Rocket

TL;DR Artemis II splashed down April 11, 2026 - first crewed lunar return since 1972, setting a new distance record of 252,756 miles Crewed rockets in 2026: SLS/Orion, Starship, New Glenn, and China’s Long March 10 - government and commercial programmes running in parallel The Moon is the near-term focus (Artemis III lander race); Mars remains Starship’s long bet Reusability and launch cadence now matter as much as raw lift capacity This decade may be the most consequential for crewed spaceflight since Apollo - but with a different industrial base A few weeks ago, four astronauts came home from the Moon for the first time since 1972. Artemis II splashed down on April 11, 2026, after a nine-day flight that took its crew further from Earth than any human has ever travelled - 252,756 miles, a new record set by Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen. ...

TL;DR SLS and Starship are two bets on the same goal: SLS is the traditional aerospace approach (proven Shuttle-era hardware, simulate everything, launch when confident), Starship is the empirical one (test by launching, iterate fast) The cost chasm is the story: SLS launches are estimated at $2-4 billion each and fully expendable, while SpaceX targets $10 million per launch at scale with full-stack reusability Capability differs less than philosophy - SLS Block 1 lifts 95 tonnes to LEO, Starship 100+ tonnes fully reusable, and both have roles in Artemis SLS looks like a sunset vehicle; Starship is designed as a platform, but it still has to prove orbital refuelling and rapid reuse before the comparison is settled The likely end state is convergence: NASA missions increasingly flown on commercial reusable hardware Two Paths Diverge The 21st century space race isn’t between countries - it’s between philosophies. NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and SpaceX’s Starship represent two radically different bets on how to explore deep space. ...