Sell the SLS/Artemis/Orion program to me

[Tyndmyr]

I am normally a strong supporter of both manned and unmanned space exploration but whenever I read about Artemis, I wince because I don't see a great scientific justification for the program. Is anyone on GitP forums willing to defend the stated purpose of the program?

I would like to stay away from all the cost overrun issues and delays. Does NASA's goal of returning humans to the moon have scientific value?

Humans don't exist to serve science, 'tis the other way around. Human colonization isn't science...or at least, isn't all science. It will inevitably have some discoveries, I'm sure. The nature of doing things for the first time is that one figures out better ways of handling this or that, because we rarely pick the perfect solution the first time.

Establishing an orbital colony...a true one, not the ISS, has great advantages for space exploration. Being outside of our gravity well offers many immense advantages eventually...once we have various bits of infrastructure set up. This is a longer term effort, and in the short term, it will not be easy or cheap, but it's a hurdle we need to clear at some point if we want to colonize the solar system. The first step in anything is often the hardest. Ideally we want both orbital colonies and harvesting operations in smaller gravity wells than earths to reduce the amount of fuel we need to burn just sending supplies.

Now, as to why the ISS isn't a true colony, it's because it's not really free of earth. For instance, it orbits low enough to benefit from earth's shielding from cosmic rays thanks to our magnetic field. This is not an available solution elsewhere. It orbits relatively low, it has significant gravitational drag, isn't that high up in our gravitational well...it's fine as a scientific research station, but this is a big step further.

Now, is this the correct solution from a cost perspective? That's a great deal different. Even if the goal is wonderful, one can talk about how we get there. SpaceX is absolutely killing it on cost, what'd they achieve about a 10x cost reduction over NASA's prior lift costs? That reduced cost means they can launch a *lot* and thus have a ton of practice. Outsourcing a lot of orbital lift to them is probably a really reasonable approach. I don't know if they can develop the capacity to do absolutely everything, but for the things that they can do, well, they do it cheapest and can do it in vast amounts very rapidly. Let's get an orbital station built.

Even if it's nothing more than a refueling stop for other missions, being able to have SpaceX cheaply lift all the fuel and topping off the tanks on craft after launching from earth allows a massive efficiency boost.

[Trafalgar]

Humans don't exist to serve science, 'tis the other way around. Human colonization isn't science...or at least, isn't all science. It will inevitably have some discoveries, I'm sure. The nature of doing things for the first time is that one figures out better ways of handling this or that, because we rarely pick the perfect solution the first time.

Establishing an orbital colony...a true one, not the ISS, has great advantages for space exploration. Being outside of our gravity well offers many immense advantages eventually...once we have various bits of infrastructure set up. This is a longer term effort, and in the short term, it will not be easy or cheap, but it's a hurdle we need to clear at some point if we want to colonize the solar system. The first step in anything is often the hardest. Ideally we want both orbital colonies and harvesting operations in smaller gravity wells than earths to reduce the amount of fuel we need to burn just sending supplies.

Now, as to why the ISS isn't a true colony, it's because it's not really free of earth. For instance, it orbits low enough to benefit from earth's shielding from cosmic rays thanks to our magnetic field. This is not an available solution elsewhere. It orbits relatively low, it has significant gravitational drag, isn't that high up in our gravitational well...it's fine as a scientific research station, but this is a big step further.

Now, is this the correct solution from a cost perspective? That's a great deal different. Even if the goal is wonderful, one can talk about how we get there. SpaceX is absolutely killing it on cost, what'd they achieve about a 10x cost reduction over NASA's prior lift costs? That reduced cost means they can launch a *lot* and thus have a ton of practice. Outsourcing a lot of orbital lift to them is probably a really reasonable approach. I don't know if they can develop the capacity to do absolutely everything, but for the things that they can do, well, they do it cheapest and can do it in vast amounts very rapidly. Let's get an orbital station built.

Even if it's nothing more than a refueling stop for other missions, being able to have SpaceX cheaply lift all the fuel and topping off the tanks on craft after launching from earth allows a massive efficiency boost.

