To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (13050 ) 10/21/2024 2:50:11 AM From: elmatador Respond to In a harsh op-ed, Michael Bloomberg slams NASA’s Artemis program, calling it “a colossal waste of taxpayer money” after burning through $100 billion without landing a single astronaut on the moon. Despite admitting he "strongly supports space exploration," Bloomberg argues that NASA should hand the reins to private companies like SpaceX. "A reusable Starship can carry cargo and robots to the moon for a fraction of the cost—no need for NASA’s bloated SLS or Orion.” While Bloomberg says he supports space exploration, he insists the next U.S. president should rethink Artemis and lean on the efficiency of private companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX to lead the way. Fact?: The Artrmis project is also already 6 billion dollars over budget, costing the Treasury a staggering 4.1 billion dollars for each mission. NASA's competitors — namely, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and the space agencies of other nations — are launching rockets for far, far cheaper costs than the Artemis program. Personally speaking, having worked with NASA on lots of projects in past - there are some really bright engineers and scientists there who create amazing technologies. I've really enjoyed working with the NASA teams. But... the rest (most) of NASA is largely a procurement agency, adminstrator and integrator. Which would not be so bad, but the companies they chose to work with, like Boeing and Lockheed, have been lining their pockets, and have not innovated much. Example... the payload would cost $1 billion for Orion and $300 million for the European Service Module. An October 2023 report found that recurring production costs for SLS, excluding development and integration costs, are estimated to be at least $2.5 billion *per* launch. In contrast, SpaceX's Starship has more than twice as much thrust as SLS. Super heavy produces 17 million lbs at launch, and the spacecraft, about 3 million. SpaceX is 10X cheaper with 30X lower cost overrun than NASA in lifting payload into space. Why? Because SpaceX is platform-based, NASA not. Currently each launch costs about $100 million, but that is still 40 percent less per kilogram than the Falcon 9 given the higher volume available on board the Starship rocket system. But Elon Musk estimates that it would cost as little as $10 million per launch within a few years as they reach expected frequent launch volume. Translation: Yes, about time. SpaceX should now play a larger role in getting us to the Moon and Mars.
