
SpaceX's Starship became NASA's ace in the hole to get to the moon by 2024 - bcaulfield
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/495913-how-spacexs-starship-became-nasas-ace-in-the-hole-to-get-to-the-moon-by
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mikenew
> The Starship is NASA’s “ace in the hole” for landing people on the moon by
> 2024 because in its original configuration it needs neither the Orion nor
> the Space Launch System to take people and cargo to and from the lunar
> surface.

The SLS situation is starting to get more and more awkward. The Falcon Heavy
_already_ has a lift capability that's about 2/3 of the SLS's Block 1 lift
capability, and it's a real, flying rocket that is about an order of magnitude
cheaper. And that's if it's flown expendable. If Starship starts flying then
NASA will be pouring money into developing a booster that is worse in every
way.

They made a bit of a gesture towards "let's use Orion but forget about the
booster for a while" [1], but then they realized they can't dock the Orion to
a Falcon Heavy. So now, all 3 of the contracts they've selected for getting to
the moon [2] are without SLS at all. Everyone knew SLS was more about jobs
than it was about building a good rocket, and now it's becoming glaringly
obvious. If SpaceX gets Starship flying I think we'll see SLS outright
cancelled.

1\. [https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/what-is-going-on-
wit...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/what-is-going-on-with-nasas-
space-launch-system-rocket/) 2\.
[https://arstechnica.com/?p=1672180](https://arstechnica.com/?p=1672180)

~~~
kirrent
It's hard to work out the actual cost of each SLS. Especially when you're
trying to take development costs into account. The lowest sensible estimate
I've seen is $3 billion, but if you amortise development costs over ten
launches it could be higher than $5 billion a launch. A Falcon Heavy in
expendable mode can be had for $150 million, and NASA paid no development
costs. So, between 20 and 35ish times more expensive (assuming nothing much
more goes wrong for SLS), and Falcon Heavy is already flying.

~~~
mr_toad
Just one of the engines costs almost as much as a Falcon Heavy launch.

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasa-will-pay-a-
stag...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasa-will-pay-a-
staggering-146-million-for-each-sls-rocket-engine/)

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jillesvangurp
I think increasingly, NASA (and by extension Boeing) needs to worry about
SpaceX doing this without them; which I'm sure would be majorly embarrassing.
It will sure make for some really awkward political debate about budgets in
the next years.

Starship is being designed for Mars trips. Landing on the moon should be well
within it's design parameters and could probably be considered as a nice
stepping stone for actually getting to Mars. Not to say it's going to be easy
but it involves the kind of problem solving they are in any case doing and it
seems they have a plan and a vehicle that looks like it is getting closer to
working as advertised with every prototype they do (every 6 or so weeks).

It's also intended to be reusable, mass produced, and cheap to operate and
reuse. And to top off the list of arguments, Elon Musk likes to pull stunts
like this.

~~~
elcomet
I think Space X money comes in large part from NASA, so I don't see how they
could do it without them.

~~~
CamperBob2
_I think Space X money comes in large part from NASA, so I don 't see how they
could do it without them._

Hence Starlink.

~~~
avmich
Also other commercial launches.

However, I believe SpaceX can do without NASA _launches_ (rockets or
spacecrafts), not without NASA _money_ - not yet.

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inamberclad
Ace in the hole is a strong word. Starship's progress is breakneck by the
standards of any aerospace program, but they've still got another booster
(Super Heavy) to develop. Then they'll need multiple launches to get the
vehicle into orbit and refueled before it can perform a TLI.

~~~
kiba
Superheavy is the easier project. Elon Musk is focusing on the hardest problem
first.

~~~
dint
I've seen a lot of people claim this. But it reminds me of what was said about
the Falcon Heavy before its development got underway. That rocket turned out
to be much more challenging than expected, despite being "just" an iteration
on Falcon 9.[1]

That said, I watch progress on Starship with interest and optimism.

[1][https://www.defensedaily.com/developing-falcon-heavy-
rocket-...](https://www.defensedaily.com/developing-falcon-heavy-rocket-
harder-expected-spacexs-musk-says/space/)

~~~
kiba
I am simply referring to Elon Musk's claim. He got experience in both rocketry
and automotive manufacturing. If he said it's hard, I believe him.