Are you advocating for the Lunar Gateway to be a fueling point? Because I don't think there are any plans for that. I also don't think there are any plans for the Lunar Gateway to be permanently manned due to the whole escape issue. I could be wrong though. They only have the next 5 or 6 missions planned out due to budgetary issues. There is a lot of talk past that but nothing definitive.

[Tyndmyr]

Are you advocating for the Lunar Gateway to be a fueling point? Because I don't think there are any plans for that. I also don't think there are any plans for the Lunar Gateway to be permanently manned due to the whole escape issue. I could be wrong though. They only have the next 5 or 6 missions planned out due to budgetary issues. There is a lot of talk past that but nothing definitive.

Indeed.

As for the plans, well...it is difficult if not impossible to plan beyond a certain point and have the plan be reliable. The ISS has surely had many modifications to it as technology improved and the world developed. A great deal of that wasn't planned in advance...but the broad goal of it being a place of scientific discovery and international cooperation was planned. It has been useful even if many things had to change along the way.

A Lunar orbital station is even more ambitious than that, and will surely be subject to all kinds of growing pains. I believe it will inevitably make sense as a waystation to elsewhere in a way that neither the ISS nor a Lunar surface base would be. As for manning, that's fine. It doesn't necessarily need permanent manning, at least not yet. Automation has come a long way.

This is inherently discovery and experimentation. We may learn that some proposed ideas just don't work. We may get entirely new ideas. Remember, at the time Columbus made his expedition, he was suffering from some truly bad math, ended up in a place he wasn't aiming at, and once there, made kind of a mess of everything...yet from that, we still ended up with a European fascination with the new world, and eventually colonies sent out...which *also* missed their mark yet eventually managed to take hold.

We can't truly plan for the unknown, but we still benefit from exploring it.

[Peelee]

Luna

Luna

Luna

Not that I'm judging, but why did y'all suddenly decide to speak Spanish when talking about the Moon?

[Trafalgar]

Indeed.

As for the plans, well...it is difficult if not impossible to plan beyond a certain point and have the plan be reliable. The ISS has surely had many modifications to it as technology improved and the world developed. A great deal of that wasn't planned in advance...but the broad goal of it being a place of scientific discovery and international cooperation was planned. It has been useful even if many things had to change along the way.

A Lunar orbital station is even more ambitious than that, and will surely be subject to all kinds of growing pains. I believe it will inevitably make sense as a waystation to elsewhere in a way that neither the ISS nor a Lunar surface base would be. As for manning, that's fine. It doesn't necessarily need permanent manning, at least not yet. Automation has come a long way.

This is inherently discovery and experimentation. We may learn that some proposed ideas just don't work. We may get entirely new ideas. Remember, at the time Columbus made his expedition, he was suffering from some truly bad math, ended up in a place he wasn't aiming at, and once there, made kind of a mess of everything...yet from that, we still ended up with a European fascination with the new world, and eventually colonies sent out...which *also* missed their mark yet eventually managed to take hold.

We can't truly plan for the unknown, but we still benefit from exploring it.

Why would a lunar refueling station be better than a one in Earth orbit? You have to burn a lot of fuel to get the fuel to lunar orbit. I don't see how this is practical, especially when you are skipping having a refueling station in Earth orbit. Because if you want to make regular trips to the moon or anywhere else, that seems like a much easier way to do it.

In my mind, if we are serious about manned exploration of the solar system, we need to figure out how to build reusable spacecraft in orbit that can be refueled in orbit.

[halfeye]

Why would a lunar refueling station be better than a one in Earth orbit? You have to burn a lot of fuel to get the fuel to lunar orbit. I don't see how this is practical, especially when you are skipping having a refueling station in Earth orbit. Because if you want to make regular trips to the moon or anywhere else, that seems like a much easier way to do it.

Because there are two aspects to delta-v, acceleration and escaping gravity wells, which are the same thing, sort of, but also sort of not. The moon is higher up in Earth's gravity well. It would probably be possible to have a refueling station in Leo and another in moon orbit. There's a climb to the level of the moon that everything leaving Earth has to make, you don't have to go via the moon, but if you are going out into the solar system (as opposed to Leo or geosynchronus orbit), then you have to climb past the height of the moon. You could have a refuelling station out in space just hanging there, but it would orbit like the moon does, there's no particular reason so far as I know to not have it near the moon.

