Is NASA’s SLS Doomed?

[B Fraser]

Originally Posted by wiggy

AFAIK the idea is to launch with the cabin ventilated with air at 1 bar but certainly on missions where there is going to be an EVA (see edit) it would then gradually to morph to (?) About 2/3 of a bar but oxygen rich (30% 02).

The thinking behind that is that is to reduce the time spent pre breathing with 02 prior to EVAs, where you need to be at low pressure but high 02 to keep the suits flexible..

I think I read somewhere that there is one thing that you cannot do in a space suit............ whistle.

At EVA pressure, there are insufficient O2 molecules for you to make that sound. I have no idea who discovered this or why they attemted to whistle in the first place.

[MostlyHarmless]

I'll be sure to check that out if I ever get the opportunity!

[51bravo]

Sure, next time you are scheduled for that high altitude chamber experience .

[jolihokistix]

YOU maybe cannot whistle in space, but can a whistle whistle?

[Alverton Al]

Originally Posted by B Fraser

I think I read somewhere that there is one thing that you cannot do in a space suit............ whistle.

At EVA pressure, there are insufficient O2 molecules for you to make that sound. I have no idea who discovered this or why they attemted to whistle in the first place.

In space no-one can hear you scream.

[B Fraser]

Originally Posted by Alverton Al

In space no-one can hear you scream.

However here on earth, you can rewind the scene where Ripley is getting into her space suit

[ORAC]

Are the astronauts brave or foolhardy and desperate at probably their only chance to ever fly into space?

NASA: “Update on our Moon mission: Following a Feb. 12 confidence test, teams are reviewing data and will examine findings before setting a timeline for the next test, a second Artemis wet dress rehearsal this month. March remains the earliest potential launch window.

Read more: go.nasa.gov/4qACRDu

​​​​​​​https://x.com/cjhandmer/status/2022523940359279037?s=61

​​​​​​​Just to be clear here, NASA declared its recent test a "successful wet dress rehearsal" despite missing its T-30s target by almost five minutes, botching the dreaded Orion hatch close out procedure, and managing to achieve up to 16% H2 due to copious leakage at the fueling interface. For reference, the lower flammability limit, and system requirement, is just 4%, beyond which this nightmare fuel can burn and detonate in air.

The "wet dress" was so successful, in fact, that they have to do it all over again in the unspecified near future. But before that, the same team ran a "(no) confidence test" on the leaky fueling interface which failed badly enough that they buried it until 8pm on the following Friday.

The SLS ground support budget runs at $650m per year, and they've had 1173 days since the last test to get this right.

Coincidentally it also took 1173 days for Hyman Rickover and his team to ship the world's first nuclear power reactor, wrapped in a fully functional submarine, for about a third of the total cost of the SLS's botched ground support equipment, in the 1950s. What a difference a serious team makes!

Furthermore, we are assured that the engineering on SLS/Orion is so rigorous and the team is so elite that it's totally okay to test fly this turkey with four currently living astronauts on it, not to Low Earth Orbit like some kind of participation trophy Starliner repeat, but all the way around the Moon, on a completely unique, untested configuration.

On the same week that a key SLS contractor's solid fueled booster rocket engine, launching a critical national security payload on a flagship national rocket, managed to explode, for the second time in three flights, for no apparent reason.

I'm going to say it. What do @CAgovernor and @SenTedCruz have in common? They both want to be President and they both will apparently go to the hilt to defend the worst national flagship infrastructure contractors in the history of the entire world. Why are they determined to ally so overtly with such conspicuous losers? What can they possibly be getting from such a raw deal? How can they possibly be so desperate?

We can choose to roll the dice with four lives on Artemis II. If they survive the launch, they can snap some really cool photos with their newly certified iPhones of the Moon shooting by out their window as they follow a trajectory that Apollo 13 took only under extreme duress. They can fulfill Artemis II's (I kid you not) "science objectives" by performing a visual inspection of the Moon that you can do yourself in the comfort of your own backyard with a $200 pair of binoculars.

But when (not if) something goes horribly wrong, I do not want to hear "no-one could have seen this coming" or "we followed a rigorous flight rationale process" or "we checked all the boxes" or "this was the best we could do".

At this point, the safest thing about the SLS and Orion is that they're so FUBARed that it might not even be possible to get them to T-0.

