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takyon writes:

Guess what's on the receiving end of more NASA dollars for SLS?

Hint: It rhymes with 'throwing' as lawmakers baulk at lobbing an unknown amount of cash into the 2024 lunar bonfire[.]

NASA brought a smile to faces of Boeing shareholders this week with the announcement that it would be ordering 10 Space Launch System (SLS) core stages from the US aviation giant for Artemis rocket launches to the Moon. Although paying for the things could be tricky.

[...]It is expected that the next batch of rocket core stages will not suffer the same hideous cost overruns and horrendously drawn-out birthing process of the first build, which might finally fly in 2021 after years of delay.

While more ex-Shuttle RS-25 engines will be needed for dumping into the ocean after the non-reusable SLS is expended, NASA also wants Boeing to finally get on with building the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) to be used from Artemis IV. The EUS is essential to send heftier payloads of the order of 45 tons into lunar orbit.

The comparatively weedy Interim Cryogenic Propulsion stage will be used on the first three Artemis missions in NASA's headlong rush to get those boots on the surface to meet US President Donald Trump's 2024 deadline.

And that arbitrary 2024 date is causing some furrowed brows. At a hearing of the House Appropriations Committee's Commerce, Justice and Science subcommittee into NASA's proposal to bring the Moon landing forward from 2028, US lawmakers hauled the agency over the coals as the price tag for all the lunar japery remained unclear.

See also: A House budget committee has likely killed the 2024 Moon landing
NASA will award Boeing a cost-plus contract for up to 10 SLS rockets
Rocket Report: The Falcon 9 goes for four, Boeing's big cost-plus deal

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