• mlg@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    6 hours ago

    You couldn’t pay me to attempt space travel in a Lockheed tincan.

    Would not be surprised at all if NASA delays this to next year.

  • insufferableninja@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    35
    ·
    9 hours ago

    There is 0 chance that they’ll be able to do “regular annual trips” without changing the architecture. Even if they could support the $4B+ launch cost of SLS + Orion every year, which they can’t, lockmart couldn’t produce enough Orion capsules, Boeing and their contractors couldn’t produce enough SLS cores, Northrop Grumman couldn’t produce enough SRBs and aerojet rocketdyne couldn’t produce RS-25 engines fast enough for even a 1/year launch cadence.

    • ryrybang@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      9 hours ago

      Asking Boeing to speed something up on SLS is equivalent to asking them to kill astronauts violently after giving them more money. Which would lead to a decade-long investigation and redesign, which would certainly slow down the launch schedule.

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    7 hours ago

    Cool, they’re reproducing something they did 60 years ago with primitive tech, at 1000x the price. Quite the accomplishment.

    • Telorand@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 hours ago

      I understand your cynicism, but these missions are ones for which the astronauts have trained for years. The fact that we go to space at all is one of the few things we do as a species that is a feat we can celebrate, and NASA is still in the business of science, rather than billionaire joyrides to space.

      The sheer amount of effort that has gone into space exploration and what we’ve learned each time is awe-inspiring, and it’s something we’ve collectively done, in spite of all the dumb politicking and arbitrary land boundaries.

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        2 hours ago

        I’m not celebrating the expensive indulgences of Billionaires, who are more interested in showing off with billion dollar expenditures than do ANYTHING to help their fellow citizens.

        Imagine if all these rich douchebags decided that instead sending more trash into space, they pledged the same money to end homelessness, end poverty, end hunger, and make everyone healthy?

        Once that’s accomplished, then go ahead, spend the rest on giant fireworks into space, and I’ll cheer. But to do that BEFORE saving everybody else is just self-indulgent, and gross.

        • Telorand@reddthat.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          17 minutes ago

          I’m not celebrating billionaire expenditures either. NASA does science, though, and is not a billionaire. The Artemis missions aren’t a billionaire’s idea. They are the product of scientific curiosity, and in this ultracapitalist hellscape, science and research still costs money.

          Now to be fair, the program cost $93bil…but over 13 years (plus an additional $4.3bil over four launches). By comparison, ICE got $85bil in just a year, and the US DoW budget (because it sure isn’t defense) is $175bil just for 2026; over 13 years, they’d be $1.1tril and $2.3tril, respectively. These missions are a drop in the bucket versus the kind of money they could be spending on science and social programs.

          Could you spend $93+4bil on social programs? Absolutely. But I vote cutting the budgets of actively harmful departments first, whose budgets are 10-20x that of these scientific ones.

          • village604@adultswim.fan
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            5 minutes ago

            I remember people freaking out about the cost of the Curiosity rover, but it cost less than Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

      • limer@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        3 hours ago

        While you are correct, NASA cannot send people to high earth orbit without endangering the astronauts. The crewed missions are dead in the water, but many do not realize this.

        This situation exists because while NASA has increasingly severe political issues; the organization still has enough integrity to scrub the missions each time they are close to launch.

        Other countries and private companies can later send astronauts safely. Nasa will require changes in American politics, that are not realistic, before they can get new ships and goals

  • edgemaster72@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    9 hours ago

    Can’t wait for all the fake AI generated versions of whatever video we get out of it, fueling a whole new generation of conspiracy theories

    /s

    • No1@aussie.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      6 hours ago

      “Bro, you can see the US/Russian/Chinese/Israeli/Nazi/alien* space bases on the other side!”

      • delete non-applicable conspiracies
    • GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      8 hours ago

      This is a fraction of the cost of healthcare and is absolutely not the reason universal healthcare in the US isn’t happening.

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        7 hours ago

        Every stupid thing is a fraction of the cost of health care, and we spend money on a LOT of stupid things. How about we stop doing all those stupid things, and use the money on health care instead?

        • GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          4 hours ago

          Learning more about the universe is one of the least stupid things we can do. The estimates for universal healthcare in the US range from $200 to $500 billion a year. Sure, we could reduce our research goals wherever (keeping in mind those may have an impact on healthcare, such as radiation and photography) or we could…not attack another country for no pressing reason (about $200 billion in a few weeks). But sure, let’s focus on the $25 billion a year spent on NASA. That will fix things.

          There are so many different fields of research that have led to advances in just medicine, that you would be hard pressed to find one that hasn’t benefited it. Optics, electricity, refrigeration, metallurgy, chemistry, nuclear science, on and on. How many years do you think germ theory would have been delayed if Galileo hadn’t advanced optics to the point where telescopes could show details on planets?

          • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            2 hours ago

            I’m all for science and space exploration, but things have gotten really bad for American citizens while Sociopathic Oligarchs all compete with each other in their little space competition that isn’t exploring anything, it’s just a dick measuring contest.

            And their objectives are going to destroy the sky for every future human who wants to just lay in the grass, and look up at the sky as they hold hands with someone they love. But Elon Musk wants to take that away because he needs more money.