Crewed Lunar on Falcon 9
On the Prospect of Falcon 9 Doing SLS's Job... Recently I pointed out that Falcon 9 has flown more lunar missions than SLS, and that this is likely to remain true through the end of the decade, based on contracted and expected launches. Some rightfully pushed back on this being an apples and oranges comparison, since the Falcon 9 doesn't have nearly the capabilities of SLS, and the spacecraft it is sending towards the Moon are relatively small uncrewed ones. Now it hadn't been my intention to say they were the same or that the Falcon 9 could do SLS's job. I was just making a tongue-in-cheek jab at "Mega Moon Rocket" launching fewer lunar payloads for the foreseeable future than not-a-Moon-rocket, as well as reminding people that two-stage kerolox rockets like Falcon 9 can in fact competitively launch useful payloads towards the Moon, contrary to popular wisdom until not that long ago. On the other hand, I do like to remind people that Artemis-like missions ca