SLS Rocket In Trouble After New White House Budget Request
Вставка
- Опубліковано 20 вер 2024
- I don't usually do politics, but the new Whitehouse budget request makes huge changes to the future of the SLS rocket. While these aren't final by any means it does indicate that even with a return to the moon being prioritised SLS is becoming less and less of a critical backbone for these efforts.
Arstechnica article on Europa Clipper's political situation
arstechnica.co...
Who didn't see this coming? SLS is using 40 year old shuttle tech, will be as expensive as the shuttle (If not more), and it's way over budget and way past it's development schedule. It is the Senate Launch System.
*Senate (money) Laundering System.
I really hope they do cut the SLS off. The sunk cost is insane, but it would still cost less to just stop the program and use commercial vehicles.
If they reeeeeaaalllly needed to have their own launcher they could always just buy a few boosters from any number of US based companies, and then use their own proprietary upper stage if needed.
Agreed this is great news, the SLS is such a boondoggle.
I said several years ago that SLS was looking exactly like a program that the engineers know is a white elephant, the project managers and NASA know is a white elephant, and will likely never fly, but they keep lying to to public and taking press photos of small bits being made to try and keep money coming in.
When the design is so conservative, so safe, using so many existing and proven parts, yet is this late and over budget, you know it's never going to happen.
I can't really blame NASA though, SLS is Boeing's responsibility.
But how else can we continue to employ the contractors we had for the shuttle? May I remind you they are political donors.
So when am I supposed to act surprised?
Never, SLS won't fly
The day the thing actually makes progress. By progress I mean anything but filling pockets.
I think it will fly once... but never again. Like the Ares I.
@@klobiforpresident2254 And what purpose does private industry serve? Oh, right, it exists to fill the pockets of billionaires instead of working class Americans. Where do people like you come up with statements like that?
When our congress cancels the program entirely. That, however, would be a case for a reaction more akin to shock.
Who would win?
Several multi-billion dollar companies with strong lobbies in Washington?
or
One Beefy Falcon Boi?
my monies in the falcon.
sls has become thoranos 2.0
And it all started with a guy wanting to put a little terrarium on Mars. Than he had a couple of drinks.
@@kekistaniattackhelicopter2242 ive feeling that the Russian hate themself for not helping him at that time.
@@abdullahkratos it was never a serious question... Even musk said that
@@kekistaniattackhelicopter2242 Sure it wasn't someone that saw Kerbal Space Program and said "hold my beer"?
Ronald Reagan - 'Nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program.'
I have problem with what you said..
As even Scott explains in one of his other videos, a big part of the budget problem for NASA is the historical dead-end it drove itself into with the Space Shuttle without committing to a long term development of its replacement.
Space Shuttle? Cool. Very public. Expensive, full of glitches, even deadly, never achieving its promise of reliable cheap space travel. By the time it had to be retired the development of its replacement was underfunded and delayed far too many times. (and no, don't even claim Obama was the one to 'kill' it. NASA already had to schedule it on the chopping block half a decade before because Congress refused to fund it further. Congress decides the budget. A president is merely their excuse to blame somebody)
Remember the VentureStar program? I wonder what would have happened had the budget for that continued instead of being cancelled... We could have had a 100% re-usable SSTO flying Low Earth Orbit missions by now if that program had been able to be successful... But you know... politics happened!
@@jacoblyman9441 but ssto's are nearly impossible -m-
SSTO's suck, but aren't impossible. VentureStar wasn't just some napkin drawing, but was very far along its design phase. If the math checks out to prove it was capable of SSTO flight, then it would have been possible to have had it do SSTO flight. Considering the team of engineers likely behind the program I bet the math to prove it could fly had been done and double checked and triple checked several times.
The problem is the design process has to be radical. Hence why the VentureStar prototype had aerospike engines, and so much carbon fiber that even the fuel tanks were being built out of carbon fiber (a contributing factor to the projects demise when the suborbital prototype's fuel tanks couldn't pass its pressure testing safely). Compare that to another 100% reusable ship in development, Starship/BFR which uses traditional style engines and stainless steel because its a multi staged ship. It doesn't need to be as lightweight as an SSTO, because only the top stage of BFR goes to orbit, while the bottom stage lands itself like the Falcon 9 family does.
So are SSTOs impossible? No. A pain in the butt to design, select the right materials for, and build? Yes. VentureStar could have worked, but the project was killed in its infancy to soon to ever tell what the outcome would be.
Very true. But after more than a decade of work NASA don't even have a prototype of SLS let alone a mock up. 0 test flights, billions wasted on hardware that will never see space let alone outside of the factory. Within a few months SpaceX *almost* have a working prototype of starship...I guess when you are spending taxpayer dollars who gives a shit?
NASA has become a giant joke. Hang your heads in shame and start funding a partner that will PROGRESS your desires for human spaceflight instead of funding your own personal retirement.
@@Semicon07 Nasa shouldn't develop rockets, not anymore. Instead it should focus on advancing the systems and architecture for future space colonisation and book flights on commercial rocket companies, up its game with future manned missions, increase funding for research into objects outside our solar system, develop a countermeasure to the inevitable asteroids heading toward Earth etc. SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing you name it are all capable or on the cusp of transport missions to LEO and/or GTO and indeed crewed ones as well.
SpaceX has gone from drawing Falcon Heavy on a napkin to an actual launch in the time this thing has been laying around in "development".
Really SpaceX has gone from designing the Falcon 1 to flying Falcon Heavy in the time this program has been around since SLS is basically a continuation of the Constellation Program with a name change and less capable rocket.
To quote Apollo 13 "Tell me this isn't a government operation."
SpaceX has gone from using technology developed by the public, you mean.
The private sector didn't step up back in the 60s to go to the moon off its own back.
@@anessenator What technology is that?
Oh come now im sure SLS is just another dozen engine tests before flying XD. /s
@@anessenator SLS is using Shuttle engines and boosters, designed in the 1960s. There has been zero forward progress by the public sector since Shuttle's debut.
I can't remember the last time Congress did anything other than tear up a white-house budget request. Congress does it's own thing with the budget-almost always.
Pretty much, at least with a full scale budget plan. They might meet on specific targeted bills (especially in a same-party situation), but full budget submissions are mostly aspirational. It’s a more detailed, paper version of the State of The Union address. It just lets the House appropriations committees know where the WH stands and what’s likely to go smoothly or not.
