New Technologies

[Grok]

There was a new report on television that described the Artemis II mission. The plan is for astronauts to make a loop around the moon and return to Earth. As I recall Apollo 13 had made a similar loop around the moon.

It was mentioned in the report that China may land astronauts on the moon by 2030.

[phathack]

While Apollo 13 had an accident and made an unplanned loop around the moon Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first to make and orbit of the moon.

[crfriend]

While Apollo 13 had an accident and made an unplanned loop around the moon Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first to make and orbit of the moon.

Quite a while before Apollo 13 as well. Recall, too, that Apollo 11 executed the first landing on the moon, and that involved orbital manoeuvres as well. And 12 and 14 through 17 when we gave up and threw it all away.

This IS. NOT. NEW. It's all been done before.

[Uncle Al]

IMHO, what's "new" is the fact we're heading back to the moon, now using improved materials and techniques.
I look forward to humanity having a 'Moon Base', even though I won't live long enough to see it.

I still, firmly, believe we need at least one space station in a geosynchronous orbit, allowing for
a semi-fixed starting point in space. A "baby-step" so to speak, with functioning artificial gravity,
allowing greater scientific achievements.

Thus helping to prove that humanity can(and will) go to the stars

I'll go back under my rock now

Uncle Al

[crfriend]

IMHO, what's "new" is the fact we're heading back to the moon, now using improved materials and techniques.
I look forward to humanity having a 'Moon Base', even though I won't live long enough to see it.

"The more complex they make the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain." -- Montgomery Scott [0] in one of the Star Trek movies.

The odds are that none of us will see such a day as we're on a collision-course with Oblivion if things don't quiet down and sane minds prevail on the world stage,

As of 2025, the "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" had their "Doomsday Clock" set to 89 seconds. Things have gotten measurably worse since then (and get worse by the hour) and show no signs of abating. At the moment, I do not expect to see my 66th birthday -- and, given how bad things are now, I'm quite OK with that.

On Artemis, it's -- as NASA put it succinctly a while ago -- "Apollo on steroids". There is nothing new in this save for more complex plumbing, fatter payloads, and the reuse of solid boosters. At least this time they're putting the "people pod" on the top of the stack instead of in the middle, yielding at least a hope for a safe abort to get away from an explosion or insulation-shedding.

This mission isn't going to do anything but prove that the technology can work once. We already had problems with the original unmanned flight of the thing, and we know that Boeing's "Starliner" isn't worth the ink on the drawings of it -- and was unfit to return humans from low-Earth orbit.

Low-Earth orbit: Now contemplate this:

I still, firmly, believe we need at least one space station in a geosynchronous orbit, allowing for
a semi-fixed starting point in space. A "baby-step" so to speak, with functioning artificial gravity,
allowing greater scientific achievements.

Getting that much mass into geosynchronous Earth orbit is virtually impossible at the moment. We do not have the propulsion systems to achieve the task; launching even the core of a MIR-style station into that orbit is beyond any platform in existence, and with a world on the cusp of a catastrophic social and economic failure is not likely to come about "any time soon". Even if we don't blow ourselves away in a hissy-fit tantrum, there's still physics in the way.

We did beat a physics problem with Apollo and the Saturn V -- by brute force. Studying the engineering drawings for the Saturn V (and the Apollo CSM as well) is "instructive" as to what can get done simply (recall that we wanted to make the thing reliable enough to put men atop it). Simplicity can be a very good thing.

Thus helping to prove that humanity can(and will) go to the stars

Why? We can't even take care of the rock we live on now. Why should we "go to the stars"?

Also, recall the real reason for Apollo. Once that lesson from history sank in I've been disgusted since. We did it for all the wrong reasons.


[0] Fictional character

[Uncle Al]

Low-Earth orbit: Now contemplate this:

I still, firmly, believe we need at least one space station in a geosynchronous orbit, allowing for
a semi-fixed starting point in space. A "baby-step" so to speak, with functioning artificial gravity,
allowing greater scientific achievements.

Getting that much mass into geosynchronous Earth orbit is virtually impossible at the moment. We do not have the propulsion systems to achieve the task; launching even the core of a MIR-style station into that orbit is beyond any platform in existence,<snip>

You're thinking inside a box. A complete station could not be launched into orbit. It would require building
the station IN ORBIT. Many launches would be required to get "the parts" into orbit to construct the station.
Some of the parts would initially be used in housing the construction workers. It can be done once people
understand the concepts and have worked out the logistics for the station construction.

