🌕 How SpaceX & NASA Plan to Establish the First Moon Base 🚀 | AI Revolution - video Dailymotion

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Transcript

00:00Let's talk about how human beings are going to return to the moon in this decade.

00:06The Artemis program is spearheaded almost entirely by NASA with a few partner space agencies

00:11and private companies helping out along the way, chief among them all being SpaceX,

00:16who are tasked with delivering the lunar starship vehicle that will actually allow

00:21astronauts to touch down on the moon's surface for the first time in over 50 years.

00:26As with all things in the spaceflight industry, the Artemis program is in a constant state of flux.

00:33Timelines and flight plans are being revised and rewritten as different variables come into play.

00:39It can be a bit difficult to keep track of, so today we are focusing in on how SpaceX and NASA

00:45are going to return a human presence to the moon.

00:48Even though SpaceX is essentially just functioning as a NASA subcontractor in the grand scheme of the

00:59Artemis program, they are also responsible for delivering the biggest, most powerful,

01:04and arguably most important part of the entire moon landing mission, the lunar starship.

01:09The human landing system is a giant missing piece in the NASA equation.

01:14They have the SLS launcher to provide the muscle to lunar orbit, and they have the Orion spacecraft

01:19that can support the crew of four on a trip around the moon and bring them back home again safely.

01:25But they don't have any vehicle in their lineup that can ferry the crew down from Orion to the surface

01:30and send them back up again. So, they outsource that job to the private sector.

01:35Back in the olden days of the Apollo program, NASA was able to fit a small lunar lander

01:40into the same rocket that launched their command module. The landing craft was stashed away

01:45in the cargo fairing of the Saturn V, just below the service module.

01:49Once the upper stage of the rocket was coasting in orbit, the service module and capsule would

01:53separate together and fly out a short distance, then come around and return to dock the nose

01:58of the command module into the lunar module. Then, once they were connected, the service module

02:04thrusters would extract the lander from the upper stage of the rocket, and they would all fly

02:08to the moon together as one unit. Also, this was the 1960s, so that whole maneuver had to be performed

02:15manually by a pilot. No automation available. Logistically, that whole system just doesn't

02:22work for the modern Artemis program. For one, the SLS doesn't offer the same lift capability

02:27as the old Saturn V. The Apollo-era rocket could deliver 43 metric tons to the moon, while SLS

02:34taxes out at 27 tons, which is enough to send the Orion capsule and service module, but not

02:40much more. So, SLS has more thrust at lift-off than Saturn V, but a lower weight capacity.

02:46You might be wondering, what's the deal with that? Put simply, rocket equations are a nightmare.

02:52We're going to come back to this in a minute, so just keep that in mind.

02:55But even if there was more power available, NASA doesn't want to just get by anymore with

03:00a flimsy little stowaway moon lander. The whole point of Artemis is to establish a strong

03:07and permanent human presence on the moon. To do that, we need the sturdiest landing vehicle

03:12possible, one that can deliver heavy infrastructure while also supporting a crew for their week-long

03:17excursions to the lunar surface. This is where the Artemis program becomes a tale of two gigantic

03:23rockets. SpaceX was awarded the first human landing system contract by NASA because their

03:28vehicle was by far the biggest and most powerful option. It may not have been the most practical,

03:34but at the same time, SpaceX had already been making good progress on launch hardware like

03:39the Raptor engine, and had a very solid track record of success with Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.

03:45So NASA took Elon Musk at his word that his people would get it figured out by 2025, and they've

03:52been doing a pretty good job at that so far. Starship flew for the first time in April 2023,

03:58and then it exploded, which was not ideal, but that's not the end of the world either.

04:02SpaceX can chalk that up as a learning experience, and will make an even better attempt sometime

04:07later this summer, maybe as early as June. The lunar Starship that is going to fly to the

04:13moon will be pretty similar to the designs that we've seen so far being tested at Boca Chica,

04:18but with a few key differences. The most significant being that the lunar Starship will never re-enter

04:24Earth's atmosphere, so it won't require the black heat shield or the big arrow flaps at

04:29the nose and tail of the upper stage. Those won't serve any function on the moon. After shedding

04:35that excess weight, Starship will need a bunch of upgrades to function as a lunar lander, chief

04:40among those being a new set of landing legs. There won't be any chopstick-armed Mechazilla

04:45towers waiting on the moon. The spindly legs that we saw on the earlier Starship prototypes

04:49won't do either. The lunar Starship needs a wide, stable footprint to land on, something

04:54more similar to a Falcon 9 booster. And the ship will also require landing thrusters as

05:00well. We've seen these in a few renderings mounted on the side of the vehicle. These

05:05are going to be necessary to steer the ship on its descent to the lunar surface. Starships

05:10designed to land on Earth and Mars use aeroflaps to steer, but there's no air on the moon,

05:15so that doesn't work. The moon doesn't have very much gravity either, so it's also very

05:20likely that the Raptor engines are just too powerful for landing on the moon or even launching

05:25from the surface. Not unless we want to add another crater to the moon's complexion.

