44 thoughts on “A “Simplified” Lunar Architecture”
An hour late, but worth the wait.
Apologies for the above, that comment belongs on the post about Blue Origin’s New Glenn flight today. My browser is behaving strangely.
On topic – I hope – I don’t think either of Berger’s ideas is either simplified or quicker. The thing that will reduce the number of tanker flights needed to the lowest possible number is to put an additional pair of Raptors on the inner ring of V4 Super Heavies and three more RVacs on each V4 tanker and boost maximum loads at maximum G all the way to LEO.
I tend to think of people on the Internet, including so-called “space journalists” as a bunch of numbskulls, but the underlying fact is, we are all compromised by what I like to call “bias density.” There’s no simplification that won’t delay the landing past 2030, but providing Orion with a “transporter” stage to get it to LLO would be simplest. My preference, though, would be to see an all-Starship solution. Unlikely.
There is no “simplification” that won’t delay landing until 2030 or later. But I think SpaceX can do what it was already planning by 2028. That includes additionally having a Starship version that replaces SLS-Orion. Given Elon’s remarks in the wake of the Duffy kerfuffle, that now, in fact, looks not only likely, but virtually certain.
I think there are alternatives that could be done quickly, but they would involve a level of risk to crew (Apollo level) unacceptable to the current NASA.
I’d be interested in your opinion on what those alternatives might be – especially the risk factors. And keep in mind that NASA is already committed to flying Artemis 2 crewed with a wonky heat shield and untested ECLSS. And then there’s the piece de resistance, Artemis 4 crewed atop an untested EUS. My mind fairly boggles at the chore of figuring out any Artemis alternative that would beat those two looney-tunes ideas when it comes to risk.
Scott Manley recently Kerbelled a twin pair of Falcon 9 boosters on top of a Super Heavy booster, which hit Apollo’s delta V. Inelegant, but it was some out-of-the-box thinking.
But there are surely some interesting possibilities that would use New Glenn’s cryo upper stage.
New Glenn and its cryo upper stage would, one presumes, be parts of whatever Blue has proposed ginning up based on Blue Moon Mk. 1. But the Mk. 1 lander is landing-only, not take-off after, and is supposedly payload-limited to 3 tonnes.
I don’t see how an ascent vehicle capable of getting even a single astronaut back to NRHO could be built on a total mass budget of 3 tonnes.
Perhaps the following notion was inspired by the PRC’s recent deliberate stranding of its current Tiangong crew, but consider:
1. Launch a single astronaut to LEO on a Dragon 2.
2. Launch New Glenn 2nd stage carrying Blue Moon Mk. 1 with single-person crew hab module as payload to LEO.
3. Rendezvous and dock these two vehicles. Transfer astronaut from Dragon to BM Mk. 1.
4. Dragon returns to Earth. NG 2nd stage does TLI burn sending BM Mk.1 with crew of one to Moon.
5. BM Mk. 1 lands one astronaut on lunar surface near lunar south pole. Hab atop BM Mk. 1 has enough consumables to last astronaut at least 90 days. Single-person crew hab can also access any LOX left in BM Mk. 1’s propellant tanks to extend endurance.
6. Send an additional BM Mk. 1 with hab and consumables as often as necessary to keep astronaut alive. Astronaut simply changes address each time a new lander arrives.
7. Repeat as necessary until HLS Starship can arrive and take astronaut to NRHO to meet and dock with empty Orion capsule freshly arrived there. Astronaut transfers to Orion and returns to Earth.
8. For continuous occupancy of lunar landing site, send a second HLS, well-stocked with consumables, in tandem with first and land a crew of two that arrived in the Orion the first astronaut will return in.
9. These two astronauts can be resupplied, if necessary, by sending an additional freshly-stocked HLS lander their way as often as necessary. They can be returned by either meeting an Orion in NRHO or an Earth-EDL-capable Starship in low lunar orbit.
10. At this point, SLS-Orion can go away and be replaced by SpaceX hardware. Landers can be SpaceX HLS and BO Blue Moon Mk. 2.
Super Heavy has over four times as much thrust as the New Glenn first stage, and a pretty similar flight profile, so as a first pass it should be able to launch four New Glenn upper stages at once. So multiplying New Glenn’s 7 tonne TLI payload by four would be 28 tonnes. Saturn V could put 45 to 50 tonnes on a TLI trajectory, so if the Lander and CSM went on two separate launchers and rendezvoused along the way, it’s at least getting in the ballpark of a viable Frankenstein mission architecture.
