[oritron]

I haven't kept up with Artemis development but I've read extensively about Challenger and Columbia. These two parts of the article stood out to me:

> Moon-to-Mars Deputy Administrator Amit Kshatriya said: “it was very small localized areas. Interestingly, it would be much easier for us to analyze if we had larger chunks and it was more defined”. A Lockheed Martin representative on the same call added that "there was a healthy margin remaining of that virgin Avcoat. So it wasn’t like there were large, large chunks.”

Followed by:

> The Avcoat material is not designed to come out in chunks. It is supposed to char and flake off smoothly, maintaining the overall contours of the heat shield.

This is echoes both Shuttle incidents. Challenger: no gasses were supposed to make it past the o-rings no matter what, but when it became clear that gasses were escaping and the o-rings were being damaged, there was a push to suggest that it's an acceptable level.

There was a similar situation with heat shield damage and Columbia.

In both cases some models were used to justify the decision, with wild extrapolations and fundamentally, a design that wasn't expected to fail in that mode /at all/.

I know the points that astronauts make about the importance of manned space exploration, but I agree with this author that it seems to make sense to run this as an unmanned mission, and probably test the new heat shield which will replace the Artemis II design in an unmanned re-entry as well.

[Mikhail_K]

> Challenger: no gasses were supposed to make it past the o-rings no matter what,

> but when it became clear that gasses were escaping and the o-rings were being

> damaged, there was a push to suggest that it's an acceptable level.

Interestingly, the article<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ddi792xdfNXcBwF8qpDUxmZz...> by heat shield expert and Shuttle astronaut Charles Camarda, the former Director of Engineering at Johnson Space Center, asserts that it was *not* the O-rings:

"The Challenger accident was not caused by O-rings or temperature on the day of launch; it was caused by a deviant joint design which opened instead of closed when loaded. It was caused by mistaking analytical adequacy of a simplified test for physical understanding of the system. The solution, post Challenger, was the structural redesign of the SRB field joint and the use of the exact same O-rings."

I find that highly surprising, because "it was the O-rings" explanation seems universally believed and sanctified by no lesser authority than the Nobel prize laureate Richard Feynman.

[mikkupikku]

It's the same explaination. When the SRB joints flexxed the o-rings were meant to stay in place, but the joints were defective and NASA knew the o-rings were moving. However NASA also believed the o-rings could still take the abuse, because although they were moving they were getting shoved deeper into the joint, in a way that wasn't intended but was nonetheless at least marginally effective at stopping exhaust blow-by shortly after it began. But when the o-rings were cold and stiff... they didn't move the same way, exhaust blew by them longer and cut right through. At that point the SRB turns into a cutting torch (the SRBs didn't actually explode until after the shuttle broke up and range safety sent the signal to kill the boosters.

[Mikhail_K]

> However NASA also believed the o-rings could still take the abuse, because

> although they were moving they were getting shoved deeper into the joint,

Why would they be "shoved deeper," when the problem is that the joint opens wider under load?

[anonymars]

See here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Scott-Post/publication/...

What would happen "normally" (i.e. the normalization of deviance) was that the rotation (from the SRB joints bowing--essentially "ballooning") would create a gap, and the O-rings would get blown into that gap and ultimately seal in there

With Challenger, it was too cold, so the O-ring rubber was not malleable enough to seal into that space (like the O-ring towards the right of the diagram), so the hot gases were allowed to blow by and erode the O-ring. If they had sealed in (like the one on the left) it would have just taken the pressure but not worn away

[pdonis]

> What would happen "normally" (i.e. the normalization of deviance) was that the rotation (from the SRB joints bowing--essentially "ballooning") would create a gap, and the O-rings would get blown into that gap and ultimately seal in there

But data from previous Shuttle flights showed that even that wasn't happening, at temperatures up to 75 F. And the Thiokol engineers had test stand data showing that it wasn't happening even at temperatures up to 100 F. In short, that joint design was unacceptably risky at any temperature.

It is probably true that the design was somewhat more unacceptably risky at 29 F. But that was a relatively minor point. The reason the cold temperature was focused on by the Thiokol engineers (who were overruled by their own managers in the end, as well as NASA managers) in the call the night before the launch was not that they had a good case for increased risk at cold temperature; it was that the cold temperature argument was the only thing they had to fight with--because NASA had already refused to listen to their much better arguments the previous summer for stopping all Shuttle flights until the joint design could be fixed.

