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Hydrogen is a small molecule
(sh.itjust.works)
Credit to u/Intrepid-Part-9196
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this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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SpaceflightMemes
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You'd think NASA would have figured out how to handle hydrogen by now. Especially considering they ran into this exact same problem on Artemis I.
Pro tip: don't use hydrogen as your rocket propellant.
And Shuttle.
Or they should have figured out to move on from it.
They know how to move on from it. Congress privatized next gen rocketry, and then told NASA to go back to the moon before China, but on a minimal budget. The old tech is what they have. Artemis is cobbled together from old space shuttle hardware.
They actually told them to go to the moon, and pretend it's Mars because they'll have to take the same rocket to Mars. Oh no wait, never mind the whole Mars bit, but there won't be any time to change the "pretend it's Mars" bit.
Which is why the entire Artemis program is pants on head stupid.
I think the problem is more than Congress told them to build a new rocket with shuttle parts. You can't exactly change your prop if you're required to use the same engines.
I didn't say that Congress told them to build a new rocket with shuttle parts. And yeah, a short paragraph isn't going to capture all the details of decades of interactions between politics, the private space industry, and funding of NASA. There is indeed more to it.
there is no more efficient rocket propellant, and there won't be unless we get a new periodic table.
Is it really efficient if you can't launch it?