I do think that expending the boosters and stripped down tankers is both simpler and faster. Whereas a stubby Starship has different dynamics, it not only reduces the amount of propellant needed to send crew to the Moon but it can be useful in the long term for doing both.
Nonsense. Boosters can be marginally lightened by deleting the grid fins and one can also run them dry on ascent instead of reserving boostback and landing propellant. But they can be caught and refurbed a lot faster than they can be built from scratch. If the idea is to save time, dumping boosters is a non-starter.
The same would be true of ships as well, just to a lesser degree.
I see no value at all in any kind of “short bus” version of Starship.
How much would lofting the lunar landing variant StarShip on an expendable SuperHeavy (itself stripped down of then extraneous landing related parts) decrease the landers need for on orbit fueling?
Nowhere near enough to be worth the expense.
It would still be less than the cost of an SLS launch that they plan to throw away every time.
Pretty low bar to get over. One might even say that particular bar is subterranean.
You also need to understand that those trying to gin up a buffalo stampede to some other “alternative” lander are also the ones looking to preserve SLS-Orion indefinitely. Their argument isn’t about cost, it’s about – allegedly – time.
Expending the boosters makes no sense, either from an engineering or an economic standpoint. Even if you could waterboard Elon enough to get him to create a disposable Ship, there’s no way he’d be willing to throw away a booster.
There are a lot of unknowns in figuring out how many flights would be required to fill a propellant depot. It’s safe to say that it won’t be completely empty when it arrives on orbit. According to SpaceX, a V3 Ship will be able to deliver 100+ tons to LEO and has a propellant load of 1600 tons. The depot version should be able to use that payload to orbit number as residual propellant. This means you’ll need about 1500 ton to completely fill the tanks, which would require 10-15 flights. A V4 Ship should have a payload of 200+ tons and a propellant load of 2300 tons. At arrival in orbit, you’d need another 2100 tons (give or take) which should be doable in about 10 flights. This is a simplified guess, though, as we don’t know the full capacity of a depot or the propellant load of the lunar lander Ship.
Will the NASA Safety Office pitch a fit about refueling in lunar orbit with crew onboard? Of course. Pitching a fit is how they justify their existence. They pitched a fit about loading the crew before loading the propellant, but that’s exactly how Crew Dragon launches have been done every time. It helps that SpaceX has flown hundreds of Falcon missions and have this fueling business down. Before they fly a lunar mission, they will have experience in dozens of on-orbit refueling flights, too. Odds are they’ll fly at least one uncrewed mission to the moon before sending people. That will give them experience with the entire flight sequence before risking astronaut lives.
Elon has been known to throw away boosters if the customer will pay for it (e.g., on a planetary mission that needs maximum performance). He’s not intrinsically opposed. He’ll be even less so given the production rate of Starships.
The customer, in this case, would be NASA and it wouldn’t be just one Starship, it would be a bunch of them. That is something NASA pretty clearly can’t afford these days.
Au contraire, I think that Elon would be willing to sell Starships to NASA for a lot less than they’re currently wasting on SLS/Orion.
He probably would. Especially if that was part of a deal whereby Starship replaces SLS-Orion – because that is what would need to happen. But NASA would have to do away with SLS-Orion pretty much immediately to free up the funds – if said funds were still forthcoming. Congress would not be happy at all, so one cannot blithely assume NASA would get to keep what is now SLS-Orion money.
Now that BO has landed an orbital booster, how many more companies have to land one before disposable boosters become “legacy” and out of the norm? Do we only need Neutron to land successfully, or do we need Stoke and others, too?
Johnny B,
There is no number of NewSpace reusable boosters entering service that will dissuade the defenders of the status quo. They want to build their insanely expensive throw-away hardware in perpetuity on cost-plus contracts – period. They want to cancel the last two decades of NewSpace progress.
NewSpace needs to understand that it is now time to fix bayonets, charge and end the problem forever. Elon, pretty typically, is the only NewSpace CEO who appreciates the real stakes here and has enunciated an approach to doing something effective about it.
I was going to make this same comment.
