adam

he/him

[adam @AMackie]

@glavdotmov @ThePrimalDino Thanks! Is such a lander actually under development? I'm guessing the BO and Spacex landers wouldn't work for this.

[adam @AMackie]

@ThePrimalDino This is a daft question as I don't know a lot about SLS, how does Cargo SLS deliver cargo to the surface? Or is it just delivered into a lunar orbit?

[adam @AMackie]

@DrChrisCombs And ofc interleaved in there will be artemis missions, more demos etc. Tbh the idea they just get this thing operational and ramp up the launch rate makes me more bullish on Starship - they will soon learn the true limitations of the system when they fly it more often.

[adam @AMackie]

@DrChrisCombs My feeling is this has become effectively a super heavy Starlink deployment system, and on each launch they slowly try to move towards second stage reuse. Whether they ever get there - who knows? But I can imagine now seeing regular, expendable Starship launches.

[adam @AMackie]

@KenKirtland17 I think I would feel better about it if B18 hadn't been lost the way it was. Everything looks more polished, and they are taking their time to get it to the pad etc. but presumably B18 should also have been benefitting from the years of incremental development too.

[adam @AMackie]

@FlimsRadar @unwisewords42 @DrChrisCombs @heatloss1986 One of the reasons it seems so unwieldy for artemis is that it wasn't really developed *for* HLS - it was "adapted" (from my perspective). Just knocked up a render of a Starship on the moon and submitted that, basically lol

[adam @AMackie]

@FlimsRadar @unwisewords42 @DrChrisCombs @heatloss1986 tbf here, one of the reasons it was the "least bad" was that spacex was already building it themselves. One of the arguments in its favour at the time was that they had already built several prototypes (in fact I think it was awarded after the initial Statship "hops")

[adam @AMackie]

@KenKirtland17 Of course if by 2026 Starship is flying regularly and demonstrating that it can actually deliver large payloads beyond LEO - sure, I can imagine that will trigger a reevaluation. I just don't think it'll be doing that by then.

[adam @AMackie]

@KenKirtland17 And that's just to say - there were no good options for landers in 2020. Starship was selected because they at least had development hardware ready, were going to build it anyway etc. but it came with the overhead of "first, we develop the most complex launch system ever".

[Chase Mitchell @ChaseMit]

Have they tried a third thing

[adam @AMackie]

@timeistheenemy Kim I do not know this person but I trust you implicitly

[carmeb @therealcbrad]

I hope this email kills us both

[adam @AMackie]

@chaka__stan If you get one can you give it to me because its my birthday and going to this will make me feel young again

[Punished Rolling Tim @NotRollingTim]

@bartonovopolis this movie is better then The Dark Knight but people arent ready for this conversation

[adam @AMackie]

@peterrhague @NASAWatch Is there not an underlying assumption that Starship will ever be human rated? Given their state of development right now, you could be talking a decade or more before they reach that point, if they ever do.

[adam @AMackie]

@chaka__stan

[adam @AMackie]

@terrykhoyt1 @Truthful_ast @Raptor_54321 The *only* reason for landing on the actual launch mount is if you truly believe SpaceX will be able to literally refuel and go again. I just think that's a fantasy. Plus why bother if you have a fleet of vehicles going up and down?