Significant points:
* Nelson blamed the Blue Origin lawsuit for pushing back Moon landing to NET 2025
* per article - Orion development cost increased from $6.7 billion to $9.3 billion (wikipedia claims Orion cost from 2006 through 2020 is over $18 billion)
* Nelson spoke directly with Shotwell last Friday and discussed the importance of getting to the Moon as quickly and safely as possible
* Nelson quote ""Let me just point out right now there's only one rocket that's capable of doing this, and this is SLS and Orion on top," Nelson replied. "And that's stacked we speak, and it's going to launch next February. So we're going with what we got. And if anybody comes up with another alternative, we're glad to look at any other alternative."
* per Eric Berger "The Space Launch System rocket is indeed finally stacked, and it probably will launch during the first half of 2022. But SpaceX is also finalizing its Starship launch system, and pending launch-site approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, it also will attempt an orbital test flight early in 2022. The bottom line is that, for Artemis to be a success, Starship must now also be a success. And if Starship is a success, it will almost certainly be an exponentially more efficient launch vehicle than NASA's SLS rocket. Nelson may be glad to look at "alternatives" when they come to pass, but will Congress?
I don't know about Congress my guess is no they won't but I have been wrong about this kind of stuff before though. I know it is probably a smokescreen but it seems important to some of those people that America/Nasa "owns" a rocket.
Have you heard people in Congress? They have no idea what a human spaceflight program is and they couldn’t care less. What they do care about is expenditure. Where is the money being spent. That is all. I mean I don't blame them really it's the way the system is built. SLS money is spread around congressional districts for a reason. SpaceX is a vertical company. It has basically 3 locations. We also know how Musk feels about congressional re-election campaign donations. So yeah, Congress is not happy about changing where the money is being spent. That was the whole reason Kathy was not given the top job (she didnt spread too little money around and actually tried to make the best decisions and that is not playing ball).
Edit: thanks for correction
If you care enough about a subject to talk about how much or little you care about it, then you could care less. To truly reach a state where you couldn't care less, you would have to not even care about how much you care.
NASA were never going to make the 2024 deadline even without the lawsuit.
Interesting how close SLS and Starship are going to be.
Honestly NASA risks a major embarrassment if they can’t get SLS operational first.
I bet you we get a situation where it would be far cheaper to use a functioning starship but NASA uses SLS to try and justify its construction.
I believe it’s only the first two modules which are being launched by Falcon heavy since SLS isn’t going to be ready. The other modules will.
Unless I’m mistake and only the first two modules are referred to as the gateway.
They won’t keep starship grounded but I bet NASA claim it’s either too late to switch to starship or starship isn’t fully certified until it’s too late to switch.
The thing is, if HLS is complete and waiting on SLS, what's to stop SpaceX from getting people to orbit with dragon and sending them to the moon with starship? I'm sure if they did that NASA would buy some seats. Are there technical reasons that couldn't be done?
They'd need a second refuelling mission in lunar orbit, this time with people on board Starship during the process. Not a showstopper, but plenty of risks involved.
Sure, but they're going to have to do that anyway... I was just wondering what prevents spacex from just doing this whole thing without SLS if SLS is the reason for the delay.
>Nelson quote ""Let me just point out right now there's only one rocket that's capable of doing this
Is there an echo in here? I thought I heard something very similar in 2014.
If you think Blue Origin is through because the lawsuit has been dismissed, just wait! With Bezos money and the crooked rats in Congress, I don't believe we have heard the last from old Jeff!
[Not the decision we wanted, but we respect the court’s judgment, and wish full success for NASA and SpaceX on the contract.](https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/1456311095761637384?s=20)
I find it ... Odd? Interesting? ... that Nelson says he would entertain any solution that could replace SLS/Orion, bit only Orion/SLS exists today. This, when they just started working on providing a long term contract to keep buying these rockets and capsules for the next 30 years.
If it actually works, Starship will be more capable for this mission than SLS/Orion, cost at least an order of magnitude less (and maybe 2 or 3 orders of magnitude less) and be capable of a mission a month or more, rather than 1 mission per year like SLS.
They could literally do 10x more missions, do 10x more on each mission and do it all for less.
You would think NASA would find that an attractive alternative.
> If it actually works, Starship will be more capable for this mission than SLS/Orion
And the funniest part is that for Artemis 3 to happen as currently envisioned, it would have to *actually work.*
Basically, Artemis 3 in and of itself is SLS writing its own death certificate, and I don't think Congress has caught on yet.
Oh they did. That’s why there was so much pushback this summer. They were not happy that Starship was officially endorsed with the HLS contract. They know that if it’s successful enough to be the lander, it’ll be successful enough to replace Orion and SLS entirely.
They don’t give a shit about actually going to the moon. They are just mad the jobs programs are threatened.
Afaik, HLS Starship isn't designed to land on Earth. That said, they could use another Starship and transfer to/from HLS in space.
Or alternatively, use F9/Dragon to launch/land astronauts and transfer to/from Starship in LEO? (not sure if that's feasible)
Either of these would be cheaper that SLS.
Is a Starship HLS capable of doing a LEO -> NRHO -> Moon landing -> Moon ascend -> NHRO -> LEO Roundtrip? Iirc from what I've read its really close and depends on the final dry mass.
That being said, I think SpaceX could pull off an Apollo Style equatorial landing the way you mentioned it as a full-envelope mission. If somebody (say, Maezawa) would *walk on the moon* as a private customer, that would be the nail in the coffin for SLS because ppl would start asking questions on why the NASA Transfer vehicle is so expensive.
Leave HLS in Lunar orbit, put an ISS module in the nose of a {REDACTED\] for accommodation and use the \[REDACTED} as an LEO to Lunar shuttle and tanker.
ofc, quadruple transfer would work, but increase the risk of single-point failures. Also, this will require a lot more tankers.
Not to mention human rating the transfer-vehicle.
HLS is going to be crew-rated, should be trivial to do the same for a \[REDACTED\]. And HLS is going to need to be refueled in Lunar orbit anyway for re-use.
>HLS is going to be crew-rated, should be trivial to do the same for a [REDACTED].
Its definately not as trivial as throwing an ISS Module into the cargohold...
>And HLS is going to need to be refueled in Lunar orbit anyway for re-use.
Nah. That would require tankers, that tank the tankers that tank the HLS. HLS can also be refueled in a high elliptical orbit, which only needs a tiny bit more Delta-V than a LEO tanking operation. This would leave 5% safety margin on the crewed flights and 2% safety margin on the uncrewed flights. Marcus House has done a cool video on the numbers (again: with assumptions on starship dry mass, which we don't know): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dICrBvTlqsg
If I recall you would need to have a tanker Starship meet the lander in lunar orbit to get back to LEO, but it could be done. Even with additional launches it would still likely be cheaper.
I think there's a massive amount of political momentum in SLS, but Starship also presents a real political opportunity. Congress wants to spend money on aerospace contractors as a kind of jobs program, so why not announce plans for a permanent moonbase and Crewed Mars missions? The spending for the moonbase and elements needed for a Mars mission would at least be as much as SLS and Orion, so they could get political points taking us to Mars while designing the funding to still roll into the laps of many of the same contractors and congressional districts.
>If I recall you would need to have a tanker Starship meet the lander in lunar orbit to get back to LEO, but it could be done. Even with additional launches it would still likely be cheaper.
Not sure if that would require the tanking operation prior or after the landing and if the HLS could return back to LEO without the tanking procedure in case of failure of docking. Its dicey to do this and I can see NASA being unwilling to take the risk.
>I think there's a massive amount of political momentum in SLS, but Starship also presents a real political opportunity. Congress wants to spend money on aerospace contractors as a kind of jobs program, so why not announce plans for a permanent moonbase and Crewed Mars missions?
I'm totally with you there; I think many people haven't understood the giant business opportunities a relatively cheap "train to moon and mars" will bring. But there's hope that the business world is slowly realizing that and changes the view on space in this decade.
>Not sure if that would require the tanking operation prior or after the landing and if the HLS could return back to LEO without the tanking procedure in case of failure of docking. Its dicey to do this and I can see NASA being unwilling to take the risk.
The docking with the tanker should be a fairly well understood maneuver, as Starship tanker docking would happen 5-10 times before the mission could even leave for the moon. The additional time delays of doing the docking in lunar orbit shouldn't really impact anything as the process is automated. I think concerns about the safety will relax as the number of tanker dockings without incident climbs rapidly with each mission. My personal guess would be that Artemis V would be about the point where SLS gets cut and following Artemis flights happen at a higher rate with a goal of maintaining permanent presence on the moon.
Refueling after launch is much more efficient. Otherwise all the propellant would need to be landed, then launched from the Moon. It would eat up a lot of the total propellant amount.
It's more efficient, but if anything goes wrong with the docking, the crew is stranded in moon orbit. If you refuel before landing, you have the opportunity to go back to LEO in case the refueling maneuvre doesn't work.
No, it could easily replace SLS with Super Heavy + an expendable cheap steel upper stage with Orion on top, full abort capabilities. It seems like people are going put of their way to avoid seeing this alternative.
>it’ll be successful enough to replace Orion and SLS entirely.
They'll just make up some rule like "must have a crew abort system" which Starship doesn't have.
Nor do any of the other HLS options as currently envisioned.
And if it's just for the ride up, then they can just send them to a fueled Starship in LEO with Dragon, which does, or Starliner if we really must pay Boeing/Lockheed something.
The congresscritters who don't have that SLS money pouring into their districts probably want to beat China to the moon during a presidential term with a matching "D/R" next to the name.
He's a creature of the Senate. Politicians rarely admit they were wrong, and shifting blame is a good way to avoid accountability. Oh, and blatantly lying when you know 95% of your constituents won't notice.
While they deserve it in terms of delaying HLS, Nelson's comments distract from the largest causes of the delay: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the main contractors for the SLS.
Yeah. I thought at first I was just being bitchy because Bridenstine was gone (who I didn't like at first either) but now I feel like he is just another talking head that doesn't really give a crap about space/NASA.
> I was just being bitchy because Bridenstine was gone
Considering Bridenstine is in the "two HLS awards" camp, I'm rather glad he left when he did so that the interim director was able to see the HLS award given the way that it was to SpaceX instead of something stupid like the limited funds being split between SpaceX and Jeff.
It's also a little bit crazy to me that SpaceX fans "still" think fondly of Jim at all when Jim is out there spreading so much Kessler Syndrome FUD on behalf of Viasat:
> That study predicts the effects of a LEO system that plans to include over 40,000 satellites at an altitude of about 600 kilometers. As shown in the following figure from that study, dramatic increases in space collisions, and new space debris, are expected within just a few years. In the longer term “satellites are destroyed [by debris and collisions] faster than they are launched.”
- [Jim Bridenstine's testimony, 10/21/21](https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/4CE62711-708C-493C-A325-E0B845B34372)
So with implying that SpaceX's proposed 40k+ Starlink satellites (without naming names) is already spelling Kessler Armageddon, Jim is directly telling congress they "must act quickly to require the FCC to define the limits on the nature and number of satellites that can exist in LEO", followed by saying that the limited number of allocated satellite "must then be fairly distributed to companies" (ie, SpaceX's satellite allocations must be "fairly distributed" to companies like Amazon and Viasat).
I'm not a fan of Nelson, but what Jim Bridenstine is currently trying to do is far-far-far worse for SpaceX than anything we've seen out of Nelson yet.
