Vice President tells NASA to get to the Moon in 5 years.

[UpperWestside 6169]

9 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

Watched it as it happened. A few issues but FUCK YEAH! GO Odysseus.

 

I am glad this was successful. We need to be doing more of this as a country because it promotes and produces highly intelligent people who push us forward into a hopefully better future. I have no doubt that we have people who want to contribute their expertise in science and space to the greater good, but they need ample opportunities to be able to do that. 

[InkaUtexas 25986]

7 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

I am glad this was successful. We need to be doing more of this as a country because it promotes and produces highly intelligent people who push us forward into a hopefully better future. I have no doubt that we have people who want to contribute their expertise in science and space to the greater good, but they need ample opportunities to be able to do that. 

My daughter studies aerospace engineering on the east coast. She is so excited about this and of course Artemis. Lets keep going.

[Captainant 27680]

4 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

My daughter studies aerospace engineering on the east coast. She is so excited about this and of course Artemis. Lets keep going.

I am very concerned about Artemis. Their mission planning has more holes in than swiss cheese, and none of the NASA leadership are willing to say the emperor has no clothes. They still haven't even had a successful full stack systems test, much less a single flight that completed all of its primary mission objectives. 

And each time they light a candle, it's one of the most expensive rockets ever launched.

 

It's a boondoggle as it stands, and they have been producing far more failures than successes for the last decade. In the same timeframe it took us to go from Mercury to Apollo to men on the moon, Artemis hasn't even been able to get humans into their capsule for a flight. It's maddening.

Edited February 24 by Captainant

[Armybrat 40851]

11 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

I am glad this was successful. We need to be doing more of this as a country because it promotes and produces highly intelligent people who push us forward into a hopefully better future. I have no doubt that we have people who want to contribute their expertise in science and space to the greater good, but they need ample opportunities to be able to do that. 

Well, it appears this Moon lander tipped over at touch down.

 

[Brisketexan 105154]

3 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Well, it appears this Moon lander tipped over at touch down.

 

But didn't you lend them your LifeAlert bracelet, so the lander can message "HELP I'VE FALLEN AND I CAN'T GET UP!"?

[deft 6856]

I am very concerned about Artemis. Their mission planning has more holes in than swiss cheese, and none of the NASA leadership are willing to say the emperor has no clothes. They still haven't even had a successful full stack systems test, much less a single flight that completed all of its primary mission objectives. 
And each time they light a candle, it's one of the most expensive rockets ever launched.
 
It's a boondoggle as it stands, and they have been producing far more failures than successes for the last decade. In the same timeframe it took us to go from Mercury to Apollo to men on the moon, Artemis hasn't even been able to get humans into their capsule for a flight. It's maddening.

Yeah it’s tough because as a nation, we fully embraced the space race of the 60’s. Now we fucking hate each other and anything the other side wants/believes in. Artemis could very well be the key to our species surviving but fuck that shit because I shouldn’t have to pay taxes for it, etc etc blah blah.

[RamjetFDO 10577]

Slow your roll on the "it was successful" parade. We've fallen well short on "mission success" when the lander can't, well, land.

Kinda like a SpaceX booster that doesn't, well, boost.

You can say "we learned a lot" until the cows come home, but you didn't have a successful mission. You never should plan success to be a failure.

This is endemic across the board these days and people will die as a result.

Do. Better.

[deft 6856]

Oh we should just listen to this guy like he’s in a room of rocket scientists or something

[Fudge Nuggets 19206]

It's a shame no one had the foresight to write down all the steps we took to do this 55 years ago.

[RamjetFDO 10577]

They did. No one is reading them. They "know how to do it better than those old guys"...

[Fudge Nuggets 19206]

The old guys were badass.  They are laughing at the current crop.

[UT_OB1 2224]

I know we all want to be back, and we point to how fast we did it 60 years ago, but no one mentions we killed 7-8 astronauts trying to get things off the ground then versus zero now. Safety culture in all industries is different now, and that’s a good thing, but it also comes with more caution and slower progress. 

