Is NASA's Moon Rocket Getting Canceled? (futurism.com) 154
"NASA has squandered $27 billion on the SLS moon rocket -- $6 billion over budget and 5 years late," writes longtime Slashdot reader schwit1. "The SLS isn't reusable so even if they finished it -- it is already obsolete. It is clear to everyone that the boondoggle has failed but the newest plan is to find a way to blame Trump. There is a big desire for big changes." Futurism reports: 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. [...] "Honestly the people who will ultimately make this decision aren't even in place yet," Berger wrote in a followup tweet, likely referring to the incoming Trump administration. "But there is a big desire for big changes."
SLS is achieving its purpose (Score:5, Interesting)
The purpose of SLS was never actually to produce a good rocket but instead to keep people working in the factories that used to make space shuttle parts in jobs so that they will keep voting for the relavent congressmen and senators. And I think its achieving that goal.
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Now say that about the military.
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I can see why people would like us to shrink our military budget. On one hand, I can agree that we could save a lot of money if we shrank down to a military small enough to protect ourselves.
The other side of spending less on military means we spend less on "world police". Means we stop spending money for things like Ukraine or Israel. Means we stop spending all that money on South Korea and trying to stabilize south east Asian waterways. It means, we stop helping our allies all over the world and leave the
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Part of the issue is by being the world police, the battles are fought in other territories, and not your own. No one wants to invade the
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The military has exactly the same issues for exactly the same reasons. Now and then they'll want to close a base because they don't need it and have better uses for the money. And they immediately get opposition from congress because the representative for that district doesn't want to see all those jobs go away.
NASA and the military both waste a lot of money, not because they want to but because congress orders them to do it. SLS is sometimes called the Senate Launch System. There's a reason.
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The purpose of SLS was never actually to produce a good rocket but instead to keep people working in the factories that used to make space shuttle parts in jobs so that they will keep voting for the relevant congressmen and senators. And I think its achieving that goal.
Which is why "SLS" stand for Senate Launch System [competitivespace.org] ...
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Well, if it is 5 years late than that is a longer period than the presidency of Biden took. The president before Biden was Trump, so...one should put the blame to where it originates from.
All that aside though, SLS always has been and will be a project to appease Senators, Congress and their voters. No "if's or but's" about that, even for non-US-residents. In that sense you are indeed correct that the SLS program is functioning like it should.
But it doesn't really result in much. And worse, almost all priva
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It would be way more efficient to just give them the money and benefits they would otherwise make, but not actually make them work.
Back in the old days, Boeing was internally nicknamed "The Lazy B". Maybe their old leadership was just ahead of it's time?
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when they prove read it
That's brave. Dairing two criticsize a gramer nazi with pour gramer.
Re: SLS is achieving its purpose (Score:2)
I wasn't sure if you were being funny so I fixed them for you.
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This thread has been unexpectedly hilarious.
Slashdot is the rare well-done medium.
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Joke
Noun
Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line.
Please don't be so defensive. It's too easy to do so and lose our sense of humor.
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[...] you write "it's" for "it is" and not as genitive.
Does not make any sense.
Frankly, I agree. But that is English usage, for better or for worse. And I (for one) prefer to follow proper usage and not look silly.
And most people do not see simple errors like that, when they prove read it.
Should have done some proof-reading there yourself, buddy.
Humans make mistakes. Get over it.
Indeed, we all do, and will. Let's forgive 93 Escort Wagon for his, because we'll make our own soon enough.
And while I'm here, I'll just point out the error was in grammar and punctuation. The sentence should have read: "Maybe their old leadership was just ahead of their time?"
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And while I'm here, I'll just point out the error was in grammar and punctuation. The sentence should have read: "Maybe their old leadership was just ahead of their time?"
And look ... I think I just made a mistake myself. Leadership arguably is singular here, so "its" without the apostrophe would have been fine.
Sorry, I'll let myself out now.
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Somewhere I heard that it is mostly educated people such as MD's that fell for the Nigerian Prince thing. Intelligent but not computer literate. That was a while ago so things may have changed. Come to think of it, I haven't seen a similar spam in quite a while.
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"Second, it takes an enormous effort to prove someone's innocence before those people will trust the accused, even if the accuser's claim is completely false and falls apart on closer examination. "
Case in point: The "Haitians eating pets" nonsense, which was/is still going on strong even after the wicked witch that started the rumor publicly admitted she was lying.
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You guys have had 9 years to figure it out and you still haven't: Trump doesn't and probably never did give a flying fuck about Hatians or cats. But every time *you* talk about it, you jog everyone's memory about how Biden specifically and the Democrats in general have spent the past two or three decades trying to discredit the very idea of border enforcement and even the notion of national borders themselves.