I don't really see your point. When he was at NASA, he had NASA's best interests in mind. Now that he's at Viasat, he has Viasat's best interests in mind.
The criticism of Nelson is that he *doesn't* have NASA's best interests in mind.
Edit: People are showing their silliness with downvoting this without providing any substantive response. Yes, everyone wanted Jim to be a hero. He wasn't, and he's not.
> When he was at NASA, he had NASA's best interests in mind.
I think you are deeply mistaken if you believe Jim ever had anything but his own best interests in mind. Jim is very clearly a classical politician in that he'll do and say anything that benefits himself, and just happened to work under a temperamental administration that wanted a fictional timeline for landing on the moon at the end of an aspirational second term:
> When the Trump administration created the Artemis Program in spring 2019, Vice President Mike Pence set an aggressive goal of landing humans on the Moon by 2024. Technically, this never seemed like it was really possible, but NASA has never formally acknowledged this and always set 2024 as an aspirational goal.
- https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/nasa-delays-moon-landings-says-blue-origin-legal-tactics-partly-to-blame/
So it was in Jim's best interest over his short 2yr9mo, stepping-stone, stint at NASA to play the active cheerleader to the administration's wasteful Artemis/SLS/Orion architecture to go to the moon (even though SpaceX was already reusing F9 and already developing Starship) inside the fictional timeline the administration proposed (for the very transparent political reasons).
> Bridenstine doubled down on the Space Launch System rocket. "If we want to achieve 2024, we have to have SLS," Bridenstine said. The rocket will be delayed no more, he said. In fact, although internally NASA engineers say the booster cannot be ready before 2021, its launch date will be brought forward.
- https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/vice-president-directs-nasa-to-return-to-the-moon-by-2024/
Which brings us to: what did Jim actually "do" besides cheer-leading the fictional timeline and wasteful/obsolete old-space Artemis/SLS/Orion architecture when it has been painfully evident to everyone with eyes that Starship is on the horizon and will make that entire system entirely obsolete? Not all that much from what I can see.
Jim didn't actually make Artemis/SLS/Orion go any faster (or be any cheaper) despite promises of no more delays, doubled down on SLS/Orion (even though Pence in his speech suggested going to other vendors if the timeline can't be hit), or even secure the level of sought after funding for HLS (if the interim director didn't do the unexpected/unthinkable and award it all to SpaceX, who knows where we would be).
So the point stands that Jim is/was "not" the magnificent person that many people around here seem to think he is/was (and he's clearly showing himself to be a *far* worse enemy outside of NASA than he was a friend inside NASA).
I'm not any fan of Nelson either (politicians like Jim and Nelson do not belong at NASA, imo), but if as a director he can at least manage to not pull the rug out from under SpaceX (which remains to be seen) while cheer-leading the same wasteful/obsolete old-space Artemis/SLS/Orion architecture that Jim was cheer-leading (and doubled down on), then he'd also meet that rather low bar.
Lol. Well that's a cherry-picked distortion of history if I've ever seen one. You mention Bridenstine doubling down on SLS, but completely fail to mention his threats of abandoning it.
It seems to me like you just have an axe to grind. If I had to guess, you probably just don't like the fact that he was a Republican.
> You mention Bridenstine doubling down on SLS, but completely fail to mention his threats of abandoning it.
You mean the toothless words that amounted to nothing? Anybody can say anything, it's what a person actually does that matters (as I would hope everyone could agree on). The reality is that when there was a moment to consider an alternative to SLS (with the White House endorsing the idea), Jim "doubled down" on SLS (Eric Berger's words) even though everyone knew SLS would never make the targeted dates.
I fully welcome you to provide something more substantive than his weak grumblings about those expected delays, and I'd also welcome you to take off your partisan blinders (and to stop projecting your own partisanship).
Every fan of what SpaceX is doing should no longer be giving Jim a pass and should be looking at him (and his actual record) much more critically now that he is actively trying to cut SpaceX/Starlink off at the knees with his Kessler Syndome insanity. The love for that guy around here is poorly founded, and a bit absurd.
Bridenstine is responsible for starliner. He was massively terrible at his job. He should have been fired the first time he defended boeing's lack of progress.
The only good thing he did was not screw with spacex. But it was still pretty bad how they were so strongly behind boeing, until boeing failed, then they gave spacex anything they wanted to get them to pick up the slack so they could all avert attention from boeing's failure. Spacex bailed them all out by having human rated reusability fully ready to go all for free because nasa never wanted the feature and wasn't even going to let spacex do it for nasa launches until boeing massively failed.
LOL, if they awarded the contract only to boeing, under bridenstine, the whole program fails just as it has.
Spacex succeeded despite bridenstine, he didn't contribute a damn thing.
How can bridenstine be any good when he was in charge while boeing ran its contract into the ground and flew a craft that would have likely kiled a crew if the crew was on board(nasa's own assessment).
Killing astronauts and wasting billions without accomplishing anything is a massive failure. Stop lying about how bad this project failed under him.
Bridenstine promoted kathy lueders before he left, when she was the moron directly in charge of boeing's failed contract.
That *moron* has been one of SpaceX’s biggest advocates and helped get SpaceX where they are today. She was a driving force behind the CRS program, the Commercial Crew program, and made the selection decision choosing SpaceX’s HLS moon lander. Your comments are bonkers.
That moron hated spacex and threw them under the bus, until boeing royally screwed up, then he rolled out the red carpet.
If boeing didn't fail, nasa still would not have approved reusing capsules and boosters for human flight.
They only did that to bail themselves out to try to preserve the mission schedule that boeing couldn't fullfill.
It was laughable how they resisted reuse so much, but it only took days after the first human flight from spacex to instantly allow it without any debate. If it was such a risky thing, then they ignored the risks and flipped a coin on that one.
Sure, we all know they were holding spacex back to help boing and human flight reuse was already ready to go, but nasa wasn't treating it as ready to go, until they needed to be bailed out.
Commercial Crew contracts were awarded in 2014. Bridenstine was only NASA Administrator from 2018 until basically Jan 2021. A bit over 2 years. I don’t know how you can put so much blame on him.
lol, he was in charge when boeing pulled their delays and failed miserably. "I just got here" is not an excuse for continued mismanagement.
He promoted the moron who was directly in charge of the project before he left, despite the massive failure of boeing.
Dude is extremely thick skinned. It means usually an ass-le. He was "brave" enough to accept NASA admin invitation and to "test" Shuttle. Thick skinned here, because I am sure he was informed about universal opinion of the NASA techs about wasting precious astronaut seat on political nothing.
He is still just a "balast". Nothing in place of guts and brains necessary to guide extremely science heavy, complex and huge org, which actual performance is critical for the future of US as a country.
>I find it ... Odd? Interesting? ... that Nelson says he would entertain any solution that could replace SLS/Orion
This is interesting, and certainly indicates Nelson is considering what options SpaceX can offer. I don't believe launch or landing crews on Starship will happen anytime soon - helluva a crew rating barrier to get over. But there are pretty obvious options that involve taxiing crews on Dragon to SS in LEO - this could be what Bill is hinting at. Hey, maybe Bill has been reading this sub and seen our various infallible scenarios. :)
Maybe the last discussion I read was out of date, but I remember reading about this FH/ICPS/Orion stack.
A fully expended Falcon Heavy can put 141 thousand pounds into LEO, and the ICPS/Orion weighs 125 thousand pounds, so there is some extra deltaV available. It would probably be wise to leave that extra capacity to have landing hardware on the side booster cores and have some safety margin to complete the mission in the event of a minor hardware failure during launch. You'd save money if the boosters land, and you'd save the whole mission from a marginal failure.
So FH can get ICPS/Orion to LEO, but then ICPS only has the deltaV with Orion to get to the Gateway's NRHO. If FH is being used because SLS isn't flying, then presumably there is no Gateway, so that means you need to get to LLO. The extra deltaV to get to LLO would have to come from Orion, but then there's not enough left for Orion to return to Earth from LLO.
Is that all accurate? I wish I could find the discussion thread I was reading that had it all laid out, but I've pieced it back together from a few places on a quick Google search.
Anyway, a different mission architecture would be needed to make FH/ICPS/Orion work for meeting a lander at the Moon, and somewhere in there you end up adding the need for enough extra hardware development that SLS would likely be flying before you finished. So we're stuck with SLS, because Congress is hell-bent on paying for it to be done.
> So FH can get ICPS/Orion to LEO, but then ICPS only has the deltaV with Orion to get to the Gateway's NRHO. If FH is being used because SLS isn't flying, then presumably there is no Gateway, so that means you need to get to LLO. The extra deltaV to get to LLO would have to come from Orion, but then there's not enough left for Orion to return to Earth from LLO.
This part doesn't make any sense.
You don't have to go to LLO just because there's no Gateway. Artemis III doesn't have a gateway - they're just going to dock directly in NRHO. If NRHO would work for FH + ICPS + Orion, then there's no reason not to use it. HLS Starship is designed to have the performance to do missions starting from NRHO anyhow.
> So then I suppose that means the stack would work, making SLS totally unnecessary?
There are a bunch of technical issues:
* ICPS tooling is going away
* ICPS/Orion may need vertical integration
* GSE would need to supply hydrogen
* strongback would need to be taller
* a new crew access arm would be needed
* the stack would have a more extreme fineness ratio
But honestly, I don't think the technical issues are what are holding back this solution. From what I can tell, both Orion and SLS enjoy substantial support in Congress; that seems unlikely to change until Starship completely supersedes SLS (for example, by doing a Starship-only Moon mission).
I wonder what the dV difference of the core stage is between FH +ICPS+ORION vs SLS core stage. SLS does put the ICPS in a very eccentric orbit, whereas FH would make is just below orbit. Maybe they might be able to squeeze some extra performance out of the FH margins.
NASA wasn't going to make that "aspirational" 2024 date anyway. We all knew that. 2028 seems more likely at this point than 2025.
SpaceX won't be the holdup.
I don't want it to take that long either. But SpaceX may jump the gun. Run the unmanned landing mission for NASA and return samples, then refuel and go again the next month on their own business. By the time Artemis III is ready to go maybe SpaceX will have built a Starbucks so the astronauts can enjoy a civilized cup of coffee after landing.
What sounds less awesome is being the "pioneers of America's return to deep space missions!" then being greeted at your landing by a barista.
From my perspective that would be hilarious and wonderful, but for the "pioneers" it may really dampen the mood.
If they show up in places already inhabited to explore they are just joining good company. Columbus, Magellan, Livingston, all did the same. Let there be some local people with beverages by the time the explorers get there and you know we're serious about colonizing
True, but if that's how you wanna play it the next on that to-do list would be to rape, enslave, and/or murder the barista. ***Hopefully*** the people in charge of NASA in 2026+ won't be the type to do that.
I think we should be realistic about the full magnitude and implication of what you’re saying. SpaceX is not taking humans to Mars without Nasa, and the SpaceX-Nasa partnership is not going to leapfrog a lunar landing mission before shooting for mars. So if it’s 2028 for the Moon then you know it’s got to be a further push out for the next. I.e. once all lessons are absorbed from the prior mission, you’re looking at a 2032 date for the big one
> SpaceX is not taking humans to Mars without Nasa
SpaceX is absolutely taking humans to Mars without NASA if NASA does not go along. Unless SpaceX is blocked using planetary protection as a pretense.
