The Artemis Program

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Others have probably mentioned it, but the Apollo 1 fire was not due to hydrogen. The fire was caused by an electrical spark of some kind, and the extreme intensity was due to the pure oxygen atmosphere inside the spacecraft.

Definately do one on Starship/ Moonship would be a great watch!

The irony that Artemis killed Orion in mythology, is not lost among its engineers.

A lot of our technological miniaturization came from the Apollo program. This often gets overlooked

1:25 - Chapter 1 - Artemis 5:05 - Chapter 2 - The space launch system 8:20 - Mid roll ads 9:45 - Chapter 3 - The orion module 18:30 - Chapter 4 - The HLS

Would love to see a Starship episode!!

I've had the honor of seeing two shuttle launches, both by accident. The first was from the air on a commercial flight. The captain came over the intercom and told us to look out the left side of the plane and in the (very) far distance, we could see the flame as it pitched over to to the east; and the second time I was driving to the airport in Orlando and happened to see the Discovery appear in the sky in front of me.

fun fact: I got to submit an engineering design proposal and prototype to a NASA Artemis competition which was designed to solve a lot of the problems that lunar dust poses (to electronics, launch systems, eventual habitats, space suits, human health, etc.). my group spent almost a year designing a lunar dust filtration system for the phase 3 habitat of the Artemis mission. was a huge undertaking & it’s super cool to think that our input could actually influence the design of future lunar and martian habitats! and since Simon didn’t really cover this, the Artemis program has multiple phases: phase 1 is establishing the lunar gateway orbiter (2024), phase 2 is short-term scientific visits to the lunar surface from the orbiter while running resupply missions and establishing surface maneuverability (2024-2028), and phase 3 is an established long-term lunar habitat (2028).

The Apollo program was, like every other NASA program, not so much an exploratory program as it was Proof-of-Concept. Mercury: Can we send a human to orbit and bring them back alive? Answer: Yes. Gemini: Can we perfect on-orbit rendezvous, docking, and EVA? Answer: Yes. Apollo: Can we, in fact, send humans to the moon, land them, and bring them back alive? Answer: Yes. The ISS: Can we perfect on-orbit construction to build a multi-modular vehicle system in LEO? Answer: Yes. The STS, or Space Shuttle: Can we design, build, launch, and operate a space transportation orbiter that can bring launch and mission costs of crew and cargo down to around $10 million per mission? Answer: NO! The cost projections of the orbiters was off by a factor of 100, with mission costs (including flight-readiness turnaround maintenance) hitting nearly $1 Billion per mission. The Artemis Program is the first true exploratory mission.

Absolutely need to see a video on the SpaceX Starship

Love the video! I work on Artemis (SLS and Lunar Gateway/Lunar Habitat). One correction though: The European Service Module has just one AJ10 engine (26 kN thrust; hypergolic fuel), while the Exploration Upper Stage is the part with 4 RL10C engines (hydrogen/oxygen propellant). EUS is the second stage of the SLS, and will drop off after delivering Orion to the trans-lunar injection orbit, whereas the ESM stays with the Orion throughout operations until it is jettisoned just before the entry burn at Earth to return the astronauts to the ground. Its AJ10 engine is primarily to provide the lunar orbit insertion burn and the trans-Earth injection burn. It needs hypergolic propellant because those are "storable", whereas the liquid hydrogen and oxygen needed for the RL-10C upper stage engine tend to boil off when heated by the sun in space.

One correction: he actually said " one small step for A man", but the vox cut it short.

Great video as usual Simon! Please do videos on The Lunar Gateway and on SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy Booster. HLS would also be cool but I am not sure how much hard info is out there on that.

It is exciting to be one of the many people involved with Artemis. I grew up learning and obssessing over Apollo and now am part of and involved in the next generation taking man back to the moon and beyond.

Correction, Fact Boy: Hohmann Transfer is not the most efficient way of changing orbits, it's just usually efficient way. Bi-elliptic Transfer can sometimes be more efficient, but it does come with a big asterisk to it, as it will nearly always take longer time to execute.

One neat radiation mitigation method not mentioned is using water. Having a certain module that has a water tank surrounding it. Depending on the depth of that 'water shield' will depend on how much radiation and charged particles are able to pass through.

Good video as always, Simon. I did have one issue, however. While aluminum-lithium alloys are stronger than some grades of commercially pure titanium, cp titanium is not typically used as a structural material. Titanium alloys are used for structures, and they are on the order of twice the strength of aluminum-lithium alloys. Your statement that aluminum-lithium is stronger than titanium gives the wrong impression. (Can you tell I am a metallurgist, lol)

After the success of Ariane 5 sending the JWST into Lagrange point 2 a MP on the Ariane project would be a nice follow-up.

It warms my heart to hear Simon get on board the Freedom Unit train! Lolol