Absolutely! There never was a cogent argument for the gateway. It was simply an artificial project to justify use of SLS, which in turn was simply an artificial rocket project concocted to justify transferring taxpayers' money to BOEING, which money transfer was simply to repay BOEING for greasing the hands of congressmen and senators. Government people cannot directly grab money from taxpayers and stuff it in their pockets; so companies like BOEING help them do it in a more subtle way. In fact, wasn't there recently a case where Congress decided to pay directly to BOEING for SLS without the money even passing through NASA? Those crooks don't even care about space exploration; all they want to see is BOEING getting money; nothing more, nothing less. Time to stamp out the whole web of corruption.
Is this the NASA that refuses to acknowledge they have 2 Astronauts stuck on the ISS some 60+ days after there were supposed have returned from an 8 day trip?
There are, today, multiple space station mock ups that use a Starship core as a base. And they all launch on the same platform. And that's not counting the inflatable Habs. Why are we wasting billions of dollars on 70 year old concepts, just so we don't hurt the feelings of Blue origin and Boeing???
Your brilliant idea doesn't fit in Nazis I mean NASA's nefarious plans. Let's make it plain and clear they are not going up there for peaceful purposes.
if you look closely at the needed delta-V required to dock in this near-rectilinear halo orbit you can see that it makes more sense to fly HLS directly to the surface of the moon, to safe precious fuel. Alternatively you can dock in a less stable orbit closer to the surface like Apollo did, but this is bad for a longer stay in this orbit like in the case of a permanent space station. Lunar orbits are a bit of a pain due to the so called 3-body problem
They didn't anticipate it because the mass of a rocket doesn't change the orbit of the station. It's a false statement by the video. There are many problems with the Gateway, but Starship mass is not one of them.
Maybe I'm crazy and don't understand how to spend NASA money, but it seems to me Starship HLS could take the astronauts with it. If any additional supplies are needed, another Starship. Or just have Elon have his team develop their own lunar gateway.
Okay, I guess people need a refresher in Newton's first law. "An object at rest remains at rest, or if in motion, remains in motion at a constant velocity unless acted on by a net external force." This means the HLS will be in the same identical orbit as the Gateway in order to dock and will stay in that same orbit until it undocks to travel to the Moon's south pole. The Gateway won't be able to course correct while the HLS is attached. If the Gateway needed to perform such a maneuver, the HLS can simply undock for the Gateway's course correction and then dock again.
Well....nobody is stopping SpaceX....Musk saiud several years ago that we were going to Mars by 2024....I'm still waiting...they can't go to the moon and Musk talks about Mars....you must be joking??
Given SpaceX's rate of progress, that just might happen. It won't be next year, though. Maybe the first HLS mission to the moon in 2026 if things go well.
Lol, I have zero faith in Orion, SLS, or the gateway doing anything on time or under budget! SpaceX is probably going to have to build a "gateway" station themselves or just do without it and put a Starship/Tanker in that orbit instead.
SLS and Orion worked perfectly on first try. Starship is WAY over time from it's initial promised timeline. At current progress rates, I highly doubt Starship will be ready by 2028. It's not even close it's initial promises. The design is way way too complex. Apollo was designed with multiple redundancies and simple hypergolic systems we knew would work. SpaceX has to solve not only Starship reusability (not refurbishably like Falcon 9 or the Shuttle, but TRUE reusability), but Stage 0 reusability (their launch site is damaged heavily everytime they launch) Then it needs to demonstrate on orbit fueling. Tanker boiloff prevention. 8-10 refueling flights *over the course of almost a YEAR*. Plus the HLS. Plus on-orbit refueling of the HLS. PLUS the HLS has to be able to land on the Moon AND relight its engines after being dormant for a long time. And not fall over on the moon. A single failure, like the orbit tanker failing, would set the program back years. It's almost 2025. I don't see SpaceX's deliverables being ready before 2028. I mean, it needs all of 2027 just to refuel the orbital tanker according to SpaceX's schedule. Any hiccups will push that back. The SpaceX fanboys are being way too forgiving and the hero worship leads them to blame any missteps or failures by SpaceX as "part of the process", whereas failures by other orgs are viciously savaged as incompetence.
The Gateway's sole purpose is to justify using the ORION spacecraft for Artemis. The ORION can not make it to Low Lunar Orbit to support manned missions to the moon but can just make it to the Gateway at its high point. NASA and Lockheed Martin have spent over a decade and billions (cost+) developing this deep space spacecraft that is too heavy and limited yet it has been baked into every deep space mission including Mars mission concepts. The fact that it can only be launched on a SLS rocket is just an extra bonus to the legacy space companies. As long as the Artemis program includes these three albatrosses (SLS, ORION, and Gateway), manned moon landings will be limited to short-term visits once a year at best. Imagine if those billions could be poured into lunar base infrastructure instead.
Just because Nasa makes bad decisions does not mean that Space X needs to scale down to the same level of nonsense!. Space x should go full commercial and leave NASA behind on this particular mission. Nasa will not be ready until the 2030's anyway! Remember that Space x is going to Mars by the 2030's.
Using a vehicle the size of Starship is INSANE! It's like using an ocean liner for a one-day fishing trip. IMS, Starship could accommodate dozens of crewmembers. You have to wonder what the bureaucrats at NASA were thinking when they selected the Starship HLS for Artemis.
@@billmullins6833 lol, a one day fishing trip, is that what building a space station for many moon landings to use, the first of which is to be a 3-5 day sample gathering and experiments before returning to the station for transferring the samples home and to then use it for both commercial and government sponsored landings….Is that what you think of as a one day fishing trip? Plus it’s the only rocket that can carry all the parts scheduled for SpaceX to launch, but yeah silly silly people should only use companies run by their cronies so they can steal from taxpayers to give to themselves and their friends on a project that will never happen as it’s planned now.
If Starship system is online there is no need for Gateway station, Orion / SLS. The full project can be done with Dragon / HLS combo starting from LEO orbit. Starship is so roomy for 4 people that they can be out there multiple months...
It is absolutely shameful and embarrassing that something we accomplished over HALF A CENTURY AGO, is proving such a challenge for the agency which first landed humans on the moon. I'd be willing to bet that if they gave SpaceX the entire budget for the Moon project, Musk would already be building a base there!
Artemus will fail. Too expensive. Too complicated in its hardware and mission for NASA to cope with. Too politicized to be completed into something that makes any sense. Star Ship will carry it off with a new engine not requiring vast amounts of fuel.
The orbital gateway is completely unnecessary, at this point. At least one lunar colony of 100s of people would be required to logically require this kind of station. SLS is not required either, for reasons we all know well.
@@rogerrussell9544 Perhaps some of it is just that. But mostly, lobbiest must forge compromises to get NASA the funding it needs. If Congress is to pay the bill, then they're coming along for the ride. Because we pay for all of this amazing adventuring, and discovery. This proccess is ours. Fortunately, we have some smart people to show us how. But big fat congress, filled with people we voted in there, will be in the back seat, calling the shots, paying the bills. They all want a chunk of the logistics gravy train to run through their state. Making jobs, and workers to tax. It seems inefficient, when looking at the rocket garden at Boa Chica. But it's our money that ultimately makes it happen. Politicians are what they are. If they piss off everyone, well, that's a good compromise. Lot's of shit talkin these days from everywhere, but we're innocent until proven guilty. That goes for everyone. How much power, and wealth does it take to corrupt the best of us? Checks and balances is all we have.
