simple, Almost 40 Billion has been spent on the SLS/Orion to date and its over double its original cost, all before its first flight. While it is in my option necessary to guarantee that the United States has a super heavy class rocket, once the Starship become operational it should be discontinued for cost reasons alone. For example the total amount spent on the Starship development and testing to date has been roughly a 10billion 1/4 the price. And this is for a brand new vehicle (the SLS reuses a lot of parts including its engine from the shuttle so in essence its getting those engines with a vastly lower development cost), The Starship is also 50% more powerful and fully reusable.Hope that helps
Why do most people on social media claim that SLS should be cancelled and leave everything to SpaceX’s Starship? Starship can’t be the only option for deep space exploration; it seems that hardly anyone wants to give SLS a chance.
With the third WDR attempt for Artemis 1 scrubbed due to GSE issues similar to the previous two attempts, something’s been bothering me.Why do most people on social media claim that SLS should be cancelled and leave everything to SpaceX’s Starship? Starship can’t be the only option for deep space exploration; it seems that hardly anyone wants to give SLS a chance.
Have to say, that’s an interesting question from an NSF “old hand” who’s no doubt read bazillions of words on the subject from both sides on this forum.
Quote from: ZachS09 on 04/15/2022 12:09 amWith the third WDR attempt for Artemis 1 scrubbed due to GSE issues similar to the previous two attempts, something’s been bothering me.Why do most people on social media claim that SLS should be cancelled and leave everything to SpaceX’s Starship? Starship can’t be the only option for deep space exploration; it seems that hardly anyone wants to give SLS a chance.Not everyone wanted to leave everything to Starship. The technology and approach to SLS is from the 60ies. Build a large monolithic single use, single user, rocket system and have NASA own it. It made sense for the Saturn V. It made sense for the Shuttle. It didn't make sense since the deregulation of space flight. Technology has advanced since the 60ies and 70ies and all other rockets are privately owned. I was more in favor of ULA's Atlas Phase II or the Delta version of it. Also more in favor of propellant depots. I was in favor of a program that would focus more on payloads as the rocket was the solved part of the equation and the part that the private sector was already handling. With something like Atlas Phase II you could handle payloads from 9MT all the way up to 75MT and you could also upgrade further into 100MT. The advantage is that with this rocket both NASA unmanned spaceflight, NASA manned Space flight, and other government payloads would be sharing a system. This could reduce costs via economies of scale and work out bugs and other issues with the rocket without risking lives. SLS will have no other users to share it's costs nor will it be fly without crew most of the time and so problems with the rocket are likely to show when it is manned. With this approach as new rocket systems came online you could transfer the payloads to them and competition could be fostered. Starship is even more new technology and a different approach to match the changes in technology and it makes SLS look about as relevant to transportation in the modern world as an horse and carriage.
