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Great video, Laura...👍 Regarding _Dream Chaser..._ *I ❤️ LIFTING BODIES*

just stumbled on this channel... so, so interesting! :-)

Thanks for covering this, I've often wondered how much effort and attention is necessary from Eastern Range personnel and infrastructure to support the incredible increase in SpaceX Falcon 9 launches in recent years. Like you said, the Falcon 9 launch cadence should eventually decrease once Starship starts picking up the Starlink launch load, but then Moon and Mars missions will surely increase with Starship.

love this angle, thanks.

Very interesting subject matter and good to hear modernisation is being thought about.

I'm going to be very excited to learn the results of the Blue Ghost plume analysis. SpaceX is designing a special thruster arrangement for the HLA Starship Lunar lander, because of an unverified assumption of how much regolith the Raptor engines would otherwise scatter during landings and launches on unprepared surfaces on the Moon. I wonder if SpaceX might change the design based on the results, perhaps even go back to just using the standard Raptors? Thank you for this excellent video!

Thanks, Laura for your clearly understandable talks.

We need these small landers because these landers become more capable and in the end they take over the lunar “base”.

It's not the size that matters, but how you land it

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This is great, I'm excited for everything space including China's program 👍👍

Thank you for the wonderful breakdown on the mission. I had forgotten about going up last night! Watching your footage was great way end video!

Great to see Blue Ghost and Hakuto-R launch. There's a special excitement for any Moon landing and I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for both these missions when the time comes.

Can't wait to see where this goes.

I have a question about these CLPS lunar landers: In Dr. Robert Zubrin's original "Moon Direct", he proposed a small-ish lunar lander that he called a Lunar Exploration Vehicle (LEV), propelled by a hydrolox engine capable of a 6.1 km/sec delta-vee. I'm not completely certain but it seemed like this LEV was actually two modules: the base with the landing legs, avionics, propulsion and presumably tankage would be the first module. This first module could also serve as a cargo module, if I understood what Zubrin was proposing. The first module could haul ten tons from low Earth orbit to the lunar surface, and presumably return to Earth orbit once the cargo was unloaded. I assume the ten-ton figure included the fuel in the first module's fuel tanks. The second module was essentially a pilot-house: a crew cabin to carry astronauts, their spacesuits and their essentials. If I understood Zubrin correctly, the pilot house would weigh about two tons, which would allow for a maximum of eight tons in the fuel tanks. Now here's my question: are any of these CLPS landers capable of what Zubrin seemed to propose? Or could they evolve into that kind of craft? Space News Op-ed | "Lunar Gateway or Moon Direct?" by Robert Zubrin -- April 17, 2019 spacenews.com/op-ed-lunar-gateway-or-moon-direct/ "Moon Direct: A Cost-Effective Plan to Enable Human Lunar Exploration" undated whitepaper by Robert Zubrin nextgen.marssociety.org/presentation/MoonDirectPaper_RobertZubrin_05-24-28.pdf

If spacecraft now on Mars have contaminated the planet with Earth microbes then since in that case we shall never know whether life that is definitely from Mars exists, then there is no point in a Mars sample return if the goal is to establish whether there is Martian life or not.

cant understand you, put the mic next to your mouth.

great video Laura but next time do the video maybe outside of the loud crowd

cant hear you over the crowd. please do some audio processing to isolate your speech.

Laura, epic content! keep em coming, please and thank you!!

When governments put there hand out to collect money it turns into a shitshow. Yes, paying for the usage if fine BUT once (and it always happens) the taxation money arrives it start being moved sideways on pet projects that have nothing to do with launching rockets. When I hear "SpaceX should pay because they can afford it" It's the same old story about how can we milk the cow to cover our wastage. SpaceX is spending a fortune in Florida, should they triple the cost of government launches to cover the cost of upcoming taxation too?

I like you Laura but its hard to hear you with all the background noise

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Awesome

You are making so much sense. Found out about this channel today, and I've just been binging your videos. I think this channel's growth will surprise you this year ;)

I really hope the science isn't sacrificed for ego. The future is watching us.

This protectionism towards contamination is going to be a Bane of Existence ! I can already imagine some radical extremists trying to hault all humans progress over a few microbes! Billions of years of micro meteoroids isn't enough?

Great video I was so behind this week and now I am all caught up. Subscribed!

I think the Martian environment would be the perfect place to test my new spacecraft design of a metal sphere filled with an array of gyroscopes providing lift (and the sample containers of course) that is surrounded by a large horizontal spinning disk to provide the force to keep it level. Instead of the roar of explosive rockets it would just emit an oscillating humming noise as it ascends through the Martian atmosphere as if suspended on an invisible string. All it needs is a good name but I'm sure someone at NASA will think of something.

