USA Artemis II - 10-day crewed mission
- Thread starter Housecarl
- Start date
Ask your AI how far away the Moon was from Earth for Apollo 13 (I found 404,418 km) and how far away the Moon is from Earth today (I found 389,875 km). Subtract to get the difference. Apollo 13 was fairly close to the Moon, call it 160 miles. Artemis II will be about 4,000 miles away from the Moon on the back lap. By my math Artemis II has to clear the Moon's Farside by at least 8,750 miles in order to be "the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth." I think the mistake everyone is making is assuming the Moon is a constant distance from Earth and in a perfectly circular orbit (it isn't), so therefore Artemis II's 4,000 miles beats Apollo 13's 160 miles. The problem is the Moon can vary its distance from Earth by up to 50,000 km/30,420 miles, and by my math it's about 14,543 km closer at this particular point in its orbit than it was for Apollo 13. Show me different numbers (and your source) to prove all of that is wrong.
As another Chinese aside, the U.S. X-37B is currently in orbit and so is the Chinese X-37B wannabe (imaginatively named in Wikipedia as "Chinese reusable spacecraft"). I picture them stalking each other up there, maybe performing some space dogfighting but without the weapons. Tomorrow China will attempt the first intentional test flight launch of the same rocket (the Tianlong-3) that had an "unintentional launch" back in June 2024 (that's the one where you could see the rocket veering above a Chinese village and blowing up quite spectacularly ... there is video and some pictures somewhere on TB2K). The Tianlong-3 will try to put some satellites into LEO for the Qianfan megaconstellation (China's 14,000 satellite answer to Starlink).
I'm seeing the rocket did fire and Artemis II is on its way to the Moon. No matter what happens now, they won't be back until the mission is complete, assuming the lunar slingshot works and they actually end up pointing back to Earth. I saw something that said it will take four days to get to the Moon and four days to get back. As far as I know Apollo did it in three days. But media is saying "the Artemis II crew will fly faster than any humans have ever done before." I've about decided PR folks are basically salesweasels at heart, and salesweasels lie so much they've forgotten what the truth is anymore.
West
Senior
Thank you, Tanstaafl.
naegling62
Veteran Member
Mankind finally makes a trip to the moon in 2026 but they forgot about the infamous tb2000 bingo card and yes, it had a failed space capsule shitter on it.
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subnet
Boot
So the old joke
"What does NASA stand for?" will make a comeback?
auxman
Deus vult...
24/7 NASA livestream of the mission...
www.youtube.com
NASA's Artemis II Live Mission Coverage (Official Broadcast)
This feed will provide continuous coverage of Artemis II mission activities with live commentary, beginning with tanking of the SLS (Space Launch System) roc...
www.youtube.com
energy_wave
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Like a home inspection, where you lift the floor heating grate and see construction debris swept into the hole. Maybe someone did the same and plugged up the system. Wasn't properly inspected before closing it up.
Jez
Veteran Member
It depends on the apogee of the orbit. The plan was to have a further apogee (furthest) on the moon.
If you ever want to learn the basics of orbital mechanics, get the game Kerbal Space Program. You will learn a lot and have fun doing it. Like learning why we launch our spacecraft going east. We do that to take advantage of the curvature of the earth to get into orbit using the least amount of fuel. You learn that adding thrust in the direction of travel at the perigee will increase the distance at the apogee with the least amount of fuel.
auxman
Deus vult...
Astronaut Koch implied in a media interview earlier tonight that if they had not launched when they did (April 1), they would not be setting the distance-from-Earth record.
jed turtle
a brother in the Lord
Sounds like politicians.
The numbers I posted can be easily confirmed by anyone in about 60 seconds on a search engine, and the math and thinking about what it means takes about another 30 seconds. If the Moon really is 14,543 km/8,725.8 miles closer to Earth now than it was during Apollo 13 (and of course that number can change depending on exactly when you measure it during the Moon's orbit around Earth), then Artemis II has to go further than that number (plus another about 160 miles for the Apollo 13 distance) from the surface during its loop around Farside in order to be further than Apollo 13 was. Just because pretty much everyone keeps saying they'll be further doesn't make it true.
Edited to add: Wikipedia is showing the Chinese attempt to launch its new Tianlong-3 rocket (which as far as I can tell is basically a rip-off of the SpaceX Falcon 9) was a failure, which I think means the Chinese still don't have a reusable rocket.
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Countrymouse
Country exile in the city
L.A.B.