[NeverMarryAStripper 21907]

Back in my day people went to the moon in basically a giant tin can that was piloted by the computing power of a timex digital watch

Edited February 24 by NeverMarryAStripper

[Nivek 16945]

16 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

Back in my day people went to the moon in basically a giant tin can that was piloted by the computing power of a timex digital watch

There was a completely different culture then.  NASA attracted some of the best and brightest back then.  Then it became bloated and bureaucratic, to the point they had engineers that KNEW the o-rings were a problem in the cold and they didn't speak up.  

[Armybrat 40851]

My brother’s BIL was one of the Morton-Thiokol engineers who wrote the manuals for the Space Shuttle solid boosters. 
The team leader (Boisjoly) did warn about O-ring performance limitations in cold weather and recommended a no-go before the Challenger launch, but the NASA staff ignored them. 
Of course M/T bore the brunt of the blame and their engineers were fired.

 

[Captainant 27680]

10 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

It's a shame no one had the foresight to write down all the steps we took to do this 55 years ago.

They literally did that with NASA-SP-287

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19720005243

It's a publication by NASA titled "What Made Apollo a Success?" It's an 86 page playbook that does not really track to any of our current mission planning or strategy. 

Edited February 25 by Captainant

[ABSR 5315]

On 2/23/2024 at 6:00 PM, Armybrat said:

Well, it appears this Moon lander tipped over at touch down.

 

I have watched a lot of  Battlebots, and everyone knows they need a self righting flipper.   This isn’t rocket science peop …. Ugh, well.

[Nivek 16945]

22 hours ago, Armybrat said:

My brother’s BIL was one of the Morton-Thiokol engineers who wrote the manuals for the Space Shuttle solid boosters. 
The team leader (Boisjoly) did warn about O-ring performance limitations in cold weather and recommended a no-go before the Challenger launch, but the NASA staff ignored them. 
Of course M/T bore the brunt of the blame and their engineers were fired.

 

I was once blamed for a project that was a bit of a mess.  The client fracked into a fault that cut across all of their lateral wells.  I told the engineer who was with the client, I reported it to my boss.  I reported it a few different times.  They finally shut me up with "yeah we told them, no one cares."  Then they went to produce the well and suddenly everyone cared.   I could have bitched more, but this wasn't about life and death.     If it was about life and death, I would have bitched more.  

[RamjetFDO 10577]

On 2/24/2024 at 2:20 PM, Armybrat said:

My brother’s BIL was one of the Morton-Thiokol engineers who wrote the manuals for the Space Shuttle solid boosters. 
The team leader (Boisjoly) did warn about O-ring performance limitations in cold weather and recommended a no-go before the Challenger launch, but the NASA staff ignored them. 
Of course M/T bore the brunt of the blame and their engineers were fired.

 

As with a lot of things, the Challenger Accident was far more complex than just that.

Yes - the SRB O-Ring design was not made to withstand the sustained low temperatures and then launch/hold the joint seal.  HOWEVER - that was outside the design specifications, so blaming Morton-Thiokol *solely* for this was not the way the Rogers Commission report went down.  Sure, the joint failure was the root cause of the *physical* incident, but it was the personnel issues - especially cultural and managerial - that were every bit to blame up and down the NASA chain. 

Thiokol was a convenient public scapegoat for the media, and when Richard Feynman dipped an o-ring segment into a glass of ice water - and CNN covered it live (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TInWPDJhjU) - that's practically all the subsequent coverage centered on.  Internal to NASA, though - we knew who the decision-makers were, and they weren't in those roles for much longer after that (voluntarily or not).  

We went through a lot of soul-searching, including lots of training and process improvements - did some good "cockpit resource management" and "breaking the error chain" training during that down time.  Sadly ... some of those errors crept back into the NASA culture for poor decisions made that led to the loss of Columbia less than 20 years later.

If you want to really dive into it, the report is online here (PDF).  I still have my official bound copy that pretty much all of us had as a reminder of the failures of *people* as well as *technology* that led to that horrible day.

