HLS Option B and the Sustaining Lunar Development Phase (Appendix P)

[DanClemmensen]

As of today there is little hope for any near-term non-government market for landing cargo and crew on the Moon, so anyone involved in building a lander for NASA is likely to assume that their entire costs and potential profit has to be covered by the NASA contracts.

Remember there is only one transportation system being built to take humans to the Moon, and that relies on the U.S. Government SLS launcher + Orion spacecraft, which just for their portion of the mission costs over $1B/person.

There is no commercial market for sending humans to the Moon anytime soon.

I think these assertions are a bit too broad. "As of today" there is little hope of any near-term landings, governmental or otherwise, except for the small CLPS landers.  In the Artemis III (NET 2025) timeframe, there is at least the "hope" of an Artemis landing and also of a tourist landing, because the  hardware for at least two other transportation systems is being built, whether or not anyone wishes to acknowledge this or build a mission around that hardware. In the Artemis V (NET 2027) timeframe, these "hopes" become stronger.

System A: HLS (HLS+tankers+depots) plus Crew Dragon. Crew Dragon goes Earth-LEO-Earth, and HLS goes LEO-lunar surface-LEO, with refueling in LEO and in NRHO (or somewhere up there).

System B: HLS (HLS+tankers+depots) plus crewed EDL-capable Starship. This one is a bit further out since Elon claims that this crewed Starship must be preceded by "hundreds" of successful uncrewed EDL-capable starship missions, so no "hope" before Artemis III, but maybe at least as likely as Artemis V by 2027.

[deadman1204]

As of today there is little hope for any near-term non-government market for landing cargo and crew on the Moon, so anyone involved in building a lander for NASA is likely to assume that their entire costs and potential profit has to be covered by the NASA contracts.

Remember there is only one transportation system being built to take humans to the Moon, and that relies on the U.S. Government SLS launcher + Orion spacecraft, which just for their portion of the mission costs over $1B/person.

There is no commercial market for sending humans to the Moon anytime soon.

I think these assertions are a bit too broad. "As of today" there is little hope of any near-term landings, governmental or otherwise, except for the small CLPS landers.  In the Artemis III (NET 2025) timeframe, there is at least the "hope" of an Artemis landing and also of a tourist landing, because the  hardware for at least two other transportation systems is being built, whether or not anyone wishes to acknowledge this or build a mission around that hardware. In the Artemis V (NET 2027) timeframe, these "hopes" become stronger.

System A: HLS (HLS+tankers+depots) plus Crew Dragon. Crew Dragon goes Earth-LEO-Earth, and HLS goes LEO-lunar surface-LEO, with refueling in LEO and in NRHO (or somewhere up there).

System B: HLS (HLS+tankers+depots) plus crewed EDL-capable Starship. This one is a bit further out since Elon claims that this crewed Starship must be preceded by "hundreds" of successful uncrewed EDL-capable starship missions, so no "hope" before Artemis III, but maybe at least as likely as Artemis V by 2027.

Systems A and B are like Blue's New Armstrong rocket - it only exists on fan sites. Quite simply, no one will pay for this to happen. Artimis exists because there needs to be a reason to launch SLS rockets. Don't forget, SLS was in dev for years without a purpose in mind. It doesn't exist to support Artimis, but  visa versa.

Congress freaked out when all of old space got cut out of HLS. Lunar missions that are spaceX only? Congress will not fund this. Its just fantasy.

[yg1968]

As of today there is little hope for any near-term non-government market for landing cargo and crew on the Moon, so anyone involved in building a lander for NASA is likely to assume that their entire costs and potential profit has to be covered by the NASA contracts.

Remember there is only one transportation system being built to take humans to the Moon, and that relies on the U.S. Government SLS launcher + Orion spacecraft, which just for their portion of the mission costs over $1B/person.

There is no commercial market for sending humans to the Moon anytime soon.

