For reference without posting URL’s, (you can probably find the titles by googling them), my main anti-SLS articles in the Space Review are:
“The SLS: too Expensive for Exploration” 11-2011, “Revisiting SLS/Orion Launch Costs” 7-15-2013, and “Doing the Right Thing when it’s Steamboat Time” 1-14-2014. More recently, I have addressed more current issues.

The fundamental problem with the SLS, ignoring all of the other problems, is that it is an EXPENDABLE rocket and thus supporting space operations with it is unaffordable. I do not understand why this simple fact is not obvious to many people. To the people getting the SLS money, it is irrelevant, as their aim is not to enable large scale space operations but simply to make billions of dollars for as long as they can.

We have been trying to predict when the political tipping point for the SLS will be reached and each time a predicted tipping point event happens, the SLS survives politically in spite of all the problems.

SpaceX will gradually, then faster and faster, make NASA human spaceflight programs irrelevant, and so we should just support SpaceX and any other company working on reusable rockets and sort of ignore what is going on in the “Swamp”.

John Strickland
member NSS board of directors
Advocate: SFF

pivotting….

“The Anarcho-Capitalist Theme Song”
Randy Goble 2010
https://youtu.be/XJQEI1d0blo
5:26

“If we all just sat around everyday smoking weed,
If punk rock became all acoustic,
Due to the shutting down of the electric company….
And if our dread locks finally grew together,
Into one giant hairball of unity.
Then we’ll have finally achieved egalitarian society.
Think of it as going camping – only forever… no thanks.”

But with the launch abort tower it’s 33,446 kg (73,735 lb). It is ejected early on, but it seems to be impossible for FH to manage that. There might be other issues with aerodynamics and center of mass and such with putting a LAT on the FH.

However, FH could launch an uncrewed Orion. And with changes that make it possible to resupply the service module in space, Orion might be reused for a while in space. Shuttling between Earth and Lunar orbit for example. Orion can support an EVA (once, as the capsule is then emptied and has supplied to be once refilled with air), allegedly supports its crew for three weeks which enough to visit Sun-Earth Lagrange point 2 to upgrade a space telescope. And Orion is more spacious than Dragon, and even has a camping toilette.

Elon Musk once said that FH could land a crewed Dragon on the Moon, but would need a second launch for the return vehicle (and I think that one would have to be smaller than Dragon).

It isn’t so much hatred as it is disappointment. SLS is the third “flagship” project that is very costly while not performing as originally hoped. What could we have already done in space had we spent the development money more wisely and SLS had started flying on the originally intended date?

What would we have already done in space if each SLS launch cost much less and could keep up a rapid cadence, similar to the Space Shuttle? What could we have accomplished in space if the ISS had cost the original $32 billion rather than $100 billion to put into space, and could we have had three space stations for that same price with three times the productivity than we have now? What could we have accomplished in space if Bush had not saved a mere 3% of the cost by reducing the manned capacity by 50%? What would we have done in space had the Space Shuttle cost far less per launch and could fly the originally planned 64 times per year? If we had that more efficient Space Shuttle, could we have had an SLS-like rocket in the 1990s and would we have been back on the Moon in the early 2000s? Could we have people on Mars by now?

SLS looks to be a good launch vehicle for capacity, but it has a high price and a low launch rate. Like the Space Shuttle, the ISS, the James Webb telescope, and Roman Space Telescope (WFIRST), there is much science and exploration that could have been done with the same money as we spent or are spending on these overpriced projects.

Lee Stevenson,
The unemployment that you assume could be avoided by spending the same money on more productive projects. Being a NASA facility, the Hunstville facility will not be closed, and the contractors could be working on those more productive projects. Allocating the same expenditures to more effective and efficient projects keeps the employment but also produces more results. The results should be the important item, but some people think that government’s job is to provide jobs. That government should be mother and father. Instead, we end up with people unwilling to do what it takes to get a job or to move to where the jobs are, and rather than be productive and add to the economy they spend their time relaxing in the government’s safety net as though it were a hammock.

The problem is not that money is being spent at NASA but that we are getting too little return for that money. This is a problem with most government operations, especially since the income tax was introduced. Once government had easy access to cash, it did not have to be efficient, and NASA management has by necessity fallen into Congress’s socialist way of thinking.

I have done my time in warehouse work. Learned how to drive ANY forklift and yes can pick up that dime.

Before that I was in the US Airforce. I fueled aircraft. I was licensed to drive anything including semi trucks.
Not everyone was though. I just happened to know how to drive manual transmission vehicles. That was getting rare forty years ago, now its virtually a theft prevention devise.

In the job I have now I can used to run multi head CNC machines now I am in the inspection department. it takes 6 months to a year to become qualified in my inspection job.
But I have no advanced education, no collage. Some of the people I do the very same job as have geology degrees, religious study degrees and even a teacher. And they do my same job.
They are doing the same job as me because they do not want to move to the work.
Education does not mean someone will make more money. They have to be willing to make sacrifices.

Minimum wage laws are not a floor to hold people up, they are a hurdle for the less skilled. In some cases making them unemployable. The amount of money spent to support people not working could be more effectively spent helping the ones willing to try. Often called a reverse income tax, it would be better to subsidize someone working for $5.00 an hour than someone that is not working at all. Many people are prevented from climbing the ladder because several of the bottom rungs have been cut off.

