NASA Awards Contract to SpaceX to Launch Initial Elements for Lunar Outpost
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. (NASA PR) — NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the agency’s Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO), the foundational elements of the Gateway. As the first long-term orbiting outpost around the Moon, the Gateway is critical to supporting sustainable astronauts missions under the agency’s Artemis program.
After integration on Earth, the PPE and HALO are targeted to launch together no earlier than May 2024 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The total cost to NASA is approximately $331.8 million, including the launch service and other mission-related costs.
The PPE is a 60-kilowatt class solar electric propulsion spacecraft that also will provide power, high-speed communications, attitude control, and the capability to move the Gateway to different lunar orbits, providing more access to the Moon’s surface than ever before.
The HALO is the pressurized living quarters where astronauts who visit the Gateway, often on their way to the Moon, will work. It will provide command and control and serve as the docking hub for the outpost. HALO will support science investigations, distribute power, provide communications for visiting vehicles and lunar surface expeditions, and supplement the life support systems aboard Orion, NASA’s spacecraft that will deliver Artemis astronauts to the Gateway.
About one-sixth the size of the International Space Station, the Gateway will function as a way station, located tens of thousands of miles at its farthest distance from the lunar surface, in a near-rectilinear halo orbit. It will serve as a rendezvous point for Artemis astronauts traveling to lunar orbit aboard Orion prior to transit to low-lunar orbit and the surface of the Moon. From this vantage, NASA and its international and commercial partners will conduct unprecedented deep space science and technology investigations.
NASA’s Launch Services Program at Kennedy will manage the SpaceX launch service. The HALO is being designed and built by Northrop Grumman Space Systems of Dulles, Virginia, and the PPE is being built by Maxar Technologies of Westminster, Colorado. NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston manages the Gateway program for the agency. NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is responsible for management of the PPE.
Learn more about NASA’s Gateway program at:
Learn more about NASA’s Artemis program at:
163 responses to “NASA Awards Contract to SpaceX to Launch Initial Elements for Lunar Outpost”
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ULA is not going to like this…
Even if Vulcan-Centaur could be ready in time, I don’t think it has enough performance to do this Gateway multiple-module launch to lunar orbit.
SLS delenda est
Mass to TLI
Vulcan Heavy: 12.1 metric tons
Falcon Heavy: not posted, but it’s listed at 16.8 metric tons to Mars. Maybe 21-25 metric tons ± to TLI?
Whatever, Falcon Heavy is a beast.
Super Heavy? They’re building BN-1 at Boca Chica now. Big concrete pour at the orbital pad this week.
Most Falcon Heavy estimates put TLI payload around 20 tons.
Falcon Heavy can also launch 26 metric tons to GTO.
That opens up intriguing potential for heavy lunar payloads that use solar-electric-propulsion, such as potentially this Gateway launch.
I haven’t seen a number yet for the combined mass of the Gateway PPE and HALO modules. But I’m on the lookout. Do you know?
SLS delenda est
Musk stultorum est terminus
SLS block1B will put about 42 tons into TLI and eventually over 50 tons with improved boosters. With liquid reusable boosters that will likely go up to around 75 tons.
You will see your first block 1b SLS launch sometime around 2025 at best, more likely 2028. Your first block 2 SLS sometime around 2030 at best, more likely never.
In the meantime, NASA will have wasted 25 billion MORE dollars on your Biden Rocket to Nowhere. Delivering at best, a pitiful total of 150 metric tons of payload for all the SLS launches to the Moon by the year 2030. What a disaster!
SLS delenda est
Musk stultorum est terminus
Your shiny starship will take nobody really knows how long to be lunar capable. The fleets of shinies and huge “Super Heavy” boosters required for a single such mission will not be coming into service anytime soon. It is the most gimmicky and ridiculous plan possible. As for the “FH” landing a few tons at a time while incapable of carrying humans (and any talk of making the crew dragon/FH lunar capable is a fools game) that will accomplish nothing.
NewSpace promises much and delivers little and always will. Only a state sponsored Super Heavy Lift Vehicle (SHLV) program of launches will enable a permanent human presence Beyond Low Earth Orbit (BLEO). The libertarian only-for-profit model is absolute poison to space exploration. NewSpace continues to be the single greatest obstacle to humankind expanding into the solar system- while saying they are the opposite. They have used this bizarro P.R. projection from the start.
You are just doing what spacex thugs always do….NASA bashing and being toxic.
SLS is destroying NASA. You aren’t helping NASA with your SLS cheerleading, you are hurting NASA as assuredly as if you were campaigning for the return of the Space Shuttle.
Sad.
SLS delenda est
Musk stultorum est terminus
“SLS is destroying NASA.”
SLS is the flagship exploration program of the U.S. Space Agency.
“-as if you were campaigning for the return of the Space Shuttle.“
And the shiny starship is actually just a new kind of shuttle so you are really the one campaigning here. See how that works?
This loyalty to a cult of personality is far worse than sad- it is disgusting and nauseating to any citizen who has not guzzled the brain-numbing NewSpace libertarian kool-aid.
The Cult of Musk, like The Cult of Trump, needs to end.
Artemis is the flagship exploration program of the U.S. space agency (NASA). SLS is a part of Artemis, but a diminished part. Should it continue extending its record of delay and failure, it will play no part in NASA’s exploration program.
The Shiny Starship is, indeed, a new type of shuttle but will also be several kinds of deep space-capable craft as well as a means of suborbital terrestrial transport. The Starship technology will prove quite versatile.
The only “cult of personality” visible here is the Bizzaro World one you have developed based on the late Gerard K. O’Neill. It’s a pity O’Neill is gone. Were he still around, I’m sure he’d be the best of buddies with Elon and Jeff. Which would, no doubt, cause your head to promptly explode.
A “diminished part”?
You just showed who is living in Bizzaro World, and Trump World, and Musk World.
The Cult of Musk, like The Cult of Trump, needs to end.
Diminished.
SLS was once slated to launch Gateway components, lunar landers and Europa Clipper as well as Orion. The only one of those jobs it now has left is launching Orion. And if it continues to slow-march even that job, it won’t have any duties left at all.
Shiny Starship is going to be lunar capable – meaning landing on the Moon, not just getting most of the way there before petering out – well before any other vehicle. SLS will be a minor footnote in a space settlement history that will be written by Starships and their successors.
I wish you good health and long life. You deserve to be around to see the complete refutation of your entire worldview.
