[HN Gopher] Orion has splashed down off the coast of Baja, Calif...
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Orion has splashed down off the coast of Baja, California
Author : rntn
Score : 106 points
Date : 2022-12-11 17:42 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| Trisell wrote:
| And now we wait two years for another "iterative" launch. No
| wonder it takes NASA 20 years to do anything. And what are they
| doing in those two years? Certifying the flight computers. I was
| fearful SpaceX was falling behind but now I see that this was
| just a publicity stunt to make NASA look competent and effective.
| When they aren't.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The Orion program, including the CEV from the Constellation
| program, started in 2006, 16 years ago, and has so far cost
| $26billion.
|
| That's a long time and a lot of money.
| Smaug123 wrote:
| I mean, if I'd written the software for them and it were my
| software being certified, I'd say two years would be an
| underestimate :P
| Aperocky wrote:
| I think robots are the better options tbh.
|
| 1. They don't need life support that amount to 2000% active mass.
| Maybe 20% since we can still count solar panel as their life
| support.
|
| 2. They are far far far more sophisticated than what they used to
| be. Especially with modern processors. We can even embed some
| level of AI decision making onto these robots so they don't need
| to call back home for every decision.
|
| 3. They are far cheaper and can tolerate far lower safety margin.
| We can potentially even mass produce them and launch 50 at a
| time.
|
| Imagine if we're just throwing a bunch of rovers on moon and each
| of them are capable of suicide burn and landing themselves. Maybe
| 2/10 will fail but we still get 8 rovers that can just roam the
| moon for fun.
| baq wrote:
| A man with a shovel can do in an hour what a moon-grade robot
| can do in a day, with some luck. (Two months on Mars.) Give the
| man a moon digger, a moon bulldozer and a mooncrete production
| facility (with mooncrete mixer trucks) and see what he can do
| then ;)
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Robots _are_ the better option - we send a lot more robots to
| space than we do humans. But there 's nothing wrong with also
| having some human missions.
| hollerith wrote:
| There's nothing wrong with having some human missions, but I
| don't want to help pay for it.
| btgeekboy wrote:
| NASA's total budget is approximately one half of one
| percent (0.5%) of the federal budget. Even at its peak in
| the 1960s, it never reached 5%. Seems pretty reasonable.
| hollerith wrote:
| Since you think it's so reasonable, would you please pay
| my share? If distributed equally among the US population,
| it is about $75 a year per person, which of course comes
| out to about $6.25 a month.
| krasin wrote:
| I work in a robotics research group. My natural bias is to
| always praise the robots.
|
| If the goal is just to have N robots/rovers on the moon for
| fun/data collection, then we don't need to send humans to
| space.
|
| If the goal is to bootstrap a profitable space/Moon industrial
| complex, then we will need a lot of robots (some autonomous and
| some remote controlled from Earth) and a number of humans in
| the center of events. Humans are critical for keeping
| automation working and for adjusting to unforeseen
| circumstances.
| darknavi wrote:
| If anyone wants a fun, near future scifi novel that explores
| this idea more, read/listen to Delta-V by Daniel Suarez.
| teddyh wrote:
| " _If scientific knowledge was all we were after, then the
| Federation would have built a fleet of probes, not starships.
| Exploration is about seeing things with your own eyes._ "
|
| -- Captain Kathryn Janeway, _One Small Step_ , Star Trek
| Voyager Season 6, Episode 8
| mabbo wrote:
| Tim Dodd made a lovely point in his stream of the event.
|
| People keep asking why this is a big deal- we did this fifty
| years ago, right? It should be a lot easier now with modern tech.
|
| Yes, but now we're doing it _safely_. The Apollo program took
| risks that today 's NASA never would allow. We're better at that
| now, but it's a lot more work.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The only 'big deal' is that NASA is planning to return to the
| Moon after a 50+ years hiatus.
|
| There's little that is groundbreaking.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| "now we're doing it _safely_. "
|
| Mercury through Apollo _really_ did not like the idea of using
| solid rocket boosters, you can 't turn them off if things get
| out of hand, and of course they'll do that themselves in lots
| of failure modes. Suitable for a launch escape system ... and
| see the Shuttle for when these principles were turned on their
| head.
|
| Its SRBs, now being literally recycled for Artemis were low
| capital, high operating cost kludges that infamous killed one
| shuttle and its crew. In part because there was no provision
| made for escape aside from the pilots in the first couple of
| launches or so and that was rather limited, SR-71 technology
| with a pretty low max altitude.