Goodness before greatness.
An close encounter narrative?
TxGal
Day by day
That really does happen! Decades ago we moved into a new home development (not in Texas), and our new neighbors across the street had a plumbing flood in their furnished basement.
The builder's warranty was still in effect, thankfully. Someone had put a brick in their plumbing line. Huge mess.
Old Greek
Veteran Member
I agree Red. I watched them all also. Including the first rockets that exploded soon after launch. Did we not go around the dark side back then, or did we stop and back up to stay on the light side
. It is still pretty neat to watch a launch. Maybe they have new super duper flashlights to use on the dark side! 
night driver
ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
energy_wave
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Looks like the toilet has been fixed. Just don't eat the moon pies. They clog.
Somebody should have challenged me with different numbers. Because auxman is right and I am wrong. On April 1st the Moon was 389,875 km from Earth, but on April 6th it will be 404,348 km (and shortly thereafter 404,974 km). If Artemis 2 had launched a few days earlier or a few days later, it would have missed that greater distance, the Moon would not have been far enough from Earth to beat the Apollo 13 distance (404,418 km), and I would have been right. But not on April 6th, the date of the flyby. If I had searched a little harder I could have found the site that let you enter a future date for the Moon. Sigh ... sometimes you win, sometimes you lose!
Doc1
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Just before liftoff when they topped off their tanks, they were bitching at the Exxon dude about the price of rocket fuel kerosene.Then, when he wouldn't give 'em the rest room keys the Black dude decked him and the short chick rifled through his pockets looking for the keys. She didn't find the keys, but did manage to lift his wallet. The Canadian dude was desperately looking for someone, anyone, to apologize to for anything.
The mission commander said "Fuc* this shit. I should've just kept driving the cab."
By the time the cops showed up, all of their suspects were out of their jurisdiction and doing 2,000 miles an hour at 30,000 feet. "Fuc*ing astronaut hooligans," one of the officers spit out. This is the third time we've been called out here this week."
The senior detective on site was heard to mutter, "Fuc* this shit! I should've just kept driving the cab."
Best
Doc
Jez
Veteran Member
I'm so sorry for this, but since when are we using kerosene for rocket fuel? Liquid Oxycodone..err...stupid auto correct...Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen have been the fuel of all the sports rockets since the 70's. It makes all the big rockets go boom? Or is it women in tight black dresses that makes rockets go boom? I start getting confused when she bends over. Something always seems to short circuit, but I swear the rocket never launches early.
In all seriousness. I didn't know the solid rocket propellant is a mix of ammonium perchlorate for the oxidizer and ALUMINUM POWDER as the fuel. Then I remember that once upon a time, aluminum was worth more than silver and sometimes gold. That's why the 100 oz. aluminum cap on the Washington Monument was something to behold.
Doc1
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Jez, I'm not a rocket expert but I'm fairly sure that a lot of our rockets used kerosene and liquid oxygen. Here's a Wiki quote:
"RP-1 (Rocket Propellant-1 or Refined Petroleum-1) and similar fuels like RG-1 and T-1 are highly refined kerosene formulations used as rocket fuel.[1][2] Liquid-fueled rockets that use RP-1 as fuel are known as kerolox rockets. In their engines, RP-1 is atomized, mixed with liquid oxygen (LOX), and ignited to produce thrust. Developed in the 1950s, RP-1 is outwardly similar to other kerosene-based fuels like Jet A and JP-8 used in turbine engines but is manufactured to stricter standards. While RP-1 is widely used globally, the primary rocket kerosene formulations in Russia and other former Soviet countries are RG-1 and T-1, which have slightly higher densities.
Compared to other rocket fuels, RP-1 provides several advantages with a few tradeoffs. Compared to liquid hydrogen, it offers a lower specific impulse, but can be stored at ambient temperatures, has a lower explosion risk, and although its specific energy is lower, its higher density results in greater energy density. Compared to hydrazine, another liquid fuel that can be stored at ambient temperatures, RP-1 is far less toxic and carcinogenic."
Best
Doc
Jez
Veteran Member
Interesting. I know that Artemis II was using Oxygen and hydrogen because I tripple checked my answer. I did not know others used kerosene. I remember the impulse on rockets matters for efficiency, but I don't remember the specifics. Kerbal Space Program only mimics real life to a point after all.
CaryC
Has No Life - Lives on TB
I know I'm out of the loop, no one from NASA has called me. And I know this is exciting, I think the launch was cool, haven't seen one in a while.
