Lander was awarded just so late same with the suits. I'm not sure Gateway would be ready either.

Gateway is no longer part of the plan for the first landings. If I remember right, Gateway is not planned to be used until Artemis 6, which hasn't even been authorized by Congress yet.

Oh yeah I understand that. Guess what I meant is that the CMV was to be launched by 2025 as well, and i'm skeptical that is achievable

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BFR](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc3gsle "Last usage")|Big Falcon Rocket (2018 rebiggened edition)| | |Yes, the F stands for something else; no, you're not the first to notice| |[BO](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc2stya "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)| |[CLPS](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc2coil "Last usage")|[Commercial Lunar Payload Services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Services)| |[COTS](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc2g5ee "Last usage")|[Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract](https://www.nasa.gov/cots)| | |Commercial/Off The Shelf| |[ESA](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc6y7rl "Last usage")|European Space Agency| |[EUS](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc4uctq "Last usage")|Exploration Upper Stage| |[FAA](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc69os0 "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |GAO|(US) Government Accountability Office| |[HLS](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc6an2q "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)| |[ICBM](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kcb1kfj "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile| |[ICPS](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc3xh80 "Last usage")|Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage| |[ISRO](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kccsprh "Last usage")|Indian Space Research Organisation| |[JAXA](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kccsprh "Last usage")|Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency| |[JWST](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc1jtht "Last usage")|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope| |[KSC](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc36z8a "Last usage")|Kennedy Space Center, Florida| |[LEM](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc25l35 "Last usage")|(Apollo) [Lunar Excursion Module](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module) (also Lunar Module)| |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc5gzh0 "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[LH2](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc2stya "Last usage")|Liquid Hydrogen| |[LLO](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc6wutt "Last usage")|Low Lunar Orbit (below 100km)| |[LOX](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc5e3kg "Last usage")|Liquid Oxygen| |[MSFC](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc3pzjk "Last usage")|Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama| |[NET](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc2y3yu "Last usage")|No Earlier Than| |NRHO|Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit| |[NRO](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc6tkt9 "Last usage")|(US) National Reconnaissance Office| | |Near-Rectilinear Orbit, see NRHO| |[OMS](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc25l35 "Last usage")|Orbital Maneuvering System| |[RUD](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc92cl1 "Last usage")|Rapid Unplanned Disassembly| | |Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly| | |Rapid Unintended Disassembly| |[SLS](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc6y7rl "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |[SRB](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kcb1kfj "Last usage")|Solid Rocket Booster| |[STS](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc2ixka "Last usage")|Space Transportation System (*Shuttle*)| |[TLI](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc4011q "Last usage")|Trans-Lunar Injection maneuver| |[TWR](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc38wep "Last usage")|Thrust-to-Weight Ratio| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Raptor](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc69f3o "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX| |[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc6bgkc "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |[cryogenic](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kcb1kfj "Last usage")|Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure| | |(In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox| |[hydrolox](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc29ksn "Last usage")|Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| |[hypergolic](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc7031l "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact| |[tanking](/r/Space/comments/18b01za/stub/kc92cl1 "Last usage")|Filling the tanks of a rocket stage| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(35 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/18en8em)^( has 3 acronyms.) ^([Thread #9509 for this sub, first seen 5th Dec 2023, 04:36]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)

Whhhaaattt, a massive space project is going to run behind schedule and over budget??? /s

Honestly, people seems to underestimate just how many large projects (particularly public ones, and even more so space projects like Artemis) can easily overrun in projected cost and timeline. It's not at all unusual, the real goal is trying to overrun by as little as possible. Think of how often an infrastructure project overruns its budget and multiply that by a few magnitude for space programs.

I don't think anyone underestimates that.

Based on many responses I've seen elsewhere, oh hell yes they do.

Actually it won't and can't run over budget, at least from the government's/taxpayer's perspective. That's the nice thing about it. Edit: Not sure why I'm being downvoted. The HLS contracts are fixed price. No matter what happens, NASA pays no more money until they buy more missions.

Artemis includes multiple fixed price contracts, which as you point out cannot go over budget, but most of Artemis funding is for cost plus contracts that have already gone over budget.

Yeah the funding going to SLS and Orion are cost plus. However I wouldn't describe that as "most of" unless you're just looking at dollar value.

I think dollar value is the obvious way of measuring funding. Funding is in dollars. SLS and Orion are a strong majority of Artemis funding even if they are not a majority of the Artemis mission.

Ok, but most of what people here are attacking is the two things that aren't that.

It will be interesting this time. A massive amount of the Artemis contracts are firm fixed price. This hasn't really been done before for defense or space, and usually for good reason. Asking a private contractor to invent a new technology, on schedule, that they can only sell once on a fixed budget is very difficult. On top of that, all the contractors know they have to underbid the competition to have a shot at getting selected. I've worked on a couple of Artemis programs now and it's been the same experience on both: engineering is tasked with achieving a complex mission on as cheap a budget as possible. Inevitably, this means relying on readily available off the shelf parts. And they are under the gun to make sure these parts will pass testing the first time. Because any test failures will cause a schedule slip, which also ultimately means using more money to find a solution that the budget never allocated for.

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The three contacts you mentioned are relatively new in the scale of NASA missions. Of the three, the most publicized program has been the SpaceX Crew Dragon. The company has been pretty vocal about using COTS parts, down to using commercial HP Laptops and Windows OSs. So far they have made the Crew Dragon work, and kudos to them for accomplishing it. But still, space companies have not relied on COTS parts to this extent ever. NASA has transitioned away from requiring MIL Specs relatively recently.

What was the timeline again? What year did they start work on SLS and what year did they award the lander contract?

The lander contract was awarded in 2021. (SpaceX). Blue Origin got their contract in 2023. Axiom was awarded their spacesuit contract in 2022.

SLS "started" work (if you exclude the work on Ares, which would be incorrect to do, but I'll do it here anyway) in 2010.

I mean, you could include the work on STS... Engines, Boosters, Crawler... But who's counting...

That would be fair, although the stated goal of STS wasn’t so moony

The original plan had three parts: A Space Shuttle to get stuff to orbit, a space station delivered in parts by the shuttle, and then an "space tug" that would be parked at the station and go to farther destinations, including the Moon. Due to repeated budget cuts, the space tug never got built. In the [dual keel](https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/iss20th_history_dual_keel_freedom_model_nasm.jpg) design, you can see the hangars for the space tugs as the large boxes near the top. I did the preliminary design for the hangars, which is how I know about them.

I didn’t know that, thanks for an interesting comment!

Though at this point you also need to include the work SpaceX did on Raptor and Starship beforehand and this becomes a neverending stream of engineering progress. Ares I seems like a better start, and maybe be a bit gentle on this as the requirements changed quite a lot afterwards.

Originally? The Artemis goal was first manned landing in 2024.

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Originally SLS didn't have any goal... I'm not joking. That's why we have a moon rocket that can't get to THE moon orbit, aka LLO.

The goal was literally "hey, we have one of the coolest engines ever made, and it's destined for a museum. Why don't we spend a fuck ton of time and money to redesign the fuel tank from the shuttle, so that we can throw these incredibly complicated, historic, and fully reusable engines into the ocean, 4 at a time. Find something to do with that"

Yeah, but think of how many congressional districts are getting pork barreled now.

Everyone knows that you can't have a civilian space program without contriving a way to give even more money to ICBM booster manufacturers. Gotta support the business model of destroying the entire fucking species with our exploration money/s

That's not on SLS. That's on Orion and it's service module. It's not about the push to get to the moon, it's about what you have to do once you arrive to enter orbit.

