Tuesday, April 14, 2026

About the Artemis 2 heat shield questions

I think it's fair to say that everyone who paid attention to the heat shield problems Artemis 1 showed was a bit concerned about them going with the same exact heat shield. One of the YouTube channels I've watched enough to think subscribing wasn't too insane is Alpha Tech, and they posted a video this morning saying that no bad effects like even the excessive wear on the heat shield were seen. It seems I can embed it, so I will. If it goes invisible, here's the link to video itself.

While it's a bit wordy and probably could be a couple of minutes shorter, the trade off is he shows you videos of some major players so that you watch them yourself rather than take his word for it. There are video tracks in there that I've never seen and facts to go with them, so I don't think it's a waste of time to watch it. 

He dives into the reasons for the first test's issue's, the root cause of the first test's shield blowing out chunks, and how altering the trajectory worked. The animations of how the two return trajectories compare are worth the watch. 

For me, I'd have to say the only thing that would make me feel much more comfortable with NASA's fix would be More Pictures. Like the ones that showed Every Single Pit in Artemis I's shield. So we could see what a used but undamaged heat shield looks like.



4 comments:

  1. Looking forward to the SpaceX and Blue heatshield technologies results for comparative purposes.

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  2. Really looking forward to a picture of Arty II's post-entry heat shield. Though I doubt Jared would snow us like previous administrators did over issues.

    The main takeaway is it worked.

    This time.

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    1. Key words: THIS TIME. The last place I would be would be in any nasa spacecraft. As I tell people, I'm crazy, NOT STUPID. I cry for what NASA used to be and the incredible people that made that way, *Sigh... Woke is just too dangerous for some things...

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  3. Lost my trust in NASA when it murdered the crew of Challenger. They knew the risk, they were warned of the risk and they launched anyway, management had to look good {SPIT}...

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