But we have been to the moon before. So why do we need another fly by? What happened to all the data from going there the first few times? And why does it take 4 people this time to do a fly by, when they did it the very first time with 3 people?
Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave Earth's gravitational sphere of influence, and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing and then returned to Earth.[1][2][3] The three astronauts—Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders—were the first humans to see and photograph the far side of the Moon and an Earthrise.
I know latest and greatest. Price of gas hasn't changed.
But we have been to the moon before. So why do we need another fly by? What happened to all the data from going there the first few times? And why does it take 4 people this time to do a fly by, when they did it the very first time with 3 people?
Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave Earth's gravitational sphere of influence, and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing and then returned to Earth.[1][2][3] The three astronauts—Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders—were the first humans to see and photograph the far side of the Moon and an Earthrise.
I know latest and greatest. Price of gas hasn't changed.
dstraito
TB Fanatic
Wouldn't they need another 3 astronauts for that?
Melodi
Disaster Cat
Because for some "reason" they "lost" all their previous technology and had to rebuild it all over again. That included the lunar lander and, more importantly, the tech that lets it blast back to the space capsule. There are all sorts of interesting match questions about how they managed it the last time.
While I do believe I watched an honest moon landing and walk in that Summer of 1969 - I insisted I would run away from Summer Camp if they didn't let us watch it, and they found a TV so we could. I am also open to the idea that hidden (non-public) technology may have been used to blast back off the moon itself, i.e., something like what is now called anti-gravity, or something very much like it.
I am not a scientist, and I have no training in physics, but some people I know who do have such training have talked about these theories, which again, doesn't make them true, but they do raise questions.
If (and only if) true, it might mean it is taking them a while to back-engineer or reproduce the same or similar technology to do it again. That means testing, especially now that NASA knows this is not 1969, when all the moon shot guys had prerecorded messages for their families if they didn't survive, and there were plans on how to handle things if they were stuck on the moon and died there.
Today, if something like that happens, NASA might be over as a government program. Private Industry and military missions would probably continue things. The military is likely because China is certainly going to go there, and like NASA in the 1950s and 1960s, they accept that there are likely to be fatal accidents at some points along the way. They simply either cover them up or make the deceased into national heroes and move on.
Those of us who grew up reading Robert A. Heinlein know that space is a dangerous place and that those who go there are pioneers facing great dangers. Great rewards may await those who persevere, but some may also pay a high price before we all get there.
There was even a Big Bang episode where the space station toilet was broken.
What bothers me about all this, is that IMO this entire system hasn’t been adequately tested. It reminds me of the deep submersible that corporate bigshot built that imploded and killed the occupants. During Mercury/Gemini/Apollo, there were hundreds of tests and dozens of flights. And even then, the crew of Apollo 1 was killed.
TheSearcher
Are you sure about that?
The Saturn V had two uncrewed tests before carrying it's first crew, just one more than SLS. And Saturn V was a clean-sheet design, not the beneficiary of a 30-year program on which the hardware was based and is still well-understood, as is SLS. The Orion spacecraft has now flown three times, two development and validation tests and now one crewed flight. Many thousands of tests have been performed, from subsystems to qual testing on the flight craft. To be fair, the Apollo CSM had two flights on a Saturn V before being crewed, and an additional crewed flight on a Saturn IB before the first Saturn V crewed mission. Many, many ground test and drop test articles were developed for Artemis to bridge the gaps that do exist.
Orion and SLS have been deeply tested, and is not some slapdash thing.
There are things that I WOULD criticize about the program, but a too-short testing campaign is definitely not one of them.
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TheSearcher
Are you sure about that?
As Dennis was pointing out about testing, this is a stress test of Orion system, and a test of the combined stack of SLS and Orion as an overall systems engineering validation. Before more landings, let's first prove that the camper van can make the trip with the number of people you expect to need in the future missions.
The point is not to "go to the Moon" it's to resume going to the Moon and begin to do more than when we were last there.
SmithJ
Veteran Member
View: https://twitter.com/latestinspace/status/2040464327040188488?s=20
They have GOT to quit launching on Taco Thursday
They have GOT to quit launching on Taco Thursday
Doc1
Has No Life - Lives on TB
The almost criminal design shortcut in Apollo 1 was giving it a 100% Oxygen capsule atmosphere. The US Navy and commercial diving companies knew not to do this by around 1900 and the reference material was open-source throughout the 20th Century. The idea at the time, at least from I've read, is that by giving the astronauts a pure O2 cabin atmosphere while in space, they could reduce the cabin pressure from 14.7 psi (Earth's sea level pressure) down to around 5 psi (of pure O2). This would give the capsule greater structural stability. Think of any human occupied capsule in space as an inflated balloon waiting to pop.
