this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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This was always the plan. Back during DAC 2 kickoff meetings for what became the HLS “government reference design”, folks were struggling to figure out how to get back by 2028.
The press conference where Pence said “2024” happened in the middle of those meetings. Shifting to the private model also shifted the inevitable failure to meet that 2024 date off of NASA (who was/is still wiping SLS egg off it’s face) and onto the “service provider”.
With Trump, there was a mandate to do a moon thing before the 2024 election. With Biden, that schedule pressure is gone… so my personal guess on a crewed lunar surface flight is back to 2028. This is a good thing; 2024 was not enough time.