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SpaceX Now Claims They Might Return Humans to the Moon Even Before 2024
SpaceX Now Claims They Might Return Humans to The Moon Even Before 2024:
It's no secret that a new Space Race has been brewing over the past few years. This time, rather than being a competition between two federal space agencies, the race has more competitors and is more complicated.
In addition to more state competitors, there are also commercial space entities vying for positions and lucrative contracts. Add to that a network of public-private partnerships, and you have Space Race 2.0!
In particular, there has been quite the stir ever since NASA awarded the Artemis contract for the Human Landing System (HLS) to SpaceX. This resulted in legal challenges filed by Blue Origin and Dynetics (SpaceX's competitors), as well as a lawsuit and messy public relations campaign.
NASA has since removed the stop-work order and commenced payments to SpaceX, which recently indicated their HLS concept could be ready to go before the 2024 deadline.
As part of the NextSTEP – 2 Appendix H program, NASA selected SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Dynetics to develop the HLS that will take the Artemis III astronauts back to the lunar surface. Initially, NASA hoped to award contracts to two of these companies but ultimately went with SpaceX due to budget constraints and timetables.
In response, Blue Origin and Dynetics filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
SpaceX Thinks It Can Send Humans to the Moon Sooner Than 2024 - Universe Today
SpaceX Thinks it can Send Humans to the Moon Sooner Than 2024 - Universe Today adds:
The SpaceX HLS concept is a modified version of the Starship, which is currently undergoing rapid development (along with the Super Heavy booster) at SpaceX's launch facility near Boca Chica. According to the latest mockup (shown above) and previous statements by Musk, the HLS Starship will have a higher payload capacity since it will not require heat shields, flaps, and large gas thruster packs (all of which are needed for atmospheric reentry).
It also comes with wider landing legs, which future Starships may do away with entirely now that SpaceX is building the "Mechazilla" launch tower. In any case, concerns about potential delays and fulfilling the 2024 deadline go beyond the four months lost due to the GAO's stop order. In addition, there are reported issues with the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Units (xEMU) spacesuits, leading to fears that they won't be ready in time.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday August 23 2021, @11:48PM
As others have said, most of the orbital Starship work needs to be done before it makes sense to work on the changes for a lunar version, and there's much work still to do.
Also, there's not actually any *need* for a specialized lunar version - a normal Mars/interplanetary version with landing legs could get people to the moon's surface and back just fine. The Lunar Starship is only necessary to reduce the risk of blasting lunar debris into orbit with the engine backwash, and to meet whatever other mission requirements NASA has.
Finally, since going around the moon would likely still require orbital refueling, the only essential difference between going around the moon, and landing on it (in a non-Lunar Starship) is the number of refueling flights, and the need for the landing legs that have currently been scrapped from the initial orbital Starship design in favor of being caught out of the air by Mechzilla.
Of course, there's also risk to consider - they probably want to fly a lot of orbital flights before their first human passengers, to make sure they've got all the bugs worked out. And they probably want to perform a lot of landings before they land their person on the moon for the same reason. But most of those landings can probably be on Earth, where the conditions are much harsher. With just the last one or two being on the moon to see if they encounter any unexpected problems.