The word that best describes our present NASA lunar program is “delusional.”
Artemis, a program based on fantasy
Increasingly it appears everyone in Congress, the White House, and NASA, as well as our bankrupt mainstream press, has become utterly divorced from reality in talking about NASA’s Artemis lunar program. The claims are always absurd and never deal with the hard facts on the ground. Instead, it is always “Americans are piorneers! We are great at building things! We are going to beat China to the Moon!”
An interview of interim NASA administration (and Transportation secretary) Sean Duffy yesterday on the Sean Hannity Show made all these delusions very clear. First Hannity introduced Duffy by stating with bald-faced ignorance that “NASA has a brand-new program. It is called Artemis that aims to get astronauts back on the Moon in the next couple of years.”
I emphasize “brand-new” because anyone who has done even two seconds of research on the web will know that Artemis has existed now for more than a decade. Hannity illustrates his incompetence right off the bat.
Duffy then proceeds to insist that the next Artemis mission, dubbed Artemis-2, will fly in April 2026 and send four astronauts around the Moon, followed by the Artemis-3 manned landing one year later.
Being an incompetent member of the propaganda press, Hannity of course accepts these claims without question. He fails to question Duffy about the serious issues with the Orion heat shield, which experienced extensive unexpected damage that is still not understood during its return on the first Artemis mission in 2022.
Nor does either Duffy or Hannity mention the fact that for Artemis to land humans on the Moon SpaceX’s Starship not only has to become operational for human passengers, it needs an in-orbit refueling capability that does not yet exist. I have full confidence that SpaceX will eventually succeed in achieving these benchmarks, but I also doubt it will be able to do it by mid-2027, as claimed by Duffy.
Duffy and Hannity however are not alone in living in this dream world. Though Trump tried in his 2026 budget proposal to end funding for SLS and Orion after that Artemis-3 landing mission in 2027, Congress insisted on re-instating funding for two more SLS/Orion missions, Artemis-4 and Artemis-5. Somehow both Congress and Trump think that the 2027 Artemis-3 lunar landing is going to happen as scheduled, just because NASA says so. No matter that Congress has been funneling gobs of cash to SLS and Orion now for more than a decade with nothing real to show for it. No matter that NASA had promised Trump in 2017 it would land humans on the Moon by 2024. No matter that this landing date keeps getting pushed back endlessly. And no matter that the lunar landing version of Starship is almost certianly not going to be ready on time.
All in all, reality seems to have nothing to do with what Trump, Congress, and Duffy think about this entire program.
Damage to Orion’s heat shield caused during re-entry in 2022,
including “cavities resulting from the loss of large chunks”.
Nor has this issue been fixed.
Even the astronauts who plan to fly around the Moon on Artemis-2 April 2026 seem unconnected to reality. In extensive comments published today, they repeatedly dismissed any concerns about Orion’s heat shield issues. As noted by one of the astronauts for that mission, Christina Koch:
Koch echoed Glover’s confidence [another mission astronaut], adding that the “appropriate skepticism” is ultimately why the crew feels comfortable with the craft’s heat shield. “This should be characterized as a true American success story,” Hansen added. “I mean, this country now knows things about heat shield technology it didn’t know it didn’t know. And that’s like, that’s the art — that’s when you know you’re pushing the boundaries.”
The problem is that this is untrue. NASA at this point doesn’t understand why Orion’s heat shield experienced so much damage during the Artemis-1 first unmanned mission. All the agency has done is to change the flight profile for Artemis-2 in the hope this will minimize heat shield damage when the astronauts return from circling the Moon.
Furthermore, neither the reporter nor any of the astronauts thought it worthwhile to mention that they will be flying in an Orion capsule that will be using its environmental systems for the very first time. Those are the systems that provide them air to breathe. If SpaceX had tried to fly any NASA astronauts in a Dragon capsule with an untested environmental system you can be sure NASA would have screamed bloody murder.
The bottom line is that this entire program is predicated on lies and ignorant rationalizations. Worse, it is being fueled by the childish desire to get back to the Moon before China, a goal that is superficial at best and unimportant in the long run.
I have been arguing now since December 2024 that we should stop focusing blindly this fake goal of getting back to the Moon ahead of the Chinese, and instead build a robust competitive space industry that thrives in space, everywhere, beginning in low Earth orbit but quickly expanding outward as its capabilities grow. No single goal, such as planting a flag on the Moon, should dominate. Instead, the government should use NASA to encourage the development of a whole range of space capabilities, from fully reusable rockets to space stations to orbital tugs to robotic satellite repair to space junk removal.
Unfortunately, no one in government appears interested in what I have to say. Instead we have this delusional space program that not only is risking four lives on a questionable fling around the Moon in April 2026, it makes believe it can accomplish things it can’t, while wasting billions in taxpayer funds that we no longer have.
And I see nothing changing in the next two years. If anything, I expect this foolishness to continue, with added force. And I fear deeply that it is going to end up killing people in missions to the Moon that are simply not ready.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
And Elon time isn’t delusional?
Orion didn’t look like this inside at least
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXMasterrace/comments/1i2hxta/another_day_another_leaked_starship_internal_view/
Robert wrote: “ The claims are always absurd and never deal with the hard facts on the ground. Instead, it is always ‘Americans are piorneers! We are great at building things! We are going to beat China to the Moon!’”
These aren’t absurd claims. American’s are pioneers. We are great at building things, although sometimes they don’t work right the thirteenth time. And we already have Beat China to the Moon.™
Well, I guess it is absurd to declare that we will beat them to the Moon again, having already done it.
“NASA has a brand-new program. It is called Artemis that aims to get astronauts back on the Moon in the next couple of years.”
Yeah, I noticed that, too. Getting back to the Moon is two decades old, under Bush, 43. The name “Artemis” is more than half a decade old, under Trump, 47. The only thing new about the Moon mission is … um … the Transportation Secretary is in charge of it.
