transientpunk@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Different design paradigms. In 1969, they had one shot to get everything right, and prepared accordingly (not to mention, they had a massive budget since the space race was all part of the cold war).
SpaceX is taking a different approach, fail fast and cheap. They are taking an iterative approach that allows them to learn from previous failures, rather than anticipating what all those failures could be and then over engineering the rocket to prevent that.
They are different approaches, and each has their own pros and cons. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
3volver@lemmy.world 6 months ago
That’s a great summary, I appreciate it. Do you think the new approach has been worth it so far? The Artemis 1 launch was successful first try.
MartianSands@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
The Artemis 1 launch was also staggeringly expensive, and yet to be repeated.
In the time it’s taken to develop that rocket, SpaceX has gone from it’s very first real flight (by which I mean actually achieving something, rather than a pure test flight) to launching far more every year than the entire rest of the world combined. Note that by that definition, Artemis hasn’t had a single “real” flight yet.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
SLS did a lap around the moon flawlessly and returned safely.
Starship, a scale model of the empty shell that HLS might one day sit in, when it is finally developed, can’t even land without exploding.
According to a recent speech by musk, it wasn’t even the real shell. IFT3 was a 40ton-to-LEO craft, where HLS will have to be around 100, which would take the as of yet unflown and (mostly?) unbuilt “Starship 2”.
And where SLS will simply have to do a repeat of what it has already done for Artemis 2.
HLS will have first be actually built, get launched, get refueled by a tanker craft that also doesn’t exist yet, an unknown number of times (probably 12), fly to the moon, land there, take off, come back, land on earth and then do ALL of that again in time for Artemis 3 where it will have people on board.
SLS is 1 for 1, and if Starship IFT4 does everything right tomorrow, HLS is still at 0. And if it does everything right, I will buy a hat and eat it.
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
SLS is also ridiculously expensive. They hope, with time, to bring the cost down to $1 billion per launch. And the first one took 6 years longer than expected. If we’re going to get to the moon more than one more time before I die, this isn’t the vehicle I’m going to pin my hopes on.
mipadaitu@lemmy.world 6 months ago
They have completely different goals. If SpaceX wanted to throw out the Starship and Booster sections every time, they’re already as capable as the Artemis launcher. But they are looking longer term, and want to also be 1000x cheaper.
It took them dozens of launches to be able to re-use a Falcon9. They’ll get there eventually.
Nobody thought they’d get Falcon 9 to launch, and they did. Nobody thought they’d get Falcon 9 to land, and they did. Nobody thought they’d be able to re-use a Falcon 9 enough to make it worth the investment, and they did.
Doesn’t mean they’ll succeed, but it does mean they have a good track record.
Zippy@lemmy.world 6 months ago
To put it in context, Artemis did many fully destructive tests but typically on the ground. Artemis had and spent an overhaul budget that was likely close to a hundred times that of what SpaceX is spending in today’s dollars.
And even better representation, all the fully destructive tests of SpaceX have carried out have costs less than a single successful shuttle launch. And it has a much larger payload.
Even with the destructive tests, of which are planned this way, not only is SpaceX is far cheaper than any past space program, they are advancing fairly rapid.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Well, they’ve produced the first, (and only so far), truly reusable rocket.
And starship is slated to be the second.