[anonymars]

> It is probably true that the design was somewhat more unacceptably risky at 29 F. But that was a relatively minor point

This was a critical part of the danger:

> Temperature Effects

> The record of the ... meetings ... on January 27th, the night before the launch of flight 51-L, shows ... limited consideration was given to the past history of O-ring damage in terms of temperature. The managers compared as a function of temperature the flights for which thermal distress of O-rings had been observed--not the frequency of occurrence based on all flights (Figure 6).

> In such a comparison, there is nothing irregular in the distribution of O-ring "distress" ... between 53 degrees Fahrenheit and 75 degrees Fahrenheit. When the entire history of flight experience is considered, including "normal" flights with no erosion or blow-by, the comparison is substantially different (Figure 7).

> This comparison of flight history indicates that only three incidents of O-ring thermal distress occurred out of twenty flights with O-ring temperatures at 66 degrees Fahrenheit or above, whereas, all four flights with O-ring temperatures at 63 degrees Fahrenheit or below experienced O-ring thermal distress.

> Consideration of the entire launch temperature history indicates that the probability of O-ring distress is increased to almost a certainty if the temperature of the joint is less than 65.

https://www.nasa.gov/history/rogersrep/v1ch6.htm#:~:text=Thi...

---

In fact it is also a case study in data visualization: https://williamwolff.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/tufte-ch... (more briefly: https://www.residentmar.io/2016/02/07/space-shuttle-challeng...)

For completeness: the engineers' rebuttal: https://people.rit.edu/wlrgsh/FINRobison.pdf but I don't think the back-and-forth takes away from the larger point that there are more- and less-effective ways to visually convey data

[LorenPechtel]

Two directions.

Let's examine a slice of the booster. Going vertically you have one segment, then the joint, then the next segment. The O-rings were in that joint and had some ability to move horizontally.

As designed the joint would always be in compression, the O-rings sandwiched between two big pieces of metal. If they moved horizontally in the space they had it made no difference, their job was simply to keep the 1000psi inside the booster inside it. Going inward there was a layer of putty that could stand up to the heat but was useless for sealing.

Unfortunately, when the engines lit the whole booster stack twanged a few inches. A joint meant to always be in compression was suddenly for a moment in tension--the two pieces of metal moved slightly apart--gas could now go above/below the ring. If the rings were pliable enough they got slammed against the outside of their groove where the pressure against the joint stopped the escape of gas--examination of the boosters showed blow-by but it cut off soon enough that the mass of metal was enough to absorb enough heat to avoid catastrophe.

But that night was very cold. And it was very calm--the boil-off from the LOX tank was simply dumped overboard and the booster that failed was downwind. The point of maximum chilling was between the booster and the tank, the lowest segment joint got the worst of it. And that's where it failed.

When the stack twanged the ring didn't slam against the outside quite fast enough--some exhaust leaked past and tore up the ring. But the gas still had to go out the joint--and the shuttle fuel used aluminum. The ring wasn't sealing the joint but enough aluminum solidified out against the still-cold metal of the joint that it sealed the gap and Challenger roared into the sky. But as it went faster and faster the vibrations grew stronger--and eventually the really sloppy weld let go. Even that didn't doom the mission, there was enough fuel to tolerate the pressure loss. But the leak was pointing at a strut and the tank with a whole bunch of LH2 in it. Neither was designed to stand up to that.

There was also a second failure that got little attention: the putty. As intended, it should have covered the entire gap, the force would have been evenly applied and it probably would have made it. But the putty was spread and the segments placed together--in atmosphere. Air was trapped and compressed--and the putty gave way letting it out. What had been an even layer now had holes in wherever the weakest spots were--and that concentrated the escaping gas from the booster. And why wasn't that caught? Because in the static testing someone had gone inside and made sure the putty job was good. Easy enough in a booster laying on it's side, but the Shuttle was stacked vertically.

[inaros]

>>I find that highly surprising, because "it was the O-rings" explanation seems universally believed and sanctified by no lesser authority than the Nobel prize laureate Richard Feynman.

Essentially you are mischaracterizing what Feynman did or say, although this is also Feynman fault :-), by doing the famous public demonstration, with the ice water in a glass [2], although even there he only said it has "significance to the problem...". In other words, we should not simplify, even for the general public, what are complex subtle engineering issues. This is also the reason why current AI, will fail spectacularly, but I digress...

