When I was a sophomore in college and working an internship, I met a guy down the street who said he used to work for NASA. I was very interested in what he had done at NASA, and space in general. The next time I ran into him he gave me two photos, autographed to me by Thomas Stafford! One is him standing in front of the Saturn V, and the other is the picture of earth he took while flying around the moon. I was so blown away! They are hanging on my wall right now. Really meant a lot to me. The guy that gave me the photos and now Tom aren't alive anymore, but I'll treasure these photos and pass them to my kids.
Stafford had an interesting career. Having flown twice on Gemini then commanding Apollo 10, he would have had first pick for commanding a lunar landing (probably Apollo 16, which his 10 crewmate Young commanded) had he wanted it. But Stafford was very much a test pilot, so it's understandable that he would be more interested in the novelty of Apollo-Soyuz and its androgynous docking mechanism, as opposed to doing something he'd already done 80% of and others had done 100% of.
I think he's also the first general officer from the NASA astronaut corps.
> I think he's also the first general officer from the NASA astronaut corps.
Apparently he was made a 1* (Brigadier General) to have similar rank with Alexei Leonov, the Soviet commander of the Apollo-Soyuz mission. After that mission he continued to be promoted up through the ranks.
Stafford's first star might have been a little early because of Apollo-Soyuz, but given that he was the first in his Naval Academy class to receive first, second, and third stars, I am sure he would have made general officer regardless.
Making flag rank pulled Stafford away from NASA. Not that he would not have wanted to make flag rank, but becoming a general meant that he had to accept command responsibilities.[1] After Apollo-Soyuz Stafford went from NASA to being in charge of the entire USAF air test program, including his former test pilot school, so very much in his wheelhouse. But that also meant that he would not fly the space shuttle. I think Young made the opposite decision: Retire from the Navy as captain, stay with NASA as civilian astronaut, and fly the shuttle (the first mission, STS-1, and a later one).
There was a severe shortage of experienced astronauts in the late 1970s and early 1980s, <https://np.reddit.com/r/nasa/comments/nx4hh4/who_would_have_...> and NASA would have loved to have Stafford still in the astronaut corps. I bet Stafford in turn envied both Young and Joe Engle; the latter flew the shuttle on the pre-launch ALT tests, then used his X-15 experience to hand fly a hypersonic reentry on STS-2. Really, the ne plus ultra of test piloting.
That leaves seven Apollo astronauts still alive, the youngest of whom are 88. I'm not sure how likely it is that any of them will see humans walk the Moon again.
For anyone interested in the story of the astronauts who went to the moon, Moondust is a great read. In the early 2000s (if I remember right), the author traveled around the world to visit each of the living men who had set foot on the moon. He asks them about their experiences, both on the moon and in the time since the moon missions ended. Some of them treat him like any interviewer, but toward the end as they realize he has actually connected all of their stories once again, they share a bit more than what comes out in typical interviews.
It's a wonderful blending of life in the world at that time, the story of our collective quest to reach the moon, and the individual stories of humans who actually went there.
The author talks also about the times, the era of the moon landings — and he had an interesting aside in the book that stuck with me about Elvis Presley (of all people):
---- snip ----
Always Elvis-sceptic, I once asked the photographer Alfred Wertheimer, one of the last to be allowed real access to the singer, why the girls in the crowd were crying—whether the tears were part of an act. He told me:
“Well, I think it was the fact that we’d been through this rigid Eisenhower era. Everything was cutsie-pie crinoline skirts and ‘How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?’; the girls knew their place and they weren’t women’s libbers yet; everything was very tightly organized. Then along comes a guy like Elvis ... he’d go onstage into a darkened auditorium, where there would be maybe 4,000 people — mostly young ladies, a few boys and then a few police, who were there just to make sure nothing ‘dirty’ was happening. From the very start, Elvis is focused on the girls and they’re in love with his hair and the way he curls his lip. And he talks to them and then he begins to sing and he lets it all hang out. His hair, which was immaculate, starts coming down and the sweat comes down—and do you think he stops to mop his brow or sweep his hair back up? No. He gets down on his knees, then gets back up: he is so revealing, so unconscious of his own body movements that all of a sudden the girls look at each other, after all the years of holding everything in, and they cry.
