NASA assigns crew for Artemis III, sets aggressive timeline for flying it
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I won't be holding my breath with that timeline. I'll try to make it to see in person all the same.
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Do you think there is any pressure from the WH to have the moon landing before DJT leaves office?
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That timeline seems ridiculously optimistic. They need a launch from a rocket that just blew up it's launch pad to rendezvous with a lunar lander that hasn't been built yet then another rendezvous with another rocket. Since the Starship doesn't need to have life support and just needs to be able to deorbit itself that seems like the most reasonable portion of things but even that hasn't been proven yet.
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A bit odd that they ended up with an all-male crew, but it probably guarantees a majority female crew for Artemis IV. Assuming Bob Hines gets a seat (as he’s the backup for III), we could get something like Anne McClain, Stephanie Wilson, Jasmine Moghbelli.
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i will be very pleasantly shocked if that actually happens. actually, i will be very pleasantly surprised if there's two women on that mission.
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While I'm sure it would cause Jeff Bezos endless heartburn, it's at least hypothetically possible to launch Blue Moon on Falcon Heavy to LEO. Not easy; for starters, you'd need to add LH2 fueling capability to one of SpaceX's launch facilities, but FH has the lift capacity. Not sure whether that would be faster/cheaper than waiting on the investigation and reconstruction of the New Glenn pad.
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How are crew decisions made? If it was a simple queue where everyone waits for their "turn", we would have already known the crew. Is it solely up to the choice of the NASA Astronaut Office?
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Well, I'm not going to disagree with the article or other commenters exactly in that yes, it's definitely at least a "everything goes right" timeline. Eric covers that well. But at the same time I'm not sure that's something to criticize either, or at least, it's worth trying culture-wise? Both SpaceX and NASA itself back in the Apollo era have supported that very very aggressive timelines, and the questions they raise, can be helpful in some cases. Even if you can't actually meet it because not everything goes well, I think it seems important to very seriously have leadership ask "how can we do this seriously faster? Does it really need to be that slow, can that really not be done in parallel or the timeline reordered in some way?" and so on and so forth. As long as leadership can also accept when the answer really is "Unfortunately it truly is impossible to any faster on that part" [0] if no one pushes then even things that could go quick may get stretched without really having the ROI to justify it. There's definitely a cultural difference in an organization when everyone is actively trying to find the limits vs "that's just the way it is". There are hard limits out there, but I'm sure NASA's pace has not been at them.
And sometimes as well one might find the limiting factor turns out not to be what was expected. We're only a couple of flights with SLS, long ways from being able to say they can be sure they won't find anything further or experience any accidents. Pushing hard to be ready on that front even if NG or SS aren't also means that if it turns out NG or SS do in fact arrive quicker then expected, or conversely if SLS 3 has an issue, or both, they've got some slack. In terms of attitude that seems like it'd be healthy for NASA to push a bit on.
So I'm going to choose to be optimistic that this will be at least somewhat positive for NASA whether the timeline is hit exactly or not. Just as building a lot of Starships and SHs that ended up never flying and getting scrapped hasn't been wasted effort for SpaceX, there is value just in doing stuff with the right leadership.
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0: (though even then that can still further be explored in terms of "ok it's impossible right now but is there something we could invest in so a few years from now we could optimize it?")
And sometimes as well one might find the limiting factor turns out not to be what was expected. We're only a couple of flights with SLS, long ways from being able to say they can be sure they won't find anything further or experience any accidents. Pushing hard to be ready on that front even if NG or SS aren't also means that if it turns out NG or SS do in fact arrive quicker then expected, or conversely if SLS 3 has an issue, or both, they've got some slack. In terms of attitude that seems like it'd be healthy for NASA to push a bit on.
So I'm going to choose to be optimistic that this will be at least somewhat positive for NASA whether the timeline is hit exactly or not. Just as building a lot of Starships and SHs that ended up never flying and getting scrapped hasn't been wasted effort for SpaceX, there is value just in doing stuff with the right leadership.
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0: (though even then that can still further be explored in terms of "ok it's impossible right now but is there something we could invest in so a few years from now we could optimize it?")
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I assume Andre Douglas was an auto-pick as he was the backup for II. ESA get to pick Luca. So that leaves 2 slots for NASA to fill. Bresnik gets the commander spot as he’s been doing paperwork stuff (like Wiseman was before Artemis II). So that just leaves the Frank Rubio choice, and he maybe got it after being stranded on the ISS for 6 months?