Feynman documented the joint rotation problem in his written Appendix F, but his televised demonstration became the explanation...[3]

Camarda is correct here. There was a fundamentally flawed field joint design, meaning the tang-and-clevis joint opened under combustion pressure instead of closing. This meant the O-rings were being asked to chase a widening gap something the O-ring manufacturer explicitly told Thiokol O-rings were never designed to do. Joint rotation was known as early as 1977, a full nine years before the disaster.

The cold temperature made things worse by stiffening the rubber so it could not chase the gap as quickly, but O-ring erosion and blow-by were occurring on flights in warm weather too and nearly every flight in 1985 showed damage.

The proof is how they fixed. NASA redesigned the joint metal structure with a capture feature to prevent rotation, added a third O-ring for redundancy, and installed heaters but kept the exact same Viton rubber. If the O-rings were the real problem, you would change the O-rings. They did not need to.

The report [1] is public for everybody to read...but not from the NASA page... who funnily enough has a block on the link from their own page, so I had to find an alternative link...

[1] - https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRPT-99hrpt1016/pdf/...

[2] - https://youtu.be/6TInWPDJhjU

[3] - https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/3570/1/Feynman.pdf

[Mikhail_K]

That's valuable, detailed explanation, thanks.

[LorenPechtel]

Yeah--people don't get it that while it was the failure of the O-rings that doomed that flight that they failed because they were subjected to forces they were never designed to take. The fact that they got that many flights before it blew actually says they were doing an admirable job of covering up the design flaw.

[rob74]

Without being too familiar with the subject - another commenter referred to the "swiss cheese model": the O-ring design, the temperature etc. weren't the single cause, they were contributing factors, and the more contributing factors you eliminate, the more certain you can be that you won't have a repeat accident. AFAIK there weren't any more Shuttle launches at such low temperatures after that anymore either?

[pfdietz]

That's right, the accident launch was by far the coldest. They also added joint heaters.

[oritron]

My recollection is that a rocket design was scaled up from one that worked, by people who didn't consider how an o-ring should be loaded in order to function properly. They inadvertently changed the design rather than simply scale it. I don't think Feynman got this wrong either. His demo was because the justifications for flight were based on the fact that failure had a temperature correlation, and they had a model representing how damaged the o-rings would be.

The o-ring failure was a measurable consequence of the joint design failure. The data behind the model didn't go down to temperatures as low as that at Challenger's launch date.

For more inappropriate extrapolation to justify a decision: the data for the heat shield tile loss model was based on much less damage than sustained by Columbia (3 orders of magnitude IIRC).

Now they are looking at the same style of fallacy and don't even have a model based on damage sustained in flights.

Another parallel I haven't seen discussed here yet, though I haven't read all comments: I recall Feynman feeling like he was on the investigation panel as a prop, that the intention of the investigation was to clear NASA of any wrongdoing. They used a model, considered risks, etc. Feynman recognized the need for a clear and powerful visual to cut through an information dump and pull it to front page news. The invitation of Camarda to a presentation with a pre-determined conclusion has the same feeling. I don't know what Camarda can do to put it on a (non-HN) front page today.

[pdonis]

> "it was the O-rings" explanation seems universally believed and sanctified by no lesser authority than the Nobel prize laureate Richard Feynman.

If you read Feynman's account in the book What Do You Care What Other People Think?, you'll see that he realized afterwards that he was prompted to make the demonstration he made at a NASA press conference--putting a piece of O-ring material in a glass of ice water, clamped with a C-clamp, and then taking it out and releasing the clamp to show that the material did not spring back--to get public attention focused on problems with the joint in a way that could not be ignored. But, as has been pointed out downthread, when the joint was redesigned, the new design did not change the O-rings at all. So the specific issue that was shown in Feynman's demonstration was not the issue that actually needed to be fixed. It was just a convenient way to show the public that there were problems with the joint, with a simple demonstration that everyone could understand. Trying to show the actual problem--that the entire joint design was fundamentally flawed and needed to be changed--would not have worked in a context like that.

[voidUpdate]

Using the same o-rings afterwards is surprising, I've heard that the manufacturer was surprised that they were being used for that purpose because they weren't rated for that.