Congress and the President pretty much operate as two separate competing governments nowadays, with the Supreme Court putting both of them in time-out in opposite corners when necessary.
any time nasa says "we gonna do it" what they really mean is "we gonna try until our budget gets cut"
Thomas Slone They mean we’re going to talk about it, make a bunch of designs, do a lot of testing, change our minds, do another round of designs, change our priorities, repurpose some old NAZI designs, update the language, do some more testing, have some meetings, make sure it will take the rest of their careers, avoid actually accomplishing anything efficiently.....
@@jbrice2010 and effectively accomplishing nada!
@David Parry ---Bankrupt? You have no idea what you are talking about champ. None.
The chicoms are running a 3rd world house of cards. Communism doesn't work and never will. Sorry.
This weekend the American people will be spending almost $20 BILLION on food and drink for
a party.
We spend over $60 BILLION dollars a year on dog and cat food.
But yeah, we're bankrupt. So funny!
@@jbrice2010 Nah Congress changed their minds
Imagine if SpaceX had all the SLS budget...
Or entire world military budget
I don't think that would significantly speed things up, just increase certainty, and probably increase scope.
If space x had that money they’d become the same corrupt marry go round. It’s not that space x even needs money. They innovate and in turn its better for everybody, they’re a company looking to make a profit and as such they provide the best service and prices. If they had all the money sls did then they’d be launching non reusable rockets for funzies and dumping cash in their backyards. Sls might have actually gone somewhere if they weren’t spoiled with money and had to work for it. Maybe if somebody made deadlines and contracts for them, they’d be making progress like space x. They’d have to. But their not and their just a giant money dump. They do science and they aren’t useless by any means but sls is prime example of the problem.
@@evanjames575 SpaceX's ultimate goal is not to become as big and profitable as possible, but to colonize Mars, thus making humanity a space faring civilization. To colonize Mars the cost of getting there has to be as low as possible, hence the reusability. It's safe to say that every dollar they get will be used to reach that goal.
@@evanjames575 : SLS would have wound up no better than it is if they had to compete. The NASA problem is that ultimately Congress is unreliable. To obtain reliability, NASA compensates by making it too hard to cancel their projects. Unfortunately, this in turn leads to bad designs, such as the Space Shuttle. The only way to fix this is to provide NASA with funding that's more reliable than yearly appropriations, or to get someone else with a longer-term eye in charge of the purse strings: the second of these is why private spaceflight companies like SpaceX & Blue Origin are important. Fortunately, both are in a better position in terms of funding than Space Services Inc was, or even the X Prize competitors.
Let's be honest - The SLS is not a rocket, it's a jobs program. It's a money-sink at this point.
Falcon is going to get to Mars before this thing gets off the ground.
It's also a waste of good talent.
You point out the main reason it’s likely to survive the White House budget proposal.
SLagonia sad to say but look at government spending the last few lackluster years ....
The JSF , the Gerald R Ford and other oh so underwhelming programs even Boeing 737max recently being grounded
Looks like we’re running out of smart people the few we still have with a passion for the project are going where the get things done ✅. And that’s not the government industryial complex
It's easy to state the obvious as an outsider. Literally everyone knows it's a money sink, looking back. Yet there's not really much you can do about it. There is no way SLS could be cancelled despite it being obviously way too expensive. But it's politically impossible. It's just like gun laws: There's so much people outraging to reform gun laws yet the 2nd amendment gets goo much support making it impossible to reform. So the best they can do is stick to it
Private industry always vastly out performs government programs anywhere the too compete. NASA should focus completely on planetary and moons exploration, areas where the profit motive can't yet happen.
As much as I admire and love Elon Musk--putting humans on Mars to try to live permanently, self sufficiently, is going to be a death sentence in the foreseeable future. One should first demonstrate they can live off the land on Antarctica, that will be 1 million X easier.
So, what you're saying is that in order for FH to send something that weighs 6 tons to Jupiter in a reasonable amount of time...it just needs MOAR BOOSTERS?
I'm not sure if Scott is aware, but Falcon Heavy is considered an alternative by the Europa Clipper team, even without a kick stage. It just has to do a bunch of gravity assists.
Scott Manley recently had a video using NASA's propulsion calculator to show the importance of specific impulse and delta-v in boosting something to faraway destinations. Falcon Heavy, only having an Isp of 350 or so, is at a significant disadvantage vs. the 450 or so of the H2+O2 upper stage of the SLS. A Falcon based launch really would be marginal option at best.
But I wonder - what if the Heavy had another two strap-ons? That would probably require yet another redesign of the core. But as Scott noted, even having to do a gravity assist the probe would still get to Jupiter probably before SLS even launches.
Amusing idea: Let the Space Force people know that the money for their organization will come from the cancelled SLS. Then let the respective teams of lobbyiists duke it out on the South Lawn. :D
Oh MOAR BOOSTERS?! I'm a professional if it comes to that, strap the Falcon Heavy to two Energija rockets and I assure you there will be 6t and the whole F9 stack in lunar orbit. Did not calculated it but I played enough KSP.
Why not develop an high delta-v kick stage instead? A 20-30 ton Centaur type stage inside an enlarged fairing between Europa Clipper and the Falcon Cores Upper stage?
@@frbe0101 I like the idea, but IANA rocket scientist!
Boeing´s SLS is a 10 billion dollar racket , not a rocket
I like that. Boeing's Racket Scientists are the best in the business.
All that money wasted over a simple TYPO. : )
One little vowel change is so revealing, isn't it?
That explains everything.
Things not good for Boeing.. Nations are also grounding the 737max over this weekends crash
"Possibly next year. And by then, for all we know, new space hardware could in fact be flying that could change all these plans."
Remember ten/twenty years ago, when we could be fairly certain of what vehicles would be flying in 5 years time, what they could do, and what they would cost? When everything seemed set in stone and progress was something that had stopped happening after the cold war ended? WE don't know how good we have it.
Yes we do. You just reminded us.
"new space hardware could in fact be flying that could change all these plans."
Quite likely, and will probably have a name that starts with "Long March"
"For those of you that don't understand how the US government works"
Wait, there's someone who does?
SLS is a jobs bill so some shuttle workers don't get laid off. I've said so for years.
Yeah and the democrats have given Trump no choice. He'll do the right thing.
@@vivigesso3756 LOL, sure he will.
How ironic, given that the free market has yielded much better job programmes in the form of SpaceX, Blue Origin, ULA, and the umpteen new rocket companies that are popping up on the Cape (Relativity, Firefly, etc etc etc...)
