Space Travel & Exploration

[PACOX]

https://twitter.com/janerrigby/statu...77293536505857

- - - Updated - - -

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022...opes-lifetime/

10 years of expected lifetime has now become 20, thanks to the Ariane 5 rocket it launched on.

Can I let you in on a secret? You probably know it already. The entire mission was over engineered (not in a bad way). Their planned launch and development was a very conservative take on what the craft and rocket were capable of. The actual engineers and flight operators were fairly confident in everything up to this point. They've done so many tests, simulations, dry runs that they weren't worried really about anything but unknown unknowns, which you can't stress about.

There's rarely a NASA mission that doesn't end up with a ton of extra mission time. They are that cautious and forward thinking, for better or worse. Hats off to the ESA because the Ariane 5 isn't always recognized for being the marvel it is. It's not as big as a Delta IV, not as sexy as a Falcon 9, doesn't have the prestige of a Soyuz or Proton, but is a reliable work horse.

[Nerraw]

Can I let you in on a secret? You probably know it already. The entire mission was over engineered (not in a bad way). Their planned launch and development was a very conservative take on what the craft and rocket were capable of. The actual engineers and flight operators were fairly confident in everything up to this point. They've done so many tests, simulations, dry runs that they weren't worried really about anything but unknown unknowns, which you can't stress about.

There's rarely a NASA mission that doesn't end up with a ton of extra mission time. They are that cautious and forward thinking, for better or worse. Hats off to the ESA because the Ariane 5 isn't always recognized for being the marvel it is. It's not as big as a Delta IV, not as sexy as a Falcon 9, doesn't have the prestige of a Soyuz or Proton, but is a reliable work horse.

They are definitely squeezing as much life out of their missions as possible. However, for this one the fuel was the hard constraint on its lifetime, due to the nature of the L2 orbit. No amount of engineering on the telescope itself would have prolonged that beyond what I'm sure was already the maximum (I know there's the possibility of a refueling mission, and they designed the telescope in such a way that it can accept that).

The funny thing about chemical rockets is how imprecise they can be. It's not like KSP where you can simply hold the throttle at 2% until you get the exact orbital parameters that you want. The thrust is determined by the pressure in the combustion chamber, and that combustion needs a certain pressure to be able to be maintained. If it drops below a certain point then it just stops. I have no idea what the specific numbers for the Ariane upper stage are, but I know that the SpaceX Merlin 1D vacuum engine can throttle to around 40% without issue, which is considered crazy good in spaceflight. I assume the Ariane upper stage does not get near that.

Which, in the end, is what makes this ultra-precise insertion so nuts. No amount of engineering on the JWST would have done anything about this. This is entirely due to the math done from the flight engineers of Arianespace, and using four decades of experience to analyze and predict the exact trajectory of their rocket to the point where they doubled the expected lifetime of the telescope. Doubled. Component failure may now actually be a factor in the lifetime, instead of the fuel being the only limiter.

[Nerraw]

L2 is about 3 days out from now. Soon.

[szechuan]

It might be uncommon but I'm sure there are religious people working there. Besides, it's like a bridge between the potential scientific discovery and the billions of religious people outside of nasa. I don't think it's a bad idea

Because of Religious Zealots with an Agenda.

[Viconia]

When I was still a "Christian" (quotation marks because I never chose it myself) I had to go through confirmation same as my peers. One line taught there struck out. It went something like this: "The existence of God cannot be proven, but to equal amount neither can His existence be disproven." It's the emphasized part that people latch onto, when they base their life philosophy on faith; as long as science can't quite answer the big questions we have 'tales' to fill the void of our souls. When we start to discover aliens and other things of cosmic nature we're getting material that can actually disprove God, or rather, earthly religions that are dictating his nature. It will cause quite a ruckus, so taking a pre-emptive look at what our society will be facing is smart.

[Flarelaine]

Please steer clear of discussing religion.

[Corvus]

Is there a reason it takes so long? I know you have to be careful and do it step by step, but 5 months seems a very long time

[PACOX]

Also, heat doesn't radiate well in space. Near vacuum so heat doesn't naturally dissipate quickly - you need actual particles for that.

[Corvus]

Ah, a heat issue. That makes sense.

[Lilithvia]

Artemis 1 almost ready for its own wet dress rehearsal. Starting to look like the Artemis program will finally launch itself away from the numerous Boeing-caused delays

[cubby]

Artemis 1 almost ready for its own wet dress rehearsal. Starting to look like the Artemis program will finally launch itself away from the numerous Boeing-caused delays

I saw they pretty much cleared out all the test issue bullshit and we're basically like, "fuck it, we're gonna light this motherfucker up!" - but in a good way, I'm not suggesting they are cutting any corners.

I'm glad to see more rockets going in the air. I've been critical of the SLS for awhile now, but the more we launch, and the more platforms we have available, the better.

[Lilithvia]

I saw they pretty much cleared out all the test issue bullshit and we're basically like, "fuck it, we're gonna light this motherfucker up!" - but in a good way, I'm not suggesting they are cutting any corners.

I'm glad to see more rockets going in the air. I've been critical of the SLS for awhile now, but the more we launch, and the more platforms we have available, the better.

The funny thing is MOST of the issues can be blamed solely on Boeing. SLS should've launched in 2016. It is now 2022.
You're probably going to want explanation from me, but there's so much I can say about the program and boeing that I don't know where else to start except "boeing's fault"

[Osmeric]

The funny thing is MOST of the issues can be blamed solely on Boeing. SLS should've launched in 2016. It is now 2022.
You're probably going to want explanation from me, but there's so much I can say about the program and boeing that I don't know where else to start except "boeing's fault"

If something isn't worth doing, it isn't worth doing well.

