NASA's $17 Billion Dollar SLS Moon Rocket May Be A Huge Bust

Oh, that's just great...$17 billion dollars of taxpayer money wasted on NASA's Space Launch System. The SLS, which is to be the most powerful rocket in existence, was suppose to send astronauts back to the moon in 2024. However, it's three years behind schedule and nearly $7 billion dollars over budget, with some doubting it will be ready for a 2020 test flight. On top of all that, this rocket will cost $1 billion dollars per flight, which is "about 11 times more than SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, which made its debut last year."

...the orange-and-white rocket has fallen three years behind schedule — and is way over budget. Almost $17 billion has been spent so far on the space vehicle, which was projected to cost $10.6 billion when its construction was approved in 2011. Experts say each SLS flight will cost at least $1 billion, or about 11 times more than SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, which made its debut last year.

So, after nearly 8 years in development, some shareholders want to scrap the project all together and think NASA should buy their rockets from "companies like SpaceX using these "fixed price" contracts."

Given the problems, has the time come to scrap the SLS and rely on commercial rockets to put astronauts back on the moon? Some key stakeholders seem to be wondering just that.

"We're not committed to any one contractor," Vice President Mike Pence said March 26 at a National Space Council meeting in Huntsville, Alabama. "If our current contractors can't meet this objective, then we'll find ones that will."

Critics have said that NASA should buy, not build, its big rockets from companies like SpaceX using these "fixed price" contracts.

If NASA were to ditch Boeing's SLS in favor of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, long-time aerospace rivals Boeing and SpaceX might have to team up.

Billions spent already, with billions more needed to send Americans back to the moon. I'm all for exploratory missions done by drones, equipped with advanced rovers, but flying astronauts back to the moon seems like a huge waste of money. NASA is becoming a money pit. They pay their contractors exorbitant amounts of money, with no oversight and wonder why their projects are over budget and behind schedule. Why is that?

"NASA is going to continually get that money from Congress, and so there's no incentive for these companies to change direction, change management or change the way they're doing things," she said.

...BINGO!

All inserted content from this LINK.

If you want to know what happens when the government gets involved in most anything, just look at the modern gas can.

Couple that with the awful shuttle program it's no surprise this one is late and over budget.

WTF is with going to the moon nowadays? Why not do it micro? With todays sensors using a Arduino or a Raspberry pi or other micro controller boards or mini computers; why can't just send a smaller Gemini, Saturn or Apollo rocket and do this again. Without Astronerds and use micro robots also.
Just send a smaller rocket with a small payload. Send it up with a droned platform then stabilize and launch from a platform to get a easier escape velocity.

Pretty simple actually considering all the knowledge we have already.

On a way smaller scale this could be relatively cheaper and more efficient? I would think so.

This kind of thing gets me closer and closer to the idea that the moon landing was faked. Could it be these programs keep failing because it can't actually be done? I am not totally sold on it, but come on guys if it was doable 50 years ago its definitely ridiculous that we can't manage to do it now.

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: shawmanfromny

Post removed by Staff

Perhaps you are the type of person that hates the United States for whatever reason and it wouldn't matter what issue came out of the United States that wouldn't make you spin a negative sentence or two on it.

Sorry, it isn't really this issue in particular, I just get tired of reading post after post hammering USA BAD USA REALLY BAAAD from you.

I think to entertain myself this week I will review Obama era posts to see how "good" we were then. TO hopefully prove my theory incorrect.

originally posted by: Fools

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: shawmanfromny

Perhaps the 'greatness' of America was a historical blip that even Captain Oranges can't restore with his wall of magic.

Perhaps you are the type of person that hates the United States for whatever reason and it wouldn't matter what issue came out of the United States that wouldn't make you spin a negative sentence or two on it.

Sorry, it isn't really this issue in particular, I just get tired of reading post after post hammering USA BAD USA REALLY BAAAD from you.

I think to entertain myself this week I will review Obama era posts to see how "good" we were then. TO hopefully prove my theory incorrect.

No, I want the SLS to not be scrapped.

There are so many endearingly good things about the US that are being lost and forgotten and you think it is all about some politician who will be largely forgotten after their term in office.

That is very short term thinking.

I actually think that it is vital for the human race that we push out into space, mine the asteroids and capture more solar energy than we can do from Earth.

As it is, we are all, without exception, ducks in a shooting gallery and if we don't get out of the way, well be gone.

a reply to: chr0naut

Why keep the SLS when the private sector can do the same thing but better and cheaper?

Because there is nothing with that capability right now? Because they have married several other systems to SLS development? There's no good answer at the moment. Even if Musk gets the BFR to work, they'll have to spend a bazillipn dollars reconfiguring what they want to fly on top of it.