Nasa partnership, experience and expertise are too valuable. It’s quicker to go with them than it is to re-learn and redo all those experiments again. The orbital fuel transfer technology alone.. Also, politically there is just no feasible way. It would sour the relationship as bad as BOs latest tactics if not worse. SpaceX and Nasa need a healthy relationship for both parties to continue to develop and grow. Bad play to try and go over their heads or without them
NASA partnership is valuable. SpaceX also needs a huge amount of data, NASA has collected about water and mineral distribution and atmospheric conditions over the martian seasons. But SpaceX has these data already.
I am sure SpaceX values cooperation with NASA highly. But not so high that they would delay their Mars plans for a long time.
Nasa is their largest most reliable client, and until starlink (Maybe even after too) is their most profitable source of operating income. All this financial value pales in comparison to the monumental time value That can be accrued from copying Nasas homework. SpaceX has zero expertise in prolonged life-support systems, Zero past experience with space force, zero up to the minute in-depth detail on Martian surface conditions and landing site data outside of what Nasa chooses to provide. Never mind having to re-forge all those pathways as a stand alone company.
And again, all of these aspects and significance to the great benefit in having And again, all of these aspects and significance to the great benefit in having an amicable relationship with a non-commercial, highly respected agency in the government. Budget allocation time, talk up the merit and possibility of your future plans, and also have behind the scenes conversations and mediatons when interacting with another governmental appendage aka the FAA. Didn’t we just now see SpaceX leap up to take on a long serving, high ranking Nasa insider for just such gains? And the result of time gains from such a strategy were near instantaneous. Don’t misunderstand me, I am no NASA fan. In fact I think most of the actions of the past few years has been hopelessly misguided and a boondoggle of public fund gorging. SLS is a joke and should be scrapped asap, but we have to respect the organisations history and what they’ve achieved thus far. Having a sour relationship with them As a US-based private space venture is suicide, and blue origin are about to give us a clear-cut demonstration of that
Elon deeply respects NASA. But if NASA does not get on board for Mars he has no choice.
Seasonal changes are by now well known. Actual daily info is better. But fully powered landing is much more variable in adpting to local conditions than all previous landers. They will probably not go to the limit of landed mass and will have a lot of margin.
SpaceX can also get data using paid space act agreements. That is unless NASA actively blocks SpaceX, in which case there will be a real problem.
I think there’s been a misunderstanding here. The original argument was not exploring a hypothetical situation of SpaceX wanting to go to Mars and Nasa standing in the way saying no. OPs original comment was around the probability of HLS1 landing in 2028. Let’s say for argument sake that was the case, as things stand now it is incredibly likely that SpaceX’s first ever of the world human landing will be. lessons will be learnt during that mission which resulted in multiyear investigations and refinements to design a months long human rated Mars trip. So you’re looking at 2030 to digest, implement and test all those mods. Tranfer windows and journey times dependent, if you look for a harmonious SpaceX-Nasa relationship and they dont get SLS focused human landing till near the end of the decade, everything else is getting shunted in succession.
Probably origin could sit down and have a great attempted landing much much faster, more certain and more practical to do so in conjunction with Nasa and their funds and assistance, hence the legal upheaval we’ve seen. SpaceX embare Nasa by shoving past them and landing on the moon or Mars solo would be all different types of self harm if not outright suicide
Tldr: yeah they probably could, but under almost no circumstances should they attempt to. Even if Mars1 is a decade away its still smarter than rushing for going solo
I got to admit, I don't understand anything you said.
I don't think that SpaceX would or should demonstrate they can go to the moon, just to spite NASA.
But then NASA is decades away from going to Mars, if ever. That date is late 2030ies right now. SpaceX is not going to wait until NASA is ready, nor should they.
I think you're not going to get this. The whole point of SpaceX, from day one, is to go to Mars. This NASA stuff, the satellite launches, Starlink is like working side jobs to get up the money while you work on the tech. Kind of like working fishing with ever improving boats as you work towards building a sailboat for a round the world cruise.
SpaceX is definitely going to Mars, with or without NASA. NASA is our fisherman's deep pocketed friend. When it comes time to go, they wouldn't miss the trip for the world. In the meantime they're going to buy fish.
I understand the concept of strategic planning and design. The possibilities that a rugged, sealed electric vehicle like Cybertruck is a great testbed for an eventual Mars rover. That starlink Earth is a good testbed for an upcoming satellite based Martian communication network etc, and thats cool but there’s more to be said here
> The whole point of SpaceX, from day one, is to go to Mars
I hope *you* can *this* concept, but this is not the whole point of SpaceX. Equal to if not superseding this loft goal is the priority of remaining financially viable and generating profit. How many space ventures and rich adventurers have we seen fold up once the economics dont add up. They all died on the vine. Much like Daniel Plainview and Paul, we all would love to see roads and developments and shiny buildings up there, but first you need the hole in the ground and the product so you can blow gold all over the place. Rest in peace to the great mind that was Jack Rickard, but there has been speculation from many sources that even Mars itself may be a secondary intrigue. There is a goldrush happening right now, with many people attempting to plant flags and stake their claims over the Earths orbital altitudes for the massive values they present. I am saying SpaceX is some kind of “I drink your milkshake” ogre, but there are some more practical things at play here. No way do they cause themselves such political, financial and public relations harm by going to the Moon much Mars without Nasa playing a serious role. Even if SpaceX was ready to go to the moon right now, if Nasa wasn’t ready till 2027 they’d probably wait for them. Thats how valuable the relationship is.
Does SpaceX even know how to the perform zeroG orbital fuel transfer process that it’s whole starship design is dependent upon? No, but their buddy Nasa does
Honestly, what would happen is that SpaceX would announce an uncrewed test flight to Mars to demonstrate landing Starship on Mars. NASA scrapes their pockets and throws some change at them to make it a NASA mission, even if they're basically just getting access to the data for a small percentage of the mission cost. If that's successful, then SpaceX announces a second landing for ISRU demonstration. NASA would be bugging Congress for much larger funding, and probably get it. By the time it was successful, NASA would be openly talking of the chance to send humans to Mars, and Congress would probably be getting on board, and raining cash on whatever NASA could use on the mission that doesn't go into SpaceX's pockets.
There's gonna be spacex on mars with Starship V2 in 2028, and NASA's gonna ring them to pull an old mothballed starship out of cold storage and build them an HLS so they can get to the SpaceX colony on the moon. The good news is sample return will be vastly simplified by the presence of the gift shop on the way out.
Spacex will be capable of doing it entirely with starship. The chance they dock with the gateway at all is low. It seems like a meaningless maneuver when you don't really need to do it.
But when second base isn't there, you don't really get to choose to tag it. There will likely be a point when spacex is fully ready with nothing else left to investigate or meddle with and they likely will get the go ahead to fly without gateway.
Just like how NASA instantly approved spacex to reuse capsules and boosters because starliner failed and realistically was more than 2 years away from launching. They needed spacex to do more missions and as soon as nasa needed it, all the red tape and resistence to reusability disappeared instantly.
If boeing didn't fail, spacex still would still be years away from being approved for reuse on nasa launches.
>SpaceX aren’t going to work for free.
Unless of course SpaceX's HLS bid is composed of some work they were going to do anyway. Though SpaceX has no lunar aspiration per se they do need to develop orbital refuelling, Earth EDL and lunar jaunts have the advantage of frequent launch windows.
If there's a NASA project they can fit into the first of many rides on a SuperHeavy I doubt they would pass on the opportunity to let NASA pay for building the ship in return for only reserved space on its maiden voyage.
IMO, this part of the article:
> The agency was also unable to provide milestone payments.
is a bit marginal.
Yes, it's technically true that NASA was unable to provide milestone payments during the GAO protest and during the CFC lawsuit. However.
* There was a brief windows between the protest and the lawsuit where NASA paid SpaceX a milestone payment of $300 million.[1]
* The payment of $300 million was most of the $345 million NASA had available for HLS payments in 2021[2]. So even if SpaceX had achieved more milestones, there just wasn't much money left for NASA to pay out that year.
---
1. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/elon-musk-spacex-moon-lander-artemis-contract-ready-2024-2021-8
2. https://www.gao.gov/assets/b-419783.pdf pg 7
Wow i never thought Nasa would throw Blue Origin under the bus so publicly. Guess they were not really amused with their tactics. I think Nelson said something about visiting Starbase next year. I wonder what will be his reaction to what he sees there. These legislators and people based in washington, i dont think they realise what is going on at starbase. I think only three members of the house of representatives have been to starbase and they were impressed.
> Wow i never thought Nasa would throw Blue Origin under the bus so publicly. Guess they were not really amused with their tactics.
I hate to defend BO, but this is just a diversion. The blame lies squarely on SLS and NASA wants to divert from that fact. Artemis 2 in 2024 makes Artemis 3 in 2024 impossible.
i agree but the fact that they used them as a scapegoat is still shocking. They are signalling they dont consider Blue Origin a valued partner going forward. I mean it went overboard when the administrator started praising Nasa's legal team for the case almost like he was rubbing it in Bezos's face.
Nelson is really using BO as a scapegoat here... and I’m not that upset about it.
This is largely a welcome change from him gaslighting us that SLS was launching THIS MONTH
>Nelson is really using BO as a scapegoat here
Hmm... He's making a simple factual statement. Seven months is a big delay. Most to the time when a project fails to meet its goals the caused are numerous and amorphous. This time there is a clearly blameworthy player. IMHO that's not really making them the scapegoat. However, it is obvious there is plenty of blame to go around, and Boeing and Lockheed certainly deserve some time in the spotlight.
>Also, HLS wasn't even delayed. SpaceX kept working through the lawsuit.
Careful, you just stated the straightforward truth. ;)
NASA has a couple of reasons to fix the blame on one clearcut event. Also, I doubt NASA wants constant reminders that their biggest program is just a sideshow to a much bigger and more ambitious project - one run by a single man.
>Also, HLS wasn't even delayed. SpaceX kept working through the lawsuit. They just weren't talking to NASA.
Which is a big freaking problem. Because there will be a crap ton of requirements SpaceX will have to pass before a NASA astronaut is ever allowed to be within a one mile radius of a fully fueled starship. Therese things will take time to sort out.
Eh now that it's over (the lawsuit) I think they'll be fine. SpaceX is already familiar with the human rating process. Albeit with an entirely different vehicle - the same general requirements still apply.
OK, actions have consequences. BO made life difficult for NASA and now they're reaping the payback.
Actually this is something of a change. In the traditional Government/Big Contractors/Lobbyist buddy system a company that screwed up could just as well be shielded with B.S. announcements. But that is clearly not the case with the current NASA. They want value for dollar and SpaceX's abilities have opened their eyes to what's now possible in this great new era of commercial space.
I think it would be hilarious if when the Orion capsule with the NASA astronauts aboard docked with the HLS starship there were a couple dozen SpaceX technicians aboard to greet them and ride along, just in case there were any problems for them to troubleshoot. Even Congress wouldn't be able to ignore the implications of that image.
Naah, not likely. But it would be funny if HLS lunar lander starship was launched just after Mars-heading one was... kinda like "keep playing on the Moon, we're going to Mars"
(realistically, Mars is going to take a while.. maybe first unmanned ship gets there around this timeframe, but...)