You're close, anyway. In reality, every time Democrats talk about it, it reminds people that Trump claims that he'll be tough on border security (even though the border was actually more porous under Trump than under Obama), so it reminded the people who wanted more border enforcement to vote for Trump under the (possibly dubious) belief that he will do more about it.
With totally predictable results once the 4 or 5 billion occupants of the shithole parts of the world got word that you could just show up and get free shit and court date sometime next decade.
Rolling my eyes here. To make a better life, these folks are swimming across razor wire traps in the Rio Grande, are getting packed into tru
Re: SLS is achieving its purpose (Score:2)
Be that as it may, inviting desperate people to come by the millions with (unfunded) promises of free stuff is poor statecraft even in the best of times. To do so when we have other material problems to deal with borders on (the colloquial definition of) treason.
Re: SLS is achieving its purpose (Score:2)
How convenient. A moral philosophy that entitles you to my stuff because reasons. I don't claim to know the mind of God, but I am operating on the assumption that He holds neither crooks nor their marks in high regard.
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Yet, according to the Bible, Jesus told the crook he was getting crucified with that they would meet in paradise as he was the only one who questioned why Jesus was being crucified, not being a crook.
https://www.biblegateway.com/p... [biblegateway.com]
I note that it was never said if it was the crook on the left or the crook on the right.
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meanwhile poor people are dying homeless and hungry,
How much have you given to the homeless and hungry? Leon was given a blueprint [weforum.org] for how a few billion of his dollars could end world hunger, and yet he's done nothing. Another take [brookings.edu] on how all the billionaires in the world, each giving a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of their wealth, could take care of a number of problems.
But I agree. Get NASA out of Houston. Since government doesn't create jobs, there is no issue.
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Re:SLS is achieving its purpose (Score:4, Insightful)
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Oh, I don't know; the team out at JPL controlling Voyager 1 [wikipedia.org] would probably beg to differ.
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We're going nowhere fast... Oh, I don't know; the team out at JPL controlling Voyager 1 [wikipedia.org] would probably beg to differ.
I imagine an accurate argument could made that Voyager 1 is going nowhere really fast. Seriously, where *is* is going? :-)
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Hopefully he took into account where those stars will be in a million years ...
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Zero reason (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Zero reason (Score:5, Interesting)
There is zero reason the government should be making rockets at all. SpaceX is the future.
The government isn't making rockets. Private industry is [marketrealist.com]. You know, private companies who do things better than the government.
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Other countries never contract to private industry for anything? Is your experience with "other countries" limited to North Korea and Cuba?
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Those governments absolutely contact to private companies. Who does Rheinmetall mostly sell to? Thales? Airbus Defence and Space? Are French doctors employees of the state?
Cuba's healthcare system is a mess. Just ask [havanatimes.org] the Cuban Minister of Health:
"There are deficiencies in the organization of services, as well as in the management of key processes for primary and secondary care. This generates dissatisfaction," stated Portal Miranda. He added that the quality of service at health institutions is low. He announced that shortages of supplies will continue, leading to "constantly rearranging activities."
Just don't ask normal citizens of the country, because it's a serious crime to criticize the country's healthcare system there.
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Musk (Score:5, Insightful)
Elon Musk is going to trim government spending from $6.5 trillion a year down to $2 trillion. Do you really think he's going to leave NASA alone? He'll probably squash their budget like a bug, and say they should just go to SpaceX instead.
Re:Musk (Score:5, Insightful)
If he squashes NASA's budget, they won't have any money left to contract SpaceX. If anything, he'd want to increase their budget, while cancelling programs like SLS, such that NASA has no choice but to turn to commercial partners to replace the lost capabilities... and SpaceX is the only one who can realistically do it.
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None of those are rockets, and thus none of those can replace SLS. If we were talking about Orion, you might have a point, but we're not. Falcon Heavy is currently the only viable alternative to SLS, since it's the only thing with remotely similar lift capacity. It's only really comparable to block 1 SLS, but it looks like that's the only version of SLS that will ever fly. If you need to be able to replace block 1B or block 2, of course, you'd need something much bigger than Falcon Heavy... and SpaceX is th
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Dreamchaser is going to ride on Vulcan Centaur. Vulcan Centaur is weaker than Falcon Heavy. New Glenn is supposed to be comparable with Falcon Heavy in payload capacity, with wider volume diameter too. Let's hope the inaugural launch of Blue Origin's rocket won't delay again.
But for SLS block 2 or Saturn V class, yeah so far only SpaceX has a product prototype to sell.
