Stephen Fleming: That is surprising. I never heard anyone ever do that. But then in doing my research I have generally not listened to those early tapes, but read the transcripts instead. Much faster.

Still, in interviewing many 1960s astronauts and NASA people, they all said “NASA” as a word. It could be they started out spelling it out, like the NACA, but then switched to what the public was doing.

Robert is right that the Moon is the wrong target, at this point. It was an OK target twenty years ago, and the Constellation mission was being designed to meet that goal, but SLS was not designed with any mission or goal – Eric Berger’s “rocket to nowhere” comment — and that is part of SLS’s failing. Another part is the lack of consideration for economy, which NASA and the government are not good at. Thus, Artemis was created as a kluge, putting together a bunch of suboptimal parts that were not designed for the mission at hand. The mission had become to establish a sustainable, continuously-manned lunar base somewhere on the Moon.

Ray Van Dune makes it sound as though whoever gets to the Moon second will not have a good, useful location for a lunar base, but the Chinese may not even choose the optimal location, much less the only one for a useful base. “Useful” is dependent upon the goal to be achieved.

The Chinese have had a goal of landing their men on the Moon for a long time, but was Congress eager to beat them there before the first SLS launch, Artemis I? Beat the Chinese™ is a relatively new concept, making Artemis an even less suitable tool for this latest version of the goal. Shouldn’t the goal have remained as “establish a sustainable lunar base?” How does a rush to Beat the Chinese™ help with such a goal rather than distract us by prolonging the use of the wrong hardware? The hardware is wrong for the Beat the Chinese™ goal, too, and it is wrong for the sustainable lunar base goal. Even Starship, in order to use it for lunar landings, has to be redesigned from its goal of creating a Martian colony. This distracts SpaceX from its martian goal, although that is slightly offset by the possibility that it helps fund some of the life support portion of the manned Starship used for Mars.

Robert wrote, above: “The worst aspect is how many citizens are quickly conned into this game [Beat the Chinese™, and even a base on the Moon without a clear objective for it].”

It is easy to fall into this con. It is the Kennedy speech all over again. “We choose to go to the Moon not because it is easy but because it is hard.” As we have seen, it is still hard, just not as hard as two-thirds of a century ago, when it was impossible. Kennedy listed the novelties that would be needed: new alloys; tighter tolerances on huge structures; orbital maneuvering, rendezvous and docking; the ability to work outside a spacecraft on the Moon; and more. None of which we had at the time. Congress’s and Trump’s lunar mission seems to be a national prestige goal, which is what Apollo was, but do we really need national prestige in space now? Not only does NASA lead everyone else in space but so does the American commercial space industry.

Beat the Chinese™ gives America another goal to achieve, even though the nation has already achieved it. The sad part is that now we are eager to do what we had abandoned half a century ago. Congress and the American people were not interested in lunar bases, back then. Space bases were only science fiction, and besides, we had poor Americans to feed. Now we are so able to feed Americans that Democrats have invited tens of millions of foreigners into the country to feed, too. So, now we can afford a lunar base.

But commercial space has not yet chosen to go for the profits that could be made at and on the Moon. Instead, they are starting with the profits that can be made right now in other locations in space, with eyes on additional locations where profits can be made. One company thinks that Mars is more suitable for a base, even a settlement, even a million-man colony.

Meanwhile, commercial space companies are concentrating on missions and goals that are more useful — useful enough to produce the profits needed to repay investors. Robert is right: this is the way to go, and he said so last year.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/part-2-of-2-de-emphasize-a-fast-moon-landing-and-build-a-real-american-space-industry-instead/

This is how to build a sustainable space program, it funds itself — not taxpayers — and is guaranteed to be useful and beneficial, otherwise no one would pay for the products from space. Government may be interested in other things in space, but robust commercial space operations make the world go around.

I don’t disagree with the 2030 date for the Chinese.

That is, after all, the date they were pumping out there for a long time, and it is reasonable to assume that it is still the likely NET date for a Chinese landing!