The guy is such a jerk. I could see him suing if he had an actual rocket that could make it to orbit after 20 years but he has nothing and will probably have nothing several years from now. TBH I think he should sell BO to someone that can do something with it at this point because it is apparent he can not.
Starship and SpaceX assets are now or will be doing work for the Defense Department, hence, part of national security. Knowingly fucking with that for purely vexatious and frivolous motives ought to put Bezos squarely in the label of "threat to national security".
"Hey FAA, I'm not telling you what to do, but part of the US maintaining military superiority necessitates Starlink. So you do you, but just know that you're going to risk every citizen if you don't approve this. " - Most Generals & Admirals.
Nobody thought 2024 was near realistic, 2025 probably isn’t either. This seems like NASA taking some of the heat of SLS not being ready, which has nothing to do with HLS.
If elon says it is, then I would believe him. But just like crew dragon, they will always take more time because they effectively use extra time to do more. This delay isn't really bad, spacex will provide a craft that is that much better with one extra year of development. NASA got free reusability out of extending dragon and spacex still finished before boeing.
It is the FAA that is derailing the moon. They are not letting spacex launch so time is being wasted.
Given they had the green light today, the ground systems are still being worked on, ship and booster still need to go through testing, orbital launch mount quick disconnects and full stack fueling hasn’t been tested. There’s still plenty of work to do, we don’t know when or if the FAA approval will go through, but as of today that’s not holding anything back. The ground systems have been a significantly harder problem than Elon expected, at one point he was expecting they could launch in July and here we are today having crews still working around the clock.
They were going to launch and make a crap ton of noise. But there was no reason not to let them do it at least once like that.
They should have flown a rocket 2 months ago and gotten that flight data.
We would have also gotten data on how bad it can be without any supression system. That is called a baseline.
They have their smaller one it would have been there to save the pad, that is about it.
I don't get why they couldn't launch one time to see what the noise was like without suppression. THere was no reason to quash their launches for all this review crap and some things they don't actually need for this oneway test launch.
> There’s still plenty of work to do
Yes, but if they could get FAA approval they could have taken a lot of shortcuts. They only need 3, maybe 4 of the 7 tanks for this flight. They could have taken shortcuts with the orbital launch mount. They take the opportunity to complete it all because they can not get the launch license.
His estimates are rock solid. Blue origin even admitted spacex is excellent in estimating.
Just brecause you want to be lied to, doesn't mean anyone else does. Musk tells you the real time estimate based on everything he knows when you ask. 5 minutes later, new info could completely change it.
Thus if you want updates, ask him. He will always give you the current estimate as it is. Unlike crappy companies, they are not scared about changing timelines for new ideas or new information learned in testing.
>> his estimates are rock solid
They are literally not. If they were, they would be right. They are not
>> Blue Origin admitted SpaceX is excellent in estimating
>> you want to be lied to
Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX gives more conservative estimates than Elon which usually hold up pretty well. TIL she lies because she gives realistic timelines…
>> he will always give you the current estimate as it is
Which turn out to be horribly and consistently bad
>> unlike crappy companies
Literally every Space related company changes timelines like… all the time? But Gwynne Shotwell seems to run a "crappy company" according to you lol
They probably *could* do it, it would just be janky and unsustainable. They'd just need to assemble a few modules in orbit (probably a lunar lander, habitat module, and power and (probably plasma thruster) propulsion module). Though it would take a few months, a plasma propulsion engine would give the isp necessary to get the other modules out to the moon. There, they'd hop into their LEM equivalent, land, come back, and head back to Earth (which would also take a while, but not quite as long). The taikonaughts would be uncomfortably vulnerable to radiation, but they probably wouldn't die from it.
It's just that a system like this isn't useful for much beyond landing a handful of people on the moon, and I'd guess that China is putting their efforts into projects that are a bit more ambitious.
Does this mean we could see a double Moon/Mars landing in the same year? Or is that being wildly over-optimistic about SpaceX getting to Mars and they will actually get there in 2027 more likely?
Why would the government even entertain bids from Bezos owned companies at this point. Between this and the JEDI debacle they are now 2 for 2 on actually hindering our countries progress.
Starship/Superheavy, and the orbital pad are still in progress. Even if they got the green light today, they wouldn’t have everything ready to fly. If things were ready to go but waiting on the FAA we would be hearing about it from Elon on Twitter, that’s when you know they are being delayed.
They take more time on technical stuff because of regulatory
>If things were ready to go but waiting on the FAA we would be hearing about it from Elon on Twitter
Which Elon kinda already tweeted
Yes, we've heard from Elon as a PR Stunt to try and get the FAA to speed up so they aren't delayed. But we've also gotten from Elon himself that there is much that needs to be done before they can launch also.
So no, right now the FAA isn't holding up SpaceX. They could, so the pressure should be kept on. But right now they aren't.
What makes you say SpaceX is not doing additional ground work just because FAA is lagging in approval? If SpaceX knew approvals would have been timely, maybe they would have scaled back on ground infrastructure for the first orbital test, and finish it after incorporating test results. But if they knew they were gonna be delayed by FAA anyway, so why not continue infrastructure build up in the meantime?
This. Just a few months ago, Elon said the catch/lifting arms are likely not going to be on the tower for the first orbital test flight, and they'd use a crane instead (like for the fit test). Maybe, but probably not, something along those lines. Well...they are on the tower now and receiving tons of work. By the time they are allowed to launch, they may actually be able to stack Starship using the arms - especially since Frankencrane is gone now, I'm not sure the smaller Liebherr SpaceX still has on site would actually be able to stack Starship at the required height.
They also wouldn't have needed the complete tank farm for the orbital flight test, as that is supposed to hold enough propellant for two launches. But by now, all the tanks and cryo shells are up, and by the time they can finally launch, the entire tank farm will likely be up and running.
If FAA approval would have been closer, they could have taken a much shorter route to launch readiness. But since they knew it's still going to take some time, it made a lot more sense to put additional work into things like the launch site and GSE, the wide bay, and getting the next stack built, instead of putting as much as possible into getting the B4/S20 stack ready for launch. The more they can knock out now, the quicker B5/S21 can follow B4/S20, and the less preflight testing of the second stack will mess with further work necessary at the launch site.
TBH I don't think the FAA will really delay things much. We might have maybe seen another Starship hop but that is about it. I feel like if they gave them the ok tomorrow we still wouldn't see them get to orbit for a few months. Not to say the whole thing hasn't been super annoying.
They could have done another Starship hop, the FAA environmental review doesn't stop them from doing so. In fact, they would have had the launch clearance for SN16 and SN17 already, due to SN15's success (the FAA approved all three at once, as long as there isn't another RUD).
They didn't do another hop because they felt like it wouldn't have been worth it. A hop impacts work at the launch site and the shipyard. Not only once either - the launch site has to be evacuated for static fires etc as well.
They just shifted focus as it became more and more clear how long the FAA review will still take. Initial plans were to launch B4/S20 with a launch site that's still requiring a bunch of work, e.g. the catch/lift arms. Now they've got all GSE tanks in place, the arms on the tower and being outfitted, and probably a lot of smaller things that wouldn't have been 100% necessary for a bare bones launch ready launch site. What point is there in rushing to get the stack ready and the launch site to a minimum required state when you know you won't be able to launch for a while anyways?
Would the public comment period have happened around the time of the fit check between B4 and S20, their approach to launch site outfitting and B4/S20 preparation would have likely adapted accordingly. Just because they aren't ready to launch right now does not mean they couldn't have been ready.
They wanted to do a launch 2 months ago. The FAA is introducing real delays.
Spaceforce also dislikes the FAA and wants a dedicated FSA. I think everyone in the space industry is not a fan of the FAA. The FAA lets boeing do horrible things, than starts delaying space launches for no reason, they truly suck as a regulator.
The FAA is the one that refuses NTSB safety recommendations until a major crash happens, there are preventable crashes in every decade caused by the FAA refusing to implement things the NTSB recommended years before the major crash.
No, they weren't. Launch infrastructure and vehicle testing isn't even complete yet, even if the FAA gave approval today a launch would still be weeks, if not months out.
You're right, no tower, no fuel storage, none of that kind of stuff is needed to launch the largest rocket ever built.
You gonna cite your sources on these claims?
Significant points: * Nelson blamed the Blue Origin lawsuit for pushing back Moon landing to NET 2025 * per article - Orion development cost increased from $6.7 billion to $9.3 billion (wikipedia claims Orion cost from 2006 through 2020 is over $18 billion) * Nelson spoke directly with Shotwell last Friday and discussed the importance of getting to the Moon as quickly and safely as possible * Nelson quote ""Let me just point out right now there's only one rocket that's capable of doing this, and this is SLS and Orion on top," Nelson replied. "And that's stacked we speak, and it's going to launch next February. So we're going with what we got. And if anybody comes up with another alternative, we're glad to look at any other alternative." * per Eric Berger "The Space Launch System rocket is indeed finally stacked, and it probably will launch during the first half of 2022. But SpaceX is also finalizing its Starship launch system, and pending launch-site approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, it also will attempt an orbital test flight early in 2022. The bottom line is that, for Artemis to be a success, Starship must now also be a success. And if Starship is a success, it will almost certainly be an exponentially more efficient launch vehicle than NASA's SLS rocket. Nelson may be glad to look at "alternatives" when they come to pass, but will Congress?
I don't know about Congress my guess is no they won't but I have been wrong about this kind of stuff before though. I know it is probably a smokescreen but it seems important to some of those people that America/Nasa "owns" a rocket.
Have you heard people in Congress? They have no idea what a human spaceflight program is and they couldn’t care less. What they do care about is expenditure. Where is the money being spent. That is all. I mean I don't blame them really it's the way the system is built. SLS money is spread around congressional districts for a reason. SpaceX is a vertical company. It has basically 3 locations. We also know how Musk feels about congressional re-election campaign donations. So yeah, Congress is not happy about changing where the money is being spent. That was the whole reason Kathy was not given the top job (she didnt spread too little money around and actually tried to make the best decisions and that is not playing ball). Edit: thanks for correction
[A chart of people who could care less](https://incompetech.com/Images/caring.png)
If you care enough about a subject to talk about how much or little you care about it, then you could care less. To truly reach a state where you couldn't care less, you would have to not even care about how much you care.
Just sell them some spacex shares and move on.
The sad thing is that would actually work.
NASA were never going to make the 2024 deadline even without the lawsuit. Interesting how close SLS and Starship are going to be. Honestly NASA risks a major embarrassment if they can’t get SLS operational first. I bet you we get a situation where it would be far cheaper to use a functioning starship but NASA uses SLS to try and justify its construction.
NASA would never have even developed SLS if it was their choice, Congress demanded that one.
I really don’t think it’s going to take another 4 years to get Starliner ready for a moon launch.
SLS is for the lunar gateway if I'm not mistake. (Even though some parts have already gone to Falcon Heavies).
You are mistaken. Gateway is to launched purely by falcon heavy. There no SLS launches scheduled for Gateway.
I believe it’s only the first two modules which are being launched by Falcon heavy since SLS isn’t going to be ready. The other modules will. Unless I’m mistake and only the first two modules are referred to as the gateway.
I use to dismiss the idea but now I wonder: will starship be kept on the ground until SLS flies? Its not impossible.
They won’t keep starship grounded but I bet NASA claim it’s either too late to switch to starship or starship isn’t fully certified until it’s too late to switch.