SpaceX bid what they did for their HLS because they have already been developing their Starship for colonizing Mars, so they didn't need to pass along the full development cost to the HLS program.

Everyone else that bid the HLS program was assuming the U.S. Government was the only customer. We'll see if Jeff Bezos wants to spend money to buy into this new contract, but that still would not mean there is a true commercial market for landing humans on the Moon, since unless you can get humans to the lander, there is no market. 

I hope that you realize the irony here. In the same post, you are arguing that there is no-commercial market for the Moon but are saying that somehow there is a market for colonizing Mars.

I think that there is actually a better market for the Moon than there is for Mars. CLPS is showing that there is a market for the Moon. I think that the Dear Moon mission is also showing that there is a market for the Moon. I wouldn't be surprised if the Polaris 3 mission is upgraded to a lunar mission.

Obviously a Moon lander requires a transportation to NRHO or to some other meeting point in space but that is also true for HLS Starship. Perhaps one day, the commercial crew program will be upgraded to an Earth to NRHO transportation system. I am in favor of public-private partnerships in general, so I would be very much in favor of that. But even in that case, I would want more than one provider.

[yg1968]

is not "competition" unless there is intended to be a future down-select to one.

There was such an intention.  It was called "Option B".

Looking at the new plan, and Congress's behaviour over the single Option A award, there was never an intention to down-select to one vendor.

Also, competition does not require you to actually down-select someone.  It is enough that you have a credible threat of down-selecting a provider that stops providing good enough value.

Tell that to Boeing in CCrew. Unless it's an explicitly stated stage of the program, the threat is never credible. And likewise, the insistence by certain members of Congress for two landers removes any real threat of future down-select, even when budgets inevitably get shorted.

The threat of Boeing being down selected still exists. Boeing is only guaranteed 6 missions under CCtCap, it is not guaranteed to have 9 missions like SpaceX. Dream Chaser is still in the mix for the next round of commercial crew (CCSTS), partly because Boeing is under performing. In hindsight, NASA should have picked Dream Chaser, it has a lot more potential commercially. I hope that this is fixed under CCSTS.

For HLS, I am hoping that the proposals will be improved for Appendix P. We don't even know what the proposals will be. So we shouldn't assume that they will all be bad.

[DanClemmensen]

As of today there is little hope for any near-term non-government market for landing cargo and crew on the Moon[...]

[...]
System A: HLS (HLS+tankers+depots) plus Crew Dragon. Crew Dragon goes Earth-LEO-Earth, and HLS goes LEO-lunar surface-LEO, with refueling in LEO and in NRHO (or somewhere up there).

System B: HLS (HLS+tankers+depots) plus crewed EDL-capable Starship. This one is a bit further out since Elon claims that this crewed Starship must be preceded by "hundreds" of successful uncrewed EDL-capable starship missions, so no "hope" before Artemis III, but maybe at least as likely as Artemis V by 2027.

Systems A and B are like Blue's New Armstrong rocket - it only exists on fan sites. Quite simply, no one will pay for this to happen. Artimis exists because there needs to be a reason to launch SLS rockets. Don't forget, SLS was in dev for years without a purpose in mind. It doesn't exist to support Artimis, but  visa versa.

Congress freaked out when all of old space got cut out of HLS. Lunar missions that are spaceX only? Congress will not fund this. Its just fantasy.

My post was in response to Costal Ron's post, which is about commercial missions, not missions funded by Congress.

"System A" in particular is not like BO's New Armstrong at all, because all of the SpaceX hardware is already being developed for a NASA contract or already exists.

Congress may or may not fund the missions, but Congress (NASA) has already funded the development of all hardware elements of "System A": Starship HLS elements (HLS, tanker, depot) plus Crew Dragon. "System B" replaces Crew Dragon with a crewed Starship, and I think basically everybody thinks SpaceX will develop this spacecraft whether or not they get any government funding.