Also I'm not sure the assertion is correct. If the sealant and O-Rings were adequate, the joint would not have failed. It was suboptimal, and increased risk, sure, but it in itself wasn't the reason for the accident. It was the joint and the o-rings in combination. The holes in the swiss cheese model lined up that day, and a lot of small problems combined into one big problem

[inaros]

>> Using the same o-rings afterwards is surprising, I've heard that the manufacturer was surprised that they were being used for that purpose because they weren't rated for that.

Not surprising if you understand what the real cause was: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47585889

[sidewndr46]

Surprised? One of the engineers was literally on the phone with NASA the morning of the disaster begging them not to launch. He was overruled by management.

[randomNumber7]

Surprising for the management. If you are a spoiled brat who always got what it wanted if you just asked/cried you don't expect reality to come and hit you.

[LorenPechtel]

Actually, not surprising.

The engineering was clear: don't fly. But given political realities had they said that they probably would have lost the contract to build the rockets--and that was a big part of their business.

They made the human choice: chose the option with a chance of success vs the option that was a certain failure.

[randomNumber7]

They had already failed earlier and are just too selfish to accept it. This is not human, its a disgusting subset of the species.

[Mikhail_K]

> If the sealant and O-Rings were adequate, the joint would not have failed.

That assertion requires some reasoning and evidence to back it.

[voidUpdate]

The sealant and O-rings were meant to keep the hot gasses inside. Simply making a joint slightly wiggly will not keep hot gasses inside. The hot gasses did not stay inside. The sealant and O-rings did not succeed in keeping the hot gasses inside (evidence: Challenger). They were not adequate

[Mikhail_K]

> The sealant and O-rings did not succeed in keeping the hot gasses inside (evidence: Challenger). They were not adequate

No. The whole assembly --joint, sealant and O-rings, -- failed.

"They were not adequate" - yet, after the redesign, they kept those same O-rings and declared that boosters are safe to fly, in manifest contradiction to your assertion. So your reasoning is clearly flawed.

[john_strinlai]

>"They were not adequate" - yet, after the redesign, they kept those same O-rings

presumably "redesign" means some stuff changed. why is it not possible that the O-rings were inadequate for the old design, but adequate for the new design?

[nritchie]

Both things can be true. A better O-ring with the same joint might have prevented the disaster. A better designed joint with the same O-ring might also. Feynman knew that a little theater would go a long way. The O-ring explanation, albeit a partial explanation, made for good theater.

[acranox]

There’s a pretty good explanation here: https://exrocketman.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-seal-failure-in...

[wolvoleo]

Yes and the reversal of safety calculations really surprised me. "The orbiter has a total fail rate of one in 1000 so this individual part is higher than 1 in 10000", something like that. Where neither premise was actually tested or verified. Just specified on paper as a requirement and then used for actual safety calculations.

I don't know how a big organisation can think like that. But I guess these calculations were ones out of millions of ones made for the project.

[ACCount37]

The bigger an organization gets, the more internal overhead it has. At some point, it would take divine intervention for important things not to get overlooked or lost at some junctions in the org chart.

[eru]

About the last point:

At this point in time, manned space exploration should come out of our entertainment budget. The same budget we use for football or olympic games.

[kitd]

I've often thought world leaders, upon election/selection, should get a free few orbits of the earth, to give them some perspective on the job they're about to undertake. Maybe offer the first one on Artemis II, a deferred one for the current US administration?

[bayindirh]

James May of Top Gear has flown with a U2 spy plane once [0][1]. When they reached to the edge of space, May said "If everybody could do that once, it would completely change the face of global politics, religion, education, everything".

I can't agree more.

Another thing I believe needs to be watched periodically is Pale Blue Dot [2].

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-COlil4tos

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtsZaDbxCgM

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g

[antonvs]

I think you overestimate the effect that would have on the kind of people that most need that sort of humility.

Look at what happened with William Shatner and Jeff Bezos when they came back from space. Shatner started to say something about what an impactful experience it was, but Bezos cut him off and was like “Woo! Partay!” and switched his attention to a magnum of champagne.

[Terr_]

There's probably a strong self-selection factor going on, in terms of the kind of person that typically seeks out that kind of experience.

[notahacker]

And if the actual U2 pilots (air force pilots and CIA operatives) had come back profoundly changed, someone might have cancelled the programme...

Astronauts are regular smart people capable of making good and bad life decisions too.

