Artemis political discussion

[yg1968]

Certified and human-rated aren't synonyms. Human-rated just means that it can carry humans. I didn't say human-rated according to NASA's requirements.

The only requirements for 'human rating' are NASA's requirements for carrying NASA astronauts. There are no other bodies 'rating' certifying' or in any other way approving any particular space vehicle for carrying passengers.

True, but SpaceX's early goals for crewed Starship will surely include service to LEO stations and will be a part of the solution for retiring Crew Dragon. This means carrying NASA astronauts, which will require NASA certification. They won't want to be forced to redesign to achieve this certification. The economic driver for this is that they cannot retire F9 until they can retire Crew Dragon, and fixed costs cause F9 to become unprofitable once its flight rate is reduced to only Crew Dragon. I suppose SpaceX could decline to bid on further CCP follow-ons, but that would risk antagonizing NASA. Once Cargo Starship is operational, I think the F9 flight rate will drop quickly, leaving only CRS and CCP. This will happen slower than SpaceX amazing people believe but faster than most observers seem to think.

Sounds to me as if there's a bunch of confusion here . People seem to be conflating technically capable of carrying live humans from orbit-to-orbit, technically capable of carrying live humans from Earth's surface to orbit and back, technically capable of carrying live humans from lunar orbit to surface and back and meeting someone's standards and doing the paperwork to prove some or all of these capabilities and calling it all human-rating.

Some of the posts, such as yg1968's,  make a lot more sense if all that's being talked about is the technology, like ECLSS, toilets, radiation protection, etc. rather than any rating or certification.

Yes that is what I meant. Maybe I should have used the term "crew capable" Starship instead of "human-rated" Starship as it seems to have confused some people (although I still think that human-rated is the correct term since the term doesn't say who is doing the rating, it could be anyone including SpaceX).

[edzieba]

'Crew capable' would be the more accurate term, as there are multiple thresholds different parties could place as to where that capability starts. e.g. a customer with very high risk tolerance and limited capability requirements (or extreme exigency) might even consider a seat bolted inside a Dragon 1 to be crew capable - at high risk and with low redundancy and limited life support lifetime, but putting one or more people inside to launch, orbit, and recover is not precluded from success. NASA's 'human rating' is for a particular crew (or rather, a set level of training) for a particular mission. And on the other extreme, what one may consider suitable for general public orbital spaceflight may be even more stringent than NASA's 'human rating' requirements due to not being able to assume the presence of a trained crew.
What SpaceX consider the minimum capabilities for carrying crew (or launching crew, as that could be sidestepped with a Dragon 2 rendezvous) would vary depending on who that crew are, what the mission is, and what their risk tolerance is. A short walk-around checkout from a Dragon 2 'ferry boat' (for launch and return) could need little more than a stably pressurised volume few canisters of slaked lime and some Oxygen candles. A mission with humans on board from launch and through return, with a mission lasting more than a few hours, has a whole pile of extra requirements on top of that in terms of redundancy and ECLSS.

[RoadWithoutEnd]

America's one and only Moon program resides at SpaceX.

I am not sure that I agree with that. SpaceX's needs NASA as a customer for its crewed Starship. The Option A award was a big deal for Starship.

I don't think it does need a customer up front.  The cost of Crew Starship will be absurdly low due to the economics achieved by full and rapid reuse achieved through payload flights, even if it never gets anywhere near the aspirational targets.  They're doing the HLS business because there's no reason not to: It parallels developments they want to do anyway, and pays for them.  And they won the award because of how advanced the work already was compared to bids that refused to so much as pick up a paperclip until taxpayers cut them a check.

Moreover, a passenger market is fundamentally different from a payload one in that there's no delay between capability and realization because it's a direct-to-consumer service rather than business-facing: The payload is literally just people, so the limits are hard and unchanging, and that's a long-term advantage even if it's costly up front.

If you introduced a vehicle tomorrow capable of delivering LEO sats at $100/kg, it would still take years to build market momentum as the payload manufacturers change how they make satellites.  In fact, the sat manufacturers still are nowhere near fully absorbing the capabilities of Falcon 9, let alone anything after.  But if you introduced a passenger vehicle tomorrow capable of sending people into LEO at $100/kg, you'd be booked solid instantly and fly as soon as the tech and the law allows.

