CNSA has five components or issues they need to work through, which are: 1. Chang e'7 (robotic mission) 2. Chang e'8 (advanced robotic mission) 3. Long March 10 (the rocket) 4. Mengzhou (crew capsule) 5. Lanyue (the lander)
For NASA, I would say they also have 4: 1. Artemis 2 (needs to succeed) 2. Uncrewed Starship landing attempt 3. The SLS rocket they will use 4. The Orion capsule they will use
Which one do you think will land on the moon before 2030?
Or maybe Biden/Trump will freak out about China winning Space Race 2.0 and throw billions at the project late and demand unreasonable results in an unreasonably short timeline.
Goalpost moving. The answer has always been goalpost moving
Are you predicting a pivot to a NASA Manned Mars Mission? Let China have the moon because America got there first anyway, the new space race is for Mars?
During the last situation the US faction almost always either met the Soviets accomplishment for accomplishment, or aimed for something larger. I think the only thing the Soviets did that the Americans did not was a Venus landing--and that's because the first Venus flyby was USA's first big 'win' before the Soviet record.
Given the resource aspect and DoD white papers, I see the US maintaining parity with China on the Moon, but also pushing hard for a crewed interplanetary flyby mission, though not necessarily landing, using existing Artemis architecture.
The big question here is whether government space can get over its vanity issues with oldspace companies. The last space race was as much a financial challenge as it was a technical challenge, and the only option for competing with Chinese labor costs--especially Chinese commercial once it comes online--is American newspace options. So long as NASA insists on using oldspace companies and tech, they will run into the same lag effect that Korolev was dealing with after American rockets started outperforming what the R-7 could do.
I imagine the situation would be quite different...and significantly more dire...if SpaceX wasn't around.
It'll be interesting to see whether they care more about beating China than giving oldspace money.
They could remove a lot of the uncertainty around Artemis 3 by replacing SLS/Orion with Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon. They'd need to switch to an LEO rendezvous or modify Crew Dragon for the lunar voyage, maybe rendezvous with a service module which has it's own Falcon 9 launch? But we know Falcon 9 can launch as and when needed and rendezvousing Crew Dragon with Starship should be easy.
If I were Jeff Bridges (I think he's the boss of NASA, according to the documentary I saw about Mars landings) I'd ditch SLS/Orion and switch to full SpaceX. I'd change Artemis 3 to be a crewed mission to lunar orbit to watch the uncrewed landing test from orbit. A dry-run of almost the entire landing procedure except for actually putting boots on the ground, the equivalent of the Apollo 10 mission. Then Apollo 4 can be boots on the ground. That's not going to happen but that's how I'd do it if I were in charge.
Let China have the moon
This would be completely unacceptable from a military standpoint.
Only in the sense that China demonstrates relevant capabilities. The Moon by itself is completely irrelevant to anything military.
There was a panic during the Cold War that the USSR might try to circumvent nuclear weapons testing restrictions by setting them off on the dark side of the moon where it's impossible to see from Earth.
Don’t the space nuclear testing ban stop this though?
Probably. I'm not sure on the timeline, it might have contributed to why they introduced the space test ban. Or maybe they thought the Soviets could break the treaty secretly hidden on the dark side of the moon. There are atmospheric pressure sensors on Earth to detect the sudden spike in pressure from a nuclear bomb thousands of miles away, that wouldn't work on the moon. You'd need to either see the flash or maybe detect the radiation after the test. Either way it's easier to hide it on the moon, if you ignore the difficulty in getting your nukes to the moon.
The ban is meaningless if not enforced.
China seems to have a lot more motivation to "win" this race, as the US can say they won the first race. China is competing for second place, by almost 60 years now.
one thing to note is that there are two versions of Mengzhou sharing the capsule. They have tested the space station version, but not a moon version. The moon version will definitely have a different service section and likely upgraded heat shield for the capsule.
If a genuine race to the lunar surface emerges within the next 5 years and NASA and Artemis are still stymied by super high costs ($4.1B per launch of SLS/Orion) and engineering issues (Orion heatshield's unexpected out of spec performance), then SpaceX can come to NASA's rescue.
