SpaceX defended its progress developing a lander that will put Americans back on the moon, following remarks by NASA\u2019s administrator that the agency will reopen the program to other bidders.<\/p>\n
In a lengthy blog post<\/a> Thursday, Elon Musk\u2019s space company said it \u201crapidly advanced\u201d the core Starship spacecraft through 11 test flights and reached 49 milestones in developing the HLS (Human Landing System) version of the craft designed to reach the lunar surface as part of the government\u2019s Artemis program.<\/p>\n \u201cStarship continues to simultaneously be the fastest path to returning humans to the surface of the Moon and a core enabler of the Artemis program\u2019s goal to establish a permanent, sustainable presence on the lunar surface,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n Sean Duffy, NASA\u2019s acting administrator, shocked the space world when he recently remarked on a Fox News program<\/a> that he was \u201copening that contract up\u201d in an effort to get to the moon again before China.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to have a space race in regard to American companies competing to see who can actually get us back to the moon first,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In a later interview with CNBC, he called SpaceX an \u201camazing company\u201d but added, \u201cThe problem is, they\u2019re behind. They\u2019ve pushed their timelines out, and we\u2019re in a race against China.\u201d<\/p>\n NASA awarded SpaceX contracts worth roughly $4 billion to turn the company\u2019s Starship vehicle into a lunar lander that can carry astronauts to the moon as early as 2027. However, members of NASA\u2019s safety panel warned last month<\/a> they doubted that timeline could be met.<\/p>\n The administrator\u2019s remarks incensed Musk, who claimed in a post<\/a> on social media that Duffy, also President Trump\u2019s transportation secretary, wasn\u2019t smart enough for the job. \u201cThe person responsible for America\u2019s space program can\u2019t have a 2 digit IQ,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Duffy toned down the rhetoric<\/a> with his own post that said, \u201cLove the passion. The race to the Moon is ON. Great companies shouldn\u2019t be afraid of a challenge. When our innovators compete with each other, America wins!\u201d <\/p>\n NASA awarded Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin a $3.4-billion contract in 2023 to develop its own lunar lander to carry human astronauts to the moon by 2029, a date even farther out than SpaceX\u2019s. <\/p>\n In defending its program, SpaceX said the size of Starship is unmatched and it is uniquely qualified to carry astronauts and cargo such as rovers, lunar habitats and nuclear reactors to the moon, with a capacity of up to 100 metric tons. It noted that benchmarks the HLS system has met include starting its engines in a chilled and \u201cvacuum-optimized\u201d chamber that simulates the thermal conditions of space.<\/p>\n Experts say a key hurdle SpaceX has yet to clear is transferring propellant to Starship while it is in Earth\u2019s orbit so it can reach the moon. SpaceX said in the post that it is targeting next year to complete that test.<\/p>\n SpaceX moved its headquarters<\/a> from Hawthorne to Texas last year but still retains large operations in the South Bay city. It also is seeking to increase the number of its Falcon 9 commercial and military flights at Vandenberg Space Force Base<\/a> in Santa Barbara County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SpaceX defended its progress developing a lander that will put Americans back on the moon, following remarks by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[22772,22774,4017,48,52,51,47,50,49,22777,22773,22770,3098,5767,4576,20687,22776,7121,22775,18174,22771],"class_list":["post-31153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-administrator","tag-astronaut","tag-contract","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-lunar-lander","tag-lunar-surface","tag-moon-landing","tag-nasa","tag-post","tag-program","tag-progress","tag-remark","tag-sean-duffy","tag-space-race","tag-spacex","tag-starship-craft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}