SLS cannot create such a base because it only flies every other year (once a year after 2030 or so) to support our sustainable presence on the Moon, and there aren’t any left over to support missions to Mars. Once every two years or even every year may not seem like it could be sustainable, but if NASA says it is so then their definition of “sustainable” has a lower utilization than I would consider sustained presence.

Starship cannot create such a base because … um …

Come to think of it, a single Starship could take a hundred tons of rovers, helicopters, and teslabots at each transit opportunity, every two years, and many Starships could go to Mars at each transit opportunity, so seeing up a base with exploration equipment could be quick and relatively easy. Each of those Starships could even return to Earth with tons of samples. The design of the Starship system allows for many launches each year, and maybe even more than one launch per day per launchpad. Starship can launch often enough to support a sustainable presence on the Moon, and it can launch enough missions to Mars at each transit opportunity to ensure that a base on Mars is also sustainable.

Huh. Who would have thunk it. Starship could turn out to be superior to SLS — but only in cost, ability, and availability. SLS excels in providing $800 million (or $4.1 billion, depending) worth of jobs in various congressional districts for each annual SLS launch, plus the value of the payload.

For Starship to provide a similar number of jobs, it would have to launch dozens of times to make up for each SLS launch. Several Starship launches would only be able to launch several hundred tons of payload, supplies, and equipment worth a mere few billion dollars, made in states throughout America. In the 2030s, creating a base on Mars and returning tons of samples should be easy for Starship. If we compare the cost of returning the few pounds of Perseverance’s samples at perhaps a cost of a billion dollars for the return mission, then Starship samples would only be worth many, many tens of billions of dollars. Is this worth the effort and cost?

A single Curiosity or Perseverance/Ingenuity mission costs a billion-ish dollars. A single Starship could take scores of Curiosity class rovers. Mass produced these may cost only a couple of billion dollars per score of rover/helicopter pairs.

Humans on Mars could work a hundred times faster, finding even better samples than the rovers do, spreading out farther and faster. Just the geological science alone could be worth the price of putting people on Mars. The voyage to and from Mars and the time on the planet all present opportunities for far more science, too.

I can see why so many people are so excited about SLS. Why make progress in space by leaps and bounds with Starship when it is so much more cautious to make small incremental progress with each annual SLS launch. If we use Starship to explore space, we only get what We the People want, but if government uses SLS to explore space then we can eventually get everything that government wants. How can we argue with that?

Is there any reason ether starship or SLS can’t create a base with several rovers and recon helicopters and teslabots going in all directions? It seems that with a much heavier lift vehicle and several groups working together such a thing should be possible this decade if not this year.

I mean, they are good engines, and BE-4 is looking less likely anytime soon. With the RD 180s this is a known working system. Start with that, improve, modernize, and mass produce.

And Lee, if it was Questioner’s rudeness that caused you to cancel your subscription to BtB, I’m sorry. I can’t and won’t censor the commenters here for such a minor issue, but you should be aware that it was not me who was rude.

Lee Cockrell: Don’t be offended by the rudeness of Questioner. Your question was a valid one. Franklin could be launched by another rocket like a Falcon 9, but getting it switched in time for a launch this year might be difficult.

And yes, the bigger problem would be the lander. However, replacing the Russian lander with something someone else built is likely not impossible, and might carry benefits. It would however also mean the rover can’t launch his year.

Without Russia, no lander!

“..e Russians provide the rocket and the lander that will put Europe’s Franklin rover on the surface…