|
| On the other hand the Orion crew capsule does have a tower
| escape system.
|
| So that old NASA you decry, they didn't lose a crew except on
| the ground due to a high pressure test with pure oxygen!?!?!!
| OK, that's a credible validation of that part of your thesis,
| see also Apollo 13 which was a close call.
|
| On the other hand does the Orion have a heavy shield for the
| astronauts to shelter behind in case of a solar storm (see
| Heinlein's _Podkayne of Mars_ )? If not Apollo and the Artemis
| program are every bit as dangerous in what was a primary reason
| Nixon stopped Apollo before all its planned missions, program
| delays would have extended it into the change in the solar
| cycle.
|
| I would also note the start of this program _many_ years ago
| was so badly designed the booster system 's vibrations would
| have been lethal to humans. Springs in the crew capsule were
| part of the proposed solution to that, but going back to
| Shuttle diameter SRBs, only adding one segment, and all the
| mass of the tank and SSMEs should have fixed that. If my memory
| is correct that was a rocket powered by a single stack of SRBs,
| purely for sending crews out into space.
|
| But I'd like to know what happened after the Shuttle and it to
| make NASA take crew safety seriously. NASA was utterly callous
| about the known risk from the launch that killed the second
| shuttle and its crew.
|
| I finish by noting a bit of humility is warranted after just a
| single test mission success. That NASA and its contractors were
| able to pull it off is quite a feat, but as the Shuttle should
| have taught us bad designs can eventually catch up with you.
| amelius wrote:
| Ok, but doesn't that mean we will be surpassed left and right
| by nations who don't care (as much) about safety?
| jackmott wrote:
| pfdietz wrote:
| It's not a big deal, because it's so expensive it's a dead end.
| The problem has always been making human space flight cheap
| enough that it can lead to activities with positive return. The
| Apollo and Shuttle eras failed in that respect. SLS, by not
| reducing launch costs, continues in that sad and aggravating
| tradition.
| LightG wrote:
| Well, the US needed alternatives to Russian rockets, hence
| SpaceX and SLS.
|
| Now NASA need alternatives to Musk, so SLS is a good back up
| option.
|
| * canned laughter *
|
| (only semi joking considering his Ukraine starlink BS)
| imglorp wrote:
| Setting aside his BS, there's a chasm of difference between
| SpaceX and SLS: it's process.
|
| SLS designs ONE (mostly) disposable ship, per year, max,
| taking a decade to integrate and realize. Epic Waterfall.
| They have several concurrent pipelines.
|
| Meanwhile SpaceX designs a reusable ship factory. Scalable
| to as many a year as you can afford.
| LightG wrote:
| I know. But it's still space travel at the whim of a
| BS'er.
|
| Hence, the need for a back up or private competitor.
| Ideally as efficient. If not, then at almost any cost is
| the only alternative (NASA).
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| The massive cost comes from defeating gravity and getting
| stuff off of this planet. Cost reductions probably won't
| happen until the ISS turns into an orbital city with
| spacecraft manufacturing capabilities. The JWST engineers
| talked about the importance of building future telescopes and
| spacecrafts in space, it's a very important technological
| milestone for humanity.
|
| Mass drivers and orbital elevators are common in fiction but
| I don't know what the scientific consensus is on the
| viability of such structures.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| The Falcon 9 is ~500 tons of propellant for 25 tons to LEO.
| An A380 carries ~250 tons of fuel. In the Falcon 9 number
| the liquid oxygen is included. The RP-1 is a pretty much a
| cleaner diesel or jet fuel.
|
| The cost is like $1500 to $2000 per ton so like $500 000 to
| $1 000 000 in fuel costs for a launch.
|
| Fuel costs are still trivial compared to building and
| operating the rocket and is where huge reductions are
| possible.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Your argument is obviously wrong. If that were the case,
| all launch systems would have the same cost per kg, since
| they all are operating on the same planet with the same
| gravity.
|
| But in fact, the minimum cost imposed by gravity (the
| energy needed to get into space) is incredibly low. The
| minimum fuel cost is a very small fraction of the cost of
| launching with current launch vehicles. The costs come from
| expendability and manufacturing and non-fuel operating
| costs. None of these are dictated by gravity.
| FPGAhacker wrote:
| There is a cost in mass. Rockets today are essentially a
| giant fuel tank with a few engines connected to one side
| and cargo connected to the other side.
|
| Every kg of fuel is a kg of cargo you can't launch.
| That's the cost.
| pfdietz wrote:
| None of that justifies claiming the cost is due to
| gravity. The problem of getting to space is obviously
| affected by gravity, but the cost is dictated by other
| considerations. It's not like "oh well, gravity, we might
| as well give up because it's not possible to do much
| better."
| FPGAhacker wrote:
| > None of that justifies claiming the cost is due to
| gravity.
|
| Where do you suppose the need for so much energy comes
| from?
| pfdietz wrote:
| Why do you think the cost of launch is due to the cost of
| energy?
