Reusable Lunar Lander [idea]

[DanClemmensen]

As to the thread topic, the current Starship HLS and eventual Blue Moon landers will provide NASA with far more capabilities than NASA will be able to use if they have to use the SLS+Orion to send humans into space.

Not quite true. Only true if they are also prohibited from using a "backup" alternative to SLS+Orion. They can keep using SLS+Orion at the lowest cadence Congress will tolerate, and use the "backup" to actually perform real missions.

There is no evidence that Congress would fund NASA to create a second crew transportation system.

There is plenty of evidence that Congress is perfectly happy with the once a year mission cadence the SLS+Orion support.

So sure, while it may make sense to us to add more ways to move humans to the Moon, NASA is not funded to do that today, or the foreseeable future. Which is why I stated what I did above, that the current Starship HLS and Blue Moon landers provide far more capabilities than what NASA will need for the Artemis program.

SLS+Orion does not appear to have a once-a-year cadence. NASA would not need to pay to develop a second system: it would be a service. SpaceX can provide that service using hardware that has already been designed and is already needed prior to Artemis III. Use another instance of Starship HLS as an LEO-NHRO-LEO crew transport, and use Crew Dragon for Earth to LEO and back to Earth. The actual lander meets the transport in NRHO, just as it does for SLS+Orion.

[Coastal Ron]

There is no evidence that Congress would fund NASA to create a second crew transportation system.

There is plenty of evidence that Congress is perfectly happy with the once a year mission cadence the SLS+Orion support.

So sure, while it may make sense to us to add more ways to move humans to the Moon, NASA is not funded to do that today, or the foreseeable future. Which is why I stated what I did above, that the current Starship HLS and Blue Moon landers provide far more capabilities than what NASA will need for the Artemis program.

SLS+Orion does not appear to have a once-a-year cadence.

Not yet, but that is what NASA is planning for once they get everything operational.

NASA would not need to pay to develop a second system: it would be a service.

You mean like Commercial Crew? NASA paid SpaceX $3.1B to develop the Dragon Crew, but you think SpaceX will develop an Earth-to-Moon-and-Back transportation system for free? Can you show me where SpaceX has ever done something like that for the U.S. Government, because I don't think you are being realist?

SpaceX can provide that service using hardware that has already been designed and is already needed prior to Artemis III. Use another instance of Starship HLS as an LEO-NHRO-LEO crew transport, and use Crew Dragon for Earth to LEO and back to Earth. The actual lander meets the transport in NRHO, just as it does for SLS+Orion.

We can all do LEGO engineering, and imagine that the richest person in the world will spend their money on our pet projects.

The reality is that unless Congress authorizes NASA to allow competition with the SLS+Orion, it won't happen. And Congress has shown no indications they care about the cost of the SLS+Orion, or the slow mission cadence of the Artemis program, so it ain't happening.

[Negan]

SpaceX can provide that service using hardware that has already been designed and is already needed prior to Artemis III. Use another instance of Starship HLS as an LEO-NHRO-LEO crew transport, and use Crew Dragon for Earth to LEO and back to Earth. The actual lander meets the transport in NRHO, just as it does for SLS+Orion.

The only missing piece not developed or in development is a way to dock two Starship together to transport crew although it's possible the final docking design of the depot and HLS will help with this.

Edit: Dragon 2 has certainly shown us SpaceX can develop capabilities beyond NASA requirements regardless of whether people consider it "LEGO engineering".

[DanClemmensen]

SpaceX can provide that service using hardware that has already been designed and is already needed prior to Artemis III. Use another instance of Starship HLS as an LEO-NHRO-LEO crew transport, and use Crew Dragon for Earth to LEO and back to Earth. The actual lander meets the transport in NRHO, just as it does for SLS+Orion.

The only missing piece not developed or in development is a way to dock two Starship together to transport crew although it's possible the final docking design of the depot and HLS will help with this.

