The important thing about Lunar Starship, as opposed to any other possible contender, is that when you land 100 tons on the moon, you're not just doing it for show. _That is what you need to do if you're serious about staying._ If you're interested in the smoke and mirrors approach, you send up a small craft and say, "There, we're back." You can't proceed beyond that point if you don't have a way to get some serious mass to the moon, so literally every other craft that's ever been proposed to land on the moon is _only_ good for Apollo-like spacewalks and flag planting.
We had a moon buggy but yeah I get your point. But a week. Not 6 or 8? As a cargo delivery maybe. But darn expensive for a week. Need tobe settings up gardens for air an food. Remote control construction machinery.
starship-gateway plan is actually bullshit, because there is no refueller capable of maintaining its operation. the "gateway" is not going to have enough fuel to refuel it. if they are serious, they will just delete the gateway and buy more starship to serve as refueller. at this rate i am putting my money on China actually doing more stuff on the moon. if you waste your entire budget on the gateway, you ain't doing shit on the moon.
So many possible points of failure. All these launching, docking, refuelling maneuvers alone. It could fail while docking or refuelling at the last maneuver, then they'd have to start all over again... honestly, that sounds so unnecessarily risky to me. I hope it works out fine, but i have my doubts. This is going to be very interesting!
it’s risky, but we have no alternative. If we want to have 4 people on the moon for 30 days, that’s 20 times the payload that a Saturn V could put on the moon. If you wanted to do that in a single launch, you’d end up with a rocket that weighs at least 20 times the 3000 tons of a Saturn V.
Destin, of "Smarter Every Day" addressed exactly your many points--a must-see video about this complicated {probably insane} hocus-pocus approach being far too risky in so many ways-
Good point about emptying the orbital depot. They should try transfers in both directions in advance of the final mission commitment. That is, transfer propellant between tankers in both directions as proof before launching the HLS craft to LEO.
I go back to first Russian satellite Sputnik in 1957. At age 16 I was hitch-hiking from Bloomington to Indianapolis Indiana to visit a friend in the hospital October 5, a Saturday. I carried with me the news of their being first in space. Then just 12 years later, on TV I watched Neil Armstrong step out of the Eagle descend the ladder to be the first man to step off and walk on the moon.
@@adalberteinstin5137 the layers of dust under the top layer (regolith) is so ancient it has hardened into something of a hardness approaching concrete. That reality was one of the surprises of the Apollo moon missions. Notice how shallow the foot prints and wheel tread marks are.
Being alive during the original space race would have been so amazing. But honestly this second push for space exploration is also very exciting. Each eras engineering was impressive in their own way
It WAS amazing. Contemporary space geeks would've LOVED it. I STILL geek out about it, watching my DVDs of the Apollo missions or viewing the missions here on UA-cam. I was the perfect age for geekdom when the Eagle touched down (not yet 15) and consider myself fortunate to have been around to see it.
I was alive then, more or less. (Age 17, just for full disclosure.) Saw the whole TV coverage. It was cool. But would I go back to then? No. Totally a no-brainer. No need to even think about it.
Yeppers it was 👴 Von Braun was the Elon Musk of his Time... The Saturn V was his Baby but that was only after alot of failures . Redstone , Gemini Astronauts and Appollo til July 1969 and Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldern landed
@@corrupted123 The cruise ship can't re-enter atmosphere anyway. No thermal tiles. And no human rating for an Earth landing until hundreds of landings have succeeded.
Once Starship is reliably delivering 100-200 tons to orbit in a single launch, there will be plenty of spacecraft (of that mass) that can directly leave LEO and land on the Moon. But they will be far smaller.
Recently couple of moon landers have tipped over during the landing process. And those objects were not as tall as starship is gonna be. On an uneven lunar surface i can not get my head around how are they going to successfully do it…
I have exactly the same concerns. This seems way more complicated than Apollo ever was. A tall spindly lander, 10 launches, rendezvous, and dockings just to fuel one flight to the Moon???
That is a concern I have as well. This is not about the technology of the lander so much as it is about the irregular surface of the moon. Nevertheless, if we see a problem the engineers at SpaceX have also seen the same thing. If it were me, and it is not, I would consider placing the fuel supply towards the front of the space craft so that it would be mostly empty upon landing, thus the vehicle would be more stable.
@@davidsandy5917 The recent landers that fell over had *_significant 2 mph sideways velocity_* at touch-down. They didn't just tip over, but literally tripped on the rough surface. It's the fault of the guidance system and/or horizontal velocity sensors. (Really was an operator error!) Once the guidance system is precise enough to totally zero that horizontal velocity, the base does not need to be wide. You could instead use vertical legs that conform to the irregular surface and hold the craft plumb. For Starship, I expect legs will use a hydraulic / pneumatic system, shared between all legs with a common accumulator/pressure tank, and clamps for each leg extension. The ship needs -vernier- landing thrusters near the top to maintain true vertical until the legs lock in place. A hydraulic ball valve for each hydraulic leg piston might close as well for redundancy. The accumulator would provide spring action and damping.
The scariest thing about using the Star Ship for lunar landing is, in my view, stability. You will be landing on an unprepared surface, at least the first time, and this thing is tall. Also, since most of the fuel/oxidizer has been consumed the CG of the vehicle will be relatively high. These concerns are so obvious that I am sure the SpaceX engineers have thought about the potential issues. I wonder if it might be a good option to place the fuel/oxidizer tanks above the crewed section and separate them before landing. Just thinking out loud.
The landing legs need to be shock absorbing, *_conform_* to the surface, and keep the ship plumb. The first SpaceX HLS mission has plans to launch from the surface, so some propellant should remain after landing.
@@paulr4353 One simple way is to have all legs adjusted by hydraulic pistons, all connected in parallel, and the fluid pressurized by gas in a shared COPV accumulator. As the legs settle onto the surface, they push fluid into the high-pressure accumulator, which rapidly rises in pressure and begins supporting the spacecraft. A set of series-connected valves will control flow through each leg piston. As soon as the ship motion settles down, each leg piston is isolated by the valves. The descent thrusters just have to keep the craft plumb until the piston valves close. A redundant set of clamps on each leg could also stop leg motion.
@@hlinville6034 Start walking(and take creatine to prevent sarcopenia), get some sun, eat unprocessed foods, don't carry any stress, be social, and you'll stay alive until were back. I believe in you.
Ultimately, I believe there will be separate vehicles for Earth-LEO-Earth, Earth-Lunar Orbit-Earth, and Lunar Orbit - Lunar Surface - Lunar Orbit. It doesn't make sense to haul around so much extra mass in the bottom half of Starship to go to the Moon or lunar surface. Different vehicles will be more efficient. 😎
Needs tobe turned into a video game platform an updated regularly. Farm out some questions an problems. Add some incentives an or recognitions for work. Get the world involved. Space Legos. Isn't minecraft or city build like that somewhat?
