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Posted on 10/31/2025 11:30:42 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
To return Americans to the Moon, SpaceX aligned Starship development along two paths: development of the core Starship system and supporting infrastructure, including production facilities, test facilities, and launch sites -- which SpaceX is self-funding representing over 90% of system costs -- and development of the HLS-specific Starship configuration, which leverages and modifies the core vehicle capability to support NASA's requirements for landing crew on and returning them from the Moon. SpaceX is working under a fixed-price contract with NASA, ensuring that the company is only paid after the successful completion of progress milestones, and American taxpayers are not on the hook for increased SpaceX costs. SpaceX provides significant insight to NASA at every stage of the development process along both paths, including access to flight data from missions not funded under the HLS contract.
Both pathways are necessary and made possible by SpaceX's substantial self-investments to enable the high-rate production, launch, and test of Starship for missions to the Moon and other purposes. Starship will bring the United States back to the Moon before any other nation and it will enable sustainable lunar operations by being fully and rapidly reusable, cost-effective, and capable of high frequency lunar missions with more than 100 tons of cargo capacity.
(Excerpt) Read more at spacex.com ...
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Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
On Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, SpaceX launched its 10,000th Starlink satellite to low Earth orbit. The milestone came less than a decade after launching its prototypes, named Tintin A and Tintin B, back in 2018.
With ambitions to have upwards of 40,000 Starlink satellites in orbit eventually, and multiple launches in support of this constellation happening weekly, Spaceflight Now learned more about how SpaceX was able to achieve its success and what it means. Reporter Will Robinson-Smith spoke with Caleb Henry, Director of Research at Quilty Space, and Dr. Jonathan McDowell, an X-ray astronomer and expert orbital tracker, to contextualize SpaceX's place in the LEO landscape and how its future plans should be considered.10,000 Starlinks: How SpaceX shocked the space world | 15:06
Spaceflight Now | 382K subscribers | 348 views | October 24, 2025
C'mon, let's go space truckin'.
The “Orchestra Wives” YouTube clip of “I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo” shows The Great One playing upright bass. 🎻
To the Moon maybe, but beyond is not in the cards for even one human soul.
I was hoping...
SpaceX Fires Back: We’re Still NASA’s Best Bet for the Moon | 17:07
Ellie in Space | 212K subscribers | 44,159 views | October 30, 2025
I couldn’t get one to post in time lol 😆
Good work!!
Sez you.
That’s a relief, this topic is useless without pics.
😄😃🤣🤣
Lol a denier!
Will Starlinks coverage from Earth extend to the moon or is that way too far away?
Yep.
It ain’t easy out there for peeps that question the Muskmeister.
Can you imagine a dual-body satellite orbit to try to pull that off?
She figured Ralph was such a puddy tat, he’d never come through on that much-repeated threat.
SpaceX will not be ready in time - it could be ready in 15 years or so. Getting a lunar lander man-rated and certified will take 7 years on the fast track, if there were on built now, and that would have to be after it passed its design review, which takes years more.
Only the Alpaca has passed its design review. And now NASA has put the lander contract out for bids. SpaceX is not even in the running. There are simply too many hurdles for SpaceX to get man-rated for either the Starship or its non-existent lunar lander - that’s if Musk was focused on the Moon, which he is not. Mars is his goal, the Moon is someone else’s problem; perhaps Blue Origin & Blue Moon will succeed.
Further, StarShip itself landing on the Moon has many, many problems, not the least is, it is top heavy and prone to fall over on the rough, rocky, boulder-strewn surface.
NASA will have to find another provider to replace StarShip, as it has not even reached v3, let alone the v4 version needed for the lunar mission. Both those versions have yet to be tested, plus demonstrate refueling in space, pass design review, become man-rated and certified. Not something that will happen on 5 years, or even 10.
The Chinese, if they get their stuff together and they, unlike NASA and SpaceX, are focused on the Moon, hitting all their goals on time, will be there long before the current NASA lunar mess is sorted. They will claim & colonize the best landing spots around the Lunar South pole, and as much territory as they deem in their interests - with all the associated minerals.
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