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I was under the impression that Artemis I was already a full unmanned mission to moon orbit two years ago, using SLS + Orion. SLS did get to earth orbit with t

I was under the impression that Artemis I was already a full unmanned mission to moon orbit two years ago, using SLS + Orion. SLS did get to earth orbit with the Orion payload. While the latest Starship (IFT-3) barely reached "orbital speeds" and failed on re-entry. How is that "more than SLS has managed"? You could argue that since SLS is not reusable, it kind of also failed on re-entry by design. But the Starship failure was an accident and it has never actually reached orbit, nor has it delivered a meaningful payload successfully. And Starship has ambitions do a lot more than SLS, acting as a full lunar lander and being reusable. All in all, Starship is in a much earlier stage of development. SLS already fulfilled the purpose it was designed for back in 2022.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> I was under the impression that Artemis I was already a full unmanned mission to moon orbit, using SLS + Orion You correct. Artemis 1 put the Orion capsule in a distant retrograde lunar orbit [1] before successfully splashing down, all unmanned. I believe this is the same orbit astronauts are going to fly in Artemis 2 in 2025. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_retrograde_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_retrograde_orbit
dotnet00 2y ago
It's a different style of development. SLS burned an absurd amount of money and spent over a decade making sure that the first launch went relatively well, because they can't afford to have visible failures, in part because people are stupid when it comes to testing, and in part because they can only build them fast enough to launch once every other year (unless they're given another ridiculous sum of money and another decade to build more infrastructure). Starship is testing iteratively, so they spend less money up front to figure out everything before flying, and instead put in a reasonable effort ahead of time and then just fly to figure out what needs improvement. They can afford to do this, because they are designing for mass prduction and because as a private company, they don't have to answer to the ignorant public. Building a new Starship stack is a matter of months, and they're more limited by the rate at which they can test and get through paperwork to launch the things than the rate at which they can build them. For reference, SLS launched in 2022 and next might launch in 2025, Starship had a close to orbital velocity launch in March (it effectively proved they can get to orbit, it was not actually orbital so as to avoid leaving debris stuck in orbit until they can prove the ability to deorbit) and is expected to launch again in late May/early June.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > SLS burned an absurd amount of money and spent over a decade making sure that the first launch went relatively well, because they can't afford to have visible failures SLS burned a lot of money because it needed to have massive production in politically-needed districts.
- extraduder_ire 2y ago
  > Starship had a close to orbital velocity launch in March It had orbital velocity, but it wasn't on an orbital trajectory. At least based on the numbers provided and Scott Manley's description of events. I think the NASA award for pumping tonnes of oxidizer required them to be at or above orbital velocity.
- oersted 2y ago
  I agree, I was only refuting the "more than SLS has managed". The statement surprised me and I had to look it up to check if I was missing something. Indeed SLS is very inefficient, Starship certainly has more potential and its achievements are more impressive already in terms of innovation, speed of development and costs. But it's not nearly as capable yet, there are still many unknowns.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> I was under the impression that Artemis I was already a full unmanned mission to moon orbit, using SLS + Orion You correct. Artemis 1 put the Orion capsule in a distant retrograde lunar orbit [1] before successfully splashing down, all unmanned. I believe this is the same orbit astronauts are going to fly in Artemis 2 in 2025. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_retrograde_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_retrograde_orbit

dotnet00 2y ago

It's a different style of development. SLS burned an absurd amount of money and spent over a decade making sure that the first launch went relatively well, because they can't afford to have visible failures, in part because people are stupid when it comes to testing, and in part because they can only build them fast enough to launch once every other year (unless they're given another ridiculous sum of money and another decade to build more infrastructure). Starship is testing iteratively, so they spend less money up front to figure out everything before flying, and instead put in a reasonable effort ahead of time and then just fly to figure out what needs improvement. They can afford to do this, because they are designing for mass prduction and because as a private company, they don't have to answer to the ignorant public. Building a new Starship stack is a matter of months, and they're more limited by the rate at which they can test and get through paperwork to launch the things than the rate at which they can build them. For reference, SLS launched in 2022 and next might launch in 2025, Starship had a close to orbital velocity launch in March (it effectively proved they can get to orbit, it was not actually orbital so as to avoid leaving debris stuck in orbit until they can prove the ability to deorbit) and is expected to launch again in late May/early June.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> SLS burned an absurd amount of money and spent over a decade making sure that the first launch went relatively well, because they can't afford to have visible failures SLS burned a lot of money because it needed to have massive production in politically-needed districts.
extraduder_ire 2y ago
> Starship had a close to orbital velocity launch in March It had orbital velocity, but it wasn't on an orbital trajectory. At least based on the numbers provided and Scott Manley's description of events. I think the NASA award for pumping tonnes of oxidizer required them to be at or above orbital velocity.
oersted 2y ago
I agree, I was only refuting the "more than SLS has managed". The statement surprised me and I had to look it up to check if I was missing something. Indeed SLS is very inefficient, Starship certainly has more potential and its achievements are more impressive already in terms of innovation, speed of development and costs. But it's not nearly as capable yet, there are still many unknowns.