Edit: Dragon 2 has certainly shown us SpaceX can develop capabilities beyond NASA requirements regardless of whether people consider it "LEGO engineering".

Starship HLS will almost certainly have an active/passive IDSS docking port on its nose. Two active/passive ports can dock to each other. The reason Starship HLS needs to be active/passive is that it (probably) needs the ability to dock to the active-only IDSS port on Orion, and it also needs the ability to dock to the passive-only IDSS port on Gateway.

[Negan]

SpaceX can provide that service using hardware that has already been designed and is already needed prior to Artemis III. Use another instance of Starship HLS as an LEO-NHRO-LEO crew transport, and use Crew Dragon for Earth to LEO and back to Earth. The actual lander meets the transport in NRHO, just as it does for SLS+Orion.

The only missing piece not developed or in development is a way to dock two Starship together to transport crew although it's possible the final docking design of the depot and HLS will help with this.

Edit: Dragon 2 has certainly shown us SpaceX can develop capabilities beyond NASA requirements regardless of whether people consider it "LEGO engineering".

Starship HLS will almost certainly have an active/passive IDSS docking port on its nose. Two active/passive ports can dock to each other. The reason Starship HLS needs to be active/passive is that it (probably) needs the ability to dock to the active-only IDSS port on Orion, and it also needs the ability to dock to the passive-only IDSS port on Gateway.

From my limited understanding, the mass properties of having two Starships dock might make the current HLS IDSS docking development to Orion and the Gateway inadequate, but I hope that ends up not being the case.

[DanClemmensen]

SpaceX can provide that service using hardware that has already been designed and is already needed prior to Artemis III. Use another instance of Starship HLS as an LEO-NHRO-LEO crew transport, and use Crew Dragon for Earth to LEO and back to Earth. The actual lander meets the transport in NRHO, just as it does for SLS+Orion.

The only missing piece not developed or in development is a way to dock two Starship together to transport crew although it's possible the final docking design of the depot and HLS will help with this.

Edit: Dragon 2 has certainly shown us SpaceX can develop capabilities beyond NASA requirements regardless of whether people consider it "LEGO engineering".

Starship HLS will almost certainly have an active/passive IDSS docking port on its nose. Two active/passive ports can dock to each other. The reason Starship HLS needs to be active/passive is that it (probably) needs the ability to dock to the active-only IDSS port on Orion, and it also needs the ability to dock to the passive-only IDSS port on Gateway.

From my limited understanding, the mass properties of having two Starships dock might make the current HLS IDSS docking development to Orion and the Gateway inadequate, but I hope that ends up not being the case.

How to elephants mate? Veeery carefully.   Yes, they need to ensure that the torques can be handled. But the eventual full-up Gateway is also a substantial chunk of mass, and HLS must dock to it, so presumably docking to another HLS would not induce an order of magnitude more torque. We are getting off-topic here. There is an entire thread dedicated to this particular SLS/Orion replacement at:
    https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=59662.0

[yg1968]

What changed is that back in 2010 Congress authorized the building of the SLS & Orion, and then in 2017 President Trump wanted some grand event to happen by the end of his potential 2nd term in office, so the return to Moon program was created. Congress and the Trump Administration did not care about the cost to return to the Moon, and the actual cost is being ignored by Congress.

Why does this matter? Because it means that the Artemis program, as currently constituted, relies on the largess of Congress, and it requires Congress to not ask hard questions about the cost of the Artemis effort.

That is NOT sustainable, that is just lucky so far. But luck can change, as we saw with the Constellation program.

Just about every Artemis program that was created under the Trump Administration was a service fixed-cost/public private partnership showing that the Trump Administration did indeed care about costs. The decision to use SLS and Orion wasn't made under the Trump Administration. If the Trump Administration had started from a clean slate, I suspect that the HLV and BLEO spacecraft would have been another public-private partnership/fixed price service program.

