re: You Moon landing deniers are all complete idiots...

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Elon may not be worried about radiation but he IS worried about fuel.

And he would have to refuel his rocket approximately 23 times while orbiting the earth to get his technology back to the moon.

But they did it with no refueling in a tin can with duct tape and electrical tape?

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The Apollo and Artemis programs are completely different missions. Apollo’s goal was to put astronauts on the Moon and bring them home. Artemis is about putting permanent infrastructure on the Moon, eventually leading to a long-term, manned lunar base.

So yeah. Saturn V could get to the Moon without orbital refueling because it didn’t have to haul nearly as much shite out there. The Saturn V was capable of sending a ~43,500 kg payload into lunar orbit. Starship aims to send 100,000 kg of payload directly to the surface of the Moon.

But that mass doesn’t include the Starship vehicle itself (which will land on and take off from the moon) or its fuel. When you do the math, the total mass of Starship + fuel + payload is likely to be something like 725,000 kg.

There is an enormous difference between putting 43,500 kg or 725,000 kg in lunar orbit. Just doing some napkin math, getting that payload into lunar orbit would require ~17x as much fuel as the Apollo missions from low Earth orbit.

I suspect the remaining difference (Elon’s estimation of 23 refueling missions vs. the 17x fuel requirement) has to do with the fact that the Super Heavy boosters and the Starship spacecraft that will be carrying out the refueling missions in LEO are reusable, which reduces their payload fraction compared to a single-use launch vehicle like the Saturn V.

The TL;DR is this: Artemis is a much more ambitious program than Apollo, so it’s dumb to try to use it as a measuring stick for whether Apollo should have been possible.

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I'm starting to think not really because I'm not sure you read your own links.

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Man. You just keep bringing the hammer don't you?

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Probably go back to manwich's suggestion.

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Who?

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The TL;DR is this: Artemis is a much more ambitious program than Apollo, so it’s dumb to try to use it as a measuring stick for whether Apollo should have been possible.

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43,500 kg of fuel to go 245k miles?

Now, that it some serious gas mileage!

Do you hear how fricking stupid you sound?

Not an attack bud,

just an observation.

I kind of feel bad for you.

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43,500 kg of fuel to go 245k miles?

Now, that it some serious gas mileage!

Do you hear how fricking stupid you sound?

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Honestly not sure if you’re trolling or just stupid. Either way, no point in arguing about it.

The leadership of the Soviet Union was looking for a way out of the space race. It was bankrupting their nation. That’s why they didn’t call the US bluff with the fake landing.