Lunar SpaceX Starship Funding Means Human Rated SHS By 2023 or 2024

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The $2.9 billion NASA funding for the SpaceX Lunar Starship means that a Starship will get man-rated for four astronauts. This means getting the chance of loss of crew less than one in 500 for a lunar landing. SpaceX Lunar Starship will only initially support four astronauts because the launch will be performed by SLS and Orion. Orion can only hold four astronauts. SpaceX Lunar Starship will receive those astronauts and land them on the moon.

This funding boost will make it easier for SpaceX to get Super Heavy Starship (SHS) man-rated for earth launch and landing.

SpaceX is also working to launch about 9 people for the Dear Moon lunar orbit mission for the Japanese Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. The NASA lunar mission and the Dear moon lunar orbit mission are targeting 2023.

Dear moon will be using a validated man-rated launch and landing. The NASA Artemis will be using a man-rated lunar landing.

The SpaceX Starship can hold 100 tons of payload and Elon Musk has indicated future versions could take 200 tons of payload to orbit.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon 2 weighs about 6 tons. They have held a crew of four. They can hold up to seven.

A SpaceX Starship could hold sixteen Crew Dragons as escape pods for mission abort. Four rings of four Crew Dragons could be used as mission abort. This would enable a maximum crew of 112 to all have escape pods. They would be seated in the escape pods during the launch and landing.

The Crew Dragon 2 has already been certified for crew abort and is man-rated.

Crews of 112 would mean in five missions SpaceX would be able to more than double the total number of astronauts in human history. As of April 18, 2021, a total of 569 people from 41 countries have gone into space according to the FAI criterion (579 people have qualified when including the US Department of Defense classification. A total of 569 people from 41 countries have gone into space according to the FAI criterion. Safely launching 112 at a time on reusable rockets that launch every day or every week means we could double the humans who have ever been to space in the first week of full flight operations. It can mean 22,000 to 35,000 people launched into space with 200 to 300 launches per year.

SOURCES- SpaceX, ErcX Space, Smallstars, Apogee
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

15 thoughts on “Lunar SpaceX Starship Funding Means Human Rated SHS By 2023 or 2024”

  1. 2023? but nobody counted with the fearce competition which is well able a delay considerable a prestigeous project.

  2. I wouldn't say Bezos is close. He's yet to put anything in orbit. Getting to space is easy. Getting to orbit takes skill.
    Blue Origin is just an expensive toy for a billionaire. It will never catch up to SpaceX. Even if it did catch up today, next year it would be 5 years behind all over again.
    SpaceX is getting faster at making improvements.
    Bezos/BO has no chance of doing anything meaningful.

  3. I don't see the SLS ever launching. It's a pork product if ever there was one.
    I'm thinking Starship will deliver Japanese astronauts to the Moon before any American astronauts. Unlike the space race of the 1960's where America beat the USSR to the moon, America will lose to Japan.
    It's utterly ridiculous to keep the SLS charade going. These politicians need to be held accountable somehow. But they won't.

  4. Perhaps the Starship they'll build for Maezawa's DearMoon will end up as the first lunar "bus," docking with HLS Starship in lunar orbit and transferring crew and cargo.
    I don't see a point in bringing HLS back to LEO. Tanker Starships could also go lunar and sort out HLS when it's low.

    How SLS survives the first Orion docking with Starship, on public perception alone, seems impossible. After that, making SpaceX sole provider of all things lunar seems inevitable, whatever cries Bezos may utter are pointless until he starts landing boosters. He's the only one that's close and he's a whole tier behind, partial reusability. It's so exciting how things have changed. 80 something successful booster landings. Very interesting times around the corner with full reusability.

  5. Why do i feel like SpaceX will fly the lander to the moon a half dozen times for tests until they get it right and then the final one will go on the SLS launch because that's what NASA paid for 😛

  6. SpaceX will own both Artemis Starships and can do as it pleases with them after delivering on the contract services. It will also own the Dear Moon Starship to transport humans to them in Lunar orbit and Cargo/Tankers to refill them. It will have a complete Lunar transport system. If NASA wants to use it, it is free to pay SpaceX to jump through the hoops of making it human-rated.

  8. I like the idea of using Dragon capsules as escape pods on the Starship, as a quick route to man rating. But there are some complications.

    One could be added easily enough as a nose cone, but multiple Dragons would have to be behind panels, likely mounted with explosive bolts. This would suggest not a ring, as you wouldn't want such panels subject to full reentry heat. Just an array on the cool side.

  9. Thanks
    A lot is happening in China lately, people need to know, ignorance will not help West in competing with China.
    They've also sent some mining/space debris catching spacecraft 2 days ago and space station today (this I am sure you know)

    + China Voyager like mission
    https://spacenews.com/china-to-launch-a-pair-of-spacecraft-towards-the-edge-of-the-solar-system/

    https://spacenews.com/china-launches-space-mining-test-spacecraft-on-commercial-rideshare-mission/

  10. My prediction is SLS will fly a couple of token times, to allow the politicians to save face (see? it launched, it wasn't just a jobs program), then the full lunar missions start going there in a Lunar Starship from Earth's orbit after refueling, with the astronauts getting in an out of Starship in Earth orbit from a Crew Dragon or the Boeing capsule (it will fly by then, we hope).

    But it may happen that SLS is so broken that it has to be 'delayed' and replaced, but it will require a real change of the politicians behind it.

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