
A moon landing in 2024? NASA says it'll happen - zolpidem_dream
https://www.wclk.com/post/moon-landing-2024-nasa-says-itll-happen-others-say-no-way
======
sandworm101
No chance.

This isn't the 1950s. We don't just throw people atop rockets anymore. These
are vehicles, aircraft. There is absolutely no way any of the current crop of
space vehicles could be made ready for a trip to the moon anytime before 2024.

Going beyond low orbit, away from the sub-45min return time, is something we
haven't done in generations. The craft need to be tested, repeatedly. Each
test flight then has to be analyzed before the next test flight. The
turnaround for a single test will be many months, even a year. Getting all the
bits and pieces together would then take many more years of integration work.

Look at the JWST. Look at the F-35. Look at the 737-max. These are complicated
systems with layers of dependencies. Our society today simply does not accept
the cowboy approach to safety that was the original moon race. The next moon
landing will only happen after a decade-long deliberative, iterative, campaign
requiring the support of many subsequent governments.

~~~
StillBored
Yawn, space is dangerous. We would all still be living in trees with this
attitude.

I don't believe that we can actually design a system that is safe like this,
so yes it needs a lot of testing and iterative improvement. In the meantime,
we need to use it to launch equipment and a few brave souls that understand
the risks.

Actually to add to that, I think putting timescales in front of something like
this as a tendency to clarify the goals and therefor simplify the engineering.
If we sit around for decades trying to shave a couple ounces off every single
part and build in triplicate redundancy so its perfect it will fail.

If you look at apollo, what you see is that they had a review committee that
followed up the work and tested/built their understanding from the ground up.
Part of that was ripping out systems that were to complex to be easily
understood when possible, and considering how everything worked together.

In many ways this appears to be what spaceX is doing, initial design, prove it
out with a bunch of launches, fix problems as they appear, etc. So one of most
important design goals is designing something that will be launched thousands
of times (not necessarily the same rocket, just the scale) rather than
something that is designed to be the perfectly safe vehicle for another half
dozen launches before we scrap it for another 40 years.

~~~
CydeWeys
The public has no appetite for dead astronauts. It's simply not workable to be
so cavalier with astronaut lives, even if the astronauts themselves are
willing.

~~~
matt-attack
Why does the public get an opinion on an individual’s life when they know the
risks? To me that’s the height of hubris and is something that needs to get
corrected if we’re to move forward.

~~~
dmitriid
The public is horrified at astronauts' death, politicians listen to public
opinion, politicians cut budgets to "dangerous missions".

PR for space is a very tricky affair.

~~~
bananabreakfast
The public is horrified at whatever the news tells them to be horrified about.

Government employees getting killed in Iraq happens often enough that it
doesn't get clicks.

Government employees getting killed in Space happens so infrequently that it
will get tons of clicks.

Simple journalism economics.

------
njarboe
'"I am more interested in maximizing the odds of success for this bold
undertaking and making it as safe as any human journey into the deep space can
be, than I am in having NASA meet arbitrary deadlines," Rep. Eddie Bernice
Johnson — a Democrat from Texas and the chairwoman of the House Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology — said at a recent hearing.'

Waiting to make a journey until it is "as safe as can be" means that one never
makes the journey at all. This has been NASA's curse since the Challenger
explosion. Human space exploration is not going to happen with a "safety
first" culture.

~~~
melling
Here we go again...

Why I remember almost 6 years ago, after the Virgin Galactic crash, when we
debated the merits of humans in space.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8540279](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8540279)

Anyway, I think I lost and people were confident that Virgin Galactic would
soon be back.

I’ll just repost one of my summary thoughts. The entire thread is worth
reading. It’ll probably be repeated in some form today.

“ Someone dying is devastating. Trying to conquer space a handful of people at
a time is the slow and dangerous way of accomplishing this task. We should be
building machines to explore the solar system. This can be done for a fraction
of the cost, time, and it will allow him to allow us to iterate quickly. In
100 years, more humans will live off earth if we iterate with machines, etc
now than if we move slowly trying to reduce the risk in order to keep humans
safe.“

~~~
carlosdp
I mean, we have already been exploring the solar system with machines, for a
good while. Humans are much more capable today (and for the foreseeable
future) at conducting a wide range of tasks in space than the machines we can
currently send up.

It could be argued it would be faster to send humans up to build the
infrastructure for more humans now (in the near future) than it would be to
wait for robotics to get advanced enough to build that infrastructure for us
in space environments.

