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 5 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.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
3 billion is a lot of money to pay for getting nothing, so yeah. I’ll change my tune when I actually see HLS, instead of the money being spent on developing another LEO lifter
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
Do you know how you get new things? Not by not researching them? You should see the amount of money the US government alone has spent on fusion, and still nothing. Look at the money DARPA has spent! Sure, we got the internet, among others, but these people got the money before there was a finished product! And some of those projects failed!
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
And we, worldwide already have plenty of LEO lifters. Why do you want another, when the government can just pay for one?