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More importantly it's a capability program. People and organizations who can build rockets, execute space missions, and have regular work doing so is necessary
by tracerbulletx 4y ago
More importantly it's a capability program. People and organizations who can build rockets, execute space missions, and have regular work doing so is necessary if you want to maintain the institutional knowledge and manufacturing capacity to do so.
- kube-system 4y agoAnd high-end manufacturing capability is very important to have domestically from a defense perspective. I recall some NPR story recently about war games the US runs about a hypothetical war with China -- it was said that the US loses most of the time in these simulations. Why? A lack of industrial capability.
- robertlagrant 4y agoIf SpaceX hadn't appeared then the ISS would be in an interesting spot still relying on Russian rockets.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoThat was a good argument in 2009 but it's a bad argument now. There are currently over 100 rocket companies in the US. Having those people work on dead end technologies like SLS rather than forward looking technologies like Starship or RocketLab Neutron or Relativity Terran R or Blue Origin New Glenn etc hurts rather than helps.
- ceejayoz 4y ago> There are currently over 100 rocket companies in the US. Zero of which are currently capable of putting a human around the Moon.
- dotnet00 4y agoSLS is incapable of doing so too.
- ceejayoz 4y agoSorry, meant to say Moon.
- dotnet00 4y agoTechnically, yes, SLS can send people around the Moon, but gotta remember that Starship is very much on the critical path to the actual goal of boots on the Moon. So, 'currently' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, not to mention in general the idea of SLS being ready to send people to the Moon now is a bit of a stretch too since Artemis II will be ready to launch in 2024 if we're lucky, which is also when (if we're lucky), Lunar Starship should be starting its testing.
- ceejayoz 4y agoSure, that'll bring us to 1/100.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoMany of which would be capable of doing so if they got a fraction of the $40B that SLS got.
- ceejayoz 4y agoThey are getting fractions of that. NASA funds small missions across a wide variety of such companies. It’s how SpaceX started. It’s been one of the most effective NASA programs ever, IMO. Prove yourself and the contracts get bigger.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoA good majority of the 100 aren't getting any NASA funding.
- panick21_ 4y agoBy some definition of 'fraction'. They are getting basically nothing. NASA budget is like 30% SLS/Orion for decades+. > Prove yourself and the contracts get bigger. If you hard allocate a huge part of the budget you can only give out so many other contracts for the best bids.
- ceejayoz 4y agoThe commercial programs have seen significant expansion in scope and spending as their benefits have become clear. The lunar landing contract to SpaceX is a great example of such. Astra, Rocket Lab, etc. have to demonstrate capability to move up the ladder.
- panick21_ 4y agoYou could also have these capabilities by not making terrible strategic and technological choices.