Astronauts and taxpayers deserve far better.

[B Fraser]

There is some (small) merit in that article however there are some almighty whoppers, especially regarding Apollo 13. The trajectory was flown in 1968 with Apollo 8 (Lovell, Anders, Bormann and I didn't need to open a book to recite that) and was always a pre-planned "get you home" option for all subsequent flights. The joke on Apollo 8 was that the capsule would perform a single partial orbit at a height of 60 miles (IIRC) on the far side however nobody knew if there was a 61 mile high mountain in the way. Artemis II will perform the same flight albeit some 4,000 miles above the far side surface which was planned to be in full sunlight given the original launch date. The CM pilots on the Apollo missions (Collins etc.) only saw parts of the far side as the near side was lit. The flight will be the first time human eyes have seen vast areas of the moon. You cannot do that from your back yard or perhaps the author lives next door to the JWST.

I included a slot on Artemis II on my last STEM talk. If you have a globe then find something that is the equivalent size of the western Sahara or 2,000 miles across. Then measure a length of cord some 9.6 times the circumference of the globe. Find a willing volunteer to extend the cord to the full length distance and place the moon sized object at that point. You will see the true extent of what is being flown. It's stunning.

I would take that flight in a heartbeat and if Nasa are looking for a backup astronaut, they can call me. I suspect that I will be number 999,999 on a million long list. Those are four very fortunate people who will undergo a journey that the rest of mankind can only dream about.

I suspect the author of the text in the last post is greener than Kermit the frog.

[ORAC]

I suspect the author of the text in the last post is greener than Kermit the frog.

Not quite....

​​​​​​​Casey Handmer is a seasoned founder and technologist based in Pasadena, CA, with nine years of experience building ambitious climate-tech and aerospace software platforms.

As founder of Terraform Industries, he leads efforts to scrub CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it into synthetic natural gas using renewable hydrogen, with the goal of displacing drilled natural gas production by 2035. He blends deep hardware understanding with scalable software at the intersection of energy, AI, and Earth observation, and is actively hiring for hardware-focused roles to accelerate rapid scaling as solar costs fall.

Previously, he was a Software System Architect at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, delivering GNSS-based radar software, synthetic lunar terrain models, and deep-learning enhancements for terrain and photogrammetry.

Earlier in his career, he contributed to Hyperloop One as a Levitation Engineer and intern, filing multiple patents in magnetic systems and leading test optimization and vendor management.

He earned a PhD in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics from Caltech, developing fast numerical methods for gravitational-wave energy flux and advancing computational relativity.

[TURIN]

Sounds like this chap has a pro SpaceX agenda. Ex NASA? Did he jump or was he pushed.
He also needs to brush up on his optics.

. They can fulfill Artemis II's (I kid you not) "science objectives" by performing a visual inspection of the Moon that you can do yourself in the comfort of your own backyard with a $200 pair of binoculars.

Really, how does he propose to see the far side of the moon from the wrong side?
​​​​​​​I'll take the rest of his comments with a pinch of salt

[jolihokistix]

China has already set up camp and claimed the other side of the Moon apparently.

[B Fraser]

Originally Posted by ORAC

Not quite....

Ahhhhh, the man that does not know the price of gas and either got it wrong by 300%, or built his plans on the Ukraine invasion spot price when the market had a temporary allergic reaction. The principle is an interesting curiosity however the economics tell another story.

Terraform Industries’ Business Case Doesn’t Add Up — KlaasNotFound

[wiggy]

NASA have set a bit of a PR trap for themselves here and the author of that X has taken advantage… …much has been made by them in press releases of the Artemis II astronauts having the best view ever of the Lunar far side, and them taking images using camera phones, little to nothing about the other science being done.

That author is absolutely correct in stating that a high flyover over the Lunar far side adds little to zero to mankind’s scientific knowledge of that part of the Lunar surface from a visual imaging POV.

Mapping of it at much higher resolution than a cameraphone can provide began with the pre-Apollo Lunar Orbiters, through Apollo and latterly with various unmanned missions….Artemis II won’t really add to that….

[51bravo]

Just to add a point to "...with 200$ binoculars". Well, make it a telescope and 1000$ and it will do.

