The SpaceX Falcon 9 could be used to launch Crew Dragon to LEO, followed by a crew transfer to HLS/Starship for the lunar leg instead of using SLS and Orion. However, for long-term sustainability and cost-efficiency, transitioning to a full-Starship system makes more sense, as it eliminates dependencies and maximizes reuse.
Zubrin’s Gray Dragon Plan
Robert Zubrin (Mars Society founder) suggests replacing Orion with a modified “Gray Dragon” (Crew Dragon variant) for lunar orbits or missions. The plan uses SpaceX Falcon 9 to launch Dragon with crew to low Earth orbit (LEO) for checks.
Falcon Heavy (not crew-rated) to launch an upper stage with propellant to LEO, which docks with Dragon.
Two options:FH upper stage provides ~5 km/s delta-V: 3.1 km/s for trans-lunar injection (TLI), plus maneuvers for lunar orbit capture and trans-Earth injection (TEI).
Add a small propulsion stage (SPS-like) for extra delta-V (~2 km/s) for orbit capture and return, with FH delivering propellant.
This was outlined in a 2020 memo to NASA as “Artemis 8,” echoing Apollo 8.
Leveraging Red Dragon Heritage
To adapt Dragon for deep space (beyond its LEO optimization), draw from SpaceX’s canceled 2011-2017 Red Dragon project, which aimed at uncrewed Mars landings via Falcon Heavy.
Enhanced PICA-X heat shield (tested to exceed Stardust’s 12.9 km/s re-entry record).
Propulsive landing with SuperDraco engines (no parachute), enabling ~2 tons payload on Mars—scalable to Moon.
Modifications would need time, investment, and testing, but existing tech could streamline it.
Integrate with HLSA to Avoid Dragon Upgrades
Integrate with Starship HLSA simpler option avoids major Dragon upgrades. Launch refueled Starship Human Landing System (HLS) to LEO.
Falcon 9 sends Crew Dragon to LEO; crew transfers to HLS.
HLS transports crew to lunar surface and back to LEO.
Crew transfers back to Dragon for Earth re-entry; HLS stays in orbit for reuse.
This leverages Dragon’s proven LEO reliability and HLS for deep space/landing.
SLS + Orion Cost about $5.5 billion per mission. SLS launch is about $4.2 billion per mission.
Orion capsule is about $1 billion per mission and also need another $300 million for the European Service Module.
Falcon 9/Heavy + Dragon could bring the cost to about $500 million.
Falcon 9 launch is about $70 million or Falcon Heavy is ~$95-150 million.
Crew Dragon might need about $200-300 million for lunar upgrades.
The Starship HLS will be responsible for transporting astronauts from Orion in lunar orbit to the lunar surface and back.
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“transitioning to a full-Starship system makes more sense”
Makes sense to who?
Starship is not even remotely mission ready and their habits to lie and miss deadlines suggest that they will likely overestimate their readiness also in the future.
That makes much more sense applied to SLS Orion which has been in development with billion dollar annual budgets without much to show for it longer than SpaceX has existed.
Starship is actually fairly successful at launches – it’s the reuse part they haven’t gotten working, and that part isn’t essential for lunar missions, so long as you’re willing to throw money into expendable launches. Yes, expendable tankers to refill a Starship would be a major cost increase, certainly not sustainable long term.
OTOH, given the sorts of problems they’ve had on reentry, it looks like SpaceX COULD solve reusability if they’d sacrifice payload mass for extra propellant, allowing the Starship to do a longer retro-burn. Cutting down atmospheric entry velocity by 1 to 1.5 km/sec might reduce peak heating by 30%-50%. With that temporary change, they could focus more effort on perfecting tower catch and refurbishing for another flight. Work on improving heat resistance could continue in parallel, or perhaps be tested with Falcon 9 launching test articles. Overall the program would achieve success sooner, assuming it is possible at all.
Looked to me like at least 1-2 of their failures were due to switching to hot staging, and approaching it wrong: If you look at the Russian interstage for hot staging, they’re very open and somewhat long, to minimize obstruction of exhaust gasses. SpaceX instead went short and relatively closed, for no reason I can come up with except to make the interstage look like the rest of the rocket.
They figure they’ve got Falcon paying for this, so they can afford to lose a lot of rockets in development, (Which would be true if you neglected regulatory politics and PR aspects.) and so are trying to maximize lessons learned from each flight, not chance of success.
Anyway, barring further regulatory interference, I do expect Starship to be carrying payloads by early next year.
The best way to the Moon is to keep SLS and Falcon Heavy and forget Starship
NASA can’t afford SLS/Orion
It’s only a viable option if the objective is another flags and footprints stunt. SLS is a ludicrously expensive dead end.