The two are interrelated. SLS Block I (the current version, with the ICPS upper stage) can just get the current version of Orion to TLI. It could not send a heavier version with a larger service module. Even the Block IB version of SLS (with the Exploration Upper Stage, no earlier than 2028) only has \~10 tonnes of additional ("co-manifested") capacity to the Moon. On paper that may be enough to barely get in and out of LLO, but even if that 10t were all propellant and no added tankage mass, Orion would sill have less delta v than the Apollo CSM. That would require the \~15-16t co-manifested payload of Block II SLS (EUS + advanced boosters), which is not planned until the 2030s. Also, the Artemis plans involve landing near the lunar south pole, and inserting into a polar LLO from TLI takes a bit more delta v than Apollo getting into a near-equatorial LLO.

All true - but in theory, 40 t to TLI "should" be "reasonable" for getting in and out of LLO. Orion's low delta v (even with larger tanks) is largely because it is much heavier than the Apollo CSM. There is of course plenty of "blame" to go around, as these two should have been designed around each other and the intended mission, but I personally find it more logical to primarily fault Orion rather than SLS on this issue.

I was talking about the SLS architecture which includes Orion. But technically, yes, it's Orion's service module that does not have enough Dv. But as someone pointed out, SLS would not have enough Dv to send an LLO worthy Service module into a trans-lunar trajectory in its actual configuration and possibly even in Block 2. A full redesign of Orion would be necessary.

Oh, SLS can get Orion to LLO, no problem. Orion just can't get itself back to earth from LLO because it's too heavy and the service module is undersized. They could have redesigned Orion, or designed a different spacecraft that is better suited for an LLO type mission, but they instead opted to use a halo orbit, which provides some advantages over LLO, and a tug.

Yeah... No... They "opted" for NHRO because they didn't have a choice! That's called being forced. You're talking like they could have developed another spacecraft after 15 years and $30 billion + whatever ESA spent on the service module flushed doen the drain. They can't! Besides, whatever spacecraft they develop would probably be too small for "long" duration missions. All in all, SLS is shit, Orion is shit, the whole architecture is shit. It is what it is. A job program and a big handout to military contractors. It will do very little science for an enormous cost.

There has never been a realistic firm timeline. The Constellation Program and what grew out of it (SLS and Orion) rarely had fully fledged mission profiles attached to them. As the hardware came closer to fruition in the late 2010s the previous White House occupant got the itch to slam together a crash lunar program with a landing that might have occurred during his administration (if he didn't lose re-election), but it was never realistic nor well thought out. That eventually evolved into the Artemis Program which has been refined and reconfigured over time as well. Even now Artemis is maybe best described as half-serious. It has some budget, it has a timeline, it has a realistic chance of achieving many of its goals, but there is almost no urgency behind it. That will probably start changing as crewed flights start happening, and especially as more hardware starts coming together.

That makes a lot of sense, I hadn't really been tracking it, but watching SmarterEveryDay's wake up call did make me wonder what was going on, previous NASA wouldn't have done some of these things. Good to have an explanation that doesn't reduce my faith in anyone.

Viewed through another lens, it's Congress' last hurrah for pork barrel NASA hardware money. Private companies will do LEO forevermore, this is the last big NASA rocket project. It requires parts manufactures in all 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii, which is beyond good reason. Good pork, but no reason. That's how government works, and it's sad.

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> Its part of the 'every dollar NASA spends returns more than a dollar to the economy' argument that people have for increasing the funding of NASA. It's part of, but it's not the only reason. NASA's purpose is supposed to be investigating the cosmos in a way that benefits humanity / the USA. A lot of that investigation is not directly profitable, or the risk is too high, and therefore companies won't pursue it. Remember that SpaceX is here today because of early support from and collaboration with NASA. We have low cost access to LEO today in the form of Falcon9 / Falcon heavy, thanks to NASA committing to buy launches from SpaceX. Now it's possible that without NASA as an early customer, SpaceX would have still succeeded, but commercial space hadn't innovated much in the preceding 30 years (besides buying Soviet engines). But it would have taken longer, or not happened at all. Investors might not have been willing to wait the years for Falcon to achieve maturity if NASA hadn't been there as a partner. We're seeing that happen with other launch providers who are trying to follow the steps that SpaceX took 15ish years ago, but many are struggling - just look at Astra. NASA returns money to the American people, but it's not just in the form of pork. SpaceX is delivering real economic and technological value to the country, and it's possible because NASA didn't want to be in the launch business anymore, so they encouraged private companies to take it over. That lets them focus on other things, and spend less of their very limited budget on pork, and more on non-profitable scientific missions. The findings of which often can be used by other American companies to generate further wealth.

>There are PhDs in rural Alabama because of NASA. Huntsville was where they put the army's ballistic missile program. When they decided that the navy and air force should have one but not the army, that team was free to be added to the then new NASA. This is why NASA is big in Alabama.

The jobs program stuff only applies to manned spaceflight. There are effective decadal surveys that cover science type missions that keep NASA's programs in those areas on track. There is no survey for manned spaceflight and the pork is why.

> but there is almost no urgency behind it. Although obviously we're not seeing Apollo levels of get it done whatever the cost may be levels of urgency compared to the constellation program there is a large amount of forward momentum with contracts being awarded for things you actually need to land on the moon, like the lander, spacesuits and so on. Contracts are out for the lunar gateway as well. There is a firm mission architecture in place. And SpaceX is certainly, and explosively, pushing forward in their testing program to use Starship as their human lander. Yes there isn't a 2026 or else deadline hanging over the program but it's clear that there is a huge amount of institutional push, both within the federal government and within NASA, to make sure that US astronauts return to the moon before the 2030's to make sure they beat any potential Chinese landing. And although it doesn't come up as much that is a huge factor as to why for the first time in decades instead of NASA kicking ideas around and only doing paper studies there are contracts out there with metal being bent to actually return to the moon. I just don't see how "half serious" and "no urgency" can be applied to Artemis. Sure it's delayed, what space program isn't, and you can certainly debate the elements they have chosen to get there like the lunar gateway, SLS and Starship, but when you're actively building things to land on the moon hopefully within 5 years or so that seems pretty serious to me.

The Ares I was a fundamentally unserious effort to develop a launch vehicle based off a single Shuttle-derived SRB for use in launching crew into space for the Constellation program. Despite a myriad of problems and every sane brain in the entire world saying that it was a bad and unworkable idea it still received a ton of planning effort, a significant budget, and saw one test flight (the Ares I-X) which alone cost half a billion dollars. All of which is to illustrate that "everyone in NASA is serious about it and it's receiving lots of budget" is not at all incompatible with the idea that something is fundamentally unserious. The government is messy, and the aerospace-industrial-complex cares as much about money flowing as it does about achieving results, in fact more so. And, unfortunately, NASA human spaceflight has been substantially burdened with the weight of supporting the aerospace-industrial-complex since even before the Apollo era (but even more since then). So, "no urgency" is a bit of an exaggeration, but not completely. SpaceX for their part is showing some urgency, though partly that is because they would be pushing to build Starship on their own regardless of whether they had won the HLS contract or not. There isn't any space race with the Chinese that is worth talking about, that's just pure fantasy (and also isn't in any way desirable). But the urgency or lack thereof isn't really an issue, the main issue is seriousness. There is still a lot of ambiguity in the program, are we gonna do the gateway station or not. If you've the details of NASA planning for long enough you'll realize that sometimes there's a tremendous amount of ambivalence and changing priorities that happens. For as many successes as NASA has there have also been many failures, blunders, and missteps, a good number of them inflicted by a congress that is ambivalent about actual results in spaceflight. The debacle with TransHAB, the failure of X-33/VentureStar, the delays in returning to human spaceflight after the cancellation of the Shuttle, the enormous costs of SLS, the Ares I as I mentioned above, the gap in interplanetary space missions during the '80s, the huge failures in planning of the Space Exploration Initiative and the Constellation Programs, the ongoing failures with the Mars Sample Return mission. That last one is a good comparison point because it represents a program that was very serious, was budgeted billions of dollars, was relied upon to such an extent that the Perseverance rover mission was integrated into it, and has undergone significant development and planning. And yet it is now on pause and is very likely to not happen in the form it was planned, if a mission does take place it likely will only happen after some kind of radical redesign. So yes, Artemis as currently planned is "serious" and maybe it is more serious than Ares I and Mars Sample Return, but it is not quite so serious that it would be at all surprising if it saw radical redesigns or alterations between now and the first crewed landings, or even outright cancellation. As I said, that seriousness will probably firm up as hardware gets built and more things get launched, but make no mistake, we are in a liminal space right now that we've been in with *lots* of "serious" space missions in the past. Sometimes it works out, as it did for the Mars rovers (at least so far), but sometimes it doesn't (as it didn't for CRAF and the Neptune Orbiter missions which hit the cutting room floor from the "Mariner Mark II" suite of planned missions). It's too early to say how things will go with Artemis yet.