As an Engineer I feel the Lunar Gateway is an overly complex way to return to the moon. I am not the only Engineer (outside NASA) that feels that way. Destin Sandlin (Smarter Every Day) also feels that the plan is overly complex. I believe the complexity was primarily driven not by the technical needs of the program but was added to gather the needed vote and support to keep the program in the budget.
It's the reputation of competence and financial competitiveness that makes SpaceX the winner. We must make space travel a bit less exotic, less expensive. But if an operation caters to government contracts, inefficiency is along for the ride. That kind of cash flow comes with many compromises.
The Lunar Gateway is completely unnecessary if Starhip works properly, for NASA that is the crux of the matter. If you cancel a project you never get the money reappropriated for the project, and then you've lost the schedule. Clearly, Starship will make a better gateway module than the current plans, but you can't bet everything on something unproven. Once Starship is proven to do what it says it can do, revamping a New Gateway can begin.
@@werewolflover8636 that the issue. The government directed NASA to outsource the development to the private sector and give their funds to Boeing (private sector).
Gateway was always a dumb idea for the beginnings of returning to the moon. NASA always violates KISS (keep it simple, stupid) doctrine and is constantly faced with cost overruns and delays as a result. But because of the revolving door of NASA bureaucrats to legacy aerospace over the last few decades, there is a built in bias within the agency to keep money and projects flowing to legacy aerospace, despite their horrible performance (e.g. Starliner, and now SLS). If SpaceX is able to ramp up starship complete with rapid reuse, it will make obsolete all NASA plans for Lunar and Mars exploration and for that matter scientific probe explorations. Cost to orbit, and reliability will undergo a step function improvement, and NASA needs to learn to adapt to this new coming reality.
I’m an idiot and I could have told you that this wasn’t going to work. The whole thing is way too complicated. You have multiple launch vehicles, and multiple launches of some of them to make one mission possible.
TBF, the Lunar Station was designed with the idea of a small, tiny lander. They never envisioned something the size and power of Starship. It's just another remnant of designs and plans laid 20 years ago that leaders and politicians don't want to let go of. It's the same thing with SLS. "Well, we have those engines from the Space Shuttle. Surely it would be cheaper to just reuse those than design and build new ones." (facepalm) It's the same reason NASA still invests in Orion. Politics. They spent all that money from the government building it for a plan that was scrapped 15 years ago, all because they felt they had a duty to finish it. I used to be all in on Orion, but that was back when we were supposed to have boots back on the moon by 2018. Now, private industry has proven to be way more reliable than government tied companies, like Boeing.
So here’s the thing. Just landing on the moon is kind of stupid. We should be developing a type of drone craft to move around the surface and survey locations for future exploration. Additionally, they should hire a contractor to make an actual science lab for the Lunar Gateway. Something that can be used to manufacture tools and parts for industry. That would be useful. Then manufacture solar panels on that Gateway for a future moon base. Manufacture a large rover for the moons surface. Make a few of them (more than 3). All of the above can be done now. It’s exceptionally stupid to not think ahead. NASA once had a plan. Maybe we need a separate agency to do this, since they seem so distracted by a million other projects.
Government planning of hardware is the problem. The government always starts with what they want rather than what is possible. The government needs to focus on research that is possible purchasing time on hardware that is commercially available. Let industry figure out what is technologically and financially possible.
Dock a Dragon to the fuelled HLS in LEO, transit the dragon to the iss or depot, HLS transit to the moon drop off more lunar starlink satellites, land on the moon. Return to LEO Dragon docks to HLS and the crew returns. HLS docks with the depot awaiting next mission. Simples 😊
Because it's turning into a leaky liability. The *Russian* side has already sprung leaks and the *US* side isn't far from there, literally as well as temporally. Remember a leak in space is far worse than a leak on a boat.
Why not use a modified starship to work as gate way station.. it won't need landing thrusters or landing gear. And can use smaller fuel tanks. So you could have a lot more room for the astronauts with the ability to refuel landers. With alot of usable space it gives us so many options.
1): Superheavy has yet to complete a single orbit of the Earth. It is not human rated or cargo rated, and it has NEVER been beyond ballistic LEO space. It is a non operational test bird that has yet to complete 100% of its mission profiles for both stages (close, but that control flap burning through and almost detaching is a strike against them on ITF 4). 2): It lacks life support, docking rings, power systems, computer control sufficient for human missions, and just about everything else. It is just fuel tanks with an engine section and nose cone attached. 3): Due to its design, it has NO insulation whatsoever. You would have to add several tons of dry mass just to stabilize the temp. in a range where life support could make it livable. 4): The tankage space is utterly unusable; the exterior of the vehicle is the exterior of the fuel and oxidizer tanks. Hence the frost buildup as they are filled. You would have to integrate airlocks into the common dome sections, which would have to be strong enough to withstand the LOX and liquid methane without leaks. Which would require redesigning the whole vehicle. 5): By the time the vehicle boosted there and achieved orbit, it would be OUT of fuel, since you would have to sacrifice fuel weight to put on insulation, add locks to bulkheads, install livable crew quarters, life support, and other necessities. They have no idea if these engines are going to be sufficient to reach escape velocity with a tricked out vehicle, which is 7mi/sec. Then you have TLI and the maneuvers required for the NRHO, which requires regular orbital corrections to maintain, and there is no design currently for the kinds of ion and chemical thrusters that the Gateway PPE has.
NASA hasn’t done anything on the original time schedule since Apollo, so unfortunately no one actually knows when any of the milestones will actually occur.
all one needs to ask is how would Robert Zubrin do all of this? Put him in charge and see what happens, 1 person to run all of this and one person only and get rid of all these bloody committees and endless VPs in charge of.....
When all of the old legacy space corporations unite against the new guys, that explains it all. Boeing and friends would love to subtract SpaceX from a project that Starship renders obsolete.
Waayy too complex. Never going to happen. Stuff like this needs to be kept simple. Personally I think they should consider moving the ISS (or parts of it) to lunar orbit. Its been tested & all of the quarks about are know. Issue with ISS is metal fatigue from constant thermal cycling but this can be managed by boosting ISS into higher orbit or lunar orbit such that the frequent thermal cycling is ended.
We need to get nasa to stop embezzling the amarican taxpay for thes humungs coust projets that are to solidify a falling company like boeing to keep them from bankrupce when less expecive launch vehikels are avalible and more sustainible and can preform the same function
Send a starship for orbit, and an HLS for landing and becoming a lunar base. Use a different (small) lander for trips between surface and orbit, and a starship tanker for resupplies and crew excahanges. One of the starships can carry a docking module.
