This is the SLS, the Space Launch System. It is a big rocket, the development of which was initiated in 2010 in order to save thousands of jobs in critical Democratic districts at the cost of 1.5bn per year.
8 years after the program was initiated, the costs have now totalled 14bn and the rocket itself is not even close to being ready for a launch. Nominally the first launch is scheduled for late 2020, but likely, given the presidential elections that year, it will be pushed back to 2021 (unless the program gets cancelled before). Until 2025 and with just 2 missions scheduled for it until then, the SLS will burn through an estimated total of 35 billion.
Meanwhile, SpaceX already has successfully launched the F9H, a rocket capable of lifting 65mt to LEO which is perfectly capable to be used as a low cost alternative to the SLS for beyond LEO spaceflight.
How can programs like SLS be justified and why is it not cancelled by Trump?
>hand-wringing jew flabbergasted that people are willing to throw exorbitant amounts of resources at hope for the future Hop back in the oven goldstein, space exploration is one of the last bastions of real human ambition. Elon is only accomplishing things quickly and cheaply in comparison because he's using the results of research other people already did, and only has to worry about making the construction cost-effective.
Aaron Lee
How's work on Wendel(((stein))) going? Oh, you spent all your research billions on accomodating rapefugees again, too bad. Why would you want to be independent from oil Muslims, makes no sense inshallah, right?
Nolan Harris
i think your gripes are iut of perspective
do you know how large the u.s budget is? this year it was 4 trillion. so that 20 billion is only .5% of the budget
Chase Jones
>oy vey don't use the private sector to explore space you meshuggena goy only the government should build rockets goy fuck off schlomo
Jack Price
we're going to find the reptilian spaceships the kikes came in on and feed them their own forked tongues
SLS can get heavy payload to the Moon and back. Falcon Heavy would need nultiple launches to get something even in high Moon orbit. And how many times SpaceX postponed their FH launch? Do you honestly think thise maggots can launch 2-3 rockets in succession very fast? And 2-3 FH would almost cost the same as SLS. Go and try some KSP realism overhaul and try to launch something heavy with FH with multiple launches or better go fuck yourself
Luis Perez
Nothing rustles my jimmies more than how Congress has treated NASA since Apollo. Political rockets don't go to Mars.
FH is not man rated and will not ever be. The first man rated commercial heavy lift rockets will be BFR and New Glenn, which have similar timelines to SLS. NASA moves so fucking slowly that any alternative mission profile is guaranteed to take even longer, so Trump's best bet for getting any high profile manned missions done before he leaves office is to keep Constellation on track.
Sebastian Thompson
>How's work on Wendel(((stein))) going? I think this is just 1bn compared to 35bn for SLS. >Oh, you spent all your research billions on accomodating rapefugees again, too bad. I am pretty sure Austria has more refugees per capita than Germany and you also have a higher welfare per capita (800 euros per person?) for refugees.
But yes, we pay a lot to these refugees, which probably isn't the right way forward, but you have a right wing government and still pay them money. Why?
>this year it was 4 trillion. A lot of it is "mandatory", i.e. pension payments and healthcare system payments which other countries pay out of insurance systems.
If you look at the discretionary spending, those 2bn or more per year are actually a lot more overall than you might think. And the point remains, why spend 35bn on a rocket that just duplicated capabilities which already exist right now at a fraction of the launch costs?
Austin Rodriguez
We don't. Didn't you get the "Nazi Chancellor Kurz wants to crash the welfare system without surviviors because EU says you can't treat rapefugees differently than Austrians" and "Nazi Chancellor Kurz wants to work repfugees to the bone with US-like 12 hour work days" memos? The Flüchtlinge are fleeing to greener pastures in Germany and Sweden right now.
Connor Reed
>Do you honestly think thise maggots can launch 2-3 rockets in succession very fast? Why would you want to do this anyway? The best way forward for beyond LEO human space exploration is a space ship assembled in LEO with a nuclear-electric propulsion drive which can exit LEO with its own propulsion, enter any orbit of any planetary body and return to Earth orbit for refueling. With this strategy, you do not rely on very fast successive rocket launches to complicated direct transfer orbits. What you just need is a heavy rocket delivering cargo and spaceship modules to LEO.
I am pretty sure NASA could develop a nuclear powered electric propulsion spaceship, launch the parts with the F9H, manufacture several of them and assemble them in LEO for 35bn.
Robert Parker
>FH is not man rated and will not ever be. Irrelevant. You use the F9 and Dragon to reach any beyond LEO spaceship which you preassembled in LEO using the F9H. The F9H would never actually need to carry any astronauts.
Landon Johnson
It is easier to lowball budgets then overrun costs once approved than it is to accurately estimate costs.
Kayden Jackson
65 mt as in millitons?
Cooper Turner
>Didn't you get the "Nazi Chancellor Kurz wants to crash the welfare system without surviviors because EU says you can't treat rapefugees differently than Austrians" and "Nazi Chancellor Kurz wants to work repfugees to the bone with US-like 12 hour work days" memos?
No. I understand Chancellor Kurz is an ally of Angela Merkel and is pretty much in the same party as the CDU agreeing everything with Merkel.
