I’m kinda confused… I see the Space X test launch approaching and I’m just mind blown.
We went to the moon in 1969 ya? Why is it so difficult to re enact that? Why is SpaceX doing it and not NASA? I’ve seen/heard of a few unsuccessful test runs but I’m not super up to date with our space journeys. But don’t we have this technology/engineering capability?
I don’t mean to be arrogant but can someone explain it to me?
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>We **went** to the moon in 1969 ya?
Yeah that’s kinda the problem here. Pretty much the instant we did that public support for the space program plummeted. We were spending 5% of our GDP to basically learn how to build missiles before getting nuked by the Russians, and we did it with a very slim safety margin and exorbitant cost.
>Why is it so difficult to re enact that?
Basically because it was extremely difficult to do it the first time, and no one in 2023 wants to take on the same level of risk that the original crews did to be the 13th person on the moon.
>Why is SpaceX doing it and not NASA?
NASA is also doing it with Artemis II, but NASA’s budget is more interested in research and development rather than commercialization. NASA likes to be the first to do things, SpaceX is focused on being able to bring the cost and risk down to an acceptable enough level that they can offer tourist tickets to billionaires and maybe even mine other worlds for resources for Earth.
>But don’t we have this technology/engineering capability?
Besides the orbital math, most of the Apollo mission stuff is out of date. Building a spaceship capable of reaching the moon with 1965 tech and an effectively unlimited budget vs today tech with a commercial or slim research budget is a VERY different challenge, but at the end of the day, modern rockets will be more reliable, safer and cheaper.
The Apollo program was a huge national effort to do something in space that would beat the Russians. Once that had been done, both the public and the government lost interest and were unwilling to pay the continuing cost of the Apollo program.
The current NASA program is known as Artemis. It uses the shuttle-derived SLS rocket carrying the Orion Capsule to get the astronauts from the earth to lunar orbit and back. NASA decided for that for Artemis they would choose a commercial provider to make provide the lunar lander, and for the program, the commercial company needs to launch the lander, get it to lunar orbit, and then take the astronauts to the surface and bring them back
SpaceX chose to big the huge starship rocket as a lunar lander, and were much cheaper than the competing bids and had an approach that NASA thought would work, so NASA gave them the contract. So we end up in the weird situation where the lunar lander absolutely dwarfs the Orion capsule.
The obvious question is “why do you need SLS and Orion if you have Starship?”. The short answer is that there isn’t a full solution just using starship, but there could easily be an option like that in a few years.
The Apollo program was a huge national effort to do something in space that would beat the Russians. Once that had been done, both the public and the government lost interest and were unwilling to pay the continuing cost of the Apollo program.
The current NASA program is known as Artemis. It uses the shuttle-derived SLS rocket carrying the Orion Capsule to get the astronauts from the earth to lunar orbit and back. NASA decided for that for Artemis they would choose a commercial provider to make provide the lunar lander, and for the program, the commercial company needs to launch the lander, get it to lunar orbit, and then take the astronauts to the surface and bring them back
SpaceX chose to big the huge starship rocket as a lunar lander, and were much cheaper than the competing bids and had an approach that NASA thought would work, so NASA gave them the contract. So we end up in the weird situation where the lunar lander absolutely dwarfs the Orion capsule.
The obvious question is “why do you need SLS and Orion if you have Starship?”. The short answer is that there isn’t a full solution just using starship, but there could easily be an option like that in a few years.
The Apollo program was a huge national effort to do something in space that would beat the Russians. Once that had been done, both the public and the government lost interest and were unwilling to pay the continuing cost of the Apollo program.
The current NASA program is known as Artemis. It uses the shuttle-derived SLS rocket carrying the Orion Capsule to get the astronauts from the earth to lunar orbit and back. NASA decided for that for Artemis they would choose a commercial provider to make provide the lunar lander, and for the program, the commercial company needs to launch the lander, get it to lunar orbit, and then take the astronauts to the surface and bring them back
SpaceX chose to big the huge starship rocket as a lunar lander, and were much cheaper than the competing bids and had an approach that NASA thought would work, so NASA gave them the contract. So we end up in the weird situation where the lunar lander absolutely dwarfs the Orion capsule.
The obvious question is “why do you need SLS and Orion if you have Starship?”. The short answer is that there isn’t a full solution just using starship, but there could easily be an option like that in a few years.
> We went to the moon in 1969 ya? Why is it so difficult to re enact that?
> But don’t we have this technology/engineering capability?
1. **Cost**: In the 1960s, with the cold war and the space race, NASA had a lot of support from the public and Congress and so had much more money to play with. In the heyday of the Apollo program, NASA’s budget was more than 4% of the federal budget. Nowadays it is closer to 0.5%. Apollo developed the technology to send humans to the moon very expensively. We never had the technology to send humans to the moon at a sustainable cost.
