let's as always start with the current
progress of starship at Boca Chica what
are SN4 and SN5 doing now regarding
NASA we have quite a few big updates
first let's talk about the Government
Accountability Office findings that the
average cost overrun of NASA projects is
continuing to rise and guess who's the
main culprit yes that's right this one
here and lastly the fascinating
revelation of the human landing system
for NASA's Artemis moon missions the
winners have been announced and there's
really a lot to talk about and yes our
favorite big boy also won a piece of
the pie finally it was revealed how
starship would land on the moon and we
have so many new details and renders so
let's get started
this is an absolutely insane week for
the advancement of human spaceflight so
let's start with the most important
vehicle for the future of humanity
namely of course new Glenn just kidding
indeed last week we saw a successful
cryogenic pressure test where for the
first time we didn't have to witness
another explosion or collapse so where
for the first time a full-scale
prototype was able to withstand high
pressures at cryogenic temperatures now
granted they only went up to 4.9 bar so
not to 6 or 7 bar but it's okay to be
careful now and later gradually increase
the pressures so SN4 got its Raptor
engine installed last week on Friday and
not long afterwards we could witness the
first wet dress rehearsal so the next
step is of course static fire tests for
which everyone is waiting now Elon said
in his latest tweet that static fire
testing will start earliest today as of
release of this video 9 p.m. Boca Chica
time we think though the 5th of May or
later is more likely the static fire
tests are an extremely important
milestone because without them being
successful there will be no hops so
let's hope the static fire tests will
work because then we'll be able to
witness the hopping tests not long
afterwards first probably a few smaller
ones and if that should go well we can
finally witness a 150 meter
hopping test this would be a huge win
and a major psychological milestone SN4
will not perform these flights by the
way only SN5 and later prototypes will
get three Raptor engines installed and
we should be able to see the 20
kilometer skydiving maneuver with SN5
or SN6 should SN5 fail Elon also teased
some design changes so we are very
curious to see what those design changes
will be we suspect they will be of
interior nature so we won't see
significant changes on the outside
appearance or dimensions of starship so
starship is looking good so good in fact
that NASA is continuing to open up
towards starship but more on that
in a few minutes let's talk about the annual
assessment of NASA's major projects by
the Government Accountability Office
this assessment was released last week
on the 29th of April they found that the
average cost overrun of NASA's major
projects is continuing to increase while
there was an overrun of 15.6% in
2017 that figure increased to 27% in
2018 and reached a staggering 30.9% in
2019 and now you can guess which project
had the most brutal cost overrun that's
right
Boeing's famous Senate Launch System SLS
of the 1.6 billion dollar additional
cost growth in 2019 1.3 billion dollars
so 81 percent came from
SLS Orion and their associated ground
programs for example in this video here
we talked about the insane costs for the
mobile launch platform for the early
Artemis missions this launch platform
alone will cost around 1 billion dollars
and will only be used for the first
three or four Artemis missions and
almost half of the cost overrun is from
the SLS rocket alone Boeing is let's say
not really efficiently using the money
they get from NASA the SLS just time and
time again confirms to be the running
gag of the space industry remember that
the SLS was supposed to have its first
flight in 2017 repeat 2017 now the
maiden flight is scheduled for 2021
after having been delayed again from
late 2020 and apparently now even NASA
has enough of Boeing even they are now
starting to turn away from Boeing more
and more of course NASA cannot do this
openly and abruptly they have to be kind
of subtle about it because there's politics
involved you know so they have to pretend
that they still embrace the SLS and
Boeing systems in general when in fact
they slowly try to move away from it
take the revelation of resupplying the
lunar gateway with falcon heavy and the
new dragon XL for example this would
have been unthinkable only a few years
ago and this contract is worth billions
of dollars which SpaceX will be getting
for that gateway resupply contract NASA
specifically avoided Boeing's offer and
decided to go with SpaceX and that
speaks volumes Boeing is on the decline
and NASA is embracing more and more
companies from the private sector so
let's then finally talk about the big
revelation who is being awarded the
almost 1 billion dollar worth of
contract to develop a human landing
system for the Artemis moon missions
unsurprisingly the biggest share goes to
Blue Origin which received 579 million
dollars to be more precise it is a team
which is called the national team led by
Blue Origin but also includes Draper
Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman so
the old guard if you will Blue Origin of
course sided with the
military-industrial complex in good old
Bezos fashion
we actually predicted that Blue Origin
would win the biggest share of the
Artemis moon lander contract in our
episode from the 17th of February which
you can watch right here Blue origin is
really good at lobbying we have to give
Bezos that and they of course sided with
the companies that really really excel
at lobbying so it was pretty clear that
Blue Origin would get the biggest share
it is also logical considering that the
Blue Origin moon lander or let's just
