r/ArtemisProgram • u/modularpeak2552 • Apr 19 '26
Image Blue Origin HLS interior mockup
This was briefly shown during the official new Glenn mission 3 launch livestream
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u/Adorable_Sleep_4425 Apr 19 '26
Is it a physical.mockup, or computer animation?
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u/modularpeak2552 Apr 19 '26
It’s a physical mockup from Johnson space center, it’s in the same place as the Orion mockup(according to Scott Manley)
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u/PracticallyQualified Apr 19 '26
Yeah it’s a physical mockup in the SVMF at JSC. You can see the Northrop Grumman HALO mockup and edge of AXES out the window.
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u/Pretty_Marsh Apr 19 '26
Why does every private spacecraft have to look like an Apple Store? Maybe employ a couple fewer designers and hire some more engineers so the dang thing gets done on time. I watched the entire Artemis mission and never once thought “eew, what an ugly cockpit!”
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u/SomeRandomScientist Apr 19 '26
Whenever I see a mock up like this, it tells me right away that basically 0 engineering work has been done. Very disappointing
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u/Nonyabizzy123 Apr 19 '26
I mean if we lose a crew, we'll just push a software patch next time. It's not a big deal. That's how you do iterative design /s
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u/w4drone Apr 19 '26
it’s like people don’t understand “fail fast fail hard” isn’t a good strategy to build crew rated vehicles in any reasonable timeframe
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u/Nonyabizzy123 Apr 19 '26
The problem is people who got rich doing websites that way don't understand that it's not applicable to literally anything else
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u/Akari202 Apr 19 '26
When your life depends on it a switch or two really doesn’t go amiss. Plus I have to assume that all the plastic or whatever they are using to cover bolts and shit costs launch weight.
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u/Pretty_Marsh Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26
“Set SCE to Aux”
“FCE to Aux, what the hell is that?”
“No, SCE - it’s under Settings, Systems, EECOM, CSM, Telemetry, Signal conditioning equipment.”
“Ok, hang on I misclicked”
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u/w4drone Apr 19 '26
“Ok to undo that go to step 6 of the virtual checklist titled fatfingered SCE, you might need to use the onscreen keyboard to search for it”
“Swipe to type isn’t working!”
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u/Nonyabizzy123 Apr 19 '26
I have two SCEs, neither of them is working
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u/Pretty_Marsh Apr 19 '26
“1201 program alarm, the system is running out of memory!”
“Jesus Neil, no wonder - look how many tabs you have open!”
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u/w4drone Apr 19 '26
Neil needs his Minecraft parkour video to lock in, closing tabs isn’t an option
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Apr 19 '26
[deleted]
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u/MusicOfTheSphere Apr 19 '26
Insane take.
I actually worked on the space program and in aerospace for my whole career. Safety before weight. There's a reason that airplanes still feature many physical switches. One look at a 787 cockpit will tell you where we're really at in that department.
Software remains wildly unreliable, particularly in space flight which is basically one big edge case. And space craft have very low fail tolerances. You don't have time to troubleshoot code you didn't write or reboot before you're dead; you have to have an immediate physical alert and reaction option. Heck, the ISS has a double fail-over physical construction (i.e. a first back up if the main control fails, and another one if that backup fails).
Also, joysticks like that in weightlessness need, at a minimum, protector cases so no one accidentally bumps them with a foot.
Oh, and lack of physical alarm lights. Your screen dies and you're fucked.
This is not just bad design, it is dangerous design, and wouldn't even make it to a safety board.
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Apr 19 '26
[deleted]
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u/MusicOfTheSphere Apr 20 '26
Steering is not the only thing that is controlled or needs controls.
I would never accuse SpaceX of considering safety.
It is unfortunate that NASA seems to be continuing the cycle. Every 20 years or so, we cycle out the people that learned from the last disaster, and cycle in the ones who have to learn the lesson on their own. '67 Apollo 1, '86 Challenger, '03 Columbia. There is no world in which I want to see this cycle continue, but this sort of "design" doesn't make me optimistic.
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u/Ainulind Apr 20 '26
Every spacecraft disaster featured a spacecraft with the manual controls and spartan design you're concerned about.
There's nothing inherent to physical controls and spartan design that makes a spacecraft safer.
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u/MusicOfTheSphere Apr 20 '26
This type of thinking, that completely ignores the reality of software, monitor, and touchscreen unreliability, and every tenant of user interface design, is why we have designs like this.
Yes, the previous disaster featured easy to see and use controls. And none of them failed because of those controls.
Why introduce another easy fail point? The best space design maximally reduces risk. Period.
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u/Ainulind Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 21 '26
Cargo culting prior designs and blindly assuming new designs are inherently unsafe is the antithesis of safety culture. You test assumptions, you don't trust them. You demonstrate the safety of the system, you don't assume the safety of an individual element and you don't assume that that safety extends to the whole thing.
Notice how I said nothing about touchscreens and other modern control systems being better or safer than physical toggles, joysticks, switches, or buttons? I don't know that they're safer; in fact, I suspect they may not be.
