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NASA’s bet on Starship for the Moon

164 points by alexrustic 6y ago

walrus01 6y ago
> All of this has led to criticisms that SLS is a jobs program. Indeed, it provides jobs in all 50 states and supports hundreds of small businesses They don't call it the "Senate Launch System" for no reason...
- mattkevan 6y ago
  Dunno why it’s called the Senate Launch System when Senate Lunch System is right there.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  Last I read, it was in only 48 states. Strictly speaking they needed only 26. It will be very hard to kill SLS even with SpaceX able to provide launch capacity at <0.3% of the price. Betting here they will actually launch one SLS, or even two, but not crewed. The contractors will need to be shifted to one or more other wasteful make-work projects before SLS can be allowed to die. Betting on DoD work.
  - skissane 6y ago
    > It will be very hard to kill SLS even with SpaceX able to provide launch capacity at <0.3% of the price. I think dearMoon is the thing that's going to kill SLS/Orion. Once private astronauts have safely done an Apollo 8 / Artemis II type mission using Starship all the way there and back, it is going to be hard to say "no" to NASA using it for their astronauts too. SpaceX will probably even do a private lunar surface mission. I think they'll let NASA go first because they don't want to steal NASA's thunder–they might change their mind about that if NASA is hopelessly delayed, but I think that's unlikely since SLS/Orion are close to finished and the biggest risk to Artemis III timelines is now Starship not SLS/Orion. Once SpaceX does a private mission for significantly less than what NASA is paying, it is going to be very hard for NASA/Congress to justify continuing to pay for SLS/Orion.
    - nexuist 6y ago
      > SLS/Orion are close to finished I'm not well versed in this field so forgive my ignorance but I remember learning about SLS in middle school and being told that it should be operational in 4-5 years. I'm about to graduate college. Do we actually know if SLS is close to finished or are we just taking their word for it?
      - skissane 6y ago
        SLS/Orion are years behind schedule and billions over budget – but they are fully constructed and the testing before the first mission (Artemis I) has basically been completed. The last major pre-flight test milestone was the "green run" of the SLS Core Stage at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, which was completed successfully last month–after an earlier unsuccessful attempt in January. Right now, the first SLS Core Stage is on a barge on way to Kennedy Space Center, where it will be stacked in the Vehicle Assembly Building with Orion, the ESM (European Service Module), the ICPS upper stage, and the solid rocket boosters (all of which are already at Kennedy). The first flight of SLS+Orion, Artemis I, is scheduled for November – that is an uncrewed test flight in which Orion will orbit the moon and then return to Earth. It is widely expected to slip a bit, but still, if they miss November, it will happen early next year. The next mission planned after that is Artemis II, which will be a crewed Apollo 8-style mission, with astronauts orbiting the moon but not landing on it. Artemis II is scheduled for August 2023. The gap between Artemis I and Artemis II is decent-sized and hopefully gives them time to address any issues that come up, but at the same time don't be surprised if Artemis II slips by a few months too. Finally, the first lunar landing mission, Artemis III, is tentatively targeted to October 2024–but many think 2025 or 2026 are more realistic. Even if SLS/Orion are ready for that, nobody knows whether HLS Starship will be. SpaceX moves a lot faster than the SLS/Orion contractors (Boeing, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Airbus), but Starship is at a much earlier stage of development, and Starship is novel and technically challenging, whereas SLS/Orion is a technologically much more conservative design.
        ncmncm 6y ago
        You seem to be saying most of the money for the first SLS has already been spent, so they might as well shoot it. If there were anything big needing to be put into orbit right away, this one might be able to get it there. But of course as a first test, nothing valuable will be on board. Maybe they could loft a tank of LOX in a solar-powered refrigeration tank, for use by whoever needs it later. It would be silly to build and launch a second one.
sschueller 6y ago
To me this seems extremely risky. There are so many things that still need to be solved on Starship such as in LEO refueling. I hope NASA knows what they are doing.
- thaeli 6y ago
  It _is_ very risky, but the source selection statement lays out in great detail how both other bids were much worse.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  SpaceX needs to solve this to go to Mars, NASA is simply paying them to learn (similar to how full fare launches allowed them to learn to reuse the first stage and keep it for themselves).
- HPsquared 6y ago
  I don't want to sound too cavalier, but launching and landing are objectively hard - need a combination of power and finesse. Isn't refuelling just connecting a pipe and an ullage motor?
  - the-dude 6y ago
    For example, the internet is just a bunch of pipes. How hard can it be?
    - HPsquared 6y ago
