Men or Machines to the Moon?

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Men or Machines to the Moon?

1DugsBooks
Modificato: Giu 22, 2020, 3:39 pm

Recent news release by SpaceX reveals that 2 paying customers are going to circle the moon in 2018. One link below, probably better articles around:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/27/spacex-moon-private-mission-2018...

I know in one of his recent books Michio Kaku stated he believed robotic exploration of the moon might be the most cost effective way to explore there. We are close enough to control the 'bots from Earth in near real time. Others have stated that when manned missions are involved all priorities fall back to bringing the astronaut back alive and most of the budget is dedicated to that and what is left over goes to science.

In any case I wonder if the 2 SpaceX customers will have anyone tagging along. The capsule they are using holds seven people!

Edited update.

and the official SpaceX announcement.
http://www.spacex.com/news/2017/02/27/spacex-send-privately-crewed-dragon-spacec...

2DugsBooks
Modificato: Mar 14, 2017, 4:40 pm

Well, it looks like even robots aren't immune to radiation. "We can’t see inside Fukushima Daiichi because all our robots keep dying" is an article in Extreme tech about how robots developed to look in on the worst core meltdown are keeling over before getting near the core area. The place is so "hot" that scientists have not been able to measure the amount of radiation inside the most affected areas - they have to estimate from readings gathered outside the building!

Maybe info learned here will be applicable to space faring RUR bots built in the near future. Image below of the the core meltdown area.



The article also has an interesting link to a wiki topic of Radiation Hardening which goes into a lot of detail:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening#Major_radiation_damage_sources

3DugsBooks
Modificato: Giu 22, 2020, 3:43 pm

Neat view of part of the control systems from the SpaceX capsule. With a years training I think I might be able to operate that small section!

Interior photo of dragon with touch screen and a "deorbit" button has disappeared.

::edited some truly horrid grammar::

4DugsBooks
Modificato: Apr 12, 2018, 3:55 pm

Riffing on the Moon topic here is an interesting youtube video {in 4K!} from NASA : https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=nr5Pj6GQL2o

Quote: "Take a virtual tour of the Moon in all-new 4K resolution, thanks to data provided by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. As the visualization moves around the near side, far side, north and south poles, we highlight interesting features, sites, and information gathered on the lunar terrain. "

Pointed to this video by an article at Extreme tech : https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/267356-nasa-posts-stunning-4k-tour-of-the-mo...

5DugsBooks
Modificato: Mag 17, 2018, 3:29 pm

China Has a launch date of May 21st for their moon shot. Quote from Science article below:

"On 21 May, China plans to launch a satellite with a vital but unglamorous mission. From a vantage point beyond the moon, Queqiao, as the satellite is called, will relay data from Chang'e 4, a lander and rover that is supposed to touch down on the lunar far side before the end of the year. But a Dutch-made radio receiver aboard Queqiao will attempt something more visionary. In the quiet lunar environment, it will listen to the cosmos at low frequencies that carry clues to the time a few hundred million years after the big bang, when clouds of hydrogen gas were spawning the universe's first stars."

6DugsBooks
Modificato: Mag 17, 2018, 6:15 pm

......And.... if & when we have people {and robots} on the Moon again this article explains a hazard we will have to contend with:

Moon Dust Is Super Toxic to Human Cells

The "most famous moon rock", Troctolite 76535, collected by Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt who is mentioned in the article.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troctolite_76535

7DugsBooks
Modificato: Mag 28, 2018, 1:15 pm

>5 DugsBooks: QUEQIAO The Chinese satellite is on its way but updates are hard to find for me {when will it reach the Lagrange point?}. While looking I found this interesting site below which helps you track satellites.

https://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=43470

::edit:: here is an informative site about the satellite also:
http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/change-4-relay.htm

8stellarexplorer
Mag 29, 2018, 11:23 am

Thanks for the updates. That lunar dust info is new to me. It highlights how little we know about what we are up against if we venture forth from Earth into the solar system. We are only adapted to live on one small planet in the universe, and the various risks elsewhere are almost impossible to anticipate ahead of time. We will have to be as smart as terrestrial evolution has been - or stay put.

9DugsBooks
Modificato: Gen 30, 2019, 10:43 am

The Chinese spacecraft Queqiao is in position and the moon lander Chang'e-4 has landed. Because of technology concerns a 2011 policy restricts USA/China space joint endeavors but the USA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that is circling the moon did provide photos of the landing site to China according to several sources.



