{"id":534286,"date":"2026-06-14T04:24:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T04:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/534286\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T04:24:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T04:24:19","slug":"chinese-team-flags-life-threatening-glaring-weakness-in-nasas-artemis-programme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/534286\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese team flags life-threatening \u2018glaring weakness\u2019 in Nasa\u2019s Artemis programme"},"content":{"rendered":"

China and the United States are answering this in contrasting ways. Their answers could reveal the value they place on human life.<\/p>\n

From the Apollo Lunar Module in the 1960s to Nasa\u2019s new Orion spacecraft<\/a> for the Artemis programme, the American architecture relies on a single, powerful main engine to do the heavy lifting.<\/p>\n

On the descent stage, one main engine controls the entire fall from lunar orbit to the surface. On the ascent stage, one main engine is the only ticket home.<\/p>\n

If that one engine fails, there is no backup. This design, to quote a peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Chinese Space Science and Technology in March, \u201ccontains some glaring weaknesses\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China and the United States are answering this in contrasting ways. Their answers could reveal the value they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[229892,229890,44269,381,229893,229891,18,19,17,80273,1024,132432,133,2792,19453,451,2731,229889,384],"class_list":["post-534286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-american-artemis-programme","tag-apollo-lunar-module","tag-artemis-programme","tag-china","tag-chinese-space-science-and-technology","tag-common-bulkhead-tank","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lunar-lander","tag-nasa","tag-orion-spacecraft","tag-science","tag-shanghai","tag-south-china-morning-post","tag-space","tag-spacex","tag-starship-human-landing-system","tag-united-states"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116746562057231592","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}