My idea for a lunar program

I’m not really a fan of the Artemis Program.  The main reason is the SLS.  I want a permanently crewed lunar base, and a billion-dollar rocket that launches once a year (maybe) isn’t how you do that.  And I seriously doubt Starship will meet expectations.  So recently, while waiting for Artemis II, I started wondering how I would have designed the lunar program if I had control of it.  And this is what I came up with.  Now, I’m sure a real space engineer will be able to point out, “You can’t do X for this reason,” but this is basically the idea a space fan came up with some night while at work.

The number one point of this plan is that everything will be designed to launch on existing rockets, such as the Falcon 9.  No need to spend untold billions and years and years of work to build some super-duper rocket that can do it all in one launch.  Each mission would require components launched on multiple rockets spaced out over a few months, and some of these could be components could be launched on European, Japanese, or Indian rockets. 

A big element of my plan would be two “space stations,” one in Earth orbit and one in lunar orbit.  I say “space stations” because on the less expensive – and quicker – end they could just be satellites, while on the more expensive – and longer – end they could be permanently crewed space stations.  The option I lean towards is where they are basically satellites, but they have a module where a crew can dock for a week or so to do maintenance or repairs.

These stations would consist of three modules.  There would be a command module that would have all the computers, and communication equipment, and solar panels.  On one end of this would be the crew module, which would have two or three docking ports and an airlock.  On the other end of the command module would be a module with the thrusters for station keeping, as well as the fuel tanks.  There would also be a docking port for a refueling craft.  These refueling craft would likely be some version of the X-37.  It would launch, dock with the station, transfer fuel, then return to Earth to be relaunched. 

Now the possibly bigger part of my plan would be a ferry craft.  Ideally, this would be reusable, with part of the reason for the stations to be a place to store fuel for this ferry.  But if that was too complicated, then the alternative would be to have a reusable command ferry with all the computers, communication equipment, and solar panels, that would dock with the Earth Station and wait for an expendable rocket stage that would send it to the moon. 

How I see this working, is you’d have this ferry craft docked to the Earth Station.  Then a rocket would launch the cargo, which – with the help of a robotic arm or two – would be attached to the ferry.  This ferry stack would then undock and set off for the moon.  If it’s just plain cargo, then it would take the most fuel-efficient way to get to the moon, taking a month or more.  When it reached the moon, it would go into orbit and dock to the Lunar Station. 

In the case of human cargo, it would take a shorter, more fuel intense trip.  One possibility, is that instead of taking whatever craft carried the crew to orbit, they’d dock to the Earth Station, and transfer over to a travel habitat, or whatever.  This would have more room for the astronauts, but the downside would be that these travel habitats would only be for traveling between Earth and Lunar orbits.  They could not reenter and land, meaning if something happened to the craft docked to the Earth Station, they’d be stranded.  This sounds bad, but what would the difference be if something happened to the craft docked to the Lunar Station while the crew was on the surface?

The lunar landing system, at first, would consist of two components.  One would be an expendable descent stage.  The other would be a reusable habitat with an ascent stage.  Eventually, this could be replaced by an entirely reusable system, but I expect that to be more complicated.  That’s the eventual goal, but it’s tough to start there.

All of this sounds like a lot, and it is, but part of the point of this is you can spend a year or more launching the various parts and getting everything in place before you start landing on the moon.  And I figure the way to start the lunar landings would be with cargo that would land on the descent stages.  This way we can get multiple landings to make sure everything works long before we risk humans.  Probably one of the first landings would be of a RTG rover that could scout out future landing sites and take samples.  Later landings would have experiments, and could start landing cargo for a future base.  Then you could do a dress rehearsal with an ascent stage.  But instead of people, it would land some cargo, then be filled with a few hundred kilograms of rocks and samples.  This would take off and eventually get to the Earth Station.  Then a crew capsule could launch, but instead of four crew members, maybe only two go up.  They would transfer the samples over to their craft, and then return home.

