My daughter, watching it from an airport, was fascinated. The last NASA mission to the moon was about ten years before her birth.
Sigh of relief given
I caught most of it. Very cool use of parachutes. I love how slowly the main chutes opened before they were fully open.
A friend, now rather old, has been a master skydiver since his Army service. He was telling me how bad the jolt is when deploying a reserve chute or an old fashioned basic round chute. Their fancy square main chutes deploy more gently.
In the case of Artemis and Orion, I imagine the reasons are different. Slow opening commensurate with the loss of speed, most likely.
I’m pleased NASA finally got something done, but SpaceX is lightyears ahead of NASA in the spaceship realm.
Already? That seemed a quick journey.
Welcome back to the crew. Well done!
Kudos to the physicists, mathematicians, engineers, mechanics, computer techs, and many more who planned the mission, built the equipment, and executed a very difficult m mission while making it look rather easy.
And yes, Musk is probably thinking he could do it better and chaeper. And that’s what makes the USA a great place.
”Success!”
Awesome!
”I’m pleased NASA finally got something done, but SpaceX is lightyears ahead of NASA in the spaceship realm.”
SpaceX cannot perform any phase of this flight. Not the launch. Not the mission. Not the re-entry and splashdown.
Time will tell.
@ Tommy Jay: ” I love how slowly the main chutes opened before they were fully open.”
Those 2 to 4 seconds were when I was holding my breath, thinking they just might not deploy as expected.
What I still don’t understand is why they were entering the atmosphere at 24000 mph, apparently after adding propulsion to (presumably) guide their actual path of decent. I would have thought they would try to enter as slowly as gravity would let them, in part to reduce the heat shield requirements, although still fast enough to minimize weather/wind factors and to keep the target landing area to a manageable range??
The last Space Shuttle mission was slightly less than 15 years ago. There are freshman in HS that weren’t alive when the Shuttle flew, and ones in College with no working recollection of the Space Shuttle missions when they occurred. I’m glad NASA got this mission done safely, but it is a reminder that government programs are inefficient.
R2L – I’d say they don’t slow down because they don’t have to. A well designed heat shield will do the trick nicely. The heat shields on the crafts in the 70’s were over-engineered and could take something like three times the heat they were actually exposed to. Among the first changes they made from what they learned then was that lighter heat shields would be better – weight matters a lot in these missions. Slowing down would require more propellant, and once again, more weight, and yet more moving parts that could fail.
What I still don’t understand is why they were entering the atmosphere at 24000 mph, apparently after adding propulsion
Lack of propulsion is precisely the problem. They had just enough to setup the free return trajectory on flight day 2. After that, they could make minor course corrections and that’s it. There landing was set after that burn to go to around the moon. No propulsion to orbit the moon (as Apollo 8 did) or slow entry speed.
Why not? Because the capsule is far heavier than planned. The trans lunar stage is an old design and the primary booster has just enough thrust to get the capsule and trans lunar stage to a transfer orbit. They’ll need another vehicle to orbit the moon and land.
BTW, the parachute recovery design was worked out before the shuttle program ended. That’s how old that design is, which was essentially based on the Apollo design.
Yes, the capsule is essentially dropping or free falling into earth’s gravity from a long distance away and picking up tremendous speed. While the atmosphere is much thinner at very high altitudes, and this helps to brake the craft’s speed more gently over some time, they also reenter at a steep angle which stretches out that braking time even longer. So less g-forces and less severe heating of the heat shield.
Even then, the capsule is still moving quite fast as it gets close to splash down. Opening a big chute quickly would likely destroy the chute. They start with small chutes designed for high speed, then the main chutes open slowly and the capsule is losing speed rapidly during that process.
Weren’t we doing pretty much the exact same thing on Christmas eve, 58 years ago?
Go NASA.
Why did the U.S. Space Program end so abruptly?
I has always been puzzling to me why the U.S. terminated it’s exploration of the Moon and it’s program of Moon landings, why it didn’t capitalize on the momentum and progress already made to go on to establish bases, permanent habitations, and research facilities on the Moon, with an aim of using these facilities and the experience gained to serve as a springboard for exploring and actually settling the Moon, Mars and, then, the rest of the Solar System.