Link to the 3 minute video of the moon landing by the Chang'e-4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0ZUc5oXIRo

There was also an attempt to start an ecosystem on the moon by the lander with seed sprouts, yeast and fruit fly eggs. Some sprouts started but they died and the experiment is over I read.



Link to image source & article: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-cottoning-chinese-seed-moon.html

::edited source of image to another better one:

10pgmcc
Gen 16, 2019, 11:15 am

>9 DugsBooks: That is a pity about the sprouts dying. It looked quite hopeful there for a while. I suppose Matt Daemon will just have to starve if he goes to the Moon.

11stellarexplorer
Gen 16, 2019, 11:16 am

Great info, thanks for the update!

12DugsBooks
Modificato: Gen 30, 2019, 4:27 pm

...and in a more "new in general topic" about the moon, they are still finding out more info from the moon rocks brought back by the astronauts.

Article in Science Magazine : Ancient Earth rock found on the moon

Quote from article:
"Only a small fraction of the 382 kilograms of rocks brought back by the moonwalkers have been studied, he says, and analytical techniques are constantly improving. "

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/01/ancient-earth-rock-found-moon?utm_campai...

::edited late nite mumbling post::

13Yamanekotei
Gen 31, 2019, 2:28 pm

Interplanetary lending system in action...

14DugsBooks
Modificato: Mar 18, 2019, 12:24 am

Looks like they are going to open a few more cans of those “382 kilos “ of moon rocks. Link to article in Gizmodo:

https://gizmodo.com/unopened-lunar-samples-from-apollo-missions-will-finall-1833...

::::::Edit::::::::

Better link:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/untouched-apollo-moon-rocks-to-be-studied-at-n...

15DugsBooks
Modificato: Apr 16, 2019, 4:55 pm

Israel's lunar lander Beresheet did not make a soft landing on the moon but it is the first private company to get there and they plan on a "Beresheet 2" according to news articles.

Photo taken moments before the crash - caused by engine failure.


Interesting articles on the subject:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2199497-israels-beresheet-lunar-lander-has-...

https://www.space.com/spaceil-beresheet.html

16DugsBooks
Modificato: Lug 19, 2019, 6:47 pm



Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing this week there have been numerous news shows on T.V with archival footage. This article from Extreme Tech gives links to the footage on youtube - as it was broadcast at the time of the event.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/295122-cbs-is-streaming-its-original-apollo-...

Evidently there is a lot film out there, the CBS network {USA tv that did the live broadcast 50 years ago} had a special earlier in the week that showed footage shot by Buzz Aldrin from inside the moon lander as Neil stepped onto the Moon for the first time. The film was short but had better resolution than the live broadcast at the time.

17DugsBooks
Modificato: Lug 22, 2019, 9:12 am

I am reading American Moonshot, John F. Kennedy and the Great space race . It is a bit of a tome, I am just over 100 pages into the 500 pages. A lot of history and detail with a large part so far on WWII and the roles of Wernher Von Braun and and Kennedy in the space race.

Informative throughout - although when he presents arguments made at the time for and against the cost of the moon shot projects {people argued it would have been better to use it on poverty etc.} he left out arguments for the cost and ending of the Vietnam war {so far}.

18DugsBooks
Modificato: Lug 27, 2019, 2:47 pm

>17 DugsBooks: An addendum :

“The Department of Defense (DOD) reports that the United States spent about $168 billion (worth around $950 billion in 2011 dollars) in the entire war including $111 billion on military operations (1965 – 1972) and $28.5 billion on economic and military aid to Saigon regime (1953 – 1975).Jan 22, 2014”

https://thevietnamwar.info/how-much-vietnam-war-cost/

Wiki gives 158 billion in 2018 dollars for the Apollo program.

The Planetary Society gives a total of $288 billion in 2019 dollars for the moon program and associated costs with a breakdown at the link.

http://www.planetary.org/get-involved/be-a-space-advocate/become-an-expert/cost-...

19stellarexplorer
Ago 1, 2019, 2:15 am

Inevitable conclusion: War is expensive, space exploration relatively cheap. Leaving aside the contributions to humanity of each. Can we get the resulting public policy initiatives straightened out? ;-)

20DugsBooks
Modificato: Ago 20, 2019, 6:15 am



The Chandrayaan-2 , India's second moon shot.
India is really making the Moon an international area of interest. With my USA media textured view of India it seems the country's people may have some valid issues about sending money to the moon but their costs seem to be phenomenally low at first glance with no research. From the articles below there appear to be some crucial maneuvers coming up - as early as tomorrow.

