Moon Denied? SpaceX Starship Won't Make It To The Moon With Artemis III?

Injured in an accident? You can start your claim with Morgan & Morgan at www.forthepeople.com/whatabout?s=86%3A4165 What do you think? Would a light version of Artemis III make sense, or should NASA aim directly for a full-scale lunar mission? :_WAISweet:

lets hope the doors are well fitted to Starliner ;)

Hopefully, Starliner's door doesn't fall off after take-off.

"The first test launch will include 2 astronauts" are scary words, coming from Boeing.

Once the issue with the heat shield has been resolved the program will move on to other concerns. SpaceX knows what works, learns from their mistakes and makes corrections that they test with each launch. I have no doubt they will solve the tile issue. Starship will survive re-entry and will become reliably reusable. I am eagerly waiting for the announcement of the next launch.

"Temba, his arms wide" made me laugh out loud!

I was expecting this Artemis III flight change. For one thing, Starship's development cycle is not looking like it will be fully ready with the tankers to go all the way to the moon so quickly. Apollo was an agile program that changed flight plans according to hardware availability. I always thought jumping from an Apollo 8 style mission to an Apollo 11 style mission was simply ridiculous. Apollo was a crash program, but they had enough intelligence to build expertise and test hardware incrementally. I would not be surprised if we had an Apollo 9 style test as you mention and maybe even a long stay test drive of Starship in lunar orbit before a landing. That might be achievable with little to no refueling if the payload of Starship is kept small on that flight. They might even have enough payload on SLS to carry a translunar "tug" stage to take Starship to lunar orbit without refueling and leave the Orion in Earth orbit for ascent and reentry to Earth. For that matter, Dragon 2 could fill that role without a need for another expensive and slow-to-build Orion. The automated unmanned lunar landing of Starship will stand in for the Apollo 10 dress rehearsal mission. That will prove out the refueling plan and the safety of the landing profile for such a top heavy beast. I wouldn't be surprised if the first SpaceX automated landing fails to meet all the goals and NASA will require a second test. Unlike Apollo, which had delta-V to burn with the Service Module blunderbuss and the Lunar Module engines, Orion doesn't even have the Delta-V to get itself out of a low lunar orbit and get home on its own. The Starship lander, and the other designs are the only way Astronauts could get back to the Gateway station from low lunar orbit. The Artemis 2 mission is sort of puny when you consider Apollo 8 injected itself into low lunar orbit, made 10 orbits of the moon, and then blasted itself back toward Earth all on its own. Artemis 2 Orion is going to stay on a free return trajectory the whole way and never enter a stable orbit around the moon. That leaves an awful lot to prove during the lunar landing mission.

Sokath, his eyes uncovered!

When I was 14 when landed Apolló 11 to the Moon. A want to see the next Moon landing! :-)

If they use a virtual tower, SpaceX should be able to use a real camera to show in real time the virtual catch.

Think back when Felix would say the names of all Patreon individuals. You've come a long way!

Congratulations to the brilliant sharp pictures we are getting to see on a bi weekly basis. Awesome production value.

The U.S. Military WANTS Starship to work. GOODBYE red tape!😎

We'll either see a perfect crewed launch from starliner or just a crude launch. It's a tossup at this point.

We're having a safety talk at work on Friday. The image of the welder standing on the rail at 7:10 should give everyone a good laugh. Thank you.

landing on chopsticks with fifth flight... jeeez.. anxiety will be 1000%.

I'm split on the idea of an Artemis-lite mission, but I am in favor of any mission that takes us forward, and even though it would be disappointing to not see a full blown mission it's still a step forward so who am I to complain? My biggest 'wow' news is Relativity's speed. I thought the mechanics and engineers on Raptor were fast but this is a whole new level.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra

6:05 I caught that 😂 Darmok

I really enjoyed your enthusiasm during this video about SpaceX's Starship; Blue Origin and whatnot! I cannot wait until the launch of IFT4 and the resulting testing and practice landing presumably in the Indian Ocean! Well done, Felix and your awesome Crew!