      The propellant depot is just a big truck, not a series of tubes.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propellant_depot#Engineering_design_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propellant_depot#Engineering_d... has a pretty good list of concerns.
    - 6y ago
larrydag 6y ago
Does this mean that the Lunar Gateway project will be scrapped? https://www.nasa.gov/gateway https://www.nasa.gov/gateway
- wmf 6y ago
  The current official plan is for Starship to take astronauts from the Gateway to the surface of the moon and back. That plan is ridiculously complex and expensive when you could skip the Gateway and ride Starship all the way to the moon instead. At some point Starship will be ready and SLS and the Gateway will still not be ready and then NASA can decide to bypass the bullshit.
  - rblatz 6y ago
    That was my take on this too. NASA is buying themselves a backup plan for further SLS delays.
  - dillondoyle 6y ago
    I can't believe that I'm understanding this correctly? Just to be sure: NASA's plan is to fly the insanely expensive hasn't even launched into space yet SLS, onto some non-existing docking station, then SpaceX fly to the moon. Repeat back (does Starship have to dock again why can't it just go straight back into earth)? While Starship can go to from earth to moon with a refueling stop alone? Even if sticking to the space dock why not the WAYYYY cheaper Dragon which just worked today (using a recycled rocket)?
    - syoc 6y ago
      I am way out of my comfort zone discussing this, but I really like the idea of building oribiting infrastructure. Not sure why they are not using an earth-moon Lagrange point. I agree that it would probably be cheaper and more practical to go directly to the moon with a simpler refuling scheme. I do however also believe that some infrastructure is needed for further space travel and a larger more permanent off-earth presence. Starting new missions from outside a strong gravity field seems like such a huge advantage. I guess most people want a destination and not just a more long term established presence.
njarboe 6y ago
NASA's "bold bet" is also an insurance policy on the fact that SpaceX might have just built this Moon landing Starship version on its own and get back to the moon first. Especially if it got a large private backer, like Yusaku Maezawa is backing the dearMoon project. NASA's relevancy would definitely take a hit if that happened, so funding it themselves is a good idea. I don't see the other two bids getting private funding to go forward without NASA support.
- eloff 6y ago
  Imagine in an alternate universe where they decided to back an SLS type program over SpaceX, perhaps due to corruption of some sort. In that case, there's probably better than 10-1 odds that SpaceX would have beat them there for a fraction of the price. They would have looked stupid and been the laughing stock of the country. Future budgets would have been seriously cut. They made the smart decision here to back SpaceX. Love or hate Elon Musk, his companies get results in an incredible fashion. So far everyone betting against them has got horribly burned. They are excellent examples of American ingenuity and enterprise.
  - merpnderp 6y ago
    They already look stupid for being part of SLS and having prominent admins say things like landing a rocket isn't that hard and NASA could have done it in the 80's if they'd wanted to, or the Space Shuttle which was a massive downgrade from the Saturn series.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    Well, this guy finally considers himself too old to run for re-election again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Shelby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Shelby SLS had a big fan in him, and he used to punch above his weight in space matters.
- yummypaint 6y ago
  Going to the moon is not a good value proposition as far as science per dollar. SpaceX and other players only care about supporting science to the extent it makes them money. In my opinion NASA never had the budget for a moon mission anyway. Scrapping space telescopes and other far more useful instruments to pull a publicity stunt would be irresponsible. NASA is still the only party willing to support the less glamorous but more important work. This division of labor is good. Companies can do things that make good marketing material and NASA can continue managing the science that motivates the entire excercise in the first place.
toomuchredbull 6y ago
I hope as a test Musk launches a cyber truck to the moon and drives around. The ultimate flex.
- unchocked 6y ago
  I suspect they will. Cybertruck's chassis and battery capacity will dominate every other lunar rover architecture, and a ton of NRE has already been spent making it a production vehicle. Lunarizing the platform will be cheap, and Starship has ample payload mass margins.
  - zardo 6y ago
    > Lunarizing the platform will be cheap What makes you say that? I would assume almost nothing would carry over.
    - unchocked 6y ago
      Lighter materials, revised batteries, adjusted suspension, different wheels, space-buggy interior. Similar terrain relative navigation, charge control system, motors, etc.
    - nexuist 6y ago
