Winchell Chung ⚛🚀
Aaron DeVries@nyrath a surface base really should have been the plan from the start. Not to say I'm still unconvinced Artemis won't get canceled entirely still.
Michael Gemar@Aaron_DeVries @nyrath Yes to both.
Michael BuschThe reason for having the Gateway station was to avoid needing to haul extra mass through an additional 2 km/s of velocity change and to be able to send out equipment on a solar-electric stage to save some more on launch mass.
The physics involved have not changed.
Charlie Stross* Golf clap *
So they're going to abandon plans to build one problematic, extremely expensive base in cislunar space in order to build another one, at the bottom of a few km/s of gravity well?
The real reason the USA hasn't sent astronauts to the Moon since Apollo 17 is that they couldn't think of an objective and then stick to it for more than six nanoseconds.
Isaac Ji Kuo@cstross @nyrath I think that explanation really undersells the degree to which every plan this millennium has SUCKED SO MUCH.
The god damned Stick was never going to work, but Griffin stubbornly stuck with it and we're left with the disastrous legacy. A half-Stick demonstrator flew for absolutely no reason whatsoever, and then it unceremoniously went away forever.
But we're still stuck with five segment, which only exists because the Stick couldn't hack it with four segment.
Bleh.
Steve HerseyNew plan:
1. Go to the next SF convention.
2. Hire the dozen most sensible attendees/presenters. (If you can get Mary Robinette Kowal, have her make the selections for you.)
3. Put them in charge of the teams that define the mission, develop a budget, and execute on the above.
It can hardly go worse, and is very likely to go better.