Blue Origin will ‘move heaven and Earth’ to help NASA reach the Moon faster, CEO says
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As you say, SpaceX has been operating Starship with two prior major revisions of their engine. The only thing stopping Blue Origin doing the same would be some sort of contract rider that stipulated Vulcan must launch before New Glenn. If it did, shame on Blue Origin for accepting that contract. None of that deal ever made sense. If New Glenn is successful, ULA goes out of business. Why would Blue Origin intentionally cripple themselves for a customer, that is a direct competitor, when they didn't even need the money?
Just a thought that I don't think I've seen before... I wonder if ULA demanded Blue drop the three-stage version. The two-stage has limited high energy performance, because it's a two-stage rocket with a heavy second stage. It has modest performance to the Moon, and terrible past that. Dropping the three-stage version leaves ULA a niche for high orbit missions, even if New Glenn fulfills all its goals and becomes the second NSSL provider for low energy space.
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New Shepard has landed, and BE-3 has relit to do so. BE-3U has relit in orbit. The landing occurs on a completely different, not-yet-fielded BE-7 anyway. The only reason BE-4 would need to relight is because Blue couldn't maintain the cadence to run a multi-launch lunar mission if they don't get the boosters back.
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Blue is already losing money on this. Their first bid was $10B, and the contract they actually got was less than half that.
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This is only for commercial launches, they have a NASA contract, so not commercial. Well, it's commercial with NASA of course, but certainly enough not commercial to give them a waiver... It's all about waivers today. "You're OK, you're not. You fuck off".
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It doesn't have to be in daylight for observability. It's dictated by orbital mechanics. They did their first launch in the dark.
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Apollo astronauts explored more of the moon in 7 days than all the Martian rovers have explored of mars in 40 years. Insight, which cost about a billion in today’s dollars, gave up trying to dig a hole after a year and only two inches.
Humans are far more flexible than current robots and likely to stay that way for many decades. Astronauts on mars will find the best samples, run tests immediately on them in their labs, then run new tests based on the results of those tests and/or get new samples based on them, rinse and repeat. They will drive rovers long distances directly to all the most important locations without earth based ground control required to approve every couple foot movements.
Starship has the potential to land large groups of humans on mars at reasonable costs. Those humans will hyperaccelerate our Martian research timelines.
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We need to go back to the moon to better understand what resources might be there, and how it was formed, which also tells us how earth and solar system formed.
But based on what we know now is are no valuable resources on the moon. The only water is under in polar rocks at less than 4% of mass, metals are in regolith like aluminum, but all of them require massive resources to extract.
And the moon will never have any military value, as launching attacks from 3 days away is futile.
The moon has enough scientific value still to justify a long term exploration base, but otherwise it’s an expensive diversion to exploring the rest of the solar system.
It’s not even a good test environment for any other destinations because it’s environment is so radically different from every other potential destination that everything from suits to ships to habitats has to be radically different.
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There's two problems with robotic missions, and that's power/mass budget and teleoperation delay. Apollo missions all launched on a massive Saturn V, while the largest Mars mission launched on a lowly Atlas V, and not even the largest one. What would a robotic mission on the Moon be capable of if you gave it the 8t downmass of the LEM? Perseverance's RTG outputs a sustained ~100W electrical, while the LEM had 76kWh for missions between 22-75hrs. What would a Mars rover be capable of if you had a crew in orbit with near real-time operations, rather than half an hour delay?
You're focusing on what a crew could do, but ignoring what robotic missions could do given the same budget.
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Yeah like you said, orbital mechanics. A parabolic trajectory (near escape speed), will deflect through 53.5 deg as it climbs from Earth's gravity wall. For maximum payload, they'd are launching due east and coast before completing their departure burn. Being late autumn in the northern hemisphere and launching out of the cape I think they are going to have to coast around 120 deg of longitude to the ecliptic. So total angle from launch is near 180 deg out from there intended direction. Meaning that if they'd like to head away from the sun with that low inclination parking orbit, they basically need to launch on the middle of the day.
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A single crewed mission might do a dozen times more science than a robotic probe, but that doesn’t mean much when the crewed mission is hundreds of times more expensive.
Instead of spending tens of billions of dollars on sending a handful of astronauts to the moon for flags and footprints missions, the various countries involved in the Artemis program ought to be developing the technology needed to make a permanent manned moon base cost close to the same amount as a permanent South Pole base.