SpaceX, and Elon, are willing to throw away boosters. They have been doing so, throwing away 8 super heavies so far. Some of them were intentionally thrown away but the others show losing a few is a tolerable risk.
Throwing away a Falcon Heavy core booster is vastly easier and less expensive than throwing away a Super Heavy booster. The reason they throw away the FH core is that it’s at the ragged edge of what is possible to recover using their standard approach.
It takes a lot of time and money to build 33 Raptor engines, including testing each one. It also takes weeks to build a new Super Heavy stage, pressure test the tanks, install the engines, and do the static testing. The gain in payload is likely less than what can be launched by flying the booster twice.
Yes, quite so.
And, compared to the Falcon 9 1st stages, the Super Heavies should be good for even more reuse cycles per unit with little or no between-flights refurb. Super Heavy will hit gas-and-go-again operational status quicker than will Starship. Any increase in payload on a single mission achieved at the cost of throwing a Super Heavy away will be dwarfed by how much payload can be gotten to LEO on multiple quick-succession missions flying reused Super Heavies.
A retreat from reusability buys one nothing – especially time.
Correct, sir. Panicky urgings to retreat from reusability are transparently a gambit by the NASA, legacy contractor and lobbyist cabal to try to force Elon to play by their rules. They should be resolutely stiff-armed and kicked to the curb.
This whole melodrama is, in any case, based on two highly suspect assumptions:
1. SpaceX can’t Beat the Chinese[tm] if allowed to continue on its current track.
2. The PRC can put people on the Moon by 2030 or even before.
There is no reasonable basis for assuming either of these things to be true. The progress SpaceX makes in the coming year will pretty much give the lie to the first of these canards.
Ignoring conventional Beltway “wisdom” anent the PRC and simply taking a look at what it would need to get to the Moon by 2030 vs. what it has been able to build and launch these past few years makes the second of these canards appear at least as foolish. The PRC is quite production-limited when it comes to constructing large rocket components and I see no evidence this situation will significantly improve during the next five years – even assuming the increasingly rickety PRC does not fall to pieces in the interim.
We also need to consider how risk averse China is in losing a crew in deep space to be the second country to land on the moon with regards to their schedule pacing.
Losing a crew in a rush to be second would cost them face vs the sod power victory in beating America back.
That’s the dynamics vis a vi China.
You’re correct that the PRC – assuming its continued existence through the timeframe in question – will not rush madly in a high-risk fashion to come in second if we’ve already gotten back first or seem pretty certain to do so. It might do that in an attempt to beat us there if it thinks it has any shot at all. If such an attempt is made, and fails, that will likely be that. The only way the PRC would have margin to try again before we get back would be if we stupidly push SpaceX aside and go back to depending upon “the usual suspects.” Even then, Elon would likely follow through anyway with the all-SpaceX solution toward which he is now working. I think said solution will be ready by 2028 and that the PRC will have to settle for the silver.
Perhaps but we have heard people say China can’t do this or that and then they do this or that. They have people in space, in their own station, and are making bbq chicken. A couple years ago, people were saying this was impossible for them.
They also have 2 EMALs carrier variants at sea.
We shouldn’t be dismissive or complacent but maybe the melodrama is a sign we aren’t being complacent.
To the contrary, what one most tends to hear is about how the PRC can do anything by tomorrow or, at most, the day after. There are a significant number of Americans who seem to think the PRC has already achieved general technological superiority over the US. Complete and utter bollocks, of course, but, then, a lot of “conventional wisdom” tends to be that way.
Oh yeah, the PRC does not have “2 EMALs carrier variants at sea.” It has three carriers. The two older ones have no catapults at all. One is an ex-Soviet Kuznetsov-class and the other is a modestly improved PRC copy.
The PRC’s newest “at sea” carrier, the Fujian, has electric catapults, but there seems to be some serious question as to how well they work. The Fujian has also spent very little time actually “at sea” since commissioning – something it has in common with the two trouble-plagued British Queen Elizabeth II-class carriers. Carriers – like space – are hard.
The PRC has a fourth carrier in the works – possibly nuclear-powered. But that vessel is years from completion, sea trials and commissioning.
That’s a helicopter carrier. We’ve got a bunch of those. The Japanese have a few as well.
“Unlike conventional LHDs, the 40,000-ton Type 076 integrates an electromagnetic aircraft launch system for fixed-wing drones, enabling hybrid carrier operations and enhancing PLA Navy power projection.”
