NASA's Space Launch System: Rocketing Towards Cancellation?

[Elderberry]

Yahoo Finance June 16, 2018 by Rich Smith

With every passing day, NASA gets closer and closer to completing its Space Launch System. Described as the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V that sent American astronauts to the Moon, SLS will tower 322 feet on its launch pad and produce 8.4 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.

SLS is also powering the profits of America's biggest space companies. Boeing (NYSE: BA), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), Aerojet Rocketdyne, and Orbital ATK (now owned by Northrop Grumman) are just a few of the companies profiting from SLS's $35 development budget. And once SLS is built, it could be even more lucrative for its builders and operators, generating revenue of as much as $1 billion -- some estimates now say $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion  -- per launch.

Or will it?

Doubts emerge

The National Space Society recently held a conference in Los Angeles, and SLS was apparently a hot topic at the gathering. Over the course of four days of mingling with space industry muckety-mucks, Politico Space  reports it heard multiple rumblings that bode ill for the Space Launch System money-pot.

For one thing, SLS has been marketed as key to NASA's efforts to eventually put astronauts on Mars. But as Politico reports, attendees at the conference expressed doubts as to "the wisdom or efficacy of a crewed mission to Mars in the next decade." California Republican and House space subcommittee member Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, for one, criticized the technology as too immature to support a manned Mars mission, saying "I think all this talk about going to Mars has been premature," and warning that NASA won't actually be ready to conduct a manned Mars mission before "20 years from now, maybe more."

More: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nasa-apos-space-launch-system-141300458.html

[Joe Wooten]

One could only hope that will happen, but since the SLS is a creation of Congress, Congress will have to agree to cancel it.