“They’re not putting it on the way you’d see girls doing in later years: they’re not screaming or jumping up and down, just holding each other and crying.”
There’s a good chance some or all 7 will see people walk on the moon reasonably soon.
Artemus 3 is scheduled for September 2026, that can clearly slip but a 2.5 year deadline suggests it is unlikely to slip that far or get canceled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3 IMO 80% chance it happens within 6 years and 95% chance they actually land on the moon successfully.
Without a firm date it’s hard to have a specific plan, but it may be worth actually going and seeing that launch.
We're taking Boeing's ability to screw things up, NASA's extreme risk aversion, and then mixing them up together in a blender that includes untested technology, the first humans out of low orbit in more than half a century, and NASA's desire to make a huge spectacle out of it all - including identity politics.
IMO there's a high probability that a human landing via Artemis ultimately never happens. This isn't the NASA of the 60s that's happy to send a few guys up to the Moon while simultaneously also already having a memorial speech commemorating their deaths written and on standby. They're going to want to be near to 100% assured that the mission will be safely executed, and I simply don't think you can get anywhere near to that in practice.
For the exact same reasons, it's also unlikely that Artemis 2 will go ahead. And that launch is scheduled for as early as the end of next year. So it should be an early indicator of things to come, or not to come.
As a huge fan of the Apollo program for decades, and the Artemis program now, it pained me to upvote your comment. But you are 100% correct on every point you mention.
It’s wildly pessimistic, Artemis 1 went just fine and Artemis 2 is basically the same except with people on board able to look at the moon. Having people flying around in space is something we've done constantly since the first moon landing and adding a big rocket and fuel to get to the moon isn't a huge leap.
Now 3 when they need to land is a bigger risk. It running into issues is slightly more believable, they could abort the landing while still flying etc.
You can see a list of missions to the ISS here. [1] The US stopped launching people to space from 2011 to 2020, relying entirely on Russia during that window. As of 2020 SpaceX entered the game and has started regularly sending people up, but the Artemis program's decision to inject Boeing into it was exclusively due to corruption/'influence.' They weren't competitive on qualification, capability, or price - but were granted a key role anyhow. Notably Boeing was also arbitrarily granted a contract to send people to the ISS under the same 'influence', and they were supposed to be the first private company to do so, more than 5 years ago now. That still hasn't happened.
And so the Artemis program now relies completely on NASA's judgement of Boeing's ability to send people to space on 'untested' (they're reusing Space Shuttle era tech and hardware but on an entirely new vessel) technology which has not only run many years and tens of billions of dollars over budget, but has seen a never-ending series of technical issues above and beyond what's expected during normal developmental processes.
Basically the big factor is Boeing here. If we contracted everything to SpaceX we'd probably stand a fair chance of putting man on the moon, again - but NASA's risk aversion would still be a major issue. But that's not the case. Now we have an incompetent company paired alongside an organization that will demand superhuman levels of assurances for the sort of spectacle they plan to make of it all, especially after Christa McAuliffe. It's not a great mix for the odds of anything actually going anywhere.
They have already successfully carried out a mission so they are going somewhere.
SpaceX’s track record on new systems isn’t great. Musk bet the company a few times which as a disinterested 3rd seems fine when it succeeds, but makes partners really nervous.
NASA wants multiple capable partners to avoid getting screwed over because congress won’t let them build it themselves.
Boeing launched an uncrewed SLS exactly once in 2022. It was planned for 2016, and then delayed 26 different times over 6 years. And uncrewed launches are held to much lower standards and requirements than crewed. You don't go from that to 'definitely safe enough for a human' (let alone with NASA's risk aversion) on anything like a reasonably short timescale.
