I also tend to think Starship is a terrible architecture. They should just put a traditional second stage on top of Superheavy and get on with it already. It may not even be possible to re-enter such the ship from orbital speeds safely.
It could but the Crew Dragon likely wouldn’t have the delta-v to land and return. That being said, I don’t think it’s crazy to do an “assemble in orbit” architecture consisting of multiple preparatory launches.
Hell, Starship is supposed to require like 10 refueling launches to go to the Moon. Couldn’t we just launch 10 Falcon 9s and assemble a badass landing system in orbit?
two launches, put lander in lunar orbit with one rocket, put the command module and crew up in another. Almost all of the hardware is man rated and ready to fly, just need a LM.
I also tend to think Starship is a terrible architecture. They should just put a traditional second stage on top of Superheavy and get on with it already. It may not even be possible to re-enter such the ship from orbital speeds safely.
Tell me Falcon Heavy couldn’t push a Crew Dragon to the moon.
It could but the Crew Dragon likely wouldn’t have the delta-v to land and return. That being said, I don’t think it’s crazy to do an “assemble in orbit” architecture consisting of multiple preparatory launches.
Hell, Starship is supposed to require like 10 refueling launches to go to the Moon. Couldn’t we just launch 10 Falcon 9s and assemble a badass landing system in orbit?
two launches, put lander in lunar orbit with one rocket, put the command module and crew up in another. Almost all of the hardware is man rated and ready to fly, just need a LM.