But for all their larger demographic and economic issues (and penchant for IP theft and lack of original innovation, natch)….they’ve been remarkably methodical and remarkably successful in executing on their space plans in the 21st century. Landing on Mars on their very first attempt, with a successful rover thrown in for good measure, was no mean feat. They are a space power to be taken seriously. I don’t mind it, if having them out there as the prime competition puts a little more pressure on our own space industry.

Well, I need to see it too. But I have, I think, just a bit more confidence that SpaceX can show us the needed moves on the needed schedule than you do. And both of us appear to have more such confidence than Berger.

Agree that the PRC likes to “make smoke” whenever it can, but I think it is doing whatever it can in space as fast as it can. So, given the quite reasonable assumption that the PRC is not sandbagging, looking at what it has been able to do – and not do – over the past few years allows one to develop a decent prediction base anent what it can do over a given future interval based on stated intentions. All of that leads me to believe the PRC cannot put people on the Moon before 2030 and perhaps not even by then. That, in turn, makes all the loose PRC talk about doing so before 2030 just more of the copious trolling the PRC likes to do. Personally, I don’t think it’s better than an even money bet that the PRC will still exist by 2030.

Agree with your assessment of Berger’s ideological myopia. He lives in Houston, not NYC or DC, but he’s a journo and even most space journos seem to be anywhere from Hubert Humphrey liberal to softcore woke. His reference group, to use a social psychological term, is fairly far left of center and, as has been demonstrated repeatedly in sociological studies, people on the right understand people on the left pretty well, but people on the left barely understand people on the right at all.

“Berger, though – and many others – seem not to question PRC assertions to any greater an extent than the NYT questioned Biden regime statements back in the day. At the same time, SpaceX is now treated with unwarranted suspicion and viewed with a gimlet eye. I think Berger has been flummoxed by Musk’s political activism of the past couple of years and still has no real understanding of Musk’s motivations for that. This has been evident in both his writing and in remarks he has made in various interview and podcast guest appearances.”

To his credit, Eric has repeatedly averred that he thinks that Elon’s political motivations are sincere — that he really believes in what he’s saying, and really believes in its urgency, that it isn’t just a pose for some other, murkier motive(s).

But he also seems to be pretty mainstream liberal aside from his enthusiasm for commercial space solutions, so he also doesn’t grok *why* Elon believes these things, or agree with them even if he does. And yes, I think he has been slow to credit how the Biden Administration seemed willing to employ lawfare against Elon and his companies, thanks to that political outlook.

“SpaceX has at least three more full years in which to develop and prove out Starship in all of the variants needed to pursue even the initial Artemis 3 landing mission in time to Beat the Chinese[tm]. I don’t think it is going to take SpaceX three years to do that.”

Speaking of Eric Berger, his mysterious Industry Source has long been predicting 2028 as the likely (or at least, earliest likely) timeframe for Artemis III. From everything I have been hearing, that still seems possible, though maybe now I am a little more skeptical on the odds for it than I used to be, after the recent series of Starship test hiccups. For me, I need to see a refueling demo in orbit to feel confident in the timeline again. I think it’s possible that SpaceX *can* do that in the coming 12 months. They are moving at warp speed on infrastructure and the regulatory frictions are obviously reduced now. But I need to see it. And there are a number of boxes still to check off in order to make that possible.

Not sure I disagree with any of your takes on where the Chinese are, but as always, the level of opacity over there makes things a little difficult to judge.

“The worst aspect is how many citizens are quickly conned into this game.”

I mean, Ted Cruz is not * stupid*. You can’t nepo your way into a SCOTUS clerkship (at least, not yet). He does this Red Scare Threat stuff because there’s an empirical track record that it *works*. And because his reelection campaigns in Texas are always closer than they should be (he’s not the most likable political candidate), he’s looking for every angle to milk in the lead up to the next one.

If the Moon *must* be a priority at all, I’d be happy to get back there 18 to 24 months after the Chinese if in the process of that we end up with a permanent human presence there in reasonably short order with multiple commercial operators deriving major revenue streams out of doing work there. You know, an actual cislunar economy.

You gave me a good chuckle there with your malapropism anent the title of Brad Pitt’s space opera Ad Astra. I immediately flashed on an image of a toothy Latino on a CHP Kawasaki pursuing bad guys on Moon buggies across the lunar plains.