Yon troll has exhausted it’s entertainment value for me. You can feed it of course, but is it too much to ask that you house break it? If possible of course.
He is, unfortunately, too far away for me to swat him on the snoot with a rolled-up newspaper.
The F9 and FH should have served the purpose of the newspaper with flight totals passing ULA sometime this year. Well past a century of launches already while SLS ca’t even complete a full duration test fire yet. Far more capability in the F9/FH series already than any rational projection of SLS even if Starship/Superheavy never enter service. Given that, are you sure the troll is even sentient?
Fair question. There is circumstantial evidence that Gary was sentient at one time – his admiration of Gerard K. O’Neill. Perhaps he suffered a stroke or some other form of brain injury in the early 70s as he displays no evidence of having learned anything much since.
Two weeks in and, boom, it’s his albatross? Geez, that’s rough. Shelby only announced his planned retirement today.
He still has two years. SLS will launch and the entire world will give the U.S. a standing ovation…except those who hate America. We are going.
How long Biden has to do anything is going to depend on his flappers and handlers, not on him.
SLS may launch, but hardly on time and, I suspect, to decidedly limited applause – even assuming it doesn’t crap out on the climb uphill. Starship is likelier to launch in full-stack form first and to get more plaudits when it does.
We are, indeed, going. But SLS will have little or nothing to do with that.
Do you seriously expect Angry Joe Dementia to drop SLS? I mean, sure it’s theoretically possible. But I’ll give you 10 to 1 odds!
SLS is a disaster, everyone knows it. But Biden is going to double-down on that bad bet. He merely would be acting true to his nature as a creature of the D.C. swamp.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
SLS delenda est
Musk stultorum est terminus
Disgusting creep insulting Biden who will go down as one of the best while your ass-clown impeached wannabe dictator that staged a failed coup, responsible for hundreds of thousands of needless deaths, was absolutely the worst president ever. The swamp is in your head. The world will give the U.S. and Biden a standing ovation when the SLS lifts off- except for those enemies of democracy who hate America.
Not that there was ever much doubt, but you have now proven your political judgement to be as defective as your judgement about matters relating to space.
I frankly do not expect the Biden administration to give the NASA human spaceflight program much attention. I could be wrong. Maybe Biden is really into it.
Someone thought to put that moon rock in his office. As far as I know, he’s never said anything substantive on the topic. That could indicate that he has nothing substantive to say. It could also mean that he is aware that going on about the space program during a presidential campaign is bad politics.
Another possibility is that, while he does have opinions about Artemis, he may not be willing to expend any political capital on asserting those opinions. He’s got other fish to fry, like healthcare, climate change and national security matters, foreign affairs.
Benign neglect is about the best one can expect from most presidential administrations when it comes to NASA.
Nothing about Biden makes me believe he has even the slightest interest in NASA. I fully expect to see his administration sleep-walk NASA policy and to rubberstamp agreement with whatever Congress shoves under his nose.
However, that does not give Biden an excuse for making the wrong choice at this key time.
There are Presidents, who through the accident of history are positioned to make key decisions that ripple down into the future. They have a free hand to make a choice, even if they have no interest in that policy area. Whether they rise to that challenge is telling.
This has already happened twice with NASA policy during the 21st Century.
The first time was the aftermath of the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster of 2003. President Bush impressed the heck out of me, with a bold and correct change of NASA policy. But the expensive lunar mission architecture selected by NASA administrator Griffin, combined with the housing-price-bubble economic crash of 2008 endangered NASA.
That situation set up President Obama with a chance to fix what was wrong with NASA. Sad to say I think he screwed it up badly. Setting NASA on a bloated path of wasted money and years of delays.
Now that waste and delay has come to a head. There is a chance for Biden to do the right thing. All the evidence is before him, clear alternatives are available, every political opportunity is open to do the right thing for NASA.
But I don’t think he will.
SLS delenda est
“But I don’t think he will.”
Of course you don’t. You don’t want him to. You want our democracy burned down and a fascist state to take over that will make all your bizarro libertarian fantasies come true. Much like Germany- Mark Twain said it: “history doesn’t repeat itself but it often ryhmes.”
The right is the greatest danger to the United States in it’s history.
January 6 was the warning. We the people are in big trouble, right now.
Trump oportet relinquere stulti
Our democracy already burned down on Nov. 4, 2020. Now the rest of the totalitarian scheme is in the process of being pushed through. The left is doing the pushing. You are merely one of the many useful idiots cheering them on.
Sixty four courts disagree with your conviction regarding the election. Many of those judges are Republicans, many of them were appointed to lifelong positions by Trump. How do you square that circle?
By making it a triangle of course. That is a necessary but unpopular question.
It seems to be fairly popular around here.
Don’t you understand they do not deal in truth but only in lies? 30,000 lies in 4 years is their model, their ideal. They have zero integrity.
The lying is overwhelmingly on your side and has been roughly forever. “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” Or poor Sandy Cortez fearing for her life on Jan. 6. Trump colluded with Russia. Trump coerced Ukraine to smear Hunter Biden. The Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. Trump fomented insurrection.
Your entire worldview is lies on top of more lies.
There were no actual proceedings that examined evidence. All the suits were dismissed for alleged lack of standing and other technical quibbles. The reason for this is pretty much the same as the reason for Republican election officials “certifying” obviously problematic election results so many places – threats against these people and their families. Never let it be said that over a century of close association with organized crime hasn’t taught Democrats something about “persuasion.”
goofy
I’m not the one who voted for a career criminal.
You may be right. Perhaps his choice of administrator will give us a clue as to his disposition, whenever that happens.
Could be. But I suspect we have awhile to wait on that. Even Obama didn’t appoint Charlie Bolden right away.
As Gerard K. O’Neill foresaw in the 70’s, Space Solar Power is the path to humankind expanding into the solar system, and the solution to the planet heating up. That makes the Moon the most important factory site in the history of civilization. Somebody might tell him that. The Green New Space Deal could happen. I believe something good should happen after the evil of the last four years.
There has certainly been no shortage of evil over the last four years, but it occurred in spite of Trump, not because of him. In any case, you are going to be disappointed once again anent any Green New Space Deal.
SLS is an establishment Swamp Rocket and Biden is an establishment Swamp Thing, but I think his involvement with SLS is likely to be governed by inertia far more than volition. Which, come to think of it, will probably characterize the vast majority of his involvement with pretty much everything.