[atomheartbevo 89727]

First crewed attempt (to the ISS) at 9:30pm tonight

 

The video below goes live at 5:30pm
 

 

[atomheartbevo 89727]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/boeing-starliner-launch-space-station-crew/
 

Quote

An Atlas 5 rocket carrying astronauts for the first time was fueled for blastoff Monday night to boost Boeing's long-delayed Starliner crew ferry ship into orbit for its first piloted test flight. But trouble with a valve in the rocket's upper stage forced mission managers to order a scrub just two hours before takeoff.

It was a frustrating disappointment for commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and co-pilot Sunita Williams, who were in the process of strapping in for launch when the scrub was announced. The moment brought to mind one of Wilmore's favorite sayings, "you'd rather be on the ground wishing you were in space than in space and wishing you were on the ground."

Quote

It was not immediately clear when Boeing and rocket-builder United Launch Alliance might be able to make another attempt, but engineers will first have to figure out what caused an oxygen relief valve in the rocket's Centaur upper stage to "chatter" during the late stages of fueling and what might be required to fix it.

 

[Hagbard Celine 10871]

ROCHESTER, N.Y., May 8, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA should immediately halt the Starliner launch due to serious safety risks demonstrated by a leaking valve, according to the professional opinion of ValveTech Inc. The launch was scrubbed due to a leaking regulator valve in an oxygen tank, yet NASA is considering trying another launch soon.

"As a valued NASA partner and as valve experts, we strongly urge them not to attempt a second launch due to the risk of a disaster occurring on the launchpad," said ValveTech President Erin Faville. "According to media reports, a buzzing sound indicating the leaking valve was noticed by someone walking by the Starliner minutes before launch. This sound could indicate that the valve has passed its lifecycle."

"NASA needs to re-double safety checks and re-examine safety protocols to make sure the Starliner is safe before something catastrophic happens to the astronauts and to the people on the ground," Faville added.

An earlier issue with a valve

The valve leak at launch follows an issue with the Service Module Propulsion system, which incorporates a valve from Boeing's contractor, Aerojet Rocketdyne Inc., (an L3 Harris Technologies company). A federal court found Aerojet breached multiple non-disclosure agreements for improperly disclosing, retaining, or using ValveTech's valves, designs, technology and data.

Since the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York's November 2023 ruling, there seemingly has been no change made to this Aerojet valve, which a witness at trial deemed as being not qualified to the right specifications and not evaluated to ensure safety protocols. ValveTech continues to question how NASA, Boeing and Aerojet could have qualified this valve for the mission without proper supporting data or previous history or legacy information, which in its experience, goes against aerospace-industry qualification protocols established by NASA.

ValveTech supplies 14 valve components to vendors for the Starliner CST-100 spacecraft, which is designed to carry humans and scientific research to and from low-Earth orbit, including the International Space Station.

About ValveTech Inc.

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Phelps, N.Y., ValveTech (valvetech.net) is a women-owned, and family operated business that designs and manufactures valves and other components for aerospace and military applications. ValveTech's products are used in the International Space Station, James Webb Telescope, V-22 Osprey and other demanding applications. ValveTech is ISO 9001-registered and AS9100-certified.

[Hagbard Celine 10871]

https://www.space.com/starliner-rolled-off-launch-pad-replace-rocket-valve

[Captainant 27680]

It's it's Boeing, it ain't going. 

[Hagbard Celine 10871]

helium leak

Helium leak delays Boeing's 1st Starliner astronaut launch to May 21
News
By Mike Wall
published 14 May 2024

Starliner's crewed debut had been targeted for Friday (May 17).

 Boeing's Starliner spacecraft and its Atlas V rocket roll off the launch pad and toward an assembly facility on May 8, 2024. (Image credit: NASA via X)

The crewed debut of Boeing's Starliner capsule has been pushed back an additional four days.

Starliner had been scheduled to lift off this Friday (May 17) on Crew Flight Test (CFT), a mission that will send NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the International Space Station (ISS) for a roughly eight-day stay.

But that's no longer the plan. Teams detected a small helium leak in Starliner's service module and have pushed the target date back to May 21, Boeing announced in an update today (May 14).

