In reply to Jim Hillhouse.
“That’s not the way I see it. Nor increasingly by people within NASA that I talk to. Far from it.”
There has always been a faction inside NASA that opposes private and commercial space, they tried to revolt 10 years ago when Obama proposed Commercial Crew, they’re up to their old tricks now. They were wrong back then, they are wrong today.
“Blue Origin’s contract is for a lander for later Artemis missions starting in 2029. Which leaves about a 2-3 year gap”
Blue Origin’s contract was awarded 2 years later than SpaceX, so of course there’s a 2-3 year gap, that doesn’t change the fact that Blue is proposing a similar architecture as Starship and requires similar (if not harder) tech development. So it’s completely disingenuous to portrait NASA selecting Starship as some sort of mistake while at the same time praising NASA for selecting Blue, you can’t have it both ways.
“You should take to guys at NASA who work with SpaceX. They need help. A lot of help. With Starship. Filling-in craters is one thing. Getting permission to launch again is another.”
You’re moving the goal post, my original comment about “SpaceX doesn’t need gov’t help” is in reply to your claim that there’re “a lot of infrastructure work before the next launch. Some of that work may, likely will, require additional federal government participation.”, you moved the goal post to all the work related to Starship development and launch, that is not what I was replying to.
“Not so with SHB. And why not?”
You’re trying to change the topic again, your original claim is that a GNC failure prevented FTS from being triggered, that’s wrong, it looks like you know it’s wrong and now just trying to change the topic to something else.
Of course they need to investigate why FTS explosive didn’t destroy the booster immediately and fix it. They have already carried out additional FTS test on the ground to aid in the investigation and fix.
“So, let me see if I get this straight. Elon said that the abort capability of Starship wasn’t enabled because that would affect its mission to land in Hawaii? Seriously? How?”
Because if they separate the ship from the booster too early, the ship doesn’t have enough delta-v to reach the planned splash down point near Hawaii, I don’t know why this is hard to understand.
Their environmental assessment only assessed splash down near Hawaii, the exclusive zones they declared is around the splash down point, they’re trying to avoid crashing the ship into somewhere they were not planning to crash into.
“that SpaceX doesn’t yet have the launch abort capability enabled because it hasn’t yet been developed? More likely than not, that’s the reason.”
Sure, that’s a possibility too, it doesn’t contradict what I said. SpaceX concentrates on the critical path, if the launch abort capability is not needed in the near term, there’s no reason to spend resource on it yet.
“Did you know that all of those elements are owned by the government, NASA in particular? That SLS is produced in a government owned facility, Michoud? That the government could take the blue prints of any one of those systems, give those to another contractor, and award a contract to build that system?”
Of course I know that, but there’s this thing called “know-how” that can’t be transferred, isn’t this the reason Congress gave for wanting to preserve the Shuttle workforce? That once the employees are laid off, the knowledge is lost? You can’t have it both ways, either employee know-how is important in which case losing a contractor would be a major blow, if not a death sentence, for SLS/Orion; or employee know-how is not important, in which case since NASA already has all the Shuttle blueprints and facilities, then Congress is wrong for wanting to preserve the Shuttle workforce.
“If SpaceX tomorrow decided to cease Dragon development, absent a clause in the lunar lander contract with NASA, the space agency would be at a complete loss and back to square one on a lunar lander.”
Given that without SpaceX’s bid, NASA wouldn’t be able to afford any lunar lander any way, I don’t see this as a big loss.
And US government depends on commercial vendors on a lot of things, things much more important than lunar lander, so this is hardly a situation unique to SpaceX/NASA. If Microsoft decides to stop supporting Windows and Office, what do you think will happen to all the government computers running them? If Boeing decided to stop supporting 747, what do you think will happen to Air Force One?
“Well, given where SpaceX is, NASA sorta already is.”
So you’re betting HLS Starship won’t happen, is that it? How much are you willing to bet on this?
“Really? What would that be. I’d sure like a document referencing it because my NASA sources at several centers tell me otherwise. But I am 110% confident you don’t have such a document because the descent abort capability doesn’t exist.”
Attachment A01 “Human Landing System Concept of Operations” of the HLS BAA, page 10 “Descent Abort”
It’s part of the HLS conops requirement, you can’t win the contract without it.
This just goes to show how much credibility your NASA sources have…
“Having followed him since the early 2000’s, I can say he is pretty much a constant stream of BS. Don’t agree?”
Oh really? Last time I checked, since early 2000’s he has accomplished pretty much everything he set out to do. He promised Falcon 1, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, reusability, Cargo Dragon, Crew Dragon, Starlink, and he got all of them done and done exceptionally well.
“For a vehicle even half as heavy as a stripped-down Dragon, during 2015-2019 it would have been extraordinarily difficult if not impossible for even a FH to launch Red Dragon with enough propellant to enter and land on Mars and then have a smaller payload launch from Mars and get back to Earth.”
You don’t seem to know much about Red Dragon. SpaceX’s own Red Dragon plan doesn’t include sample return from Mars to Earth, the sample return concept called “Red Dragon” is a separate proposal by researchers at NASA Ames, not SpaceX.
SpaceX’s own plan that is called “Red Dragon” is an one way lander, and they have a Space Act Agreement with NASA on this, so clearly NASA doesn’t think this is physically impossible to do.
“Where’s Red Dragon?”
You do realize NASA has way more abandoned plans than Musk ever has? Where is Space Task Group’s plan to land humans on Mars in 1980s? Where is SEI, First Lunar Outpost, Constellation? Where is Shuttle II, Orbital Space Plane, X-33, X-34?
“Probably same place as Cyber Truck, FSD, Twitter, and so on.”
Hehe, I’m using Twitter right now, and Cybertruck will be in production later this year. FSD is very much delayed, but making progress as well, the beta has been distributed to 400,000 Tesla owners in the US.
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