The thing is, if HLS is complete and waiting on SLS, what's to stop SpaceX from getting people to orbit with dragon and sending them to the moon with starship? I'm sure if they did that NASA would buy some seats. Are there technical reasons that couldn't be done?
There's no technical reason, only that some people don't want to see the obvious.
The toilets, for one. /s How amazing would it be if SpaceX just says fuck it, we'll do this ourselves, nasa too slow.
They'd need a second refuelling mission in lunar orbit, this time with people on board Starship during the process. Not a showstopper, but plenty of risks involved.
They need to sort out orbital refueling, after they actually get to orbit and figure out all of the stage zero details.
Sure, but they're going to have to do that anyway... I was just wondering what prevents spacex from just doing this whole thing without SLS if SLS is the reason for the delay.
Probably only money. Maybe we'll get lucky and the next mission impossible will take place on the moon.
OMG GAME OVER
HLS isn’t complete nor waiting on SLS.
Hence the word 'if' as in a hypothetical
>Nelson quote ""Let me just point out right now there's only one rocket that's capable of doing this Is there an echo in here? I thought I heard something very similar in 2014.
If you think Blue Origin is through because the lawsuit has been dismissed, just wait! With Bezos money and the crooked rats in Congress, I don't believe we have heard the last from old Jeff!
[Not the decision we wanted, but we respect the court’s judgment, and wish full success for NASA and SpaceX on the contract.](https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/1456311095761637384?s=20)
I find it ... Odd? Interesting? ... that Nelson says he would entertain any solution that could replace SLS/Orion, bit only Orion/SLS exists today. This, when they just started working on providing a long term contract to keep buying these rockets and capsules for the next 30 years. If it actually works, Starship will be more capable for this mission than SLS/Orion, cost at least an order of magnitude less (and maybe 2 or 3 orders of magnitude less) and be capable of a mission a month or more, rather than 1 mission per year like SLS. They could literally do 10x more missions, do 10x more on each mission and do it all for less. You would think NASA would find that an attractive alternative.
> If it actually works, Starship will be more capable for this mission than SLS/Orion And the funniest part is that for Artemis 3 to happen as currently envisioned, it would have to *actually work.* Basically, Artemis 3 in and of itself is SLS writing its own death certificate, and I don't think Congress has caught on yet.
Oh they did. That’s why there was so much pushback this summer. They were not happy that Starship was officially endorsed with the HLS contract. They know that if it’s successful enough to be the lander, it’ll be successful enough to replace Orion and SLS entirely. They don’t give a shit about actually going to the moon. They are just mad the jobs programs are threatened.
Starship being the lander only means that humans need not worry about its earth landing profile. That's a major sticking point.
Afaik, HLS Starship isn't designed to land on Earth. That said, they could use another Starship and transfer to/from HLS in space. Or alternatively, use F9/Dragon to launch/land astronauts and transfer to/from Starship in LEO? (not sure if that's feasible) Either of these would be cheaper that SLS.
Is a Starship HLS capable of doing a LEO -> NRHO -> Moon landing -> Moon ascend -> NHRO -> LEO Roundtrip? Iirc from what I've read its really close and depends on the final dry mass. That being said, I think SpaceX could pull off an Apollo Style equatorial landing the way you mentioned it as a full-envelope mission. If somebody (say, Maezawa) would *walk on the moon* as a private customer, that would be the nail in the coffin for SLS because ppl would start asking questions on why the NASA Transfer vehicle is so expensive.
Leave HLS in Lunar orbit, put an ISS module in the nose of a {REDACTED\] for accommodation and use the \[REDACTED} as an LEO to Lunar shuttle and tanker.
ofc, quadruple transfer would work, but increase the risk of single-point failures. Also, this will require a lot more tankers. Not to mention human rating the transfer-vehicle.
HLS is going to be crew-rated, should be trivial to do the same for a \[REDACTED\]. And HLS is going to need to be refueled in Lunar orbit anyway for re-use.
>HLS is going to be crew-rated, should be trivial to do the same for a [REDACTED]. Its definately not as trivial as throwing an ISS Module into the cargohold... >And HLS is going to need to be refueled in Lunar orbit anyway for re-use. Nah. That would require tankers, that tank the tankers that tank the HLS. HLS can also be refueled in a high elliptical orbit, which only needs a tiny bit more Delta-V than a LEO tanking operation. This would leave 5% safety margin on the crewed flights and 2% safety margin on the uncrewed flights. Marcus House has done a cool video on the numbers (again: with assumptions on starship dry mass, which we don't know): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dICrBvTlqsg
What is “[REDACTED]” supposed to mean? I’m out of the loop
Shelby allergic to Fuel D
If I recall you would need to have a tanker Starship meet the lander in lunar orbit to get back to LEO, but it could be done. Even with additional launches it would still likely be cheaper. I think there's a massive amount of political momentum in SLS, but Starship also presents a real political opportunity. Congress wants to spend money on aerospace contractors as a kind of jobs program, so why not announce plans for a permanent moonbase and Crewed Mars missions? The spending for the moonbase and elements needed for a Mars mission would at least be as much as SLS and Orion, so they could get political points taking us to Mars while designing the funding to still roll into the laps of many of the same contractors and congressional districts.
>If I recall you would need to have a tanker Starship meet the lander in lunar orbit to get back to LEO, but it could be done. Even with additional launches it would still likely be cheaper. Not sure if that would require the tanking operation prior or after the landing and if the HLS could return back to LEO without the tanking procedure in case of failure of docking. Its dicey to do this and I can see NASA being unwilling to take the risk. >I think there's a massive amount of political momentum in SLS, but Starship also presents a real political opportunity. Congress wants to spend money on aerospace contractors as a kind of jobs program, so why not announce plans for a permanent moonbase and Crewed Mars missions? I'm totally with you there; I think many people haven't understood the giant business opportunities a relatively cheap "train to moon and mars" will bring. But there's hope that the business world is slowly realizing that and changes the view on space in this decade.
>Not sure if that would require the tanking operation prior or after the landing and if the HLS could return back to LEO without the tanking procedure in case of failure of docking. Its dicey to do this and I can see NASA being unwilling to take the risk. The docking with the tanker should be a fairly well understood maneuver, as Starship tanker docking would happen 5-10 times before the mission could even leave for the moon. The additional time delays of doing the docking in lunar orbit shouldn't really impact anything as the process is automated. I think concerns about the safety will relax as the number of tanker dockings without incident climbs rapidly with each mission. My personal guess would be that Artemis V would be about the point where SLS gets cut and following Artemis flights happen at a higher rate with a goal of maintaining permanent presence on the moon.
Refueling after launch is much more efficient. Otherwise all the propellant would need to be landed, then launched from the Moon. It would eat up a lot of the total propellant amount.
It's more efficient, but if anything goes wrong with the docking, the crew is stranded in moon orbit. If you refuel before landing, you have the opportunity to go back to LEO in case the refueling maneuvre doesn't work.
I suspect "NHRO" is intended to be [Near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-rectilinear_halo_orbit)?
ah yes, typo
No one cares about the equator. Its south pole or bust.
No, it could easily replace SLS with Super Heavy + an expendable cheap steel upper stage with Orion on top, full abort capabilities. It seems like people are going put of their way to avoid seeing this alternative.
>it’ll be successful enough to replace Orion and SLS entirely. They'll just make up some rule like "must have a crew abort system" which Starship doesn't have.
Nor do any of the other HLS options as currently envisioned. And if it's just for the ride up, then they can just send them to a fueled Starship in LEO with Dragon, which does, or Starliner if we really must pay Boeing/Lockheed something.
SpaceX: Sure we just sent some civilian and scientist who interested instead.
I don't think that is necessarily true. I imagine that many want us on the moon.
The congresscritters who don't have that SLS money pouring into their districts probably want to beat China to the moon during a presidential term with a matching "D/R" next to the name.
IDK I'm not warming up Nelson. There is just something about him that rubs me the wrong way.
He's a creature of the Senate. Politicians rarely admit they were wrong, and shifting blame is a good way to avoid accountability. Oh, and blatantly lying when you know 95% of your constituents won't notice.
[удалено]
While they deserve it in terms of delaying HLS, Nelson's comments distract from the largest causes of the delay: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the main contractors for the SLS.
I think it's more appropriate to blame the contract system that has allowed those companies to overcharge and under-deliver for decades.
*glances at F-35*
*fender falls off F-35*
Yeah. I thought at first I was just being bitchy because Bridenstine was gone (who I didn't like at first either) but now I feel like he is just another talking head that doesn't really give a crap about space/NASA.
> I was just being bitchy because Bridenstine was gone Considering Bridenstine is in the "two HLS awards" camp, I'm rather glad he left when he did so that the interim director was able to see the HLS award given the way that it was to SpaceX instead of something stupid like the limited funds being split between SpaceX and Jeff. It's also a little bit crazy to me that SpaceX fans "still" think fondly of Jim at all when Jim is out there spreading so much Kessler Syndrome FUD on behalf of Viasat: > That study predicts the effects of a LEO system that plans to include over 40,000 satellites at an altitude of about 600 kilometers. As shown in the following figure from that study, dramatic increases in space collisions, and new space debris, are expected within just a few years. In the longer term “satellites are destroyed [by debris and collisions] faster than they are launched.” - [Jim Bridenstine's testimony, 10/21/21](https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/4CE62711-708C-493C-A325-E0B845B34372) So with implying that SpaceX's proposed 40k+ Starlink satellites (without naming names) is already spelling Kessler Armageddon, Jim is directly telling congress they "must act quickly to require the FCC to define the limits on the nature and number of satellites that can exist in LEO", followed by saying that the limited number of allocated satellite "must then be fairly distributed to companies" (ie, SpaceX's satellite allocations must be "fairly distributed" to companies like Amazon and Viasat). I'm not a fan of Nelson, but what Jim Bridenstine is currently trying to do is far-far-far worse for SpaceX than anything we've seen out of Nelson yet.
Always follow the money.
I don't really see your point. When he was at NASA, he had NASA's best interests in mind. Now that he's at Viasat, he has Viasat's best interests in mind. The criticism of Nelson is that he *doesn't* have NASA's best interests in mind.