From the Economic Times "For India — to the moon, the second time, on the second successful attempt in a decade. For the world — the first time a rover will land, if everything goes as planned, on the moon’s south polar region. And all this, at less than Rs 1,000 crore." {$150.314 Million US dollars according to online coverter}

Chandrayaan-2 set to reach Moon: Here's what happens after:
The article from the Times of India describes the orbital and landing procedures for the lunar lander which is designed to find out more about water on the South Pole of the moon among other objectives.

Best link for detailed information, the home site :
https://www.isro.gov.in/chandrayaan2-home-0

::edited some particularly horrid grammar & gave up on the rest::

21DugsBooks
Ago 20, 2019, 3:24 pm

.....and from the Chandrayann2 homesite above:

"August 20, 2019

Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) maneuver was completed successfully today (August 20, 2019). The duration of maneuver was 1738 seconds beginning from 0902 hrs IST. With this, Chandrayaan-2 was successfully inserted into a Lunar orbit. The orbit achieved is 114 km x 18072 km.
Following this, a series of orbit maneuvers will be performed on Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft to enable it to enter its final orbit passing over the lunar poles at a distance of about 100 km from the Moon’s surface....."


More at link:
https://www.isro.gov.in/chandrayaan2-latest-updates

22stellarexplorer
Ago 20, 2019, 9:58 pm

Great news!

23DugsBooks
Set 17, 2019, 9:40 pm



Well the lunar orbital section of the Chandrayann2 is still humming along but the lander section has not fared so well evidently. The Chandrayann2 web page says the orbiter has located the lander but all attempts to communicate have failed so far. After losing contact with the lander as it made its descent the Indian handlers suspect a hard landing.

The USA's NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter {LRO} is passing over the area tonight Sept. 17th and attempts will be made to photograph the lander. The LRO took the above absolutely eerie but neat photo of an Earthrise on the moon

Pointed to this event by an article at Space.com:
https://www.space.com/india-moon-lander-flyover-nasa-lro.html

24pgmcc
Set 18, 2019, 2:37 am

>23 DugsBooks:
That picture is really eerie but absolutely superb. I can see people wanting that hanging on their wall.

25haydninvienna
Set 18, 2019, 3:19 am

And of course there is this image:



I've read Michael Collins' autobiography Carrying the Fire and First Man, a biography of Neil Armstrong, recently, and the word that keeps coming up in their descriptions of the Earth as seen from the Moon is "fragile".

26DugsBooks
Modificato: Set 19, 2019, 5:09 pm

>25 haydninvienna: Yep, that is the photo that started a movement. Any time you see an interview with an astronaut it seems without exception they mention the sense of uniqueness and fragility of the planet that their experience imbues them with. Most recently I saw an interview with Brad Pitt questioning an astronaut on the ISS after Pitt's new movie, Ad Astra, was previewed on the Space Station and Earth's comparison to the vastness of space came up.

27stellarexplorer
Set 20, 2019, 11:24 am

>25 haydninvienna: >26 DugsBooks: This is why all people should have an orbital experience in space, mandated before acquiring the right to vote. Human perspectives are limited by local experience, and from that point of view, Earth often looks robust and unchangeable. (Slight sarcasm, but not really!)

28haydninvienna
Set 20, 2019, 12:48 pm

If anyone offered me a space flight now, a real one, I would walk miles over red hot coals to accept. Whether I came back in one piece is of no great concern.

I had to restrain myself from posting the “pale blue dot” picture, but most of Carl Sagan’s words apply equally to the moon photos:
That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
.

29DugsBooks
Modificato: Apr 29, 2020, 3:11 pm



Bunch of stuff ripped from the Atremis site linked below

"NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT Thursday, April 30, to announce the companies selected to develop modern human landing systems (HLS) that will carry the first woman and next man to the surface of the Moon by 2024 and develop sustainable lunar exploration by the end of the decade."
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-announce-commercial-human-lander-awar...

- Announcement at the NASA site. I have not been following very closely on the "next man/woman on the moon" event and I am not sure how/if the space station like transit point {Gateway} is still go near the moon.