He could be wrong yes, but I don't know anything about making cars or build
rockets.

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martythemaniak
The Lunar Starship is pretty weird. If Orion is late, yes it can probably land
people on the moon from the Earth's surface. But it can't come back without
its heatshield. If you need it to come back with people as well, then it's no
longer the Lunar Starship, but just regular Starship. Even if SLS slips,
that's still probably quite a shift for all involved, unless SpaceX is already
doing Apollo 8 style missions in 2 years.

The answer might actually be "Delta Heavy". Orion can launch on Delta Heavy,
so if Lunar Starship can get people back to LEO, they can land using Orion.
But then, why not just use Starliner or Crew Dragon to get people to/from LEO,
then use Lunar Starhip LEO-Moon-LEO?

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xiphias2
Isn't a spaceship landing on the moon and coming back without human help the
real achievement of the 21st century? Has it happened before? It should be
harder to do it without humans than with humans in theory.

~~~
AgloeDreams
It's much easier to do it without people for a simple reason: Risk. You can do
it without concern of getting it back so you can push the limits til you tune
it out. If they had to land with people spaceX couldn't have ever figured out
self-landing rockets.

Imagine writing a program and you couldn't debug it fully because if it
crashes someone would die. Autonomous spacecraft always were the 'easy' part,
humans are the hard part.

~~~
xiphias2
In the Apollo program lots of people died for the cause, as they felt that
it's worth the risk. But it was still probably easier to do it with humans, as
they were able to do more compex tasks than computers.

In what you write, achieving the high safety of the mission itself seems the
achievement to me, and not putting humans on it (just like we have self
driving cars already, it was a great achievement, but now it's time to get
them working with high safety. After that putting a human in them is a trivial
step).

~~~
blackrock
The Apollo program was a stunt. You can say that it took a man to land on the
moon, because NASA wasn’t capable of building a robot to do it.

But the Russians were able to achieve this a few years later with their moon
rover. Although it was more of a dumb luck gravity drop, and hope you don’t
land on a cliff, and topple over and die.

Then, the Chinese were able to do it, with an even more sophisticated robot,
that was able to make automatic landing decisions like a human. This is the
ultimate moon lander.

Given the choice between humans vs. robots, I’d take a robot any day, to land
myself on the moon. You don’t have to worry about pesky humans making
emotional life or death decisions in the heat of the moment, and jeopardizing
your mission.

~~~
jbay808
The Russians soft-landed a robot on the moon before Apollo.

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

NASA also landed Surveyor.

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fallingfrog
2024?? I’ll eat my shorts if that actually happens.

~~~
bpodgursky
The beauty of the Starship design is that if it works, it makes landing and
taking off anywhere we want to go incredibly easy. You don't need a special
lander module, complex docking manouvers, to replace disposable heat-shields,
or anything. You land the Starship, and launch it again -- as is, no moving
parts.

Earth's atmosphere and gravity are much heavier and stronger than either the
moon, Mars, or even Mercury. If you have the regulatory controls to re-enter
and land on earth safely, it's trivial to do it on any of those destinations.

It's still an incredibly hard challenge, and not might not work. But if SpaceX
successfully reaches orbit and lands on earth with the Starship, landing on
the moon and coming back is going to be an absolute cakewalk.

~~~
marktangotango
It's the revenge of 1950's pop sci fi; gleaming (stainless steel), tail
landing rockets thundering around the solar system. A fully fueled Starship
can get anywhere in the solar system fast. Refueling in orbit is the key.

~~~
je42
the cool part is, eventhough it needs refueling in orbit it is still cheaper
by an order of magnitude than all the other options... some guy on youtube
calculated an upper estimate of the cost to about 2000$ per KG - if i remember
correctly.