Or maybe building a single vehicle that can do all that and is fully reusable is cheaper. That’s really the goal. You’ll also need a large rocket than can do all that in one go to get to Mars.
Yeah, that's what the Apollo Engineers ultimately did. They were thinking about going the Starship direction, but decided it would make more sense to land in a small lunar module.
You forgot to mention that the apollo lunar lander had a second stage just for ascent, and that was protected from damage in a rough landing. The spacex lander, beyond being the wrong shape for a lander and a lot heavier than necessary (and therefore more likely to have its engines damaged on landing), cannot afford any damage to it's engines on a rough landing. It's a terrible idea, I hope it doesn't cost lives.
You also forgot to mention that starship dosnt have an abort eject system. Any failure and your dead. He talks about SLS which went to the moon. Let’s just think about that. They went to the moon and SpaceX has yet to complete a mission. It’s not even got to orbit. Oh and if you think SpaceX could have done anything with out nasa your tripping. SpaceX would have gone bust as they are burning money they don’t have. Starship is idiotic for landing on the moon. You’d need a lift to get off or on the surface. Lift breaks and you are on the moon and you are dead. Even the SpaceX lander they’ve been paid a ton of money to develop is a joke and only got funding because one person signed off on it without the appropriate oversight who then left nasa and now works for who? Yeh SpaceX. Let’s face it, SpaceX is yet to do anything like the Apollo missions.
I was a young man during the Apollo era and it was an amazing time. Seemed like a science fiction movie come true. Although that was an amazing time, and we did amazing things, the next 5 to 10 years will be something that none of us could ever had imagined. Sit back and enjoy the ride!!
Honestly is sounds cheaper and more efficient to just make something like an improved version of the Apollo Luner Lander until gateway is up and running but I could be wrong.
Ya but you’d need Starship anyway if you wanted to have a permanent lunar presence, which is what they keep saying Artemis is all about. There aren’t other options really, if we ever want a permanent moon base then we need Starship or something similar that can deliver 100 tons of cargo.
The permanent lunar base needs thousands of tons of infrastructure and supplies; Including "earth" movers to bury the habitats. Best to deliver that cheaply with Starship.
How are you going to build the landing pad? What machinery is SpaceX needing to move rocks, level the soil, and compacting it down? Right now, this top heavy vehicle might topple over landing on a boulder or a pad sinking in soft dirt (doubt those thrusters would keep it level once the fuel is exhausted)….and at the same time, the engines might get damaged by flying dust to large stones disabling it. No repair stations anywhere. Sure I would love SpaceX to succeed but these UA-camrs are missing A LOT of details and fail to think this through.
I heard plans launching 6 starships in 2024. I'd be surprised if we see more than 3. One flight to the moon would take 10+ starship launches. So I guess you are right. Anyway it will depend highly on what the Chinese manage to do.
@IamMaximumFury probably a good chance to go checkout what miricales they need to overcome to be ready for the Moon. Landing the 2 stages would be just the 1st of 100. And we are still many flights from achieving the 1st still.
A return to the moon in this decade is extremely unlikely. Space X progress has actually been glacial considering the size of the task and how much of it remains to be completed.
How did the Apollo spacecraft make it to the moon and back without 10 refills before leaving the Earth? Sure the overall spacecraft was smaller by about 25% byt other than that? Is the crew compartment and instruments so much bigger that will be landed on the moon?
I think that this is the best video I have yet seen on NASA's and SpaceX's collaboration on the Artemis human moon landing program - thorough, yet succinct, and well-illustrated! I will refer people to same who are not already familiar with the Artemis Program. Well-done! I wanted to point-out some additional, ironic facts about Orion's/SLS' "cobbled-together" design from "Shuttle leftovers": that Orion's service module was contracted to Airbus, not an American manufacturer; that the design of said service module is largely-derived from the European Space Agency's out-of-production Automated Transport Vehicle which transported cargo to the International Space Station from 2008-2015; and that Airbus incorporates left-over Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engines into said service modules as their main propulsion. I do believe that NASA is doing its best to stay within-budget - and trying to "spread the costs" via the Artemis Accords. I do question the video's statement that Lunar Starship will NOT have manual controls. While the default landing mode will no-doubt be automated, I am sure that Lunar Starship will have manual controls for redundancy, just as the Crew Dragon does for its missions to the International Space Station (and just as astronauts are trained to perform manual dockings with the ISS as a back-up, should the automated systems fail).
5:07 You mention the fuel transfer was successful. Do you have a source? I've not been able to find a credible source that says it was actually successful. Just that it was attempted and results were to be confirmed.
@@SeaTacDelta This! Of all the things that happened on the third Starship test the thing I want to see the most is how the refueling test went. My understanding was that NASA and SpaceX would have joint press conference to announce the results but I have seen anything like that yet.
the main issue that even if it was successful (as nasa did not come out with any problem, it was probably done without failure) it was within the craft. from one tank to the other. it was the same when the apollo cmd moved the oxygen from one tank to the other for balancing and less than what the progress and other cargo spacecraft do when it refuels the iss, as those pump stuff between crafts. so at best it is a first step in a very hard road, at worst a nothing burger.
@@thorin1045 actually it is a pretty significant test. Cryogenic liquid transfer has never been done in space. Apollo didn't transfer oxygen between tanks. The tanks were stirred because the cryogenic liquid had a tendency to freeze and not read correctly on the gauges. Progress doesn't use a cryogenic fuel but rather Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine fuel and Nitrogen Tetroxide oxidizer. So yes, the transfer was to occur between tanks in Starship, but it has never been done before in space. It is a key requirement for Starship, but also for the Artemis missions. If it worked I would expect NASA and SpaceX to shout it from the roof tops.
The Artemis missions are using a Near Rectilinear HALO orbit - specifically the 9:2 L2 Southern NRHO - NOT a DRO, or Distant Retrograde Orbit. That is the retirement orbit of Gateway after the Artemis program, and where the Orion capsule was tested. However, it is not where any of the human landing systems, Orion, or Gateway will reside during the program. Your animation was correctly showing an NRHO, but incorrectly labeling it as a DRO.
This lunar Starship is going to be too top heavy to be stable on the surface unless it has four wide-spreading, low slung landing megs. Otherwise the astronauts will tip it over from bouncing around in the crew cabin.
You'll be surprised how far such a ship can tilt before it actually becomes unstable. We're talking 100 tons of steel. And humans bouncing around, will not change anything. They don't have enough mass. And you can count on SpaceX to address any issues that could arise. Trust the engineers they have enough expertise not to overlook such a thing.
I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX jettisons the lower part of HLS with the big empty tanks. The propellants needed for the final landing and subsequent lift-off could be stored in much smaller tanks located in another part of the HLS. That would make it quite a bit shorter.
@@ghost307 As these ships aren't destined to ever return to earth, that sounds plausible. I also recently read that Mining the resources for making steel is probably viable, and if so I think we can expect SpaceX to want to build a shipyard on the moon, to build Mars-bound ships. Launching from the moon would mean 1,000 tons to lunar orbit, or 500 to Mars.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 it won’t weigh that much when it lands on the moon and even less after the cargo is unloaded from one side. Think again about how wide the legs should be.
