Artemis: Could SpaceX Land on the Moon by 2019? Now with a new mission overview!

[tater]

The U.S. Government built the Apollo missions in what, a decade? Less? They had to do it from scratch. All SpaceX has to do is copy their designs, not mentioning the manufacturing of the required parts would be easier because we have 3D printing and stuff now. Four years is a bit of a stretch, though. I voted Maybe.

The US government didn't build anything at all, they just wrote checks. North American Aviation, Grumman, Boeing, etc built Apollo. Many of the contractors, or small groups could have done it alone, it was split up because that's what the government has done since the 6 frigates of the Washington administration---put spending in as many districts as possible to secure votes for funding.

[Linear]

If everything goes perfectly. Unfortunately, delays are almost inevitable when it comes to this kind of thing. Besides, the Falcon 9 still isn't human-rated after several years, and one would expect the Falcon Heavy to have to fly many times and jump through many hoops before being allowed to take humans to LEO, much less the moon.

First off, Dragon V2 hasn't even flown yet. Second, SpaceX has not manufactured a satellite for a customer. The cargo Dragon delivers and returns a payload to the ISS, and they are payed to do this by NASA. They launch satellites for a variety of organizations, and they are payed to do this.

For all of Elon's talk of going to Mars, SpaceX doesn't go anywhere yet unless someone is paying them to.

How do you get to Mars without money? You can't.

Selling launch-platforms for satellites and running cargo missions for NASA is a damn good way of making money while gaining valuable experience. I have no doubt that there will be delays for the Heavy, but SpaceX just seems to have that determination and edge that NASA has lost over the years. I'd put my money on the Heavy flying in 2020, for sure though.

[Nibb31]

Dragon V2 only weighs ca 4.2 tonnes, less without the heat shield and parachutes. You could easily fling a Dragon V2 to the moon or Mars or pretty much anywhere in the inner solar system using a Falcon Heavy. Dragon V2 is already in the process of being fully certified and manrated (Falcon 9/Heavy already are), and even then there are absolutely no regulations stopping SpaceX from sending their own people (non-NASA astronauts) into space.

Why would they do that? Who would be paying for it? What would be the return on investment?

Wrong. Falcon Heavy will be flying next year. Elon Musk has stated that Dragon V2 is already capable of landing on the moon; all it takes are minor modifications.

Citation needed.

A Dragon V2 might be capable of landing on the Moon if it uses a crasher stage, but it is far from having the dV to launch from the surface. It would be a one-way mission.

SpaceX could definitely land something on the moon by 2019, just not people. A SpaceX Apollo 8 mission is more likely imo, but who knows what Elon wants to do (certainly not me).

Elon runs a business. A business can only dedicate so much resources to unprofitable ventures. Unless someone pays them to go to the Moon, SpaceX is not going to the Moon.

Wrong. SpaceX manufactures many types of payload; Dragon, Dragon V2 and now also satellites. They are a payload-to-destination provider as well as a launch provider. With current SpaceX architecture you don't need an EDS to get to the moon or Mars, merely improved and hardened avionics and electronics, maybe extra instruments. No need to build anything from scratch.

CRS and CCDev are NASA programs. Dragon development was paid for by NASA. All Dragon flights are paid for by NASA. What part of "SpaceX is a launch service provider" don't you understand. They only launch payloads that are paid for by a customer.

The satellite service is to expand SpaceX into a comsat operator as a new revenue source. With existing competition from cell operators and broadband ISPs, chances are that it will be barely profitable.

Why would you bother replicating Apollo hardware when you can put a slightly modified Dragon V2 on the surface of the moon, launched atop a Falcon Heavy. The question is not one of feasibility, but of desire, and for anyone who isn't Elon Musk or at top of the SpaceX hierarchy, it's pure speculation.

Because a Dragon V2 can't return from the Moon.

[Newt]

The US government didn't build anything at all, they just wrote checks.

Well, the US government did build some things for the programme, but generally this is true. What is more, the infrastructure that built Apollo, is gone, and changed. Replication of that hardware, would be a massive challenge in itself, at this point more than forty years since the last Apollo flight.

