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Half Fast

Half Fast

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Half Fast
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Hoping it doesn't get scrubbed due to the solar flare.
 
I hope it goes. Wish I could drive down to see it go up.

I tried to see the first Artemis launch a few years back, drove down with my RV and set up camp close by...it was scrubbed of course
went back and did it all over again for the reschedule.... scrubbed....
pretty sure I did the same a 3rd time...scrubbed
kind of embarrising really....but as I understand it they're using a lot of surplus old space shuttle engines and such....

meanwhile, Spacex is sending up starlink loads daily....
 
Johnny Knoxville did it...

 
Lunar Orbiter 1 launched by NASA on August 10, 1966, was the first U.S. spacecraft to orbit the moon. Should be a no-brainer to do it again 60 years later. I hope…
 
Brad Smith said:
Lunar Orbiter 1 launched by NASA on August 10, 1966, was the first U.S. spacecraft to orbit the moon. Should be a no-brainer to do it again 60 years later. I hope…
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About 1981, I was working for Boeing and was transferred to a new office. This was still the old "bullpen" setups. I went through my new desk, and found a small blue box atop a stack of magazines.

Turns out the box contained Lunar Orbiter cufflinks. About ten years ago, for Boeing's 100th anniversary, the Seattle Museum of Flight called for employees to bring in memorabilia for a celebratory display. My cuff links were accepted....
1775011444308.png
(I did the holder myself, with a 3D printer)

Provenance of such a find is always of benefits. The magazines in the drawer were Playboys from 1963. The museum declined to include them.

In my early days, I worked with a number of engineers who had been on the Lunar Orbiter program.

Ron Wanttaja
 
I know, Im supposed to be impressed and rah rah the program. At the risk of being the Donnie Downer - all I see in the program is Billions of debt that has already been done in a most spectacular original way. Sorry, its just not in me.
 
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Brad W said:
I hope it goes. Wish I could drive down to see it go up.

I tried to see the first Artemis launch a few years back, drove down with my RV and set up camp close by...it was scrubbed of course
went back and did it all over again for the reschedule.... scrubbed....
pretty sure I did the same a 3rd time...scrubbed
kind of embarrising really....but as I understand it they're using a lot of surplus old space shuttle engines and such....

meanwhile, Spacex is sending up starlink loads daily....
Click to expand...
maybe you a jinx, you should stay home tomorrow :fingerwag:
 
midwestpa24 said:
Amazes me that here we are almost 60 years later, and just trying to figure out how to recreate those missions.
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The problem is, there's really no financial nor scientific incentive. We're doing what we did 60 years ago. Hip, hip, hoorah.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Brad W said:
I hope it goes. Wish I could drive down to see it go up.

I tried to see the first Artemis launch a few years back, drove down with my RV and set up camp close by...it was scrubbed of course
went back and did it all over again for the reschedule.... scrubbed....
pretty sure I did the same a 3rd time...scrubbed
Click to expand...
My house is about a 5 minute drive to the beach where I can get a pretty good view of the launch. But except for most SpaceX flights, it isn't worth the drive due to so many scrubs. And SpaceX flights have just gotten boring. It is more fun to watch the television and see them land boosters on barges. Now THAT is cool.
 
Doc Holliday said:
Apparently you’re not old enough to remember Apollo 8. What a shame.
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8 entered lunar orbit. 10 practiced a lunar landing. 13 was 13.

This isn't even entering the lunar traffic pattern. Not only you're not landing at OSH, you're barely flying around it 50 miles out. They'll be missing the moon by almost 5000 miles! That's two and a half times the moon's diameter.
Apollo 8 entered a 70 mile orbit. Apollo 10's LM got within 10 miles of the surface.

We're so distrustful of the hardware that we don't even dare to enter lunar orbit, electing to stay on a free return trajectory. That's the only way we feel safe about it.

The crew? Yes, they have already achieved more than any of us will, but in the grand scheme of things, it feels a bit underwhelming. Their educational backgrounds would barely be enough for them to make it in the astronaut class of 2020. In 1963, Buzz Aldrin was getting a PhD in Line-of-Sight Guidance Techniques for Manned Orbital Rendezvous.
This crew feels more like a box-ticking exercise, instead of "we've selected the best to achieve the most science out of this massive expenditure". The PR for it has been underwhelming as well. Is it because there isn't that much to advertise and capture the public's imagination?

And don't even get me started on the Senate Launch System.

I considered going to Florida to watch it. I was there for the first SLS flight, the noise and light show were quite impressive. I had a ticket booked, then canceled it. Decided it's not worth the hassle for something that has (in my opinion) a 33% chance of actually launching today.

I want this mission to go well and wish the crew a safe flight. But yeah, no real excitement about it.
 
AV8R_87 said:
8 entered lunar orbit. 10 practiced a lunar landing. 13 was 13.

This isn't even entering the lunar traffic pattern. Not only you're not landing at OSH, you're barely flying around it 50 miles out. They'll be missing the moon by almost 5000 miles! That's two and a half times the moon's diameter.
Apollo 8 entered a 70 mile orbit. Apollo 10's LM got within 10 miles of the surface.

We're so distrustful of the hardware that we don't even dare to enter lunar orbit, electing to stay on a free return trajectory. That's the only way we feel safe about it.

