While NASA broadcast live video of the test on its website, many key details of the incident were kept secret, ostensibly for national security reasons. But do most of these details really have to be top secret? Here’s what we know about the agency’s decision to be so clandestine, and why not everyone buys the stated reasons.
What is a wet dress rehearsal?
Waiting for its lighting giant new launch vehicle, which when covered by the Orion crew vehicle is 322 feet (98 meters) high above the Statue of Liberty, NASA must test all the various SLS components. During the rehearsal of the wet crew without a crew, the agency loads the rocket tanks with supercooled liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen – which when combined produce a powerful boost to send the vehicle into space – and practices various scenarios in preparation for landing. “The test lasts about two days and mimics the launch countdown,” Charlie Blackwell-Thompson told a news conference Tuesday (March 29th). Blackwell-Thompson is the launch director for NASA’s Artemis program, which ultimately aims to land the first woman and first colored person the moon. Engineers monitor the temperatures and pressures in the tanks during the rehearsal, taking data all the time that will help them when the rocket is ready for its first flight. They also practice going through many different countdown sequences, once at T-minus 1 minute and 30 seconds, a second down at 33 seconds before launch, and finally up to T-minus 10 seconds before launch. launch. These allow launchers to simulate a variety of situations in which a launcher may need to be canceled – or “cleared” – due to a technical or weather issue, officials said during the March 29 briefing.
Why were the key facts kept secret?
While NASA shared some milestones about the wet dress rehearsal on social media, the agency was banned from discussing any details due to concerns about International Arms Traffic Regulations (ITAR), Tom Whitmeyer, associate managing director of the agency, told reporters. development of common exploration systems. during the press conference. ITAR is a regulatory regime that restricts the exchange of information about weapons and technology in ways that could be detrimental to US national security or foreign policy, according to the State Department (opens in a new tab). “We are really extremely sensitive to cryogenic launchers of this size and capacity,” Whitmeyer told reporters. “They are very much in line with ballistic capabilities that other countries are very interested in.” In particular, hostile foreign countries would like to receive as much information as possible about things like “time, sequence, flow rates, temperatures,” he added. “Anything that would help these or other people who could be used to do similar things,” that is, build giant and potentially deadly missiles. The complex interactions involved in loading both the SLS rocket core and its upper stage at the same time were of particular concern, Whitmeyer said. “How long does it take for some work to be done – this is considered important information from other countries,” he added. “So we have to be careful when sharing data, especially for the first time.”
What do people say about worries?
This is a typical example. NASA was ready with detailed technical information for its programs the day before. And the US has not somehow lost its lead in technology as a result! 29, 2022 See more Some experts did not like the need to keep everything secret. “Sigh. ITAR has been the excuse for so much ridiculousness all these years,” wrote astronomer Jonathan McDowell on Twitter (opening the new tab) of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who closely monitors space launches. McDowell shared (opens in a new tab) a detailed timeline given to reporters in 1992 ahead of the Endeavor space shuttle launch, suggesting that NASA’s current national security injustice is a fairly recent phenomenon. Journalist Michael Baylor, who works for NASASpaceflight.com, which focuses on space-related news, had even harsher words. “I’m sorry, but this excuse is a complete BS. The transmission of the main countdown loop is an industry standard. the message in a different loop “, he wrote on Twitter (opens in a new tab). Cryogenic fuels are generally not widely used in ballistic missile systems, Baylor added (opening a new tab). This is probably due to the fact that keeping fuel at supercool temperatures for long periods of time is difficult and expensive, which means that many countries have abandoned rockets that use such fuel, according to a website maintained by the Federation of American Scientists (opens in new tab. ). Now that the wet-dress rehearsal is over, additional data is likely to be released during a teleconference after the media test on April 5, and NASA should be closer to the upcoming launch of the Artemis 1 mission, which is expected this year. summer, said Whitmeyer. “We are doing everything we can to provide as much information as possible.” Originally published in Live Science.
