Re:SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th t...
by thesmart on Wednesday August 27, 2025 @12:01PM
(#45041448)
I had understood that reusing shuttle parts was more about keeping congressional districts (that make the parts) happy, and thus securing votes for funding.
Re:SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket nails critical 10th t...
by jiggawatts on Thursday August 28, 2025 @06:36AM
(#45050529)
"We're going to spend more to save money." is something I've heard said almost verbatim far too many times in government projects.
SLS is also a pretty weird design due to reusing Shuttle components for a completely different kind of launcher. This saves development costs (maybe) by using existing stuff that has already been developed, but the unsuitability of those components for this system increases per-launch costs. Once NASA runs out of old Shuttle engines, manufacturing new ones is going to cost $100 million apiece if not more, and each launch needs four of them. It was OK for Shuttle engines to be expensive since they were supposed to be amortized over hundreds of flights (and in practice were actually amortized across at least tens of flights) but now they’re being used in expendable launches. If Starship even comes remotely close to its goals, an entire launch will cost less than a single SLS engine.