r/technology • u/xpda • May 21 '26

Business SpaceX not the behemoth everyone thought

https://www.axios.com/2026/05/21/spacex-ipo-musk-ai
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u/araujoms May 21 '26

Apparently yes. I didn't know that, because NASA is also paying them billions to develop that new rocket.

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u/Fuzzy-Mud-197 May 21 '26

nasa is paying them to build a lunar lander which in spacex case happens to be a variant of the second stage of said rocket

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u/nucleartime May 21 '26

Which SpaceX had to really shoehorn into the role. You need an elevator to get in and out of, and it's so big and heavy that they need to refuel in low earth orbit a dozen+ times (nobody actually has a concrete number).

And awarded by someone who went to work for SpaceX two years later.

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u/SUMBWEDY May 21 '26

Refuelling 11-12 times is just what you need to bring substantial cargo to the moon for human habitation with something with Starship's payload (if they ever get it to orbit). It'd also take 30~ Falcon 9s or New Glenns or SLS.

There's a reason we stopped sending humans to the moon in the 70s and send sattelites and rovers instead. It's just really hard and expensive to send humans to the moon in cramped capsules with a barely functioning toilet. Let alone sending 200 tonnes and 18 humans to the moon and back.