NASA's Artemis Program Updates and Discussion Thread 4

[Paul451]

If NASA wants to go toe to toe with China on the Moon, they'll need to invest in lunar surface infrastructure, since China has big plans for their International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). That's another big ticket spending item for NASA in the near future.

ILRS timeline has construction of robotic infrastructure starting NET 2026. With infrastructure capable of supporting future manned missions added between 2031 and 2035, to allow manned missions starting NET 2036.

They aren't in a race with anyone. Because they aren't stupid. Why risk losing face for a stunt? When it comes to showing off for national pride/internal-PR, the Chinese people would be much more impressed by steady, systematic growth of proper research capability than in a flags'n'footprints stunt.

And IMO that shows in how ILRS is laid out.

[The more hysterical claims aren't worth addressing.]

[Zed_Noir]

If NASA wants to go toe to toe with China on the Moon, they'll need to invest in lunar surface infrastructure, since China has big plans for their International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). That's another big ticket spending item for NASA in the near future.

ILRS timeline has construction of robotic infrastructure starting NET 2026. With infrastructure capable of supporting future manned missions added between 2031 and 2035, to allow manned missions starting NET 2036.

They aren't in a race with anyone. Because they aren't stupid. Why risk losing face for a stunt? When it comes to showing off for national pride/internal-PR, the Chinese people would be much more impressed by steady, systematic growth of proper research capability than in a flags'n'footprints stunt.

And IMO that shows in how ILRS is laid out.
<snip>

Will disagree and point out that there is a race between NASA & Co. versus the Chinese & junior partners to set up something like ILRS as a precursor to sustain manned Lunar presence. Just that it is a marathon race instead of a sprint.

We know what the projected Chinese Lunar activities timeline is. What does NASA & Co. have in the way firm future funding for sustain Lunar manned presence and installing Lunar infrastructure to counter the Chinese Lunar activities?

As pointed out elsewhere in this forum. Most of the NASA Lunar budget is spend on the SLS, the Orion and the Earthside EGS infrastructure. Not much is spend on doing science and deploying infrastructure on the Lunar surface. Even getting to the Lunar surface for NASA with crew before the mid 2030's was a generous gift from a commercial entity.

[DanClemmensen]

As pointed out elsewhere in this forum. Most of the NASA Lunar budget is spend on the SLS, the Orion and the Earthside EGS infrastructure. Not much is spend on doing science and deploying infrastructure on the Lunar surface. Even getting to the Lunar surface for NASA with crew before the mid 2030's was a generous gift from a commercial entity.

I'm a big fan of SpaceX, but this was not a "gift" from SpaceX. SpaceX is a commercial company and they intend make a nice profit, or they would not have bid HLS at all. NASA was very lucky that Starship was under development and could be easily(?!) extended to also support an HLS variant. If it was a gift to Artemis (Greek goddess of the hunt), it came from Tyche (Greek goddess of fortune), not from SpaceX.

[clongton]

Why do so many people always seem to assume that as soon as a competent player steps into the room that we are automatically in a race to the prize? The Chinese are not racing us anywhere. Their plan is long term, goal specific, and preplanned expandable into an architecture that will keep them permanently functional for the foreseeable future; in LEO, in cis-lunar space, on the lunar surface, on Mars and Mar's moons, in the asteroid belt and on the moons of Jupiter. It is designed to be a permanent expansion of human presence and habitation on the moon and beyond. Their space architecture is as carefully laid out, in minute detail, as the design plans for a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. NASA's plan? Not so much. The Chinese will execute when they are ready and able too, step by carefully planned step, not based on some artificial, nonexistant race. The extremely sad part is that our space agency, while technically able to outperform anything the Chinese could do, can't get its act together to put together any kind of lunar exploration and exploitation plan that even has a remote chance of establishing something permanent. NASA is incapable these days of getting out of its own way.

The Chinese are not racing NASA, to the moon or anywhere else. They are not worried in the slightest bit about anything NASA might do. They have their own plans that do not include anything NASA might do. And NASA does not have anything that might be worth duplicating. But I'll tell you who they are keeping an eye on - SpaceX. Their latest HLV designs are already mimiking the landing and reusability capabilities of the Falcon-9, only on a much bigger vehicle. What's NASA doing? Polishing yesterday's accomplishments so they look nice and shiny in the library display case.

There is no race between NASA and the CNSA, except in the minds of the uninformed. Will NASA "beat" China back to the lunar surface? Maybe, and maybe not. Time will tell. The point is that China doesn't care if we do or don't. They don't care. They don't care what NASA does or does not do. There is no race. They have their own timeline and won't change it for NASA or anyone else. Artemis is irrelevant to them.

