NERVA just as it was ready to fly as an alternate 3rd stage on Saturn-5, when Nixon forbade manned flight outside LEO, based on the reasoning "who needs the rocket if we aren't going to go?" They learned that kind of "reasoning" from Congress!
See what Congress micromanaging NASA REALLY did?
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2025-12-05 15:47:31)
GW Johnson
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"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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#36 2025-12-08 10:41:13
- GW Johnson
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
from the Monday 12-8-2025 "Daily Launch" email newsletter, there was a link to a longer article at Space.com, the text of which I copied and reproduced here:
TITLE 'We have lost a lot of time.' Former NASA chief says US needs to start over with moon landing plans or risk losing to China
AUTHORSHIP By Brett Tingley published 3 days ago
SUBTITLE "We have stuck to a plan that does not make sense."
TEXT Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin pulled no punches about where he sees America's current Artemis moon landing program in Congressional testimony today.
Griffin testified alongside other witnesses at a hearing held in Washington D.C. on Thursday (Dec. 4) by the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives. The hearing, titled "Strategic Trajectories Assessing China’s Space Rise and the Risks to U.S. Leadership," was held to discuss the rapid development of China's space program and what that means for America's long-held dominance when it comes to space exploration.
And according to Griffin and the witnesses at the hearing, that dominance might soon cede to China due to policy decisions that continue to plague the Artemis program, NASA's current planned campaign of moon missions. "Sticking to a plan is important when the plan makes sense. China is sticking to a plan that makes sense. It looks a lot, in fact, like what the United States did for Apollo," Griffin said. "We have stuck to a plan that does not make sense."
Griffin said NASA and two consecutive presidential administrations have stuck to an Artemis moon landing architecture that "cannot work" and "poses a level of crew risk that should be considered unacceptable." The former NASA administrator reiterated a previous recommendation he made to Congress, arguing that NASA's Artemis 3 mission, currently planned for 2027, should be canceled — along with every other Artemis mission — so NASA and the U.S. government can rethink the whole plan for America's return to the moon.
"We should start over, proceeding with all deliberate speed," Griffin said. "We have lost a lot of time, and we may not be able to return to the moon before the Chinese execute their own first landing. Or we may; space is hard and despite the progress that China is making, mission success is guaranteed to no one. But though we may not win at this first step, we cannot cede the pursuit and leave the playing field to others."
NASA and SpaceX's current plan for Artemis 3 and other moon missions in the program relies on a complicated in-orbit refueling system. The current moon landing architecture requires a high number of SpaceX Starship launches in order to refuel the lander that would take NASA astronauts to the moon. The exact number still isn't even known, though SpaceX estimates it could require 12 Starship launches to fully refuel the lander. The concept also remains unproven; SpaceX intends to test Starship's in-flight refueling system on an upcoming launch.
Furthermore, Griffin added, the length of time the lander would need to remain in orbit while the refueling flights launch and rendezvous with it would "almost guarantee" the propellant loaded into the lunar lander would boil off before the mission proceeds. "I do not see a way with the current technology we have to overcome those problems, and therefore we should not pursue that line of approach," Griffin said.
Even SpaceX appears to doubt the current Artemis moon landing architecture. In internal company documents obtained by Politico, SpaceX estimates that September 2028 is the earliest timeline for a first crewed lunar landing attempt; however, according to publicly available information, NASA is still aiming for 2027 for that mission.
If Artemis 3 is delayed to late 2028, there will have been an average of two years between the first three Artemis program missions. The Apollo program, by comparison, launched each of its 11 missions an average of once every 4.5 months between 1968 and 1972.
NASA's current acting administrator has even criticized SpaceX for being "behind" on its lunar lander and Starship development. In remarks made in October 2025, acting NASA chief Sean Duffy suggested the Trump administration might be looking for other companies to compete to build and launch NASA's next moon lander. "The president and I want to get to the moon in this president's term, so I'm gonna open up the contract," Duffy told CNBC. "I'm gonna let other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin."
