HLS Starship for Artemis Crew Missions

Congress and NASA have long stressed the importance of redundancy, especially with the recent sole selection of HLS spawning multiple hearings and a congressional mandate for NASA to have 2 landers. Yet Artemis has no for redundancy for crew delivery to the moon's orbit. This video series will investigate this dissonance and propose currently feasible methods for SLS redundancy.

Thumbnail Render: ERCX

Chapters:

0:00 Intro
3:45 What is Needed for Redundancy?
6:33 HLS Ferry
14:46 HLS Tow Truck
18:22 Summary
21:06 Final Thoughts

[Oculaz]

Seriously, the work that goes into these videos is astonishing. Please please please keep going. You have so much potential with this channel!

[joshuafitch]

I’m a Masters student in aerospace engineering and I’m a SpaceX intern and these videos teach me all sorts of new ideas and concepts! So well done.

Two comments on these concepts:
1) the ability to do free return abort trajectories is more dependent on trajectory design and timing of burns, so it *may* be possible to design a Starship TLI that allows for some time period of free return options. LEO capture is a different story.

2) for the second concept, adapting dragons heat shield to accommodate re-entry from cislunar space is not trivial and may not even be possible due to geometry, flight path angle, ablative material design, etc.

[mirien]

"Do you expect to just find a crew rated lunar vehicle in a junk drawer somewhere"

[Izayuukan]

It's taken YouTube 4 days to inform me of this video's release, but better late than never. I love this sort of content.

[richardmalcolm]

Re: HLS Tow Truck mods to Dragon: When "Grey Dragon" was last being bandied about, Elon also noted that Dragon would also need a major upgrade to its comms. Not a showstopper, to be sure; but something to note and add in to the development costs.

[saheem]

Brilliant video Kirtland. Love the in-depth breakdown. Only thing I was skeptical throughout the video was the $30 million price tag on starship. For early flights I was thinking more $150-$200 million but is still much cheaper and is within the allowable rate and I am sure that just like SLS, the more flights the less amount of $. Keep up the great work!

[devindykstra]

I love how much thought you clearly put into these proposals. No other channel I've seen discus these topics has ever mentioned the abort capability of SLS-Orion or the maximum thrust that the crew dragon docking port can handle. Absolutely amazing!

[isaacjohnson]

Can't wait to see you with like 1 mil subscribers and get to say I've been here since 18k!

[fish]

third time coming back to revisit this video, love the professionally made content, the thoughts and effort is outstanding

[freddo]

These videos are great. Keep it up. Don't let the YT algo get in your head.

[carsongbaker]

You are incredible. Graphics, content, and story telling are incredible.

[MrLegendary]

10:10 you meant to say "a full 2.1 billion dollars less than SLS"

[gavinkemp]

Great video, I hope your subscriber count explodes because honestly you videos are on par or atleast almost on par with everyday astronautes and vastly superior to a lot of other space commentators.
The tide bit I'd point out is that it doesn't make sense to have the tanker, the orbital tank and ferry at the same price point since the ferry would only be used for the lunar mission so the cost of the vehicle would have to take a significantly higher proportion of the cost. still we in different orders of magnitude so it wouldn't change your conclusion.

[abireeves]

Your channel is one of my faves, your vids are amazing!

[chillwill]

Ever since I discovered your channel about a month ago you have by far been the best Youtuber I have seen explaining the SLS missions and Starship Lunar Lander (or HLS). Your videos are so organized and the animations are so beautiful, and if I ever know someone that wants to learn more about the Artemis missions I will recommend your channel! So amazing :)

[huskyhuskyhusky]

Amazing content! You are the best Space youtube channel out there. Keep it up man!

[Talek_]

Great video once again! The tow truck method blew my mind! What a great idea. So smart

[Hokiek]

Great video, you need more exposure man. Love your work.

[drds]

Thank you for the new video! The podcast helped tide me over but I was starting to get the shakes and the sweets. I will update my comment after I finish watching. I just wanted to engage the algorithm first so it would help get the video out to more people.

[eccentricity]

"It's impossible to design any architecture that can withstand total failures at every single point"

No kidding lol