"The Gateway will serve as orbital outpost to support human and scientific exploration of the Moon. As a command and service modulein lunar orbit, the Gateway can be evolved to support longer duration lunar missions, and exploration farther into the solar system. American companies will regularly deliver supplies like oxygen, fuel and food to the Gateway for NASA."

In a previous announcement NASA has geared up for the exploration scheduled as preparation for a human landing.
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-awards-contract-to-deliver-science-tech-...

NASA website for the Artemis Moon Mission program:
https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/

30pgmcc
Apr 29, 2020, 3:51 pm

>29 DugsBooks: You are taking me back to the 60s and the Apollo missions. I hope Artemis stirs the imagination of millions of young people as Apollo did for me.

31DugsBooks
Modificato: Apr 30, 2020, 2:58 pm

NASA Names Companies to Develop Human Landers for Artemis Moon Missions

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-names-companies-to-develop-human-landers...

Quote from article: "The following companies were selected to design and build human landing systems:

>Blue Origin of Kent, Washington, is developing the Integrated Lander Vehicle (ILV) – a three-stage lander to be launched on its own New Glenn Rocket System and ULA Vulcan launch system.

>Dynetics (a Leidos company) of Huntsville, Alabama, is developing the Dynetics Human Landing System (DHLS) – a single structure providing the ascent and descent capabilities that will launch on the ULA Vulcan launch system.

>SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, is developing the Starship – a fully integrated lander that will use the SpaceX Super Heavy rocket. "

>30 pgmcc: I am out of the loop on that kind of feedback - I do see NASA logo shirts as popular items on school age ladies as of late however.

>28 haydninvienna: I forgot to mention, great quote thanks for posting.

32haydninvienna
Mag 1, 2020, 3:46 am

>31 DugsBooks: Thanks. And I would still walk for miles over red hot coals for a real space fight. Coming back optional.

33stellarexplorer
Mag 4, 2020, 1:28 am

>28 haydninvienna: One of the greatest expressions of human rationality and perspective in all of history. Best enjoyed in Sagan’s eloquent own voice:

https://youtu.be/GO5FwsblpT8

34DugsBooks
Modificato: Giu 6, 2020, 5:33 pm

Free book on lunar landers available!

“The 277-page After LM – NASA Lunar Lander Concepts Beyond Apollo is free to the public and available for download on NASA’s Technical Reports Server: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20190031985“

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/book-catalogs-four-decades-of-human-lunar-lander-co...

35haydninvienna
Giu 7, 2020, 1:23 am

>34 DugsBooks: Thanks for that tip. Downloaded: beware, there's 445Mb of it.

36DugsBooks
Giu 22, 2020, 3:29 pm

Why NASA Designed a New $23 Million Space Toilet

Hey!, there is a savings of $23 million right away using robots!

37haydninvienna
Giu 23, 2020, 12:56 am

>36 DugsBooks: Just what I needed to read over breakfast! Reminds me of the famous scene in 2001 where Dr Floyd goes to the toilet in space.

38DugsBooks
Modificato: Set 29, 2020, 11:40 am

The Moon Has More Radiation Than We Thought, a New Problem for Astronauts is the title of a new article at Extremetech.

A quote from the article , "Astronauts on the moon will encounter radiation between two and three times more intense than experienced on the International Space Station (ISS) and 200 times more intense than levels on Earth. Study co-author Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber from the University of Kiel notes that you could only hang out on the moon for two months. That takes into account the radiation you’d encounter on the week-long trip to and from the moon as well. ". The radiation measurements were made courtesy of "China’s Chang’E 4 lander in 2019." according to the article and a link to another article used as reference.

Parts of the article and the linked mention lava tubes or other underground installations might be a solution but these suggestions are not new and have been suggested many times before - also as protection from micrometeorites. Looks like robots might be heavily involved at least initially in any moon habitat.

39DugsBooks
Modificato: Dic 1, 2020, 11:18 am

China's Chang'e 5 lands on the moon to collect the 1st fresh lunar samples in decades

Space.com article on China's latest and very ambitious moon mission. The Chang'e 5 is running on a rapid schedule, comparatively speaking, having launched on Nov. 23rd.