But it could be that such programmatic instability is what is holding the United States back from committing to a moon landing program in the long-term, according to Dean Cheng, a China expert at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. Cheng told House representatives during the hearing that the bureaucratic structures of the Chinese government allow the nation to stick to plans over longer timelines than the U.S. government system allows. "China sticks to a plan. It creates a plan that sticks to it for decades," Cheng said. "And the benefit there is programmatic stability, budgetary stability, staff stability."
NASA, meanwhile, has been in a period of turmoil that has seen key science facilities lose capabilities, many flagship science missions put at risk of cancellation due to budget cuts, and thousands of personnel lost due to federal workforce reductions.
But whether or not the United States returns to the moon before China, former NASA chief Griffin said that the real risk is "failing to commit to what winning really means in the long run." Many U.S. government officials have stressed that whichever nation is able to establish a sustained presence on the moon first will have the privilege of establishing norms for how other nations can access and use lunar resources. If China manages to get a foothold on the moon ahead of the United States, it may be able to dictate who uses certain areas of the moon going forward, and how.
"I am confident that China fully understands this," Griffin said.
-----
My take:
Here are some high-level people saying essentially the same things I have been saying: how ridiculous our still-evolving mission architecture has been for returning to the moon, and how stupid it was to project a landing date without a lander leaving development testing already in-hand. The only item missing from this article is my comment that this should not be a race to see who is "first" about anything, because we already put boots on the moon over half a century ago! However, to get the politicians to do anything, I guess it has to be some sort of race, because of the technically-incompetent idiots that the politicians usually are. Another stupid race, just like with Apollo.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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#37 2025-12-08 11:07:53
- GW Johnson
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
I would also add to the previous post that I think the concerns about in-space refueling are overblown. SpaceX is evolving toward accelerating the docked pair of vehicles at very low gee with thrusters of one type or another, slowly settling the propellants into the bottoms of the tanks. That will work.
Whether this can be done robotically is the real question here, especially since the AI stuff is already proving to be problematical in self-driving vehicles. If the programmers actually address all the possible contingencies, it will work. If they do not, sooner or later there will be a catastrophe. Simple as that. The track record with self driving cars is not promising, as regards programmers anticipating all possible contingencies.
As for the number of tanker flights, I think it is far too soon to be saying that it will take this or that number of flights. This thing is still in experimental flight test, and the final vehicle layout and configuration is still unknown at the detail level required to determine how much propellant payload could be delivered on-orbit. Even the propellant capacity of the vehicle is still evolving. For a full refill, could be anywhere from 6+ to 12+ flights. No one knows for sure yet! Claims "to know" this number are still BS.
And there is the long-term boil-off problem. Most anything they are doing will get you days of "stage life", but not weeks. They might get to weeks if the propellant tankage has the header tanks nested inside the main tanks, but only for the small quantities that the header tanks hold. To make it work, they will have to empty and vent the outer main tank, so that the vacuum between makes the tank system into a thermos bottle. The outer tank shell is also the sun shield that stops solar heating of the header tank, but only if there is vacuum between them.
One header tank is nested right now in the flight test configuration up to this point, the other is not. That will have to be rectified for the real mission. But as I said, we are still in experimental flight test with experimental configuration, and these configurations are still evolving. Claiming to already know the final "stage life" is also BS at this stage of the game.
But, what those considerations just discussed prove, is that this vehicle design is NOWHERE NEAR done with very experimental flight test, much less any final development prove-out testing! Precisely because of that, projecting mission schedules using it are still near-100% BS! That's the real effect of the factor-3-ish ratio between "Musk time" and real-world time that we have seen, ever since SpaceX first started flying Falcon-1's expendably out of Kwajalein.
