To the moon!

Tuckerfan · Dec 11, 2022

About to hit the atmosphere!

Tuckerfan · Dec 11, 2022

We’ve got chutes!

Tuckerfan · Dec 11, 2022

Splashdown!

Tuckerfan · Jan 4, 2023

The Lunar Hoaxers are having a bit of an awkward moment because of Artemis.

Tuckerfan · Jan 10, 2023

NASA Begins Inspection of Orion Spacecraft, Freshly Returned From the Moon

Tuckerfan · Feb 8, 2023

NASA says its SLS megarocket is now ready to launch humans to the moon

Tuckerfan · Mar 9, 2023

Orion’s Heat Shield Looked Wonky After Artemis 1 Moon Mission, NASA Says

Tuckerfan · Mar 9, 2023

https://twitter.com/senbillnelson/status/1633922018692198400?s=46&t=iYW3foyqIA6Tn8VWwn3nwQ

Tuckerfan · Mar 21, 2023

NASA’s Artemis Moon Rover Is Officially Under Construction

Tuckerfan · Mar 31, 2023

Monday! Monday! Monday!

We Are Borg · Apr 3, 2023

Artemis II crew announced.

Not going much media coverage because all the outlets appear to be obsessed today with some old fuck who paid off porn star.

Tuckerfan · Apr 4, 2023

We Are Borg said: ↑

Artemis II crew announced.

Not going much media coverage because all the outlets appear to be obsessed today with some old fuck who paid off porn star.

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None of them were alive in 1972 when we last visited the moon.

shootER · Apr 6, 2023

A friend shot an interview with the crew.

Tuckerfan · Apr 8, 2023

Lanzman · Apr 8, 2023

Tuckerfan · Apr 9, 2023

So, uh, is nobody going to talk about who's likely to die first if things go wrong?.

We Are Borg · Apr 9, 2023

Tuckerfan said: ↑

So, uh, is nobody going to talk about who's likely to die first if things go wrong?.
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What the fuck kind of sick twisted mental process did you go through to post this?

Tuckerfan · Apr 9, 2023

We Are Borg said: ↑

Tuckerfan said: ↑

So, uh, is nobody going to talk about who's likely to die first if things go wrong?.
Click to expand...

What the fuck kind of sick twisted mental process did you go through to post this?
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SNL.

Tuckerfan · May 4, 2023

Engineers Might Have to Put a Struggling Artemis CubeSat Out of Its Misery

Tuckerfan · May 12, 2023

NASA aims to beam HD footage back from its Artemis II Moon mission

Literally, the first DVD I ever bought was the documentary For All Mankind. This was late 90s, so no flatscreen HDTV, just a 27" standard CRT TV. I will never forget popping that in and watching it on TV and being instantly struck by how much better the shots of the astronauts on the Moon looked than any SF movie has ever managed to pull off. Fast forward about 10 years, not only are flatscreen HDTVs a thing, but so are Blu-Ray players, naturally, since I have both of those, I have to get the movie on Blu-Ray and watch it. Holy shit, did it look real! As in, there was just a thin pane of glass between me and the surface of the Moon. I've yet to make the switch to 4K, so I can't say how well the 4K version of the documentary looks but if we're going to be getting 4 or 8K video from the Moon (regardless of if it's beamed back or can only be copied over when they get back to Earth) that's just going to be fucking incredible.

We Are Borg · May 19, 2023

Blue Origin has entered the chat.

Honestly, I think this is a good thing. The more companies involved in developing lunar solutions, the better. Amazing to think that we may actually see a permanent colony on the moon in our lifetime.

Tuckerfan · May 28, 2023

NASA’s SLS Spending Spree Could Jeopardize Its Return To The Moon: Report

Tuckerfan · Jun 9, 2023

Lawsuit Accuses Boeing of Swindling Partner for NASA SLS Megarocket Project

Tuckerfan · Jun 30, 2023

NASA Wants to Mine Resources From the Moon by 2032

Tuckerfan · Aug 8, 2023

Orion's Heat Shield Remains 'Biggest Open Issue' Ahead of NASA's Artemis 2 Mission

Tuckerfan · Aug 13, 2023

The Artemis II astronauts just met the Orion Moon spacecraft

Tuckerfan · Aug 17, 2023

Pentagon Launches Study on How to Start an Economy on the Moon in the Next 10 Years

We Are Borg · Aug 26, 2023

This came across my Youtube recommendations today. Very sad. Obviously the pandemic threw a monkey wrench in a lot of things but even in 2019, 2024 seemed overly optimistic.