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If he squashes NASA's budget, they won't have any money left to contract SpaceX. If anything, he'd want to increase their budget, while cancelling programs like SLS..
This is the CEO who let go of 80% of Twitter.
Now tell me, does that sound like the type of business man who loves to keep justifying a middleman agency just for fucking budget approvals? If he does, it’ll be a staff of half a dozen contract mangers.
Didn't most leave on their own? (Score:2)
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Those capablilites weren't lost (Score:2, Informative)
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Re: Musk (Score:2)
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Not even Elon can accomplish that.
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Apollo/Shuttle eras launch wasn't a private industry endeavor.
It is now, which is fantastic! Mission success!
Now NASA doesn't have to divert attention to launch and can focus on things only NASA can do/fund. Assume Starship economies of scale, then what previously impractical ideas deserve reconsideration? Just Falcon changed everything. Imagine proposing an over 6,000 sat constell
down by $2 trillion not to $2 trillion (Score:3)
Musk has stated his intent to reduce the budget by at least $2 trillion that would bring it down to about $4.5 trillion.
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There's a lot of waste in all of those (Score:2)
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Please don't tell us you believe that to be a real thing. If you have any sense at all of how the world works you'd know that the congresscritters will not allow their favored pork to be cut. Why do you think the Pentagon is allowed to spend more than the next ten countries combined, even though eight of them are our allies? It certainly isn't because there's an actual need for 700+ bases in over 180 countries.
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Musk really, at this point, isn't in the picture. There is no such thing as a Department of Government Efficiency, at least not yet. And when it is created, by congress and not Trump, then it's unlikely it will have the power to actually trim things to the degree that Musk thinks he can. He wants to trim 2 Trillion USD, but that's just slightly larger than all discretional spending in the budget - he would have to trim entitlements which means he needs more congressional activity to change laws.
And that's
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D.O.G.E. will never be an official department. What it is intended to be, or perhaps what I hope it will be, is an external advisory council. I doubt they will even be paid, at least, not by the government. However, they will be given access to inside information, so that they can highlight "stupid" spending. By highlighting it, they may motivate those actually in the government to do something about it.
Honestly, though, I expect the effects will be very limited. Spending is ultimately dictated by Congress
Re: Musk (Score:5, Interesting)
D.O.G.E. will never be an official department. What it is intended to be, or perhaps what I hope it will be, is an external advisory council. I doubt they will even be paid, at least, not by the government. However, they will be given access to inside information, so that they can highlight "stupid" spending. By highlighting it, they may motivate those actually in the government to do something about it.
Honestly, though, I expect the effects will be very limited. Spending is ultimately dictated by Congress. Back to the topic of TFA: SLS has been a boondoogle for years. Everyone knows that it is a waste of money. And yet, it lives on, because it puts money into the "right" Congressional districts.
tl;dr: Congresscritters will defend their soup bowls, even in the face of embarrassing revelations by D.O.G.E.
Oh, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will be paid. Those payments will come in the form of contracts awarded to their crappy companies to do things the Pentagon and the rest of the government already does but now with a massive private sector markup and no bidding process just direct contract awards. The Trump administration is on track to becoming the most corrupt and inept US administration ever now that there is literally no brake on who Trump can appoint without paying any attention to the abilities of his appointees other than flattery skills and/or sycophantic loyalty.
Re: Musk (Score:4, Insightful)
And then the existing GAO will report on actual costs. Typically Congress pushes back hard, because they don't like knowing the actual numbers because it influences voters against them. This time you'll have both Congress and Trump pushing back against numbers created by people who know how to do math.
At this point, everybody knows there's waste, and where it is, but it exists because government wants it there. Even Trump put a lot of waste there in his first administration. A big factor is in contracting, including contracts to SpaceX (thus of high interest to Musk). There are laws and rules in place to guarantee there's no favoritism, that money is being spent well and not being wasted, to audit everything that happens, requiring potential contractors to document the hell out of everything, etc. So yes, Musk (and many) will want to cut through the red tape, which seems logical. The result though is highly likely to backfire, as corruption will be back on the table.
Ultimately, some key members of the proposed Trump administration literally want zero government. Their goal is dismantling it all. So, if a vital service is dysfunctional, because too many people are calling up Social Security offices with too few employees to answer the phones, their solution will be to hire even fewer workers, making the problem worse. Or they'll be stupid and recommend that private industry be given a blank check contract to do this; and congrats instead of a painful phone call of being on hold for hours to talk to a government person, you'll be stuck hours on a painful phone call to AT&T social security support managers in Bangalore who will tell you to please restart your social security and see if that helps.
