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We won't have to bring any food to the Moon on our next trip because we can order out from the local Chinese Russian or Indian restaurants.

the return to the moon is like fusion power, it’s always just 5 years away.

If nasa needs more computing power than the Apollo missions, my cell phone is available to do the calculations

If it is logistically so difficult to do a moon landing now, with todays’ technology….how did we ever manage in the 1960’s? Or did we?

Now you have to do a vid on why the Apollo rocket was able to do it on its own and why we aren't using a similar plan.

I'm willing to bet anybody here any amount of money that you will not see Man on the Moon by 2026

It's made of cheese. They had to change the type of cheese a few decades ago and thats why we haven't been to Mars, which is made of Mars bars, but thats a different story. The moon is more than 4 acres wide and that's a lot of cheese to have to take up there. I hear one day the aim is to make the moon entirely of fresh buffalo mozzarella, I do I hope I live to see that. Whatever cheese the moon is made of, I love it.

Can't land on the moon anymore????? Ummmmm that's like saying you forgot how to build a car. You mean to tell me y'all figured it out once but in 60 years of advances in technology you can't figure it out again??? Sounds to me like they never landed on the moon in the first place.

My view is that Artemis is screwed. BUT it is a forcing function to make orbital refueling happen. I really want orbital refueling to work. It unlocks so much of the solar system.

That whole spaceship landing concept on the moon is crazy. They will never be able to land that tall tower safely on the uneven moon surface without having it toppling down. There is a reason why the LEM looked like a spider 50 years ago.

Oh come on.. we went to the moon in 1969 in a 65 Chevy and two rolls of duct tape..

That first 2 minutes reminded me of ‘The Underpants Gnomes’!! Hahaha Phase 1: collect underpants Phase 2: ???? Phase 3: profit. Hehehehe 🧙🏻‍♀️

5:01 It's important to note that the Dynetics wasn't chosen mainly because the lander had large negative mass margins in early designs. Meaning that the lander would only work if it lost weight as more of the design was figured out, which is highly problematic and unreasonable at that point in the design. Besides that, Dynetics lacked a lot of the technical expertise that both Blue and SpaceX had

We put men on the moon 55 years ago using 4 bit, hand wired, analog computers. And yet, here in the 21st Century, we can't look at the all the blueprints and data from The Apollo Program? Your average gaming PC has more computing power that NASA had total.

The fact that NASA is now subcontracting other companies to make a lander just shows me how far they've fallen.

The starship part is like telling a child Santa doesn’t exist to a spacex fan

I will finish homework tomorrow, I promise

That starship lander always made me nervous, glad I'm not the only one

14:46 same here I'm a product designer and what you said at the end really resonated with me. What has often happened is that I would describe how to do something to someone and they would say this cannot work, but to me it was so obvious I could not understand how they could not see it. On the other hand, when I look at projects like SpaceX or space travel in general, I'm like, this won't work, this is stupid, but actually I am the stupid one.

DUDE sound like a GEN-Z who just realised he is in the TRUMAN show, BUT still loves the lights and the set.

Boil-off is a significant problem with unpressurized tanks like Starship has. I've wondered about this many times. Using cryo oxygen and methane in the booster is fine. It gets burned up much faster than it can boil away. In the starahip, you need pressure vessels for the fuel to keep the fuels in a liquid state despite temperatures well above boiling points of the fuel.

