Hey, we're going back to the moon again

[swill453]

Just a bump-reminder that the Artemis launch is scheduled for around 12.30pm UK time today.

13.33 BST actually...

Scott.

[Itsallaguess]

13.33 BST actually...

Thanks for the correction, and apologies for any confusion.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[mc2fool]

Rolling reports (and NASA Live video) from the Beeb at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/science-environment-62681827. Launch currently on hold.

"More drama as the countdown clock for the launch has been put on hold, stopping at 40 minutes.

Nasa says it is being held for 10 minutes while the hydrogen team brief the flight director.

Engineers are unable to get an even engine temperature across all four engines, the BBC understands.

Work is being done to try and resolve the issue and the engineers have asked the launch director for more time. "

[ReformedCharacter]

Anything involving Boeing seems destined to be problemmatic. They still haven't managed to get astronauts to the ISS, their second unmanned attempt wasn't as bad as the first but still had sufficient failures to cause concerns for NASA. Perhaps third time lucky.

RC

[pje16]

Now it might be on Friday, but that's by no means certain
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62715616

[Itsallaguess]

The next launch attempt is now currently set for this coming Saturday 3rd September, at 7.17pm UK time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62733267

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[NotSure]

Can be watched live here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3iGlIdRHBg&ab_channel=NASASpaceflight

Window is 19:17 to 21:17 BST, with 60% chance of favourable weather at the start rising to 80% by the end.

Paywall-free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/science/nasa-artemis-moon-launch-saturday.html?unlocked_article_code=aHkOoHdp0xskcISKIAWTmmp0MEw-hWN5Qo6ebBJzurRcB6GauSrnNH2029_tWAAdr9qk5jEVcAKiTMSlOZFsEXFmitPcmt2_AMNt3AGRUOx1LEwlmcN0vfHM3hxIXc1G7aCoyd1wjkSSikPi_vfqo4UxtNjqZdVF523lYom1kxsvi9OByIcNin4WYf9WNwU7yi0HSlKzv_uU23y2zTlb7C345d6N7x-KW4ROk83kcTa7LwSTRbGF-uNpErFbvnC_G6XIhJFgSSEGIyD7f_nlCiwjYCk1koScKST8qO3iR4cMtYVCauTKs3h99PQUpPK7LhF3au0-zNciFo8ELH8XbFcDMaBZbZiIYwasgA&smid=share-url

[Itsallaguess]

Launch cancelled again due to a hydrogen leak -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62758482

NASA are now looking for a new launch opportunity for Monday or Tuesday of next week.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[ReformedCharacter]

Launch cancelled again due to a hydrogen leak -

Itsallaguess

Probably both scrubs have been caused by old equipment, both ground support and on the launch vehicle. One of the main engines first flew in the last century! Some of the booster segments have been up and down a few times on the Shuttle. It's all a bit of a lash-up, albeit a very expensive one IMO. Maybe 3rd time lucky

RC

[pje16]

If it had been a manned flight, how would the crew be feeling now?

[ReformedCharacter]

If it had been a manned flight, how would the crew be feeling now?

Probably better than the Shuttle crews who had to endure many aborted launches. Apparently the strapped-in positions were very uncomfortable. Mike Mullane described in graphic detail the need to urinate and wondering whether the urine collection device (which consisted of a condom and a tube) would remain in place. Not sure what what the women had to endure, probably an absorbent pad. By all accounts waiting for launch was not very pleasant.

RC

[ursaminortaur]

If it had been a manned flight, how would the crew be feeling now?

Probably better than the Shuttle crews who had to endure many aborted launches. Apparently the strapped-in positions were very uncomfortable. Mike Mullane described in graphic detail the need to urinate and wondering whether the urine collection device (which consisted of a condom and a tube) would remain in place. Not sure what what the women had to endure, probably an absorbent pad. By all accounts waiting for launch was not very pleasant.

RC

Apparently although the men did use the condom solution for a while both men and women now use MAGs which are basically absorbent diapers.


https://www.upworthy.com/how-women-use-bathroom-in-space

Finally, a decade later, NASA decides to send women into space. NOW they have a reason to come up with how to handle peeing in space if you don't have a penis.

To launch and for a spacewalk, they developed the MAG

Maximum Absorbency Garment.

It's a diaper.

The men switched over to using those because it was more comfortable and less prone to leave pee floating around the cabin than the condom sheath.