      Does it have to though? It would still be a PR miracle even if it was just a non-functional showpiece. I would even say that sending a battery pack up there just for the meme of being able to remotely drive it around is not worth the potential risk of compromising the mission (IIRC the Roadster had most of its electronics stripped out before launch as well.)
Nomentatus 6y ago
This isn't a "bold bet", it's a backstop. It's what (little) the Senate will pay for right now. Their one choice. It helps ensure that NASA has at least one way to get large amounts of cargo onto the moon. No actual manned flight is included, and personally, I don't expect Starship to be man-rated soon, or - perhaps - ever. It's not needed for the most dangerous task, which is getting astronauts up to orbit, that's already possible via Dragon. Avoiding putting kerosene soot into the stratosphere is the only reason to prefer sending astronauts into orbit via Starship.
- skissane 6y ago
  > It helps ensure that NASA has at least one way to get large amounts of cargo onto the moon. No actual manned flight is included, and personally, I don't expect Starship to be man-rated soon That's not true. SpaceX's bid includes at least two lunar landings – at least one uncrewed, and one crewed. (They may have to have more than one uncrewed landing if things unexpectedly go wrong with the first one.) For the crewed landing, Starship will launch from earth, be refuelled in LEO, then travel to lunar orbit and wait there. Up to 3 months later, Orion will launch on SLS with four astronauts and also travel to lunar orbit. Once in lunar orbit, Orion and Starship will rendezvous and dock, and two astronauts will transfer to Starship (the other two stay on Orion). Starship will land those two astronauts on the moon, and then re-dock with Orion, and the four astronauts will use Orion to return to earth. The Starship will be disposed of, probably by landing it again on the Moon's surface, where it will await possible future reuse by a lunar base. (Ideally it would be reused multiple times before disposal, but I don't think that's going to happen at first – how do you inspect/repair it in-between uses if it can't return to Earth?) Starship is not being crew-rated for launch and re-entry as part of this contract, although that is the long-term goal. It is only being crew-rated for in-space use and the lunar landing. Orion will be the vehicle used for crewed launch and re-entry for lunar missions initially. Once Starship is crew-rated for launch and re-entry, that may change.
  - Nomentatus 5y ago
    Citations would be welcome. The program includes manned landing, but this contract covers just one part of that program. I looked again, and can't find the contract you say exists.
7e 6y ago
It’s not so bold; they’re going with the lowest bidder.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  Politically bold—near suicidal, bureaucratically. Probably the SLS suppliers will need to be shifted to a DoD boondoggle or heads will roll. We have heard rumblings recently about starting up a $trillions missile program, which might be that boondoggle.
simonblack 6y ago
The second flight, which will carry astronauts to the Moon, could launch as early as 2024 Extremely unlikely. The first Apollo landing was the result of years of research and the expensive development of whole industries and skills. One smallish company has no hope of duplicating that environment in such a short time.
- nickik 6y ago
  Apollo was more then just a lander, it was a gigantic new rocket, a capsule, a service module a lander and an accent stage. SpaceX is by no means a small company, its arguably the most successful space company ever. They are also the most vertically integrated space company. They launch far more then anybody, largest sat operator, largest provider of cargo and crew for human space flight. Also your comparison completely misses a few things, Apollo had to invent a huge amount of things and build infrastructure that is now standard and well known well understood. Just think about the difference in complexity of computers. NASA still has to knowledge and much more knowledge about the moon and human space flight since then. SpaceX can reuse a huge amount of things from existing vehicles and capsules. The Raptors have been under serious development since 2014. Apollo was a huge number of different very unique parts, Starship uses Raptor engines for all parts from earth to the moon. 2024 is still a very difficult target but its not because you need to develop a whole new industry. Its because the vehicle is absurdly big and has crazy operations.
kristianp 6y ago
Reminds me of a recent mind blowing article about how bad the SLS really is.(1.) It's good to know Nasa is backing a company that has current expertise, not reusing generation old designs mandated by Congress. Things like the shuttle era engine design requiring a full tear-down after each launch. And the solid rocket boosters having a 1 in 100 failure rate. (1.) https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/02/24/sls-is-cancellation-too-good/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/02/24/sls-is-cancell...
- interestica 6y ago
  Thanks for this. The perfect level of cathartic salt.
hnarn 6y ago
It's kind of mind boggling to me as a non-American how the US can spend such vast amounts of money on defense and so relatively little on space. Surely even from a purely egoistic perspective the prestige and potential profit of being the only serious player in "space industrialism" must be worth a few less fighter jets?

