Art, Writing, and Learning: The Clerisy Quarter > History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library

Space yays

<< < (30/30)

Jubal:

--- Quote from: dubsartur on March 12, 2024, 08:51:02 PM ---NASA's safety culture after Apollo 11 is a weird mix of safety-conscious (carefully calculating incremental increases in cancer risk to International Space Station crew) and reckless (all those deaths in the Shuttle program)

--- End quote ---
Is this something that's actually traceable as a single block change, or is it more that it's gone through several phases since? We're quite a few careers down the line from Apollo 11 now!

I had some interesting online discussion recently about building on the moon using sintering to make stuff from lunar dust, like in Markus Kayser's work: https://kayserworks.com/
And I remembered and dug up some interesting notes from 2022 on how one might actually be able to use microwaves for the purpose, superheating lunar dust that's been magnetically sifted to increase the metal content:
https://www.ucf.edu/news/methods-for-building-lunar-landing-pads-may-involve-microwaving-moon-soil/
https://www.universetoday.com/159427/want-to-build-structures-on-the-moon-just-blast-the-regolith-with-microwaves/

Glaurung:
I think the balance has swung back and forth several times, dependent on competing pressures (not least from the US Congress) to:
- complete programmes as quickly and cheaply as possible
- avoid killing people and consequent bad publicity

dubsartur:

--- Quote from: Jubal on March 13, 2024, 01:40:34 PM ---
--- Quote from: dubsartur on March 12, 2024, 08:51:02 PM ---NASA's safety culture after Apollo 11 is a weird mix of safety-conscious (carefully calculating incremental increases in cancer risk to International Space Station crew) and reckless (all those deaths in the Shuttle program)

--- End quote ---
Is this something that's actually traceable as a single block change, or is it more that it's gone through several phases since? We're quite a few careers down the line from Apollo 11 now!
--- End quote ---
Simultaneous in different parts of the organization!  They lost the Columbia while teams were carefully trying to calculate obscure long-term health risks to highly-paid idealistic volunteers.

Maybe because of its origins, NASA is always centred around a prestige project (Apollo, Space Shuttle, ISS, Artemis) and when that project gets into trouble management makes choices which are bad for science and space capabilities but good for covering their butts.  Currently they are cancelling a $20m science project (Chandra X-ray telescope) to have MAWR BUDGET for the Moon/Mars plan.

More budget would probably help, but giant prestige projects are prone to delays, budget shortfalls, and deadly engineering failures.

Edit: fediverse thread on moon dust and its effects on breathing and equipment https://mastodon.green/@AnarchoCatgirlism@transfem.social/112057068231111010

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page