NASA's Space Launch System - Key to Space Exploration Forum

[JuggaloOzi]

Anybody that stumbles on this vid watch from 9:56 - 16:25.

If you don't think heavy lift rockets are important that's your own opinion but he gives you the real facts here of why they are.

[quantumG]

"If you want to go to the Moon, or anywhere else, you need a big rocket". Classic Griffin fail. Not a single word about cost. Not a single acknowledgment of anyone's opinion but his own.

SLS is a hole to throw $38B into and then get canceled for taking too long and costing too much. Again.

Amassing storable propellant at L1 could be done now, using existing rockets, and going beyond LEO with humans could be done on Soyuz this year if so desired, or on commercial crew providers by 2015.

[Fly2Azeroth]

@quantumG where did you get the $38B from? CNN sed that it's $18B over 6years

[quantumG]

@Fly2Azeroth pick your out-year. The lowest numbers in the Booz-Allen study are $18.4 full cost through first flight in Dec. 2017 and $30B through the second flight in 2021, with an estimated cost of $41B through 2025. The high end has $62.5B through 2025. Note that this is just for SLS and Orion, there's no funding for missions. As should be obvious, these costs are your usual pick-a-number-out-of-a-hat planning that dooms most NASA programs.