Quote from the article:

"Two pieces of the four-module, 18,100-lb. (8,200 kilograms) Chang'e 5 mission hit the gray dirt today — a stationary lander and an ascent vehicle. If all goes according to plan, the lander will spend the next few days collecting about 4.4 lbs. (2 kg) of lunar material, some of it dug from up to 6.5 feet (2 meters) beneath the lunar surface. "

40DugsBooks
Dic 15, 2020, 3:14 pm

Well it looks like China's Chang'e 5 vehicle has landed on the moon, picked up a load of rocks and is headed back to earth with arrival time in the next two days {by Friday Dec. 18th?} according to recent articles. All this done in what seems to me to be record time since it's launch in Nov. 2020. I am not sure of the authenticity of the rumors of China accepting a FEDEX contract to provide delivery service to the moon however ;-)

A link to various recent articles on Chang'e 5 from a Chinese online magazine including the most recent, a description of the landing site - on land in a remote area of China:

https://www.cgtn.com/special/Chang-e-5.html

41stellarexplorer
Dic 15, 2020, 3:30 pm

I actually was expecting the landing site to be even more remote, and far to the west. It’s remote and to the north, and certainly to picnic to access, but it is roughly speaking in eastern China. Interesting.

42DugsBooks
Dic 16, 2020, 10:12 am

>41 stellarexplorer: If it was left up to me the capsule would not be recovered until summer, too cold & dark!

I wonder if there are any plans afoot to exchange lunar material with NASA since according to the article at:
https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/change-5

"China’s Chang'e-5 mission (嫦娥五号) will return what should be the youngest-ever Moon samples to Earth. The spacecraft will land in Oceanus Procellarum—the Ocean of Storms—a dark-grey region in the Moon’s northwest corner visible with the unaided eye from Earth. The specific landing site, near a 70-kilometer-wide mound named Mons Rümker, may have rocks and soil that are just 1.2 billion years old, formed by a large volcanic event that covered up the underlying surface. That’s far younger than the samples NASA’s Apollo astronauts returned, which ranged between 3.1 and 4.4 billion years old."

NASA has a few hundred pounds of unopened moon rocks still from the Apollo program.

43stellarexplorer
Dic 17, 2020, 4:00 pm

>42 DugsBooks: I’m all in favor of collaboration in science.....

44DugsBooks
Modificato: Dic 21, 2020, 5:38 pm

The following article shines some light on >42 DugsBooks: notion of information sharing.

China collects Moon samples, may not share with NASA due to Wolf Amendment

...“However, sharing material with the United States seems unlikely due to the Wolf Amendment, a law passed by Congress in 2011 that prohibits direct cooperation with China.”

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/china-completes-lunar-sampling-mission-e...

45stellarexplorer
Dic 22, 2020, 2:16 am

>44 DugsBooks: I’d heard that there may not be sharing, but wasn’t aware of the reason. I will not get political here, but this can’t have been the intention of that law. I guess what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

46DugsBooks
Ott 22, 2021, 4:48 pm



Well finally some visually apparent progress in the Artemis "men going back to the moon" program as the Orion Spacecraft was loaded onto the SLS rocket {link to NASA} this past week. The SLS will send Orion around the moon by 2022 they say. I was not aware the SLS had been tested out and seemed to remember only corrections & testing still being done.

47DugsBooks
Modificato: Ott 22, 2021, 7:43 pm

Right after I posted the above this article came out on Space.com:

NASA targets February launch for Artemis 1 mission on its 1st first moon rocket since Apollo

https://www.space.com/nasa-sls-megarocket-artemis-1-moon-launch-february-2022

48pgmcc
Ott 23, 2021, 2:54 am

>47 DugsBooks:
Thank you for your posts. I enjoyed the Artemis article; it brought me back to the excitement of the 1960s and my following every step of the Apollo programme.

49DugsBooks
Modificato: Ott 25, 2021, 6:15 pm



I found this SLS rocket engine graphic interesting & informative. I did not know the engines were used on the space shuttle.

Here is a link to a bunch of "infographics" thumbnails as NASA calls them. I hope to poke around and look at others later. They all look great for a quick explanation of different systems.

https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/multimedia/infographics.html

>48 pgmcc: Yep , I felt a tinge of excitement when I saw the Feb. launch date. I bet interest in "back to the moon" will heat up once that happens.