It's not Congress and Senate; it's House and Senate, the two chambers of what together is called Congress.
Not a big but a repeated mistake in this video, which is why I'm mentioning this here.
Yeah, bicameral is not a word you hear too often. I rather believe teaching young people civics would be an antidote to similar misconceptions.
So are the members "Housers" and "Senators", together "Congressmen"?
Simon Buchan “Representative” and “Senator”
@@HorribleSonofa Honestly the exact terms that a foreign country like the US uses for their over complicated parliament is not that interesting. I know there are two chambers, one that has two (if I recall correctly) representatives per state regardless of size, and the other one has representation based on population.
I have some ideas about what the president was supposed to do and what the parlament was supposed to do, and that the Supreme Court is a third balance of power .
Of course I know a lot more details than that, but that is about what I might consider a reasonable level of minimal knowledge about the US political system.
@@57thorns Uh, what on earth is overcomplicated about a two-chamber parliament? You know, the system used in like half the world?
*It's all fun and games until the budget cuts attack*
until you have to show results
@@johnbane6199 Yeah, that really is the issue, isn't it.
Nice starwars reference
@@moldoveanu8 Wasn't it from avatar?
@@johnbane6199 Forcing NASA to focus on simply getting SLS working instead of the first SLS and all its upgrades could save the whole damn thing.
Imagine a world where space exploration wasn't tied to politics 😭🤦♂️
If it was tied to capitalism it would have never happened at all.
Olivier Delarosa Probably worse off, since everything else tends to be tied to short-term gains.
Edit: Mostly, I mean. But even there, would companies like SpaceX have gotten off the ground without all those NASA launch contracts?
Imagine a world without Nixon, we'd be on Mars already.
@@blackspike2710 That's a very poorly informed comment.
@@blackspike2710 The soviets weren't capitalists. Maybe if it weren't for international dick measuring, it wouldn't have happened at all.
So... the joke about all NASA programms always being 2 terms plus two years is true...
Yes, it's been that way for a long time. Only Kennedy's unique political skill and charm (opposition party members even liked him, yes, shocking!) got us to the moon, since it is the House that writes a bill that appropriates funding for space programs of NASA, the Senate signs off too, then if the President likes it, he signs a funding bill, agreed to by both chambers of Congress, that becomes law. Basic stuff, if anyone ever took civics in high school! LOL.
@@ronschlorff7089 ---It's so basic I can't believe you felt the need to explain it.
@@jonasgrumby4393 yes, "basic" for Americans, or should be if they had paid attention in civics/history classes years ago. But for today's millennials? Well, good luck with that bro'! ;D lol.
Very informative. Just facts, no BS, no clickbait, no hype. This is what makes your videos worth watching. Thank you.
The government made an expensive rocket, over budget and over deadline. Ohhh I'm so surprised the government did this 😱
It's not the government; but stagnant, non-inovative aerospace companies.
And it hasn't flown yet.
@@vill007b3 No, It's specifically the government funding. The technology and willpower exist WITHIN NASA, but not inside of the government. If the appropriate budget had been allocated, as requested, I am sure that the SLS would be flying today. It's the bureaucracy of politicians that has delayed it.
Paradoxically, when you underfund something it doesn't just extend the timeline, it costs more money to complete.
N O L A N M I L N E S we should let them do healthcare next!
Nasa: It will take decades before we will ever fly a human to the Moon again when we want to use the SLS.
SpaceX: Hold my beer.
Yes or no
Hold my MARACAS!
And yet both are paid by American taxpayers.
To be fair, most of NASA people don't want SLS either, they just follow orders from Congress.
If it makes sense scrap it
-nasa
Oh FFS... NASA projects being canceled is becoming a meme a this point.
SpaceX really is going to get to Mars first at this rate.
TheArbiter you mean the White House cancelling things
Private companies should be going to Mars with gov support, gov only projects tend to always screw up so this is a very good thing.
Of course they will. I never believed that was ever in doubt. The only real question is: will there will be a McDonalds open in muskville when nasa finally shows up?
Musk was always likely to get to space first. The value of SLS was never that it was a good program, but instead that it was almost guaranteed to succeed. That is still it's value, even today, and will continue to be until BFR actually launches.
@@absalomdraconis You have a strange notion of guaranteed to succeed. The rest of us would say guaranteed to be cancelled. 😁
Have you noticed that whenever someone talks about rockets the conversation ALWAYS veers towards SpaceX?
Once Blue Origin's New Glenn is flying (they're progressing toward flight pretty quickly), we'll have a working alternative.
As it should.
@@j.jasonwentworth723 well then starship is also ready. New glenn will not stand a chance against starship
@@j.jasonwentworth723 It's May 2021, 2 years later and New Glenn was delayed to late 2022 by Blue Origin in Feb 2021. BO got $500M in Oct 2018 to develop New Glenn for AF contracts, but the AF pulled the last $245M in Dec 2020 as they may have seen the writing on the wall. The BE-4 engine that is going to be used on the New Glenn also evidently delayed the Vulcan Centaur from ULA from early 2021 to late 2021. The 2022 USSF-51 payload ended up being shifted to an Atlas-V which will cost ULA money. Bezos stepped down from day to day Amazon operations to focus more on Blue Origin. Unless he can get Blue Origin moving, Rocket Labs may take Blue Origins place. Rocket Lab has put 17 small rockets into orbit with their Electron rocket and are working on the Neutron to more directly compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9. If Blue Origin is not careful, Rocket Lab might end up being more competition for SpaceX than Blue Origin.
SLS actually has all the hardware for the Nov 4th 2021 Artemis I mission in the VAB, so they might actually make a launch date this time. It's a race to see if Starship gets to orbit before SLS flies.
NASA: We will use SLS to make a permanent human presence on the moon!
SpaceX: Hold my Raptors.
Nasa knew she's struggling with further development and Spacex came for help
CombraStudios SpaceX wouldn’t exist without NASA.
TheThirdMan they most likely would but would be struggling
Thugs Bunny but they have been struggling from failures
battlefield fan how has spacex been struggling? Only 2 out of there 80 falcon 9 launches have failed they have successfully launch the falcon heavy the most powerful rocket in service today 3 times successfully and are now on the verge Of launching there first starship prototype on a 20km hop
Private industry is doing better things at a fraction of SLS budget - should be a no brainer to pull the plug - except for politics of course
Still the amount of money already poured into it. It just seems like a waste to scrap it now. But then again this seems to going the exact same way constellation programme is going.
