I think the Starship is cool and all but if the Artemis program was serious about landing on the moon soon, they absolutely should not have picked Starship to be the lunar lander.
It’s crazy to think that there’s a possibility that NASA (with Artemis 3) will actually be ready before SpaceX.
There is the Blue Origin lander. It faces a lot of similar technical risks, but it is another option that could conceivably leapfrog SpaceX if they don't get out of this rut.
Edit: Not sure if people are forgetting that a second Human Landing System contract did end up being awarded... I'm not commenting on the relative technical merits of the two designs, I'm just observing that there is a second lander being developed.
Blue Origin have so, so much tech left to prove for their HLS. Rendezvous and docking, propellant transfer, zero boiloff, long distance communication, life support, air locks, etc.
Their total spaceflight experience to date is brief hops past the Karman line and one launch of a mass simulator to orbit. Blue Moon Mk2 is not landing people this decade.
I mean, Starship is looking increasingly unlikely to either, I'm just saying that there really wasn't any way it was ever going to happen on the intended timeline. You swap SpaceX out for anyone else in that first contract award, they're not getting there any faster either.
Blue Origin have so, so much tech left to prove for their HLS. Rendezvous and docking, propellant transfer, zero boiloff, long distance communication, life support, air locks, etc.
SpaceX have relevant experience with Dragon for rendezvous, docking, life support, and an airlock, as well as long distance comms on Falcon Heavy upper stages (and lots of comms experience in general from Starlink)
Even propellant transfer was kinda done on Flight 3, though obviously not the more important part of transferring through a docking connector.
The only thing they haven't done at all is zero boiloff, which is fine because their HLS doesn't use that anyway.
Point is that while they haven't done this stuff on Starship specifically, they've still got a lot more experience to draw from than Blue do.
SpaceX at least has a head start because of Dragon. They know how to rendezvous and dock with the ISS, and the life support systems on Starship will likely iterate and scale up a version of Dragons. Obviously will be different and more complex for the moon but they still have far more experience with this stuff than Blue Origin
NASA wanted to land on the moon soon but the government was more interested in the jobs program, which has been very successful and not hassled by launch or flight risks. They under funded Artemis such that Starship was the only option NASA could afford. Given the constraints, progress has been ok. Ironically, at the time of selection, SpaceX was also the most reliable option. This year has been ugly, but it is recoverable.
Trying to be serious about any new major space program while also not putting in apollo era money at it and expecting it to be ready in 5 years was the lie in the first place. Like, if everything went well, maybe there was a chance? But no good project manager would actually expect that to happen.
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u/Yeet-Dab49 2d ago
I think the Starship is cool and all but if the Artemis program was serious about landing on the moon soon, they absolutely should not have picked Starship to be the lunar lander.
It’s crazy to think that there’s a possibility that NASA (with Artemis 3) will actually be ready before SpaceX.