SLS Going Down

Astyanax

Glad to see the Space forum!

Looks like SLS is on the rocks as the Artemis program is taking on water.

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2025/02/10/boeing-layoffs-florida-will-impact-those-working-on-artemis-nasa-sls-rocket/78358682007/

InternetJeff

Astyanax

Indeed. SLS is years and billions behind more capable competition. Program cancellation is inevitable if nothing changes soon.

Bobcat00

Astyanax Looks like SLS is on the rocks as the Artemis program is taking on water.

It will be cancelled because it competes with you-know-who.

px_eliezer_

Bobcat00 It will be cancelled because it competes with you-know-who.

I hate "you-know-who" but honestly in this regard he's the better option.

Astyanax

Bobcat00

It was circling the drain even before "you-know-who". As I've posted before on DSLR, the NASA IG (who I'm sure is now long gone 😉) said the Artemis launches were going to cost over $4 billion each it was so overbudget.

“We also estimate that SLS and Orion production and operating costs will total at least $4.2 billion per launch for the first four Artemis missions. This figure does not include $42 billion in formulation and development costs spent over the past dozen years,” he said.

https://www.meritalk.com/articles/nasas-artemis-moon-landing-program-facing-cost-problems/

Bobcat00

Astyanax

So instead of getting the help and funding it needs SLS will be put on the chopping block by someone who is in direct competition. It must be nice when you can make your competitors disappear from the "free market" while your dubious experiments get free government space subsidies.

Astyanax

Bobcat00

"You-know-who" 's involvement isn't the source of Artemis's demise. NASA has been using cost+ contracts to design and build it which is the main reason for it taking so long and costing so much. Boeing, it's main contractor, and other contractors, actually are financially incentivized to slow it down.

Critics of the large and expensive rocket—a single launch costs in excess of $2 billion, exclusive of any payloads or the cost of ground systems—say NASA should cut its losses. Keeping the SLS rocket program around for the first lunar landing would actually bog down progress, these critics say, because large contractors such as Boeing would be incentivized to slow down work and drag out funding with their cost-plus contracts for as long as possible.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/boeing-has-informed-its-employees-that-nasa-may-cancel-sls-contracts/

InternetJeff

Bobcat00 ... your dubious experiments get free government space subsidies.

Back that up.

MacLeech

Bobcat00 some of that SLS funding goes to SpaceX and Blue Origin for the Human Landing System (HLS) and Lunar Gateway parts of the Artemis missions. For SpaceX, that includes Starship and more Dragon development. NASA is absolutely dependent on SpaceX Starship being successful for Artemis to successfully land humans on the moon. Outside of that NASA involvement SpaceX has never shown interest in going to the moon, but without NASA’s money Starship’s development would be short on funding. They’re not really competition for this, they’re collaborators.

Lunar Gateway is most likely being canceled and I could see SLS being cancelled or rescoped to support a Mars Sample Return mission. That’s been top of the last 2 decadal surveys and NASA can’t seem to get a handle on how to do that project. They had even requested proposals from space industry leaders (including SpaceX) a few months ago on how to do it.

SLS end goal was to prep for manned missions to Mars.