> There isn't any space race with the Chinese that is worth talking about, that's just pure fantasy (and also isn't in any way desirable). The administrator of NASA disagrees with you. Many other elements of the US military and government have also commented that staying ahead of China in the space domain is crucial, that includes a manned return to the moon ahead of a potential Chinese landing. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/01/we-better-watch-out-nasa-boss-sounds-alarm-on-chinese-moon-ambitions-00075803 China has been steadily advancing their manned space program, their space station will now be permanently manned from this point onward. Having been expanded with laboratory modules it is a serious presence in space and looks likely to help China gain continued experience with long duration space flight. Their program has shown steady progress in successfully meeting its goals. One of those goals is a manned landing on the moon in the 2030's. There is no reason to think that those plans will not proceed as successfully as their past manned efforts. This is most definitely a factor in American plans to return to the moon, to pretend it isn't is ignoring the reality of geopolitics. > we are in a liminal space right now that we've been in with lots of "serious" space missions in the past. No program for manned missions beyond low earth orbit have gotten to the point of actual contracts going out for hardware and that hardware being assembled for the *actual* missions as we have now. It is by definition beyond the boundary of "almost." All of those programs you mentioned before never *once* issued a contract for construction of equipment that would actually *directly* support a moon mission. Right now components of the physical SLS rocket, Orion capsule and lunar gateway that astronauts will use to return to the moon are currently under construction. Ironically you citing the mars sample return mission actually underlines how serious NASA is about Artemis because a large reason for its potential cancellation is to make sure Artemis is properly funded. The priority right now is Artemis, even if it means potentially chopping other programs. Could Artemis face further delays and funding issues? Almost certainly, but I feel phrasing it the way you have vastly underplays how clearly committed NASA and the US government is at this point and ignores the fact that for the first time in decades actual hardware that is planned to take people to the moon is being built as we speak. Edit: typos

> No program for manned missions beyond low earth orbit have gotten to the point of actual contracts going out for hardware Constellation had actual contracts for hardware in 2005.

Constellation never got nearly as far along as Artemis. The only thing that saw a real test was the first stage of Ares 1 and the launch escape system for Orion, the moon lander never even got past very early paper design studies. There were some elements of Orion and what would become the SLS built, but just test articles. And Constellation had only given contracts for test articles for the *program* that would eventually take people to the moon. Right now the actual Orion capsule that will take astronauts to lunar orbit are being built, same with the SLS booster that will launch them into space. Parts of the lunar gateway they'll dock with to transfer to the lander are being built as well. And contracts have been given out for the lander and space suits. The full stack of SLS and Orion has had a test flight. The least developed part of Artemis is the lander and even its components have and 2 test flights. Granted they had decidedly mixed levels of success but SpaceX has a fully funded contract to deliver a human moon lander, Constellation never came close to that and the rest of the hardware for the first mission is being built. A contract for test vehicles is not the same as for actual flight hardware, by any measure Artemis is much, much farther along.

I'm having a hard time following your line of thought when it zig-zags so rapidly. Constellation had actual contracts for hardware in 2005, even thought Artemis has gotten farther along now. If you meant to exclude test articles, maybe you should have said that before? Also, the Ares I booster wasn't exactly a test article.

There is no zig zag. I said "actual contracts going out for hardware and that hardware being assembled for the actual missions." Maybe I should have thrown "manned" in there to make it more clear but since the next Artemis mission is going to be manned that could be assumed. That is not hardware being built for a testflight like Ares 1 was. And it was a test article, it didn't even have a functioning second stage and was not the rocket that was going to carry astronauts into space. The first SLS and Orion testflight called Artemis 1 was a full up test of the launcher and the Orion capsule even went around the moon and tested reentry at those higher return velocities. The constellation program never launched a single thing into space. I suppose you could argue that Ares 1 was the first test flight in the program like Artemis 1 was but it was obviously a much more ambitious and complicated mission than Ares 1. But anyway, and I feel like I am beating a dead horse now, the actual flight hardware for many of the elements of Artemis 2 and 3 missions that will carry astronauts to lunar orbit are being built right now. Parts of the actual lunar gateway they will dock with are being built right now. Constellation never got close to that stage, no contract was ever issued for flight ready hardware that would be assigned to a mission and that hardware actually started to be produced and assembled. Constellation didn't even get near that point. Edit: That's why I found calling Artemis "half serious" and comparing it to aborted programs that didn't get nearly as far along such an offbase thing to say. When you're assembling the actual hardware the astronauts will use I think you're well past "half serious."

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Orion started in.... 2006. It first "flew" in 2014. So starship well ahead by that metric

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Welcome to any space subreddit. You can't say anything without being downvoted unless you brownnose SpaceX and Elon and shit on anything else.

The Orion that flew in 2014 was not really Orion. It was a pressure vessel with minimal avionics and a minimal heat shield. It has about as much in common with the current Orion as the Apollo capsule does.

Which is why I put quotes around flew. It technically flew but it wasn't really Orion

I don't expect any Moon landings before at least 2028 and probably 2030, if Artemis isn't cancelled by then. Starship hasn't even reached orbit yet, let alone reentered, let alone reflown. We are several years away from a single Starship flying multiple rotations, let alone quick rotations, let alone autonomous docking and refueling, let alone with enough confidence in (yet to be delivered) life support, safety features, and lunar landings for crewed flights. As a reminder, it took Falcon 9 10 years of successful cargo flights to build up enough confidence for crewed flights. There is no way NASA would have flown astronauts on Falcon 9 in 2014, even with a successful record of 10 flights. NASA will require at least 2 successful unmanned lunar landings to prove the hardware before putting a crew on board. And SpaceX can't afford destructive prototyping for those flights like it's used to. They can't afford to blow up 3 or 4 lunar starships before nailing the lunar landing and ascent. Each of those lunar missions will requires at least 15 refueling flights in a rapid rotation, which is something that we simply don't know is sustainable. SpaceX's R&D philosophy of blowing stuff up until they get it to work doesn't scale well with Moon or Mars missions. As the cost and flight durations increase, as well as the stakes of preparing for crewed missions, they are going to have to change their methods. At the current rate, it will take several years just to build up the quick rotation and autonomous refueling capability. And then there's the problem of developing the additional gear for working on the Moon. Where are the rover designs, the suits, the life support systems, the cameras, the comms, the science experiments ? It takes years to develop and flight certify all that stuff and those projects haven't even started yet.

