On the heels of yesterday's announcement that USSPACECOM is again moving from the springs to AL I figured I'd share a reminder that space remains a contested environment that requires continued investment in capabilities to ensure we maintain our edge in the domain.

https://www.spacecom.mil/Newsroom/News/Article-Display/Article/4292078/ndia-swf-usspacecom-leaders-emphasized-allied-and-commercial-integration-as-cri/

Also pretty good write up on measures currently underway to ensure there's not a Pearl Harbor moment in space

https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2025/07/why-the-united-states-should-not-fear-a-space-pearl.html

.@SecDuffyNASA says a four-man crew will go out and around the moon in the first part of 2026 — then Artemis III, an 8-12 day mission to start building our base camp on the moon.

"We know that China wants to get there before us. We're not going to let it happen." pic.twitter.com/YEIp5r6Vvy

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 4, 2025

will25u said:

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.@SecDuffyNASA says a four-man crew will go out and around the moon in the first part of 2026 — then Artemis III, an 8-12 day mission to start building our base camp on the moon.

"We know that China wants to get there before us. We're not going to let it happen." pic.twitter.com/YEIp5r6Vvy

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 4, 2025

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I can't wait to see this happen. I am so excited that we are getting back into the practice of manned flight to the moon.

Curious the Artemis III timeline, had to look it up but Artemis I, was Nov '22. By that it would be '29-'30?

If they are wanting Mars in the early 2030s I would imagine we are looking at 27 or 28 but that would be really fast for a NASA timeline

AtlAg05 said:

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Curious the Artemis III timeline, had to look it up but Artemis I, was Nov '22. By that it would be '29-'30?

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That is probably what the schedule says, but this is NASA we are talking about, so add 2-3 years to that for bureaucratic delays.

Artemis III is the one that requires Block 2 SLS isn't it? And the new tower?

I think total cost for SLS is around 35 billion currently.

The Starship program is something like 8-10 billion so far.

For the space enthused, I found the below interesting and mostly watchable.

https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/the-future-of-space-exploration

She does have a nice ability to makes complex topics a bit more relatable. Particularly though her discussion of landing on the moon and why it's so difficult, both from lack of ultra high res mapping, moon dust complicating landing in same area without a pad, and lower gravity and such.

Nice to see the administration promoting the program and standing firm on the timeline, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Making something extremely difficult look easy.

🚀 SpaceX launches by year:

2006: 1
2007: 1
2008: 2
2009: 1
2010: 2
2011: 0
2012: 2
2013: 3
2014: 6
2015: 7
2016: 9
2017: 18
2018: 21
2019: 13
2020: 27
2021: 33
2022: 61
2023: 98
2024: 133
2025: 111 as of September 5

— World of Statistics (@stats_feed) September 5, 2025

We will get to the Moon under President Trump’s term. Our mission is Artemis.

We WILL win the second space race. China wants to beat us there, but we won’t let them.

Come aboard, to the final frontier. pic.twitter.com/3CZ0XzTEce

— NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy (@SecDuffyNASA) September 5, 2025

so that means '28 at the latest. are they further along than we think or are they going to ramp everything up to 11 to get there?

If you do not set a goal then you will never get there. Throw down the demand and work the compliance to that demand.

AgBQ-00 said:

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so that means '28 at the latest. are they further along than we think or are they going to ramp everything up to 11 to get there?

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There is a TON of unnecessary bureaucracy that inserts itself into the process/schedule at NASA. If they want to move faster, they can. They just need to tell those guys they have 1-2 weeks to review documents/plans instead of 6+ months.

I think SpaceX will land Ship on Mars before Americans land on the moon.

Is musk totally skipping the moon? I didn't think so. Lots of benefits to having either the moon but probably more preferably a giant space station in one of the Lagrange points (courtesy of Great Courses) which may be a better option and leave Moon for mining.

will25u said:

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.@SecDuffyNASA says a four-man crew will go out and around the moon in the first part of 2026 — then Artemis III, an 8-12 day mission to start building our base camp on the moon.

"We know that China wants to get there before us. We're not going to let it happen." pic.twitter.com/YEIp5r6Vvy

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 4, 2025

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This will be very cool if we can get a base camp of people living and working on the moon- gonna be fun to watch all the updates, let's hope it all goes well

No reason for lots of people up there. Just a bunch of roombas vacuuming up minerals and Helium 3.

You could essentially offload most all of Earl's hard in environment industry to the Moon.

PJYoung said:

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will25u said:

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We will get to the Moon under President Trump’s term. Our mission is Artemis.

We WILL win the second space race. China wants to beat us there, but we won’t let them.

Come aboard, to the final frontier. pic.twitter.com/3CZ0XzTEce

— NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy (@SecDuffyNASA) September 5, 2025

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They're gonna have to pour lots more tax dollars in if they're serious about meeting that date.