Initially there was never any plan for multiple launch providers - commercial crew called for a single winner. It was only after it became clear that the winner was not going to be Boeing (kudos to NASA) that the rules were changed to allow Boeing to also win (and receive vastly more money than SpaceX as well). The whole stuff about redundancy was just after-the-fact messaging to cover-up what's been ongoing and overt corruption.
SpaceX have never 'bet the company' except in the very earliest days of SpaceX when they were a startup with basically no capital. Since then, they've not only constantly iterated on the Falcon 9 but also designed/developed the Falcon Heavy, and now the Starship. And I see little to nothing to critique about their execution. I suppose the timeliness could have been better, but I think it's forgivable given that these were all completely revolutionary developments.
Those SLS delays where from everything including a tornado and funding issues not just Boeing.
Boeing built the Lunar Orbiters, they have been doing this stuff for a long time and have plenty of success. On day one it wasn't particularly obvious which was the right choice, and SpaceX's entry had some serious flaws. Remember the crane/elevator to lower astronauts? That was just needlessly complex and begging to get people killed, they where serious about using it.
> SpaceX have never 'bet the company' except in the very earliest days of SpaceX
Look at there financial history, they are still making big bets that may or may not pay off. Sustaining losses for years is a fine strategy when money is loose but it's risky for someone looking to hand them billions.
Nearly all of SLS's delays were because of Boeing's failures. You can see a list/timeline of all the years of delays here. [1] I do agree Boeing was a great company decades ago. The 747 was basically synonymous with high quality commercial airflight in the same way the Falcon has become synonymous with high quality commercial spaceflight. But a lot changes over the decades, and now the 737-MAX is synonymous with what the company has become.
You cannot look at SpaceX's financials, as they are a private company. And the nature of their business makes intelligent estimates anything but intelligent. For instance the recently 'leaked' $1.8 billion contract to deploy a spy network for the NRO is hardly surprising, but something few were privy to until recently.
But in any case the reason they remain private is so they can focus on the long-term vision instead of working to maximize short-term revenue, which often comes at the expense of the former. Ultimately though, none of the side projects they have carried out has posed any economic risk to them even in the case of complete failure. In fact one can argue that Starlink was a complete failure relative to their projections - yet it's already profitable.
> Nearly all of SLS’s delays where because of Boeing’s failures.
Half of the delays were moving from day X in 2022 to day Y in 2022. So yes by number most where Boeing’s failure, but all of those combined added up to less than a single funding issue.
> You cannot look at SpaceX's financials
Me personally no, but they have leaked in multiple ways at multiple times. Hell a recent direct quote from the CEO said they risk bankruptcy. That’s not something you want to hear when considering doing long term business with them.
Again what you're saying here is just not true. The SLS had numerous technical issues throughout 2022 - leaks, temperature issues, controller issues, and more. I'm not sure what you're referencing with a "funding issue" because that's not a reason for why a launch would be scrubbed.
As for bankruptcy stuff - Elon's comments about bankruptcy are not recent, they were from 2021 - right in the midst of COVID and global economic collapse. Every company was considering these sort of issues at the time.
Boeing's approach was a bit... different. Instead of trying to work around these issues, they simply went to congress and asked for a $60 billion bailout. They ended up getting an even better deal - "privately" bailed out by the Fed who bought up about $25 billion worth of low rate 'Boeing bonds.' That 'influence' at play, once again.
> The SLS had numerous technical issues throughout 2022
And then it launched in 2022. The point if you look at a breakdown of days late the percentage looks very different than if you count moving the launch date back 1 week just as important as moving it back a year.
Talking about number of delays is kind of silly when there’s orders of magnitude between the longest delay and the shortest.
> from 2021
The specific example I was thinking was more recent than the 2021 tweet. He’s made the comment several times in various contexts, thus people being reasonably concerned about the companies finances.
Well, failing to launch at a scheduled time and long term general delays are two different aspects of failure from my perspective. One is an inability to meet short term goals, and the other is an inability to meet long term goals. I'd consider it to be akin to something like tactics vs strategy - and both reflect upon a company in different ways.