2. **Risks**: While the Apollo Program Specification aims for a loss-of-crew risk of 1% over the course a crewed moon landing mission, a NASA report in 1965 found the actual risk estimate at the time was close to 4%. Also note the development of crewed spacecrafts during the 2010s has revealed additional flaws in the Apollo-era technology that were unknown before, bringing the actual risk higher than estimated during the 1960s. Nowadays NASA is much more risk-adverse when it comes to crew safely, requiring a loss-of-crew risk of lower than 0.2% over the course of a crew transport mission to and from the ISS. Using 1960s technology is simply not acceptable now.
3. **Technology**: Apple used to sell iPhone 1s. Would Apple sell the iPhone 1 again now? Of course not. On one hand, Apple has not make an iPhone 1 for almost 15 years and provisioning the capabilities to manufacturing them again is very costly. On the other hand, why would anyone want to buy an iPhone 1 now when they could buy a much more advanced iPhone 14 instead? Similarly, recreating the Saturn V rocket and the Apollo modules is infeasible today. For example [part of the Apollo Guidance Computer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_rope_memory) was made by hand by very skilled women and there is a very real possibility that there exists zero living humans with that skill today. Developing a brand new system would also incorporate the technological advancements in the 50+ years in between.
4. **Goals**: The Apollo program aims only to send humans to the surface of the moon, do some activities, and bring them back. The Artemis program is much more ambitions, including building [a space station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Gateway) orbiting around the moon, establishing long-term human presence and a permanent base on the moon, and eventually serve as a springboard for colonization of Mars and other planets. To do so, we must be able to launch a *lot* of stuff to the moon and that is infeasible with what the Apollo program was using.
> Why is SpaceX doing it and not NASA?
First things first, SpaceX is not developing the Starship *just* for Artemis. It has been in development for more than 6 years and is planned to be part of SpaceX’s commercial offering (which would vastly outstrip all of its competitors in terms of capabilities and cost). In fact a few private customers has already booked Starship launches.
Also, while Starship is critical to the success of Artemis, it is only a small part of the overall mission. The first [Artemis crewed moon landing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3) will go like this:
1. An early version of the Lunar Gateway (developed by various space agencies across the world including NASA) would be deployed to the moon beforehand.
2. Astronauts launch on the SLS-Orion (both developed by NASA) and dock with the Gateway
3. SpaceX launches a Starship HLS (without crew) and dock with the Gateway
4. The astronauts transfer from the Orion to the Starship
5. The astronauts descend to and ascend from the moon surface on the Starship
6. The astronauts transfer from the Starship to the Orion and returns to Earth on the Orion.
NASA is very open to partnering with private space companies. In recent years, these often come in the form of service contracts. Simply put, NASA put out a set of specifications of the services they need (e.g. [sending cargo to the ISS after the retirement of the Shuttle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Resupply_Services)) and allow private companies to submit proposals on how they plan to provide those services. After reviewing, NASA sign contracts with one or more of those companies to pay them a fixed sum of money for the R&D of the technology needed and the services provided. NASA essentially outsources some of their R&D, incentivizes private companies to find cost-effective solutions to their problems, and frees themselves to do more stuff.
The Human Landing System (HLS) is one of those contracts. SpaceX saw that and realizes it is quite easy to satisfy the requirements using a variant of their in-development Starship (which they are developing anyway).
> We went to the moon in 1969 ya? Why is it so difficult to re enact that?
> But don’t we have this technology/engineering capability?
1. **Cost**: In the 1960s, with the cold war and the space race, NASA had a lot of support from the public and Congress and so had much more money to play with. In the heyday of the Apollo program, NASA’s budget was more than 4% of the federal budget. Nowadays it is closer to 0.5%. Apollo developed the technology to send humans to the moon very expensively. We never had the technology to send humans to the moon at a sustainable cost.
2. **Risks**: While the Apollo Program Specification aims for a loss-of-crew risk of 1% over the course a crewed moon landing mission, a NASA report in 1965 found the actual risk estimate at the time was close to 4%. Also note the development of crewed spacecrafts during the 2010s has revealed additional flaws in the Apollo-era technology that were unknown before, bringing the actual risk higher than estimated during the 1960s. Nowadays NASA is much more risk-adverse when it comes to crew safely, requiring a loss-of-crew risk of lower than 0.2% over the course of a crew transport mission to and from the ISS. Using 1960s technology is simply not acceptable now.
3. **Technology**: Apple used to sell iPhone 1s. Would Apple sell the iPhone 1 again now? Of course not. On one hand, Apple has not make an iPhone 1 for almost 15 years and provisioning the capabilities to manufacturing them again is very costly. On the other hand, why would anyone want to buy an iPhone 1 now when they could buy a much more advanced iPhone 14 instead? Similarly, recreating the Saturn V rocket and the Apollo modules is infeasible today. For example [part of the Apollo Guidance Computer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_rope_memory) was made by hand by very skilled women and there is a very real possibility that there exists zero living humans with that skill today. Developing a brand new system would also incorporate the technological advancements in the 50+ years in between.