50DugsBooks
Modificato: Mar 15, 2022, 3:40 pm

It is reported that the SLS is moving to the launchpad this Thursday 3/17/22 and well.........after some financial analysis by various concerns it seems that not everyone is unreservedly enthusiastic about the SLS "moonshot" program. A quote from a TechCrunch article below:
"All of this has added up to an extremely costly project. At the beginning of March, a NASA auditor reported that the operational expenses for the first four Artemis missions will total $4.1 billion -- each. The cost of constructing a single SLS accounts for around half of that, or $2.2 billion. NASA’s associate administrator for exploration systems development, Tom Whitmeyer, seemed to tacitly comment on the price tag, telling reporters that the project is a “national investment.” "

...and of course SpaceX is mentioned:
"As opposed to SLS, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk estimated last month that his company’s super-heavy, fully reusable rocket, Starship, would cost less than $10 million per launch within the next few years. SpaceX is developing a version of the rocket for NASA as part of the Artemis program, after winning a $2.9 billion contract for the task last year."

As reported by Mark Whittington on 11/14/21 in The Hill it appears the launch is not a once or twice event, a quote :
"NASA would like to commercialize the SLS, fly it once a year for the Artemis Program, and pay half price for the privilege. The space agency wants to do this for at least the next 30 years."

A more detailed report on the Thursday event at Space.com:
All systems go for rollout of NASA's Artemis 1 moon rocket this week

51MaureenRoy
Apr 25, 2022, 7:12 pm

52MaureenRoy
Modificato: Ago 22, 2022, 7:31 pm

On Tuesday, August 23rd, 2022, there is a NASA full rehearsal of the launch of the Artemis mission to the Moon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4an27_S7b_8

53MaureenRoy
Modificato: Ago 29, 2022, 2:16 pm

Despite a number of lower-powered lightning strikes at the Artemis launch site at Cape Canaveral in Florida, the all-clear has been given for Monday's launch:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/27/world/how-to-watch-artemis-1-launch-scn/index.htm...

The Spaceflight Now website has a schematic of the rocket system powering the Artemis liftoff:

https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/08/27/nasas-most-powerful-rocket-poised-for-laun...

Correction: Launch is scrubbed for today after two technical problems found in the new rocket fueling system, which is the first US rocket to exceed the size of the Saturn 5 launch vehicle. Earliest next launch window is Friday, September 2, 2022.

54DugsBooks
Modificato: Set 17, 2022, 1:03 pm

I just finished reading Escaping Gravity My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age by Lori Garver last night after receiving it from the library . Just in time for the postponed Artremis launch.

Ms Garver (as described on the dust jacket) "served as the Deputy Administrator of the space agency from 2009 to 2013 and is known as an architect of the new era of commercial partnerships that allow SpaceX to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station"

What a "tell all" book! Those people who are now taking credit for the "Commercial Crew" partnerships (like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic),which are taking over from the Russians to ferry astronauts to the ISS & other chores since the shuttle's demise , were the same ones kicking, screaming and dragging their feet about contracting commercial crew companies which fell outside of the huge political space pie of geographically located "cost plus contract" corporations that fed the politicians of those states.

Might try to post a few quotes later & none the less hope the Artemis is successful - soon.

55DugsBooks
Modificato: Ago 31, 2022, 12:01 am

Here is a 3 minute link to Lori Garver being interviewed on NBC about the Artemis launch attempt on 8/29/22 and her quick summation of the current state of affairs of the USA space program.

https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/what-s-next-for-nasa-s-artemis-1-mission-after...

56MaureenRoy
Modificato: Set 11, 2022, 9:53 am

>55 DugsBooks: Thank you ... the NBC news report adds an important view on Artemis and its gigantic launcher. I didn't know that NASA is trying to re-use some space shuttle parts in this new Artemis mission, wowsers. Saturn 5, the biggest US space launch vehicle of the 20th century, was also plagued with liquid fuel issues in its early days. But that was before social media, so a more historical perspective will be crucial to understand the new US space mission to the Moon.

57DugsBooks
Set 17, 2022, 12:52 pm

>56 MaureenRoy: “ plagued with liquid fuel issues in its early days” . I learned from reading Escaping Gravity that while liquid fuel has many technical hurdles to overcome in development the huge advantage is you can turn it off! Once a solid rocket is lit it goes until burnt out like fireworks. Liquid fuel allows the boosters to land after takeoff.

58MaureenRoy
Set 17, 2022, 4:13 pm

Thanks for solid vs. liquid fuel explanation. Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, here is a 5-minute video that answers more key questions about liquid hydrogen physics and politics ... just put up with the mercifully brief lead-in ad video:

https://www.wsj.com/video/series/news-explainers/why-liquid-hydrogen-keeps-delay...

