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Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 21, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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that everyone working on the Artemis Program keeps using verbiage that strongly implies that we have no idea how a ton of this is supposed to work.

To be fair, a lot of the Apollo Program approach was very much based around the concept of "keep trying something until it works", rather than actually understanding how it works. A number of different engine resonance issues were 'fixed' simply by throwing literal bombs into the stream and hoping they'd disrupt unintentional bombs. Even where they had decent models and fixes, sometimes they launched unfixed versions to try and hit deadlines: this was funny when coincidence with other unexplained problems saved lives, and less so when it ended them (on the ground!).

More broadly, fluid calculations are hard.