"Should NASA use Starship for Artemis instead of SLS" Final Approval!

It would be interesting to know about the legal implications of that, if any. Maybe for a future video?

This happened to me, too.

I really like the statement: I'm team Space!

Nice video explaning the current status for SLS against the commercial partners. I agree to the fact that Starship will have some work to be done to actual carry humans into space. The demo-2 mission has given the first experience for that on which SpaceX can build in the future. Its time to say things are being done !

Generally, new lands were claimed in the name of the expeditions state sponsor, Spain, Portugal, Britain etc. One notable exception was the Belgian Congo, which was owned by King Leopold personally.

Just thinking - Elon would not be the first to land. It would be a SpaceX employee. Could the employee claim the planet as his Land? This is pretty funny to think about.

Here is a deep rabbit hole to go down. It may even be worth a chat with Elon. The movie the Martian touched on Maritime law. The problem with maritime law and discovering new lands is it was white people declaring the discovered and therefore claimed it for ownership it as soon as they touched their foot on the soil. If Elon lands on Mars, primarily with Private money .... What law prevails? Does it need its own constitution? What happens to criminal acts that may happen on a foreign planet? Would Elon adopt the US constitution or a Canadian constitution since I believe he is a citizen of both. Perhaps Kevin’s Lawyer Wife will want to take a rack at this. The cool thing about technology is the unintended consequences. Can I apply to Elon for MARS citizenship? Does a ride to Mars on. SpaceX vehicle comes with MARS citizenship? Actually this would make an awesome April fools or 420 video for next year.

It's always good to have more than one option. Plus now that NASA is embracing private enterprise fully with "fully" private missions, there are a mix of options keeping the USA's aerospace options and suppliers active and engaged. SpaceX is not a "fully" private approach as they have indeed received substantial support from NASA both in development money and ongoing contacts for supplying ISS and sending crew to ISS. So I believe the mix of private and public is much better than either by themselves allowing flexibility and sustainability through good and bad times. I am a true capitalist myself, but believe in this case the current option mix is attractive because of the vast enormity of the challenges at hand. There may always be some form of joint efforts because of the need to use existing NASA assets such as the deep space communications network, launch assets (like Canaveral), etc.

Every one seems to forget that SpaceX is a private company. Think about: Mars will be colonized by a COMPANY not a COUNTRY. It changes things. NASA needs to keep at Artemis and even SLS however non-sense they may appear at times, strategically the USA must be able to reach Mars/Moon and further on its own.

Awesome work Tim...bravo!

You changed my mind, really well argued... Watched it all the way through and it felt a lot less than 1hour, so entertaining as well :-)

Agree here, the reference to waterfall is incorrect. A waterfall approach to software development is how we used to do things,10/20 years back with most modern software development now using agile. Interestingly waterfall vs agile is a really nice simile of NASA /Boeing vs SpaceX

Agreed. I thought that's what he was alluding to, albeit it wasn't very clear because I couldn't tell if he was contrasting waterfall and agile, or using them interchangeably.

On the Agile vs Waterfall comment... Waterfall usually describes a software development model where you meticulously document and design everything first, before you start building. While Agile means that you itererate.... build prototypes, test them, modify design, build test, etc... I'd say SLS is pretty close to pure waterfall, while Starship is almost pure Agile.

Same, I would leave it there a bit longer.

Saw all the way through - even after reading whole script. Really great work.

I learned a lot from your presentation and analysis. I enjoyed it greatly. Thanks

Two issues: The Waterfall vs Agile thing, and I don't get the 'C3=-0.99' part (35:50). If you're targeting the layperson, then that needs to be explained or removed. I certainly don't understand what it means! Other than that, a mighty fine summary of where we're at. I had doubts about Jim Bridenstine (politician!), but it clearly needed a different perspective to fix SLS, so go him! PS - Brits call it 'corn on the cob' too. Not just an Iowa thing!

Mark Gray

2:20 "Ship to program" ? 35:00 LEO capability explanation needs expansion 37:00 Strarship short changed Not clear - Superheavy going to moon? 37:30 "Hold on to your butts"? 42:42 Superheavy appears with no explanation 47:34 some shaded, some not? 49:00 Leave Apollo/Artemis chart up for 10 more seconds 1:05:27 "Through it's docking port"? Launching humans backwards? Explain. General: highlight/circle numbers when mentioned.

Loaded info and guttsy. Comments:

Lots of work there. Well done. It’s long, sure, but I can’t point at what you could cut without making it too hard to follow. Well done.

Tim, I'm 71, have been mesmerized by the space program since Mercury, and can be a bit sentimental. Having said that, this video is so helpful and so tight that it brings tears to my eyes. You and your team are so creative and have worked so hard to make it this good! I hope it gets tens of thousands of views in the next few years.

Steve Ehrmann

When you chart the different costs per kg for TLI, I'd leave the table on screen at least a half second longer. After you put in the Starship estimate, I didn't even have time to run my eyes across the table before it disappeared.

Steve Ehrmann

Really great video and deep dive ;) Totally changed my perspective too and i think a Lot of space nerds like me will think the same. Great work!

When you say "conservative on costs", it's not clear if you're erring on the low or the high side. i.e. conservative by putting a cost higher than will be needed to be safe, or conservative by putting a low cost so you don't show an overinflated price.

Big Car

Great video, Tim! Here are some comments I made while watching: 21:29 Order as “SLS and Starship” for consistency 26:15 Maybe mention “April 2020” explicitly again? 30:56 It is _not_ the Waterfall model (Agile is correct). Waterfall is known for planning everything ahead of time. 32:25 Voice Over sounds softer from surrounding video 34:30 Maybe show SLS 1B image? (or not? its a bit confusing...) 37:10 Missing explanation for the two types of blue bar for Starship 47:50 Saturn+Apollo+LM costs don’t add up to 95B mentioned before

The only thing I would suggest is adding a note at around 25:55 saying that SN4 passed the cyro test so that it doesn't outdate the video before it is released.

