“The first rocket is now about 80% assembled, and we’re going through the detailed system integration,” he said. “These are very complex, sophisticated machines, so the technology itself is a challenge. I think it’s manageable. It’s work we know how to do. But it’s tough, challenging work, and we have to do it in a way that ensures safety in the end.”
Muilenburg said having consistent political and funding support for such a big space project was at least as challenging.
“We’ve seen that to date on the Space Launch System,” he said. “If we’re going to get back to the moon by 2024, we can do that, but we can’t if we don’t have stable, consistent support and funding. So the political and funding side of this, I would say, is actually the greater risk.”
The notion that SLS hasn’t had “consistent political support and funding” is beyond mendacious.
While I think that we could do a lunar return for far less than NASA estimates, if allowed to do so without having to use SLS/Orion, or the Gateway, I certainly agree with the second point that Wayne Hale (new head of the NASA Advisory Council) makes, as he takes more than one page from my book.
One way to look at space development and settlement is as Gaia reproducing, spreading life into and throughout the solar system, and eventually the galaxy.
The latest, after last week’s space-policy turmoil.
I think that Bridenstine (and Scott Pace) feel compelled to publicly support it, in the hope of maintaining Congressional support for NASA budgets in general, but I’m not sure it’s a great strategy.
Bob Zimmerman writes that it won’t happen without cutting the pork.
In other words, it won’t happen.
(Friday-afternoon update)
Tweet from @realDonaldTrump: “For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon – We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!”
No comment, but there’s a lot of response on Twitter.
There is a new report out from the Reason Foundation, by Jeff Greason and James Bennett, on how it needs to be rethought and reorganized. I haven’t read it yet, but I expect it to be good (I saw Jeff today at the Space Settlement Forum, where I gave a talk on space property rights).