Whether that happens before or after China does its own flags and footprints moon mission would be irrelevant. Unfortunately, what will almost certainly actually happen is that huge amounts of money will get wasted on trying to beat the Chinese, and then the whole program will have to be scrapped as a cost cutting measure without ever accomplishing more than the Apollo program did.
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If you believe those things, it is a slightly sad comment on your grasp of where our time line is actually going. Hint. Buck Rogers is only in our past futures, not any current ones. Reality bites.
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I believe Tesla Elon is the same as SpaceX Musk.
But for the sake of discussion, I’ll put aside FSD, Hyperloop & his robot army and only focus on Elon’s plans with SpaceX and the company’s predictions of when certain things would happen.
** In September 2017 Musk laid out plans for using a SpaceX rocket for high-speed transport on earth. For instance launching passengers from New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes or as Elon put it; “Most of what people consider to be long-distance trips would be completed in less than half an hour,”.
OK, when would this happen according to SpaceX. The timeline was given by Gwynne Shotwell (SpaceX President) in a TED conference in April 2018. She stated that within ten years passengers will be able to board a SpaceX rocket to go from New York City to Shanghai in 39 minutes.
** The deadline for the prediction then is 2028, which is 3 years away. We’ll see if by that time SpaceX is able to have a human rated Starship, with functioning spaceports in New York and Shanghai, which have passed all environmental regulations and are ready for airline style passenger service, by 2028.
https://apnews.com/article/b620caf90ee4487f8e9bc9b4466188c2
https://www.inverse.com/article/43604-spacex-replace-planes-for-rockets
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That's what the Artemis program is trying to do, at least in choosing HLS for the lander. Just some ballpark numbers, a one-way cargo mission using the Apollo architecture could drop about 20t onto the surface, for about $5B, or $250K/kg. CLIPS missions have been $100M-$150M for 100-150kg to the surface. Even if we're being generous and including the provided system bus as part of the payload, that's still at best on par with Apollo. Chandrayaan-3 was $75M, and probably put ~500kg of useful hardware on the surface, so maybe half the cost of Apollo hardware... still $150K/kg.
Starship is hard to put real numbers on, but in order to get itself and integral habitat from the surface back to NRHO, it's going to need >>100t of propellant. A one-way mission would be capable of well in excess of 100t, and Artemis IV was sold for $1.15B. That's under $10K/kg, more than an order of magnitude reduction from previous industry rates. It's also still two orders of magnitude off the cost of a mission to the South Pole, and you're not going to make up that difference without one of these "free energy" schemes coming true.
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This.
Even a '28 launch by SLS/Orion is only likely if everything goes nearly perfectly on Artemis II.
If they discover any more issues with Orion (likely), we're looking at another 3.5 years between launches, based on their prior efforts between Artemis I and Artemis II. So late 2029 or 2030.
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There's no reason to consider that, because robotic exploration will never be given the same budget as HSF. The people paying the bills (Congress and the US taxpayers, in this case) simply don't care about robotic exploration. They barely even care about human exploration, but thats a lot more than they care about robotic exploration.
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No Buck Rogers, no bucks...
That's still a very different argument than Invariant's "humans are so much more flexible than robots".
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They are doing that so a moronic, narcissistic, career criminal can lie about more of his "fantastic achievements", which no one has seen before.
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And, even more absurd, he continues saying them long after the target date has passed, like he never said that before. And the goldfish brained and memory press does not often even notice.
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Unlikely, if he did that, how could he buy a second matching $500M sailboat? How can you be so cruel to poor billionaires? /S
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He didn't buy a second sailboat, but he did buy a diesel support vessel to follow around his sailboat because a schooner isn't really compatible with a helipad.
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Perhaps this is a stupid question.
Starship's main tanks are made of steel.
Would it be possible to cool them (obviously, removing heat via conduction), and (to a great extent) prevent heat from reaching the fuel and LOX?