YES! And set up two lunar space elevators. The first one's cables should be pointed at Earth to transfer crew and shipments back and forth from the moon base without wasting rocket fuel or risky rocket landings. The second one should be on the far side of the moon and include a large telescope at its terminus. The second space elevator terminal would be the logical jump off point for interplanetary voyages, thpugh L1 would also work, as you pointed out. All that said, ANY lunar colony must be built far underground so that there is no excess radiation cancer risk to cause decreased max mission time for crews. A crew should be able to live there for a year without excessive radiation damage, though they may need lots of time on a centrifuge to keep from losing their full Earth gravity muscle mass strength. Ideally, all the industry to build spaceships and produce the fuel they need should be on the moon because of its low gravity. Solar energy is plentiful and nearly constant and the lunar regolith has just about all the raw materials needed. Robots would do most of the work, of course.
What's that nonsense? Adding more weight to an orbiting station DOES NOT change the orbit of the station! It doesn't matter how heavy a rocket is, as long as it doesn't "bump" into the station, it doesn't make a difference. I was expecting some knowledge of orbital mechanics to be shown in this video, and I'm disappointed.
@@jstep4146 TLDR: no, it doesn't. Your formula is not applicable to calculating orbital trajectories. I don't know why my first reply isn't visible (maybe it will appear once the author approves it) but in short, once again. No, you are not correct, even though the formula you supplied is. The formula speaks about the FORCE that the gravity is causing on the object. This is proportional to it's mass - but so is it's momentum. These two cancel each other out, so in the end, the acceleration caused by the gravity is always the same, regardless of the object weight. (just check out the feather/hammer falling on moon experiment that NASA did some years ago). (If an object's mass gets doubled, then the gravitational force gets doubled - but so does the force required to cause the same amount of acceleration, so no change to its orbital path is made) When speaking about orbital mechanics, if we consider the situation of a celestial body (moon) and a satellite (Gateway station), then the station's mass is NOT a part of the equation to calculate it's orbital path. You can add as much weight as you want to the station and it will still remain in the same orbit - as long as the added mass didn't "bump" the station with force, which would create acceleration. A properly docked space vessel doesn't do this - it only adds weight, not acceleration, to the station. If you want to change the trajectory of a satellite in orbit, you would need to substantially change the mass of the moon itself - that would absolutely alter the orbits of its satellites.
@@kalkovonschpritzendorf1914 if the mass changes, then the total momentum must change, otherwise the orbit gets altered, even in a perfect circular orbit. This isn't KSP. What you are talking about is that basically the momentum and gravity combined makes the projected force be perpendicular to the ground, causing the ship to stay in orbit. However, since the Station would have mass M1, and Starship would have Mass M2, then current acceleration(momentum) A1, A2, and gravity pull N1, N2; if you combine them then you get: M1+M2=M3; with M3>M1, thus the total gravity pull will be f*M3>M1. Now here's the tricky bit. for M3 with N3 to stay in orbit it will need an A3 which is roughly A1+A2, however when the docking happens then A1=A2=A3. The acceleration doesn't change, but the mass does. This will cause a stronger pull towards the moon, which will cause the orbit to become more obloid.
Simple. Because Getway is to small for astronauts, the bathroom too limited (yes, fixed with Dragon XL), has no windows, and sucks for the two astronauts that dont go to the moon, just reduce it to two modules and make it an unmanned to fulfill the half of the intent to orbit and relay from moon far side. Launch on time rather than three years late, and not require the SLS upgrade, save money and claim something delivered on time. Take the win
Some company is going to get a billion dollar "adapter" contract. Be interesting to track which NASA employees mysteriously resign and go to work for them for a significant pay raise and stock options.
I can see eight hollowed out *Starship* bodies arranged like wagon-wheel spokes around a central hub on the surface of the *Moon* (and then *Mars* ) with a *Lunar Lander Starship* shuttling between the surface and space bringing supplies and *Optimus* robots to take care of the assembly. Once it's all built then we can land people.
I think they should go for the same approach that SpaceX is doing for mars. Which is send a bunch of star ships at once to take building materials to the moon & start setting up bases once the bases are set up the gateway wont be needed especially with star ship as why would you use a 1 times use capsule to bring stuff from the moon to earth when you have star ship which can be reused also we don't need more moon samples as we got what we needed back in the 60s/70s. The whole reason the moon is now getting attention is resources as the moon is abundant with helium-3 (the fuel for fusion) as well as silicon which is used to make CPUs & at the moment China has the most silicon deposits on earth.
Absolutely just use starship to land. Didn’t understand why they were doing the rest of that crap. Imagine how far they’d make it if they just funded space x to land on the moon
Starship would have to dock vertically like the shuttle used to do when it came to R&D to the ISS. Not horizontally like what they have shown in the computer generated images of the Lunar Spacestation
When the apollo programme was in development NASA desided what was needed, outlined the what was needed and went out to contract. The best bid was chosen. With the current moon attempt, NASA has designed And has presumably put out for tender for SLS and Artemis which can fly to the moon and take a crew of four into moon orbit and to dock with a lunar orbiting space station.This all seems to be designed without much thought being given to how to land. NASA then puts out to contract a requirement for a lunar lander. It seems Space X wins this contract with a system which is incompatible with the rest of the system. The tail seems to be wagging the dog.
The Starship header tank is a system used for the landing burn on earth. The HLS Starship is not meant to reenter earths atmosphere and land. As such there is no need for a header tank (nor a heat shield or flaps). But compared to the normal Starship, the HLS version will have landing legs and additional smaller engines further up to reduce the impact and dust cloud creation while landing on the moon.
No. Gateway is almost the same with ISS but further into space. We need to live and work in that system before we can live on the moon surface. Crawling, creeping before walking. Slow but solid. Does anyone agree with me?👍🚀
So NASA Needs 2 alternate launch sources for space, so nobody thinks about cross compatibility. How do I get a job there? Can't be hard from what I see.
I like that idea - send a rover with some adhesive spray to make a clean landing zone for Starship so no dust blows out. Other Rovers delivered from Starship could build a wall around the landing pad!
NASA's budget for 2023 was 25.4 billion dollars. The US Military budget for 2023 was 820.3 billion dollars. There is NOTHING "staggering" about the cost of ANY of NASA's projects!
there are many issues but one of them is congressional mandates to carry dead weight under the guise of competition. ie boeing starliner and blue origin blue moon lander. any uppers on the NASA budget are passthroughs to contractors
One of these agency’s keep you safe and is responsible for inventing a lot of things you take for granted like microwaves, GPS, and micro computers just to name a few, the other is a space agency giving billions to Boeing and shows little interest in doing anything productive in the next decade!
I don't know, they had a plan originally to do a flyby on falcon heavy with crew dragon. But I think falcon heavy was not human crew rated. They decided to not put their energy in that and the flyby with crew dragon changed into one with starship. It was the dear moon project but that now got canceled just recently. I don't think spacex has the capability right now to do a moon flyby let alone a moon landing. They would need to allocate resources to make falcon heavy human rated to do a flyby. They need starship finished and human rated before they can do a moon landing. By the time they can I am sure they will.
A single modified lander could serve as a gateway at minimal additional cost. In fact Orion is unnecessary as a dragon can put the crew on the lander in LEO, rather than the more risky docking in lunar orbit.
