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tsimionescuyesterday at 6:40 PM3 repliesview on HN

Given that SLS is the part of Artemis that has actually shown it works, and Starship is the part that is nowhere near schedule, and doesn't work, it's very funny to suggest that NASA should learn from SpaceX and not the other way around.

SpaceX hasn't even had the confidence to put Starship in LEO yet, and has not carried 1kg of real payload (and barely a few kg of test payloads) - while SLS did an orbit of the Moon, with real payload satellites.


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0xffff2yesterday at 6:46 PM

It's not like SLS is on schedule either, and it is absurdly more expensive than Starship. It's very likely that Starship will eventually be operational with lower total costs by any accounting measure. (And I say this as a current NASA contractor and current anti-fan of Musk)

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margalabargalayesterday at 6:52 PM

I think it's actually a reasonable comparison.

To OP's point, Artemis has cost $92 billion over 14 years. This has produced exactly one launch.

It's hard to put an exact timeline on Starship since a lot of its development overlaps with Falcon 9 using the same components, but it's inarguable that it has cost one tenth Artemis so far.

I agree that Starship has been plagued by delays and the capabilities are so far mostly just talk. However, it has flown a number of times, and I would be willing to make a strong bet that it will orbit the moon with real payload long before it catches up to Artemis in budget.

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cheschireyesterday at 6:49 PM

Isn’t SLS still costing like $4 b’s per launch?

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