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| Congressional mandates forcing NASA to use Space Shuttle
| components for the SLS that are de facto non-competitive,
| single-source requirements assuring contracts to existing
| Shuttle suppliers is contributing significantly to the
| costs.
|
| For example, the NASA contract to Aerojet Rocketdyne to
| manufacture RS-25 engines is costing $146 million _per
| engine_. Each SLS launch will toss four of these engines
| in the ocean for a total cost $580 million. And that 's
| _just_ the engines of the core stage. For the cost of a
| single engine, they could have instead purchased an
| entire Falcon Heavy launch, which has two-thirds of the
| SLS lift capacity (and has to obey the same laws of
| physics as SLS).
|
| SLS is the price NASA had to pay to get Congress off its
| back.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Why would the US congress mandate stuff like this?
| ambicapter wrote:
| Because US congress is made up of elected
| representatives, and each representative is incentivized
| to do so by the desire for re-election.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| It's more that the cost in money doesn't come from the
| cost in energy.
| humaniania wrote:
| Why do they launch from sea level instead of a high
| elevation?
| sophacles wrote:
| The goal of the rocket is to get the payload high enough
| to be in space AND fast enough to be in orbit. It's the
| later that takes most of the fuel, IIUC.
| Aperocky wrote:
| It is not wrong, you can reduce the cost but it will
| never be economical simply due to the gravity well.
|
| > the minimum cost imposed by gravity (the energy needed
| to get into space) is incredibly low.
|
| This is straight up false.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Nope, you're completely wrong. Do the math. Propellant
| cost is a tiny fraction of the cost of a launch, even on
| the partially reusable Falcons.
| Aperocky wrote:
| That fraction is still larger than the economical
| utilization of space.
|
| Think about how little propellant it takes to move
| products on Earth. And that's not even counting for the
| fact that transport vehicles on Earth runs a heavy
| percentage of its life time while a rocket does not do
| that. Even Falcons spend most of their time getting ready
| or recycled and not on an ascend or descend trajectory.
|
| Any real trade will not happen at these gravity tax
| rates.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| But a 747 needs continued fuel to keep going whereas once
| on target a spacecraft can use its initial velocity to
| travel much much further.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Well it's technically correct. To get a 100kg object from
| the surface to a 100km Karman line needs about 30kWh of
| power. That's the same order of magnitude as travelling
| 100km sideways in an electric vehicle.
|
| At 20c/kWh it would cost $100 to lift a 2 ton car and 4
| occupants into space, or $100 each to get to the c. 400km
| altitude of the ISS.
|
| Of course to _stay_ in space requires far more energy as
| you also have to go sideways, fast. Very Fast.
|
| But it's still pretty low. Sticking 1kg into
| Geostationary Orbit and keeping it there would take about
| 15kWh. A 2 ton vehicle with 4 passengers at 20c/kWh would
| be $1500 each.
|
| Of course we lack a practical way of doing this other
| than with rockets, and thus enter the tyranny of the
| rocket equation. But the fuel cost is still far lower
| than the cost of the entire shuttle or apollo system, as
| shown by the efficiency of SpaceX -- fuel costs of $20/kg
| to LEO, or $1500 for a typical adult.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| You're comparing rocket engines designed to operate in a
| vacuum to electric vehicles designed to operate on the
| ground. Rocket engines need a lot more fuel to generate
| that amount of power.
| Aperocky wrote:
| kWH of power and its cost does not translate here, your
| kWh of power does not have any specific impulse.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| How is it wrong? Everything I've ever read about the
| subject says that because of the rocket equation you need
| massive amounts of fuel to lift up the fuel itself and
| the payload to get off the ground and into orbit. In
| order to burn that fuel, you need complex multistage
| rockets which require expensive materials and precision
| manufacturing.
|
| Of course it's expensive. Surely if these things were
| built in space instead engineers would be able to build
| simpler, cheaper spacecrafts.