~~~
noelsusman
What can a human in a spacesuit accomplish on the moon that a machine can't?
It's a genuine question, though I'll admit my initial answer is not much.

~~~
trothamel
The human-driven rover on Apollo 17 drove 35.9 KM in the three days Apollo 17
spent on the moon. Lunkhod 2 went 39 KM, but it took from January to June 1973
to do so.

When the distance from Earth increases, machines become slower. Opportunity
drove 45 KM, but it took 14 years.

~~~
hootbootscoot
nothing Tesla autopilot can't handle... (less pedestrians on the moon than
even a city in arizona!)

~~~
hutzlibu
Some more craters and layers of light moondust to sink in, though.

------
ChuckMcM
I agree with most people that it would be nearly impossible without a
Manhattan Project style commitment from the Government and I don't see that
happening.

That said, an interesting thought experiment would be to put a Falcon 9 second
stage to 'sleep' on an up coming mission for a couple of weeks and then have
it wake up and relight. If that works push it to a month.

With a system like that you could Falcon Heavy to launch a return stage into a
Lunar transfer orbit and have it go into orbit at the moon. Then launch one
into LEO. Finally launch a service module and landing craft rendezvous with
the stage in orbit, burn to the moon. Land, take off, rendezvous with the
lunar return stage, and fly back. This uses all "known" technology from SpaceX
with a new lunar lander but we know that SpaceX has the propulsive landing
chops to pull that off.

It avoids the currently "unknown" technology of refueling a cryogenic rocket
in space.

It does require a reasonable launch cadence on SpaceX's part which is why the
experiment of can you leave a cryogenic stage around and relight it.

~~~
NikolaeVarius
They've done extended, multiple relight tests of the second stage as part of
their Air Force mission rating tests.

I don't think it is anywhere near designed to stay usable after multiple days
of staying cold, that is a completely different mission profile from what the
second stage was designed to do, aka earth orbit missions.

I would expect the stored cryogenics would not take well to it.

~~~
m4rtink
Exactly, the main issue is the liquid oxygen on board - withou either active
cooling or very clever isolation, there will not be any left after a while, as
it will evaporate.

The soviets did experiments with a blok d upper stage that was also
kerosene/LOX and were able to push it to a couple days, maybe up to a single
week.

So really multiple weeks are not doable due to LOX alone withou turning your
already mass limitted upper stage to an advanced orbital propelant depot.

Also longer term you will start hitting also other issues, such as battery
power (might need to add solar panels), stuff getting too cold/hot, long term
exposure of electronics to cosmic radiation, lack of ulage fuel, etc.

~~~
ChuckMcM
This was the ULA paper I read about 5 years ago :
[https://www.ulalaunch.com/docs/default-source/extended-
durat...](https://www.ulalaunch.com/docs/default-source/extended-
duration/micro-gravity-cryogenic-experiment-opportunity.pdf) There are a
number of papers on the ULA site describing fairly innovative ways to keep the
LOX from boiling away. As this stage would not have a "payload" in the
traditional sense it could have a refrigerator attached :-)

------
ifdefdebug
NASA wants to go to moon in about 4 years (!) but today they can't even lift a
human into earth orbit since they discontinued their last spacecraft capable
of such a task. Dream on.

~~~
aschobel
That will change this spring which isn’t too far away.

> Elon Musk’s SpaceX simulated a successful emergency landing on Sunday in a
> dramatic test of a crucial abort system on an unmanned astronaut capsule, a
> big step its mission to fly NASA astronauts for the first time as soon as
> this spring.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-exploration-
spacex/...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-exploration-
spacex/spacex-says-picture-perfect-test-paves-way-for-human-mission-
idUSKBN1ZI054)

~~~
blahblahblogger
Uh huh, that article is from 2017 and also says this:

> Nearly 45 years after NASA astronauts last embarked on a lunar mission,
> SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has announced his company's plans to send two private
> citizens on a flight around the moon in 2018.

~~~
robryan
The decided it wasn't worth the effort to do all the additional work to man
rate falcon heavy when it would probably be hardly used as they have shifted
focus to their bigger starship rocket.

------
NikolaeVarius
I am extremely pessimistic that the 2024 launch will happen.

The linked article gets to most of the main reasons, but man, could you
imagine the fallout of a Apollo 1 type incident leading to a loss of the
Artemis crew?

NASA, as a govt agency, slingshots between "safety above all else" and "launch
the bastard"

------
redahs
There's not much reason to settle the moon and mars prior to the remote
establishment of an independent food supply. Aggressive remote terraforming
through domes, mirrors, foreign microorganisms, explosives, and robots should
come first. Establishing automated synthetic systems on these rocks to mimic
what nature provides for free on Earth is the hard problem to be solving.
Without such systems already place, wages will be extremely low and no one
will want to live there.

