In article ,
says...

On 2021-04-17 07:52, Jeff Findley wrote:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021...x-as-its-sole-
provider-for-a-lunar-lander/

Has the interior cabin design been made publc?

No.

curious about the 2
airlocks and why they are needed.

SpaceX likely thought that was a feature that NASA would view favorably.
It provides redundancy in an area that is critical. Lunar dust may
interfere with the operation of the airlocks, so having a backup makes
sense. The other two proposals were only big enough for one airlock.

Also, Since the thing lands on new engines mounted on the sides, how
close would it be to do away with raptors and just have the landing
engines for both landing and Earth-Mooth initial transit?

Lunar Starship still need Raptors to get into earth orbit and to perform
the TLI burn.

Is trans-lunar not even close to be done by those engines, or within
realm of the possible?

Likely possible, but surely inefficient due to cosine losses. The
engines aren't pointed vertical, they're canted off to the sides to
prevent impingement on Starship and to minimize the amount of lunar dust
that's kicked up.

Raptors are still needed for the TLI burn.

Also, curious to see how the "iterative development" will be affected
since there might now be a priority in developping the Lunar lander,
decked out cabin on top etc.

Lunar Starship development is just a variant of the Starship that SpaceX
is currently developing on its own dime. Getting NASA to pay for lunar
Starship development is a good thing for SpaceX as some of the unique
features on it would likely apply to a Mars landing Starship.

I take it that landing with the new side mounted engines is not even
close to be possibeo on Earth? how will they test them?

No. Earth has 6x the gravity of the moon.

Jeff
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