“ He fails to question Duffy about the serious issues with the Orion heat shield, which experienced extensive unexpected damage that is still not understood during its return on the first Artemis mission in 2022.”
Gee. Safety is overrated. Just because you don’t understand the problem does not mean that the kluged solution you came up with won’t work. I mean, there’s a real chance it could work. You just don’t know that it will work, and if the astronauts are willing to risk it, who are we to question them? After all, it isn’t as though any space projects were cancelled because of lost crews. Well, other than Apollo and the Space Shuttle — NASA’s two most recent manned spacecraft — and the X-15, the only American spacecraft that killed crews. Just because NASA’s track record is less than stellar does not mean we should not put enormous faith in their abilities. Fortunately, NASA learned to take along a lifeboat, which saved the Apollo 13 crew, so NASA has one of those for Artemis 2, just in case, right? Right?
“Hansen added. ‘I mean, this country now knows things about heat shield technology it didn’t know it didn’t know. And that’s like, that’s the art — that’s when you know you’re pushing the boundaries.’”
Well, actually, this country now knows that it doesn’t know things about heat shield technology that it previously didn’t know it didn’t know. That is different than what Astronaut Hansen said.
And the boundaries should be pushed during research and development, not during normal manned operations. That is when you should know, not ‘not know.’
“Koch echoed Glover’s confidence [another mission astronaut], adding that the ‘appropriate skepticism’ is ultimately why the crew feels comfortable with the craft’s heat shield. ‘This should be characterized as a true American success story,’”
“Appropriate skepticism” does not mean confidence. It means a lack of confidence, and deservedly so. Skepticism puts Artemis and Orion in the development phase, not the operational phase. Your project should inspire confidence, not skepticism, when it is operational.
I will wait for actual success before characterizing it as a success story. Right now, it is just a scary story, a little like the movie Marooned.
“Furthermore, neither the reporter nor any of the astronauts thought it worthwhile to mention that they will be flying in an Orion capsule that will be using its environmental systems for the very first time. Those are the systems that provide them air to breathe.”
And warmth and cooling. I would also include food, water, and waste disposal.
It isn’t as though an oxygen tank might explode during the voyage. When has that ever happened before? What could possibly go wrong, and how dare it go wrong when the astronauts are the farthest away from home and safety?
“If SpaceX had tried to fly any NASA astronauts in a Dragon capsule with an untested environmental system you can be sure NASA would have screamed bloody murder.”
In fact, NASA had required that both Dragon and Starliner be flown unmanned to the ISS, part of which was to test the environmental system in orbit.
“I have been arguing now since December 2024 that we should stop focusing blindly this fake goal of getting back to the Moon ahead of the Chinese, and instead build a robust competitive space industry that thrives in space, everywhere, beginning in low Earth orbit but quickly expanding outward as its capabilities grow.”
Thriving industry in space has never been NASA’s forte. They are at their best when they are puttering around making it look like progress, with experiments galore but no products or services to We the People who pay the bills at NASA.
NASA hasn’t even done anything about cleaning space junk out of orbit. The Europeans have and Japan has, at least in the testing of various concepts, but NASA only deorbits a small portion of its active satellites at the end of their lives, and lets other dead satellites reenter randomly to fall onto Australia.
Besides, as we have seen. when commercial space becomes dominant, NASA becomes less relevant, and then it has to be downsized, and we have seen that NASA employees are reluctant to leave their cushy government jobs to join or found commercial-space companies.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/government-employees-the-most-spoiled-and-privileged-individuals-on-earth/
“And I fear deeply that it is going to end up killing people in missions to the Moon that are simply not ready.”
Taking these kinds of risks are tolerable when something important is at stake. Apollo was risky, but we did it anyway because it was an important battle in the Cold War. Even then, Apollo 13 scared us out of there final missions to the Moon.
Risk explains why we allowed government to make Apollo a top-down project, but we never should have let the rest of space be strictly government run. With Apollo, we were trying to prove that free-market capitalism beats out marxism, but we let a marxist philosophy rule the mission. Capitalism was able to provide the enormous funding for the project, but we should also have been allowed to expand our economic system into space operations.
Instead, we had let government be in charge of space operations, and all we got was what government wanted. This American return to the Moon is once again not a free-market capitalist project but another marxist one. If there are good things to be gained by putting a permanent manned presence on the Moon, then free-market capitalists would be the best people to do it. They will find efficiencies that make sense, and they will make a profit doing it. Profit is the reward for finding efficiencies.
Commercial space companies are doing a fine job of replacing the ISS, and for far less expense than the ISS was to build. Efficiencies are already found.
NASA should be changing its mission from one of doing all the space Operations for Americans into a mission similar to the NACA, helping Americans remain the best in aerospace.
I say this as a card carrying Republican and a Trump voter/supporter: Hannity is a tool and a fool. He will buff and shine this turd as needed until….
I say this as a card carrying Republican, Trump voter/supporter: Hannity is nothing more than a tool and a fool. He will buff and polish this turd until…
Fox is under orders to not say anything good about Musk or his rockets anyway:)
Sad to say, Fox News really hasn’t been worth watching since Tucker Carlson was shown the door, and Mr. Duffy’s interview on the Hannity show merely confirms this. Indeed, looking at Fox “news” these days is akin to watching Boxer the Horse (before being sent to the glue factory like Lou Dobbs*) clopping with his hooves — Trump goood, clop, clop; Democrats baaad, clop, clop.
*Lou Dobbs, who was also shoved into the Fox memory hole, actually was an early advocate of the commercialization of space. (from Google) “Mr Dobbs has expressed strong interest and belief in the potential of space as a business frontier. He co-authored the book “Space: The Next Business Frontier,” which explores the financial opportunities and technological advancements in space exploration. He also served as CEO of Space.com, a website dedicated to space news and information.” Just to note, Mr. Dobbs passed away last
year. He is missed.