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The most interesting new info for me was:
1. The Starship for Artemis 3 will be a V3 “off the line”, with nothing but a docking adapter added. Orion will dock with it but there will be nothing to enter. In contrast, the crew will be able to enter the Blue Moon test article.
2. Confirmation that for Artemis 4, the new mission architecture is for the SpaceX HLS to dock with Orion in LEO, and push Orion to LLO. This necessitates fewer orbital refilling flights for HLS before the mission, and allows the crew to abort from the surface at any time, rather than every few days when the plan involved NRHO.
1. The Starship for Artemis 3 will be a V3 “off the line”, with nothing but a docking adapter added. Orion will dock with it but there will be nothing to enter. In contrast, the crew will be able to enter the Blue Moon test article.
2. Confirmation that for Artemis 4, the new mission architecture is for the SpaceX HLS to dock with Orion in LEO, and push Orion to LLO. This necessitates fewer orbital refilling flights for HLS before the mission, and allows the crew to abort from the surface at any time, rather than every few days when the plan involved NRHO.
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Do I think they will make that timeline, nope. But am I cheering that they do? yep.
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Too bad, even if there is no life support on Starship, that they won't go into it.
Suit up and play "spacewalk" inside Starship would be neat. Not like it is really needed for the mission, but if lunar excursion suits were ready, I'd think you could do some proxy low gravity testing that way. And playing nerf football in zero gravity in all THAT volume would be huge points for engagement and PR.
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Blue Origin put new meaning to the term 'Vaporware' as applied to their New Glenn rocket.
Aggressive to say the least since the latest BO rocket done blown up its launching pad and the latest SH demonstrated a fast approach profile to hitting the Gulf of Mexico....but hey, even rich folk can dream.
I really do hope they can pull this off. I would love to see something new in orbit for capsules to dock too and to see the proportion of Orion to SS?
Time will tell.
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Eric, I'd love to see your thoughts on the logic behind having Artemis 4 only send 2 astronauts down to the surface while 2 more stay on Orion. Surely there is a push to just send all 4 since the landers should be able to support that, so what are the drivers that have them still leaving 2 astronauts in the undesirable position of flying all the way to lunar orbit but then just having to watch while their crew mates walk on the surface?
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The timeline could be doable provided a preponderance of young people are on it. I hate to say it because I'm older now myself, but I've noticed that with age you can do a lot more in your head than you can get done in reality, probably due to reliance on youthful memories
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New Glenn has a much larger fairing than FH so I doubt Blue Moon would even fit in the FH fairing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_(spacecraft)#Mark_2
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Well that's bad news for the astronauts who are 58, 49, 40, and 50.
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“We are the unifying link between Artemis II and Artemis IV,” Bresnik said Tuesday...Demonstrating that he understands how counting works.
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Why is SpaceX not producing a crew-viable vehicle for Artemis III? What happened to the hardware-rich development philosophy?
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Funny, we just watched episode 3 of Star City last night, which was all about the Soviet’s extreme rush job to put a base on the moon before the Americans, which made me think of the way NASA is rushing Artemis.
I hope it goes well, but the need to rush things to this degree seems completely unnecessary. Is doing it first more important than doing it right?
I hope it goes well, but the need to rush things to this degree seems completely unnecessary. Is doing it first more important than doing it right?
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Success-oriented schedule, we call it.
I know it will never happen in practice, but using Starship to launch the BO lander would be funny.
I'll second the "if you dock with Starship, you should float in for visuals" comment. Live in 4K would be a very powerful PR move, for Artemis and for future space stations.
I know it will never happen in practice, but using Starship to launch the BO lander would be funny.
I'll second the "if you dock with Starship, you should float in for visuals" comment. Live in 4K would be a very powerful PR move, for Artemis and for future space stations.
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Because they are massively behind schedule for HLS. Until starship V3 is flying on a more regular at least once a month schedule they can’t determine what the final HLS structure will be.
They have not even tested the landing engines yet, of which there are 9 or 12 per HLS !.
SpaceX needs to seriously get flying, refuelling, catching etc etc
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So this is the Angry Alligator, only with twice the crew and a much bigger alligator?
In any case, I hope that the program proceeds safely.
In any case, I hope that the program proceeds safely.
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I don’t think there has been a single astronaut sent to orbit that is under 40 has there? 75% of astronauts that get selected never fly, it’s always ex military primarily get selected for flights like this. It’s only ISS mission specialists that are not military generally.
