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Well, they haven't got a lander for one thing. The Apollo LM had its design finalised in '63, and only flew in '65. SpaceX would surely do it quicker now, with

Well, they haven't got a lander for one thing. The Apollo LM had its design finalised in '63, and only flew in '65. SpaceX would surely do it quicker now, with the benefit of experience, but from scratch to operations in a year for such a unique vehicle is quite unrealistic.

rplnt 10y ago
Dragon is only capable of crash-landing using its engines? I.e. there is not enough propellant, legs, etc... to do a soft landing? (not even considering take-off right now)
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  It can land on Earth, because it uses the atmosphere to shed most of its speed, and rockets for the very last couple hundred miles an hour. No such luck on the airless Moon.
- nickik 10y ago
  Depends on the rocket. With some modifications and the right rocket it should be possible to land a Dragon 2 on the moon. However, there it will be for a very long time. No chance to come back.
- cbhl 10y ago
  If you want to send up more propellant, you need to send up even more propellant to get the propellant you want up to space. Which means you have no room left for your actual payload. Back in 2013, before SpaceX had recovered any rockets at all, Elon Musk talked about how the way they were going to get reusable rockets was by making the rocket and the reusability more efficient: https://youtu.be/vDwzmJpI4io?t=26m30s https://youtu.be/vDwzmJpI4io?t=26m30s
- Symmetry 10y ago
  Not on the Moon. On Earth or Mars it can aerobrake away most of its orbital velocity but you can't do that on Mars. The Dragon 2 only carries 400 m/s of delta-v and you'd need 1.7 km/s to get from low lunar orbit to the surface even ignoring the need to brake into an orbit.
vibrolax 10y ago
The Apollo LM first flew in earth orbit on the Apollo 9 mission in March 1969. Its first test flight was only 4 months before the Apollo 11 mission landed one on the moon! And the first all-up Saturn V flew unmanned in November 1967. The incentives and funding were there very rapid development.
- achamayou 10y ago
  Its first complete test flight, but there were years of development and testing of mockups and subsystems before. A quick check also reveals that the LM carried in excess of 10 tons of fuel, when Dragon carries less than 1.5.

rplnt 10y ago

Dragon is only capable of crash-landing using its engines? I.e. there is not enough propellant, legs, etc... to do a soft landing? (not even considering take-off right now)

ceejayoz 10y ago
It can land on Earth, because it uses the atmosphere to shed most of its speed, and rockets for the very last couple hundred miles an hour. No such luck on the airless Moon.
nickik 10y ago
Depends on the rocket. With some modifications and the right rocket it should be possible to land a Dragon 2 on the moon. However, there it will be for a very long time. No chance to come back.
cbhl 10y ago
If you want to send up more propellant, you need to send up even more propellant to get the propellant you want up to space. Which means you have no room left for your actual payload. Back in 2013, before SpaceX had recovered any rockets at all, Elon Musk talked about how the way they were going to get reusable rockets was by making the rocket and the reusability more efficient: https://youtu.be/vDwzmJpI4io?t=26m30s https://youtu.be/vDwzmJpI4io?t=26m30s
Symmetry 10y ago
Not on the Moon. On Earth or Mars it can aerobrake away most of its orbital velocity but you can't do that on Mars. The Dragon 2 only carries 400 m/s of delta-v and you'd need 1.7 km/s to get from low lunar orbit to the surface even ignoring the need to brake into an orbit.

vibrolax 10y ago

The Apollo LM first flew in earth orbit on the Apollo 9 mission in March 1969. Its first test flight was only 4 months before the Apollo 11 mission landed one on the moon! And the first all-up Saturn V flew unmanned in November 1967. The incentives and funding were there very rapid development.

achamayou 10y ago
Its first complete test flight, but there were years of development and testing of mockups and subsystems before. A quick check also reveals that the LM carried in excess of 10 tons of fuel, when Dragon carries less than 1.5.