Coming Attraction: NASA OIG Report On That SLS Transporter Thing
You saw Nelson's reaction to this issue recently. This is utterly indefensible & is totally on #NASA regardless of how contractors screwed up. Oh yes its at @NASAKennedy in FL where @SenBillNelson is from and where @Astro_CabanaBo ran the show for many years. Tick tock. #Artemis https://t.co/Fqs0QdwD3d
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) June 8, 2022
At some point if we are serious about getting to the moon and Mars we will have to bite the bullet, drop SLS and Boeing, and go with Space X.
About 50 years after the Wright Brothers, we were driving cars on the moon.
50 years after humans last left low earth orbit, we are still waiting for humans to leave low earth orbit.
We need competition, so I’m hesitant to say “just buy SpaceX”. Back in the early days of aviation, you had Boeing, Hughes, Douglas, and lots of other capable companies competing for business.
I love what SpaceX has achieved, and I’m fully confident that they could get us to Mars all on their own if they are not regulated to death first. But long term, on the scale of decades, we can’t put all our eggs in one basket, for societal, political, and technical reasons.
I don’t know how we grow that competition though. Maybe the government needs to authorize a program to build a competitor to Starship, targeting the same kind of payload and reuse abilities, similar to how we got two companies doing commercial crew.
If that doesn’t happen, maybe once Starship starts eating the whole market, some of the other companies will wake up, although at least a couple of them will probably
go bankrupt.
Long term no doubt you are right that competition is best, but I have good reason for being impatient. We landed on the moon before I entered 10th grade. I am now 69 years old and see the same putting off progress 10 to 20 years in the future. Human spaceflight beyond low earth orbit has been stolen from my generation. If I am to see significant progress in my lifetime it has to be with Space X.
A government-funded “competitor” isn’t going to improve matters. SpaceX would be competing with them, but they wouldn’t be competing with SpaceX. If the government does this, it’ll be an attempt to undermine SpaceX, not build a healthy industry.
SpaceX has Starship because they’re taking on the risk of developing it themselves. Others like Rocket Lab are taking similar risks and developing reusable launch vehicles themselves. If the government comes in and sponsors someone to “compete”, that will just return us to the bad old days of the Shuttle.
Two Vulcan-Centaur heavies (one tops off the other, or one launches full, one launches the payload, and they dock in LEO) equal one SLS, more or less. Competition is absolutely possible, you just have to give up the “My rocket is bigger than yours” mentality and start asking ‘how can we do the mission’
“If we can’t do a rocket for $11.5 billion, we ought to close up shop,” — then-Senator-Nelson
Honestly, if anyone at NASA or in the congress cared something would have been done long ago.
Many people at NASA care and are well aware of the problem, but Congress provides the budget and the requirements.
NASA goes along with the status quo without speaking up. They do not deserve all of the blame, but some blame for 50 years of treading water in human space flight does belong to NASA.
That’s like blaming an abused wife for not speaking up.
SLS now set to launch in late August. They did not say what year.
My bettin’ money is on October or November to finally get off the pad.
You are probably right for getting off the pad, but I am skeptical about it accomplishing all its missions.
Ouch!