In addition to the increased fire threat of operating in a 100% O2 environment, prolonged breathing of pure O2 eventually results in something known as Oxygen toxicity. Again this was known - or should've been known - by the NASA engineers, as it was widely-known information.
The Apollo 1 disaster was tantamount to giving kids gasoline and matches to play with and the names of the engineers and officials responsible for it have long been relegated to forgotten history.
Best
Doc
okie-carbine
Veteran Member
I know I am not the only person wondering what happened to Artemis 1. I had no idea. So here you go:
Artemis 1 was an uncrewed test flight that successfully launched on November 16, 2022, and concluded on December 11, 2022, when the Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. The mission traveled over 1.4 million miles (2.3 million kilometers), orbiting the Moon and venturing further from Earth than any spacecraft designed to carry humans before returning safely.
Although the mission was successful overall, the spacecraft's ablative heat shield experienced greater-than-expected erosion during reentry. NASA identified that gases generated inside the shield's Avcoat material were unable to vent as expected, causing pressure buildup and cracking that led to char loss, a finding that helps inform safety protocols for future crewed missions.
Key mission milestones included:
Artemis 1 was an uncrewed test flight that successfully launched on November 16, 2022, and concluded on December 11, 2022, when the Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. The mission traveled over 1.4 million miles (2.3 million kilometers), orbiting the Moon and venturing further from Earth than any spacecraft designed to carry humans before returning safely.
Although the mission was successful overall, the spacecraft's ablative heat shield experienced greater-than-expected erosion during reentry. NASA identified that gases generated inside the shield's Avcoat material were unable to vent as expected, causing pressure buildup and cracking that led to char loss, a finding that helps inform safety protocols for future crewed missions.
Key mission milestones included:
- Launch: Liftoff from Kennedy Space Center at 1:47 am EST after four previous scrub delays caused by engine issues and fuel leaks.
- Lunar Orbit: The spacecraft entered a distant retrograde orbit 130 km above the Moon's surface for six days.
- Record Distance: It reached a maximum distance of approximately 268,563 miles (432,210 km) from Earth, surpassing the Apollo 13 record.
- Splashdown: The crew module landed in the Pacific Ocean near Baja California, completing the 25.5-day mission exactly 50 years after the last Apollo lunar landing.
At least they're using a liquid. Seems to me there have been rockets that used pulverized rubber. And, yes, the rockets worked.
As for the "proven hardware" argument, would you take the best parts from a bunch of different cars (some of them pretty old), slap them onto an empty frame (engineers call this "integration"), fire it up a couple of times in the garage, run it around the block once, then stake four people's lives on it by putting the result into a Death Race 2000 Grand Prix held 250,000 miles away from the nearest shop?
By the way, Artemis II is almost halfway to the Moon now.
Doc1
Has No Life - Lives on TB
From okie-carbine's post # 196:
"Although the mission was successful overall, the spacecraft's ablative heat shield experienced greater-than-expected erosion during reentry. NASA identified that gases generated inside the shield's Avcoat material were unable to vent as expected, causing pressure buildup and cracking that led to char loss, a finding that helps inform safety protocols for future crewed missions."
Most (human) spacecraft orbit the Earth at around 17,000 mph. The heat shields are necessary to prevent the capsules from burning up during reentry. It is the friction of the air against the spacecraft at high speed that causes these high temperatures. In that respect, it is no different than visible meteors entering Earth's atmosphere.
Now, understand that men have parachuted from very high balloons near the edge of space and they have not required any sort of heat shield as they reached terminal velocity. They did require very sophisticated equipment, including (and especially) pressure suits to survive the near-space atmosphere of near vacuum conditions.
While I understand that giving spacecraft powerful enough retrorockets to reduce their speed enough that they didn't need head shields would be expensive, it seems to me that such an arrangement would be much safer for the astronauts. At zero MPH, the astronauts would fall from space exactly like the men who've parachuted from near space. Of course it wouldn't be necessary for the spacecraft to attain 0 MPH. It would only be necessary for them to achieve a reduced velocity sufficient that the heat shields were no longer required.
