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A comment on NASA, Lockheed Martin Working to Resolve Artemis II Orion Issues. Parent comment

Re:NASA, Lockheed Martin Working to Resolve Artemis II Orion... by DylanSp on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @07:46PM (#39924817)
The problem is convincing Congress to pull the plug on SLS. Even if Starship is able to unambiguously surpass SLS technically, lobbying Congress to cancel a program that spreads manufacturing work across most of the US and that involves multiple big defense contractors [1] is going to be a tough sell.

[1] Boeing for the core stage and integration, Lockheed Martin for Orion, Northrop Grumman for the SRBs, and Aerojet Rocketdyne for the SSMEs.

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Re:NASA, Lockheed Martin Working to Resolve Artemis II Orion... by credit_guy on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @09:33PM (#39925584)
> lobbying Congress to cancel a program that spreads manufacturing

It's not lobbying to cancel a program, it's lobbying to replace a program with another. That other program may bring jobs in the same places; it's actually quite convenient to do so, since there are not that many people around with expertise in rocket manufacturing.

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Re:NASA, Lockheed Martin Working to Resolve Artemis II Orion... by DylanSp on Wednesday April 03, 2024 @09:36PM (#39925604)
Given SpaceX's heavy use of vertical integration, I highly doubt that it'll spread as many jobs around as SLS currently does.
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Re:NASA, Lockheed Martin Working to Resolve Artemis II Orion... by credit_guy on Thursday April 04, 2024 @09:40AM (#39930291)
It’s not going to be 100% replacement, but it could be 50%. And Musk’s lobby machine could find some more extra sweateners here and there. Or you think only Boeing and Lockheed have lobbyists?
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