HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ jacquesm

Given the number of delays I would not be surprised at all if the launch is called off. Better to fix things properly than to risk a blow-up, which may well be the end of the program.

BTW: from a casual point of view it looks suspiciously like a shuttle launch stack without the shuttle.

edit: it looks like it has been scrubbed

⬐ dougmwne

That’s because it is based on Shuttle booster designs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle-derived_vehicle

⬐ melling

Yes, that’s well understood. That’s why people have repeatedly explained for decades why manned space flight is too costly and extremely slow.

It’s probably 100 times cheaper, and 10x faster, to focus on unmanned space projects:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2004/04/08/the-wrong-stuff/

In the year 2100, a lot more humans will have gone to space if we iterate quickly with unmanned projects for a few decades then as our capabilities increase, send humans.

⬐ zizee

Yes, human spaceflight is expensive, but SLS takes it to the next level. You have to admit that SLS has been a bit of a boondoggle, and is looking increasingly irrelevant.

Given falcon 9 has been launching crew dragon for a numbe of years, and Starship is the selected lander, and falcon heavy exists for heavy lift, why continue with the SLS?

I for one will enjoy watching the launch, and am excited by humans travelling to space, but would have like to see NASAs stop shovelling good money after bad.

⬐ jacquesm

That particular question was not very well received when posed by NASA administrators.

⬐ zizee

Yeah, I think almost everyone recognises the decisions were more about politics, than sending people to the moon. It's a real shame, as blatent waste just gives space detractors very valid arguments to reduce NASA's budget.

⬐ nyokodo

> the decisions were more about politics, than sending people to the moon

NASA is a political organization created by politicians for political purposes and remains beholden to politicians for its continued existence. The engineering innovation, science, and exploration of NASA programs are wonderful side effects. The bad news is that it’s always primarily political but the good news is that as long as the political purposes remain relevant then the overall budget is reasonably safe. With competition with China, and the burgeoning commercialization of space its relevance is likely to grow.

⬐ billfruit

Is the Delta-Heavy human rated? Can the Orion Capsule fly on it?

⬐ throwaway0a5e

>why continue with the SLS?

Thinly veiled welfare or a grandfathered in earmarks depending on your perspective.

⬐ nordsieck

> Given falcon 9 has been launching crew dragon for a numbe of years, and Starship is the selected lander, and falcon heavy exists for heavy lift, why continue with the SLS?

I think this will be a much more pressing question (if?) after Starship starts flying regularly and finishes its demo mission to the moon as part of its Artemis obligations. It's easy to rationalize SLS with whataboutism while Starship is in development - particularly since SpaceX favors a hardware rich style. I'm not saying that this is good decision making, just that the arguments are plausible - the fig leaf is dense enough to do its job.

But if Starship is able to achieve and/or surpass the flight rate and safety record of Falcon 9, it'll be much more difficult to criticize; and consequently, it'll be much more difficult to support continued SLS development.

> I ... would have like to see NASAs stop shovelling good money after bad.

I too would like to see that. But I'm not particularly optimistic.

⬐ bottlepalm

It’s funny how they rationalized SLS for the longest time because Falcon Heavy and Dragon 2 hadn’t flown yet.

⬐ saalweachter

"Oh no we're a civilization with multiple vehicles capable of taking a person to space/the moon."

⬐ bottlepalm

More like oh no we’re 50 years behind on manned space flight because we decided to pour billions into defense contractors instead of actual progress.

SLS is a worse system than Apollo, if anything we have regressed.

⬐ jussion_zoonist

That's all well and good but how many congressional districts have jobs working on Starship?

⬐ kranke155

Surely someone as smart as Elon will find a way to distribute starship production to please the wonderful members of US Congress - he does plan on building a lot of them.

⬐ Symmetry

I don't think there's any way to do that without drastically increasing costs and, more importantly, slowing down SpaceX's ability to iterate on their designs.

⬐ nordsieck

> Surely someone as smart as Elon will find a way to distribute starship production to please the wonderful members of US Congress - he does plan on building a lot of them.

All indications point towards the opposite - that he considers low cost and high performance to be more important, and that vertical integration is an important part of achieving both of those goals.