[Trafalgar]

Because there are two aspects to delta-v, acceleration and escaping gravity wells, which are the same thing, sort of, but also sort of not. The moon is higher up in Earth's gravity well. It would probably be possible to have a refueling station in Leo and another in moon orbit. There's a climb to the level of the moon that everything leaving Earth has to make, you don't have to go via the moon, but if you are going out into the solar system (as opposed to Leo or geosynchronus orbit), then you have to climb past the height of the moon. You could have a refuelling station out in space just hanging there, but it would orbit like the moon does, there's no particular reason so far as I know to not have it near the moon.

It's not that simple though. In your plan, the space craft would launch from earth (burning fuel), accelerate out of earth orbit (burning fuel), then decelerate into lunar orbit (also burning fuel). It takes a large rocket like Saturn V/N1/SLS to get a small spacecraft there.

What truly makes it impracticable is getting the fuel to lunar orbit. Because liquids are relatively heavy. The command module for Apollo was light, it can be visualized as an aluminum balloon. You can't just fill it with fuel. Each launch would only get a small amount of fuel there and would take a very large rocket. So one mission would take one launch for the spacecraft itself and (I will be optimistic) 3 or 4 launches for fuel. And that doesn't include all the launches to establish the lunar gateway.

I know someone will bring up making rocket fuel out of lunar ice but we are decades fom that happening if it ever does.

Refueling in earth orbit means you launch, refuel, and then accelerate to where you going. You can use a smaller rocket to launch or use a large rocket to launch a large spacecraft. Look at the Space Shuttle which was a very large spacecraft. I am not a huge fan of the shuttle as a system but it had that huge fuel tank that was expended and jettisoned during launch. What if the shuttle could rendezvous and attach itself to another fuel tank in orbit? How far could it go?

[Telok]

Not that I'm judging, but why did y'all suddenly decide to speak Spanish when talking about the Moon?

Because the English language is a cheap dockside whore whennit comes to picking things up from other languages.

[halfeye]

It's not that simple though. In your plan, the space craft would launch from earth (burning fuel), accelerate out of earth orbit (burning fuel), then decelerate into lunar orbit (also burning fuel). It takes a large rocket like Saturn V/N1/SLS to get a small spacecraft there.

What truly makes it impracticable is getting the fuel to lunar orbit. Because liquids are relatively heavy. The command module for Apollo was light, it can be visualized as an aluminum balloon. You can't just fill it with fuel. Each launch would only get a small amount of fuel there and would take a very large rocket. So one mission would take one launch for the spacecraft itself and (I will be optimistic) 3 or 4 launches for fuel. And that doesn't include all the launches to establish the lunar gateway.

I know someone will bring up making rocket fuel out of lunar ice but we are decades fom that happening if it ever does.

Refueling in earth orbit means you launch, refuel, and then accelerate to where you going. You can use a smaller rocket to launch or use a large rocket to launch a large spacecraft. Look at the Space Shuttle which was a very large spacecraft. I am not a huge fan of the shuttle as a system but it had that huge fuel tank that was expended and jettisoned during launch. What if the shuttle could rendezvous and attach itself to another fuel tank in orbit? How far could it go?

What you don't seem to be understanding is that fuel high up, however it got there, is fuel to go further. The command module was a very small part of the Apollo mission, important but small, what went to the moon was the lunar module, including the fuel for the landing, the relaunch part that had to fuel to get them to lunar orbit from the surface of the moon, the service module with the fuel to get them back from the moon, and the command module.

The fuel to get all of that to the moon was in the third stage of the Saturn V, which was abandoned out there most times (Skylab was one of them, but not from a moon mission).

Compared to a Saturn 5, the Shuttle was not a large spacecraft.

Getting fuel up to Lunar orbit is an effective way to explore the solar system, sometimes you need effective, sometimes you need efficient, sometimes you need both.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effectiveness

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficiency

[Peelee]

Because the English language is a cheap dockside whore whennit comes to picking things up from other languages.

Maybe, but not got the Moon.