~~~
nine_k
It may be easier to undertake a massive industrial operation on an unfamiliar
celestial body when there is a human around to oversee things first-hand and
troubleshoot issues when (not if) they arise.

First Lunar habitats are going to be mostly underground anyway, and nuclear-
powered. Not much is needed to terraform.

~~~
NikolaeVarius
I'm constantly "impressed" (not in a good way) at how good some people are at
saying completely unfounded statements as fact. There is literally no reason
to believe either premise of most bases being underground, nor is there to
believe nuclear power will be the dominant power source. We have a hard time
getting RTGs inside steel boxes capable of surviving disasters into orbit.

~~~
nine_k
You don't need the reactor working, or assembled, on the way to the
destination. Consider a pebble-bed design.

Digging underground is a reasonable way to get a massive layer of radiation
protection without carrying it with you. This is important when you are just
starting a long-term habitat. Later designs can of course be different.

~~~
NikolaeVarius
1) The issue isn't limited to the existence of the reactor. It is linked to
the public perception of anything nuclear being launched into the air. A
commercial/proven pebble-bed reactor doesn't even exist yet, and last I heard
they only started the first design in 2018.

Digging underground is reasonable if your only requirement is "block
radiation". Its less reasonable when requirements also include 'get the
digging machines into space', 'have it survive landing', and 'learn all the
new fun techniques required to dig into lunar regolith in a low g environment
with never before tested or used techniques and equipment'

~~~
m4rtink
There are already big suitable underground spaces in the form of lunar lava
tubes. Those should help massively with bootstrapping of any undrground lunar
colony.

------
fmakunbound
Would be better to spend that on robotic exploration. More probes to other
planets, the Sun, asteroids etc. and space telescopes. Much greater scientific
return on the dollar.

~~~
baq
if you put a scientist with a shovel and a lab kit on the surface of mars,
he'd do more science in a week than all the robots we've sent there to date.

~~~
ljf
But what would the cost to put a scientist on Mars for a week vs all the
robotic missions we've sent so far? Which of those missions does the human
mission require as a sunk cost?

------
btilly
NASA's best bet is to bite the bullet, scrap the SLS already, and help pay for
SpaceX's development.

SpaceX has a publicly announced rocket design that is capable of getting men
to the Moon and back. They are working on it for themselves. They are looking
for every source of funding that they can get. They _already_ are planning
suborbital flights this summer, and _already_ are looking for it to be human
rated by NASA.

Their announced timeline (which is probably ambitious but that is par for the
course) includes suborbital flights this summer, aiming for orbit by 2020,
going around the moon in 2022, going around the Moon with a human inside by
2023, and humans on the moon for 2024. They have a record of being ambitious,
but also a record of launches. And nobody on the planet in recent years has
developed more successful rockets or had more successful rockets than SpaceX.
More impressively, nobody has done it so cheaply.

So...why isn't Trump talking to Elon Musk yet?

~~~
HuShifang
There's a reason SLS is nicknamed the Senate Launch System -- Sen. Shelby of
Alabama rains fire down on any NASA official who comes anywhere near observing
that SpaceX could fulfill any objectives allocated to the SLS. It's as much a
pork barrel, to use the political lingo, as it is a rocket -- a steady source
of jobs for Alabama and a couple other Southern states for as long as it's in
development / production. And no one cares enough to take on Shelby and his
allies.

So, rational proposals like using SpaceX are sadly political non-starters at
the moment.

~~~
m4rtink
It really does seems rather un-democratical if just single (albeit voted)
representative wields so much power, apparently withou much the others can do
about it.

------
desc
This could be done, if everyone involved were willing to accept massive risk
to the lives of the astronauts (including the astronauts, obviously).

By which I mean, after hurriedly building rockets and testing them, finally
going ahead with a backup rocket _and crew_ to meet the deadline if the first
one blows up on the pad.

With the risk of the backup doing the same...

If they're simply gambling on technology and engineering these days 'being
faster', they're doomed to failure and I hope the individuals involved don't
wind up killing anyone.

