In article , says...

On 2020-05-18 7:48 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
NASA would save a ton of money
by using Dragon 2 to ferry astronauts to lunar Starship while it's still
in LEO, but Congress would have none of that.

Jeff


That's very interesting. Was that ever formally proposed?

No. The NASA requirements for the Artemis crewed lunar landers state
that the lander must dock with Orion in high lunar orbit, the crew lands
on the moon, and later returns to dock with Orion in high lunar orbit.
SpaceX would not have gotten an award had they proposed anything
different.

Or even
better, use Dragon 2 for a crew carrier and the Starship and a new and
(vastly) improved "upper stage". Neither of which need SLS to get to
orbit or to refuel.

Sadly, NASA is not open to such suggestions.

Now Starship doesn't depend on a crew cabin to be useful and we're not
wasting billions of dollars on SLS to mainly just get to LEO with no
practical upper stage yet in sight...

Unfortunately, Congress continues to fund SLS/Orion so NASA must use it.

I must say though I am impressed that NASA Administrator Bridenstine has
relegated the use of SLS to only launching Orion. None of the lunar
landers chosen will use SLS as a launch vehicle. Same for Gateway
modules, as far as I can tell.

Jeff
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