[servodude]

If it had been a manned flight, how would the crew be feeling now?

Probably better than the Shuttle crews who had to endure many aborted launches. Apparently the strapped-in positions were very uncomfortable. Mike Mullane described in graphic detail the need to urinate and wondering whether the urine collection device (which consisted of a condom and a tube) would remain in place. Not sure what what the women had to endure, probably an absorbent pad. By all accounts waiting for launch was not very pleasant.

RC

Apparently although the men did use the condom solution for a while both men and women now use MAGs which are basically absorbent diapers.


https://www.upworthy.com/how-women-use-bathroom-in-space

Finally, a decade later, NASA decides to send women into space. NOW they have a reason to come up with how to handle peeing in space if you don't have a penis.

To launch and for a spacewalk, they developed the MAG

Maximum Absorbency Garment.

It's a diaper.

The men switched over to using those because it was more comfortable and less prone to leave pee floating around the cabin than the condom sheath.

From "The Intergalactic Laxative" by Donovan

In awe with admiration,
We listened to the talk.
Such pride felt they,
Such joy to be
Upon the moon to walk.
My romantic vision shattered,
When it was explained to me,
Spacemen wear old diapers
In which they [expletive deleted] and pee.

[ReformedCharacter]

'Hey, we're going back to the moon again' - but not yet:

The launch of Nasa's new Artemis I Moon rocket is facing a potentially lengthy delay after a second postponement. Controllers tried and failed again on Saturday to get the Space Launch System (SLS) vehicle to lift off. They were thwarted by a fuel leak.

Engineers now want to inspect the rocket, and any repairs may need to happen in the workshop rather than on the launch pad. The whole process is certain to lead to a setback of several weeks. It means we may not see a third launch attempt before mid-October at the earliest.

I think NASA should feel embarrassed if it gets scrubbed again, unless it's scrubbed because it's raining The pre-launch testing wasn't very encouraging, with one of the 4 engines failing to run properly on the test stand on the first attempt.

Before the main engines were developed in the early '70s Congress obliged the developers (eventually Rocketdyne) to develop highly complex re-useable engines to push the state of the art of rocket technology. This turned out to be an expensive mistake. It took Rocketdyne 3 years to develop a method just to produce a reliable 10 second engine start sequence that would avoid blowing them to pieces. Schematic:



Copyright: NASA.

RC

[odysseus2000]

Nasa politics that has landed them with various bits of last century hardware and technology including as I understand it, strap on solid fuel boosters, must be an ugly mix of ego, budgets and challenged people.

When I worked as a Nasa contractor at Marshall there were some characters there, not all of them the sort of folk who one imagines would be employed and influential in getting this exciting adventure to work.

Many of the older folk who knew the Von Braun era and how he motivated the work force at Marshall were adamant that with the people and attitudes there during my time they could not have got to the moon. The more this unhappy saga goes nowhere the more these seem like shrewd observations. Unfortunately this unhappy mix also extends to a lot of the support universities and I used to marvel at how challenged many of the folk were. I can recall meetings that were high on someones ego and power, but with massive ignorance of science and technology. One senior guy was adamant that dark matter didn't exist and that his group had found 8Be, an isotope that does not exist.

Still one can't underestimate the US, they will in the by and by likely find ways to promote folk who can get the job done and support them well.

Regards,

[ursaminortaur]

Nasa politics that has landed them with various bits of last century hardware and technology including as I understand it, strap on solid fuel boosters, must be an ugly mix of ego, budgets and challenged people.

When I worked as a Nasa contractor at Marshall there were some characters there, not all of them the sort of folk who one imagines would be employed and influential in getting this exciting adventure to work.

Many of the older folk who knew the Von Braun era and how he motivated the work force at Marshall were adamant that with the people and attitudes there during my time they could not have got to the moon. The more this unhappy saga goes nowhere the more these seem like shrewd observations. Unfortunately this unhappy mix also extends to a lot of the support universities and I used to marvel at how challenged many of the folk were. I can recall meetings that were high on someones ego and power, but with massive ignorance of science and technology. One senior guy was adamant that dark matter didn't exist and that his group had found 8Be, an isotope that does not exist.

Still one can't underestimate the US, they will in the by and by likely find ways to promote folk who can get the job done and support them well.