As for the SpaceX thing, this is just concern trolling. Nobody has any genuine concern about SpaceX's financial stability. This also includes Elon, but I also think he's focused on the longterm - and in such a frame of thought considering black swan events is critical. In the worst case scenario he could take SpaceX public and raise hundreds of billions, but that would also likely greatly imperil their overall mission. There's no money [for now] to be made colonizing Mars, and so making oneself beholden to shareholders in inconducive to progress.
I'd also add that this is even more true when we're comparing them to companies like Boeing. Boeing's already been bailed out at least once, and is extremely dependent on reckless government spending as well as our forever wars. Even right now when we're carrying out multiple wars around the world and dumping massive amounts of money towards Boeing for space missions that they will probably never complete, Boeing's losing about a billion a year. Expressing concern about SpaceX's finances when comparing them against 'that' is something that cannot be considered a realistic concern.
Now adjust for the fact that these are all ex astronauts, so will probably be fitter than the average 88 year old? Is there data for life expectancy given astronaut?
Astronauts in the 1960s were required to be perfectly healthy before their mission, not even minor anomalies in bloodwork etc. were tolerated. No surprise that a third of the moonwalkers is still alive at approximately 90.
Not to mention when you understand so much about the bodies physiology, its probably hard to allow yourself to fall out of shape considering you know better than most what that means.
We have no interest in the question of whether the apollo astronauts who have already died will be alive when a human next walks on the moon.
The question is of the apollo astronauts who are still alive, what is the probability that they will still be alive when a human next walks on the moon.
The population under consideration is only astronauts who are alive now.
Survivorship bias would only be involved if you were considering some question that involved all apollo astronauts eg for example if we used the population who are alive now to make a prediction as of the completion of the programme.
This isn't survivorship bias, just imperfect information being sufficient. Will anyone be alive at X date can ignore the dead from the population as irrelevant.
The second question if they are an unusually healthy or sick group doesn't need to look at the dead either. Only ~20 percent of 35 year old men live to 88. Having at least 7 men out of 24 reaching that age is already an long lived group, though not necessarily statistically significant.
Looking at the full numbers gives a more precise number, but 12 of 24 vs 7(+) making it to 88 doesn't change the result. Further, even if it was exactly 7 of 24 again the answer doesn't change.
Also, it's worth noting that Apollo astronauts are not average-health men. They were selected for their extreme outlier health attributes, which is why so many of them live so long.
Jim Irwin, who walked ( and rode a car ) on the moon on Apollo 15, and had some heart problems while on the moon. He was obviously healthy before. He ended up having several heart attacks, and died at age 61. He is an outlier in this regard, and there will always be speculation as to whether the strain of walking on the moon damaged his heart.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Irwin
>Artemus 3 is scheduled for September 2026, that can clearly slip but a 2.5 year deadline suggests it is unlikely to slip that far or get canceled.
Artemis has failed to meet a single deadline since its inception, and has cost more than all public and private investment into SpaceX for the last 20 years combined. We are paying more for a single (disposable) SLS engine than the cost of an entire Falcon 9 launch. The whole thing is a farce.
My initial response is of course to agree with you. But then I reflect on how impossible it would have been for SpaceX to succeed without the support of NASA (and other agencies). NASA is a political organization consisting of its headquarters in Washington, D.C. together with 10 field centers [1]. While this unnecessary scattering and distribution of effort is itself a reflection of pork barrel spending, it has been what has been necessary to galvanize the support of constituent American representatives to approve the relatively meager NASA budget.
Similarly the Artemis program is the very compromise those ever-changing representatives and administrations can agree on, together with its cost plus method of budgeting, to keep jobs in districts and re-election coffers full. I remind myself I need to embrace that rather than be cynical about it. Democracy is hard.