Now Mr. Hannity appears to be their “expert” on all things related to space, and short of hiring Robert to restore some kind of credibility to their coverage, it appears that they are as happy as pigs in “stuff” promoting such invincible ignorance. (Long before Fox came on the scene, Newton Minnow presciently described broadcasts like theirs as part of a “vast wasteland,” and it is hard to disagree.
PS — Having said all of this, I suppose that it should be noted that Fox *did* play a major role in promoting the candidacy of Donald Trump and opposing the social agenda of the Jacobin Democrats, and for this they are owed an enormous debt of gratitude. Having helped to save the country — and, again, thanks for this — it would be nice if Fox could somehow revert to being an actual credible news organization, but that is probably asking for too much. Trump good, Ds bad, clop, clop.
“All the agency has done is to change the flight profile for Artemis-2”
Where is their actual in-flight testing prior to risking human lives? Because that worked out so well with Starliner… If they made a similar basic capsule, with heat shield options (maybe work with SpaceX and what they’ve already found out by testing) and the enviromental system with sensors so they can monitor it, that they could put on a far less expensive Falcon 9, where at least it wouldn’t break the bank to actually do a few launches to test it, and maybe they could finally get answers instead of guesses. What they save on the rockets might make a test capsule affordable and, if it survives, reusable for additional testing. Not like they actually need to go as far as the moon to test the heat shield/environment.
At least Musk has been trying to test heat shields and, now that he’s not distracted by politics, he probably has a better chance to find an answer. Especially if NASA and the FAA stop dragging out approvals for testing. Have to wonder how much of SpaceX explanations they even fully understand? It’s not like SpaceX doesn’t want to find as many possible issues as they can and fully resolve them in order to advance. That’s why they keep testing instead of going with the flight looked mostly good with only ‘minor’ thruster/heat shield issues (that we don’t understand) that probably won’t be a problem when we add people. NASA astronauts (bless them) may accept the risks but that’s no excuse to avoid trying to fix known issues before sending them up.
The term “The Vastness of Space” can accurately describe the inside of that pompous, egomaniacal Hannity’s gigantic head. Hannity and NASA have a lot in common, namely NASA wastes billions of dollars due to incompetence while millions of dollars are wasted on paying Hannity to be a blathering idiot on Fox. Both need to go away.
Mr. Zimmerman said no one in Gov’t listens to what he says – as Bill Clinton once said “I feel your pain”! I’m a simple, common sense man. I don’t have the patience to reward ignorance nor stupidity with my time. I surely don’t think that we should be wasting BILLION$ on “getting back to the moon”! What’s up there that’s so important? We already found out way back in 1969 that it wasn’t Green Cheese!! We should be working on a Space Program to PROTECT Our Nation! The Russians and Chinese have so-called “killer satellites to be used to knock out OURS. Surely our NASA people know that (if it’s true – sure it is) and working on counter measures!
As far as the failed heat shields – why not ask MR. MUSK?? If you’re going to spend BILLION$ at least do it INTELLIGENTLY!
This article is correct. Artemis has been delusional from the start. Starship is taking a long time to get going, but that’s just the start. I’m still not clear on how Starship lands on the surface of the moon for the first time. Once they are able to create a nice, level, debris-free landing field, things will be pretty easy, but Starship doesn’t seem to be built to land on an uneven surface. It’s also not clear to me how cargo gets unloaded.
If they would just step aside and let SpaceX design the mission profile, then I think a lot of the weirdness might go away. Starship could be the transport and a dedicated lunar lander could be created to do the elevator duty up and down. Cargo could be containerized for easy transshipment. And so on. NASA is great at exploration, but a lousy bus company.
He fails to question Duffy about the serious issues with the Orion heat shield
Well, TECHNICALLY, landing folks on the moon doesn’t require much in the way of heat shields. It’s just getting them home again (alive) that is the problem. And, hey, if you can successfully get them there, you can always leave them for 6 months or so while Elon works on a rescue, right?
NASA’s repeatedly failed, so-called Safety community and the Astronaut community have bought off on flying that self-described kluge.
These are the same parties responsible for the death of at least six Astronauts.
It’s amazing that NASA hasn’t learned a darn thing since it’s glory days.
Things are now so politicized at NASA that the truth doesn’t even matter anymore, it’s how well you have your ass covered.
They need to test that HS again before anyone flies on it.
These people make me continued to be ashamed that I devoted half of my professional career to the manned flight program.
It has been corrupted to the core.
BLSinSC
August 1, 2025 at 5:35 am
What’s up there that’s so important?
The high ground. If you want a place from which to protect orbital infrastructure, Luna is one good place to do so.
No, it’s not ideal, but there’s very little “ideal” in space. It gives you other options than orbital ones or Earth-based ones.
I miss Hugh Downs and Jack Anderson as well.
Rereading Robert’s commentary, it appears that NASA has not so much a “new” program but rather a chaotic and incoherent one*. And as he observes, we would probably be better off in the long run without such “national space projects” and just let the private sector do its thing in a productive and cost effective fashion. The problem is, we appear to be stuck with some version of the Artemis program, but nobody seems to know how to make sure that the thing actually functions as intended. That is, nobody appears to know how all of the pieces are supposed to fit together or even if they will work. What kind of a “program” is that, and — tellingly — nobody seems to have been tasked to make any sense of it. (Given such agency incoherence, could we forgive the press for being at least a *little* confused?)
*As Robert also suggests, any well-informed journalist would have zeroed in on exactly this aspect with Mr. Duffy and held his feet to the fire.
Worse, so long as President Trump and Elon Musk remain at political loggerheads, you have what are essentially two antagonistic cultures — with very different goals — trying to work together to sort out an ill-defined mission that doesn’t even have a clearly stated objective other than “beating China to the moon.” Boys and girls, can you say “FUBAR”?
