His blog's comparison of NASA's SLS based Artemis architecture versus a Lunar program based on Starship makes the point.
This is a phase change difference in access to space akin from the X-Atlantic air travel jump from Charles Lindberg to the wide body jet in 5-years. 2/
For the logistical types, these are your current price points:
$100,000/kg for LEO bulk cargo
$1,000,000/kg(+) for deep space exploration.
Starship will do 100 ton (+) chunks for <$10m per launch.
It will be launching several hundred times a year w/in 5-years. 3/
Starship will be doing 1,000(+) flights a year in about seven to 10 years.
And no one in the NASA or the incumbent space industries world wide are doing jack to prepare for that reality. 4/
Casey Handmer's point is how will...
"NASA and industry will have to find a way to produce 100x as much stuff for 1/10th the price. Rovers will have to be $1000/kg and we will need 100 tons of them every year."
5/
That isn't where NASA is
Nor Boeing,
Nor Lockheed Martin,
Nor Aerojet etc. etc.
They are all pretending the SpaceX's Falcon & Falcon Heavy rockets don't exist 6/
Another of Handmer's point's --
"History is littered with the wreckage of former industrial titans that underestimated the impact of new technology and overestimated their ability to adapt. Blockbuster, Motorola, Kodak, Nokia, RIM, Xerox, Yahoo, IBM, Atari, Sears, Hitachi, 7/
What we are seeing here is an industrial/institutional version of Thomas Kuhn's Theory of Scientific Revolutions. People invested in the old ways 8/ amazon.com/Structure-Scie…
...will be displaced by those who believe in the new, relevant, scientific & technological paradigms.
And politics will follow this shift.
9/
Starship's success, and it is looking increasingly successful, will be akin to a seed crystal dropped into a supersaturated solution.
The first fully successful Starship orbital launch & return will kill stock values of every other space launcher firm overnight. 10/
And the NASA SLS architecture - long nicknamed the "Senatorial Launch System" for its major supporters - will not survive past the 3rd launch.
What there will be left of NASA after Starship enters regular daily service is conjecture. I too, like Handmer, hope it can adapt. 11/
But whatever comes after...it won't include the Senatorial Launch System.
/End
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The arrival of the Ukrainian Gogol-M, a 20-foot span fixed-wing aerial drone mothership, with over a 200km radius of action while carrying a payload of two 30km ranged attack drones under its wings, underlines the impact of low level airspace as a drone "avenue of approach."
2/
The Gogol-M flys low and slow, below ground based radar coverage like a helicopter.
It opens up headquarters, ground & air logistics in the operational depths to artificial intelligence aided FPV drone attacks.
This is the main example of one of the most unprofessional delusions held by the US Navalist wing of the F-35 Big/Expensive/Few platform and missile cult.
Russian fiber optic FPV's have a range of 50km - over the horizon!
Drones simply don't have ground line of sight issues like soldiers do.
Drones can see in more of the electromagnetic spectrum than humans.
And the US Army refuses to buy enough small drones (1 m +) to train their troops to survive on the drone dominated battlefield.🤢🤮
2/3
"Just send a drone" is the proper tactic for almost everything a 21st century infantryman does from patrolling, raiding enemy positions, sniping and setting up forward observation posts.
3/3
The odds are heavily in favor of the IDF having parked Hermes drones with "Gorgon Stare" technology over Tehran to hunt Iranian senior government officials.