Falcon Heavy could send Crew Dragon to the Moon. They’d just have to rate it for human space flight.
Next problem would be Crew Dragon itself. It's probably not able to return from the moon, the speed and thus the temperature is higher so you need a capsule designed for this. Which Orion is and Dragon isn't.
Human rating certification is more about paperwork, not technology demonstration.
Neither does the SLS/Orion stack. What are you even comparing here?
A lander is required anyway.
> Also Falcon Heavy only carries 26t into LEO
I assume you don't mean LEO.
> Next problem would be Crew Dragon itself. It's probably not able to return from the moon, the speed and thus the temperature is higher so you need a capsule designed for this. Which Orion is and Dragon isn't.
Actually, the Crew Dragon Heat Shield is designed for moon reentry. There might be a few updates for avionics but nothing to big.
SLS/Orion/Orion SM and Falcon Heavy/Dragon stack are both underpowered. There are solution to this is you were willing to invest the smallest amount of money.
Dragon could be extend by adding a extra fuel tank into the trunk. That would be a reasonably cheap solution. Alternatively a separately launched Service Module. That would likely cost a few 100M, but that is jump change compared to SLS/Orion.
Or even better, don't launch the capsule to moon orbit at all, switch to the moon lander in LEO. Then you can simply use commercial crew to get the astronauts up and down and the lander to go to the moon and back.
All of these idea would save 10s of billions.
No, you don't scale up the 26t by the factor of 4 in a heartbeat.
Yes, you need to take the capsule to lunar orbit because the lander wouldn't survive reentry and you don't want to take the transfer stage down to the lunar surface and back again.
SLS is ready to fly. There are no alternatives which can do the same thing which are ready to fly. This is a fact.
Its not like Orion has actually flown, Crew Dragon and Falcon Heavy are more proven then SLS/Orion and would be easier to certify.
You don't have much aerospace and certification experience, do you?
Nobody denies its hard and would take singificant work.
But the fact is, all the individual subsystems are certified. The Falcon 9, a closely derived rocket is fully certified. The Dragon is fully crew certified for LEO. And both Falcon Heavy and Dragon are engineered from the ground up to be able to be certified if required.
If this was an argument about if it cost 5 million of 50 million then we could have a discussion.
BUT ITS LITERALLY ABOUT 10+ billion $. So unless you can make an argument that it somehow cost more to human certify Falcon Heavy and Crew Dragon for moon then the complete Falcon 9 and Dragon program cost in the first place then you don't have an argument. Only smart-ass comments.
So please tell me, what do I not understand. Why would it cost 10 billion to do the things I suggest. In reality, we know that it wouldn't even cost 1 billion $.