Again, over the long term, the Artemis mission might not even matter that much, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could at least get something useful in return for the vast amount of money that is being spent on it? Very simply, what is Artemis supposed to “do,” and what will be needed to make it work? And is it too much to ask that our government come up with some coherent answers?
Since Artemis scheduling seems delusional, what are the possibilities that it’s a head fake operation to get China to focus on the Moon instead of other more lucrative, effective, useful space projects?
The USA already beat China and everyone else to the moon. Stop letting others dictate the narrative.
DUH.
What parts of the Artemis program could be used for military purposes/
That is the only reason i can think of for even keeping the program running. Sort of like the shuttle, it never would have been what it eventually became without the military.
Would a lunar radar system help America to defend its allies? How about a space based weapon system?
Could an orbit be used to always keep the station in sight of Earth?
There must be some reason to keep this obvious boondoggle running.
One thing Artemis accomplishes is that it keeps the large NASA science and engineering contingent employed at NASA. If you canceled Artemis tomorrow NASA would become a shell of it’s former self. A few directorates would survive but NASA would be mostly gone.
If this is one of the reasons they are keeping Artemis, then they are just kicking the can down the road. Or hoping they come up with something for NASA to do after the last extended Artemis flights.
Reality Based Government?
One more comment and I’ll quit [Thanks from all!], but this aspect of things really worries me.
Going back to Robert’s opening statement,
“Increasingly it appears everyone in Congress, the White House, and NASA, as well as our bankrupt mainstream press, has become utterly divorced from reality in talking about NASA’s Artemis lunar program. The claims are always absurd and never deal with the hard facts on the ground.” … “The bottom line is that this entire program is predicated on lies and ignorant rationalizations.”
While a lot of the enthusiasm for putting a new administration in Washington was grounded in the hope of realigning our government’s relationship with reality*, in this case the hoped for transformation has not come to pass. Instead, it is though DOGE, for all the good that it has done, somehow missed looking at the Artemis program and — worse — Musk’s approach to making things work has now been abandoned on political grounds and it’s back to normal at the Never A Straight Answer agency. Clearly this is *not* what most of us voted for, but what can be done at this point?
Thanks to the profound ignorance so carefully cultivated by most of our media, Robert and like minded people are indeed so far outside the current Overton Window** that it is hard to know what to do first. How do you tell the public that what is happening at NASA is even a problem? Again, perhaps it was never in the cards that Mr. Musk would be able to influence the Trump Administration in a lasting way, but he at least has the resources to publicize the problem with SLS / Artemis if he wishes to. Will his new political party have a “Reality in Space” plank and could he produce effective TV spots about this?
The problem is, for any representative government to be effective, it must be pretty much “reality based” as well as focused on the actual needs and desires of the electorate. Just how divorced a government can become from reality remains an open question***, but after our close brush with the worst and the witless in the Biden Administration, do we really want to find out?
*Recall that the prior administration believed that men could become women and participate in sports, that burning and looting were peaceful protest (but speaking at PTA meetings or praying outside abortion clinics was not), and that people without either innate ability or even normal mental acuity were — if marginalized / woke enough — perfectly capable of making the most important decisions for our nation’s future. On top of that, they also believed that the more that you *hated* this country and *despised* most of the people who live here, the better suited you were to lead it.
**”NASA goood; Reality baaad. Clop, clop.
***As our senior Senator from Florida recently opined, *no controls on insider trading by members of Congress are needed* — they, as he put it, “need to make money.” Senator Cruz would probably agree that NASA *also* needs to make money and have lots of redundant employees as well. “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.” Sigh.
It’s not right to say NASA still doesn’t know what caused the heat shield problems. They’ve done a lot of testing and they have a theory consistent with those results. Based on that theory they think they have a solution – flying a different reentry profile. The problem is that they are going to test their theory with four astronauts aboard. This is exactly their plan for the ECLSS system. They are going to test it for the first time in space with people aboard. Both these problems have the same root cause. The system is so expensive to build and operate that they can’t conduct a proper flight test program.
Politically, the vast expense is a feature, not a bug. Artemis isn’t a head fake to misdirect the Chinese, and it’s not a secret military program. Instead, it’s all about dollars in districts. They do want to “beat the Chinese” though. Otherwise they could add some extra test flights to keep the dollars flowing for years longer, but they won’t. Geopolitically, the issue is what nation *today* can demonstrate its power, wealth and technical prowess by landing people on the moon. That’s what matters in terms of soft power. The Chinese want to demonstrate that they have arrived and are now a true superpower. The US wants to prove that we still are.
I”l just say that Duffy went on Hannity, rather than an outlet of a journalist or podcaster who actually knows something about space policy and technology, for a reason.
Nasa could keep the industry going by lowering goals and making easier programs.
The whole Artemis program is flawed. The concept is wrong all the way around.
Yes. Every word of this.
Jeff Wright,
Mr. Zimmerman acknowledges Elon Time. He’s just saying, here, that NASA has its own version. Not, I think, a very controversial assertion.
“Orion didn’t look like this inside at least”
That is what we call damning with faint praise. Just how close Orion got to looking that way on the inside is still a matter of some dispute. No one, at least, is going to be aboard the next Starship that flies – something one cannot say – regrettably – about Orion should current plans hold.
I miss Hugh Downs and Jack Anderson too. Heck, I even miss Drew Pearson, Anderson’s predecessor on the inside-the-beltway beat. I also miss my late parents. That tends to be the case with dead people – those still living who overlapped them in life tend to miss them when they’re gone. I’ve lived long enough that I’ve accumulated quite a list of such “misses.” It continues to grow. Someday, I’ll be an entry on a few such lists myself. So it goes.
BLSinSC & pzatchok (3rd graf only),
Why go back to the Moon? There are certain resources known to be there, and others suspected to be there, that would be useful in furthering general human ability to be a spacefaring species. Getting some ground truth about the extent, or even the existence, of such resources is a good enough reason to go back.