The problem is mostly the acquisition process and NASA red tape. Same as our defense spending problems. NASA and the Pentagon are giant money pits.

SpaceX has better cgi, so their “moon mission” would look way more believable

I mean you’ll be able to “tell it’s real because it looks so fake”

At this point, the world is too woke to buy this nonsense. The only thing that can save “space” is more believable cgi.

Why would anyone think it's a good idea to have the government do anything a private company is willing to do with investors money as opposed to taxpayers money?

Uncle Sam couldn't wipe his own ass for less than a billion dollars and he would still end up with poo fingers.

ahhh yes, the good old Senate Launch System.

It is a jobs program, not a rocket program. and the "17 billion" is a low ball, as the SLS itself is a spin off of another failed program the "Constellation program" which cost 11.3 billion after 3.1 billion in cost over runs.
Then there is the 6 billion Ares I and V, that was supposed to be the launcher for the Orion. The Ares I launched a grand total of 1 time, the Ares V never launched.
But hey, at least eh Orion Capsule has 3 copies built, and one was tested... on the Delta IV heavy that wasn't ever part of the SLS or Constellation program.


How about the costs and iterations of the Orion itself?
It was developed in 4 different programs, the CEV (Crew Exploration Vehicle), MPCV (Multi-purpose crew vehicle), Orion MPCV (Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle), and finally just Orion. The development is still ongoing, and started in 2006, and has accounted for approximately 16 billion in costs.

From this we can get a rough estimate that the current SLS has had a real cost of near double what the SLS "officially" has cost us taxpayers.

NASA is bogged down by bureaucracy when building rockets, especially when dealing with companies like Boeing. Boeing splits up the fabrication of parts across the country just like what happened with the f-35 to make them to big to fail. They get as many states involved as possible and by doing so as many senators backing because of jobs. Unlike Space-x who does most of everything in one local where they can troubleshoot issues on site and make changes as needed without tons of department heads getting involved.

originally posted by: MRinder


Uncle Sam couldn't wipe his own ass for less than a billion dollars and he would still end up with poo fingers.

Quote of the year !

a reply to: Grimpachi
The problem however is. The F-35 like all aircraft has teething problems, and now is arguably pretty darn good, because it actually had to be made. Where as the SLS can continue to sit on a costs plus basis and always be in the red tape development hell because it isn't quite perfect, or something better came out and it has to be updated. We will be lucky if we ever see it launch, Space X, or even Blue Origin, could sweep in under the rug. I love Tory Bruno as much as a guy can like another guy and still be straight, but jeezy pete... he has a mess on his hands at ULA and I pray he doesn't get whisked away into the heart of the beast of Boeing.

When are they going to figure it out that NASA can't do anything right? Like as awesome as the space shuttle was, it had a lot of issues baked in that you just had to accept if you wanted to use it. It was somewhat dangerous. It just was. If you weren't willing to lose a crew here and there, forget about it.

Difference is, the SLS was designed to go to Mars (or even beyond). The Moon is just a convenient and very PR-appealing stopover. Can Space-X or other commercial rockets take people to Mars?

I don't think they'll scrap SLS any time soon, especially not after so much time and money had been invested into it.

originally posted by: osoespacialpoco
a reply to: chr0naut

Why keep the SLS when the private sector can do the same thing but better and cheaper?

Because the next stage of space utilization will also require heavy lifting, as well as the MicroSats.

We aren't going to build infrastructure out there with tiny payloads. And, after we've built the infrastructure, we need to move personnel in numbers.

You can't do that with a launch system optimized for CubeSats.

The question to ask is.....do we really need to spend all that money to put people on the Moon? Does any country actually need to spend taxpayer or consumer money to put men on the moon? We were supposedly there, but I doubt if all the photos taken were from the moon though. A little Hollywood style extra pictures could have been created here to justify all the expense.

A lot of money is spent on multiple science projects and research and often they do not compare and analyze the research properly, instead they keep giving the scientific community more money to do even more research when the answers are in research that has already been done two or three times over.

a reply to: chr0naut
Considering that the BE-4 (blue origin's engine in development for Vulcan/New Glen) and Raptor (SpaceX's new engine for starship/superheavy) are both aimed at heavy payload lifts and large crews, and test articles for both of them are actively under development some more so than others, I would say they are somewhat ahead of SLS when it comes to building infrastructure in/on mars. The change for Space X to doing moon missions first is almost entirely due to government want of such a program. The interesting part is that a mission to the moon is actually harder to do when relating to transport, due to the lack atmosphere available for aerocapture on the moon. That is using the assumption that you would return from said mission. Meaning that if you can account for crew survival and maintenance for the long haul to mars, the delta-v required for a mission is less than that required for a moon mission.