Baseline / cargo Starship will have a hysteresis curve of development because of this, but the moment it's ready to fly people, it will scale almost instantly by spaceflight standards.  SpaceX doesn't need NASA, but NASA is useful.

[yg1968]

I believe that SpaceX needs NASA as an anchor tenant for its crewed Starship to make sense from a business perspective. Uncrewed Starship is different as it has a business case on its own.

[DanClemmensen]

I believe that SpaceX needs NASA as an anchor tenant for its crewed Starship to make sense from a business perspective. Uncrewed Starship is different as it has a business case on its own.

SpaceX might get crazy again. They needed an anchor tenant for Falcon 9, so they created Starlink. They may be able to do the equivalent for Crewed Starship with space tourism, including flights of various lengths to LEO with crew remaining inboard, or by launching one or more Starships to serve as CLDs for tourism, commerce, and research.

But this is the Artemis political thread, so how is this relevant?! Well, if SpaceX creates a viable crewed Starship that routinely put people in LEO, then there are all sorts of possible cost-effective Artemis mission profiles that do not include SLS/Orion.

[yg1968]

I believe that SpaceX needs NASA as an anchor tenant for its crewed Starship to make sense from a business perspective. Uncrewed Starship is different as it has a business case on its own.

SpaceX might get crazy again. They needed an anchor tenant for Falcon 9, so they created Starlink. They may be able to do the equivalent for Crewed Starship with space tourism, including flights of various lengths to LEO with crew remaining inboard, or by launching one or more Starships to serve as CLDs for tourism, commerce, and research.

But this is the Artemis political thread, so how is this relevant?! Well, if SpaceX creates a viable crewed Starship that routinely put people in LEO, then there are all sorts of possible cost-effective Artemis mission profiles that do not include SLS/Orion.

I agree that there is a market for private astronaut missions in LEO, the Moon and Mars but I don't know if that market is large enough to justify the billions that are necessary for the development of crewed Starship. I am thankful for the Dear Moon and Polaris 3 missions but I don't think that they are sufficient to fund the development of a crewed Starship. When HLS Starship won a $3B contract under Option A, I was happy about it because Starship probably needs about $10B for its development which is a lot of money. Having NASA pay for part of that helps a lot. I am guessing that Option B (for the development of the sustainable HLS Starship) will provide SpaceX another $1B or so. From an investment and business perspective, it is important for SpaceX to win some of these contracts.

[DanClemmensen]

I believe that SpaceX needs NASA as an anchor tenant for its crewed Starship to make sense from a business perspective. Uncrewed Starship is different as it has a business case on its own.

SpaceX might get crazy again. They needed an anchor tenant for Falcon 9, so they created Starlink. They may be able to do the equivalent for Crewed Starship with space tourism, including flights of various lengths to LEO with crew remaining inboard, or by launching one or more Starships to serve as CLDs for tourism, commerce, and research.

But this is the Artemis political thread, so how is this relevant?! Well, if SpaceX creates a viable crewed Starship that routinely put people in LEO, then there are all sorts of possible cost-effective Artemis mission profiles that do not include SLS/Orion.

I agree that there is a market for private astronaut missions in LEO, the Moon and Mars but I don't know if that market is large enough to justify the billions that are necessary for the development of crewed Starship. I am thankful for the Dear Moon and Polaris 3 missions but I don't think that they are sufficient to fund the development of a crewed Starship. When HLS Starship won a $3B contract under Option A, I was happy about it because Starship probably needs about $10B for its development which is a lot of money. Having NASA pay for part of that helps a lot. I am guessing that Option B (for the development of the sustainable HLS Starship) will provide SpaceX another $1B or so. From an investment and business perspective, it is important for SpaceX to win some of these contracts.

I suspect based on the Option A history that SpaceX will make a separate business decision based on the potential profit for each contract. It's a for-profit commercial company. If a business analysis (which includes opportunity costs) shows that they can make a profit on a project, they will bid on it. This includes a whole bunch of potential Artemis projects: Option B, CLPS, and possibly Moonbase stuff. Pricing should be "interesting". They can try for all the market will bear, or they can try for just a healthy profit. If the latter, their competitors may be in trouble, because a project that leverages Starship technology is likely to have a low internal cost. We'll see. Starship may not work or may be seriously delayed, or SLS/Orion may suffer additional serous delays, or both.