The relatively puny service module on Orion is going to possibly come back and haunt the Artemis program. I'm more worried about Orion, which doesn't fly frequently, than Starship. The low cadence of both SLS and Orion mean they will forever be experimental machines and not reliable. The Artemis program doesn't need Orion nor SLS. One part of NASA is studying how to use Dragon to take a crew to and back from LEO, and dock with Starship. The HLS, can do everything else. No need for the "Lunar Toll Booth" either, nor the expensive and low-cadence SLS-Orion architecture. Also, by eliminating SLS-Orion - huge, huge cost savings as well. Each SLS launch is $4.2 billion, versus around $120 million for all the flight hardware and launches for Starship, and another $200 million for two Dragon on F9 launches ( less if only one launch is needed, if SpaceX can make Dragon capable of loitering in LEO for a month on its own). More than an order of 10 times savings. Dragon flies three to four times a year now, and is proven. Orion has flown twice in 10 years and has issues. Starship already has flown more times than SLS, and each flight is improving on the previous one. By this time next year, Starship will likely have flown more times than SLS ever will, and do it before its second flight. If Artemis III is a LEO test run, similar to Apollo 9, it'll be the most expensive LEO mission ever performed. I also don't expect the next SLS-Orion launch until at least 2026. A lunar landing is NET 2028, maybe later and closer to the 60th anniversary of Apollo 11 than Apollo 8. At that point, it will be just like the 1960s race to the Moon, with the potential for the Chinese to get there first. I have faith in SpaceX, but using SLS-Orion is the bigger issue, not really mentioned in the video.

Imagine how hard it was in the 60's with all the computer power of a Texas instruments calculator. Amazing😂

I would imagine there's a lot of stuff NASA doesn't tell us about the Moon. It isn't going anywhere anytime soon. When they sort out the problem of the dust being attracted to everything, then perhaps we will have Moon bases and tourism.

Several times you said “what Space X isn’t telling you…”. It is not true. Space X and NASA and other sites talk about the need for refueling, development of a starship that will land on the moon on a regular basis. However, your wanting to put the proverbial cart before the horse. Right now the most important thing is making sure starship makes it to orbit and returns. That’s the same for the booster as the booster may need to be reused and needs the quick turnaround.

You hit on many items I have thought about and you made an awesome video about it. Moon not gonna happen, Mars not gonna happen, In it current configuration and projections. Two words... Snake Oil. I enjoy watching the circus. I would like to see them succeed. I have no idea why this channel just now popped up on my feed. I subscribed and rang the bell.

Wait we went to the moon in 1969, but we can not launch a rocket out of orbit with enough fuel?

Awesome video! I loved the editorial. Dustin, from "Smarter everyday" also had very strong candor with NASA in front of them. the 6 days orbit is ridiculous.

Comparatively, it's actually much easier to use a moon cycler, than to depend on the Lunar Gateway, the Orion Capsule and the Earth Departure Stage. If you've got what's essentially a big space station orbiting between the Earth and Luna, requiring very little fuel to do so, you can maximize attention on getting a functional lunar taxi.

Ignoring the timeline and budget. Neither are doable (until they prove me wrong). I love how you explained how they are going to do this. They're problem solvers (and if apollo 13 taught us anything, good ones). Don't start working on the landing legs problem until you've sorted the travel problem, don't start the travel problem until you've sorted the fuel transfer problem (allegedly they have). Just keep working down the pipeline.

I honestly think a starship moon lander is a horrible idea. It doesn’t make any sense to land something like that, seems like an unnecessary risk. I hope I’m wrong but Musk builds a reality distortion field that puts Steve Jobs to shame.

Building a refuel station makes a lot of sense. Not just for the moon mission but future space travels. It wouldn't surprise me if SpaceX wants to use this method for Mars.

So Sad. We went to the moon in less than 10 years in the 60s, doing everything from scratch. Now we (a) know we can do it, and (b) know how to do it. But there isn't any real will to do so.

You're right. There is a lot left to figure out, and a lot that has never been done before. I wasn't aware that the landing crew wouldn't be able to return to the lunar station except once a week. The old Apollo low lunar orbit allowed aborts at almost any time. That sounds a lot safer.

I love this video. It's really refreshing to watch a thorough rational critique of how crazy this plan is, rather than the usual "everything is awesome, nothing can fail" circlejerk we find back on the spacex reddit. Let's acnowledge how amazingly far we've come already in spaceflight and how far we still have to go in the project to make life multiplanetary, while understanding how brittle and vulnerable the endeavour is. Thanks for this.