Why should humans pursue becoming a spacefaring species? Because at least a small percentage of humanity wants to. And that small percentage is now capable of paying its own way into the Infinite Black regardless of the parochial stupidities of the US gov’t. Nobody has to go who doesn’t want to. But those who don’t shouldn’t fool themselves that there is any sort of superior virtue in being planetary agoraphobes.
Finally, yes the Russkies and the PRC do have weapons that threaten the US – in space as well as inside the atmosphere. None of that is any concern of NASA. NASA is not a military organization. The US military organization whose problems these are is the Space Force. Right now, it’s busy coming up with a general architecture for Golden Dome, a program of the Trump administration aiming to repair decades of policy idiocy and delinquency anent protecting the US national territory and our assets in space.
Rob,
You’re quite correct that NASA is a lousy bus company. Fortunately, its days of pretending to be one are nearly over.
The Moon-landing version of Starship will be equipped with self-leveling legs. Given that the vehicle will do its final approach under the power of a ring of landing thrusters mounted quite high up on the hull and angled outward a bit, the vehicle can hover for a few seconds in order for the legs to all find solid purchase on Luna Firma at whatever degree of extension is required of each. If no such solid stance proves possible at an initial touchdown site, the landing thrusters allow the vehicle to rise, translate a bit as needed, and try the footing in an alternate location.
Cargo – and the crew – will descend to the surface on an elevator whose guide rails are attached to the hull.
GWB & pzatchok,
The Moon, sadly, is not a reasonable place from which to defend Earth-orbital assets. Travel time each way is roughly four days. Tough to defend against Earth-launched or co-orbital threats with that kind of time lag. The Moon is, indeed, very high ground but location is more important than altitude. Mt. McKinley is very high ground too, but not much of a place from which to defend, say, San Diego from threats arising in, say, Tijauna.
Saville,
The PRC has had the Moon in mind for quite awhile. Given the parlous state of its finances, though, it’s far from a certainty it will even be able to afford to try in 2028 – or whatever the aspirational date now is.
You are quite correct that a major – really the major – priority of both NASA and its legacy contractors has been to, in the words of the late Tom Heppenheimer, “keep the parking lots full.”
pzatchok,
“Nasa could keep the industry going by lowering goals and making easier programs.”
One could make a good case that that is exactly what much of Artemis is – and what the pre-Artemis SLS-Orion program and the Constellation program before that were.
Richard M,
Ditto, as usual.
I have mentioned my opinion elsewhere, and got pretty much shot down, but I think it is still valid. Starship has not completed a successful test flight yet. There has not been a test of in orbit fuel transfer. There has not been a test of starships ability to achieve lunar orbit. There has not been a test for starship to safely land on the lunar surface ( which I think is probably the hardest task ) , there has not been a test of starship to return from the moon and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and land safely on terra firma.
While I don’t doubt that SpaceX is probably the best candidate to achieve this ridiculously complicated task, it is worth remembering that it took a big chunk of the US budget for the Apollo project to achieve the same goal with sticking tape and chewing gum. SpaceX are trying to land the biggest crewed craft ever made on a satellite that is well known for being very difficult to land upon.
I genuinely hope I am wrong, but I’m not holding my breath to see a crewed landing in my lifetime.
Lee S,
You wrote: “I have mentioned my opinion elsewhere, and got pretty much shot down, but I think it is still valid. Starship has not completed a successful test flight yet.”
There may be a reason to have been shot down on this comment. You may be thinking of test flights as operational flights. Most of the test flights have completed most or all of the stated goals. Even what most people consider to be failures are actually successful learning experiences, the goal of development testing. When we do development testing, we often push limits in order to learn all we can about the thing we are developing (the damage to the pad on the first flight test is an example). Failure really is an option, and in many cases it is mandatory. Only through failure do you learn that you finally went too far, and you can often determine where the limit is. Knowing the limit allows us to back off the stress we put on our new system so that safety is achieved.
You lament that many tests have not been done, but they are still in the future. A major objective is to get the basic function of Starship operational: payload delivery. Even vehicle reusability is secondary to this basic function. Although there is some concentration on the secondary (interplanetary travel, which requires retanking), tertiary (reusability), and quaternary functions (rapid turnaround), the primary function allows Starship to become operational for productive revenue service.
“While I don’t doubt that SpaceX is probably the best candidate to achieve this ridiculously complicated task, it is worth remembering that it took a big chunk of the US budget for the Apollo project to achieve the same goal with sticking tape and chewing gum.”
Current candidate, probably, at least for cargo. Blue Moon may be more efficient in several ways, especially since we don’t need to transport 100 people at a time to the Moon. Depending upon the amount of cargo needed at the Moon’s surface, Blue Moon may also be more efficient. Unfortunately, Blue Origin bid the development cost as more than SpaceX bid for its (differential) development cost. Starship will be mostly designed for purposes other than Moon landings, and that development cost is covered by SpaceX, and the Moon landing portion of development should correctly come from the Artemis contract. Blue Moon is being developed primarily for use with Artemis, so virtually all its development costs should correctly come from the Artemis contract. These reasons are why the Blue Moon proposal was more expensive that the Starship proposal, and Blue Moon did not get the second award, because the Artemis Human Landing System budget was too small for both awards.
The first time to do something often costs more, because more must be developed. Starship builds upon Apollo’s lessons and upon the Space Shuttle’s lessons. This allows SpaceX to spend its resources on advancing the state of the art in dramatically different ways that no one thought to do, because they obviously cannot be done. Getting Apollo to the Moon was a miracle, which is why NASA was idolized for decades by many people. Landing booster stages for reuse, flipping Starship, and catching Super Heavy are all miracles, which is why SpaceX is now idolized by so many people.
“SpaceX are trying to land the biggest crewed craft ever made on a satellite that is well known for being very difficult to land upon.”
