World News
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
view the rest of the comments
This launch included a bunch of “American superiority” drivel, and was done on a rocket that is unsustainable and uses leftover parts from the last millennium.
I wish they’d gone with “for all mankind” — instead they went with “America America” even though one of the mission specialists is Canadian and the module was made in cooperation with the ESA.
Yeah I kinda cringed on that "god bless america" speech before the launch. Isn't there 2 Canadians on board and a big part of the Orion was made/designed by ESA? All they got "and our partners around the world" in that speech.
I'm happy that "we" are going back there but this propaganda sillyness is disappointing. I know its always been a part of governments doing space projects, after all I think the only reason "we" are going back there is because the Chinese are going back there. The disappointing thing is that when I was a kid I really thought we would be over ourselves by now, but turns out that seems to be impossible and we are just going back to throwing rocks at each others. Plaaargh.
Anyway. Cool launch, that thing jumped off the pad as if someone kicked it in the nuts. Impressive stuff.
Unfortunately NASA is always tied up with politics. I would not be surprised if the whole ego stroking speech was a mandate by the current American administration.
Or, if not a mandate, pandering. Because if the politicians in charge of giving NASA its funding don't like what's being said, they will likely cut their funding, even in the middle of a long-term successful project.
It could be worse. It could be Trump claiming all the glory for himself and jinxing it to miserably fail like everything else that orange pedophile clown touches.
Jesus, the shudder this comment just elicited gave me a crick in my neck... Someone distract the mango before he gets the astronauts killed...
that is a terrible insult and you should be ashamed of yourself! Mangos have never done anything to deserve being compared to our pedophile in chief
I mean, how exactly do you create a "sustainable" rocket? Genuinely curious, as the sheer amount of energy it takes to escape the earth's gravity well would render this an almost impossible feat.
Sustainable rocket program.
Like SpaceX does it.
The current launch used supplies and technology that can no longer be produced, is single use, and has enough potential points of failure that it’s taken them months beyond the original launch date to achieve conditions for a reliable launch.
At least Isaacman has them on a path to achieve something repeatable in the future.
I'll take a delayed success over a rushed failure every day of the week
SpaceX’s only current launch capability is to LEO and it took them 20 years to make it ‘sustainable’. This rocket is going to the moon today.
Falcon Heavy is quite a capable rocket, with about 60% of the SLS's payload capacity to LEO when the side boosters are reused (although it's almost never used for LEO, since no one actually needs that large of a payload there...).
New Glenn can reuse it's whole first stage, but currently has only 47% of the SLS's payload capacity to LEO. (with plans for a larger variant)
Starship... has been kind of a mess. At least with how their timeline has compared to their goals. They have demonstrated several successful launches, but with the reliability of their past few, I doubt anyone will trust them anytime soon.
China seems extremely close to having a partially reusable heavy lift rocket, they have said that they'll test it in the first half of this year (LEO payload a little bit higher than Falcon Heavy, but they plan to go to the moon with something very similar). India has some looser long-term plans.
As a spaceflight nerd, I was thinking today about why I (and everyone else) don't care that much about the Artemis launch. I think it's largely because it's not demonstrating anything new; they already did basically the same mission but without the people in it, and even more advanced missions with people in them were done in the 1960s. The rocket itself though isn't helping, the only things it has going for it compared to other modern rockets are that it's large and probably reliable. The technology is basically just re-used space shuttle parts, there's nothing that seems particularly innovative, and reusing old technology hasn't prevented it from being extremely expensive compared to basically everything else (~20x the cost of New Glenn, Falcon Heavy, or Starship per launch...). It's also worse for the environment in basically every way (expendable, and has solid fuel boosters).
I kind of agree with what some other people have been saying about NASA for a while now. They should probably just stick to the satellites, rovers, and technology tests, making their own launch vehicle is not really helping anyone. The usefulness of being a government funded thing is that they can do the type of science to help humanity that doesn't turn a profit. They don't really need their own launch vehicle to do their science, and the vehicle itself is so conservative that I'm sure they aren't really learning anything from it. If they were actually capable of producing something economical and better than the corporations then it wouldn't be a problem, but that will never happen with Congress pushing rocket designs that "seem like they would be cheaper" and forcing NASA to route all work through insanely inefficient military contractors.
Starship has been a mess because they're constantly changing things and experimenting. They got v1 working then moved to v2 which had some issues, they get v2 working and they immediately move to v3. There are so many changes in v3 I imagine its going to have its own teething problems as well.
Until they decide they are happy with something and commit to that as a launch vehicle and test other variations separately from their launch version, its probably going to keep happening and keep people wary of wanting to use it.
Edit: they're already talking about making changes so it can do 200t to orbit. But if they just get v3 working then switch to that, it'll be the same problem all over again.
Edit: working excluding rentry heat shield anyway, they haven't proven they can make starship reusable yet.
Yeah, just the 2 identical failures on Starship V2 I think destroyed a lot of trust
and afaik they still haven't had a reentry that hasn't seemed at least somewhat like a miraculous survival... I know they were testing out different types of heatshield tiles on the last launch though which was where a lot of the weirdness was from
What I was referring to though was the very.. optimistic timelines they've had in the past. HLS was supposed to be ready last year.