The garbage libertarian right wing ideology on these forums are the worst thing that has ever happened to space exploration. Several million have come to these forums over the years and walked away never to return or have any interest in space again. The toxic fanboy zombie legion has done profound and unrealized damage to the public perception of space exploration and the space agency. Shame, shame, everlasting shame on all of you.
Trivially excitable and over-grandiose as ever I see.
I have no idea how many have come to these forums over the years, but I suspect it’s a lot less than “several million.” Neither you nor I would have any way of knowing as neither of us is in a supervisory or editorial position to know.
And even those with access to the visitation stats have no way to know how many – if any – have absented themselves, never to return, in abject horror at my depraved and lunatic screeds – compared to, say, your depraved and lunatic screeds.
Yes. Joe Biden can be correctly blamed for a great many things, but SLS isn’t one of them.
Biden can’t be blamed for the SLS of 2020, but he sure as heck will be blamed for the SLS of 2024, because President Biden made that call.
If SLS continues, Biden will have no one to blame but himself.
SLS delenda est
I don’t think Biden makes calls, I think he takes calls.
if SLS continues and eats up 2 billion a year…there is no money to do anything else
It is the ISS that is eating up 4 billion a year. Direct that at the SLS and we could be going to the Moon every couple months for the next 30 years.
SLS production would cost a fortune to increase…and 4 billion a year wont even pay for 1 mission
For appreciably less than that, we could be going to the Moon in Starships every couple of days.
Well, there’s no money for NASA to do anything else.
And I suspect you are still being overgenerous as to what SLS will actually accomplish before cancellation. I think the odds are better than even that SLS Block 1B never flies at all. Cancellation day now draws still nearer with the announcement that Richard Shelby will not seek re-election in 2022.
?? Considering that it was forced on Obama by Shelby and many GOP, why do you call it biden’s rocket?
If Biden as President, now doubles down on the bad bet of SLS, even though it is blindingly obvious to all what a colossal waste of money that SLS is, then he will deserve the branding.
SLS delenda est
But SLS wouldn’t be able to do any of that until late in this decade at the earliest. SLS Block 1B requires the EUS which doesn’t yet exist. So SLS would still need to be around until the EUS and the advanced boosters – solid or liquid – were to be developed and fielded. Given that Boeing has already screwed the EUS pooch once and is only now making their second effort, I wouldn’t rate even the EUS’s chance of eventually existing at more than 50%. The advanced boosters are even more problematical – especially any strictly notional liquid-fueled ones. The only SLSes ever likely to fly will be strictly run-whatcha-brung Block 1s pushing Orions. All of Gateway’s bits will arrive via other arrangements – of which the contract that is the subject of this story is merely the first.
Why are you replying to me? You are the worst Trumpist on these forums- truly I never want to have any interaction with rabid creeps like you for the rest of my life- except to point you out to everyone in the room to shame you.
The worst Trumpist? Thanks, I’m flattered.
I was mostly replying to you for the record – posterity, if you will. Knowing that it pisses you off is just an added benefit. Not that it’s a particularly exotic extra benefit. Damned near everything seems to piss you off so I give myself no inordinate credit when it comes to accomplishing that.
Musk stultorum est terminus
The SLS will send a very large stack to the Moon; using a wet workshop upper stage they could send modules that when assembled would be as large as the ISS in just two or three launches.
Nothing NewSpace can do that for a long time, if ever. The shiny keeps blowing up. The best path is to decommission the space station to nowhere and direct that and additional funding into opening more SLS core production lines to support 6-8 launches per year. And liquid fueled boosters, possibly using F-1B’s, to loft 150 tons per launch.
With liquid boosters parachuted into the sea like the SRB’s were and reused, and a reusable RS-25 engine module, the SLS would be what the shuttle should have been; lifting more than a Saturn V with only the core tank sacrificed to the rocket equation. In comparison the shiny is just another new-kind-of-shuttle disaster on the way. And a long way away since refueling the shiny in orbit with…how many tankers? It’s not happening anytime soon.
For the money wasted every year on SLS, NASA could afford to send over a thousand tons of payload to LEO, by using the Falcon Heavy.
For the money wasted every year on SLS, NASA could afford to send over 300 tons of payload to the Moon, by using the Falcon Heavy.
That is today. Right now. Not years in the future. Not waiting for some pie in the sky technology rescue.
SpaceX, with the Falcon Heavy, has already realized the promise of cheap space transportation, that the Space Shuttle failed to deliver.
SLS delenda est
Musk stultorum est terminus
LEO is a dead end and the SLS will always send more in big pieces and that is what counts.
And…Blah blah blah thanks for another one of thousands of spacex adverts.
Your immunity to facts and logic is always jaw dropping.
Why don’t you tell me more how everything you didn’t like about Obama space policy, was because he was just a puppet for Elon Musk? Holee molee!
SLS delenda est
Musk stultorum est terminus
I voted for Obama. And I support a New Green Deal, hoping it turns into a New Green Space Deal to power civilization from space. https://iceonthemoon.org/20…
If only you and duheagle…
…weren’t so stupid.
Correct!
See, you’re as predictable as the sunrise.
It would certainly be neat to actually be the major stumbling block to realization of your space fantasies. But I’m afraid the laws of economics and physics are way out in front of me on that score.
Says the Trumpist….as if anything could be more ironic.
Not sure what “irony” you are referring to but I’d recommend you check it with a magnet. It’ll probably turn out to be gray plastic.
LEO is barely warmed up.
SLS won’t send “more” in pieces of any size as it is expendable, too expensive and too production-limited. Even now, as gunsandrockets points out, Falcon Heavy can fly rings around SLS. Starship will be able to fly rings around Falcon Heavy.
Starship already has more internal volume than does ISS and one can be gotten to the Moon – surface or orbit – with a handful of cheap launches done quickly rather than two or three very expensive launches done over a period of several years. And with 150 tons of payload not just bare bones structure.
Good luck getting a Dem administration to spend the 10s of billions it would take to Xerox Michoud 6 or 8 times. Not to mention the years it would take to do that. SpaceX’s Boca Chica works can already turn out more Starships than that annually and needs not an extra dime of government money to do so.
There’s also the time and money needed to actually develop all the semi-reusable SLS hardware you want. It has taken legacy aerospace more than a decade to build the pathetic SLS as it currently exists. Better figure on at least another wasted decade – or two – to rebuild it to your specs.
Elon will have mansions on both the Moon and Mars by the time all that could happen. You’re flogging a dead horse.
