impressive. Elon tried to fire all 33 of his engine on the Starship and came up a little short as only 31 fired. I think the Artemis moon program, slow but steady, has a much better chance of success over Elon’s Mars shot.
“I think the Artemis moon program, slow but steady, has a much better chance of success over Elon’s Mars shot.”
I wouldn’t bet the farm on that, Elon is making great strides in his project and will soon bypass Nasa’s used rocket shop.
Elon tried to fire all 33 of his engine on the Starship
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It was not the Starship. It was a test of the 33 engines on the booster for the Starship.
Of the 33 booster engines: one was shut down before the test, and another shut down during the 5 second test.
The upshot was 6.5 million pounds of thrust from 31 engines - enough for the booster alone to reach orbit.
“The Artemis moon program”, aka SLS Program requires SpaceX to be successful:
The Human Landing System (HLS) is a spacecraft that can convey crew members from NRHO to the lunar surface, support them on the surface, and return them to NRHO. Each crewed landing needs one HLS, although some or all of the spacecraft may be reusable.
Each HLS must be launched from Earth and delivered to NRHO in one or more launches. The initial commercial contract was awarded to SpaceX for two Starship HLS missions, one uncrewed and one crewed as part of Artemis 3. These two missions each require one HLS launch and multiple fueling launches, all on SpaceX Starship launchers.
As of June 2022, NASA has also exercised an option under the initial contract to commission an upgraded Starship HLS design and third demonstration lunar mission under new sustainability rules it is drafting. It intends to pursue another HLS design from outside SpaceX in parallel, for redundancy and competition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program