It's amazing and impressive that humans went to the Moon, landed, and return to Earth with a fraction of a fraction of the technology we have today. Orson Welles and others have spoken of how creativity and solution finding is increased by the presence of limitations, in the face of hard determination. I also have to think people were simply smarter fifty-five years ago. We certainly had a better education system, and a better educated populace then.

12:33 OMG GREAT FILM OF the practise lander!!! .. I'm Not a diehard fan like many my age ( watched the last moon landing on live TV) .... BUT I am fairly certain I have never seen this practice lander film before!! thank you for including it!!! :)

Thank you for being unbiased. Call it like you see it because you're not alone in thinking this could be a catastrophe.

What I seriously don’t understand is we literally landed on moon like 60 years ago . Why are we starting from scratch, what happened to all the knowledge we gathered, why not build on top of that??

Concern about sls2 first, will it be possible for it in Sep, 2025? May be delayed to 2026/2027?

I've personally been of the mind that we need to build a nuclear powered cargo tug in orbit. Maybe it could use liquid Co2 as reaction mass?

This is perhaps the best episode you've ever created

Just keep asking questions my friend. Good / bad / indifferent answers are the only way we can have honest conversations. Love ur channel ❤

Excellent job ... very informative and the humility with which you gave the material is commendable.

I think using Starship a a lunar lander is a stupid idea. SpaceX should have developed a Lunar Dragon version rather than this, if they wanted to land on the moon. All it takes is one glitch, and Artemis comes home with half her crew. This has a great chance of being more dangerous than Apollo ever could have been.

When I play Kerbal Space Program 1, that polar highly elliptical orbit is the easiest for ONE thing - having a launch time that does not exactly coincide with an intercept (because the Orion will be almost stationary at its apogee, widening the potential intercept window by HOURS.) I cannot think of a single reason why NASA might wish to depart the moon abruptly but that functionality of the mission seems to be the only upside of the NRHO.

"Infinite Faith" is necessary to believe Artemis has a Snowball's chance in hell.

I know this video was about the Moon, but let's talk about Mars! When we first landed on the Moon in 1969, everyone was saying that we would land humans on Mars within the next 10 years, or 1979. I kept telling people that it would not happen during my lifetime. They said I was crazy, and I still say the same thing today some 55 years later! People have little idea of the kinds of problems that remain to be solved before such a trip could be made. Some of the problems might be solvable. But the BIGGEST problem is one that CAN NOT be solved: The speed of light! Under the best of conditions, the round-trip communications delay to Mars is on the order of 20 minutes. When we landed on the moon, the delay was only about 3 seconds. We had hundreds of people here on Earth monitoring everything about the spacecraft and could give the astronauts advice about any problems within 3 seconds. Landing on Mars, the astronauts would be COMPLETELY on their own without any help from Earth. Do we REALLY want to do that?

The starship concept is completely idiotic, from the insane multiple refueling flights, to the inevitable self-inflicted fatal damage the spacex lander will receive when it tries to leave the moon.

Topple. Have we seen this happen in recent lunar landings? This all sounds not so good.

I don't have infinite faith in their ability. I have faith in the ability of an arrogant bully to cause a disaster. That happens all the time.

NASA: Not A Space Agency

It's probably taboo to mention them here but Common Sense Skeptic has a very detailed breakdown of exactly how SpaceX landed the Artemis contract. Spoiler alert: they essentially bribed the interim NASA director with a high paid cushy job if she chose them, which she did and immediately went to work for them.

No one is going to the moon anytime soon. Maybe if they ever get a lander in the next 15 to 20 years.

The upshot, however, is that once that Starship lands, they have literally 100 tons of usable payload on the surface. Contrast that to Apollo 11 thru 17, where they only brought 100-250 kg of usable equipment to the lunar surface. This will be a seismic shift in what we can do in space.

