I think this is an astonishingly dumb take. Regardless of what you think of Musk, SpaceX is building a fundamentally important reusable lift technology that can be the underpinning of some many future developments. Who cares if China gets to the moon first? This is how NASA historically gets into a mess with its launch system - political pressure, conflated goals and requirements (see the Space Shuttle - does it launch people?, military payloads?, oh goodie - let's do it all). If anything I wish NASA would do more to make sure we have a decent starship competitor which its hard to see blue origin being anytime soon (but I am not an expert on this topic)
Yes, but there are several additional dimensions of perhaps-malicious idiocy that you didn't call the NYT on:
- The reason that NASA is stuck in this mess with Musk is that "their own" SLS, Orion, Lunar Gateway, & Co. program is a landfill of Congressional pork, trying to pretend to be a moon mission. And Washington has been talking smack about actually returning to the moon. And now China appears to be calling them on that cheap talk.
- Compared to the costs of SLS & Co., SpaceX's "one of his largest ever" contract for getting to the moon is small change. Has the NYT heard the old saying about "fast, cheap, and reliable"?
- Any manned Lunar mission must start with heavy lift to LEO. SpaceX utterly dominates that market. And has for years. On all 3 of the available, cheap, and reliable dimensions. Even if Starship could only do unmanned heavy LEO, having it operational would just make Musk an even-more obvious choice for that part of things.
- Musk has an available, reliable crew capsule - which is another difficult must-have for any manned Lunar mission. Vs. NASA's Orion capsule has been to orbit once, uncrewed, 3 year ago. And had major heat shield issues during the reentry.
The idea that private space will be able to compete against china without serious US gov't support is a joke. America finds a way to only fight wars it can afford to lose. I think it's because after ww2 and the cold war we sold less weapons. So the system (not any 1 human) learns that losing a war is better than winning
> “This is not anything against SpaceX — they have done incredible things,” said Douglas Loverro, who served as the head of NASA’s human spaceflight division early in Mr. Trump’s first term. “But the further you move from known technology, the longer it takes to go ahead and get something done.”
> Landing such a tall rocket — Starship moon lander will be about 165 feet, compared with the Apollo Lunar lander that was 23 feet tall — means it can carry much more cargo, but it creates greater risk that Starship could topple once it arrives on the moon, Mr. Loverro said.
I think this is an astonishingly dumb take. Regardless of what you think of Musk, SpaceX is building a fundamentally important reusable lift technology that can be the underpinning of some many future developments. Who cares if China gets to the moon first? This is how NASA historically gets into a mess with its launch system - political pressure, conflated goals and requirements (see the Space Shuttle - does it launch people?, military payloads?, oh goodie - let's do it all). If anything I wish NASA would do more to make sure we have a decent starship competitor which its hard to see blue origin being anytime soon (but I am not an expert on this topic)
Yes, but there are several additional dimensions of perhaps-malicious idiocy that you didn't call the NYT on:
- The reason that NASA is stuck in this mess with Musk is that "their own" SLS, Orion, Lunar Gateway, & Co. program is a landfill of Congressional pork, trying to pretend to be a moon mission. And Washington has been talking smack about actually returning to the moon. And now China appears to be calling them on that cheap talk.
- Compared to the costs of SLS & Co., SpaceX's "one of his largest ever" contract for getting to the moon is small change. Has the NYT heard the old saying about "fast, cheap, and reliable"?
- Any manned Lunar mission must start with heavy lift to LEO. SpaceX utterly dominates that market. And has for years. On all 3 of the available, cheap, and reliable dimensions. Even if Starship could only do unmanned heavy LEO, having it operational would just make Musk an even-more obvious choice for that part of things.
- Musk has an available, reliable crew capsule - which is another difficult must-have for any manned Lunar mission. Vs. NASA's Orion capsule has been to orbit once, uncrewed, 3 year ago. And had major heat shield issues during the reentry.
https://archive.ph/5iIrb
The idea that private space will be able to compete against china without serious US gov't support is a joke. America finds a way to only fight wars it can afford to lose. I think it's because after ww2 and the cold war we sold less weapons. So the system (not any 1 human) learns that losing a war is better than winning
> “This is not anything against SpaceX — they have done incredible things,” said Douglas Loverro, who served as the head of NASA’s human spaceflight division early in Mr. Trump’s first term. “But the further you move from known technology, the longer it takes to go ahead and get something done.”
> Landing such a tall rocket — Starship moon lander will be about 165 feet, compared with the Apollo Lunar lander that was 23 feet tall — means it can carry much more cargo, but it creates greater risk that Starship could topple once it arrives on the moon, Mr. Loverro said.