| sfifs wrote:
| Rocket books are written by scientists, not economists or
| MBAs. Elon Musk's major innovation with SpaceX was to
| look at it from a business & economic angle rather than
| the angle of scientists or millitary industrial complex
| which thrives on Cost Plus contracts.
|
| It turns out fuel cost rarely exceeds 10% of the cost of
| launch even with the tyranny of rocket equation.
| Traditional expendable rockets (including SLS)
| essentially throw away 90% of the cost of each launch -
| hence the push by SpaceX to some of the fuel to try and
| land the first stage.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Rockets are not expensive because they use lots of fuel.
| Sit down and actually compute how much propellant is
| needed, and how much it costs. It's CHEAP, especially if
| you use LOX + hydrocarbons (as Falcon 9 and Heavy do).
|
| The actual amount of energy needed to reach LEO is about
| the same as the amount of energy needed to send the same
| mass to New Zealand from the US by airliner.
|
| The reason launch is expensive is because the launchers
| were thrown away. SpaceX radically reduced the cost by
| reusing the first stage multiple times. And there's more
| juice to be squeezed from that lemon, as the second stage
| is still being expended.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > The actual amount of energy needed to reach LEO is
| about the same as the amount of energy needed to send the
| same mass to New Zealand from the US by airliner.
|
| Yeah but rockets use a lot more fuel mass compared to
| aircraft whose engines are airbreathing. Rocket engines
| need to carry their own oxygen in the fuel tanks and are
| less efficient as a result. Surely fuel costs are no
| trivial concern.
|
| > The reason launch is expensive is because the launchers
| were thrown away.
|
| Well I agree that it's stupid to just throw away the
| rockets into the ocean but I thought NASA just didn't
| have the capability to reuse them. A comment below says
| the US congress forced them to reuse old parts which
| makes no sense to me.
| kunai wrote:
| At the very least, Artemis is a functional space launch
| system with exceptional reliability and predictability
| despite its insane costs. The wasted billions are an
| embarrassment, but far less so now that we know a) the thing
| works, and works pretty darned well and b) it is, for now,
| the only game in town in its class.
|
| Starship is an interesting project with a lot of ambitious
| goals, but it is far behind schedule in terms of development
| and the Raptors are suffering from a lot of issues that
| Merlins didn't have due to SpaceX's inexperience with
| cryogenic fuels.
|
| So the question to be asked is: do we want an pricey but
| reliable and proven solution _now_ , or do we hold out for
| years in the promise of some intangible futurist idea that
| will likely take far longer than anticipated to become a
| viable solution for crewed travel? If your answer is B, then
| it's fairly obvious you're less interested in the rapid
| progression of space travel writ large and more interested in
| ensuring a project you favor wins out.
|
| In a perfect world, SLS would be a rapidly reusable rocket
| with 5 RS-25s, an inflatable heatshield, F-1 derived liquid
| boosters, and landing legs. But that's not the world we live
| in, and something > nothing, in my opinion. And I also find
| it important to put the price of SLS/Artemis in context to
| other far more wasteful government projects that produce no
| surplus economic value for people, like the F-35 program or
| the B-21 (questionable benefit over existing defense
| systems). In that context, SLS is almost utilitarian,
| providing valuable scientific jobs to engineers and
| scientists, while propelling the way to the Moon for this
| generation's astronauts and explorers.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Exceptional reliability? How can you possibly claim that?
| Reliability comes from working out all the unknown
| unknowns, and that comes only from experience.
|
| Starship is not needed to condemn SLS. Falcon 9 and Falcon
| Heavy are sufficient to render SLS uncompetitive and
| unneeded.
|
| In a perfect world, SLS would have had a stake driven
| through its corrupt programmatic heart years ago.
| zardo wrote:
| In a perfect (space policy) world, SLS wouldn't have had
| major components determined by the legislature. It's
| extremely expensive because that's what the legislature
| asked for, a single use rocket built using super
| expensive engines designed for a reusable rocket.
| twiddling wrote:
| the legislature asks for federal pork to be spread across
| as many Congressional districts as possible
| kiba wrote:
| I would not consider SLS extremely reliable and
| predictable.
|
| The Falcon 9 has a farther greater claim to that.
| moloch-hai wrote:
| SLS scrubbed numerous launches for random failures. The
| final actual launch was performed only after a team of
| technicians worked on a problem in strict violation of
| safety procedures, waived for the occasion.
