Once again, we have a big delay in the Artemis lunar program. This time, it's the EVA suits. They've decided to re-invent the wheel, and it's expected to cost over a BILLION dollars by 2025. This is not the "Why can't they just build another Saturn V" issue. This is a small scale venture there is no huge monumental retooling to recreate huge Saturn parts. Seamstresses made those suits. We have much better technology, textiles, etc than 1969 that could pretty much be substituted in to the Apollo design. A design which worked pretty dang good for what it was back then. It seems they've tried to make these new suits so comfortable and advanced that you could compete in the Olympic Decathalon in them and win, at the expense of getting done on time and within budget. Space-X may be having picnics on the moon before NASA gets back there.

We went from a little suborbital loft in 1961, and Blue Origin thinks they are really special for doing something very similar, to full blown exploration of another world 8 years later. You can't say the huge budget was the reason they could do it and we can't now. This suit will have cost a billion dollars by 2025 (and it still probably won't be done) to replace a suit that worked 50 years ago.

__________________
I love sanding.

More ABSURD re-invention of the wheel.
It almost seems like they are trying to NOT get back to the Moon.
STOOPYD.
They need to be going at this in the hard-charging steely-eyed-missile-man test-pilot method of the Apollo program instead of this mamby-pamby ergonomics/safety BS. END OF STORY.

__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

Anyone who thought that Artemis would land in 2024 is fooling themselves. I never bought it.

And I suspect it will be something far more basic, like the TEN Starship refueling launches that need to be made in 2 weeks, that will be the real limiting factor (and there has never been any refueling in space, yet).

The suit program was underfunded, poorly managed, and affected by COVID. And given a shorter timeline than the Apollo suit had to development.

Also anyone who bothers to do any fact checking rather than yell in large text would know there were serious issues in developing the Apollo EVA suits, which were delayed but not a “tent pole” delay item like the LM and Block-II post-fire Apollo CM.

And yes, most of the knowledge that was learned along the way to make the Apollo suits, is mostly lost to history. The day to day how-to actually do what was shown on drawings, that’s either poorly documented or never documented (I do not imagine all the workers, when they were laid off or moved to some other project, were asked to document everything they did in making the suits). Or as the case may be, the drawings asked something to be done that was not practical and work-arounds had to be figured out, but most probably not documented (or if they were.... a lot of the documentation thrown out after a few years).

__________________
Contest flying, Sport flying, it's all good.....
NAR# 18723 NAR.org
GeorgesRockets.com
Georges'CancerGoFundMe:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-geo...ay-fight-cancer

I did not yell with a single letter of large text, George. Nor did I think Artemis would fly in 2024, but I always assumed it would be flight hardware or political chopping blocks that would hold them back, not an EVA suit. NASA has had the opportunity to slow walk development with a minimum of funding for 50 years if they wanted. They've always assumed they would go back. They've had plenty of pet projects like that. We have had several false starts with various presidents to go back to the moon where some funding was put in as well so it's not like Artemis popped up out of nowhere and NASA was caught off guard. Then again, maybe the ISS had them so punch drunk that they've had complete tunnel vision for the last 20+ years. Apollo suit construction is fairly well documented and several examples exist. I don't buy that the original people are no longer around so we can't do it. We aren't building F-1's and we don't need that kind of craftsmanship and lost skill to fabricate and weld exotic metals. The suit was made by seamstresses. I've never thought it feasible to build new Saturn V's, but updated Apollo style EVA suits could be engineered fairly quickly if the right people were involved and they weren't trying to make sleek peregrine falcons out of a perfectly functional hawk.

__________________
I love sanding.

Buying in then RANTING and BLAMESTORMING after failure to meet target dates is far more entertaining.
Doing research is boring.
I quite frankly find it absurd that the Saturn V was not documented well enough to reproduce them.

__________________
When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

Even if it was documented down to the last rivet, all the tooling was scrapped and the artisans that built the F-1s are gone, so I do understand why we wouldn't build an identical machine today. I even understand why they might use existing tooling for ET's, SRB's and RS-25's if it saved money or if it shortened design time, but that decision was really made to keep some of the Shuttle program folks employed and it possibly makes it more expensive. I really don't know because I haven't been all that interested in cost vs other designs figuring Artemis would be canceled by now.

I also understand George's point of view that parallels thought on the Saturn. However, the Apollo suit is a small item that is made with small castings or forgings, cables, springs, textiles, and various types of rubber/plastic and assembled by seamstresses and a few technicians. It could be reproduced today with better components and textiles in a similar fashion, using new molds and tooling that are easily made. Design and test time could be shortened drastically by just building on a proven design.

Edit: BTW, we should all know that my was just an exercise of frustration. It's all woulda, coulda, shoulda. NASA has become a plodding bureaucracy and the contractors they use know they can slow play everything, go over budget, and make money hand over fist, year after year. Could an updated suit based off Apollo knowledge have been built years ago? Sure. Could one be done in a somewhat timely manner now? Sure. But it didn't and it won't happen. Covid is just a pimple on the butt of glacially slow NASA "progress".

__________________
I love sanding.

Correct. Manufacturing has advanced since the Apollo program.

A short video that details some reasons for not building an identical Rocketdyne F1 engine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovD0aLdRUs0

The old suits had a slight issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WoM2bHfr48&t=42s

Mike

__________________
I love sanding.