[DanClemmensen]

The threat of Boeing being down selected still exists. Boeing is only guaranteed 6 missions under CCtCap, it is not guaranteed to have 9 missions like SpaceX. Dream Chaser is still in the mix for the next round of commercial crew (CCSTS), partly because Boeing is under performing. In hindsight, NASA should have picked Dream Chaser, it has a lot more potential commercially. I hope that this is fixed under CCSTS.

As I understand it Boeing Starliner is guaranteed six missions and is obligated to deliver them. For SpaceX, NASA has options to use up to a total of nine Crew Dragon missions of which two are completed, one underway, and one to launch in April. Not guaranteed, but SpaceX is obligated to deliver if NASA exercises the options, one at a time. Given the much higher price for Starliner, I would guess that NASA will not extend the Starliner past the six missions.

[dglow]

Congress freaked out when all of old space got cut out of HLS. Lunar missions that are spaceX only? Congress will not fund this. Its just fantasy.

Agree that Congress might not fund government astronauts on SpaceX-only missions. But they have no power to stop private SpaceX lunar missions. And once that occurs the absurdity of SLS and Orion should become more widely apparent.

[punder]

Been lurking and thinking about the catchily named Option B and Appendix P.

I cannot for the life of me imagine how the Appendix P bidders can offer more capable systems than the HLS bids, at any price that Congress will fund.

The only conclusion I can reach is that this is NASA openly and blatantly blowing smoke, telling Congress what Congress has told them to say, knowing Congress will fail to provide anything close to the required appropriations. When that inevitably happens, NASA can still move forward using Option B. I don’t have the guile for politics, so my imagination can only go so far, but this seems pretty obvious. It’s a sacrificial lamb and everyone involved has to know that.

More capability from the same vendors that blew up the budget last time, for a far lower price? Think about it, just not going to happen.

[DigitalMan]

Congress freaked out when all of old space got cut out of HLS. Lunar missions that are spaceX only? Congress will not fund this. Its just fantasy.

Agree that Congress might not fund government astronauts on SpaceX-only missions. But they have no power to stop private SpaceX lunar missions. And once that occurs the absurdity of SLS and Orion should become more widely apparent.

This has been my expectation also. Particularly if other entities are able to have more than 4 crew for much longer duration missions. I mostly think about what I would be thinking if I was an Artemis signatory waiting for a (likely singular) place in line for a mission.

[yg1968]

Been lurking and thinking about the catchily named Option B and Appendix P.

I cannot for the life of me imagine how the Appendix P bidders can offer more capable systems than the HLS bids, at any price that Congress will fund.

The only conclusion I can reach is that this is NASA openly and blatantly blowing smoke, telling Congress what Congress has told them to say, knowing Congress will fail to provide anything close to the required appropriations. When that inevitably happens, NASA can still move forward using Option B. I don’t have the guile for politics, so my imagination can only go so far, but this seems pretty obvious. It’s a sacrificial lamb and everyone involved has to know that.

More capability from the same vendors that blew up the budget last time, for a far lower price? Think about it, just not going to happen.

We will find out more about it on Monday but Chris Davenport says that Appendix P will get $500M in the FY23 Budget request. That may not sound like a lot but if the FY2023 Budget is enacted in March like it was this year, half the fiscal year will already be gone anyways before Appendix P can be awarded. I expect that that this $500M might increase to $1B in FY24 when funding for the full year would be required. The budget request should have the funding for the outyears, so we will see if I am right about this.

[su27k]

https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/status/1507525542060474372

https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/status/1507700047600885763

A note on this—I now understand that the money (which is a little more than $500 million) would be for the second lander and to start funding SpaceX’s option B.