Tuckerfan · Sep 7, 2023

Whelp, can't say I'm really surprised.

NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

In a new report, the federal department charged with analyzing how efficiently US taxpayer dollars are spent, the Government Accountability Office, says NASA lacks transparency on the true costs of its Space Launch System rocket program.

Published on Thursday, the new report (see .pdf) examines the billions of dollars spent by NASA on the development of the massive rocket, which made a successful debut launch in late 2022 with the Artemis I mission. Surprisingly, as part of the reporting process, NASA officials admitted the rocket was too expensive to support its lunar exploration efforts as part of the Artemis program.

"Senior NASA officials told GAO that at current cost levels, the SLS program is unaffordable," the new report states.

Poor tools to understand true costs
The Government Accountability Office expressed serious concerns about NASA's decision not to measure production costs of SLS rocket elements, including the core stages and rocket engines needed for future launches. Instead, NASA told the report authors that it plans to "monitor production costs and affordability of the SLS program via the five-year production and operations cost estimate."

However, the report states, these are "poor tools" for a cost baseline for the SLS rocket program and will make it difficult for taxpayers to measure costs and the performance of NASA and its contractors over time. Moreover, the report indicates that NASA has not regularly updated its five-year production cost estimates for the rocket. The report also cites concerns about development costs of future hardware for NASA's big-ticket rocket program, including the Exploration Upper Stage.

Another problem with NASA's cost estimates is that they do not appear to account for delays to Artemis missions. It is probable that the Artemis II mission, a crewed flight around the Moon, will launch no earlier than 2025. The Artemis III crewed landing will likely slip to at least 2026, if not more, with additional delays down the line. At least one NASA official apparently told the Government Accountability Office that these delays would have no cost impacts, which seems highly improbable.

"Some NASA officials told us that changes to Artemis mission dates should not affect the SLS program’s cost estimate," the report states. "Other officials noted that the program’s cost estimate would be expected to increase to account for the delay to the Artemis IV mission, which shifted from 2026 to 2028."

How to pare back unsustainable costs

NASA officials interviewed by the Government Accountability Office acknowledged that they were concerned about the costs of the SLS rocket.

"NASA recognizes the need to improve the affordability of the SLS program and is taking steps to do so," the report states. "Senior agency officials have told us that at current cost levels the SLS program is unsustainable and exceeds what NASA officials believe will be available for its Artemis missions."

Officials from the space agency said they had a four-step plan to reduce costs of the SLS rocket program over time:

Stabilize the flight schedule

Achieve learning curve efficiencies

Encourage innovation

Adjust acquisition strategies to reduce cost risk

Setting aside that some of these goals sound suspiciously like corporate speak, the report makes clear that these are aspirational aims for now. "NASA, however, has not yet identified specific program-level cost-saving goals which it hopes to achieve," the authors write. "NASA has made some progress toward implementing these strategies, but it is too early to fully evaluate their effect on cost."

Can NASA really control costs?

While NASA certainly deserves credit for talking about the excessive cost of the SLS rocket—a fact that has been pointed out by critics for more than a decade but largely ignored by NASA officials and congressional leaders—it is not at all clear that they will be able to control costs. For example, NASA recently said that it is working with the primary contractor of the SLS rocket's main engines, Aerojet, to reduce the cost of each engine by 30 percent, down to $70.5 million by the end of this decade.

However, NASA's inspector general, Paul Martin, said this claim was dubious. According to Martin, when calculating the projected cost savings of the new RS-25 engines, NASA and Aerojet only included material, engineering support, and touch labor, while project management and overhead costs are excluded.

And even at $70.5 million, these engines are very, very far from being affordable compared to the existing US commercial market for powerful rocket engines. Blue Origin manufactures an engine of comparable power and size, the BE-4, for less than $20 million. And SpaceX is seeking to push the similarly powerful Raptor rocket engine costs even lower, to less than $1 million per engine.
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Tuckerfan · Sep 17, 2023

'Hubble Hugger' space shuttle engine mounted on Artemis 2 moon rocket (photos)

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