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To the Moon - Artemis (Apollo's Twin Sister) Set to Launch

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  1. #21

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    NYT and others I am sure have covered the launch hiccups..

    "Three of the four engines were fine but, in the fourth, a hydrogen line did not appear to open properly, and one of the engines was not as cold as the others.

    This was the first test of the engine chill-down, which usually occurs 4 minutes 40 seconds before launch. Dress rehearsals of countdown procedures earlier this year were designed to catch such issues but were cut short by technical problems. As a result, the engine chill-down was not tested. But mission managers believed the rocket had passed the critical test objectives, and they moved ahead with preparations for launch."


    https://nyti.ms/3wApWIE
    hullexile, Tom007 and Rob2020 like this.

  2. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by shri:
    Something else some of us get excited about... The earliest electric car was driven in 1890s...
    The tech hasn't changed much but it took them 130 years to figure out the branding

  3. #23

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    I've been reading a tech news source (Arstechnica) that regularly reports on rocket development. All of these more recent and generic media stories about the SLS are extremely positive, and gloss over the incredible budget and time blowouts, and political pork-barrelling involved.

    If it works, the cost of each launch looks to be $2B for single shot rocket. This totally excludes development costs.

    The SpaceX Falcon 9 has had 170 launches and costs $50M per launch, with much of the rocket being reusable.

    The Falcon Heavy (3 launches so far), which has 70% of they payload capacity of the SLS, costs $90M.

    The SpaceX Starship, will have a capacity higher than the SLS. No idea when this is supposed to become operational, as I don't follow this stuff, but SpaceX has an impressive record for development so far. [Edit: I checked, maybe launching in 2024]

    Rockets are cool... but SLS seems to be more of an expensive political arrangement than it is part of a sustainable long term program.

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  4. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by GentleGeorge:
    The tech hasn't changed much but it took them 130 years to figure out the branding
    The concept has not changed - the technologies involved, which have helped achieve efficiency, scale and reliability have changed very significantly.

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  6. #26

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    Comment from the article..


    "At current funding levels, the delay to Friday costs $57.5 million, the market price of a Falcon 9. A delay to September 5th costs $92 million, or one Falcon Heavy. Just for some perspective."
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  7. #27

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    There's a whole slew of rocket articles on that website, they are quite good. It's fairly obvious that the journalist is quite passionate about the topic.

    https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/

    It just seems weird to me how little attention the political and budgetary issues are being covered by the big media outlets. The articles I have come across so far read more like regurgitated press releases.

    At the current rate of progress, by the time the SLS is ready for regular flights, it's going to be made obsolete by the next SpaceX rocket.

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  8. #28

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    Called off the second time around...

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/...droidApp_Other


  9. #29

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    Needless, pointless, I’d much rather NASA spent the money on retrieving or destroying the junk circling the Earth


  10. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by ByeByeEngland:
    Needless, pointless, I’d much rather NASA spent the money on retrieving or destroying the junk circling the Earth
    Just look at rocket shapes, you'll know exactly the reason for doing it...
    hullexile likes this.