From t=1792 mark Bridenstine criticises the use of SpaceX to land on the Moon
Transcript from 30:31
But in the meantime, the architecture is as
such. We need to launch Starship. That first Starship is a fueling depot that's in orbit around the Earth. Then we need
to launch, nobody really knows, nobody knows, but it could be up to dozens of
additional Starships to refuel the first Starship. So imagine launching Starship
over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, dozens of times, no delays, no explosions to
refuel the first Starship. Then once it's fully refueled, then that Starship
has to fuel another Starship that is in fact human rated, which that process
hasn't even started yet. By the way, that whole inspace refueling thing has
never been tested either. We're talking about cryogenic liquid oxygen, cryogenic liquid methane being transferred in
space, never been done before. And we're going to do it dozens of times. And then we're going to have a human rated
Starship that is refueled that goes all the way to the moon. Now, when it goes to the moon, we don't know how long it
can be there because it's boiling off the entire time it's in orbit around the moon. We don't know how long it can be there. But while it's there, we have to
launch the SLS. We have to launch the Orion, the European service module. We have to have astronauts and crew all
ready to go. And they have to they have to orbit the moon themselves in that window. That window when Starship is
around the moon. And then they have to dock around the moon. They have to transfer from the Orion into the Starship. It has to go down and land.
When it's on the surface of the moon, Starship is gone or uh Orion is gone for the next seven days until it comes back
around in near rectal linear halo orbit. So, our astronauts are right now planning to be on the surface of the
moon for a period of seven days without any way home. This is an architecture that no NASA administrator that I'm
aware of would have selected had they had the choice. But it was a decision that was made in the absence of a NASA administrator in the last
administration. It's a problem. It needs to be solved and that puts us as a nation at risk of not being the first on
the moon.
15 Comments
Very worth pointing out that Bridenstine is a paid lobbyist by Boeing now
This is so terribly inefficient. Launch something to escape the gravity well, only to slow down, fall into an orbit, refuel, then launch again.
But why? Why not launch like we do now to escape, then continue with inertia?
While he has a good point, the last part where the astronauts have to wait on the moon until Gateway is in the right place is entirely on Congress/NASA.
“puts us as a nation at risk of not being the first on the moon”
Quite uncareful wording, I can see this fueling the conspiracy theorists.
Bridenstine is full of shit here. And note that he, as the co-founder and managing partner of the consulting/lobbying firm The Artemis Group, is now a lobbyist for competitors of SpaceX.
>Now, when it goes to the moon, we don’t know how long it can be there because it’s boiling off the entire time it’s in orbit around the moon. We don’t know how long it can be there. But while it’s there, we have to launch the SLS. We have to launch the Orion, the European service module. We have to have astronauts and crew all ready to go.
The requirement is that the Artemis HLS must be able to loiter for 90 days in NRHO waiting for SLS/Orion. If it takes too long to get SLS/Orion launched (which would be shameful, but not too shocking with those vehicles), the resulting mission scrub would be on SLS or Orion.
>And they have to they have to orbit the moon themselves in that window. That window when Starship is around the moon. And then they have to dock around the moon. They have to transfer from the Orion into the Starship. It has to go down and land. When it’s on the surface of the moon, Starship is gone or uh Orion is gone for the next seven days until it comes back around in near rectal linear halo orbit. So, our astronauts are right now planning to be on the surface of the moon for a period of seven days without any way home.
>This is an architecture that no NASA administrator that I’m aware of would have selected had they had the choice. But it was a decision that was made in the absence of a NASA administrator in the last administration. It’s a problem. It needs to be solved and that puts us as a nation at risk of not being the first on the moon.
The mission architecture of Orion loitering in NRHO for its ~7 day orbital period (or multiples thereof on later missions) is independent of the lander design. This architecture was established from the beginning of Artemis, and cemented when Bridenstine was adminstrator, years before the HLS was selected. To be fair, such an architecture is dictated by the contraints of Orion (too heavy a command module with not enough propellant in its service module to use low lunar orbit like Apollo) and SLS (Block I couldn’t send an Orion with a hypothetical heavier service module to the Moon, let alone a lander with it). Those projects pre-date Bridenstine’s tenure and would have continued to be required by Congress whether he or the adminsitration wanted them or not. But Bridenstine sure seems to like SLS/Orion now. Except he also hates the architecture it requires, but nonsensically blames it on Starship and decisions made after he left NASA.
To further correct Bridenstine, there *are* abort options to get back to Orion/NRHO before the 7 day period is up. The earlier returns often require loitering some time in low lunar orbit (and extra delta-v that must be budgeted into the HLS design). And of course, it takes time to get between low lunar orbit (LLO) and NRHO. Staging the landing from polar LLO would provide better, quicker abort options. But because Orion is an underpowered pig, Artemis can’t do that.
ETA: The solicitation, and most of the bidding and evaluation process for the Artemis 3 HLS took place during Bridenstine’s tenure as administrator. Bridenstine’s NASA specified the criteria for the landers, and in 2020 selected Starship, along with Dynetics’s Alpaca and the Blue Origin/National Team Integrated Lander Vehicle, for funding and further competition. The final award to Starship was officially announced in April 2021, less than 3 months after Bridenstine left NASA on January 20. Starship was the clear winner according to the criteria previously set forth by Bridenstine’s NASA, and there was no funding at the time for a second lander. That’s how contracting works (or should work). The NASA administrator wouldn’t get to just personally select any option based on arbitrary feels, let alone change the selection after the fact.
> rectal linear halo orbit
AI transcription error or Freudian slip?