[fatbird]

I met someone a couple years ago who was a U2 pilot (which are still in active service). He'd flown F-16s until he reached the point in the promotion ladder where flying stopped, then switched to U2s to keep being a pilot. After hitting 20 years, he was taking his retirement and training to fly Grumman S-2Ts with CAL FIRE.

Very down-to-earth guy who knew what he wanted and made his choices. Didn't at all seem like the sort to find edge-of-the-atmosphere flying a mystical experience.

[extraduder_ire]

Jeff went up two flights earlier, in July 2021 on NS-16. Shatner was on NS-18 in October.

I don't know if it's a thing that wears off, if Bezos was just in business-mode the entire time, or just didn't want someone monologuing right after getting back.

[mikkupikku]

Extra tactless considering Shatner is a recovering alcoholic.

[Rodeoclash]

Exactly what I thought of as well

[mlrtime]

"If everybody could do that once, it would completely change the face of global politics, religion, education, everything".

You could have the same effect with LSD/Psilocybin for quite a bit less $$$$.

[kitd]

Yeah, that (and Carl Sagan) was what made me think of the idea.

[shiroiuma]

>I've often thought world leaders, upon election/selection, should get a free few orbits of the earth, to give them some perspective on the job they're about to undertake.

Perhaps, but they should also get a few free orbits of the Earth *after* their term ends, on a launch system built by whichever contractor has given the most "campaign donations" to politicians. Surely they'll trust it to be safe, right?

[eru]

That would only work for countries with a space programme.

[Ekaros]

I would also say give them a year of free vacations in various places. Say a maximum security prison in general population, any type of dark camps, hospitals, mental institutions and care homes.

Give them the rest and recreation they need in these wonderful places.

[kakacik]

Do you think sociopaths like current 'leader' would change significantly upon such experience? I unfortunately don't share such optimism.

[bregma]

"Houston, this is Golden One. I'm looking down on the big, beautiful, blue world. They love me down there. They all love me. I'm the greatest astronaut ever in the history of mankind. No one has ever orbited like this before."

Yeah, you may be right.

[GTP]

Made me chuckle :D

[drfloyd51]

Maybe he should ride on the Artemis II mission?

[allenrb]

Strapped to one of the boosters?

[bayindirh]

You don't have to be an optimist. You have to try.

Trying and seeing what happens is also science, after all.

[discreteevent]

Scientists don't try everything. First they run it through expert critical review. This candidate wouldn't make it past the theory stage.

[InsideOutSanta]

I mean, we can probably predict what will happen based on existing data.

"I've seen things up there that are huge, absolutely huge. And let me tell you, astronauts, they came up to me, they were crying, big men crying. Earth, it's a good name, but it's not big enough, not grand enough. So, I'm thinking we rename it. How about 'The Trump Sphere'? It's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it? And let me tell you, nobody would argue with that name!"

[sheiyei]

The point with the last bit was that they should be put in an unsafe craft.

[tikhonj]

Based on some rough numbers, NASA's budget (around $24B) would be <4% of the US's total spending on entertainment, with a pretty great return in research, engineering and education to boot.

I also looked up the NSF's 2024 budget, which, at $9B, was much lower than I expected.

[eru]

NASA does both manned and unmanned stuff. Don't conflate those when you are looking at returns.

Look at this joke of a list https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/20-breakthroughs-from-... for an illustration. And those were the 20 best things they could come up with.

[goodcanadian]

There are actually a lot of really interesting discoveries on that list. I haven't thought deeply about whether it represents value for money, but I would say that that is anything but "a joke of a list."

[eru]

And 'Stimulating the low-Earth orbit economy' is a joke. Spending money not as a means to an end, but as the end in itself?

Apart from the research into the effects of microgravity on humans, pretty much everything else could have been done cheaper and better without humans.

Or take this example:

> Deployment of CubeSats from station: CubeSats are one of the smallest types of satellites and provide a cheaper way to perform science and technology demonstrations in space. More than 250 CubeSats have now been deployed from the space station, jumpstarting research and satellite companies.

Cubesats are great! But you don't exactly need a manned space station to deploy them. Similar with many other 'achievements' like the 'Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer'.

See also how they don't mention any actual impact. Only stuff like "This achievement may provide insight into fundamental laws of quantum mechanics."

And this is supposed to be the list of highlights. The best they have to offer.

[randallsquared]

> Spending money not as a means to an end, but as the end in itself?

Welcome to the macroeconomics practical, where we'll dig a ditch, refill it, and count it as a productive addition to the economy both times!

