Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  3 months ago
It is not easy to turn a big #bureaucracy, and there will undoubtedly be friction and pain points. But the opportunity here is enticing: #NASA should not be competing with things that private industry is already doing better, such as launching big rockets. Rather, it should find difficult research and development projects at the edge of the possible. https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/how-did-the-ceo-of-an-online-payments-firm-become-the-nominee-to-lead-nasa

#SLS#Artemis

Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  2 months ago

Content Warning

The incoming Trump administration will certainly keep #NASA's goal of landing people on the Moon, but without the budgetary 💰 burden of the #SLS rocket. https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/trumps-nominee-to-lead-nasa-favors-a-full-embrace-of-commercial-space
Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  3 months ago

Content Warning

It is not easy to turn a big #bureaucracy, and there will undoubtedly be friction and pain points. But the opportunity here is enticing: #NASA should not be competing with things that private industry is already doing better, such as launching big rockets. Rather, it should find difficult research and development projects at the edge of the possible. https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/12/how-did-the-ceo-of-an-online-payments-firm-become-the-nominee-to-lead-nasa

#SLS#Artemis

Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  last month

Content Warning

Prof Logsdon* expects big changes under #Trump, Mr #Musk and Mr #Isaacman: scrapping programmes, closing NASA centres and more contracting out to #SpaceX, #BlueOrigin and other private sector firms. "There is a delicate balance between the interests of #NASA, #Congress and the #WhiteHouse."

Mr Isaacman has called the #SLS "outrageously expensive" and said that the major aerospace contractors are "incentivised to be economically #inefficient". https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn93797z2dpo

* https://www.planetary.org/profiles/jon-logsdon

Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  4 weeks ago

Content Warning

#SpaceX has developed two heavy lift rockets in the last decade, and #BlueOrigin just launched #NewGlenn. Each of these rockets is at least partially reusable ♻️ and flies at less than one-tenth 💵 the cost of the #SLS rocket 💰 https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/boeing-has-informed-its-employees-that-nasa-may-cancel-sls-contracts

#Boeing#NASA

Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  10 months ago
Launch costs have fallen 95% 📉 (with another massive reduction expected in the coming years) thanks to reuse, improved engineering, and increased volumes.
“In economics, we assume that resources are limited; land is limited; natural resources are limited. With #space 🌌, it allows us to change that.” https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/may/03/were-in-a-new-era-the-21st-century-space-race-takes-off

#LaunchCost#SpaceMining

Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  7 months ago

Content Warning

📊 #ESA 🇪🇺 and its member states forked over $4.4B 💰💰💰💰 to develop #Ariane6. Customer launches are unlikely to pay back development costs any time soon.

#SpaceX has invested over $5B 💰💰💰💰💰 in #Starship 🚀 R&D to date. Starship has proven its expendable capability, and the company is focusing on achieving full #reusability ♻️.

#NASA spent a dizzying $24B 💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰 developing #SLS
https://payloadspace.com/rocket-development-costs-by-vehicle-payload-research

#DevelopmentCost#LaunchCost

Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  12 months ago
When Mr Bridenstine suggested in 2019 that America could return to the Moon 🌙 using #SpaceX’s #FalconHeavy, he provoked a row with Richard #Shelby, a senator from #Alabama who was then chairman of the Senate appropriations committee. Welcoming the #SLS in 2011, Mr Shelby said that #NASA’s exploration of space, “has always been and always will be through Marshall Space Flight Centre [in #Alabama].” https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2022/08/24/nasas-space-launch-system-is-yesterdays-rocket

#SpacePolitics#PorkBarrel

Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  12 months ago

Content Warning

It will become inevitably embarrassing if #Starship is launching dozens of times a year like #Falcon9 is, and #SLS 💰 once every two years. #FalconHeavy is the one SLS was originally in a race against, not Starship. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/08/former-nasa-official-on-trying-to-stop-sls-there-was-just-such-visible-hostility/
Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  12 months ago

Content Warning

When Mr Bridenstine suggested in 2019 that America could return to the Moon 🌙 using #SpaceX’s #FalconHeavy, he provoked a row with Richard #Shelby, a senator from #Alabama who was then chairman of the Senate appropriations committee. Welcoming the #SLS in 2011, Mr Shelby said that #NASA’s exploration of space, “has always been and always will be through Marshall Space Flight Centre [in #Alabama].” https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2022/08/24/nasas-space-launch-system-is-yesterdays-rocket

#SpacePolitics#PorkBarrel

Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  12 months ago

Content Warning

"Political and #aerospace interests were more than reluctant to embrace any changes which they viewed as a threat to their own hegemony."
The mainstream media doesn’t cover #SpaceExploration and #SpaceScience with the same questioning 🔍 rigor that they reserve for #politics. People writing about space exploration are mostly cheerleaders 🥳 for the cause, rather than independent observers keeping a watchful eye on how our national monies 💰 are spent. https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2022/06/23/new-book-paints-bleak-picture-of-nasas-human-spaceflight-program/

#NASA #SLS#Artemis

Spaceflight 🚀
Spaceflight 🚀  ·  12 months ago

Content Warning

@lori_garver “It got funded as a rocket to nowhere, and we at #NASA had to figure out something to do with it”.
The #rocket is #unsustainable by design, relying on an old and potentially quite expensive 💰 way to get to #space 🌌. Much of #SLS is a holdover from the #SpaceShuttle. https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/09/1065143/nasa-artemis-return-to-moon
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