With my 8-inch telescope I can use magnifications up to 300x in good atmospheric conditions. You can treat the effect of "magnification" in two ways.
The primary understanding is of course: it makes the moon 300x bigger than with MK.1.
Or you can see it : it brings me 300x nearer to the moon, which makes out of 239.000mi a mere 796 miles.
I can use an eyepiece giving me 120 degrees field of view, truly panoramic. (OK that is another 1000$)

If the Artemis-II crew have no binoculars on board, I have a better resolution from my backyard. Of course I dont see the far side, but that's all whats left as a justification. LRO was mentioned? Good!

But we shall treat it what it is, a test and systems qualification flight, with now humans on board. The science starts when boots on moon. I really have no expectations here now. I think if NASA uses "science" in their PR it is just out of bad habit (see self made PR trap).

For Artemis-2 my doubts are only: one mission too early to be conducted with humans on board. And I would set one mission with humans on board in earth orbit for 10 days, with return capabilities within 90min of a severe problem set-on. And why in all hell with four astronauts? Even Boeing took just Butch and Suni on the Starliner inauguration flight and that turned out to be formidable decision. Space-X the same: Doug and Bob in the 4-seat Dragon.

that said, I do have a bit of trust towards Jared Isaacman !

[51bravo]

Wet Dress rehersal running now ... shall continue until Friday 20th Feb if all goes well.

https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/...ntdown-begins/

[wiggy]

From X and elsewhere this AM (Friday) it looks like the Wet Dress Rehearsal went OK…

[51bravo]

In the (now recorded) live stream they went until T minus 10 minutes and stopped there.

You Tube

[wiggy]

Not sure about the feeds but those watching/commentating live overnight say the count, via various holds, including a -10 minute one, got down to T-33 seconds before it's planned cutoff.

There was then a planned recycle back out to the T-10 minute point to give the team another run at a simulated terminal count from that point.

All should be revealed by officials later but ATM and AFAIK it's being deemed succesful.

[ORAC]

No launch in March, April at the earliest.

Isaacman:

https://x.com/NASAAdmin/status/2025249086908125630?s=20

After overnight data showed an interruption in helium flow in the SLS interim cryogenic propulsion stage, teams are troubleshooting and preparing for a likely rollback of Artemis II to the VAB at @NASAKennedy. This will almost assuredly impact the March launch window. @NASA will continue to provide updates as they become available.

As an update to my earlier post. -

The ICPS helium bottles are used to purge the engines, as well as for LH2 and LOX tank pressurization. The systems did work correctly during WDR1 and WDR2.

- Last evening, the team was unable to get helium flow through the vehicle. This occurred during a routine operation to repressurize the system.

- We observed a similar failure signature on Artemis I.

- The Artemis II vehicle is in a safe configuration, using ground ECS purge for the engines versus the onboard helium supply.

- Potential faults could include the final filter between the ground and flight vehicle, located on the umbilical, though this seems least likely based on the failure signature. It could also be a failed QD umbilical interface, where similar issues have been observed. It could also be a failed check valve onboard the vehicle, which would be consistent with Artemis I, though corrective actions were taken to minimize reoccurrence on Artemis II.

Regardless of the potential fault, accessing and remediating any of these issues can only be performed in the VAB.

As mentioned previously, we will begin preparations for rollback, and this will take the March launch window out of consideration.

I understand people are disappointed by this development. That disappointment is felt most by the team at NASA, who have been working tirelessly to prepare for this great endeavor. During the 1960s, when NASA achieved what most thought was impossible, and what has never been repeated since, there were many setbacks. One historic example is that Neil Armstrong spent less than 11 hours in space on Gemini 8 before his mission ended prematurely due to a technical issue. A little over three years later, he became the first man to walk on the Moon.

There are many differences between the 1960s and today, and expectations should rightfully be high after the time and expense invested in this program. I will say again, the President created Artemis as a program that will far surpass what America achieved during Apollo. We will return in the years ahead, we will build a Moon base, and undertake what should be continuous missions to and from the lunar environment. Where we begin with this architecture and flight rate is not where it will end.

​​​​​​​Please expect a more extensive briefing later this week as we outline the path forward, not just for Artemis II, but for subsequent missions, to ensure NASA meets the President’s vision to return to the Moon and, this time, to stay.

[MostlyHarmless]

The space industry seems to have an awful lot of problems with valves, cryogenic or otherwise.