Canopus

With a solid stage you'd have a dead hab in Lunar orbit. Without means of attitude control. Not very good conditions for docking. So a star kick stage is definetly not an option.

I highly doubt it.

Yeah and there is no such bus or even any service module you could adapt to one. Other then the ESM but than it would be too heavy again. No part of LOP/G other then the PPE will fly before block 1b, because true alternatives, like ACES or maybe the new glenn tug, won‘t be around earlier.

Not gonna happen. How would SpaceX even get the Hab into lunar orbit?

The Shuttle was flying 4 times pretty much only testing the spacecraft itself. With EM-2 and 3 they may just fly into the NRHO orbit for rehearsal. All the while probably carrying some experiments, maybe release some cubesats into lunar orbit.

My guess is that they only start construction of LOP/G with block 1b but reduce the station a little. They already went from one habitation module to one. So they'll launch the Propulsion element on a commercial launcher, and then sometimes after 2025 launch two block 1b with one habitation and an Airlock module. After that they hopefully focus on the Lunar Return.

Being partially reusable doesn‘t really help you in the looks department, if you look at falcon 9 at least.

Wasn‘t lockheeds Orion also originally supposed to land in the desert? I recall illustrations of that. Anyway Orion weighs something like 25 tons now, and at the End of Constellation around 21 tons?

This boeing design has pretty much nothing in common with CST-100 other than being a capsule though. And the mass increased happened long before there even was a competing commercial rocket on the horizon? Doesn‘t look very conspiratory to me. Interesting though that they proposed lunar orbit rendevouz plans very similar to what may happen now.

I can‘t seem to find very much about CST-100 before 2010 and never anything in relation to Constellation, which was basically over at that point, but always as a commercial crew vehicle. If you have any links about that and the when exactly the mass addition to Orion happened i‘d be very interested.

Well yeah thats the whole problem. The mission will all be EM-1 clones just with a different final orbit. Wasn't saying i liked the idea that EUS was delayed. I meant a similar profile to EM-1 Lets be real though. The transition would have never been very smooth.

Other than Clipper all those missions will likely follow a very similar profile though.

Would probably look very much like SLS or Direct/Jupiter just arriving sooner thanks to an assured budget. Also i'd like to know why you think Direct is much better than SLS? Seems to me to be the same thing. Just with one design optimized for earth orbit and the other for Lunar orbit rendezvous Funny thing is that the latest update on the direct site actually gratulates the decision on SLS over constellation because it uses more legacy shuttle hardware.

I know. You said Falcon heavy could replace Block 1 but it couldn't even do that.

So it's only advantage over FH is being actually able to complete the mission it was designed for? Falcon Heavy can't lift Orion to a translunar trajectory so it's not a good replacement. Can't say to much about new glenn, but ACES will only be available in 2024 or 25.

I was strictly asking why he thinks the ICPS needs more thrust, when all it was ever supposed to launch the 20 something tons of an Orion to TLI or a smaller probe directly to Jupiter, not about the viability of SLS. Still currently there is no Launcher with the capabilities of even Block 1 SLS, and it seems they don't want to be dependent on commercial rockets that aren't guaranteed to fly precisely because there is not going to be a constant demand for big missions like this. Question back to you. What missions in space do you not consider make work? Because in the end of the day thats what all exploratory missions are. Apollo, ISS and all probes existed to create jobs back on earth or show off to someone. Doesn't mean that they didn't return some invaluable information. It would look pretty stupid if they cancel the SLS only to see stuff like the BFR greatly reduced in scope because someone realizes that it would never work out the way they thought. Maybe wait until actual replacements are flying regularly and have proven themselves.

What sort of mission profile are you thinking of?

Why would it need much thrust. It's pretty much already in orbit when it is started. I know you're going to lose some delta v to gravity loss but it can't be that bad.

Isn't this a bit undue? The big DCSS must be the highest performing upper stage there is right now.

Which is the whole point.

I'm pretty sure the LEO capacity always given is already only the center core without upper stage. And the thing Is that nobody ever had the idea to use SLS to send anything into LEO. They chose the 5 meter DCSS because it was a stage that already existed at the time (unlike the 5 meter Centaur V which wasn't even on the drawing board). I don't think any other stage would have made much more sense.

@XB-70A Maybe electric supply for the payload while on the pad? Edit: Found the answer: https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/9195/what-is-the-object-protruding-from-the-left-side-of-the-payload-fairing-during-u

Causality says so. So yeah, there may be warp drives eventually but there will always be a natural mechanism that prevents faster than light travel.

Warp drives aren‘t the future of space travel though and should definetly not be in the game.

SLS parts are already in the game though.