NASA Doesn't Understand Starship Potential For Space Missions, This Is Casey Handmer's Opinion

JAKARTA – A source at NASA says that SpaceX's Starship is not just a rocket's "holy grail" but that NASA ignores it and is stuck in an unnecessarily expensive constraint because it won't let go of old technology.

US President Joe Biden's budget, known as the Build Back Better Act, was cut in half from 3.5 trillion to 1.75 trillion US dollars. As a result, NASA took a major hit. The USD 4 billion infrastructure upgrade was cut to just USD 750 million, but insiders say the problem at NASA isn't a money problem.

In April, NASA selected Starship to serve as the Artemis Moon mission, the human lander. Unfortunately, the USD 2.89 billion contract and the entire Moon mission are now pending due to Blue Origin's lawsuit against the US government. However, the mission design was strange.

For some reason, NASA chose to send astronauts to the Moon with the Orion capsule mounted on top of a non-reusable rocket. So even though the Starship is capable of making the entire flight for less cost, it will fly alone to the Moon just to rendezvous with Orion and land astronauts on the Moon.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) systems architect Casey Handmer wrote an in-depth look at why NASA is "politely ignoring" Starship. Handmer said NASA doesn't fully understand its potential.

According to Handmer, NASA continues to do business as it has for decades. This includes using non-reusable rockets that are very expensive and cost billions on a mission.

Handmer explains that Starship disrupts the entire way NASA designs missions with an impressive one-ton capability because it is reusable and low-cost. The starship, outperforms the time, space, and expense of any NASA mission by 100 times.

JPL's Handmer says that if you ask NASA program managers how they should deal with Starship, "everyone gets blank stares." Today NASA spends USD 1 million for every kilo they send into space, and they can't send more than 50 tons per year.

On the other hand, sending a kilo into space on Starship costs only USD 50, and can send 10 tons in just one flight. Since the Starship is reusable, it can fly all week and carry up to 500 tons. The interference was such that NASA didn't know how to deal with it.

Elon Musk designed the Starship to colonize Mars. It can transport large industrial machines, thousands of astronauts and is currently the only spacecraft for the task. Each NASA mission has been a "miniaturization marvel, just to cram as much science as possible into a very mass-constrained spacecraft."

The Starship ends the days of human obstacles flying into space. If NASA continues to ignore it, they will not only miss out on a great opportunity to lead in space but one day they will wake up to find that the Moon and Mars have been personally conquered by a fleet of spaceships like Elon Musk's.