Option B by itself might be a $1B contract: I have no idea. However, the upside potential for Option B includes future landings. Even if there is a reasonable Appendix P competitor, SpaceX may evaluate the likelihood that the competitor will be delayed and NASA will continue to award all landings to the Option B lander, more or less by analogy to what happened with CCP. You get to guess how many landings that will be. If Artemis remains constrained by SLS/Orion, it's clearly no more than one per year in anyone's wildest fantasy, and surely the Appendix P lander would be available by 2032, so maybe five landings for Option B before then begin sharing the load. Not very exciting unless they decide that non SLS/Orion missions will happen.

[yg1968]

Option B is only one demo mission but it also includes funding for the development of the sustainable lander. For missions after that, there will be something called the HLS Sustaining lunar transport services procurement which should start around 2027 or 2028.

[DanClemmensen]

Option B is only one demo mission but it also includes funding for the development of the sustainable lander. For missions after that, there will be something called the HLS Sustaining lunar transport services procurement which should start around 2027 or 2028.

Yep, I was making an assumption that Starship HLS Option B would meet the "sustainable" requirement with little or no modification, and the further assumption that NASA would end up being forced to sole-source procure additional flights based on non-availability of an alternative. I was reasoning by analogy with CCP. If the Appendix P provider does not slip, the analogy fails. It comes down to SpaceX's evaluation of the likelihood that BO or Dynetics or Boeing or NS or whoever will deliver Appendix P on time. Based on recent history, my personal gut feeling is that SpaceX is likely to slip a lot less than any alternative provider.

[Robotbeat]

Does SpaceX need NASA as an anchor tenant for crewed Starship? No. Not technically. As pointed out, full Starlink makes the business case for Starship all on its own.

Musk wants/needs Starship to be crewed to enable Mars settlement. And he is willing to spend his wealth on that, ultimately

And technically, Dear Moon and Project Polaris are both contributing substantial sums to crewed Starship capability.

…but it DEFINITELY doesnt hurt. And NASA picking SpaceX for HLS helps in many, many other ways as well. NASA has huge teams of experts that can and will assist on many aspects of HLS, from life support, to TPS, to MMOD, to deep space navigation, dust, materials survivability in deep space, radiation, long duration thermal management, refueling, lunar landing oddities like excavation, dust impingement, site selection, etc, etc. literally the world experts on some of these minutiae work at NASA already, and this will focus them on helping make HLS a reality for Artemis. NASA has, I think, hundreds of civil servants working on HLS. And this is/was similar to the situation with commercial crew (for starliner and Dragon), which most people are unaware of.

NASA picking Starship for HLS wasn’t technically essential, but it is a MASSIVE help in maturing Starship for crew transport. MASSive. If Artemis 3 succeeds, it makes the actual Mars settlement vision unveiled in 2016 actually seem relatively plausible. Just a massive, MASSIVE step.

[Robotbeat]

SLS/Orion and their budget get a lot of ink. But Starship HLS, even though funded far less, is more significant than anything else. Even if NASA had picked EELVs and Dragon and Starliner for Artemis/Constellation but built their own lander, that would’ve been far less significant than the choice of Starship for HLS. Because of that, I care less about SLS/etc than I used to. we’re living in one of the most optimal timelines, potentially better for human spaceflight than the dreamers of 10, 25 years ago.

Making Starship HLS work is just an ENORMOUS challenge. Like, this is NOT a walk in the park, don’t believe anyone who says that. Not even for SpaceX. It’s a HUGE step. But it’s a step appropriate for NASA and SpaceX’s capabilities. And thinking of how X-33 was canceled due to a composite test tank failure, I don’t think NASA could’ve done this themselves even with 10 times the budget; there’s just too much risk-averse scar tissue built up from 60 years of Congressional/media scrutiny and PTSD from accidents like Apollo 1, 13, Challenger, and Columbia. And I’m not even totally sure that SpaceX/Elon would’ve had the focus to do it without being on the line for a huge customer like NASA.