Overall, it is, as has been noted, probably technically possible, even with failures, for SpaceX to pull this off. Just as it was probably, technically possible for humans to have landed on Mars by the 1980's, just as it was possible for NASA to build a Mars airplane for the centennial of the Wright brother's first flight, just as it was probably possible for people to begin building large O'Neil colonies more than a decade ago. Incredible numbers of things are possible, but SpaceX is, very unlikley to do any of this, for several reasons.

They need money. Musk, is rich, SpaceX is popular, but flying to the Moon is incredibly expensive, risky, and not necisarily profitable at this point. If NASA were to contract SpaceX to do it, odds might go up, but the chances of that happening are small. NASA still is considering that CCDev and the other privately run missions, are for minor tasks that NASA should not be bothered with, like easy access to LEO. Moon landings, are not in this class.

They need time. As was noted, NASA made it to the Moon very quickly when it needed to, building very much infrastructure from scratch. SpaceX has technology, infrastructure, and experience, so hypothetically they should be able to do it faster today. This is a fair observation, but, it would be difficult for SpaceX to develop the sense of urgency that sorrounded the 1960's space program. There will be failures, delays, and though these will be possible to overcome, they will push things back. Again, it is not technically impossible for them to do it, but simply highly improbable.

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Overall, there does not seem to be much that is going to make SpaceX have a good chance of getting there. It is not impossible, but it is pretty unlikley that they are going to go anywhere without someone hiring them to go there. Few groups are going to do that unless they are simply contracted to do a part of a larger NASA or other coalition.

[Borklund]

If everything goes perfectly. Unfortunately, delays are almost inevitable when it comes to this kind of thing. Besides, the Falcon 9 still isn't human-rated after several years, and one would expect the Falcon Heavy to have to fly many times and jump through many hoops before being allowed to take humans to LEO, much less the moon.

Falcon 9 (and subsequently also the Heavy) are already human rated.

First off, Dragon V2 hasn't even flown yet. Second, SpaceX has not manufactured a satellite for a customer. The cargo Dragon delivers and returns a payload to the ISS, and they are payed to do this by NASA. They launch satellites for a variety of organizations, and they are payed to do this.

For all of Elon's talk of going to Mars, SpaceX doesn't go anywhere yet unless someone is paying them to.

You must have missed the news from earlier this year. Elon Musk has consistently talked about Mars in the context of SpaceX going to Mars and building a city on Mars, not waiting for NASA to do some flags and footprint Mars mission using his vehicles and/or spacecraft (though that may also come true).

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Why would they do that? Who would be paying for it? What would be the return on investment?

Think of it as a demonstration mission on steroids, coupled with it being amazing advertising. I believe Elon Musk is deadly serious about wanting to go to Mars in a big way, and in order to do that he needs to shift the attitudes of the people who hold the purse strings, meaning the politicians - the public does not care about space exploration in a meaningful way.

"Hey, I can launch a cheap, commercial spacecraft anywhere in the inner solar system on a partially reusable super heavy launch vehicle for a fraction of the cost of an almost negligibly more capable SLS. Listen to me/buy my things!" is a fairly strong statement. I'm not saying I know that they are thinking of doing this, I don't even think it is likely, but if there is a single person who is better placed or equipped than Elon Musk to do something like an Apollo 8 stunt, I'd like to hear about them.

Citation needed.

Elon Musk said so during a telecon after the Dragon V2 Pad Abort Test. Here's the relevant part:

“When boosted on a Falcon Heavy, Dragon can go pretty much anywhere, so we’re excited about exploring that possibility.â€Â

Utilizing Falcon Heavy, Mr. Musk stated that Dragon will be capable of transporting two to four tons of payload to the surface of the Red Planet, with varying options for other destinations.

“With Dragon launched on a Falcon Heavy, it can go pretty much anywhere in the solar system, because that’s a heck of a big rocket,†he continued.

“Dragon, with the heat shield, parachutes and propulsive landing capability, is able to land on a planet that has higher entry heating, like Mars. It can also land on the Moon, or potentially conduct a Europa mission.

A Dragon V2 might be capable of landing on the Moon if it uses a crasher stage, but it is far from having the dV to launch from the surface. It would be a one-way mission.