Yeah, thank you for explaining this. It’s hard to explain to people the history of how NASA had to use the space shuttle design to build. Their new shipment was required to use the same tanks.
We need to deploy the Gateway Station which can be done with the next variant of Orion. I think it's the block B variant which carries significant cargo. A trip to the moon at this time will not be practical because we still cannot keep people there on a permanent basis. That's what the gateway is for. Other types of equipment can be landed separately on automatic as well.
Because boomers exploited it, and millennials didn't care, it wasn't cool. I have hope for Gen Z if they can appreciate things that are real, and not abandon them.
Hopefully the 17 missions to refuel the starship in LEO, which has never been attempted, work flawlessly and the clouds of lunar regolith stirred-up by landing or takeoff from the moon of the huge ship don't wreck any engines.
It's gonna tip over. There are not a lot of flat and level areas on the moon. With gravity so low, what looks level might actually be a loose pile of dust and who knows how it will compress. With Starship being so tall, it would not take much of a difference in height between the landing pads to cause the rocket to settle in deeper and deeper on one side and then eventually tip. A week parked on a dust bowl in a 15 story grain silo? Very high chances the ship turns into the leaning tower of pisa and then falls, stranding or killing the crew. And since there is no back up plan to get them, stranding doesn't have a happy ending.
Who says that there's no backup plan? SpaceX could easily have an extra Starship and booster ready on the pad on Earth, should the lunar lander no be able to return the astronauts. The lunar lander has massive cargo capacity so they could have life support supplies to keep the astronauts alive for months.
@@billweberx They'll need those extra supplies in the event of an emergency. It can take up to a week to get back into orbit and rendezvous due do that wacko orbit that NASA has decided to use.
It seems to me that sending a 3D printing construction robot prior to sending the tall starship, could be used to build a smooth landing site/sites for future missions so they don't have to guess if the surface is smooth and flat enough to land on. Could save a lot of heartache in avoiding tipped starships.
NASA getting $300 billion per year (At 1:42) is completely wrong. That was the cost of the entire Apollo program adjusted for inflation. The most NASA got in 1 year adjusted for inflation was $55.7 billion in 1966.
@@mrspirus5735 and even than it is always and interesting what we put into that program. for the 300 billion you have to push the entire gemini into the apollo, as well as the other moon stuff, like the rangers and surveyors. you can say they was a prerequisite, but at that point we can say that the german v-2 was also a prerequisite...
This is such a complicated and cumbersome plan that will end happening the same as with the sample return mission that should have brought the samples dropped like poop by Perseverance, they will cancel it. A simpler and smaller lander should go with the orbital module in the SLS, like in the Apollo program, that way you could expect Artemis to follow the schedule.
They deliberately weren't trying to achieve orbit. They wanted to be sure the thing would come back to Earth and not be some new orbiting space junk if they lost control of it.
They did reach orbital velocity on the second try. They didn't plan to do a complete orbit around the earth so the SS broke up while entering the atmosphere during deorbit.
Excellent video. One small correction: Artemis 3 (and the later Gateway missions) will use a near-rectilinear halo orbit, not distant retrograde. Artemis 1 used DRO, Artemis 2 will just be a fly-by on a hybrid free-return trajectory, but later missions will all use NRHO.
I wish this mission explanation included getting the two person crew back to Orion, and explain the fate of the HLS Ship. Does it return to earth orbit to be refueled and reused?
I think NASA and SpaceX are like a dream team! These two entities come together they can achieve great things. The 10-ish fuel trips everyone is talking about right now, I don't think will be as much trouble as ppl think. Just look at how quick the falcons9's did multiple landings, once they proved it could be done. The fuel transfers are more complicated but, SpaceX can do it - I believe.
Step 1 - first build a landing base on moon. We can outsource it to the Chinese, Indians and the rest of the Asian. Step 2 - land on moon. Create history for mankind as it will usher In a new era of space faring, first humans with a purpose have landed on moon now. Step 3 - claim American success.
it seems nobody knows if starship has enough deltaV capacity to get back from the moon to LEO to be refilled there. But this is a crucial point wether that concept makes sense. At least spaceX and NASA should know and they should share this information. If it only can go back to Lunar gateway, it cannot be refilled again and is not reusable. With each tanker starship you can bring 150 tons of fuel to LEO, but to Lunar gateway you need considerably more delta V so the amount a fuel that can be transported to there is negligible. Starship completely refilled in LEO has a deltaV-capacity of 6.9 km/s.( with 150 tons of payload) according to the deltaV map you already need 6.4 km/s to reach the lunar surface, and it would be 1.6 km/s to get from the lunar surface , to lunar orbit. So even for that the delta-capacity would be not sufficient. Not taking in account yet, that the rendezvous manoeuvre with lunar gateway alone requires some extra deltaV. If you can mine water on the moon, and convert it into hydrogen fuel, the situation is much better of course But the required infrastructure to mine water-ice and convert it into rocket fuel, will not be available at artmis 3, 4, and 5. And spaceX would need to develop new rocket engines that run on hydrogen fuel.
That question depends on Starship performance, and that is unknown at this point: development has not finished yet so we don’t know what the payload will be.
@@Hobbes746 starship brings 1000tons of fuel, +250 tons for the structure and 150t payload, that gives approximately a 6.9 km/s deltaV capacity. Probably for lunar starship without the heat shield and less payload , the deltaV capacity is higher. But this is not something that WeE should need to speculate about. SpaceX and Nasa should know it, or at least they should know what the target is, when they implement lunar starship into the Artemis mission. It is essential for the architecture, wether it can go back to LEO to be refilled, or just get back to lunar gateway and be not reusable, or if it even cannot leave the moon. I ask myself why this essential information is not shared If it can make its way from LEO to the surface of Moon and back to LEO, the SLS and lunar gateway are unnecessary.
@@thomasherzig174 As I said, that figure of 150 tons is *not certain* at this point. It’s the goal, but the current configuration is unable to do that (payload limit of IFT-3 was around 40 tons).
"10ish launches" sounds like a tall order. It's not just the number, they also need to happen within a few days. So far, they need weeks for a single launch, and didn't recover any hardware ever, besides one booster. So for the lunar lander, they first need to establish full reusability, which could be years away. Just throwing away every refueling starship would mean the entire exercise was pointless ... might as well have used Falcon Heavy for the refueling and it would have been cheaper.
what im exited about is them setting up infrastructure to help with future landings like the planned lunar gateway and positioning satellites the easier it is to land on the moon the faster things will be built on the moon
Only Ariemis I used a distant retrograde orbit. Future missions will instead use a near rectilinear halo orbit, which is what you were actually describing.
Is there any information about the tools that will be used on the moon? What's the new version of the moon buggy? Has it been developed and ready for 2025 yet? What other new tools are being developed?
