NASA plans to carry out Artemis I mission with Space Launch System rocket in February – IT Pro – News

Well not quite. This missile comes from politics. NASA doesn’t really want him. They would rather do more unmanned and use commercial operators.

The problem is that NASA has to answer to the Senate. The NASA boss works directly for the president, but the money comes from Congress and the Senate. They submit a request budget every year asking for XX money for project YY and so on. In particular, research missions, things like “what should we do on Mars” and unmanned missions. Each time they are allocated more than they ask for, but with the caveat that that money must be used for the SLS. So the senators know better than the experts

The reason that Space Shuttle parts have to be reused was more the employment in the factories that made those parts, than the price. Let them just ‘coincidentally’ be in the states where the senators in the space committee came from. They blatantly abuse NASA for their own political ends. It is also called the “Senate Launch System”

Now the worst senator (Richard Shelby) is retiring next year. Hopefully that will bring some change.

We sometimes complain about our complicated coalition system, but in America, the state-oriented electoral system and the two-party system have taken the whole politics hostage by commercial interests. Everyone is only trying to bring each other down for their own interest instead of working together for the national interest. The grass is certainly not greener there.

[Reactie gewijzigd door GekkePrutser op 23 oktober 2021 13:47]

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