NASA's daring Artemis 1 'Red Crew' saved the day for the launch to the moon. Here's how.

space.com ^ | Brett Tingley

[BenLurkin]

Annis and the other two members of the crew, Billy Cairns and Chad Garrett, were sent to the mobile launch platform at the base of SLS to tighten down "packing nuts," hardware that helps form a tight seal on the replenishment valves through which liquid hydrogen was pumped into the Artemis 1 moon rocket's core stage after the main tanking procedure. Because hydrogen is such a small molecule, it manages to find its way out of even the tightest seals, meaning NASA has to keep replenishing the hydrogen fuel tanks throughout the launch countdown even after main fueling procedures have been completed.

With Artemis 1's launch window ticking away on Tuesday night (Nov. 15), Cairns, Garrett and Annis arrived at the mobile launch platform(opens in new tab) underneath the highly dangerous SLS vehicle at 10:12 p.m. EST (0312 GMT on Nov. 16) to stop the leak — and fast — or risk losing this launch opportunity. Once at the platform, the crew discovered that the packing nuts were "visibly loose," according to a statement by launch commentator Derrol Nail on NASA TV's media channel.

Luckily, with nerves seemingly made of steel, the Red Crew performed admirably, tightening the nuts and enabling the Artemis 1 launch countdown to resume.

[BenLurkin]

Cheesy women announcers interviewing giggling women commentators about the glory of women deadhead passengers being delivered to the moon.

On the backs of the men doing actual work. The dirty and dangerous work.

[Vermont Lt]

Hydrogen is such a pain to handle. Is it THAT much better as a rocket fuel over other methods?

I am assuming it must be…but I an genuinely curious if some FR “Rocket engineers” can explain it.

[C210N]

How many takes did this take?

[glorgau]

Meanwhile SpaceX has launched a bunch of missions while NASA can’t get it done without a bunch of drama.

[rellic]

“Is it THAT much better as a rocket fuel over other methods”
weight.

[Red Badger]

the crew discovered that the packing nuts were "visibly loose,"

Sabotage.......................

[Tijeras_Slim]

If you have to do something daring to simply launch, you’re doing it wrong.

[Berosus]

Now that you mention it, I am having trouble learning what this mission is all about. After the launch, I looked online to find out what the rocket will be doing during the 26-day mission. Back when I was a kid and we had the Apollo missions, the Command Module Pilot, the astronaut who stayed in the Apollo capsule while the other two walked on the moon, was given plenty of experiments and the job of taking pictures of the moon from orbit, so even he stayed busy. Well, this time I read nothing like that. All I found were statements that with this rocket, women and people of color will be able to go to the moon. Oh for crying out loud, can’t NASA leave the politics out of this story? We broke the race and sex barriers to space flight with the Space Shuttle program, so I already assumed that the next astronauts we send up won’t all be white men. Or are there people around who believe that the parody video about the “Negro Space Program” is a true story?

[pburiak]

Just glad the “Red Crew” didn’t end up with the usual fate of Star Trek’s “Red Shirts”.

[OHPatriot]

Sabotage, No

More like spending way too much time on “Special Outreach” efforts and as such, Incompetence has now become prevalent.

[nascarnation]

They have a lot of work to do yet.
I mean we got women and blacks, sure...

But how many gays, trans, bis, etc?

[nascarnation]

Young folks seem mystified when I tell them that we went to the moon 50+ yrs ago with equipment designed with slide rules, drawn on vellum with pencil, and fabricated by high school graduates running manually controlled machine tools.

[G Larry]

Congrats to this Red Team!

I was on such a team for Titan IIIB/D at VAFB, CA in the late 70's, but never had to go in pre-launch. (Thank God!)

Only immediately post launch to secure the umbilicals and neutralize the corrosive elements so they could be refurbished and reused.

[TheBattman]

I immediately thought the same. With all the inspections that are done - there is no way those nuts were “visibly loose” unless it was intentional.

[rxsid]

Although late and over budget [insert shocked face here], I’m still amazed that a corrupt, bankrupt country in rapid decline like ours is still able to do this.

Perhaps it’s only because of the push by the space/defense contractors Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, et.al to show it works to keep the program going … that it even has a chance.

[mozarky2]

I sometimes worked with hydrogen leaks at the power plant where I worked, including tightening packing. Dangerous stuff; we had to use non-sparking tools. Butt-pucker city!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I watched the countdown for an hour before launch and until about 45 minutes after launch. I was ABSOLUTELY and THOROUGHLY repulsed by the giggly women all congratulating each other for being women who got into a previously-masculine profession. It was nauseating and disgusting beyond belief. There was nary a man to be seen on camera or behind the microphone. The little speech by the woman launch director when the countdown resumed at T-10 minutes was awful. It sounded like she was trying to sound like Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon.

All of that made me really yearn for the no-nonsense days of men with crewcuts, white shirts and black ties running the show.

Based on what I was seeing with the giggly women, I truly expected the rocket to blow up on "Ignition."

If it's giggly, unserious women they want, then why haven't they called on Harris to make another profound comment about "space"?

Why is it so hard for women to adopt a serious demeanor appropriate to the work at hand? It all seems to be frivolity and a complete lack of seriousness. All of this treacly crap does a disservice to good, no-nonsense women engineers and makes it hard to take women in technical professions seriously.

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The article has this comment: "Luckily, with nerves seemingly made of steel, the Red Crew performed admirably, tightening the nuts and enabling the Artemis 1 launch countdown to resume."

I worked in Field Service Engineering at the start of my career and we had a stuck boiler blowdown valve on one job. I was able to figure out a way to get it unstuck which avoided a plant shutdown, cooling off the boiler, draining the boiler and taking the valve out for repair. I was pretty proud of my solution so I wrote a service report that read like that line above. I was IMMEDIATELY reprimanded for describing my work in heroic terms. I learned my lesson and stuck with bland, insipid, facts-only professionalism in all of my engineering reports after that.

Engineering continues to be dumbed down everywhere you look.

[Red Badger]

Somebody wanted a ‘Challenger’ type disaster................................

[rightwingcrazy]

In terms of energy per pound, nothing else comes close. Fuel constitutes a large percentage of the starting mass of the rocket, so hydrogen becomes worth the bother.

[Reno89519]

Wait! Did they note the correct folks as I thought NASA now only highlighted women and people of color? The ARTEMIS pages tell all about that FIRST before saying anything about the science and such.