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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

#801

Post by anjel »

harrall wrote: post #715
Yeul wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also ignores the fact that empires can decline. (Although I think the moon landing is ridiculous there is no scientific reason for it).

The space race was not a scientific endeavor either. It was driven by a political need. It was to prove that your economic system could muster the correct machinery to get to the moon. Once we got to the moon, nothing significantly changed scientifically, but politically it was a bombshell. The act of getting the moon now is, once again, not a scientific endeavor. It is once again a holistic test of whether the count…

:Once we got to the moon, nothing significantly changed scientifically, but politically it was a bombshell.

A lot of commercial tech was spun off from Apollo, and generated a bit of GDP a for a good while.

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

#802

Post by panick21 »

terminalshort wrote: post #215
shadowgovt wrote: post #106

Anyone know the details of the scheduling situation here? Is this a "SpaceX spread itself too thin and wasn't able to keep its own pre-agreed deadlines" situation or a "The government-specified contract was unrealistically aggressive / so vaguely-specified that it could not be realized within its original timetable" situation?

I think the situation here from NASAs perspective is that these were the choices: 1. Back a low risk moon mission that is basically a repeat of Apollo using proven, but extremely expensive tech that has a very low probability of failure. 2. Back a high risk strategy that relies on the development of new technology that can potentially deliver hundreds of tons of cargo to the lunar surface for a fraction of the cost o…

This is the objective reality, but NASA choices was simply based on money.

You can read the technical selection paper. Both Blue and SpaceX proposal met the minimal requirments, and SpaceX was cheaper by at least 50%. So they won the selection.

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

#803

Post by Laremere »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #562
decimalenough wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's stated goal is to get people on the moon by 2030. This may slip by a year or two, but probably not much more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Prog... The main hurdle is the CZ-10 rocket, which has not flown yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March_10 But they have plenty of rocketry experience and the YF-100K engine they'll use for CZ-10 has successfully flown on the CZ-12: https:…

I’m still wanting a great explanation why we could do it in the 60s, but China can’t do it until 2030s. The reason I’m told we don’t do it today, is that we don’t want to. OK, China does, so what is the hold up that applies now?

1. It still took nearly 7 years to after JFK's speech in the 60s.

2. The institutional knowledge of working directly on the Apollo program has largely been lost in the US, and certainly isn't present in China.

Those are the unimportant pieces. The real reason is:

3. The US was actively at war with Russia. While it was a cold war (except for the proxy wars), the Apollo program had a wartime budget (spent nearly half a trillion in today's dollars), and a wartime risk tolerance (Neil Armstrong thought they had a 10% chance of not making it back).

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

#804

Post by notahacker »

FloorEgg wrote: post #531
notahacker wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon spends more money highlighting his own flaws than all his opponents put together, and orchestrated his own spat with the Trump administration in public on his own website; no third party PR conspiracy is necessary here. Lockheed will of course be angling for this contract for reasons which have nothing to do with "undermining Elon" and everything to do with being keen on securing themselves more multibillion dol…

A conspiracy assumes secret cooperation, and I am not making any claim like that. I am merely pointing out that Elon has position himself as a rival against a lot of rich and powerful people. Rather than speculate on the specific arbitrary political reason, it might be mostly because of the underlying pressure or general anti-Elon baseline effect (and to attribute it to something more specific is a form of baseline o…

Rather than speculate that the Trump administration might have fallen out with Elon because Trump's former right hand man loudly and publicly repudiated one of their flagship policies (he had a point...) and insinuated Trump was a paedophile, we should instead conclude that the baseline effect shifted from Trump's bestie to persona non grata that week because he was the innocent victim of underlying pressure of uncoordinated campaign by shadowy anti-Elon entities which happened to kick in at that time. rrriight....

the idea that an uncoordinated group is spending more than $44b on defaming Elon and this is what made people go out and buy the "I bought this car before Elon went mad" and not any of the things he started doing and saying on his own very public platform is also too ridiculous for even a hardened Elon stan to contemplate, never mind someone trying to maintain a "balanced view" of his positive and negative qualities.

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

#805

Post by nicoburns »

Waterluvian wrote: post #442
allenrb wrote: post #373

There is just so much wrong with this from start to finish. Here are a few things, by no means inclusive: 1. We’ve already beaten China to the moon by 56 years, 3 months, and some change. And counting. 2. Nothing based around SLS is remotely serious. The cost and timeline of doing anything with it are unreasonable. It is an absolute dead-end. The SpaceX Super Heavy has been more capable arguably as early as the secon…

Re: 1. I think the America of Theseus mindset is a bit troubling. A lot of people like to identify with achievements that they played no role in. Based on zero expertise whatsoever, I have a sense that this is a bit self defeating. To be born a winner, to be taught you’re a winner… how can that be healthy? Today’s America scores zero points for its accomplishments of the past. But I think one way it can be a good thi…

> To be born a winner, to be taught you’re a winner… how can that be healthy?