59DugsBooks
Set 18, 2022, 11:52 am

>58 MaureenRoy: Great video, worth the 5 minutes. Brings you up to date on present & near future technologies.

60DugsBooks
Nov 16, 2022, 10:30 am

Artemis 1 moon rocket takes off! video 11 minutes

Good video, several out there. Only a minute or so in until take off.

61DugsBooks
Nov 16, 2022, 10:37 am



Link to Artemis home page
https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-1

63Cynfelyn
Nov 17, 2022, 11:38 am

>62 DugsBooks: Hmm. https://www.wfla.com (Nexstar News Channel 8) returns "This content is not available in your country/region", at least here in the UK. If it's anything to do with GDPR, its probably not available in the EU either.

64DugsBooks
Modificato: Nov 17, 2022, 3:14 pm

>63 Cynfelyn: Thanks, ok not much there. I was just giving credit to where I snatched the NASA image from. NASA has obscured where it published the darn things - might be in press releases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xehMoSlMtq4&ab_channel=CNETHighlights

Is a good link for more "Earth from Artemis in space" views , or even better just search in You Tube for videos. there are some nice ones.

Aha, another good one. "Artemis 1 Live Tracker" gives the real time telemetry for Artemis i.e. distance from earth, distance to moon etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u66hwhbkkE&ab_channel=TheLaunchPad

65MaureenRoy
Nov 21, 2022, 6:50 pm

Monday, Nov. 21st, 2022: One of the most interesting articles online related to NASA's current Artemis 1 lunar mission is on the continued science problems caused by lunar dust:

https://phys.org/news/2022-11-nasa-moon-familiar-enemy.html

66pgmcc
Nov 22, 2022, 2:59 am

>62 DugsBooks: You are taking me back to the Apollo days. I had a cardboard plan of the Apollo 11 mission with cut-outs for Saturn V, the LEM and the Command Module. It was laid out like the diagram you have in >61 DugsBooks:. I tracked the mission step by step. (Truth be told, I believe I still have it somewhere in the house.)

67DugsBooks
Modificato: Nov 22, 2022, 11:30 pm

>66 pgmcc: wow, pretty neat for the times. My Dad gave me a poster for my wall with a photo of the moon in great detail - I think he wandered in to look at it from time to time also...;-)

:::edited spelling- blaming it on iPad!::

68DugsBooks
Modificato: Nov 25, 2022, 12:38 am



Earth, Moon, Artemis Photo from the blog:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/

Edit in:
NASA Artemis I LIVE, live camera feed from Artemis ;
https://video.ibm.com/channel/b4dEcL3bJKW

69DugsBooks
Modificato: Dic 15, 2022, 8:37 pm

Artemis is back, plenty of videos on YouTube of the splashdown. I thought I would share this one however , “LIVE View Artemis I Orion Flying Over The Moon (Angle 2)”, which gives a detailed, close up, and absolutely dreary view of moon’s surface. Maybe it’s the contrast used but this would not be good for encouraging a visit to many people . 15 minutes, you don’t have to watch the entire thing to grok the situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfV7IhCj_BU

70pgmcc
Dic 16, 2022, 4:22 am

>69 DugsBooks:
As you say, it may not be the most appealing tourist advert for a visit to the surface of the Moon, but it is impressive to watch based on its being actual footage from a lunar fly-over rather than the result of hours of work in a special effects department or CGI laboratory. I think the music certainly suits it.

Thank you for sharing.

71MaureenRoy
Feb 4, 2023, 10:01 pm

New launch dates announced for the Starship program by Elon Musk:

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/elon-musk-says-attempt-starsh...

72MaureenRoy
Feb 10, 2023, 5:49 pm

Updated info from NASA on its progress in searching for landing sites on the Moon:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2023/02/09/nasas-shadowcam-images-permanently-sha...

73MaureenRoy
Modificato: Apr 3, 2023, 11:57 am

Today's NASA announcement on which astronauts will travel on the upcoming US/Canada Artemis mission to the moon:

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-names-astronauts-to-next-moon-mission-fi...

74DugsBooks
Mag 4, 2023, 9:46 pm

>73 MaureenRoy: Yep, Musk's recent endeavor for the moon program makes the SLS look much more appealing! He likes blowing stuff up though, says it makes development go faster.