The docking incompatibility is undeniable, so why 'dock' at all? I seem to remember an old Fifties sci-fi movie from George Pal entitled, THE CONQUEST OF SPACE, which had a rotating space station 'wheel' and a large, free-floating Mars Explorer assembly. With these two wildly diverse spacecrafts kept at reasonable distances from one another, crew transfers were readily accomplished by a 'space taxi' system that was cheap, dirty, and effective. NASA seems to think that once a method like docking works, it must not be changed or even questioned ever again. I'm not suggesting NASA do what was shown in some old George Pal movie but they ought to bring more options to the table for serious consideration.
Please, stop with the "spacecrafts" stuff! Craft, whether water, air or space craft are "craft", no matter how many of them are referenced. That's why, for example, "small craft warnings" are issued in stormy weather-- not a "small crafts warning". It's a "small craft warning". Stop trying to mess up the English language!
Gateway as it is severely lacks. The station itself is no were near substantial for the job . Artimus itself is overly complex and expensive with results already showing signs of cracking. Too many players for a losing game.
This is a special way of thinking, in order to just go on vacation somewhere, you need to build a house in between! So that there is a place where thoughts can be transferred from one hemisphere to the second!)
Why not just use SpaceX vehicles to go to the moon, land and return? Way less complex and totally within the capabilities of SpaceX using only Starship vehicles (model 3s by then).
Because they can not do it. SLS made it to the Moon first try, with a single vehicle. To get HLS to the Moon, it will be build the HLS and launch it to Earth orbit. Build another vehicle and place in orbit to play gas station. Then launch 10-12 other Super Heavies to hopefully transfer the dregs they reach orbit with into said gas station, so you can refill HLS to attempt to reach escape velocity. That is building and launching 14 vehicles to attempt to get ONE to the Moon. And that assumes they can fill that gas station with those 12 flights. It could take 20 or more, depending on the loads on those other flights and how robust the docking and storage are. One jammed valve (like happened on IFT 3, which saw the 2nd stage tumble to its demise on reentry) and you lose whatever you were transferring. Or one bit of debris punctures that steel skin, and there is no secondary tankage. Whooosh. Never mind the fact that no one has ever done a zero g cryogenic transfer before.
I agree with those that say all the gateway issues are solvable. However having to travel to a Moondoggle in order to land on the moon is a ridiculous step. This all started as a plan to go to an asteroid.
If starship can land itself, why would anyone waste the extra steps? They should just figure out what profits each contractor will make and tell them stop work, just pay them out.
I mean sure though contributed additional weight from Starship could impact the orbit of the Gateway. But that's why they have a propulsion system in place. So I failed to see why we really need to cancel the Gateway system...
I thought that sounded dumb in the video. If Starship moves Gateway - which it shouldn't with a proper docking. It could easily put it back in the proper orbit. This ISS had major issues with the Russians docking craft that had thruster issues that kicked it out of orbit and it was fixed!
@@lionfire01 - Would you trust Boeing to build Gateway? Seriously, they can't build a rocket or plane without major problems. NASA should cancel Boeing and hire Lockhead/Martin, SpaceX, and maybe Blue Origin if they can achieve something other than a Willy Wonka elevator to Space and Back. I have hopes for the Dream Chaser launching on SpaceX and ignoring buying ULA (wait till it goes bankrupt if ever). They need to fly first buy 2nd.
NASA should abandon SLS. Retro fit Artemis to the Stsrship booster. Rework the Lunar Gateway to a larger fairing, and a larger habitable area. Then launch that. If they need engineers work with SpaceX to make that happen. It all can be done and designed extraordinarily well. Don’t ditch the part that is most innovative, remove the waste that is SLS. It’s a pork project now.
Absolutely! There never was a cogent argument for the gateway. It was simply an artificial project to justify use of SLS, which in turn was simply an artificial rocket project concocted to justify transferring taxpayers' money to BOEING, which money transfer was simply to repay BOEING for greasing the hands of congressmen and senators. Government people cannot directly grab money from taxpayers and stuff it in their pockets; so companies like BOEING help them do it in a more subtle way. In fact, wasn't there recently a case where Congress decided to pay directly to BOEING for SLS without the money even passing through NASA? Those crooks don't even care about space exploration; all they want to see is BOEING getting money; nothing more, nothing less. Time to stamp out the whole web of corruption.
I’ve never seen it explained so succinctly, thanks, makes perfect sense but still shocking.
Well put. Seems to be the trend in most of today's companies.
"We're completely incompetent, but keep giving us your money".
@@privateerburrows absolutely correct. Boeing are a shady lot
Is this the NASA that refuses to acknowledge they have 2 Astronauts stuck on the ISS some 60+ days after there were supposed have returned from an 8 day trip?
EASY FIX 1+2= 3
1: Cancel All Boeing NASA Contracts
2: Litigate Boeing For Refunds
3: Fire NASA Director Bill Nelson
4: Give entire budget to SpaceX
5: Watch Elon go!
@@ABQSentinel Absolutely 💯 👍!
Well, I'm glad someone understands how the mission is supposed to work
There are, today, multiple space station mock ups that use a Starship core as a base. And they all launch on the same platform. And that's not counting the inflatable Habs. Why are we wasting billions of dollars on 70 year old concepts, just so we don't hurt the feelings of Blue origin and Boeing???
Why not build the Lunar Gateway modules out of Starships?
Your brilliant idea doesn't fit in Nazis I mean NASA's nefarious plans. Let's make it plain and clear they are not going up there for peaceful purposes.
if you look closely at the needed delta-V required to dock in this near-rectilinear halo orbit you can see that it makes more sense to fly HLS directly to the surface of the moon, to safe precious fuel. Alternatively you can dock in a less stable orbit closer to the surface like Apollo did, but this is bad for a longer stay in this orbit like in the case of a permanent space station. Lunar orbits are a bit of a pain due to the so called 3-body problem
How could NASA NOT anticipate the issue with the mass of HLS? Gross incompetence. Should NASA even be in the moon landing business at all?
They didn't anticipate it because the mass of a rocket doesn't change the orbit of the station. It's a false statement by the video. There are many problems with the Gateway, but Starship mass is not one of them.
The entire Artemis architecture is insane and should be cancelled.
Lunar Gateway is lunacy
An extra starship would make an excellent gateway !
Way too complex. Too many contractors. Too many things have to go right.
Grossly over complicated just quit fannying around with it all Let SpaceX do the job Start to finish .
That would lose jobs and votes for the current politicians.
Maybe I'm crazy and don't understand how to spend NASA money, but it seems to me Starship HLS could take the astronauts with it. If any additional supplies are needed, another Starship. Or just have Elon have his team develop their own lunar gateway.
Okay, I guess people need a refresher in Newton's first law. "An object at rest remains at rest, or if in motion, remains in motion at a constant velocity unless acted on by a net external force." This means the HLS will be in the same identical orbit as the Gateway in order to dock and will stay in that same orbit until it undocks to travel to the Moon's south pole. The Gateway won't be able to course correct while the HLS is attached. If the Gateway needed to perform such a maneuver, the HLS can simply undock for the Gateway's course correction and then dock again.