I agree that the space X is able to do better and soon other companies will be doing the same
@Alex G lol yeah okay, I'm sure in your dream world private inspections of meat would only contain what they claim was in it. GTFO jackass.
@@TheRagingStorm98 well yes we've put alot of funding into it, but how many more years in delays and billions of funding is it gonna take just to get to the first launch of this first version? The only defense is the theoretical performance of the later iterations, but they can't even finish the first rocket, so in a few decades when they have a better version that's actually useful what will be on the private market?
@@TheRagingStorm98 sunk costs fallacy is never a good reason to stay the course.
@@TheRagingStorm98 - SLS is a cancer to NASA - SpaceX will be colonizing Alpha Centauri before NASA gets back to the moon
"...for those of you who don't know how the US government works."
Easy. It doesn't.
Hasn't in decades, it once defeated the Nazis and Japan, landing man on the moon, after that it was all down hill.
Except when you want to massively advance countless technologies, build highway systems, educate people, protect people, prevent the environment from being absolutely destroyed, prevent air quality from becoming toxic, prevent corporations from treating people like slaves, etc, etc... The only reason that it's been faltering lately is because it's being taken over by private interests.
frbe0101 *as well as many other countries helping them. As for the moon thing, you can thank the Germans.
@@KuK137 Forested areas in the US have actually increased in size in the last century. Without the many programs which protect natural areas in the US (national parks, national monuments, the forest service, etc), there probably wouldn't be ANY forests left. Without the EPA, the air in the US would look like it does in China and our waterways would be horribly polluted. Without the FDA, we'd end up with food that kills babies, which was also happening in China. Without building code enforcement, we'd end up with buildings collapsing and falling apart when they're relatively new, like they have in China. Without the NHTSA, we wouldn't have cars that are as safe as they are today. Without the NTSB and the FAA, airplanes wouldn't be as safe as they are today. There are absolutely COUNTLESS things that people like you take for granted which are only as good as they are in the US because of government programs.
@@PistonAvatarGuy What he meant was it doesn't work in the ways that he takes for granted every day he goes to work, takes an airplane, doesn't die from measles, doesn't get sick from the water he drinks, doesn't get E. Coli from the food he eats, doesn't get asthma from the air he breaths, or doesn't use the public education system he got for twelve years (which taught him to read this comment and write his comment).
He says this, while using technology developed by to send a message that can literally be viewed by every single person using a computer (composed largely of parts developed originally using government grant money), connected to this technology (the internet, originally created using government money) around the globe (which is connected using infrastructure developed and paid for by the government of the world).
But yeah, other than those minor details, government doesn't work because Reagan and Thatcher said it once forty years ago.
"On the other hand, spending a few extra years getting to Jupiter is probably still a lot faster than waiting for SLS to get its act together"
That made me Laugh Out Loud!
When interplanetary maneuvers are faster than Congress...
Ah, so the so-called "shuttle jobs program" was re-branded as "SLS" :)
Shuttle Lobby System.
Yeah, pretty much
@@andersjjensen Nice, let's call it the "Senate Lobby System" .
Drop the word "launch" because I don't see that actually happening.
@@harpfully he didn’t say launch he said lobby
Nasa: "Well be putting humans back on the moon by 2024!"
Me: "With your budget and spending habits? You couldn't get a cheeseburger there."
Meanwhile at SpaceX: We'll establish our own satalight internet on a shoestring budget and use it to *ACTUALLY* get Humans to the moon and Mars, affordably and fast
@@UNSCPILOT This isn't aging well.
I'm glad you understand the U.S. government. I've lived here all my life. Truman was president then. I still don't get it. Other than politicians screwing the public. Particularly now! I think of the U.S. government is a prime example of a FUBAR. The possible demise of the SLS doesn't surprise me at all. The NASA and U.S. of 60's to the 90's. Is long gone.
With the Soviet Union space exploration died. RIP, don't cry because it's gone smile because it happened.
Interesting that you should mention Truman; he made his reputation as a Senator by exposing over-budget and out-of-control defense spending during WWII.
Thanks Carter, Reagan :)
The Constitution gives budgetary powers to the representatives of the people. So, look in the mirror, kids, we do it to ourselves. Locals want the SLS, so Congress backs it.
Are you are gradually tip toeing towards being a big 3rd word country?
Great news! We should have pulled the plug on SLS program years ago.
I don't think the sls will ever fly
Even if it does, it will only fly twice (to justify the expense) and be quietly retired.
TBH the Starship from spaceX already makes the SLS obsolete,, costs 7mil/launch after first launch and is fully reusable while SLS costs about 2 BILLION as far as I know, not reusable and having the same payload capacity
It doesn't cost 7MM per launch. No clue where you read that
@@NegitiveFeedback i love your name
Rick Harper Perhaps you should look at it on a case-by-case basis because there are points where SLS makes more sense than you think.
@@thethirdman225 which assumes it will even fly.
Bill Fauber Those private companies could not exist without NASA. NASA/JPL also do research that nobody else does.
"Focus on getting the current version launched." This might be a warning that the program lacks focus and discipline.
To be honest with New Glenn and Starship do we really need SLS when they both seem to be superior in every way? I mean we can probably save the Orion capsule since that seemed to be a solid spacecraft.
SLS is an expensive shitshow and everyone should be celebrating it's demise. LOPG only existed to give SLS a reason to exist, now we can kill both and actually land on the god damn Moon.
I guess Orion would fit pretty nice on the New Glenn/New Armstrong.
And falcon heavy is there... replace the second stage with a new Raptor powered one and your still way ahead of SLS
@@chrisjohnson4666 This is not Kerbal Space Program, so you can't just say "put on a raptor upper stage on Falcon Heavy". I doubt this would be structurally possible, as such a stage would have to be much longer considering the density of the used fuel. And Falcon is already quite long and thin.
caav56 plus, how cool would it be to send people back to the moon on a rocket called new Armstrong!
Please just kill it! Over budget, way behind schedule, untested and falcon heavy has already been proven, tested and flown.
I agree 2A
Not to mention BFR will be far better option
2A Talk and Politics the SLS has a lot more carrying capacity
SLS will launch at least 1 time. Too much of it has already been tested and assembled to just cancel the whole thing now.