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|GSE|Ground Support Equipment|
|[HLS](/r/Space/comments/1pcza0o/stub/ns1s8ml “Last usage”)|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)|
|[JPL](/r/Space/comments/1pcza0o/stub/ns1m51s “Last usage”)|Jet Propulsion Lab, California|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1pcza0o/stub/ns1nrl0 “Last usage”)|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[LLO](/r/Space/comments/1pcza0o/stub/ns1rydt “Last usage”)|Low Lunar Orbit (below 100km)|
|[NRHO](/r/Space/comments/1pcza0o/stub/ns1rydt “Last usage”)|Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit|
|[RP-1](/r/Space/comments/1pcza0o/stub/ns1habf “Last usage”)|Rocket Propellant 1 (enhanced kerosene)|
|[SLS](/r/Space/comments/1pcza0o/stub/ns1xfsj “Last usage”)|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
|[ULA](/r/Space/comments/1pcza0o/stub/ns1rlxb “Last usage”)|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|——-|———|—|
|[cryogenic](/r/Space/comments/1pcza0o/stub/ns1nrl0 “Last usage”)|Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure|
| |(In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox|
|hydrolox|Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
|[scrub](/r/Space/comments/1pcza0o/stub/ns1hadw “Last usage”)|Launch postponement for any reason (commonly GSE issues)|
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Hey what does he mean by that last part that our nation wouldn’t “be the first on the moon”? Surely he’s just referencing current efforts, right..?
Rectal orbit?
That’s really new to me.
We made it to the moon in the sixties with no refueling. Why is it a complicated daisy chain of refueling ships now?
I understand why cryogenic refueling makes sense – it’s necessary to get a large mass into LTO.
But what I don’t understand is why starship itself needs to go to the moon. Would it make more sense to use starship to construct an intermediate space station in LEO, and then raise its orbit to achieve trans lunar injection, and then have that station do laps between the moon and Earth? Bonus points if you build two such stations, and stage them such that one is always orbiting the moon, replacing or supplementing the lunar gateway.
To make an analogy to the apollo program, imagine that you kept the service module in orbit to refuel and reuse in subsequent missions, and launched a refurbished command module and new lander module. Because it could be refueled on-orbit, the command module would grow to the size of an saturn 5 third stage, think Skylab.
The benefit of this scheme is that you don’t need to keep launching astronaut habitations, you only need to launch enough fuel for the station to change orbits (a lot), fuel to land a large mass on the moon (decent amount), and a small amount of additional fuel to return humans/science from the lunar surface.
What he said is complete BS:
> So imagine launching Starship over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, dozens of times, no delays, no explosions to refuel the first Starship.
Remind me again who is launching Falcon 9 2 to 3 times every week?
SpaceX is building 5 Starship pads right now, and they already demonstrated 37 days turnaround for Starship between flight 5 and 6. So if we assume SpaceX doesn’t improve turnaround time at all (very dubious assumption given the new pad is designed to enable much faster turnaround), using all 5 pads they can do a launch every week. This is already much faster than the planned launch cadence for HLS, which is one launch every 12 days (according to Blue Origin lawsuit)
> Then once it’s fully refueled, then that Starship has to fuel another Starship that is in fact human rated, which that process hasn’t even started yet.
Remind me again which company has completed NASA certification for a crewed spacecraft in the past 40 years?
> By the way, that whole inspace refueling thing has never been tested either.
Apollo used plenty of new technology and design too, for example Lunar-orbit rendezvous.
> Now, when it goes to the moon, we don’t know how long it can be there because it’s boiling off the entire time it’s in orbit around the moon. We don’t know how long it can be there. But while it’s there, we have to launch the SLS. We have to launch the Orion, the European service module. We have to have astronauts and crew all ready to go. And they have to they have to orbit the moon themselves in that window.
Well yeah, that’s why SLS/Orion is stupid. SpaceX can launch Crew Dragon within a few days of the planned launch window, if SLS/Orion couldn’t do this, and HLS has to wait around the Moon, how is that HLS’ problem?
> They have to transfer from the Orion into the Starship. It has to go down and land. When it’s on the surface of the moon, Starship is gone or uh Orion is gone for the next seven days until it comes back around in near rectal linear halo orbit.
That’s entirely due to Orion’s weak service module, just another reason to get rid of SLS/Orion for good.
> This is an architecture that no NASA administrator that I’m aware of would have selected had they had the choice.
Dude you yourself literally signed off NRHO rendezvous, signed off launching crew using SLS/Orion, also signed off Starship as one of the three candidates for HLS.
> But it was a decision that was made in the absence of a NASA administrator in the last administration.
Who cares as long as the selection process is legit? And it is legit since Blue Origin sued twice trying to get it overturned and they failed.
> It’s a problem. It needs to be solved and that puts us as a nation at risk of not being the first on the moon.
Well first of all US is already the first on the Moon. Secondly there’s no evidence that SpaceX couldn’t beat China to the Moon. Thirdly nobody else in the world can beat SpaceX to the Moon besides China. This entire episode is manufactured to give unlimited cost plus money to Boeing and Lockheed, which Jim Bridenstine now works for (indirectly via ULA)
https://youtu.be/OoJsPvmFixU?si=rE8pcQvL__hN0tLf
Relevant Smarter Every Day video where he explained this all to NASA.
Any other and more straight approach would serve just one purpose: A Moon landing. All the money you’d be spending on that and all the R&D you’d put into this would never allow you to do anything else. Like SLS and Orion will never be used for anything else but a few Artemis missions. This is wasted money.
Starship serves many purposes. Once you can launch at high cadence and reuse a massive rocket with tankers and payloads and have a propellent depot in orbit you can do so much more with it than with SLS that costs $2B a pop.