PJYoung said:

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will25u said:

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We will get to the Moon under President Trump’s term. Our mission is Artemis.

We WILL win the second space race. China wants to beat us there, but we won’t let them.

Come aboard, to the final frontier. pic.twitter.com/3CZ0XzTEce

— NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy (@SecDuffyNASA) September 5, 2025

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I guess I don't understand how it's a big deal to go back to the moon. We did it 55 years ago. And we did it with slide rules and computer punch cards.

/slightly…not all the way…raises eyebrows

NASA budget was 4.4% of the federal budget during Apollo, versus the current 0.3%. The risk tolerance was much higher back then also. Heck, Apollo 14 launched only 9 months after the Apollo 13 almost disaster.

Static fire sunday, fyi.

Starship Flight 11: Booster 15-2 is rolling to Pad 1 for its Static Fire test on Sunday.https://t.co/e3xbqPnwZ5 pic.twitter.com/Al84ftXHHl

— NSF - NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) September 6, 2025

Zack has a nice 40 minute episode out on flight 10:

flown-the-coop said:

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Is musk totally skipping the moon? I didn't think so. Lots of benefits to having either the moon but probably more preferably a giant space station in one of the Lagrange points (courtesy of Great Courses) which may be a better option and leave Moon for mining.

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Elon would prefer to skip the moon but they are part of Nasa's manned moon landing effort.

But note, I'm saying an unmanned Ship (with maybe some Tesla bots) will land on mars before a manned American moon landing will happen. That doesn't mean an unmanned moon landing won't happen before an unmanned Mars landing. But yeah, Mars is Elon's main goal.

Queso1 said:

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PJYoung said:

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will25u said:

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We will get to the Moon under President Trump’s term. Our mission is Artemis.

We WILL win the second space race. China wants to beat us there, but we won’t let them.

Come aboard, to the final frontier. pic.twitter.com/3CZ0XzTEce

— NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy (@SecDuffyNASA) September 5, 2025

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I guess I don't understand how it's a big deal to go back to the moon. We did it 55 years ago. And we did it with slide rules and computer punch cards.

/slightly…not all the way…raises eyebrows

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Cause China and Russia want the moon

You left out Gru and his nemesis. They have strong interest as well.

fullback44 said:

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will25u said:

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.@SecDuffyNASA says a four-man crew will go out and around the moon in the first part of 2026 — then Artemis III, an 8-12 day mission to start building our base camp on the moon.

"We know that China wants to get there before us. We're not going to let it happen." pic.twitter.com/YEIp5r6Vvy

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 4, 2025

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This will be very cool if we can get a base camp of people living and working on the moon- gonna be fun to watch all the updates, let's hope it all goes well

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Definitely high ground.

TexAgs91 said:

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I think SpaceX will land Ship on Mars before Americans land on the moon.

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I think your right but at this rate the mars mission is slightly less challenging since nothing is coming back


I think they will shoot a starship at Mars next window

SpaceX will absolutely shoot for the 2028 mars window to put a starship on the surface there, and consequently deploy some robots etc. to test operations. I think the process to get there is achievable/likely, as it really just depends on building a path to a refueling operation with the next iteration of developmental test articles, and then sending what amounts to a fancy/large probe to land on what would presumably be one of the most safe landing sites. The lunar lander will help with that, imho, as the dusty/low atmosphere of mars will benefit from control tests.

Note the Martian launch window closes before any next POTUS would be sworn in, in early 2029, so the Dems really won't be able to stop SpaceX in this time period.

Artemis III landing on the moon is dependent on actually happening, according to Nasa, in 'mid-2027.' Now, does anyone take that seriously, even with interim administrator saying it will? I certainly don't, and would cite the long, incredible history of timeline failures by the entirety of Artemis and the predecessor programs dating back to the space shuttle.

nortex97 said:

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according to Nasa, in 'mid-2027.' Now, does anyone take that seriously, even with interim administrator saying it will?

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They haven't named a crew yet and the training timeline is at least 2 years.

Fightin_Aggie said:

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TexAgs91 said:

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I think SpaceX will land Ship on Mars before Americans land on the moon.

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I think your right but at this rate the mars mission is slightly less challenging since nothing is coming back


I think they will shoot a starship at Mars next window

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I hope so, but I'm not sure about that. Refueling in orbit is required and that may take several months to get right. The window is in about a year. But definitely in 2028.

Static fire this am, hopefully.

And also on Youtube:https://t.co/GneWHXDMde https://t.co/8Q71y1y8j1

— NSF - NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) September 7, 2025

Not sure what time is likely, doesn't look like they've started filling the tanks yet. Probably not until after 11 or so is my guess.
ETA: filling now, looks like around 10:20 is their target for the full 33-engine static fire.
https://www.youtube.com/live/Sn0j9nCLxC4

Is this the last launch of this version?