By that time Starship will be able to travel from LEO to low lunar orbit (LLO) to the lunar surface back to LLO and return to LEO with 5 to 10 astronauts aboard along with 50-100t of cargo in the payload bay. The lunar EVA spacesuits probably will be made by SpaceX also.
My guess is that SpaceX already has this kind of Starship lunar mission already designed and ready for production within the next two years. Why is that? Because landing Starships on the lunar surface is essential to gain experience for establishing the first human presence on the Martian surface.
By that time Starship will be able to travel from LEO to low lunar orbit (LLO) to the lunar surface back to LLO and return to LEO with 5 to 10 astronauts aboard along with 50-100t of cargo in the payload bay.
No. Absolutely not. For a complete round-trip Starship would need NEGATIVE 70 tons of payload. Source
But Starship could fly a lander to LLO, collect it after its ascent from the moon's surface and then fly back to earth again. That's surprisingly efficient.
That doesn't appear to account for Starship 3, which I suspect will be appearing before 2029 (flshr19's 'by that time'), given that at least some of Starship 2 is being built now, and will likely debut late this year or early next year.
That doesn't appear to account for Starship 3,
I would be delighted to see your math on that. Feel free to use the spreadsheet in the link.
Yeah people forget deltav wise getting to and from the moon is not much less than mars due to savings from aerobraking arriving at mars. To me the simplest moon architecture energy wise is launching a space tug to LEO that can haul a moon lander, launched seperately, to and from lunar orbit. The tug can refuel in orbit thanks to starship and won't ever launch or land so will be lower mass in design.
Not simplest plan in terms of complexity but I don't think long term operating cost can get lower than it. Starship is great and all but once in space it's a lot of dead weight too, I can't help but see it only as a LEO workhorse long term.
Starship is great and all but once in space it's a lot of dead weight too, I can't help but see it only as a LEO workhorse long term.
What's the dead weight?
Dry mass that isn't needed for most deeper space missions if re-entering and landing isn't needed. Even when you strip the heatshield steel is heavy and unless the fuel tanks and cargo are full that additional structural weight is wasted. The same reasons for staged rockets in general.
In orbit refueling makes it possible for starship to go far but it doesn't make it efficient to do so all the time. How much further would a much more specialized space-only vehicle get per tanker flight of fuel is one way to think about it. To me starship is like a container ship, you don't use it to deliver things all the way to your doorstep, only the bulk heavy lifting.
Dry mass that isn't needed for most deeper space missions if re-entering [...] isn't needed.
But that's very much needed for a space tug in the earth-moon system. Else your propellant bill will be very expensive.
True but removing the requirements of liftoff and landing changes how the vehicle can be designed in terms of it's center of gravity and aerodynamics. More like a capsule with an engine stuck on the end (top?) such that it naturally orients itself toward the atmosphere without the need for the more complex control systems that starship requires for it's skydiving position. More squat and less rocket-shaped.
It works out if an uncrewed tanker Starship drone accompanies the Interplanetary (IP) Starship carrying the crew and cargo to low lunar orbit (LLO) where it has about 450t of methalox available to transfer to the IP Starship before it lands on the lunar surface and after in returns to LLO.
if NASA got a directive to get it done ASAP and got some bootstrapping administrator at the helm they'd just leverage falcon 9/heavy plus potentially some starship to get going in a hurry. if spacex got a billion to make a stripped down dragon able to land on the moon i'm fairly sure they could cough it up in short order. just apollo architecture your way there.
just checked, and crew dragon seems able to have a fairly significant ammount of deltaV. this post estimates a fairly optimistic 1600m/s deltaV which would be juuust enough to get from the lunar surface to low lunar orbit. add a landing stage and you're golden. that's with extra lage tanks i think, regular crew dragon is more like 400m/s
Probably would work if a "flags and footprints" landing is what NASA wants. Maybe that's all NASA will be able to afford considering how super expensive it is for NASA to do anything these days in human spaceflight.