We KNOW that government is self serving. We also KNOW that private industry is self serving. Having the biggest self serving billionaires try and fix this will fail. The solution is difficult to reach, you need private industry and government to stop being self serving and instead be customer/citizen serving, and the Trump administration is highly unlikely to approve anything like that.
But the govt knows about the pork (Score:2)
Re: Musk (Score:4, Interesting)
If you haven't noticed, Congress isn't really a thing any more.
If a Republican in Congress doesn't do what Trump says, then they will not be in Congress any more. (Just ask Liz Cheney, Tom Rice, and others). Democrats are out of the picture. Ergo, the US Government = Trump.
The way to get what you want out of the federal government right now is to buddy up to Trump and take his abuse. Elon Musk (who people online constantly say is the world's richest man only by pure luck) somehow saw the writing on the wall and now has more power over the budget than any Senator.
The truth is this will all be settled, however it is settled, within the Party behind closed doors and we'll never know the reasons why it turns out as it does.
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If Donald Trump says ‘jump 3 feet high & scratch your head,’ we all jump 3 feet high & scratch our heads. -- GOP Congressman Rob Bonta, speaking unsarcastically.
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It's been said for a long time that US elections are bought: That's not really true, it's party politics that is bought. We saw this with Obama, when his own party refused to support improved healthcare. As long as politicians depend on rich people for their election, the people won't have a voice. That's been known for a long time, too. It's also why the Democrats keep losing, their corporate masters ensure voters believe that protecting state's rights is the only way to fix everything. For the rich,
NASA is SpaceX's only customer - nonsense (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, but the premise your post is built on is utterly wrong.
NASA is even not SpaceX's biggest customer - it's SpaceX itself, with roughly two thirds of launches deploying Starlink satellites.
And it's fair to label their broadband service as "customer" because it's viable business.
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Not just NASA and themselves. SpaceX has customers from all over the world, including governments and private companies.
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You think profits from Starlink will pay to go to Mars?
Re: Musk (Score:2, Insightful)
Can't blame NASA for SLS. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can't blame NASA for SLS. (Score:5, Interesting)
They're literally forced by acts of law from the Congress to work on it despite the cost. They're not allowed to cancel it, and have been retaliated every single time they tried..
That is the challenge everyone faced that came in claiming they will reduce waste and cut government spending. Everyone is for that until it cuts into their district or state; then it is a vital program that must be saved, and suddenly everyone in Congress becomes bipartisan.
Re:Can't blame NASA for SLS. (Score:4, Insightful)
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The immortal satire, Catch-22, said it best: "He was a [...] God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism."
Catch-22. One of the greatest pieces of political/social commentary ever written. I often find myself reminded of quotes from it, and periodically reread it because, well, Catch-22.
Bingo! (Score:2)
History is important here, and neither Trump nor Biden is to blame for the SLS monstrosity.
In 2008, the George W Bush admin had, after being frightened by the loss of Columbia on reentry, shut down the Space shuttle program. Shuttles were still flying, but only a limited number of flights to ISS just to get a minimum configuration completed (and then one last Hubble service flight). All those shuttle program workers were facing the loss of their jobs, not just at the Cape, but at all the related suppliers i
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I suppose the new Doge will can it (Score:2)
No doubt the new chief of bureaucratic efficiency [usnews.com] will see NASA's moon rocket as a massive waste of taxpayer's money and will cancel it. And it will have nothing at all to do with SpaceX getting the contract instead.
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New Glenn may finally launch this month.
Who knows, maybe Bezos and Blue Origin will land the replacement launch contracts for all the non-SpaceX stuff.
(SpaceX already has a lander contract: https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in... [nasa.gov] )
Re:I suppose the new Doge will can it (Score:5, Interesting)
So what you're saying is that SpaceX only has a 33% chance of landing NASA's former contracts? It's still better than 0% so it's in Musk's interest to can NASA stuff.
And even if SpaceX is barred from competing because of the conflict of interest (fat chance...) it still means that the billionnaire club will get to siphon off more taxpayer's money. Somehow it doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy. Because quite frankly, fuck Bezos too.
despite hating Musk, wish SpaceX well (Score:3)
don't forget about the business-as-usual scenario that is being discussed here: billions invested in technology that is already obsolete.
Sometimes, even people you hate can do good things - and sometimes, it's good for you if they succeed...
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Contract awards don't work by rolling dice. Your hypotheses are not only wrong, by dumb.
Re: I suppose the new Doge will can it (Score:2, Insightful)
This whine is conveniently ignoring that SpaceX is literally the only alternative.
Government employees have had a geyser of funding and couldn't get it done.
Instead of bitching about "the billionaires" maybe recognize that they are billionaires perhaps because they actually accomplish things?