|
| The only way to measure reliability is experience, and
| there has been exactly one (1) launch. It will take another
| 20 to get a good reliability figure, and we won't get that:
| we cannot afford to ever launch that many.
| themgt wrote:
| Weird take since NASA's Artemis page on landing humans on
| the Moon opens with a giant rendering of Starship on the
| Moon[1] and their plan[2] for getting to the Moon involves
| ~6-8 Starship launches plus orbital refueling against 1 SLS
| launch. So NASA's Artemis program leadership doesn't seem
| to assess that Starship is "some intangible futurist idea"
| that won't work anytime soon due to engines/fuel/etc.
|
| [1] https://www.nasa.gov/content/about-human-landing-
| systems-dev...
|
| [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/
| d9/Ar...
| _dain_ wrote:
| >Artemis is a functional space launch system with
| exceptional reliability and predictability
|
| is this a joke? you couldn't pay me enough money to take a
| ride in it.
|
| the thing has been into space _once_. where are you getting
| this "exceptional reliability" idea from?
| derekp7 wrote:
| The thing for me is that we (humanity that is) already know
| how to safely land a rocket booster and reuse it. SLS has
| been in development for quite a while, and lots of funding.
| So why aren't recovering the boosters part of the program?
| The most likely answer is that no one on the funding /
| direction side thought it was worth while, or possible, at
| a time when that could be engineered into the system. The
| cynic in me feels that there is more profit to be made in
| throwing away the boosters. I wonder if the true answer is
| somewhere in between?
| pfdietz wrote:
| The purpose of SLS was to funnel money to particular
| contractors and facilities. It's not just that there's
| more money to be made by inefficiency; it's that the
| entire purpose of SLS is inefficiency. That it might
| achieve anything in space is entirely beside the point.
| Throwawayaerlei wrote:
| Some people have called the SLS the Senate Launch System.
| TinkersW wrote:
| SLS was also even further behind in development that
| Starship is... it was supposed to fly before Falcon Heavy.
| Also the next SLS flight isn't now, but more like 2 years
| from now... Starship might very well by flying by then(it
| better be given that NASA plans to use it as the lander).
|
| Not sure where you got the idea F-35/B-21 are questionable
| benefit over existing systems from(we don't know enough
| about B-21 to say this, and F-35 seems to have proven
| itself by now).
| no_wizard wrote:
| Isn't the true "ideal" a space elevator so you can
| continously deliver between the moon and the earth without
| having to burn lots of resources every single time?
|
| Shouldn't that be what we optimize for in the long run? Its
| the only way I can think of that space cargo becomes
| economical. Then you can ship raw material up to the Moon and
| build from there, launch from there etc. and vice versa.
|
| Maybe we'll see what Helium-3 can do for humans at that point
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Yeah, a space elevator would be the most efficient way lift
| payloads to space where it's a lot easier to maneuver.
| Anyone knowledgeable about space elevators on HN? I wonder
| why it's never been attempted.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| There are currently insurmountable materials science
| limitations, and even the materials that come close are
| not currently possible to manufacture at scale, or even
| assemble (one carbon nanotubes does not necessarily have
| the same properties of many carbon nanotubes) at scale
| into structures which will withstand the structural
| stresses. I believe this is not necessarily true for
| other celestial objects besides the earth
| Smaug123 wrote:
| For example, Pluto and Charon is a pair that sometimes
| comes up; a space elevator connecting Pluto to Charon
| would very possibly just about be within our current
| civilisation's capabilities, if for some reason we cared
| to build one enough to sink the Earth's economic output
| into it. They're tidally locked.
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator has its
| section on "Extraterrestrial elevators".)
| actionfromafar wrote:
| A space elevator for our own moon would be far more
| interesting to me. It could be built with known
| materials.
| skykooler wrote:
| We do not have any known materials which are anywhere
| near strong enough on the macro scale for a space
| elevator on Earth. If we did, we would still need to
| launch it into space using conventional rockets in the
| first place, which would cost trillions of dollars at
| current launch prices and require solving a bunch of new
| issues (if it's launched in segments, how do you join
| them together at full strength in space? if it isn't, how
| do you coordinate ten thousand rockets to launch into
| orbit simultaneously - and where do you launch them all
| from?) Once it's in space, you have the issue that it
| necessarily will need to be above the equator, which
| every satellite in space crosses twice per orbit - and
| there's no good way to make a structure as large as a
| space elevator try to dodge things, so it _also_ needs to
| be strong enough that it can handle impacts from space
| debris or derelict satellites at orbital velocities
| without weakening to the point that it breaks.
