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I'm not really sure if keeping a strict schedule has any real relevance here, outside maybe PR and politics. Starships will drop the cost to other bodies in the

I'm not really sure if keeping a strict schedule has any real relevance here, outside maybe PR and politics. Starships will drop the cost to other bodies in the same way Falcon dropped the cost to orbit. Why would anyone want to invest in a technology and a project that will be obsolete by the time it's implemented?

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> not really sure if keeping a strict schedule has any real relevance here You don't see the relevance of Artemis III launching in mid-2027 [1] or 2028 versus, say, after November 2028? [1] https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iii/ https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iii/
- cowsandmilk 1y ago
  Does anyone vote for a president based on their ability to land on the moon?
  - Waterluvian 1y ago
    Holy crap yes. Millions of Americans vote for a president based on exceedingly dumber reasons too.
  - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
    Probably; the moon landings had the US' popularity skyrocket, firmly landing them in every history book worldwide. If they lose this second space race to China it won't undo that achievement, but it'll be embarrassing to the ego-driven people at the top right now (notably Trump and Musk himself).
  - dotnet00 1y ago
    Recently I saw someone claiming they voted for Trump because he hugged a flag once, and plenty of Americans proudly claim they voted for Trump so that he would "troll" their opposition.
- ACCount37 1y ago
  I don't see any real possibility of Artemis 3 launching before 2030, frankly. That "mid-2027" timeline is a joke said with a straight face. There are enough contractors involved and enough delay potential on the table that getting all the ducks in the row in time for the 2027 date would require nothing short of divine intervention.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > enough contractors involved and enough delay potential on the table that getting all the ducks in the row in time for the 2027 date would require nothing short of divine intervention Or a fuckton of money for an administration priority.
- radu_floricica 1y ago
  I do, which is why I specifically said: > outside maybe PR and politics It's still a bad idea, objectively.
sofixa 1y ago
> Starships will drop the cost to other bodies Assuming SpaceX can deliver it. They've failed to do a successful test flight with even a fraction of the officially planned capacity. Who knows how long it will take them, if they can even pull it off, to deliver it.
- destitude 1y ago
  They could have delivered today if they weren't concerned about reusability.
  - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
    Could they? The Apollo program took 9 years from conception to landing the first person on the moon, and cost $257 billion adjusted for 2020 dollars ($25.4B at the time). For comparison, the Artemis program was budgeted for $86B [0], with less to spend due to NASA budget cuts. The SpaceX Artemis contract is "only" worth $2.9B. Finally, the Starship program has cost an estimated $5-8B so far [1]. Some conclusions / opinions: Starship so far is relatively cheap compared to the previous program that took Americans to the moon. Developing a moon capable rocket takes a long time, especially if they don't just copy the existing designs from 60 years ago. And a single purpose rocket will long-term be more expensive than a more generalised / reusable platform, but that's more capitalist objectives than political (e.g. beating the commies). [0] https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-ig-artemis-will-cost-86-billion-through-fy2025-launch-dates-highly-unlikely/ https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-ig-artemis-will-cost... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship
  - verzali 1y ago
    Probably not for the price they offered though.
  - philistine 1y ago
    Reusability is not a bonus like Falcon 9. The whole concept assumes reusability to refuel the lunar lander in Earth orbit since it cannot get to the Moon on its own. It must be refuelled between 10 and 20 times. They won't even say exactly how many times yet. You cannot just yeet that many Starships to get to the Moon once. You must reuse.
saubeidl 1y ago
That is assuming Starship succeeds. Elon's track record hasn't exactly been stellar as of late.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > Elon's track record hasn't exactly been stellar as of late SpaceX's, on the other hand, has been.
  - mmooss 1y ago
    The point of the OP is that SpaceX is not performing; we don't need to infer or speculate.
- oersted 1y ago
  stellar :)
- radu_floricica 1y ago
  Except it kinda was stellar? When the test pad blew up I was absolutely sure we won't be seeing a V3 this year, but they recovered amazingly, with the last V2 test checking pretty much every goal they set for it.
  - danbruc 1y ago
    But only if you are looking at the revised goals, if you look back at the original goals, things look different. It was supposed to fly around the moon with people on board two years ago.
    - radu_floricica 1y ago
      Comment was "of late". If you want to look long term, well, they're still stellar :) Considering everything they're achieving, and how they're so much better than everybody else in the field. It's a failure only if you look at a rather small time range and criteria. Which I don't think was a surprise for anybody - Elon is famous for going for moon shots and failing, but still delivering better than anybody else.
ivape 1y ago
Why? Trump is friendly with Boeing.
MomsAVoxell 1y ago
There is still a lot of work to be done on Starship before it is going to be useful for going to other bodies. The entire interior/cabin/life-support system, for example. This is years away from hitting factory tooling. This work could revolutionise America's manufacturing/industrial base, if there was someone around who could direct the ship in that direction. I could imagine, given a bit of funding bump, the van-lifers and the earthship folks could find themselves with a life-support-system revolution to participate in .. especially if it were oriented not just towards starship interiors, but life-on-the-streets/in-the-woods/on-mars solutions .. the good ol' USA has tons of test monkeys for that scenario.
- CrimsonCape 1y ago
  Seeing some sort of van-life/starship-crew-cabin crossover would be interesting. But i'm not confident that your aspiration makes sense. A lot of institutional knowledge is locked behind corporate walls. We can assume a crew cabin will be partly designed by engineers poached from other companies who can leak some of the institutional knowledge. That said, some of the crew cabin will be designed whole-cloth. At some point SpaceX will need to build it's own knowledge base. I would be curious to see how other components were built, i.e. the parachutes. A parachute has a lot of built-in institutional knowledge, and I'd be curious to see behind the curtains where SpaceX got that knowledge. You can't exactly check out a library book. The concept of boutique engineering shops tackling chunks of the design is an interesting premise. But I don't see how the financials work. The more realistic scenario is that SpaceX will build it's own machine shops under it's umbrella. Winnebago is churning out Ekko campervans at $250,000 and somebody is buying those. But you look at the quality of the interior, it's same as everyone else, lots of particle board. The point is, the most expensive campervans built by the corporate world are using cheap throwaway materials, not space age innovation. I shudder to think of the cost of what a space age campervan costs. The Apollo program was at the unique juncture in history where distributed companies with institutional knowledge were rapidly maturing their products concurrently with NASA's demand. In today's world, you will not see the same number of companies spooling up assembly lines without massive costs.
  - MomsAVoxell 1y ago