Officially the rover will be going down in 2030 with Artemis 5. There are 3 companies in the running which started development last year. However, Astrolab had already been working on their rover years before will be sending their rover with Artemis 3.
Everyone ASSUMES that HLS Starship will be made of Stainless Steel, much like the normal Starship variant. However I suspect that Starship HLS may opt to splurge for the carbon fiber body instead; once all aspects of Starship, including orbital refueling has been perfected. Carbon fiber, though more expensive that stainless steel, is lighter. Therefore this will allow HLS to get to escape velocity faster; while using less propellant.
I love the optimistic "Will" in the title. Just like his cars, Musk's project is overburdened by weight. So much complexity has been added to this plan to make it unworkable.
How are they going to keep HLS from tipping over on the Moon ? Leveling landing legs? Lawn Dart approach ? Fire sideways thrusters until stable ? Prayer ?
Can we build a space station that has a fuel supply to fuel the starship...send the fuel from earth using the falcon heavy to send drums to the gas space station?
When landing on the Moon or Mars I think the Starship is like a Motor Sailer, not a good sailboat and not a good motorboat. The place that the Starship shines is transporting cargo from the earth's gravity well.
Hey Space X I was finishing High School when Neil and Buzz landed on the moon it was an amazing experience to watch. Please get your space program to the moon before I die and I’m 72 years old and please get there before China gets there and claim the moon’s territory.
I suspect they will have to build a tank farm in low earth orbit to make this sustainable. That way starship could hook up and receive fuel just like on the launch pad and a separate connection could be made to receive fuel from the tankers. You could also use a space tug to move a tank farm to lunar orbit letting a normal starship make the trip from the launchpad to the moon and back.
Its not just Nasa and spaceX. Artemis Accords signatories as of June 2024: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, the Republic of Korea, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Uruguay.
There are films about the Apollo LM lander being tested on different surfaces and contact angles . High probability that the Starship will fall on its side.
How about the first landing be with supplies that robots move away from the lander so they won't be damaged by the nearby launch? It also tests the natural surface.
The more i think about starship the more i think its maybe too big. Also, wouldnt it make more sense to use it for the actual voyage to the moon or Mars, then use a "drop ship" for the final descent to the surface? The idea of a vertical landing in such a harsh environment sounds sketchy, if not flat out insane
Best just take a moon lander inside starship until a landing base is placed there. Send a Moon Rover like we did on Mars. The purpose is Find the highest concentration of water and build a mining base and refinery.
The important thing about Lunar Starship, as opposed to any other possible contender, is that when you land 100 tons on the moon, you're not just doing it for show. _That is what you need to do if you're serious about staying._ If you're interested in the smoke and mirrors approach, you send up a small craft and say, "There, we're back." You can't proceed beyond that point if you don't have a way to get some serious mass to the moon, so literally every other craft that's ever been proposed to land on the moon is _only_ good for Apollo-like spacewalks and flag planting.
Yes, but China will land first, plant a flag, and claim the entire south pole and dark side for China.
We had a moon buggy but yeah I get your point. But a week. Not 6 or 8? As a cargo delivery maybe. But darn expensive for a week. Need tobe settings up gardens for air an food. Remote control construction machinery.
starship-gateway plan is actually bullshit, because there is no refueller capable of maintaining its operation. the "gateway" is not going to have enough fuel to refuel it. if they are serious, they will just delete the gateway and buy more starship to serve as refueller. at this rate i am putting my money on China actually doing more stuff on the moon. if you waste your entire budget on the gateway, you ain't doing shit on the moon.
I’m interested if Elon would take tunnel boring machines 👌🏻
@@craigmackay4909 that sounds awesome
So many possible points of failure. All these launching, docking, refuelling maneuvers alone. It could fail while docking or refuelling at the last maneuver, then they'd have to start all over again... honestly, that sounds so unnecessarily risky to me. I hope it works out fine, but i have my doubts. This is going to be very interesting!
it’s risky, but we have no alternative. If we want to have 4 people on the moon for 30 days, that’s 20 times the payload that a Saturn V could put on the moon. If you wanted to do that in a single launch, you’d end up with a rocket that weighs at least 20 times the 3000 tons of a Saturn V.
Destin, of "Smarter Every Day" addressed exactly your many points--a must-see video about this complicated {probably insane} hocus-pocus approach being far too risky in so many ways-
Good point about emptying the orbital depot. They should try transfers in both directions in advance of the final mission commitment. That is, transfer propellant between tankers in both directions as proof before launching the HLS craft to LEO.
I love to see before i pass on . I enjoy the first landing
You will not see it. They couldn` do it then, they can`t do it now. Van Allen belts , space radiation and bremstrahlung will fry them.
I go back to first Russian satellite Sputnik in 1957. At age 16 I was hitch-hiking from Bloomington to Indianapolis Indiana to visit a friend in the hospital October 5, a Saturday. I carried with me the news of their being first in space. Then just 12 years later, on TV I watched Neil Armstrong step out of the Eagle descend the ladder to be the first man to step off and walk on the moon.
It will be interresting to see this huge structure resting stable in the dust of the moon surface.
I hope the wind doesn't knock it over! 😂😂
@@adalberteinstin5137 the layers of dust under the top layer (regolith) is so ancient it has hardened into something of a hardness approaching concrete. That reality was one of the surprises of the Apollo moon missions. Notice how shallow the foot prints and wheel tread marks are.
Being alive during the original space race would have been so amazing. But honestly this second push for space exploration is also very exciting. Each eras engineering was impressive in their own way
It WAS amazing. Contemporary space geeks would've LOVED it. I STILL geek out about it, watching my DVDs of the Apollo missions or viewing the missions here on UA-cam. I was the perfect age for geekdom when the Eagle touched down (not yet 15) and consider myself fortunate to have been around to see it.
I was alive then, more or less. (Age 17, just for full disclosure.) Saw the whole TV coverage. It was cool. But would I go back to then? No. Totally a no-brainer. No need to even think about it.
Yeppers it was 👴
Von Braun was the Elon Musk of his Time...
The Saturn V was his Baby but that was only after alot of failures .
Redstone , Gemini Astronauts and Appollo til July 1969 and Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldern landed
@@nelsonlanglois9104 😂no, von Braun was a very talented engineer. Musk is a vaporware selling conspiracy clown 🤡
I was. And didn't know it was a lie.
This is SUCH a good video! Kudos to The Space Race team!
the cinematic videos are thecoolest ones
Facts!
Sooo they are crossing the ocean in a rowboat and then a cruise ship will meet them and bring them to shore
😂
The 2 astronauts who have to stay behind on Orion will be a big jealous
Yeah but the cruiseship is too heavy and doesnt have enough fuell to bring them back so they need to go back with the rowboat
@@corrupted123 The cruise ship can't re-enter atmosphere anyway. No thermal tiles. And no human rating for an Earth landing until hundreds of landings have succeeded.
@corrupted123
It's not designed to come back, it's stays on the moon forever.
