It Sounds Like NASA's Moon Rocket Might be Getting Canceled
DannyB writes:
"There is a big desire for big changes."
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.
[....] there's an "at least 50-50" chance that the rocket "will be canceled."
[....] "Not Block 1B. Not Block 2," [...] All of it.
[....] 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."
[....] According to an August report by NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG), even just the price of the tower designed to launch rockets starting with Artemis IV, which is tentatively scheduled for 2028, has ballooned to a whopping $1.8 billion.
Plagued aerospace giant Boeing has also encountered plenty of headwinds with its contributions to the launch platform. In a separate September report by the OIG, the SLS' Block 1B configuration, which is being built by Boeing, was found to be woefully behind and way over budget.
"We found an array of issues that could hinder SLS Block 1B's readiness for Artemis IV including Boeing's inadequate quality management system, escalating costs and schedules, and inadequate visibility into the Block 1B's projected costs," the report reads.
To reiterate, the SLS is a non-reusable rocket, which means that NASA will have to build entirely new rocket stages for each upcoming Artemis mission. That's in stark contrast to SpaceX's fully reusable Starship, which the space agency is still hoping to tap for Artemis III, the first crewed trip to the Moon's surface.
[...rest omitted...]
Who among ULA, Boeing, Blue Origin, SpaceX, Roscosmos, and others might be a piece of the pie?
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