General statistics
List of Youtube channels
Youtube commenter search
Distinguished comments
About
Zach B
SmarterEveryDay
comments
Comments by "Zach B" (@zachb1706) on "I Was SCARED To Say This To NASA... (But I said it anyway) - Smarter Every Day 293" video.
Artemis has a total budget of $75 billion compared to Apollo’s inflation adjusted $200 billion. It also has a much larger scope, with an independently orbiting space station, and far larger range of tests to be carried out.
3
Reliable is questionable. They failed twice, one killing 3 astronauts, and partially failed a third time. They also had an insane budget and were able to attract the smartest minds from across the globe. This mission has a smaller budget and requires a far higher reliability while also being larger in scope. It’s no easy feat
3
Starship isn’t purpose built for Artemis. It’s built to complete multiple tasks, from delivering large payloads to low earth orbit to eventually setting up a base on Mars But being a multi role spacecraft it must make some drawbacks and Starship chose size. To complete all these tasks Starship is absolutely massive, which means weight. To get out of LEO it must be refuelled.
2
Who should have got it? SpaceX quoted half the price of Blue Origin and a quarter of the price of Dynetics. Those other 2 had serious design flaws and Blue Origin had to make a massive redesign to get their own contract. Not only that but SpaceX was (and is still) on track to finish sooner. And there was a lot less risk because SpaceX is an actually profitable company (setting aside government contracts) and Starship has a lot of interest from the DoD. And SpaceX has achieved more than the other 2. Makes sense to me, and makes sense to the department that investigated the choosing.
2
It’s take a lot less fuel to land and take off from mars because: 1. Mars has an atmosphere that can slow the rocket down before it lands (less fuel needed to decelerate) 2. You can create methane on Mars, so you only need as much as it takes to get there. There’s lots of estimates flying around. My guess is SpaceX has a good idea but isn’t telling anyone else about it.
2
@AllesWirdGut1502 a Mars landing will be nothing like the Moon. You only get one decent shot every 2 years, so it would be a long term mission. Producing methane from the water in the ground and CO2 rich atmosphere will happen. It’s easy and as a byproduct creates oxygen.
2
And the atmosphere density does matter, but it just means you need more passes. Aerobraking will be done.
2
Does NASA have a better plan? The actual weird part of the plan is the whole inclusion of the Orion. Why not wait a few years until Starship is ready, have that make the entire trip there and back.
2
That’s more or less what Blue Origin’s lander is. But they went with Starship because it was going to use existing technologies and techniques that SpaceX was going to develop anyway, so it is going to save a lot of money.
1
Apollo’s crew module and lander was tiny and not reusable. Refueling in space allows you to build a much bigger lander because most of the fuel you use is just to get out of Earth’s gravity. Here are the ways Artemis benefits from having a larger, reusable lander: - It can carry more astronauts, 4 instead of 2 - They can stay longer, 7 days instead of 2 - In future missions it could be refueled and reused from Lunar Orbit, lowering cost
1
@liamcaceres3754 is it? To me it sounds like straight facts. The thing is as much of a disaster as the Space Shuttle was, and will eventually be replaced by Starship/New Glenn
1
@ifldiscovery8500 Starship can send materials. Actually its uses outside of being a lander was part of the reason it was selected. If Congress didn’t mandate NASA to use SLS, chances are they wouldn’t be using it at all.
1
Apollo was tiny, and had 3 different stages - and decent, ascent and command modules. Starship is way larger and uses a monolithic design - both ascent and decent is done with 1 vehicle. Both of those choices mean that you need a lot more fuel: either you build a ridiculously big rocket or you use in orbit refuelling
1
The reason it’s so complicated is that NASA wants to make the SLS that they spent $12 billion on feel worth it. When really it’s job is to have it just deliver astronauts to the real moon lander from SpaceX or Blue Origin When Starship or New Glenn/Blue Moon are fully completed the SLS middleman can be cut
1
@ITubeYouK All the experts, equipment, factories and calculations involved in Apollo have been lost to time. This is naturally what happens when you ignore something for over 5 decades. We haven’t lost everything. Some aspects of Saturn V and the Apollo missions have been carried forward, the SLS has some striking similarities.
1
Ultimately I reckon Orion and SLS will be ditched. If you look at the plan, NASA is essentially paying SpaceX and Blue Origin to build something that is more capable than Orion, and then using Orion to just get the astronauts to the moon.
1
After Shuttle, NASA didn’t attempt to build a new rocket for ~30 years. It’s the problem Steve Jobs talked about a lot, and well that’s plaguing a lot of organisations - when you stop making new products engineers get fired, leave or stop being promoted. In their place you get managers and business people. That’s what happened really.
1
But you must remember launching a Starship rocket is dirt cheap compared to Saturn V. Launching 20 would still be 1/2 the price that launching Saturn V cost. And it has much more capabilities
1
I’ll guess in orbit refuelling will be attempted either the next launch or the launch after. Assuming all goes smoothly we’ll know in 6 months just how effective this refuelling strategy is
1
@Kiloton61097 the launches won’t all be in a week. It’ll be done over a couple months I believe. SpaceX will first launch up a Depot, then over those couple months launch up 10-15 Tankers to fill it up. That depot will refuel HLS in one go before it gets sent to the moon. It’s a complex operation, but achievable. There’s not much “messy” about it, it’s just that if you want to take a bigger lander than the tiny one they used for Apollo you need to get creative.
1
The government doesn’t need to do that, they already hide a lot from people
1
@steveaustin2686 I did say wait a few years, having human rated launches would indeed take a while to get certified so you’d be looking at 2030. But here’s a solution that could’ve maintained the current timeline: have the astronauts launch on Crew Dragon and dock in LEO. Starship should have enough fuel to make it back to LEO to restock with Dragon, because that’s the future plan for full reusability.
1
Often it’s the opposite with a NASA project, it goes massively over budget and way off schedule
1
Super Heavy being able to land or not doesn’t effect Artemis. All Artemis wants is a human certified lander.
1
Now the booster being caught by the tower is really the only way to do it unless you’re going to build massive legs for Super Heavy to land on like on the Falcon. That would only drive up cost and complexity of each unit, something Space X doesn’t want
1
@Xeroxiv it isn’t really. Artemis, atleast according to NASA’s website, is a stepping stone to Mars.
1