While it's true that SpaceX is doing work in CA, FL, and TX, there's not much indication that they'll be farming out subcomponent work to high-40s number of states ala the Shuttle/SLS.

⬐ sangnoir

> why continue with the SLS?

Because having your human space program depend on a single launch provider is not great? This is not a SpaceX dig: for years, NASA had to rely exclusively on Roscosmos,and that wasn't ideal either.

NASA can "waste" money now and ensure there's some level of competition across the board later, or be subject to gauging in each specialist niche in the future

⬐ thereddaikon

What's the point of exploring space if we can't experience it for ourselves? Probes are important but I feel like people who advocate for probe only exploration are missing the point. Humans are drawn to explore the unknown.

⬐ bell-cot

What's the point of geologists looking deeper into the Earth than humans are likely to travel? Well, if you live in an economy which is dependent (like it or not) on petroleum products... Or you live in an area where earthquakes, volcanic activity, or fallout from those (tsunami, ash cloud, etc.) might seriously affect you. Or...

⬐ melling

Let me restate the point I want you to understand because your question implies that we don’t want the same thing:

“In the year 2100, a lot more humans will have gone to space if we iterate quickly with unmanned projects for a few decades then as our capabilities increase, send humans”

My way gets more humans into the solar system faster. Sending humans to the moon by 2029 with NASA then a few to Mars 10-15 years later is the slow way.

⬐ jjk166

Except that unmanned missions are not that much cheaper for the same level of capability - robots and probes have limited sensor capabilities, little or no ability to improvise especially not in time critical circumstances, and generally are just physically inferior to humans. For example the opportunity rover averaged 28 feet per day of travel. The lunar rover on Apollo 17 drove further in 5 hours than the curiosity, spirit, perseverance, and sojourner rovers put together. Humans have excellent strength and dexterity, able to easily move or reorient objects weighing many kilograms of arbitrary shape, and overcome arbitrary obstacles. While there are significant costs for this additional capability, the fact is robots simply can't be made to outperform humans at these tasks at the moment. The divide was even worse in the early days of space exploration.

Then, the idea that things would be substantially cheaper without man-rating is also based on shaky assumptions. The fact is large space probes are extremely expensive pieces of hardware and launch windows for certain missions are uncommon, so even if humans aren't on board it is still extremely undesirable to lose a probe to an engineering failure. Indeed while putting a price on human life is extremely taboo, the fact is that in situations where such a price must be determined, it usually comes out to the low tens of millions of USD. Compared to the multibillion dollar costs of many space missions, it makes sense to treat them with the same care as human life.

Finally, the idea that quickly iterating unmanned projects will make human spaceflight safer doesn't make much sense. If you're not using safety systems regularly, and you're not under pressure to improve them, why would one expect to gain useful experience and develop better improved versions? If anything, in the future we should have more capable probes that swing the pendulum further away from human spaceflight.

⬐ GuB-42

> Indeed while putting a price on human life is extremely taboo, the fact is that in situations where such a price must be determined, it usually comes out to the low tens of millions of USD.

I think astronaut lives are much more expensive. I don't know how much the launch abort system costs but I suspect the overall budget more than makes up for the value of the lives of the crew if the crew was made of random people.

Astronauts are exceptional people, and their training is awefully expensive. Not only that but they are public figures. If an astronaut dies in a way that could have been prevented, public opinion will not be kind to those who "cheaped out", and since it is a government program and public opinion is everything in politics, the consequences will be huge.

Pricing human lives is taboo, an even more so if we consider that some lives are more valuable than others, but it has to be done, we can't make do risk analysis without doing that, and NASA probably did. I wonder what the number is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was more than a billion.

⬐ nordsieck

> In the year 2100, a lot more humans will have gone to space if we iterate quickly with unmanned projects for a few decades then as our capabilities increase, send humans.

IMO, it's just much more effective to do both with the same system - like Falcon 9 which can fly Crew Dragon, but can also do regular cargo to orbit. It's important to improve systems like life support, etc. Launch is not enough.

