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posted by martyb on Tuesday March 12 2019, @02:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the Merlin,-Falcon-9,-and-Falcon-Heavy-were-developed-for-less-than-$1B-total dept.

NASA budget proposal targets SLS (Space Launch System)

The White House's fiscal year 2020 budget request for NASA proposes to delay work on an upgraded version of the Space Launch System and would transfer some of that vehicle's payloads to other rockets.

The proposal, released by the Office of Management and Budget March 11, offers a total of $21 billion for the space agency, a decrease of $500 million over what Congress appropriated in the final fiscal year 2019 spending bill signed into law Feb. 15.

A major element of the proposal is to defer work on the Block 1B version of the SLS, which would increase the rocket's performance by replacing its existing Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage with the more powerful Exploration Upper Stage. The budget "instead focuses the program on the completion of the initial version of the SLS and supporting a reliable SLS and Orion annual flight cadence," the OMB budget stated. The first SLS/Orion mission, without a crew, is now planned for the "early 2020s," according to the budget, an apparent slip from the planned 2020 launch of Exploration Mission 1.

NASA had previously planned to use the Block 1B version of SLS to launch elements of its lunar Gateway, using a "co-manifesting" capability enabled by the rocket's greater performance. Instead, according to the budget document, those components will be launched on "competitively procured vehicles, complementing crew transport flights on the SLS and Orion."

[...] The budget proposal would also remove one non-exploration payload from the SLS manifest. The proposal offers $600 million for the Europa Clipper mission, enabling a launch in 2023. However, NASA would instead seek to launch the mission on a commercial launch vehicle rather than SLS, a move it claims "would save over $700 million, allowing multiple new activities to be funded across the Agency." The fiscal year 2019 budget request also proposed a commercial launch of Europa Clipper, but Congress placed into law in the final funding bill the requirement to use SLS for that mission.

Are we nearing a good timeline?

Related: After the Falcon Heavy Launch, Time to Defund the Space Launch System?
House Spending Bill Offers NASA More Money Than the Agency or Administration Wanted
NASA Administrator Ponders the Fate of SLS in Interview
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Could Launch Japanese and European Payloads to Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway
Northrop Grumman Exec Warns of Coming "Affordability" in the Space Launch System's Future
Impact of the Midterm Elections May be Felt at NASA
When Space Science Becomes a Political Liability


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday March 12 2019, @02:38AM (13 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday March 12 2019, @02:38AM (#813038)

    I'd be more worried about the $750 billion the Defense Dept. wants for 2019. I mean $21 billion is a lot of money but at least it's not just going to be used to destabilize the countries your government doesn't like.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday March 12 2019, @02:46AM (6 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday March 12 2019, @02:46AM (#813040) Journal

    https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/cost-iraq-war#chapter-title-0-4 [cfr.org]

    I don't think Afghanistan $$$ [wikipedia.org] is even counted in that number.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday March 12 2019, @06:51PM (5 children)

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday March 12 2019, @06:51PM (#813413)

      Good lord that's a lot of money just to suppress some people who didn't fly some planes into some buildings.

      It probably would have been cheaper to solve the problem properly and invade Saudi Arabia.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2019, @09:12PM (4 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 14 2019, @09:12PM (#814473) Journal

        Good lord that's a lot of money just to suppress some people who didn't fly some planes into some buildings.

        They merely employed the people who did.

        It probably would have been cheaper to solve the problem properly and invade Saudi Arabia.

        Even though Afghanistan officially provided material support to Al Qaeda while Saudi Arabia did not? It's interesting how someone can simultaneously damn Saudi Arabia for funding of Al Qaeda and involvement in 9/11 by a few of its citizens while simultaneously ignoring that Afghanistan not only provided a territory for Al Qaeda to operate in, but was paying them substantially for mercenary services too.

        • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday March 14 2019, @09:50PM (3 children)

          by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday March 14 2019, @09:50PM (#814503)

          Here are some quotes from a Wikipedia article on the 9/11 Commission:

          Commission chairmen Lee H. Hamilton and Thomas H. Kean accused the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of making a conscious decision to impede the commission’s inquiry...