Forget about Orion and let Space X do the whole mission to the moon.... The Orion capsule is a lemon... 😮😮😮😅
Well....nobody is stopping SpaceX....Musk saiud several years ago that we were going to Mars by 2024....I'm still waiting...they can't go to the moon and Musk talks about Mars....you must be joking??
Given SpaceX's rate of progress, that just might happen. It won't be next year, though. Maybe the first HLS mission to the moon in 2026 if things go well.
Lol, I have zero faith in Orion, SLS, or the gateway doing anything on time or under budget! SpaceX is probably going to have to build a "gateway" station themselves or just do without it and put a Starship/Tanker in that orbit instead.
SLS and Orion worked perfectly on first try. Starship is WAY over time from it's initial promised timeline. At current progress rates, I highly doubt Starship will be ready by 2028. It's not even close it's initial promises. The design is way way too complex. Apollo was designed with multiple redundancies and simple hypergolic systems we knew would work.
SpaceX has to solve not only Starship reusability (not refurbishably like Falcon 9 or the Shuttle, but TRUE reusability), but Stage 0 reusability (their launch site is damaged heavily everytime they launch)
Then it needs to demonstrate on orbit fueling. Tanker boiloff prevention. 8-10 refueling flights *over the course of almost a YEAR*. Plus the HLS. Plus on-orbit refueling of the HLS. PLUS the HLS has to be able to land on the Moon AND relight its engines after being dormant for a long time. And not fall over on the moon.
A single failure, like the orbit tanker failing, would set the program back years.
It's almost 2025. I don't see SpaceX's deliverables being ready before 2028. I mean, it needs all of 2027 just to refuel the orbital tanker according to SpaceX's schedule. Any hiccups will push that back.
The SpaceX fanboys are being way too forgiving and the hero worship leads them to blame any missteps or failures by SpaceX as "part of the process", whereas failures by other orgs are viciously savaged as incompetence.
The Gateway's sole purpose is to justify using the ORION spacecraft for Artemis. The ORION can not make it to Low Lunar Orbit to support manned missions to the moon but can just make it to the Gateway at its high point. NASA and Lockheed Martin have spent over a decade and billions (cost+) developing this deep space spacecraft that is too heavy and limited yet it has been baked into every deep space mission including Mars mission concepts. The fact that it can only be launched on a SLS rocket is just an extra bonus to the legacy space companies. As long as the Artemis program includes these three albatrosses (SLS, ORION, and Gateway), manned moon landings will be limited to short-term visits once a year at best. Imagine if those billions could be poured into lunar base infrastructure instead.
well said
Huge waste of taxpayer money!
Just because Nasa makes bad decisions does not mean that Space X needs to scale down to the same level of nonsense!. Space x should go full commercial and leave NASA behind on this particular mission. Nasa will not be ready until the 2030's anyway! Remember that Space x is going to Mars by the 2030's.
Musk, who was returning from Russia, told his companions: We will build the rocket ourselves.
Now, he can say: We will go to the Moon ourselves ... :)
Yeah, yeah, sure, Elon can duplicate Nasa's entire support infrastructure for communications and supply.
Using a vehicle the size of Starship is INSANE! It's like using an ocean liner for a one-day fishing trip. IMS, Starship could accommodate dozens of crewmembers. You have to wonder what the bureaucrats at NASA were thinking when they selected the Starship HLS for Artemis.
It costs less than a smaller, less capable lander. Why wouldn't they use it?
Perhaps NASA was thinking they need to have at least one company that knows what it's doing a actually builds rockets that can fly.
It was by far the cheapest bid on their offer. And it added extra capacity for more and bigger moon rovers and science stuff.
@@redpillcommando and reach space safely and then get the crew back again…
@@billmullins6833 lol, a one day fishing trip, is that what building a space station for many moon landings to use, the first of which is to be a 3-5 day sample gathering and experiments before returning to the station for transferring the samples home and to then use it for both commercial and government sponsored landings….Is that what you think of as a one day fishing trip? Plus it’s the only rocket that can carry all the parts scheduled for SpaceX to launch, but yeah silly silly people should only use companies run by their cronies so they can steal from taxpayers to give to themselves and their friends on a project that will never happen as it’s planned now.
Getting Gateway to work successfully is the key to this being a sustained project, not just another dash to the moon for political kudos.
If Starship system is online there is no need for Gateway station, Orion / SLS. The full project can be done with Dragon / HLS combo starting from LEO orbit. Starship is so roomy for 4 people that they can be out there multiple months...
It is absolutely shameful and embarrassing that something we accomplished over HALF A CENTURY AGO, is proving such a challenge for the agency which first landed humans on the moon. I'd be willing to bet that if they gave SpaceX the entire budget for the Moon project, Musk would already be building a base there!
Not wrong he would have us on the Moon by the end of the decade with ease. NASA would need to get the FAA off SpaceX’s back.
NASA doesn’t have the money
@@Mrfrogboi Yeah, because they stupidIy gave it to Boeing.
Say they accomplished. Do you remember mission accomplished in Iraq. A board the warship wasn't that a LIE 🤥.
Don't believe everything you see especially in high definition. 👍🏿🇬🇧🇯🇲😇☮️💯. We humans are liars and bullshitters 😊
Artemus will fail. Too expensive. Too complicated in its hardware and mission for NASA to cope with.
Too politicized to be completed into something that makes any sense. Star Ship will carry it off with a new engine not requiring vast amounts of fuel.
NASA's time is over!
Not if your operation wants government funding.
The orbital gateway is completely unnecessary, at this point. At least one lunar colony of 100s of people would be required to logically require this kind of station. SLS is not required either, for reasons we all know well.
Money laundering needs a lot of distractions.
@@rogerrussell9544 Perhaps some of it is just that. But mostly, lobbiest must forge compromises to get NASA the funding it needs. If Congress is to pay the bill, then they're coming along for the ride. Because we pay for all of this amazing adventuring, and discovery. This proccess is ours. Fortunately, we have some smart people to show us how. But big fat congress, filled with people we voted in there, will be in the back seat, calling the shots, paying the bills. They all want a chunk of the logistics gravy train to run through their state. Making jobs, and workers to tax. It seems inefficient, when looking at the rocket garden at Boa Chica. But it's our money that ultimately makes it happen. Politicians are what they are. If they piss off everyone, well, that's a good compromise. Lot's of shit talkin these days from everywhere, but we're innocent until proven guilty. That goes for everyone.
How much power, and wealth does it take to corrupt the best of us? Checks and balances is all we have.
As an Engineer I feel the Lunar Gateway is an overly complex way to return to the moon. I am not the only Engineer (outside NASA) that feels that way. Destin Sandlin (Smarter Every Day) also feels that the plan is overly complex. I believe the complexity was primarily driven not by the technical needs of the program but was added to gather the needed vote and support to keep the program in the budget.
Starship hasn’t demonstrated reliability yet. Falcon Heavy has. Starship has demonstrated progress though.
It's the reputation of competence and financial competitiveness that makes SpaceX the winner. We must make space travel a bit less exotic, less expensive. But if an operation caters to government contracts, inefficiency is along for the ride. That kind of cash flow comes with many compromises.
SpaceX can easily build their OWN station for resting and refueling purposes. They are more capable than NSA would ever be.
