let's talk about how human beings are going to return to the Moon in this decade the Artemis program is spearheaded almost entirely by NASA with a few partner space agencies and private companies helping out along the way Chief among them all being SpaceX who are tasked with delivering the lunar Starship vehicle that will actually allow astronauts to touch down on the moon's surface for the first time in over 50 years as with all things in the space flight industry the Artemis program is in a constant state of flux timelines and flight plans are being revised and Rewritten as different variables come into play it can be a bit difficult to keep track of so today we are focusing in on how SpaceX and NASA are going to return a human presence to the Moon even though SpaceX is essentially just functioning as a NASA subcontractor in the grand scheme of the Artemis program they are also responsible for delivering the biggest most powerful and arguably most important part of the entire moon landing Mission the lunar Starship the human Landing system is a giant missing piece in the NASA equation they have the SLS launcher to provide the muscle to lunar orbit and they have the Orion spacecraft that can support the crew of four on a trip around the moon and bring them back home again safely but they don't have any vehicle in their lineup that can Ferry the crew down from Orion to the surface and send them back up again so they Outsource that job to the private sector back in the olden days of the Apollo program NASA was able to fit a small lunar lander into the same rocket that launched their Command Module the landing craft was stashed away in the cargo fairing of the Saturn V just below the service module once the upper stage of the rocket was coasting in orbit the service module and capsule with separate together and fly out a short distance then come around and return to dock the nose of the Command Module into the lunar module then once they were connected the service module thrusters would extract the Lander from the upper stage of the rocket and they would all fly to the moon together as one unit also this was the 1960s so that whole maneuver had to be performed manually by a pilot no automation available logistically that whole system just doesn't work for the modern Artemis program for one the SLS doesn't offer the same lift capability as the old Saturn V the Apollo era rocket could deliver 43 metric tons to the Moon while SLS maxes out at 27 tons which is enough to send the Orion capsule and service module but not much more so SLS has more thrust at liftoff than Saturn V but a lower weight capacity you might be wondering what's the deal with that put simply rocket equations are a nightmare we're going to come back to this in a minute so so just keep that in mind but even if there was more power available NASA doesn't want to just get by anymore with a flimsy little stowaway moonlander the whole point of Artemis is to establish a strong and permanent human presence on the moon to do that we need the sturdius landing vehicle possible one that can deliver heavy infrastructure while also supporting a crew for their week-long excursions to the lunar surface this is where the Artemis program becomes a tale of two gigantic Rockets SpaceX was awarded the first human Landing system contract by NASA because their vehicle was by far the biggest and the most powerful option it may not have been the most practical but at the same time SpaceX had already been making good progress on launch Hardware like the Raptor engine and had a very solid track record of success with Falcon 9 and Falcon heavy so NASA took Elon Musk at his word that his people would get it figured out by 2025 and they've been doing a pretty good job at that so far Starship flew for the first time in April 2023 and then it exploded which was not ideal but that's not the end of the world either SpaceX can chalk that up as a learning experience and will make an even better attempt sometime later this summer maybe as early as June the lunar Starship that is going to fly to the moon will be pretty similar to the designs that we've seen so far being tested at Boca Chica but with a few key differences the most significant being that the lunar Starship will never re-enter Earth's atmosphere so it won't require the black heat shield or the big Arrow flaps at the nose and tail of the upper stage those won't serve any function on the moon after shedding that excess weight Starship will need a bunch of upgrades to function as a lunar lander Chief among those being a new set of Landing legs there won't be any Chopstick armed mechazilla Towers waiting on the moon these spindly legs that we saw on the earlier Starship prototypes won't do either the lunar Starship needs a wide stable footprint to land on something more similar to a falcon 9 booster and the ship will also require Landing thrusters as well we've seen these in a few renderings mounted on the side of the vehicle these are going to be necessary to steer the ship on its descent to the lunar surface Starships designed to land on Earth and Mars use Arrow flaps to steer but there's no air on the moon so that doesn't work the moon doesn't have very much gravity either so it's also very likely that the Raptor engines are just too powerful for landing on the moon or even launching from the surface not unless we want to add another crater to the moon's complexion SpaceX will also need to devise an elevator system for