In terms of setting an ambitious goal for the second term of a presidency (the goal of landing on the Moon in 2024), I think that is a good idea. Ideally, all Presidents (or the Vice President in the case of the Trump Administration) should try to set such an ambitious goal. Even if they don't achieve it, a lot of progress can be made in 8 years. To their credit, the Biden Administration kept Artemis intact and have continued the use of public-private partnership/fixed price service programs under Artemis (for example, the spacesuits and LTV). It wasn't obvious that this would be the case in early 2020 given Senator Nelson's prior record of creating or defending large space government programs such as SLS and Orion.   

[VSECOTSPE]

Just about every Artemis program that was created under the Trump Administration was a service fixed-cost/public private partnership showing that the Trump Administration did indeed care about costs. The decision to use SLS and Orion wasn't made under the Trump Administration. If the Trump Administration had started from a clean slate, I suspect that the HLV and BLEO spacecraft would have been another public-private partnership/fixed price service program.

I think Bridenstine cared, but I’m not sure anyone else of significance in the Trump Administration did.  Pence publicly voiced frustration with SLS schedule and contractors, but when push came to shove with Shelby, Pence didn’t expend any political capital in favor of reform.  And there was no policy dictate from the Trump White House for NASA to change its ways that I recall, and Pace has never been in favor of doing so, anyway.   To the extent NASA adopted new ways of doing business, that either originated with Bridenstine (HLS et al.) or civil servants like Zurbuchen (CLPS).

You can take the view that Bridenstine was a Trump appointee so the Trump Administration gets the credit.  But I like to give credit where credit is most due.  I think that’s with Bridenstine in this case.

To flip it around, we could blame the Bush II Administration for Constellation, and they probably should have been watching over Griffin’s shoulder more carefully.  But the debacle with Ares I and Orion and the rest that NASA is still suffering from lies at Griffin’s feet more than anyone else’s.

In terms of setting an ambitious goal for the second term of a presidency (the goal of landing on the Moon in 2024), I think that is a good idea.

It is a good idea when accompanied by the budget increases and/or policy/program changes necessary to make it happen.  See Apollo and the budget Webb laid in.  See the VSE and the sand chart budget and the program reforms we laid in (before Griffin reversed them).

I don’t recall any budget changes accompanying the Trump White House 2028 to 2024 acceleration.  Logically, there should have been.  Pursuing the same goal with less time means you have to spend more earlier.  The alternative is to change how the goal is being pursued.  Bridenstine did the best he could with what he had, but again, there was no top cover from the Trump White House when Bridenstine ran into Shelby or any direction from the Trump White House in favor of reform.

In its inability to fully plan for or see a change through in NASA HSF, the Trump White House is little different from those before it.  The Obama Administration didn’t put due diligence into its asteroid goal.  Bush II appointed Griffin and didn’t care when he went off the rails.  Etc.  But that doesn’t change the impact of the neglect.  Orion’s technical issues are still driving schedule slips.  Nelson had to finish the fundraising job on HLS because there was no budget acceleration and because Orion/SLS were still allowed to suck up the budgetary oxygen.  Suits have gotten off to a very late start.  Etc.

FWIW...

[Coastal Ron]

What changed is that back in 2010 Congress authorized the building of the SLS & Orion, and then in 2017 President Trump wanted some grand event to happen by the end of his potential 2nd term in office, so the return to Moon program was created. Congress and the Trump Administration did not care about the cost to return to the Moon, and the actual cost is being ignored by Congress.

Why does this matter? Because it means that the Artemis program, as currently constituted, relies on the largess of Congress, and it requires Congress to not ask hard questions about the cost of the Artemis effort.

That is NOT sustainable, that is just lucky so far. But luck can change, as we saw with the Constellation program.

Just about every Artemis program that was created under the Trump Administration was a service fixed-cost/public private partnership showing that the Trump Administration did indeed care about costs.

