I was interested to hear in Robert Zubrin’s SpaceWatch.Global interview that Elon said he could build the Starship for $10 million:

https://x.com/spacewatchgl/status/1855925836932841756?s=61

Zubrin had previously successfully prevailed upon Elon to reduce the size of the original BFR to its current half-size. Could Elon now be convinced to mount a smaller system still with the Starship as 1st stage and a mini-Starship as upper stage? Elon could still build his Superheavy/Starship but the implications of a Starship/mini-Starship are stunning:

SpaceX can build a Moon or Mars rocket for ca. $10 million. Now.
Such a rocket could offer costs of $100/kilo to orbit. Now:

SpaceX routine orbital passenger flights imminent.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2024/11/spacex-routine-orbital-passenger.html

All 33 lit and stayed ignited during ascent. For the landing burn, I think spx used a different ignition sequence for the inner 13, they've been varying ignition sequence the whole time. They did a Mercedes logo on the inner 13 then lit them all. The outer 10 shutdown with one slightly lagging and completed soft landing on the 3 hover engines.

All 6 raptors on starship ignited as usual. The 3 sea level continued to fire after the vacuum and I'm not sure why. The sea level engine in the top position in the graphic relit in vacuum, checking off another box.

That engine did reignite during the flip and burn descent but did actually cut out slightly early. Something to certainly analyze.

This was a positive post bc I made a highly critical post yesterday. I'm trying to be objective bc I love space exploration.

$500 million dollars spent on engines alone. I imagine the cost is closer to 3 million with v1, v2, v3 r&d.

That constitutes 17% of the entire HLS budget.

• 2025 IM-2 Athena
• 2025 Griffin-1
• 2025 IM-3
• 2025 Artemis 2
• 2025 Starship HLS Demonstration
• 2026 Chang'e 7
• 2026 Artemis 3
• 2027 PPE gateway
• 2028 Chandrayan 4
• 2028 RISE-1
• 2028 Chang’e 8
• 2028 Blue Moon Demonstration
• 2028 Artemis 4
• 2029 LUPEX
• 2029 Chinese human landing on the moon
• 2030 Artemis 5
• 2031 Artemis 6
• 2032 LEVER-2
• 2032 Demonstration of fission on the lunar surface
• 2032 Artemis 7
• 2033 Artemis 8
• 2034 Artemis 9
• 2035 Artemis 10
• 2036 Artemis 11
• 2040 human landing mission on Indian moon

Ultimately we should be close to lunar colonization.

My first thought is that the program is too far along to cancel. I also know that Trump originally authorized the Artemis program in 2017, making it very unlikely that he would push to cancel or slow it down. If anything, I think Trump would push the program even harder to deliver a manned moon landing during his administration.

I’m certainly no expert on the Artemis program, so everything from me is just guessing

1. will SpaceX’s lunar colony see the light of day?
2. what timetable and development?
3. what will be its creation cost?

And : 4) is it legally clean and does it respect the Artemis agreements?

https://youtu.be/XvWe3mbYHlo?feature=shared

For non-French speakers you can activate the subtitles, it is inspired by another French YouTuber called Feldup

I completely missed this information so I thought it might be useful to remind others of this mission.

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/esdmd/artemis-campaign-development-division/human-landing-system-program/work-underway-on-large-cargo-landers-for-nasas-artemis-moon-missions/

Interesting point is that both HLS systems (SpaceX and BO) should also have cargo variant and it is expected they will launch as Artemis VII mission.

Do not confuse it with Commercial Lunar Payload Services

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Services