Posted on 11/13/2024 7:56:30 PM PST by BenLurkin
NASA's plagued Space Launch System rocket, which is being developed to deliver the first astronauts to the Moon in over half a century, is on thin ice.
According to Ars Technica senior space reporter Eric Berger's insider sources, there's an "at least 50-50" chance that the rocket "will be canceled."
"Not Block 1B. Not Block 2," he added, referring to the variant that was used during NASA's uncrewed Artemis I test flight in 2022 and a more powerful design with a much higher translunar injection payload capacity, respectively. "All of it."
To be clear, as Berger himself points out, we're still far "from anything being settled." Nonetheless, the reporter's sources have historically been highly reliable, suggesting the space agency may indeed be getting cold feet about continuing to pour billions of dollars into the non-reusable rocket.
The SLS has already seen its fair share of budget overruns and many years of delays. In a 2022 interview, former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver told Futurism that the project is simply "not sustainable."
The rocket platform has become a political football, going well past $6 billion over budget and over half a decade behind schedule.
"I will be direct," former NASA administrator Michael Griffin told the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee during a January hearing on the space agency's Artemis program,"In my judgment, the Artemis Program is excessively complex, unrealistically priced, compromises crew safety, poses very high mission risk of completion, and is highly unlikely to be completed in a timely manner even if successful."
So far, the rocket has been launched only once, as part of NASA's inaugural Artemis mission in 2022, but damage sustained by the agency's Orion spacecraft has given officials pause about its ability to safely send astronauts to the Moon in the coming years.
(Excerpt) Read more at futurism.com ...
Meetings to talk about how they are going to plan the meetings.
I believe it. People believe in evolution but evolution doesnâÂÂt always work in one direction. As a species we are breaking down and our world is turning into crap.
I thought it was pretty cool when it happened the also did the first Dragon EVA. FReegards!
Rrrroger! Make all systems a “go” again.
“Mr. Musk ... Mr. Elon Musk ... please pick up the white courtesy phone.”
How? And why would he?
Gosh, if only we could find someone who knew something about rockets to look into the DEI hiring within NASA.
DEI. Diversity and inclusion. Skin color over merit.
Last I heard, they have lost the institutional memory of how to build it. Duh! I'll bet they know all of the supposed genders though
But ... Congress INSISTED that they would save money and time by re-using Space Shuttle technology.
Elon's next trick will be to catch the returning HLS spaceship on top of the already caught booster...just to show off.
👍
NASA even lost a lot of the old footage of Moon walks that our astronauts did back then. They think that the tapes must have been erased and reused.
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Most were deliberately thrown out to make room for more recent stuff.
““Mr. Musk ... Mr. Elon Musk ... please pick up the white courtesy phone.””
With pinpoint accuracy, Musk’s company launched a rocket and then successfully returned it to its launchpad. I think Musk deserves a chance to help NASA right the wrongs and help them update their technology and get rid of the old technical debt.
Plus the current launchpads may not be made to handle their liftoff power either.
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Musk’s Boosters for Starship generate way more thrust that the Saturn V did.
these UAP, or drones such as the ones that kept hovering over Langley AFB, are aliens.
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The US by law is prevented from shooting them down and are in fact helpless against drones and drone swarms.
Three Body Problem is astonishing Chinese science fiction that had the unmitigated gall to insist that the laws of physics are true.
The whole story is based on a concept that readers and the people who watch the corrupted filming of the books essentially reject and instead concentrate on things that are not the basis. That basis is that faster than light travel is not possible, and never will be possible.
And once that is accepted the Future has inescapable constraints. And, frankly, extinction is guaranteed. All eggs are in one basket and nothing can be done about that ever so eventually somehow that basket will be destroyed and the race with it.
Polaris Dawn mission
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A SpaceX achievement.
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