@@BradyBaseball13 doesnt do any good if it's not fully working. Remember some of the tech isnt even finished. As Scott said it's only relegated to carry astronauts atm because the heavy lift stuff isnt finished. Ya on paper it does but in practicality falcon heavy is already running. I question the sls safety. If their using space shuttle tech even upgraded let's remember one the biggest flaws from that, the o rings. Flawed the boosters. And if you look at the sls it's the shuttle without the shuttle. 2 things falcon heavy has going for it also is reusability and turn around time. Nasa needs to let commercial companies fly the stuff. Itll save them money which they can use for more research and development projects.
Good. SLS is a joke. 1B per launch? What a slap in the face to taxpayers. Regardless of politics, thank God we're not getting pricegouged by lobbyists and aerospace contractor interests into paying way more than we need to.
Well, it may not be 2017, but at least one of those two things has now happened... better than nothing?
So sad
Many years of work and experience
Don't worry, Congress hardly ever cuts budgets. Spending is politically expedient, cutting budgets always makes someone mad at you. Trump would have to use veto power to get any sort of budget cut through at all.
It's called American democracy, America's basically a poster child for fascism. It's got a political class that only care about staying elected. Billionaires openly trying to to destroy it. And best of all an electorate that willingly vote against it's own interest. Like people on Obamacar who voted for Trump because he would "never take away our healthcare".
SLS and James Webb Telescope seem to be more of a conduit for billions of tax dollars than earnest space endeavor
No, the JWT is an earnest scientific endeavor, and it will fly and work eventually. I'm looking forward to it! But it's too ambitious. I think that money would have been better spent on giant ground-based observatories. Or perhaps ground-based combined with an upgraded space telescope more like the Hubble design, and left in low-ish earth orbit where it could be serviced and further upgraded. But I agree that the SLS must go. NASA should just be involved in the cutting-edge space science and technology arena, not it the "trucking" business of launch vehicles.
@@johnborden9208 It's an impressive and very complex 'scope and i can't wait to see some photos, but i find it hard to believe it needed to cost nearly $10 billion. I think the developers understand that their customer (the US government) won't run out of money any time soon and has already sunken too much into the project to scrap it. Not to mention these overruns provide more than enough revenue for them to invest in campaigns of politicians who will fund additional overruns "in the name of science".
A lot of people and politicians may be out of a job once projects such as JWST and SLS are complete so there is never an incentive to finish under budget or ahead of schedule.
A contractor putting an addition on your house will run over budget if you let him. Imagine you weren't the one paying and he was giving you a cut of his earnings. It would be in both your interests to keep the project going indefinitely and charge double the rate.
Where does the money goes for the SLS since the components already exist?
Good question!
into the pockets of manufacturers who in turn put it into the pockets of politicians in congress to keep the money flowing.
On incremental improvements.
But SpaceX brings these improvements every single Launch. Just look how far Falcon 9 has come. ua-cam.com/video/X9A1Ny6B310/v-deo.html
Down the swirling black hole that is the American defense industry.
@@williamswenson5315 15% of the federal tax dollars. YIKES YIKES YIKES. We don't even sell that much to our allies, isn't that supposed to be one of our primary exports?
Great decision! Should have happened a looooooong time ago.
But if SLS can launch the whole Senate, I will definitely support it.
Funding in the US is ... very political ... and very much "how much can I get for my state?"
Every Representative and Senator that has some aspect of Aerospace production or design in their state is going to be dead set against anything that reduces the amount of Federal dollars that flows back into their state. That's because the biggest political banner they can wave over their heads is "I got/kept jobs/money for our state!"
It's particularly disgusting for the Senate to do this, since they're supposed to be a deliberative body, not swayed by anything other than the best interests of the country as a whole. That's why they have 6 year terms, instead of the 2 year terms that the Representatives have. Yes, they were a balance between the more populous states and those with less, but they're still supposed to be deliberative. A bulwark against popular but unwise laws or actions.
You can't quite call all of what goes on corruption, since the majority of the elected officials do stay within the bounds of the law, but they've forgotten the real purpose of their offices. To ensure that this country AS A WHOLE is well governed, not treat it as a pig trough where they're supposed to get as much as they can for their little part of it.
Cancel SLS, start building NCC-1701-D. No bloody, A..B or C :P
We'll get on that Commander Scott!
Just don’t crash into a planet like D did
@@dezmobluefire8217 That's only because of a warp core breach caused by a Klingon attack.
Or better yet: Get us out of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and restart Project Orion.
If proponents of the SLS start backing that, we will probably only have a prototype saucer section of the NX class to defend against the Borg invasion by the time they reach earth!
Excellent! It’s a program designed solely to waste money. Disposable SSME’s? Really? Redundant to SpaceX and Blue Origin heavy lift, too.
SLS is nonsense, silly, overbudget, overtime, nostalgic and I think it won't ever see space.
Be more optimistic my dude
Yea, I mean, we’ve already finished core stage 1 and are well underway with CS2. CS1 will be at KSC soon after the green run at SSC, where it is now. It most definitely will make it to the moon and the 9 core stages after the first will continue to take large payloads into space and lunar orbit. The reason I say “we’ve already finished…” is because I work for Boeing at the Michoud Assembly Facility. I see everything first hand here in New Orleans and it sucks to see so many Elon fan boys, getting all giddy over failures of rockets that are built with less than a one percent of the quality that NASA demands from Boeing. Core Stage 1 was not slowly built due to Boeing. NASA is the entire reason this rocket takes so long to build with DCMA witnessing the entire build and each time you go to make progress you’re literally waiting for NASA/DCMA to “pick up a call” off of their customer callboard, and come witness, inspect and verify, even little minor things like torques which is absolutely ridiculous. If a customer cannot trust you to torque to a certain spec without watching you turn the wrench, you better believe there will be delays. That is for each and every aspect of the rocket, as well, not just torque, for example. We (Boeing) want nothing more than to finish this project as quickly and efficiently as possible, however, you have to go slow to go fast when you expect first pass quality and zero nonconformance records. We are making incredible progress but yes, these things take a very long time to build an awesome product to deliver to the customer that will take humans to the moon, mars and beyond. We won’t have those failures that SpaceX has been seeing. We have been extremely meticulous with this build and it will show in the results when the first woman and next man step foot on the moon once again, in the middle of this very decade. I really hope that this helps anyone understand the process a little more and to not just immediately dismiss it as a failure, based on delivery time alone. If you aren’t building this rocket with us, what do you really know about it? Besides the projected time frame inaccuracies, without the inside knowledge as to why those time frames aren’t being met with Boeing, you don’t know very much about the SLS program.
