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The 1960s architecture was not sustainable. Artemis is supposed to be sustainable, was supposed to have reusable landers, which implies refueling. So refueling
by Robotbeat 3y ago
The 1960s architecture was not sustainable. Artemis is supposed to be sustainable, was supposed to have reusable landers, which implies refueling. So refueling as a technology was already something NASA desired.
Starship is also about 50 times more capable than the Apollo LM.
Artemis is also supposed to be preparing for Mars, which Apollo didn’t do.
Artemis is also less well funded than Apollo.
I’m not sure why Starship HLS gets the hate it does. It’s by far the best choice NASA could’ve made, and it’s cheap enough that NASA can select a second lander provider, allowing redundancy.
- idlewords 3y ago"Sustainability" is a bureaucratic requirement, not a technical requirement. The reason the mission architecture has been stuffed full of reusable components like Orion, Starship and the Gateway is to make one-off capital expenses into long-term operational expenses that are difficult to cut. This is the same reason important parts of the whole program are being farmed out to ESA. Starship gets hated on because it's vaporware being promoted by someone with a long track record of creative promise making across multiple fields of endeavor.
- Robotbeat 3y ago“Idlewords” indeed. No one with actual deep knowledge of the space industry thinks Starship is vaporware. SpaceX has been launching more stuff to orbit on Falcon than the rest of the planet combined, and virtually all on a mostly-reusable orbital rocket, the only one that is in operation today. They also have been the sole domestic provider for orbital crew launch in the US since Shuttle retired. This is not “empty promises.” Compare that to New Glenn, for instance, which is years behind schedule. The first orbital rocket from a company that was started before SpaceX.