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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

#81

Post by JumpCrisscross »

saubeidl wrote: post #78
radu_floricica wrote: post #54

I'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?

That is assuming Starship succeeds. Elon's track record hasn't exactly been stellar as of late.

> Elon's track record hasn't exactly been stellar as of late

SpaceX's, on the other hand, has been.

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

#82

Post by philipwhiuk »

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.

They did. They held a bidding process. SpaceX won the bid. As Americans you didn't vote for a government that wanted to fund multiple bids.

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

#83

Post by chasd00 »

cheschire wrote: post #5

I love how government acquisitions works. A company can fail to deliver the final product, then use the recompete process to win a higher paying contract by using the progress they already made on the previous contract to demonstrate a performance level above their competitors. Whereas all the competition has to use their own R&D budget to show capability to meet the requirements of the second contract, the winner of…

It reminds me how once you get on the preferred vendor list of a large corporation it becomes very very hard to stop getting paid. No matter how bad you screw up you get more projects because, hey, you're on the list. The US Government is the ultimate whale, get on that metaphorical preferred vendor list and you get "money for nothing and chicks for free" forever.

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

#84

Post by floating-io »

ACCount37 wrote: post #58
bhouston wrote: post #3

Is this realistic? Doesn't the development timelines for a new large rocket stretch into more than a decade? Unless someone else had one under development... Could this just be a pressure tactic on SpaceX?

Blue Origin is explicitly named in Duffy's statement. And if SpaceX's Starship HLS catches enough delays, they can slide into Blue Origin's Blue Moon HLS timeline - which is now being developed for Artemis 5, in 2030. On top of working on a HLS lander, Blue Origin has a pretty large rocket developed already - New Glenn. They just don't have the reusability or the launch cadence, and their HLS needs at least two launc…

> Blue Moon HLS is considerably less complex than Starship HLS

That's the one thing in your comment I disagree with. Starship-based HLS has basically one base vehicle, modified into three variants (tanker, depot, and the lander itself). Refueling is done in LEO.

Blue Origin's HLS has three completely unique vehicles with no commonality (New Glenn, Transporter, and the lander), and refuels in multiple orbits, one of which is NRHO, which is likely to be far more challenging. And they're doing it with hydrogen.

Blue Origin's Mk1 cargo lander is simpler; their HLS architecture is not.

JMHO.

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

#85

Post by ramesh31 »

chasd00 wrote: post #45
dzonga wrote: post #29

[flagged]

> Boeing or the military industrial complex would handle these things with precision and delivered ahead of time that's fantasy. I've never heard of either entity delivering on time or on budget let alone ahead of time.

>that's fantasy. I've never heard of either entity delivering on time or on budget let alone ahead of time.

We went from not having a manned space program to landing men on the moon in 8 years. This country used to be able to do things.

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

#86

Post by philipwhiuk »

bombcar wrote: post #17
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?

I don't really care, give Carmack ten billion dollars and at least it'll run DooM.

Armadillo Aerospace did a mediocre job at best with its funding.

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

#87

Post by destitude »

sofixa wrote: post #71
radu_floricica wrote: post #54

I'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?

> Starships will drop the cost to other bodies Assuming SpaceX can deliver it. They've failed to do a successful test flight with even a fraction of the officially planned capacity. Who knows how long it will take them, if they can even pull it off, to deliver it.

They could have delivered today if they weren't concerned about reusability.

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

#89

Post by pfdietz »

It should be clear that the protection NASA had as a pork delivery vehicle has been breached. Witness the slaughter at JPL and, more generally, attack on research spending in general.

Now that this has happened, expect a future democrat administration to have its revenge on human spaceflight centers in red states. Given the rot that has set in under that politically protected status, I can't see this as a bad thing.

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

#90

Post by inglor_cz »

JohnFen wrote: post #80
inglor_cz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

I expect it to take a long time because they seems to be a long way off from achieving it. Their track record so far isn't great. They've consistently blown every timeline they've put forth, and by a lot. Remember, they said that they'd have a rapidly reusable launch system going by March 2013. In 2011, Musk said that he'd be sending humans to Mars sometime between 2021 and 2031, but it doesn't look like they're anyw…

There is a saying that SpaceX turns the impossible into merely late.

They have blown a lot of deadlines, but they also produced a very reliable and relatively cheap launcher which now underpins the majority of human space activity, which we should, in fairness, consider a huge achievement.

And the Raptor engines look really good so far. Reliable engines are a huge must in space industry.

I don't think they are getting stymied by reentry problems forever. Already the latest IFT looked a lot better than the first one.

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