Recognizing that the Congress you have to deal with is not enthused about a program you just dropped on them is NOT the same as being "cost conscious". The Trump NASA had no alternative but to seek out commercial providers, for two reasons:

1. The then Congress was unlikely to fund NASA to develop their own lander.

2. NASA building their own lander would not have come close to meeting the aggressive schedule dates the Trump Administration announced. And when I say "aggressive", everyone should really read that as "delusional", since those of us that understand how to build hardware knew that the 2024 date was delusional.

The decision to use SLS and Orion wasn't made under the Trump Administration. If the Trump Administration had started from a clean slate, I suspect that the HLV and BLEO spacecraft would have been another public-private partnership/fixed price service program.

The Trump Administration created what is now the Artemis program, so they could have defined it so that the SLS and Orion did not meet the program goals. They certainly could have announced that the SLS and Orion were too expensive to use, since they knew the program costs at that time.

But they didn't do that. Other than the brief flirtation with using something other than the SLS in order to try and meet the 2024 landing date, they have bound the program to the SLS+Orion.

In terms of setting an ambitious goal for the second term of a presidency (the goal of landing on the Moon in 2024), I think that is a good idea.

Delusional dates waste money, and they don't make anything go faster. As someone that has been a professional factory scheduling manager, I can tell you that being realistic is far better than being delusional. And that's not to say you can't have "stretch goals", where you challenge everyone to do better, but having everyone out of sync with reality just adds to the chaos of an unrealistic program.

And look at the state of the Artemis program today. All of the issues today were known back in 2017, so all the Trump Administration did was look like they didn't know what they were doing.

Ideally, all Presidents (or the Vice President in the case of the Trump Administration) should try to set such an ambitious goal.

There is a difference between informed ambition, and uninformed ambition. The Trump Administration never did a bottoms-up assessment of the return-to-Moon effort before they announced the 2024 date, and didn't bother to do one after they announced the date either. That is just gross mismanagement - unless you like being lied to...

[Todd Martin]

As yg1968 mentioned, Blue Origin has a contract to provide a lunar lander and it will be reusable.  Lockheed's cislunar transporter will ferry liquid hydrogen and oxygen to the lunar lander (Blue Moon Mk. 2).  I like the advantages of cislunar operations using high ISP, low weight hydrolox.  I like separation of spacecraft functions to gain the benefits of optimization and utilization of Gateway.  In short, a lot less dry mass (roughly 1/3 the dry mass of the competition) means less fuel is needed.  I like the reusability and development of cryogenic propellant storage.  In short, I think NASA is getting exactly what the OP is hoping for.   

[yg1968]

You can take the view that Bridenstine was a Trump appointee so the Trump Administration gets the credit.  But I like to give credit where credit is most due.  I think that’s with Bridenstine in this case.

I am OK with giving most of the credit to Bridenstine. But I do think that Pence's 2024 goal gave a sense of urgency to the Artemis program. I am not sure that the HLS program would have been created in 2019 if it wasn't the accelerated goal. As you said yourself before, the 2024 goal gave Artemis a needed kick in the pants.

It is a good idea when accompanied by the budget increases and/or policy/program changes necessary to make it happen.  See Apollo and the budget Webb laid in.  See the VSE and the sand chart budget and the program reforms we laid in (before Griffin reversed them).

I don’t recall any budget changes accompanying the Trump White House 2028 to 2024 acceleration.  Logically, there should have been.  Pursuing the same goal with less time means you have to spend more earlier.  The alternative is to change how the goal is being pursued.  Bridenstine did the best he could with what he had, but again, there was no top cover from the Trump White House when Bridenstine ran into Shelby or any direction from the Trump White House in favor of reform.

There was an addendum to the FY20 Budget a few months after Pence announced Artemis in 2019. However, most of the plus up came in the FY21 Budget which had a fairly large HLS budget ($3.3B). 

https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-fiscal-year-2021-budget-request/

[yg1968]

Delusional dates waste money, and they don't make anything go faster.