But together, it’s possible. We live in one of the best timelines.

[Robotbeat]

And bonus might be we get a second lander by someone else and maybe NASA/Congress comes to their sense with SLS/etc and we can free up resources to do LEO, Moon, AND Mars and maybe asteroids and prepare for Jupiter system. It seems possible now.

[yg1968]

Because of that, I care less about SLS/etc than I used to. we’re living in one of the most optimal timelines, potentially better for human spaceflight than the dreamers of 10, 25 years ago.

For me, it's the opposite. I paid less attention to SLS and Orion in the past because they were governmental programs and I usually have trouble getting excited about those. But now that it's on the launch pad, I am more excited about it than ever before. It was exciting to see SLS coming out of the VAB and being transported on the Crawlerway. It's also exciting to hear NASA talk about TLI again.

One thing that I don't understand is why people complain about HLS being wasteful but not Orion. Orion is pretty expensive too. 

[yg1968]

Why does the postponed launch of Artemis 1 matter?

https://video.foxbusiness.com/v/6311991534112#sp=show-clips

[ulm_atms]

I believe that SpaceX needs NASA as an anchor tenant for its crewed Starship to make sense from a business perspective. Uncrewed Starship is different as it has a business case on its own.

I actually think NASA needs SpaceX right now TBH.  NASA, in my opinion, was stuck in a rut with the same cost plus contracts to the same contractors, using the same methodology for 50+ years(SLS/Orion is the latest example).  SpaceX showed there is another way to do those things that, at least currently, seems to be working well.  NASA got a different perspective on how to do things and SpaceX soaked in a lot of NASA knowledge and became a mature company.  Win/Win

SpaceX would of still done SS/SH...it just would of just developed slower without NASA.

[libra]

Bottom line (and bluntly): Starship HLS makes SLS-Orion useful by pumping NASA HSF money into something more viable than... SLS-Orion. Also that "something" is already funded elsewhere through private money (Starlink) and has its own destination different from the Moon (Mars) - making the two destinations complementary.

A case could be made that NASA starting COTS and picking Dragon 1 as one of the two winners was an all important milestone.

We live in one of the best timelines.

I wouldn't go that far, Pr. Pangloss. SLS-Orion-Artemis is a damn expensive and tortured way of funding SpaceX, plus the Starship-HLS architecture is  a truly absurd kludge.

One only has to watch this video where Starship HLS dwarfs not only Orion, but also the Gateway.


The optimal way of using SpaceX architecture on the Moon would be to use the Mars variant and go full capability with it, 200 mt of payload and a dozen refuelings.

I often thing we are living strange times, in the sense of: NASA and SpaceX made some kind of "truce", and then picked each a different destination.
More or less:
-SpaceX goes to Mars long term, for the glamour.
-NASA goes to the Moon because it is closer, easier, and Apollo legacy.
What matters most inside that "uneasy truce" is that the two work together hand in hand.

Conclusion:  As long as NASA HSF expertise and money flows to SpaceX via Artemis and via the Moon (and also via the ISS, in passing), I guess we shouldn't complain. 

Don't forget the Boeing 247 and DC-3 fully benefited from NACA research on radial engine cowlings... maybe it is the same here. NASA indirectly helping a "747 to Mars" to happen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NACA_cowling

[libra]

A good case could be made that...

NASA was once stuck with the ISS - never mind, they used it (through COTS and CCDEV) to pump money and HSF knowledge into SpaceX.

NASA was once stuck with SLS-Orion for Artemis -  never mind, they used it (through HLS) to pump money and HSF knowledge into SpaceX.

Making lemons into lemonade, anybody ?

I have this sneaking suspicion that, when they picked SpaceX as the HLS winner, NASA had a long term plan. They rammed Starship-SLS into Artemis with an eye on ditching SLS-Orion in the future. You never know, if Congress ever see the light...
- short term, anchoring Artemis to Starship makes it harder to cancel
- long term: just ditch SLS-Orion-Gateway and go full Starship to the Moon.

