NASA safety panel warns that the lunar lander version of SpaceX’s Starship could be delayed by years: “The HLS (Human Landing System) schedule is significantly challenged and, in our estimation, could be years late for a 2027 Artemis 3 moon landing”
NASA safety panel warns Starship lunar lander could be delayed by years
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-Spend 20+ years and 100 Billion dollars to build a rocket that can barely get to the moon
-Constantly change plans of what the program is supposed to achieve
-Pick a lander at the last possible point with an unrealistic timeline and ~3% of the budget
-Be surprised that the lander is delayed
The orbital refueling project with the dozens of sequential successful launches need to work at least twice to pull this off. Once as a demonstrator, and then the mission itself (which will be scrubbed if the refueling fails). Possibly *two* successful tests if they can’t integrate the unmanned Moon landing into the refuel demo.
Starship is very, *very* far from that.
“Mars by 2018! 100+ tons to orbit!”
“OH wait, we need a flame trench?”
“And heat tiles? 50 tons to orbit!”
“And now we need to seal the tiles? Come on! 35 tons to orbit!”
“Don’t worry, V3 and V4 will get us to 100+ tons to orbit!”*
*My need 15 or more refueling launches to get to the moon.
I don’t think anyone believed these dates when I worked HLS. NASA didn’t have enough people to properly assess these missions before the events of this year and they definitely don’t have them now.
So what’s the problem? Grandpa skills back during the 60’s out shining today’s kids?
The whole design was preposterous and only won because SpaceX gave the person who made the award a job.
“NASA safety panel”
What’s that, probably some radical leftist thing that needs to be removed and replaced with a bunch of patriots. /s
(the current government probably)
Relying on any timelines or any tech feasibility claim coming out of Musk is a ridiculous proposition given the track record. This is what happens when faith is placed in megalomaniac oligarchs with god complexes, penchant for fascism, and a drug habit. You get what you deserve.
No duh, they picked Starship in 2021!! That being said SpaceX is behind relative to their promises to its kinda on both parties here.
Delayed by a few years giving us unprecedented advancements in access to space and tonnage to space. Versus cobbled together from 50 year old programs at 20-100x the cost and delayed by decades already.
We get it, you don’t like Musk. So a 2-3 year delay is unacceptable, but our previous programs are allowed to be delayed by decades. You know SpaceX will not be the final delaying factor if we stay committed to the SLS and gateway outpost.
It’s not going to be ready for at least 10 years. If indeed it ever goes to the moon at all. Requiring a dozen or more launches to fuel up every time is a pretty terrible mission design
Full self driving will be available next year™!
This happens when Bezos is allowed to throw a tantrum so hard NASA has to explain the concept of numbers to him because the lander his company made wasn’t chosen because they couldn’t afford it.
Also, this sort of thing is why it kills me when people claim republicans like space. They’re its greatest enemies.
It possible that Blue Moon may end up being the one used at this rate. The cargo version of the lander will be used sometime early 2026. If that thing can manage to land, then they could just speed up Blue Moon’s development if Starship HLS can’t pull it off.
At this point this is is manned space flight tradition.
That’s years late from original 2027 plan. Not delayed to 2027.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|[HLS](/r/Space/comments/1nm8mps/stub/nfbd22r “Last usage”)|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1nm8mps/stub/nfb99bu “Last usage”)|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[SLS](/r/Space/comments/1nm8mps/stub/nfb7vkb “Last usage”)|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
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