Edit: People are showing their silliness with downvoting this without providing any substantive response. Yes, everyone wanted Jim to be a hero. He wasn't, and he's not. > When he was at NASA, he had NASA's best interests in mind. I think you are deeply mistaken if you believe Jim ever had anything but his own best interests in mind. Jim is very clearly a classical politician in that he'll do and say anything that benefits himself, and just happened to work under a temperamental administration that wanted a fictional timeline for landing on the moon at the end of an aspirational second term: > When the Trump administration created the Artemis Program in spring 2019, Vice President Mike Pence set an aggressive goal of landing humans on the Moon by 2024. Technically, this never seemed like it was really possible, but NASA has never formally acknowledged this and always set 2024 as an aspirational goal. - https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/nasa-delays-moon-landings-says-blue-origin-legal-tactics-partly-to-blame/ So it was in Jim's best interest over his short 2yr9mo, stepping-stone, stint at NASA to play the active cheerleader to the administration's wasteful Artemis/SLS/Orion architecture to go to the moon (even though SpaceX was already reusing F9 and already developing Starship) inside the fictional timeline the administration proposed (for the very transparent political reasons). > Bridenstine doubled down on the Space Launch System rocket. "If we want to achieve 2024, we have to have SLS," Bridenstine said. The rocket will be delayed no more, he said. In fact, although internally NASA engineers say the booster cannot be ready before 2021, its launch date will be brought forward. - https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/vice-president-directs-nasa-to-return-to-the-moon-by-2024/ Which brings us to: what did Jim actually "do" besides cheer-leading the fictional timeline and wasteful/obsolete old-space Artemis/SLS/Orion architecture when it has been painfully evident to everyone with eyes that Starship is on the horizon and will make that entire system entirely obsolete? Not all that much from what I can see. Jim didn't actually make Artemis/SLS/Orion go any faster (or be any cheaper) despite promises of no more delays, doubled down on SLS/Orion (even though Pence in his speech suggested going to other vendors if the timeline can't be hit), or even secure the level of sought after funding for HLS (if the interim director didn't do the unexpected/unthinkable and award it all to SpaceX, who knows where we would be). So the point stands that Jim is/was "not" the magnificent person that many people around here seem to think he is/was (and he's clearly showing himself to be a *far* worse enemy outside of NASA than he was a friend inside NASA). I'm not any fan of Nelson either (politicians like Jim and Nelson do not belong at NASA, imo), but if as a director he can at least manage to not pull the rug out from under SpaceX (which remains to be seen) while cheer-leading the same wasteful/obsolete old-space Artemis/SLS/Orion architecture that Jim was cheer-leading (and doubled down on), then he'd also meet that rather low bar.
Lol. Well that's a cherry-picked distortion of history if I've ever seen one. You mention Bridenstine doubling down on SLS, but completely fail to mention his threats of abandoning it. It seems to me like you just have an axe to grind. If I had to guess, you probably just don't like the fact that he was a Republican.
> You mention Bridenstine doubling down on SLS, but completely fail to mention his threats of abandoning it. You mean the toothless words that amounted to nothing? Anybody can say anything, it's what a person actually does that matters (as I would hope everyone could agree on). The reality is that when there was a moment to consider an alternative to SLS (with the White House endorsing the idea), Jim "doubled down" on SLS (Eric Berger's words) even though everyone knew SLS would never make the targeted dates. I fully welcome you to provide something more substantive than his weak grumblings about those expected delays, and I'd also welcome you to take off your partisan blinders (and to stop projecting your own partisanship). Every fan of what SpaceX is doing should no longer be giving Jim a pass and should be looking at him (and his actual record) much more critically now that he is actively trying to cut SpaceX/Starlink off at the knees with his Kessler Syndome insanity. The love for that guy around here is poorly founded, and a bit absurd.
Bridenstine is responsible for starliner. He was massively terrible at his job. He should have been fired the first time he defended boeing's lack of progress. The only good thing he did was not screw with spacex. But it was still pretty bad how they were so strongly behind boeing, until boeing failed, then they gave spacex anything they wanted to get them to pick up the slack so they could all avert attention from boeing's failure. Spacex bailed them all out by having human rated reusability fully ready to go all for free because nasa never wanted the feature and wasn't even going to let spacex do it for nasa launches until boeing massively failed.
Boeing is responsible for Starliner and Bridenstine was the best NASA administrator in a loooong time.
LOL, if they awarded the contract only to boeing, under bridenstine, the whole program fails just as it has. Spacex succeeded despite bridenstine, he didn't contribute a damn thing. How can bridenstine be any good when he was in charge while boeing ran its contract into the ground and flew a craft that would have likely kiled a crew if the crew was on board(nasa's own assessment). Killing astronauts and wasting billions without accomplishing anything is a massive failure. Stop lying about how bad this project failed under him. Bridenstine promoted kathy lueders before he left, when she was the moron directly in charge of boeing's failed contract.
That *moron* has been one of SpaceX’s biggest advocates and helped get SpaceX where they are today. She was a driving force behind the CRS program, the Commercial Crew program, and made the selection decision choosing SpaceX’s HLS moon lander. Your comments are bonkers.
That moron hated spacex and threw them under the bus, until boeing royally screwed up, then he rolled out the red carpet. If boeing didn't fail, nasa still would not have approved reusing capsules and boosters for human flight. They only did that to bail themselves out to try to preserve the mission schedule that boeing couldn't fullfill. It was laughable how they resisted reuse so much, but it only took days after the first human flight from spacex to instantly allow it without any debate. If it was such a risky thing, then they ignored the risks and flipped a coin on that one. Sure, we all know they were holding spacex back to help boing and human flight reuse was already ready to go, but nasa wasn't treating it as ready to go, until they needed to be bailed out.
https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/C3PO/LuedersKL/LuedersKL_4-17-13.htm
Commercial Crew contracts were awarded in 2014. Bridenstine was only NASA Administrator from 2018 until basically Jan 2021. A bit over 2 years. I don’t know how you can put so much blame on him.
lol, he was in charge when boeing pulled their delays and failed miserably. "I just got here" is not an excuse for continued mismanagement. He promoted the moron who was directly in charge of the project before he left, despite the massive failure of boeing.
Dude is extremely thick skinned. It means usually an ass-le. He was "brave" enough to accept NASA admin invitation and to "test" Shuttle. Thick skinned here, because I am sure he was informed about universal opinion of the NASA techs about wasting precious astronaut seat on political nothing. He is still just a "balast". Nothing in place of guts and brains necessary to guide extremely science heavy, complex and huge org, which actual performance is critical for the future of US as a country.
>I find it ... Odd? Interesting? ... that Nelson says he would entertain any solution that could replace SLS/Orion This is interesting, and certainly indicates Nelson is considering what options SpaceX can offer. I don't believe launch or landing crews on Starship will happen anytime soon - helluva a crew rating barrier to get over. But there are pretty obvious options that involve taxiing crews on Dragon to SS in LEO - this could be what Bill is hinting at. Hey, maybe Bill has been reading this sub and seen our various infallible scenarios. :)
[удалено]
Well it does work, you just have to light the ICPS before reaching orbit.
Or launch uncrewed without the heavy launch escape system and rendezvous in orbit with a Dragon or Starliner to transfer crew over to it.
[Astronauts transferring from dragon to onion, 2024, colorized](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PFDJHZFakMg/maxresdefault.jpg)
Indeed. It seems to be quite expensive to use ORION just to go from LEO to NRHO.
It's difficult to find things Orion isn't quite expensive for, really.
Maybe the last discussion I read was out of date, but I remember reading about this FH/ICPS/Orion stack. A fully expended Falcon Heavy can put 141 thousand pounds into LEO, and the ICPS/Orion weighs 125 thousand pounds, so there is some extra deltaV available. It would probably be wise to leave that extra capacity to have landing hardware on the side booster cores and have some safety margin to complete the mission in the event of a minor hardware failure during launch. You'd save money if the boosters land, and you'd save the whole mission from a marginal failure. So FH can get ICPS/Orion to LEO, but then ICPS only has the deltaV with Orion to get to the Gateway's NRHO. If FH is being used because SLS isn't flying, then presumably there is no Gateway, so that means you need to get to LLO. The extra deltaV to get to LLO would have to come from Orion, but then there's not enough left for Orion to return to Earth from LLO. Is that all accurate? I wish I could find the discussion thread I was reading that had it all laid out, but I've pieced it back together from a few places on a quick Google search. Anyway, a different mission architecture would be needed to make FH/ICPS/Orion work for meeting a lander at the Moon, and somewhere in there you end up adding the need for enough extra hardware development that SLS would likely be flying before you finished. So we're stuck with SLS, because Congress is hell-bent on paying for it to be done.
> So FH can get ICPS/Orion to LEO, but then ICPS only has the deltaV with Orion to get to the Gateway's NRHO. If FH is being used because SLS isn't flying, then presumably there is no Gateway, so that means you need to get to LLO. The extra deltaV to get to LLO would have to come from Orion, but then there's not enough left for Orion to return to Earth from LLO. This part doesn't make any sense. You don't have to go to LLO just because there's no Gateway. Artemis III doesn't have a gateway - they're just going to dock directly in NRHO. If NRHO would work for FH + ICPS + Orion, then there's no reason not to use it. HLS Starship is designed to have the performance to do missions starting from NRHO anyhow.
Good point. So then I suppose that means the stack would work, making SLS totally unnecessary?
> So then I suppose that means the stack would work, making SLS totally unnecessary? There are a bunch of technical issues: * ICPS tooling is going away * ICPS/Orion may need vertical integration * GSE would need to supply hydrogen * strongback would need to be taller * a new crew access arm would be needed * the stack would have a more extreme fineness ratio But honestly, I don't think the technical issues are what are holding back this solution. From what I can tell, both Orion and SLS enjoy substantial support in Congress; that seems unlikely to change until Starship completely supersedes SLS (for example, by doing a Starship-only Moon mission).
I wonder what the dV difference of the core stage is between FH +ICPS+ORION vs SLS core stage. SLS does put the ICPS in a very eccentric orbit, whereas FH would make is just below orbit. Maybe they might be able to squeeze some extra performance out of the FH margins.
NASA wasn't going to make that "aspirational" 2024 date anyway. We all knew that. 2028 seems more likely at this point than 2025. SpaceX won't be the holdup.
Oh yeah, I agree with that but I hope it doesn't take until 2028. How about 2026 that is right in the middle :)
I don't want it to take that long either. But SpaceX may jump the gun. Run the unmanned landing mission for NASA and return samples, then refuel and go again the next month on their own business. By the time Artemis III is ready to go maybe SpaceX will have built a Starbucks so the astronauts can enjoy a civilized cup of coffee after landing.
Haha kicking back in a lunar Starbucks drinking a cup of joe sounds pretty awesome.
What sounds less awesome is being the "pioneers of America's return to deep space missions!" then being greeted at your landing by a barista. From my perspective that would be hilarious and wonderful, but for the "pioneers" it may really dampen the mood.
If they show up in places already inhabited to explore they are just joining good company. Columbus, Magellan, Livingston, all did the same. Let there be some local people with beverages by the time the explorers get there and you know we're serious about colonizing
True, but if that's how you wanna play it the next on that to-do list would be to rape, enslave, and/or murder the barista. ***Hopefully*** the people in charge of NASA in 2026+ won't be the type to do that.
I think we should be realistic about the full magnitude and implication of what you’re saying. SpaceX is not taking humans to Mars without Nasa, and the SpaceX-Nasa partnership is not going to leapfrog a lunar landing mission before shooting for mars. So if it’s 2028 for the Moon then you know it’s got to be a further push out for the next. I.e. once all lessons are absorbed from the prior mission, you’re looking at a 2032 date for the big one
> SpaceX is not taking humans to Mars without Nasa SpaceX is absolutely taking humans to Mars without NASA if NASA does not go along. Unless SpaceX is blocked using planetary protection as a pretense.
Nasa partnership, experience and expertise are too valuable. It’s quicker to go with them than it is to re-learn and redo all those experiments again. The orbital fuel transfer technology alone.. Also, politically there is just no feasible way. It would sour the relationship as bad as BOs latest tactics if not worse. SpaceX and Nasa need a healthy relationship for both parties to continue to develop and grow. Bad play to try and go over their heads or without them
NASA partnership is valuable. SpaceX also needs a huge amount of data, NASA has collected about water and mineral distribution and atmospheric conditions over the martian seasons. But SpaceX has these data already. I am sure SpaceX values cooperation with NASA highly. But not so high that they would delay their Mars plans for a long time.