That time ratio is different with each contractor, but all contractors have always had such time ratios. Long ago, that was taken into account by the government when planning military aircraft and space programs, and also for the civilian space program (same crowd of contractors back then). The details have shifted some since then, especially since there are now different pools of contractors for the various military and civil programs that only overlap some now. But it would seem that nobody at today's version of NASA (or DOD for that matter) remembers anything about evaluating and taking into account these time ratios.
That lack shows in how slow (and concomittantly expensive) it has become to actually do anything anymore. The P-51 Mustang went from a sketch on a napkin to a flying prototype in about 100 days. It took another year to re-engine the plane to make it the success that it finally became. And another year or three before they went to the bubble canopy on P-51D, solving the pilot combat visibility issue. That's about 3.5 years from an idea to a fully-successful combat design truly worthy of mass production.
Today that's now running about 25+ years (!!!) for airplanes and giant rockets. I think SpaceX is doing fairly well; their half-reusable Falcon-9 was ready in about a decade from idea to reality, which is way better than the industry usual. I think Starship/Superheavy is going to take them about that same decade to make ready. They are still a tad less than halfway done doing that.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2025-12-08 11:31:27)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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#38 2025-12-08 11:56:48
- Void
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
I hope you don't mind the intrusion.
It looks like China and Blue Origin will be able to "Top" Falcon 9 within a period of time. Just knowing something can be done allows them to skip many of the mistakes that SpaceX had to endure.
I am wondering if when the HLS is satisfied, SpaceX could adapt its reentry methods to the 2nd Stage of Falcon 9.
It would be a diversion. And Merlin Engines are not as good. But there may be many more Spaceports that an upgraded Falcon 9 could operate from. And if they had landing barges for Starship/Superheavy, they also could use them for the Falcon 9.
Not all payloads are Starship sized anyway.
They have the Heat Shield almost figured out and the flaps are pretty much understood. But I expect that a Falcon 9 2nd Stage would have to do a "Hover Slam" landing like the 1st stage does.
Maybe they could upgrade the 2nd stage to Metha-Lox???
Granted, it is a diversion but the competitors don't have these skills yet.
Ending Pending
If they made is correctly then it could also be lofted to orbit by Starship itself at times and be a 3rd Stage "Starboat".
Ending Pending
Last edited by Void (2025-12-08 12:03:22)
Is it possible that the root of political science claims is to produce white collar jobs for people who paid for an education and do not want a real job?
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#39 2025-12-13 15:43:06
- SpaceNut
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
With similarities to the use of the shuttle ET for humans to make use of.
A Common Habitat Deep Space Exploration Vehicle for Transit and Orbital Operations
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#40 2025-12-17 10:55:49
- GW Johnson
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
Up to now, the usual orbital launch vehicle is two stages with a payload shroud. It has proven possible to recover the first stage, even if is largely constructed of aluminum, but ONLY because speed at entry is far lower than from orbit. Nearer 1 km/s than 8. With aluminum, you usually need an entry burn to slow down enough. With stainless steel, this is proving not to be necessary. There is very little in the way of plasma at Mach 6, and the hot air temperature is near 1800-1900 K. And for only a minute or two.
Second stages capable of surviving entry from orbit are a real problem, simply because the speed is so much higher. The exposure is to far higher plasma temperatures (in the 4000 to 8000 K range), and for a far longer duration(3 or 4 minutes). So far, it has proven to require some or all of the stage to be covered in some sort of heat shield material. Coming back from the moon or deep space is even worse: similar exposure times, but plasma temperatures can approach 6000 to 11,000 K.
What works at best mass ratio for an expendable second stage is not what you have to build for a recoverable second stage, as SpaceX has been demonstrating with its Starship. It must also be a qualified, heat-shielded entry vehicle, and in addition to that must also be capable of some sort of final descent and landing. That pretty much at least doubles, and maybe triples, the stage inert mass fraction.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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#41 2025-12-21 12:19:43
- SpaceNut
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
Artemis III pressure and the threat to SpaceX
all about meeting the lunar manned mission date.