On the plus side, Space Force initiative probably means space battleships and such.
A Space Carrier would actually be really cool. Some crazy battle star type stuff.
They've been putting hunter killer satellites in orbit for years man. No need
for dreadnoughts.
An abhorrence! Violation of the Outer Space Treaty, space is for wonder not War! Just like SDI was wrong so is Space Force!
Good. It was a huge waste of money and it will be obsolete if it ever even gets off the ground.
Ten years ago, SLS made sense, because Obama was proposing a make believe space program, pretending we were going to Mars when there was no launcher to support such an effort. In the meantime, it has simply been leapfrogged by new technology. That was not foreseeable at the time, but now, anything you might want to do with SLS can be done with two Falcon Heavy launches for 1/5 the cost, and even more powerful but less expensive rockets are being developed. It's time to cancel it.
Odysseus Rex Obama’s space program was based on a load of unrealistic and grossly underfunded crap handed down from Bush (who was trying to find a cheerful story to get Katrina off the front page). And Falcon Heavy would never be able to do the deep space things SLS could.
SLS is a boondoggle program.
But the hardware is amazing. The RS-25 is so efficient, that the shuttle is technically the most capable rocket, able to deliver the most mass (not payload) to orbit. The space shuttle has enough delta v to get the external tank to a low earth orbit, which means that the STS stack can get wet mass of the space shuttle + dry mass of the external tank to orbit. Same thing with the SLS, it has enough delta v to get the core stage to orbit. The Saturn V is not capable of doing this with its S-II stage, because it will take a huge chunk out of the payload capacity (as proven by Skylab).
"New space hardware could be flying..." Read: Starship.
I haven't heard even the most wildly optimistic estimates saying anything about New Glenn flying in 2020, so Starship is the only possibilty, and that would be potentially flying tests rather than missions.
ThirteenthAndy SLS won’t be flying by 2020 either. I believe the latest timeline puts first flight in 2021 and I doubt they’ll make that.
@@jetty92487 Agreed. That's why I see SLS being cancelled after Block 1. The lobbyists are ramming it through so far, but it's done after one or two flights.
I'm not seeing StarShip flying by 2020 either TBH. Nor new Shepard or Vulcan. Falcon Heavy and Delta, those are the options. 2022, that's a different matter.
@@SomeOne-vq4fo - agreed, Starship and New Glenn will happen, but I don't see it happening in the next couple of years... even 2022 is probably a stretch. Delta and Falcon (Heavy variants includes) are what we have today, and for anything launching in the foreseeable future, they're the only realistic option.
As for SLS... I think *something* will fly in the next couple of years, but probably not the full Block 1 spec... more likely a more limited testbed that demonstrates why they need more funding...
Congress == House + Senate. Congress =/= Congress + Senate
=/= = 1
Just two weeks ago, people hated on me because I dared to suggest the SLS might not be flying. Now they are looking at another delay and funding cuts.
It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
"Waiting for SLS to get its act together" -- oh, good point. It's the "don't wait equation".
The "benefit" of cutting the budgets is you Guarantee the program will then go over budget and not be ready on time.
SLS does not need help to go over budget and be late. It's already over budget and late.
@@polygondwanaland8390 Yeah. It needs to be cut. Badly. It needed to be cut 5 years ago.
Delaying the inevitable is an all-to-familiar political ploy. It continues to prime the employment pump in the congress critter's home district and if the attitude towards the project changes with the political climate to being in favor, so much the better. Yes, it's obvious and disgusting.
@@williamswenson5315 actually I'm saying the opposite. Changing budgets and specifications guarantees a 'failed' project. Either fund the thing, or figure out what parts are worth saving, fund those and kill the overall project.
This is about as surprising as every other budget cut ever.
SLS is meant to be a rocket??? Wow. I thought it was a bottomless pit where they would dump cash!? #TheThingsYouLearn
Oh how I hate politicians. I can only imagine how much money and how many projects have been wasted every time they change their minds. Really quite irritating.
Scott, thank you so very much for keeping this topic apolitical! With that said keep up the amazing content, love your videos bud!
They should do the Europa Clipper with two partially reusable Falcon Heavy launches. If you can navigate a probe to a specific destination in the outer solar system you can do an automated docking in zero gee. Dragon just did an automated docking the other day, c'mon people we can do this.
I can only imagine what it would take to redesign the upper stage for on-orbit refuel and docking.
Yup probably find 5 Falcon heavy reusable flights are cheaper than one SLS flight.
@@motokid6008 You don't need to re fuel, just attach an upper stage in LEO.
@@Codysdab, ya, you should be able to do it with two, maybe even expend the center core and do a dual droneship landing.
Why not launch Europa Clipper on a BFR?
SLS was never going to get out of development. I'd bet canceling it was part of the plan. "Well where did all that money go?" It probably never went to SLS in the first place.
It's a WPA program for Boeing and NASA engineers.
Still, NASA got the best budget in a decade. Good work, Planetary Society! :-)
Hey Scott - just wanted to say thanks for keeping me up to date with space things. You save me a lot of time as all I need to do is come here.
At least we can look forward to Starship and Superheavy.
Why is it so hard to put together a rocket made out of existing parts?
Because SLS isn't about building rockets. It's about spending money.
Because designing it to use existing parts that were not designed for that usecase, is more expensive than designing it from a clean sheet.
@@BosonCollider Maybe i'm missing something, but why weren't they designed for that use case? The main tank is just a simple tank, the engines are the same as on the Shuttle (only now they are mounted straight and at the bottom of the tank, which is a simpler design) and the solid boosters are just simple boosters.
The only thing that's new is the upper stage and capsule.
SpaceX thought Falcon Heavy would be easy - just slap together 3 first stages. They quickly realized that it's not that simple, but it didn't take long for them to solve that problem.
It isn't. The SLS program is not designed to get us to the Moon or Mars, it's designed to spend as much money as possible, results be damned.
@@SuperSMT Well, not exactly like that - it's designed to keep the Shuttle contractors at work and happy.
You know what can lift 6 tones the Space X BFS or we can use a falcon heavy like you said with more boasters and call it the falcon super duper heavy.
It sounds so Kerbol just to strap more boosters on the thing. xD
Just with the slight difference that the BFR has yet to be build ;D.
@@mandernachluca3774 Yet
@@jensbrandt7207 Im actually curious if they could strap to more falcon 9 cores to the Falcon heavy and super power it.