The entire mindset of separating the world into "winners" and "losers" in the first place seems unhealthy to me.

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

#806

Post by m4rtink »

harrall wrote: post #715
Yeul wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also ignores the fact that empires can decline. (Although I think the moon landing is ridiculous there is no scientific reason for it).

The space race was not a scientific endeavor either. It was driven by a political need. It was to prove that your economic system could muster the correct machinery to get to the moon. Once we got to the moon, nothing significantly changed scientifically, but politically it was a bombshell. The act of getting the moon now is, once again, not a scientific endeavor. It is once again a holistic test of whether the count…

It really was a race - you can find the original space fligh plans before the race started and they look much more sane and sustainable.

Incremental progress via building up infrastructure, including space station in Earth and Moon orbit, paving way to a lunar surface base. Also ways to make this affordable were explored, including reusable first stages, etc.

Then all focus switch to racing the Soviets and and anything that did not contribute flags and footprints on the lunar surface ASAP was skipped, opting for the fastest possible solution at all costs.

So no wonder that after the race was won, it was hard to do a meaningful followup with the architecture chosen.

One might even argue we would be further along space infra wise if the race did not happen or involved other objectives (possibly even including in space military buildup by both sides).

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

#807

Post by cubefox »

> In a statement to Reuters, Bob Behnken, vice president of Exploration and Technology Strategy at Lockheed Martin's space unit, said the company this year has been conducting "significant technical and programmatic analysis for human lunar landers."

> "We have been working with a cross-industry team of companies and together we are looking forward to addressing Secretary Duffy's request to meet our country’s lunar objectives," said Behnken, a retired NASA astronaut.

https://www.reuters.com/science/us-seek-rival-bids-artemis-3...

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

#808

Post by Descon »

nxor wrote: post #560
tw04 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Based on SLS and the comments here, it seems extremely unlikely the US is still dominant. Literally every other nation is trying to catch up to Space-X and is nowhere close. An American company, based in American, primarily staffed by American engineers. I don't know by what measure you'd say that the US isn's still far, far ahead but I don't know of any other country currently re-using rockets dozens of times. What…

By h1b engineers

I believe space is actually a protected industry, and your run of the mill h1b isn't good enough, you need citizenship too - see the ITAR reqs on SpaceX job openings: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/spacex/jobs/8101417002

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

#809

Post by TomWhitwell »

dekhn wrote: post #552
fwip wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sailing vessels serve an actual purpose, though. The Dutch didn't build better boats for bragging rights.

National pride has long been tightly coupled to seafaring capabilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship) "Richly decorated as a symbol of the king's ambitions for Sweden and himself, upon completion she was one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the worl"

Underrated comment

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

#810

Post by dotancohen »

allenrb wrote: post #373

There is just so much wrong with this from start to finish. Here are a few things, by no means inclusive: 1. We’ve already beaten China to the moon by 56 years, 3 months, and some change. And counting. 2. Nothing based around SLS is remotely serious. The cost and timeline of doing anything with it are unreasonable. It is an absolute dead-end. The SpaceX Super Heavy has been more capable arguably as early as the secon…

  > Land on the moon when we can accomplish something there, not just to prove we haven’t lost our mojo since Apollo.
I have been a die hard fan of space exploration since the first Columbia flight. It is one of my first memories. I dream of the day when the moon is populated, like the ISS. I am the largest proponent of space exploration you'll meet, if only just for the sense of exploration disregarding all other benefits. Humanity's future is either to progress beyond this planet, or stagnate here.

That's why I have been following the Artemis program since the beginning. And with all the funding changes, and all the mission profiles that have changed in accordance, two things have stood out as the primary goals. First, the cost. That space station double docking in the way down is not only unnecessary, it is also fraught with risk. The only possibly explanation for that component is to spend money. Second, the actual started goals have changed three or four times, but one goal has been consistent. Go look at NASA's Artemis webpage. It's the first words up there: "NASA's Artemis missions aim to land the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon ...". Really? That is the first, primary objective? And it is such a shame, because of you look at Glover's career and accomplishments, he is amazing. He should be flying that mission on his own personal merits, not because NASA was mandated to find some black guy. Frankly it is insulting to even see mention of that as a goal, much less the absolute first stated goal in the official materials, and the only consistent goal throughout the program.

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