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The government employees manifestly do not have a geyser finding a launch system sans couldn't get it done.
What they have is a huge pile of useless pork they are legally obliged to use which is shaped vaguely like a launch system
Don't blame NASA or government employees when Congress has legislatively ensured their failure before they started.
They are not going to magically stop covering pork to their district because a billionaire showed up, because these things were never funded to get a launch system in t
Meet the New Plan. (Score:3)
..but the newest plan is to find a way to blame Trump.
With ingenuity being redefined and demonstrated like that, no shit NASA is dying.
And when they want to try and pull that Too Big To Fail bullshit? Tell NASA that funding contract will be sitting on the lunar surface to sign. IF they can make it there on time and on budget.
*snort* Good luck with that.
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NASA is way too important to fail: it's how Congress get huge amounts of pork shoveled to their district while being able to foist the blame on hapless government employees (NASA).
If you think anyone is going to tell NASA they get no money then you have never tried to take money away from a congressional district before. The people making the laws and mandating how money is spent don't care about success, they care about the pork.
Starship replaces SLS (Score:5, Informative)
Given the surprising fact that the SpaceX Starship is doing well with its test flights, the SLS is no longer a good investment. The cost per launch of the SLS is estimated to be 2.5 billion. The cost per launch of the Starship will be less than $50 million and it could easily be as little as $20 million per launch.
2.5 billion / 50 million = 50.
(Also, the Starship has a payload capacity that is at least double that of the SLS.)
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Starship is making steady (and admittedly, impressive) progress. But it's way too early to say it's "doing well."
Actually, it's no longer too early (Score:2)
After the flight5 booster catch, we can now say that there are no potential "show stoppers" on SuperHeavy or Starship.
1. A SuperHeavy with 30 engines has been demonstrated repeatedly to be able to place an upper stage weighing many hundreds of tons at a specific point in space with a specific velocity, and then be able to turn around and fly home. SuperHeavy even achieved this perfectly in one flight with an engine out, demonstrating a capability SLS will never have. It has now demonstrated the ability to b
Re: Starship replaces SLS (Score:2)
Aren't you comparing apples to oranges?
SLS is being built to go to the moon. Starship, to go to the moon, still needs an orbit refueling station and dozens of refueling trips with some kind of tanker that isn't built yet.
Well, they ARE different, but... (Score:2)
SLS is NOT actually built to "go to the moon". All the propaganda aside, SLS is not capable of getting Orion to a low lunar orbit like Apollo used, and from which a reasonable Apollo-style lander could be used. SLS and Orion can only reach either a distant retrograde orbit [wikipedia.org] or a Near-rectilinear halo orbit [wikipedia.org] about the moon. DRO was used on Artemis I and will be used on Artemis II, NRHO is planned for the Deep space Habitat and later Artemis missions. The entire Atremis architecture is distorted by problems in
Anyway the future is unmanned missions (Score:2)
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Why the fuck would you spend ludicrous amounts of money to develop crap to go somewhere when you can never go there yourself. Especially when that money could be better spent fixing issues that exist where we already are.
Idiot Scientist: "Oh, look! A nice rock formation exists on Io!"
Taxpayer funding them: "There's a nuclear war going on down here. Who fucking cares? Quit spending our money on scenic views, and develop some RadAway!"
The impetus came from DT #45 in 2019 (Score:2)
The impetus came when Trump #45 wanted NASA to land an American on the moon by the end of his term. Presumably his first, second or third term /s. During this time DT was talking about 2 more years on top of two terms.
In October 2019, NASA solicited proposals from industry to facilitate the rapid development and demonstration of an HLS to deliver a crew to the Moon by 2024.
https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-conten... [nasa.gov]
Well yeah. (Score:2)
Well yeah, of course the competitors project get canceled when a new contractor becomes part of the government. That's how it works.
It's not clear to me that expendable is obsolete. (Score:2)
Even reusable rockets are expended for heavy loads. So the argument in favor of them is purely economic rather than them being more capable, and that's a source of uncertainty.
Designing a vehicle to be reusable is a *constraint*; refurbishing a rocket engine is not *free*. So the economic advantages of a reusable vehicle isn't something you can take for granted -- which is a lesson we should have learned with the Space Shuttle. Nobody doubts reusable systems *can* be more economical to operate, but wheth
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A country that is horrible at recycling is awed by the fact that a rocket is reusable....
I'd like to see a fair cost comparison between the insanely complex reusable setup, and the old traditional single use. A rocket is just a big tin can to store fuel in. If you think rocket launches are bad for the environment, well hey, reusability just adds to that.