Amen. Everyone is counting on Starship to work right on the first test landing. Otherwise Artemis will be delayed.
Many people speak of SpaceX and Starship as the be-all and end-all of space travel, but like the Falcon 9, Starship development is leaving much inefficiency for other companies to find and correct. SpaceX is focusing on narrow end goals, and its deviations tend to be in service of those end goals. Asking SpaceX to solve other problems may seem the right thing to do, after all they are awesome miracle workers, but the reality is that there are other miracle workers in other areas, and SpaceX would be distracted to perform work that is not in service of their end goals. Landing on the Moon solves some of the challenges of landing on Mars, so the Moon landing is not a distraction but a benefit.
@Edward, of course I’m not considering test flights as operational flights! After over 4 decades of deep interest in all things space, even my left leaning brain has a decent grasp on how these things develop, and the difference between SpaceXs and NASAs approach to development.
I’m sure if I mentioned black is black someone here would give me a lecture as to why I am wrong. Nothing in your reply to my comment addresses the points I made regarding the massive hurdles that need to be jumped to achieve a successful “humans to the moon and back” mission.
Quote “Everyone is counting on Starship to work right on the first test landing. Otherwise Artemis will be delayed.”
Artemis will be delayed. SpaceXs “Try, fail, learn, advance ” development mantra while very effective is going to be very costly and time consuming once they get anywhere close to the moon. The recent failure of several unmanned landers show that it is no walk in the park to even soft land a relatively small robotic probe…. The challenges of landing a Starship are orders of magnitude greater.
This is not going to happen in our lifetimes… I’m looking forward to Europa clipper arriving, and holding my fingers crossed I can last long enough to see Dragonfly buzz around Titan, but humans on the moon delivered with the current architecture ain’t happening anytime soon. If only lunar gateway was still on the table…..
( That last sentence was satire… I mean, would it not be a good idea to add a whole new layer of complexity to an already ridiculously complex project? )
Lee S,
You wrote: “I’m sure if I mentioned black is black someone here would give me a lecture as to why I am wrong. Nothing in your reply to my comment addresses the points I made regarding the massive hurdles that need to be jumped to achieve a successful ‘humans to the moon and back’ mission.”
I addressed the comments that I quoted, which did not include the points you wanted addressed. I didn’t realize you expected those specific points addressed. In fact, you have complained that I address too much of your comments, resulting in long comments that you find hard to read. What a tricky thing it is to find the right balance.
Your impatience with the progress of Starship’s development testing suggests to me that you expect a faster development program. I did not think that you believe the next steps to be massive hurdles. To me, they are merely future steps in the development program.
“Artemis will be delayed. SpaceXs ‘Try, fail, learn, advance’ development mantra while very effective is going to be very costly and time consuming once they get anywhere close to the moon. The recent failure of several unmanned landers show that it is no walk in the park to even soft land a relatively small robotic probe…. The challenges of landing a Starship are orders of magnitude greater.”
“Try, fail, learn, advance” is not new to SpaceX. It is an old mantra that has been part of development engineering since the early days. Any time you do something new, something that advances the state of the art, this is the method used. You may think that your revolutionary design works, but it must be tested to make sure. Where it fails, you learn what you did wrong, fix it, and advance to the next test to make sure your fix fixed it. The more complicated, the more difficult it is to get it right the first time.
As we have seen with Starship, this iteration process is not linear. You think you fixed a problem, but it turns out you either didn’t or it led to another problem. And sometimes you are mostly right the first time, such as catching a Huge booster with chopsticks.
“This is not going to happen in our lifetimes…”
I think you are incorrect. We already know that propellants can be transferred in orbit. The new thing here is quantity and fluid type. SpaceX already uses a quick disconnect design on the ground, so it should be able to be adapted for orbital use.
We already know that landing on the Moon is possible, and many lessons were learned by the recent landers that can be applied to Starship as well. The real difference is the higher center of mass compared to the stance of the landing feet. Careful planning and design can keep this from being the problem it may seem.
We know that Starships can be manufactured fairly quickly, and that the next test unit can be about a month behind the previous unit, so testing around the Moon may be a monthly occurrence.
We also know that the lunar Starship is not going to come back to Earth to land. It will not have the thermal tiles, and it will not have enough propellants to return from the lunar surface to low Earth orbit, there just isn’t the delta-v available in Starship. This is why the lunar Gateway space station still exists in the Artemis plan as a transfer way station for crews to disembark Orion and to board Blue Moon or Starship.
I just got back from dinner with a friend who was discussing his engineering class, in which the students design and usually build devices in the study of assistive technology. We once called it handicap.
His students are also impatient, because they have to go through an entire design and development project in one semester, at the end of which they must present their design to the class and any interested community members (other students and instructors, interested disabled people, or onlookers like me). The iterative process takes time, and this is something that the students don’t really have.
Just like these students, SpaceX works fast. Unlike these students, SpaceX rigorously tests its design (the students don’t really have time for perfection). These tests are where the failures that must be fixed are found, where the lessons are learned to be applied the next iteration. A good video representation of this process, designing something that had never been designed before, is the fifth episode of the 1998 series From the Earth to the Moon, produced by Tom Hanks and others.
Engineers live to solve problems, but all our wives and girlfriends (and friends from Sweden) really wanted was to vent at us, which means we end up driving them mad when we comment with ideas.
Right now, Starship is working out a large number of new design concepts, sometimes providing proof of concept, and other times working on significant advancements. The latter is what the block 2 (version 2) of Starship is working out. Block 3 will have its own problems to be solved, too.
I understand your skepticism, and the challenges are nontrivial, but having worked on a couple of small development projects, I have confidence that the solutions are not as far away as you seem to think.
NASA also still believes that Starship can be ready for a manned landing on the Moon in the next couple of years. With three launch mounts, once the Starships become reusable we should see weekly launches, and maybe multiple launches per week. These launches should eventually give the confidence that Starship is ready for manned operations and eventually give us confidence that it is ready for manned lunar operations.
