Mass Value Report for May 2023

The race to send mass to low Earth orbit is over for now and SpaceX has won decisively. But what about the race to send mass to the lunar surface?

Recently NASA announced its selection of a ‘National Team’ lead by Blue Origin to produce a second human landing system for the Artemis program. The initial landings will be taken care of by SpaceX’s Starship, but this new lander will take over from Artemis V, currently scheduled for 2029.

Blue Origin was formed by Jeff Bezos to realise the vision Gerard K. O’Neill presented in The High Frontier, where massive space habitats would be constructed at Earth-Moon Lagrange points using materials mined from the lunar surface. As such, this contract is a good fit for their larger vision. As with their previous lander bid, Blue Origin led a ‘National Team’ including other space companies: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Draper, Astrobotic and Honeybee. The lander they presented was significantly different through - a single stage, reusable vehicle instead of the expendable three stage vehicle proposed before.

I want to analyse the potential of this vehicle for furthering space development, compared to…