|
| And then of course you need to supply power to anything
| climbing it - which is an immense amount of energy
| required to climb 30,000+ miles vertically - and there's
| no practical way of sending that energy up the cable
| itself (you could do it with superconductors, but the
| power requirements for cooling thirty thousand miles of
| superconducting cable is more than many nations consume).
| One option is to use microwaves to beam power to the
| climber, but this is currently only theoretical, and
| raises further materials science issues with the
| microwaves heating up the cable along its length.
|
| Finally, _having_ a space elevator is a massive hazard to
| the Earth in general. If most structures on Earth fail,
| the damage is limited to a small area where the structure
| stands. If a space elevator ever fails for any reason, it
| would wrap around the equator as it fell, releasing the
| equivalent of two Hiroshima bomb every mile along the
| equator as its kinetic energy is rapidly converted into
| heat. It 's not quite as bad as the asteroid that wiped
| out the dinosaurs, but it would still be enough to
| significantly alter the climate and wipe out at least
| half a billion people from the impact alone. It's not a
| project that should be undertaken lightly.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| It blew my mind to find out the first crewed mission to launch
| on the Saturn V (Apollo 8) flew all the way out and around the
| moon. No low earth orbit shakedown or anything, just straight
| to the moon (without landing). A few more launches tested they
| could dock with the LM and then Apollo 11 just went for it back
| to the moon and landing. The pace they went at is pretty
| unbelievable today.
| Aperocky wrote:
| True YOLO moment.
|
| It's a miracle that everyone that went to the Moon returned
| unscathed.
| five82 wrote:
| I believe Apollo 8 was originally supposed to be a low earth
| orbit shakedown with the LEM. Because the LEM wasn't ready,
| they decided to send them to the moon.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I have to dispute that doing it more safely is a worthwhile
| goal for SLS.
|
| It's useful to think about safety issues in terms of the
| statistical value of a human life. This is how much one should
| be willing to spend to save one expected life. It's a vital
| number for planning purposes. For example, should we install a
| guard rail at this corner? Is controlling this release of this
| chemical justifiable? Compute if the cost is less than the
| expected value of lives saved. If so, spend the money, if not,
| don't.
|
| The usual statistical value of a human life is around $10M. And
| you immediately see the problem: a rocket that costs $1B to
| launch is, in effect, killing 100 statistical people just by
| being launched. If the result of the launch is valuable enough
| to justify that mathematical carnage, wouldn't it also justify
| subjecting the astronauts to real risk? Conversely, if it's
| worth delaying a launch to reduce the risk to astronauts, is
| the launch really worth having spent all that money on at all?
|
| The space program has been caught in an internal contradiction,
| where the purported benefits are claimed to justify large
| expenditures, but not claimed to justify risking astronauts.
| And this makes no sense.
|
| To actually justify reducing astronaut risks, launch and
| mission costs must first be greatly reduced.
| toast0 wrote:
| I don't think the usual statistical value applies to an
| astronaut, especially an astronaut on a mission.
|
| At least, the loss to NASA will be much more. For one,
| they're going to spend a ton of money on investigagions. For
| another, it could significantly impact their future budget,
| and their ability to hire. It would depend on the details of
| the deadly incident though.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Would people want to board a spacecraft built by people with
| this mindset?
| interestica wrote:
| NASA really doesn't do a great job at getting people excited
| about these missions. This was such a perfect opportunity to
| include _anything_ to make the trip more accessible to general
| audiences. High quality Video footage? VR capture? The NASA feeds
| have been long low-quality videos.
| [deleted]
| ojbyrne wrote:
| Weird and confusing comma insertion.
| ytdytvhxgydvhh wrote:
| Is there a town in California called Baja? Or does someone at
| NASA not understand that Baja California is a state in Mexico?
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| > Is there a town in California called Baja? Or does someone at
| NASA not understand that Baja California is a state in Mexico?
|
| I'd presume it was a mistake.
| grecy wrote:
| > _Or does someone at NASA not understand that Baja California
| is a state in Mexico?_
|
| I think they understand perfectly, and the capsule splashed
| down "off the coast" of "state of Mexico".
|
| No different from saying "The capsule splashed down off the
| coast of British Colombia" or "The capsule splashed down off
| the coast of Queensland".
|
| They know perfectly well what Baja California is and where it
| is.
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