Sounds as though NASA either have not properly thought this through, or have simply just given taxpayers money to their pals.
Thanks for this.
The Lunar Gateway is completely unnecessary if Starhip works properly, for NASA that is the crux of the matter. If you cancel a project you never get the money reappropriated for the project, and then you've lost the schedule. Clearly, Starship will make a better gateway module than the current plans, but you can't bet everything on something unproven. Once Starship is proven to do what it says it can do, revamping a New Gateway can begin.
What a convoluted waste of money! NASA needs to be defunded and become a scientific agency only! Let the private sector do this!
@@werewolflover8636 that the issue. The government directed NASA to outsource the development to the private sector and give their funds to Boeing (private sector).
I have heard every excuse possible as to why we are not on the Moon.
Watching Boeing stumbling around may be the actual reason.
Gateway was always a dumb idea for the beginnings of returning to the moon. NASA always violates KISS (keep it simple, stupid) doctrine and is constantly faced with cost overruns and delays as a result. But because of the revolving door of NASA bureaucrats to legacy aerospace over the last few decades, there is a built in bias within the agency to keep money and projects flowing to legacy aerospace, despite their horrible performance (e.g. Starliner, and now SLS). If SpaceX is able to ramp up starship complete with rapid reuse, it will make obsolete all NASA plans for Lunar and Mars exploration and for that matter scientific probe explorations. Cost to orbit, and reliability will undergo a step function improvement, and NASA needs to learn to adapt to this new coming reality.
I’m an idiot and I could have told you that this wasn’t going to work. The whole thing is way too complicated. You have multiple launch vehicles, and multiple launches of some of them to make one mission possible.
TBF, the Lunar Station was designed with the idea of a small, tiny lander. They never envisioned something the size and power of Starship. It's just another remnant of designs and plans laid 20 years ago that leaders and politicians don't want to let go of. It's the same thing with SLS. "Well, we have those engines from the Space Shuttle. Surely it would be cheaper to just reuse those than design and build new ones." (facepalm)
It's the same reason NASA still invests in Orion. Politics. They spent all that money from the government building it for a plan that was scrapped 15 years ago, all because they felt they had a duty to finish it. I used to be all in on Orion, but that was back when we were supposed to have boots back on the moon by 2018. Now, private industry has proven to be way more reliable than government tied companies, like Boeing.
Pork project. There was never an end game beyond spending money.
So here’s the thing. Just landing on the moon is kind of stupid. We should be developing a type of drone craft to move around the surface and survey locations for future exploration.
Additionally, they should hire a contractor to make an actual science lab for the Lunar Gateway. Something that can be used to manufacture tools and parts for industry. That would be useful.
Then manufacture solar panels on that Gateway for a future moon base. Manufacture a large rover for the moons surface. Make a few of them (more than 3).
All of the above can be done now. It’s exceptionally stupid to not think ahead. NASA once had a plan. Maybe we need a separate agency to do this, since they seem so distracted by a million other projects.
Government planning of hardware is the problem. The government always starts with what they want rather than what is possible. The government needs to focus on research that is possible purchasing time on hardware that is commercially available. Let industry figure out what is technologically and financially possible.
But once they figure out how to do it, they then modify the requirements so they have to figure it out all over again.
The delay of NASA moon exploration missions is ridiculously perthetic
I've been saying for years , All phone chargers should fit any phone , pick ONE
Dock a Dragon to the fuelled HLS in LEO, transit the dragon to the iss or depot, HLS transit to the moon drop off more lunar starlink satellites, land on the moon. Return to LEO Dragon docks to HLS and the crew returns. HLS docks with the depot awaiting next mission. Simples 😊
At this point I doubt NASA is even considering doing work with Boeing on any future projects.
Use the iss, move it to lunar orbit
Neither of these things have been constructed yet.... they can change the designs or just make an adaptor it isnt a big deal.
Just a question, why can't the current space station be upgraded and boosted to lunar orbit?
Because it's turning into a leaky liability.
The *Russian* side has already sprung leaks and the *US* side isn't far from there, literally as well as temporally.
Remember a leak in space is far worse than a leak on a boat.
The tech onboard the ISS isn’t worth the cost of moving it. It’s a science lab from 10-20years ago, practically worthless in today’s world.
Its been up thei thirty years ,was built on a budget and is mostly held together with baling wire and string. Im not sure its going to last til 2030
Why not use a modified starship to work as gate way station.. it won't need landing thrusters or landing gear. And can use smaller fuel tanks. So you could have a lot more room for the astronauts with the ability to refuel landers. With alot of usable space it gives us so many options.
👍👍👍
1): Superheavy has yet to complete a single orbit of the Earth. It is not human rated or cargo rated, and it has NEVER been beyond ballistic LEO space. It is a non operational test bird that has yet to complete 100% of its mission profiles for both stages (close, but that control flap burning through and almost detaching is a strike against them on ITF 4).
2): It lacks life support, docking rings, power systems, computer control sufficient for human missions, and just about everything else. It is just fuel tanks with an engine section and nose cone attached.
3): Due to its design, it has NO insulation whatsoever. You would have to add several tons of dry mass just to stabilize the temp. in a range where life support could make it livable.
4): The tankage space is utterly unusable; the exterior of the vehicle is the exterior of the fuel and oxidizer tanks. Hence the frost buildup as they are filled. You would have to integrate airlocks into the common dome sections, which would have to be strong enough to withstand the LOX and liquid methane without leaks. Which would require redesigning the whole vehicle.
5): By the time the vehicle boosted there and achieved orbit, it would be OUT of fuel, since you would have to sacrifice fuel weight to put on insulation, add locks to bulkheads, install livable crew quarters, life support, and other necessities. They have no idea if these engines are going to be sufficient to reach escape velocity with a tricked out vehicle, which is 7mi/sec. Then you have TLI and the maneuvers required for the NRHO, which requires regular orbital corrections to maintain, and there is no design currently for the kinds of ion and chemical thrusters that the Gateway PPE has.
NASA hasn’t done anything on the original time schedule since Apollo, so unfortunately no one actually knows when any of the milestones will actually occur.
I always though the Gateway was not a solid idea and too complicated. We should use versions of Starship for the entirety of the lunar effort.
I just remember, every time Bezos wants NASA money, he goes to the Democrats.
an extra starship could take the place of the gateway.
Suggestion: do not dock Starship to lunar Gateway. Use Orion to transfer astronauts between Gateway and starship.
Yeah right. Home Depot makes an adapter for that.
Space X is superb compared to any other company. Boeing should be removed from this project all together!
all one needs to ask is how would Robert Zubrin do all of this? Put him in charge and see what happens, 1 person to run all of this and one person only and get rid of all these bloody committees and endless VPs in charge of.....
A second Starship parked in Lunar orbit would make a simple and efficient Lunar Gateway.
starship has more room for activities
Only in America can we make it so complicated.
When all of the old legacy space corporations unite against the new guys, that explains it all. Boeing and friends would love to subtract SpaceX from a project that Starship renders obsolete.
Waayy too complex. Never going to happen. Stuff like this needs to be kept simple.