Once deemed safe, we’d start flying people.  At first for short stays of a week or two, but eventually – once there’s enough equipment and supplies – for months.  Eventually, a permanently crewed base would take shape.  And by that time, a new system would probably be developed.  Because the goal of all of this would be to find a safe, efficient way to get to the moon with existing technology.  And hopefully in the years it would take to design, test, and launch all this, maybe we could finally crack the super-duper rocket issues and do all this with a single launch.  Or maybe we’d just scale everything up.  Or maybe we’d discover issues and have to figure out a different approach.  In the end, I want humans on the moon in a safe, efficient, sustainable way.  I don’t care how it’s done, but I’m pretty sure the current program won’t be it.

Short story – “Still Relevant”

“Still Relevant”

With a sigh, Gary opened the bottom drawer of his dresser and took out a threadbare t-shirt.  Thirtyish years ago, it had been a plain, dark blue shirt his girlfriend at the time had ironed a political message on.  Now it was a faded blue and the message was hard to read since the letters had started peeling. 

His wife Susan watched him for a moment.  “It’s time to throw that away.”

“As I’ve explained before,” Gary stated, “I told my college girlfriend I would wear this shirt until it was no longer needed.  But sadly, we live in a world run by assholes who have no qualms about shedding other people’s blood for their oil.”

Gary pulled the shirt over his head, and looking at Susan gave it a firm tug over the belly that had somehow grown since college.  This unfortunately caused a large rip to open on the left side of the shirt.

Gary took a breath, then took the shirt off.  He folded it up, placed it back, then closed the drawer.  He turned to see Susan watching him with a raised eyebrow.  “Perhaps I should order a new one.”

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For those who didn’t get the reference, I remember back in 1990 in the lead up to the Gulf War, a lot of people protested the war with the phrase “No blood for oil.” While this was mostly on signs, I’m sure a few people put it on shirts.  I don’t know if anyone still has a shirt from then, but they, sadly, probably need a new one.

Random Story – The paint splotch

This is just an odd little story from my life.

About a mile from our house, the road goes down a little hill, then up another little hill.  And in the middle, another road goes off at a 90 degree angle.  Thirty some years ago, either someone pulled out from that road, or they just happened to hit a bump the wrong way, or something, but they lost a can of paint.  The result was a big splotch – probably half-a-can’s worth of paint – over the one lane.  And it wasn’t blue, or off white, but almost a neon green.  Who they were, or why that had that color of paint, is a mystery we never solved.

Well that’s odd, but the reason I’m telling this story is that this paint splotch became a bit of a local landmark.  Like, someone could say, “I saw a flock of turkeys on my way to work.” “Oh, where?” someone else could ask.  And instead of the first person saying “At the intersection of road and road,” they’d just go, “By the paint splotch.”

And it stayed a local landmark for over a decade, until the state came in and repaved the road.  I remember someone saying they wish they knew what brand of paint it was, because they made good paint.  It had faded a bit over the years, but not only had it stood up to a decade of sun and rain, but also normal traffic, as well as snow plows and road salt.  So it probably worked well for a kid’s treehouse or whatever they needed neon green paint for.

A confusing sign

 I, unfortunately, live in a rather red part of Pennsylvania.  There’s a road that – depending on the circumstances – I either drive a couple times a week, or I go a couple of months not driving it.  But leading up to the 2024 Election, it became very depressing as I drove that road.  Months before the election, there were only a few Trump signs, but then in the last month, it seemed every other house had them.

One house, had a normal Trump flag, and they also had a large banner for, I think, Women for Trump.  I’m not completely sure what it was, because whenever I drove by it I either grimaced or flipped them off. 

Anyway, after the election I tried to ignore all these signs.  But, towards the end of the summer, I noticed something about this flag and banner: they were starting to fray.  Now I don’t know if it is because most people put a political yard sign up a month before the election, and then after the election they throw them away, so they’re not that tough to begin with.  I mean, who would have a political yard sign up for over a year?  Or, being Trump branded stuff, they’re probably made as cheaply as possible.  Either way, after eight or nine months, they were starting to show their age.  But the last time I went by – some fourteen months after the election – I only saw the corners of the banner still tied to some posts.  Two Pennsylvania winters had completely shredded it. 