As an example, the famous SR-71 Blackbird spy plane developed enough air friction that their design did require heat-resistant engineering as they approached 2000 MPH.
So, why couldn't manned spacecraft have enough retrorocket power that they could make their reentries at something less than 2000 MPH. Is it purely an engineering consideration, an economic consideration or something else that I'm missing?
I'm genuinely curious and would appreciate informed explanations.
Best
Doc
"Although the mission was successful overall, the spacecraft's ablative heat shield experienced greater-than-expected erosion during reentry. NASA identified that gases generated inside the shield's Avcoat material were unable to vent as expected, causing pressure buildup and cracking that led to char loss, a finding that helps inform safety protocols for future crewed missions."
Most (human) spacecraft orbit the Earth at around 17,000 mph. The heat shields are necessary to prevent the capsules from burning up during reentry. It is the friction of the air against the spacecraft at high speed that causes these high temperatures. In that respect, it is no different than visible meteors entering Earth's atmosphere.
Now, understand that men have parachuted from very high balloons near the edge of space and they have not required any sort of heat shield as they reached terminal velocity. They did require very sophisticated equipment, including (and especially) pressure suits to survive the near-space atmosphere of near vacuum conditions.
While I understand that giving spacecraft powerful enough retrorockets to reduce their speed enough that they didn't need head shields would be expensive, it seems to me that such an arrangement would be much safer for the astronauts. At zero MPH, the astronauts would fall from space exactly like the men who've parachuted from near space. Of course it wouldn't be necessary for the spacecraft to attain 0 MPH. It would only be necessary for them to achieve a reduced velocity sufficient that the heat shields were no longer required.
As an example, the famous SR-71 Blackbird spy plane developed enough air friction that their design did require heat-resistant engineering as they approached 2000 MPH.
So, why couldn't manned spacecraft have enough retrorocket power that they could make their reentries at something less than 2000 MPH. Is it purely an engineering consideration, an economic consideration or something else that I'm missing?
I'm genuinely curious and would appreciate informed explanations.
Best
Doc
TheSearcher
Are you sure about that?
The mathematics are obvious when you think about it. To get to 17000 MPH or better, to reach a certain level of thrust, for a certain amount of time, and at g-loads that won't harm the crew, a lot of fuel must be expended. While you wouldn't need nearly as much fuel to decelerate just the capsule as used to make orbit, the amount to get from 17000 MPH to say maybe 2000 MPH is prohibitively high. Even if you could carry enough fuel for that deceleration task, you'd have to carry that mass to orbit, or beyond, which increases the overall mass to orbit.
Reentry shields are much more feasible, and even those are difficult to implement themselves.
ETA: Written a little poorly the first time.
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Hognutz
TB Fanatic
View: https://twitter.com/tukifromkl/status/2040558613937225985?s=61
BREAKING: The most expensive spacecraft ever built.. $93 billion to get us back to the moon.. is being rotated toward the sun because the $30 million toilet vent froze and filled the capsule with the smell of frozen piss..
it’s 2026.. astronauts are peeing into backup bags because the high-tech plumbing on our return-to-the-moon mission needs sunlight to thaw.. apollo guys did this in 1969 with duct tape and a prayer.. we came back half a century later with a $30 million toilet that still can’t beat zero degrees..
they built an entire launch system over seven years.. spent more than the GDP of 100 countries.. and the mission is being run like a student housing maintenance request..
“can you turn the heat up.. the bathroom is frozen again.”
nasa is fighting physics.. it’s also fighting a procurement machine that charges taxpayers $93 billion to deliver the same bathroom the apollo boys had when richard nixon was president..
this is the most expensive smell in human history.
BREAKING: The most expensive spacecraft ever built.. $93 billion to get us back to the moon.. is being rotated toward the sun because the $30 million toilet vent froze and filled the capsule with the smell of frozen piss..
it’s 2026.. astronauts are peeing into backup bags because the high-tech plumbing on our return-to-the-moon mission needs sunlight to thaw.. apollo guys did this in 1969 with duct tape and a prayer.. we came back half a century later with a $30 million toilet that still can’t beat zero degrees..
they built an entire launch system over seven years.. spent more than the GDP of 100 countries.. and the mission is being run like a student housing maintenance request..
“can you turn the heat up.. the bathroom is frozen again.”
nasa is fighting physics.. it’s also fighting a procurement machine that charges taxpayers $93 billion to deliver the same bathroom the apollo boys had when richard nixon was president..
this is the most expensive smell in human history.