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Several problems with that. One, it's Congress' baby.. ain't noone taking it out behind the barn. Second, you need redundancy. If something is proven bad with

Several problems with that. One, it's Congress' baby.. ain't noone taking it out behind the barn. Second, you need redundancy. If something is proven bad with falcon or starship design... You don't want another situation like we had with the shuttles where your paying for Soyuz seats for years on end while the problem is debugged and mitigated. Iirc, NASA is trying to shift SLS production to the private sector, to try and "get rid" of this ugly duckling.

panick21_ 5y ago
> Second, you need redundancy. No you don't. Just as there was no redundancy for Saturn V. As there is not for Falcon Heavy. There was no redundancy for Delta 4 Heavy. There is always a largest rocket. And if you do need redundancy, SLS is not how you would get there. If Starship doesn't work, then there will simply be no moon landing. Period. > Iirc, NASA is trying to shift SLS production to the private sector, to try and "get rid" of this ugly duckling. That is just contract mombo jumbo that changes nothing about the actual project.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Once it becomes Somebody Else's Problem, and not NASA's, then NASA can quietly abandon it. Since nobody else will want to pay for even a single launch, it may then die a final death.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    > Once it becomes Somebody Else's Problem, and not NASA's, then NASA can quietly abandon it No, what happens is that you create a seriously powerful group of private institutions that will go full force into lobbying congress to not kill the project. Even more so then now.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      What you describe is the present condition.
      - panick21_ 5y ago
        No, now you have many private groups with slightly different interest temporarly unified. Once you create one gigantic mega contractor, that group has a much more specific and target interested in lobbying for that one specific program.
        ncmncm 5y ago
        In other words, no worse than the present condition. But it would be increasingly awkward for Congress to be seen to force NASA to choose the $2B launcher from vendor A over the $10M or $50M (or whatever) launcher from vendor B.

panick21_ 5y ago

> Second, you need redundancy. No you don't. Just as there was no redundancy for Saturn V. As there is not for Falcon Heavy. There was no redundancy for Delta 4 Heavy. There is always a largest rocket. And if you do need redundancy, SLS is not how you would get there. If Starship doesn't work, then there will simply be no moon landing. Period. > Iirc, NASA is trying to shift SLS production to the private sector, to try and "get rid" of this ugly duckling. That is just contract mombo jumbo that changes nothing about the actual project.

ncmncm 5y ago
Once it becomes Somebody Else's Problem, and not NASA's, then NASA can quietly abandon it. Since nobody else will want to pay for even a single launch, it may then die a final death.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  > Once it becomes Somebody Else's Problem, and not NASA's, then NASA can quietly abandon it No, what happens is that you create a seriously powerful group of private institutions that will go full force into lobbying congress to not kill the project. Even more so then now.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    What you describe is the present condition.
    - panick21_ 5y ago
      No, now you have many private groups with slightly different interest temporarly unified. Once you create one gigantic mega contractor, that group has a much more specific and target interested in lobbying for that one specific program.
      - ncmncm 5y ago
        In other words, no worse than the present condition. But it would be increasingly awkward for Congress to be seen to force NASA to choose the $2B launcher from vendor A over the $10M or $50M (or whatever) launcher from vendor B.