A number of Artemis programs are fixed prices, so setting up unrealistic dates doesn't actually cost anything. Having said that, had they kept the more realistic 2028 date for the first lunar landing, Congress would have taken even more time to fund HLS and the first lunar landing probably wouldn't have been until 2032.

There is a difference between informed ambition, and uninformed ambition. The Trump Administration never did a bottoms-up assessment of the return-to-Moon effort before they announced the 2024 date, and didn't bother to do one after they announced the date either. That is just gross mismanagement - unless you like being lied to...

The big piece for the 2024 landing was the funding of the lander. NASA found out what the price for HLS would be when it received the HLS proposals in 2019. In the FY21 Budget, NASA had anticipated spending almost $21.3B on HLS. Fortunately, SpaceX lowered the price for HLS by asking for a much more reasonable $3B for the development of its lander and Blue ended up asking for a similar price for its lander.

https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-fiscal-year-2021-budget-request/

[VSECOTSPE]

I am OK with giving most of the credit to Bridenstine. But I do think that Pence's 2024 goal gave a sense of urgency to the Artemis program. I am not sure that the HLS program would have been created in 2019 if it wasn't the accelerated goal. As you said yourself before, the 2024 goal gave Artemis a needed kick in the pants.

There was an addendum to the FY20 Budget a few months after Pence announced Artemis in 2019. However, most of the plus up came in the FY21 Budget which had a fairly large HLS budget ($3.3B).

No doubt, the 2024 goal focused Bridenstine.  But there were probably ways to focus Bridenstine without setting a goal that the program was going to be judged against down the line, especially when the Trump White House would request the necessary budget increases late and kick the can to the Biden Administration to lobby for them. 

Again, par for the course for the last several Administrations.  NASA HSF is a visible but low priority.  Each White House basically takes one shot at fixing it then abandons the agency to its own devices.  But maybe Bridenstine just needed a come-to-Jesus meeting with Pence instead of Pace setting a poorly coordinated and funded goal in policy.

FWIW...

[Eric Hedman]

I am OK with giving most of the credit to Bridenstine. But I do think that Pence's 2024 goal gave a sense of urgency to the Artemis program. I am not sure that the HLS program would have been created in 2019 if it wasn't the accelerated goal. As you said yourself before, the 2024 goal gave Artemis a needed kick in the pants.

There was an addendum to the FY20 Budget a few months after Pence announced Artemis in 2019. However, most of the plus up came in the FY21 Budget which had a fairly large HLS budget ($3.3B).

No doubt, the 2024 goal focused Bridenstine.  But there were probably ways to focus Bridenstine without setting a goal that the program was going to be judged against down the line, especially when the Trump White House would request the necessary budget increases late and kick the can to the Biden Administration to lobby for them. 

Again, par for the course for the last several Administrations.  NASA HSF is a visible but low priority.  Each White House basically takes one shot at fixing it then abandons the agency to its own devices.  But maybe Bridenstine just needed a come-to-Jesus meeting with Pence instead of Pace setting a poorly coordinated and funded goal in policy.

FWIW...

I liked the idea of the 2024 goal because in my opinion no matter what date was set, it would be missed by 3 to 4 years.  If the goal was set to 2028, there would have been even less urgency by Congress to fully fund it and they would be lucky to get Artemis III flying by 2032.  I also think that the farther out the goal, the less likely Congress is to fund it at all.  Members of Congress want to still be in office when it succeeds and take credit for it.

[Coastal Ron]

Delusional dates waste money, and they don't make anything go faster.

A number of Artemis programs are fixed prices, so setting up unrealistic dates doesn't actually cost anything.

What an "interesting" statement.

Didn't you just point out on a different thread that NASA has the ability to punish contractors that don't make contract dates? So you seem to be OK with punishing contractors for not making contract dates that were fake to begin with, right? 

Having said that, had they kept the more realistic 2028 date for the first lunar landing, Congress would have taken even more time to fund HLS and the first lunar landing probably wouldn't have been until 2032.

