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Ron Baron (a large investor in SpaceX—~$1B) was interviewed on CNBC, and as part of an answer about how SpaceX is dominating launch via reuse of rockets he said "$20M it costs us to get to space..." (Falcon 9). Said soon to be $6M (Starship, presumably).

(still hearing May 10)

Apparently they are seeing if they can do a (much) faster turn around. It's on the table, anyway... it's in flux.

May 10, earliest (asked MCC directly )

ACES was a decent concept (XEUS lander), but yeah, it also has issues. Even discussing alternate Artemis vehicles at this point is comical. Some new thing that involves ULA, Boeing, LockMart, et al, means adding 15 years? Meanwhile the program eats its $2B/yeah regardless? It's a decent program because it has support, but in the end it is making lemonade out of the lemon which is SLS/Orion.

All the crew mission streams are insanely long. I never tune in until launch—cause they might scrub at any time. A highlight reel of the first few hours that takes a couple minutes is fine

I had already planned to delicately touch them, they look pointy.

This is the first human spaceflight run by Johnson MCC since 2011.

Human spaceflight is not about "science," it's about exploration and more. Robots were more cost effective decades ago, and gain capability now at an insane rate. If it was about getting "science" in the KSP sense, we have no need of humans—but it's just not the same as seeing people doing it.

A friend should have his cybertruck in a week or so... so I'll get to drive one. Meanwhile the issue with the other EV companies is the inability to scale, though Q1 24 is an improvement over Q4, 23. Kinda cool you can buy a >$400k car for closer to $100k I guess.

Spacecraft systems were online talking to MCC yesterday (per friend who was looking at them live). Hopefully it all goes well.

The Polaris EVA is scheduled to be ~1 hour.

Yes, an incremental approach. Assuming the arms and helmet work decently well, they then work on the legs, PLSS, etc.