On the other had, Lee, if all you are going to do is complain that I express opinions that differ from yours, I can stop replying to you. But then, who would addresses the points you make?
Lee S,
There is no argument short of actual accomplishments that will dent your certitude so I won’t bother trying to make one. My hope, though, is that both of us are still above ground a year hence and can revisit this topic in light of what I expect SpaceX to have accomplished by then. To your very good health, sir.
@Edward…. Thank you sir! An educated and educational post answering many of the points I raised. Much appreciated!
I remain very skeptical of anything close to the timelines given so far… I consider the basic engineering challenges to be far more complex than they seem… As I said, the landing of such a huge lump of steel safely on an uneven surface seems to me the biggest challenge ( especially given the center of mass problem ).
All this said, there is no doubt that SpaceX has some of the best, youngest and hungriest engineers on the planet , and if anyone can, they can. They have proved the impossible possible before.
I hope my skepticism is misplaced, and just an inevitable bi-product of getting older and more grumpy!
@Edward and Dick Eagleson
As I said, I genuinely hope I am wrong.. ( I don’t say that very often! ) , I was just over a year old when Apollo 17 returned to earth, it would be nice to see humans on the moon in our lifetimes, along with results from the upcoming missions on their way.
We disagree on many subjects, but I think we can agree we love space exploration .. the exploration of the cosmos sometimes gets political, but it is one of the few things that truly unites us. ( Even the Chinese are releasing their scientific results and samples to the international community! And I’m no fan of china!) Science sometimes trumps politics.
Here’s to a hopefully bright future gentlemen..
Cheers!
Hello Edward —
A favor, if you would. You wrote: “We also know that the lunar Starship is not going to come back to Earth to land. It will not have the thermal tiles, and it will not have enough propellants to return from the lunar surface to low Earth orbit, there just isn’t the delta-v available in Starship. This is why the lunar Gateway space station still exists in the Artemis plan as a transfer way station for crews to disembark Orion and to board Blue Moon or Starship.”
The critical phrase here would appear to be “there just isn’t the delta-v available in Starship.” This would explain a lot, but what would it take — what kind of parameters — would be needed to return from the surface of the moon to low earth orbit? (In the Bad Old Days,
NASA and its contractors figured out how to do this with Apollo using only a single launch vehicle, the Saturn V. Now it will take a *fleet* of large rockets — and vast amounts of fuel stored in low earth orbit — to do the same thing?) Yes, I guess that Apollo WAS a miracle in more ways than one.)
Going back to Robert’s original comments, the worst part of all of this is that nobody seems to have bothered to do the work of figuring out what kind of technology *would* make for for an optimal approach to going back to the moon using today’s more advanced technology. Instead, we have “OK, here’s some (politically approved) hardware with lots of pieces that don’t fit together. Let’s kluge something together that kinda, sorta works (or not) and call it a ‘Beat the Chinese to the Moon program.'” Before that, it was called “Let’s put some women and people of color on the moon.”
Going back to the 1950s, it seems to me that such work was done by people who were at least as bright as their counterparts of today, and their conclusion was that you needed three very different, but well integrated systems to make going to the moon and back feasible on a sustainable and cost effective basis.
First, launch the crew, fuel, and supplies to a station in low earth orbit using a dedicated vehicle like the Crew and Cargo Dragons. (Why, BTW, could the ISS, or something like it *not* be used for such a transfer station?) This craft — or one of its siblings — remains docked at the space station awaiting the return of its crew when they are done on the moon. SpaceX would seem to be more than capable of doing all of this. Likewise, all of the companies vying to create next generation orbital habitats.
Second, transfer everything that needs to go to the moon into into a “space taxi” (designed solely for use in trans lunar space) that does nothing but shuttle back and forth to the moon. (Since you have already done the “hard part” — cf, the “halfway to anywhere” concept — of reaching low earth and lunar orbits, how much delta-v is actually required for this kind of transfer? Would this also require “lots” of fuel?) Based on the rise of the private sector in space, it appears that any number of companies could come up with such a single purpose space taxi like this. Is anyone already working on one of these?
Third, transfer to the lunar lander-ascent vehicle (this would seem to be a reworked version of Starship or Blue Moon), parked in lunar orbit at something like the Lunar Gateway, complete the mission on the lunar surface and return to lunar orbit. (The lunar descent-ascent vehicle is reused as well.) Then, take the space taxi back to LEO and transfer back into the earth assent-reentry vehicle for the ride home.
Just for fun — please — if the 1950s scenario won’t work, what *would* be a good way to go back to the moon? (And — a bonus question — would Ted Cruz ever agree to it and vote for it in the Senate?)
Lee S,
You wrote: “An educated and educational post answering many of the points I raised. Much appreciated!”
You are welcome.
“I remain very skeptical of anything close to the timelines given so far… I consider the basic engineering challenges to be far more complex than they seem… As I said, the landing of such a huge lump of steel safely on an uneven surface seems to me the biggest challenge ( especially given the center of mass problem ).”
Skepticism of the timeline is warranted, as most companies are optimistic when they create their schedules. Even NASA is on “optimism time.” SpaceX uses “Musk time,” which is much closer to “aggressive.” These aggressive schedules seem to help the company beat even the optimistic schedules. They do not wait for the next flight to incorporate the lessons learned but fly a now-obsolete test article in order to learn more lessons faster. Many companies would wait for the Raptor 3 engines to be available, but SpaceX continues with the Raptor 2 because it learns so many lessons from its Block 2 Starship.
I think I have figured out a major difference between us as to why you are more pessimistic than I am. I have worked on some small development projects and have seen how unexpected problems manifest themselves and how they are fixed. Catastrophic failure (the thing broke) can turn out to have a simple solution. Problems pile up and it looks impossible, and then a test goes right, and you have to figure out what went right and why. In my entire career, I only had a two-week period in which I dreaded driving in to work, then suddenly everything worked and I was fine again.