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You know what? I’ve been in the airline biz for over 30 years. In that time, despite the complete removal of barriers, the advocacy of female pilot organizations, plus progressive hiring practices at all levels, the percentage of females in airline cockpits is still below 10%. One can only assume that, for whatever reason, women just don’t have much interest in it. And I’ll bet you anything it’s probably the same numbers with astronaut applications. The fact that NASA has nearly 40-45% females in their lineup means they’re already trying super hard.
EDIT: downvote all you like, but the numbers don’t lie.
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Yeah, that struck me too. If all they're doing with the Starship is docking to what's essentially a boilerplate vehicle with no HLS systems, what exactly are they testing beyond the ability to rendezvous and dock? The Apollo equivalent was a full systems test of the lander, and the Starship test isn't even remotely like that. I'd be interested in more detail in what the Blue Moon test will involve.
I mean, any testing is better than no testing, but if they're going to the work of this intermediate mission, I'd like for it to accomplish more.
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Or one could look at the way orchestras went from having 5% women to having 25%, just by switching to blind auditions. Maybe it isn't that women don't want to be pilots or astronauts; maybe it is that the people who select the astronauts have biases against women.
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That is kind of important. After Gemini VIII tried to dock with the Agena Target Vehicle, it turned out that there were problems with the vehicle. These needed adjustments on later flights.
So testing Starship's systems with a vehicle docked before they let the crew transfer over is just being safe.
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If Trump has any say there will be neither woman nor people of color on the first moon landing.
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I'm reminded of the rushing to get things done with Apollo about 50 years ago. Barely three years left, and no one had gotten a Saturn V and command module off the pad. They were under immense pressure to deliver, and pushed when they shouldn't have.
Chappe, Grissom and White lost their lives in one of the most horrifying ways when they pushed too fast. Grissom had complained that they were bending rules to the breaking point before then.
NASA comes across as a very professional organization, with safety of the astronauts foremost in mind. The truth is the MISSION comes first, THEN the astronauts. QC has always been a problem, and remains so today. This is why the saying, "Rocketry is HARD" is so true. It is. There's absolutely nothing routine about it. Everything going up is essentially a bespoke system.
So, having seen all that and witnessed it live (or as live as the American audience got it back in 1967, buried in anti-soviet, rah-rah-USA national pride), I'm seeing virtually the same influences driving Artemis, save anti-China, instead of anti-soviet, sentiments, with BOTH political and racist undertones driving it forward (especially with this administration).
So, given all that history, my enthusiasm is thoroughly curbed. I just hope for the best, while bracing for the worst.
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The average age of all the moonwalkers was 38, and they were flying to LEO on Gemini for years before their Apollo missions.
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They are supposed to be doing an end to end landing demo prior to Artemis IV, which should test every feature of the mission except rendezvous and docking and the life support. I think the ideal thing would be to be able to launch that into orbit, rendezvous with Orion to test those two things, and then continue on to the rest of the mission. But that would require that landing demo mission to be ready by Artemis III or for them to build a whole new high fidelity prototype prior to the landing demo for A3. Just doing a docking demonstration and getting rid of the heartburn of docking Orion to the behemoth that is starship does buy down some risk. SpaceX is probably confident in their life support abilities. I would personally bet on blue being late enough that this whole thing drags and the plan ends up changing regardless, this plan seems like it was decided before New Glenn went boom.
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The Mk1, the cargo lander, has a 3 m diameter so it should fit in the FH fairing. There has been talk about launching that on FH while Blue gets their launch pad repaired. The Human lander, Mk2, is significantly wider and heavier so it couldn't be launched on FH.
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Tereshkova was 25, Titov was 26.
For Americans, Sally Ride was 32 on her first flight. Gordon Cooper was 36. Pete Conrad was 35. Neil Armstrong was 36. Jim McDivitt was 36. Tom Stafford was 35. Ed White was 35. John Young was 35.
More recently, Kate Rubins was 38. Reid Wiseman was 39. Anne McClain was 39. Kayla Barron was 34. Zena Cardman was 37. Woody Hoburg was 38.
Looking at the recent astronaut groups, everyone from the 2004, 2009 and 2013 groups have flown to space. The 2017 group had one dropout, and the 2 Canadians have yet to fly.
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Being an older guy myself, I must concede that my reaction times ,fast thinking and learning capabilities are not what they used to be. And that is something I observe throughout my age group. Personally I think, send whoever you like up to the ISS. But for this critical development flights, only astronauts under 40 should participate (o.k., one single experienced crew member up to 50 I can understand)
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