Landing on the moon, by itself, is utterly worthless.
Landing on the moon is only of value if it leads to things additional that are of value. But this indirect benefit requires that landing on the moon be cheap enough and easy enough that the additional activities are practical. I don't think anything needing SLS qualifies.
The confusion of symbol with substance has bedeviled the space program since its inception. It's a kind of cargo cult thinking. To do worthwhile things on the moon requires being able to get to the moon in a practical and economical way. I'm not sure even Starship qualifies, to be honest, but it may.
Nope. Starship will do that, not SLS. NASA already gave the contract for landing to SpaceX.
And as for later versions of SLS after that… I highly doubt they will ever fly, because the insanity of the cost and they non-reusability will become too glaringly obvious to everyone.
The SLS won't land people on the moon either. A completely unrelated rocket system that doesn't rely on the SLS in any way is used for that. SLS is totally redundant.
SLS isn't redundant. SLS+Orion is a system that is trusted and certified to put Humans into LEO and then lunar orbit.
The "completely unrelated rocket" will not be certified to launch Humans in time. The modified Starship that is used as a lander will undergo some certification, but ferrying Humans from lunar surface to lunar orbit is a lot less difficult and risky than blasting off of Earth.
People don't need to take off from Earth on the Starship to get to the moon with it. Dragon 2 exists.
The only thing SLS currently adds to the moon mission is that it allows the switchover between capsule and Starship to happen in lunar orbit instead of LEO. This is not very valuable.
Transfer of crew between Dragon and Starship, carrying Crew in Starship, Refueling Starship, even putting Starship in Orbit has all not been achieved yet, some of it isn't even seriously on the drawing board yet (crewed starship concepts are in concept stage at best).
SLS+Orion is ready to fly now, or at least almost.
> ome of it isn't even seriously on the drawing board yet
Citation needed.
NASA specifically called out in their report that SpaceX had done a huge amount of work on refueling already and they were impressed with the amount of detail.
NASA has also handed out contracts to study fluid dynamics of cryo and SpaceX got a contract to study that.
This is not some mystical thing. Refuling in orbit has been done for 50 years. Yes, its now cryo fluids but pumping cryo around in orbit is already required for upper stages, so its not really even that new or different.
And btw, refueling Starship is a required part of Artemis if you want to transition crew in earth or lunar orbit.
Also, if something as simple as transferring liquids from one tank to another is so scary, it's difficult to see how there can be any significant future for humanity in space. I mean, what human activity is not going to involve pumping fluids?
If I had to be launched into space, I would prefer to take my chances with a rocket ship that blew up lots of times in testing until it didn't anymore, vs. a boondoggle mega rocket with a bunch of paperwork.
> “..blew up lots of times in testing until it didn’t anymore”
Yeah, Starship hasn’t stopped blowing up. What it has flown successfully is a small atmospheric hop, with a pretty pared down version. The first stage hasn’t even successfully static fired yet. And yet, everyone is falling over themselves to say various versions of “SLS is obsolete because starship”. SpaceX has a great track record in developing Falcon 9, its reusability, and Dragon. But Starship is order of magnitude more complicated, optimistically it will not fly for several years.
SLS has been obsolete since its creating by the Senat in 2011. It never made sense and it was never needed. Its purely political.
I remember in 2017 when people said Falcon Heavy is not real, SLS is and all this bullshit.
SLS has no logical justification, even if either Falcon Heavy nor Starship existed. It just doesn't make sense if you actually think threw the problem.
NASA knew this, and didn't want (outside of Johnson) but were forced to do it.
> But Starship is order of magnitude more complicated, optimistically it will not fly for several years.
That quite the claim.
I would bet you 10k$ that Starship will reach orbit 5 times before SLS reaches Orbit twice? Interested?