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> not really sure if keeping a strict schedule has any real relevance here You don't see the relevance of Artemis III launching in mid-2027 [1] or 2028 versus, say, after November 2028? [1] https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iii/ https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iii/

cowsandmilk 1y ago
Does anyone vote for a president based on their ability to land on the moon?
- Waterluvian 1y ago
  Holy crap yes. Millions of Americans vote for a president based on exceedingly dumber reasons too.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  Probably; the moon landings had the US' popularity skyrocket, firmly landing them in every history book worldwide. If they lose this second space race to China it won't undo that achievement, but it'll be embarrassing to the ego-driven people at the top right now (notably Trump and Musk himself).
- dotnet00 1y ago
  Recently I saw someone claiming they voted for Trump because he hugged a flag once, and plenty of Americans proudly claim they voted for Trump so that he would "troll" their opposition.
ACCount37 1y ago
I don't see any real possibility of Artemis 3 launching before 2030, frankly. That "mid-2027" timeline is a joke said with a straight face. There are enough contractors involved and enough delay potential on the table that getting all the ducks in the row in time for the 2027 date would require nothing short of divine intervention.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > enough contractors involved and enough delay potential on the table that getting all the ducks in the row in time for the 2027 date would require nothing short of divine intervention Or a fuckton of money for an administration priority.
radu_floricica 1y ago
I do, which is why I specifically said: > outside maybe PR and politics It's still a bad idea, objectively.

sofixa 1y ago

> Starships will drop the cost to other bodies Assuming SpaceX can deliver it. They've failed to do a successful test flight with even a fraction of the officially planned capacity. Who knows how long it will take them, if they can even pull it off, to deliver it.

