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NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

(www.cnn.com)
404 points voxleone | 1 comments | 21 Oct 25 12:58 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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radu_floricica ◴[21 Oct 25 13:53 UTC] No.45655837[source]▶
I'm not really sure if keeping a strict schedule has any real relevance here, outside maybe PR and politics. Starships will drop the cost to other bodies in the same way Falcon dropped the cost to orbit. Why would anyone want to invest in a technology and a project that will be obsolete by the time it's implemented?
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sofixa ◴[21 Oct 25 14:00 UTC] No.45655910[source]▶
> Starships will drop the cost to other bodies

Assuming SpaceX can deliver it. They've failed to do a successful test flight with even a fraction of the officially planned capacity. Who knows how long it will take them, if they can even pull it off, to deliver it.

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destitude ◴[21 Oct 25 14:09 UTC] No.45656027[source]▶
They could have delivered today if they weren't concerned about reusability.
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1. philistine ◴[21 Oct 25 15:26 UTC] No.45656989[source]▶
Reusability is not a bonus like Falcon 9. The whole concept assumes reusability to refuel the lunar lander in Earth orbit since it cannot get to the Moon on its own. It must be refuelled between 10 and 20 times. They won't even say exactly how many times yet. You cannot just yeet that many Starships to get to the Moon once. You must reuse.