It's all about Congress, the native American criminal class. They're already $14 billion in. https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/10/nasa-buying-ten-sls-rocket-l

It's all about Congress, the native American criminal class. They're already $14 billion in. https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/10/nasa-buying-ten-sls-rocket-launches-through-2035-in-a-show-of-washington-corruption.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/10/nasa-buying-ten-sls-ro... I'd like to point out the development process appears to be waterfall. Instead of many cheap iterations, blowing stuff up and continually improving, they want few, complete, expensive articles: that means many tests like OP article is going to need spin as a "failure" and not a learning cycle.