[pendell]

Not that I'm judging, but why did y'all suddenly decide to speak Spanish when talking about the Moon?

It's another English word for Moon. In Heinlein's novels "Rolling Stone" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" the protagonists are citizens of Luna Free State. Just as Terra is another name for Sol-III, so Luna is another name for Sol-IIIa.

I see arguments for putting a refueling station in lunar orbit in addition to one in LEO. But might not space stations at the Lagrange points be better choices? They are already mentioned as being useful to reduce fuel consumption .

As far as sending fuel to these points or to wherever , Why are we using rocket fuel to do it ? Why not an electromagnetic rail gun? Once you've done the initial setup, you can launch packages continuously without having to burn any additional rocket fuel. You probably wouldn't want to send humans or soft cargo , not with the kind of gravities the cargo will be subjected to, but perhaps fuel or other solid packages could be transported in this way. Rather than burning fuel to deliver fuel, keep 100% of the fuel to store at its depot, wherever that is!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[halfeye]

It's another English word for Moon. In Heinlein's novels "Rolling Stone" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" the protagonists are citizens of Luna Free State. Just as Terra is another name for Sol-III, so Luna is another name for Sol-IIIa.

I see arguments for putting a refueling station in lunar orbit in addition to one in LEO. But might not space stations at the Lagrange points be better choices? They are already mentioned as being useful to reduce fuel consumption .

As far as sending fuel to these points or to wherever , Why are we using rocket fuel to do it ? Why not an electromagnetic rail gun? Once you've done the initial setup, you can launch packages continuously without having to burn any additional rocket fuel. You probably wouldn't want to send humans or soft cargo , not with the kind of gravities the cargo will be subjected to, but perhaps fuel or other solid packages could be transported in this way. Rather than burning fuel to deliver fuel, keep 100% of the fuel to store at its depot, wherever that is!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Why not light sails? Their acceleration is minimal, but constant, and that makes up for a lot, especially since the "fuel" is free.

The Lagrange points are almost out of the Earth's gravity well entirely, the most stable pair are a sixth of the Earth's orbit from Earth.

[pendell]

Why not light sails? Their acceleration is minimal, but constant, and that makes up for a lot, especially since the "fuel" is free.

The Lagrange points are almost out of the Earth's gravity well entirely, the most stable pair are a sixth of the Earth's orbit from Earth.

Hmm. I can see light sails. I have two concerns however:

1) I don't think we can use light sails to launch from earth surface to earth orbit; there's not enough acceleration. So we're still looking at a skyhook/gun launcher/rocket to get to orbit in the first place, are we not? And also to leave orbit?

2) Minimal acceleration is a problem if you're carrying humans. It's far easier to store food and supplies for three days than for three months. Even when you're not carrying humans, people have a tendency to want their cargo sooner rather than later. There's big money on Terra in overnight delivery; not so much for something that takes weeks or months to deliver. Even when you're talking massive shipments of cars from China or oil from the Middle East, people work to try to make those deliveries as consistent, fast, and reliable as possible.

I don't see a solar sail competing on economic terms if there's something else that's cheap enough to use yet much, much faster. It's the same reason the Rutan Voyager is an experimental one-off that has never been repeated and air travel is still made by aircraft harking back to 1950s designs.

Where I can see solar sails being useful is for 1) Long-range interplanetary or interstellar probes. 2) Generation ships or ships which keep their human passengers in hibernation of some kind. Something where no one's expecting the journey to happen quickly anyway, and cost of fuel is far more important than acceleration.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Lord Torath]

What are the end-point mechanics for 'rail-gun' launches? How do you decelerate the package when it arrives at its destination?

As I understand it (admittedly not terribly well), railgun launches require high-G accelerations (enough to deform steel billets), which means you can't put the decelerant on the package.

[Smoutwortel]

Not that I'm judging, but why did y'all suddenly decide to speak Spanish when talking about the Moon?

It seemed to be hip in this threat and nobody could judge for being too lazy to add the "The" and thus implying that our moon is the only moon.

[Peelee]

It's another English word for Moon.