One of the problem with getting a high payload fraction to LEO with Starship is it’s low fuel fraction to orbit, because Starship is has to provide all the delta V from stage sep on.
An alternative is to make a 2nd stage only version of Starship that launches from Texas, as it does now, but only goes suborbital, always landing in Florida, but sending a third-stage to LEO.
Basically, that’s dividing Starship into two stages, similar to Saturn’s S-1, S-II, and S-IVB, but with S-I doing an RTB in Texas, S-II landing in Florida, and S-IVB getting to LEO. The third stage could be just a smaller version of Starship for full re-usability, and the heat shield on the S-II Starship could probably be lightened due to the lower entry velocity.
But it would add a whole lot of development and testing time, and extra complexity, and a fixed landing site for the second stage would limit the accessible orbits it could reach.
And the performance gains might be marginal compared to the effort involved, in contrast to simply building a larger diameter Booster and Starship.
Soft power
Why the angst over the number of fueling flights? Sure, if you’re NASA and only able to launch every other year, that’s a problem. By then, SpaceX will be able to launch at least two a day.
Quite so. Or near enough anyway. A retreat from reusability is not the way to save time.
I think Blue Origin’s proposal of putting a crewed ascent stage atop Blue Moon 1 is the only one that has a chance of making it before 2030. By 2028? I doubt it. I also think Starship HLS will make it, barring political interference after a bad outcome in the 2026 midterms. Blue’s refuellable Transporter stage is worth having in any case and, as I noted earlier, could be added to Orion to bring it up to snuff. Unlikely. But we’ll see.
Blue Moon Mk. 1 is a one-way cargo lander with a payload maximum of three tonnes. Do you really think Blue can come up with an ascent stage payload with sufficient life support endurance to carry even a single suited astronaut all the way from NRHO to the lunar surface, support even a hello-I-must-be-going footprints-only (no mass margin for a flag) climb down the ladder then right back up, then get said astro-base-runner back to NRHO? And do it in time to Beat the Chinese[tm]? I don’t.
Anent 2028:
SpaceX is already building the cabin crew and cargo bay upper third of the first HLS Starship test flight article. SpaceX has the rest of this year and all of the next to build and prove out V3 boosters and ships. Based on lessons learned, SpaceX will be able to build a refined V3-based lower 2/3 of the HLS Starship lander – legs included – by the end of next year or early 2027 and mate this to the waiting upperworks.
SpaceX should be able to prove out V3-based depot, tanker and refilling ops tech during 2026 as it also increases its test flight tempo for Starship. Starbase Pad 2 will be ready to commence ops in 1Q 2026. KSC’s LC-39A Starship pad will be ready in 2Q 2026. A rebuilt Starbase Pad 1 will be ready by 3Q 2026. There will be at least two dozen Starship test flights in 2026 – concentrated toward the back half of the year as the pads come on-line. The two pads at Canaveral’s SLC-37 should be ready for service in early 2027.
So why does 2028 look unmakeable to you?
I didn’t say that. I said nobody but SpaceX can make it. See my post below for what I actually think.
MK-1 doesn’t need an ascent stage, it needs a crasher stage. It just needs enough thrust to land nearly full and take off.
Side note, the plural of super heavy is super heavies but, IMO, should be pronounced as heave. Say it out loud that way, super heave-ies
Someone pass that on to the mirthful Musk.
Hey, gang, let’s not let our bias density get the best of us. The fully-fuelled weight of the Apollo LM Ascent Stage was 4.7 metric tons with 1960s technology. So I bet it can be done. Can Blue do it in the time allotted? I doubt it. But some Deep Staters are claiming cost plus contractors can do it in 36 months. I doubt that, too.
As to a crasher stage, let’s not forget Cislunar Transporter is an integral part of Blue’s Mk2 plan. So… Blue delivers an ascent stage to NRHO, then a BM Mk1 to NRHO, then a fully fuelled Transporter to NRHO, then an Orion comes to NRHO, then the four join in holy matrimony, crew is transferred. and the Transporter acts as a crasher stage on the way to the lunar surface.
All that sound familiar? It should, it’s the original NASA POR still depicted in every illo of Gateway. Guess what Duffy and co. thought they were gong to get away with? But Trump trumped them. Hi, Jared!
