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Doubled or tripled NASA's budget? NASA has spent 32 BILLION on SLS with nothing to show for it. Each launch is expected to cost 2.5 BILLION https://en.wikipedia
by FL33TW00D 1y ago
Doubled or tripled NASA's budget?
NASA has spent 32 BILLION on SLS with nothing to show for it. Each launch is expected to cost 2.5 BILLION https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System.
Starship is just orders of magnitude less than this. NASA is a moribund jobs program.
- os2warpman 1y ago> Starship is just orders of magnitude less than this. Starship does not exist. Starship is the name given to a design for a fully reusable superheavy launch vehicle intended to take 100t to LEO. The things being launched by SpaceX are not Starship. They are impressive, but are not Starship. They are called Starship, but are not Starship. Let me be clear. I am not saying that Starship will not exist. What I am saying is that today, right now, Starship does not exist and SLS does. You implied that Starship does exist, and is cheaper. Nobody, not you, not me, not Lord Ketamine, can predict when it will exist or how much it will cost with any degree of accuracy. I genuinely, sincerely, and earnestly WANT Starship to exist, but as of today, April 24th, 2025 it does not.
- FL33TW00D 1y agoWe can argue technicalities all day long but to me, this exists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMGiNKcVSek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMGiNKcVSek
- os2warpman 1y agoThe payload on that flight was a single stuffed toy banana, for scale. On all test flights with a payload exceeding the mass (~300 grams) of a single stuffed toy banana (for scale), the flight has failed. Flight 7: 20,000 kg payload (starlink mass simulators) - engines fail after 7m39s Flight 8: 8,000 kg payload (starlink mass simulators) - engines fail after 8m04s Flight 9 is not currently planned to carry a payload. None of this is a technicality. It is technicreality.
- FL33TW00D 1y agoAgree there are obviously still issues, but you've just made the case yourself. We are discussing Flight 9 for Starship ~5 years into development. 10 years into the development of SLS we won't even see launch 2. They just operate in different universes no matter how much you dislike the CEO.
- os2warpman 1y agoYou are misunderstanding me. I am on two embryonic programs that are not viable without starship or an equivalent. If starship exists I will be able to cash out, buy a 54-foot catamaran and spend the rest of my life sailing around the world scuba diving and spear fishing. I want starship to exist and do not care who builds it. It does not exist and I know this because I am currently on the third floor of a boring cookie cutter business park building right now staring at computer screens and not off the coast of Gili T doing mushrooms after a dive.
- moralestapia 1y ago>If starship exists I will be able to cash out, buy a 54-foot catamaran and spend the rest of my life sailing around the world scuba diving and spear fishing. Highly doubt this is true. Everyone's rich on their wild little minds.
- apercu 1y agoFor one, where is Starship and when did it last launch? For another, this hypothetical spacecraft (which does not yet exist) would not be wherever it is in terms of completion had NASA not existed.