While I'm all for linguistic descriptivism, proper names tend to be prescriptivist. "luna" (lowercase) is not a word I've encountered in English as another word for "moon" (lowercase). It is the word for "moon" in Spanish and Italian (and possibly a few other romantic languages), and "Luna" (capitalized) as a name is the name for "the Moon" (capitalized) in Spanish and Italian (and whatever other languages as general linguistic convention goes). The English name, however, is "the Moon", not "Luna", as outlined by the IAU.

The sun is named "the Sun" and the moon is named "the Moon", despite that our descriptors of them derive from the Latin and come to "solar" and "lunar" rather than "sunnar" and "moonar", but as already described upthread, English is basically a trashcan language that just gets things dumped in it all willy nilly. Works for words, not for proper names. Far be it from me to say that English isn't stupid.

In the English-speaking world (and globally if in a scientific paper meant for international spread, as English is the language of science), it's the Moon, not Luna.

Sol

Why you speaking Spanish?

It seemed to be hip in this threat and nobody could judge for being too lazy to add the "The" and thus implying that our moon is the only moon.

Technically it just implies that the listener implicitly knows which moon is being spoken about, which would work well in the vast majority of discussions that aren't already apparently about other moons.

Besides, that's the IAU's hill to die on.

[halfeye]

Hmm. I can see light sails. I have two concerns however:

1) I don't think we can use light sails to launch from earth surface to earth orbit; there's not enough acceleration. So we're still looking at a skyhook/gun launcher/rocket to get to orbit in the first place, are we not? And also to leave orbit?

2) Minimal acceleration is a problem if you're carrying humans. It's far easier to store food and supplies for three days than for three months. Even when you're not carrying humans, people have a tendency to want their cargo sooner rather than later. There's big money on Terra in overnight delivery; not so much for something that takes weeks or months to deliver. Even when you're talking massive shipments of cars from China or oil from the Middle East, people work to try to make those deliveries as consistent, fast, and reliable as possible.

I don't see a solar sail competing on economic terms if there's something else that's cheap enough to use yet much, much faster. It's the same reason the Rutan Voyager is an experimental one-off that has never been repeated and air travel is still made by aircraft harking back to 1950s designs.

Where I can see solar sails being useful is for 1) Long-range interplanetary or interstellar probes. 2) Generation ships or ships which keep their human passengers in hibernation of some kind. Something where no one's expecting the journey to happen quickly anyway, and cost of fuel is far more important than acceleration.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

1/ Yeah, we still need rockets or something to get off Earth. Getting down again is just a matter of letting the atmosphere catch you, there never was a need for rockets to do that.

2/ The beauty of lightsails is that they accelerate constantly. There's a few minutes of burn to get up to orbit. Once in orbit there are a few minutes of burn to get out of Earth orbit. To another planet is a few minutes burn then a couple of years drifting, or a few weeks constant slight acceleration from a lightsail. There are still lots of trials to be done on lightsails, because people rightly don't trust free lunches. However, when the problems have been worked out, in theory there will be no economic case for using rockets outside deep gravity wells.

What are the end-point mechanics for 'rail-gun' launches? How do you decelerate the package when it arrives at its destination?

As I understand it (admittedly not terribly well), railgun launches require high-G accelerations (enough to deform steel billets), which means you can't put the decelerant on the package.

Rail gun launches have to put all the speed into the projectile before it leaves the muzzle, as with all gun launches. Since air resistance will slow the vehicle, on bodies with atmospheres it needs to leave the muzzle at considerably above orbital velocity. If the gun is long enough, the acceleration can be quite gentle, but there are limits based on how high mountains are, you need to launch at an angle that will take you up as well as along. There are other issues, but that is I think the basics.

[Vahnavoi]

What are the end-point mechanics for 'rail-gun' launches? How do you decelerate the package when it arrives at its destination?

As I understand it (admittedly not terribly well), railgun launches require high-G accelerations (enough to deform steel billets), which means you can't put the decelerant on the package.

You're likely thinking of the wrong kind of railgun. In any case, if you shoot something out of a railgun and that thing doesn't have means of deceleration built in, the only way it will come to rest is by hitting something more massive than itself.

