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NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

cnn.com

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Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#31

Post by peterfirefly »

JohnFen wrote: post #16
raverbashing wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah who is going to deliver faster and more reliable than SpaceX? Boeing? LM? Doubt

I don't know who else can, but I do seriously doubt SpaceX is going to be able to deliver within the next decade or so either.

They have a pretty good chance, actually. They are almost done with the hard parts of the Starship.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#33

Post by stetrain »

dzonga wrote: post #29

[flagged]

Back then you'd get two legs of the Correct - Fast - Cheap triangle. It just required shoveling boatloads of money at the defense contractors.

Now you can give Boeing twice as much money as SpaceX and they still fail to deliver a working product in twice the time.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#34

Post by nmeofthestate »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #11

> Elon Musk, the boss of SpaceX, fired back: "SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry. Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words." Still marking his words on self-driving vehicles so I guess we can add this to the list. What’s the casualty count so far on that one btw? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...

That's a fun list, but it feels like an odd thing to have its own article on Wikipedia.

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#36

Post by askl »

boxed wrote: post #22
Forgeties79 wrote: post #11

> Elon Musk, the boss of SpaceX, fired back: "SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry. Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words." Still marking his words on self-driving vehicles so I guess we can add this to the list. What’s the casualty count so far on that one btw? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...

You need to keep two things in your mind at the same time: Elon Musk sometimes say things that are true. Elon Must sometimes say things that are not true. In this case, it's the first one.

> Elon Musk sometimes say things that are true.

Has this ever happened in the last 10 years?

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#37

Post by JumpCrisscross »

"A Lunar Space Elevator [LSE] can be built today from existing commercial polymers; manufactured, launched and deployed for less than $2B. A prototype weighing 48 tons with 100 kg payload can be launched by 3 Falcon-Heavy's, and will pay for itself in 53 sample return cycles within one month. It reduces the cost of soft landing on the Moon at least threefold, and sample return cost at least ninefold" [1].

Dreams aside, this story is court politics: "Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who is NASA’s acting administrator, has told people that he wants to lead the space agency" [2]. "So does Jared Isaacman—the billionaire entrepreneur who was the nominee earlier this year before President Trump withdrew his support."

With "both men...jockeying to lead NASA," and, just "this past weekend, advisers and lawmakers representing Duffy and Isaacman [having] called contacts in the Trump administration—including the president himself," this announcement is politics through PR.

Duffy may threatening Elon to have his man back down. He may be going scorched Earth, signalling to Trump that Musk's decision making isn't to be trusted.

[1] https://opsjournal.org/DocumentLibrary/Uploads/The_Lunar_Spa... 2017; 2bn US2017 ~ 2.6bn US2025

[2] https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-nasa-administrator...

Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

#39

Post by roer »

trentnix wrote: post #25
philipwhiuk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who do you think is capable of competing, given that they didn't win the bid the first time round?

Regardless of capability, it's in NASA's best interests and our best interests to encourage others to try. I think we are better off if the rocket industry (and every industry) is not dominated by a single organization, even if we believe that organization is altruistic and excellent.

Well, NASA tried that originally but didn't have the budget, and in that sense it's better late than never to fund something different. The reasoning as presented just doesn't reflect reality.
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