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NASA's Space Launch System will cost....

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  • NASA's Space Launch System will cost....

    ....just $38 BILLION, for a system that may fly only twice over the next 10 years

    Space Launch System (SLS) is the 70 metric ton lo orbit launcher requited for NASA's Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (aka: Orion) and upgradeable to a 130 metric ton heavy lifter. Basically the parts would be derived from shuttle bits, with all their problems and huge legacy costs made worse by redesigning them into something else, requiring all new tooling. Truth be told, it was mandated by the last Congress (mostly the US Senate) as a way to keep certain suppliers and NASA centers from losing jobs. This has resulted in it's derogatory nickname: the Senate Launch System.

    That's right kiddies: the Senate couldn't formulate a budget for 2.5 years because they were designing rockets in the committee chambers

    Orlando Sentinel....

    WASHINGTON — The rocket and capsule that NASA is proposing to return astronauts to the moon would fly just twice in the next 10 years and cost as much as $38 billion, according to internal NASA documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.

    The money would pay for a new heavy-lift rocket and Apollo-like crew capsule that eventually could take astronauts to the moon and beyond. But it would not be enough to pay for a lunar landing — or for more than one manned test flight, in 2021.

    That timeline and price tag could pose serious problems for supporters of the new spacecraft, which is being built from recycled parts of the shuttle and the now-defunct Constellation moon program. It effectively means that it will take the U.S. manned-space program more than 50 years — if ever — to duplicate its 1969 landing on the moon.
    >
    Dr. Mordrid
    ----------------------------
    An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

    I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps
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