An hour late, but worth the wait.
Apologies for the above, that comment belongs on the post about Blue Origin’s New Glenn flight today. My browser is behaving strangely.
On topic – I hope – I don’t think either of Berger’s ideas is either simplified or quicker. The thing that will reduce the number of tanker flights needed to the lowest possible number is to put an additional pair of Raptors on the inner ring of V4 Super Heavies and three more RVacs on each V4 tanker and boost maximum loads at maximum G all the way to LEO.
I tend to think of people on the Internet, including so-called “space journalists” as a bunch of numbskulls, but the underlying fact is, we are all compromised by what I like to call “bias density.” There’s no simplification that won’t delay the landing past 2030, but providing Orion with a “transporter” stage to get it to LLO would be simplest. My preference, though, would be to see an all-Starship solution. Unlikely.
There is no “simplification” that won’t delay landing until 2030 or later. But I think SpaceX can do what it was already planning by 2028. That includes additionally having a Starship version that replaces SLS-Orion. Given Elon’s remarks in the wake of the Duffy kerfuffle, that now, in fact, looks not only likely, but virtually certain.
I think there are alternatives that could be done quickly, but they would involve a level of risk to crew (Apollo level) unacceptable to the current NASA.
I’d be interested in your opinion on what those alternatives might be – especially the risk factors. And keep in mind that NASA is already committed to flying Artemis 2 crewed with a wonky heat shield and untested ECLSS. And then there’s the piece de resistance, Artemis 4 crewed atop an untested EUS. My mind fairly boggles at the chore of figuring out any Artemis alternative that would beat those two looney-tunes ideas when it comes to risk.
Scott Manley recently Kerbelled a twin pair of Falcon 9 boosters on top of a Super Heavy booster, which hit Apollo’s delta V. Inelegant, but it was some out-of-the-box thinking.
But there are surely some interesting possibilities that would use New Glenn’s cryo upper stage.
New Glenn and its cryo upper stage would, one presumes, be parts of whatever Blue has proposed ginning up based on Blue Moon Mk. 1. But the Mk. 1 lander is landing-only, not take-off after, and is supposedly payload-limited to 3 tonnes.
I don’t see how an ascent vehicle capable of getting even a single astronaut back to NRHO could be built on a total mass budget of 3 tonnes.
Perhaps the following notion was inspired by the PRC’s recent deliberate stranding of its current Tiangong crew, but consider:
1. Launch a single astronaut to LEO on a Dragon 2.
2. Launch New Glenn 2nd stage carrying Blue Moon Mk. 1 with single-person crew hab module as payload to LEO.
3. Rendezvous and dock these two vehicles. Transfer astronaut from Dragon to BM Mk. 1.
4. Dragon returns to Earth. NG 2nd stage does TLI burn sending BM Mk.1 with crew of one to Moon.
5. BM Mk. 1 lands one astronaut on lunar surface near lunar south pole. Hab atop BM Mk. 1 has enough consumables to last astronaut at least 90 days. Single-person crew hab can also access any LOX left in BM Mk. 1’s propellant tanks to extend endurance.
6. Send an additional BM Mk. 1 with hab and consumables as often as necessary to keep astronaut alive. Astronaut simply changes address each time a new lander arrives.
7. Repeat as necessary until HLS Starship can arrive and take astronaut to NRHO to meet and dock with empty Orion capsule freshly arrived there. Astronaut transfers to Orion and returns to Earth.
8. For continuous occupancy of lunar landing site, send a second HLS, well-stocked with consumables, in tandem with first and land a crew of two that arrived in the Orion the first astronaut will return in.
9. These two astronauts can be resupplied, if necessary, by sending an additional freshly-stocked HLS lander their way as often as necessary. They can be returned by either meeting an Orion in NRHO or an Earth-EDL-capable Starship in low lunar orbit.
10. At this point, SLS-Orion can go away and be replaced by SpaceX hardware. Landers can be SpaceX HLS and BO Blue Moon Mk. 2.
Super Heavy has over four times as much thrust as the New Glenn first stage, and a pretty similar flight profile, so as a first pass it should be able to launch four New Glenn upper stages at once. So multiplying New Glenn’s 7 tonne TLI payload by four would be 28 tonnes. Saturn V could put 45 to 50 tonnes on a TLI trajectory, so if the Lander and CSM went on two separate launchers and rendezvoused along the way, it’s at least getting in the ballpark of a viable Frankenstein mission architecture.
