​

 

https://mfame.guru/worlds-most-pointless-rocket-finally-launched/

Another view.

 

It is my understanding that there's the intention of building a base on the moon within the next decade.

If that's the case, the Artemis program is far from being pointless.

 

I suspect Elon Musk is going to get even more wealthy from this effort. I am definitely a space buff, whatever works is fine by me.

 

NASA’s Orion capsule captures gorgeous close-up pictures of the moon

​

 

An unexpected glitch:

NASA loses contact with Artemis 1's Orion spacecraft for 47 minutes​

 

An unexpected glitch:

NASA loses contact with Artemis 1's Orion spacecraft for 47 minutes​

 

“I blew your doors off”

 

https://arstechnica.com/science/202...d-the-moon-returns-an-instantly-iconic-photo/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/with/52531904737/

 

While I do not know, I believe these SRB's are reusable. I wonder how much of the rest of the spacecraft is reusable.

None.
It's all one way .
Just like the old Apollo days.
Cheaper to bin than to repair after each mission !

 

 

 

 

Amazing how film captures the moment.

 

 

Did you notice there was no video from inside the crew capsule?

I mean, wth?

 

Did you notice there was no video from inside the crew capsule?

I mean, wth?

Maybe NASA is not selling a product and is instead, doing actual science.

 

Maybe NASA is not selling a product and is instead, doing actual science.

I want entertainment for my tax dollars.

 

I want entertainment for my tax dollars.

Join the military, loads of entertaining places, people and things to see and destroy.

 

It's pretty much the full-up Orion capsule. In fact, the delays that Artemis I has undergone have pushed back Artemis II specifically because of the need to reuse items from the Orion module (but apparently not the capsule body itself -- I don't know if that is set to be refurbished and reused or not.

The four engines on the core module are reusable -- they ARE the engines from the Space Shuttle, one of which was flown twelve time -- except that the entire core is being dumped into the ocean, so bye-bye.

The booster segments and nose cones are also from the Shuttle program and you would think recovering and reusing them would be almost automatic, but I haven't been able to find anything that even hints they were going to be recovered (and I did find numerous sites that said that it was a single-shot rocket except for the Orion capsule).

I've read a few things that say that the physics strongly favors single-use rockets for either very heavy lift or very high orbit (and Artemis is, of course, both). I haven't tried to evaluate the basis for the claims.

On a different note, I tend to sigh a bit every time I hear the "most powerful rocket ever" claim (sometimes with the "successfully flown" caveat). While true for the total thrust (8.8 Mlb) of the two SRBs (at about 3.6 Mlb of thrust each) and the four SR-25 Shuttle engines (512 klb) each (yes, that adds up to 9.25 Mlb, but the main engines are not at full power at launch on the current configuration), it is a sleight at the mighty F-1 engines on the Saturn V, which produced 1.5 Mlb of thrust each -- or about three times the thrust of the SR-25 engines. I wonder if they considered making an enhanced F-1 engine to get enough additional thrust so that the core could have had just a single engine. I'm guessing they did consider it and rejected it -- but possibly only because they have a stock of SR-25 engines left over from the Shuttle program. It's also conceivable that the total cost for four of the smaller engines is less than one of the larger engine -- they are operating in a regime where economies of scale don't necessarily win out.

great analysis there