A very good explanation of the current situation of space travel and how hard it is.

When they announced they'd be using the Starship, I knew they were not going to be anywhere close to their target date.

First video on the channel that makes sense and thank you for your sobriety in talking about the topic, as most people think the landing on the moon is like playing video games.

I remember reading in the late 70's about razor sharp quartz dust found in the Apollo Luna samples that would quickly scar, abrade and degrade the seals on articulated space suits giving each one about 3-4 days safe external use before needing to be replaced. Thats a lot of suits for an extended Luna vacation for even 2 adventitious astronauts ....

Great video. Thanks for this.

15 starship launches is stupid. We need high ISP engines like nuclear thermal rockets using LH2. This tech isn't new it's been known since the 60s and thermal engine design is *relatively* simple and compact

Ain't NO WAY 2035 maybe 2040 more likely. Neither Starship nor Artemis will be ready to go to the Moon for at least 7 to 10 years at least

Dude you know we've been to the moon before. It's not unprecedented at all. It's not going to be easy but nothing worthwhile is.

Ohhhhh. Not only did we NOT go to the moon, we're not GOING back to the moon. Got it

The Artemis moon plan moves all the orbital energy problems from the capsule to the lander. A better approach would be to have a better Mrion service module like the Apollo service module. This would make a safer circular low orbit possible. The lower orbit would let the lander need less power.

The contract should have been given to blue origin. The had the best proposal, the best management, and most importantly, a CEO that is all in on the mission. We will never go to the moon using starship. They spent 3 out of $5 billion and they’re still in the design phase of starship.

I do like the work you did to list all the problems that need to be overcome to land on the moon. It would have been much easier to take proven designs like Saturn V and update the LEM/CSM designs. The idea anything could land the Starship HLS without it tipping over is pretty crazy.

What about the constellation program with an eight person module and Aerojet Rocketdyne, which was creating the booster for the rocket

A series of technological miracles are needed for this complex mission to work-which won’t happen. It will be canceled before the end of the decade.

Hopefully the Chinese will allow them to land.

I imagine with fast turnaround launches, you could get away with fewer propellant Starships (say 6), each launching 5 times a piece. Still a very tall task and I get your point about ‘this is still really difficult’

The autonomous tall skinny moon landing part is by far the most perilous and challenging part in my opinion. If the crewed ship tips over that is almost certainly a death sentence. The ship has to be coming down with for all in tent and purpose zero horizontal speed and the landing gear has to be able to instantly self level while hoping there is no major shift in the surface material at point of contact.

does the new design Blue Origin lander that was awarded a backup contract solve any of these issues potentially?

I like how everyone is reacting to the insane refueling problem.

I remember the sixties NASA missions . Getting to the moon was hard, but they did it multiple times.

Rocket tipping over will be sorted by the top mounted rockets. Noone has done a tower catching the rocket before but no one ever reused rockets before either. There's a reason they are testing and theu will work it out, as the only way to work out an issue is to be there and see what issues come up that have to be solved. It takes time

I am a little confused, why does NASA need the SLS when they have space X building the starship or the other way around?

I agree the lander can seem a little problematic. But 3 reusable starships could bring propellant into orbit and come back to be refilled.

Pretty sure the delta-v to LEO is much higher than from LEO to Moon, possibly it's even higher than from LEO to landing to Moon and returning to Earth. For keeping the fuel frozen, turning the tanker nose-first towards the Sun should be more than enough. Having a simple "umbrella" shade to cover whatever needs covering would fix what that wouldn't fix. That doesn't mean there aren't a whole bunch of unanswered/untried questions but some of the things brought up in the vid seem to be somewhat weird to say the least.