So now you are admitting that the Trump Administration was lying to Congress about the 2024 date?

At any point does honesty and reality come into play with NASA?

There is a difference between informed ambition, and uninformed ambition. The Trump Administration never did a bottoms-up assessment of the return-to-Moon effort before they announced the 2024 date, and didn't bother to do one after they announced the date either. That is just gross mismanagement - unless you like being lied to...

The big piece for the 2024 landing was the funding of the lander.

What do you mean? NASA has spent $50B on the SLS and Orion programs so far.

NASA found out what the price for HLS would be when it received the HLS proposals in 2019.

In 2019 NASA asked for proposals, and in 2020 NASA awarded $967M in "study contracts" to Blue Origin, SpaceX and Dynetics to begin the design process for lunar landers, but how much each company would bid would not be known until the Human Landing System, Option A contract was bid and accepted in 2021. So NASA didn't know how much each of the proposals would cost until 2021.

In the FY21 Budget, NASA had anticipated spending almost $21.3B on HLS. Fortunately, SpaceX lowered the price for HLS by asking for a much more reasonable $3B for the development of its lander and Blue ended up asking for a similar price for its lander.

Assuming NASA didn't allow any of the contract bidding information to lead out, the part of NASA that was doing the federal budget process really had no idea what it would take, since all they had was old NASA studies to go by.

More importantly though, SpaceX did not "lowered the price". NASA had no clue how much it would cost to develop a lander, so stop assuming NASA requested a reasonable amount from Congress. As it happens, SpaceX was able to leverage years of self-funded work on the Starship program to bid what they did.

If anything the lack of accuracy in NASA's budget forecasts should be questioned...

And let's keep in mind that while V.P. Pence announced the return-to-Moon program in 2017, and set a date of by the end of 2024, NASA didn't award a contract for an actual Moon lander until 2021, or more than 50% of the way through the amount of time NASA had to meet the original 2024 date.

Does that seem like the fake 2024 need date for landing on the Moon was doing a good job in motivating NASA to meet that date?

[yg1968]

What an "interesting" statement.

Didn't you just point out on a different thread that NASA has the ability to punish contractors that don't make contract dates? So you seem to be OK with punishing contractors for not making contract dates that were fake to begin with, right? 

So now you are admitting that the Trump Administration was lying to Congress about the 2024 date?

At any point does honesty and reality come into play with NASA?

No one was lying. NASA asked the HLS providers if they could make the 2024 date and the providers said that they could. The Blue protest created a delay and so did the delay of Starship's IFT-1 IFT-2 test flights. These things were hard to predict at the time.

What do you mean? NASA has spent $50B on the SLS and Orion programs so far.

Yes but they were already going to spend these amounts for SLS and Orion for the Journey to Mars. What was new under Artemis was HLS (and CLPS).

In 2019 NASA asked for proposals, and in 2020 NASA awarded $967M in "study contracts" to Blue Origin, SpaceX and Dynetics to begin the design process for lunar landers, but how much each company would bid would not be known until the Human Landing System, Option A contract was bid and accepted in 2021. So NASA didn't know how much each of the proposals would cost until 2021.

That is not correct. The base period milestones weren't studies, they were the beginning of the HLS program. NASA asked the HLS providers to provide their prices for both the base period and Option A milestones in their November 2019 base period proposals (these prices were actually made public, see the link below). However, NASA allowed the providers to revise their milestone prices for Option A when they made their revised proposals under Option A (Option A was a down select of the base period HLS providers).

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=46645.msg2103598#msg2103598

Assuming NASA didn't allow any of the contract bidding information to lead out, the part of NASA that was doing the federal budget process really had no idea what it would take, since all they had was old NASA studies to go by.

More importantly though, SpaceX did not "lowered the price". NASA had no clue how much it would cost to develop a lander, so stop assuming NASA requested a reasonable amount from Congress. As it happens, SpaceX was able to leverage years of self-funded work on the Starship program to bid what they did.