The crew? Yes, they have already achieved more than any of us will, but in the grand scheme of things, it feels a bit underwhelming. Their educational backgrounds would barely be enough for them to make it in the astronaut class of 2020. In 1963, Buzz Aldrin was getting a PhD in Line-of-Sight Guidance Techniques for Manned Orbital Rendezvous.
This crew feels more like a box-ticking exercise, instead of "we've selected the best to achieve the most science out of this massive expenditure". The PR for it has been underwhelming as well. Is it because there isn't that much to advertise and capture the public's imagination?

And don't even get me started on the Senate Launch System.

I considered going to Florida to watch it. I was there for the first SLS flight, the noise and light show were quite impressive. I had a ticket booked, then canceled it. Decided it's not worth the hassle for something that has (in my opinion) a 33% chance of actually launching today.

I want this mission to go well and wish the crew a safe flight. But yeah, no real excitement about it.
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So you weren’t around either for Apollo 8?
 
quote from the movie "Apollo 13"

"Well, imagine if Christopher Columbus came back from the New World, and no one returned in his footsteps."
 
I don't know. I'm excited to see something beyond what we've been doing my whole life, which is doing microgravity experiments in orbit. The prospect of building a permanent presence on the moon is pretty cool, as is the idea of using it as a "launching pad" for exploration deeper into space. While simply flying around the moon seems anticlimactic, remember that this is the second time this hardware has flown. Yes the main engines and boosters are well proven, but the capsule and upper stage are all new. Remember Starliner?
 
Half Fast said:
Amazing how little news coverage this has received.
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Its the same reason Apollo 13-17 were no longer front page news. And if 13 didn't have their "problem" it would have as memorable as 15. Now SpaceX landing the Starship booster back on the pad was front page, but only for a couple news cycles. Its old news as I've been told as most prefer to watch Star Wars reruns. Maybe a trip to Mars might get the attention again, but who knows.
 
Bell206 said:
Its the same reason Apollo 13-17 were no longer front page news. And if 13 didn't have their "problem" it would have as memorable as 15. Now SpaceX landing the Starship booster back on the pad was front page, but only for a couple news cycles. Its old news as I've been told as most prefer to watch Star Wars reruns. Maybe a trip to Mars might get the attention again, but who knows.
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Only if there are Martians we can shoot at with ray guns.
 
Brad W said:
I tried to see the first Artemis launch a few years back, drove down with my RV and set up camp close by...it was scrubbed of course
went back and did it all over again for the reschedule.... scrubbed....
pretty sure I did the same a 3rd time...scrubbed
kind of embarrising really....but as I understand it they're using a lot of surplus old space shuttle engines and such....

meanwhile, Spacex is sending up starlink loads daily....
Click to expand...
This will be the second flight of SLS and Orion, and Orion will be going to the Moon and back. That's a full-capability demonstration of what SLS and Orion are supposed to do in support of a lunar landing mission.

However, for us to actually land on the Moon, NASA is still waiting on SpaceX and Blue Origin to get their lunar landers designed/built/tested. Starship is SpaceX's lunar lander. When the Artemis program was first announced, the first lunar landing was supposed to be 2024. Now it's supposed to be 2028, but given SpX's and Blue's progress to date that seems very unlikely.
 
It's a technology test. Another step on the way to landing and a permanent lunar presence.

The REAL shame is not that billions are being spent, but that we abandoned the lunar quest in the 1970s. We'd be on Mars and perhaps beyond by now if the whiners hadn't bitched and moaned about the cost.

I will not get into politics and the immense cost of graft and corruption in this country.
 
Half Fast said:
Making this the farthest distance from earth that any human has ever gone. I think that in itself is pretty cool.
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As a new pilot I gotta be honest - this really doesn't do anything for me. Most of my training was at 7500-8500 MSL but the first time I went to 9500 it was a Meh moment. Going an extra few miles away from the moon than we did 50 years ago just doesn't seem overly impressive. Musk sending a roadster to god knows where was cooler.
 
wanttaja said:
The problem is, there's really no financial nor scientific incentive. We're doing what we did 60 years ago. Hip, hip, hoorah.

Ron Wanttaja
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just my un-informed opinion, but I think the only reason we are doing it is because China is working on it. We don't want them to develop a fully functioning Chinese moon base. We don't want them to figure out what the multi-trillion dollar benefit of having a moon base is and then have them have total control of it or the technology to do it. On the other hand we don't really have any reason to do it much faster than them.
 
brcase said:
just my un-informed opinion, but I think the only reason we are doing it is because China is working on it. We don't want them to develop a fully functioning Chinese moon base. We don't want them to figure out what the multi-trillion dollar benefit of having a moon base is and then have them have total control of it or the technology to do it. On the other hand we don't really have any reason to do it much faster than them.
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I thought we own the moon……
 
MauleSkinner said:
one only owns one’s individual ass. The moon is public domain.
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Not sure where you get that the moon is "public domain". If you're trying to say there's a legal framework that prevents anyone from claiming ownership, that's not exactly true. It is true in the sense that there is a UN "Moon Treaty" (colloquial name for the "Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies"), but since none of the countries with the capability of launching humans into space (including the US, Russia, and China) have actually signed it, it doesn't really have any relevance.

That essentially leaves the Moon just there for the taking.
 
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