And don't tell me what a great accomplishment Artemis-1 was. All we did was demonstrate to the world (and the Chinese) how incredibly inefficient we are, how slow we are and how financially irresponsible we are when it comes to anything space. I'd love to be proven wrong, but that's not happening either.

[deadman1204]

Why do so many people always seem to assume that as soon as a competent player steps into the room that we are automatically in a race to the prize? The Chinese are not racing us anywhere. Their plan is long term, goal specific, and preplanned expandable into an architecture that will keep them permanently functional for the foreseeable future; in LEO, in cis-lunar space, on the lunar surface, on Mars and Mar's moons, in the asteroid belt and on the moons of Jupiter. It is designed to be a permanent expansion of human presence and habitation on the moon and beyond. Their space architecture is as carefully laid out, in minute detail, as the design plans for a nuclear powered aircraft carrier. NASA's plan? Not so much. The Chinese will execute when they are ready and able too, step by carefully planned step, not based on some artificial, nonexistant race. The extremely sad part is that our space agency, while technically able to outperform anything the Chinese could do, can't get its act together to put together any kind of lunar exploration and exploitation plan that even has a remote chance of establishing something permanent. NASA is incapable these days of getting out of its own way.

The Chinese are not racing NASA, to the moon or anywhere else. They are not worried in the slightest bit about anything NASA might do. They have their own plans that do not include anything NASA might do. And NASA does not have anything that might be worth duplicating. But I'll tell you who they are keeping an eye on - SpaceX. Their latest HLV designs are already mimiking the landing and reusability capabilities of the Falcon-9, only on a much bigger vehicle. What's NASA doing? Polishing yesterday's accomplishments so they look nice and shiny in the library display case.

There is no race between NASA and the CNSA, except in the minds of the uninformed. Will NASA "beat" China back to the lunar surface? Maybe, and maybe not. Time will tell. The point is that China doesn't care if we do or don't. They don't care. They don't care what NASA does or does not do. There is no race. They have their own timeline and won't change it for NASA or anyone else. Artemis is irrelevant to them.

And don't tell me what a great accomplishment Artemis-1 was. All we did was demonstrate to the world (and the Chinese) how incredibly inefficient we are, how slow we are and how financially irresponsible we are when it comes to anything space. I'd love to be proven wrong, but that's not happening either.

This.

Plus the fact that its hard to win a race that ended half a century ago

[TheRadicalModerate]

There is no race between NASA and the CNSA, except in the minds of the uninformed. Will NASA "beat" China back to the lunar surface? Maybe, and maybe not. Time will tell. The point is that China doesn't care if we do or don't. They don't care. They don't care what NASA does or does not do. There is no race. They have their own timeline and won't change it for NASA or anyone else. Artemis is irrelevant to them.

You're thinking about the wrong race.

You're correct that they don't care who puts the next footprint on the Moon.  But I suspect they care quite a bit about dominating economic activity in cislunar space, and that implies dominating surface activity.

There are huge first-mover advantages to having the first lunar water and propellant operation, the first metals production on the surface, first mass driver, first SBSP component factory (if that proves economical), etc.  Since those systems would almost certainly be done in the West by private capital, and the capitalization costs would be enormous, the temptation just to buy from the Chinese would be overwhelming.  If China can get that stuff up and running sooner than the West can, they have a sustainable advantage.

That would be bad.

For that reason, we're in a race for getting enough sustainable infrastructure in place to enable some of these big investments.  It's a long race, but a race nonetheless.  Since Artemis is the vehicle we're driving in that race, it's a cause for concern.

[clongton]

There is no race between NASA and the CNSA, except in the minds of the uninformed. Will NASA "beat" China back to the lunar surface? Maybe, and maybe not. Time will tell. The point is that China doesn't care if we do or don't. They don't care. They don't care what NASA does or does not do. There is no race. They have their own timeline and won't change it for NASA or anyone else. Artemis is irrelevant to them.

You're thinking about the wrong race.

You're correct that they don't care who puts the next footprint on the Moon.  But I suspect they care quite a bit about dominating economic activity in cislunar space, and that implies dominating surface activity.

I appriciate your points and they may or may not ultimately come to fruition. But you're offering your opinion (highlighted) to counter the easily demonstratable facts I offered. For there to be a race, all parties need to concur that there is a race. The Chinese do not concur. They just don't care.

