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ChubbyWanKenobie t1_issyjdr wrote

Wasting money on another moon landing when this sort of thing is possible is crazy. The next moon landing is expected to cost 35 billion which means, when the smoke clears it will be closer to 50 billion. Imagine if the James Webb engineers had that kind of cheddar to start work on Webb's big brother.

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Fiat_Justicia t1_istdxum wrote

We aren't just doing another moon landing. The objective is to establish a permanent presence on the moon. It makes more sense to develop those technologies on the moon before we go to Mars.

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ChewyBaca123 t1_ist3soz wrote

35B with R&D costs. Each launch after is more so 2-4B

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seanflyon t1_isusw78 wrote

Each SLS/Orion launch is $4.1 billion, but that only gets you to lunar orbit.

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ChewyBaca123 t1_isut1ka wrote

Yeah. And starship won’t cost billions to land onto the planet either since it’s reusable.

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seanflyon t1_isutbam wrote

Yeah, and if you actually wanted a sustainable program you could just skip the SLS/Orion part.

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Bensemus t1_istop2c wrote

Your numbers are off. It's closer to 100 billion when the dust settles for SLS and Orion plus the missions they fly. If Starship works it will cost a fraction of what SLS costs and will actually make Moon presence possible.

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mzm316 t1_isym1tm wrote

You’re being downvoted but you’re right. As far as bang for your buck goes, we’re far better off taking the funding from the “moon base” efforts and putting it into more robotic explorations. There are fascinating proposals for missions that don’t get selected due to lack of funding and they would advance our understanding of the world far more than a moon base, which is almost just a PR move.

This is my field and it’s the generally shared opinion among the people in it that SLS and the lunar program has been a waste of time and resources, but unfortunately public opinion relies on “flashy” things like putting people on the moon.

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