The door is wide open for SpaceX and Starship to do the job for NASA in a way that leads to a permanent human presence on the lunar surface before the end of this decade.
Where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah. JFK on 25May1961, the Apollo program kickoff.
And, yes, I was in college then when I heard his speech.
yeah its just hypothetically if we actually wanted to "beat" the chinese.
I'm torn on this subject because its so hard to predict how men like Biden and Trump will react to a loss. As a fan of space, my first thought was that if China beats the US back to the moon, this will mean more visibility for space and more funding coming towards SpaceX, ULA and Blue. However, Biden and Trump could take this as an existential challenge rather than an intellectual one (because really, who got to the moon 50 years ago already) and instead ratchet up military tensions around the world - which is something we don't need.
So for that reason, I'm hoping that Artemis or an Artemis Light (perhaps with fewer moving parts) becomes the next crewed lander on the moon. At the same time, 2030 is some kind of anniversary for China so they will no doubt do whatever they can to make that date happen.
Biden mostly dgaf about space and is outright hostile to Musk and SpaceX. Trump is unscrupulous but at least is closer to Obama in that he recognizes American achievements no matter the source and won't throw wrenches in well working machines as easily, because the accelerated success of SpaceX is essentially a win on his docket.
The irony is that Trump would be far more predictable for space than Biden even though Trump is the largest threat to governance as a whole.
Eh, Biden doesn’t like Musk (neither does Trump, in fact he was even more insulting to Musk) but the actions of the people in charge of space spending under Biden have been extremely good for SpaceX. SpaceX have won their biggest ever public contracts under Biden.
Not really. You forget that an acting administrator "went rogue" and sole sourced SpaceX for HLS and then immediately resigned before Senator Nelson could have been appointed by the Biden administration. Which then went on to demote Kathy Lueders and remove her from overseeing HLS essentially as penalty for not towing the party line. SpaceX wasn't supposed to win that contract.
Nelson and NASA have only really turned the page after an general at the DoD pulled him to the side and told him that SpaceX through Falcon 9 and Heavy have saved the government ~$40Bn over prior contracting methods via fixed price vehicles.
SpaceX won those contracts in spite of Biden, not because of him.
That is some quality Tim foil conspiracy accusations
You mean like how Biden refused to acknowledge any Musk company since 2020 until it got nationally embarrassing to the point that the media cornered him about it?
Has nothing to do with HLS selection or SpaceX.
Kathy Lueders was demoted over it. A fact hard to deny.
Why was she punished but AA Cabana who went rogue not? The HQ reorg was cause ops and development was getting too big for one person to manage. You had iss, SLS, Orion, HLS, suits, LTV, PR, egse, and no overarching moon to Mars to dole out the money and control the programs.
I don't see the tinfoil conspiracy. Was anything he said wrong?
There is no proof of rogue or nelson getting a talking to by DoD
The HLS decision was questioned by a lot of people from both parties in congress, and congress essentially made NASA / Nelson choose a second provider. So tying all that to Biden and saying it’s down to him is just conjecture. Congress has a lot of folks who want old space / Blue Origin to get funding.
As I said multiple times already, there is no chance Artemis 3 happens before 2030 in the current configuration. Orion has problems with it's life support and heat shield, SLS is massively delayed, Gateway has been already postponed to Artemis 4, which will decrease the safety of the mission, and it's possible the cargo equipment (like the rover) could malfunction and it will require extra HLS launch and to actually fix the equipment.
The only way I can see it work out on time in 2026 is if Dragon Crew or Starship is used to transport the crew, and then moved to the HLS.
Gateway was never the plan for Artemis 3.
LTV is Artemis 5 so not a constraint for first landing.
It was planned before 2019, but they changed it then.
What are you talking about we didn't even have a HLS on contract in 2019.
From there, humans will ride in a lander from the Gateway to the lunar surface.
https://www.space.com/nasa-remove-lunar-gateway-artemis-critical-path.html
NASA has removed the Lunar Gateway from its "critical path" to return humans to the moon by 2024
https://spacenews.com/nasa-refines-plans-for-launching-gateway-and-other-artemis-elements/
While NASA plans to have the Gateway in orbit around the moon by the latter half of 2024, Loverro reiterated previous statements that the Gateway will not be used for the Artemis 3 mission that will attempt to land humans on the moon to “make that mission have a higher probability of success.”
