By Howard Bloom
A nation that looks up goes up. A nation that looks down goes down.
The first SpaceX Starship orbital launch seems to be on pause. Why is this crucial to your future and mine?
A Time Magazine article explaining that the Starship will outclass the Artemis Moon Rocket concludes that the “first uncrewed launch of the rocket that could happen later this month—though it is likelier to occur in the first quarter of 2023.”
The Time article also points out that the Starship’s Super Heavy booster “will produce more than 7.25 million kg (16 million lbs.) of thrust, nearly double that of the” Artemis Moon Rocket.
And the Space Development Steering Committee’s chief analyst John Strickland reports that the Starship’s Super Heavy booster has been rolled back to the VAB—the vehicle assembly building.
Meanwhile, the FAA license to fly the Starship on its first orbital attempt still seems to be pending. The future of America in space is hanging by this slender thread.
Remember, the Artemis Moon Rocket will carry between two and four passengers, allegedly “to the moon.” But not to the lunar surface, where it counts. The Artemis’ Orion crew capsule cannot land on the moon. It can only orbit the moon. And the Artemis Moon Rocket itself costs $4.1 billion per launch.
SpaceX’s Starship will carry 100 passengers. It CAN land on the moon. Then it can take off again and land on the earth. And SpaceX aims to bring in Starship launches at $2 million per flight. Which means for the price of one Artemis Moon Rocket launch, you could launch 2,000 Starships. So the delay in the Starship’s first orbital launch is agonizing.
Meanwhile, as the Space Development Steering Committee’s Bruce Pittman has pointed out, NASA is working on the construction of outposts on the moon. On November 30th, NASA just granted $57.2 Million to ICON, “the company [that] built the first-ever fully permitted 3D-printed home in the United States in 2018 and has since delivered entire communities of such houses in the U.S. and in Mexico.” (Per Edward Ellegood’s Florida Space Report, 12-04-2022) ICON is not a total beginner. It began work on lunar and Mars habitats two years ago.
Meanwhile, China has put up three more Taikonauts on its space station and is testing engines for reusable rockets. But don’t let China’s distance behind the United States fool you. Said the head of America’s military space wing, General Nina Armagno, last Monday, “The progress” the Chinese have “made has been stunning, stunningly fast.”
References:
https://time.com/6238248/spacex-starship-nasa-sls-rocket-launch/