Bob Zimmerman says to take them off the flight.
NASA would never allow SpaceX to do something like this.
But it’s a tremendous waste of money either way.
[Friday-afternoon update]
Eric Berger reports on a meeting at NASA to discuss the issue. Jared owns it now.
[Bumped]
[Midnight update]
Charlie Camarda responds.
I agree with Bob Z. To fly Artemis II with crew is a terrible idea. I will specifically not watch any of this on TV. Too stressful. I was spared witnessing the Columbia disaster because I was sick in bed with the flu at the time. But I watched Challenger in real time. Any number of things with SLS/Orion could make this worse or similar to either of those. It doesn’t appear to me NASA has learned a damned thing.
I’m not in any way wishing for something bad to happen to the crew, but that might be what it takes to end the SLS and Orion abominations.
Wishing one way or the other way is just personal superstition because wishing doesn’t change anything. If one believes in the teachings of the Bible, indulging in superstition is actively frowned upon, but if one is a believer, a person should start praying in earnest. One, that nothing bad happens to the crew and two, were something bad to happen to the crew, ending the program may not be outcome. This may induce people to “double down” on the program in memory of the crew.
As to Rand’s remark about a tremendous waste of money either way, the either being either to fly with a crew or without a crew, doesn’t all of this address a sunk-cost fallacy. That is, we have come this far and spent so much money, we may as well fly the mission.
Sometimes the money spent is just that, money spent because at the time you started spending it, you didn’t know any better, but the better course of action is sometimes to stop spending any more money to no effective purpose?
My hope is that, with access to the unredacted report, Isaacman will make a different choice than he publicly pledged when the report was still a PDF of black ink.
Or he will release the report to put others minds at ease.
Or something else prudent and shrewd, even in the face of political pressure.
What needs to be done is obvious and has been since Arty 1’s Orion came back with a heat shield looking like ten miles of bad road:
1. Fly Arty 2 on schedule without crew.
2. Reassign the crew to Arty 3.
3. Fix the Artemis heat shield and not play simulation games hoping to make it go away. After all it held together last time, right?
That should have said Orion. WP won’t let me go back and fix.
There’s a disconnect where Isaacman says he’s bringing back Crew-11 because safety is first and yet it seems he’s ok with flying astros on a ship whose life support system hasn’t been tested and whose heat shield solution is chancy at best.
I agree with everyone else that the crew should be removed from this next flight. If one or more of the crew is killed or injured Artemis is done (small loss), but more importantly, NASA and the administration will take a big hit:
They cannot avoid the fact that they were amply warned.
Don’t think for a second there won’t be blow-back on SpaceX and Blue Origin if Artemis II kills its crew.
SpaceX will likely also face Congressional hearings, because. Elon’s not popular with the Theater Kids (TK) these days and they just love putting on a show. There’s always a risk of SpaceX being regulated beyond feasibility. Esp. if the TKs take the WH next election cycle.
Blue Origin maybe less so. They are largely living off DoW contracts with no grandiose plans to go to Mars on their books.
Hey, there was an election in 2024. Biden is not the President anymore. Nancy is not Speaker. Chuck doesn’t run the Senate. The Theater Kids – and their great grandparents – aren’t in charge of anything anymore. If Arty 2 kills its crew, there’ll be Congressional hearings alright, but the only role Elon is likely to play is as a witness to testify about what he’s going to do to rectify the situation.
The TKs are busy running interference for foreign-born criminals literally raping and killing Americans and financially raping the American taxpayer. Oh yeah, and weaponizing SUVs in an effort to keep all of those criminals here so they can be the next big Democrat voting block. That’s going to lose them the ’26 midterms and keep them out of the WH for the foreseeable future.
Given his personal history, Isaacman seems to have a higher risk tolerance than most people.
This may be why he’s happy to fly Artemis 2 with crew.
I would suggest a different solution.
Jake Garn, Bill Nelson, and John Glenn were all congressmen who flew in space. I’m sure we could find four very problematic congressmen to send on this mission, and who would do it for the free PR it would provide to their campaigns. Jasmine Crocket is probably ruled out because she’s losing her seat to redistricting, but this does provide the chance to make Ilhan Omar the first Somali to go around the moon. Heck, MGT could go to verify that there aren’t any Jewish space lasers up there.
Unfortunately the limited crew size of Orion doesn’t allow an opportunity to really clean up DC, but future Starship test flights might, and everyone would see the logic in not adding an abort system to it.
Not sure if MGT refers to Marjorie T-G, but if so, she’s no longer in Congress.
Eric Berger reports on a meeting at NASA to discuss the issue. Jared owns it now.
Good input. Thank goodness for the insight EB provides. Otherwise I’d have no clue what NASA is up to. They’ve certainly been less than transparent with the public. I sincerely hope Jared fixes that.
The stakes are extremely high and not just for NASA.
Now what about the life support system?
Elephant? What elephant? In THIS room?
I read an article years ago about a plan to put rebreathers and blankets aboard Apollo in case the ECLSS failed. I bet the Apollo 13 crew would’ve enjoyed the blankets.
Rand, aren’t you on record saying we’re not killing enough astronauts? Didn’t you want to send a guy with nothing more than an oxygen mask on the very first cargo Dragon?
Artemis 2 with crew would seem like a cinch to get your enthusiastic approval.
Jim, have you read my book? Because I can only infer from your question that either you did not, or you completely missed the point of it.
Hint: It’s about risk versus reward.
I’d go. Probably better than the actual death I’ll face a few years down the road! Not to mention the possible reward of a moon flight, landing or no.
One of the more interesting things in the article is the assertion Orion as-is could make it through reentry even if the heat shield fell off. Which suggests the heat shield is there to make it “reusable.”
One thing to keep in mind: Artemis II will be the ONLY flight with the heat shield in its present configuration. On Artemis III, the shield is being reworked to be more permeable, to prevent the outgassing problems.
So, what would be the point in flying this Orion, with its heat shield as is, on an uncrewed test flight? The data you get out of it will be of limited utility. This shield configuration is never flying again!
The sensible thing, therefore, would seem to be to pull the stack, take off the Orion, and either rebuild its heat shield to the new configuration for use in an uncrewed test flight, or switch in the Artemis III Orion, and fly THAT as the uncrewed test flight, and see how it holds up on reentry.
All of that would take time, and push back the next crewed Artemis mission at least 2-3 years, of course. But if you want flight data to prove out your modeling so you can feel some assurance putting human beings on it, this is the minimum I think you need to do.