Berger – and he is hardly alone in this – has lost the plot when it comes to the PRC and the Moon. It is certainly true that, were it NASA alone pursuing a return to the Moon, there would be ample basis for concern but that is not the reality of the situation. SpaceX has at least three more full years in which to develop and prove out Starship in all of the variants needed to pursue even the initial Artemis 3 landing mission in time to Beat the Chinese[tm]. I don’t think it is going to take SpaceX three years to do that.

On the PRC side of the ledger, there is a decided current upper limit on how much 5-meter-diameter tankage and structure it can turn out per year. Right now, that limit seems to be three Long March 5s, or equivalent, per year.

As even a single copy of the initial PRC Moon rocket, the triple-core Long March 10, is equivalent to roughly 3.5 LM-5s – and the PRC plan for initial lunar landings requires two of these for each mission – the PRC is production-limited to about the same cadence as SLS-Orion. And it can only manage even that if it eschews any further use of the LM-5 – something it plainly does not intend to do what with a space station to expand and more of the quite porky Guowang sats to put up.

We are solemnly assured by the PRC space authorities that the core and side booster stages of the LM-10 are to be recoverable and reusable – at some point. That’s PRC-speak for Real Soon Now. Were that to be achieved, the PRC would certainly be able to pick up the pace of lunar missions by a decent multiple but the timing is the question mark. Quite a number of the PRC’s plethora of “commercial” space launch “companies” have also been promising that booster recovery and reuse are just around the corner for several years now. There have been a few subscale Grasshopper-like test articles doing modest test hops, but no PRC booster stage – of any size – has yet been even recovered after an orbital or BEO mission, let alone refurbed and reflown. We will not see such an event during the remainder of this year. I’m of the belief we will not see such an event in 2026 either – certainly not anent something the size of an LM-10 core and/or side booster stage.

I, personally, do not think it likely that the PRC will succeed in either recovering or reusing LM-10 center cores. I think these will wind up being expendable as has been the case with the similarly-designed Falcon Heavy and for the same reasons. Given no increase in PRC ability to manufacture 5-meter-diameter tankage and structure, such a limitation would allow a lunar mission only about every eight or nine months as opposed to every 2+ years. That’s better, but it’s not what is going to be needed to establish a lunar base of any consequence as the LM-10, even working two at a time, can’t deliver much beyond a pair of taikonauts to the lunar surface on each mission.

So the PRC, in short, talks a pretty good game, but the numbers don’t add up. There simply doesn’t seem to be any way the PRC can make an initial foray Moonward earlier than 2030 and even that would be a stretch.

Berger, though – and many others – seem not to question PRC assertions to any greater an extent than the NYT questioned Biden regime statements back in the day. At the same time, SpaceX is now treated with unwarranted suspicion and viewed with a gimlet eye. I think Berger has been flummoxed by Musk’s political activism of the past couple of years and still has no real understanding of Musk’s motivations for that. This has been evident in both his writing and in remarks he has made in various interview and podcast guest appearances.

So it goes. I still regard Berger as the best working space journalist extant, but I will continue to read his stuff with corrective lenses, so to speak, anent his latter-day slant on matters involving SpaceX and Elon Musk.

Orion never had any real utility for a Mars mission. All of the spitballed Mars mission designs that incorporated it merely dragged it along, unmanned, as dead weight to Mars and back, then had the crew board it strictly for Earth re-entry. With its current barely-lunar-return-capable heat shield, that would be suicidal. Mars return velocity is appreciably greater than lunar return velocity. Orion is never going to have any utility for any destination beyond cis-lunar space – and little enough even there.

Neither nuclear thermal rockets nor nuclear electric ion propulsion can ever provide a one-week transit to Mars or anything close to that by a considerable multiple. A nuclear pulse rocket using laser inertial confinement fusion and a magnetic nozzle, with the lasers and magnets driven by a nuclear reactor, is probably the best that can likely be done absent physics we don’t yet have. I’m dubious even that could result in one-week transit times to Mars.

I wouldn’t worry overly much about the PRC attempting to land-grab the Moon. The PRC is being squeezed harder and harder by economic and demographic realities that are as inexorable as the laws of physics. It’s going to implode before much longer. Anything it manages to do anent the Moon – if anything – will be rendered moot once the crack-up occurs.

