The Space Development Steering Committee calls on NASA to radically rethink its program to land on the moon by 2024, its Artemis program, rebuilding that lunar mission around SpaceX’s vehicle-in-development, the Starship. In fact, the Space Development Steering Committee calls on NASA to reconceive all of its programs with the Starship in mind.
Why? The SpaceX Starship is designed to take one hundred tons or one hundred passengers to the moon or Mars. Yes, one hundred tons or one hundred passengers. In cruise-liner comfort. NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule will be able to carry at most six passengers. In cramped quarters.
Worse, NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule cannot land on the moon. The Starship can.
There’s more. NASA does not have a habitat in which humans can stay on the moon. A Starship can be used as luxury housing.
The Starship is also what Bruce Pittman, National Space Society Senior Operating Officer and a member of the Space Development Steering Committee, calls “a twofer.” It is two space programs in one. It can just as easily be used for Mars as for the moon. In fact, it was designed for Mars.
And that’s not all. The Starship can be used to get humans anywhere in the solar system.
In reality, the SpaceX Starship is at least four programs in one. SpaceX plans to use the Starship for hypersonic intercity trips like New York to Los Angeles or London to Singapore. The Starship will fly you half-way around the world in a mere 30 minutes. Ark Invest predicts that hypersonic travel of this kind will be a $270 billion industry.[i]
And there’s more. NASA launches its unmanned science probes like the recent Mars rover Perseverance one at a time on expensive rockets that are thrown away after just one flight. A single launch costs up to $400 million. The Starship can take a dozen or more of these robotic missions up at a time. At a mere $5.5 million per gadget. Then it can land on its launch pad and do it all over again.
The Space Launch System will also be able to loft multiple payloads. But at a cost of $166.6 million per gizmo. Over 36 times the price of launch on a Starship.
There’s one last reason for NASA to abandon the SLS and the Orion and to put all of its chips on the Starship. A Starship prototype has had its first hop test. It has launched itself 165 feet into the air and has landed itself gently. A second Starship prototype is about to do a similar hop. But the Space Launch System has not fired its engines yet. When it does, it will not be able to come softly back down to earth.
And when it does lift off, the Space Launch System will cost $2 billion per launch to fly. The Starship will cost roughly $65 million. In other words, for the price of one Space Launch System liftoff, NASA could buy 31 launches of the Starship. Thirty one!
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The Space Development Steering Committee was founded in 2005 by author Howard Bloom at the behest of Buzz Aldrin. Past members have included Buzz Aldrin, Edgar Mitchell (the sixth man on the moon), and Feng Hsu, Head of Risk Assessment at NASA’s Goddard Space Center. Current members include Bruce Pittman, National Space Society Senior Operating Officer, Mark Hopkins, former National Space Society CEO, Peter Garretson, past head of the Future Science and Technology branch of the Air Force, Gerald Black, a rocket engineer who worked on the Apollo Program, and Hank Haliasz, Mission Director for the Space Shuttle.
[i] https://ark-invest.com/analyst-research/hypersonic-flight-market/