We need to be realistic about timelines. Specifically, the timelines promulgated by Musk versus SpaceX. (Not an easy task, I know, in part because the latter is more sparing with such predictions.) But we should also be clear eyed about emerging capabilities.
Barring a major engineering challenge in in-orbit propellant transfer, Starship's fundamental design looks solid. V1 probably won't get a million people to Mars. But V1 Falcon couldn't be re-used twenty-odd times. The author is correct: national space agencies are copy pasting legacy missions onto paradigm-changing platforms.
The closest exception is NASA: Artemis is overly complicated for a single Moon landing, but its use of Starship on the Moon and for in-orbit re-fuelling is a bet-the-house play that could open a real space economy in propellant alone. (First, storage and shuttling. Later, manufacture.) To the degree Artemis might get canned, it's because Lockheed can't manufacture an Apollo-era heat shield [1], Bechtel can't build a non-catching tower [2] and NASA refuses to be mean to them.
We need to be realistic about timelines. Specifically, the timelines promulgated by Musk versus SpaceX. (Not an easy task, I know, in part because the latter is more sparing with such predictions.) But we should also be clear eyed about emerging capabilities.
Barring a major engineering challenge in in-orbit propellant transfer, Starship's fundamental design looks solid. V1 probably won't get a million people to Mars. But V1 Falcon couldn't be re-used twenty-odd times. The author is correct: national space agencies are copy pasting legacy missions onto paradigm-changing platforms.
The closest exception is NASA: Artemis is overly complicated for a single Moon landing, but its use of Starship on the Moon and for in-orbit re-fuelling is a bet-the-house play that could open a real space economy in propellant alone. (First, storage and shuttling. Later, manufacture.) To the degree Artemis might get canned, it's because Lockheed can't manufacture an Apollo-era heat shield [1], Bechtel can't build a non-catching tower [2] and NASA refuses to be mean to them.
[1] https://spacenews.com/nasa-inspector-general-report-highligh...
[2] https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ig-24-016.pd...