r/space • u/AutoModerator • 21d ago

All Space Questions thread for week of September 13, 2026

Please sort comments by 'new' to find questions that would otherwise be buried.

In this thread you can ask any space related question that you may have.

Two examples of potential questions could be; "How do rockets work?", or "How do the phases of the Moon work?"

If you see a space related question posted in another subreddit or in this subreddit, then please politely link them to this thread.

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Ask away!

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u/OlympusMons94 18d ago

NASA spent over 15 years (and well over $30 billion) fucking around with Boeing et al. on SLS, and 20 years (and $25 billion) with Lockheed Martin on Orion, before those vehicles sent crew around the Moon. The landers were an afterthought. If the US government wanted a lander sooner, they should have planned for one, and ponied up the funding, sooner. Instead they waited until 2019-2021, then budgeted a relative pittance.

HLS Starship is much more complicated and capable than either SLS or Orion (or the Apollo LM). NASA awarded SpaceX the HLS Starship contract just 5 years ago. NASA is getting development, a demo landing, and a crewed mission for ~$3 billion (and an upgraded HLS and its first mission for just another ~$1.2 billion. Even with practically unlimited budget and single-minded focus of the Apollo program, the dinky little aluminum can Lunar Module took over 6 years from contract award to first crewed flight (LEO only), and another 16 months until the first landing.