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SpaceX boss Elon Musk was optimistic on Saturday night when asked about the progress of the company’s Starship lunar lander project for NASA.
The “Everything Artemis” Twitter account asked Musk if he expected Starship to be ready to land humans on the moon by 2024.
“Probably sooner,” Musk replied two minutes later.
Earlier on Saturday, CNBC space reporter Michael Sheetz pointed out that NASA paid SpaceX $ 300 million on July 30 for Starship, which was the agency’s most recent major allocation for the project.
MUSK DEFENDS STAR SHIPS ‘ABILITIES AS WELL AS BLUE ORIGIN CONTINUES TO DELAY SPACEX’S NASA Lunar Lander PROJECT
Sheetz’s post included a link to the federal website USASpending.gov, which documents government spending.
The site claimed that $ 439.6 million has so far been paid to SpaceX for what is considered a $ 3 billion project.
Just three days earlier, Musk had taken to Twitter to defend Project Starship amid complaints from space organization Blue Origin from Amazon boss Jeff Bezos that NASA had decided to award a single contract to the project. lunar lander for its Human Landing System (HLS) program.
Blue Origin, led by billionaire Jeff Bezos, left, doesn’t exactly agree with Elon Musk-led SpaceX regarding NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) program.
Blue Origin claimed that SpaceX received preferential treatment by receiving the contract from NASA.
“We are particularly concerned about the lack of flight readiness reviews in SpaceX’s proposal,” Blue Origin wrote in a statement to Fox Business. “SpaceX’s complex approach requires 16 consecutive launches with only three flight readiness exams instead of one for each launch, which is consistent with standard industry practice. Flight readiness exams are fundamental to safety and are especially important with reusable vehicles and multiple launches in rapid succession. “
Musk responded to Blue Origin’s statement with a tweet, specifying that 16 Starship flights are “extremely unlikely.”
“The payload of the spacecraft in orbit is around 150 tonnes, so a maximum of 8 to fill the lunar spacecraft’s 1,200-tonne tanks,” Musk said. “Without flaps or a heat shield, the spacecraft is much lighter. The lunar landing legs don’t add much (gravity 1/6). May only need a half-full, that is. ie 4 tanker flights. “
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However, he noted that this would not be a problem even if 16 flights were required.
“SpaceX made over 16 orbital flights in the first half of 2021 and docked at the Station (much more difficult than docking with our own ship) more than 20 times,” added Musk.
Lucas Manfredi of Fox Business contributed to this story.
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