Moonites😂

SpaceX intends to land five Starships on Mars in 2027 using its own funding, which means it will be able to deliver many *tons* of material to the Martian surface. That means that a Mars Sample Return Mission does not have to worry about how to get to the Martian surface. Just pay SpaceX for a rideshare. The MSRM wants to land near the samples already dropped by the Rovers. Then the MSRM does not need its own launch, and the capability to get all the way from the Earth to Mars. It just needs enough thrust to lift off Mars and rendezvous with the ESA orbiter. The Starships landing on Mars in 2027 will not have enough fuel to take off and return to Earth. They will carry equipment to manufacture fuel. When the next squadron arrives in 2029 they will refuel from the depot and fly back to Earth. Why could the MSRM not simply deliver the samples to the Starships and let SpaceX deliver them back to Earth. Where is the requirement for over $5B? If they really want to land themselves Starship could release them into low Martian orbit before initiating its own landing. On the biological hazard I agree that this needs to be seriously considered before we land humans on Mars. All life on Earth is the survivors from multiple extinction events. And there is life at places on Earth that are more hostile than some places on Mars. I therefore suggest that H. G. Wells was actually right when he wrote "The War of the Worlds" in 1897. Once Martian life competes with Terrestrial life it will be wiped out. And 60% of all of the cells in a human body are bacteria. We cannot live without those bacteria.

Great video Laura!!! Keep up the great content. ❤

The Life On Mars Hoax. $7 Billion To Return Some Tubes From Mars. Just Say No. Send Starship To Mars. That money could be used for other Scientific Missions.

Thanks for explaining the contamination issue, which seems to get little attention. Good luck decontaminating a Starship.

If SX demonstrates ship to ship propellant transfer this year and sends Starships to Mars in 2026, then a grab and go sample return could be possible by end of the decade. Recovering samples from the Perseverance rover is a tough nut to crack because it requires four spacecraft that haven't been designed yet.

Honestly, Starship is already slated to go and test unmaned landing on Mars in 2 years. It has a huge payload capabilities and practically no payload since it's just a test. And I'm pretty sure they will send multiple starships to thoroughly test them to see any flaws so even more free payload capacity. It should come out much cheaper and probably faster with that option, and there's really not much time to examine uncontaminated Mars since the plan is to send first human in 4 years if the landing test are successfull.

Musk owns the US government. We'll see what he decides to do I guess.

It took space x 3 billion dollars to almost get a banana into orbit

Mars Sample Return would be a great uncrewed mission for Starship. It would achieve an important objective and establish the capability for return crewed missions to Mars in the future.

I think Rocketlab should be given the Mars sample return. The composite fiber rocket is much lighter than Starship and uses less fuel. It will be easier to decelerate in the thin Martian atmosphere than conventional metal. But as long as Bill Nelson is around, it will be the good ol boys club of Boeing & old leftover Artemis tech.

Given China's success in landing on the moon and returning with samples. I really think NASA should fund China to do the same for them on Mars. USA has NO hope

Starship will kick up dust, we don’t know if we can land on mars yet with starship, JPL has lot more experience with mars. No point replacing the current plans, until starship is proven technology.

I'm pessimistic about finding life in our solar system. Not that we should stop looking, it just seems space is so anti life. All these planets and moons are so hot/ cold and full of radiation. Our solar system is harsh. The more we learn about our universe the more I appreciate our planet. Theres no place like home.❤

JP Aerospace had an interesting entry as well.

A lander that can collect the samples with helicopters and also has an ascent vehicle and another satellite to be loaded with the samples from the ascent vehicle that sends them back to Earth to be collected and analyzed...in 2040! We've called some of our landers "mini laboratories" but they were very limited. Might it be cheaper to just send a better laboratory and analyze the samples on Mars?

so, i hear you about contamination with a human program.. but you may want to take that up with elon.. so what is your proposed gate for when its ok to go ahead and have people land on mars? one end of the spectrum might say that no human is allowed on mars until every atom of mars is proven not to have been a part of extraterrestrial life. the other end of the spectrum will say that we will be able to have "bio-markers" and genetic databases in hand that will prove if something we found originated on earth. or not.. send the barefoot humans tomorrow. also, how efficient is sample return with tiny canisters anyway. it might take thousands of years of constant tiny canisters before we had a positive result if ever.

Starship is the obvious choice. Imo safest architecture would be to use starships massive payload capability to take a sample collection rover/copter and a return vehicle to mars. No need to synthesize propellent in situ. It could be part of the second batch of starships assuming the first missions to mars land successfully.

Would we really contaminate the entire planet so quickly that we wouldnt have time to do any studies there on site? Would we be confused about what we did find thinking perhaps we brought life with us already perfectly conditioned to look like a lifeform native to Mars or even panspermia life that originated from earth more than a few hundred years ago? That excuse either makes scientist look dumb or all the rest of the humans look extremely dumb.

I will be SO happy when Isaacman is sworn in and blows away this incredible cognitive dissonance at NASA-i.e., Starship doesn’t exist (other than for HLS, which is already embarrassing) and Musk isn’t planning to send scientists (and presumably tons of lab instruments) to Mars years before we can fly MSR to grab a few kg of samples for twice the price. And by “blows away”, I mean, of course, spending years overcoming existing NASA culture and repelling Congressional shenanigans.

We contaminated Mars the first time we landed a probe there. Our sterilization has a 99.9% success rate, which is a 100% failure rate. The biggest argument for life already being on the Red Planet, outside of looking at it with a microscopes on the surface of Mars, is the fact we cannot fully sterilized anything on Earth.