One of my favorite videos of yours. I will be sharing with my friends who have never built a model rocket. Boeing gets 1/75th of their revenue from NASA. There were a bunch of great moments, but I really enjoyed the Corn on the Cob metaphor.

Anything I could advise on that was amiss has already been mentioned by fellow supporters. Great video that distills down a lot and will hopefully get people excited about the future of spaceflight. Cheers!

Dude outstanding, riveting from start to finish. You need your own series on Curiosity Stream. I agree with Pat Bese on the Kickstage, I actually didn't know what that meant.

Awesome, Tim. You've launched another stellar video.

Speaking of mobile launch tower, I think it would be interesting to learn more about ground systems. An ideia for another video... ;)

You just boiled the ocean down to something that was informative and entertaining. Thanks. One note: Aluminum alloy 2219 is not new and is very weldable. It's had application in several launch systems since the early 60's. Marshall space flight published a paper on weldability in 1962. Friction stir welding/tooling/prep may be more of an issue.

Well I see what I noticed others have already pointed out. So I'll just say, awesome work. I'll be curious to see what updates you make after that report comes out.

Had a similar problem to utrabrite, the “time stamp” screen was blank for me

I would like to see you explain what you mean by kickstage on the bfr

He doesn't call it out explicitly, but he does show all the numbers on the screen at once, so you can freeze-frame it and compare if you want.

Randall Wald

I noticed that too. Sometime the voice over on other graphics is lower than the lead-in.

So wish I had time to watch 😭 I watched the intro on my coffee break and it was excellent, got me excited and even more Eager for the explanations of the Graphics. Great teaser. I'll make time this evening!

Yeah, suggesting that Waterfall and Agile are the same thing will get massive blowback in the comments.

Randall Wald

Thanks Tim! Being willing to change your mind when considering new information and perspectives is a rare quality. Proud o' you!

Video looks good. Great analysis on SLS & Starship. Laughed on the mobile launch tower (and no roller coaster either! :)

GW

As in "I'm trying to line these up to be apples to apples"... maybe that didn't make the point did it... thinking

Everyday Astronaut

The DOT does build buses. Imagine if they did. Great point!

It would take a MUCH bigger rocket to get it to the ISS and we don't currently have a rocket that could do that without additional certification and much higher costs, not to mention Orion is more expensive than Dragon or Starliner

Everyday Astronaut

I mention a few times through out that the SLS cannot take the lander and that it will require a separate launch vehicle (or two or three) to get the lander out there. I also do say "including the rocket that will get it there" If watching again, does it make more sense?

Everyday Astronaut

It will be certified through flight, so once it flies once, that'll check off final certification.

Everyday Astronaut

This is just the approval phase, once the script is approved, I send it out for closed captions (and I always do at the launch of each video), but at $1 per minute, I don't do it twice per video, only once the video is finished! I'll have you taken care of, don't worry :) Thanks for your support!

Everyday Astronaut

Awesome video!

At 33:25 the audio volume dips for a little bit. A little earlier, you mentioned the Waterfall and Agile development methods. Waterfall is much for akin to the SLS development and Agile for SpaceX.

At 46:50 do you really mean to say compare apples to apples?

At 49 minutes, you supply the breakdown of per-unit costs for the Saturn V and Artemus missions, and I was wishing for a total of each to directly compare.

Joshua Marner

At last! This is an awesome video, and I was kind of expecting for your conclusions. Speaking of conclusions, if Orion has been finished already, why Nasa never used it for ISS crew? Everything is ready!

At 42:42 why does a Falcon Heavy appear in the graphic when the topic is about the lunar lander? I kept listening expecting and explanation but none came. Is the FH the launch vehicle for the lander?

GREAT video, cannot give you enough kudos for it! :-) :-) Tiny volume drop around 33:25, couldn't find anything otherwise...

Bert Heise

Is 3:14 meant to be blank when you talk about timestamps?

Hi, so SLS uses already certified parts... But that doesn't make the whole system certified. Will the certification at system level really be so simple?

No closed captioning! I am deaf and I need closed captioning to follow along with the video. Please correct this! Thanks!

Tim! I totally thought this was rad. I have nothing to add to this! Its great. Im totally nervous about the future starship landing lol!!

Awesome work Tim...keep it up!

Tim, I've only watched the first 17 minutes but I wanted to say right away how tightly edited it is. If you need to cut further (not a bad idea considering the total length), it would be easier to trim the intro than the first substantive section (Artemis and SLS). Very interesting and informative thus far.

Steve Ehrmann

In 48:28 you say that 12 lunar landers cost $17.5B, which makes $2.2B per unit, which would be wrong.

I noticed another audio feed abrupt change at 25:18. not sure if these are intentional or fixable, but they are noticeable.

Snow Munkey

33:30 your voiceover volume of SLS/SS side-by-side comparison drops

Tim, did you forget to say the Starship to Moon capabilities from this frame? https://youtu.be/5zXgbptKxE4?t=2228

314159

With the retro logo on the side of the rocket and Bob and Doug being brought out to the pad in a model X, I think it would be cool if they picked them up in a 1969 Cadillac convertible while playing Ticker Tape Parade.

Disregard. Shared link with myself and then opened perfectly. Here we go!

Help for a Patreon newbie! How do I get this to open in my youtube app? ...so I can open on my TV YouTube app?

watching now!

Whew, there goes my afternoon!

Snow Munkey

Give it 24 hours for more resolutions to appear.

Thomas Maufer

Awesome Tim! Going to watch now! 🚀