Now normally, you’d expect the homeowner would take the signs down long before they got to this point.  If they were a normal person, they’d throw them away just to keep their yard nice.  Or if they wised up to the Trump shitshow they’d get rid of them too.  But you’d think if they were still drinking the Trump Kool-Aid, they’d replace them with whatever new crap he’s selling.  But none of that has happened.  There are still vehicles at this place, so I’d assume people still live there.  But they apparently don’t care to have some ragged sign in their front yard. 

Or maybe they’re just lazy.

What I believe

I’ve been thinking about making this post for some time.  With all the hate and evil in the world, and all the assholes in power, I thought I should make a quick list of where I stand on the important issues of the day. 

These are in no particular order, but I’ll start by saying I think people are people.  I don’t care if they’re white, black, male, female, trans, gay, ace, Muslim, Jew, atheist, born in America, born elsewhere, disabled, English speaker, non-English speaker, whatever.  I don’t care what people are, but what they do.  The only people I hate are the assholes.  I define assholes as people who hate people because they are black, or trans, or don’t speak English, or for whatever assholish reason they have. 

I believe the Palestinian people deserve to live in peace without fear of attack from their neighbors.

I believe the Israeli people deserve to live in peace without fear of attack from their neighbors.

I believe the Ukrainian people deserve to live in peace without fear of attack from their neighbors.

I believe the Iranian people deserve to live in peace without fear of attack from their neighbors.

Basically, I believe all peoples deserve to live in peace without fear of attack from their neighbors.

Climate change is real, and caused by humans.  I believe we could slow down, halt, and eventually even reverse the warming of our world, but that would require a bunch of billionaires to either make less money or just find less destructive ways to make money. 

Speaking of money, my economic philosophy is basically a rising tide lifts all boats.  Helping those at the bottom, helps everyone. 

The people who should decide if a woman has an abortion are the woman, her doctor, the father (except in rape cases), her legal guardian if she is underage, and whatever family/friends she wishes to discuss the matter with.  If there isn’t a politician in that group, then it’s none of their goddamned business.

There are places where AI could be used ethically for good.  Unfortunately, about 99% of AI is used to make worthless slop.

No one – kings, popes, presidents – is above the law. 

I do not have an issue with the death penalty for terrorists or mafia hitmen.  My feeling is that once you’ve killed X number of people, you’ve clearly forfeited your right to life.  What X is, I can’t say, which is why I called it a feeling.  I also have the feeling that if you are the leader of some country that invades another resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, I’d say that could also be grounds for the death penalty. 

I’ll end this with something I realized years ago.  Humanity has but two choices: evolution, or extinction.  If we don’t grow and become better beings, we’ll likely destroy ourselves.

Some final thoughts on Stranger Things

I thought I remembered when I first watched Stranger Things, but when I looked up the dates, I saw that things didn’t align as I thought they had.  So this is the best recreation of events that I’ve come up with.

In the summer of 2016 when the first season of Stranger Things came out, I heard a bunch of stuff about “The Upside Down” and “Eleven,” but I didn’t fully know what they were.  And at the time, I didn’t have Netflix.  But some months later, I found a not entirely reputable website that had it and I watched that first season there.  From what I remember, I thought it was interesting, but it didn’t really stick with me. 

Then in late 2017, or probably early 2018, a YouTuber I watch was talking about shows and mentioned this one called Dark.  He called it a “German Stanger Things,” but some of the things he said made me curious.  By this time, I did have a Netflix account so I watched the first season of Dark and instantly fell in love with it.  Dark is in my Top 20 favorite shows of all time.  It’s not perfect, but I’d say that the story is more complicated than that of Stranger Things, but it’s told better in like half the runtime.  I forget how many times I’ve rewatched Dark, and I’d watch it again, but it’s gotten to the point I would much rather watch it with someone who’s never seen it to explain things, without spoiling.  I think that’s the next step in enjoying the show.

Anyway, by the time the first season of Dark was out, the second season of Stranger Things was out.  I watched it, without rewatching the first season, and that was a bit of a problem because I forgot some of the characters and couldn’t remember what had happened to some of them.  I think I just had to read the Wikipedia page to get caught up.  The second season, I still liked it, but again, it didn’t really stick with me.