05:30SpaceX will also need to devise an elevator system for their lunar Starship. Since the lower

05:35two-thirds of the 50-meter tall ship are taken up by fuel tanks, the crew are going to need

05:40some help to travel the 30-odd meters that separate them from the ground. This is also

05:45going to be critical for deploying payloads to the lunar surface. Luckily, the gravity on

05:50the moon is one-sixth of the Earth, so the lift doesn't have to be particularly strong,

05:56just reliable. Above the cargo hold will need to be a crew quarters. That should be no problem,

06:01considering the gigantic 9-meter-wide empty space left at the top of the ship. For just

06:07two people, it's going to be plenty spacious for a week-long stay on the moon. All that

06:11SpaceX really needs to do is furnish and pressurize a few levels within the upper fairing. They

06:16have a well-proven life support system from the Crew Dragon capsule that just needs to be

06:20scaled up a bit for these relatively short-duration moon landings. Figuring out a Mars life support

06:25system for Starship is going to be the hard part. And then lastly, they just need a small docking

06:31port up in the tip of the nose comb, something that SpaceX can also just lift from the Dragon

06:36capsule. This is how the Orion crew will link up with the Starship and transfer between vehicles.

06:41All of that stuff we just talked about is going to be a ton of work for SpaceX to accomplish over

06:47the next two years. But there is still one more significant hurdle to overcome. Remember,

06:53we were talking earlier about the rocket equation. There is more to putting stuff into space than just

06:58raw power alone. The Starship Super Heavy booster offers up to twice the thrust of the old Saturn 5,

07:04and it can deliver twice the payload to the moon, 100 metric tons. And that payload also comes wrapped

07:11up inside a gigantic 9 meter wide by 50 meter tall stainless steel spaceship. But there is one major

07:18caveat here. On its own, using only the fuel that it launches with, Starship cannot go beyond low Earth

07:25orbit. By the time Starship gets just a couple hundred miles above the Earth's surface, it runs out of gas.

07:31So in order to go any higher, like, say, to the moon, Starship needs to refuel. Specifically,

07:37it needs a lot more of the cryogenic liquid oxygen and a bit more liquid methane. So before Lunar

07:43Starship even becomes a legit possibility, SpaceX actually needs to first perfect the tanker Starship.

07:50The tanker variant is going to be a totally stripped down upper stage vehicle. No wings,

07:55no heat shield, no legs, no cargo fairing, just fuel tanks from top to bottom. But even with the

08:01extra large tanks, the ship will need to burn most of its own fuel just to reach orbit. That means that

08:07a reusable filler ship will have to go up and dock with the tanker to add more oxygen and methane to

08:13the reservoir. But again, even carrying nothing but fuel, the ship still has to burn most of it just to

08:18reach orbit. So it's going to require multiple docking maneuvers just to fill one tanker ship with

08:24enough propellant to then refill the Lunar Starship with enough to get it to the moon.

08:29That's going to get really expensive really fast, unless SpaceX can master the fully reusable upper

08:36stage ship. Elon Musk has said it can be as little as four tanker trips. Others have claimed as many as

08:4216 launches will be required to fill one Lunar Starship. And before the Lunar Starship can be

08:48verified for human spaceflight, SpaceX will need to perform one uncrewed demonstration landing on the

08:54moon prior to Artemis 3. This puts a lot of pressure on SpaceX to deliver not just one functional

09:01Starship that can make it into orbit and come back down again in one piece, but they have to make a lot

09:06of them, and they don't have a whole lot of time left to do it. Meanwhile, over at NASA, they have

09:12already flown one uncrewed Artemis mission with the SLS and Orion to verify the flight hardware, and

09:18thanks to the overwhelming success in 2022, NASA is clear for the first crewed Artemis launch in 2024

09:26that will feature a round trip with four astronauts in the Orion spacecraft. They'll circle the moon,

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10:08The SLS may have had its own share of difficulties in the development stage,

10:12and it's pretty easy to argue that the rocket is way too expensive at around four billion dollars per

10:18launch and fragile and cumbersome and wasteful, but now that the design has been proven, NASA already

10:25has flight hardware ready to go for Artemis II and Artemis III. The core fuel tanks are already under

10:31construction, while the main engines and side boosters are mostly just old space shuttle leftovers

10:36that are already good to go. So, while it is really fun and exciting to watch Starship test flights and

10:42explosions, we're also literally looking at the future of human exploration into outer space hanging

10:47in the balance, and that adds a lot of extra weight to everything that is unfolding right now

10:53with SpaceX at Boca Chica. These are exciting times. If you're interested in following along

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🌕 How SpaceX & NASA Plan to Establish the First Moon Base 🚀 | AI Revolution

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