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Comment by Diederich | Hacker News Reader

Falcon Heavy, fully expendable, can send about 15,190kg to TLI (Trans Lunar Injection). The Saturn V sent about 48,600kg to TLI.

The current SLS can send about 27,000kg to TLI, and block 2 is expected to send between 43,000kg and 47,000kg to TLI.

Could the Falcon Heavy be used on a multi-part moon mission? No doubt, but it's not in the same weight class as SLS.

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The Falcon Heavy can ship can ship 16.8k kg to Mars [1] and that's at a higher delta V distance/cost than TLI. In general the SLS can carry around 50% more than a Falcon Heavy, but the Falcon Heavy (fully expended) costs 5-10% as much.

[1] - https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/falcon-heavy/

Thanks for the clarification. I dug around for numbers but didn't look in the most obvious place!

And yes, the cost difference is absolutely staggering.

I’m honestly shocked more “assemble in orbit” type mission structures haven’t been proposed. Falcon Heavy is just so convenient yet ignored.

> shocked more “assemble in orbit” type mission structures haven’t been proposed

It's unprecedented. A large part of Startship's technical risk in the Artemis programme is in-orbit refuelling.

That said, if IFT-5 or 6 can demonstrated recapture and an in-orbit fuelling attempt is made in 2025 that doesn't end catastrophically, I think the centre of mass of technical risk for Artemis shifts away from the novel fucking launch vehicle system that SpaceX has been tasked with building from the ground up to checks notes a rocket based on refurbished Space Shuttle engines and double checks this glorified launch tower.

Falcon Heavy has the thrust and the delta v, but it doesn’t have the fairing volume. Basically anything interesting that fits can be launched by smaller vehicles.

Starship will be a game changer in the most literal sense here as long as they figure out payload doors…

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