In recent months, it has begun dawning on US lawmakers that, absent significant intervention, China will land humans on the Moon before the United States can return there with the Artemis Program.
So far, legislators have yet to take meaningful action on this—a $10 billion infusion into NASA’s budget this summer essentially provided zero funding for efforts needed to land humans on the Moon this decade. But now a subcommittee of the House Committee on Space, Science, and Technology has begun reviewing the space agency’s policy, expressing concerns about Chinese competition in civil spaceflight.
I’m addressing the headline that says the plan “cannot work”. Starship is really shoehorned into this role, and I think a more appropriately sized lander like Blue Moon is a better option if they can get it up and running, but I don’t see anything about Starship that makes this impossible, just clunky.
If NASA called the internal cryogenic fuel transfer demo a success and paid SpaceX for it, then I’m inclined to call it a success. I would love to see anything other than hearsay that says otherwise.
5 prototype launches, with design changes and fixes in between, is already a better cadence than New Glenn, Vulcan, Ariane 6, or H3. Atlas 5 can tie it if they get another Amazon launch off this month. The Starship cadence should only go up as the design matures and they start actually launching Starlinks and Tankers.