My gut feeling is that the following will happen within the next decade, to 2032

1-NASA will perform a handful of "flag and footprints" Artemis landings with SLS-Orion-Gateway & HLS as a grossly oversized and overkill lander (compared to the rest, I mean: I don't spit on 200 mt to the lunar surface !!!)

2- Then, either deliberately or not, the truth will come out that a) the whole thing is a huge kludge b) it is insanely expensive.

3- But once lunar return achieved, cancelling Artemis and HLS will be harder.
Variant:
3-1 Starship Mars will fly, with a lunar variant.
3-2 So why not continuing Artemis the same way, as a spinoff of Musk Mars program ?
3-3 That way the lunar infrastructure (if any) is not abandoned, Apollo style.

4- End result: Artemis will carry on, but with COTS-like HLS-Starship flights and landings only. No more SLS-Orion-Gateway.

Bottom line: an Artemis lunar base the same as the ISS since 2020 (Cygnus and Dragon resupply flights).

Think C-130 cargo flights to the Antarctic bases. And imagine a modified Starship-Mars doing the same to a lunar base. I think that's NASA wet dream for Artemis in the 2030's...

[Coastal Ron]

A good case could be made that...

NASA was once stuck with the ISS - never mind, they used it (through COTS and CCDEV) to pump money and HSF knowledge into SpaceX.

I don't see how ANY case can be made for this. A research laboratory in space that would be accessible to scientists for years? One of the primary reasons for the Space Transportation System (i.e. Shuttle) was to BUILD a space station in LEO, so the ISS was really the culmination of the Shuttle program.

NASA was once stuck with SLS-Orion for Artemis -  never mind, they used it (through HLS) to pump money and HSF knowledge into SpaceX.

Kind of revisionist history here, since Artemis didn't exist until after the SLS was something like six years old. Congress created the SLS without a specific mission in mind, and the NASA of 2010, who worked for then President Obama, DID NOT ask for the SLS or the Orion.

I have this sneaking suspicion that, when they picked SpaceX as the HLS winner, NASA had a long term plan. They rammed Starship-SLS into Artemis with an eye on ditching SLS-Orion in the future. You never know, if Congress ever see the light...
- short term, anchoring Artemis to Starship makes it harder to cancel
- long term: just ditch SLS-Orion-Gateway and go full Starship to the Moon.

More revisionist history, since the SpaceX HLS was the ONLY viable candidate. Partly because SpaceX had been working on the Starship for years prior to the Artemis program, so it was a far more mature design. There still isn't a viable second HLS provider...

My gut feeling is that the following will happen within the next decade, to 2032

I think everyone involved in the Artemis program knows that the SpaceX Starship has the potential to easily replace the SLS+Orion. And I think the SLS supporters in Congress know that too. But remember that the SLS and Orion were not funded because there was a known need, they were funded as jobs programs. So it is up to Congress as to when to stop that jobs program.

As it stands the SLS+Orion are the only method for Artemis to move people to the Moon, but there are plenty of near-term alternatives that could replace them so that the Artemis program can continue. All it will take is political will...

[Proponent]

One of the primary reasons for the Space Transportation System (i.e. Shuttle) was to BUILD a space station in LEO, so the ISS was really the culmination of the Shuttle program.

The Shuttle was approved in 1972 as an all-purpose space truck that would replace all other launch vehicles except possibly the very smallest. Space stations were no more than a gleam in NASA's collective eye at the time. Only a decade and a half later, after the Challenger accident made obvious the Shuttle's abject failure to fulfil its intended role, was a space station project initiated.

[Hog]

One of the primary reasons for the Space Transportation System (i.e. Shuttle) was to BUILD a space station in LEO, so the ISS was really the culmination of the Shuttle program.

The Shuttle was approved in 1972 as an all-purpose space truck that would replace all other launch vehicles except possibly the very smallest. Space stations were no more than a gleam in NASA collective eye at the time. Only a decade and a half later, after the Challenger accident made obvious the Shuttle's abject failure to fulfil its intended role, was a space station project initiated.

The "space shuttle"  was the portion of the original STS design(Integrated Program Plan) that included LEO stations, nuclear tugs etc. The LEO shuttle was the portion that "got the money".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Transportation_System