back to article ESA signs off on three more service modules for Moon mission – despite agency boss casting doubt on 2024 landing

The European Space Agency has signed off on three more European Service Modules for NASA's Orion spacecraft, taking the total to be delivered to six. Airbus is the lucky recipient of the contract, which is in excess of €650m. Two of the three new European Service Modules (ESM) will be part of ESA's contribution to the Lunar …

  1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

    In other news, SN-9

    Made it to 10km, made it back to 0m, but in several pieces.

    It's still a funny looking spacecraft, and apparently didn't get one of the Raptor's to re-ignite to transition from belly-flop to smooth landing. Bit like my attempts at diving I guess.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: In other news, SN-9

      Remember a kids TV show in the 70s where they made a rocket in a scrapyard out of junk......

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: In other news, SN-9

        British Aerospace documentary?

      2. Pirate Dave Silver badge

        Re: In other news, SN-9

        Salvage 1 with Andy Griffith?

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: In other news, SN-9

          That was a rabbit hole - their spaceship even lands on legs !

          1. Pirate Dave Silver badge

            Re: In other news, SN-9

            Lol. Yeah, the special effects were awesome in the late '70's, mostly because we didn't know any better. ;)

      3. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        Re: In other news, SN-9

        Remember a kids TV show in the 70s where they made a rocket in a scrapyard out of junk......

        I remember being a kid in the '70s making rockets out of cardboard tubes, inspired by both the Moon missions, and vintage SF.. And then after discovering chemistry, trying to make them fly. And being a bit like SpaceX, discovering tests often fail.

        Which I guess is also why I like space flight, because it provides inspiration.

  2. TaabuTheCat

    The more I hear

    about this program the more I can't help but think it's going to be another 10+ years of wasted effort to "do something" using yesterday's left-over parts and yesterday's recycled ideas. I really can't fault NASA with the stupid yoyo budgeting and political positioning that changes priorities every regime change, but seriously, can't we have a more ambitious effort than some franken-vehicle that will cost billions, be massively over budget, chronically late and barely able to repeat a trick we performed over 50 years ago?

    1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: The more I hear

      I don't think the effort will be wasted, but NASA seems to have been hamstrung by politicians specifying SLS detail. Or just arguing for a favorable distribution of pork. A better way would be the Trump-ish 'Boots on the Moon!' to just specify the objective, and allocate budget. Then NASA would have a free(ish) hand to make it so.

      But then there's physics. NASA's done this before and knows if the Moon is the target, and payload is X, then we need a BFR. A lot of energy is needed to escape gravity, so that means thrust, which means fuel, which means mass.. So borrowing the idea of strap-on SRBs from the Shuttle programme makes sense.

      But there's also been the problem of the US not really investing in space programmes, so kinda lacked a decent engine for heavy missions. But that's also a physics/engineering problem, ie if the old Soviet engines are good enough for government work, why invent the better mousetrap? And then politics intervened, limiting availability of those engines.

      On the plus side, there's been competition from SpaceX, Blue Origin and others.. Which includes Russia, India, China etc in a possible repeat of the space race.

      1. iron

        Re: The more I hear

        You don't need a BFR if you don't launch an overweight, overcomplicated boondoggle of a capsule called Orion with fuel, lander, etc in a single launch. Using a lighter capsule like a deep space varient of crew Dragon and splitting the mission into multiple launches it would be doable with a smaller rocket like Falcon Heavy. We would need to solve in-orbit refueling but we are going to need that to do anything more than repeat Apollo anyway.

  3. Gene Cash Silver badge

    Inspiring

    "I'm sure that in 2025, 2026, there will be something and I hope that we will have also some Europeans at the end of this decade over there"

    Wow. Could he sound any more disinterested?

    1. Potemkine! Silver badge

      Re: Inspiring

      I would rather say he is cautious. I guess he's not a PR guy, just a serious one.

  4. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
    Meh

    So what's on the moon that they want to go there? Did someone leave his wallet behind? Astronomy just seems like a completely pointless effort. Great stuff if you can work out that we're stuck in the middle of the Boötes void, but so what? I'm guessing space agencies keep bombarding us with "searching for life on other planets" stories because they themselves cannot explain the benefit anymore of what they are doing. But if you can't even conclusively determine if there is life on the two planets right next to us, how will you do so for a planet that is 200 ly away? Maybe the focus should be on cleaning the mess up that's already in orbit.

    1. Julz
      Paris Hilton

      The

      New improved mouse trap really needs working on. That would be a useful use of human ingenuity. I'm sure there are other worthy projects out there that could do with some love.

      Paris, because I'm sure she will have many interesting projects for us to focus on that would increase the net worth of human knowledge.

    2. iron

      Do you like non-stick pans? How about scratch resitent lenses, insulin pumps, artificail limbs, laser eye surgery, life support equipment for firefighters, solar cells, clean filtered water, air purifiers, smoke detectors, modern tyres, digital cameras, CAT scanners, memory foam, modern home insulation, infrared thermometers, LEDs, your laptop and a mind boggling number of other things? They were all invented as part of the space race.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Do you like non-stick pans? = Du Pont in the 1930s first used in Manhattan project

        How about scratch resitent lenses = Zeiss for the German army

        artificail limbs = Pirates + several world wars

        laser eye surgery = IBM

        solar cells = Bell labs, phone tower repeaters,

        digital cameras = possibly, first real commercial use was spy satelites

        CAT scanners = EMI (the Beatles record company)

        LEDs = Russians in the 20s, French(Marie-Curie's lab) in the 30s

      2. werdsmith Silver badge

        Yes, you can find something generally useful out of space r&d if you look hard enough, but the usual list of things trotted out, starting with Teflon non stick, is absolute rubbish. It’s a bit like telling people that eating a lot of carrots gives you night vision.

        In fact, if you look at attributed inventions in general, they are almost all woolly at best, and acquired claims.

    3. Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

      Humanity needs to spread out into space so we don't have all our eggs in a single Earthy basket. It's not if but when the next global mass extinction event occurs.

      Returning the moon could be considered a first step to do so.

      As to your views on astronomy, you clearly don't consider gaining a greater understanding of the universe to be important. Everyone's entitled to their opinion. However, many people do consider that a worthy goal.

      Clearing junk from orbit certainly should continue to be worked on, but it's not an either/or proposition.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        >Returning the moon could be considered a first step to do so.

        What do you learn on the moon that you can't do in orbit ?

        What does going back to the moon for a flag saluting selfie do to get you nearer to a Mars colony ?

      2. werdsmith Silver badge

        Clearing junk is a tough one. If you throw enough cash at it you might make an impression on it, but someone needs to come up with something new and clever and many dissertations have been wasted on this problem.

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