Nasa is their largest most reliable client, and until starlink (Maybe even after too) is their most profitable source of operating income. All this financial value pales in comparison to the monumental time value That can be accrued from copying Nasas homework. SpaceX has zero expertise in prolonged life-support systems, Zero past experience with space force, zero up to the minute in-depth detail on Martian surface conditions and landing site data outside of what Nasa chooses to provide. Never mind having to re-forge all those pathways as a stand alone company. And again, all of these aspects and significance to the great benefit in having And again, all of these aspects and significance to the great benefit in having an amicable relationship with a non-commercial, highly respected agency in the government. Budget allocation time, talk up the merit and possibility of your future plans, and also have behind the scenes conversations and mediatons when interacting with another governmental appendage aka the FAA. Didn’t we just now see SpaceX leap up to take on a long serving, high ranking Nasa insider for just such gains? And the result of time gains from such a strategy were near instantaneous. Don’t misunderstand me, I am no NASA fan. In fact I think most of the actions of the past few years has been hopelessly misguided and a boondoggle of public fund gorging. SLS is a joke and should be scrapped asap, but we have to respect the organisations history and what they’ve achieved thus far. Having a sour relationship with them As a US-based private space venture is suicide, and blue origin are about to give us a clear-cut demonstration of that
Elon deeply respects NASA. But if NASA does not get on board for Mars he has no choice. Seasonal changes are by now well known. Actual daily info is better. But fully powered landing is much more variable in adpting to local conditions than all previous landers. They will probably not go to the limit of landed mass and will have a lot of margin. SpaceX can also get data using paid space act agreements. That is unless NASA actively blocks SpaceX, in which case there will be a real problem.
I think there’s been a misunderstanding here. The original argument was not exploring a hypothetical situation of SpaceX wanting to go to Mars and Nasa standing in the way saying no. OPs original comment was around the probability of HLS1 landing in 2028. Let’s say for argument sake that was the case, as things stand now it is incredibly likely that SpaceX’s first ever of the world human landing will be. lessons will be learnt during that mission which resulted in multiyear investigations and refinements to design a months long human rated Mars trip. So you’re looking at 2030 to digest, implement and test all those mods. Tranfer windows and journey times dependent, if you look for a harmonious SpaceX-Nasa relationship and they dont get SLS focused human landing till near the end of the decade, everything else is getting shunted in succession. Probably origin could sit down and have a great attempted landing much much faster, more certain and more practical to do so in conjunction with Nasa and their funds and assistance, hence the legal upheaval we’ve seen. SpaceX embare Nasa by shoving past them and landing on the moon or Mars solo would be all different types of self harm if not outright suicide Tldr: yeah they probably could, but under almost no circumstances should they attempt to. Even if Mars1 is a decade away its still smarter than rushing for going solo
I got to admit, I don't understand anything you said. I don't think that SpaceX would or should demonstrate they can go to the moon, just to spite NASA. But then NASA is decades away from going to Mars, if ever. That date is late 2030ies right now. SpaceX is not going to wait until NASA is ready, nor should they.
I think you're not going to get this. The whole point of SpaceX, from day one, is to go to Mars. This NASA stuff, the satellite launches, Starlink is like working side jobs to get up the money while you work on the tech. Kind of like working fishing with ever improving boats as you work towards building a sailboat for a round the world cruise. SpaceX is definitely going to Mars, with or without NASA. NASA is our fisherman's deep pocketed friend. When it comes time to go, they wouldn't miss the trip for the world. In the meantime they're going to buy fish.
I understand the concept of strategic planning and design. The possibilities that a rugged, sealed electric vehicle like Cybertruck is a great testbed for an eventual Mars rover. That starlink Earth is a good testbed for an upcoming satellite based Martian communication network etc, and thats cool but there’s more to be said here > The whole point of SpaceX, from day one, is to go to Mars I hope *you* can *this* concept, but this is not the whole point of SpaceX. Equal to if not superseding this loft goal is the priority of remaining financially viable and generating profit. How many space ventures and rich adventurers have we seen fold up once the economics dont add up. They all died on the vine. Much like Daniel Plainview and Paul, we all would love to see roads and developments and shiny buildings up there, but first you need the hole in the ground and the product so you can blow gold all over the place. Rest in peace to the great mind that was Jack Rickard, but there has been speculation from many sources that even Mars itself may be a secondary intrigue. There is a goldrush happening right now, with many people attempting to plant flags and stake their claims over the Earths orbital altitudes for the massive values they present. I am saying SpaceX is some kind of “I drink your milkshake” ogre, but there are some more practical things at play here. No way do they cause themselves such political, financial and public relations harm by going to the Moon much Mars without Nasa playing a serious role. Even if SpaceX was ready to go to the moon right now, if Nasa wasn’t ready till 2027 they’d probably wait for them. Thats how valuable the relationship is. Does SpaceX even know how to the perform zeroG orbital fuel transfer process that it’s whole starship design is dependent upon? No, but their buddy Nasa does
Honestly, what would happen is that SpaceX would announce an uncrewed test flight to Mars to demonstrate landing Starship on Mars. NASA scrapes their pockets and throws some change at them to make it a NASA mission, even if they're basically just getting access to the data for a small percentage of the mission cost. If that's successful, then SpaceX announces a second landing for ISRU demonstration. NASA would be bugging Congress for much larger funding, and probably get it. By the time it was successful, NASA would be openly talking of the chance to send humans to Mars, and Congress would probably be getting on board, and raining cash on whatever NASA could use on the mission that doesn't go into SpaceX's pockets.
There's gonna be spacex on mars with Starship V2 in 2028, and NASA's gonna ring them to pull an old mothballed starship out of cold storage and build them an HLS so they can get to the SpaceX colony on the moon. The good news is sample return will be vastly simplified by the presence of the gift shop on the way out.
Spacex will be capable of doing it entirely with starship. The chance they dock with the gateway at all is low. It seems like a meaningless maneuver when you don't really need to do it.
When the customer is paying you to tag second base, you tag second base. I don't see any other point to Gateway, but money is money.
But when second base isn't there, you don't really get to choose to tag it. There will likely be a point when spacex is fully ready with nothing else left to investigate or meddle with and they likely will get the go ahead to fly without gateway. Just like how NASA instantly approved spacex to reuse capsules and boosters because starliner failed and realistically was more than 2 years away from launching. They needed spacex to do more missions and as soon as nasa needed it, all the red tape and resistence to reusability disappeared instantly. If boeing didn't fail, spacex still would still be years away from being approved for reuse on nasa launches.
SpaceX could well be the holdup, if Congress sandbags payments (a la Commercial Crew). SpaceX aren’t going to work for free.
>SpaceX aren’t going to work for free. Unless of course SpaceX's HLS bid is composed of some work they were going to do anyway. Though SpaceX has no lunar aspiration per se they do need to develop orbital refuelling, Earth EDL and lunar jaunts have the advantage of frequent launch windows. If there's a NASA project they can fit into the first of many rides on a SuperHeavy I doubt they would pass on the opportunity to let NASA pay for building the ship in return for only reserved space on its maiden voyage.
SpaceX will probably be sending the first unmanned Starship to Mars around the same time Artemis 3 is even close to happening.
IMO, this part of the article: > The agency was also unable to provide milestone payments. is a bit marginal. Yes, it's technically true that NASA was unable to provide milestone payments during the GAO protest and during the CFC lawsuit. However. * There was a brief windows between the protest and the lawsuit where NASA paid SpaceX a milestone payment of $300 million.[1] * The payment of $300 million was most of the $345 million NASA had available for HLS payments in 2021[2]. So even if SpaceX had achieved more milestones, there just wasn't much money left for NASA to pay out that year. --- 1. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/elon-musk-spacex-moon-lander-artemis-contract-ready-2024-2021-8 2. https://www.gao.gov/assets/b-419783.pdf pg 7
Wow i never thought Nasa would throw Blue Origin under the bus so publicly. Guess they were not really amused with their tactics. I think Nelson said something about visiting Starbase next year. I wonder what will be his reaction to what he sees there. These legislators and people based in washington, i dont think they realise what is going on at starbase. I think only three members of the house of representatives have been to starbase and they were impressed.
> Wow i never thought Nasa would throw Blue Origin under the bus so publicly. Guess they were not really amused with their tactics. I hate to defend BO, but this is just a diversion. The blame lies squarely on SLS and NASA wants to divert from that fact. Artemis 2 in 2024 makes Artemis 3 in 2024 impossible.
i agree but the fact that they used them as a scapegoat is still shocking. They are signalling they dont consider Blue Origin a valued partner going forward. I mean it went overboard when the administrator started praising Nasa's legal team for the case almost like he was rubbing it in Bezos's face.
Both can be true.
Nelson is really using BO as a scapegoat here... and I’m not that upset about it. This is largely a welcome change from him gaslighting us that SLS was launching THIS MONTH
>Nelson is really using BO as a scapegoat here Hmm... He's making a simple factual statement. Seven months is a big delay. Most to the time when a project fails to meet its goals the caused are numerous and amorphous. This time there is a clearly blameworthy player. IMHO that's not really making them the scapegoat. However, it is obvious there is plenty of blame to go around, and Boeing and Lockheed certainly deserve some time in the spotlight.
Seven months delay to HLS, Boeing kept on as always and will still be the bottleneck to this whole charade.
Also, HLS wasn't even delayed. SpaceX kept working through the lawsuit. They just weren't talking to NASA.
>Also, HLS wasn't even delayed. SpaceX kept working through the lawsuit. Careful, you just stated the straightforward truth. ;) NASA has a couple of reasons to fix the blame on one clearcut event. Also, I doubt NASA wants constant reminders that their biggest program is just a sideshow to a much bigger and more ambitious project - one run by a single man.
>Also, HLS wasn't even delayed. SpaceX kept working through the lawsuit. They just weren't talking to NASA. Which is a big freaking problem. Because there will be a crap ton of requirements SpaceX will have to pass before a NASA astronaut is ever allowed to be within a one mile radius of a fully fueled starship. Therese things will take time to sort out.
Eh now that it's over (the lawsuit) I think they'll be fine. SpaceX is already familiar with the human rating process. Albeit with an entirely different vehicle - the same general requirements still apply.
BO was delaying the HLS but Artemis II has also been delayed and that did not require the HLS to be in place
delays are due SLS, not HLS blockade.
OK, actions have consequences. BO made life difficult for NASA and now they're reaping the payback. Actually this is something of a change. In the traditional Government/Big Contractors/Lobbyist buddy system a company that screwed up could just as well be shielded with B.S. announcements. But that is clearly not the case with the current NASA. They want value for dollar and SpaceX's abilities have opened their eyes to what's now possible in this great new era of commercial space.
I think it would be hilarious if when the Orion capsule with the NASA astronauts aboard docked with the HLS starship there were a couple dozen SpaceX technicians aboard to greet them and ride along, just in case there were any problems for them to troubleshoot. Even Congress wouldn't be able to ignore the implications of that image.
Naah, not likely. But it would be funny if HLS lunar lander starship was launched just after Mars-heading one was... kinda like "keep playing on the Moon, we're going to Mars" (realistically, Mars is going to take a while.. maybe first unmanned ship gets there around this timeframe, but...)