[Gnoman]

Gravitic braking is a thing. In theory, you can sling your projectile in such a way that the gravity of whatever you're throwing it at catches it and brings it into a semi-stable orbit. If you're launching at Earth, this could very well be an orbit that will decay properly for aerobraking and parachutes to handle the rest.

[Lord Torath]

Gravitic braking is a thing. In theory, you can sling your projectile in such a way that the gravity of whatever you're throwing it at catches it and brings it into a semi-stable orbit. If you're launching at Earth, this could very well be an orbit that will decay properly for aerobraking and parachutes to handle the rest.

It's going to require the action of a third object to put your payload into any kind of orbit. Otherwise it will swing around and fly back out at the same speeds it came in.

For a planet, the drag from grazing the atmosphere might work, but it won't be a stable orbit, as the 'far' side of the orbit will shrink with each pass until it's also grazing the atmosphere, and then you just have a rapidly decaying orbit. You'll need to 'catch' it with something before that. Or your aeroshell and parachutes can work. Assuming the acceleration required to get your payload out of the atmosphere and gravity well of your starting point hasn't pancaked the contents.

But if we're talking about rail-gunning fuel from the surface of Earth to our orbital fuel depot, aerobraking is not going to work. So what's the 'catch' procedure?

[pendell]

I knew I'd seen something like this recently. The Spinlaunch orbital accelerator . The idea is that we use a centrifuge to generate speed until the payload is moving fast enough to escape gravity, at which point the payload is released and flies into the air. As it travels up, both gravity and air resistance work to slow it down. If you've calculated the trajectory and acceleration just right, the result is that the object winds up in stable LEO.

How to get from low-earth orbit to L4/L5? Well, I'm no expert but here's someone on stack exchange who's worked through it

According to Wikipedia, starting from LEO, it's almost exactly the same delta-V cost to enter low lunar orbit (~4.04km/s) as it is to reach the Earth-Moon L4/L5 (~3.99km/s), though the source for the information is fragmented. The braking costs are included:

Note that getting to one of the Lagrange points means not just getting to the right place but also adjusting the final velocity in order to stay there.

Your mileage may vary; another reference on Wikipedia gives ~4.1km/sec to EML4/L5 and ~3.9km/sec to lunar orbit.

The value for LEO to EML4/5 corresponds to that for a Hohmann transfer to the Moon's altitude, reasonably enough. Since that maneuver matches the moon's speed, but lunar orbital speed is around 1600 m/s moon-relative, it seems very counter-intuitive that the same ∆v could get you into orbit -- but in the case where you're going to the moon, the moon's gravity accelerates the approaching spacecraft by almost exactly the right amount to make up for it!

So I can think of two ways to do this:

1) As Lord Torath says, use Luna* herself as the third orbital body. Fire the projectile such that it uses lunar gravity as braking to arrive at one of the points it can then orbit constantly between the two masses. Heck, if you REALLY want to be clever set it up on a trajectory where it uses BOTH objects for gravitational assist/braking.

1A) Actually , come to think of it, we might be able to build something at the L4/L5 points big enough to provide a small gravity well such that objects traveling at slow enough velocity can be captured.

2) I suppose we don't HAVE to be a purely passive projectile; instead, we fit rockets on it for steering and braking. Indeed, I would expect that would almost be mandatory. The problem with a dumb projectile is that you have to get the math absolutely right the first time; if you screw it up, there's nothing you can do but wave a hearty farewell to your payload as it vanishes out into the black. So it might be advisable to have some computers and thrusters for course corrections or for braking if we don't want to depend solely on gravity.

Even so, I think such a hybrid would still be far more cost effective than a pure rocket or ion engine solution to lift off the mass of the Earth***. We've mentioned the Saturn V. As I recall, some 2/3rds of that exploding candle was needed for nothing more than getting into a parking orbit in LEO. It only took the engine on the service module to get back from lunar orbit. So even if we leave engines on for extraorbital maneuvers and for course corrections, I still think we're looking at major, major savings in mass, fuel, and therefore lift costs.

* It may not be the official name, but I prefer it to "The Moon" because there are hundreds of moons in our solar system. Sol-5** alone has 79. I prefer to think on a sci-fi scale rather than about something which gives me the impression of a village which only has one word for "The water" because they've only ever seen the one lake.

