How does that matter? It's doing a thing already done nearly 70 years ago but at its own pace.
I bet it will get to the moon cheaper, too, and the Muskonauts will use less expensive lenses than Hasselblads to take photos.
I bet it will get to the moon cheaper, too, and the Muskonauts will use less expensive lenses than Hasselblads to take photos.
The reason why it matters is that efficiency matters. It's fine if it takes longer, not so much if it costs way, way more, especially if such a huge rocket has limited applications. And as I understand it the consensus is that Starship (or at least a fully-loaded Starship) will never go to the Moon. Once it's in orbit it takes like twenty refueling launches and space rendezvous to fill it up again so it can make the transfer burn. In other words, it's never happening.
Yes the mission profile is more complex, but that complexity can mostly be settled before the astronauts launch on their mission.
NASA seems to think it is a viable plan which is why they selected SpaceX to execute that part of the mission.
> After a multi-phase design effort, on April 16, 2021, NASA selected SpaceX to develop Starship HLS and deliver it to near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) prior to arrival of the crew for use on the Artemis III mission. The delivery requires that Starship HLS be refueled in Earth orbit before boosting to the NRHO, and this refueling requires a pre-positioned propellant depot in Earth orbit that is filled by multiple (at least 14) tanker flights.
I stand by what I said: not happening. I'll believe it when I see it.
Can you imagine if to make a sightseeing trip to another city you had to stop in the middle of the highway and then make 14 round-trips with a second car to fill your first car back up? I can't imagine why someone would approve this plan, other than corruption.
If the alternative was throwing away and building/buying a new car for every trip? Absolutely.
They said the same about landing a first stage booster - impossible and pointless to attempt. And it just happened for the 400th time yesterday.
From wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Pricing
We didn't get to the moon with a refuelling station did we? How come we need one now? We're really seeing 15 starship launches per moon trip as reasonable, rather than just building a single trip program?
The mission itself is nonsensical. The problems are stemming from the SLS, I'll find a link to a relevant source.
A single trip launch will always be constrained like this due to the tyranny of the rocket equation.
A modular mission system with multiple launches is the best way to expand capabilities and enable things like landing larger payloads for more advanced or long-term missions.
1. Starship is never going to be usable for a Moon mission.
2. There's little scientific value in Moon missions.
3. There's never going to be long-term missions to the Moon.
I maintain all three simultaneously.
One of many wacked-out things about the plan.
Return payload constraints are probably from using Orion as the return vehicle. Mass to the surface is much higher than Apollo since that is launched separate from the crew.
[EDIT] Apparently there are multiple plans involving even more spacecraft, because why not I guess? It's as you describe for Artemis III, but then gets way more complicated with Artemis IV, involving more spacecraft for some reason.
NASA has optioned an additional lander from Blue Origin but that would be taking the same role as SpaceX's lander, shuttling from lunar orbit to the surface and back to lunar orbit.
No. We did it by throwing away ~98% of the vehicle on the way there.
> How come we need one now?
Because building a new gargantuan tower and tossing that majority of it into the ocean/deep space every time we need to go the moon is not sustainable.
> We're really seeing 15 starship launches per moon trip as reasonable, rather than just building a single trip program
Yes. Because again. The alternative (dictated by physics) is that we expend the whole thing.
Making trips to the moon sustainable is pointless and nonsensical.
Edit0: good read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40410404
We can also, you know, not. We could put that money to something here on Earth instead of burning it up.
The technology developed for doing such a difficult task will inevitably benefit all of humanity. It did so for Apollo. It will again in the future.
https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-...
If the idea was not clearly conveyed then let me try again: the money is spent building things that are intended to be destroyed (in order to fulfill their function, but nevertheless), when it could be spent building things that are intended to last.
>The technology developed for doing such a difficult task will inevitably benefit all of humanity.
I've heard this refrain several times. Please name a technology that was developed for the space program and that would have otherwise not been developed.
It was pumped, shipped, refined, and trucked to that point using a complex supply chain, enabling your final trip to happen with one fuel transfer.
And it's totally valid for you to have that opinion. But it's your opinion, not "the consensus."
I'm with you. Not happening. We're more likely to come up with a totally different, simpler plan, and do that instead, before this happens.
The fuel that is landed is used to get back from the lunar surface to lunar orbit, not to return to Earth. That fuel stays with Orion in NRHO.
Taking longer at lower cost is a great trade-off for Starship but wasn't for Saturn V. The main driver for Saturn V was the space race against the Soviet Union. Economic interests played a very small role. It was all about being first and compensating for the Sputnik shock.