41–50 of 248 posts
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Where did you read this?
They are either a GenAI disinformation bot, or they're a human who is so dedicated to their dishonesty as to be impossible to distinguish from such a bot.
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How about as a backup in case all other current options are unavailable?
It's difficult to imagine any scenario where this happens. The only real possibilities are SpaceX going bankrupt or leaving the country. In either case, the government has substantial capacity to nationalize companies for the sake of national security during times of crises. It's also likely impossible for SpaceX to leave the US owing to ITAR and other regulations.
I don't believe that likely, but it does seem like something similar is a good reason to keep options open.
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How about as a backup in case all other current options are unavailable?
It's difficult to imagine any scenario where this happens. The only real possibilities are SpaceX going bankrupt or leaving the country. In either case, the government has substantial capacity to nationalize companies for the sake of national security during times of crises. It's also likely impossible for SpaceX to leave the US owing to ITAR and other regulations.
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Need some competition to commercial near-monopolization (in the pre-to-mid 2010s when it was funded), some other program, they already funded SLS (which was funded to carry way more payload than FH), let it play out, IMO. Also, not to say it isn't a time to start acting, if we are another decade out still adding funding to SLS with the current balance sheet, we have major issues. But $30B over 10Y isn't that crazy wh…
This is the definition of throwing good money after bad. Even if SLS can be completed, it just has no purpose. The latest "estimates" (which means will likely be well below what actually happens) put the recurring per launch costs of SLS at $2.5 billion per launch, on top of the ongoing tens of billions in development costs. That's for a system that is aiming for an initial payload of 95k kg (to LEO). By contrast the…
I think the current administration puts it at $4B, but those estimates seem to include current and future development costs.
IMO, there are plenty of subsystems of SLS that weren't a waste to develop, and it surely fostered a generation of talented individuals, bolstered other companies, etc.
I doubt the Artemis program (as planned) survives a full four years of this administration anyway. The majority of "good work" for SLS seems to be completed, and hopefully, the talent, knowledge, resources, and so on will (has?) spread elsewhere.
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Your point was stronger 6 months ago before SpaceX started regressing on their Starship test flights. The U.S. needs to have multiple horses in the race
I did not mention Starship, because I'm not comparing the SLS against future tech, but against tech that was finished 7 years ago and is commercially available at this very moment. And I'm contrasting this against SLS cost "projections", which invariably end up lowballing reality. I'm steel-manning the argument for the SLS as much as I can, but it's still just nonsensical. The idea we need to compete against ourselve…
You mentioned Falcon Heavy but that has less than half the payload of SLS.
It's refreshing that given everything else happening, Congress is still at least functional at this level. Should be noted that many of NASA's programs are situated in predominantly conservative areas of the country. Brings lots of jobs and resources to the local economies.
Except SLS/Orion should be cancelled. The SLS is pejoratively called the Senate Launch System, because it has no real place in the market yet is continuing to consume tens of billions of dollars. It was mostly obsoleted by Falcon Heavy years ago (SLS has been a black hole of funding since 2011), and its costs are completely ridiculous. You're looking at billions of dollars per launch if it ever is confidently flight…
It's refreshing that given everything else happening, Congress is still at least functional at this level. Should be noted that many of NASA's programs are situated in predominantly conservative areas of the country. Brings lots of jobs and resources to the local economies.
Except SLS/Orion should be cancelled. The SLS is pejoratively called the Senate Launch System, because it has no real place in the market yet is continuing to consume tens of billions of dollars. It was mostly obsoleted by Falcon Heavy years ago (SLS has been a black hole of funding since 2011), and its costs are completely ridiculous. You're looking at billions of dollars per launch if it ever is confidently flight…
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NASA going back to the moon and Musk to Mars is nothing but pipe dreams to sell the story mode types. The US government has pivoted to animal husbandry of the populace through techno police state, and handing sycophants to power their own title, land and serfs
My ex coworkers at spacex are pretty damn motivated to get to mars, many of them despite all the Musking happening. I wouldn’t bet against them.
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Except SLS/Orion should be cancelled. The SLS is pejoratively called the Senate Launch System, because it has no real place in the market yet is continuing to consume tens of billions of dollars. It was mostly obsoleted by Falcon Heavy years ago (SLS has been a black hole of funding since 2011), and its costs are completely ridiculous. You're looking at billions of dollars per launch if it ever is confidently flight…
Manned space flight in generally is a hugely wasteful money sink. It eats up about 50% of NASA's budget, and there's no real reason for it other than "we're putting people into space because we want to put people into space." People vigorously defend these boondoggles, then finally admit they were a huge waste years after the fact (as we've seen with the space shuttle, and as we're now starting to see with the SLS).
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/station/20-breakthroughs-from-...
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Except SLS/Orion should be cancelled. The SLS is pejoratively called the Senate Launch System, because it has no real place in the market yet is continuing to consume tens of billions of dollars. It was mostly obsoleted by Falcon Heavy years ago (SLS has been a black hole of funding since 2011), and its costs are completely ridiculous. You're looking at billions of dollars per launch if it ever is confidently flight…
Manned space flight in generally is a hugely wasteful money sink. It eats up about 50% of NASA's budget, and there's no real reason for it other than "we're putting people into space because we want to put people into space." People vigorously defend these boondoggles, then finally admit they were a huge waste years after the fact (as we've seen with the space shuttle, and as we're now starting to see with the SLS).
There are many arguments that the space shuttle program's side effects helped win the cold war, foster modern communications, inspire generations to study science, ...
Those are good things, without stating its known direct accomplishments.