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“So this has never been accomplished before and a lot of people for the longest time thought this was not possible,” he added.Ī SpaceX Starship test vehicle descends during a flight test in Boca Chica, Texas. Musk on Thursday also said “the essential technology - the holy grail breakthrough that’s needed - is a rapid and completely reusable rocket system.” “If the company can demonstrate that its new heavy-lift rocket is not just reusable but, in Elon Musk’s words, rapidly reusable - it will revolutionize spaceflight,” he wrote in a recent paper titled “Walmart, But for Space.” Simberg said the biggest breakthrough of Starship would be the “radical cost reduction” it potentially offers, particularly the plan to use tankers in low-Earth orbit to refuel it, which could significantly bring down the long term cost of operations in deep space. Neither Boeing, the main contractor on the SLS rocket, nor NASA responded to requests for comment on the criticism of the program or Musk’s latest plans for Starship. “If SLS is not going to fly more than once every couple of years, it’s just not going to be a significant player in the future in space, particularly when Starship is flown,” he added. “Once the new system’s reliability is demonstrated with a large number of flights, which could happen in a matter of months, it will obsolesce all existing launch systems,” he said.
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That makes Starship, which conducted a successful flight to the edge of space last year, especially threatening to the contractors and their allies in Congress.Īs Starship progresses, it will further eclipse the argument for sticking with SLS, according to Rand Simberg, an aerospace engineer and space consultant. The space agency’s first three Artemis moon missions over the next three years - including a human landing planned for 2025 - are all set to travel aboard the SLS rocket and Orion capsule, which are being built by Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Aerojet Rocketdyne and numerous other suppliers and engineering services firms.īut with the SLS’ first flight this year further delayed at least until late spring, concerns are growing that even if it succeeds, the system, at an estimated $2 billion per launch, could prove too costly for the multiple journeys to the moon that NASA will need to build a permanent human presence on the lunar surface. But the program is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule - and, many would argue, generations behind SpaceX in innovation. NASA and its major industry partners are simultaneously scrambling to complete their own moon vehicles: the Space Launch System mega-rocket and companion Orion capsule. Launch teams monitor the countdown to the launch of Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket carrying NASA's James Webb Space Telescope on Dec. “They are shitting the bed,” said a top Washington space lobbyist who works for SpaceX’s competitors and asked for anonymity to avoid upsetting his clients. “It is the kind of thing we used to talk about as ‘wouldn’t it be great if we could do these kinds of things?’” said Scott Altman, president of the Space Operating Group at ASRC Federal.īut NASA officials - and their longtime aerospace contractors - are watching with a mix of awe and horror. If he can pull it off, Musk’s previous breakthroughs - electric cars, reusable rockets for launching satellites, the first commercial space capsule to dock with the International Space Station - might seem, by comparison, to be modest achievements. “There might be a few bumps along the way, but it will work.” Starship is designed to be the first all-purpose space vehicle: a reusable and refuelable spacecraft that can take scores of people and millions of tons of cargo from Earth directly to the moon and eventually Mars - and do it over and over again.