[kiba]

At a minimum, there should be two competing designs - built through flight testing (if not built to completion and maintained in conjunction to avoid any future safety groundings that stall USA human space flight capabilities). It's nutty to put all eggs into SpaceX's basket.

I am sure that the starship program will have the most test flight of any spacecraft development program. I have the uttermost confident in them.

That said, I agreed with you that we shouldn't put all our eggs into SpaceX's basket, no matter how good they are. We just don't have insight in NASA's thinking here, only guesses.

I also hardly believe saving money on such an important mission is important at all. Getting people there and back safely is paramount to saving what amounts to rounding errors in today's spend-happy congressional budget.

What gives you that impression? It seems like NASA gave all the money to SpaceX alone, which is 2.9 billion dollars. The only way that there would be more money is if NASA gets a bigger budget for their lunar program, which would making awarding more than one competitors a more viable option.

[Alupis]

> What gives you that impression?

People often cite the extraordinary cost per launch of missions such as this, and how SpaceX can reduce that cost (allegedly) via reusability, etc. I just don't think saving a few bucks on a mission of this importance is worth-while. I'd, personally, much rather return to the moon first, and then figure out if reusability even makes sense later on (if we are to continue going to the moon with any sort of regularity).

After all, SpaceX's goal with Starship isn't to do NASA's bidding, it's to push a private company to Mars.

> The only way that there would be more money is if NASA gets a bigger budget for their lunar program

Which is quite sad. $2.9 billion to go to the moon, and hundreds of billions for congress-critter pet projects in the last few "stimulus" packages. We really cannot find more money to throw behind such important achievements?

[kiba]

People often cite the extraordinary cost per launch of missions such as this, and how SpaceX can reduce that cost (allegedly) via reusability, etc. I just don't think saving a few bucks on a mission of this importance is worth-while. I'd, personally, much rather return to the moon first, and then figure out if reusability even makes sense later on (if we are to continue going to the moon with any sort of regularity).

A reusable rocket must be more robust to do what it do while also being much more difficult to accomplish. It's also how we increase safety, which will happen with rapid reusuability.

A reusuable rocket cannot afford to cut corner like an expendable rocket.

Just because a rocket is more expensive doesn't mean it's safer.

The fact that SpaceX is launching more rockets than everyone else means it will be a safer vehicle due to rapid increase in flight experience. More flights mean we iron out more flight.

They're not cutting corners here.

[Alupis]

> A reusable rocket must be more robust to do what it do while also being much more difficult to accomplish. It's also how we increase safety, which will happen with rapid reusuability.

> A reusuable rocket cannot afford to cut corner like an expendable rocket.

I don't buy this logic, and seems rather hand-wavy. Soyuz and it's launch vehicle are not reusable, for instance, and still holds the safety record for launch vehicles.

> Just because a rocket is more expensive doesn't mean it's safer.

Of course not. But a pressure to drive the per-launch cost downwards will indeed lead to shortcuts being taken. We won't actually know how safe the vehicle is until it's launched successfully a great number of times.

> The fact that SpaceX is launching more rockets than everyone else

That's just factually incorrect.

> it will be a safer vehicle due to rapid increase in flight experience

I'm not so sure that's how this works. Starship was never considered as a lunar-bound vehicle - and whatever lander module they're going to build will be a brand new design, designed by folks who've never built a lander before (pretty much all space agencies/corps are in this boat right now). There's no way launching satellites into LEO or even visiting the ISS (also in LEO) builds any sort of experience for landing on the moon.

> They're not cutting corners here.

NASA certainly is, by having a single design. We'll have no idea if it's even a good design - with no reference for an alternative.

One thing is for sure though... the lander will look like it's out of Star Wars and will have some silly name.

[nickik]

Soyuz as a rocket just had a failure in 2018. Russian Space program had massive issues with reliability. Soyuz as a capsule has a fine safety record but most capsules have a good record. Lets remember that somebody in the Soyuz manufacturing drilled a hole into it and hid the fact, this was only noticed when ISS had a pressure lost.

> Of course not. But a pressure to drive the per-launch cost downwards will indeed lead to shortcuts being taken. We won't actually know how safe the vehicle is until it's launched successfully a great number of times.

SpaceX Falcon 9 even reused is fully certified for humans, for the highest level of NASA Science payload and for all military missions. Those are three very difficult to gain certifications.

Falcon 9 even reusable has already launched more then most rockets in history and is overtaking even the Ariane 5 shortly.

SpaceX knows more about these things then anybody in the world. Re-usability and the certification for it have been worked out.

> I'm not so sure that's how this works. Starship was never considered as a lunar-bound vehicle

Wrong. Starship was always designed to be able to land on Moon, Mars and Earth.

> and whatever lander module they're going to build will be a brand new design, designed by folks who've never built a lander before

The engine and control structure are the the same no matter where you are. Its not a brand new design, its Starship slightly updated.

> There's no way launching satellites into LEO or even visiting the ISS (also in LEO) builds any sort of experience for landing on the moon.

No but landing on earth does.

> NASA certainly is, by having a single design.

Congress is cutting corners and NASA does the best it can.

[perl4ever]

>> The fact that SpaceX is launching more rockets than everyone else

>That's just factually incorrect.

Well, depending on how you interpret it. It appears that in the first six months of 2021, SpaceX is accounting for around 25% of all orbital launches. So it's not more than everyone else combined right now. But it may be (by a slim margin) more than any other launch provider taken individually.