Moon Denied? SpaceX Starship Won't Make It To The Moon With Artemis III?

SpaceX Starship flight 4 work continues! The tiles are back!
Massive changes at the tank farm. Why are there so many sparks? Artemis III's plan changed? Starliner rolls out for launch! Relativity increases its tempo!

#SpaceX #starship #elonmusk #starbase

Editing: John Young, Alex Potvin, Stefanie Schlang
Photography: John Cargile, John Winkopp & Stefanie Schlang
3D Animation: Voop3D
Script & Research: Eryk Gawron, Oskar Wrobel, Felix Schlang
LIVE Production: Astro Roadie
Host: Felix Schlang
Production: Stefanie & Felix Schlang
Graphics & Media Processing: Jonathan Heuer, Felix Schlang

Credit:

⭐SpaceX
⭐NASA
⭐VirtualSpace_3D on X: @Lolomatico3d
⭐The Ring Watchers on X: @RingWatchers

📄Links for this Episode:

[Whataboutit]

What do you think? Would a light version of Artemis III make sense, or should NASA aim directly for a full-scale lunar mission?

[Sidewinderoli]

lets hope the doors are well fitted to Starliner ;)

[Hykje]

Hopefully, Starliner's door doesn't fall off after take-off.

[AeroGraphica]

"The first test launch will include 2 astronauts" are scary words, coming from Boeing.

[CLipka]

"Temba, his arms wide" made me laugh out loud!

[marthajohnson]

Once the issue with the heat shield has been resolved the program will move on to other concerns. SpaceX knows what works, learns from their mistakes and makes corrections that they test with each launch. I have no doubt they will solve the tile issue. Starship will survive re-entry and will become reliably reusable. I am eagerly waiting for the announcement of the next launch.

[i-love-space]

I was expecting this Artemis III flight change.
For one thing, Starship's development cycle is not looking like it will be fully ready with the tankers to go all the way to the moon so quickly. Apollo was an agile program that changed flight plans according to hardware availability.
I always thought jumping from an Apollo 8 style mission to an Apollo 11 style mission was simply ridiculous. Apollo was a crash program, but they had enough intelligence to build expertise and test hardware incrementally.
I would not be surprised if we had an Apollo 9 style test as you mention and maybe even a long stay test drive of Starship in lunar orbit before a landing. That might be achievable with little to no refueling if the payload of Starship is kept small on that flight. They might even have enough payload on SLS to carry a translunar "tug" stage to take Starship to lunar orbit without refueling and leave the Orion in Earth orbit for ascent and reentry to Earth. For that matter, Dragon 2 could fill that role without a need for another expensive and slow-to-build Orion.
The automated unmanned lunar landing of Starship will stand in for the Apollo 10 dress rehearsal mission. That will prove out the refueling plan and the safety of the landing profile for such a top heavy beast. I wouldn't be surprised if the first SpaceX automated landing fails to meet all the goals and NASA will require a second test.
Unlike Apollo, which had delta-V to burn with the Service Module blunderbuss and the Lunar Module engines, Orion doesn't even have the Delta-V to get itself out of a low lunar orbit and get home on its own. The Starship lander, and the other designs are the only way Astronauts could get back to the Gateway station from low lunar orbit.
The Artemis 2 mission is sort of puny when you consider Apollo 8 injected itself into low lunar orbit, made 10 orbits of the moon, and then blasted itself back toward Earth all on its own. Artemis 2 Orion is going to stay on a free return trajectory the whole way and never enter a stable orbit around the moon. That leaves an awful lot to prove during the lunar landing mission.

[SecondCalling]

Congratulations to the brilliant sharp pictures we are getting to see on a bi weekly basis. Awesome production value.

[naninano]

i heard thunderf00t is skeptical of this upcoming launch success. lets see. he is never wrong though

[swissbiggy]

I do hope that my gut feeling is But people around the world don't even want to fly in Boeing planes I'm afraid that Starliner will fail and that people will die... After that the whole Artemis program will come to a stop. ... Please, please, please let me be wrong on this.

I was born in '74 and never witnessed Apollo live, I will turn 50 later this year and do hope to see people land on the moon in my lifetime.... And no I do not care which nationality they have, American or Chinese that's all fine. Even better would be if they finaly started to work together, just imagine what could be reached in terms of science. ❤✌

Thank you Felix for yet another mindblowing video. 💯

[mustang]

If they use a virtual tower, SpaceX should be able to use a real camera to show in real time the virtual catch.

[chrischeshire]

Think back when Felix would say the names of all Patreon individuals. You've come a long way!

[muuubiee]

Ditch SpaceX as a lunar lander, change it to a super heavy lifter for cargo to LEO. Have Blue Origin do the moon landing. Make another contract to shuttle cargo from LEO to lunar orbit.
Make a small space station around the moon. Delay landing until like 2036 or something (no way it'll happen sooner).

[dgkcpa]

NASA would be well advised to use Apollo landers to scout planned landing sites for starship before attempting to land a craft of the size of a Saturn 1b on the moon.
In fact, NASA would be well advised to stop trying to reinvent the wheel, scrap SLS, and go back to Saturn/Apollo if they are serious about landing on the moon in this (or the next) decade.
Back in the 1960's, NASA went from drawing board to landing on the moon in 7 years without today's computers and modern manufacturing techniques.
In contrast, NASA has been working on the SLS/Ares/Artemis/ Constellation programs for the better part of this century and still does not have either a launch vehicle, crew capsule, or lander ready for a moon mission. I'd like to see them succeed, but we seem further away from the moon today than in 1962 when Kennedy made it this nation's goal to land on the moon before the decade was out.

[gnaskar]

We'll either see a perfect crewed launch from starliner or just a crude launch. It's a tossup at this point.

[InfantryLife.WarFighters]

It was amazing to see the starship enter the atmosphere

[gergelylangmar]

When I was 14 when landed Apolló 11 to the Moon.
A want to see the next Moon landing! :-)

[StoneUSA]

I'm split on the idea of an Artemis-lite mission, but I am in favor of any mission that takes us forward, and even though it would be disappointing to not see a full blown mission it's still a step forward so who am I to complain? My biggest 'wow' news is Relativity's speed. I thought the mechanics and engineers on Raptor were fast but this is a whole new level.

[plainText]

NASA should be more flexible with HLS schedule. They should make it first come, first serve, instead of designating SpaceX to Artemis 3&4 and Blue Origin to Artemis 5. If Blue Origin's team can get an HLS lander ready first, they should do Artemis 3 with BlueMoon instead of Starship. Imagine if NASA had insisted the first commercial crew flight to the ISS was done with Starliner, we would still be waiting until today.

[Yahzmann]

The U.S. Military WANTS Starship to work. GOODBYE red tape!😎