Who said anything about returning from the surface of the moon? I'm not saying SpaceX would launch astronauts to the surface of the moon in a Dragon V2. I'm talking about an Apollo 8 reboot.

Elon runs a business. A business can only dedicate so much resources to unprofitable ventures. Unless someone pays them to go to the Moon, SpaceX is not going to the Moon.

See my earlier reply. I'll add that his original idea was to send mice or plants to Mars to kickstart a revolution in space exploration. While the mice and plants are out, the vision behind it is still there.

CRS and CCDev are NASA programs. Dragon development was paid for by NASA. All Dragon flights are paid for by NASA. What part of "SpaceX is a launch service provider" don't you understand. They only launch payloads that are paid for by a customer.

The satellite service is to expand SpaceX into a comsat operator as a new revenue source. With existing competition from cell operators and broadband ISPs, chances are that it will be barely profitable.

SpaceX will be making the satellites as well as launching them. SpaceX has flown demonstration missions paid for out of pocket before (Falcon 1 Flight 4) and Elon Musk has hinted at/not ruled out a Falcon Heavy demonstration mission. If you look at it from the reusability effort angle, you can put it down as an R&D expenditure. They'd get 3 cores back (which they plan to resell, so they'll recoup part of the cost) and get invaluable data.

[Nibb31]

Think of it as a demonstration mission on steroids, coupled with it being amazing advertising. I believe Elon Musk is deadly serious about wanting to go to Mars in a big way, and in order to do that he needs to shift the attitudes of the people who hold the purse strings, meaning the politicians - the public does not care about space exploration in a meaningful way.

Why waste a $100 million rocket on a "demonstration mission" when you can get a paying customer on board? The only point of a demonstration would be if the Falcon Heavy was a commercial failure.

It would make more sense to simply compete for a launch contract for NASA's next Moon probe.

"Hey, I can launch a cheap, commercial spacecraft anywhere in the inner solar system on a partially reusable super heavy launch vehicle for a fraction of the cost of an almost negligibly more capable SLS. Listen to me/buy my things!" is a fairly strong statement. I'm not saying I know that they are thinking of doing this, I don't even think it is likely, but if there is a single person who is better placed or equipped than Elon Musk to do something like an Apollo 8 stunt, I'd like to hear about them.

An Apollo 8 flyby would serve no scientific purpose. It has been done before, and there is no reason to believe that it can't be done on a Falcon Heavy. So why waste millions of dollars to do it? It would be flushing money down the toilet.

As for the "I can do it" claim, you don't need a demonstration flight. Offer the service and if there is demand, sell the tickets. That's how the aerospace industry works.

[Argylas]

NASA needed close to $ 200 bln. for the Apollo program (accounting for inflation since the '60s). That is close to $ 20 bln. per mission. Even if SpaceX somehow reduces this cost through exploiting know-how from the Apollo landings, rocket reusability or what have you, they won't bring that price too much down. SpaceX's revenues are kept secret by Musk, but according to private companies-researcher "PrivCo" they were over $800 mln. in 2014. Let's say 30% of that or $240 mln. are profits (a bit unrealistically high, but let's let it slide for the sake of the argument). So, SpaceX will have to save all of its profits for close to 70-80 years (barring any dramatic growth in its revenue - orders of magnitude type of dramatic) to be able to afford even one mission to the moon. And they will need a lot more missions in order to send a spacecraft to the moon - test flights, etc. So you see how incredibly unrealistic such a mission is. It just impossible economically for any given single company. Even Bill Gates will have to spend ALL of his fortune to fund just one moon mission (because his reported wealth of $ 60-70 bln. is not in liquid assets and if he sells it all at once - shares, real estate, everything - his true net worth in real hard cash will be closer to $ 20 bln. or even less). Oh, and a mission to Mars will probably cost a lot more. So the sad truth is manned missions beyond LEO are still unfeasible for companies and individuals. Like it or not, manned spaceflight is still within the capabilities of only the wealthiest nations (and they currently lack any political will for bold missions). Let's hope there is some incredible technological advancement in the near future that will make manned spaceflight more affordable (and I don't mean rocket reusability - it won't be enough by far).