** For the same reason, I prefer "Sol" for our solar system because it is only one of countless ... heck, there's not a number big enough. I look forward to the day I have to distinguish solar systems on shipping addresses because humanity lives on more than one. And Sol IS the name of our sun. Halo uses the nomenclature .

*** I never promised absolute consistency , did I? Dang it , Jim, I'm a fanboy, not a Mentat.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

Luna*

* It may not be the official name, but I prefer it to "The Moon" because there are hundreds of moons in our solar system. Sol**
** For the same reason, I prefer "Sol" for our solar system because it is only one of countless

Understandable to have a preference for those, as they do sound prettier.

No prettier name for the Solar System, though, so unless you come up with one, you're stuck with using that despite all the other solar systems.

And Sol IS the name of our sun.

Source? (hint: you won't be able to come up with one, as technically, the Sun has no scientific name, but IAU does have standards on how to write the names of named bodies and they outline capitalizing the S in "the Sun", so it effectively does have a scientific name. Which is "the Sun". Just to hopefully save you some research time trying to find a source)

Halo uses the nomenclature .

...are you aware that Halo is a fictional work? Our sun is "the Sun", per IAU.


Also, hey, at least we didn't name our galaxy "the Galaxy". Small victory there.

[pendell]

Understandable to have a preference for those, as they do sound prettier.


...are you aware that Halo is a fictional work? Our sun is "the Sun", per IAU.

Yes, I am aware that Halo is a fictional work. Nor is it the only fictional work to do so. Wing Commander used that nomenclature, Heinlein used that nomenclature, Kevin O' Donnell used that nomenclature, pretty much every SF author of my youth used that or similar.

If IAU wants to use something else, well, good for them. I think most SF fans will understand what I'm saying.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

Yes, I am aware that Halo is a fictional work. Nor is it the only fictional work to do so. Wing Commander used that nomenclature, Heinlein used that nomenclature, Kevin O' Donnell used that nomenclature, pretty much every SF author of my youth used that or similar.

If you realize that the only sources you have are explicitly fictional, then I'm not sure why you're trying to insist that it is the correct name? L

Ive never said people woudlnt know what you're talking about. Sure they will. But that's also the case with "the Sun" or "the Moon". In fact, it's virtually never not the case, because context clues would inform you if it were about a different sun or moon pretty readily.

Also, the entire global scientific community uses what the IAU uses. That's the "I" part of IAU. Not sure why you seem to think they are some sort of maverick group that want to declare their own thing willy-nilly.

[Mechalich]

Also, the entire global scientific community uses what the IAU uses. That's the "I" part of IAU. Not sure why you seem to think they are some sort of maverick group that want to declare their own thing willy-nilly.

Various international scientific communities use lots of confusing terminology, often for historical reasons that the individual scientists who are members of those communities hate but accept because it would be too troublesome to change (often because a stubborn minority is in favor of keeping things 'the old way' and said minority happens to include a bunch of vocal emeritus professors who everyone else had just tacitly agreed to not bother until they die).

Astronomy is actually particularly bad in this area. The way stars are named, for example, is ludicrous, being based around what a bunch of astronomers were able to see through their telescopes between 1800 and 1950 and not on anything useful like a numeric system using coordinates, magnitude, or type.

[Peelee]

Various international scientific communities use lots of confusing terminology, often for historical reasons that the individual scientists who are members of those communities hate but accept because it would be too troublesome to change (often because a stubborn minority is in favor of keeping things 'the old way' and said minority happens to include a bunch of vocal emeritus professors who everyone else had just tacitly agreed to not bother until they die).

Astronomy is actually particularly bad in this area. The way stars are named, for example, is ludicrous, being based around what a bunch of astronomers were able to see through their telescopes between 1800 and 1950 and not on anything useful like a numeric system using coordinates, magnitude, or type.

Boy, it's a good thing you're not either making stuff up whole cloth or repeating what you heard some other random place that didn't cite any sources, that'd be a little embarrassing.

https://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming/

Nebulae, Galaxies, and Other Objects

The designation of astronomical objects beyond the Solar System should consist of at least two parts — a leading acronym and a sequence value.