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#42 Yesterday 11:12:32
- SpaceNut
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
For GW Johnson...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … e130a&ei=8
I think this is the best way to preserve items that would disappear over time.
The story at the link above reports on a personal review of the heat shield for Artemis II by the new NASA director.
(th)
NASA chief puts Orion heat shield through final go/no-go check
On the eve of the first crewed flight of the Artemis program, NASA’s top leadership has zeroed in on a single, unforgiving piece of hardware: the Orion capsule’s heat shield. The final go or no-go review of that system is not just a technical milestone, it is a public test of whether the agency has truly learned from the scorching lessons of Artemis I and is ready to send astronauts back toward the Moon.
By personally scrutinizing the Orion heat shield before Artemis II, the new NASA chief is signaling that the agency’s confidence must be earned, not assumed. The outcome of that review will shape when the mission flies, how the crew returns, and how the public judges NASA’s willingness to confront uncomfortable risks in full view.
From char loss mystery to root cause
The scrutiny now focused on Orion’s heat shield began the moment the uncrewed Artemis I capsule was pulled from the Pacific and hauled back to shore. After NASA recovered the Orion spacecraft and transported it to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, engineers found that parts of the charred layer on the ablative shield had come off in ways they did not fully predict, a surprise for a system designed to burn away in a controlled fashion during reentry. That discovery triggered a long investigation into why chunks of material were shedding, and whether the pattern hinted at a deeper design flaw in the thermal protection system that guards the crew module.Investigators eventually traced the problem to how the material behaved under the specific heating and airflow conditions of the Artemis I trajectory, rather than to a single manufacturing defect or obvious structural crack. NASA has described how the charred layer on Orion’s base heat shield experienced unexpected char loss, prompting teams to dissect the shield, model the aerothermal environment, and compare test data with flight telemetry. That work set the stage for the current go or no-go decision, because it forced NASA to decide whether the anomaly could be bounded with analysis and minor tweaks, or whether a more invasive redesign was needed before putting people on board.
Why Artemis II depends on a single shield
The stakes of that decision are clear when I look at what Artemis II is supposed to do. The mission will send a crew of four, including Christina Koch, on a loop around the Moon and back to Earth, exposing Orion to a high-speed reentry that is only slightly less punishing than a direct lunar return. Koch and the other members of the Artemis 2 crew are eager to launch on their mission, but their path home runs straight through the same thermal environment that stripped away char on Artemis I, and any uncertainty about the shield’s performance becomes a direct question about crew safety.NASA has already acknowledged that the next flight is a crucial stepping stone toward a sustained lunar presence and, eventually, the kind of deep-space expeditions needed for crewed Mars missions. The agency’s decision to proceed with Artemis II using the existing Orion heat shield design, rather than ripping it out, followed an extensive review of the Artemis I data and a formal update to the broader Artemis flight plan. That choice effectively ties the schedule for returning humans to lunar orbit to the confidence engineers and leadership can place in a single, upgraded but not fundamentally redesigned shield.
Skip entry, schedule pressure, and a narrow launch window
The technical debate around Orion’s protection system is inseparable from the way the capsule comes home. For Artemis I, NASA used a “skip entry” profile in which Orion dipped into the atmosphere, then briefly bounced back out before making its final descent, a maneuver that spreads heating over a longer path but also creates complex aerodynamic loads. NASA traced the problem in part to Orion’s skip entry trajectory, noting that the pattern of char loss matched the phases when the capsule was skimming the upper atmosphere and then diving back in, which is why the same profile for Artemis II has drawn so much attention from engineers and outside analysts alike.All of this is unfolding against a tight but flexible launch window that could open as soon as early February. NASA’s Artemis II mission is currently targeted to launch in February, with officials describing a window that stretches from Feb. 6 to April 10 and is broken into several distinct periods of possible liftoff opportunities. Local coverage has underscored how the mission, updated at 10:24 PM EST, will be the first time astronauts fly around the Moon since Apollo, and that schedule pressure is now colliding with the need to be absolutely certain about the heat shield’s behavior on another skip entry.