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So the Failed Hyperloop One (670MPH underground vacuum tunnel transportation) is just "delayed". And FSD that has been stuck at SAE Level 2 for about a decade and will never reach SAE Level 5, with Musk's moronic "vision only" approach, is merely delayed? The Vegas Loop with 73 miles of underground tunnels travelled by FSD Tesla taxis that crash so often that now every one has a manual driver and walking on the surface is often faster, and at his tunneling rate the start to finish time is near two centuries, is also merely delayed? How about the impossible "summon your tesla from NY to LA, and it will drive autonomously the entire distance (about 2,500 miles) by itself", excepting that no Tesla has a 2,500-mile range on a single charge, and never will, and with 34 mile disengagements in mixed driving, they are orders of magnitude away from achieving 2,500 miles and the SAE FSD Level 5 700,000 miles cumulative, without any disengaging? And the impossible HyperTunnel undersea vacuum tunnel with 4,000MPH speeds between NY and London, but Tesla will never build it, etc. And then there is his counterfactual and impossible claim the Tesla uses "direct photon counting" to overcome bright lights and sunlight glare from blinding the cameras. That is literally impossible. These will all happen this time, for sure. Your definition of "delayed" must also include infinite time. Do you also consume ketamine by the barrel?
And don't forget his infamous COVID-19 prediction that failed so badly: In March 19, 2020, Musk claimed that there would be “probably close to zero new cases” of COVID-19 in the U.S. “by the end of April.” In reality, the U.S. was recording about 20,000 new cases each day by the end of April 2020. "But that didn’t stop Musk from turning into a reactionary crank relatively early into the pandemic. “FREE AMERICA NOW,” Musk tweeted when there were 58,355 deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19." Over 1M US citizens died from COVID-19. There are many more examples, but Elongelicals, like MAGA, have severe reading and comprehension difficulties.
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I didn't claim that he bought a second matching sailboat, I asked "how could he buy a second matching $500M sailboat?" in response to what if he was taxed. The diesel 250-foot support vessel named Abeona that follows his "green" (which also has diesel engines) sailboat has a rear-deck helipad, hangar for a helicopter, and space for various water toys and tenders. "This support ship enhances the yacht's capabilities for long voyages and provides additional accommodations for guests and crew."
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theradicalmoderate
Ars Tribunus Militum
I don't think there's a lot that SpaceX can do to accelerate their schedule, because there's no way to keep refueling off the critical both.
Blue, on the other hand, can eliminate refueling from their architecture, as long as they're willing to land only 2 crew (which is all that's required for Artemis III).
I suspect that most of the BM1 tankage and thrust structure can be converted into a mini-Cislunar Transporter pretty easily. As long as the mini-CT is less than 45t to LEO and can be encapsulated in the fairing,¹ you can launch one to NRHO and one to LLO, both via ballistic lunar transfer. The BM1.5, also sized to exactly 45t, also makes its way to NRHO, via BLT.
When the Orion arrives in NRHO, the crew transfers to the BM1.5, mini-CT #1 docks with it, and then pushes the BM1.5 to sub-LLO, where it detaches and crashes. There's then enough prop in the BM1.5 to finish the landing, do the surface mission, and ascend back to LLO. Mini-CT #2 then docks with it and pushes it back to NRHO.
This is right at the hairy edge of doable. It requires that the crew module for the BM1.5 be 3t or less (which is plenty for 2 people, terrible for 4). It also requires that New Glenn's 45t to LEO is a for-real number (although I suspect they would happily expend GS1's if necessary). Finally, it requires that all three vehicles have really, really good boiloff control, so cryocooling is definitely on the critical path.
Do I think Blue can beat SpaceX? Probably not. But I wouldn't mind SpaceX having somebody breathing down their necks.
The downside for Blue is that it'll postpone the real refuelable BM2 and CT for a bit, while they build the throwaway BM1.5 and mini-CT. But there's an awful lot of tech that gets developed in the throwaway version.
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¹Note that the plan of record CT is supposed to be stacked on top of the Glenn Stage 2, presumably with some kind of dummy fairing on the nose. That would make it an 8m-diameter stage, while the mini-CT couldn't be more than about 6.8m in diameter and still fit in the fairing. However, since it's restricted to 45t wet mass, it'll fit just fine. It does require re-designing the tankage later on, though.
Blue, on the other hand, can eliminate refueling from their architecture, as long as they're willing to land only 2 crew (which is all that's required for Artemis III).
I suspect that most of the BM1 tankage and thrust structure can be converted into a mini-Cislunar Transporter pretty easily. As long as the mini-CT is less than 45t to LEO and can be encapsulated in the fairing,¹ you can launch one to NRHO and one to LLO, both via ballistic lunar transfer. The BM1.5, also sized to exactly 45t, also makes its way to NRHO, via BLT.