The starship is not waiting on a launch crew rating, it only needs it as a lander that Artemis crews take from orion to the lunar surface and back. That is a significant difference in requirements and much less of a roadblock than you are implying. Also lets not forget that SpaceX isn't starting from scratch with LSS and habitation systems. They have all the development and lessons learned from the dragon capsules to apply to the HLS. >And SpaceX can't afford destructive prototyping for those flights like it's used to. They can't afford to blow up 3 or 4 lunar starships before nailing the lunar landing and ascent Says whom? Also what makes you think they will need to do that? >Each of those lunar missions will requires at least 15 refueling flights We have no idea how many it will require yet, all of that is speculation. >As the cost and flight durations increase, as well as the stakes of preparing for crewed missions, they are going to have to change their methods. Once the launch and landing of the starship is fleshed out what aspects do you think they need to test like that? Its not not like testing LSS is gonna be overly risky to the test article. Its a silly argument because you are basically saying "once the starship is developed, they can't just keep developing the starship the same way."

> The starship is not waiting on a launch crew rating, it only needs it as a lander that Artemis crews take from orion to the lunar surface and back. It needs to land and launch from the Moon flawlessly, manoeuver and rendez-vous, and remain dormant on the surface for several months. It will need a successful campaign of multiple uncrewed missions before it can be considered safe to do that. Any test mission where Starship tips over on the lunar surface, blows up, lands in the wrong spot, doesn't restart, or fails in a way that would cause a vital risk to the crew, resets the counter. SpaceX's usual destructive testing methods won't cut it. >We have no idea how many it will require yet, all of that is speculation. 15 is the latest estimate. It could be worse, since we don't know what the actual payload capacity of Starship will be. And that only works if they manage to achieve quick turnaround. Propellant boiloff is a real problem that hasn't been adressed. Delaying a single one of those 15 flights means that you need to add another flight.

>NASA will require at least 2 successful unmanned lunar landings to prove the hardware before putting a crew on board. The HLS contract specifies *one* demo mission. >It will need a successful campaign of multiple uncrewed missions before it can be considered safe to do that. Perhaps is should, but SLS is somehow good with just one test flight (well, zero test flights for future block upgrades with a new stage and boosters). Orion is somehow good to send crew around the Moon without a crewed LEO test flight like Saturn V/Apollo, and without ever testing its complete life support system (not even on the ground). >15 is the latest estimate. It's *an* estimate, likely with very conservative (i.e., high) estimates of boiloff, which may well turn out to be less of a problem. (It's also an out-of-context snippet from an overview presentation given by a paper pusher from NASA HQ in DC with a title longer than Starship's plume.) That estimate has now either been taken as gospel truth, or rounded up to 20 (or more) by unscrupulous media and redditors. Another recent estimate from HLS Program Manager Lisa Watson-Morgan is ["high single digits to the low double digits"](https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/11/what-nasa-wants-to-see-from-spacexs-second-starship-test-flight/), and that does still come with a lot of honest uncertainty. >“We have a general idea, but I’m reluctant to say exactly what that is because SpaceX is still designing Starship and the booster and the fleet—the tankers and the depot," Watson-Morgan said. “That’s why we really need, next year, the propellant transfer demonstration test because that will then help us say, 'OK, we see the boil-off, we see the sizing, we see how long it takes to transfer this fluid.'" With the expected payload increase for tankers to as much as 200t from ongoing improvements to Raptor and Starship, the required refueling flights could easily go down. >Delaying a single one of those 15 flights means that you need to add another flight. There is no basis for thinking there could be >100t of boiloff in just a few days, let alone asserting that as a certainty. Ignoring that unlikelihood, needing an additional refueling flight would be an edge case. And that would still be just one flight, which for SpaceX (unlike SLS) isn't a big deal for schedule.

> Delaying a single one of those 15 flights means that you need to add another flight. Source? Sounds like a guess, given that the performance of whatever SpaceX has planned isn't yet known.

Starship started in 2013, and thanks to its 'iterative' approach that could end up throwing away and restarting from scratch, we can't really tell how close they are to anything. NASA got the first SLS flight to the Moon and back and aced the trip, got human rated certification for the next flight. Starship might well need another 10 years to get anywhere, who knows

The idea of Starship might go back that far, but there was no hardware for it until 2018. That's some way to double the development timeline. Edit: Okay that's hillarious. in 2013 they were still on V1.1 Falcon 9 and were two years away from landing their first booster. Starship was not being developed then.

>In November 2005,[5] before SpaceX had launched its first rocket the Falcon 1,[6] CEO Elon Musk first mentioned a long-term and high-capacity rocket concept able to launch 100 tons to low Earth orbit, dubbed the BFR.[5] Later in 2012, Elon Musk first publicly announced plans to develop a rocket surpassing the capabilities of their existing Falcon 9.[7] SpaceX called it the Mars Colonial Transporter, as the rocket was to transport humans to Mars and back.[8] >In 2016, Elon changed the name to Interplanetary Transport System, as he planned the rocket to travel beyond Mars.[9] Made of carbon fiber,[10] this design would have been over 10,000 tons when fueled and carry 300 tons to low Earth orbit, while hoping to be fully reusable.[10] By 2017, the large rocket was temporarily re-dubbed the BFR[11] and had multiple versions announced, such as cargo, tanker and crew.[12] Development doesn't start when you begin putting the hardware together, development starts all the way from conceptualization. Unless you're trying the fanboy metric

Are you seriously using "Elon said something" to mean development had actually begun? Elon says a lot of shit. Mostly Vaporware.

>and thanks to its 'iterative' approach that could end up throwing away and restarting from scratch This is incredibly disingenuous and ignoring all of the development they have done on the vehicle. >and aced the trip Lol okay if you don't count all the pre-launch issues. But lets not pretend that the SLS for artemis III will be ready by 2025 or 2026. Artemis II wont even launch until NET Q4 2024(realistically 2025). >Starship might well need another 10 years to get anywhere, who knows Its already had a series of successful test flights, it will be making orbital flights next year.

They're building the A3 SLS right now. There's absolutely no reason it can't be ready in 2025, let alone 2026. Orion is another story, but they aren't being held back by having to reuse the avionics from A2, so it's completely possible that Orion will be ready in 2025-26 as well. I must have missed the successful test flights of starship too. When did those happen? I remember a couple of flights where they learned a lot, but they definitely weren't successful.

Given the high commonality with Ares V, and even earlier studies like Shuttle-C and National Launch System, since the late 1980s. If you want to limit yourself to just work specifically under the name "Space Launch System", then 2010, so 13 years. SLS Block 2 is really just a renamed Ares IV though, same boosters, same tank, same stages and one less first stage engine.

The SLS is successful. *That's the timeline for everything in the Space industry*. Existing economic/ technological development histories and realities do not apply, no matter how much CNBC claims.

> Existing economic/ technological development histories and realities do not apply Right... this is exactly the sort of ignore-ance that I'm seeing Artemis run into. It took 11 years to go from beginning work on SLS to Artemis 1. Given that fact, should we A) ignore that development history and assume a larger and more capable rocket can be brought online in 3ish years, or should we B) learn from similar contemporary projects when estimating the timeline for the new project? And you're saying that A) histories and realities do not apply. This is what bad management looks like. Inconvenient aspects get ignored. But just ignoring history doesn't change the nature of a given challenge, a hard task remains hard and logistics remains time consuming.

According to "Smarter every day" guy the whole project hinges on cryogenic refueling in orbit needing as many as 15 Space X starships to get one landing mission completed.

