Re:The Engineer Who Refused to Approve the Challenger Launch
by pseudosavant on Friday June 21, 2024 @02:06PM
(#40752130)
I forgot about the SLS until after I wrote that. SLS makes most of the same mistakes, plus plenty of new expensive ones, from the Space Shuttle program. SLS has yet to carry a human passenger though.
Its mind boggling that SLS still exists at all. At least $1B-$2B in costs whether you launch or not. A launch cadence measured in years. $2B-$4B if you actually launch it. And it doesn't even lift more than Starship, which is launching almost quarterly already. This before we even talk about reusability, or that a reusable Starship + Super Heavy launch would only use about $2M of propellent.
Its mind boggling that SLS still exists at all. At least $1B-$2B in costs whether you launch or not. A launch cadence measured in years. $2B-$4B if you actually launch it. And it doesn't even lift more than Starship, which is launching almost quarterly already. This before we even talk about reusability, or that a reusable Starship + Super Heavy launch would only use about $2M of propellent.