Bizarro Musk sychophant and Trumpist…..you are a nag and lier.
As always.
No lies, just what you seem to find seriously uncomfortable truths.
Repetition of the truth is not nagging – especially if the other party keeps spouting the same arrant nonsense year after year.
goofy starship is no where near an operational system
It’s closer than SLS.
no
Check back with us at year’s end. I don’t think intervening events are likely to treat your thesis too kindly.
I dont think it has the stones either. the only real competitor would be whatever BO is trying/thinking whatever they are doing of building
I am wondering if this is part of Bezos moving …ie he sees SLS going down and wants to have a rocket to be in the running for the business
Bezos has a lot of interests other than Blue Origin to occupy him in those hours he will no longer be devoting to running Amazon day-to-day. We space nerds are sometimes guilty of excessive tunnel vision where that sort of thing is concerned. Bezos is a ubiquitous presence at all the seasonal festivals of self-congratulation that constitute Awards Season, for example. Amazon’s streaming service probably employs a substantial percentage of A-List Hollywood during any given calendar year so Jeff always shows up wherever these people gather so they can kiss his… ring.
ULA’s only involvement in such a mission would have been to build the 2nd stage for the SLS that isn’t going to be launching this Gateway nucleus thanks to former NASA Administrator Bridenstine’s success in limiting SLS’s involvement to strictly the launching of Orions. ULA doesn’t have, and isn’t going to have, any vehicle capable of doing this job in any case. Once Doug Loverro decided to glue PPE and HALO together before launch, ULA ceased to be a candidate for this job.
The company and it’s founder that made the Moon verboten for a decade so it could cash in with it’s inferior lift rocket to the space station to nowhere is now going to get paid to go to the place they kept us from going to for so long.
Truth is stranger than fiction.
It was Obama that made the Moon verboten. As when during his 2010 speech in Florida, Obama infamously declared about the Moon, “been there, done that.”!
Sure SpaceX has been laser focused on Mars. But the dirt-cheap Falcon Heavy rocket, which costs 1/20 as much as the catastrophically expensive SLS, is what can enable NASA to go back to the Moon now.
The price SpaceX is charging to launch Gateway, is only 13% of what NASA is wasting on SLS this year for zero launches.
SLS delenda est
Musk stultorum est terminus
SpaceX has set space exploration back at least a decade and the damage is accumulating. They were likely behind the decision to kill Sidemount, they were even more likely behind Obama’s infamous “been there” speech. And they have sucked funding from the SLS since the beginning. Plans to deorbit the ISS should have started in 2010 when massive amounts of ice on the Moon were detected. Instead the ISS cash cow that would essentially be the funding for SpaceX was chosen.
And a lying toxic legion of cyberthugs have hijacked all forums where space is discussed, flooding them with sycophantic hero worship and trashing NASA from the beginning. The worst thing that has ever happened to space exploration. Like the Trump Cult, they have caused profound unrealized damage.
There is no cheap.
The Cult of Musk, like the Cult of Trump, must end.
It was President Bush that wanted to de-orbit ISS in 2016.
But Obama reversed that ISS policy and gifted the Sacred White Elephant eternal life.
It wasn’t SpaceX that trashed NASA, it was Obama.
I’ve been wanting (and waiting) to see NASA achieve great things in manned space exploration, ever since 2004 when President Bush directed NASA away from the stagnant path that NASA had been mired in for decades. Only to see Obama push NASA back into the slothful direction.
Your strange fixations and paranoid fantasies are truly amazing to behold. You don’t seem to even see who are your true enemies and who are your true allies.
SLS delenda est
Musk stultorum est terminus
Your abiding hatred of Obama is transparent and makes it obvious what you are. It is you with the strange fixation and dual cult membership.
And of course, like all Trumpists, you lie like the rest of us breathe.
You are always going to be remembered for supporting the worst president in the history of the United States, that tried to overthrow the government.
“There’s plenty of smoke regarding election fraud during the 2020 election.
All such fraud should be rigorously investigated, election fraud should be prosecuted, and new rules instituted to prevent future fraud.
Was there fraud during the 2020 election? In all likelihood yes, quite a bit of fraud. Was there enough fraud in the Swing-States to make a difference in the outcome of the Electoral College majority? In all likelihood no, but it is possible.
Sadly, we may never know the truth of how much fraud there was during the 2020 election, mostly because of the obstruction and bad faith actions of Democrats and of those instruments of Democratic Power like the legacy-News-Media.”
I will not forget your words above and I know who my true enemies are.
Musk is seen as a cult figure similar to Trump, representing a Howard Roark/John Galt/Tony Stark authority figure that embodies the libertarian fantasy of becoming a virtual god, or the king of Mars, or whatever.
It is completely nuts whether it is Trump or Musk or, in your case, both.
And yet, Obama’s decision to continue ISS gave us commercial crew and provided a destination for Falcon 9 and cargo Dragon during some lean manifest years (and what would still be a pretty lean manifest if SpaceX hadn’t come up with their own launch market through Starlink).
Meanwhile, Bush’s Constellation program was already in trouble, all of engineering, budget and schedule-wise, as determined by a non-partisan commission.
I didn’t agree with Obama’s “been there, done that” dismissal of the Moon, but I’m a giant fan of commercial crew and building out an LEO economy as a foundation for future exploration, so I am overall satisfied with what went down, aside from Congress saddling NASA with SLS. And, if SLS gets us a Moon landing before Starship is fully ready, even that could work out in a wasteful, out-of-date way — especially if Starship ends up being incorporated into Artemis as a lander
And yet, Obama’s decision to continue ISS gave us commercial crew…
Yes. However…
… and provided a destination for Falcon 9 and cargo Dragon during some lean manifest years.
Oh heck no! COTS cargo was all part of the Bush plan of cancelling the Space Shuttle. Commercial cargo services was intended for supplying ISS, after Space Shuttle finished putting ISS together. COTS was supposed to be the yang to the ying of the Crew Exploration Vehicle.
The dominant position that SpaceX holds today, their overpowering of the Russians and taking over the lions share of the commercial satellite launch market, all of that is directly traceable to the investment of NASA into Falcon 9; investment which was made for the benefit of the commercial cargo program.
Let me be clear, I approve of the Commercial Crew Program that Obama supported. But, that is mighty small beer compared to the overall NASA mess that Obama is responsible for.
It’s important to compare three things, the state of NASA as Bush left it in January 2009, the policy positions that Obama originally pushed in 2010, and the actual state NASA ended up in January 2017.
