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NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

arstechnica.com

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Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#81

Post by smfugit »

roody15 wrote: post #60
techdragon wrote: post #5

Important context… SLS isn’t the rocket NASA designed or asked for in order to achieve its mission goals… it’s the rocket they were forced into using due to lobbying and senate shenanigans, there’s a reason it has the nickname “senate launch system”. The fact the pork barrel project is so bloated it’s “unaffordable” is irrelevant as far as the senators who are voting for it are concerned. My bet is that the senate wi…

This is a really unfortunate situation with geopolitical consequences. It weakens belief in our system of governance as a whole. The US can spend this kind of money .. with not much progress .. and no real consequences for failure. Adversaries see this as weakness because that is what it is. This has real world consequences … when people see the US spends 10 times more than any other nation on its military and its sp…

> weakens belief in our system of governance as a whole

That already happened with 2008 GFC. Whats happening with NASA is a small rounding error compared to the amount of pure junk that has accumulated on the FED balance sheet since then, to keep delusions afloat. So the stock market/health care/edu/real estate/iphone/sls prices keep rising. Even though its all pure junk.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#82

Post by adolph »

roody15 wrote: post #60
techdragon wrote: post #5

Important context… SLS isn’t the rocket NASA designed or asked for in order to achieve its mission goals… it’s the rocket they were forced into using due to lobbying and senate shenanigans, there’s a reason it has the nickname “senate launch system”. The fact the pork barrel project is so bloated it’s “unaffordable” is irrelevant as far as the senators who are voting for it are concerned. My bet is that the senate wi…

This is a really unfortunate situation with geopolitical consequences. It weakens belief in our system of governance as a whole. The US can spend this kind of money .. with not much progress .. and no real consequences for failure. Adversaries see this as weakness because that is what it is. This has real world consequences … when people see the US spends 10 times more than any other nation on its military and its sp…

> The US can spend this kind of money .. with not much progress .. and no real consequences for failure. Adversaries see this as weakness because that is what it is.

I donno about this. Adversaries might just as well conclude the opposite, that the US can blow that kind of cash on SLS and other dumb stuff all over the world without major problems. IIRC, UBL's thesis was A-stan is/was the graveyard of empires and would also be the US', but it turned out to be an otherwise forgotten Pentagon rounding error.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#84

Post by danpalmer »

justrealist wrote: post #68
danpalmer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently found out the “price” is now at or below $100m per plane now which was a real surprise to me. I also found out (afraid I don’t have a source to hand) that re-engineering the A10 (is that right?), the darling of F35 criticisers would cost more to retrofit up to modern requirements.

I think it's pretty fair to ask whether the joint program was the right decision in the first place, and the criticism 10 years ago was fair, but yeah it's far too late to turn back.

Yeah it seems like there's a lot of fair criticism of the politics of the program, how work was allocated and bid for, etc. I know very little about it, but it doesn't sound great.

However I think a lot of the criticism focuses on things that aren't really true. The price is one aspect, where the amortisation is now paying off and it's no more expensive than alternatives. Another is the capabilities of the plane – it's not designed for warfare from the movies or from the age when many armchair onlookers were growing up, and so it's easy to make it sound like a boondoggle, when in reality it's a modern platform built for how war works in the 2020s.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#85

Post by rgbrenner »

roody15 wrote: post #60
techdragon wrote: post #5

Important context… SLS isn’t the rocket NASA designed or asked for in order to achieve its mission goals… it’s the rocket they were forced into using due to lobbying and senate shenanigans, there’s a reason it has the nickname “senate launch system”. The fact the pork barrel project is so bloated it’s “unaffordable” is irrelevant as far as the senators who are voting for it are concerned. My bet is that the senate wi…

This is a really unfortunate situation with geopolitical consequences. It weakens belief in our system of governance as a whole. The US can spend this kind of money .. with not much progress .. and no real consequences for failure. Adversaries see this as weakness because that is what it is. This has real world consequences … when people see the US spends 10 times more than any other nation on its military and its sp…

Which adversary are you thinking of that has less corruption and less waste than the US? And then has the economy to take advantage of this?

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#86

Post by vkou »

woooooo wrote: post #75
rdtsc wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the answer. It's keeping the jobs (i.e. voters) in orbit around the senators. They could care less about space, as long as they can say they brought "jobs" to their state. If it does that, it works as designed.

I always hear this and I never hear anyone say they voted for senate based on Abrams tank manufacturing or whatever. Is it a senate cultural thing that they all tell themselves despite tenuous links to reality? Is it kickbacks? Why doesn't the logic apply to infrastructure projects which seem more marketable?

> I always hear this and I never hear anyone say they voted for senate based on Abrams tank manufacturing or whatever.

You never see a senator take credit for a plant opening/expanding on their re-election blurb/townhall? You must be in an incredibly safe state.

> Why doesn't the logic apply to infrastructure projects which seem more marketable?

It applies to them, too. Again, if you're not seeing this, either your senator isn't doing much of it, you're not paying much attention to their campaign, or they are in such an incredibly safe district that their only challenger is Bozo the Clown.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#87

Post by WitCanStain »

rgbrenner wrote: post #85
roody15 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really unfortunate situation with geopolitical consequences. It weakens belief in our system of governance as a whole. The US can spend this kind of money .. with not much progress .. and no real consequences for failure. Adversaries see this as weakness because that is what it is. This has real world consequences … when people see the US spends 10 times more than any other nation on its military and its sp…

Which adversary are you thinking of that has less corruption and less waste than the US? And then has the economy to take advantage of this?

I guess China is the obvious candidate due to reduced costs in pretty much everything but they still have immense corruption.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#88

Post by adolph »

morninglight wrote: post #69

SLS is powered by that inexhaustible fuel..... Pork. .

It's all part of the experiment to falsify Einstein's conjecture that compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/compound-interest/

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#89

Post by [deleted] »

mannerheim wrote: post #49
SkyMarshal wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on Starship’s partial-success in its very first test flight, as well as how routine rocket landing and recovery is becoming for SpaceX, I think Starship will fly, it’s only a matter of when not if. The fact that SLS isn’t designed for reusability, making its per-launch cost something like $4billion, means it’s effectively already outclassed, outcompeted, and obsolete.

SLS was already made redundant when the Falcon Heavy flew. 'Let’s be very honest, We don’t have a commercially available heavy-lift vehicle. The Falcon 9 Heavy may some day come about. It’s on the drawing board right now. SLS is real.' - Charles Bolden Note the reason given here isn't that the Falcon Heavy didn't have as large a payload capacity - that excuse came after it started flying years before SLS, because app…

[deleted]

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#90

Post by gustavus »

WitCanStain wrote: post #87
rgbrenner wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which adversary are you thinking of that has less corruption and less waste than the US? And then has the economy to take advantage of this?

I guess China is the obvious candidate due to reduced costs in pretty much everything but they still have immense corruption.

> I guess China is the obvious candidate due to reduced costs in pretty much everything

Achievement: You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor.

Get the poster at https://despair.com/products/achievement?variant=2457295683

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