Architecture becomes toxic when you can only launch with crew ala the Shuttle. SLS is pretty close to that - there is technically a cargo version of the rocket, and there are theoretical plans to launch deep space probes. But with Artemis using 1 (and according to some sources, up to 2) SLSes per year, that doesn't leave many available for cargo missions.

⬐ mr_toad

The system might do both, but the number of robotic craft will probably significantly outnumber the crewed vessels.

For example, the SpaceX moon lander is likely to use several tankers. And some of the landers might just ship cargo.

⬐ cratermoon

The engines and parts of the SRBs are shuttle parts, some previously flown, even. The tank, though superficially resembling the shuttle main tank (and made in the same facility) is more of an evolution of the original. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H93KDxYKeKU

⬐ hericium

Already discussed[1] under the (live as well) link to nasa.gov[2]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32634787

[2] https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive/

⬐ taspeotis

The NASA link is currently dead.

⬐ huhtenberg

Works for me. The YT embed points at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg

⬐ mrargie

For updates: https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/08/29/artemis-1-launch-live-...

⬐ bilekas

I can't even imagine the stress of the engineers when they hear there is a problem.

I get anxiety just when the DEV pipleline fails after my change.

⬐ sgtnoodle

I worked on falcon 9 and cargo dragon, and was on a control shift for the C2 mission. Finding out about problems wasn't the stressful part. Actually launching the rocket and seeing it leave the launch pad was stressful. Waiting for the capsule to detach from the second stage and deploy its solar panels was stressful. Watching it approach the space station was stressful.

Learning about problems and solving them were comforting. It increased everyone's confidence that we had built a robust and predicable system. The head of the software test team would have snuck into the capsule if he could!

⬐ bilekas

Wow.. I actually never thought about it that way, of course I knew they would be stressful but getting the opportunity to fix them before they're up there actually would be comforting!

⬐ sgtnoodle

Tons of little problems happen throughout a typical mission and it's normal. Space ships are designed with a lot of redundancy so that the overall vehicle keeps working while folk on the ground work through the problems. Robust and flexible telemetry and command systems are incredibly important.

I help design UAVs for medical deliveries now, and while it's really satisfying work, launching a new UAV prototype is only a small fraction of the adrenaline rush of launching a falcon 9 rocket!

⬐ melling

I suppose while we wait, we can discuss the value of NASA doing manned flight vs private enterprise, which is the point of the Economist article:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32636643

⬐ ghaff

Enjoy, but that's a debate that's been going on for literally decades.

It's also the case that, if you take manned missions of the table into an indefinite future, a lot of the rationale for many unmanned missions goes away too.

⬐ p_l

Consider how even if you try to optimize the costs the projects get cut down until the rationale for cost optimization disappears, like with Cassini-Huygens where a promising serial production drone body for handling unmanned missions was effectively canceled. At least with manned missions it's easier to drum up popular support or play on politicians' ego about being without a manned capability.

⬐ melling

There’s a lot to explore in the solar system. Several satellites orbiting every planet and several interesting moons. Building “smarter” robotic missions to explore…

Seriously, with a little imagination …

⬐ p_l

Imagination is something the bean counters deciding the budget do not have, which is why "ideal project" is always some variation on how we can spread jobs across most districts.

⬐ ghaff

It's also the case that voters--i.e. those who at least theoretically control the purse strings--generally get more excited about human space exploration. If you cross humans off the options list, those voters are probably going to be less excited about space projects in general with the possible exception of things with fairly direct benefits such as solar and earth projects.

Those voters, by the way, also like jobs.

⬐ p_l

I do wonder at times if the jobs focus isn't super specific to USA, but I don't know many other places. Here in Poland usually the issue is about "will it be done in country or bought elsewhere?" and the likes, though there was obvious malfeasance based around local jobs with the canceling of Caracal contract

⬐ drno123

I got here late - why is launch stalled?

⬐ puffoflogic

Because SLS is vaporware/yet another scam on the American taxpayer.

⬐ huhtenberg

Some unexpected ice formed on the exterior of one of the tanks. They checked if it was due to a crack, but apparently the conclusion is that it was not.

