NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

There is just so much wrong with this from start to finish. Here are a few things, by no means inclusive:

1. We’ve already beaten China to the moon by 56 years, 3 months, and some change. And counting.

2. Nothing based around SLS is remotely serious. The cost and timeline of doing anything with it are unreasonable. It is an absolute dead-end. The SpaceX Super Heavy has been more capable arguably as early as the second flight test and certainly now. They could have built a “dumb” second stage at any time, but aren’t that short-sighted.

3. Blue Origin? I’ve had high hopes for the guys for two decades now. Don’t hold your breath.

4. Anyone else? Really, really don’t hold your breath.

This whole “race to the moon, part II” is almost criminally stupid. Land on the moon when we can accomplish something there, not just to prove we haven’t lost our mojo since Apollo.

Going to the moon is a symbol. It’s symbolic to China being better if China gets there first. It is the only reason why we want to go. There is no one else who can do it except for spacex, it’s likely he’s just applying pressure onto spacex.

Is it a valid reason? Depends on how prideful you are. Are you proud to be an American and are you proud to be the greatest economic super power on the planet?

For me it’s not valid. I don’t hold any pride about any country even though I’m American. Pride is a form of emotional bias.

If China becomes better, which is a highly likely possibility. The symbol of this being better is irrelevant.

In fact arguably China is already better than us in many ways.