------
chasd00
they should hold a press conference and get a reporter to ask about the
possibility of SpaceX getting to the moon. Then they respond laughing saying
"those amateurs? look, this is NASA, the big boys not some techies with a
website". Then just get some coffee and wait.

we'd be back on the moon by 2023.

~~~
gfodor
SpaceX will beat them there regardless. Not out of a difference in skills, but
NASA, let’s face it, is a political football. If Trump wants us to go to the
moon, half the country will argue we should never set foot there again. NASA
is basically gridlocked until the next administration, so SpaceX will get to
the moon and Mars first.

------
mLuby
The problem with creating custom spacecraft each time is it's expensive and
takes a while. It's done to get the most out of a single rocket launch (and
because it extracts the most money from the customer AKA Congress AKA
taxpayers).

CubeSats have been revolutionary for standardizing small spacecraft launch.
Next I want to see CubeLanders: standardized vehicles that land your payload
on the Moon.

Also I wish we did more on-orbit spacecraft assembly. A lot of the mass
limitations go away if you don't have to fit everything for a moon landing and
return onto one superheavy rocket. Just scrap the SLS and pay for a bunch of
smaller launches!

------
nickik
No its not. This is a notion that vice president has and NASA would like it.
But they will absolutly not get the money from congress. And even more so,
Congress only cares about blowing money up Boings ass and literally nothing
else.

So any architecture that would actually work and be reasonable quick to
deploy, will not be allowed. Congress with force NASA to use lots old
technology and force them to use Boing, LM, Northrop. This has just reasently
been something were congress published its 'plan' (ie, plan to force 10
billion to Boing and Lockeed).

------
Gene5ive
"The Apollo Program cost roughly $25.4 billion, unadjusted.

That makes the total Apollo Program cost $163 billion inflation adjusted to
2008. That's our total cost to go to the moon. Consider, however, that this
was for a project spanning from 1959 to beyond 1970 with six successful
missions."

This is not going to happen again unless China decides they want to get there
first but, hey, it never hurts to hope.

------
starpilot
2004:
[https://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/bush_vision.html](https://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/bush_vision.html)

"Our third goal," Bush said, "is to return to the moon by 2020, as the
launching point for missions beyond."

------
sidcool
It's ambitious but possible. And this time it will be permanent, so even more
preparation.

------
Causality1
We/our government is completely unwilling to invest the multi-trillion dollar
expense of creating a permanent moon colony. In light of that, I believe
arguments to the effect of "a moon base would make Mars easier" are baseless
since creating that type of installation on the moon would dwarf the cost of a
single shot to Mars and back. In light of that, our current moon efforts are
nothing but make-work doing things we've already done because Mars is actually
hard.

~~~
anchpop
Why would a permanent Moon base make Mars easier? Would the idea to build a
space elevator or manufacture rockets and fuel there?

~~~
WalterBright
Because most of the technology needed on Mars can be proven on the Moon, which
is far, far cheaper to reach and resupply.

Establishing a moon base and concentrating on making it self-sustaining is
critical to any successful space penetration by humanity.

~~~
netman21
Actually, establishing any self sustaining space colony would do. No need to
build it at the bottom of a gravity well.

~~~
WalterBright
Look at the difference in the size of rocket needed to lift two men to lunar
orbit vs earth orbit. It's really not a big deal to blast off from the moon.

Gravity has lots of advantages. For one thing, toilets work.

~~~
netman21
Gravity is easy to simulate with spin.

~~~
WalterBright
That's not so easy - the station has to be very large to do that, otherwise
people get dizzy with coriolis effects. With a large station comes the problem
of dropping something sharp/heavy and having it crash through the hull.

A large station means every gram of material has to be boosted up out of some
gravity well to it.

Whereas on the moon, the idea is to use the material already there.

~~~
netman21
I get all that. But keep in mind that nothing has ever been manufactured on
the Moon. Nothing. I love the idea of using Lunar regolith to make stuff. But
the first Moon bases will be shipped there. Just like the first space bases.
Baby steps.

------
ponytech
We were able to land on moon in 1969. How come are we not able to do it again
50 years later with all the technological progress?

~~~
sgillen
It’s really about the willpower and desire to have it happen (by which I
really mean budget...) .We have the technology to go but it doesn’t make any
sense to devote the resources it takes to make it happen. Yes it would take
years to put together a manned moon mission again, but I feel confident that
if for some reason the US absolutely needed to it could put men on the moon by
2024.

Certainly our knowledge of how to launch Saturn Vs has atrophied. But we do
still routinely launch things into space. We put lots of robots on Mars.

------
bradhe
I feel like I see this headline every few years with a slight bump to the
target year.

------
bluGill
I hope not. I like telling old people that nobody has been to the moon in my
lifetime. Last moon landing was December 1972, which puts bounds on my age and
what I consider old people...