[Zed_Noir]

As pointed out elsewhere in this forum. Most of the NASA Lunar budget is spend on the SLS, the Orion and the Earthside EGS infrastructure. Not much is spend on doing science and deploying infrastructure on the Lunar surface. Even getting to the Lunar surface for NASA with crew before the mid 2030's was a generous gift from a commercial entity.

I'm a big fan of SpaceX, but this was not a "gift" from SpaceX. SpaceX is a commercial company and they intend make a nice profit, or they would not have bid HLS at all. NASA was very lucky that Starship was under development and could be easily(?!) extended to also support an HLS variant. If it was a gift to Artemis (Greek goddess of the hunt), it came from Tyche (Greek goddess of fortune), not from SpaceX.

It is a "gift" in time and money for NASA. If either of other two alternate Artemis HLS was selected. Do you really expect NASA will have boots on the Lunar regolith before the mid 2030s along with an annual HLS development cost of about $1B for over a decade. Currently NASA will get their first new lunar crewed lander by the mid 2020s for a paltry fixed price of $2.9B if no major Starship issues crops up.

[Coastal Ron]

...
There are huge first-mover advantages to having the first lunar water and propellant operation, the first metals production on the surface, first mass driver, first SBSP component factory (if that proves economical), etc.

All of those things will take decades to come to fruition, and they require LOTS of people and power - both of which require LOTS of transportation capabilities, which both NASA and China lack for any sort of "space race".

Plus, the above goals you outline are not part of what Artemis is funded to do today. Artemis today is flags & footprints, with a little science thrown in. But the SLS+Orion can only support four people per trip, and at most Congress is thinking about two trips per year many years down the road, but none of the goals you think China is pursuing could be countered by the Artemis program as defined today.

And if you think the U.S. should pursue those same goals, then that would have to be something acknowledged and defined by both the President and the Congress. Then they would have to define the politics of the goals, such as are we doing it with the Artemis partners or doing it on our own?

For that reason, we're in a race for getting enough sustainable infrastructure in place to enable some of these big investments.  It's a long race, but a race nonetheless.  Since Artemis is the vehicle we're driving in that race, it's a cause for concern.

A bit of perspective - Elon Musk is planning to colonize Mars WITHOUT any resources from the Moon. So the Moon is not that important for expanding out into the solar system.

The resources on the Moon are only important for operations on the Moon, but that is like a self-licking ice cream cone, in that it isn't important until there are enough people on the Moon that could benefit from local resources vs imported resources. But we are a long way away from having enough people on the Moon where that matters.

Which is why any talk about a "space race" is just the space version of irrational exuberance.

[su27k]

ILRS timeline has construction of robotic infrastructure starting NET 2026. With infrastructure capable of supporting future manned missions added between 2031 and 2035, to allow manned missions starting NET 2036.

They aren't in a race with anyone. Because they aren't stupid. Why risk losing face for a stunt? When it comes to showing off for national pride/internal-PR, the Chinese people would be much more impressed by steady, systematic growth of proper research capability than in a flags'n'footprints stunt.

The latest news is that they're planning for crewed lunar landing by 2030, source: https://spacenews.com/china-sets-out-clear-and-independent-long-term-vision-for-space/, https://spacenews.com/china-outlines-pathway-for-lunar-and-deep-space-exploration/

That certainly looks like a speed up due to some reason to me.

[deadman1204]

You're correct that they don't care who puts the next footprint on the Moon.  But I suspect they care quite a bit about dominating economic activity in cislunar space, and that implies dominating surface activity.

There are huge first-mover advantages to having the first lunar water and propellant operation, the first metals production on the surface, first mass driver, first SBSP component factory (if that proves economical), etc.  Since those systems would almost certainly be done in the West by private capital, and the capitalization costs would be enormous, the temptation just to buy from the Chinese would be overwhelming.  If China can get that stuff up and running sooner than the West can, they have a sustainable advantage.

What "economy"? Its all just gonna be government programs spending large amounts of money to do something in lunar space.
Even if there is magical fuel depots (10s of billions of dollars and many years to build), they are only useful if there are enough missions to take advantage of them. Again this takes huge amounts of money. Where does the money come from?
There is a basic issue here:
1. Build depots
2. XXXXXX
3. Profit

What is #2? Tourism? There aren't enough billionaires for that to be profitable much less worthwhile. What else? There is no answer right now. The entire idea rests on the assumption that there is a functioning economy to profit from. However, there IS NO lunar economy. There are no legitimate plans to create one either.

