I Think This Effectively Scrubs Any 2024 Date For Artemis To Leave For The Moon -- But That Was Always Unlikely, In Any Event...

Certainly, when Trump lost by over eight million votes, a 2024 crewed moon landing was swept from even the wildest of imaginations of White House budget thinkers, as it just doesn't involve much new science value. And the idea that it was a needed step to reach Mars, with a crewed mission, was fanciful -- at best.

The fact is. . . that going to the moon won't solve the radiation problem a crewed Mars mission faces, in the many-months journey to -- and from -- Mars, without the protection of Earth's magnetosphere. [Make no mistake -- equipped with only our current technology, any member of a Mars crew may effectively live with life long health complications -- cancers, or worse -- for having volunteered to take that ride. And going to the moon -- three days, each way -- is not long enough to meaningfully test any new shield ideas.]

Even so, or perhaps -- even MORE so, today's aborted live fire test, of the massive engines needed to help Artemis leave Earth orbit. . . probably means no crewed moon landing. . . at all. Ever. Read this, for a more optimistic take -- from NASA, this afternoon:

. . .The test plan called for the rocket’s four RS-25 engines to fire for a little more than eight minutes -- the same amount of time it will take to send the rocket to space following launch. The team successfully completed the countdown and ignited the engines, but the engines shut down a little more than one minute into the hot fire. Teams are assessing the data to determine what caused the early shutdown, and will determine a path forward. . . .

The current NASA administrator is a dyed in the wool Baby-T man.

I will candidly hope he will resign quietly after next Wednesday, and perhaps there will be a more rational science-based head, announced by Mr. Biden, to lead the fine agency forward. In my view Mr. Bridenstine didn't allocate enough of the NASA priorities, and more importantly, funding -- to what should have been the higher value science missions. I realize the Webb next gen space telescope is very complicated, cerebral and expensive, but he should have moved it forward, to 2020. Because it didn't give Baby-T a shallow "astronauts" victory moment, and photo op, I suspect he pushed it back while advancing the Artemis moon shot, all while supinely obeying the dotard. That is unfortunate.

Webb is the future; not a crewed Mars mission -- just watch all we will learn from Perseverance, and the helicopter, stowed with it -- after February of 2021. Those are robotic, automated missions. They make science sense. Risking human lives on a journey to Mars? The payoffs are not compelling enough, given our proven ability to put much lighter, more economical and hardy robotic crafts safely in orbit, and gently guide them to the surface.

Thanks for. . . listening. G'night. . . grinning.

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