destitude 1y ago
They could have delivered today if they weren't concerned about reusability.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  Could they? The Apollo program took 9 years from conception to landing the first person on the moon, and cost $257 billion adjusted for 2020 dollars ($25.4B at the time). For comparison, the Artemis program was budgeted for $86B [0], with less to spend due to NASA budget cuts. The SpaceX Artemis contract is "only" worth $2.9B. Finally, the Starship program has cost an estimated $5-8B so far [1]. Some conclusions / opinions: Starship so far is relatively cheap compared to the previous program that took Americans to the moon. Developing a moon capable rocket takes a long time, especially if they don't just copy the existing designs from 60 years ago. And a single purpose rocket will long-term be more expensive than a more generalised / reusable platform, but that's more capitalist objectives than political (e.g. beating the commies). [0] https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-ig-artemis-will-cost-86-billion-through-fy2025-launch-dates-highly-unlikely/ https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-ig-artemis-will-cost... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship
- verzali 1y ago
  Probably not for the price they offered though.
- philistine 1y ago
  Reusability is not a bonus like Falcon 9. The whole concept assumes reusability to refuel the lunar lander in Earth orbit since it cannot get to the Moon on its own. It must be refuelled between 10 and 20 times. They won't even say exactly how many times yet. You cannot just yeet that many Starships to get to the Moon once. You must reuse.

saubeidl 1y ago

That is assuming Starship succeeds. Elon's track record hasn't exactly been stellar as of late.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> Elon's track record hasn't exactly been stellar as of late SpaceX's, on the other hand, has been.
- mmooss 1y ago
  The point of the OP is that SpaceX is not performing; we don't need to infer or speculate.
oersted 1y ago
stellar :)
radu_floricica 1y ago
Except it kinda was stellar? When the test pad blew up I was absolutely sure we won't be seeing a V3 this year, but they recovered amazingly, with the last V2 test checking pretty much every goal they set for it.
- danbruc 1y ago
  But only if you are looking at the revised goals, if you look back at the original goals, things look different. It was supposed to fly around the moon with people on board two years ago.
  - radu_floricica 1y ago
    Comment was "of late". If you want to look long term, well, they're still stellar :) Considering everything they're achieving, and how they're so much better than everybody else in the field. It's a failure only if you look at a rather small time range and criteria. Which I don't think was a surprise for anybody - Elon is famous for going for moon shots and failing, but still delivering better than anybody else.

ivape 1y ago

Why? Trump is friendly with Boeing.

MomsAVoxell 1y ago

There is still a lot of work to be done on Starship before it is going to be useful for going to other bodies. The entire interior/cabin/life-support system, for example. This is years away from hitting factory tooling. This work could revolutionise America's manufacturing/industrial base, if there was someone around who could direct the ship in that direction. I could imagine, given a bit of funding bump, the van-lifers and the earthship folks could find themselves with a life-support-system revolution to participate in .. especially if it were oriented not just towards starship interiors, but life-on-the-streets/in-the-woods/on-mars solutions .. the good ol' USA has tons of test monkeys for that scenario.

CrimsonCape 1y ago
Seeing some sort of van-life/starship-crew-cabin crossover would be interesting. But i'm not confident that your aspiration makes sense. A lot of institutional knowledge is locked behind corporate walls. We can assume a crew cabin will be partly designed by engineers poached from other companies who can leak some of the institutional knowledge. That said, some of the crew cabin will be designed whole-cloth. At some point SpaceX will need to build it's own knowledge base. I would be curious to see how other components were built, i.e. the parachutes. A parachute has a lot of built-in institutional knowledge, and I'd be curious to see behind the curtains where SpaceX got that knowledge. You can't exactly check out a library book. The concept of boutique engineering shops tackling chunks of the design is an interesting premise. But I don't see how the financials work. The more realistic scenario is that SpaceX will build it's own machine shops under it's umbrella. Winnebago is churning out Ekko campervans at $250,000 and somebody is buying those. But you look at the quality of the interior, it's same as everyone else, lots of particle board. The point is, the most expensive campervans built by the corporate world are using cheap throwaway materials, not space age innovation. I shudder to think of the cost of what a space age campervan costs. The Apollo program was at the unique juncture in history where distributed companies with institutional knowledge were rapidly maturing their products concurrently with NASA's demand. In today's world, you will not see the same number of companies spooling up assembly lines without massive costs.
- MomsAVoxell 1y ago