SpaceX has been chosen to land the first woman on the moon.
Last year NASA selected 3 concepts to develop a Human Landing System. The goal was to develop one or two functional landers that could land humans on the moon by 2024. The competitors were a Blue Origin led National team, Dynetics, and SpaceX. Each of them had a innovative and unique approach. I'm going to describe each of the HLS concepts
Dynetics
The Dynetics concept was my favorite. It has a small pressurized area for the astronauts with fuel tanks and engines on each side. There are also drop tanks that would have been ditched on the way down to the surface. I think that this design was simple, and easily reusable. It would have also been very useful in delivering modules for a moon base to the surface, or a pressurized rover.
Dynetics also had many partners helping them develop this lander, such as Sierra Nevada and Maxar. Dynetics is a company in Huntsville, Alabama with decades of experience. Dynetics provides IT services, develops weapons for the US military, and builds parts of NASA's SLS rocket.
If the Dynetics lander had been chosen if would have been launched on a SLS block 1B fully fueled or by the ULA's Vulcan Centaur on multiple flights. It would have been able to be reused multiple times, but would require many launches to get fully fueled for each landing.
Blue Origin
Blue Origin led what was called the National Team. It consisted of Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper. These companies have decades of experience. The companies that eventually merged to form Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman built the Apollo landers, and other crucial equipment for NASA.
The lander concept has three major components. A manned ascent component built by Lockheed Martin, A descent element based on Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander, and a transfer element to be built by Northrop Grumman. Draper was developing the landing guidance system. Each element would have been launched separately, then they would dock in Lunar orbit. Each module had a specific purpose. The Transfer Element would be used to take the other modules from the gateway to a low lunar orbit. The Descent Element would then land on the surface. Two astronauts would be on top of the Descent Module, in the Ascent module. When they were finished exploring on the lunar surface, the Ascent element would lift off and carry the astronauts back to the Gateway. The Descent element would be left on the surface, and would not be reused.
I thought that the National team had the best chance at getting picked. The companies involved had experience and promised to perform rigorous testing before the human landing. However, the design was complicated, and had many new technologies. Lots of refueling would have been required to refuel the lander between landings.
SpaceX Starship
SpaceX's design was different from all the others, they proposed a lunar version of Starship. Starship is far bigger than the other lander proposals, it contains lots of pressurized space, and has the capability to land 100 tons of cargo onto the surface of the moon.
The HLS version of Starship will not have a heat shield or fins, because it will not need to be reentering the atmosphere. It will be launched on top of the humongous Super Heavy rocket. Once in the orbit, multiple starships will have to dock in order to fuel up the Starship Human Landing System. After that, it will head off to lunar orbit to meet up with the Gateway or Orion.
The Decision
The final decision came down to money. NASA originally wanted to select 2 out of the 3 proposals listed above, but congress gave NASA a small budget for the Human Landing System. NASA didn't even have enough money to make a contract with even one of the companies! SpaceX decided to lower their bid significantly, and as a result, SpaceX was the only company that NASA could afford to contract to create a Human Landing System.
Price was the main reason why SpaceX's Starship was chosen, but there were also other factors. The lander proposals of Dynetics and the National Team would both use multiple new technologies which were still being developed. The Dynetics lander design was also too heavy to be landed. NASA's second choice was the Blue Origin led National Team.
I wish that NASA had had the money to select 2 teams to develop lunar landers. These other amazing lander designs will probably never be built, but it's good that NASA actually has a lander now.
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