I'm conflicted on this. Artemis is a well designed political juggernaut, but NASA has budget and priority issues that the big expensive rocket, capsule, and station throw a wrench into. I'm hoping the redesigned Mars Sample Return works out and paves the way for a SpaceX and Blue Origin based redesign of Artemis.
I still don’t understand why NASA doesn’t make the lunar lander themselves, they are great at landers. Then contract out the ride to low lunar orbit.
I know it’s unprecedented, but surely a few Falcon Heavies could put a transfer stage, service module, and lander into LEO, to be assembled in-orbit. Heck it’s not even that unprecedented since Apollo had to be reconfigured in-orbit as well.
Yeah, this might fundamentally change the goals of Artemis, but it seems like relatively low hanging fruit compared to the bonkers complexity we’re trying now.
Even if the program sticks with Orion, I'm hoping later missions will try bidding out flights and cutting SLS out of the picture. I'm hoping that's at least part of the purpose of spinning all of SLS off into a commercial entity.
If anything, I think they're moving in the opposite direction of what you suggested for landers. They're building up an industrial base of different companies building lunar landers for cheap.
Because the point is to create a set of companies that autonomously explore and colonize space under the US flag, having multiple companies participate in the public option ensures at least one can continue on their own, ensuring further than nasa can always get a ride to wherever.
In an ideal world nasa would operate more like it's Chinese counterpart, but given the division in the US and the timeline required for space flight, that's impossible. The first manned flight beyond mars could be defended half way through the journey in the US with no real recourse.
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