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Artemis II Is Not Safe to Fly (Idle Words)

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On Wednesday, NASA will attempt to send four astronauts around the moon on a mission called Artemis II. This will be second flight of NASA’s SLS rocket, and the first time the 20-year-old Orion capsule flies with people on board. 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. Large bolts embedded in the heat shield also partially eroded and melted through. NASA’s initial instinct was to cover up the problem. In early press releases, they stressed that both rocket and spacecraft had performed exceptionally, while declining to publish the post-flight assessment review. The first mention of heat shield damage came from Orion program manager Howard Hu on a call with reporters in March of 2023. Hu said: “we observed there were more variations across the heat shield than we expected; so

Artemis II Is Not Safe to Fly (Idle Words) --> « New Martian Writing 03.30. 2026 Artemis II Is Not Safe to Fly “Our test facilities can’t reach the combination of heat flux, pressure, shear stresses, etc., that an actual reentering spacecraft does. We’re always having to wait for the flight test to get the final certification that our system is good to go.”—Jeremy VanderKam, deputy manager for Orion’s heat shield, speaking in 2022 On Wednesday, NASA will attempt to send four astronauts around the moon on a mission called Artemis II. This will be second flight of NASA’s SLS rocket, and the firs

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