In the summer of 2019, I rewatched Dark season 1 to prepare for season 2.  And then, after watching season 2, I think I went back and rewatched seasons 1 and 2 again to try to see what I missed.  And around this time, I also did a rewatch of seasons 1 and 2 of Stranger Things to get caught up for Season 3.  This rewatch wasn’t as enjoyable.  I think the twists and surprises of Stranger Things really only work the first time.  And then Season 3 stretched credulity, so by the end of it I was losing interest in the show.  I think I figured I’d continue watching it just for “I understood that reference” reasons.

In 2022, I was half-heartedly getting ready to rewatch the first three seasons to get ready for Season 4, when it was announced that there would be a fifth and final season.  I decided that instead of having to rewatch everything again in a year (ha), I’d just wait.  So I didn’t watch Season 4 when it came out, but I was spoiled about Eddie.

This brings us to late 2025.  My original plan was to start rewatching on some date so that if I watched an episode a day I’d watch Season 5 Episode 7 the day before the final episode was released.  But a couple weeks before that date I was feeling under the weather, so I started my rewatch early and I probably did like four episodes in three days.  Still, I was only in my first time watch through of Season 4 when Season 5 Part 1 dropped.  It was a week or so after Part 1 dropped that I finally caught up with everyone.

This, probably wasn’t for the best.  For Stranger Things, at least.  By finishing Season 4 and starting directly into Season 5, I didn’t have any time to ponder what was going on.  But in the weeks between me finishing Part 1 and Part 2 coming out, I had time to think.  And there were some things I was confused by.  And thinking about it, I came up with a somewhat bland but plausible explanation that would answer the questions I had, as well as a bit more exciting and plausible explanation.  So going into Part 2 I was really interested to see which idea it would be, or would there be a more interesting third option.

Then Part 2 came out and I realized that the odd things I assumed were indications of a more interesting story, were just plot holes.  That was the third option.  And since the final episode wasn’t six hours long, there was no way they’d be able to fill them all.  So I went into the final episode without much confidence.  And the ending, I didn’t love it, but I didn’t care enough to hate it.

A lot of people seem to hate Season 5 for various reasons, but I’d say I dislike it because the writing isn’t that great.  Which isn’t an issue only for Stranger Things.  But it is so frustrating when better writing could have nipped problems before they showed up.  As an example of a minor issue that could have been fixed with an extra paragraph or two, I was confused during Dustin’s graduation speech.  He mentioned the principal and I couldn’t remember if we’d ever seen this character before.  Later, I looked it up on IMDB and apparently that character only appeared in that episode.  And we just had to go with the movie cliché of the asshole principal.  This could have been fixed with one, slight fix.  In the first episode of the season, when Dustin was roughed up by the bullies at school, the principal could have stopped it.  But instead of holding them accountable, he could have sent them on their way and then snidely asked Dustin something like, “Why do you bring this on yourself?” With that one simple fix, we would know the principal was an asshole and would have cheered on Dustin during his speech, instead of scratching our heads wondering if we ever met the guy before.

The way I write a post like this, is think through most of the arguments I want to make and come up with a roughish outline of things.  And then it just rattles around my head for a few weeks before I finally sit down and type it up.  So I came up with all that stuff about the principal, but I had yet to type it up.  And then I watched a YouTuber’s reaction to Season 5, and at one point they put in a clip from Season 4 of Eddie saying something about grabbing his diploma from the hands of Principal Whoever.  I didn’t care enough to check if this Principal is the same from finale, but I’ll assume it is.  Since Eddie had an issue with the Principal, we could assume they were an asshole.  So I guess it was established that Principal Whoever was an asshole, in one line of dialogue about fifteen episodes before Dustin’s speech.  How could I have missed such an obvious thing?

Moving away from a simple problem that could have been easily fixed, to the plot holes that really killed my interest in the show: the ineptness of the military.  For example, was there no one at the camp with a radio listening for transmissions either from the mysterious Upside Down or from other actors?  I mean, even if Murray had some special encrypting walkie talkies, you’d think the military would notice that every time they made a supply run to their Upside Down base, there’s a lot of unknown transmissions.  Or why did nobody notice that all these people – known associates of the person they’re looking for – all seem to gather at the radio station when they do supply runs?  Is nobody curious about that?