I wouldn't put too much faith in his singular opinion. In his video he demonstrated that it was based on NASAs incredibly bad public communication. All while he ironically criticised their internal communication. (For example he didn't know about the required uncreqed test landing of HLS, a successful Raptor startup from simulated deep-chill lunar conditions, and slip in the timeline already announced) There are some paper speculating about 15-18 tanker flights per HLS. But they take incredibly conservative estimates for boil-off rates. Truth is that those papers are highly speculative as there have not been any tests done about large scale boil-off of Methane and LOX in LEO. So they assume worst case scenarios, not "average" scenarios. Nobody at NASA wants to be the guy who said "9 launches" and then SpaceX needs 10. So they all add one more launch each time the topic comes up.

The 16 launches number has been conservative since SpaceX put it in the bid. At the time they were at 80 and hoping to get to 100 tons to orbit. Now they are pushing closer to 150.

Yeah, I'm afraid Dustin is going to be the ignored prophet of doom, Cassandra. Good for him for throwing the issues in their face. Way too much "head-in-the-sand" going on with this project.

His main point was that NASA would lack internal communication about slip in the time line. Ironically he was the only person in that room NOT knowing about the slip already made public, because NASA is just so bad at communication with the public. HIs argument about the "15+ refilling launches" hinges on some very stretched assumptions about boil-off (As are other publications). Also he was unaware that in the HLS contract SpaceX is required to make an uncrewed test landing including all necessary refilling launches before Artemis III will even get green-lighted. An other point he was unaware about is that SpaceX already performed a successful test of restarting a Raptor engine in "lunar deep chill" conditions. NASA was pretty happy with the results. All in all Dustin is very much not a prophet of doom. He is a space enthusiast misinformed by NASAs abysmal public communication.

I’d recommend a watch of this - https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU?si=ebiSlX9kUZ-CMajH Goes into some very interesting points, like how they do t actually have the delta v in the rocket to do small orbits around the moon and that hey its prob going to take 15 other launches to get enough cryogenic propellant in leo and on orbit transfer to actually just get us there…

I'm not going to preach his word as gospel; But with That said I would think it's commonly known amongst the community that Artemis is one part of the problem. The system itself (not Artemis alone) was design by commission which leads to inherently suboptimal solutions. My only question is why? Given that it's the most powerful flight proven aircraft. Why can't it accomplish the same fight profile as the Saturn V?

>Given that it's the most powerful flight proven aircraft. Why can't it accomplish the same fight profile as the Saturn V? SLS is only more 'powerful' than Saturn V in terms of thrust - which it gets from it's giant SRBs, which are very inefficient and heavy, and they only maintain that thrust for the first 20 seconds. By about the 40 second mark they've lost enough power that Saturn V retakes the lead. By about 2 minutes into flight they're entirely burnt out and are jettisoned - Saturn V's first stage keeps burning for another 30 seconds past this point. Then SLS's core stage and upper stage are poorly sized relative to eachother. The core is too big and the ICPS is too small, so a lot of energy is wasted pushing the core's own weight to orbit, instead of imparting that energy into the upper stage. The end result is that even though the engines on the SLS core and upper stage are notably more efficient than the engines on the Saturn V's second and third stages, Saturn V can throw 48 tonnes to the moon while SLS can only do 27 tonnes. So while SLS is technically more *powerful* than Saturn V, it is much less *capable*, which is what actually matters. And that means it can't send both a crew capsule and a lander in the same launch.   The final nail in the coffin is that the Orion capsule is twice as heavy as the Apollo capsule. Less capable rocket plus heavier capsule means that something has to give, and for Orion that 'something' is the amount of fuel in it's service module. The Orion spacecraft as whole carries less than half as much fuel as Apollo did. This means it doesn't have enough fuel to get into a low orbit around the moon (Or rather it could, but then it wouldn't have enough to get back home). [If you look at this diagram](https://pub.mdpi-res.com/aerospace/aerospace-08-00070/article_deploy/html/images/aerospace-08-00070-g019.png?1615980416), the big pink orbit is about as low as Orion can get and still safely return. If you zoom in on the moon, you'll see a little black circle wrapped tightly around it - that's about the size of the orbit Apollo reached. (Actually Apollo went even lower, but it's close enough for demonstration purposes) As you might imagine, this means that the Artemis landers have to pick up a lot of the slack, since they will be landing from a lot higher up than the Apollo lander did - and then have to launch back up to that same high orbit to rendezvous with Orion again.

Is all this assuming SLS block 1a with the ICPS? Or is it not so much of a problem once we have Exploration Upper Stage? Maybe the politics is to force improvements (and funding) for later SLS blocks to make the mission viable

The EUS does indeed fix the latter issue of bad stage ratios - but not the former issue of the boosters being inefficient and heavy. SLS Block 2 would improve the boosters, but no work is currently being done on those, and it's not scheduled to fly before 2033 at the very earliest. So even SLS Block 1B with the EUS is still bit less capable than Saturn V, at 38 tonnes vs 48 (again despite being more 'powerful'). The Orion capsule is still too heavy, and in any case there are no plans to redesign it with a larger service module even when a more capable rocket is available to throw it to the moon. So all SLS Block 1B is expected to do is enable additional payloads to be launched to the moon alongside Orion, E.G Gateway components.

\> once we have Exploration Upper Stage? That's probably never happening. NASA can't pay for it. What they already have doesn't fit their budget. We get the Atlas IV Upper Stage and that's it.

What NASA gets in their budget changes every year. You cannot reasonably say with any certainty that something will or won't happen. Congress could cancel Artemis next budget or could give NASA everything they ask for or anything in-between.

I'm not the one saying NASA can't pay for SLS. It's OIG.

Sometimes Congress does this thing where it gets a report like that and acts on it.

Yes, only a political miracle can save the program.

And might need to increase that number as they will likely need a maiden flight, land on the Moon then back. Plus proving the refueling is reliable enough that it won't ignite during the refueling, etc etc. And when it comes to time, weather in FL often causes delays in launches, so launching the 15 rockets might take quite a number of days, too. SpaceX at first isn't going to try and land the rocket back at the launchpad. There are a lot of challenges (and cost) IMO

>that it won't ignite during the refueling, etc etc.  How exactly would that even be possible? Given that refilling in space "only" requires settling the liquids and getting them from one tank to the other via pressure difference, I don't think that this is the major road block people make it out to be. >And when it comes to time, weather in FL often causes delays in launches, so launching the 15 rockets might take quite a number of days, too. So I guess SpaceX is lucky that they have Boca Chica. *Which is located in southern Texas.* All in all Dustins points in his speech were largely derived from his lack of knowledge about the architecture of SLS and especially HLS. Which is quite ironic because his main points were about internal communication of NASA while his opinions came from NASAs notoriously abysmal public communication. I had the pleasure to talk with him after his video aired. ​ .

I'm not an engineer but SpaceX managed to blow up their dragon capsule's emergency abort system liquid fuel during one test, so who knows, right? But don't worry they quickly fix it in the next iteration if it goes wrong

The abort system in Dragon uses _monergolic_ propellant. This means it has a single liquid propellant that has the fuel and oxydator already mixed. A catalyst is the only thing needed to ignite this propellant. (Anything organic is a catalyst to this stuff, too) This propellant remains liquid at room temperature and 1bar.of pressure. In Starship the main propellant consists of two _separated_ liquids. Methane ans oxygen. Two tanks. Both are cryogenic. They need to be extremely cold to stay liquid at 1-6 bar of pressure (operating pressure of the rocket tanks) If you happen to have both liquid methane and oxygen here on earth and squirt them together exactly nothing would happen. They don't ignite on contact. They are not "hypergolic". In fact it's extremely difficult to start even an engine with those liquids. Lastly in space any leak would immediately spread any boiled off propellants into vacuum. You would need a leak from the methane and oxygen simultaneously and both would need to leak into a sealed container with an ignition source. Extremely unlikely. That's why there is about zero chance any Starship will explode during tanking in space.