164 points by alexrustic 6y ago

> All of this has led to criticisms that SLS is a jobs program. Indeed, it provides jobs in all 50 states and supports hundreds of small businesses They don't call it the "Senate Launch System" for no reason...

mattkevan 6y ago
Dunno why it’s called the Senate Launch System when Senate Lunch System is right there.
ncmncm 6y ago
Last I read, it was in only 48 states. Strictly speaking they needed only 26. It will be very hard to kill SLS even with SpaceX able to provide launch capacity at <0.3% of the price. Betting here they will actually launch one SLS, or even two, but not crewed. The contractors will need to be shifted to one or more other wasteful make-work projects before SLS can be allowed to die. Betting on DoD work.
- skissane 6y ago
  > It will be very hard to kill SLS even with SpaceX able to provide launch capacity at <0.3% of the price. I think dearMoon is the thing that's going to kill SLS/Orion. Once private astronauts have safely done an Apollo 8 / Artemis II type mission using Starship all the way there and back, it is going to be hard to say "no" to NASA using it for their astronauts too. SpaceX will probably even do a private lunar surface mission. I think they'll let NASA go first because they don't want to steal NASA's thunder–they might change their mind about that if NASA is hopelessly delayed, but I think that's unlikely since SLS/Orion are close to finished and the biggest risk to Artemis III timelines is now Starship not SLS/Orion. Once SpaceX does a private mission for significantly less than what NASA is paying, it is going to be very hard for NASA/Congress to justify continuing to pay for SLS/Orion.
  - nexuist 6y ago
    > SLS/Orion are close to finished I'm not well versed in this field so forgive my ignorance but I remember learning about SLS in middle school and being told that it should be operational in 4-5 years. I'm about to graduate college. Do we actually know if SLS is close to finished or are we just taking their word for it?
    - skissane 6y ago
      SLS/Orion are years behind schedule and billions over budget – but they are fully constructed and the testing before the first mission (Artemis I) has basically been completed. The last major pre-flight test milestone was the "green run" of the SLS Core Stage at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, which was completed successfully last month–after an earlier unsuccessful attempt in January. Right now, the first SLS Core Stage is on a barge on way to Kennedy Space Center, where it will be stacked in the Vehicle Assembly Building with Orion, the ESM (European Service Module), the ICPS upper stage, and the solid rocket boosters (all of which are already at Kennedy). The first flight of SLS+Orion, Artemis I, is scheduled for November – that is an uncrewed test flight in which Orion will orbit the moon and then return to Earth. It is widely expected to slip a bit, but still, if they miss November, it will happen early next year. The next mission planned after that is Artemis II, which will be a crewed Apollo 8-style mission, with astronauts orbiting the moon but not landing on it. Artemis II is scheduled for August 2023. The gap between Artemis I and Artemis II is decent-sized and hopefully gives them time to address any issues that come up, but at the same time don't be surprised if Artemis II slips by a few months too. Finally, the first lunar landing mission, Artemis III, is tentatively targeted to October 2024–but many think 2025 or 2026 are more realistic. Even if SLS/Orion are ready for that, nobody knows whether HLS Starship will be. SpaceX moves a lot faster than the SLS/Orion contractors (Boeing, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Airbus), but Starship is at a much earlier stage of development, and Starship is novel and technically challenging, whereas SLS/Orion is a technologically much more conservative design.
      - ncmncm 6y ago
        You seem to be saying most of the money for the first SLS has already been spent, so they might as well shoot it. If there were anything big needing to be put into orbit right away, this one might be able to get it there. But of course as a first test, nothing valuable will be on board. Maybe they could loft a tank of LOX in a solar-powered refrigeration tank, for use by whoever needs it later. It would be silly to build and launch a second one.

sschueller 6y ago

To me this seems extremely risky. There are so many things that still need to be solved on Starship such as in LEO refueling. I hope NASA knows what they are doing.

