A selenologist, perhaps.
At any rate, the first Artemis mission isn’t going to land on the Moon, so its scientific return will be pretty much nil.
As a father of three ( and overall and very happy person ) I would not take the 5% chance (@Pardel-Lux post 408) of dying to fly around the Moon - and then being dragged around by the current mAdministration.
Would you really play Russian roulette with one bullet in a 20 chamber revolver for that ?
As a person with no kids and a professional pilot by trade, I might. In fact, I probably would.
What I would NOT do is accept a ride on one of Blue Origins’ sub-orbital flights. To me, that’s too much risk for not a lot of reward. But I would accept significant risk for an orbital spaceflight. One in twenty is OK with me for a lunar flyby. To actually land on the moon I’ll go as high as 50 / 50. But that’s just me, someone who got into flying because of my fascination with the Apollo missions.
I see you understand Spanish, and know that a manopolla, el que jode todo lo que toca, is an apt description of the current temper tanTrump mAd/bAdministration. Ruining space flight is completely on brand for the one that discredited beauty contests, made golf be associated with cheating and turned gold into something to either steal or spread as thinly as possible on walls and styro-foam.
There’s a documentary on the space program. Each Apollo mission was designed to test new equipment and techniques.
That cumulative knowledge and experience resulted in Apollo 11 landing 2 men on the moon on July 20, 1969.
The experienced personnel at mission control saved lives and prevented a disaster with Apollo 13.
Recreating the Apollo program and having the patience to take it a step at a time seems a little unlikely today.
Social media wants quick results and will be a distraction for any new space program.
Our original mission in landing men on the moon was a big PR success and a blow to Russia’s Space program.
What else did we get besides Tang and some moon rocks?
Sonagraphy, for one. Microchips for another.
Jerrie Cobb, who applied to NASA and was part of the privately funded Mercury 13, all women, was a pilot who, after her astronaut training days, worked as a missionary bush pilot in the Amazon for many years. TBH, going into outer space was probably less dangerous. She died a few years ago.
Also trivials like velcro? And the Fisher Space Pen?
Other than to prove we can do it and take an important step to putting people back onto the moon surface.
NASA will not land astronauts on the moon in 2027, the space agency’s administrator Jared Isaacman announced on Friday. Instead the agency will rejigger its planned Artemis III mission to test in-orbit capabilities such as using the astronauts’ space suits in microgravity and rendezvousing with at least one of the spacecraft that NASA hopes to use as a lunar lander.
NASA will then attempt to two crewed lunar landings in 2028 as part of Artemis IV and Artemis V. The decision represents a major schedule shift for the agency, which has been pushing for years to make Artemis III the mission that will land astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than half a century.
Shows like Star Trek and Babylon 5 give the impression the astronauts could dock at the space station, spend a day or two, and leave for the moon the next day.
Unfortunately our space travel capabilities are no where near that sophisticated. We can’t cross space like steering a boat.
We still have to blast off from Cape Canaveral and establish the correct trajectory for a moon mission.
The rapid advance of transitors which allows this thread to exist.
Maybe they could, depending on the launch window, which depends on mission parameters. Apollo 11 manoeuvred to lunar injection less than three hours after launch, no need to hang around in Earth orbit.
I LOVE Fisher pens. I got my first one at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago when I visited a few years ago. I often have to take notes inside the walk-in freezer at my work, where normal pen ink freezes and I have to breathe on the tip to get it to thaw. With Fishers I don’t have that problem.
Cool. I do too. I carry one in my pocket every day.
You’ve heard the Russian joke about the Fisher Space Pen?
At the beginning of the space race, the US and Russia had to devise a device that allowed their astronauts to write in space’s zero gravity (okay, micro gravity of near earth orbit).
The Americans? They employed research and technology and in time and after great expense created the pressurized ink cartridge to create the first ball pen that would write upside down.
The Russians? They used pencils.
No idea if this is true but to me it’s funny.
Which is all fine and good until the tip breaks, and then you have to go for the hand-cranked sharpener because electric sharpeners are decadent and bourgeois, and now you’ve got wood shavings floating all over the place and getting jammed in the instruments.
I think that’s what happened to Soyuz 11.
Maybe the Rooskies would’ve put the sharpener inside a Ziplock baggie to contain the shavings while sharpening…?
Do not forget, those N1 rockets kept exploding, even after they ordered a bunch of pens from Fisher. Coincidence??
I am so tired of de-bunking this. It’s been decades and it won’t go away:
That is beside the point, you asked what reward they were getting, the reward is the adventure and the glory, you and I may have duties to our families that preclude us taking the risk, but an astronaut has already signed up for the risk.
No, it is not true, not even remotely. It is not funny, even if you believe that asking “then why don’t they make the planes of the same material as the blak boxes?” is funny, this is worse. It has been debunked again and again. I am sick of it.