Jose Williams
Sounds like a great way to get astronauts to the moon in the year 2040. I do not share your optimism about NASA's ability to pioneer new technologies quickly and cheaply.
Easton Morales
because america wants that strategic asset without having to go to a third party
i imagine once they develop it, they will still use third party, but also have the option of their own rocket in an emergency
Dylan Cruz
metric tons
Jaxson Reed
Adjusted for inflation, the entire running costs of NASA from it's establishment to planting a man on the moon cost less than the development of the F-35 to date.
>65 mt as in millitons? mt stands for metric tons, as opposed to short tons (= 2000 pounds) or the long ton (= 1.12 short tons).
Americans typically refer to a short ton when speaking about "a ton", while Europeans refer to a metric ton and the English often refer to a long ton. I don't know what Aussies refer to when speaking about "a ton", I assume they mean pic related.
>Sounds like a great way to get astronauts to the moon in the year 2040. Why?
Sounds more like a way to get to the Moon, Mars, Venus, Titan, Europa etc. in the next 5 years. And in a sustainable way.
Nathan Gomez
if you think this is stupid and a waste of money, you should never look into the californian high speed rail they are building.
Tyler Gomez
Yeah, I'm sure NASA will whip out the plans for a modular, orbitally assembled interplanetary spacecraft in about a year and start construction immediately after that. The same organization that takes 15 years to develop a conventional launch system built substantially out of existing components. Seriously, are you stupid or something?
John Reed
We call it "Pork". Members of Congress make their careers with this kind of crap. The more power and seniority the member has, the more pork projects they can get for their districts via quid pro quo horse trading for votes etc. Because the president can no longer veto individual parts of a piece of legislation (line item veto), they attach the pork riders to unrelated legislation that the President can't veto without losing face, like say, funding for crippled children.
It is a corrupt game and needs reform.
Jacob Reed
Idk m8. We really should be using Falcon Heavy to build an orbital ring. Everybody that contributes to the cost gets a space elevator that connects to the ring
Can confirm, live on the Space Coast. The county has totally revitalized after SpaceX started regularly launching. There was a downturn after the shuttle program ended.
Jaxon Wright
>space elevator cables holding the ring in place Just no.
Jackson Moore
>blackpill Do you have any understanding of how easy it would be for a rogue group, perhaps even an individual, to launch an attack on an orbital ring? Think about how many countries can shoot down satellites and how fast technology is progressing. It makes total sense on paper, in reality... not so much.
Parker Myers
The cables don't hold it in place, it has active support. The elevator cables are there so the thing is actually useful.
possibly easier to use "tonne" for metric and "ton" for American, but an American ton is 0.9 metric tonnes so in most situations it barely matters. Usually you're only giving a ballpark figure when you talk about that kind of weight
Matthew Reyes
honestly trump should push for a semi permanent moon base with a greater push for martian base. That alone would guarentee him the legency he crazes.
Alexander Rivera
>inb4 shifting the goalpost Better make sure the cable is never hit by space trash.
Cooper Turner
orbital rings can only work if there is a world government. you think russia or china want a dammed ring around their visual airspace
Kayden Edwards
Sure, but you can get it orbiting any which way you want, and once you get one built, it becomes much more inexpensive to build a second to include countries that are left out on the first one.
Jeremiah Carter
Because it is fucking space.
Trump just boosted military spending $65billion. That is the entire Russian military budget ontop of the largest military budget 4 times over China.
Austin Long
I think both would want one. It makes shipping incredibly cheap.
Owen Russell
>Peruvian education... The orbital cable is inside You can use the stationary outer shell to accelerate space ships with only power from solar panels
Jacob Edwards
OP is such a moronic libtard he fails to realize that hiring niggers to build space ships in Rat infested hellholes is what killed NASA.
Alexander Phillips
>initiated in 2010 in order to save thousands of jobs
So it's the same reason road work takes years in the US.
Nathan Ortiz
wouldnt matter anyway..again thats something only a world government can pull off. plus i doubt the materials exist to do that
Josiah Cooper
Good luck docking with some thing going at geo sync speeds FAR FAR FAR below a natural geo sync orbit. And space elevators are right out, that shit is physically impossible and any one who says otherwise is Bill Nye tier retarded.
Sebastian Jones
Unless we start mining metals from other planets how do you intend to find the materials required to place a ring around the damn planet?
Jack Sanders
>MFW being in debt 21 trillion to the world means nothing when you own LEO and thus own Earth.
>This is the SLS, the Space Launch System. It is a big rocket, the development of which was initiated in 2010 in order to save thousands of jobs in critical Democratic districts at the cost of 1.5bn per year. They need votes from both parties get space program funded. Contract carpeting is standard operating procedure for all kinds of federal spending.
SpaceX has been ran effectively on NASA money as well. Only reason they cheaper than traditional space launch companies is the fact that they don't have congress mandated spending in places where politicians needs votes from. They have two launch sites, in California and Florida. Engine testing facility in Texas and everything else from engineering to manufacturing is at one site in California.
Ian Price
>2 retarded statements equal 1 smart one The level of development required to build such a structure would only be followed by the ability to clean the trash up and engineering resistance to small particle strikes is not even close to the difficult part.