thaeli 6y ago
It _is_ very risky, but the source selection statement lays out in great detail how both other bids were much worse.
toomuchtodo 6y ago
SpaceX needs to solve this to go to Mars, NASA is simply paying them to learn (similar to how full fare launches allowed them to learn to reuse the first stage and keep it for themselves).
HPsquared 6y ago
I don't want to sound too cavalier, but launching and landing are objectively hard - need a combination of power and finesse. Isn't refuelling just connecting a pipe and an ullage motor?
- the-dude 6y ago
  For example, the internet is just a bunch of pipes. How hard can it be?
  - HPsquared 6y ago
    The propellant depot is just a big truck, not a series of tubes.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propellant_depot#Engineering_design_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propellant_depot#Engineering_d... has a pretty good list of concerns.
  - 6y ago

larrydag 6y ago

Does this mean that the Lunar Gateway project will be scrapped? https://www.nasa.gov/gateway https://www.nasa.gov/gateway

wmf 6y ago
The current official plan is for Starship to take astronauts from the Gateway to the surface of the moon and back. That plan is ridiculously complex and expensive when you could skip the Gateway and ride Starship all the way to the moon instead. At some point Starship will be ready and SLS and the Gateway will still not be ready and then NASA can decide to bypass the bullshit.
- rblatz 6y ago
  That was my take on this too. NASA is buying themselves a backup plan for further SLS delays.
- dillondoyle 6y ago
  I can't believe that I'm understanding this correctly? Just to be sure: NASA's plan is to fly the insanely expensive hasn't even launched into space yet SLS, onto some non-existing docking station, then SpaceX fly to the moon. Repeat back (does Starship have to dock again why can't it just go straight back into earth)? While Starship can go to from earth to moon with a refueling stop alone? Even if sticking to the space dock why not the WAYYYY cheaper Dragon which just worked today (using a recycled rocket)?
  - syoc 6y ago
    I am way out of my comfort zone discussing this, but I really like the idea of building oribiting infrastructure. Not sure why they are not using an earth-moon Lagrange point. I agree that it would probably be cheaper and more practical to go directly to the moon with a simpler refuling scheme. I do however also believe that some infrastructure is needed for further space travel and a larger more permanent off-earth presence. Starting new missions from outside a strong gravity field seems like such a huge advantage. I guess most people want a destination and not just a more long term established presence.

njarboe 6y ago

NASA's "bold bet" is also an insurance policy on the fact that SpaceX might have just built this Moon landing Starship version on its own and get back to the moon first. Especially if it got a large private backer, like Yusaku Maezawa is backing the dearMoon project. NASA's relevancy would definitely take a hit if that happened, so funding it themselves is a good idea. I don't see the other two bids getting private funding to go forward without NASA support.

eloff 6y ago
Imagine in an alternate universe where they decided to back an SLS type program over SpaceX, perhaps due to corruption of some sort. In that case, there's probably better than 10-1 odds that SpaceX would have beat them there for a fraction of the price. They would have looked stupid and been the laughing stock of the country. Future budgets would have been seriously cut. They made the smart decision here to back SpaceX. Love or hate Elon Musk, his companies get results in an incredible fashion. So far everyone betting against them has got horribly burned. They are excellent examples of American ingenuity and enterprise.
- merpnderp 6y ago
  They already look stupid for being part of SLS and having prominent admins say things like landing a rocket isn't that hard and NASA could have done it in the 80's if they'd wanted to, or the Space Shuttle which was a massive downgrade from the Saturn series.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  Well, this guy finally considers himself too old to run for re-election again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Shelby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Shelby SLS had a big fan in him, and he used to punch above his weight in space matters.
yummypaint 6y ago
Going to the moon is not a good value proposition as far as science per dollar. SpaceX and other players only care about supporting science to the extent it makes them money. In my opinion NASA never had the budget for a moon mission anyway. Scrapping space telescopes and other far more useful instruments to pull a publicity stunt would be irresponsible. NASA is still the only party willing to support the less glamorous but more important work. This division of labor is good. Companies can do things that make good marketing material and NASA can continue managing the science that motivates the entire excercise in the first place.

toomuchredbull 6y ago

I hope as a test Musk launches a cyber truck to the moon and drives around. The ultimate flex.

unchocked 6y ago
I suspect they will. Cybertruck's chassis and battery capacity will dominate every other lunar rover architecture, and a ton of NRE has already been spent making it a production vehicle. Lunarizing the platform will be cheap, and Starship has ample payload mass margins.
- zardo 6y ago
  > Lunarizing the platform will be cheap What makes you say that? I would assume almost nothing would carry over.
  - unchocked 6y ago
    Lighter materials, revised batteries, adjusted suspension, different wheels, space-buggy interior. Similar terrain relative navigation, charge control system, motors, etc.
  - nexuist 6y ago
    Does it have to though? It would still be a PR miracle even if it was just a non-functional showpiece. I would even say that sending a battery pack up there just for the meme of being able to remotely drive it around is not worth the potential risk of compromising the mission (IIRC the Roadster had most of its electronics stripped out before launch as well.)

