> Conversely, if SpaceX and Blue Origin can’t make cryogenic refueling work, then NASA has no plan B for landing on the moon.
If SpaceX and Blue Origin can't. Then Nasa will find someone who can. Cryogenic refueling is the projects real engineering target. Landing on the moon in the twenty twenties just isn't that impressive anymore.
The Artemis program is nominally about going to the moon, but it really isn't. It's about building and living in habitats beyond low orbit, in orbit refueling, building habitats on the surface of another planetary body, and obviously in the future in situ resource extraction and surface refueling.
If the mission was to land on the moon, a carbon copy of the Apollo program would do. But the mission is to prove they can do what it takes to go to and return from Mars.
If SpaceX and Blue Origin can't. Then Nasa will find someone who can. Cryogenic refueling is the projects real engineering target. Landing on the moon in the twenty twenties just isn't that impressive anymore.
The Artemis program is nominally about going to the moon, but it really isn't. It's about building and living in habitats beyond low orbit, in orbit refueling, building habitats on the surface of another planetary body, and obviously in the future in situ resource extraction and surface refueling.
If the mission was to land on the moon, a carbon copy of the Apollo program would do. But the mission is to prove they can do what it takes to go to and return from Mars.