For better or for worse, the condition of NASA today is a legacy of the Obama era. Importantly, that includes the management of NASA and NASA programs during those years in addition to the conflicts between the President and Congress over space policy.
What is the Obama legacy? A NASA saddled with an absurdly expensive and years delayed SLS. A NASA saddled with an overly large and too heavy Orion spacecraft. A NASA saddled with an indefinite commitment to ISS operations. Plus Dragon 2 and a still not working yet CST-100 Starliner.
The only positive thing for NASA manned spaceflight that came out of the Obama era, is the Dragon 2 manned spacecraft. Otherwise, NASA is a mess.
Obama and his policy positions and comprises and mismanagement, saddled NASA with the worst of all possible outcomes: all the costs of Project Constellation without any of the benefits of Project Constellation.
It took an Obama to not only knuckle under to Congress with SLS and Orion, but then make both projects even worse as administered under his people who managed NASA!
If McCain had been inaugurated President in 2009, we might not have the ISS today. We might not have Dragon 2. But NASA probably would be landing someone on the moon in 2021, and SpaceX still would be the dominant player in commercial space launch and plotting the colonization of Mars.
That’s my opinion.
SLS delenda est
Musk stultorum est terminus
“Let me be clear, I approve of the Commercial Crew Program that Obama supported. But, that is mighty small beer compared to the overall NASA mess that Obama is responsible for.”
Pathetic. So thinly veiled anyone can see your privates. You damn NASA and then say everything would have been different if McCain, who your racist fascist hero Trump denigrated and hated, had been elected.
What gibberish you peddle.
Falcon 9 and Dragon 2 are the best things that have come out of the NASA human spaceflight program since the Nixon administration. Small beer, yes, given the years and billions spent, but that’s what has transpired. Credit or blame whomever you like. Even JFK did not care one wit about space. (Every time I see video of lunar astronauts swinging golf clubs or hot dogging on moon buggies, it pisses me off.)
And why are they the best things? Because they are not tethered to the whims and predations of government, which has very clearly demonstrated in all that time that they are not going to make things happen, not on any reasonable timeline, not at any reasonable cost, not for any particularly useful purpose. But they will employ contractors in every state, especially the ones that LBJ picked out for special consideration lo those many years ago.
“-if Starship ends up being incorporated into Artemis as a lander”
Pure fantasy; you need to take it easy on that NewSpace Kool-Aid.
Anyone who thinks Elon Musk directed Obama to deliver the “been there” speech has no credibility when it comes to judging fantasy. Check back in a couple of years and we’ll see how well that “fantasy” is doing.
Obama was behind the “been there” speech. Period.
As he gave that speech with a falcon 9 mock-up in the background.
Riiiiight….you clown.
That was a real rocket, not a mockup. And it was at SLC-40 CCAFS. Obama didn’t speak in front of it, he spoke at KSC, indoors, at a podium set up in front of a steel staircase with what looks to be an SSME off to one side.
Do you really believe Elon Musk got to write a speech for Obama? Of course you do. That’s perfectly consistent with all the other counterfactual nonsense you claim to believe.
I don’t believe Elon wrote the speech you clown. What a fool.
A distinction without a difference. You believe Elon caused Obama to make the “been there, done that” speech. Who composed it is irrelevant.
Not stranger than your fiction, though.
Obama nixed the Moon because he saw the Moon as a Bush thing and he was a petty little man in most ways. What Musk wanted to do didn’t enter into things at all.
Go Gateway!
Go Falcon Heavy!
SLS delenda est
Musk stultorum est terminus
We are going…on the SLS.
Not so’s you’d notice.
I said it after Falcon Heavy proved itself. Any real lunar program needs to integrate with Falcon. It’s the only real option. So we have the first elements of Gateway, and Cargo Dragon with real launch options. I’m starting to believe aspects of this program. It might evolve into something real.
SLS has lost two payloads. More importantly it’s lost 2/3 rds of its real payload set. Europa Clipper and now Gateway. Orion is the only thing left. If Dragon, or Dragon + Cargo Dragon can replace functionality of Orion, that’s it. Constellation’s last vestiges die. If Space X got a tanking infrastructure going that was Falcon based, that would kill SLS right then and there. Everything else is still imaginary or too early in the development stage.
I agree with Guns and Rockets, there is a window to kill SLS. I think it’s likely to die. It has already fulfilled its true purpose. If the Congress does not kill it, it will fly Orion, and then die. Some in NASA will want to get in a flight before SH-SS. That’s very much a possibility.
“If Space X got a tanking infrastructure going that was Falcon based, that would kill SLS right then and there.”
The fantasy world of the fanboys is truly amazing.
Hey Eagleson, I think we found your real counterpart. 🙂
You mean my other sparring partner here besides you and Bob O.? Gary and I “found” each other ages ago – over at Jeff Foust’s old Space Politics blog if memory serves – and have been going at it, hammer and tongs, ever since.
No I meant your political antithesis. He’s as far left as you are right. He’s as anti Space X as you are pro. You know he kinda reminds me a bit of Gary Church.
Reasonably certain that it’s the same troll with both of those screen names along with several others. Necessary as it keeps getting banned eventually on most blogs.
Am I still a SpaceX fan if I think Elon really needs some competition?
Of course you’re a Space X fan if you think they need competition. Look, SpaceX is about to found a new society. What is that going to mean going forward? It’s one thing to be an effective entrepreneur, it’s entirely something else to found a new nation. That’s very much an open issue, and a monopoly hold on power is not the answer.
Worser and worser. Does agreeing with you make me a ^%$# leftist? 🙂
Power monopolies are definitely in the not good category. A business monopoly will eventually be superseded by something different and usually better. A power monopoly incorporates an immunity to consequences that derails over a period of time.
It is not power that corrupts contrary to the old expression, it is immunity.
Well, I’d argue that pretty much all Eisenhower republicans have been pushed out of the GOP. I came from your side of the fence, I was pushed out by the decay and malfunction of the American right after the Cold War. In Eisenhower’s America right and left debated real ideas not whether one side or the other was out to destroy the country let alone out to conduct an insurgency. But that’s what the GOP is now, they’re defending Donald Trump’s insurgency so energetically, if they don’t stop, it may become their insurgency.