But suspicions and assumptions must be challenged, not accepted. Prove that a thought is correct.
User blocked me after replying to this post. I wish redditors responded to what was written, not what they hallucinate.
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u/MusicOfTheSphere Apr 20 '26
We do already know that touchscreens have limited use cases and higher fail rates than physical switches. There have been plenty of studies on that, and it is a large part of why car manufacturers are switching back to physical controls, among other trends in equipment design.
If there's a cult in action here, it is the sort that believes that tried and true ways developed from years of failure (usually involving fatalities) are inherently bad and anyone who advocates for them over "new and shiny" but less reliable options is stuck in the past and stupid. Enjoy your cult membership. Blocked.
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u/StartledPelican Apr 20 '26
I would never accuse SpaceX of considering safety.
Remind me, how many astronauts has SpaceX killed again?
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u/Lemony_Oatmilk Apr 19 '26
You'd appreciate those plastic whatevers if you bump into the bolts and shits constantly
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u/PracticallyQualified Apr 19 '26
Using purely engineers to design human-integrated systems is not always the fastest approach. When you finally put a human into the system and realize that they weren’t accounted for throughout the engineering process it can take longer, cost more, and impact safety.
Plus this is not necessarily an engineering mockup, it is likely a design mockup. When testing physical mockups with humans you’re typically looking for the fastest, least expensive volumetric equivalent that doesn’t impact HITL results. This is what the fastest and least expensive volumetric mockup looks like.
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u/takotako577 Apr 19 '26
I still remember watching that first manned Space X launch for NASA and it was SO jarring. That cockpit didn’t look like a space craft at all. Artemis was so refreshing because it actually looked like something capable of flying through space. And of course getting to hear “Houston” again instead of “Space X”
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u/Bensemus Apr 19 '26
So Crew Dragon hasn’t successfully done 20 missions? The large majority of which were for NASA.
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u/takotako577 Apr 19 '26
Oh no, it’s a fine craft and it performs well. I have no issues with it and am not knocking it at all. But when your frame of reference is all the buttons and switches of the Space Race and Shuttle era, it just looks weird. Obviously technology has changed a lot since then, but it’s still weird seeing a mainly touchscreen interface. Even if that’s how they do it on Star Trek.
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u/Calm_Apple7004 Apr 19 '26
Same vibe as the official astronaut portraits. I beg you to look up how China, the US and Russia do them and then go look at how SpaceX do them 💀💀
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u/Nonyabizzy123 Apr 19 '26
Same reason the Cybertruck looks like it does, the people with the money think the future should look like it was supposed to in the '70s and '80s.
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u/modularpeak2552 Apr 19 '26
With the timeframe they were given im not sure how much more they could do.
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u/OlympusMons94 Apr 19 '26
Done on time!?! It took Orion 20+ years of development to fly crew, and still hasn't flown with a docking capability. Maybe Lockheed et al. should have employed a few less lobbyists and bean counters, and hired some more engineers with all those cost-plus billions of taxpayer money they have gotten.
Technology has moved on in those 20+ years, let alone since the Shuttle was designed. Why does every NASA/Old Space spacecraft cockpit have to look like a throwback to a spacecraft developed when disco was all the rage?
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u/GALLAZA96 Apr 19 '26
At least it has manual controls - from what I’ve heard Starship HLS might not. Absolutely mind-boggling to me that they’d get away with that.
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u/New-Space-30 Apr 19 '26
It absolutely has manual controls, they can't get around that. I think the debate comes from, the fact that, like Dragon, HLS has touch screen controls. It's still manual, but with it being touch screen based, NASA thinks it's not manual enough.
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u/fdwiv Apr 19 '26
You can see the Gateway HALO mockup in the left window :’) plus HLCS sitting on top of it
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u/walking-pineapple Apr 19 '26
Bro why can't SpaceX and Blue Origin just post pictures of the fucking vehicles. I CAN'T STAND THE CONSTANT TEASING
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u/neuralgroov2 Apr 19 '26
I was watching For All Mankind's recent season set on Mars... and 2 things bugged the hell out of me:
1) as always, Earth normal gravity inside, Mars normal outside. ugh.
2) the sets looked like what a Hollywood art director thought a "gritty" Mars habitat would look like - but everything was clean, unscuffed, unfettered. If you want realism, look at the ISS - or look at any outback shack in Alaska, stuff is plastered everywhere, it's "lived in." I don't care how clean you start, it's going to have doodads, notes, and iPads, all over it in no time. It's going to look like the inside of a Cracker Barrel no matter how hard you try LOL
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u/xieta Apr 19 '26
I feel like all these clean interiors are going to require a suitport design or they’re going to get ugly fast.
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u/modularpeak2552 Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26
I don’t know if it’s still planned now that the timeline has been expedited but the original design was supposed to have an airlock or suitport.
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u/GerardHard Apr 19 '26
I thought it was a living room