Why Lobbying Drives Space Policy Arguments

With the scale of Starship and the technological breakthroughs it is engineered to achieve, SpaceX is moving at a historically rapid pace. Starship provides unmatched capability to explore the Moon, thanks to its large size and ability to refill propellant in space. One single Starship has a pressurized habitable volume of more than 600 cubic meters, which is roughly two-thirds the pressurized volume of the entire International Space Station, and is complete with a cabin that can be scaled for large numbers of explorers and dual airlocks for surface exploration. For comparison: each of Starship’s two airlocks have a habitable volume of approximately 13 cubic meters, which is more than double the space that was available in the Apollo lander. Cargo variants of the Starship lander will be capable of landing up to 100 metric tons directly on the surface, including large payloads like unpressurized rovers, pressurized rovers, nuclear reactors, and lunar habitats.To return Americans to the Moon, SpaceX aligned Starship development along two paths: development of the core Starship system and supporting infrastructure, including production facilities, test facilities, and launch sites — which SpaceX is self-funding representing over 90% of system costs — and development of the HLS-specific Starship configuration, which leverages and modifies the core vehicle capability to support NASA’s requirements for landing crew on and returning them from the Moon. SpaceX is working under a fixed-price contract with NASA, ensuring that the company is only paid after the successful completion of progress milestones, and American taxpayers are not on the hook for increased SpaceX costs. SpaceX provides significant insight to NASA at every stage of the development process along both paths, including access to flight data from missions not funded under the HLS contract.Both pathways are necessary and made possible by SpaceX’s substantial self-investments to enable the high-rate production, launch, and test of Starship for missions to the Moon and other purposes. Starship will bring the United States back to the Moon before any other nation and it will enable sustainable lunar operations by being fully and rapidly reusable, cost-effective, and capable of high frequency lunar missions with more than 100 tons of cargo capacity.

⚡⚡⁠⁠https://wilwaldon.com⁠⁠⚡⚡

**⚡Support STAGE ZERO on Patreon - ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/stagezeronews⚡**⁠⁠

💬 Discord - ⁠⁠https://discord.gg/kqW2RZVHcc⁠⁠▶️ Subscribe to the Stage Zero News Youtube - ⁠⁠https://youtube.com/@stagezeronews?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠🎧 Listen to the Full Podcast - ⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/elonmuskpodcast⁠⁠⭐ SUPERCAST - ⁠⁠https://clubelon.supercast.com⁠⁠

✔️ FOLLOW STAGE ZERO PODCASTS ON SOCIALStage Zero News on X - ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/stagezeronews⁠⁠

❓ABOUT The Elon Musk PodcastThe Elon Musk Podcast takes an in-depth look into the world of the visionary entrepreneur. From SpaceX's mission to colonize Mars, to the revolutionary underground transportation network of the Boring Company, to the cutting-edge technology of Neuralink, and the game-changing innovations of Tesla, we cover it all. Stay up to date with the latest news, events and highlights from the companies led by Elon Musk.

0️⃣ ABOUT STAGE ZEROSTAGE ZERO is the YouTube home for all things Elon Musk and the STAGE ZERO Podcast Network. STAGE ZERO features over 10 years of SpaceX, Tesla, Twitter news as well as exclusive videos from podcasts like The Elon Musk Podcast.

Affiliate Links - #adSHURE SM7B Mic - ⁠⁠https://geni.us/shure-sm7b-microphone⁠⁠