You joke that something is wrong with yourself because you admit that I might have a good point or two. Flip it the other way, am I endangered of becoming a Trump thumper like Eagleson when I agree with his points? And he, and you, and Matula, make good points on issues. That’s why I argue with you guys. That we can make points that the other side can understand and accept or reject, is how American political discourse is supposed to happen.
Well, I’d argue that pretty much all Eisenhower republicans have been pushed out of the GOP. I came from your side of the fence, I was pushed out by the decay and malfunction of the American right after the Cold War. In Eisenhower’s America right and left debated real ideas not whether one side or the other was out to destroy the country let alone out to conduct an insurgency. But that’s what the GOP is now, they’re defending Donald Trump’s insurgency so energetically, if they don’t stop, it may become their insurgency.
…..
I went out after impeachment. in large measure because of what you wrote. it was clear to me after Clinton’s impeachment that the GOP right really had nothing …nothing at all, but “he is evil” and they were stuck on that
its clear to me with the second trump impeachment that the GOP’s notion of evil is selective. ie if the other side does it its evil, if its out guy, well he needs a what did a Utah senator say “a mulligan”
Clinton committed perjury in a court of law which, so far as I’m aware, is a felony everywhere in the U.S. That’s a matter of record and is why he lost his license to practice law. That was the basis for impeaching him and it was the correct thing to do.
Trump committed no crimes, high low or in between. No mulligan required. Both Trump impeachments and Senate trials were/are political show trials and kangaroo courts. The charges are all entirely works of fiction.
no on all counts
clinton committed perjury in a court of law in a civil case to which the State was not a party. this is never handled crmininally (it is like two people telling different stories in a divorce) . if it is sever and the person is a member of the bar, then it is handled by the bar. which is what happened
Trump has commited several crimes. compared to Hillary he is a major felon. otherwise you are just kidding yourself
Perjury is a criminal felony whether committed in a civil court or a criminal one. It’s no more legal or less serious to lie in civil court than in criminal court just as it’s equally felonious to kill someone in either sort of courtroom. In Clinton’s case it was not a “he said, she said” situation at all.
U.S. bar associations are notoriously left-leaning as organizations and in membership. So the Clinton perjury was flagrant indeed in order to convince a bunch of lefties to lift his law license.
Trump has committed no crimes. You say he has, so you should be able to name one.
Hillary has been committing major felonies and getting away with them her entire adult life.
The only one kidding themselves here is you.
no you have no clue
“perjury|” in a civil case that the state is not a party to is never prosecuted in the court system as a criminal offense
you are goofy
I agree that we should be able to debate issues without the destructive tribalism. From where I stand Democrat’s and Republicans are almost interchangeable. Left a 912 group when I realized they wanted our side ism and not answers that didn’t match the party line. I am mostly Libertarian, which shouldn’t mean knee jerk anti whatever.
A reply earlier disappeared, probably triggered a filter. We mostly agree
They weren’t pushed out, they died off. A lot of them had been in WW2 and lost the taste for fighting after that was over. They were content simply to try organizing a decorous retreat before an increasingly radical and anti-American leftist “March Through the Institutions.” The newer right were more combative but never achieved the leverage needed. Before Trump, the only post-Cold War Republican Presidents were both named Bush. Both, in the end, seemed content to continue the Republican Party’s decades long acquiescence to losing as long as it was done politely.
Trump is definitely an insurgent – against the corrupt interlocking establishments of both major parties and a number of other institutions. What he is not is an insurrectionist against the Constitutional order in the U.S. That would be all the big city machine pols who stole the 2020 Presidential election and the radical progressives now looking to put together a nice little police state here in the land of the formerly free.
It would be nice if the Republicans were “defending Donald Trump’s insurgency so energetically.” But they’re not. A significant number have joined the putsch.
Over the next year, I think the Republican Party goes in one of two directions. Either it purges its collaborationist “wets” and organizes to fight or it gets replaced by a new populist party that is born willing to fight. Right now, I favor the latter but am still willing to be persuaded otherwise. 2021 bids fair to be a more interesting year than even 2020.
Yep, same old whine in new bottles.
Yes, you are still a SpaceX fan.
I wish Elon had some competition worthy of the name too. But it appears less and less likely that he’s going to get any from the usual suspects. I think the only way Elon is ever going to be seriously challenged, let alone surpassed, is long after he’s dead. And it will probably require some future – probably as yet unborn – boy wonder to do it.
In the meantime, we’ll likely see no better than some marginal competition around the edges. We’ll have to content ourselves with that as I see nowhere from which we’re likely to obtain anything better. And even one or a small handful of SpaceX wannabes would be a big step up from what we had before SpaceX blew into town.
To invert the last line from Now Voyager, “Don’t ask for the stars. We have the Moon.” Or at least we will pretty soon.
Gotcha. You nailed it.
Starship will be far more capable and extensible than the Falcons and will reach operational capability with its own refueling infrastructure in less time than it would take to gin up something far less capable for the Falcons.
There is no hard and fast “window” for killing SLS. It will die the death of 1,000 cuts. The latest one was the announcement that Shelby will be gone after 2022. The one before that was the aborted hot fire test and the need for a do-over. These will keep coming. Starship is simply going to blow by SLS like it’s standing still – because it is – and, after getting lapped enough times, SLS will be black-flagged off the track.
There still exists a slim possibility SLS will fly before the first SH-Starship stack, but that possibility diminishes by the day. By mid-year we’ll probably be on solid ground in being able to call that race for the eventual winner.
Even if SH-SS beats SLS to first flight, it’s going to be a while before the Starship class starts ferrying payloads to cis-Lunar space. They’ll have to make on orbit tanking work first. Remember a Starship class craft loses high orbit capability fast without on orbit tanking. I think SpaceX can make a case to NASA to pay for development of on orbit tanking after SH-SS is demonstrated. Likely, they’ll get the funds. But there’s still a pretty significant development cycle there. Starship class craft won’t be doing to cis-Lunar space until late in the 20’s. Between now and then, it’s going to be dominated by Falcons and Dragons.
I don’t see on-orbit tank refills as being any major hurdle – certainly not a multi-year one. The tanker and depot versions of Starship will likely also be the simplest to build. And SpaceX isn’t going to have to go cap-in-hand to NASA for funds to prove out on-orbit tanking either. NASA has already awarded SpaceX $50 million or so for an on-orbit cryo propellant transfer demonstration but SpaceX would have done the work in any case.
