IF Elon Musk’s Starship fails to reach orbit in its second test flight, then Nasa’s mission to the Moon will be delayed, astronaut Tim Peake has warned.
Starship is due to for its second test flight before the end of the year.
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The mega-rocket – the tallest and more powerful launch vehicle to ever be flown – dramatically exploded in it’s first trial launch in April.
Peake, who has spent 185 days in space, has a new book titled Space: The Human Story which is due to hit the shelves on 26 October.
“There’s this new era that’s approaching and its not hugely in the public domain,” said Peake.
“Although, I think that with what Elon Musk’s doing with Starship and the Artemis missions, more and more people are actually realising that we’re going back to the Moon within the next two years.
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“I kind of wanted to highlight that whole story of how we got there.”
Speaking to The Sun to commemorate his new book, Peake hailed how Musk’s SpaceX has lowered the point-of-entry cost of space.
But such success means the industry has grown to rely on Musk’s, at times chaotic, mode of innovation to move forward.
SpaceX has been delivering cargo and crew to the International Space Station (ISS) for more than a decade.
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It used to cost about $57,000 per kilogram to ship cargo to the ISS, but SpaceX brought that figure down to about $1500 with its Falcon Heavy rocket.
When Musk gets Starship to work, the price could plunge to as low as $100 per kilogram, according to Peake.
“This is absolutely groundbreaking,” he said.
“This suddenly makes things that we thought were science fiction [possible].
“[Before], you simply couldn’t build something like a solar farm in space and beam down solar energy.”
Now, these plans are not 15 years away but possibly just five years away, he hopes.
The driving force behind SpaceX’s success is the “fail fast attitude” that Nasa couldn’t afford to adopt, Peake explained.
“That’s stood them in good stead,” he said.
“But lets not forget that in the very early days they failed fast but they did fail quite a lot and they were at the point where they were on pretty much their last rocket and it needed to succeed otherwise the company was going to fold.
“We’ve seen that recently with companies like Virgin Orbit, there are only so many failures you can have.
“Could you imagine if that had happened to SLS-1, Nasa’s rocket, last year?
“There wasn’t another SLS in the hanger ready to go in two or three months time.
“In fact, SLS-2 is still not due to be ready until November next year at the very earliest, so the fact that Elon Musk has got another Starship on the pad ready to go in less than six months is remarkable.”
However, Peake – like other astronauts – is keenly aware of how quickly a space programme can lose momentum, political interest, and ultimately, funding.
In his mind, there are only so many times a rocket like Starship can fail and the programme stay afloat.
“I do have high hopes, I know they’ll still be treating this as very much a research and development flight,” he continued.
“We probably wont see all the engines ignite, but I would like to see it get to orbit because it is on the critical path for us going back to the Moon.
“Starship is part of our human lander system that is going to take astronauts, [in] the Orion module, down to the Moon.
“If Starship doesn’t work then the Moon programme is delayed.”
Return to the Moon
Nasa’s Artemis Mission plans to put the humans on the Moon for the first time in 50 years.
And the US space agency plans to do so in 2025, when Starship is hoped to be ready for the first crewed lunar landing, which will be the beginning of humans becoming an interplanetary species.
“It’s one of those things that we’ve forgotten about because it was so long ago since humans walked on the surface of the Moon, and what it does to a whole population,” said Peake.
“And of course, this is not just to go there for short trips, this is to go there with the intention of building a laboratory and staying at the South Pole.”
The Moon base will also be integral to future Mars missions, as Starship will use the lunar base as a refuelling station.
SpaceX’s high-risk, high-reward approach to the industry is what has earned the company a “huge amount of credibility and kudos” among astronauts.
But its notoriety in the industry has meant SpaceX often gets caught in the space tourism net, which Peake says in unfair.
“Boeing were awarded more money at the same time as SpaceX and haven’t yet managed to achieve a single successful mission to the space station,” he explained.
“For a company like SpaceX to outperform a company like Boeing with all of their heritage and expertise, shows you what they have managed to achieve.
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“I know that Musk can be a bit like Marmite for a lot of people and I think sometimes as well Musk gets tainted with the space tourism brush, which is slightly harsh because there’s a big difference to what SpaceX are doing and companies such as Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin.
“[Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin] are purely focusing on high net worth individuals and space tourists. That’s not what SpaceX is about.”
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