4. **Goals**: The Apollo program aims only to send humans to the surface of the moon, do some activities, and bring them back. The Artemis program is much more ambitions, including building [a space station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Gateway) orbiting around the moon, establishing long-term human presence and a permanent base on the moon, and eventually serve as a springboard for colonization of Mars and other planets. To do so, we must be able to launch a *lot* of stuff to the moon and that is infeasible with what the Apollo program was using.
> Why is SpaceX doing it and not NASA?
First things first, SpaceX is not developing the Starship *just* for Artemis. It has been in development for more than 6 years and is planned to be part of SpaceX’s commercial offering (which would vastly outstrip all of its competitors in terms of capabilities and cost). In fact a few private customers has already booked Starship launches.
Also, while Starship is critical to the success of Artemis, it is only a small part of the overall mission. The first [Artemis crewed moon landing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3) will go like this:
1. An early version of the Lunar Gateway (developed by various space agencies across the world including NASA) would be deployed to the moon beforehand.
2. Astronauts launch on the SLS-Orion (both developed by NASA) and dock with the Gateway
3. SpaceX launches a Starship HLS (without crew) and dock with the Gateway
4. The astronauts transfer from the Orion to the Starship
5. The astronauts descend to and ascend from the moon surface on the Starship
6. The astronauts transfer from the Starship to the Orion and returns to Earth on the Orion.
NASA is very open to partnering with private space companies. In recent years, these often come in the form of service contracts. Simply put, NASA put out a set of specifications of the services they need (e.g. [sending cargo to the ISS after the retirement of the Shuttle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Resupply_Services)) and allow private companies to submit proposals on how they plan to provide those services. After reviewing, NASA sign contracts with one or more of those companies to pay them a fixed sum of money for the R&D of the technology needed and the services provided. NASA essentially outsources some of their R&D, incentivizes private companies to find cost-effective solutions to their problems, and frees themselves to do more stuff.
The Human Landing System (HLS) is one of those contracts. SpaceX saw that and realizes it is quite easy to satisfy the requirements using a variant of their in-development Starship (which they are developing anyway).
NASA is returning to the moon through the Artemis program. Space flight is a tricky business to be in. Lots of complicated stuff that’s has to happen perfectly and at the right time for it all to work safely. There’s inherently a lot of risk with any new system, both SpaceX and NASA are using a mixture of new and proven technologies in their moon/mars mission designs. Most of what’s being done right now is essentially proving the ability of the hardware/systems to perform as expected and safely. Artemis 1 that launched and landed last year did just that for NASA, proving that both SLS and the Orion space capsule work as intended. Previous disasters such as Apollo 1, Columbia, and Challenger have created an atmosphere of safety and created protocols to mitigate the risk of failures as much as possible. We totally have the ability to do it it just takes time to safely get everything in place to make it happen. There’s no rescue crew in space and rockets are pretty dangerous. Just look at SpaceXs recent explosion today, not sure if that was an intentional flight termination system or if some other catastrophic failure occurred but it’s not likely that someone would survive that had there been a crew on board. There are better safety systems in place today that didn’t exist in the pioneer days of space flight, can’t speak for spacex too much but I know that NASA’s SLS has a Launch Abort System (LAS) on the top that activates and shoots the crew compartment away from the rest of the launch vehicle in the event of a major failure.
Anyway, to summarize space flight is tricky and expensive. Each system needs a lot of time to be tested throughly before any humans and missions can be launched successfully. It’s all about risk mitigation and you do that through a lot of testing. Give it some time, within the next decade humans will return to the moon, then who knows? Maybe we will be “interplanetary” before the 2050s.
NASA is returning to the moon through the Artemis program. Space flight is a tricky business to be in. Lots of complicated stuff that’s has to happen perfectly and at the right time for it all to work safely. There’s inherently a lot of risk with any new system, both SpaceX and NASA are using a mixture of new and proven technologies in their moon/mars mission designs. Most of what’s being done right now is essentially proving the ability of the hardware/systems to perform as expected and safely. Artemis 1 that launched and landed last year did just that for NASA, proving that both SLS and the Orion space capsule work as intended. Previous disasters such as Apollo 1, Columbia, and Challenger have created an atmosphere of safety and created protocols to mitigate the risk of failures as much as possible. We totally have the ability to do it it just takes time to safely get everything in place to make it happen. There’s no rescue crew in space and rockets are pretty dangerous. Just look at SpaceXs recent explosion today, not sure if that was an intentional flight termination system or if some other catastrophic failure occurred but it’s not likely that someone would survive that had there been a crew on board. There are better safety systems in place today that didn’t exist in the pioneer days of space flight, can’t speak for spacex too much but I know that NASA’s SLS has a Launch Abort System (LAS) on the top that activates and shoots the crew compartment away from the rest of the launch vehicle in the event of a major failure.
Anyway, to summarize space flight is tricky and expensive. Each system needs a lot of time to be tested throughly before any humans and missions can be launched successfully. It’s all about risk mitigation and you do that through a lot of testing. Give it some time, within the next decade humans will return to the moon, then who knows? Maybe we will be “interplanetary” before the 2050s.
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