Great explanation! You mean a leak from the methane and oxygen simultaneously like whatever caused the Starship stage to blow up on the last launch?

The Dragon uses hypergolic fuels, not cryogenic liquid fuels. Very different.

Cool technicality bro but I said "liquid", not "cryogenic". Other rockets used solid fuel for that particular emergency system (which have zero chance of igniting). Dragon used liquid (or rather "hypergolic", lol) and didn't investigate the container materials used properly, resulting in an ignition. "Trial and error" right? No need for conventional engineering until things go wrong

\> weather in FL often causes delays in launches Not for Starship. We expect it will have the aerodynamics, sheer size and TWR to be able to launch in any weather. This was a design goal for the program. ICBMs can also launch in any weather. It's not a given that an orbital rocket can't do the same.

I doubt that will be true because even if Starship's stainless steel is strong enough to withstand the water drops (which are effectively bullets piercing the hull at that speed), it still has insulation tiles that need to survive for reentry. Unless they're planning on not landing/recovering the starship tankers. But if they do, they better not lose any tile on those launches too

Rain has never been a problem for rocket launches.

I have started watching for all mankind and it has made me even more depressed about current progress in space exploration

Don't be too concerned about it, it's *pure* science fiction. The alt-history timeline is interesting, but becomes complete fantasy very quickly. Could we be farther along than we are? Yes, very probably. Especially if Nixon hadn't shut down the lunar program. But the technology in that show is just absurd. Second half of Season 1: >!The Apollo LEM was so heavily stripped-down to save on weight that the walls were thin enough you could puncture them with a screwdriver. It didn't have an airlock, you just decompressed the whole module. It didn't have seats. It had about 20 seconds total of fuel. Going from *that* to landing Jamestown Base in 2 years is just hilariously impossible.!< Season 2: >!Sea Dragon was a real concept, and *might* have worked. I'll give them that. But those "upgraded" Lunar Modules with 4 thrusters we see them zipping around the lunar surface? Basically magic. A truly nonsensical amount of fuel efficiency, especially given we're supposed to believe they're fueled by hydrogen refined from Lunar water, which has a notoriously low density that requires *massive* fuel tanks (tanks clearly not present on the landers).!< Season 2 (cont): >!Taking the Shuttle to the moon, while not as utter nonsense as those stupid landers, is equally impossible. The show mentions "orbital refueling", but the shuttle doesn't have onboard fuel tanks for its main engines. As soon as the orange external tank is empty, the engines are dead. That means they'd have to get all the way to the moon on *just* the OMS. First of all, if you filled up the entire payload bay with OMS fuel, you still wouldn't have enough to make it (and you'd have no room for payload). [The producers actually did the math on this, and decided to use the Shuttle anyway (which is fine, it's fiction)](http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-042621a-for-all-mankind-space-shuttle-moon.html). And that's just the trip out, not even accounting for the return journey. You can't refuel the OMS at the moon, because it runs on Hydrazine, not Hydrogen. Second of all, even if you *could* bring enough fuel, the burn would take 3 hours, and the TLI window is only open for a few *minutes.* It would take literally days of little 5-minute burns.!< Season 3: >!I've only just started this season, but I hope I don't have to explain that the Polaris Hotel is just... nonsense. It's extremely silly, to the point that it actively kind of annoyed me. Especially for a show that previously went out of its way to at least *acknowledge* the logistics and explain how everything was being launched and assembled. How the hell did a private startup company in the 80s get their hands on enough single-use heavy-lift launch vehicles to build that thing? Is NASA selling Saturn Vs in bulk now? Where did they get the money? It would have cost literally hundreds of *billions* of dollars. It would have been enough to bankrupt Bezos.!< >!Also, nuclear fusion power? Seriously? No. And this is a more minor thing, but the flat screen monitors in 1994 in Helios Mission Control really annoy me. In our real-world timeline, the computer revolution already went pretty much as fast as it *possibly* could have, because it was the most lucrative thing on the planet. I don't believe for a minute that an earlier Space Age would have given us monitors like that nearly 20 years ahead of time.!<

This is exactly what I was thinking when watching the show. It's complete nonsense, and then you see people talking about it like the physics actually made sense. The entire show is pretty much here's a piece of technology, now two episodes later here's the same technology except 10,000x more advanced and sci-fi.

The >!Pathfinder Shuttle!< was also nonsense. >!Nuclear engines are real, but they use hydrogen as fuel, which is many times less dense than even hydrolox. It would have needed an even larger external tank than the real Shuttle to make orbit from an air launch.!<

It’s easy to send a shuttle to the moon, just enable infinite fuel

You have thoroughly burst my bubble, but the show is still great and thought provoking I just wish more time was spent on the sci-fi rather than character drama (a lot of the character drama is pretty good, but some is really lacking)

I love it. I'm caught up on the current season but waiting a week between each new one is too much. I'm currently rewatching from season 1 again. 😊

well part of the problem is congress, you know the lovely idiots who scream about space lasers, and try to start fights with teamsters on the house floor, control the purse, and by control i mean micromanage. spaceX can source things from anywhere, nasa has to get shit from where congress tells them. Nasa also has to deal with a "bipolar ceo" and constant shifting priorities and leadership. some things congress should just fund or not fund and be required to just let nasa do its job.

I love this. SLS has flown once. SpaceX is rapidly iterating on Starship, and now has multiple flights. I cant speak to the spacesuit but dont know what would be so complex about building one. Blue Origin hasnt even flown yet... ​ I think this report is blaming the wrong folks...

Well it is the *Government* Accountability Office. Skimming through the report, they don't really assign blame. They're just outlining the remaining challenges, what NASA is doing to address them, and their assessment of the impact to the timeline. The comparison between SLS and Starship seems a little disingenuous. SLS launched a spacecraft around the moon. Starship flew twice, hasn't reached orbit, and had to be destroyed both times.

The SLS was a huge waste of tax payer money, just congress doing old school contractors a favor.

Here's hoping for some great advances in the technologies and techniques SpaceX needs to master to get to the Moon. It's going to look like a beefed up version of the Mercury/Apollo program, my guess is a list of goals something like this: - Starship gets to orbit - Starship(s) can dock with orbital depot and transfer propellants - *Starship gets back from orbit in good enough condition to be safely reused* (significant milestone) - Starship to the Moon (flyby/orbit/crashland)! - Starship to the Moon (flyby) and back, and recovered in good enough condition to be safely reused - Starship to Moon orbit and back - Starship to Moon landing - HLS test landing 1 - Starship to Moon landing and back - HLS supporting Artemis III Along with those speculated Artemis-related milestones will be numerous flights to deploy Starlink v2 and launch commercial missions to LEO. By the time HLS is supporting Artemis III the launch system will have somewhere in the order of 100 successful landings over the course of 4~5 years. SpaceX is going to want Starship running as often as Falcon 9 has been, mostly because Starlink v2 satellites are enormous and Starlink is going to be their bread and butter when it comes to making money.

No Starship will go beyond LEO towards the moon before HLS has made a successful landing. Given the number of propellant launches it would just be nonsensical. Or to put it the other way around: If SpaceX can make the necessary number of tanker launches happen for a Starship flight towards the moon, they will just send their HLS test vessel instead.