When the Orion arrives in NRHO, the crew transfers to the BM1.5, mini-CT #1 docks with it, and then pushes the BM1.5 to sub-LLO, where it detaches and crashes. There's then enough prop in the BM1.5 to finish the landing, do the surface mission, and ascend back to LLO. Mini-CT #2 then docks with it and pushes it back to NRHO.
This is right at the hairy edge of doable. It requires that the crew module for the BM1.5 be 3t or less (which is plenty for 2 people, terrible for 4). It also requires that New Glenn's 45t to LEO is a for-real number (although I suspect they would happily expend GS1's if necessary). Finally, it requires that all three vehicles have really, really good boiloff control, so cryocooling is definitely on the critical path.
Do I think Blue can beat SpaceX? Probably not. But I wouldn't mind SpaceX having somebody breathing down their necks.
The downside for Blue is that it'll postpone the real refuelable BM2 and CT for a bit, while they build the throwaway BM1.5 and mini-CT. But there's an awful lot of tech that gets developed in the throwaway version.
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¹Note that the plan of record CT is supposed to be stacked on top of the Glenn Stage 2, presumably with some kind of dummy fairing on the nose. That would make it an 8m-diameter stage, while the mini-CT couldn't be more than about 6.8m in diameter and still fit in the fairing. However, since it's restricted to 45t wet mass, it'll fit just fine. It does require re-designing the tankage later on, though.
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The vast majority of humans alive today weren't alive at a time when the US put humans on the moon. Nobody cares what your ancestors did if you aren't also actively doing the same things or better. If China beats the US back to the moon, other countries will be much more likely to partner with China for moon and space exploration deals rather than the US. That's what is at stake--the space economy.
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No it is not what Artemis is trying to do. The fact that SpaceX was already funding Starship for 90% of what was needed for the HLS meant that a bit of sustainability slipped through by accident, but absolutely none of the other parts needed for a sustainable lunar presence are being funded at all.
That one way cargo mission you talk about? Zero funding towards such a lander from NASA. A sustainable Starship based replacement for SLS/Orion? Absolutely no funding for that ever. A reusable version of HLS? Spacesuits for long term use? Or emergency suits for use in a pressurized rover? Rovers? Lunar habitat modules? Life support and power systems for them? No plans to fund any of those, it’s much more important to spend money on a second lander that can’t be part of any sustainable lunar presence. And then to spend more again to hurry up the flags and footprints so they are over and done with before any other sustainable components could have time to be developed.
No matter what lip service towards sustainability NASA bureaucrats may occasionally pay, the real point of Artemis has always been to give lots of money to the usual suspects for as little work as can be gotten away with. If/when Americans eventually return to the moon, it will be done at great cost with no plausible roadmap for a near term sustainable presence, and then the whole program will be cancelled, likely with far fewer landings than Apollo managed because of that cost.
Only once the Artemis program is dead and buried, and the grave containing the ashes of the idea of the shuttle derived vehicle has been comprehensively salted, only then will there be any chance to start over with a new program to eventually try and return to the moon in a sustainable way.
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All the progress we have made recently has been against the current
- When Griffin realised that Constellation was too expensive and rare to resupply the ISS, COTS was born. With strict instructions to keep it to "Tang and T-Shirts". Manned spaceflight was out-of-lane.
- When Constellation spiralled into expensive quagmire, manned flight was required. Despite efforts to award it to one of the Proper Contractors, we got Dragon. But non-LEO was strictly out-of-lane.
- The above created the impetus to get other companies pushing forward. Blue is the most noteworthy, but we have a number of interesting smaller contenders.
- Vulcan came about from the Russia issue combined with cost pressure.
- Despite heavy lift being out-of-lane, we had F9H (remember how F9H "didn't exists"??) and now New Glenn targeting cheaper large lift. And Starship going for super heavy lift.
All of these go against The Plan.
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Humans get more mass budget than rovers. That's why they get more science done.
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Not sure I quite understand the "top of the tank" part, could you perhaps elaborate?
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Humans get more mass budget because they get more dollar budget. And that ain't gonna change anytime soon.
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Assuming the center of mass of the vehicle is somewhere around the common bulkhead, anything below that center of mass would be dragged back by the hull and fall downwards, while anything above that center of mass would be pushed forwards and flung outwards.
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