- cross-posted to:
- space@mander.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- space@mander.xyz
Last week, NASA announced that its Artemis II mission will be pushed to April at the earliest, due to issues with its helium tanks. Now, it’s broken the news that the Artemis III follow-up mission will totally cancel its original goal of landing astronauts on the Moon.
Instead, Artemis III—now scheduled to take place in 2027—will be another crewed flight without a landing phase, followed by Artemis IV, a crewed lander mission, hopefully in 2028.
I can’t believe NASA stuck with LH2 propellant. That shit can sneak out of anything, including metal tanks. Same reason your birthday ballon is inflated but on the floor after a few days, the helium scadoodled and left the O2 behind.
Oh sure, LH2 has more lifting power but SpaceX launches 10x as many ships with their methaLOX engines. Even Saturn V ran on LOX in the 60’s.
At what point is it a sunk cost and NASA builds a more reliable fuel system? These delays can’t be cheap or productive.