PLEASE NASA do not use the chant of sustainability to mask hubris or ill-advised choices. Since no human has landed on the moon in 53 years, maybe land on a flatter Mare to start and work to the more challenging in terrain and lighting polar regions. Test out various base construction and sustainment options. If we are truly on a sustainable path, 3 or 4 incremental steps to permanent basing does not seem ill advised.

There’s apparently been some talk of refilling Blue Moon Mk. 1 on the Moon with hydrolox derived from notional lunar “water” at the poles. I’m dubious much that could be fairly characterized as “water” or “ice” will actually be found so that seems a bet not likely to pay off.

When the subject of notional lunar “water” comes up, I am always remined of that scene in Casablanca where Louis asks Rick why he came to Casablanca in the first place.

Rick: “The waters. I came for the waters.”

Louis: “But this is a desert.”

Rick: “I was misinformed.”

Jester Naybor,

At least some them are certainly Senators. More are probably OldSpace execs looking to con the newbie into one last score before SpaceX wipes them out entirely.

Jeff Wright,

They both exist. Unless you are of the opinion that Falcon 9 is “vaporware.” If that’s the case, your brain is broken.

Edward,

Yeah, it’s been a bit over seven years since Elon had his stainless steel moment of revelation on the Road to Damascus. A long, strange journey it has been with more weirditude quite likely yet to come. Helps keep me going in my dotage.

SpaceX has also tested propellant transfer from one tank to another on a previous flight last year. That they have not done a repeat of that test on that scale suggests that the test showed no improvement was needed at that scale. They may be fairly close to being able to re-tank their propellants on orbit, once they can get their very large Starships to successfully mate or dock to each other on orbit.

It is turning into quite an exciting decade, just not in the way I had expected seven years ago.
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GeorgeC,
There are many advantages to performing a thermal vacuum test in a chamber on the ground. For one, you have much more control over what is heated and what is cooled, which can allow for a test of the thermal model of your spacecraft. More than just the real-world conditions can be tested and verified. This kind of flexibility is priceless.

Q; I wonder which is cheaper, running the NASA fully manned thermal vacuum chamber, or using Falcoln 9 to put your device into LEO with the sun giving free heating every 90 minutes?

A: the one that exists

I think those persons are known by the name “Senators”.

And the “grudge” they have against Musk is that he threatens to break the iron rice bowls of their Big Aerospace patrons.

What are people supposed to do with it? It has to at least be moved off the pad. It lands, and is immediately a problem for people who would probably rather spend energy surviving on the Moon; not hauling some useless junk around. Disassembly and re-use? Why, when a more capable vehicle can deliver stuff already knocked-down. It is of course possible I am unaware of a return capability, because otherwise, I’m amazed that anyone would think this is good idea.

The bottom line is it’s likely that we’ll not only get to the Moon at least a tad faster than might otherwise have been the case, but we will also be getting an SLS-Orion replacement at no cost to the taxpayers. I’m delighted with this outcome, but I suspect Duffy is going to be seriously surprised by it. Ah well, many a man has been led astray by bad companions.

And the Mk. 1 seems to be quite a bit less capable. Even allowing for the complete lack of any crew hab in the current design, nothing I have been able to find about the Mk. 1 indicates that it has any capability to leave the lunar surface and get back to lunar orbit – particularly the quite demanding NRHO. It seems to be designed as strictly a one-way freight hauler.

With a notional 3-tonne maximum payload, the question then becomes can Blue come up with some kind of crew module capable of launching even a single crew member from the lunar surface to NRHO within a mass budget of 3 tonnes? I am, to say the least, dubious this can be done, from scratch, by Blue in time for a 2028, or even a 2029, Earth departure.

Increasing the size and propellant load of the Mk. 1 to allow it, in its entirety – plus a crew hab payload – to get from the lunar surface back to NRHO would increase the total system mass to a point where a single New Glenn launch might not be adequate to get it to NRHO in the first place. That is because the notional enlarged Mk. 1 would have to be launched with all needed propellant already aboard. The larger Mk. 2 is supposed to be launched dry and prop-loaded in LEO by a separately-launched propellant bowser. Unless this tech can also be ready for use by an upsized Mk. 1 in 2028-9, I don’t see how any of this can possibly work to the most likely required schedule.

There is also the matter of Blue needing to suffer no significant setbacks in the quest for a cobbled-together crew lander over the next three or four years. Right now, for example, even the early 2026 planned launch and lunar landing-only test of the as-currently-designed Mk. 1 lander is dependent upon Blue successfully catching and reusing the New Glenn booster slated to launch the Escapade Mars mission next month. If that booster is lost or returns in poor enough shape to require lengthy refurb, the notional schedule for delivery of a manned upgrade of the Mk. 1 lander lurches sharply rightward as the production cadence for New Glenn boosters is still glacial.

I don’t, frankly, have any confidence that Blue could power through even a single significant setback to such a schedule. SpaceX suffered four consecutive significant Starship failures over a six-month period and still got in two successful launches in the back half of this year and might yet manage a third. But that’s SpaceX. Is Blue that light on its feet? Even half that light? I don’t think so.

And Elon will be busily cheese-paring his own HLS schedule to whatever degree proves possible as Blue scrambles. I wouldn’t care to be Dave Limp at this point.

GeorgeC: There is another factor that might be driving this deal. The vacuum above 60 miles is far better than any vacuum that can be created on Earth.