[dror]

The depot can be used for all missions that refuel in LEO. the problem is that Starship HLS does not have enough fuel to get back to LEO after going LEO-NRHO-surface-NRHO. Therefore to get the Starship HLS back to LEO for reuse, it must ALSO be refuelled in NRHO (or somewhere) One way to do this would be send a tanker to NRHO: I think a tanker would have enough fuel to get itself plus the Starship HLS back to LEO. A longer-term and more flexible solution might be to  a permanent depot in NRHO in addition to the depot in LEO.  I have not done the math, so I don't know how expensive all of this would be in terms of fuel and considering boil-off, but clearly fuel carried to NRHO is costly since the tankers will themselves need to refill from the depot in LEO.  An empty tanker coming back from NRHO would aerobrake and EDL instead of stopping at the tanker, but the HLS must use fuel to get back into LEO.
...

That doesn't seem to be very sustainable.
A sustainable SpaceX plan could use a diffrent, smaller lander. That lander can be taken in a regular cargo Starship.
The smaller lander will use much less fuel for descend and ascent.
 In that way, the whole trip can be completed without a need for a refuel in NRHO.
The smaller lander could be brought back as cargo, or could stay in NRHO.

The basic question is the cost of a tanker mission. If it is cheap (< $10 million) then using 3 tanker missions to return HLS to LEO may make sense. An HLS will be able to land a very large payload or a fairly large crew, so it is more cost-effective than a small lander for such missions. Furthermore, this hare-brained scheme uses no designs except those that are already funded and in development as part of HLS Option A.

There's more to sustainability than cost.
Usually it refers to environmental impacts and the general ability to perform long term.
Now, I really don't know what the actual requirements for the 'sustainable' phase are, but if it takes these factors into account it will need to address (atmospheric CO2 per astronaut) , (lander stability) etc.
Even if a tanker flight turns up to be very cheap, it burs around 5000 tons of propellant in the atmosphere and therefor needs to be controlled in order to be considered as sustainable.
Too many refuel dockings, especially in deep space, would also increase risk and wouldn't be considered sustainable.
A very tall lander with pooly-lift doesn't increase confidence for a long term safe operation.

When I tried to calculate dV budgets for HLS in a previous thread,
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54480.msg2281993#msg2281993
 it seemed that the budget was strongly affected by the mass of the ascender.
If you only need 4 astronauts or 15 ton payload, there is no need for a 70 ton lander.
From what I saw, a full starship, even an empty one, can't land and come back to LEO in a single go.
A refuel in NRHO is very affective because it reduces the weight of fuel in the ascender, though it is riskier than in LEO. It must be remembered that it is part of this mission profile and therefore all of it's tanker flights as well.

It seemed to me (i can be am probably wrong) that a cargo starship with a smaller (30 ton) lander (or a lander + starship based tug) can do a round trip with a single fueling in LEO, and could make many landings for every tanker in NRHO..
Therefore I think the most sustainable solution for SpaceX must include a dedicated smaller lander, to reduce environmental impact and risk of operations and to increase stability and accessibility on the lunar ground.
The development money is on the option B table,  why wouldn't they use it?

[yg1968]

The threat of Boeing being down selected still exists. Boeing is only guaranteed 6 missions under CCtCap, it is not guaranteed to have 9 missions like SpaceX. Dream Chaser is still in the mix for the next round of commercial crew (CCSTS), partly because Boeing is under performing. In hindsight, NASA should have picked Dream Chaser, it has a lot more potential commercially. I hope that this is fixed under CCSTS.

As I understand it Boeing Starliner is guaranteed six missions and is obligated to deliver them. For SpaceX, NASA has options to use up to a total of nine Crew Dragon missions of which two are completed, one underway, and one to launch in April. Not guaranteed, but SpaceX is obligated to deliver if NASA exercises the options, one at a time. Given the much higher price for Starliner, I would guess that NASA will not extend the Starliner past the six missions.

The press release makes it sound like the options on all 3 new SpaceX CCtCap missions have been exercised.

[Coastal Ron]

As of today there is little hope for any near-term non-government market for landing cargo and crew on the Moon, so anyone involved in building a lander for NASA is likely to assume that their entire costs and potential profit has to be covered by the NASA contracts.

