Who Has The Best Rocket? Boeing is setting the date again in February 2022 for the test of the Artemis rocket. This has dragged on for years, is far overdue and seems to be outclassed by the SpaceX Super Heavy rocket. Let’s look at a few details. The Artemis rocket has 8.2 million pounds of thrust only a slight bit more than the retired Saturn V which had about 7.9 million pounds of thrust. The SpaceX rocket is called the Super Heavy and has 15 million pounds of thrust, almost twice as much as the Artemis. Right off the bat we see the SpaceX rocket could lift far more than the Boeing rocket. The Super Heavy is the first stage of the SpaceX rocket with the second stage being the Starship. While the Orion capsule which fits on top of the Artemis rocket can hold up to six astronauts, the SpaceX extra heavy is designed to launch about 100 people to Mars. There is one thing I must say and it seems the SpaceX rocket which was built with private funds is far cheaper than the Boeing rocket. One rocket engine on the Artemis costs millions of dollars but a more powerful engine from SpaceX cost about one half million dollars and Elon Musk says the cost will be going down as they build more. The Artemis rocket has had numerous cost overruns and delays and yet the company has been awarded achievement bonuses. SpaceX started out later to build its rocket and fired it for the first time in July 2021. NASA could have built more Saturn V rockets but incredibly we were told the designs for the rocket were not saved. Wasn’t that convenient for Boeing and those other aerospace companies involved with the Artemis. While the electronics are more advanced than they were on the Saturn V, the rocket itself doesn’t seem to me to be that much more advanced than its 1960s counterpart. Were we ripped off again? Another annoying thing with the Rocket was the computer problems and design problem where Boeing had to dissemble part of the rocket to get to a part and this took months. Wouldn’t one think the parts would be more accessible so they could be gotten to in an emergency. What would have happened if this part didn’t work while the rocket was in space? Don’t get me wrong the SpaceX super heavy has had early problems during its development, but no where near as many delays in its development and at no cost to the taxpayer. A couple of years ago the cost overruns by Boeing were rated by the Government Accounting Office to be about 1.8 billion dollars and that was assuming the launching date would be in 2020, not 2021 for a test firing. It was estimated the Artemis program would cost NASA, between 20 and 30 billion through 2024, but now it seems to me it will be more. Since the Super Heavy or Star Ship is privately funded no one knows for sure the cost of the program, but I bet you it is far less than what NASA is paying. Another cost is the cost of launching these rockets. NASA has stated the moon rocket could cost as much as 1.6 billion dollars just to launch. This is so incredible I hate to say it, but according to Elon Must he estimated the cost to launch the Star Ship also know and the Super Heavy rocket would be about 2 million dollars. I know it sounds absurd when compared to the Boeing and Lockheed Martin rocket but there you have it. I had read an article praising the Artemis rocket and NASA’s program to get us back to the moon. It stated this time we were not going to stop as we did with the Apollo program. If anyone reading this is old enough to remember, when government officials were asked why we stopped, the people were blamed. These officials were telling us we lost interest in going back to the moon which simply was not true. We even had Saturn V rockets left over. This begs the question were we telling the truth and were we sending the military there to build bases? Could bases be built in such a way they wouldn’t be noticed by other nations, perhaps inside a crater? Whether we really stopped going to the moon or not, I am all for going back there. We need to jump start our space program and what better place to start than the nearest body to us in the solar system, our moon? This will give us the practice we need to learn our systems better and give us experience in an alien body environment. Another thing is will we let Musk and SpaceX beat the old companies of the aerospace industry? There are plenty of newcomers out there and they are hungry for business. The old aerospace companies have gotten too fat on the calf. They have adopted practices which the government seemed to encourage. These policies are delay, overcharge and somehow get paid for not meeting the goals. As I have been saying for years, it is a slap in the face of the American tax payer. These companies never seem to face any penalties for missing their contractual obligations, it does make one wonder if their lobbyists have become too chummy with the politicians. I not only want to see us put people on the moon, but next on Mars and truly search there for signs of life, but it seems SpaceX will be ready for that trip far before any of the others are. Can you imagine if this happens all the pressure which will be put on them to prevent them from doing that? Hundreds of thousands of dollars will change hands and promises will be made all to keep the old guard in the space business. Blue Origin is talking about putting up a space station, but under the circumstances it seems they are too far away to even predict this since they have never, at the time of this writing, put a rocket into orbit. Sure, they sent William Shatner to the edge of space and back, but that is not the same thing. The recent worries by employees about safety don’t help either. It is true we should not put all our eggs in one basket, I am talking about only going with one space company on big projects, but we do have to go with companies which produce. Just because some of the older companies did incredible things many years ago doesn’t mean they can still do them. Their actions have proved they can’t seem to.
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