The moon is further away than you think. The Apollo mission architecture was a lot more feasible than others that have been considered. The current plan to use a Starship returns about the same payload with a much larger and taller vehicle that is inclined to tip over. You really want a landing pad.
Refueling from lunar materials might be possible but volatiles seem precious. The mission with that vehicle that makes the most sense to me is to land it with a full payload and use it for habitat, workshop, storage tanks or scrap metal.
Space tourism to a micro O’Neill colony in LEO decked out as a flashy space hotel seems more believable to me. I designed one that needs 15 Starship loads of LN2 for the atmosphere but that is fewer launches than they plan to put one Starship on the moon.
We're still in the "millionaire celebrity ego-trip to nudge against the Karman line" stage of commercial space travel. "Pretty soon" is nowhere near a likely timeframe for crowds of tourists clomping around on the moon.
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Pretty soon it will be possible for tourists to visit the moon and see the litter we left with their own eyes.
In fact, job 1 needs to be building fences around the landing sites so people don't trample all over them.
The moon is further away than you think. The Apollo mission architecture was a lot more feasible than others that have been considered. The current plan to use a Starship returns about the same payload with a much larger and taller vehicle that is inclined to tip over. You really want a landing pad.
Refueling from lunar materials might be possible but volatiles seem precious. The mission with that vehicle that makes the most sense to me is to land it with a full payload and use it for habitat, workshop, storage tanks or scrap metal.
Space tourism to a micro O’Neill colony in LEO decked out as a flashy space hotel seems more believable to me. I designed one that needs 15 Starship loads of LN2 for the atmosphere but that is fewer launches than they plan to put one Starship on the moon.
We're still in the "millionaire celebrity ego-trip to nudge against the Karman line" stage of commercial space travel. "Pretty soon" is nowhere near a likely timeframe for crowds of tourists clomping around on the moon.
Funny thing, I bet by then authentic Armstrong poop (which comprises some of that litter) will be more valuable than moonrocks.