The only Dragon going to cis-lunar space is the XL cargo carrier for Gateway resupply. Those will launch on Falcon Heavies as will at least the initial nucleus of Gateway. Falcon 9s will probably launch the majority of CLPS missions. Heavy lifting from Earth surface to Luna surface will be a mostly Starship show with perhaps just a bit of assistance from New Glenn.
“
I don’t see on-orbit tank refills as being any major hurdle -“
Of course you don’t. You also were very confident that SH-SS would be flying to orbit by last year. And that SpaceX was going to by flying Starship class ships to Mars by next year. As in 11 months from now 🙂
Well, Hans Koenigsmann thought so too so I was at least in good company. So it’ll fly this year.
What do you imagine the big hurdles to on-orbit refueling are? Other than getting two large vehicles into LEO – one full, the other empty – I mean?
Update at T+18h: I think the next optimum Mars departure window is more like 19.5 months away than 11. In terms of Starship maturation progress, that extra 8.5 months will count for a lot. It’s only been 8.5 months since Starship prototype SN4 blew up. That was about three months before the first of the Starship prototypes to fly – SN5 – took off and landed. There have been three more prototype flights since and another coming soon.
Always remember that people working on a program are either morally bound, duty bound, or contractually bound to advocate for their program. We loved laughing at him, but when we are at work, we’re all Baghdad Bob.
Starship has been advancing at a very typical rate for an operations based program. Very little is working the first time. And the time between iterations is always longer than ‘expected’. Getting to orbit, and back, and then going back, and coming back are going to keep the both Super Heavy and Starship occupied for easily the next two years. As for the time required to develop tanking? Let’s see how long it takes for regular orbital operations to begin. I’m assuming that there’s going to be some iterations required to make on orbit tanking part of the regular operations skill set of SpaceX. This is the problem set as I see it. Excluding crew…..
* Orbital Flight
* Reentry from LEO
* Operations tempo.
* Tanking.
* High energy reentry
* Long flight operations.
I think you’re looking at 5 years work once it’s all paid for.
More like two years, tops.
Alllllll right, so call it all done by March 2023. Duly noted. 🙂
Steak dinner bet that it is more than 3 years and less than 5 years
It keeps blowing up though. That’s a problem. I has no escape system. That is another problem. It cannot leave Earth orbit without a fleet of shiny tankers. That is yet another problem. And the SLS is going to take us there within a few years. Considering how long it took spacex to just lash 3 falcons together….
The blowups are transitory. Prototypes are cheap and quick to build – neither of which SLS will never be.
Starship has no purpose-built for-escape-only system. But just chilling in Starship’s Raptors on the pad would give it a pad-to-orbit ability to escape Super Heavy anomalies on the ground or in-flight – better than the maybe three minute ascent escape window for SLS-Orion. Achieving aircraft-like reliability of flight-critical systems will have to do for Starship itself. Having fewer and simpler such systems than a civil aircraft will make that job easier.
On-orbit tanking will prove neither difficult nor dangerous. But it will give Starship the ability to lunar land the same mass it can carry to LEO.
How soon SLS will take anything anywhere seems to be a perpetually moving target. As the old saying goes, write when you get work.
Falcon Heavy isn’t a reasonable comparand for Starship. FH was a line extension that kept getting pushed back by improvements in F9 performance that ate up more and more of FH’s originally intended payload envelope from below. FH’s design could only be finalized as F9’s design stablilized. Even so, it flew a good first mission 7 years after its initial concept announcement. SpaceX is working much harder and faster on Starship than it ever did on Falcon Heavy.
Blah blah blah. Transitory mushroom clouds…..uh-huh. Your fanboys nod and the rest of us just shake our heads at your snake oil pitch.
“The rest of us” is pretty much just you, by yourself, up in the nosebleed seats. Andrew T. and Bob O. are also skeptical of Starship’s actual progress but even they are sitting a lot closer to the sidelines than you are.
I said it after Falcon Heavy proved itself. Any real lunar program needs to integrate with Falcon. It’s the only real option.
…you are probably correct. any real lunar program probably needs to integrate with Falcon and some project short of a lunar landing of humans itself. I am wondering if the Gateway is that project…
Except…how very little FH can actually put on the surface of the Moon makes that a ridiculous statement. What is needed is an iteration of the SLS that can loft about 150 tons, which is quite doable with reusable liquid boosters. Splashing the ISS and committing to a lunar return with a state sponsored SHLV is the correct path.
That won’t really do it either. SLS will never be able to land more than a fraction of the payload mass on the lunar surface as will an on-orbit refueled Starship.
“State sponsorship” has certainly been no magic bullet for SLS. It’s been in the works for more than a decade now – 12 years by the time it is most likely to launch initially in 2022. That will be double the original estimate. To actualize a bigger upper stage that doesn’t yet exist and notional future boosters that aren’t even on the to-do list yet will take another decade or more.
This isn’t a “path,” it’s a blind canyon.
It will put more on the Moon than the shiny ever will.
Apparently you are seriously innumerate in addition to all your other manifestly obvious failings. Those would also appear to include obviously defective reading comprehension.
Look at any SLS lunar trip ever designed. SLS is never going to put so much as an ounce on the Moon because it is incapable of getting there. SLS is not, itself, a lander. It is also incapable of simultaneously transporting both Orion and a lander even in years-away-at-best Block 1B trim. SLS is the Moses of rockets. It can get close enough to see the Promised Land, but it can never stand on it.
“Shiny,” on the other hand – or perhaps we should more appropriately refer to it as “Whitey” – can be launched from the surface of the Earth and land on the surface of the Moon with at least three times the payload that SLS Block 1 can barely hump out to NRHO.
“Whitey” can also support many lunar missions per year whereas SLS is production-limited to – at best – one. In practice, less. SLS is simply hopeless as a vehicle able to support any consequential operations near or on the Moon.
If the British had colonized North America with ships as limited, in their day, as SLS is now – able to move only four people at a time, once a year or less – it would have taken a quarter-century or more to move as many people from England to Massachusetts as arrived in Plymouth Colony, all at once, on the Mayflower.
I think we have several options.
1) Falcon 9 upper stage with Cargo Dragon module, and Falcon 9 control system. If I were really shooting for the Moon in 2024, that’s the path I’d take.
2) If we can wait until 2026 or later, Starship might be ready for the work.
3) Blue’s offerings, but again I think we’re talking 2026 and later.