I do think that expending the boosters and stripped down tankers is both simpler and faster. Whereas a stubby Starship has different dynamics, it not only reduces the amount of propellant needed to send crew to the Moon but it can be useful in the long term for doing both.
Nonsense. Boosters can be marginally lightened by deleting the grid fins and one can also run them dry on ascent instead of reserving boostback and landing propellant. But they can be caught and refurbed a lot faster than they can be built from scratch. If the idea is to save time, dumping boosters is a non-starter.
The same would be true of ships as well, just to a lesser degree.
I see no value at all in any kind of “short bus” version of Starship.
How much would lofting the lunar landing variant StarShip on an expendable SuperHeavy (itself stripped down of then extraneous landing related parts) decrease the landers need for on orbit fueling?
Nowhere near enough to be worth the expense.
It would still be less than the cost of an SLS launch that they plan to throw away every time.
Pretty low bar to get over. One might even say that particular bar is subterranean.
You also need to understand that those trying to gin up a buffalo stampede to some other “alternative” lander are also the ones looking to preserve SLS-Orion indefinitely. Their argument isn’t about cost, it’s about – allegedly – time.
Expending the boosters makes no sense, either from an engineering or an economic standpoint. Even if you could waterboard Elon enough to get him to create a disposable Ship, there’s no way he’d be willing to throw away a booster.
There are a lot of unknowns in figuring out how many flights would be required to fill a propellant depot. It’s safe to say that it won’t be completely empty when it arrives on orbit. According to SpaceX, a V3 Ship will be able to deliver 100+ tons to LEO and has a propellant load of 1600 tons. The depot version should be able to use that payload to orbit number as residual propellant. This means you’ll need about 1500 ton to completely fill the tanks, which would require 10-15 flights. A V4 Ship should have a payload of 200+ tons and a propellant load of 2300 tons. At arrival in orbit, you’d need another 2100 tons (give or take) which should be doable in about 10 flights. This is a simplified guess, though, as we don’t know the full capacity of a depot or the propellant load of the lunar lander Ship.
Will the NASA Safety Office pitch a fit about refueling in lunar orbit with crew onboard? Of course. Pitching a fit is how they justify their existence. They pitched a fit about loading the crew before loading the propellant, but that’s exactly how Crew Dragon launches have been done every time. It helps that SpaceX has flown hundreds of Falcon missions and have this fueling business down. Before they fly a lunar mission, they will have experience in dozens of on-orbit refueling flights, too. Odds are they’ll fly at least one uncrewed mission to the moon before sending people. That will give them experience with the entire flight sequence before risking astronaut lives.
Elon has been known to throw away boosters if the customer will pay for it (e.g., on a planetary mission that needs maximum performance). He’s not intrinsically opposed. He’ll be even less so given the production rate of Starships.
The customer, in this case, would be NASA and it wouldn’t be just one Starship, it would be a bunch of them. That is something NASA pretty clearly can’t afford these days.
Au contraire, I think that Elon would be willing to sell Starships to NASA for a lot less than they’re currently wasting on SLS/Orion.
He probably would. Especially if that was part of a deal whereby Starship replaces SLS-Orion – because that is what would need to happen. But NASA would have to do away with SLS-Orion pretty much immediately to free up the funds – if said funds were still forthcoming. Congress would not be happy at all, so one cannot blithely assume NASA would get to keep what is now SLS-Orion money.
Now that BO has landed an orbital booster, how many more companies have to land one before disposable boosters become “legacy” and out of the norm? Do we only need Neutron to land successfully, or do we need Stoke and others, too?
Johnny B,
There is no number of NewSpace reusable boosters entering service that will dissuade the defenders of the status quo. They want to build their insanely expensive throw-away hardware in perpetuity on cost-plus contracts – period. They want to cancel the last two decades of NewSpace progress.
NewSpace needs to understand that it is now time to fix bayonets, charge and end the problem forever. Elon, pretty typically, is the only NewSpace CEO who appreciates the real stakes here and has enunciated an approach to doing something effective about it.
I was going to make this same comment.
SpaceX, and Elon, are willing to throw away boosters. They have been doing so, throwing away 8 super heavies so far. Some of them were intentionally thrown away but the others show losing a few is a tolerable risk.