their lunar Starship since the lower two-thirds of the 50 meter tall ship are taken up by fuel tanks the crew are going to need some help to travel the 30 odd meters that separate them from the ground this is also going to be critical for deploying payloads to the lunar surface luckily the gravity on the moon is 1 6 of the earth so the lift doesn't have to be particularly strong just reliable above the cargo hold will need to be a crew quarters that should be no problem considering the gigantic 9 meter wide empty space left at the top of the ship for just two people it's going to be plenty spacious for a week-long stay on the moon all that SpaceX really needs to do is furnish and pressurize a few levels within the upper fairing they have a well-proven life support system from the crew Dragon capsule that just needs to be scaled up a bit for these relatively short duration moon landings figuring out a Mars life support system for Starship is going to be the hard part and then lastly they just need a small docking port up in the tip of the nose comb something that SpaceX can also just lift from the Dragon capsule this is how the Orion crew will link up with the Starship and transfer between Vehicles all of that stuff we just talked about is going to be a ton of work for SpaceX to accomplish over the next two years but there is still one more significant hurdle to overcome remember we we were talking earlier about the rocket equation there is more to putting stuff into space than just raw power alone the Starship super heavy booster offers up to twice the thrust of the old Saturn V and it can deliver twice the payload to the Moon 100 metric tons and that payload also comes wrapped up inside a gigantic 9 meter wide by 50 meter tall stainless steel spaceship but there is one major caveat here on its own using only the fuel that it launches with Starship cannot go beyond low earth orbit by the time Starship gets just a couple hundred miles above the Earth's surface it runs out of gas so in order to go any higher like say to the Moon Starship needs to refuel specifically it needs a lot more of the cryogenic liquid oxygen and a bit more liquid methane so before lunar Starship even becomes a legit possibility SpaceX actually needs to First perfect the tanker Starship the tanker variant is going to be a totally stripped down upper stage vehicle no wings no heat shield no legs no cargo fairing just fuel tanks from top to bottom but even with the extra large tanks the ship will need to burn most of its own fuel just to reach orbit that means that a reusable filler ship will have to go up and dock with the tanker to add more oxygen and methane to the reservoir but again even carrying nothing but fuel the ship still has to burn most of it just to reach orbit so it's going to require multiple docking Maneuvers just to fill one tanker ship with enough propellant to then refill the lunar Starship with enough to get it to the moon that's going to get really expensive really fast unless SpaceX can Master the fully reusable upper stage ship Elon Musk has said it can be as little as four tanker chips others have claimed as many as 16 launches will be required to fill one lunar Starship and before the lunar Starship can be verified for human space flight SpaceX will need to perform one uncrew demonstrate creation landing on the moon prior to Artemis 3. this puts a lot of pressure on SpaceX to deliver not just one functional Starship that can make it into orbit and come back down again in one piece but they have to make a lot of them and they don't have a whole lot of time left to do it meanwhile over at Nasa they have already flown one uncrewed Artemis Mission with the SLS and Orion to verify the flight hardware and thanks to the overwhelming success in 2022 NASA is clear for the first crude Artemis launch in 2024 that will feature a round trip with four astronauts in the Orion spacecraft they'll Circle the moon and then return home for a Splashdown fuel the content you love with the Tesla space and Space Race Store the store will be live on Sunday May 28th but here's how you can get exclusive Early Access and discount codes all you've got to do is visit shop.theteslaspace.com or click the link in the description and sign up with your email on Saturday May 27th you'll receive an email with your one-time discount code and a password to access the site before everyone else so don't miss out head over to shop.theteslaspace.com now to reserve your spot the SLS may have had its own share of difficulties in the development stage and it's pretty easy to argue that the rocket is way too expensive at around 4 billion dollars per launch and fragile and cumbersome and wasteful but now that the design has been proven NASA already has flight Hardware ready to go for Artemis 2 and Artemis 3. the core fuel tanks are already under construction while the main engines and side boosters are mostly just old space shuttle leftovers that are already good to go so while it is really fun and exciting to watch Starship test flights and explosions we're also literally looking at the future of human exploration into outer space hanging in the balance and that adds a lot of extra weight to everything that is unfolding right now now with SpaceX at Boca Chica these are exciting times if you're interested in following along more closely with new developments in the space flight industry you should hop over and 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