As to whether a fork lift operator (or anyone else) is skilled, the question is, “how hard is it to train someone to do your job?” If a new hire can be trained to take your place in a couple of days, you are not in a skilled job. Sure you will (or should be) better than the new guy, but if there is no serious difference in over all productivity….

One of the largest things that could be done is to quit lying to people. We are not all the same or I could play against Michael Jordan and Elon Musk on level ground. It has become politically incorrect to note that people from different backgrounds will have different strengths and weaknesses. The constant stream of “you deserve” bypasses the question of “WHY?”. Whether it is legacy aerospace or an unskilled dropout, deserve is what you can do for others. Paying teenage girls to have babies they can’t afford by men that don’t care is one side of the entitlement coin that has SLS and company on the other.

That’s more than enough off topic from me I believe.

If you want to know why your Country (Britain) almost failed, it wasn’t Thatcher, it was socialism.

The British Attempt to Construct a Socialist Commonwealth, 1945-1951
Professor Vernon Bogdanor
Gresham College Public lecture
https://youtu.be/TEgvxQ_OhcU
1:01:24

Aneurin Bevan and the Socialist Ideal
Professor Vernon Bogdanor
Gresham College Public lecture
https://youtu.be/3vgye4SvAzQ
59:17

The National Health Service Crisis, 1951 –
Professor Vernon Bogdanor
Gresham College Public lecture
https://youtu.be/DVwpzJw1vwo
1:04:38

The (British) General Election of 1945 –
Professor Vernon Bogdanor
Gresham College Public lecture
https://youtu.be/KJe3OJJ7At8
59:10

Having been involved in a few efforts to help people move forward, I have seen some success and much failure. The best that can be done is to remove any real roadblocks to self improvement. You cannot force people to improve, somewhat like involuntary rehab. Having watched almost illiterate (at first) immigrants move ahead to live the American dream, I have far less sympathy for those that choose not to try.

There are plenty that do work thankless jobs and have trouble moving ahead. The things that can and should be done to help them are often done best at the local level.

Oh, there’s quite a lot – *if* you’re willing to pay the price.

Let us consider the Curiosity rover. It’s an amazing machine, a nuclear powered roving geological laboratory on wheels. Since 2012, it has covered over 15.6 miles on the Martian surface, studying rocks, soil and climate, zapping the results back via UHF and X band to earth, mostly through two NASA orbiters for 16 minutes each day.

Now consider the last Apollo mission to the Moon, Apollo 17. In three EVA’s spread over 22 hours over three days, Gene Cernan and geologist Jack Schmitt covered 22 miles of lunar surface, thanks to the mobility of the lunar rover and plain old human legs. They erected a series of science instruments and brought back 240 pounds of surface samples to Earth.

Even allowing for the advance of technology between 1972 and 2012, it’s pretty hard to say we did not generate more science on Apollo 17. Of course, we paid around $200 billion in 2021 dollars for Apollo, and about $2.5 billion for Curiosity. Curiosity gives us a lot less science per diem, but it also happens to be what NASA could afford to do in the 2010’s.

It would be cheaper to move the people to the work than move the work to the people.
But the people would have to want to move.

Instead of giving all those companies tax breaks or even no interest loans to move the work, instead spend the same amount on the people and re-educate them. If they are smart enough and willing.

You will find that a LOT of people who fill those no skill jobs can not do anything else because of personal problems.
Problems of their own making.
Drug abuse. Can not drive. Bad work record. Did not finish high school.

They have had years to correct these problems but chose not to. Why would they change now?

Color me skeptical.

Perhaps this is just my cynicism in play.

I still just don’t think (alas) that SLS is close to the chopping block. Yes, losing Europa Clipper and even Gateway to commercial slims its portfolio. But its true raison d’etre has always been launching crew to the Moon, and that mission remains undiminished. And in any event, it’s kinda been baked into the pie for the last few years now that the Gateway stuff would be mostly done via commercial launchers.

I think once we see Starship, Vulcan, and New Glenn making regular flights to orbit, the political situation *could* change. But boy, it sure does have a lot of contractor jobs in a lot of districts, and not just in Alabama. It’s gonna die hard, I fear.

FH was not an adequate replacement for all of that capability. But Starship will be. When Starship first achieves orbit (the Tipping Point Criteria) it will have demonstrated that it will, relatively soon, be an adequate replacement for SLS for unmanned missions. What would be very helpful would be for there to be a public-private partnership between NASA and SpaceX to help the later human-rate Starship in order to fully replace Starship. Starship’s lack of a LAS is one issue to be overcome. An interim solution could be to launch crew on a Dragon to LEO and then transfer them to Orion. It would be nice to have our KSP friends simulate all of the alternative scenarios to SLS.

Do you mean the Appropriations Committee?

Membership and chairmanships have not been voted on yet. By default, for the moment, it is Parick Leahy (D-Vermont), with Shelby as Vice Chairman.

Seems like a pretty good deal if you are Boeing and NASA/MSFC, and have the work ethic of a 30 year old living in his mother’s basement (but I repeat myself).