Eliminating the use of the Gateway for Artemis 3 opens up the possibility of going to a different orbit around the moon than the near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) that the Gateway will use. Marshall Smith, director of human lunar exploration programs at NASA, outlined several options under consideration that would bring Orion closer to the moon than NRHO.
Well ok I see what you are referring to but back then it was boots on the moon 2028 three element lander that aggregated at gateway because gateway was the priority not landing on the moon. Heck folks hadn't even really gotten on board with going to the moon and 2028 was more like 2030 due to cryo coolers and some other design issues we picked for descent and transit elements.
But once we switched to 2024 (when the folks at HQ finally understood the space policy directive one meant sooner then 2028) gateway was out of the way cause SLS block 1B was delaying things and ppe/halo were joined to launch on falcon heavy.
Orion has to go to NRHO for performance issues but doesn't mean art3 is any more risky cause there is not a gateway to dock to. It just means starship brings up the water, food, O2 to cover the Orion crew past 21 days in space.
All I was saying is:
Gateway has been already postponed to Artemis 4
As an armchair quarterback I certainly don’t k is better than NASA, but I can only imagine there is a Artemis Express option simply not publicly disclosed.
Replace SLS with SpaceX dragon, and anything else in the SpaceX toolbox. Mass to LEO should be very simple for them.
The other sticking point is spacesuits. With all the cargo mass available to the starship HLS, I would think NASA could just use up many of whatever old EVA suits they have. I know they won’t survive long in Lunar dust, but what if you just cut the life down to a single use? Bring 20 suits, and the Artemis 3 crew of 4 all get 5 lunar EVAs?
Just throwing ideas around.
I hope there are some expediting plans, I’ve just seen delays for decades and I want boots on the moon.
Replace SLS with SpaceX dragon, and anything else in the SpaceX toolbox. Mass to LEO should be very simple for them.
Even SpaceX needs a few years to make that happen. They don't have a contract and they won't work on it without. It is not in their line of progress. It is Starship all the way, if SpaceX is going to do it.
Well, using old suits might not be such a great idea, as apparently they can drown people, which is one of those nightmare sentences you only think happen in a dream. Also I don't think there physically is that many EVA suits left, so just saying they should be single use is not so trivial.
Well, using old suits might not be such a great idea, as apparently they can drown people
At least they keep trying. Not successful so far.
Or they could give Space X an unlimited launch license for Starship tests and hope Space X will just go crazy with their test cadence to get a working Starship in record time.
Dragon would fare a little bit worse than Orion during reentry I think
I’m my mind I figured dragon only goes to LEO same as the ISS. Then some transfer to starship HLS and over to the moon.
So HLS and the tanker depots are still the wildcard.
Artemis — in its current configuration — will not happen before ever.
I know “congress mandated…” and so on. But projects like Artemis take too long and are too expensive. Too many of the congressmen that supported it have moved on by the time it’s half way done. It’s also a project that doesn’t have a real defensible benefit. The main benefit seems to be (inefficient) job creation. If we just wanted to go to the moon again, why not use SLS and a lunar module for a direct trip (a la Apollo) and get the job done for a fraction of the cost?
Also…why do we even want to go back to the moon? Sure…for national (or human) pride… but 2030 is not 1969. The general public (sadly) is not too captivated by space. The military benefit (compared to orbital) is questionable.
I think the most likely scenario is that Starship (or something similar) becomes available when Artemis is still negotiating delivery deadlines for a lunar gateway. A future congress will ultimately propose to cut the losses of Artemis by “fulfilling” the Artemis mission with a commercial contract (cancelling SLS, Orion, Lunar Gateway and the whole lot). As it stands, Artemis would likely cost well over $100 billion by the time boots are on the moon. It’s not tenable.