Nomentatus 6y ago

This isn't a "bold bet", it's a backstop. It's what (little) the Senate will pay for right now. Their one choice. It helps ensure that NASA has at least one way to get large amounts of cargo onto the moon. No actual manned flight is included, and personally, I don't expect Starship to be man-rated soon, or - perhaps - ever. It's not needed for the most dangerous task, which is getting astronauts up to orbit, that's already possible via Dragon. Avoiding putting kerosene soot into the stratosphere is the only reason to prefer sending astronauts into orbit via Starship.

skissane 6y ago
> It helps ensure that NASA has at least one way to get large amounts of cargo onto the moon. No actual manned flight is included, and personally, I don't expect Starship to be man-rated soon That's not true. SpaceX's bid includes at least two lunar landings – at least one uncrewed, and one crewed. (They may have to have more than one uncrewed landing if things unexpectedly go wrong with the first one.) For the crewed landing, Starship will launch from earth, be refuelled in LEO, then travel to lunar orbit and wait there. Up to 3 months later, Orion will launch on SLS with four astronauts and also travel to lunar orbit. Once in lunar orbit, Orion and Starship will rendezvous and dock, and two astronauts will transfer to Starship (the other two stay on Orion). Starship will land those two astronauts on the moon, and then re-dock with Orion, and the four astronauts will use Orion to return to earth. The Starship will be disposed of, probably by landing it again on the Moon's surface, where it will await possible future reuse by a lunar base. (Ideally it would be reused multiple times before disposal, but I don't think that's going to happen at first – how do you inspect/repair it in-between uses if it can't return to Earth?) Starship is not being crew-rated for launch and re-entry as part of this contract, although that is the long-term goal. It is only being crew-rated for in-space use and the lunar landing. Orion will be the vehicle used for crewed launch and re-entry for lunar missions initially. Once Starship is crew-rated for launch and re-entry, that may change.
- Nomentatus 5y ago
  Citations would be welcome. The program includes manned landing, but this contract covers just one part of that program. I looked again, and can't find the contract you say exists.

7e 6y ago

It’s not so bold; they’re going with the lowest bidder.

ncmncm 6y ago
Politically bold—near suicidal, bureaucratically. Probably the SLS suppliers will need to be shifted to a DoD boondoggle or heads will roll. We have heard rumblings recently about starting up a $trillions missile program, which might be that boondoggle.

simonblack 6y ago

The second flight, which will carry astronauts to the Moon, could launch as early as 2024 Extremely unlikely. The first Apollo landing was the result of years of research and the expensive development of whole industries and skills. One smallish company has no hope of duplicating that environment in such a short time.

nickik 6y ago
Apollo was more then just a lander, it was a gigantic new rocket, a capsule, a service module a lander and an accent stage. SpaceX is by no means a small company, its arguably the most successful space company ever. They are also the most vertically integrated space company. They launch far more then anybody, largest sat operator, largest provider of cargo and crew for human space flight. Also your comparison completely misses a few things, Apollo had to invent a huge amount of things and build infrastructure that is now standard and well known well understood. Just think about the difference in complexity of computers. NASA still has to knowledge and much more knowledge about the moon and human space flight since then. SpaceX can reuse a huge amount of things from existing vehicles and capsules. The Raptors have been under serious development since 2014. Apollo was a huge number of different very unique parts, Starship uses Raptor engines for all parts from earth to the moon. 2024 is still a very difficult target but its not because you need to develop a whole new industry. Its because the vehicle is absurdly big and has crazy operations.

kristianp 6y ago

Reminds me of a recent mind blowing article about how bad the SLS really is.(1.) It's good to know Nasa is backing a company that has current expertise, not reusing generation old designs mandated by Congress. Things like the shuttle era engine design requiring a full tear-down after each launch. And the solid rocket boosters having a 1 in 100 failure rate. (1.) https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/02/24/sls-is-cancellation-too-good/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/02/24/sls-is-cancell...

interestica 6y ago
Thanks for this. The perfect level of cathartic salt.

hnarn 6y ago

It's kind of mind boggling to me as a non-American how the US can spend such vast amounts of money on defense and so relatively little on space. Surely even from a purely egoistic perspective the prestige and potential profit of being the only serious player in "space industrialism" must be worth a few less fighter jets?