For those of you based in the UK who are early risers (ugh), I should be on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in about half an hour to talk about this 😬👇
Yes, you try explaining the changes to the Artemis lunar landing timeline, & also all the things that *weren’t* said during yesterday’s NASA presser, in just five minutes.
I’ve spent all night thinking about it & am none the clearer 😱
#Space #SpaceExploration #SpaceFlight #BBCRadio4 #BBCTodayProgramme #Artemis
Update: pushed back half an hour to 08:50 GMT / 09:50 CET.
Which, given the endlessly delayed Artemis programme under discussion, seems perfectly appropriate.
Final update: my interview got dropped.
Annoying, but understandable given that two tyrants bent on staying out of jail have decided to launch an unprovoked attack on yet another country.
And I'd be the first person to admit that that's far more important than talking about flights to the Moon.
That said, you could arguably draw a direct line between the two things, as the previous world order is violently reshuffled into Great Power belligerence & performative nationalism.
@stairjoke Yes, I got dropped.
And yes, the Tangerine Tyrant being bluffed into a totally unwinnable war by someone else aiming to ever being put in jail is a fair reason to focus on the real world ahead of the fantasy one on the Moon.
We're in such a massive mess ...
@markmccaughrean it feels overwhelming right now. Just as it did when Putin started the war in Ukraine, and when Israel responded with war to the Hamas terrorist attacks.
We need to remember that everything will end eventually, including wars and the reign of Trump. Sounds bleak, but in this context, I think, it can give us hope.
@stairjoke I agree in some ways, but there’s another issue underneath that isn’t going to go away & that’s climate change.
Its slow but inexorable erosion of the stability underpinning our complex civilisation is going to provoke constant crisis & war, as populations try to move, as agriculture fails, as opportunist narcissists grab their ugly moment in the limelight.
And this in a world armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons.
@markmccaughrean true.
Reading “Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization”, a book by Roy Scranton has drastically changed how I look at the climate crisis. It’s not going to go away, and we’re not going to stop being stupid about it, as a species. Once I accepted that almost everything about it is out of my control, I could start focussing on the things I can have an impact on.
@stairjoke That’s a wise, if darkly defeatist perspective.
I mean, I don’t disagree with it, but a large part of me wants to scream at the world & say “we can stop this; we can fix this” … but better people than me have been trying to send this message for decades & our collective response has been woeful.
I’ll look up the book though – I definitely need to be walked through how to embrace the inevitable. I can accept it for myself, but for my children & their children … ?
@aetios I suspect you may be right.
Then again, since at least one plucky young lad managed to land a giant spacecraft upright on the Moon on the first attempt, who’s to say the other Boy Wonder won’t manage?
(That’s a rhetorical question 😉)
@markmccaughrean Same here. Looks like there will be only one upper stage in the future and it will be neither ICPS nor EUS. But what is it? Block 1B and 2 is cancelled, so why build SLS at all? Block 1 isn't much better than Falcon Heavy or New Glenn, just way more expensive.
It feels more like a punishment for Boeings past actions than a plan for the future.
@urwumpe If I read Berger's piece on ArsTechnica right, there aren't enough Block 1 upper stages left & they'll have to switch to something like Centaur from Vulcan in the future. Which also sounds needlessly complicated.
Plus some unnamed NASA official said "hey, we've already contracted to launch some Gateway bits on Starship, so ..."
You can see where this is all leading ...
@markmccaughrean No nice outlook, going from one big broken delayed launch vehicle to another one of the same kind.
Maybe we should convince ESA and Arianespace to throw their hat in the ring, too. 🤣 (in terms of building working upper stages, actually not the most stupid idea)
@urwumpe The fundamental issue with ESA and Arianespace doing that is that there's probably precious little public & political appetite for a sovereign lunar programme.
That's a heavyweight game for superpowers waving their bits around, where cost is relatively little object, & my sense is that European citizens (probably rightly) have a whole host of other priorities.
@urwumpe Oh, I agree completely – ESA has invested a lot in the ESM, Gateway, & dare I say it, MSR ERO, & we have a strong interest in seeing the programme work.
But the fact that ESA wasn't mentioned at all in anything said yesterday suggests that yet again, any collaboration with NASA, especially under the current warmongers, comes with huge risks.
@urwumpe But turning that into a sovereign European human exploration programme is quite another thing, & personally, I see little real political stomach for it, based on a lack of broad public interest.
Going back to the Moon isn't about space, really – it's about superpower geopolitics, & Europe has a very different take on that, I'd say.
As is the unprovoked attack on Iran this morning, which caused me to get dropped from the Today programme.
@markmccaughrean oh, did it get considered so important what two bullies do with a third one? 🤯
(I wouldn't have called it unprovoked. Just a good opportunity for Israeli revenge while nobody will complain about it.)
I fear more, that we Europeans (including UK) fail to develop a long term vision of our place in the world and a long term strategy to pursue it. Including manned spaceflight. We just hitchhike into space and pay too much for it without being able to decide, where its going.
@urwumpe I’d agree that Europe (in the widest sense) lack a clear strategy for its place in a world that’s being divided up by the New Great Powers, & there’s complacency in politicians & the public about that.
But again, it’s just not clear to me that human spaceflight is a desired or vital part of that – the space bubble obsession with the manifest destiny of living among the stars is totally irrelevant for most people.
As for attacking Iran, let’s call it “unnecessary”.
@markmccaughrean Well, put me into the space bubble there, but I think, we won't learn manned spaceflight on the ground. And when we need to be capable of doing so (not even because of Armageddon-like scenarios), its too late to start learning. Its better to invest a small bit into it now (sure no own moon landing), than falling behind and having to catch up fast.
And "unnecessary" fits. Maybe also "Whatever it takes to forget that the US president is highly suspicious of having raped minors"
Thanks for this, lets hope they can sort out the issues, so they can keep to the new schedule.
@zleap There are lots of untested parts to the programme that all need to work properly first time, not least the two HLS systems, if there is to be a crewed landing before the end of 2028.
Very little was said about those critical systems yesterday, which is somewhat telling.
Yeah, are they testing some of these other systems in low earth orbit on the Artemis III mission?
What would it take to use the old Saturn V rocket design, with modern materials and computer guidance module etc.
@zleap Loadsamoney.
And it seems clear that under the current US administration / NASA administrator, the push will be towards outsourcing this all completely to the usual very wealthy suspects.
Who usually can't deliver properly, while SpaceX are really good at launching / recovering rockets, the cost to the environment of this seems to be huge (not to mention what happens when things re-enter the atmosphere) but elon just does not care about that one bit.
How will future generations judge all this?
Mark McCaughrean
Emma needs ☕️ and paying work
Birchbirch
Wenzel Massag
🔻 aetios 🇪🇺
Urwumpe
Paul Sutton (zleap)
Dr. Francis B. Gröss