~~~
netman21
Old person here. I was 13 in December 1972 when NASA talked abut a permanent
colony on the Moon by 1984. That drove me to graduate college with a BS in
aerospace engineering. I attended one of the top three universities for
aerospace. In order to study rockets I had to do it via "independent study"
because all of the classes had been removed from the curriculum by 1979.

------
rob74
> A moon landing in 2024 would mean a triumph during the last year of
> President Trump's second term, if he gets reelected in November.

Yeah, sounds just like Trump to rush this program (and endanger lives while
doing it) just so he can bask in its (hopeful) success...

------
areoform
Ignoring that such bullishness is expected of the current administration's
appointees, the devil's advocate can make a convincing case;

    
    
        Q. Can NASA send a crew to the Lunar Surface by 2024? And safely return them to Earth?
    

Yes, they can.

Sandworm laid out the mission cost in lives problem, but modern spaceflight
already has defined an acceptable margin for loss of crew in most missions - 1
in 270 as set by NASA for its Commercial Crew Transportation System (CCTS)
program. The historical mortality rate for astronauts remains at 3.2%, or a
Loss of Crew (LOC) rate of 4 in 125 across all vehicles and missions. Let us
assume that the political calculus changes and the 3.2% LOC rate becomes
acceptable. What's next?

What's next would be the design of a navigation system for translunar and
cislunar navigation - after Apollo, and the exploration of the solar system,
this has become a solved problem. We can run and code an AGC with inputs from
far better sensors on an Arduino. NASA's engineers can also automate
astrogation using Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) technology. There are also
highly efficient hydrogen upper stage engines available off the shelf for the
Orion and the lander.

Unlike Apollo, 2020's NASA can use a more modern approach of Earth-Orbit
Rendezvous (EOR) to construct the Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) stage with a
lander and lunar orbiter via separate launches. Low-Earth Orbit (LEO)
rendezvous and docking has become routine for us in this era. It's a maneuver
that's performed several times each year at the International Space Station.
LIDAR and automated docking has made an EOR safe and, virtually, error-free.

For this theoretical exercize, the vehicle could be automatically assembled in
an 100mi orbit. Crew could go up and rendezvous in the final lunar orbiter-
and-return component of the vehicle, or in a temporary (Dragon) capsule. The
EOR approach reduces the size of the launch vehicles required, making it
feasible for a COTS provider like SpaceX to provide a Falcon Heavy for this
purpose. It also allows for the re-use of current CCTS providers, by letting
crew proceed to the vehicle in a human-space-flight rated Dragon capsule (or a
mated CSM-equivalent). This system can be constructed via hardware that is
currently being flight-rated, or will be flight rated soon, making the SLS
redundant (in the short-term).

The SLS - for political reasons - could be repositioned as a long-term support
and heavy payload delivery vehicle as a part of an extended Space Transport
System, as originally envisioned for the Shuttle. SpaceX could provide the
reusable "shuttle" aspect. The SLS heavy-lifter capabilities. And a lunar
gateway as a refueling station. A deal that keeps all parties happy.

For the LEM component, NASA has the benefit of hindsight. The LEM designs
still exist, there are LEMs in storage and can be mapped in 3D to study them.
The data collected from 6 landings can be used to implement "in hindsight"
improvements, making it easier to take the LEM template from Apollo and
modernize it by reducing the electronics requirement and payload capacity.
NASA doesn't have to redesign everything from scratch, there is a design that
works. A design that was taken down to the surface with great uncertainty in
11 and 12, but worked for 14, 15, 16 and 17.

The most difficult aspect of the mission - the ascent stage - was studied
following Apollo, and can now be trivially simulated in computer games, such
as Kerbal Space Program. We can beg, borrow and steal the LEM design, and
simulate what the original planners could not, giving NASA a much faster turn-
around time this time around. It is conceivable that, if the payload
characteristics were more realistic, and the goals of staying on the surface
were trimmed down, a slightly up-scaled LEM and a down-scaled Altair/LSAM
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_(spacecraft)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_\(spacecraft\))
could be made in 2 years or less. Flown in 3. Making it possible for an
autonomous lunar landing in 4 and a surface jaunt in 4.5 years. However,
that's theory, which would require tremendous resources to achieve.

