In reply to Rodney Price.
Hi Rodney,
Thanks for your interest in these Artemis stories. I feel like I have seen your name in the article comments a few times now.
I do not know the exact reason why they need to protect the booster from small contaminants, but I cannot see any other reason to go through all the effort of building a cleanroom the boosters every time they integrate two segments. My guess is that they are worried about the field joints between the segments, which are more vulnerable than the rest of the booster and critical to mission success (as tragically illustrated by Challenger). I put a brief description of this type of joint, as well as a diagram, into this article:
https://www.americaspace.com/2024/11/26/artemis-2-stacking-begins-as-heat-shield-decision-looms/
NASA has not disclosed the remaining cost of flying Artemis 2, but I would estimate that it is in the low hundreds of millions of dollars rather than the billions. All of the hardware is complete. Even Orion, which was the pacing item for two years, just needs its solar array wings. They just need to pay for the labor required to stack the components and launch. Safely disposing of all this hardware (especially the SRBs, which are full of explosive and caustic solid propellant) would probably cost as much as flying it. Regardless of how Isaacman et al. decide to move forward with Artemis, I would strongly encourage them to go ahead with this flight.
The FTS sounds dangerous, but without the batteries which power it, it is no more dangerous than the propellant inside the SRBs. It needs an electric current to ignite. Like any other plastic explosive, it is relatively safe to handle, so long as you know what you are doing. Installing it separately just saves time and money. Shortly before they roll out for launch, they will arm the FTS by installing the batteries.
Best regards,
Alex
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