@@gravityawsome no, Starship doesn’t leave anything on the moon
Never give up on producing such high quality content
So, they've made it 10 times more complicated than Apollo ever was. Got it.
Starship is at it's earlier design tho. Some things might change
That is exactly my thought. Seems like a rube goldberg approach. 10 launches to fuel one trip to the moon.
Once Starship is reliably delivering 100-200 tons to orbit in a single launch, there will be plenty of spacecraft (of that mass) that can directly leave LEO and land on the Moon.
But they will be far smaller.
@@imconsequetau5275that will be tough when it's only big enough to carry 40 tonnes
@@mervstash3692
You already know the current Starship payload capacity of 40,000 kilograms is temporary and will be scaled up on subsequent models.
This video just comfirmed to me that the Chinese will reach the south pole first 😢
We are the righteous innocent people, we will win always
@@Peter-ox8lj
INNOCENT??? Palestinian’s blood on your hand by your country’s backing!!! It ain’t innocent no more…..as once upon a time.
Chinese are kicking NASA's Ass.
I love this style of videos. The visuals and narration is top notch. You make things easy to understand. Please make more.
Recently couple of moon landers have tipped over during the landing process. And those objects were not as tall as starship is gonna be. On an uneven lunar surface i can not get my head around how are they going to successfully do it…
Agree, they will need a very flat, smooth and hard surface to land on. Seems unlikely! The Apollo 15 lander was at quite an angle on touchdown.
Thats because. Its a new system. Not what nasa or india use. That use ai
I have exactly the same concerns. This seems way more complicated than Apollo ever was. A tall spindly lander, 10 launches, rendezvous, and dockings just to fuel one flight to the Moon???
That is a concern I have as well. This is not about the technology of the lander so much as it is about the irregular surface of the moon. Nevertheless, if we see a problem the engineers at SpaceX have also seen the same thing. If it were me, and it is not, I would consider placing the fuel supply towards the front of the space craft so that it would be mostly empty upon landing, thus the vehicle would be more stable.
@@davidsandy5917
The recent landers that fell over had *_significant 2 mph sideways velocity_* at touch-down. They didn't just tip over, but literally tripped on the rough surface. It's the fault of the guidance system and/or horizontal velocity sensors. (Really was an operator error!)
Once the guidance system is precise enough to totally zero that horizontal velocity, the base does not need to be wide. You could instead use vertical legs that conform to the irregular surface and hold the craft plumb.
For Starship, I expect legs will use a hydraulic / pneumatic system, shared between all legs with a common accumulator/pressure tank, and clamps for each leg extension. The ship needs -vernier- landing thrusters near the top to maintain true vertical until the legs lock in place. A hydraulic ball valve for each hydraulic leg piston might close as well for redundancy. The accumulator would provide spring action and damping.
The scariest thing about using the Star Ship for lunar landing is, in my view, stability. You will be landing on an unprepared surface, at least the first time, and this thing is tall. Also, since most of the fuel/oxidizer has been consumed the CG of the vehicle will be relatively high. These concerns are so obvious that I am sure the SpaceX engineers have thought about the potential issues. I wonder if it might be a good option to place the fuel/oxidizer tanks above the crewed section and separate them before landing. Just thinking out loud.
The landing legs need to be shock absorbing, *_conform_* to the surface, and keep the ship plumb.
The first SpaceX HLS mission has plans to launch from the surface, so some propellant should remain after landing.
My thoughts exactly. I have to believe that the final product will be designed to adjust for surface conditions.
@@paulr4353
One simple way is to have all legs adjusted by hydraulic pistons, all connected in parallel, and the fluid pressurized by gas in a shared COPV accumulator. As the legs settle onto the surface, they push fluid into the high-pressure accumulator, which rapidly rises in pressure and begins supporting the spacecraft. A set of series-connected valves will control flow through each leg piston. As soon as the ship motion settles down, each leg piston is isolated by the valves.
The descent thrusters just have to keep the craft plumb until the piston valves close. A redundant set of clamps on each leg could also stop leg motion.
It does get very windy up there....jokes 😂
@Ben_Gunner Yes. The Luna landing conspiracy theorists will believe you on that. 😂
Remember how SpaceX announced a flight by the Moon by 2018 even selling the tickets. And sending humans to Mars by 2024.
I was born little less than two years after the last lunar landing. I probably die a couple years before we get back.
@@hlinville6034 Start walking(and take creatine to prevent sarcopenia), get some sun, eat unprocessed foods, don't carry any stress, be social, and you'll stay alive until were back. I believe in you.
Ultimately, I believe there will be separate vehicles for Earth-LEO-Earth, Earth-Lunar Orbit-Earth, and Lunar Orbit - Lunar Surface - Lunar Orbit. It doesn't make sense to haul around so much extra mass in the bottom half of Starship to go to the Moon or lunar surface. Different vehicles will be more efficient. 😎
I think DreamChaser would be a good Earth-LEO-Earth....to ferry astronauts to an orbiting Lunar Ship (once it's fueled & ready to depart.)
Needs tobe turned into a video game platform an updated regularly. Farm out some questions an problems. Add some incentives an or recognitions for work. Get the world involved. Space Legos. Isn't minecraft or city build like that somewhat?
Or maybe building a single vehicle that can do all that and is fully reusable is cheaper. That’s really the goal.
You’ll also need a large rocket than can do all that in one go to get to Mars.
@@2150dalek DreamChaser will be a failure. Just watch.
Yeah, that's what the Apollo Engineers ultimately did. They were thinking about going the Starship direction, but decided it would make more sense to land in a small lunar module.
Very good, liked the detailed explanation. Helped me understand the mission profile.
According to Neil Armstrong, it wasn't money NASA lacked. It was courage and focus. Best wishes
Niel also said ET told us " Don't come back "
I get so annoyed at the excuse of lack of funding.
Moon surface is uneven, instead of landing legs they should use a Bean Bag that will compress & conform to lunar surface
Yes.but
First. The moon gravity is low
Second. Bag need to be big
You forgot to mention that the apollo lunar lander had a second stage just for ascent, and that was protected from damage in a rough landing. The spacex lander, beyond being the wrong shape for a lander and a lot heavier than necessary (and therefore more likely to have its engines damaged on landing), cannot afford any damage to it's engines on a rough landing. It's a terrible idea, I hope it doesn't cost lives.
You also forgot to mention that starship dosnt have an abort eject system. Any failure and your dead.
He talks about SLS which went to the moon. Let’s just think about that. They went to the moon and SpaceX has yet to complete a mission. It’s not even got to orbit.
Oh and if you think SpaceX could have done anything with out nasa your tripping. SpaceX would have gone bust as they are burning money they don’t have.
Starship is idiotic for landing on the moon. You’d need a lift to get off or on the surface. Lift breaks and you are on the moon and you are dead.
Even the SpaceX lander they’ve been paid a ton of money to develop is a joke and only got funding because one person signed off on it without the appropriate oversight who then left nasa and now works for who? Yeh SpaceX.
