Thoughts on Artemis.
Here’s the problem: Ignoring the politics that have driven much of the architecture decisions, NASA is trying to do Apollo again, without the budget or schedule driver. When he cites the document “What Made Apollo A Success,” it begs the question of what the definition of success is. Obviously, it was successful in terms of the program objectives: to get a man (or men) to the Moon and return them safely to the Earth within a decade. But it was a complete failure in terms of opening space to humanity, which is why we haven’t been back in over half a century.
He says to remain mission focused, but that’s the problem. We have to end the “mission” mentality. We have to create a transportation infrastructure that makes getting back to the Moon, to other points in cislunar space, and beyond, routine. The fact that we’re not attempting to do so is why Artemis, as currently conceived, will prove as unsustainable as Apollo was.
I would also disagree with his recommendation that we train “pilots” on a simulator where their ass is on the line, as Neil did. We are in an age in which humans cannot fly these machines as well as they can fly themselves, and we’re going to have to test them and build in resiliency and redundancy to the point at which we can trust them to get us where we want to go with an acceptable level of risk.
I didn’t bother to watch the video because what you wrote in response to it is the best summary I’ve seen of what’s wrong with Artemis. NASA talks about the goal being a “sustainable” return to the Moon. Artemis is anything but that.
I thought the point of the video was to incorporate negative feedback. The comment that a transportation infrastructure first is the kind of negative feedback which is missing.
The timing of this talk and NASA’s press release abou how many launches it will take to fuel the lunar-capable Starship was excellent. I can see a future documentary on Artemis: “And then, a YouTube celebrity spoke to AAS and said a bunch of things that most people in the audience knew but wouldn’t speak aloud.”
I like some of his videos but the guy is a psyop whether he knows it or not.
Please elaborate. I’d like to know why you think that.
There was a strong element of motivational speaker in all of this.
Sure, it is entertaining, but it gets old afterwhile.
30 minutes into this, I was expecting him to say, “I am thirty-five years old, I am divorced, and I live in a van, down by the river.”
I am not as bothered by the emphasis on “mission over demonstrating technology” as his “backward’s bicycle.”
This business of inviting the eager, young conference attendee on stage to demonstrate that he is flat-out unable to ride the backwards bicycle is such an old, old trope, like the drill instructor in Starship Troopers who invites one of the recruits to fight him, and the drill instructor inflicts a compound arm fracture on the poor guy.
I mean, what is the point of the backwards bicycle? Even if you started young and learned to ride it without the pre-conceived notion of a forwards bicycle, it still is a pretty bad design in terms of its lack of stability and terrible ergonomics.
The forwards bicycle wasn’t arbitrarily designed that way, it emerged out of a 100 year process of the refinement of bicycle designs to come up with something that is intrinsically stable by subtle things such as its proportions and the angle of the front-wheel fork.
I get it, the backwards bicycle was meant as a metaphor of being stuck in an old way of thinking. Only like the backwards bicycle, the new way of thinking of a gobnormous number or rocket launches of Starship-sized fuel payloads along with the halo-orbit Rube Goldberg-tude is bass-ackwards.
As to Rand’s suggestion that training on a physical lander is a waste of time because the Moon landing will be fully automatic, this presupposes there won’t be a manual override.
On the other hand, the lunar lander trainer that Neil Armstrong liked so much put its pilot at risk in a way the real lunar lander did not. Anyone who was taken any flight training is aware of how wind is a complicating factor in piloting any kind of aircraft.
Near the surface of the Moon, there is no wind.
Excellent exposition, Paul. Though I really liked the video (and have watched others he has made), he could have made it much shorter by citing NASA SP287 up front, then contrasted its approach to the Rube Goldberg Artemis architecture – without all of the lengthy similes. Still, it was kind of entertaining.
The one thing the video led me to do was download and read NASA SP287, the existence of which I had been unaware. It is a real treat for the engineer, and revealed some technical things I hadn’t known. For example, the Service Propulsion System in the Apollo CSM was pressurized with nitrogen, not helium. That’s a nitnoid of concern mainly to me, though it was brought by an arocketry thread on the Starship mishap.
With regard to your comment on pilot override of the landing, though, the NASA report states something I had never read, namely that Pete Conrad said that landing Apollo 12 was the most difficult piloting feat he had ever performed. Evidently, the dust cloud kicked up by the descent engine was so intense that it obscured everything, and Pete said that it required all of his skills as an airman to complete the landing. Pete and I were business associates back in the 1990s, and though I did get many of my questions about Apollo 12 answered, I realize now that he didn’t volunteer much commentary – except for humorous anecdotes. He was a real character….
Don’t keep me in suspense. What is the advantage of nitrogen over helium? That it doesn’t have the problem of wanting to leak out of everything?
I would also disagree with his recommendation that we train “pilots” on a simulator where their ass is on the line, as Neil did. We are in an age in which humans cannot fly these machines as well as they can fly themselves, and we’re going to have to test them and build in resiliency and redundancy to the point at which we can trust them to get us where we want to go with an acceptable level of risk.
