I & I Editorial BoardAs NASA eases its Artemis II rocket back to the hangar for repairs this week – the second launchpad delay this month – it raises the question of whether this government agency should be in the manned spaceflight business at all anymore.
To say that the Artemis program – which has so far cost taxpayers more than $93 billion – has been plagued with problems is an understatement. It has been a case study in bureaucratic bumbling, one made more obvious when compared with the rapid advances achieved by private space companies such as SpaceX.
Here’s a brief timeline.
The Artemis rocket has been in development since 2011, and uses technology developed for the space shuttle program more than 40 years ago, including “a modified version of the external tank from the [space] shuttle, with four RS-25 engines developed for the shuttle mounted on its base. Attached to the sides of the core stage are two solid-rocket boosters, similar to those used on the shuttle.”
The one and only (unmanned) test flight of the rocket, Artemis I, which launched in 2022, was delayed six months because of a hydrogen leak that required repeated returns to the hangar.
Early this month, nearly four years later, NASA had to delay the launch of Artemis II because of a hydrogen leak in the exact same spot.
Liquid hydrogen, it turns out, is a difficult rocket fuel to work with. As National Geographic explained, “It’s particularly prone to leaking because it’s such a small molecule, capable of escaping through the tiniest equipment gaps. It also must be kept at extremely cold temperatures to stay in liquid form. In turn, that extreme cold can then affect the integrity of the seals, leading to increased leak rates.”
That’s why modern-day rocket companies including SpaceX are using “a blend of liquid methane and liquid oxygen, which isn’t as leak-prone and can be stored at higher temperatures.”
So why is NASA still using hydrogen? Why do you think? It wedded itself to old technology when designing Artemis.
Meanwhile, the reason it took four years to mount Artemis II was in part because of another problem exposed during the first one.
When the unmanned Orion capsule – which NASA spent 20 years developing – returned to Earth after circling the moon, the heat shield showed signs of serious damage from the extreme temperatures of reentry, a troubling finding NASA handled in typical bureaucratic fashion.
As Ars Technica reported earlier this year:
Following the Artemis I mission in November 2022, NASA was roundly criticized for its opaque handling of damage to Orion’s heat shield. The seriousness of the problem was not disclosed for nearly a year and a half after the Artemis I mission, when NASA’s Inspector General finally published close-up images of char loss — chunks of ablative material at Orion’s base that were intended to protect the spacecraft during its return but had fallen away.
Two years later, NASA decided to go with the original heat shield design because replacing it would have been too expensive and would have delayed the program even more. NASA says that changing the return flight path would protect the astronauts.
CNN reports that not everyone is convinced this will work, and quoted Dr. Charlie Camarda, a heat shield expert and former NASA astronaut, who said that “What they’re talking about doing is crazy.”
Then, this weekend, NASA discovered that, although it appears to have solved the hydrogen leak, there was a helium flow problem, which is why it’s now returning the massive rocket to the hangar for repairs.
So, the launch of Artemis II, which had been scheduled for Feb. 8 and will carry four astronauts to circle the moon for the first time in 54 years, now won’t happen until sometime in April, at the earliest.
And what has been happening elsewhere while NASA has been fumbling around with leak-prone, decades-old rocket technology and failure-prone heat shields? Private companies are leaving it in the dust.
Just since April 2023, SpaceX has launched 11 test flights of its cutting-edge Starship – the most powerful rocket ever built. The first stage is powered by 33 Raptor engines that have been redesigned twice in the past decade. And, unlike the old Artemis rocket, it will all be reusable. SpaceX even managed to catch the 20-story booster in a pair of “chopsticks.”
When NASA last went to the moon in 1972, it was using cutting-edge technology developed at breakneck speed in the midst of the Cold War.
Today, it looks like a dinosaur ready for the boneyard.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Jared Whitley
The everlasting Artemis only proves the validity of another antique, to paraphrase an old saw: “As long as your playing with someone else’s money (ie. the taxpaying public’s) the game and gamble will go on forever.”
The immortality of NASA also gives evidence to another old creed: “While Science comes and goes; bureaucracy is forever!”
There is another veritable saying that applies: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over-and expecting a different result.”
Please do not forget NASA, through its incompetence, made NASA stand for Need Another Seven Astronauts. Sad, very sad. From your article it seems they have learned nothing and are once again willing to risk the lives of Astronauts. Perhaps it is time for Astronauts to choose the craft they wish to fly on and pilot.
Mercifully authors did not mention the low cost of SpaceX rockets. Nor their frequency of launches w/o mechanical failures. Artemis needs to be killed before astronauts are killed.
This article reflects many of my own thoughts and feelings on NASA and the Artemis program. However, the article does not address the impact of constraints placed on the program by Congress that I’ve read about in other articles addressing the many failures of the program. I’m definitely not a fan of the NASA bureaucracy, and its well documented penchant for bad flight decisions, but external constraints placed on the money almost certainly drove the decisions that have resulted in the recent issues with Artemis II. I would expect a more balanced review so that fault is laid at the feet of all the responsible parties and not just NASA. Furthermore, what about a retrospective on your 10 Feb 2021 indictments against Elon Musk and his views on space system development.
Thank you for the comment, and you are right that Congress shares the blame, which is endemic to any government enterprise. BTW, the article you mention was written by a guest contributor (Elon Musk’s SpaceX Accidents Keep Happening Over And Over Again, https://issuesinsights.com/2021/02/10/elon-musks-spacex-accidents-keep-happening-over-and-over-again/), and views by guest contributors don’t always reflect the views of the I&I Editorial Board.
The goal of bureaucracies will eventually evolve into sustaining their own existence. Witness DC, NATO, The EU and The UN, political parties.
I foresaw problems when the United Launch Alliance was formed – a bureaucracy eliminating competition.
Thankfully the recent aborts have avoided another NASA winter tragedy:
Apollo 1 – January 27, 1967, Challenger -January 28, 1986 and Columbia -February 1, 2003
Want to solve the problem with NASA and rockets? Just recruit the older engineers from the 60s, the ones that are still with us, to come in and take over the operation? I guarentee you, they’ll fix it in a few months.
When NASA sent the Hubble Telescope to space and the mirrors were installed backwards that’s when the whole damn place fell apart and that’s why they got away from rocketry and went whole hog to Climate BS! This isn’t your grandfathers NASA. DEI rules at that chithole!
NASA does a pretty good job of grounding itself; expensive as all get out but grounded.
Time for NASA to get back to why it was created for in the first place no longer run by that Hansen screwball