[extraduder_ire]

Also, it's NASA, so they can't come out and say "stopped soviet rocket technology and expertise from proliferating" which was a large motivator for the ISS.

[ekianjo]

> with a pretty great return in research, engineering and education to boot.

If a company could spend 24B in research they would probably produce a lot more things than NASA

[allenrb]

Absolutely! Think of the many new ways to display advertising that are being neglected while we foolishly launch people and things into space.

[eru]

Well, NASA itself is a good counterexample here:

NASA could do a lot more good science, if they didn't (have to) launch primates into space.

[ekianjo]

The track record of NASA sending stuff to space is pretty bleak

[tikhonj]

Google's R&D budget is like $60B. Make of that what you will.

[eru]

Of course, that's partially a tax optimisation.

[cultofmetatron]

Hard disagree. some of our best technologies came about to solve problems related to space travel which we later found useful for mundane problems at home. gps, digital cameras immediately come to mind. The only other phenomena I can think of with similar effects on human progress is war... I'll take a space race thanks

[eru]

Have you heard of opportunity costs?

About war: in our universe we got the first digital computers because of military efforts during the second world war. However, without a war IBM and Konrad Zuse and others would have gotten there, too. With much less human suffering.

[TheOtherHobbes]

It's unlikely computing would have developed as quickly as it did without the Cold War. IBM's Sage and MIT's TX0 were both Cold War projects - one for a national early warning system, the other as an R&D platform for flight simulators.

Most US investment in associated tech - including the Internet - came through DARPA.

Not pointing this out because I support war, but to underline that the US doesn't have a culture of aggressive government investment in non-military R&D.

NASA and the NSF both get pocket money in budget terms. And at its height Apollo was a Cold War PR battle with the USSR that happened to funnel a lot of of money to defence contractors.

The original moon landings were not primarily motivated by science.

[eru]

Why does it have to be government R&D?

[TeMPOraL]

It doesn't, but it was, because it was tied to administration and nuclear physics and then rocketry.

Private sector doesn't do much without obvious short-term gain, and it especially doesn't do basic research. It may be good at fitting more pixels in ever thinner phones, but it wouldn't get to that point if not the government that needed number-crunching machines for better modelling of nuclear fission some 80 years earlier.

[mastermage]

because companies are very not likely to pay for foundational research.

[necovek]

I believe you are making the same argument: the GP prefers space race over war for large technological development at less or no human suffering.

[bayindirh]

I have a hunch that space race is not for "peaceful technological progress of human race at large", or "let's see how this behaves in 0G, it might be useful for some global problems" anymore.

[adrianN]

It is my understanding that it always was about „rockets are good for dropping bombs on people“.

[eru]

Well, getting your toes cut off is better than losing your whole foot, yes.

[gmerc]

Now do the opportunity cost of AI model virtue signalling to investors for several years

[eru]

As long as they mostly spend VC money, who am I to judge? It's no worse than rich people buying yachts.

Just don't spend tax payer money.

[creaturemachine]

But they dodge taxes, so they're effectively spending it anyway.

[YetAnotherNick]

Firstly how is this related to opportunity costs. Secondly, no one said that to create digital computer you should start a war. It's just that war is already present, regardless of you invent digital computers or space travel.

[fastball]

What opportunity is being lost out on because of space exploration?

[eru]

Whatever you can imagine they could spend the money on, including leaving it with the tax payer or taking on less debt.

(And, if you don't like the monetary framing: just look at the real resources spend instead.)

However I'm not nearly as harsh on unmanned space exploration.

[fastball]

That's not how resources work. Resources that are used for space exploration aren't magically available for anything else when you don't do space exploration. The economy is not a zero sum game and human capital is not fungible.

A rocket scientist/engineer/technician/etc at NASA is not going to work on the thing we "should" spend money on instead if tomorrow you shut down NASA's manned spaceflight programs. They'll probably go work on ads at Meta instead.

[TeMPOraL]

You are serious? Up until this point I thought you're writing in jest, because all the things you mention are actually good ideas - including especially funding manned space flight from entertainment budget, because:

1) It's better aligned with mission profile (inspirational, emotional, but not strictly necessary;

2) There's much more of it to go than NASA gets;

3) It would be a better use of that money than what it's currently used for.

[eru]

I'm saying manned spaceflight is a waste of money and resources.