call it the lobby moon lander from now
on would be compatible with the SLS and
Orion architecture whereas starship as
we know would completely bypass SLS and
Orion as Doug Loverro revealed only a few weeks ago Artemis 3
will land on the moon without the lunar
gateway
however the lunar gateway will still
remain an essential part of the later
Artemis missions so it's pretty clear
that NASA prefers to have a moon lander
that is compatible with the lunar
gateway another company which was
rewarded 253 million dollars is Dynetics
they have this lunar lander proposal
which is certainly more interesting than
the proposal from Blue Origin it looks
bigger with a larger pressurized
interior volume than the small lobby
lander the two solar arrays also look
quite interesting because they suggest
that Dynetics' lunar lander could also
serve as a small moon base with
electricity generation the small moon
base could allow for much longer
duration stays on the surface of the
Moon than the small lobby lander would
ever allow for Dynetics' lander is also
a single stage Lander meaning the entire
lander would land on the moon and take
off again back to the lunar gateway on
the other hand Blue Origin's lobby Lander
is a two-stage lander with a descent and
an ascent element so similar to the
Apollo lunar landers funny that Northrop
Grumman built the original Apollo lunar
landers back in the day and now 50 years
later is involved in building something
almost identical that's what we call
innovation
ladies and gentlemen so yes we
definitely prefer Dynetics' Lunar Lander
it's bigger and with the solar power
generation can allow for much longer
duration stays so basically acting as a
small moon base and it's compatible with
the Orion and the lunar gateway
architecture which NASA also likes but
now let's finally talk about the coolest
moon lander SpaceX
also got a bit of money from NASA namely
hundred and thirty five million dollars
so half as much as Dynetics and only a
quarter of the lobby group because
starship just completely ignores the SLS
Orion and Gateway architecture and is
therefore just too radical for NASA's
taste but of course NASA is also smart
and knows well that at some point
starship will be an absolute GameChanger
Jim Bridenstine even said it himself
quote SpaceX proposed the starship it's
obviously a very different solution set
than any of the others but it also could
be absolutely game-changing so we don't
want to discount it we want to move
forward if they can have success we want
to enjoy that success with them this to
us sounds as if Jim fully knows the
insane potential of starship but of
course he also knows that SLS Orion and
the Gateway is backed by Congress so he
has to be very careful NASA can only
slowly slowly very slowly open up to
starship but starship in its moon
configuration would of course eat the
other moon Landers for breakfast and we
were also shown some very fascinating
new renderings of starship landing on
the moon many people were claiming that
starship will not be able to land on the
moon without a landing pad because the
Raptor engines will create such insane
thrust that it would shoot off the lunar
regolith with insane speeds into orbit
well now we have the solution it will
not use the Raptors for landing it will
use the cold gas thrusters mounted in
the upper section
which direct the thrust sideways and
downwards a landing entirely using these
thrusters will be absolutely possible no
landing pads will be required whatsoever
this render here is also very revealing
where starship has already landed and
three astronauts descend onto the
surface also interesting are the landing
legs which seem to be retractable when
comparing these two renders here
and very noteworthy of course is also the
top which seems to be covered with solar
panels the funny thing is that because
starship is so insanely large the
surface area of these solar panels here
covering only the nose cone of starship
is probably a lot larger than the two
solar panels of the Dynetics moon
lander also noteworthy is the lack of
any heat shielding and the white paint
we will talk about the moon
configuration of starship in a special
Friday episode because there are just so
many insane and fascinating details here
and of course starship would offer a
much much bigger interior volume of
thousand cubic meters we suspect the
interior volume of starship is at least
10 times or more the interior volume of
Dynetics' lunar lander and probably
hundred times more than the small lobby
lander so yeah starship is basically a
mobile moon base and would enable extremely
long duration stays of astronauts on the
lunar surface up to many weeks so even
though spacex only got the smallest
share we shouldn't be too sad because
this at least confirms that starship will
also have a moon lander variant and all
the naysayers that said starship won't
be able to land on the moon will also
have no arguments anymore against a
starship moon landing and don't forget
that spacex still has the dragon xl
lunar gateway resupply contract so
ladies and gentlemen amazing times are
awaiting us and we believe Elon might
just demonstrate an uncrewed starship
moon landing in a few years in any case
just to convince NASA that it would be
smart to open up towards starship even
more so wow this was quite an amazing
week with those moon lander news and the
starship moon version so what is your
favorite moon lander of the three selected
by NASA and do you agree with us that it was
pretty clear that this small lobby moon
lander would get the biggest share of
money from NASA
so you just watched the Monday space
report and on Fridays we currently talk
about fixing starship's flaws for a safe
journey to Mars and you can watch the
videos right here so thanks for watching
and I'd say on 2 the future