Ya, those 2 V2 failures that were the same was pretty brutal.
They are testing out new things on all those descents, and ya, I think they we're surprised it survived some of them as well. They talk a lot about changes to the heat shield, moving flaps to different locations, and how they even remove tiles from critical areas to see if it will survive or not. That SS is doing a pretty good job on surviving, ignoring the impacts on any cargo/human inside.
Making that ship survive re-entry in a re-usable manner is going to be their biggest challenge I think, and if they can't, that will really limit what they can do. They could still send stuff to orbit, but then they might need to deorbit every starship into the ocean then? That would be a really bad look. Refuelling wouldn't be practical anymore as each refuel would waste a ship.
Edit: If memory serves, they want to land 2 in the ocean again, in a row and have it be precise, and if they can do that, try landing one back at starbase, so we're at a bare minimum, 3 launches before they can even inspect a starship that survived and see what needs to be done, and if it's even remotely close to being reusable or wrecked in ways they don't know yet. For all we know that heat shield is completely destroyed and they have to go back to square 1.
Your thoughts seem like they make sense in the current system, and it kinda does, I see where's you're coming from. But what you're basically saying is "privatize spaceflight and let open scientific research and the progress of humanity be dependent on the whims of billionaires".
Obviously, with all the problems the US government has, this thought of yours might even be kinda good in this current situation. But if you actually go to implement it, you're doing a really bad thing for the far future of spaceflight. What should actually happen is that the US government should be changed to let NASA be effective and efficient without dumb political constraints.
And SpaceX and other private actors should only be allowed to continue what they're doing if they share their technology/expertise with NASA.
That would have the same good effect as what you propose, just without this shitty system staying like it is.
If SpaceX realllllllly wanted to, Falcon Heavy could likely pull off a lunar return trip like this (edit: with modifications), but ya, SpaceX designed their existing rockets around reusability in LEO.
When you don't have to think about reusability, it's a lot easier to do things, as so many problems become a lot simpler and weight savings are substantial.
Everything you say is correct, and it’s great that the mission is actually in progress.
But that is neither here nor there with the point I was making.
I’m just glad that things have the potential to turn around at NASA now. I’d love to see them back at the forefront of space exploration and technology.
SpaceX's "sustainable" rocket program is mostly used to litter in low earth orbit, though.
Indeed… the program is sustainable at the expense of the environment.
But it’s a step up from not sustainable at all.
I really really hope the moon program gets beyond both those issues (figuratively and literally).
Having re-usable parts is the obvious bit. But actually the worst part for the environment from a lot of rockets is the solid fuel boosters, those leave a ton of weird stuff in the atmosphere that a liquid fueled thing wouldn't (like the Falcon Heavy, Starship, Delta 4 Heavy, New Glenn, Long March 9 and 10...)
Even Starship is going to leave a lot of CO2 behind, but they could technically make their own methane and be carbon neutral, but they aren't as they can't make enough of it fast enough for their plans, even if they do make some.
Interestingly apparently water vapor from rocket launches can be similarly harmful to CO2. Water vapor doesn't usually get into the upper atmosphere, and has a hard time exiting, but still acts as a greenhouse gas.
Wow, we really cant catch a break on getting off this rock without consequences.
Define "sustainable rocket". There are greener fuels, like hydrogen peroxide, but I don't think they give enough push to get to orbit.
But if you're willing to drop the "rocket" part, you can remove the propellant entirely, and use a railgun or spinlaunch system. (Strictly speaking you'll still need some kind of propellant for corrections and orbital maneuvering, but you're not burning a fuckton of propellant just to beat gravity.)
There is also the question of the reusability of the rocket itself, but SpaceX and others have fairly well proven that by now.
The fuel is the least concern. They're using H2+O2, which burns to water and can be completely created by using the excess solar energy during peak times of the day. The costly/unsustainable thing is the huge rocket that is destroyed each launch and must be completely rebuilt from scratch each time.
Not for manned launches though. Unless the goal is to send 280kg of meat paste to orbit.
No one but SpaceX has proven they can do it so far, Blue Origin has only landed one, but hasn't reused it yet. They're close, but not quite there yet.
"Canadian" is actually an American DEI category.
Sadly, NASA has to appeal to the Trump admin for funding.
The cost of the Artemis II mission is estimated to be $4.1 billion
Each day of the Iran war is estimated to cost $2 billion.
There is plenty of money, just not the will.
And this is not just a Trump thing: all US Administrations in the last couple of decades spent many, many times more in war than space exploration - for example the Iraq War was estimated to cost in total $1100 billion, whilst the one in Afghanistan was $2300 billion, which would be a lot more money in today's terms.
Just not going to Iraq would, directly (so, not counting indirect costs due to increased terrorist threats as result of the growth of ISIS that happenned due to Iraqi military being put in the same prisions as Islamic extremists) have financed 275 Artemis II missions and that's without taking in account Inflation (if done back then Artemis II would've been cheaper)
You: complains rocket isn't reusing enough stuff
Also you: complains rocket is reusing stuff.
You’re not wrong… that’s what happens when you reduce a situation past meaningful statements.
Theres a difference between reusing parts and reusing technology.