Starliner will launch atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, on Florida's Space Coast. The May 21 launch is scheduled for 4:43 p.m. EDT (2043 GMT); you can watch it live here at Space.com when the time comes.

Today's news is the latest in a string of recent CFT delay announcements. The mission was originally supposed to lift off on May 6, but the team called that attempt off about two hours before launch after noticing a "buzzing" valve in the Atlas V's Centaur upper stage.

Boeing, NASA and ULA initially pushed the launch target back to May 10, then delayed it to May 17 after determining that the troublesome valve needed to be replaced, an operation that required rolling the Atlas V off the pad to an assembly facility at Cape Canaveral.
Get the Space.com Newsletter

The troublesome valve was replaced and is behaving normally, Boeing representatives said in today's update.

The newfound helium leak, they added, has been traced to a "flange on a single reaction control system thruster" in Starliner's service module. These thrusters don't burn helium, but the gas allows them to fire properly.

"NASA and Boeing are developing spacecraft testing and operational solutions to address the issue," Boeing wrote in the update. "As a part of the testing, Boeing will bring the propulsion system up to flight pressurization just as it does prior to launch, and then allow the helium system to vent naturally to validate existing data and strengthen flight rationale."

CFT will be the third flight for Starliner, after two uncrewed launches to the ISS. The capsule suffered several problems on its first mission, which lifted off in December 2019, and failed to meet up with the orbiting lab as planned. But Starliner succeeded on its second try, which launched in May 2022.

CFT is a crewed shakeout cruise for the capsule; if all goes well on the upcoming mission, Starliner will be certified to fly NASA astronauts on long-duration missions to and from the ISS. Boeing holds a $4.2 billion contract with the space agency to do just that, which was signed in 2014.

SpaceX got a similar deal at the same time, worth $2.6 billion. Elon Musk's company flew its equivalent of CFT in 2020 and is in the middle of its eighth operational, long-duration astronaut mission to the ISS for NASA.

[Hagbard Celine 10871]

now next saturday afternoon 25th

https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/05/17/nasa-boeing-further-delay-starliner-crew-flight-test-launch-amid-ongoing-helium-leak-review/

[Captainant 27680]

6 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

now next saturday afternoon 25th

https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/05/17/nasa-boeing-further-delay-starliner-crew-flight-test-launch-amid-ongoing-helium-leak-review/

[SurlyGator 865]

I officially spend too much time on this site.  This meme was the first mental thought through my brain when I saw that update.  Have some rep.

[Hagbard Celine 10871]

the atlas family is the us version of the soviet R-7

the mission will get off the ground at some point

the boeing capsule sitting on top of it is not causing the launch delays

although the timing of the gremlins plaguing this particular atlas mission are of a certain karmic coincidence

[Captainant 27680]

4 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

the atlas family is the us version of the soviet R-7

the mission will get off the ground at some point

the boeing capsule sitting on top of it is not causing the launch delays

although the timing of the gremlins plaguing this particular atlas mission are of a certain karmic coincidence

It's moreso the gremlins around the Artemis project as a whole. There's SO. MANY. HOLES! in their mission planning that are handwaved away until the problem can no longer be ignored. They didn't even calculate the number of required orbital cryo refueling missions (which have never been demonstrated to date) until SmarterEveryDay asked about it in a national aerospace conference talk. Turns out their guess of 6 or 8 was low and it's closer to 15 launches per lunar landing. Whoopsie poopsie!

Just have to hope that SpaceX gets starship working and certified and then demonstrates a novel technique in a practical and repeatable manner. They've certainly pulled that rabbit out of the hat before, but planning on adding more miracles as a requirement is not great for long term success 

[Hagbard Celine 10871]

Because of the infrequency of launches it is easy to forget that this capsule, the Boeing capsule, Starliner, is not part of Artemis, and is not the same capsule as the Lockheed capsule, Orion, that _is_ the capsule being used in the Artemis program.