I hope China beats the US. Then funding will go through the roof for NASA and other programs, similar to when Sputnik launched
Me too. I hope China beats the US so the latter finally declines and stops their bullying.
Lol
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| BO | Blue Origin (Bezos Rocketry) |
| CNSA | Chinese National Space Administration |
| DoD | US Department of Defense |
| EIS | Environmental Impact Statement |
| EVA | Extra-Vehicular Activity |
| HALO | Habitation and Logistics Outpost |
| HLS | Human Landing System (Artemis) |
| ISRU | In-Situ Resource Utilization |
| KSC | Kennedy Space Center, Florida |
| LC-39A | Launch Complex 39A, Kennedy (SpaceX F9/Heavy) |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| LLO | Low Lunar Orbit (below 100km) |
| NRHO | Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit |
| SLS | Space Launch System heavy-lift |
| ULA | United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture) |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| methalox | Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
NOTE: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
16 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 17 acronyms.
[Thread #12998 for this sub, first seen 30th Jun 2024, 23:43]
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You forgot spacesuits to walk on the moon from Axiom
for one im not that concerned with china. they seem to be some way from landing people on the moon. secondly, i'm not that concerned about beating them there. if they land first so what? the scale of the american effort seems to be orders of magnitude larger than anything the chinese can cough up anytime soon, they'll be flags and footprints at best.
Thats the thing. The scale of the American effort is huge but a lot of it is dead weight, like SLS. CNSA and NASA have similar goals: establish a permanent lunar base on the surface, and around the surface, of the moon. Chang e'8, their last robotic mission before a landing attempt, is an experiment where CNSA attempts to facilitate construction of a 3D printed lunar base. If the Chinese do manage to land "first", they could block access to certain parts of the moon from NASA, especially in the south pole, thought to contain valuable resources. And the optics of China landing on the moon while the US twiddles its thumbs look disastrous.
im not sure a chinese landing would actually do much for their ownership. it will take decades before they have enough exploitation of the resources to fully take shackelton. nasa could just land on the rim and do their own mining base there, and theres not much china can do about it.
I think China will beat America to the moon but I think America will beat China in establishing a moon base that will be occupied long term.
The goal should no longer be to land on the moon. That's a dumb goal. It should be to establish a permanent presence there and experiment with things like space manufacturing, ISRU, setting up a huge infrared telescope etc. There is a huge amount to do.
Artemis with SLS/Orion is inherently incapable of the flight rate needed to establish a permanent base. It needs a complete change of concept, using Starship.
Sure. But I've always assumed that SLS is temporary.
I don’t think Artemis (in its current concept) will send any humans to the moon. The timeframe that they are looking at is too long and orbital launch technology is changing too quickly. It’s also not tenable financially.
Take for instance, the lunar gateway portion of Artemis. This is a habitable communication and transportation link to the moon. This is most similar to a small space station. Even with more modern technology, it is a technically more challenging task than ISS. The estimated cost of the first ten years of ISS is over $100 billion. There isn’t a budget for that (and a lunar gateway is unnecessary anyway).
What about the SLS? As soon as Starship works, SLS obsolete. The US has already spent $32 billion on SLS and it has launched once. It can’t land on the moon (it’s a launch system) and isn’t test crew capable.
Let’s, for the sake of speculation, assume that SpaceX is able to get starship nominally operational by 2025 and reliable (if not low cost) by 2026. This would not be surprising, given their history. Starship offers to launch to the moon and return to earth for $1 billion per trip with a reasonable payload. They can do it with Starship and refueling only. No need to create a lunar gateway or involve 23 other companies and 10 countries. They can do it now. NASA or spaceforce, obviously, take them up on this. After a few cargo mission, it seems obvious that the platform is reasonably reliable and safe. Add in another contract for a newer version of Dragon for the moon and you have humans on the moon again.
Meanwhile, Artemis is well over $100 billion in cost and has flown two missions: Artemis 1 (already done) and Artemis 2 (humans orbit the moon). No lunar landing has occurred. No part of the lunar gateway has launched.
In this case, I think Artemis gets defunded immediately.