75DugsBooks
Modificato: Ago 23, 2023, 10:25 am

Well, the recent robotic moon landing attempts that ended in a "splat" give rise to a preference of a human assisted landing endeavor like on the first Apollo 11 manned moon landing it seems. Armstrong noticed the automatic landing system was sending them to a boulder-covered crater & he took manual control of the lander and set them down in a flat area. ( Link to one of the more detailed and entertaining articles on the Apollo 11 landing I have seen.)

India's Chandrayaan-3 moon lander is still intact and "If Chandrayaan-3’s landing on August 23 is not possible, ISRO has a backup plan for August 27."

The latest causality of "robotic" moon landers is the Russian space agency Luna-25 lander which crashed Aug. 19th or 20th after a malfunction. I saw it referred to as an "analogue" lander since Russia was not able to use western digital/computer components due to the Ukraine war technical embargoes.

Japan's Mission 1 lunar lander created a new hole on the moon in April this year 2023. Japanese ispace moon landing attempt falls short at ‘very end,’ CEO says

Got to run will edit in other lunar attempts later ~:0

76Cynfelyn
Ago 23, 2023, 4:17 am

> Given that Ukraine and Russia are having some success shooting each other's drones down with radio interference, it wouldn't surprise me if something similar didn't happen to Luna-25.

77DugsBooks
Modificato: Ago 23, 2023, 11:10 am

The Chandrayaan-3 moon lander has landed on the south pole of the Moon successfully! India is now the fourth nation to successfully land a spacecraft on the Moon. I look forward to photos from the rover & lander.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYYKRia7Rr8&ab_channel=moneycontrol



Link to image source/article

78MaureenRoy
Ago 23, 2023, 3:35 pm

Great schematic, thanks. I'm looking forward to expanding my Sanskrit vocabulary with these new names. Will they get samples of ice from the lunar south pole?

79DugsBooks
Ago 23, 2023, 3:52 pm

>78 MaureenRoy: I am not sure of what instruments exactly are on the lander & rover but as for a Sanskrit vocabulary google told me even the Indian newspapers misspell "Chandrayaan" in their pages!

80MaureenRoy
Ott 14, 2023, 7:46 pm

81MaureenRoy
Ott 20, 2023, 9:09 pm

A new plan to resolve the problem of harmful moon dust:

https://www.space.com/moon-spacesuit-dust-static-electric-field-hawaii-pacific-u...

82MaureenRoy
Ott 23, 2023, 12:45 pm

Earth's Moon may be much older than first estimated:

https://www.geochemicalperspectivesletters.org/article2334/

83MaureenRoy
Nov 9, 2023, 9:04 pm

First test-firing of a new type of rocket engine for NASA's upcoming space missions:

https://www.space.com/ion-thrusters-nasa-gateway-moon-space-station-test

84MaureenRoy
Modificato: Gen 17, 6:12 pm

A platform has been developed to support future space missions from Earth to our Moon:

https://www.space.com/the-universe/moon/nasas-lunar-retroreflector-network-could...

85MaureenRoy
Feb 16, 7:54 pm

It took me awhile to find a free news article on this successful launch:

https://www.jpost.com/science/article-787037

86MaureenRoy
Modificato: Feb 18, 6:40 pm

A report from Germany's DW News on the successful launch of a rocket and other gear traveling to the moon:

https://www.dw.com/en/us-company-intuitive-machines-launches-moon-mission/a-6826...

87MaureenRoy
Modificato: Feb 21, 7:06 pm

Some of the ways to watch Thursday's attempted Moon landing:

https://gizmodo.com/how-to-watch-moon-landing-odysseus-intuitive-machines-185127...

A good explainer of this Intuitive flight so far, and the plans for the Thursday moon landing: https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/02/21/intuitive-machines-moon-lander-odysseus-re...

Are there other online viewing platforms you can recommend? Please tell us here:

88MaureenRoy
Feb 24, 12:35 pm

The Intuitive lander tipped onto its side during landing near the Moon's south pole:

https://www.dw.com/en/private-us-moon-lander-tipped-sideways-but-alive/a-6835863...

Since the tip-over hazard is so great for moon landers in that region, maybe the best results would be from a "Transformers" type design of landing craft which could pick itself up after a rocky landing. The recent Japanese south pole lander was, I think, built with a partner toy company that designed the original Transformer toys.

89bnielsen
Feb 24, 2:24 pm

I'm reminded of the movie "Iron Sky" every time a moon lander is tilted after landing. :-)

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