I'm at a point now where I realize how essential the Artemis program is to the ongoing support for SpaceX by NASA. The program will change a LOT more based on both every success SpaceX has with Starship and any further ongoing failure of Boeing (please no!). IMO I feel we need to wish NASA, SpaceX (and Blue Origin) and yes even Boeing the very best or something even better. I am awed at the political deftness with which NASA is transitioning away from cost plus and has engaged the private sector.
Cost overruns are a staple of government-led programs. Also, the government has very deep pockets (and plenty of credit) and should be able to deal with the costs as long as it remains a priority in our image competition with China.
Cost and schedule overruns are a staple of developing new technology and complex systems. It's very difficult to estimate time and budget for those things.
>Cost and schedule overruns are a staple of developing new technology and complex systems. It's very difficult to estimate time and budget for those things.
I'd be more sympathetic if SLS had more new technology.
They're using actual engines that previously flew on Shuttles.
And sure - there's a few changes - the SRBs have 5 segments, there's new insulation, etc. But nothing that should have caused the expense and delay that we're seeing.
Heck - the cost overruns and delays with the mobile launch platforms ML-1 and ML-2 are absurd and there's absolutely nothing new there - they're just steel towers with piping.
There were once 24 of them, and by definition they were old enough to be astronauts 52 years ago. [0] suggests that for a 36 year old now the median age of death is 76; I don't see a spread but it shouldn't be surprising to see 1/3 outlast that by 12 years.
There are relatively very few Astronauts living among us, and we celebrate them (rightly so, they're the best of the best). But with the closely followed developments in the commercial space sector, how many astronauts will we need in the coming decades? Will there be 10x, or 100x astronauts? Are there estimates?
> how many astronauts will we need in the coming decades
687 people in space to date; Starship plans to carry as many as 100 passengers at a time.
I think it's safe to assume that there will be so many people in space in the near future that the meaning of the word Astronaut is not really going to hold up much longer -- not that it will go away. There are still "Aviators" in the world after all, but not everyone who gets on a plane or even flies one would necessarily assign that term to themselves.
WRT "NASA Astronauts": It's a bit of a loaded question too to single out "hired by NASA to fly to space" as the epitome of a space faring person. While there is currently a good argument to be made that NASA Astronauts have truly been a cut above, at some point it's almost inevitable that commercial/private space operations will eclipse NASA and the best and most capable people going to space will no longer choose to work a government job where they have limited authority over their careers. Take a look at the astronauts who have been waiting to fly Starliner - as storybook cool as it is, being an astronaut can also suck immensely.
I think its still not well described how much commercial activity nasa is planning for on the moon. I think its a little bit abhorrent because now we will have a precedent to exploit newly explored planets or moons for private profits. Hopefully we won’t be able to see the strip mines from earth.
Not in my solar system I guess! To me it just seems a bit backwards to what these scientific efforts are supposed to be about. Are we trying to understand more about the universe in a publicly available manner, or are we simply trying to create a revenue stream for private stakeholders? I am continually disappointed how policy writers in recent years seem to hold for profit stakeholders at even parity or even a superior consideration than the public stakeholders when it comes time to make plans on natural resources that really shouldn’t be unilaterally exploited by anyone.
Worrying about the visibility of activity on the Moon from Earth is about the most indolent form of misapplied thinking I can imagine. Absolute useless waste of effort. Get real.
It seems a lot of astronauts, at least the early ones live long lives. I wonder if it was because the selection process weeded out anyone with any sort of health condition and anyone who was not at peak physical fitness.
It's people with very good baseline health, a lot of discipline in general to help maintain their health, decent enough privilege to lead easy/comfortable/healthy lives and retirements, and probably really good social lives. All things that help ensure long, healthy lives
'Stafford’s Air Force duties not only had him run the military’s top flight school and experimental plane testing base, but he was commanding general of Area 51. A biography from his museum said, that while Stafford was in charge of Area 51 and later as the development and acquisition chief at the Pentagon he “wrote the specs and established the program that led to the development of the F-117 Stealth Fighter, and later, the B-2 Stealth Bomber.” '
