Artemis II

[Kiltrash]

The me the perfect HD stream from the Artimis ii reaks of conspiracy and they never left the studio in Burbank whereas the crackly 405 line black and white TV of Apollo 8 must have been real.

[Abbas Ibn Firnas]

The number of stumbles from NASA's commentator during this mission are painful in the extreme. Almost every sentence fumbled, and an obvious case of script reading.

[wiggy]

Originally Posted by Abbas Ibn Firnas

The number of stumbles from NASA's commentator during this mission are painful in the extreme. Almost every sentence fumbled, and an obvious case of script reading.

Certainly a lot of the Geology related comments about certain features are verbatim from a training document, the Lunar Science Passport,.which NASA has available on-line.

[clark y]

A quick question with respect to the signal black out on the dark side of the moon. Would anyone know why a small communication satellite or two was not used to relay data during this period? Surely the cost would have been minimal in the grand scheme of the project or is the comms blackout not considered important?

[WillowRun 6-3]

All the Apollo lunar missions included the CSM orbiting the Moon. NASA even has published data on the average orbit durations.
Why, then, is the voluminous commentary constantly asserting that the Artemis II astronauts are the first humans to see the far side?
I suppose I could access some of the telephone-book size Preliminary Science Reports (especially for 15, 16, and 17, the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) Apollo missions) and look for photos from the CSM of features on the far side.
Is the point that the CSM orbits were much closer to the lunar surface, and thus no one has previously seen the whole "disk" of the far side?
Perhaps a seemingly trivial criticism, but unless there was something unusual about the CSM orbits, all the Apollo astronauts did see the far side at least in part, didn't they? Including the LM crew, before and after their descent to and ascent from the surface - correct?

[wiggy]

"[size=16px]Is the point that the CSM orbits were much closer to the lunar surface, and thus no one has previously seen the whole "disk" of the far side?"

Pretty much.

The Apollo crews didn't get eyeballs on anything much beyond the equatorial regions and because of lighting conditions needed for landing there's also a chunk of the far side equatorial regions that they didn't get to see either.[/size]

[B Fraser]

Originally Posted by Abbas Ibn Firnas

The number of stumbles from NASA's commentator during this mission are painful in the extreme. Almost every sentence fumbled, and an obvious case of script reading.

Did anyone else catch.....

• "The moon is our destination for today"........ who knew ? In any case, it's a waypoint and not a destination.
• "The astronauts are making memories"......no, they are taking photos of each other.

and I swear this was said

• "The features on the moon do not have visible names in the way that they appear on the map"........ bloody hell, I thought it was just the Earth.

This was the NASA commentator and not some nerd broadcasting from a bedroom in their parent's house. Has the world turned into an audience of primary school reception class kids ? We as a species are truly fooked.

Well that's enough reaching out, I hope that resonates with your shared experience.

[B Fraser]

Originally Posted by WillowRun 6-3

All the Apollo lunar missions included the CSM orbiting the Moon. NASA even has published data on the average orbit durations.
Why, then, is the voluminous commentary constantly asserting that the Artemis II astronauts are the first humans to see the far side?
I suppose I could access some of the telephone-book size Preliminary Science Reports (especially for 15, 16, and 17, the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) Apollo missions) and look for photos from the CSM of features on the far side.
Is the point that the CSM orbits were much closer to the lunar surface, and thus no one has previously seen the whole "disk" of the far side?
Perhaps a seemingly trivial criticism, but unless there was something unusual about the CSM orbits, all the Apollo astronauts did see the far side at least in part, didn't they? Including the LM crew, before and after their descent to and ascent from the surface - correct?

Over time, you can see about 56% of the moon from Earth due to the "wobble" of the moon. The Apollo astronauts landed where it was "morning" such that features would cast a shadow which aided their depth perception. That of course means that the "evening" side would be the back side that is not observable from Earth but would have been seen from orbit.

The LRO has mapped the back of the moon in exquisite detail so nothing new has been found other than the human experience. That in itself is highly valuable but let's not kid ourselves that any real science is being done. This is a hardware proving test flight and one that I would give my back teeth to be on if NASA could put up with the inevitably more colourful expressions of the view.

[B Fraser]

Originally Posted by clark y

A quick question with respect to the signal black out on the dark side of the moon. Would anyone know why a small communication satellite or two was not used to relay data during this period? Surely the cost would have been minimal in the grand scheme of the project or is the comms blackout not considered important?

What advantage would be gained ? That's a lot of cash just to solve a minor inconvenience. IIRC, the loss and return of signal on Apollo was used to verify the navigation calculations so it served a purpose.

[wiggy]

Agree with B Fraser above...I think one issue here is unlike way back the Public Affairs Officers (PAO) have to fill in for hours on end but sadly IMHO they're not doing it very well.

Very early on in the broadcast last night I ended up dragging a very old Moon globe down from the shelves to work out what we were looking at in terms of features and orientation because the PAO wasn't saying..

It was actually an occasion crying out for a least a little bit of old style presenting with globes and plastic spacecraft models, rather than occasionally, belatedly, showing a 2D map of the whole surface and no graphics at all, at least that I saw, of flight paths.

[B Fraser]

Same here, I had my trusty moon map out looking at Grimaldi, Aristarchus and Kepler so I could explain to the Memsahib where they were and how far around the corner the astronauts could see.

Yes, there is much space to fill (boom boom) with the commentary however the exercise in getting into their pressure suits provided a great opportunity to talk about reduced cabin pressure (11.2psi) suit pressure (3.5 psi) and gas mixtures. A golden opportunity to talk about real science and physical properties of the suits was absolutely squandered. The talking head then bleated on about inspiring enquiring young minds having singularly failed to do so. There was not even an explanation of exactly why the cabin pressure had been reduced.

