Posted on 11/17/2022 11:27:35 AM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Musk has seemed to solved that issue.
Hydrogen fuel is extremely dangerous.
Remember the Hindenburg? Yeah... like that.
Remember when AlGore announce how proud he was that “good enough for government work” meant the highest standard of quality?
The union guys who told him that must have been laughing their asses off.
Name for me a rocket fuel which is not extremely dangerous.
OK ... I'll tell you:
There isn't one. Not even RP1.
And SpaceX hasn't "solved" anything, yet. Falcon 9 uses RP1, same as the original Atlas used ...
Starship hasn't reached orbit yet, so liquid methane remains unproven.
Shows you how ignorant Algore is,.............
“In using it, you trade ass-pain for efficiency.”
I suppose liquid hydrogen + liquid oxygen is the cheapest way of getting payloads into orbit.
Is liquid hydrogen in smaller amounts, say in a fuel tank for a car, able to be stored with sufficiently low leakage and evaporation so it’s satisfactory for the ordinary car owner?
“Is it THAT much better as a rocket fuel over other methods?”
It doesn’t have to be that much better when the margins between success and failure are so thin. Every single ounce of weight counts when you are trying to break free of gravity, and hydrogen is the lightest fuel around.
Thanks for the answers. You learn something new every day.
Still haven’t sent any midgets or quadraplegics to the moon either.
No. Liquid hydrogen is cryogenic, consequently it will always boil off and need to be vented. Beyond that, it just loves to leak through anything. H2 is the smallest of all molecules, seals that are perfectly adequate for other small molecules like methane (CH4) are simply open doors for hydrogen.
I cannot recommend strongly enough that liquid hydrogen should never, under any circumstances, be considered for use as a consumer-grade fuel.
I do not see any of Kubriks filming equiptment or any discarded caterer’s waste bags! Fake! :)
Methane is not ‘extremely dangerous’
it’s only mildly sort of dangerous
Spacex is amazing, however, Spacex is going to outer space to deliver satellites, not to the moon. Big BIG difference.
I am a female attorney former JAG and I thought it was pretty effing ridiculous too.
That is HILARIOUS! I’ve never seen that before.
Not true. SpaceX has the lunar lander contract.
Thanks for telling me that. I was wondering how women perceived it.
My niece is a biomedical devices engineer, but extremely liberal. I’m curious about how somebody like that might perceive it.
I worked with a number of very competent female engineers and managers. In fact my best boss was female. I never encountered airheads like NASA puts on the TV these days. But that was 10 to 30 years ago.
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