Space Station 2026-01-17.jpg

(Image taken from Google search for Donut Space Station)

Again, it would take 'baby steps' to assemble, and complete, a geosynchronous orbiting space station.
Is humanity willing to take those steps

Uncle Al

[Grok]

Is that the Stanford Torus?

[Grok]

The odds are that none of us will see such a day as we're on a collision-course with Oblivion if things don't quiet down and sane minds prevail on the world stage,

As of 2025, the "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists" had their "Doomsday Clock" set to 89 seconds. Things have gotten measurably worse since then (and get worse by the hour) and show no signs of abating. At the moment, I do not expect to see my 66th birthday -- and, given how bad things are now, I'm quite OK with that.

The present has a disturbing resemblance to the years leading up to World War II.

[Grok]

Exploring the solar system by sail boat.

[crfriend]

You're thinking inside a box. A complete station could not be launched into orbit. It would require building the station IN ORBIT. Many launches would be required to get "the parts" into orbit to construct the station.

Actually, for this, I'm using the conventional thinking the Soviets were using when they launched and built Mir {from the pieces) in orbit and that the US subsequently copied from the Soviets (and then the Russians) to launch and build the ISS (technically, MIR-II) in orbit. Not out of the box at all.

Of course the thing would have to be built in orbit -- and geosynchronous orbit is a long way out, with the largest (most massive) non-classified, satellites being I think the new generation of GOES weather satellites weighing in at about 11,500 pounds (on Earth) at launch.

Again, just like Apollo there's nothing that isn't understood about the physics problems, it's licking the technology to solve those physics problems. Note that the approach used in Apollo was very far from new -- it was originated by the Ukranian Yuri Kondratuk in 1919 as the least energy-intensive method to getting the job done. And it took the German, Wernher von Braun until into the 1960s to design the Saturn V (riffing on an idea by the American Robert Goddard). And a heck of a lot of ingenuity and hard work by the folks at North American Aviation who worked up the CSM combination and the folks at Gumman who created (from scratch, mind) the mankind's first true spaceship.

Too, in the 1950s it wasn't understood if Earth-based life could survive and function in the very odd environment of space -- that had to be proved empirically by dogs, monkeys, and finally humans (can't say "men" any longer because it's sexist and politically incorrect).

As with current affairs, reading and understanding history is very often informative. That's why it's written down -- so that we may learn from the mistakes of our forefathers -- not to aggrandise tin-horns, tyrants, or toddlers. We ignore history at our peril.

[crfriend]

The present has a disturbing resemblance to the years leading up to World War II.

I was making comments like that years ago, Nothing new.

Exploring the solar system by sail boat.

This, too, is old news and a prototype has already been tested in orbit. It -- as predicted -- was successful, but not really viable due to technology constraints (mainly materials-science because of the enormous sizes required).

Doesn't anybody read any more?

Read, Observe, Interpret, Understand, Vote. Just be careful of your feed data -- much today is corrupt or worse (by design).

[Myopic Bookworm]

Naive question: why is a geosynchronous orbit of any importance? It seems of no particular relevance to lunar travel, and it's not a "fixed" point relative to anything in space. Would a Lagrange point be of benefit? Though that would be a long way out.

[crfriend]

Naive question: why is a geosynchronous orbit of any importance? It seems of no particular relevance to lunar travel, and it's not a "fixed" point relative to anything in space. Would a Lagrange point be of benefit? Though that would be a long way out.

Not a naive question in the slightest, but one that shows honest curiosity and some understanding.

A geo-sync orbit is of little use in lunar expedition and really the only benefit to the place is a fixed position above a certain spot on Earth which allows for routine and constant weather reconnaissance, communications satellites (now largely obsolete thanks to undersea fibre-optics cables), television broadcasts (mainly porn, home-shopping, pay-per-view, sports betting, &c.), and a convenient weapons platform (highly classified if in place or planned).

A Lagrange point could be better, but vastly more expensive to reach. Thus, it's easier to do the first phases in low-Earth orbit (LEO) and cheaper in terms of energy requirements. LEO also offers a quick abort method in case something goes wrong (always a possibility in any complex endeavour). The combination of the above means that LEO wins if we can't get the mass required off our rock in one launch. (This is why LOR "won" during the design phase for the Apollo missions -- we could throw enough mass into a lunar trajectory with one launch.)