But consider we have 3 viable paths of the last major piece of hardware to land on the Moon. We have the boosters, we have the throw weight to cis-Lunar space, we have the life support. We have so so much. It’s going to happen in the 20’s no matter what.
the question would be how to replace Orion.
the question would be how much money and what effort would be needed to get Dragon or CST or both to some level of being able to operate as a translunar vehicle. there has been some discussion about that on various boards. it would need a serious service module coupled with some additional systems in sort of a service module. its not impossible you can look at how Gemini was going to do it…you can either dock with it (my favorite theory) or add it on in the back
the lander is another issue…you need to figure out how you are going to do that…my theory on that is a austre landing with a landing vehicle and hope for precision landings
Lunar lander, and cargo to Gateway station and Orion are all solved if Falcon had inflight tanking capability for its upper stage. A mixture of Falcon, Falcon Heavy, and Falcon throw away boosters would open up all kinds of options. SpaceX will do this with the Starship class, but we’re going to have to wait for lots of other things to happen before inflight refueling starts opening things up there. But SpaceX could do it now with Falcon’s upper stage. We had a window of the kinds of expanded capabilities using existing hardware that will open up with inflight refueling with Gemini. SpaceX could, at minimal expense maintain a tank farm of spent 2nd stages that they send to the ISS. Keep the farm separated from the station, but horde propellant there for use on a rainy day. It’s the wrong inclination for optimal Lunar transfers, but it would still be profitable over boosting all your TLI propellant in one go. It would also allow the ISS to act as a terminus for departing Earth for the Moon.
To me, the inflight tanking, refueling or whatever to get impulse from several launches into one outbound mission is one of the keys. The technical issues shouldn’t be as difficult and expensive as developing new launch vehicles. An F9 tanker stage should be simpler and cheaper than either Dragon or the fairing payloads. It should be just stretched tanks with no extraneous payload space at all. Consider the possibilities of a fully fueled F9 upper stage in LEO.
Using a booster on its last flight filled with engines on their last flight in full up throw away mode, with no payload would indeed leave a LOT of propellant in LEO. That’s why I made the point about throw away boosters at end of life. A kero LOX inflight refueling infrastructure is about 85% there. We’re sitting on it.
Congratulations. You’ve managed to design a scenario that is, simultaneously, cheapjack and needlessly expensive.
Explain.
F9s and FHs are intrinsically more expensive to operate than Starships will be. They’re less reusable and can’t remotely support the kind of launch cadence Starship will be able to manage. They’re also much smaller scale, requiring several Falcon missions to equal a single Starship mission, thus multiplying the cost differential. That’s the needless expensive part.
The cheapjack part is all this blather about end-of-life and throw-away boosters, though I guess the latter also does double duty as needlessly expensive too.
This whole idea simply makes no engineering or economic sense.
To be fair, it is yet to be demonstrated that SH/SS can be turned around any faster than an F9 stage. I stand by my estimate that neither will be turned around faster than 15 days. But I hope I’m wrong about that. I really do.
there is really nothing that wrong with ISS inclination. you take some mass hit but its less then with the shuttle and well its there
If you wanted to really put together a lunar effort based on the Falcon series you could do it, but it would take as you say some innovation and building. I dont think that the fuels on the second stage are the optimium for this 🙂
Kero-LOX is not optimum, but it is what’s getting boosted now. Vac Merlin has an Isp of 348s. That’s totally usable, and the tanks on a Falcon upper stage are huge, the enclosed impulse reserve is formidable. The engine has a large number of logged restarts. Probably the biggest unknown is how long it can sit in vac, thermal cycling and remain reliable.
So its going to take years to figure out how to transfer LOX and LCH4 from Starship to Starship – despite both being cryo liquids with similar boiling points and Starships being specifically designed and equipped to do this little dance – but it’ll be a piece of cake we can do pretty much tomorrow to transfer LOX and RP-1 from.. something… to an F9/H 2nd stage which is not designed to be retanked?
Do I really need to point out all the inconsistencies and logical fallacies here?
I’d say better part of a year to make the refueling operational. I think all the front work I listed as consuming a lot of the time I allocate.
Funny, that’s roughly my estimate of how long it’ll take to get Starship on-orbit refueling up and running. That’ll be a demonstrated thing barely a year hence.
So far, history has favored my estimates. Let’s see if the trend continues.
Assuming an unwillingness to launch crew from Earth in an HLS Starship, one could put two depot ships in LEO, fill them with multiple tanker missions apiece, then dispatch one to loiter in some suitable lunar orbit. Next, launch HLS Starship, sans crew, to LEO. Retank HLS Starship from depot ship in LEO. Send crew up on an F9 and Crew D2. Dock and transfer crew in LEO. Go to Moon. Land. Flags, footprints and cargo unloading ensue. Leave Moon on residual prop. Retank in lunar orbit from loitering depot ship. Return to LEO. Dock with Crew D2 and transfer crew back aboard. Re-enter and splash down. HLS Starship stays in LEO awaiting next use.
sure whenver there is a starship to launch…coming up on 10. my guess is about 40 more to go before they get to orbit…maybe 30
I certainly agree with that last part.
This isn’t “truth,” it’s left-progressive catechism and fantasy being promulgated on state media. Her notion about enough Republican “wets” staying home to give the Dems a shot at convicting Trump ignores the fact that the Repubs most likely to be tempted to do that are also the same Never-Trump trash that would probably vote to convict if they were there. The math doesn’t work.
Math is what it is. Either the RINO weasels show up and vote against Trump or they stay away and reduce the number of Senators present. Or perhaps some do one thing and others do the other. No matter what, there are not going to be enough votes to convict Trump in this latest show trial.
I do not “worship” Trump, I defend him from lies and slanders. “Worship” of mere humans and cults of personality seem to be failings mainly of the Left.
Nobody is worshipping Biden you idiot.
No, they’re not. And rightly so. Instead, they are worshiping the idea that he got to the White House legitimately. Before that they worshiped Obama. Many still do, it seems.
Deluded fool. You are sick in the head.
I don’t think you’d be wanting to run a poll here on which of us is the crazier.
Oh, no problem, so far it is you and gunsandrockets cornering the market on demented treasonous cyberthuggery.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
He is not the President anymore but there are people commenting here that think he still is.
They are actually members of two cults: The Cult of Musk and The Cult of Trump.
As they damn NASA and dogpile anyone with a different opinion, it is clear what is going on.
Trump is no longer the sitting President but he is the rightful President. The man currently ensconced in the White House is an illegitimate usurper installed via rampant criminality.
Deluded sick in the head fool.
Faithful to “The Narrative” as you always are.