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> more than one option and path forward to a moon mission Then SLS is the exact opposite. Building around existing commercial crew and commerical rockets would
by panick21_ 4y ago
> more than one option and path forward to a moon mission
Then SLS is the exact opposite. Building around existing commercial crew and commerical rockets would be that.
SLS/Orion is the actual both 'single point of failure'.
So really SLS/Orion is the opposite of what you suggest.
> keep the US' aerospace building capabilities fresh and available
And by that you mean removing money from the actual productive aerospace industry and instead keeping age old infrastructure in place and rebuilding production lines for old outdated technology.
Had this money actually been invested in the advanced aerospace industry, the US would have more and better aerospace capability.
So again, SLS/Orion is literally the opposite of what you suggest.
> provide some of the usual pork barrel giveaways to the usual folks
That's its real and only goal.
But again, there would have been other ways to do this.
> US put all their bets on SpaceX that could now not deliver for some reason.
That was never the alternative. That's just a strawman.
> But hindsight is 20/20.
Its not hindsight. Its actually mostly known at the time. If you look at the internal NASA studies, they all indicated that many other paths including using commercial rocket and building a Saturn style rocket would have been far, far better.
See: https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceLaunchSystem/comments/kt1vlf/rac_stuff_summary_kinda_idk_anymore/ https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceLaunchSystem/comments/kt1vlf/r...