Falcon isn't really comparable to the SLS, but yes the SLS is awful cost wise. Starship will almost surely be between one and two orders of magnitude cheaper per launch vs SLS.
Surely people understand redundancy in aerospace right?
> SLS is about maintaining the ability of the US to build rocket engines like the RS-25 and those massive SRBs
...but why? They're expensive and bad. Maybe the US SHOULD forget about them.
> The Government is worried about waking up some morning and China has leapfrogged us to the Moon and it'll take 20 years for us to institutionally remember how to get back there.
The SLS was indeed created back when this sounded reasonable. But it no longer does. The US can go to the moon now. They just have to pay SpaceX to do it, and failing that, Rocket Lab. But asking Boeing to do it is pretty guaranteed to be a bad idea.
> And SpaceX has not yet demonstrated the ability to land humans on the Moon while NASA has.
Boeing has demonstrated a willingness to not live up to its former glory though. And let's be honest here, this is not NASA vs SpaceX. This is Boeing vs SpaceX. That's the main contractor doing the vast majority of the work. Boeing, as you might remember, STILL haven't shown then can get humans to the ISS anymore! We are still waiting for Starliner to come online.
> They're making sure that we can definitely still use big dumb stupid expensive technology to get there.
I guess...
> If Starship works they may wind up pivoting away from SLS in the future
We can only hope! But again, Falcon Heavy exists NOW.
There's a possible world where the cut corners and the Dear Moon mission winds up with the vehicle burning up on reentry or slamming itself into the ground, killing Tim Dodd and everyone on board, with the resultant investigation looking something like OceanGate.
SLS is big, dumb and stupid and has a LES and a capsule that lands via parachutes. If SpaceX fails as a company after some accident like that, the SLS will just continue to plod along.
> If SpaceX fails as a company after some accident like [starship failing and killing people], the SLS will just continue to plod along.
Well.. yes. But note also that if SLS crashes and kills a bunch of astronauts it will certainly plod along too. That's what the Shuttle did. The difference being one of NASA/Boeing and SpaceX are accountable for killing astronauts, while the other is not.
Gigant SRB are dead technology, totally useless. RS-25 is engine that should be retiered and has no future.
So your theory of techonpgical progrss is to spend huge amount of money into legacy technology rather then actually building new technology.
The reason the US will beat China is the Raptor, not the RS-25.
What you advocate works 100% against what you want to achieve.
And just FYI the shuttle stack never lead us to the moon. In fact its terrible for this task.
This is more important than it seems on the surface and is often a good thing.
You want to train and preserve local expertise with heavy industries.
That ensures generations of successful companies rejuvenating your economy as opposed to relying on federal handouts.
These people don’t grow on trees(/classrooms).
NASA and ULA like programs trained and built expert training to create those citizens.
Being able to recruit them is a non-goal.
It is in the definition: “for the people”.
These people enjoy a cushy revolving door between several private and public sector aerospace jobs.
If we can't do something as simple as assemble modules in space, exactly what sort of future do you imagine is waiting for us in space?
SLS has absolutely no redeeming features. You're sunk deep in Stockholm Syndrome if you're still defending it.
What sort of future in space do those advocating SLS imagine for us if moving a liquid from one tank to another is too challenging?
There's a huge amount of extra risk involved in that sort of idea, which is why NASA isn't doing it, which can just be avoided with SLS and Starship.
And you didn't answer my question, so I will answer it for you. If simply transferring a liquid from one tank to another is too risky, then there is no future in space. No activities of any significance could ever be done there. With that established, we can shut down the human space program and lose nothing of value.
> Starship HLS requires in-orbit propellant transfer in its mission profile. Prior to the launch of the HLS vehicle from Earth, a Starship variant configured as a propellant depot would be launched into an Earth orbit and then partially or fully filled by between four and fourteen Starship tanker flights carrying propellant. The Starship HLS vehicle would then launch and rendezvous with the already-loaded propellant depot and refuel before transiting from Earth orbit to Lunar orbit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_HLS
I’m a little confused why you call it a giant orbital bomb. It wouldn’t be particularly giant. Four reusable flights could only bring 600T of propellant to LEO. A single starship is fueled with 4600T of propellant, or 18400T of propellant to get that 600T into LEO. I would argue the starship itself is a much more giant bomb with all sorts of fire and stress and chances to explode. 600T of fuel exploding in orbit might not even be visible. But there’s been a number of tests of in orbit refueling and it doesn’t seem much more complex than, say, docking with a space station and transferring bags of mostly water without damaging them.
Docking isn't a safety risk.
Regardless, the plan is to use starships to build a LEO refueling platform and bring propellant for a lunar lander brought to orbit via a starship. Such a platform could also be used for Mars. It’s a much smarter move than trying to bring everything from earth in a single shot. And I can vouch for the sanity of the plan - I have almost 600 hours on KSP which makes me a bit of an expert ;-)
Falcon-9 is about as capable in terms of payload as Proton. And even without inflation the launch price is comparable. So, Falcon-9 is quite capable to get people on the Moon. It isn't really considered because there are other options and some additional requirements.
https://space.nss.org/lunar-base-studies-1996-human-lunar-re...
hey avmich, thnx 4 the memories ;)