Personally I think they should consider moving the ISS (or parts of it) to lunar orbit. Its been tested & all of the quarks about are know. Issue with ISS is metal fatigue from constant thermal cycling but this can be managed by boosting ISS into higher orbit or lunar orbit such that the frequent thermal cycling is ended.
You would need a Starship to move that 400 ton station instead of the modified dragon. Too bad NASA wants to use a proven vehicle
Artemis will not get beyond the lunar flyby mission before it is suspended or cancelled due to technical problems and ballooning costs.
Scrap tje gate way prioritize explore with robot for coloney sight abd build on serfice
We need to get nasa to stop embezzling the amarican taxpay for thes humungs coust projets that are to solidify a falling company like boeing to keep them from bankrupce when less expecive launch vehikels are avalible and more sustainible and can preform the same function
Send a starship for orbit, and an HLS for landing and becoming a lunar base. Use a different (small) lander for trips between surface and orbit, and a starship tanker for resupplies and crew excahanges. One of the starships can carry a docking module.
Enough Skylabs, build a real rotating station at L1. Use it as the train station to the Moon, Mars and beyond
YES! And set up two lunar space elevators. The first one's cables should be pointed at Earth to transfer crew and shipments back and forth from the moon base without wasting rocket fuel or risky rocket landings. The second one should be on the far side of the moon and include a large telescope at its terminus. The second space elevator terminal would be the logical jump off point for interplanetary voyages, thpugh L1 would also work, as you pointed out.
All that said, ANY lunar colony must be built far underground so that there is no excess radiation cancer risk to cause decreased max mission time for crews. A crew should be able to live there for a year without excessive radiation damage, though they may need lots of time on a centrifuge to keep from losing their full Earth gravity muscle mass strength.
Ideally, all the industry to build spaceships and produce the fuel they need should be on the moon because of its low gravity. Solar energy is plentiful and nearly constant and the lunar regolith has just about all the raw materials needed. Robots would do most of the work, of course.
What's that nonsense? Adding more weight to an orbiting station DOES NOT change the orbit of the station! It doesn't matter how heavy a rocket is, as long as it doesn't "bump" into the station, it doesn't make a difference.
I was expecting some knowledge of orbital mechanics to be shown in this video, and I'm disappointed.
According to Newton it does. The gravity an object experiences, is proportional to its mass. This will affect the orbit. f=ma
@@jstep4146
TLDR: no, it doesn't. Your formula is not applicable to calculating orbital trajectories.
I don't know why my first reply isn't visible (maybe it will appear once the author approves it) but in short, once again.
No, you are not correct, even though the formula you supplied is. The formula speaks about the FORCE that the gravity is causing on the object. This is proportional to it's mass - but so is it's momentum. These two cancel each other out, so in the end, the acceleration caused by the gravity is always the same, regardless of the object weight. (just check out the feather/hammer falling on moon experiment that NASA did some years ago).
(If an object's mass gets doubled, then the gravitational force gets doubled - but so does the force required to cause the same amount of acceleration, so no change to its orbital path is made)
When speaking about orbital mechanics, if we consider the situation of a celestial body (moon) and a satellite (Gateway station), then the station's mass is NOT a part of the equation to calculate it's orbital path. You can add as much weight as you want to the station and it will still remain in the same orbit - as long as the added mass didn't "bump" the station with force, which would create acceleration. A properly docked space vessel doesn't do this - it only adds weight, not acceleration, to the station.
If you want to change the trajectory of a satellite in orbit, you would need to substantially change the mass of the moon itself - that would absolutely alter the orbits of its satellites.
@@kalkovonschpritzendorf1914 if the mass changes, then the total momentum must change, otherwise the orbit gets altered, even in a perfect circular orbit. This isn't KSP.
What you are talking about is that basically the momentum and gravity combined makes the projected force be perpendicular to the ground, causing the ship to stay in orbit. However, since the Station would have mass M1, and Starship would have Mass M2, then current acceleration(momentum) A1, A2, and gravity pull N1, N2; if you combine them then you get:
M1+M2=M3; with M3>M1, thus the total gravity pull will be f*M3>M1.
Now here's the tricky bit. for M3 with N3 to stay in orbit it will need an A3 which is roughly A1+A2, however when the docking happens then A1=A2=A3. The acceleration doesn't change, but the mass does. This will cause a stronger pull towards the moon, which will cause the orbit to become more obloid.
@@radugherman8026 Sigh.. Nope. Do some reading.
@@kalkovonschpritzendorf1914 sadly, it's right. The orbit of a satellite does not depend on it's mass, only the mass of the celestial body.
Simple. Because Getway is to small for astronauts, the bathroom too limited (yes, fixed with Dragon XL), has no windows, and sucks for the two astronauts that dont go to the moon, just reduce it to two modules and make it an unmanned to fulfill the half of the intent to orbit and relay from moon far side. Launch on time rather than three years late, and not require the SLS upgrade, save money and claim something delivered on time. Take the win
Some company is going to get a billion dollar "adapter" contract. Be interesting to track which NASA employees mysteriously resign and go to work for them for a significant pay raise and stock options.
I can see eight hollowed out *Starship* bodies arranged like wagon-wheel spokes around a central hub on the surface of the *Moon* (and then *Mars* ) with a *Lunar Lander Starship* shuttling between the surface and space bringing supplies and *Optimus* robots to take care of the assembly. Once it's all built then we can land people.
NASA should abandon all other options and only fund and service SPACE X.
Yeah
Cool, in this reality space x is ineffective and corrupted as Boeing.
Now what?
Skip the gateway. It is just a lot of extra complexity. Maybe later in the project.
👍👍👍
I think they should go for the same approach that SpaceX is doing for mars. Which is send a bunch of star ships at once to take building materials to the moon & start setting up bases once the bases are set up the gateway wont be needed especially with star ship as why would you use a 1 times use capsule to bring stuff from the moon to earth when you have star ship which can be reused also we don't need more moon samples as we got what we needed back in the 60s/70s. The whole reason the moon is now getting attention is resources as the moon is abundant with helium-3 (the fuel for fusion) as well as silicon which is used to make CPUs & at the moment China has the most silicon deposits on earth.
Absolutely just use starship to land. Didn’t understand why they were doing the rest of that crap. Imagine how far they’d make it if they just funded space x to land on the moon
Starship would have to dock vertically like the shuttle used to do when it came to R&D to the ISS. Not horizontally like what they have shown in the computer generated images of the Lunar Spacestation
Waste of money for DEI crew.
I wish all folks involved in this success!
When the apollo programme was in development NASA desided what was needed, outlined the what was needed and went out to contract. The best bid was chosen.
With the current moon attempt, NASA has designed And has presumably put out for tender for SLS and Artemis which can fly to the moon and take a crew of four into moon orbit and to dock with a lunar orbiting space station.This all seems to be designed without much thought being given to how to land. NASA then puts out to contract a requirement for a lunar lander.
It seems Space X wins this contract with a system which is incompatible with the rest of the system. The tail seems to be wagging the dog.
it is Artimis that needs removing along with ULA
How would HLS dock with the gateway if it has a header tank?