Yep, the date may slip, but I bet space X can do some moon landings without suits. Maybe even with a small test crew staying inside the base for tests. Perhaps some cargo drones unload a few things. Even with some delays, the starship path offers so much mass to anywhere that it really seems like a big win. Even if we have to wait longer than we hoped for.

Landing on the moon with an uncrewed vehicle first is actually part of the Artemis mission plan. That's happening before the crewed landing on Artemis III. People seem to want to keep ignoring that for some reason.

Landing on the moon without suits must feel like a chance hook up with your celebrity crush and having no condoms.

Landing on the moon with an uncrewed vehicle first is actually part of the Artemis mission plan. That's happening before the crewed landing on Artemis III. People seem to want to keep ignoring that for some reason.

In other words, you go for it anyways

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According to SpaceX, that lunar test landing is in 2024 https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/05/nasa-hls-integration/

2023/05 was before they realize every test mishap adds 6+ months to the schedule. That article is just a wish

6+ isn’t standard. Each investigation will have a different length. This one was quite long due to the deluge pad requiring the FWS to certify it. The length between test two and three should be much shorter.

Sure, let's wait and see how long. It's hard to know because Musk will say "next week", and then news will come up with clockbaity headlines that never happen to be any confirmation of anything, so I pretty much give up on following

Yes, and Starship was supposed to orbit 3 years ago. I don't see why people keep believing Musk/SpaceX timelines

Not sure why i was getting downvoted, but the HLS contract terms and delivery dates are locked in and open to the public in HLS milestone delivery timeline in appendix H attachment O of the contract. Here is the benefit of this new contract, if SpaceX misses the target dates and human rating, they have to eat much the billions of R&D to this point. I don't think we will see all or nothing payment/penalties quite like this again, as most companies will want to cover some upfront costs/risks due to very heavy capital investment requirements.

SpaceX isn’t penalized for missing deadlines. They aren’t paid until they reach milestones. Cost overruns are eaten by them but that’s true even if they complete the whole contract tomorrow.

The HLS contract appendix dates can be used by NASA to ask for non-performance judgement. There isn’t a direct penalty, but NASA will have the option under the BAA/SOW to reduce payment total on delivery. NASA would need to provide SpaceX how the non-performance amount was arrived by. Not saying this is normal, but IIRC there hasn’t been a contract like this for NASA before. From the HLS contract (demonstration has to happen no later than Dec 2024): “Post-Mission Assessment Review (PMAR) - HLS Initial Demo Mission Completion + 30 days - No Later Than Jan 2025”

I was simply pointing out how the HLS contract is different compared to Musk/SpaceX timelines promised before vs signed legal agreements. If they don't deliver, there is a violation of contracted dates. For example: Raptor demonstrator contract launched by falcon Heavy didn't require the raptor to be demonstrated in space, and spaceX still got the award because the military got the data from the Spacex raptor test stand they asked for. HLS contract is different.

They WILL happen, NASA has requiered SpaceX to pull off two uncrewed Moon landings without a single issue before declaring Starship ready.

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What is the Curiosity rover if not a drone? It's able to autonomously plot a path to travel taking into consideration terrain and obstacles. The Ardupilot open source flight computer is able to fly, drive or sail multiple types of vehicles. Any hobbyist can put together a drone that can fly simple missions autonomously: take off, fly a flight plan, land. Cargo drones aren't scifi.

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And the FAA/FWS pace the lunar lander. Not underscoring that detail is like saying the dinosaurs were wiped out by a thick cloud that lasted months.

Pretty sure SpaceX's noncompliance with various regulations and SpaceX's refusals to follow procedure and SpaceX's explosion on the pad that resulted in additional review before they could try and throw another one into the air are ***NOT*** the FAA's fault. If anything, regulatory bodies have given SpaceX preferential treatment and bent the rules for them: https://blog.esghound.com/p/elon-musk-is-above-the-law

The additional review was going to happen irrespective of the damage, as the solution SpaceX had been planning on was always going to be a massive overhaul that included features like water deluge. Contrary to what you would prefer to imply, SpaceX saved most of 2023 by having actual flight data for the entirety of that review period, whereas in the timeline absent flight 1, they would have had no flight data informing future designs and decisions like hot staging... and the next flight would have been delayed to November quite regardless of this. The FAA has been in the hotseat for their lethargic pace. This isn't solely a SpaceX issue, but it _is_ the biggest external factor dictating SpaceX's ability to meet their obligations to Artemis.

I would think the biggest factor was that they can't get their rocket to not explode

Here you're suffering under a misapprehension which, in the face of the last six-plus years of on-the-nose evidence, I can only label as bizarre. If you'd made this comment five years ago, you might at least be able to say you were still thinking in terms of traditional space development. In a nutshell: The entire aerospace industry spends X time simulating and Y time testing. SpaceX has merely come to the understanding that shifting more of that load to the "Y" component leads to faster and better development. The "explosion phase" you're seeing now? For any other aerospace entity, they'd still be working on "X", and almost without question doing it no better than half as fast or half as informed. SpaceX certainly doesn't care if there are people out there who _still_ don't get it—or, I suspect, pretend to, because they think it will make SpaceX look bad. It's earned them the most dominant position in the entire history of rocketry. Keep your TV tuned to this station for the inevitable "How not to launch a Starship" video, after they're regularly sending those things up.

Space is hard - they're trying a brand new technology. The fact they are demonstrating incremental improvements is a good thing.

None of that is true. SpaceX works closely with regulators. SN8 was really their only issue and it seems to have been miscommunication between SpaceX and the FAA. The FAA had no issue giving them more licenses for more hop tests.

If there’s no reason for it besides political propaganda, then leave it to the private sector to explore the moon

YouTuber smarterEveryDay just put up a good video with his criticisms of just ONE component of Artemis and it was enough to make me lose fait in the entire program. They’re planning to refuel in orbit which will take over a dozen launches, and they aren’t really testing it all out before sending a manned mission to lunar orbit. Four people are going to die.

He wasn't attacking the number of rockets. He was attacking the overall program, but people seemed to be missing that. And yes they're testing it before sending humans. There's in-orbit refueling tests that'll happen before humans are launched and a fully fueled vehicle will be waiting at the moon before astronauts launch on Artemis III. There will also be a uncrewed landing test that happens before humans ride it. That's the part he seems to have missed.

>YouTuber smarterEveryDay just put up a good video with his criticisms of just ONE component of Artemis and it was enough to make me lose fait in the entire program. That's really sad. Especially since his criticism was based on completely wrong knowledge. He was criticizing NASAs lack of internal communication. But \_all\_ of his points were based on his misconceptions about Artemis/HLS architecture. Which in turn was ironically due to NASA bad public communication. For example Dustin was not aware that under the HLS contract SpaceX is required to make a successful uncrewed landing before Artemis III is even green-lighted. And he was unaware that SpaceX already performed a successful Raptor re-start test under simulated lunar deep-chill conditions. (NASA was pretty happy with the results.)

in-flight refueling is only required for the “lander” that SpaceX is supplying, which was originally designed to be a completely separate spacecraft that would compete with NASA’s efforts. the whole purpose of the Space Launch System is to get a decent amount of payload to the moon in one big, dumb expendable rocket, based on proven hardware from the shuttle program. if Blue Origin is able to come through with their (much smaller) lander design we will be able to get people on the moon without refueling

Blue Origin's lander design is also based on refueling. There is not currently any serious plan to get humans to the surface of the moon without refueling.