I was bad at Kerbal Space Program. I definitely want those rocket flying themselves rather than having me in the loop.
Mechjeb FTW
I took private pilot training in the mid 1980s.
Landing a Piper Tomahawk trainer aircraft is much, much easier than landing a plane in the Microsoft flight simulator operating on an IBM PC of that era and operating the ailerons by rapid typing on the keyboard.
Fair enough Paul, but I hope you would acknowledge that since the mid 1980’s, Boeing and Airbus have the ability to land planes the size of 747’s and A380’s on a runway with only pilots operating the flight control surfaces or propulsion. More recently, SpaceX is doing a great job landing rockets vertically on small pads.
On the other hand, the systems described above rely on a landing zone that is cleared of hazards by methods beyond the systems’ capability. Hazard recognition is possible but mitigating the hazard isn’t really proven, other than “go-around” for aircraft. “Go-around” isn’t all that useful to spacecraft, particularly for Artemis. Even in KSP, you can setup an automated landing at a landing zone that is unsafe.
I take it you mean land 747’s and A380’s without the pilots operating the controls apart from pushing buttons or turning dials to initiate the autoland sequence.
As to the SpaceX landing, would you rather ride with me in a PA-28 Piper Warrior or ride one of SpaceX’ boosters during an automatic landing?
Something tells me that the Soviet Russians, were they to have gotten their N-1 booster to work and conducted a (one-man) Moon landing, would have used an automatic landing. Something also tells me this would have been preceded with an unmanned lander “scoping out” the site for the boulders where Apollo 11 was heading towards, and also providing a beacon to a certified boulder-free landing site.
The SpaceX ride seems very exciting, and they keep improving the statistics on a safe landing.
How is your currency with type holding up?
Nothing to dispute here Rand. Like Bill above I didn’t bother with reading about yet another rationale for Old Space…
In fact it really isn’t about space at all. The Dept of the Interior in the 19th Century would have no doubt had earned itself a hefty budget had there been a government monopoly on Conestoga wagons for “missions to Oregon”.
Twenty launches is what, about two weeks for SpaceX, the better part of a century for NASA. No wonder they’re figuring a lot of boil-off.
High flight-rates has some real positives going for it.
But as I understand it, the estimates are based on using current Starship prototypes, which are about to become obsolete, being replaced by a longer version with greater capability.
The thing that should have been spoke about was why we ultimately need SLS once Starship is mature.
He didn’t touch on the real elephant in the room.
I watched the video so here’s my comments:
1) The photo of Destin’s grandfather’s chair next to the gun rack could have been taken of my own grandfather. The only difference I noted besides the look of his grandfather (chair was almost exactly the same and we still have it in the family) was the cabinet doors below the rack.
2) Agree with Paul above about Destin’s style of presentation. For the occasional video, it is fine. Kudos to Destin explaining why he presents that way in this video, but if I was at that conference and forced to sit through the presentation; I would have been begging that he get on with it. Fortunately, I could skip on YouTube.
3) I’m not at all surprised that many in the room had no idea about the overall flight plan and integrated architecture. Many NASA systems engineers are specialized in their systems, and not necessarily aware of what happens when it is integrated beyond the direct interfaces.
4) The number of flights really wasn’t his point, nor should it be, because that information changes over time. But the low delta V of Orion is a big deal, as there is no plan to alter it, and as M Puckett notes above, hardly a need for Orion or SLS once Starship is mature.
5) The real problem of Artemis is NASA decided the vehicles first, then built the mission architecture around the vehicle designs, rather than the other way around. The vehicles should be tools that facilitate the mission, especially when we are taking a decade to develop them. If we were in a rush, and those were the only vehicles at hand, than sure, you design the mission with whatever you have. But there was never a rush, and even JFK’s ticking clock in the 1960’s was sufficient time for the mission to drive the design of the vehicles.
6) The real problem of NASA is its inability to handle criticism at any level. Consider the warning Destin got about making his presentation and how it could permanently change his relationship with NASA. I agree with the warning, but it simply shouldn’t be. Even within the agency, the lack of responses to Destin’s prompts come from the apprehension engineers have of bringing up questions and concerns during meetings. A culture that promotes questioning doesn’t exist at NASA. Instead, the attitude presented in the Artemis Trailer is what prevails: “We are going”. That tone sets an expectation that either you are onboard with the effort that is already going, or you not onboard. If not onboard, you are not the “we” and you are not “going”.
Well, to be fair, the vehicles weren’t NASA’s decision; they were Congress’s.
435+100 aerospace engineers.
Or maybe their staff are the engineers and they are the aerospace managers.
Cool!
Orion seemed to be NASA’s. I always thought of SLS as derived from Ares V. Still, I’ll accept your point, which I also recall being Destin’s first point. They have to deal with politics.
I’ll expand on that in one way Destin didn’t even touch. Because NASA has to deal with politics, they have an entirely unmanageable supply chain. Even if SLS and Orion delivered the best architecture for getting to the moon; delivery of the program would be hampered by a supply chain that exists in Paul’s 435+100 aerospace engineering districts across the county.