⬐ perihelions

Multiple issues:

- "... Engineers are now investigating two other issues. The first is a possible “crack in an intertank flange.” The second is that a hydrogen bleed line to chill one of the four core-stage engines before ignition is not quite working correctly. When the countdown clock reaches T-10 minutes, there is a planned hold. That is when managers will decide a target launch time (Unless the launch is called off before then)."

- "The countdown is paused at T-40 minutes as engineers try to troubleshoot the issue with the hydrogen bleed line."

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/29/science/nasa-moon-la...

https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2022/08/29/engineers-troubles...

⬐ gsibble

Shocking that something built by Boeing has problems. Just shocking.

⬐ None

None

⬐ ISL

Launch has been scrubbed for today, as of 8:36 eastern.

⬐ nerdjon

Sad to see it scrubbed, but I hate that this is becoming the expectation on this thing.

More and more I have to wonder how long they will continue to work on this and just cut their losses?

At some point this isn't just a money sink but is a bad look and I worry can put doubt on space and NASA in general?

⬐ pastor_bob

Launch cancelled. Returning to the moon pushed back to 2035

⬐ andyjohnson0

12:36 UTC: The launch director has scrubbed the launch

⬐ yardie

It's been scrubbed!

Hydrogen leak in one of the H2 lines. Bummer!

⬐ None

None

⬐ macinjosh

What clowns, how much time and money do they need?

⬐ onphonenow

It’s fun to see nasa “facts” vs others. The nasa “countdowns” are comically unreliable - when you get to x minutes left in the countdown there are NOT x minutes left. They should just call their stuff phases.

Listening to nasa administrator Nelson go on about how effective SLS is - also a bit mind warping. On what measure?

The Biden admin has some bug going on about spaceX - Kathy got demoted / sidelined a bit at NASA after doing commercial crew - she or many others in nasa far better administrators. Instead we get sn old white guy Nelson - and I’m an old white guy. His claim to fame is sls support. Ugh

⬐ nordsieck

> The nasa “countdowns” are comically unreliable - when you get to x minutes left in the countdown there are NOT x minutes left. They should just call their stuff phases.

I think most people who are familiar with rocket launches understand that the countdown is really a time indexed checklist, which can pause or even reverse depending on sensor readings from the rocket.

Admittedly, that can be a bit confusing for the casual observer.

⬐ dylan604

What does Artemis I and 3 men in a tub have in common?

Scrub-a-dub-dub

⬐ addaon

Scrubbed due to engine bleed temperature issue. Sounds like this was a point of concern, but also something that was specifically tested during the dress rehearsal. More debugging being done on the pad (not defueling yet), but no going to space today.

⬐ cratermoon

> something that was specifically tested during the dress rehearsal

Something that should have been tested during the wet dress rehearsal, but because of a hydrogen leak issue, they never completed the wet dress and this was not tested.

Hmm, skipping tests. SHIP IT.

⬐ zardo

> More debugging being done on the pad (not defueling yet), but no going to space today.

Does that mean they sent people out to the pad while it was still fueled?

⬐ xeromal

FYI, I believe the solid rocket boosters are due to expire this summer so if they delay any more, they may really bone themselves.

⬐ IshKebab

They'll just say "we re-evaluated and they're fine for a bit longer". I'm pretty sure they've already done that for something.

⬐ nordsieck

For those who don't know, SLS gets 3 launch attempts per launch window (essentially per month). This is due to a number of constraints, but 2 big ones are the length of time the Flight Termination System batteries are certified to last and how much hydrogen they keep on hand in local storage.

⬐ tppiotrowski

Do they pump the hydrogen back into storage or bleed it all into the atmosphere if they need to empty the fuel tanks?

⬐ nordsieck

> Do they pump the hydrogen back into storage or bleed it all into the atmosphere if they need to empty the fuel tanks?

They pump it back. But some of it warms and turns to gas while it's being "used", so that part bleeds off.

> While the vehicle is filled with liquid propellant, some of the LH2 is consumed for engine conditioning and some boils off inside the tanks. If a launch attempt was to be scrubbed after waiting through a whole two-hour launch window, and the propellants in the tanks were drained back into the spheres, they would end up being over 280,000 gallons short of the LH2 needed for another attempt.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2021/11/artemis-1-launch-per...