Regards,

The isotope Beryllium-8 was discovered in 1932 but has such a short half-life that it decays almost immediately.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium-8

Beryllium-8 (8Be, Be-8) is a radionuclide with 4 neutrons and 4 protons. It is an unbound resonance and nominally an isotope of beryllium. It decays into two alpha particles with a half-life on the order of 8.19×10−17 seconds. This has important ramifications in stellar nucleosynthesis as it creates a bottleneck in the creation of heavier chemical elements. The properties of 8Be have also led to speculation on the fine tuning of the Universe, and theoretical investigations on cosmological evolution had 8Be been stable.
.
.
.
The discovery of beryllium-8 occurred shortly after the construction of the first particle accelerator in 1932. British physicists John Douglas Cockcroft and Ernest Walton performed their first experiment with their accelerator at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, in which they irradiated lithium-7 with protons. They reported that this populated a nucleus with A = 8 that near-instantaneously decays into two alpha particles. This activity was observed again several months later, and was inferred to originate from 8Be.

Despite its short half-life its presence in the core of stars is essential to the production of Carbon and hence heavier elements.

[odysseus2000]

ursaminotaur
The isotope Beryllium-8 was discovered in 1932 but has such a short half-life that it decays almost immediately.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium-8

Beryllium-8 (8Be, Be-8) is a radionuclide with 4 neutrons and 4 protons. It is an unbound resonance and nominally an isotope of beryllium. It decays into two alpha particles with a half-life on the order of 8.19×10−17 seconds. This has important ramifications in stellar nucleosynthesis as it creates a bottleneck in the creation of heavier chemical elements. The properties of 8Be have also led to speculation on the fine tuning of the Universe, and theoretical investigations on cosmological evolution had 8Be been stable.
.
.
.
The discovery of beryllium-8 occurred shortly after the construction of the first particle accelerator in 1932. British physicists John Douglas Cockcroft and Ernest Walton performed their first experiment with their accelerator at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, in which they irradiated lithium-7 with protons. They reported that this populated a nucleus with A = 8 that near-instantaneously decays into two alpha particles. This activity was observed again several months later, and was inferred to originate from 8Be.

Despite its short half-life its presence in the core of stars is essential to the production of Carbon and hence heavier elements.

Yes, but in the case I referred to the guy believed he had found 8Be on a log duration exposure in low earth orbit. For his observation to be correct 8Be would have to have a half life very much longer than the time to collect and process the sample. For all practical purposes on standard laboratory time scales, 8Be does not exist whereas 9Be is a common isotope which since he didn't have any ability to determine isotopes, only elements, is what he, more correctly one of his researchers, would have measured but since he didn't know much nuclear physics he assumed that Beryllium meant 8Be.

The existence and role of 8Be in stars and in some clusters found in nucleus is not the same as saying the element exists. It is more generally thought of as a resonance with a half life of 8x10**-17 seconds, see e.g.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium-8

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

8 min16 son the reasons for the sls design:
https://youtu.be/Z7zFh6qHDfc

Regards,

[ReformedCharacter]

NASA said Monday it is now targeting Wednesday, Sept. 21, for a critical fueling test on the Space Launch System moon rocket, which could allow for another attempt to launch the unpiloted Artemis 1 lunar test flight as soon as Sept. 27, assuming engineers find no problems and the Space Force approves an extension for the rocket’s range safety system. The updated schedule is a four-day delay for the SLS tanking test and next launch opportunity.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/09/12/nasa-delays-sls-tanking-test-next-launch-opportunity/

RC

[odysseus2000]

NASA said Monday it is now targeting Wednesday, Sept. 21, for a critical fueling test on the Space Launch System moon rocket, which could allow for another attempt to launch the unpiloted Artemis 1 lunar test flight as soon as Sept. 27, assuming engineers find no problems and the Space Force approves an extension for the rocket’s range safety system. The updated schedule is a four-day delay for the SLS tanking test and next launch opportunity.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/09/12/nasa-delays-sls-tanking-test-next-launch-opportunity/

RC

Interesting how Space Force are now getting the say on what can and can not happen regarding rocket launch systems. The potential for bureaucratic delays and in fighting is an ugly aspect to the rise of Space Force. I imagine Nasa do not view the potential interference of SF in what they want to do as a positive. But perhaps I am wrong. Are their reasons to believe that SF are a positive for NASA such as a second organisation to lobby the politicians for more funding etc.

Regards,