Remember there is only one transportation system being built to take humans to the Moon, and that relies on the U.S. Government SLS launcher + Orion spacecraft, which just for their portion of the mission costs over $1B/person.

There is no commercial market for sending humans to the Moon anytime soon.

SpaceX bid what they did for their HLS because they have already been developing their Starship for colonizing Mars, so they didn't need to pass along the full development cost to the HLS program.

Everyone else that bid the HLS program was assuming the U.S. Government was the only customer. We'll see if Jeff Bezos wants to spend money to buy into this new contract, but that still would not mean there is a true commercial market for landing humans on the Moon, since unless you can get humans to the lander, there is no market. 

I hope that you realize the irony here. In the same post, you are arguing that there is no-commercial market for the Moon but are saying that somehow there is a market for colonizing Mars.

No irony, because there is ZERO commercial market for colonizing Mars. Even Elon Musk has stated this, so I'm not sure why this is news to you.

I actually describe the colonization effort of Mars like a humanitarian mission, where money is poured into the effort with ZERO expectation of an commercial return.

And there is ZERO commercial market for doing anything on the Moon with humans as of today, yet our Moon lacks its version of Elon Musk to spur investment...

I think that there is actually a better market for the Moon than there is for Mars.

Based on what I just described above, one one-off private science robotic mission would satisfy your definition of "commercial", but that would certainly NOT be a sign of any "robust" market.

Obviously a Moon lander requires a transportation to NRHO or to some other meeting point in space but that is also true for HLS Starship.

The NASA HLS Starship version requires the use of the SLS+Orion, which is non-commercial at this point - as well as so costly no true commercial use could be made of them.

I am in favor of public-private partnerships in general...

Not too many communists on NSF, so not sure this declaration means much  , especially since the history of U.S. Government transportation systems is that they tend to be too expensive to provide any lasting ability for humanity to expand out into space. And as my footer shows, that is really all that I care about.

Unless the cost of going somewhere in space becomes a priority, humanity will never truly expand out into space. And so far the Artemis program does not focus enough on the cost of moving humans through space.

[yg1968]

No irony, because there is ZERO commercial market for colonizing Mars. Even Elon Musk has stated this, so I'm not sure why this is news to you.

I actually describe the colonization effort of Mars like a humanitarian mission, where money is poured into the effort with ZERO expectation of an commercial return.

And there is ZERO commercial market for doing anything on the Moon with humans as of today, yet our Moon lacks its version of Elon Musk to spur investment...

SpaceX intends to charge $500,000 for a trip to Mars, so they intend to make money from their services. 

[SpeakertoAnimals]

No irony, because there is ZERO commercial market for colonizing Mars. Even Elon Musk has stated this, so I'm not sure why this is news to you.

I actually describe the colonization effort of Mars like a humanitarian mission, where money is poured into the effort with ZERO expectation of an commercial return.

And there is ZERO commercial market for doing anything on the Moon with humans as of today, yet our Moon lacks its version of Elon Musk to spur investment...

SpaceX intends to charge $500,000 for a trip to Mars, so they intend to make money from their services.

or you could say they would like to recover some of the costs of reaching the goal of colonizing Mars.

[yg1968]

I re-listened to the press conference and one of things that is a bit clearer to me now is that NASA has not assigned any of the landers from Option B or Appendix P to a specific Artemis mission. They just said that they are looking at the 2026 and 2027 timeframe.

[VSECOTSPE]

That's why it's important to have non-NASA missions.

There are no non-NASA customers for these landers.  There may be someday, but they’re far off.

HLS/LETS is very different beast from commercial cargo/crew.  From the get-go, there were existing commercial and military satellite customers that could (and did and do) use the same launch vehicles as the commercial cargo/crew programs.  That’s not true for HLS/LETS.  There are no commercial or military payloads seeking to go to (or launch from) the lunar surface.  Maybe someday, but probably no earlier than sometime in the latter half of the next decade (see below), at best.