I started working at NASA MSC (now JSC) in June 1963 and worked in life support vacuum chamber testing for for 35. I have no experience with boosters, spacecraft, etc., but I have an idea how government works. When it was announced that the Shuttle program would end, I predicted it would be 2020 before we launched our own crews again. (I think I have a document attesting that.) When it was announced the lunar landing would be moved up from '28 to '24, I said they would be lucky to make '28. I like the idea of another flight to the moon with time spent in orbit (an advance from Apollo 8), but nothing looks good about the plans for landing. :(

'We'll figure it out'? No, I think they said ... 'Kathy, if you give us this contract, we'll arrange a cushy GM job for you at SpaceX'

It really boggles the mind that NASA approved that behemoth to be their lander. So much risk in an automated landing too.

Yeah reminds me of the presentation by Smarter-Every-Day Destin to the aerospace industry for Artemis. He made great points, well worth a watch.

This is the realist article you have done on this channel. You cannot land a Starship on the moon without a landing pad. What do you do with the first test Starship you land on the moon? What do you do with any of the starships you land on the moon after you use them and return back to orbit?

Videos like this make me wonder at the fact we managed to land on the moon 55 years ago

The thing about using starship to land on the moon is it's the times at least the size of what was used to land the last time and with it supposedly landing upright is it's gonna sit a hole with its massive engines and will suffer the chance of it toppling over I would think they'd have to make a car park like flat structure first to be able to land such a big lander like starship but that in itself is a major task maybe if they could land starship horizontally they'd stand a better chance of success but again that in itself is a major change to the starship design so yeah I don't see how they could use a lander the size of starship to land on the moon .

16 starships with 33 enginges on the booster + 6 enginges on the starship = 624 engine activations to fly to orbit and then you add another 3*16 + 1 * 16 for the landing = 64 + 624 = 688 starts and shutt-offs + another few dozends to meet up in orbit and the moon orbit ~ 700 and then you are on the same location that took SaturnV about 15 lmao

It’s very hard to tell what is marketing and what is actually true. Like Artemis 3, NASA has changed the mission profile so many times who knows what is next we might not have the next moon landing till 2030. I don’t want to say NASA is in the wrong, space flight is extremely hard but in the end it is taxpayer dollars being spent and the people want results. Apollo was a great mission that helped the general public understand how great space flight is, but NASA made the wrong call. As you said in one of your latest video’s it is interesting to think about if NASA kept going to the moon maybe we would be at mars right now and who knows maybe on Titan.

The other issue is the heat shield. Starship is not going to be reusable without a complete check and fix of the heat shield each time. This means that there will need to be 10 to 15 starships built to do the refuelling within a short period.

This video is super refreshing!! Thank you for not being afraid to speak up and say it like it is; far too much fangirling going on in this industry for sure. The rocket equation is still just as important as it was way back at the end of the nineteenth century! The answer is not refueling, it's staging

Even if Starship could land on the moon (it won't) it's just BEGGING to tip over and leave astronauts marooned on the moon.

WAIT A SECOND.... They didnt need to do this in 1969 during the Apollo Moon Landings! What is going on, I wonder?

So what you're telling me is... we never went to the Moon. 👍

Once the spaceship gets into space, it can use renewable energy like wind and solar. I hear those are super efficient and cost less.

What were the guys at NASA smoking, when they selected the Space-X lander? The Apollo lander was 23 feet tall with 31 feet wide legs. It had a 12-degree slope limit on the ground. The Starship is 30 feet wide, and 165 feet tall. There is NO level ground on the Moon.

I don't get it.Dublicate the tech and hardware used originally from Apollo and up grade the tech and hardware ?What am I missing here?

"NEAR-RECTAL LINEAR ORBIT???" OUCH! SOUNDS RISKY AND PAINFUL!

I think you're absolutely right on these topics. I too want to see them succeed. Biggest thing is coming up with a launch vehicle that's not going to need all the refueling. And make that reusable. Then we'll be getting somewhere.

In 1974, a fellow dorm friend and I played Lunar Lander on a Teletype. He found an account with some time in it, and optimized the game.