nside the new NASA chief’s go/no-go moment
Into this mix has stepped a new NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, who has made a point of personally engaging with the Orion heat shield issue. In a detailed review session described by space reporter Eric Berger, Isaacman pressed engineers on what went wrong with Artemis I and what had changed for Artemis II, before ultimately expressing full confidence in the system. That level of openness and transparency is exactly what should be expected of NASA, Berger wrote, noting that Isaacman had only been sworn in on December 18 when he convened the review that would effectively serve as the final go or no-go check for the shield, a moment captured in Jan coverage of the meeting.What stands out to me is how candid the internal conversation appears to have been. According to a detailed account shared by one attendee, the NASA team spent most of the session walking through charts and models before, toward the end of the meeting, agreeing to discuss something that no one really liked to talk about: the residual risk that cannot be engineered away. One of the NASA engineers said that even with all the analysis, there is still a nonzero chance of unexpected char behavior, a comment that surfaced in a However detailed community write-up of the review. Isaacman’s decision to accept that residual risk, while insisting on continued testing and monitoring, is the essence of a go call in human spaceflight.
Rollout, wet dress, and what still worries engineers
Even as the heat shield debate plays out in conference rooms, the hardware for Artemis II is moving toward the pad. NASA plans to roll out the Space Launch System rocket for the mission on Jan. 17, a key step that will lead into a full “wet dress rehearsal” where teams load the core stage and upper stage with more than 700,000 g of cryogenic propellants, roughly 2.65 m liters, and run through the countdown. During wet dress, teams demonstrate the ability to load more than 700,000 g of supercold fuel without leaks or valve issues, a rehearsal that must succeed before anyone worries about the heat shield’s performance on the way home.Behind the scenes, though, some specialists remain uneasy about how much of the Artemis I anomaly has been retired by analysis alone. A detailed video breakdown posted in Jan by an independent analyst revisited the Orion heat shield investigation and walked through what char loss really means for the structure underneath, highlighting how localized material shedding could, in a worst case, expose underlying layers to higher heating than expected. That follow-up on Orion underscored that while NASA’s official line is that the shield is safe for flight, there is still a healthy debate in the technical community about whether the current design has enough margin for the long-term Artemis roadmap.
Delay debates, outside critics, and the politics of risk
The path to this moment has already included one major schedule reset. In Dec, NASA announced that it would delay the next flight of the Aremis program, Artemis 2, pushing the mission back from its earlier target so engineers could fully understand the heat shield behavior and other systems. That decision, dissected in a widely viewed explainer on why NASA is not fixing the heat shield on Artemis II, made clear that the agency preferred to accept a longer gap between flights rather than rush a redesign that might introduce new unknowns, a tradeoff that was laid out in detail in a NASA-focused analysis of the delay.Critics have also questioned whether the nomination of Jared Isaacman, a billionaire pilot with his own commercial spaceflight ambitions, has overshadowed the technical issues around Orion. In Dec, one commentator argued that the Isaacman nomination risked pulling attention away from the hard engineering questions and toward personality-driven coverage, urging viewers on Thursday to focus instead on the new information about the heat shield and its test history. That perspective, shared in a detailed Thursday breakdown of the nomination, reflects a broader tension: NASA must balance the political optics of bold leadership with the unglamorous work of resolving char patterns and thermal margins.