The bottom line is that the failure of Artemis is baked in. It’s too expensive, uses old technology, prioritizes job creation over results and operates on a government-run model. I think we will get to the Moon again, but not with Artemis as it is currently understood.
In this case, I think Artemis gets defunded immediately.
Congress may consider continued funding of SLS/Orion more important than beating China to the Moon.
Who knows.
I just see the whole Artemis program as the equivalent of the US government individually-designing and hand-building $200,000 dollar automobiles that need to be replaced each trip while SpaceX is building a Honda Civic and selling it for $25,000 with a 10 year warranty.
If SpaceX continues to succeed (I think they will), SLS (and the Artemis program) is beyond obsolete.
SpaceX is blocked at every turn. Latest is the suddenly popping up EIS for launch sites at the cape. For a launch site 39A which had been designed for a rocket as big as Starship. Starship can't succeed if it is denied frequent launches.
It would help if the US’s executive branch did not deeply loath Elon Musk.
You are conflating Artemis the program and SLS/Orion the rocket and capsule. If the US lands people on the Moon it will be through the Artemis program. Currently Congress has mandated that NASA use SLS/Orion. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Starship will have to be flying regularly to the Moon before they let go of SLS/Orion.
Yes, congress has mandated. This is why it’s called the Senate’s Launch System
I am not conflating. Hence, I stated “in its current concept”. A congressional mandate just means that they are not delegating that specific decision to NASA. A mandate only lasts until the next mandate supersedes or defunds it. Happens all the time to NASA programs. I don’t see an SLS and lunar gateway based Artemis program succeeding before being defunded.
Before 2030? Definitely not america. The thing people choose to neglect about starship is that it simply working is still far from human rated. There will be years of iteration before it will be reasonable to freeze the design long enough to have it human rated. Falcon 9 was launching for ~8 years before they got to block 5 and 2 more years before launching crew. I do think starship can be faster than that. Spacex is more mature, full reuseability allows a higher flight rate, no shortage of interim payloads ie starlink. But still, 5 years or less from now? Unlikely.
Why should we care whether China or the United States gets astronauts back to the Moon first?
China will be there before us. You didn't mention Artemis 1, which needed to succeed, and the Orion capsule failed in many ways (esp. the heat shield). The Chinese have a clear plan, one that does not require orbital refueling, a HALO orbit, or Gateway. The lunar sample return missions are mini-versions of the Apollo flight plan. They are testing the booster they will use.
Most important, timewise, is that the Chinese (1) do not have to wait for a HALO launch window to open, so they can fly more often, and (2) do not decide things by lawsuits.
If ULA and/or BO file a lawsuit over the EIS for LC-39A, that'll take a year, maybe longer; ULA's Comment raises issues that could go the Supreme Court.
[NASA will want to launch SLS/Orion from LC-39B, and Starship HLS from SL-39A. Starship HLS will launch uncrewed but ultimately, it's a crewed spaceship; NASA will want it at KSC. And they don't want an Artemis crew (12 astronauts*) training at 2 different locations (*Prime crew, Backup crew, and Support crew).]
You're forgetting about the 14 orbital refuelings.
We beat China to the moon 55 years ago. There is no race.
That line of thought scares me. Bragging of what your grandfather did, while not having the ability to do it again.
I don't think SpaceX will be what delays Artemis 3.
The current timeline puts Artemis 2 next year and then Artemis 3 somewhere later but as yet unconfirmed. Considering the three year gap between Artemis 1 and 2 (which is essentially the same mission just with crew in the capsule) I don't see how they can launch the substantially more complex Artemis 3 mission in just one year. It's more likely to be 2027 or 2028.
If there's any delays or budget cuts or Orion/SLS issues with Artemis 2 they might delay Artemis 3 into 2029 which is outside the next presidential term - Trump or Biden it's their second term and they won't be in power in 2029. Then all bets are off. Maybe they'll slash the budget, change the mission objectives into something other than landing crew, or cancel the whole program?
Or maybe Biden/Trump will freak out about China winning Space Race 2.0 and throw billions at the project late and demand unreasonable results in an unreasonably short timeline.