Let’s face it, SpaceX is yet to do anything like the Apollo missions.
@davideyres955 you took the words right out of my mouth. If they insist on pushing through with this nonsense people will die.
looool!
Nice work 👍
I was a young man during the Apollo era and it was an amazing time. Seemed like a science fiction movie come true. Although that was an amazing time, and we did amazing things, the next 5 to 10 years will be something that none of us could ever had imagined. Sit back and enjoy the ride!!
Honestly is sounds cheaper and more efficient to just make something like an improved version of the Apollo Luner Lander until gateway is up and running but I could be wrong.
Ya but you’d need Starship anyway if you wanted to have a permanent lunar presence, which is what they keep saying Artemis is all about. There aren’t other options really, if we ever want a permanent moon base then we need Starship or something similar that can deliver 100 tons of cargo.
Honestly old concepts would be better than starship like convair nexus and star raker to make space infrastructure to make space freighters
@@toastedmatt9387 yes like the old concept named convair nexus could carry 4000 tons better than star ship
That's what China is doing.
The permanent lunar base needs thousands of tons of infrastructure and supplies; Including "earth" movers to bury the habitats. Best to deliver that cheaply with Starship.
At least once a stable touchdown, preferably more.. Imagine being the astronaut touching down and the rocket tips over and lands on its undock hatch.
Nice job. Up to date and lots of good info. Gonna click the ol sub button.
Great video. Would have loved to hear about the space suits they will use.
How are you going to build the landing pad? What machinery is SpaceX needing to move rocks, level the soil, and compacting it down? Right now, this top heavy vehicle might topple over landing on a boulder or a pad sinking in soft dirt (doubt those thrusters would keep it level once the fuel is exhausted)….and at the same time, the engines might get damaged by flying dust to large stones disabling it. No repair stations anywhere.
Sure I would love SpaceX to succeed but these UA-camrs are missing A LOT of details and fail to think this through.
There’s no way I would be a first timer of space stuff watching that cut about starship and not be interested in it bro! Too exciting
I can't see them doing all that this decade
I heard plans launching 6 starships in 2024. I'd be surprised if we see more than 3. One flight to the moon would take 10+ starship launches. So I guess you are right. Anyway it will depend highly on what the Chinese manage to do.
Probably struggle before the end of the next one too
If the people in charge have your attitude, they definitely won't.
@IamMaximumFury probably a good chance to go checkout what miricales they need to overcome to be ready for the Moon. Landing the 2 stages would be just the 1st of 100. And we are still many flights from achieving the 1st still.
@@mervstash3692 I dont believe in miracles. I believe in Elon Musk.
Outstanding presentation!!
A return to the moon in this decade is extremely unlikely. Space X progress has actually been glacial considering the size of the task and how much of it remains to be completed.
@@rogerphelps9939
5 years is not "glacial". Hopper flew on July 25 2019. Everyone else is astonished at the speed of their developement.
It’s financially affordable.. many hindrances we’re currently dealing with comes from not having enough 1900s scientist left.
Putting too much into the military and not enough into avoiding war all together. America has an issue with preventative measures!
How did the Apollo spacecraft make it to the moon and back without 10 refills before
leaving the Earth? Sure the overall spacecraft was smaller by about 25% byt other than that? Is the crew compartment and instruments so much bigger that will be landed on the moon?
I am telling you this Starship shoe in method to get to the moon is a scam.
15 tons vs 100 tons. That’s a huge difference when it comes to space travel
@@Unknown-oh6ue40 tons, Starship was just announced to carry 40 ton payload, not 100 tons anymore.
good question，Ur smart❤😂
I think that this is the best video I have yet seen on NASA's and SpaceX's collaboration on the Artemis human moon landing program - thorough, yet succinct, and well-illustrated! I will refer people to same who are not already familiar with the Artemis Program. Well-done!
I wanted to point-out some additional, ironic facts about Orion's/SLS' "cobbled-together" design from "Shuttle leftovers": that Orion's service module was contracted to Airbus, not an American manufacturer; that the design of said service module is largely-derived from the European Space Agency's out-of-production Automated Transport Vehicle which transported cargo to the International Space Station from 2008-2015; and that Airbus incorporates left-over Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engines into said service modules as their main propulsion. I do believe that NASA is doing its best to stay within-budget - and trying to "spread the costs" via the Artemis Accords.
I do question the video's statement that Lunar Starship will NOT have manual controls. While the default landing mode will no-doubt be automated, I am sure that Lunar Starship will have manual controls for redundancy, just as the Crew Dragon does for its missions to the International Space Station (and just as astronauts are trained to perform manual dockings with the ISS as a back-up, should the automated systems fail).
5:07 You mention the fuel transfer was successful. Do you have a source? I've not been able to find a credible source that says it was actually successful. Just that it was attempted and results were to be confirmed.
Same here. I can't find any evidence of a successful fuel transfer. 🤔
@@kennyfordham6208 Just curious what the results are, good or bad; progress is progress.
@@SeaTacDelta This! Of all the things that happened on the third Starship test the thing I want to see the most is how the refueling test went. My understanding was that NASA and SpaceX would have joint press conference to announce the results but I have seen anything like that yet.
the main issue that even if it was successful (as nasa did not come out with any problem, it was probably done without failure) it was within the craft. from one tank to the other. it was the same when the apollo cmd moved the oxygen from one tank to the other for balancing and less than what the progress and other cargo spacecraft do when it refuels the iss, as those pump stuff between crafts. so at best it is a first step in a very hard road, at worst a nothing burger.
@@thorin1045 actually it is a pretty significant test. Cryogenic liquid transfer has never been done in space. Apollo didn't transfer oxygen between tanks. The tanks were stirred because the cryogenic liquid had a tendency to freeze and not read correctly on the gauges. Progress doesn't use a cryogenic fuel but rather Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine fuel and Nitrogen Tetroxide oxidizer. So yes, the transfer was to occur between tanks in Starship, but it has never been done before in space. It is a key requirement for Starship, but also for the Artemis missions. If it worked I would expect NASA and SpaceX to shout it from the roof tops.
The Artemis missions are using a Near Rectilinear HALO orbit - specifically the 9:2 L2 Southern NRHO - NOT a DRO, or Distant Retrograde Orbit. That is the retirement orbit of Gateway after the Artemis program, and where the Orion capsule was tested. However, it is not where any of the human landing systems, Orion, or Gateway will reside during the program. Your animation was correctly showing an NRHO, but incorrectly labeling it as a DRO.
This lunar Starship is going to be too top heavy to be stable on the surface unless it has four wide-spreading, low slung landing megs. Otherwise the astronauts will tip it over from bouncing around in the crew cabin.
You'll be surprised how far such a ship can tilt before it actually becomes unstable. We're talking 100 tons of steel. And humans bouncing around, will not change anything. They don't have enough mass. And you can count on SpaceX to address any issues that could arise. Trust the engineers they have enough expertise not to overlook such a thing.