[Lilithvia]

If something isn't worth doing, it isn't worth doing well.

Or in the case of Boeing, if something is worth doing, milk all the money out of it that you can while not delivering a good product until it's 6 years overdue

[Osmeric]

Or in the case of Boeing, if something is worth doing, milk all the money out of it that you can while not delivering a good product until it's 6 years overdue

The reason SLS exists at all is to deliver money to selected locations, such as Huntsville. Whether it actually has any use to the country at all is entirely beside the point.

[Lilithvia]

The reason SLS exists at all is to deliver money to selected locations, such as Huntsville. Whether it actually has any use to the country at all is entirely beside the point.

Maybe to Boeing, your perspective might be true. But to NASA and the public, it's an entirely different story.

[PACOX]

The funny thing is MOST of the issues can be blamed solely on Boeing. SLS should've launched in 2016. It is now 2022.
You're probably going to want explanation from me, but there's so much I can say about the program and boeing that I don't know where else to start except "boeing's fault"

The actual problem lies in Congress being insistent on keeping old space shuttle contracts going. That meant Old space shuttles parts product lines had to be restarted, slow and a pain in the ass, old parts refurbished and repurposed, an expensive pain in the ass, the celiing of innovation and competitive capped. Later SLS rockets will made of new parts. Its the Senate Launch System because its what the Senate ordered. The people who dictated the funds and approval of the rockets wanted to milk/grease the palms of old holdovers from the space shuttle era. Boeing is front and center Boeing had a major role in the shuttle program.

[Lilithvia]

The actual problem lies in Congress being insistent on keeping old space shuttle contracts going. That meant Old space shuttles parts product lines had to be restarted, slow and a pain in the ass, old parts refurbished and repurposed, an expensive pain in the ass, the celiing of innovation and competitive capped. Later SLS rockets will made of new parts. Its the Senate Launch System because its what the Senate ordered. The people who dictated the funds and approval of the rockets wanted to milk/grease the palms of old holdovers from the space shuttle era. Boeing is front and center Boeing had a major role in the shuttle program.

The thing is, from what I've heard and been told, Boeing waited until the last possible moment to start work on even Artemis 1 long lead parts. You know, four years after the SLS was initially ordered, and assumed everything would go off without a hitch.

Which is strike 1 for Boeing regarding SLS.

[PACOX]

The thing is, from what I've heard and been told, Boeing waited until the last possible moment to start work on even Artemis 1 long lead parts. You know, four years after the SLS was initially ordered, and assumed everything would go off without a hitch.

Which is strike 1 for Boeing regarding SLS.

Honestly the entire project has been such a mess that I'd have to go back and look through all the bottlenecks and who was actually responsible. There's huge periods of time where the rocket just wasn't being worked on, actually fabrication over the span of its lifetime did not take that long. It was weighed down in a lot of bureaucracy, the way that NASA has to do it while administrationa and budgets change doesn't help. There's inefficient processes that NASA has to follow through on that independent companies like SpaceX don't have to.

How many people does it take to change a light bulb? SpaceX just gets someone to run down to the storage closet to replace it, NASA has to send it through committee assuming they don't have to go through committee to draft the exact process before hand.

Some say NASA's real plan to put on display how inefficient the process to make SLS has been so they can bring some reform to the table. At least funnel more funds through the private companies so they won't be so beholden to Congress to get anything done.

[Biglog]

Anxiously looking forward to ~4 months from now when the JWST starts gathering data. Up until now our knowledge of the cosmos has been like someone in a huge dark warehouse with a tiny candle, squinting for a small glimpse of our immediate surroundings. The JWST in comparison will be like a searchlight. We're likely to get a whole lot of profound new space information by the end of the year. Information that is going to give us a lot more detail on how our universe started and much further back in time than we've been able to see, probably along with some surprises.

So in the big picture the JWST is the star (no pun intended) of the show for space in 2022 and the next few years more than eventual moon/Mars missions. Humanity spent about 75 years exploring to answer the question, is there life on other planets in our solar system? Outside of potential in a couple moons with possible aquatic life in frozen oceans or maybe simple organic life that we may end up discovering someplace underground, the answer for our solar system was found to be a firm no. We didn't end up getting any easy answers by finding evidence of complex life on nearby planets. And exploration outside our solar system because of the distance challenge is many centuries/lifetimes away. The main purpose now in local exploration is to prepare for colonization for redundancy/survival of our species. And while that's also important, it is a whole lot less exciting than answering deep philosophical/religious questions like is other intelligent life out there, how was our universe created, is Earth really unique in the universe, is our universe the only one or as most scientists believe today are there multiverses? Those are the big space questions, and what we really learned from the rovers on Mars, missions to Venus, probe to Pluto, etc. is that we'll probably need to look outside our solar system for those answers.

Also, I wholeheartedly agree on the bureaucracy problem. In the West bureaucracy has become a major competitive disadvantage. It's always been there, but until ~40 years ago the productivity advantage of the West covered for a lot of the bureaucracy deficiencies. But now it's difficult to compete with other countries with high productivity that also have none of the same bureaucracy. It can't take 20 years of committee budget meetings and environmental studies to build a rocket, submarine, aircraft carrier, bridge, etc. in the US compared to another power doing it in 2 years without the bureaucracy. It is the same reason that SpaceX without the bureaucracy NASA suffers under has made quick progress.