          The two co-chairs of the Commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, believe that the government established the Commission in a way that ensured that it would fail

          And, under the heading "Denying support from Saudi Arabia"

          The 9/11 Commission report concluded that while 15 of the 19 hijackers who carried out the attacks were from Saudi Arabia, there was no evidence the government of Saudi Arabia funded the attacks. However, it does identify private individuals and organizations in Saudi Arabia as the primary funding source for al-Qaeda overall.
          Former Senator Bob Graham, the co-chair of an earlier congressional report into the 9/11 attacks, has called for re-opening an investigation into Saudi funding of the attack and the declassification of documents discussing the subject, including 28 pages from that report.

          Read all about it here. [wikipedia.org]
          The money used to employ the people who flew the planes came from Saudi Arabia, but the US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2019, @10:33PM (2 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 14 2019, @10:33PM (#814517) Journal

            The 9/11 Commission report concluded that while 15 of the 19 hijackers who carried out the attacks were from Saudi Arabia, there was no evidence the government of Saudi Arabia funded the attacks. However, it does identify private individuals and organizations in Saudi Arabia as the primary funding source for al-Qaeda overall.

            So the 9/11 commission agrees with me? Then what's the problem? Again, we have Al Qaeda operating openly in Afghanistan with a military unit [wikipedia.org] of several thousand based in Northern Afghanistan at the time of the 9/11 attacks. Meanwhile we have support from a few Saudi citizens. So we're to invade Saudi Arabia for stuff it didn't do and ignore the transgressions of the Taliban government?

            • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday March 14 2019, @11:45PM (1 child)

              by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday March 14 2019, @11:45PM (#814537)

              it does identify private individuals and organizations in Saudi Arabia as the primary funding source for al-Qaeda overall.

              But let's invade Iraq.

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday March 15 2019, @03:16AM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 15 2019, @03:16AM (#814628) Journal

                But let's invade Iraq.

                That's a different ball game. I happen to think the world is better for that invasion, BUT it was justified on bogus grounds and a number of people apparently knew that ahead of time (such as Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Rumsfeld who suddenly changed his story when it became evidence that WMD would not be found in Iraq around March, 2003).

  • (Score: 1) by patricepetticoat on Tuesday March 12 2019, @03:30AM (5 children)

    by patricepetticoat (7344) on Tuesday March 12 2019, @03:30AM (#813048)

    Shit. Seems like we really need to hear from the real Donald Trump. Is there some sort of incantation to bring those incoherent ramblings over here. I summon thee to comment on this and the above specifically.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 12 2019, @03:48AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 12 2019, @03:48AM (#813056)

      the real Donald Trump

      @realDonaldTrump
      @realDonaldTrump

      Does that count as three or does the first not count?

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 12 2019, @06:28PM (1 child)

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 12 2019, @06:28PM (#813405) Journal

        The first does not work because it is quotes.

        The second two cancel each other out because they resonate at the same frequency but exactly half way out of phase.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday March 12 2019, @08:03PM (1 child)

      by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Tuesday March 12 2019, @08:03PM (#813446) Homepage Journal

      You know what I'm going to say. If you read my Journal. You know. After so stupidly spending $7 trillion in the Middle East, the corrupt Food Starved Maduro regime must go! We are here to proclaim that a new day is coming in Latin America. In Venezuela and across the Western Hemisphere, Socialism is DIEING -- and liberty, prosperity, and democracy are being REBORN. The fight for freedom has begun! #VenezuelaStrong [twitter.com]

      • (Score: 1) by patricepetticoat on Thursday March 14 2019, @11:20PM

        by patricepetticoat (7344) on Thursday March 14 2019, @11:20PM (#814528)

        Weird how your comments often have scores of 2 or higher. Did you buy your second one the same way Laura Loughlin bought her daughter a place at USC? Is that in your Journal too? #Fullhouseeducation