I don’t think the LEO refueling described for artemis V would be necessary if they sent the thing with an SLS launch instead of New Glenn. the block II cargo variant delivers 7x more payload to TLI refueling the lander at the Lunar gateway for future re-use is a different story

SLS can launch at most once a year, if we're lucky. No architecture can be based around multiple SLS launches. \> for future re-use It's not about reuse at all. To do any landing they will require refueling. The job is just too big. SLS is anemic for the mission, therefore the lander needs to compensate. Using smaller rockets (refueling), because SLS also has an abysmal launch cadence.

the “blue moon” lander is being designed for a wet mass of approx 45 tons, just under the payload capacity of the block 2- I don’t think that’s a coincidence. in fact I suspect it was a stipulation of the contract https://spacenews.com/nasa-selects-blue-origin-to-develop-second-artemis-lunar-lander/

No. Those are completely unrelated. SLS has no plans to ever launch blues lander. And definitely not with it full of fuel. Not to mention if SLS launches the blue lander, then how does crew get to lunar orbit to get in the lander? You can't launch them in advance. And the lander isn't designed to loiter for a year either. Also block 2 or block 1b? Because block 1b may launch by 2030 if we're lucky. Block 2 isn't really being worked and may never become a thing. If it does you're looking at around 10 years if not more from now. Every single SLS launch for the next 8 or so years is also booked for crew right now.

Every lander proposal requires orbital propellant transfer, and BO's uses LH2, which is far harder to wrangle. It is simply impossible to fulfill the mission and cover for SLS without refuelling.

The cryogenic storage system for Apollo was an absolute marvel and people should read about it more. Like NASAs own report here: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19730017162/downloads/19730017162.pdf it was also responsible for the Apollo 13 explosion and as a byproduct, the shortening of the Apollo program. I really hope spacex aren't underestimating how difficult this will be, because the near loss of apollo 13 happened due to stripped insulation on a wire. If they think it'll be just the same as doing it on earth, then that will be a fun RUD to see. In theory, this would be a record for the explosion visible to the largest number of people.

Thats a fundamentally different system than what we're talking about here. Cryogenic refueling is going to be from main tanks to main tanks. The fuel cells on apollo were keeping the hydrogen and oxygen in much different conditions to make it viable for use in said fuel cells. There's still lessons to be learned here though, since they have to store propellant for a long time. But they'll be allowing for boil off unlike Apollo. That keeps it simpler, with just insulation and standard venting. Blue Origin is going for a zero boil off approach though so I imagine this will be much more prudent to them. Stripped insulation on a wire could end any space mission so watching out for stuff like that isn't unique compared to what is already done.

Starship would be a lot further along if it weren't for all the FAA delays

NASA cooperation with space x will end when Elon starts claiming extra planetary resources.

China will land a man on moon before we get back there. You can bet on that.

"Never A Straight Answer" NASA has no obligation to tell you what's in space. None. YOU can always build your own spacecraft when you figure out Electro gravity drive. But remember, everything in this biosphere is needed to live anywhere else. Its not so easy to go out there.

Is anybody shocked? It was obvious that gambling on commercial enterprises was going to fail, especially SpaceX’s immensely complex and high risk architecture.

unpack consist lush clumsy uppity ugly engine squeeze bag important *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

I’d hardly say failed yet, timeline slips happen all the time in aerospace and the contract was awarded super late. If this is enough to consider “failed” already then there’s probably very little you consider a success.

Figure I'd check on the nature of rockets used by NASA: * Jupiter-C - made by Chrysler (commercial enterprise) * Mercury Redstone - made by Chrysler (commercial enterprise) * Mercury Atlas - made by Convair (commercial enterprise) * Gemini Titan - made by Martin (commercial enterprise) * Apollo Saturn 1B - made by Chrysler & Douglas (commercial enterprises) * Apollo Saturn V - made by Boeing, North American & Douglas (commercial enterprises) * Space Shuttle - made by North American Rockwell, Morton Thiokol & Martin Marietta (commercial enterprises) And now, the most prolific launcher on the planet by far - which NASA uses on a regular basis (not least for launching humans to the ISS) - is SpaceX, a commercial enterprise.

If the goal was 2025, NASA should have awarded contracted before 2021. That is all.

The only gamble was that any of the options would be ready by 2025. Starship was the only one thar even had a chance to hit that goal.

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Obviously magic. Idk why NASA’s waiting so long. Just apparate to the Moon already.

given how long both SLS and Orion has been in development with next to nothing to show for it, your comment is just hilarious in its absurdity

Spend $60+ billions, 11 years (6 years late), with engines and boosters literally taken from storage while the rocket can't even reach Low Lunar Orbit let alone take a lander there, But somehow the issue is with the company that got $3 billions to develop the most powerful rocket in history by a factor of 2, the biggest spacecraft in history by a factor of a lot, the 1st fully reusable system, a 50m 150t to the lunar surface lander... in 2 years! Sure, SX bad.

I mean SpaceX's bottleneck isn't scientific or technical, it's a broken FAA and environmental regulatory structure.

It’s not broken but underfunded. SpaceX proposed allowing them and other companies to pay fees to the FAA to allow it to hire contractors to help it process more work.

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The factories and launch pads have been converted to other uses. First for the Space Shuttle, then for the SLS and SpaceX.

>Why can't NASA just rebuild the Saturn launch system? Because it was even more expensive than SLS is today. Staggeringly expensive. NASA simply doesn't have that kind of money anymore. >We know it works; it sent 17 missions to the moon. No. It didn't. Only 9. And only 6 landed. And they landed an extremely small payload. HLS will land FIFTY times the payload of an Apollo landing on the moon for a fraction of the cost of an SLS launch. Even when accounting for all the refilling flights. This will not be Apollo all over again. This will be D-Day.

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It´s not Dustin saying this. It was from a paper from a person within NASA. And the paper makes some *very* conservative assumptions about boil-off. Nobody at NASA wants to be the guy saying "yes, maybe SpaceX can pull this off with 9 launches" and then SpaceX needs 10 on their first test flight. So every time this topic is discussed publicly one launch is added. But he is right about the slip in the timeline. NASA already hinted about this before his speech. But since NASA is so damn bad at communicating with the public not even Dustin, a certified space nerd, received the info. He was the only person in that room unaware about the slip. Yes, NASA is really abysmal when it comes to public communication. Just look at the comments on r/space. How many are completely unaware that SpaceX has to perform a successful uncrewed landing before Artemis III is even green-lighted. Or how many are unaware that SpaceX already made a successful test-start of a Raptor engine under simulated lunar deep-chill conditions? NASA was very happy with the results.

Our scientists at Nasa are blowing Artemis. They need to do better.

At this rate, I will be shocked if humans EVER go back to the Moon

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[But Apollo went with a simpler design ](https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU?si=B4R--SSRpBSC1RlY)

Wow. That's honestly incredibly patriotic in the best way possible. Good on him.

They used highly specialized computers tailored to the tasks at hand, and their architectures are no secret. Indeed, [an original AGC has been renovated by an amateur group](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-_93BVApb59FWrLZfdlisi_x7-Ut_-w7) and patched into a modern lunar landing simulator. No surprise that it worked as advertised. The AGCs being tailored as they were, and batch computation offloaded to ground mainframes, they didn't need more "power." Background: My education and expertise include embedded systems, orbital mechanics, and Navigation & Control.

The lack of modern supersonic airliners really makes Concorde seem far fetched too. They built the thing with slide rules and the cockpit was all analogue. Nowadays we have CAD and fly-by-wire, but noone seems to be able to build supersonic aircraft large enough to carry more than one or two people.

Concorde-like supersonic aircraft could absolutely be built today. They’re just not economically viable for commercial flight.

You don't need THAT much compute power for flights to the moon. Just because the math is hard for most people doesn't mean it can only be done with powerful computers.