In the wake of the Potemkin abort test of Orion, Eric Berger has a reality check.
[Update a few minutes later]
This is a perfect example of the problem:
Even as NASA needs to be spending money on a lunar lander, it has been directed by Congressional authorizations to spend more money on the SLS rocket. To that end, NASA announced last week a $383 million cost-plus contract to build a second mobile launcher, to be used for the Block 1B version of the Space Launch System rocket, which has a more powerful upper stage. This rocket is at least five years away from launching, will cost billions to develop, and is not currently used in any of NASA’s plans for the 2024 landing.
As Bob Zubrin often says, they don’t want to spend money to do things; they want to do things to spend money.
[Update a few more minutes later]
Also, if Starship really flies in 2021, all of NASA's current lunar plans are going to be blindingly obvious in their absurdity, particularly if New Glenn is flying as well, and New Armstrong on the way.
Light/non-existing posting because since boarding red eye to DC Tuesday night, I’ve been attending the Space Enterprise Summit at the State Department.
For one thing, it’s more sustainable. And it will accomplish much more. Whenever kids (i.e., people less than 50) tell me they envy me that I saw men walk on the moon, I tell them that I envy them for all the much more exciting things in space they’ll see (assuming that we don’t get life extension).
“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.