We had the training program and a cadre of trained astronauts, we had the tested and capable rockets, we had already created all of the supporting infrastructure necessary to move forward, and to expand our efforts.
Yet, abruptly—50 years ago, after Apollo 17, in December 1972–it was all just shut down.
Why?
The official reasons given by NASA were that both funding and public enthusiasm had dried up.
Astronaut Charles Duke, now in his 80’s, is now speaking out, and saying that he thinks the real reason for this abrupt termination was because of the evidence of extraterrestrial life he and his fellow astronaut, Commander John W. Young, both found and saw on the Moon’s Descartes Highlands, reported on their communication system to NASA (Duke says that after they reported finding the wall to their NASA controllers there was 30 seconds of silence and, then, no comment, or instruction to explore the site but, instead, they were just told to move on to their next scheduled task), and took numerous pictures of; transcripts which show nothing of their report to NASA, and pictures which have just disappeared.
(And I’ve read that Duke is apparently not the only aging astronaut who has recently decided to speak out, and to reveal that they, too, have seen anomalous things on the Moon.)
Duke believes that NASA just did not want to go forward, and have to delve into and explain what the apparently ancient, wall—described as constructed of discrete, individual blocks and pocked by micro meteor strikes–he and his fellow astronaut saw and took numerous photographs of on his Apollo 16 mission meant. *
P.S. Linked below is a report about how some independent researchers used GROK AI to make a very detailed and meticulous examination of all of the 35,000 officially released NASA photographs taken on the Moon, finding over 800 anomalous items in these photos which they say need to be investigated.
They also noted the curious fact that NASA very carefully set up the astronaut’s meticulously planned routes so that they avoided detailed examinations in the areas containing the highest concentration of anomalies. *
Of interest is also the fact that, over the decades, there have been several former NASA employees who have come forward, and said that NASA routinely airbrushes out anything anomalous in the images it takes, or just doesn’t include these particular images in their official image sets.
My daughter, watching it from an airport, was fascinated. The last NASA mission to the moon was about ten years before her birth.
Sigh of relief given
I caught most of it. Very cool use of parachutes. I love how slowly the main chutes opened before they were fully open.
A friend, now rather old, has been a master skydiver since his Army service. He was telling me how bad the jolt is when deploying a reserve chute or an old fashioned basic round chute. Their fancy square main chutes deploy more gently.
In the case of Artemis and Orion, I imagine the reasons are different. Slow opening commensurate with the loss of speed, most likely.
I’m pleased NASA finally got something done, but SpaceX is lightyears ahead of NASA in the spaceship realm.
Already? That seemed a quick journey.
Welcome back to the crew. Well done!
Kudos to the physicists, mathematicians, engineers, mechanics, computer techs, and many more who planned the mission, built the equipment, and executed a very difficult m mission while making it look rather easy.
And yes, Musk is probably thinking he could do it better and chaeper. And that’s what makes the USA a great place.
”Success!”
Awesome!
”I’m pleased NASA finally got something done, but SpaceX is lightyears ahead of NASA in the spaceship realm.”
SpaceX cannot perform any phase of this flight. Not the launch. Not the mission. Not the re-entry and splashdown.
Time will tell.
@ Tommy Jay: ” I love how slowly the main chutes opened before they were fully open.”
Those 2 to 4 seconds were when I was holding my breath, thinking they just might not deploy as expected.
What I still don’t understand is why they were entering the atmosphere at 24000 mph, apparently after adding propulsion to (presumably) guide their actual path of decent. I would have thought they would try to enter as slowly as gravity would let them, in part to reduce the heat shield requirements, although still fast enough to minimize weather/wind factors and to keep the target landing area to a manageable range??
The last Space Shuttle mission was slightly less than 15 years ago. There are freshman in HS that weren’t alive when the Shuttle flew, and ones in College with no working recollection of the Space Shuttle missions when they occurred. I’m glad NASA got this mission done safely, but it is a reminder that government programs are inefficient.
