So for a few more months/a couple of years, NASA will burn 10x more money? Nah, that's not smart. Unless politics is involved.
NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
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Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#62I'm not really sure if keeping a strict schedule has any real relevance here, outside maybe PR and politics. Starships will drop the cost to other bodies in the same way Falcon dropped the cost to orbit. Why would anyone want to invest in a technology and a project that will be obsolete by the time it's implemented?
> not really sure if keeping a strict schedule has any real relevance here
You don't see the relevance of Artemis III launching in mid-2027 [1] or 2028 versus, say, after November 2028?
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#63[flagged]
Yes I remember (I worked in that industry), but a few important caveats that you haven't mentioned:
* The cost was exorbitant
* The delivery estimates were hugely long and massively padded
* The precision was ensured through QA and acceptance testing processes that would easily be 10x the amount of cost/effort as the actual development was
* The amount of waste around the programs was incredible
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#64[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.
Maybe you can score contractors on "legs out of three".
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I wouldn't say "almost done" - orbital refueling is likely one of the hard parts, and it wasn't attempted yet.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#66Artemis is a joke. You can tell this is politically motivated by their stance on SLS. If they were serious they would give Spacex the SLS contract for being years and years behind schedule.
Is starship on schedule?
Of course not. But a system that's "affordable, fixed price, highly capable, delayed" beats one that's "too expensive, cost+, marginally capable, delayed".
Starship is not a drop-in replacement for SLS. But it sure casts a long shadow on the entire SLS project.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
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're by far the ones with the most relevant experience and actually flying hardware (human spaceflight, propulsive landing, flight testing hardware for HLS), in the US. I don't think it's going to take them a decade, but they probably won't be ready within Trump's term, and I think that's the real reason for this latest push.
when the Democrats wrestle back control of the federal government all things related to Trump, no matter how tangentially, are getting castrated. That includes SpaceX because of Elon Musk so they need to get it while the getting's good.
edit: the vindictive behavior of the current crop of politicians is just cutting off your nose to spite your face. All of it is going to come right back around when the parties swap places.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#68Artemis is a joke. You can tell this is politically motivated by their stance on SLS. If they were serious they would give Spacex the SLS contract for being years and years behind schedule.
Is starship on schedule?
> Is starship on schedule?
Difficult to say relative to current Artemis timelines, which have to date been mainly delayed by Orion. They're currently looking on schedule to perform an orbital propellant transfer in 2026. That likely means a commercial launch before the end of next year, which is crazy.
How that relates to HLS is up in the air, and probably will be until the end of next year.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#69Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#70Earlier 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.
"Not within the next decade" (e.g. not until 2041) is a long time.
The first prototype of Starship only did its first hop in July 2019, so 6 years ago. The first flight integrated test only happened 2,5 years ago.
Nowadays they can return to Earth already and catch the booster. Why would you expect the rest of the development to drag until 2041?