[VSECOTSPE]

The latest news is that they're planning for crewed lunar landing by 2030, source: https://spacenews.com/china-sets-out-clear-and-independent-long-term-vision-for-space/, https://spacenews.com/china-outlines-pathway-for-lunar-and-deep-space-exploration/

You have to be careful with these China space program articles.  The source in the first is “senior Chinese lunar program designer and engineer Ye Peijian” who only stated that “as long as the country is determined, a Chinese crewed moon landing is entirely possible by 2030” and whose “words do not equate to an official statement of China formally approving a crewed lunar landing”.  It’s roughly the equivalent of an Orion manager in 2012 saying that American boots could be on the Moon in 2020 with funding and perserverance.  Neither equates to an actual government decision and funding support for a human lunar landing.  The second article just references the first.

I’d also be careful about Andrew Jones articles.  Last I knew, he reported from Helsinki and is not an in situ observer or on-the-ground reporter of China’s space activities.

[sdsds]

[...]
Just speaking as a Washingtonian, Senator Murray has been in Congress since 1993.

And now Eric Berger at Ars Technica asks:
"As Richard Shelby steps down, will Washington replace Alabama in prominence?"

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/01/so-long-richard-shelby-and-thanks-for-all-the-pork/

[deadman1204]

The latest news is that they're planning for crewed lunar landing by 2030, source: https://spacenews.com/china-sets-out-clear-and-independent-long-term-vision-for-space/, https://spacenews.com/china-outlines-pathway-for-lunar-and-deep-space-exploration/

You have to be careful with these China space program articles.  The source in the first is “senior Chinese lunar program designer and engineer Ye Peijian” who only stated that “as long as the country is determined, a Chinese crewed moon landing is entirely possible by 2030” and whose “words do not equate to an official statement of China formally approving a crewed lunar landing”.  It’s roughly the equivalent of an Orion manager in 2012 saying that American boots could be on the Moon in 2020 with funding and perserverance.  Neither equates to an actual government decision and funding support for a human lunar landing.  The second article just references the first.

I’d also be careful about Andrew Jones articles.  Last I knew, he reported from Helsinki and is not an in situ observer or on-the-ground reporter of China’s space activities.

Andrew Jones is about the best there is. China is very close lipped about anything they are doing, and he tries his best to figure out whats going on and talk about it. Don't forget that China is an authoritarian state, there is a reason there are no chinese citizens IN china doing this.

[VSECOTSPE]

Andrew Jones is about the best there is. China is very close lipped about anything they are doing, and he tries his best to figure out whats going on and talk about it. Don't forget that China is an authoritarian state, there is a reason there are no chinese citizens IN china doing this.

He is the best because there are no English-speaking space reporters on the ground in China.  But that doesn’t mean Jones is on the ground making first-person observations, having conversations in the hallway with China space managers, or even making phone calls to folks in that country’s aerospace industry.  He’s only interpreting and integrating public statements.  There’s a fundamental limit to what one can glean from that.  Doesn’t mean he’s a bad reporter.  Just means he’s a reporter based in Helsinki.

[yg1968]

Lighting will be a challenge for #Artemis missions to the Moon's South Pole because the Sun is at a low angle. Small boulders or elevation changes can create long shadows on treacherous terrain. Check out the below visualization to see how shadows move over two lunar days.

https://twitter.com/JimFree/status/1610711739645018120

[TheRadicalModerate]

What "economy"? Its all just gonna be government programs spending large amounts of money to do something in lunar space.
Even if there is magical fuel depots (10s of billions of dollars and many years to build), they are only useful if there are enough missions to take advantage of them. Again this takes huge amounts of money. Where does the money come from?
There is a basic issue here:
1. Build depots
2. XXXXXX
3. Profit

What is #2? Tourism? There aren't enough billionaires for that to be profitable much less worthwhile. What else? There is no answer right now. The entire idea rests on the assumption that there is a functioning economy to profit from. However, there IS NO lunar economy. There are no legitimate plans to create one either.

A "magical fuel depot" is something that SpaceX is under contract to build in the next 3 years.  It's really easy to get one from LEO to whatever cislunar orbit you want.

You're probably right that the first cislunar (including orbit, not just surface) applications are government, but they're also military, which require at least modest depots to be useful.  This is an area where major powers are going to have to match each other's capabilities.  I doubt there are military surface applications, but stuff in cislunar orbits have a lot of potential energy.

You might be right that no surface economy ever develops.  But if the Chinese tortoise finds a way to make surface stuff pay off after the Western hare has decided it's not worth it, that's a serious problem.