[miguelito 11266]

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

They didn't even calculate the number of required orbital cryo refueling missions

[Hagbard Celine 10871]

i rarely watch videos or listen to podcasts because they don't move fast enough to match the information intake rate of reading

but i watched that video in one sitting and it was worth it

the comments are a fantastic debate, at the wickwick level of discourse

deep in to the comments the poster "ergzay" wrote the elephant in the room that the video maker was alluding to but didn't dare say despite his apologetic tone for saying other unsaid stuff....  from "ergzay" the truth about the stupid lunar orbit:

 

""The Artemis mission was designed around the capabilities of SLS and Orion. The SLS and Orion were not designed around the mission goal and it goes further as the design of SLS and Orion were designed to keep the Space Shuttle contractors active and running and doing basically the same thing they were doing during the Shuttle program.

It's got nothing to do with "sustaining public support" and everything to do with "sustaining congressional support".

Artemis exists as a project for SLS and Orion to do. Just as Asteroid Redirect Mission existed as a project for SLS and Orion to do.""

[B00M 6418]

7 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

i rarely watch videos or listen to podcasts because they don't move fast enough to match the information intake rate of reading

[High Plains Drifter 11050]

On 5/15/2024 at 12:45 AM, Hagbard Celine said:

helium leak

Helium leak delays Boeing's 1st Starliner astronaut launch to May 21
News

But that's no longer the plan. Teams detected a small helium leak in Starliner's service module and have pushed the target date back to May 21, Boeing announced in an update today (May 14).

 

 

 

Helium leak? What do they need helium for?

I mean, other than making funny voices of course. 

 

 

[SquishMitten 10415]

Uh, helium makes things go up. Duh

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

[Captainant 27680]

2 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

Helium leak? What do they need helium for?

I mean, other than making funny voices of course. 

Pressurizing tanks while their contents are used in flight

[atomheartbevo 89727]

On 5/15/2024 at 12:45 AM, Hagbard Celine said:

Starliner had been scheduled to lift off this Friday (May 17) on Crew Flight Test (CFT), a mission that will send NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the International Space Station (ISS) for a roughly eight-day stay.

But that's no longer the plan. Teams detected a small helium leak in Starliner's service module and have pushed the target date back to May 21, Boeing announced in an update today (May 14).

On 5/19/2024 at 1:47 PM, Captainant said:

https://phys.org/news/2024-05-boeing-wont-leaky-starliner-flying.html#google_vignette
 

Quote

But while the rocket valve has been replaced, Boeing and NASA have made the decision to fly to the ISS without replacing a shirt button-sized seal on a leaking joint, officials told reporters.

"We can handle this particular leak if that leak rate were to grow even up to 100 times," said Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. Moreover, it impacts just one of a set of 28 thrusters used to control the spaceship's attitude, he added.

Quote

Instead, teams will monitor the leak during the hours before launch, scheduled for June 1 at 12:25 pm (1625 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Asked why Boeing wouldn't just replace the seal, Mark Nappi, the company's vice president for the commercial crew program, said the process would be "quite involved" and require taking apart Starliner at its factory.

[CycleTex87 2972]

Sounds legit. Let’s go for a rocket ride. 

[Hagbard Celine 10871]

saturday 1225 eastern

https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-go-june-1-astronaut-launch

[atomheartbevo 89727]

 

[Captainant 27680]

On 5/30/2024 at 11:51 AM, Hagbard Celine said:

saturday 1225 eastern

https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-go-june-1-astronaut-launch

[atomheartbevo 89727]

38 minutes and clock is ticking. 

[bolverk 29684]

5 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

38 minutes and clock is ticking. 

I wouldn't have the balls to sit on top of that thing, knowing it has a leak.

[atomheartbevo 89727]

11 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I wouldn't have the balls to sit on top of that thing, knowing it has a leak.

While we’ve been watching the coverage, at least one of the astronauts has taken a leak.  Not really related I guess.  
 

19 minutes 

Edited June 1 by atomheartbevo

[atomheartbevo 89727]

Gen X parents watching with younger kids right now

 

I still think of the Challenger every time we watch a launch. 

[Captainant 27680]

Looking like another scrub ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[atomheartbevo 89727]

[atomheartbevo 89727]

Astronauts unbuckled.  Shit.