R2L – I’d say they don’t slow down because they don’t have to. A well designed heat shield will do the trick nicely. The heat shields on the crafts in the 70’s were over-engineered and could take something like three times the heat they were actually exposed to. Among the first changes they made from what they learned then was that lighter heat shields would be better – weight matters a lot in these missions. Slowing down would require more propellant, and once again, more weight, and yet more moving parts that could fail.
What I still don’t understand is why they were entering the atmosphere at 24000 mph, apparently after adding propulsion
Lack of propulsion is precisely the problem. They had just enough to setup the free return trajectory on flight day 2. After that, they could make minor course corrections and that’s it. There landing was set after that burn to go to around the moon. No propulsion to orbit the moon (as Apollo 8 did) or slow entry speed.
Why not? Because the capsule is far heavier than planned. The trans lunar stage is an old design and the primary booster has just enough thrust to get the capsule and trans lunar stage to a transfer orbit. They’ll need another vehicle to orbit the moon and land.
BTW, the parachute recovery design was worked out before the shuttle program ended. That’s how old that design is, which was essentially based on the Apollo design.
Yes, the capsule is essentially dropping or free falling into earth’s gravity from a long distance away and picking up tremendous speed. While the atmosphere is much thinner at very high altitudes, and this helps to brake the craft’s speed more gently over some time, they also reenter at a steep angle which stretches out that braking time even longer. So less g-forces and less severe heating of the heat shield.
Even then, the capsule is still moving quite fast as it gets close to splash down. Opening a big chute quickly would likely destroy the chute. They start with small chutes designed for high speed, then the main chutes open slowly and the capsule is losing speed rapidly during that process.
Weren’t we doing pretty much the exact same thing on Christmas eve, 58 years ago?
Go NASA.
Why did the U.S. Space Program end so abruptly?
I has always been puzzling to me why the U.S. terminated it’s exploration of the Moon and it’s program of Moon landings, why it didn’t capitalize on the momentum and progress already made to go on to establish bases, permanent habitations, and research facilities on the Moon, with an aim of using these facilities and the experience gained to serve as a springboard for exploring and actually settling the Moon, Mars and, then, the rest of the Solar System.
We had the training program and a cadre of trained astronauts, we had the tested and capable rockets, we had already created all of the supporting infrastructure necessary to move forward, and to expand our efforts.
Yet, abruptly—50 years ago, after Apollo 17, in December 1972–it was all just shut down.
Why?
The official reasons given by NASA were that both funding and public enthusiasm had dried up.
Astronaut Charles Duke, now in his 80’s, is now speaking out, and saying that he thinks the real reason for this abrupt termination was because of the evidence of extraterrestrial life he and his fellow astronaut, Commander John W. Young, both found and saw on the Moon’s Descartes Highlands, reported on their communication system to NASA (Duke says that after they reported finding the wall to their NASA controllers there was 30 seconds of silence and, then, no comment, or instruction to explore the site but, instead, they were just told to move on to their next scheduled task), and took numerous pictures of; transcripts which show nothing of their report to NASA, and pictures which have just disappeared.
(And I’ve read that Duke is apparently not the only aging astronaut who has recently decided to speak out, and to reveal that they, too, have seen anomalous things on the Moon.)
Duke believes that NASA just did not want to go forward, and have to delve into and explain what the apparently ancient, wall—described as constructed of discrete, individual blocks and pocked by micro meteor strikes–he and his fellow astronaut saw and took numerous photographs of on his Apollo 16 mission meant. *
• See https://www.youtube.com/live/EM87VOG3rDU
P.S. Linked below is a report about how some independent researchers used GROK AI to make a very detailed and meticulous examination of all of the 35,000 officially released NASA photographs taken on the Moon, finding over 800 anomalous items in these photos which they say need to be investigated.
They also noted the curious fact that NASA very carefully set up the astronaut’s meticulously planned routes so that they avoided detailed examinations in the areas containing the highest concentration of anomalies. *
Of interest is also the fact that, over the decades, there have been several former NASA employees who have come forward, and said that NASA routinely airbrushes out anything anomalous in the images it takes, or just doesn’t include these particular images in their official image sets.
• See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orsTdAtyX5c