Wow, Blue Origin has become the critical path for Artemis III, and NASA doesn’t look fully confident in them. Isaacman just laid out the launch sequence for the first time: Blue Moon has to go up first, or NASA won’t launch SLS. Quote: “We’re not going to launch without Blue Origin in it,” and “You’re committed once SLS goes.” Starship launches last for the docking demos. NASA is also directly helping Blue catch up, embedding personnel, manufacturing some parts themselves, and sending hundreds of people to help with the pad and welding. Without Blue Moon, Artemis III doesn’t fly.

Breaking: the US-China race just moved from Earth orbit to the Moon. Starship HLS and Blue Moon better speed the hell up.NASA’s counting on them for a 2028 landing, and China just dropped a real plan. China says they’ll land crew before 2030. Two Long March 10s, Lanyue lander + Mengzhou, rendezvous in lunar orbit, three crew, two walk on the surface. Artemis IV is still aimed at 2028 for the first American landing since Apollo, but it’s riding on SLS + Orion + whichever lander is actually ready. If China sticks to the schedule and the US slips even a little, who gets there first is suddenly an open question. The new Moon race is on.

Wow, Blue Origin has become the critical path for Artemis III, and NASA doesn’t look fully confident in them. Isaacman just laid out the launch sequence for the first time: Blue Moon has to go up first, or NASA won’t launch SLS. Quote: “We’re not going to launch without Blue Origin in it,” and “You’re committed once SLS goes.” Starship launches last for the docking demos. NASA is also directly helping Blue catch up, embedding personnel, manufacturing some parts themselves, and sending hundreds of people to help with the pad and welding. Without Blue Moon, Artemis III doesn’t fly.

Breaking: the US-China race just moved from Earth orbit to the Moon. Starship HLS and Blue Moon better speed the hell up.NASA’s counting on them for a 2028 landing, and China just dropped a real plan. China says they’ll land crew before 2030. Two Long March 10s, Lanyue lander + Mengzhou, rendezvous in lunar orbit, three crew, two walk on the surface. Artemis IV is still aimed at 2028 for the first American landing since Apollo, but it’s riding on SLS + Orion + whichever lander is actually ready. If China sticks to the schedule and the US slips even a little, who gets there first is suddenly an open question. The new Moon race is on.

NASA pissed off Rocket Lab, and RKLB doesn’t want Blue Origin to get the MTN contract. Rocket Lab has filed a second GAO protest against NASA’s MTN contract, with a decision deadline of February 1, 2027. This is the roughly $700 million contract NASA awarded to Blue Origin on September 1. The first protest has a deadline of December 21, and during the protest period NASA is required to suspend contract performance. That means Blue Origin’s MTN contract could be frozen until next February, putting even more pressure on the 2028 Mars launch window.

Because Falcon 9 is being retired, the rest of the world outside China is supposedly heading for a launch crisis? And Starship “isn’t a commercial rocket”? Spare us. SpaceX is retiring Falcon 9 on purpose, to stop hoarding every contract and leave something for everyone else. Starship doesn’t have a general-purpose payload version yet for one reason: they’re focused on catching the booster and flying at high cadence first. Once they hit weekly flights in the second half of 2027, building a standard payload version will be trivial. The flight rate will make development cycles short. Retiring Falcon 9 is a gift. Other companies finally get the government contracts Falcon 9 used to swallow, while SpaceX concentrates on what actually matters - Starship HLS, cargo, and crew.

Because Falcon 9 is being retired, the rest of the world outside China is supposedly heading for a launch crisis? And Starship “isn’t a commercial rocket”? Spare us. SpaceX is retiring Falcon 9 on purpose, to stop hoarding every contract and leave something for everyone else. Starship doesn’t have a general-purpose payload version yet for one reason: they’re focused on catching the booster and flying at high cadence first. Once they hit weekly flights in the second half of 2027, building a standard payload version will be trivial. The flight rate will make development cycles short. Retiring Falcon 9 is a gift. Other companies finally get the government contracts Falcon 9 used to swallow, while SpaceX concentrates on what actually matters - Starship HLS, cargo, and crew.

NASA pissed off Rocket Lab, and RKLB doesn’t want Blue Origin to get the MTN contract. Rocket Lab has filed a second GAO protest against NASA’s MTN contract, with a decision deadline of February 1, 2027. This is the roughly $700 million contract NASA awarded to Blue Origin on September 1. The first protest has a deadline of December 21, and during the protest period NASA is required to suspend contract performance. That means Blue Origin’s MTN contract could be frozen until next February, putting even more pressure on the 2028 Mars launch window.

In 2 to 3 years, Starship flight once an hour. With six pads across Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, that means one launch from each pad every 6 hours, not 4. At 100 tonnes to LEO per launch, that is 876,000 tonnes per year. If most of it is Starlink and Starmind, I’m genuinely not sure chip and solar-panel production can scale fast enough.