NASA Announces Artemis Lunar Landing Zones
As NASA prepares to send astronauts back to the Moon under Artemis, the agency has identified 13 candidate landing regions near the lunar South Pole. Each region contains multiple potential landing sites for Artemis III.
Artemis III will be the first of the Artemis missions to bring crew to the lunar surface, including the first woman to set foot on the Moon.
“Selecting these regions means we are one giant leap closer to returning humans to the Moon for the first time since Apollo,” said Mark Kirasich, deputy associate administrator for the Artemis Campaign Development Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “When we do, it will be unlike any mission that’s come before as astronauts venture into dark areas previously unexplored by humans and lay the groundwork for future long-term stays.”
More: NASA Identifies Candidate Regions For Artemis Lunar Landing Sites
3 responses to “NASA Announces Artemis Lunar Landing Zones”
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SLS is slated to cost north of $1B a flight and Starship, according to Musk is likely to cost around $2M a flight to LEO. That is one 500th the cost of SLS. Given this sort of cost Starship could do a moon trip for $20-30M (with LEO refueling). That is between one fiftieth and one thirtieth of the cost of SLS.
In the interests of redundancy shouldn’t NASA contract a few flights to the moon on Starship? For the cost of one SLS you’d get between thirty and fifty Starshp flights. That might be a worthwhile backup to SLS.
That’s what Mr. Musk says a Starship flight _might_ eventually cost, when if they get operations running as smoothly as commercial airliners do. Which may take decades, since that’s how long it took for airliners. You should assume $25 million or so (cost) and perhaps a $50 million price. Including tanker flights, maybe half a billion for a lunar landing. And Starship can’t get to the lunar surface and back to Earth without more refueling in lunar orbit. Even so, it would still cost less than SLS.
You are forgetting the additional $1B for the orion that SLS is sending to the moon. If you can get starship from earth to moon and back you could do crew delivery in Leo by dragon if there is a concern launching crew on starship.