After a cislunar docking maneuver, our astronauts can come home riding a far
superior thermal protection systems than any contemporary material available
in the Apollo-era. The amount of research that has gone into this area is
extremely impressive, and gives our pioneers a safe journey home, where
they'll land and descend via parachutes - which are far more complicated, but
something that NASA, the organization, has more cultural experience with than
SpaceX or Boeing.

From this template, a mission is not only conceivable - it's doable. The only
question is _how much_.

How much is congress willing to give to make this a reality? And how far is
the Trump administration willing to go to seal the deal?

------
32gbsd
carrots and rabbit holes

------
thrower123
Elon Musk will land on the moon before NASA does. You can carve that
prediction in stone.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
Maybe but it likely won't be any time soon. [https://www.space.com/35876-how-
spacex-moon-flight-will-work...](https://www.space.com/35876-how-spacex-moon-
flight-will-work.html)

------
warlog
First time for everything.

------
Taniwha
uh-oh, time to take the secret sound stage in Arizona out of mothballs ....

~~~
mindcrime
_Okay, boss, this LTX-71 concealable mike is part of the same system that NASA
used when they faked the Apollo Moon landings. They had the astronauts
broadcast around the world from a sound stage at Norton Air Force Base in San
Bernadino, California. So it worked for them, shouldn 't give us too many
problems._

~~~
Mountain_Skies
I'm never sure when watching that movie if Dan Aykroyd is acting or just being
himself.

------
kunglao
First let's get the space suits and things that actually matter ready this
time eh? :p

------
hss
I would like to know the "why" behind landing on moon project. Don't we
already know enough about moon? Why waste money on it? Can't this money be
used in other space projects like Mars Landing or earth projects like fighting
poverty?

------
redis_mlc
Can somebody explain what the benefit of sending men to the moon is?

I mean science or engineering. I don't mean PR or funding visibility - you can
get that by sponsoring a NASCAR ride.

Both the Space Shuttle and ISS have been huge money sinks with no benefit. How
will another moon visit be any different?

~~~
sandis
> Both the Space Shuttle and ISS have been huge money sinks with no benefit.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_research_on_the_Int...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_research_on_the_International_Space_Station)

------
magicmouse
Absolutely no chance. NASA spent 20 years designing this new super rocket,
never even built a single one of them; so it only exists on paper, and when
you look closely at the design it is basically the Saturn 5 with some slight
modifications.

The reason so many engineers jumped ship from NASA and went to work for SpaceX
is that at least Elon is doing something with some alacrity. NASA is just a
bunch of paper shuffling time wasters at this point (especially at the top).
People forget that they subcontracted most of the Apollo project. Having civil
servants who never get fired is not the way to achieve excellence in any
product or service!

~~~
nickserv
SLS is repurposed Space Shuttle hardware, not related to Saturn.

------
netman21
Put me in the No Way! column. NASA budget for exploration including SLS is
about $3.5 billion. The Apollo mission cost $145 billion. Just not going to
happen. Best guess: double budget to $7 billion and spend that much every year
for 20 years and we will be back on the Moon.

~~~
bernardopires
You mean the entire Apollo program cost $145 billion. This is one mission to
the moon with much better technology and lower costs. You just can not compare
costs like this.

~~~
thombat
According to the per-year costing in [0], about 80% of the entire Apollo
program cost was accrued before the first moon landing. That suggests that
even just one mission will come with a substantial price ticket, even if no
hardware is built for subsequent missions.

[0]
[https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3737/1](https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3737/1)

~~~
avmich
Yes, but analogous 80% of the entire Artemis cost are also already spent and
the results are there. Engines, launchers, spacecrafts (Apollo analog maiden
LEO flight is expected this spring), electronics, power, communications...

~~~
thombat
Since the lander and gateway are yet to be built let alone tested (at least
Wikipedia still has them as a "concept") it seems too soon to say what the
final cost will be. By way of comparison the first full Apollo stack flight
was 20 months before Apollo 11, which puts it close to the 60%-spend point,
and that was some five years after the LM contract was placed.

------
scottlocklin
Here's a prediction of "back to the moon" by 2018 in 2005:

[https://www.space.com/1567-nasa-moon-plans-apollo-
steroids.h...](https://www.space.com/1567-nasa-moon-plans-apollo-
steroids.html)

Face it lads; we, as in the US, ain't going back. Country will fall apart
first. Humans might go back some day. The US won't.