This would all be off-topic except for one thing:  as architected and funded, Artemis, for all of its head start against China, can't keep up.  (Note:  I'm assuming that China will drink the Kool-Aid on EOR-based refueling architectures, because they don't have to funnel pork to Alabama.)  But if you use a capabilities-driven analysis of the Chinese space program (intentions come and go but capabilities are forever), you're inexorably driven to the conclusion that, whether you want to call it a race or not, the West probably needs to keep up.  That requires a change of architecture.

[Ben Baley]

There is no race between NASA and the CNSA, except in the minds of the uninformed. Will NASA "beat" China back to the lunar surface? Maybe, and maybe not. Time will tell. The point is that China doesn't care if we do or don't. They don't care. They don't care what NASA does or does not do. There is no race. They have their own timeline and won't change it for NASA or anyone else. Artemis is irrelevant to them.

You're thinking about the wrong race.

You're correct that they don't care who puts the next footprint on the Moon.  But I suspect they care quite a bit about dominating economic activity in cislunar space, and that implies dominating surface activity.

I appriciate your points and they may or may not ultimately come to fruition. But you're offering your opinion (highlighted) to counter the easily demonstratable facts I offered. For there to be a race, all parties need to concur that there is a race. The Chinese do not concur. They just don't care.

I wouldn't agree that China and the Chinese don't care, they are just concerned about face. They'll act like it's not a race until they can claim victory, if the States return first they didn't lose because it was never a contest, but if they can beat Artemis III to the moon don't think they won't be crowing about it.

[Coastal Ron]

A "magical fuel depot" is something that SpaceX is under contract to build in the next 3 years.  It's really easy to get one from LEO to whatever cislunar orbit you want.

SpaceX is building refueling capabilities for the Starship vehicle, not any other vehicle. Or have I missed something?

You're probably right that the first cislunar (including orbit, not just surface) applications are government, but they're also military, which require at least modest depots to be useful.

Woah, where did you get the idea that the U.S. military is concerned about cislunar space? As far as we know in the public, the military is only concerned with deploying assets that watch the Earth, or maybe watch other space assets that are in orbit of Earth, but its been long proven that deploying military assets to the region of the Moon is useless when it comes to protecting American interests here on Earth.

This is an area where major powers are going to have to match each other's capabilities.  I doubt there are military surface applications, but stuff in cislunar orbits have a lot of potential energy.

You are just making up stuff now, and no, there is no "military space race" that needs to go to the surface of the Moon.

You might be right that no surface economy ever develops.  But if the Chinese tortoise finds a way to make surface stuff pay off after the Western hare has decided it's not worth it, that's a serious problem.

I just don't understand how people can think this, when it will be the U.S. that will have the least expensive, and most capable, space transportation system soon - the SpaceX Starship. If we really felt the need to have a large presence on the Moon (separate from the Artemis program), assuming the Starship system work China would not be able to beat our ability to land mass and on the Moon. Assuming there was a need - which there isn't.

This would all be off-topic except for one thing:  as architected and funded, Artemis, for all of its head start against China, can't keep up.

The Artemis program was built to use the SLS and Orion, which self-limits any goals possible on the Moon. If America really wanted a large, sustained presence on the Moon, it would stop using the SLS+Orion and rely on a mix of existing commercial launchers that could provide more mass, at a more frequent mission tempo, than the SLS+Orion could even provide for the same money.

But the Artemis program has nothing to do with keeping China, or any other nation, from reaching the Moon.

[DanClemmensen]

What "economy"? Its all just gonna be government programs spending large amounts of money to do something in lunar space.
Even if there is magical fuel depots (10s of billions of dollars and many years to build), they are only useful if there are enough missions to take advantage of them. Again this takes huge amounts of money. Where does the money come from?
There is a basic issue here:
1. Build depots
2. XXXXXX
3. Profit

What is #2? Tourism? There aren't enough billionaires for that to be profitable much less worthwhile. What else? There is no answer right now. The entire idea rests on the assumption that there is a functioning economy to profit from. However, there IS NO lunar economy. There are no legitimate plans to create one either.

A "magical fuel depot" is something that SpaceX is under contract to build in the next 3 years.  It's really easy to get one from LEO to whatever cislunar orbit you want.

The SpaceX Depot for HLS will fuel the HLS, and possibly other Starship variants. It will probably not be configured to fuel other types of spacecraft. A fuelling operation will require the other ship to implement the SpaceX Depot interface, which will be a whole lot more complicated than just a couple of hoses. It is likely to involve a large and complex hard docking system. For example, SpaceX might dock the Starship to the Depot using the same 9 meter diameter interface used to connect the SS to the SH.

It's "easy" to get a Depot to a cislunar orbit. It's a lot harder to get it back or to get more fuel to it. It will take a whole lot of tanker flights.