Hearing that they had an in-flight abort on a research flight (no one on board). Capsule reportedly landed safely.
[Update a few minutes later]
[Update a few more minutes later]
Here is the story at SpaceExplored.
[Update a while later]
Bob Zimmerman has video.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s the story from Eric Berger.
[Afternoon update]
…from Joe Pappalardo:
It may be unfair to compare SpaceX and NASA, but SpaceX is built to be fast-but-risky whereas NASA is built to be slow-but-reliable. We’re now seeing that the fast-but-risky approach is actually leading to not only faster but more reliable results. Artemis is this giant U.S. government program that leaks money—as the Apollo program was—and that seems antiquated, but lots of members of Congress could get behind its traditional approach, which made use of languishing NASA facilities and had a supply chain stretching into lots of different communities. There are real benefits to NASA doing work across these communities, of course, but this approach can get in the way of doing things quickly, being able to change direction when engineers learn something new, or being free to adopt new technology and machinery. There’s less flexibility. And the Space Launch System isn’t reusable, either, meaning it’s a costly rocket that can only be used once. It would be foolish to stop this program now, but it would be grossly irresponsible to replicate it in the future.
He doesn’t explain why it would be “foolish to stop this program now.” I can only think that it’s the sunk-cost fallacy, but I think that what is foolish is to continue to throw good money after bad.
Yes, Malthus was always wrong.
Bob doesn’t say it, but the principle applies throughout the solar system. Humans will continue to take raw materials and create new resources.
There is one, but it is not Moon versus Mars.
Whoever had the brilliant idea of building a rocket out of 1970s technology apparently was unaware, or had amnesia about all the problems caused by hydrogen with the Shuttle.
[Thursday-afternoon update]
“I would simply say to you that space is hard,” he said at an August 27 briefing when asked what lessons NASA could take from the extended delays in SLS’s development. “We are developing new systems and new technologies, and it takes money and it takes time.”
Yes, space is hard. It’s even harder when you make terrible design choices in order to provide a jobs program for existing workers and contractors. There is little new about either these systems or technologies.
[Bumped]
RIP, and condolences to Nadia and the rest of the family.
This is not my shocked face.
“We don’t launch until it’s right,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in remarks on NASA TV about half an hour after the scrub. “It’s just illustrative that this is a very complicated machine.”
Ya think?
I was always amused when NASA would say that the Shuttle was “the most complex machine in the world,” as though that was a point of pride. One of the many stupid things about the SLS design is that it uses hydrogen from sea level to orbit. Shuttle was down for weeks once with a pesky hydrogen leak. This concept combines all of the worst features of the Shuttle with none of the best. But, hey, it creates lots of jobs.
[Tuesday-morning update]
So this ended up being another failed wet dress rehearsal.
I wonder how much pressure they feel to get to orbit before Starship?
[Wednesday-morning update]
The real space race.
Look at who the Chinese are copying. They’re not stupid enough to want to build anything resembling SLS.
The report is out from DIU.
I’ve only read the summary so far, but this may be the most forward-looking document on space that I’ve ever seen come from the federal government. It explicitly states that the national goal should be the development and settlement of space (it was edited by Pete Garretson). And note what doesn’t appear in the report: SLS. 😄
I’m cited in the report twice, and I may be doing some consulting for General Butow in the fall. DIU is expected to get a nice budget boost in October (unless there’s a CR), because they impressed the brass in Ukraine.
As we approach the first flight on Monday (if it doesn’t turn out to be the second wet dress rehearsal that they probably should have run), Eric Berger has thoughts.
But whether the flight is successful or not, Artemis is not a serious program. I disagree with John Logsdon, though:
The lander will also require multiple refuelings en route to make the journey to the lunar surface. That will “require four or five or six launches to put the fuel into orbit,” noted John Logsdon, founder of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, adding that means “a lot of places for failure.”
If a propellant launch fails, you do another one. No big deal.
[Thursday-morning update]
An interview with Lori Garver.