@@mb-jg9hh
The first question would be, does the structural integrity of the falcone 9 suffer under the load of 2 more boosters? The second question would be, is it even economical to do that?
While I cant say I’m sad to see it go, I’ll be disappointed if the first version doesn’t at least fly once.
SLS is known as the Senate Launch System for a reason. It was explicit in the design requirements that it employ as much Shuttle workforce as possible, and be made in as many Congressional districts as possible - it was *not* made to serve the taxpayers economically. Taxpayers pay taxes whether they want to or not, so they are not the customers.
I really like the old school look of the SLS Rocket. It reminds me of a rocket cobbled together from parts found on a junk yard planet, like in the old TV series lost in space. The episode with the space hillbillies I think.
3:27 Every part of the LOPG will be delivered by the Starship/BFR..
I'm with you on that except that it would probably be more effective to 'long-term harden' a Starship and park that in Lunar orbit instead. Or just send a fresh Starship every time you wanted to go since the LOP-G isn't going to be permanently manned anyway.
@@TheOneWhoMightBe Don't think you would need to do much/anything to Starship since it's supposed to do the Earth/Mars round trip with some loitering.
Honestly, when it comes to large volume/mass cargo, I think blue origin will wind up being the goto company. BFR is awesome and all, but it’s designed from the ground up to be more of a bulk crew transport, with a tanker variant for on orbit refuels. Blue origin’s new glenn by contrast will be a dedicated unmanned cargo vehicle, meaning larger payload margins.
A LOPG made by either would be interesting, I could see them using far larger modules than currently envisioned. A LOPG with a mission that made more sense and had more focus would be nice too.
LOPG was really only dreamed up to give SLS something to do. If they cancel SLS, they should cancel Gateway at the same time. BFR is capable of direct ascent to the Lunar surface. It makes Gateway even more redundant and useless than it already is.
@@EdwardDowner Yeah, there's probably not a huge amount you need to do to the electronics, life support, or the structure, but it would likely need additional debris shielding.
Congress would push for horse drawn rockets if the equestrian lobby was big enough. It's more than past time to let others do the trucking and let NASA do the science, spacecraft and mission design.
I am shocked I tell you, SHOCKED!
"Your winnings, sir."
I don't get it. They are using old technology to build this thing, so no research or testing needed there, so where is the evidence of anything at all being actually built? Is everything still yet to leave the drawing board? Those are damned expensive pencils.
This video makes me wish there was a space themed channel willing to get into the guts of politics. The SLS failure is a political failure, and it needs to be addressed
I would be fine with cutting the SLS so long as a good deal of the money went to a SpaceX contract for Moon and beyond missions, ie BFR.
No, we're not killing one $$ trap to just send $$ elsewhere. Money after results, thus no room for excuses.
@@mhamma6560 You mean like years of reliable cargo missions to space station and very soon crew missions to the same, all at lower cost than competion?
@@billh2294 SLS is money before results, lots of it wasted. Money after results. Don't need another set of lips on the taxpayer milk-money-supply
@@mhamma6560 I agree with you. Politics in NASA has hobbled their progress. Space X has demonstrated that they can reach goals quickly and cheaper than anyone else. If taxpayers want to have a space agency and want results on the cheap, Space X is the proven company to do it.
@@mhamma6560 No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
I know SpaceX "fans" get a horrible rap but when someone like Scott is basically laying it all out there and letting YOU decide how ridiculous all of the SLS stuff is, don't you have to take a look at commercial options and say...WOW OUR GOVERNMENT BLOWS AT BUILDING ROCKETS CHEAPLY
tversetti they pretty much blow at building rockets period.
Yeah the US used to make expensive rockets, but now they just make astronomically expensive promotional videos.
The House of Representatives and Senate make up "Congress", you refer to the House of Representatives multiple times as Congress. This is wrong.
He says multiples times Congress and Senate.
Try to cut him some slack. After all, he grew up with Parliament.
Aaaaand this is why private companies dominate government funded ones, no special interest group to muddle things up and no red tape to slow things down.
Minor correction which I hope isn't too annoying. You said "congress and the senate have to agree". The US Congress is in two chambers. The house of representatives and the senate. This is a very common mistake which is why I point it out at all. Sometimes people think the house is congress because we refer to them as congressman and congresswomen. I'm not sure where that originated, but probably because Senator is a cooler name than Representative. Scott probably knows this and just misspoke, but it's something I hear semi frequently so I thought I'd put this out there.
Hey Scott what do you think we should be doing should we start to work towards a moon base as a staging area for Mars? Also what do you recommend as far as telescopes for somebody just starting in.... using telescopes lol
The most probable thing to happen would be an orbiting station around the moon for refusing, then the craft don't need to waste deltet v landing and taking off again
The metallic elements for large interplanetary craft have such a lower launch cost from the Moon as opposed to Earth, that the Moon as the future staging ground is a virtual economic inevitability.
ArchEnema 67 except you need to get the stuff to the moon in the first place. It makes more sense to stage in earth orbit.
Extracting water to make fuel on the moon would be a game changer.
Secondary to that would be refining aluminium to make structural elements on the moon.
As for a telescope, for a complete beginner I recommend a small 70 or 80mm backpack telescope like this: amzn.to/2T08AOL
It's a cheap way to get started, you can then add better Eyepieces, and mounts. And from there you can upgrade to something bigger without rendering this small telescope redundant.
@@scottmanley Make speculative video on ISRU on the moon... why haven't we done it? We have small drills, big batteries, we have heavy lift rockets. Is it really because university professors don't think of it as science?
>US Government funding
>Rockets that are working, delivered by the deadline, and not over budget.
Pick one.
Call your Senators and Representative. Tell them to support NASA science and cut off funding the "Space Launch System" pork program.
Couldn't you use a Super Heavy Booster with a custom upper Stage for the Europa Clipper Mission?
"...those of you who don't understand how the US government works"... that is everyone, especially including the people in it...
I'd love to see ESA, NASA and maybe some other organisations like JAXA and the canadian space agency to work on one launch vehicle. Not sure thats gonna happen, but a man can dream.
There are advantages to multiple platforms such as innovation via competition.
@@williamswenson5315 I disagree. We are talking about goverment founded space agencies here. Theres no competition for customers or anything like that. Space is large enough for everyone.