For the foreseeable future, HLS/LETS has to make sense based on NASA demand alone.  It doesn’t.  HLS/LETS will produce two landers, each of what will beused only once every other year at best, even under NASA’s unrealistic schedule of one lunar mission per year.  A realistic schedule (see below) for Artemis/Orion/SLS has missions going off at intervals of two or more years between them.  That means each HLS/LETS lander will be used once every four years or so.  We’re spending billions of taxpayer dollars developing capabilities that NASA will barely use once in a blue moon.  That’s nutty.

The only way Artemis makes sense is if spending is directed now (really yesterday) towards procuring an alternative to Orion/SLS for NASA lunar crew transport so that it’s ready to take over and make frequent and effective use of HLS/LETS landers when they become available.  That’s not going to happen, so Artemis should be terminated immediately.  (It won’t be, but it should be.)

SLS is planned for every year starting with Artemis II.

Let’s be realistic.  Artemis II is in 2024.  IG says the earliest possible launch date for Artemis III is 2026, not 2025.  That’s two years.  And earliest possible means that the _likely_ launch date for Artemis III lies out in 2027-2028, or three to four years after Artemis II.  If Artemis is unlucky and the schedule winds up on the other end of the Gaussian distribution, we may even be looking at the 2029-2030 timeframe before the first crewed Artemis landing.

So unless you’re drinking the NASA schedule Kool-Aid, which has never ever been right, there’s no evidence that Artemis/Orion/SLS can or will support annual lunar surface missions anytime this decade and probably well into the next decade.  That’s going to drive the cost per astronaut seat to lunar orbit/Gateway far above even the IG’s $1 billion per as the Orion/SLS armies march on.  We’re looking at costs of $2-4 billion per astronaut just to get into the vicinity of the Moon, forget onto the lunar surface.  There’s nothing imaginable astronauts can do that is worth those egregiously ridiculous costs, especially when they’re only accessing the lunar surface only once every other year or so.  Even the Apollo program landed twice a year for a couple years and was still cancelled.  Artemis is not a program worth supporting.  It should be terminated now.  (It won’t be terminated, but it should be.). There are much, much better uses at NASA, in the US aerospace sector, and in the US R&D sector generally for the tens of billions of taxpayer dollars and tens of thousands of technical careers being wasted on this program.

[yg1968]

HLS/LETS is very different beast from commercial cargo/crew.  From the get-go, there were existing commercial and military satellite customers that could (and did and do) use the same launch vehicles as the commercial cargo/crew programs.  That’s not true for HLS/LETS.  There are no commercial or military payloads seeking to go to (or launch from) the lunar surface.  Maybe someday, but probably no earlier than sometime in the latter half of the next decade (see below), at best.

The LVs used for the landers have other customers. The landers can be compared to the spacecrafts, not to the LVs. The depot technology for the landers will also have other customers. Although I really like HLS Starship, having a SpaceX monopoly isn't a good thing.

[VSECOTSPE]

The LVs used for the landers have other customers.

Sure, but they’re once every other year.  They’re not leveraging commercial launch capability or expanding the commercial launch market in the way that multiple ISS cargo and crew missions per year do.

The landers can be compared to the spacecrafts, not to the LVs.

They’re multi-billion dollar modifications of spacecraft for lunar landings (Lunar Starship) or purpose-built lunar landers (presumably everyone else) that would not otherwise exist.  That taxpayer investment has to be assessed on the basis of how much these vehicles are going to be used as lunar landers, not as spacecraft for other purposes.

The depot technology for the landers will also have other customers.

Maybe someday.  Maybe latter half of next decade.  But very doubtful in the timeframe of most concern.

Although I really like HLS Starship, having a SpaceX monopoly isn't a good thing.

I’m not arguing against a second lander.  I’m arguing for investment in an Orion/SLS offramp now so those landers can actually see effective use as they come online.

Without that offramp, Artemis makes no programmatic sense whether it has one, two, or a dozen landers and should be terminated (but won’t be).