Throwing away a Falcon Heavy core booster is vastly easier and less expensive than throwing away a Super Heavy booster. The reason they throw away the FH core is that it’s at the ragged edge of what is possible to recover using their standard approach.
It takes a lot of time and money to build 33 Raptor engines, including testing each one. It also takes weeks to build a new Super Heavy stage, pressure test the tanks, install the engines, and do the static testing. The gain in payload is likely less than what can be launched by flying the booster twice.
Yes, quite so.
And, compared to the Falcon 9 1st stages, the Super Heavies should be good for even more reuse cycles per unit with little or no between-flights refurb. Super Heavy will hit gas-and-go-again operational status quicker than will Starship. Any increase in payload on a single mission achieved at the cost of throwing a Super Heavy away will be dwarfed by how much payload can be gotten to LEO on multiple quick-succession missions flying reused Super Heavies.
A retreat from reusability buys one nothing – especially time.
Correct, sir. Panicky urgings to retreat from reusability are transparently a gambit by the NASA, legacy contractor and lobbyist cabal to try to force Elon to play by their rules. They should be resolutely stiff-armed and kicked to the curb.
This whole melodrama is, in any case, based on two highly suspect assumptions:
1. SpaceX can’t Beat the Chinese[tm] if allowed to continue on its current track.
2. The PRC can put people on the Moon by 2030 or even before.
There is no reasonable basis for assuming either of these things to be true. The progress SpaceX makes in the coming year will pretty much give the lie to the first of these canards.
Ignoring conventional Beltway “wisdom” anent the PRC and simply taking a look at what it would need to get to the Moon by 2030 vs. what it has been able to build and launch these past few years makes the second of these canards appear at least as foolish. The PRC is quite production-limited when it comes to constructing large rocket components and I see no evidence this situation will significantly improve during the next five years – even assuming the increasingly rickety PRC does not fall to pieces in the interim.
We also need to consider how risk averse China is in losing a crew in deep space to be the second country to land on the moon with regards to their schedule pacing.
Losing a crew in a rush to be second would cost them face vs the sod power victory in beating America back.
That’s the dynamics vis a vi China.
You’re correct that the PRC – assuming its continued existence through the timeframe in question – will not rush madly in a high-risk fashion to come in second if we’ve already gotten back first or seem pretty certain to do so. It might do that in an attempt to beat us there if it thinks it has any shot at all. If such an attempt is made, and fails, that will likely be that. The only way the PRC would have margin to try again before we get back would be if we stupidly push SpaceX aside and go back to depending upon “the usual suspects.” Even then, Elon would likely follow through anyway with the all-SpaceX solution toward which he is now working. I think said solution will be ready by 2028 and that the PRC will have to settle for the silver.
Perhaps but we have heard people say China can’t do this or that and then they do this or that. They have people in space, in their own station, and are making bbq chicken. A couple years ago, people were saying this was impossible for them.
They also have 2 EMALs carrier variants at sea.
We shouldn’t be dismissive or complacent but maybe the melodrama is a sign we aren’t being complacent.
To the contrary, what one most tends to hear is about how the PRC can do anything by tomorrow or, at most, the day after. There are a significant number of Americans who seem to think the PRC has already achieved general technological superiority over the US. Complete and utter bollocks, of course, but, then, a lot of “conventional wisdom” tends to be that way.
Oh yeah, the PRC does not have “2 EMALs carrier variants at sea.” It has three carriers. The two older ones have no catapults at all. One is an ex-Soviet Kuznetsov-class and the other is a modestly improved PRC copy.
The PRC’s newest “at sea” carrier, the Fujian, has electric catapults, but there seems to be some serious question as to how well they work. The Fujian has also spent very little time actually “at sea” since commissioning – something it has in common with the two trouble-plagued British Queen Elizabeth II-class carriers. Carriers – like space – are hard.
The PRC has a fourth carrier in the works – possibly nuclear-powered. But that vessel is years from completion, sea trials and commissioning.
https://x.com/dafengcao/status/1989151096225558999
That’s a helicopter carrier. We’ve got a bunch of those. The Japanese have a few as well.
“Unlike conventional LHDs, the 40,000-ton Type 076 integrates an electromagnetic aircraft launch system for fixed-wing drones, enabling hybrid carrier operations and enhancing PLA Navy power projection.”