An acronym is a code specifying the catalogue or collection of sources, conforming to the following rules, among others:

• It should consist of at least three characters (letters and/or numerals, avoiding special characters).
• The acronym must be unique.
• Acronyms should not be excessively long.

Sequence: a string of usually alpha-numerical characters that uniquely identify the source within the catalogue. Common values for the sequence are:

• Running number.
• Based on the coordinates of the object. Equatorial Coordinates shall always be preceded by J if they are for the standard equinox of J2000.0.

More information:
Complete specifications concerning designations for astronomical radiation sources outside the solar system are published by the Working Group on Astronomical Designations in IAU Commission B2. See http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/Dic/iau-spec.html for more details.

Oh. Oh dear.

[Mechalich]

Boy, it's a good thing you're not either making stuff up whole cloth or repeating what you heard some other random place that didn't cite any sources, that'd be a little embarrassing.

https://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming/


Oh. Oh dear.

I referenced naming stars. The IAU rules for naming stars are not covered by that paragraph, but are linked directly above it and happen to involve the whole star catalogue mess I noted. Here I'll quote a relevant bit: "As an example, Betelgeuse is known as Alpha Orionis, HR 2061, BD +7 1055, HD 39801, SAO 113271, and PPM 149643." Another indication of the whole mess is that is wasn't until 2016(!) that the IAU took steps to formalize the spells of the names of famous stars for international consistency.

[Peelee]

I referenced naming stars. The IAU rules for naming stars are not covered by that paragraph, but are linked directly above it

That's fair.

and happen to involve the whole star catalogue mess I noted. Here I'll quote a relevant bit: "As an example, Betelgeuse is known as Alpha Orionis, HR 2061, BD +7 1055, HD 39801, SAO 113271, and PPM 149643."

That's not. Do you similarly complain how one book can have a title, a Dewey decimal number, an ISBN number, and a bar code?

Another indication of the whole mess is that is wasn't until 2016(!) that the IAU took steps to formalize the spells of the names of famous stars for international consistency.

Ah, so they even fixed what you're complaining about? And yet you're still complaining about it?

Yes, those old fuddy duddies with their "degrees" and their "conferences yo discuss best practices to encode designations of billions, if not trillions, if not quadrillion, if not... of stars", and their "recognition by the global scientific community", what do they know?! The point is, you're not satisfied, and it's their fault, the old farts!

Speaking of, do you even know offhand who is in charge? Heck, can you even name one member without googling (and then googling that person to see who they are)? Is your complaint about the system and the people who run it actually based on the system, or the people who run it, or are you just regurgitating anti-intellectual diatribes because how you imagine it is must be how it is?

[halfeye]

Another indication of the whole mess is that is wasn't until 2016(!) that the IAU took steps to formalize the spells of the names of famous stars for international consistency.

Spells? That surely ought to be "spellings".

Yes, those old fuddy duddies with their "degrees" and their "conferences yo discuss best practices to encode designations of billions, if not trillions, if not quadrillion, if not... of stars", and their "recognition by the global scientific community", what do they know?! The point is, you're not satisfied, and it's their fault, the old farts!

Speaking of, do you even know offhand who is in charge? Heck, can you even name one member without googling (and then googling that person to see who they are)? Is your complaint about the system and the people who run it actually based on the system, or the people who run it, or are you just regurgitating anti-intellectual diatribes because how you imagine it is must be how it is?

However, this is the same bunch who made such a hash of defining "planet".

[Peelee]

However, this is the same bunch who made such a hash of defining "planet".

Which I have no problem with.

This is purely anecdotal, but my dad had a terminal degree from one of the top universities in the country, and was incredibly highly regarded in his field. He had no shortage of issues with academia, but he was able to back up his issues with specifics and well-reasoned arguments. Mechalich's issues sounded very, very different than what I am accustomed to. Vague, generic, addressing "problems" that have already been solved, as it were. When my dad railed on certain aspects of academia, he knew exactly what he was talking about, and he took care to step back in areas he wasn't familiar with, even if he believer he had issues there because he knew he would not be able to form convincing arguments. I was not hearing convincing arguments.