Who knew that liquid hydrogen could have leak issues?
Notice the subtle shade from Jared: ““With more than three years between SLS [Space Launch System] launches, we fully anticipated encountering challenges.”
[Update a few minutes later]
[Late-morning update]
The Artemis vision began with President Trump, but the SLS architecture and its components long predate his administration, with much of the heritage clearly traced back to the Shuttle era. As I stated during my hearings, and will say again, this is the fastest path to return… https://t.co/bu0SvThwS9
— NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman (@NASAAdmin) February 3, 2026
It’s not even the fastest path, but it is probably the one with lowest risk. We could get back to the Moon faster and at lower cost, but we’d have to accept more risk than NASA and Congress have demonstrated the ability to do.
At least this means they won’t be lighting the SRB’s in freezing temperatures!
Why don’t they set up a fan to blow away the leaking hydrogen? I’m sure they could make a pretty good finite element model of the air flow under different atmospheric and wind conditions and then validate it with some small scale wind tunnel tests., or use a big vacuum hose from a street cleaner, routing the fumes to a separator tank for eventual recycling?
Why don’t they set up a fan to blow away the leaking hydrogen?
Since it appears the hydrogen is leaking from ground connectors during the filling process, why front the $12.6 million for a cost-plus fan? Why not just wait for a gust of wind to disperse any excess hydrogen. Actually hydrogen, being lighter than air, will rise in the atmosphere, so you should only need to model air currents in a corridor between 150 to 500 ft. And make sure the Orion crew aren’t smoking cigarettes. Well anything for that matter. I’d be smoking something to ride that thing…
NASA: Normalizing Anomalys for Schedule Adherence
Speaking of which, I could hardly believe the spin from this NASA press release.
NASA concluded a wet dress rehearsal for the agency’s Artemis II test flight early Tuesday morning, successfully loading cryogenic propellant into the SLS (Space Launch System) tanks, sending a team out to the launch pad to closeout Orion, and safely draining the rocket.
Emphasis mine… Safety, capacity, flammability. Pick two…
Hydrogen vapor, just off the liquid, is heavier than air – it’s cold enough that it’s just a little denser. Plus it warms slowly, so a hydrogen cloud can sink fairly easily. Mixing with air and the possibility of sparks make using a fan nearby, or anything electrically driven, potentially unwise.
This was a factor in the first DC-X mishap in June 1994.
“subtle shade from Jared”
Nice! This is consistent with other comments that he has made. My hope is that, when Starship first transfer propellant that people will start speaking up about an alternate Artemis architecture that doesn’t require: ML2, SLS, Orion, or Gateway.
Impressed with some of the swag on display at the presser.
You know Valentines’ Day is coming up. You wouldn’t want to miss out on these or these!
OTOH maybe flowers and dinner out…
…but it is not the most economic path and certainly not the forever path.
Ahem…