Yeap. Here is what Apollo did support a crew of 3 for 14 days at 5psi in 100% oxygen. They had to modify for Skylab and add a battery(and also as a result of Apollo 13) that was charged by Skylab so that the capsule could stay in space longer.

Here is what Orion attempted to do support a crew of 4 in space for 21 days, at 14 PSI(and needs to be if it wants to dock with the ISS) with a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere. Support itself 6 months with or without a space station. And get launched on Ares -1 with the resulting escape and oscillation issues.

You have increased the size of the capsule, increased the crew, increased the pressure at which it operates need to carry nitrogen for said atmosphere, need to carry solar panels/batteries and water because fuel cells are not a good power source for long duration spaceflight.

All Apollo had to do was land a man on the moon. Orion was shooting for anywhere access to the moon which is much harder. It was shooting for being able to support a moon base-Apollo could not. They changed requirements and tried to squeeze it all into the Apollo shaped capsule because its aerodynamics are well known but could you imagine the disaster of trying to make something like the Wright brother’s plane do more than simply barely carry one person into the sky, say something like keep the same shape/mostly same materials and fly ten time longer.

Rescue. Not even salvage, this is outright rescue. Closing the cost to value ratio with respect to space colonization using a resource exploitation model.

They say they want to explore in an expendable rocket and capsule with a 21 day loiter time, but with a little extra effort you have a large moon base.

Using twin crossfeeding Falcon Heavies as SRB replacements on a 10 meter stack with four SSMEs and a center J2 specifically designed to land on the pole of the moon will pretty much get you anywhere with extra. It’s very nearly 10 million lbf of thrust. That should satisfy any rocket weenies biggest fantasy or nightmare. If the boosters are reusable, the VLB could handle up to four of these at once, or at least that was the initial design. With ten meter cores all you have to do is add extra reusable boosters.

You just can’t make this stuff up, it has to evolve. This is my evolution. I did my part. Either you want a lunar base and space colonization or you don’t. The bigger problem is finding a place for all the space tourists when Mr. Musk closes the loop on capsule reusability. That’s an entirely different problem however, since any lunar colonization efforts will be unmanned for the foreseeable future. I just really like the idea of permanent cryogenic infrastructure supporting large rotating solar arrays that require zero attitude control fuel and present very little orbital debris issues as well.

You guys just don’t get it yet. There is no money for astronauts and payloads, there is only money for the rocket. If the rocket isn’t your payload, you’ve got nothing.

That said, congrat’s to Scaled, VG, and Branson for hanging in there.

“This is incompetence bordering on malfeasance already now.”

And yet you want to make the SLS bigger. What’s bigger than malfeasance?

“The only way to make the SLS work now is to go even bigger.”

Or, kill it and figure out what is really needed. I vote to kill it.

“Let Musk do the methane thing and go to a new ten meter core boosted by methane variations of the crossfeeding Falcon Heavies or whatever.”

While we’re at it, let’s also pretend that we’ll use pink unicorns to help push this monster to orbit.

“And get rid of the astronauts and payloads. This is all about water, oxygen and carbon dioxide down in the deep thermal hole.”

Gee, and I thought we needed the water, oxygen and carbon dioxide for the astronauts and payloads. Silly me.