We'd get more and better science by spending it on unmanned space stuff. Or you could even just leave the money with the taxpayer.

[pfdietz]

Space spinoffs are grossly exaggerated.

[ekianjo]

Broken window fallacy much? The amount of money spent on space race could have been spent somewhere else and you have no idea how to evaluate of this was a valid set of outcomes.

[DoctorOetker]

could the government rent out monopoly grants for televised football on the moon in exchange for sponsoring manned space exploration?

[xp84]

If the NFL were to somehow become involved, you can bet that they'd somehow manage to turn the financials around and get some of that sweet government money flowing in their direction, just like the dozens of taxpayer-funded or otherwise tax-advantaged stadium deals in the past 25 years that allow us to thank Big Football financially for gracing us with the presence of football teams.

It is astounding to me how such a successful, rich group of companies manage to get subsidies in quantities that groups you'd think deserve or need it more, from valuable science endeavours to orphans dying of cancer, can only dream of.

[gorgoiler]

Is there any research on the effect of apparent gravitational field strength on sports? I’d be willing to bet that rocketry and artillery takes account of 50mm/s2 difference at the equator. While the difference is obviously tiny, the margins in modern sports are also miniscule.

Do Fijian rugby games see a 0.5% increase in longest drop goal distance?

[red369]

I have no idea about the 0.5% increase in drop goal distance, but tongue-in-cheek, I would say only 0.5% as many attempted drop goals - given the Fijian team's emphasis on a ball-in-hand style of play instead of kicking the ball away.

On a slightly related note, I always found the games played in Pretoria in South Africa fascinating. It's 1350 m above sea level, so kicks all go 10% to 15% further (my estimate) which makes quite a difference when there are players kicking penalties from over halfway even at sea level.

[eru]

Which government? The moon doesn't belong to any one government.

Though the US could just do it. Who's to stop them from selling these pieces of paper?

[trhway]

just wait until influencers start flying there. Not on SLS of course. Flyby on Starship cattle class - say 100 people (500 for LEO and "SFO to Shanghai" while for Moon - several days would require better accommodations, thus 100) - at $5M/launch, 10 launches (9 of them - tankers) - thus $50M 3 day roundtrip for 100 people. Half a mil per person.

[anon291]

No no no. Space will be colonized. At least our local solar system will see sustained human exploration and inhabitation. This requires physical presence. This is one of those black swans which seem silly when looking forward, but obvious in retrospective. The future belongs to those who do seemingly silly things today. The first industrialists often faced ridicule because they spent time designing machines instead of doing the task and making the immediate money. Set aside your need for immediate gratification. Hard things lead to good outcomes.

[rbanffy]

> test the new heat shield which will replace the Artemis II design in an unmanned re-entry as well.

NASA desperately needs more options. They shouldn't need to expend an SLS to launch an uncrewed Orion with a test heatshield on a trajectory equivalent to a moon return. They should be able to launch that on top of a Falcon Heavy. A Falcon Heavy can launch 63 tons to LEO and a fueled Orion plus service module weights slightly north of 20 tons. An Orion mass simulator with enough attitude control mated with a FH second stage would leave a lot of delta-v to accelerate the capsule back into the atmosphere.

[withinboredom]

I'd prefer if we just wrote off space-x and pretend they don't exist.

[randallsquared]

SpaceX is the only major operator of spaceflights in the US: more than 95% of all satellites launched are launched by SpaceX, not just in the US, but worldwide.

[oritron]

That's an eye catching stat. What is the impact of starlink satellites on the number, ie what if you drop them from both numerator and denominator?

[Tadpole9181]

It looks like 70% of all satellites deployed in 2025 were starlink. Seems they make up over half (~65%) of all satellites currently in orbit.

[rbanffy]

> more than 95% of all satellites launched are launched by SpaceX

Another way to look at this number is that they are responsible for 95% of the light pollution caused by orbiting objects.

[hersko]

Lets just ban lightbulbs so we don't have light pollution.

[rbanffy]

We have regions where we deliberately minimize light pollution, but those regions aren't immune to Elon's swarm of photobombing satellites.

Not that I don't think it's cool to have a web of spacecraft enveloping the planet and bringing high-speed communications to everyone everywhere - it's pretty impressive to point up and show a train of satellites to a kid - but astronomers have been complaining about them and they are right.

[monkeywork]

why because "elon bad" ??

cut your nose off to spite your face if you want but the rest of us will recognize the importance of space-x and be grateful it is here.