And that, of course, assumes the PRC gets to the Moon before we get back there ourselves. That is hardly the slam dunk a lot of overly-credulous Debbie Downers in the US now believe. There were legions of such people back in the late 80s who thought the Soviet Union was going to be a permanent presence too.

If china gets a foothold, they will claim ownership of the entire moon… “If” they have the fire power to back up the claim, then it’s game over. Once they dig in, doesn’t take much to put a hole in approaching tin can. After that begins the war of the best AI lunar robot…

Comet 31/atlas is certainly becoming a focal point for wild conspiracies. Who knows what it has picked up in it’s multi billion year travels? It’s not just an object, but miles across which has enough gravity to pull in a lot of material.
It’s also has spectral lines of heavy concentrations of iron and nickel. They claim it’s impossible to outgas heavy metals at this distance… But then they forget that it’s just dust on top of carbon monoxide, methane and ammonia which is outgassing interstellar debris as it drifts along. (there’s a chance for a brilliant light show when the earth passes through its tail?)

It’s too bad there isn’t a rocket ready for sampling of this once in a million years opportunity. Land on the surface, grab a large sample, blast off leaving the fuel tanks and the majority of the rocket mass and a science package behind that will carry-on with the Comet with a locator beacon/transmitter.
Sampling return craft will swing out around one of the gas giants like Jupiter to return back into inner solar system for retrieval.
If the sample shows promising details, a future AI robotic rocket can locate it. (even if it’s just for depositing a secondary DNA and frozen life repository like the one under the island in the Arctic)

Somethings are just worth doing. We have a Tesla car in orbit… chopsticks catching rockets… It’s time for the next outrageous demonstration.

This means there will likely not be a lightweight science-focussed program like Apollo, but a series of rapidly escalating missions designed to establish a permanent base in a desirable location, with a view to excluding us! All too few U.S. leaders understand the cutthroat nature of the CCP, which makes us vulnerable to being intimidated by China.

And before anyone suggests cooperation… NO! Cooperation with the CCP is a fool’s errand, and would end up reprising our WTO experience with them.

And all this goes double for Mars! The plague that is the CCP should be confined to Earth until the Chinese people end it, or we are forced to.

Richard M: I have been continuously disappointed with our “elites” now for decades, and this push to make “beating China” our goal in space is just another example. It is also a case of the government dictating its desires rather than facilitating the desires of its citizenry, of which it is supposed to their servant.

The worst aspect is how many citizens are quickly conned into this game.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/10/how-america-fell-behind-china-in-the-lunar-space-race-and-how-it-can-catch-back-up/

Like our beloved host, I simply do not see the point in making a priority of getting boots back on lunar regolith before China does. If there is a race at all — if the USA really is to make a human presence on the Moon some kind of priority — it *ought* to be to to go back there *sustainably.* In a genuinely economically productive way.

And this is why Starship, delayed as it might be, is a far, far better tool for the work than some minimalistic lander capable of only flags-and-footprints missions.

Eric would no doubt say that this is just the hard political reality we face, and he’s just trying to work within that. But the whole thing feels like a fool’s errand. Which no doubt is why Ted Cruz is so worked up about it.

As with everything else, cost will be the key issue. Anything that is the product of a cost-plus contract will be, economically, in the back row of the starting grid for any race in which it participates. How much cost LockMart, NorGrum and the Europeans can take out of the Orion stack will be the key issue. I can’t say I’m optimistic on that score.

New fibers
https://phys.org/news/2025-10-random-nanofiber-networks-optimized-strength.html

Recently, researchers at The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute devised a method to repeatedly print random polymer nanofiber networks with desired characteristics and use computer simulations to tune the random network characteristics for improved strength and toughness.

“This is a big leap in understanding how nanofiber networks behave,” said Ioannis Chasiotis, a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. “Now, for the first time, we can reproduce randomness with desirable underlying structural parameters in the lab, and with the companion computer model, we can optimize the network structure to find the network parameters, such as nanofiber density, that produce simultaneously higher network strength, stiffness and toughness.”