If anything the lack of accuracy in NASA's budget forecasts should be questioned...

And let's keep in mind that while V.P. Pence announced the return-to-Moon program in 2017, and set a date of by the end of 2024, NASA didn't award a contract for an actual Moon lander until 2021, or more than 50% of the way through the amount of time NASA had to meet the original 2024 date.

Does that seem like the fake 2024 need date for landing on the Moon was doing a good job in motivating NASA to meet that date?

I am not assuming anything, your facts are incorrect and as a result your conclusions are also wrong. NASA had the numbers that I quoted above (also linked below) when it prepared the FY2021 HLS Budget (more precisely, NASA had these numbers as of November 5, 2019, the date that the HLS base period proposals were due).

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=46645.msg2103628#msg2103628

[yg1968]

I am OK with giving most of the credit to Bridenstine. But I do think that Pence's 2024 goal gave a sense of urgency to the Artemis program. I am not sure that the HLS program would have been created in 2019 if it wasn't the accelerated goal. As you said yourself before, the 2024 goal gave Artemis a needed kick in the pants.

There was an addendum to the FY20 Budget a few months after Pence announced Artemis in 2019. However, most of the plus up came in the FY21 Budget which had a fairly large HLS budget ($3.3B).

No doubt, the 2024 goal focused Bridenstine.  But there were probably ways to focus Bridenstine without setting a goal that the program was going to be judged against down the line, especially when the Trump White House would request the necessary budget increases late and kick the can to the Biden Administration to lobby for them. 

Again, par for the course for the last several Administrations.  NASA HSF is a visible but low priority.  Each White House basically takes one shot at fixing it then abandons the agency to its own devices.  But maybe Bridenstine just needed a come-to-Jesus meeting with Pence instead of Pace setting a poorly coordinated and funded goal in policy.

FWIW...

When the Trump Administration issued the FY21 NASA Budget (and the FY20 Supplemental Budget Request) which took into account the additional funding for HLS and Artemis, the Trump Administration expected to be back for a second term, so their plan wasn't to kick the can down the road to the Biden Administration since they didn't expect there to be a Biden Administration.

In any event, the FY21 budget was approved on December 28, 2020 which was still under the Trump Administration. There was enough funding for HLS-Starship in the FY21 Budget ($928M in FY21 which was an increase over the $654M that had been appropriated for HLS in FY20) but not enough for a second HLS provider.

https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-fiscal-year-2022-budget-request/

[JHošek]

NASA asked the HLS providers if they could make the 2024 date and the providers said that they could. The Blue protest created a delay and so did the delay of Starship's IFT-1 IFT-2 test flights. These things were hard to predict at the time. 

yg1968, would you agree that the IFT delay is the main factor and the impact of the Blue protest is already negligible?

[MickQ]

I suppose this thread is as good as any to pose a question.

Why are landers almost always designed/depicted with the cargo sitting atop the propulsion and tankage ??  Is there any technical or engineering reason for this ??

IMO this configuration will always necessitate the inclusion of a crane or davit of some kind and therefore introducing some level of instability when lifting weighty cargo down the side of the craft, especially in the case of Starship.

Would it not be better to have the cargo, whatever it be, attached underneath a framework that holds the engines, tanks, avionics and everything else ??  This way the cargo is placed directly on the ground.

Think Thunderbird 2 touching down, releasing a pod and flying off.

[deltaV]

Why are landers almost always designed/depicted with the cargo sitting atop the propulsion and tankage ??

Here's a guess. If rocket exhaust hits the payload the lander will probably lose net thrust and risk damaging the payload. So if the engines are on top they probably need to be angled a bit outwards like the "sky crane" Mars landing system's engines are. This isn't a big deal on Mars where you aren't using the engines for very long but on the moon the cosine losses will hurt. Putting the payload on top also protects it from debris thrown up by rocket exhaust hitting the ground.