Hacker News Reader

Given how vehemently the Senators were in forcing NASA to create a second award for HLS, I wonder why there is no backup for SLS+Orion.

View on HN

Starliner /could/ be a backup however it does not have those Moon requirements

Starliner is a completely different vehicle designed for completely different requirements. The only thing that they have in common is that they can both operate in a vacuum.

That's like saying that a motorcycle could replace a semi, because both have wheels and a motor.

Yeah, Orion is a huge bottleneck to future moon missions, because it is the only way to get off the moon back to earth. Everything else has multiple solutions. The entire idea behind the lunar gateway was to make it possible for CLPS companies to reach NRHO with underpowered rockets instead of only a hypothetical launch vehicle such as the lunar Starship, which does not even exist as of today.

Lockheed Martin is building a cislunar transporter for getting fuel to NRHO. What is needed is a cislunar crew transporter in addition to the fuel transporter.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com