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NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

(www.cnn.com)
404 points voxleone | 2 comments | 21 Oct 25 12:58 UTC | HN request time: 0.514s | source
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dtj1123 ◴[21 Oct 25 13:44 UTC] No.45655736[source]▶
Remind me why we need to get to the moon again?
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kulahan ◴[21 Oct 25 19:46 UTC] No.45660749[source]▶
For a serious answer: it's a lot cheaper to launch rockets from there, and we're running out of stuff to do in the region immediately surrounding Earth.
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1. henryfjordan ◴[21 Oct 25 20:15 UTC] No.45661094[source]▶
Is it? You have a build a whole fuel refinery on the Moon before it's worth even thinking about.

And even then, you have to get whatever you want to launch to the moon in the first place...

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2. kulahan ◴[21 Oct 25 20:42 UTC] No.45661436[source]▶
Building the fuel refinery is a high upfront cost which will quickly disappear. The delta-V required to exit Earth's surface is nearly an order of magnitude higher than what's required to exit the Moon's surface, and the moon is full of fuel.