Artemis Heat Shields
https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.htm
The trouble is that the heat shield on Orion blows chunks. Not in some figurative, pejorative sense, but in the sense that when NASA flew this exact mission in 2022, large pieces of material blew out of Orion’s heat shield during re-entry, leaving divots.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582043
Posted in: s/Stories-from-the-Interwebs
Apr 04 · 5 weeks ago · 👍 LeafBeef
2 Comments ↓
🌆 skyjake [...] · Apr 05 at 02:45:
Edited to include a quote.
👻 darkghost · Apr 06 at 09:04:
Quite contentious decision here and I've been following it since this mission.was scheduled. There's some very vocal folks who think it isn't safe because it ablates material faster and more unevenly than expected. It puts NASA in a dilemma since a new one sets the whole program back by years. Turns out these moon flights are hard to do on a budget. Hopefully everybody makes it back safe. Meanwhile it has been corrected in time for Artemis III which isn't scheduled to fly before mid 2027