You have to fail to move forwards. A lack of failure is a sign of a lack of trying anything new.<p>Hasn’t SpaceX proved that?<p>The negative commentary around this seems a little in contrast to how we’d talk about a SpaceX “failure” on HN.<p>I know NASA and SpaceX are very different, but Elon is the king of drifting deadlines too. And SpaceX do fail, but they do a good job of “owning their failures” and they keep moving forwards.<p>Should we cut the NASA team a bit of slack?<p>Let’s not forget also that it’s NASA who have also drastically changed their strategy and have enabled private companies like SpaceX to shine through their partnerships.<p>NASA is big, wasteful, bureaucratic yes, but they are changing, slowly... and this “failure” is not the stick I’d choose to beat them with.
I’m not a rocket scientist and I also don’t want to bash NASA, but the size of the budget here coupled with the lack of transparency about the failure is in stark contrast with what we’ve seen out of both SpaceX and Blue Origin.<p>Maybe what NASA is trying to do here from an engineering perspective is much, much harder. I also feel there may be unjustified spin in this article. But to an untrained eye this article sure makes it look like an expensive jobs program for Alabama,Texas and Florida.
SLS is often jokingly referred to as the Senate Launch System for good reason. Its bloated budget and insistence on reusing space shuttle components means that it’s more a jobs program, than a serious attempt at building a launch vehicle.
NASA forgot how to make rockets:<p><i>“Both NASA and contractor officials explained that nearly 50 years have passed since development of the last major space flight program—the Space Shuttle—and the learning curve for new development has been steep as many experienced engineers have retired or moved to other industries.”</i>
This article published the day before the SLS test, but I think it's important context (engineering vs. financial corporate culture) for Boeing's involvement, and just how dang difficult it is to get systems integrated (software, hardware, and um giant rockets). The article notes just how well Spacex has been doing even under greater scrutiny by NASA, while Boeing might have been implicitly trusted as a name/brand with a legacy, but had delivery/design/testing stumbles anyways.<p>(WSJ, paywall etc.)<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeings-other-big-problem-fixing-its-space-program-11610773201" rel="nofollow">https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeings-other-big-problem-fixin...</a>
I think the SLS program at this point adds negative value to getting to space. I wouldn't normally wish for failure, but I think even if development were free I would vote to axe it.<p>The distraction of this program is immense, and when it's done you have a non reusable rocket in a reusable age.
While I understand the value of technological boondoggle -- sometimes there IS a pony in there somewhere -- SLS is just way too far over the line. Knife this baby and destroy the tooling that made it possible, so it never rises from its grave.
Bummer! Especially this line:<p>> All of this casts very serious doubt on NASA's plans to launch its Artemis I mission—an uncrewed precursor mission to sending humans to the Moon—before the end of this year.<p>This outcome seems like good safety engineering: prioritize safety and control over speed.<p>Still, it’s a disappointing setback. I want to go to space now! And this moves the eventual realization of space tourism back incrementally further into the future... so much for my kids being Belters
Failure in and of itself is not so bad, it's really how it's operationalized. How quickly can they identify, correct and move on to the next test? That's the question.
Great, in-depth reporting. My initial understanding was that delays were COVID-related.<p>Feb at least will be a busy month for robotic exploration of Mars, with probes from US, UAE and China!<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/science/space-astronomy-launches.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/science/space-astronomy-l...</a>