[withinboredom]

This is about going to the moon. Space-x is over budget and extremely late. It has nothing to do with the management there, only that it is better to come up with a solution without them.

[rbanffy]

I only suggested a Falcon Heavy because the rocket exists, is flight proven, and has enough capacity to shoot an Orion to any trajectory it is expected to encounter.

[monkeywork]

If that was the truth I have a strong feeling your wording would be different.

[withinboredom]

Please read the https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I literally can’t even continue this thread.

[TheBlight]

Because of your personal politics?

[rbanffy]

Imagine if NASA had the resources and the freedom to pursue a high-risk high-return strategy the same way SpaceX did. NASA can't afford high-profile failures because it needs political support to function from a Congress that doesn't understand engineering.

Now imagine the public good will if the US could have built a network of LEO satellites providing communications to everyone on Earth regardless of nationality, with equal access and funded by governments so that all their residents could have access to it for free (once they buy an antenna made in the US).

Some will say it'd be communism. I would say it could be part of a Pax Americana that doesn't involve coups, but is based on willing cooperation.

[HPsquared]

Normalization of deviance

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

[brador]

This is when you hire someone with autism and give them a direct report.

Their inability at social cues will cut right through.

Works every time.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I'm sorry this got dinged.

It's pithy, but correct.

Source: I'm "on the spectrum." This often resulted in me being the skunk at the rationalization picnic, because I didn't realize the boss wanted me to rubberstamp a bad design.

[aboardRat4]

>both cases some models were used to justify the decision, with wild extrapolations

Happens often. Just look at the climate change discussion.

[cucumber3732842]

>In both cases some models were used to justify the decision, with wild extrapolations and fundamentally, a design that wasn't expected to fail in that mode /at all/.

Because, and it speaks volumes that nobody ever circles back around to this, that is absolutely f-ing normal. If everyone ran around like the sky was falling every time some widget made it into service and some unexpected thing was noticed nothing would get done.

"hey we disassembled this gearbox and there's a little rust from condensation + chemistry = cyclic usage, we better take a look at it"

"we've taken a look at it and the corrosion is forming because X, this is fine because the surfaces that can't rust see lubricant flow and the per our calculations the maximum amount of rust into the lube is Y and since the service interval is Z this is fine, tests confirm this."

^ the above happened for a multimillion dollar per hour of downtime gearbox. That was 40yr ago. It was in fact fine. I know it was fine because they added venting suggestions to the docs and the client balked because they bought another one in the 2010s and a bunch of "we went over this when it was installed and it was fine then and the building is even more tightly humidity controlled than it was in the 1980s" back and fourth whining ensued.

You don't know how many other things they noticed when they put the shuttles into service that did in fact turn out to be perfectly fine. It's real easy to be smug in hindsight but good luck trying to pick the needle out of the haystack in advance.

Now obviously the shuttle people flubbed it and much has been writtenn about it, but the point still sands.

[LorenPechtel]

The shuttle people never looked.

That there was blowby where there should be none was known, but nobody dug into why. There was no determination that it wasn't enough to be a problem, just an observation that it hadn't blown the booster up yet. For something with a wide spread in the data points, no way to model the maximum expected values.

Once they got serious about looking it didn't take much to reproduce the problem. They built a single joint, mostly filler inside, fuel to model the real thing during ignition. Maybe worked, maybe spot-welded, maybe complete failure. The colder the more likely to fail.

[bambax]

I really don't understand the point of manned space exploration though?

Landing on the moon in 1969 was an extraordinary achievement, perhaps the most beautiful thing ever done by mankind. But now? What's the point exactly?

We know we can't go much further than the moon anyway (as this very same blog has demonstrated many times); what do we expect to achieve with astronauts that robots can't do?

[lopis]

I think it's still very important for adaptability. yes, a land rover can run for years and run thousands of experiments, but it's limited to whatever scientific probes it was equipped with. Humans are right now more flexible and could adapt experiments to findings, which would then inform the next rovers. And when the time comes that we start mining and building on the moon, a few humans will probably need to live there. So any data on human survival outside the Earth is useful data. https://humanresearchroadmap.nasa.gov/

[Filligree]

At the rate robots are improving, will that still be the case in ten years?

[cyanydeez]

I don't know any astronauts that push for manned space exploration. Just a few billionaires and dementia patients.