“All this said, there is no doubt that SpaceX has some of the best, youngest and hungriest engineers on the planet , and if anyone can, they can. They have proved the impossible possible before.”
The secret to doing the impossible is to figure out which part is impossible, and then bypass it — find a different way to do it, a way that is not impossible. It is kind of obvious after the fact, when you cannot remember why anyone thought the task or design was impossible in the first place. I am still in disbelief that a 100 ton Starship at the top of its arc could flip 90° in five or six seconds — without tumbling — in order to do it’s bellyflop dive. That absolutely had to have been special effects or computer graphic imagery. On the other hand, of course you can catch a rocket with chopsticks. Who ever thought you couldn’t?
When we finally figure out how to travel faster than the speed of light, we will do so by figuring out how to turn bradyons (which always move slower than light) into tachyons without passing through the luxon particle type (which always move at the speed of light). It seems impossible today, but sometime in the future people will think we were primitive for not being able to do the obvious.
Milt,
You asked: “ what would it take — what kind of parameters — would be needed to return from the surface of the moon to low earth orbit? ”
Apollo achieved this miracle by leaving behind a great amount of mass, both on the surface and in lunar orbit. The third stage (the upper stage) was sometimes left in solar orbit, too.
The best solution would be to have a source of propellants in order to refill the propellant tanks on the surface of the Moon.
Starship may be oversized for the task of landing and returning on one tank (well, technically two tanks, one fuel, one oxidizer). Starship is designed for inexpensively moving a lot of mass to low Earth orbit (LEO), then to another planet, where Starship will be refilled for the return trip.
Here is a delta-v “map” of the solar system: http://i.imgur.com/SqdzxzF.png
It makes some assumptions that can be bypassed, for travel using somewhat lower delta-v, but it gives nice ballpark numbers. It gives an idea of what it might take to move around the solar system. The delta-v for a manned Starship would be fairly close to adding the numbers, but an unmanned spacecraft could (and some do) bypass some portion of the numbers by going out near the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 2 (L2) and then following a contour line to a not-so-low Lunar orbit, taking much more time but saving some amount of propellant. Enough to get back to LEO? Maybe not.
“Going back to the 1950s …”
I imagine that a more efficient method of travel to the Moon is to use a Shuttle to a LEO space station, as in 2001: A Space Odyssey, another shuttle to a space station in lunar orbit, as in Gateway, saving the mass of heat shields and landing gear, and a third shuttle to the lunar surface. Once again, refilling tanks will be necessary at the stations along the way, so maybe this is not as efficient as I think.
Of course, in the 1950s, every science fiction fan knew that to get to the Moon and back you got on a rocket that looked like a V2, rode it to the Moon and landed it on its tail (or side, if it was the Rocketship Galileo), climbed down the ladder (or airstairs, if it was the Rocketship Galileo), fought Moon monster, got back into the V2, and came back in the same vehicle you left in. I like that method best, except for the Moon monster part.
@Edward…. I think you are completely wrong… The moon monster will be the best part! Especially if it creeps abroad the return craft! Think of the movie rights!
I will still argue that the SpaceX model has/is working wonders in LEO, they have completely changed the space industry, so much for the better in so many ways… But once leaving Earth’s orbit everything becomes a helluva lot more expensive, and the “break it and learn” model of development becomes a lot less sustainable.
The Apollo program succeeded very much due to a lot of maths ( done with pen and slide rule … Which I have never used, but I believe it was a 60’s calculator ;-) on the ground. And a huge budget, a very huge budget. The Apollo 1 disaster taught NASA a lot, and they learned, but that was still on earth, the shuttle disasters taught NASA a lot , which they seem to be forgetting with the Orion capsule…
I hope that the SpaceX guys are going thru all the maths regarding getting a soft landing on the moon… But even the logistics of just getting there are ridiculously complicated, never mind the actual landing and launch. The “break it and learn” ( I can’t remember the English term ) system of development just won’t work once beyond LEO…
Will SpaceX succeed?… No doubt. Given time. will China beat them? Probably, with a boots on the ground mission. Will we see a permanent base on the moon in our lifetimes… Unfortunately I remain very skeptical.
Also @Edward,
I had an extremely interesting conversation via email with a space show guest a decade or 2 ago … His name is Greg M…. Something .. unfortunately the guest search doesn’t work so well on my mobile device, but is a NASA engineer. He was very open to discussion on his blue sky work regarding the possibility of faster than light travel by jumping over the light speed barrier straight into the hyperluminal… Highly recommend, and it’s great to know that there are folk researching this stuff!
Lee S,
I am not as keen on monster movies, so I would prefer to skip the Moon monster and go straight to the technical/interpersonal/political thriller plot. Isaac Asimov didn’t like the Frankenstein plot, so he invented the Three Laws of Robotics to avoid that problem, then he had to come up with a reasonable conflict to resolve. At some point he figured out that the best conflict was the collision of priorities between the Three Law hierarchy, such as when an order is weak and the danger to the robot is high, as in his story Speedy.
The beauty of the reduced cost of launch is that getting out of LEO is also less expensive, so it is more sustainable to test at the Moon. And if you think testing at the Moon is unsustainable, try testing at Mars. Six months between lessons-learned is worse than six days. That is the beauty of SpaceX receiving a Human Landing System contract; they can do Mars landing tests on the Moon.
Will China beat them? Well, if landing on the Moon is so difficult, then the Chinese will have similar landing problems, too. But landing back on the Moon is only one objective to achieve in the expansion into space. The only reason we would have to Beat the Chinese™ is if property could be claimed on the Moon, and we feared China would grab it before us. If we get there “first,” would we claim ownership of some portion of the Moon, or of the whole Moon?
I wish I had invented the “bypass the impossible part” of engineering impossible goals. I would have patented it and made a fortune.