Crew confidence and the long road back to the Moon
For the astronauts assigned to Artemis II, the heat shield debate is not an abstract engineering exercise. Christina Koch has spoken about how she and her crewmates are preparing for a mission that will test not only Orion’s systems but also the procedures and teamwork needed for later landings, and Koch and the other members of the Artemis 2 crew are eager to launch on their mission as soon as NASA gives the final green light. Their confidence rests on the assurance that the same shield which protected an uncrewed capsule through a skip entry will do the same with four people strapped inside, a point underscored in a feature on how Koch and the crew are training for the unknowns they might encounter around the Moon.NASA’s own messaging has tried to thread the needle between caution and ambition. Agency leaders have emphasized that the Artemis architecture, including Orion’s heat shield, is being built not just for a single lunar flyby but for a series of increasingly complex missions that will eventually support long-duration stays on the surface and, further out, crewed Mars expeditions. Local television coverage in Jan, updated by reporter Meghan Moriarty and reporter Hayley Crombleholme, has highlighted how the Artemis II mission to launch in February is framed as a historic return to deep space that must still clear a rigorous safety bar before liftoff. That framing, captured in a Meghan Moriarty segment, shows how the final go or no-go on the heat shield has become a proxy for the public’s trust in NASA’s entire lunar strategy.
What the final call will really decide
As the rollout date approaches, the agency is also refining its launch opportunities and contingency plans. NASA has broken the Artemis 2 launch window into three periods, each with a restricted set of possible liftoff times that balance lighting conditions, communications coverage, and the geometry of the return corridor. That structure, outlined in a Jan update on how Artemis 2 will move to the pad and aim for dates between Feb. 6 and April 10, underscores how tightly the mission’s trajectory, including the skip entry, is woven into the calendar.In parallel, public-facing explainers have reminded viewers that the heat shield will face its biggest test yet when Orion comes back from the Moon with people on board. One recent overview noted that the same skip entry profile that contributed to char loss on Artemis I will again be used to manage g-forces and heating, and that NASA traced the earlier problem in part to that trajectory while still concluding the system is safe for flight. That assessment, summarized in a Jan report on the upcoming mission, makes clear that the final go or no-go check by the NASA chief is less about discovering a new flaw and more about affirming that the agency is willing to own the residual risk it has already mapped.
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#43 Yesterday 14:39:53
- SpaceNut
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
The odds favor their survival, but the lethal uncertainty is nowhere near zero. Initially, the excuse was eliminating the skip and just going for direct entry. I do not see anything of that plan in the recent stories. This reminds me eerily of Challenger and Columbia.
I am still disappointed seeing the entire debate framed only as "fly what you have" vs "total redesign". Total redesign is NOT required, all they need to do is go back to the labor-intensive hand-gunned heat shield. There is NO REDESIGN associated with that! They already HAVE that design! They already flew it!
Doing that would enable them to work out how to cast those tiles with the hex cores in the them, and fly such a thing, even as a subscale test article, to see it actually work right. I already showed how to do that revised processing with an extrusion press, here on these forums, and I already sent that idea to them via a contact I knew within NASA, who has since retired. I NEVER EVER heard back from their heat shield people, to whom my contact forwarded my materials. "Not invented here" is a real flaw shared by lots of big organizations!
But it would definitely work, because the fibrous nature of the charred hex helps tie the otherwise weak carbon char together. It's a composite material that is better than just the carbon char from the polymer alone. I know that because of my experience with ablatives in ramjets and solid rockets. If you cannot reinforce the char, it goes away too quickly, in one fashion or another. Which experience goes way beyond sample testing in an arc jet tunnel, and running CFD codes that usually do not deserve to be believed, without confirmation testing! I'm talking real burn experiences with real motors and engines here!
The Artemis 1 failure already proved that fiber reinforcement contention of mine! The only difference between Artemis 1 and the first Orion that flew was that they deleted the hex to cast the tiles instead of hand-gunning the polymer into a hex core already attached to the capsule, like Apollo. Which is what flew on the first Orion. That's NOT a FULL re-design of anything, it's only a variation on the cast tile processing they now prefer (at the risk of the crew's lives, I might add, if they don't do something to reinforce that char).
GW
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#44 Yesterday 14:43:26
- SpaceNut
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Re: Why Artemis is “better” than Apollo.
That's going to happen when management tries to be engineers looking at balance sheets rather than performance.
So which shield type is this one as I remember the original PICA version was dismissed for the honey combo hand inserted materials to which this one makes me wonder...
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