When you up the complexity of an engineering project cross-companies, then cross-countries, you exponentially increase the cost, and any one actor can hold the project hostage
No competition for customers? Cubesats and Rocket Lab vs anyone else. The competition between ATK, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada for the commercial resupply to ISS. Taxpayer dollars perhaps, but still a competition which Sierra Nevada lost. Do you launch on ULA, Roscosmos or Arianespace? Really? No competition? @@jort93z
The private sector as clearly outperforming the governments launch vehicle development. SLS is a product of a previous mindset where commercial launch vehicles where not nearly as developed as they are today. At taxpayers and space enthusiasts we need to carefully look at best route forward and not be myopic towards an existing program.
I wish that Nasa was like it was in the 60s, "Oh shit something doesn't work, better chuck more money at it."
That's a terrible idea, that money has to come from somewhere that means your pocket.
@@otm646 Or it could come from the military budget...
@@otm646 no it's a great idea, NASA gets less than half a penny on the tax dollar.
Nixon is the reason we stopped dreaming.
@@Ignacio.Romero Military spending is only 16% of the total US budget you drooling numbnugget, there are way more corners to cut. And that's not even mentioning a good portion of SpaceX' launches were military.
NASA works like 5 engineers, 10 accountants and 10 bureaucrats sitting in a conference room designing a rocket.
4 of those engineers are for contractors that were bundled as part of a politician’s pork project.
Would it not be possible to jury rig a Falcon Heavy to launch an RL-10 powered upper stage instead?
It certainly could. LOX/LH2 isn't a "magic cure-all," though, and using liquid hydrogen introduces problems of its own, due to its very low temperature and very low density. The LH2 tank has to be very large, and it has to be insulated not only from the surrounding air, but also from the "warmer" LOX (-423 versus -283 degrees Fahrenheit, if memory serves). Also, while hydrolox rocket engines have higher exhaust velocities than kerolox engines, they don't put out much thrust for their size; while this is an advantage for upper stages (where exhaust velocity is more important, because upper stages suffer lower gravity losses due to not climbing vertically or steeply), other factors can partially cancel out liquid hydrogen's advantage:
A two-fuel launch vehicle is more expensive to prepare for launch, and requires two different sets of fuel-handling equipment. For vehicles made for high-energy missions (high final velocity and/or heavy payloads), such as the Saturn V, this cannot be helped. But for a launch vehicle whose primary purpose is orbiting LEO or GEO satellites, a single-fuel rocket (burning LOX/kerosene in both stages) is easier and cheaper to build, prepare, fuel, and launch, and:
A single-fuel rocket can also--as SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy (as well as Rocket Lab's Electron and Relativity Space's under-development LOX/methane-powered Terran 1) also, significantly, do--use the same engine types in both stages. Using the same rocket engine type in both stages (the upper stage engine has a larger, vacuum-optimized nozzle, but is otherwise identical to the first stage's engines) greatly simplifies the launch vehicle's design, and it enables greater economies of scale, because the same engine tooling is used to produce more engines, lowering their unit cost. The kerolox MVAC (Vacuum Merlin)-powered upper stage used on SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, despite its lower total impulse than a comparable hydrolox upper stage, hasn't kept it from lofting interplanetary spacecraft (the old Juno II, Thor-Able, Thor-Delta, and Atlas-Agena--which also had relatively low-total impulse upper stages--also sent spacecraft to the Moon, into solar orbit, and on flyby missions to Venus and Mars). (The Mariner 1/2 Venus flyby spacecraft, in fact, were originally designed to be launched aboard the early Atlas-Centaur [whose Centaur stage--as today's Centaurs--burned liquid hydrogen], but were lightened to fly aboard the Atlas-Agena B when the early Centaur stage's performance fell below expectations.)
@@j.jasonwentworth723 Very well said. TL; DR - possible, but likely impractical.
cutting SLS is a great step forward.
I swear the Starship will be launched before the SLS
I'm not a space flight expert but I can tell you that the White House budget request is only slightly more valuable than toilet paper with a friendly Congress and worth less when there is an unfriendly House.
This is probably mentioned below, but Congress is both legislative houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Representatives are often called Congressspeople, but that's kind of a misnomer and an unofficial term. All spending originates in the House of Representatives and no money can be spent without their approval, although for the last century, more and more spending authority has been usurped by the President. Ironically, that may change under Turmp because a long-term goal of conservatives have been the curtailment of the 'administrative state.' Also, White House is two words. Whitehouse is a lady who trains doggies.
It should be noted that the very next line indicated that the decision was made so that all resources could be dedicated to getting blocks 1 and 1B completed before development on block 2 could be started. This makes sense for the most part since Block 1 is now a number of years behind schedule. Further, it looks as though SLS' budget is under the deeper space exploration budget now due to the decision to move forward with moon related missions. Now how this will play out for the Moon station remains to be seen. But it seems premature to declare SLS as a whole in trouble.
Boy, Space-X is sitting in a sweet spot with this news coming in. I wish I was an investor.
But let's spend 1.5 trillion (yes, that's a "T") dollars on the development of F-35 Lightshit.
Which actually works unlike SLS, so what's your point? Plus people are actually buying F-35, I don't see anyone lining up to book space on SLS lmao
It's an excellent aircraft and it's actually real unlike this joke of a launch vehicle.
You can blame my beloved Marine Corps for a lot of the delays on the F-35. Turns out it’s damn hard to build a superiority fighter that’s also VTOL capable. Same issues they had back in the 60s with the F-4, it’s difficult to build a plane that’s all things to everyone, but by all accounts, the F-35 is a spectacular aircraft. Just took way too long and too much money to get there.
the f-35 is what happens when the people making decisions do not know what their decisions actually entail. They wanted it to literally do everything. The f-35 does do everything, but very poorly. Turns out unoptimized multipurpose fighters dont do a very good job compared to something that is designed for one job.
@@jetty92487 The F35 is nice in theory but in combat it will struggle, can't turn can't climb can't run but it can hover.
That’s why they call it ‘Space’ because there is a lot of it
There is even more space between Trump's ears!
@@stmounts why mad? If anything this should encourage nasa and other agencies to perfoem better. Dont get results and your funding gets cut. Besides, private industries are catching up to and surpasing nasa now. This should be a wake up call for them, one that has been needing to happen for a while now.
I wonder why they didn't just use the Ares I upper stage on SLS since the hard part the J-2X was finished and most of the remaining issues with the upper stage was only due to resonance with thrust oscillation in the stick configuration which would simply go away on SLS?
In the side mount configuration the boosters are free to move and not transmit most of their vibration into the rest of the stack.
Makes me so mad that they cut NASA funding yet increase already outrageous defence spending.