When Scott Pace says it’s time to throw in the towel, the end of SLS isn’t far off. I had lunch with a friend in Santa Monica yesterday who had just gotten off the phone with him, in anticipation of his testimony.
By “off ramp,” I assume he’s saying fly Artemis 2 and 3, but end the program after that. That would mean an immediate cancellation of the Exploration Upper Stage, and the ML-2 mobile platform, whose costs were beyond ridiculous, because they were only needed for Artemis 4. As I’ll note in my upcoming study for the Reason Foundation, that in itself would save almost a billion dollars per year. But cancellation of SLS itself will save a couple billion.
As I’ll note in my upcoming study for the Reason Foundation,…
Thanks for the hint on what you’re working on for the Reason Foundation.
Frankly, without a surface lander, what’s the point of Artemis II and III? Cancel it all. Focus on what’s needed to replace the ISS. In fact, I’m all for dropping the ‘I’ in ISS. There’s nothing wrong with building a USSS. If ‘I”s want to participate, fine, but we shouldn’t be reliant upon them.
I also don’t have an issue with a NASA return to the moon. But I don’t know the driving need there, other than national pride should China get there. Frankly the moon is a much easier destination than Mars. But what’s to be done once we get (back) there? Perhaps as a fuel resource should we find copious amounts of ice on the moon? There’s science to be done on the far side. But that could be easily addressed in an NGO/NASA science mission. All of this could use commercial launchers.
I’d really like to see more commercial demand for Crew Dragon missions as well.
I know Musk wants to drop it all to focus on Mars. I think that’d be a mistake. I’ll say so publicly. I have no issue with a Mars goal. I don’t see why it has to be an all or nothing proposition.
What I’d really like to see is a space station with enough propulsive capability (Nautilus-X) to be able to explore the solar system, esp. the outer planets. But hey, Elon wants to live on Mars, I’d like to explore the rings of Saturn. Or maybe even a balloon station floating in the Venusian atmosphere. To each his own…
“Frankly, without a surface lander, what’s the point of Artemis II and III? Cancel it all.”
Embrace the cognitive dissonance of the sunk cost fallacy. Reframe discomfort as excitement. Think how exciting it will be to watch the first and last Artemis launch during your lifetime perhaps.
“What I’d really like to see is a space station with enough propulsive capability (Nautilus-X) to be able to explore the solar system, esp. the outer planets.”
We need to go to the Moon to build a national park exhibit, Mars has a lot of benefits depending on other developments, and ultimately we need to go where the resources are, which is the not quite so outer planets. The robots might be able to do the belt, Jupiter, and Staturn for us but we should send people anyway. We don’t a spaceship like the Nautilus X, we need a class of spaceship like the Nautilus X, meaning we need like ten of those suckers.
Think how exciting it will be to watch the first and last Artemis launch during your lifetime perhaps.
I’ve already witnessed Apollo-11 in my lifetime. In fact most of those few weeks were spent glued to the TV thanks to it being summer vacation. Whatever SLS does, it will always pale in comparison to that…
Slightly OT, Dr Metzger has a program out for simulating lunar egecta from lunar operations. I think he said it was free if that is what your company is working on.
That hopperbot mission should give him some good data to refine his work.
Continuing with Artimis II and III will allow Boeing and Lockheed to keep the grift going for several more years, with the costs being at least $2 billion a year. What will we get from all that that’s worth the expense?