4 ms·

2024 was never considered remotely realistic by anybody in the "industry"---it was a purely political deadline and the will/funding was not there to achieve it.

2024 was never considered remotely realistic by anybody in the "industry"---it was a purely political deadline and the will/funding was not there to achieve it. Today (AFAIK) 2028 is considered quite aggressive, mostly due to the lack of progress on Starship, and the facts driving that conclusion are not any more amenable to change via political pressure than they were last time.

chrisco255 1y ago
There is no reason to consider anytime frame beyond what NASA did it in in the 60s "unreasonable". They were still using slide rules for goodness sake. We've got now 50+ years of space flight experience under our belt. Bean counters make excuses. Put the right people in the right places and shit gets done.
- AshleyGrant 1y ago
  Unless we're willing to expend resources on the level we did in the 60s then it is absolutely unreasonable. Computers instead of slide rules doesn't matter at all.
  - chrisco255 1y ago
    I'll repeat what I said above because this is an oft-repeated fallacy: We don't expect each new nuclear warhead to cost as much as the Manhattan Project did relative to the national budget. Likewise, after 60 years of technological development beyond what we had in the 60s, there is no reason to expect a modern day lunar mission to cost the same relatively.
    - caconym_ 1y ago
      > there is no reason to expect a modern day lunar mission to cost the same relatively By some rough math, the cost of the Artemis program as a fraction of national budget is on the order of 1/10 that of Apollo in its day (comparing entire program costs to national budgets in representative years). So no, I'm not sure anyone would expect (or accept) that, and indeed it does not seem to be the case. It would be even cheaper if Congress had not mandated that SLS be built from repurposed STS parts (and later that Artemis fly on SLS), and if Congress and the executive branch had generally maintained a realistic and consistent vision for the program since work on it began (arguably with Constellation in the 2000s).
- caconym_ 1y ago
  Apollo was funded at a much higher fraction of the national budget, and I believe in inflation-adjusted dollars the cost is comparable but generally higher depending on how you measure it. Funding makes it happen. Fund it, it will happen. Don't fund it, it won't happen. American space exploration has been chronically underfunded relative to its ambitions, which is why all we have to show for our manned exploration programs since STS (edit: or including it, if you like!) is a string of broken promises. I am hopeful that Artemis will get there, but I am simply telling you the shape of reality as it currently exists—a shape that doesn't care about your definition of "reasonable" in this context. I also don't think we will beat the Chinese unless something major changes.
  - chrisco255 1y ago
    > Apollo was funded at a much higher fraction of the national budget, and I believe in inflation-adjusted dollars the cost is comparable but generally higher depending on how you measure it. The Apollo mission had to invent technology from scratch that did not exist in the 60s. We have all of that knowledge today and then some, plus computers that are millions of times more powerful. There is no reason to believe that the 8th mission to the moon in the 2020s should cost just as much relative to the national budget as the original did in 1969. We don't expect each new nuclear warhead to cost as much as the Manhattan Project did relative to the national budget. Funding doesn't make things happen. In some ways funding can be a curse, and bureaucracies will grow to waste whatever funds are allocated. People make things happen. Competent people make things happen. Strong leadership makes things happen. The current NASA has leadership and talent gaps galore. It is also saddled with bureaucratic cruft that has caked onto its gears in the last 5 decades. It is not the same ambitious upstart that it once was. Could it be reformed? Yes, but not without cleaning house. For what its worth, I don't think we should exclude SpaceX, obviously, as they are clearly iterating at such a rapid rate relative to everyone else that it seems hard to believe anyone will catch up (and at the most efficient cost basis). I'm not sure why you think the Chinese will win, as even their smaller rockets are regularly crashing back to earth, one just yesterday: https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/chinese-rocket-crashes-next-to-residential-area-after-deploying-satellite-in-space-2806262-2025-10-21 https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/chinese-rocket-crash... But sure, at least they are deploying, at least they're in the running, which is more than most nations can say.

chrisco255 1y ago

There is no reason to consider anytime frame beyond what NASA did it in in the 60s "unreasonable". They were still using slide rules for goodness sake. We've got now 50+ years of space flight experience under our belt. Bean counters make excuses. Put the right people in the right places and shit gets done.

AshleyGrant 1y ago
Unless we're willing to expend resources on the level we did in the 60s then it is absolutely unreasonable. Computers instead of slide rules doesn't matter at all.
- chrisco255 1y ago
  I'll repeat what I said above because this is an oft-repeated fallacy: We don't expect each new nuclear warhead to cost as much as the Manhattan Project did relative to the national budget. Likewise, after 60 years of technological development beyond what we had in the 60s, there is no reason to expect a modern day lunar mission to cost the same relatively.
  - caconym_ 1y ago
    > there is no reason to expect a modern day lunar mission to cost the same relatively By some rough math, the cost of the Artemis program as a fraction of national budget is on the order of 1/10 that of Apollo in its day (comparing entire program costs to national budgets in representative years). So no, I'm not sure anyone would expect (or accept) that, and indeed it does not seem to be the case. It would be even cheaper if Congress had not mandated that SLS be built from repurposed STS parts (and later that Artemis fly on SLS), and if Congress and the executive branch had generally maintained a realistic and consistent vision for the program since work on it began (arguably with Constellation in the 2000s).
caconym_ 1y ago
Apollo was funded at a much higher fraction of the national budget, and I believe in inflation-adjusted dollars the cost is comparable but generally higher depending on how you measure it. Funding makes it happen. Fund it, it will happen. Don't fund it, it won't happen. American space exploration has been chronically underfunded relative to its ambitions, which is why all we have to show for our manned exploration programs since STS (edit: or including it, if you like!) is a string of broken promises. I am hopeful that Artemis will get there, but I am simply telling you the shape of reality as it currently exists—a shape that doesn't care about your definition of "reasonable" in this context. I also don't think we will beat the Chinese unless something major changes.
- chrisco255 1y ago
  > Apollo was funded at a much higher fraction of the national budget, and I believe in inflation-adjusted dollars the cost is comparable but generally higher depending on how you measure it. The Apollo mission had to invent technology from scratch that did not exist in the 60s. We have all of that knowledge today and then some, plus computers that are millions of times more powerful. There is no reason to believe that the 8th mission to the moon in the 2020s should cost just as much relative to the national budget as the original did in 1969. We don't expect each new nuclear warhead to cost as much as the Manhattan Project did relative to the national budget. Funding doesn't make things happen. In some ways funding can be a curse, and bureaucracies will grow to waste whatever funds are allocated. People make things happen. Competent people make things happen. Strong leadership makes things happen. The current NASA has leadership and talent gaps galore. It is also saddled with bureaucratic cruft that has caked onto its gears in the last 5 decades. It is not the same ambitious upstart that it once was. Could it be reformed? Yes, but not without cleaning house. For what its worth, I don't think we should exclude SpaceX, obviously, as they are clearly iterating at such a rapid rate relative to everyone else that it seems hard to believe anyone will catch up (and at the most efficient cost basis). I'm not sure why you think the Chinese will win, as even their smaller rockets are regularly crashing back to earth, one just yesterday: https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/chinese-rocket-crashes-next-to-residential-area-after-deploying-satellite-in-space-2806262-2025-10-21 https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/chinese-rocket-crash... But sure, at least they are deploying, at least they're in the running, which is more than most nations can say.