If NASA are reading this, please up your game. My rates are available upon request and I promise to undercut the burbling idiot who spoiled a golden opportunity to captivate minds young and old.

[Jhieminga]

Originally Posted by tdracer

You can kill the effective thrust relatively easily - ejecting the nozzle being one way - by getting rid of the high pressure within the 'combustion chamber' which will greatly slow the burn rate of the propellant (along with lacking a proper nozzle to accelerate the exhaust). In my hobby rocketry, the failure of the bottom (i.e. nozzle) or top closure stops any effective acceleration of the rocket (not a particularly uncommon failure).
OTOH, getting the propellant to stop burning is next to impossible - it'll burn just fine underwater - although on occasion the 'shock' of going from several hundred PSI to ambient pressure in an instant can cause pieces of the propellant to self-extinguish leaving bits of propellant in the debris. But even when that happens, it won't extinguish all the propellant, just parts.
All that being said, I'm unaware of any serious work on a system to kill the thrust from the solid boosters for Artemis. Rather, the emphasis was on the launch escape system being able to pull the capsule away from any catastrophic failure of the booster. It's significant that the launch escape system is not jettisoned until several seconds after the solid boosters separate.

I seem to recall that during the Shuttle days, killing off the SRBs was discussed. Blowing open the casing with an explosive charge was the only offered solution but it was never incorporated into the system. I may have misremembered but I think it was mentioned in 'Truth, Lies and O-rings' by Allan McDonald.

[wiggy]

Chewing this over this AM I think the problem with the coverage is traditionally you had the networks between NASA/the PAO and the viewer. That meant sometimes but hopefully not too often the talking heads at NBC, BBC, ITV etc would break in to explain/illustrate a point.

That doesn't happen.now, it's often PAO in Mission control straight to viewer.

I did notice on a split screen last night that on the science room wall at one point they had the inflight image up and adjacent to it a pretty much identical computer generated view with labels...it's a shame that didn't go out on the feed occasionally.

[Max Angle]

I seem to recall that during the Shuttle days, killing off the SRBs was discussed

The Shuttle (and now Artemis) SRBs have a "flight termination system" activated by the range safety officer which splits the booster casings causing an immediate loss of thrust and break up. It was used after the Challenger explosion to destroy the SRBs although it was sometime after the initial explosion before the command was given.

[Jhieminga]

Thanks! Did not have the books or the facts with me and was not aware that it was carried over to the Artemis SRBs. Makes sense of course.

[Uplinker]

Lonewolf 50: Interesting what attracts the attention of the idioterati on PPRuNe.

Artemis II just launched, headed for the moon (Alice). Not a peep out of the allegedly aware who obsess over space, UFOs and volcanos in Hawaii.
As we say in South Texas: tu madre.

Well, let's unpack that: The Apollo programme was magnificent, ground breaking, and technologically fantastic.

I have met and shaken the hand of Jim Lovell, Commander of Apollo 13. I have visited the facility at Cape Canaveral twice - once with my son - and spent hours just looking up at the giant F1 engines and the intermediate engines on the Saturn V on static display, and all the other exhibits there. From an engineer's point of view, the whole thing was brilliant and utterly fantastic. I am an absolute fan. America did a superb job.

But a rocket around the moon is nothing new - several Apollos did it, including Commander Lovell and his crew. There are so many things in the World today that that need urgent attention technology and money; (e.g. drinking water and renewable non-carbon energy), that a rocket around the moon - that has been done before - is a luxury we can ill afford today. Do we really need it ?

And please don't mention WD40, clever though it is !

PS, calling us "idioterati" is unlikely to get us on your side. You could have started this thread in a much nicer way !
.

[51bravo]

Too good to be true? But it is also on the official NASA stream recording at YT.

Nutella product placement (note the countdown!)

You Tube

Personal note: I followed the live stream only until t-30min to the Record. It became too late in the night (Europe), so I have not witnessed it live.

[B Fraser]

Originally Posted by Uplinker

But a rocket around the moon is nothing new - several Apollos did it, including Commander Lovell and his crew. There are so many things in the World today that that need urgent attention technology and money; (e.g. drinking water and renewable non-carbon energy), that a rocket around the moon - that has been done before - is a luxury we can ill afford today. Do we really need it ?.

If we always waited until all the problems at home were solved, Columbus would never have sailed. In hindsight, perhaps that would not be a bad thing but you get my drift. We must always extend our reach.

Lovell went around the far side twice, the first time with Borman and Anders.

[tdracer]

Originally Posted by wiggy

Chewing this over this AM I think the problem with the coverage is traditionally you had the networks between NASA/the PAO and the viewer. That meant sometimes but hopefully not too often the talking heads at NBC, BBC, ITV etc would break in to explain/illustrate a point.

That doesn't happen.now, it's often PAO in Mission control straight to viewer.

I did notice on a split screen last night that on the science room wall at one point they had the inflight image up and adjacent to it a pretty much identical computer generated view with labels...it's a shame that didn't go out on the feed occasionally.

Back during Apollo, the TV networks had 'science' specialists that talked the technical aspects of the mission. Their commentary - even 50 years later when I'm much better educated on the subjects than back them - ages well.
Sadly, the networks can no longer be bothered with that level of expertise in their reporting - now they're just interchangeable talking heads.
Some of the juvenile comments direct from NASA probably stem from knowing much of their audience is completely uneducated in the science of spaceflight. During the 1960's space race, the general knowledge of such things was somewhat higher.

[BonnieLass]

Just been watching some footage from Artemis II....the crew had a "communication" from the president. It was a one way conversation, the crew would not respond to him, they just played with the microphone instead for over a minute then checked with control to check if communications were still working, which it was working absolutely perfectly

A very long awkward silence from the crew til the president stopped talking (to himself) hung up the phone.