NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

Re:NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is u... by marcusverus on Thursday September 07, 2023 @05:45PM (#37426042)

Do we have to wait? Falcon Heavy already has ~75% of SLS Block 1's payload capacity (to LEO). For the $11.2 Billion that's earmarked for the next 4 years of SLS, you could buy 112 Falcon Heavy launces--one every ~17 days for four years. In contrast, the wiki lists a single planned flight for SLS during that period.

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Re:NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is u... by peoplearepeople on Thursday September 07, 2023 @06:21PM (#37426417)

Mass to LEO isn't the name of the game for SLS though, it's mass to LLO.

(though yes you could fix that with a small kick stage)

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Re:NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is u... by itsoktocry on Thursday September 07, 2023 @06:58PM (#37426811)

It's cheaper to buy, for sure. But we don't know the costs. It's possible that these launches are far less expensive than SLS, but equally unsustainable.

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Re:NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is u... by avhon1 on Thursday September 07, 2023 @07:01PM (#37426854)

How might that be? SpaceX doesn't have to manufacture whole new rockets for every Falcon Heavy launch, but even if they did, as far back as 2016 they could build 16 new cores (5 Falcon Heavy's worth) per year.

https://spacenews.com/spacex-seeks-to-accelerate-falcon-9-pr...

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