The Starship header tank is a system used for the landing burn on earth. The HLS Starship is not meant to reenter earths atmosphere and land. As such there is no need for a header tank (nor a heat shield or flaps). But compared to the normal Starship, the HLS version will have landing legs and additional smaller engines further up to reduce the impact and dust cloud creation while landing on the moon.
A hatch on the side? Not sure why their art keeps using the nose.
No. Gateway is almost the same with ISS but further into space. We need to live and work in that system before we can live on the moon surface. Crawling, creeping before walking. Slow but solid. Does anyone agree with me?👍🚀
Maybe if the us didn’t spend trillions of dollars on the military and even a little bit more money one nasa we would have a base on the moon by now
With Sierra Space we can have a spacious inflatable and low cost habitat gateway in 2028 without SLS upgrades.
thanks for the update stream
So NASA Needs 2 alternate launch sources for space, so nobody thinks about cross compatibility. How do I get a job there? Can't be hard from what I see.
Nasal should use an adhesive spray on the moon surface to fix the surface prior to landing on the moon
I like that idea - send a rover with some adhesive spray to make a clean landing zone for Starship so no dust blows out. Other Rovers delivered from Starship could build a wall around the landing pad!
NASA's budget for 2023 was 25.4 billion dollars. The US Military budget for 2023 was 820.3 billion dollars. There is NOTHING "staggering" about the cost of ANY of NASA's projects!
there are many issues but one of them is congressional mandates to carry dead weight under the guise of competition. ie boeing starliner and blue origin blue moon lander. any uppers on the NASA budget are passthroughs to contractors
One of these agency’s keep you safe and is responsible for inventing a lot of things you take for granted like microwaves, GPS, and micro computers just to name a few, the other is a space agency giving billions to Boeing and shows little interest in doing anything productive in the next decade!
@@werewolflover8636 Boeing accounts for 21% of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD’s) procurement budget.
8:37 That not how physics works. Docking HLS to a space station, no matter how much fuel HLS is carrying won't alter the station's orbit.
Without space x the us apace program has basixally fallen off a cliff in capability
Yes. Eliminate the Lunar Gateway.
Is there any moon mission that wouldn’t take a lot of launches? If SpaceX did it all there is still many many launches per mission.
Just turn a couple Starships into the gateway. boom ez
Why hasn’t SpaceX just sent a private mission, on a Falcon heavy, to the moon and just claimed it as their success?!?!
I don't know, they had a plan originally to do a flyby on falcon heavy with crew dragon. But I think falcon heavy was not human crew rated. They decided to not put their energy in that and the flyby with crew dragon changed into one with starship. It was the dear moon project but that now got canceled just recently. I don't think spacex has the capability right now to do a moon flyby let alone a moon landing. They would need to allocate resources to make falcon heavy human rated to do a flyby. They need starship finished and human rated before they can do a moon landing. By the time they can I am sure they will.
SpaceX does not have a human landing ship. Crew dragon can not land on the moonr
A single modified lander could serve as a gateway at minimal additional cost. In fact Orion is unnecessary as a dragon can put the crew on the lander in LEO, rather than the more risky docking in lunar orbit.
The docking incompatibility is undeniable, so why 'dock' at all? I seem to remember an old Fifties sci-fi movie from George Pal entitled, THE CONQUEST OF SPACE, which had a rotating space station 'wheel' and a large, free-floating Mars Explorer assembly. With these two wildly diverse spacecrafts kept at reasonable distances from one another, crew transfers were readily accomplished by a 'space taxi' system that was cheap, dirty, and effective. NASA seems to think that once a method like docking works, it must not be changed or even questioned ever again. I'm not suggesting NASA do what was shown in some old George Pal movie but they ought to bring more options to the table for serious consideration.
Please, stop with the "spacecrafts" stuff! Craft, whether water, air or space craft are "craft", no matter how many of them are referenced. That's why, for example, "small craft warnings" are issued in stormy weather-- not a "small crafts warning". It's a "small craft warning". Stop trying to mess up the English language!
@@IanSmithCA be patient young padawan, not english native speaker he is, american he is
Gateway as it is severely lacks. The station itself is no were near substantial for the job . Artimus itself is overly complex and expensive with results already showing signs of cracking. Too many players for a losing game.
So they can both build a ship but not an adapter?! C'mon man LOL
Maybe a Chinese crew lander would help Nasa's budget.
This is a special way of thinking, in order to just go on vacation somewhere, you need to build a house in between! So that there is a place where thoughts can be transferred from one hemisphere to the second!)
Why not just use SpaceX vehicles to go to the moon, land and return? Way less complex and totally within the capabilities of SpaceX using only Starship vehicles (model 3s by then).
Yeah, I think so
Because they can not do it. SLS made it to the Moon first try, with a single vehicle. To get HLS to the Moon, it will be build the HLS and launch it to Earth orbit. Build another vehicle and place in orbit to play gas station. Then launch 10-12 other Super Heavies to hopefully transfer the dregs they reach orbit with into said gas station, so you can refill HLS to attempt to reach escape velocity. That is building and launching 14 vehicles to attempt to get ONE to the Moon. And that assumes they can fill that gas station with those 12 flights. It could take 20 or more, depending on the loads on those other flights and how robust the docking and storage are. One jammed valve (like happened on IFT 3, which saw the 2nd stage tumble to its demise on reentry) and you lose whatever you were transferring. Or one bit of debris punctures that steel skin, and there is no secondary tankage. Whooosh. Never mind the fact that no one has ever done a zero g cryogenic transfer before.
YES! Lunar gateway is just a money pit for politicians.
I agree with those that say all the gateway issues are solvable. However having to travel to a Moondoggle in order to land on the moon is a ridiculous step. This all started as a plan to go to an asteroid.
Size has nothing to do with orbital pathways successful docking depends on proper speed and course.
If starship can land itself, why would anyone waste the extra steps? They should just figure out what profits each contractor will make and tell them stop work, just pay them out.
I mean sure though contributed additional weight from Starship could impact the orbit of the Gateway. But that's why they have a propulsion system in place. So I failed to see why we really need to cancel the Gateway system...
I thought that sounded dumb in the video. If Starship moves Gateway - which it shouldn't with a proper docking. It could easily put it back in the proper orbit. This ISS had major issues with the Russians docking craft that had thruster issues that kicked it out of orbit and it was fixed!
Not sure why they would need to cancel it but make it bigger as the mass of starship is going exceed the limit of safe docking mass to the gateway.
@@lionfire01 - Would you trust Boeing to build Gateway? Seriously, they can't build a rocket or plane without major problems. NASA should cancel Boeing and hire Lockhead/Martin, SpaceX, and maybe Blue Origin if they can achieve something other than a Willy Wonka elevator to Space and Back. I have hopes for the Dream Chaser launching on SpaceX and ignoring buying ULA (wait till it goes bankrupt if ever). They need to fly first buy 2nd.
NASA should abandon SLS. Retro fit Artemis to the Stsrship booster.
Rework the Lunar Gateway to a larger fairing, and a larger habitable area.
Then launch that. If they need engineers work with SpaceX to make that happen. It all can be done and designed extraordinarily well. Don’t ditch the part that is most innovative, remove the waste that is SLS. It’s a pork project now.