Spaceflight 🚀#SpacePolitics
“It got funded as a #rocket to #nowhere, and we at #NASA had to figure out something to do with it,” #Garver says. Legacy contractors like #Boeing continued to receive large bonus payments 💰 for working on the #SLS, despite delays and mushrooming #costs.
Critics of the #SLS argue that 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. But while the shuttle #orbiter, #engines, and external #tanks were designed to be #reusable, SLS and its engines were not.
“They’ve designed a rocket that is basically #unsustainable, because it’s completely #throwaway. The only bit that comes back is #Orion”
“Depending on how you look at it, the #SLS is either a product of a #broken #system that curries #favor to #wealthy 💰 industries or an example of representative #democracy working as it should,” https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/09/1065143/nasa-artemis-return-to-moon
Is #Artemis based on
