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 ...
Gee, thanks for letting me know /s
You’re correct. It was the Michoud facility.
That show mockingly called out a lot of scientific stuff that is beginning to happen now.
I think that was Edison.
Well, Einstein said it as well. Einstein also said “The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits”
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