I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX jettisons the lower part of HLS with the big empty tanks. The propellants needed for the final landing and subsequent lift-off could be stored in much smaller tanks located in another part of the HLS. That would make it quite a bit shorter.
@@ghost307 As these ships aren't destined to ever return to earth, that sounds plausible. I also recently read that Mining the resources for making steel is probably viable, and if so I think we can expect SpaceX to want to build a shipyard on the moon, to build Mars-bound ships. Launching from the moon would mean 1,000 tons to lunar orbit, or 500 to Mars.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 it won’t weigh that much when it lands on the moon and even less after the cargo is unloaded from one side. Think again about how wide the legs should be.
Hopefully NASA will look at this comments section and realize that they're actually really dumb and didn't think about that.
I can't imagine NASA not asking for a manual override to the lunar descent sequence, in case automation fails
So why did the Apollo only need one rocket vs ten refueling for the Artemis missions?
exactly what i was thinking!
Something like 100 tons of cargo delivered to the surface of the moon as opposed to practically nothing. That is the theory anyway.
More payload
@@rogerphelps9939 thanks for the reply!
The lunar lander was 15 tons. This is 100+
Yeah, thank you for explaining this. It’s hard to explain to people the history of how NASA had to use the space shuttle design to build. Their new shipment was required to use the same tanks.
At best this is not possible before 10 years, 50 years or so for a realistic scenario.
We need to deploy the Gateway Station which can be done with the next variant of Orion. I think it's the block B variant which carries significant cargo. A trip to the moon at this time will not be practical because we still cannot keep people there on a permanent basis. That's what the gateway is for. Other types of equipment can be landed separately on automatic as well.
Gateway is both pointless and unnecessary.
If the landing fails, I'm going to have even more respect for the NASA engineers of the 60's and early 70's than I already have.
Fool
Respect for Holley wood actors
@JJ-yg1sf Another gullible person, all to ready to accept any conspiracy theory.
Crew Starship will have emergency backup manual control like Crew Dragon does a likely requirement from NASA.
It's been so long since we've sent anyone there that it's like it never happened!
Because boomers exploited it, and millennials didn't care, it wasn't cool. I have hope for Gen Z if they can appreciate things that are real, and not abandon them.
Hopefully the 17 missions to refuel the starship in LEO, which has never been attempted, work flawlessly and the clouds of lunar regolith stirred-up by landing or takeoff from the moon of the huge ship don't wreck any engines.
I think we can predict the answers to those points.
Did the Apollo moon landing also need 10 refills? If not why not?
Compare the mass of the Lunar Starship and the mass of the Ascent Module from Apollo and you will have your answer.
Because there was never a landing in the first place
@@tholo86yawn
@@tholo86
I suspect that the YMCA was involved.
The SpaceX craft makes ever so much sense as a ONE-way freight lander.
It's gonna tip over. There are not a lot of flat and level areas on the moon. With gravity so low, what looks level might actually be a loose pile of dust and who knows how it will compress. With Starship being so tall, it would not take much of a difference in height between the landing pads to cause the rocket to settle in deeper and deeper on one side and then eventually tip.
A week parked on a dust bowl in a 15 story grain silo? Very high chances the ship turns into the leaning tower of pisa and then falls, stranding or killing the crew. And since there is no back up plan to get them, stranding doesn't have a happy ending.
Who says that there's no backup plan? SpaceX could easily have an extra Starship and booster ready on the pad on Earth, should the lunar lander no be able to return the astronauts. The lunar lander has massive cargo capacity so they could have life support supplies to keep the astronauts alive for months.
@@billweberx They'll need those extra supplies in the event of an emergency. It can take up to a week to get back into orbit and rendezvous due do that wacko orbit that NASA has decided to use.
they need to lay down a landing pad first somehow. there's companies doing this
@@elck3 So they need to go to the moon first in order to prepare the moon for the first moon landing?
I'm confused.
@@ghost307 there are designs to drop a landing pad onto the surface of the moon without landing on it
It seems to me that sending a 3D printing construction robot prior to sending the tall starship, could be used to build a smooth landing site/sites for future missions so they don't have to guess if the surface is smooth and flat enough to land on. Could save a lot of heartache in avoiding tipped starships.
NASA getting $300 billion per year (At 1:42) is completely wrong. That was the cost of the entire Apollo program adjusted for inflation. The most NASA got in 1 year adjusted for inflation was $55.7 billion in 1966.
What?? The Apollo program was a NASA program.
@@billweberx Yes. And The Space Race confused the entire cost of NASA's Apollo program with NASA's annual budget.
@@mrspirus5735 Yes. I see that now.
@@mrspirus5735 and even than it is always and interesting what we put into that program. for the 300 billion you have to push the entire gemini into the apollo, as well as the other moon stuff, like the rangers and surveyors. you can say they was a prerequisite, but at that point we can say that the german v-2 was also a prerequisite...
Informative, thanks.
Didn't really know the nuts & bolts, or just how shoestring it all was.
Looney tunes😂
This is such a complicated and cumbersome plan that will end happening the same as with the sample return mission that should have brought the samples dropped like poop by Perseverance, they will cancel it. A simpler and smaller lander should go with the orbital module in the SLS, like in the Apollo program, that way you could expect Artemis to follow the schedule.
how is Starship going to put a 100 ton payload in orbit when it failed to reach orbital velocity with no payload ?
They deliberately weren't trying to achieve orbit.
They wanted to be sure the thing would come back to Earth and not be some new orbiting space junk if they lost control of it.
They did reach orbital velocity on the second try. They didn't plan to do a complete orbit around the earth so the SS broke up while entering the atmosphere during deorbit.
i heard elon say one of the launches failed because there was no payload
Stay skeptical, you have reasons to be.
@@ludwigvanzappa9548 What reasons? SpaceX has delivered everything they set out to do, most of which, no one else can do.
Imagine it tipping over, while you're sitting in the top of it...
Nearest help is 400000 km away..
I like that what speed are we traveling speed Ludacris? 0:53 😂
Excellent video. One small correction: Artemis 3 (and the later Gateway missions) will use a near-rectilinear halo orbit, not distant retrograde. Artemis 1 used DRO, Artemis 2 will just be a fly-by on a hybrid free-return trajectory, but later missions will all use NRHO.
Will they fix the DUST PROBLEM before landing on the moon?
I wish this mission explanation included getting the two person crew back to Orion, and explain the fate of the HLS Ship. Does it return to earth orbit to be refueled and reused?
4:28 Elon have said that the current Starship design can carry ~50 tons not 100-200
Wondering how those Apollos carried so much fuel to the moon..
That is so cool that we're getting to a step where someday people will be living on the moon
We're not getting any closer we're doing nothing the government doing nothing it's all Elon musk, hack government is trying to stop Elon
Looking forward to Americans finally returning to our Moon and inspiring new generations. Though 2028 is more realistic
Seems like tying the Starship down to the ground all the way around after landing, would be a good idea.