One of the problem with getting a high payload fraction to LEO with Starship is it’s low fuel fraction to orbit, because Starship is has to provide all the delta V from stage sep on.
An alternative is to make a 2nd stage only version of Starship that launches from Texas, as it does now, but only goes suborbital, always landing in Florida, but sending a third-stage to LEO.
Basically, that’s dividing Starship into two stages, similar to Saturn’s S-1, S-II, and S-IVB, but with S-I doing an RTB in Texas, S-II landing in Florida, and S-IVB getting to LEO. The third stage could be just a smaller version of Starship for full re-usability, and the heat shield on the S-II Starship could probably be lightened due to the lower entry velocity.
But it would add a whole lot of development and testing time, and extra complexity, and a fixed landing site for the second stage would limit the accessible orbits it could reach.
And the performance gains might be marginal compared to the effort involved, in contrast to simply building a larger diameter Booster and Starship.
Soft power
Why the angst over the number of fueling flights? Sure, if you’re NASA and only able to launch every other year, that’s a problem. By then, SpaceX will be able to launch at least two a day.
Quite so. Or near enough anyway. A retreat from reusability is not the way to save time.
I think Blue Origin’s proposal of putting a crewed ascent stage atop Blue Moon 1 is the only one that has a chance of making it before 2030. By 2028? I doubt it. I also think Starship HLS will make it, barring political interference after a bad outcome in the 2026 midterms. Blue’s refuellable Transporter stage is worth having in any case and, as I noted earlier, could be added to Orion to bring it up to snuff. Unlikely. But we’ll see.
Blue Moon Mk. 1 is a one-way cargo lander with a payload maximum of three tonnes. Do you really think Blue can come up with an ascent stage payload with sufficient life support endurance to carry even a single suited astronaut all the way from NRHO to the lunar surface, support even a hello-I-must-be-going footprints-only (no mass margin for a flag) climb down the ladder then right back up, then get said astro-base-runner back to NRHO? And do it in time to Beat the Chinese[tm]? I don’t.
Anent 2028:
SpaceX is already building the cabin crew and cargo bay upper third of the first HLS Starship test flight article. SpaceX has the rest of this year and all of the next to build and prove out V3 boosters and ships. Based on lessons learned, SpaceX will be able to build a refined V3-based lower 2/3 of the HLS Starship lander – legs included – by the end of next year or early 2027 and mate this to the waiting upperworks.
SpaceX should be able to prove out V3-based depot, tanker and refilling ops tech during 2026 as it also increases its test flight tempo for Starship. Starbase Pad 2 will be ready to commence ops in 1Q 2026. KSC’s LC-39A Starship pad will be ready in 2Q 2026. A rebuilt Starbase Pad 1 will be ready by 3Q 2026. There will be at least two dozen Starship test flights in 2026 – concentrated toward the back half of the year as the pads come on-line. The two pads at Canaveral’s SLC-37 should be ready for service in early 2027.
So why does 2028 look unmakeable to you?
I didn’t say that. I said nobody but SpaceX can make it. See my post below for what I actually think.
MK-1 doesn’t need an ascent stage, it needs a crasher stage. It just needs enough thrust to land nearly full and take off.
Side note, the plural of super heavy is super heavies but, IMO, should be pronounced as heave. Say it out loud that way, super heave-ies
Someone pass that on to the mirthful Musk.
Hey, gang, let’s not let our bias density get the best of us. The fully-fuelled weight of the Apollo LM Ascent Stage was 4.7 metric tons with 1960s technology. So I bet it can be done. Can Blue do it in the time allotted? I doubt it. But some Deep Staters are claiming cost plus contractors can do it in 36 months. I doubt that, too.
As to a crasher stage, let’s not forget Cislunar Transporter is an integral part of Blue’s Mk2 plan. So… Blue delivers an ascent stage to NRHO, then a BM Mk1 to NRHO, then a fully fuelled Transporter to NRHO, then an Orion comes to NRHO, then the four join in holy matrimony, crew is transferred. and the Transporter acts as a crasher stage on the way to the lunar surface.
All that sound familiar? It should, it’s the original NASA POR still depicted in every illo of Gateway. Guess what Duffy and co. thought they were gong to get away with? But Trump trumped them. Hi, Jared!