SLS is also ridiculously expensive. They hope, with time, to bring the cost down to $1 billion per launch. And the first one took 6 years longer than expected. If we’re going to get to the moon more than one more time before I die, this isn’t the vehicle I’m going to pin my hopes on.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
SLS is currently priced at 4b per launch, based on its one launch.
Starship-HLS has cost at least the 2.9b from the NASA contract, and doesnt exist yet.
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
SLS is a disposable product based on existing technology. Starship intends to be reusable and is an evolution based on tech developed in the last 20 years.
Neither private companies nor the DoD is interested in using the SLS once it has been proven in the Artemis project, and given the project is based on the time-honored tradition of government pork, it’s doubtful it will ever be economical. Every indication I can see is that the Blue Origin and SLS contract are to hedge bets in case Starship fails. After all, we know SLS will work, but it will always be cost-ineffective just based on the nature of the beast. Blue Origin might work out, but they’ve been around as long as SpaceX and have achieved suborbital flights so far. Meanwhile, SpaceX has had 332 successful launches in 14 years, with 2 failures. Their team seems to know what they’re doing.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
As I say elsewhere, Starship is a scale model of an empty shell into which the HLS might one day be built. HLS has not been built. HLS doesn’t even exist as a non-functioning mockup. HLS has not even been designed. The vehicle to carry HLS into space has not been built. The vehicle that will refuel HLS when it eventually has been built, has not been built.
HLS has so far cost 3 billion, and doesn’t exist even slightly. All that exists is a scaled down model of an empty shell and a scaled down model of the booster that has not lifted even a single pound of simulated cargo off the ground.
I’m not saying Starship won’t be a great heavy-lift craft for LEO or maybe GEO cargo one day, but HLS does not exist in any way other than CGI renders, and it has cost 3 billion government dollars so far, and many more other funds.
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Well, that dollar value seems to be a big deal to you, but you brush aside the costs of SLS, and completely ignore the many billions spent to make the SLS components even possible. This has sunk cost fallacy vibes to me.