I think NASA and SpaceX are like a dream team!
These two entities come together they can achieve great things.
The 10-ish fuel trips everyone is talking about right now, I don't think will be
as much trouble as ppl think.
Just look at how quick the falcons9's did multiple landings, once they proved it could be done.
The fuel transfers are more complicated but, SpaceX can do it - I believe.
The Chinese: we can build a landing pad for the starship
NASA: How much?
The Chinese: just remove the sanctions
Step 1 - first build a landing base on moon. We can outsource it to the Chinese, Indians and the rest of the Asian.
Step 2 - land on moon. Create history for mankind as it will usher In a new era of space faring, first humans with a purpose have landed on moon now.
Step 3 - claim American success.
it seems nobody knows if starship has enough deltaV capacity to get back from the moon to LEO to be refilled there. But this is a crucial point wether that concept makes sense. At least spaceX and NASA should know and they should share this information. If it only can go back to Lunar gateway, it cannot be refilled again and is not reusable. With each tanker starship you can bring 150 tons of fuel to LEO, but to Lunar gateway you need considerably more delta V so the amount a fuel that can be transported to there is negligible.
Starship completely refilled in LEO has a deltaV-capacity of 6.9 km/s.( with 150 tons of payload) according to the deltaV map you already need 6.4 km/s to reach the lunar surface, and it would be 1.6 km/s to get from the lunar surface , to lunar orbit. So even for that the delta-capacity would be not sufficient. Not taking in account yet, that the rendezvous manoeuvre with lunar gateway alone requires some extra deltaV.
If you can mine water on the moon, and convert it into hydrogen fuel, the situation is much better of course But the required infrastructure to mine water-ice and convert it into rocket fuel, will not be available at artmis 3, 4, and 5. And spaceX would need to develop new rocket engines that run on hydrogen fuel.
That question depends on Starship performance, and that is unknown at this point: development has not finished yet so we don’t know what the payload will be.
@@Hobbes746 starship brings 1000tons of fuel, +250 tons for the structure and 150t payload, that gives approximately a 6.9 km/s deltaV capacity. Probably for lunar starship without the heat shield and less payload , the deltaV capacity is higher.
But this is not something that WeE should need to speculate about.
SpaceX and Nasa should know it, or at least they should know what the target is, when they implement lunar starship into the Artemis mission.
It is essential for the architecture, wether it can go back to LEO to be refilled, or just get back to lunar gateway and be not reusable, or if it even cannot leave the moon.
I ask myself why this essential information is not shared
If it can make its way from LEO to the surface of Moon and back to LEO, the SLS and lunar gateway are unnecessary.
@@thomasherzig174 As I said, that figure of 150 tons is *not certain* at this point. It’s the goal, but the current configuration is unable to do that (payload limit of IFT-3 was around 40 tons).
What about planning a little closer date, such as three years from now...🎉
"10ish launches" sounds like a tall order. It's not just the number, they also need to happen within a few days. So far, they need weeks for a single launch, and didn't recover any hardware ever, besides one booster. So for the lunar lander, they first need to establish full reusability, which could be years away. Just throwing away every refueling starship would mean the entire exercise was pointless ... might as well have used Falcon Heavy for the refueling and it would have been cheaper.
what im exited about is them setting up infrastructure to help with future landings like the planned lunar gateway and positioning satellites the easier it is to land on the moon the faster things will be built on the moon
That’s what doesn’t get talked about enough. Artemis isn’t about putting people on the moon, we’re building a freaking moon base!
The gateway is an unnecessary detail just to compensat for the inability of Artemis to actually land anything. Expect this silly idea to be scrapped.
Only Ariemis I used a distant retrograde orbit. Future missions will instead use a near rectilinear halo orbit, which is what you were actually describing.
This is such a cool video!
They need to start thinking about building special tanker starships
Is there any information about the tools that will be used on the moon? What's the new version of the moon buggy? Has it been developed and ready for 2025 yet? What other new tools are being developed?
Officially the rover will be going down in 2030 with Artemis 5. There are 3 companies in the running which started development last year.
However, Astrolab had already been working on their rover years before will be sending their rover with Artemis 3.
Pretty nest graphics and animations.
Im guessing the editor, the narrator and the video director is 3 different people
Everyone ASSUMES that HLS Starship will be made of Stainless Steel, much like the normal Starship variant. However I suspect that Starship HLS may opt to splurge for the carbon fiber body instead; once all aspects of Starship, including orbital refueling has been perfected.
Carbon fiber, though more expensive that stainless steel, is lighter. Therefore this will allow HLS to get to escape velocity faster; while using less propellant.
these videos are great
I love the optimistic "Will" in the title.
Just like his cars, Musk's project is overburdened by weight. So much complexity has been added to this plan to make it unworkable.
How are they going to keep HLS from tipping over on the Moon ? Leveling landing legs? Lawn Dart approach ? Fire sideways thrusters until stable ? Prayer ?
No manual controls? What could possibly go wrong?
Can we build a space station that has a fuel supply to fuel the starship...send the fuel from earth using the falcon heavy to send drums to the gas space station?
When landing on the Moon or Mars I think the Starship is like a Motor Sailer, not a good sailboat and not a good motorboat. The place that the Starship shines is transporting cargo from the earth's gravity well.
Hey Space X I was finishing High School when Neil and Buzz landed on the moon it was an amazing experience to watch. Please get your space program to the moon before I die and I’m 72 years old and please get there before China gets there and claim the moon’s territory.
I suspect they will have to build a tank farm in low earth orbit to make this sustainable. That way starship could hook up and receive fuel just like on the launch pad and a separate connection could be made to receive fuel from the tankers. You could also use a space tug to move a tank farm to lunar orbit letting a normal starship make the trip from the launchpad to the moon and back.
High quality content 😊.
Can’t wait…
Its not just Nasa and spaceX. Artemis Accords signatories as of June 2024: Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, the Republic of Korea, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Uruguay.
There are films about the Apollo LM lander being tested on different surfaces and contact angles . High probability that the Starship will fall on its side.
How about the first landing be with supplies that robots move away from the lander so they won't be damaged by the nearby launch?
It also tests the natural surface.
The more i think about starship the more i think its maybe too big. Also, wouldnt it make more sense to use it for the actual voyage to the moon or Mars, then use a "drop ship" for the final descent to the surface? The idea of a vertical landing in such a harsh environment sounds sketchy, if not flat out insane
My guess is that Optimus robots will be the first "unmanned" lunar crew
I recommend you study up on your Mandarin.
How cool
Best just take a moon lander inside starship until a landing base is placed there. Send a Moon Rover like we did on Mars. The purpose is Find the highest concentration of water and build a mining base and refinery.
Side thrusters are space exploration at a whole 'nother level 10:14 Hopefully they work as intended on the moon 🌓
You fail to mention that NASA requires both automated and manual piloting capabilities in their HLS systems.