Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having a deadline is how things get done. With no deadline, nothing gets accomplished.
This is a political deadline with no grounding in reality.
Hey, it worked when JFK did it!
NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
251–260 of 1001 posts
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#252"The president and I want to get to the moon in this president's term" - Sean Duffy NASA administrator. A scary way to set a schedule on a complex project with lives at stake. They don't care though.
The Artemis plan was originally to return to moon by 2024, and the first crewed flight is still planned for next year, so it seems entirely reasonable for a President that's in office from 2024 and 2028 to want it to actually happen within that time frame. Since, you know, that's been the established and agreed upon plan for nearly a decade now.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure if you're being sarcastic. Have they managed to get starship to orbit yet?
Several times (if we keep disingenuous "wheeeel akchually" technical gotchas out of this). The fact that they keep safety in mind is a good thing. Any starship that got to space could have easily reached orbit, but it didn't because spacex cares more about NOT uncontrollably deorbiting a giant hunk of steel than impressing a "redditor" who doesn't understand how orbital mechanics work.
For comparison other organizations don't have an issue with leaving 20 ton rocket stages in orbit, leading to uncontrolled reenetry. :)
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a32451633/china-long-...
That's 20 tons of mostly aluminium - 100+ ton stainless steel Starship would be potentially much more dangerous, so it is good SpaceX cares. :)
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#254The best outcome would be the cancellation of manned moon missions. The original space race was a pissing match between the US and USSR. I would've hoped we had matured past that.
Which would be a salient point if _nothing_ of value came out of the space program. That's about as far from reality as you can get. The primary, chartered, goal of NASA is to create a commercial space industry. Ignoring this is a sign of extreme immaturity.
The thing is, NASA has already a great job creating a commercial space industry, much of it since the Space Race. The more salient question is whether manned return to the moon missions on vanity timelines are a better way to boost the commercial space industry than the research programmes that got slashed.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they were serious, they'd properly look into ending SLS after the ones that are being built are launched, cancel the upgrade, go after the company that spent the entire launch tower budget before even starting construction, open up bids for rockets to fly Orion (probably Vulcan or New Glenn IIRC), and sort out their space suit issues. Maybe also seriously threaten Boeing with cancelations and restrictions for thei…
They should give the rights to Starliner IP to Blue Origin so the US can have a legitimate backup to the dragon capsule.
Blue seemed to be planning to use Boeing for their ISS-replacement proposal, but at this point I expect that they'd prefer to build on their New Shepard experience for a custom design. Starliner isn't really worth trying to fix (even the reliability issues aside, it's enough of a pain to do maintenance on that they couldn't just go in and replace valves on the ground).
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#256"The president and I want to get to the moon in this president's term" - Sean Duffy NASA administrator. A scary way to set a schedule on a complex project with lives at stake. They don't care though.
Having a deadline is how things get done. With no deadline, nothing gets accomplished.
The Moon directive was set by Donald Trump in 2017.
This is just the same deadline being pushed another year because of failures. Deadlines that get constantly pushed aren't deadlines at all.
As I recall, SpaceX and Artemis project was supposed to be Moon by 2024. At least originally. But then SpaceX blew up all the rockets (successfully testing them or something) and now we've wasted damn near a decade.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I can imagine That probably does require some imagination. Starting with any incentive to do so.
SpaceX advert on the moon, giant and bright for the world to see every night for the next 50 years.
This reminds me of in The Tick series. A villain named Chairface Chippendale, a sophisticated criminal mastermind with a distinctive chair for a head. Chairface decided to leave his mark on history - literally - by carving his entire name into the surface of the moon. Using incredibly powerful Geissman Lenses that could focus candlelight into an intense heat ray, he managed to carve out "CHA" before being stopped by The Tick and his allies. Musk is a comic book personality.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't want to rely on a single supplier for critical infrastructure. Their management can extort you, their failures leave you with no backup plan, if they go bankrupt you're really screwed. Keeping multiple companies capable of building it alive is essential.
I'm not actually sure that having multiple suppliers reduces extortion? If you have a policy of "no single supplier", then supplier #2 can extort you just as much as supplier #1 does under a single-supplier policy, because you have no choice but to keep funding them. I'm pretty sure this is what's been happening with Blue Origin: in 25 years they've delivered close to nothing, but they keep getting contracts because…
Extortion requires applied force from the vendor to the customer. You're simply describing failure to deliver goods.
Words have meaning.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#259This would be such a dumb move on the government's part. "Lose the new space race" is ridiculous PR-brain. We are not racing to the same goal! China is trying to land on the moon, we are trying to establish a permanent presence. There is no value to merely returning to the moon to say we did it, and Starship is the only vehicle that can plausibly deliver huge quantities of cargo to the lunar surface.
Starship has yet to demonstrate that capability. They would need to show rapid re-usability for it to be viable. Not to mention docking and orbital re-fueling. Falcon Heavy seems to have that capability though. I suspect that Starship will have similar cost to Falcon Heavy when they get done with it. Maybe marginally cheaper. The re-entry problem is really throwing a wrench into things.
One thing I don't understand about Musk and his Mars obsession is that he has had a rocket that can launch stuff to Mars for years now and he didn't even bother with the tiniest pilot project just for PR purposes. He is not sending rovers, satellites or living plants on a journey to Mars.
Even if by some miracle Starship carries people to Mars, there won't be anything for them to do there. They'll be stuck in their Starship and that would be the end of that mission, since there isn't even a plan to return.
Re: NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think its to prepare for mars (sort of), its the closest place where we can build a self-sustaining civilization.
Can we actually? And I mean in any reasonable time frame say 100 years? And by self-sustaining I take fully independent from Earth supply chain for absolutely everything. A civilization that could continue existing without single delivery for Earth.
We have to start at some point don't we?