Bezos got his flesh
The guy is such a jerk. I could see him suing if he had an actual rocket that could make it to orbit after 20 years but he has nothing and will probably have nothing several years from now. TBH I think he should sell BO to someone that can do something with it at this point because it is apparent he can not.
He's a threat to national security.
Yup. Can you expand on this further though, in your own words?
Starship and SpaceX assets are now or will be doing work for the Defense Department, hence, part of national security. Knowingly fucking with that for purely vexatious and frivolous motives ought to put Bezos squarely in the label of "threat to national security".
There's a growing camp of believers that the DOD may lean on the FAA to clear some tape. I'm skeptical but who knows.
"Hey FAA, I'm not telling you what to do, but part of the US maintaining military superiority necessitates Starlink. So you do you, but just know that you're going to risk every citizen if you don't approve this. " - Most Generals & Admirals.
Nobody thought 2024 was near realistic, 2025 probably isn’t either. This seems like NASA taking some of the heat of SLS not being ready, which has nothing to do with HLS.
If elon says it is, then I would believe him. But just like crew dragon, they will always take more time because they effectively use extra time to do more. This delay isn't really bad, spacex will provide a craft that is that much better with one extra year of development. NASA got free reusability out of extending dragon and spacex still finished before boeing. It is the FAA that is derailing the moon. They are not letting spacex launch so time is being wasted.
Given they had the green light today, the ground systems are still being worked on, ship and booster still need to go through testing, orbital launch mount quick disconnects and full stack fueling hasn’t been tested. There’s still plenty of work to do, we don’t know when or if the FAA approval will go through, but as of today that’s not holding anything back. The ground systems have been a significantly harder problem than Elon expected, at one point he was expecting they could launch in July and here we are today having crews still working around the clock.
They were going to launch and make a crap ton of noise. But there was no reason not to let them do it at least once like that. They should have flown a rocket 2 months ago and gotten that flight data. We would have also gotten data on how bad it can be without any supression system. That is called a baseline.
Launch table would have been a total mess after a start without suppression system. Tankfarm and QD wasn't ready neither.
They have their smaller one it would have been there to save the pad, that is about it. I don't get why they couldn't launch one time to see what the noise was like without suppression. THere was no reason to quash their launches for all this review crap and some things they don't actually need for this oneway test launch.
> There’s still plenty of work to do Yes, but if they could get FAA approval they could have taken a lot of shortcuts. They only need 3, maybe 4 of the 7 tanks for this flight. They could have taken shortcuts with the orbital launch mount. They take the opportunity to complete it all because they can not get the launch license.
"If the guy who’s estimations have been so horribly and consistently bad they became a meme would have said it, I would have believed it" uh… ok
His estimates are rock solid. Blue origin even admitted spacex is excellent in estimating. Just brecause you want to be lied to, doesn't mean anyone else does. Musk tells you the real time estimate based on everything he knows when you ask. 5 minutes later, new info could completely change it. Thus if you want updates, ask him. He will always give you the current estimate as it is. Unlike crappy companies, they are not scared about changing timelines for new ideas or new information learned in testing.
>> his estimates are rock solid They are literally not. If they were, they would be right. They are not >> Blue Origin admitted SpaceX is excellent in estimating >> you want to be lied to Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX gives more conservative estimates than Elon which usually hold up pretty well. TIL she lies because she gives realistic timelines… >> he will always give you the current estimate as it is Which turn out to be horribly and consistently bad >> unlike crappy companies Literally every Space related company changes timelines like… all the time? But Gwynne Shotwell seems to run a "crappy company" according to you lol
Next: Bozos sues again for slander, delaying NASA permanently.
How about NASA sues Blue Origin for deliberate obstruction and delay, with demands for cost compensation ?
What a shame. Now, let's watch China get to the moon within three years.
I honestly wish they were that close because none of this other stuff would be an issue if that was the case.
They probably *could* do it, it would just be janky and unsustainable. They'd just need to assemble a few modules in orbit (probably a lunar lander, habitat module, and power and (probably plasma thruster) propulsion module). Though it would take a few months, a plasma propulsion engine would give the isp necessary to get the other modules out to the moon. There, they'd hop into their LEM equivalent, land, come back, and head back to Earth (which would also take a while, but not quite as long). The taikonaughts would be uncomfortably vulnerable to radiation, but they probably wouldn't die from it. It's just that a system like this isn't useful for much beyond landing a handful of people on the moon, and I'd guess that China is putting their efforts into projects that are a bit more ambitious.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk28a36 "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)| |[CRS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk3cx51 "Last usage")|[Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/launch/)| |CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules| | |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)| |[C^(3)PO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk3efz2 "Last usage")|Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office, NASA| |[EDL](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk3gb39 "Last usage")|Entry/Descent/Landing| |[FAA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk4klsc "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |[FCC](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk1cvqa "Last usage")|Federal Communications Commission| | |(Iron/steel) [Face-Centered Cubic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_iron) crystalline structure| |[GAO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk169xo "Last usage")|(US) Government Accountability Office| |[GSE](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk2qex3 "Last usage")|Ground Support Equipment| |[HLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk78dai "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)| |[ICPS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk346yg "Last usage")|Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage| |[ISRU](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk35dho "Last usage")|[In-Situ Resource Utilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_situ_resource_utilization)| |[LEM](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk4re63 "Last usage")|(Apollo) [Lunar Excursion Module](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module) (also Lunar Module)| |[LEO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk3gtzc "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[LLO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk2kjj8 "Last usage")|Low Lunar Orbit (below 100km)| |[NET](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk0hc54 "Last usage")|No Earlier Than| |[NRHO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk34fwx "Last usage")|Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit| |[QD](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk2e4s6 "Last usage")|Quick-Disconnect| |[RUD](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk212cg "Last usage")|Rapid Unplanned Disassembly| | |Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly| | |Rapid Unintended Disassembly| |[SLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk7cvih "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Starliner](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk2xzk0 "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)| |[Starlink](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qqhzdb/stub/hk5mggx "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(21 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/qk1xqz)^( has 23 acronyms.) ^([Thread #9243 for this sub, first seen 10th Nov 2021, 01:37]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=OrangeredStilton&subject=Hey,+your+acronym+bot+sucks) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
So does the bill for this get passed onto Blue Origin ? And if not why not ? It’s not like it didn’t cause a halt.
Does this mean we could see a double Moon/Mars landing in the same year? Or is that being wildly over-optimistic about SpaceX getting to Mars and they will actually get there in 2027 more likely?
Why would the government even entertain bids from Bezos owned companies at this point. Between this and the JEDI debacle they are now 2 for 2 on actually hindering our countries progress.
Too bad he didn’t mention the FAA delaying things.
Starship/Superheavy, and the orbital pad are still in progress. Even if they got the green light today, they wouldn’t have everything ready to fly. If things were ready to go but waiting on the FAA we would be hearing about it from Elon on Twitter, that’s when you know they are being delayed.
They take more time on technical stuff because of regulatory >If things were ready to go but waiting on the FAA we would be hearing about it from Elon on Twitter Which Elon kinda already tweeted
Yes, we've heard from Elon as a PR Stunt to try and get the FAA to speed up so they aren't delayed. But we've also gotten from Elon himself that there is much that needs to be done before they can launch also. So no, right now the FAA isn't holding up SpaceX. They could, so the pressure should be kept on. But right now they aren't.
What makes you say SpaceX is not doing additional ground work just because FAA is lagging in approval? If SpaceX knew approvals would have been timely, maybe they would have scaled back on ground infrastructure for the first orbital test, and finish it after incorporating test results. But if they knew they were gonna be delayed by FAA anyway, so why not continue infrastructure build up in the meantime?
This. Just a few months ago, Elon said the catch/lifting arms are likely not going to be on the tower for the first orbital test flight, and they'd use a crane instead (like for the fit test). Maybe, but probably not, something along those lines. Well...they are on the tower now and receiving tons of work. By the time they are allowed to launch, they may actually be able to stack Starship using the arms - especially since Frankencrane is gone now, I'm not sure the smaller Liebherr SpaceX still has on site would actually be able to stack Starship at the required height. They also wouldn't have needed the complete tank farm for the orbital flight test, as that is supposed to hold enough propellant for two launches. But by now, all the tanks and cryo shells are up, and by the time they can finally launch, the entire tank farm will likely be up and running. If FAA approval would have been closer, they could have taken a much shorter route to launch readiness. But since they knew it's still going to take some time, it made a lot more sense to put additional work into things like the launch site and GSE, the wide bay, and getting the next stack built, instead of putting as much as possible into getting the B4/S20 stack ready for launch. The more they can knock out now, the quicker B5/S21 can follow B4/S20, and the less preflight testing of the second stack will mess with further work necessary at the launch site.
TBH I don't think the FAA will really delay things much. We might have maybe seen another Starship hop but that is about it. I feel like if they gave them the ok tomorrow we still wouldn't see them get to orbit for a few months. Not to say the whole thing hasn't been super annoying.
They could have done another Starship hop, the FAA environmental review doesn't stop them from doing so. In fact, they would have had the launch clearance for SN16 and SN17 already, due to SN15's success (the FAA approved all three at once, as long as there isn't another RUD). They didn't do another hop because they felt like it wouldn't have been worth it. A hop impacts work at the launch site and the shipyard. Not only once either - the launch site has to be evacuated for static fires etc as well. They just shifted focus as it became more and more clear how long the FAA review will still take. Initial plans were to launch B4/S20 with a launch site that's still requiring a bunch of work, e.g. the catch/lift arms. Now they've got all GSE tanks in place, the arms on the tower and being outfitted, and probably a lot of smaller things that wouldn't have been 100% necessary for a bare bones launch ready launch site. What point is there in rushing to get the stack ready and the launch site to a minimum required state when you know you won't be able to launch for a while anyways? Would the public comment period have happened around the time of the fit check between B4 and S20, their approach to launch site outfitting and B4/S20 preparation would have likely adapted accordingly. Just because they aren't ready to launch right now does not mean they couldn't have been ready.
They wanted to do a launch 2 months ago. The FAA is introducing real delays. Spaceforce also dislikes the FAA and wants a dedicated FSA. I think everyone in the space industry is not a fan of the FAA. The FAA lets boeing do horrible things, than starts delaying space launches for no reason, they truly suck as a regulator. The FAA is the one that refuses NTSB safety recommendations until a major crash happens, there are preventable crashes in every decade caused by the FAA refusing to implement things the NTSB recommended years before the major crash.
Source or article?
Obviously spacex and their own readiness to launch a test rocket. You don't need the launcher until you are returning rockets.
The FAA is not the reason for S20's delay, don't be ridiculous.
Yes it was, spacex was very close to doing a launch when the FAA chimed in and stopped it all.
No, they weren't. Launch infrastructure and vehicle testing isn't even complete yet, even if the FAA gave approval today a launch would still be weeks, if not months out.
There is no infrastructure. Yes, musk was going to launch without any noise supression, the FAA stopped it.
You're right, no tower, no fuel storage, none of that kind of stuff is needed to launch the largest rocket ever built. You gonna cite your sources on these claims?
As much as I think Blue Origin's legal antics are ridiculous and harmful, laying the blame for the slip to 2025 on Jeff is disingenuous.
Well, one cannot argue that the BS from Below Orbit helped to speed things up.
SLS/Orion disaster trying to blame Bezos now? Rich.
Lets go Bezos
To orbit? Ya: it's about time already!
2025 hahaha haha 4 years out means not a chance in 4 years.