A bigger issue is the first question I had about Season 5 which was why people were still in Hawkins?  You’d think the military would have gathered everyone up and put them in a tent city about ten miles away while they studied the cracks to another world.  This would be for everyone’s safety, and so they could do medical checks to make sure they weren’t exposed to anything.  But then you’d think they’d cite national security, give everyone some money, and move them elsewhere.  And then they’d bulldoze the buildings and haul in a ton of howitzers to point directly at the opening, in case anything came through.  I mean, that’s the logical thing to do.

So I was very confused why the town of a few hundred people(?) with a school, and a restaurant, and a radio station, was still around inside this military compound.  But then, in Episode 4, Vecna takes the kids for some plan.  Thinking about this, I assumed that Kay knew Vecna needed kids, so she kept the town and school there so that they could watch him take the kids and somehow replicate his power.  That was my “somewhat bland but plausible explanation” for why the plot hole of keeping everyone in the town wasn’t really a plot hole.  It could also explain that Kay knew about the crawls, but didn’t want to tip her hand.  Of course, why would you want a villain that was halfway competent?  The “bit more exciting and plausible explanation” I had was that Kay and Vecna were working together.  Well, actually, they both promised to help the other with some project, but both were just waiting for the right moment to stab the other in the back.  Of course, who would want to watch a show where the good guys have to debate about working with one competent villain to take down another competent villain?

But in the end, the grand answer to the issues I had was that they were just plot holes.  Don’t get me wrong, every movie and show has plot holes.  For most, the holes are small and there’s enough good stuff that you can overlook them.  But for Stranger Things, these plot holes were just too big for me to ignore, and there wasn’t enough other interesting parts to keep my interest.  Likely, I’ll largely forget about Stranger Things, except for the occasional “I understood that reference.” Probably, the only way I’d ever watch it again is if I had a girlfriend who, somehow, never watched it and wanted to.  But afterwards, we’d watch Dark.

Trump’s Hell

Last night, I foolishly checked social media for the latest news just before going to bed, and saw more of the evilness of the Trump regime.  As I was getting ready for bed, I started thinking of ways I’d love to just fuck with Trump.  What I came up with, was if I had the power – maybe I found a few dozen magic lamps and after I did what I could to make the world better, I’d save a few to fuck with those trying to destroy the planet – I’d make Trump have the same nightmare every night for the rest of his miserable life.  In it, he’d show up to the Pearly Gates and he’d see a bunch of people inside having the time of their … afterlives.  I’d say that two of these people would be Renée Good and Alex Pretti, but I doubt Trump even knows their names let alone what they look like.  So maybe there would be Jimmy Carter and other people Trump despises.  They would wave to him, maybe even motioning him to join them, but as soon as he takes a step forward, a giant hole opens up and drops him to Hell.

Once I was in bed, I started to wonder what Trump’s Hell would be like.  What punishments does he deserve?  This is what I came up with.  For an appetizer, there are probably a billion people who know enough about him to form some opinion on him.  And I think he should hear all of them.  It would start with some magat going on and on about how great he is, and then there would be a hundred people talking about what an evil shit he is.  At first, he’d probably just ignore the whining of libs, but then he’d find out what some of his inner circle really think of him, which I’d bet is most of them are just waiting for the shitty moron to die so they could use his death for their own political reasons. 

For the main course, I think everyone who hates Trump should be able to put as many suggestions they care to in a suggestion box for punishments.  And then Satan – or whatever demon he outsources Trump’s punishment to – just goes through all of them.  You’d have annoying ones like he plays a hundred rounds of golf with Obama, who always manages to beat him by one point, or however golf is scored.  And then the next suggestion would have someone like “The Mountain” swing a sledgehammer into his crotch, once for every thrust Trump made into a child.  Once that was done, Trump could then relive the last ten minutes of every person who died because of him.  Some would be gasping for breath after his piss poor handling of Covid, and then he’d be some fisherman having a beer, and then his boat explodes. 

So I had some nice thoughts as I drifted off to sleep.