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posted by martyb on Wednesday February 21 2018, @11:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the SpaceX-did-the-FH-for-about-half-that dept.

NASA's nearly billion-dollar mobile launcher tower for the Space Launch System (SLS) is leaning, and may be discarded after a single use:

[The "mobile launcher" component] supports the testing and servicing of the massive SLS rocket, as well as moving it to the launch pad and providing a platform from which it will launch.

According to a new report in NASASpaceflight.com, the expensive tower is "leaning" and "bending." For now, NASA says, the lean is not sufficient enough to require corrective action, but it is developing contingency plans in case the lean angle becomes steeper.

These defects raise concerns about the longevity of the launch tower and increase the likelihood that NASA will seek additional funding to build a second one. In fact, it is entirely possible that the launch tower may serve only for the maiden flight of the SLS rocket in 2020 and then be cast aside. This would represent a significant waste of resources by the space agency.

[...] [From] the tower's inception in 2009, NASA will have spent $912 million on the mobile launcher it may use for just a single launch of the SLS rocket. Moreover, the agency will have required eight years to modify a launch tower it built in two years.

The second mobile launcher, intended for larger versions of the SLS, will cost about $300 million (if not more).

Related: Maiden Flight of the Space Launch System Delayed to 2019
Trump Space Adviser: Mars "Too Ambitious" and SLS is a Strategic National Asset
NASA Opens Door to Possibly Lowering SLS Cost Using Blue Origin's Engines
After the Falcon Heavy Launch, Time to Defund the Space Launch System?


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:24PM (19 children)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:24PM (#641163) Journal

    Whatever you say, comrade. Now give me your money or me and my buddies will kill you and your family.

    Now do you want government?

    --
    This sig for rent.
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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:41PM (16 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:41PM (#641165)

    Your government demands money under the threat of increasingly lethal force for refusal—the more you defend yourself, the more likely you'll be killed.

    Indeed, that's what makes an organization a government: It allocates resources by coercion rather than by agreement in advance; whether it's Uncle Sam or Dear Leader, it's the same.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Freeman on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:30PM (8 children)

      by Freeman (732) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:30PM (#641263) Journal

      Except, Uncle Sam has a set of laws he has to follow, too. Where as Dear Leader's whims are law. "Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:06PM (7 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:06PM (#641324)

        You're basically assuming that which we want to prove: This particular organization ("Uncle Sam") is going to follow well defined rules of interaction.

        Not only is that circular logic, but it's patently false; history is replete with uncontested examples of Uncle Sam breaking the law, or twisting it so far beyond what anybody thought the law meant that it might as well be fraud. What else can you expect from a monopoly, especially one that grew out of violent imposition rather than voluntary interaction?

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:45PM (6 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:45PM (#641349)

          All true, but history also shows that every other form of government has resulted in far worse. Anarchy doesn't work out in practice, and the "series of contracts" is what government already is, we call them "laws". To address what I feel is an inevitable reply, competing contract enforcers is basically a re-imagined city state scenario which even if done perfectly would eventually devolve as some megalomaniac gains control and vies for power.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:19PM (5 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:19PM (#641378)
            • Legislation is imposition of rules; that's why legislators in the US were able to "outlaw" beer bars that had been operating continuously for 100 years—it's like letting one team come up with rules during a basketball game.

              Contracts are agreement to rules in advance of interaction; a dispute means there is a lack of a well defined contract. The whole point of law by contracts is to approach willing adoption (a very profitable state of society), not "win" by imposing your ideas on other people (a very dangerous state of society in which we find ourselves constantly today).

            • Your "city state" scenario isn't solved by your "government" idea, so I actually have no idea what your point is.

            • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:40PM (4 children)

              by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:40PM (#641386) Journal

              Do contracts never get re-negotiated?

              --
              "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:09PM (3 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:09PM (#641398)

                Contract negotiation and enforcement is necessarily an iterative process; within a free market, they constitute an evolutionary process towards a system of interaction that best fits the environment at hand.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:33PM (2 children)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:33PM (#641449)

                  Free market troll strikes again!

                  Learn about how humanity functions. Even AI is unlikely to be the perfect arbiter required for your fantasy, humans are too good at corrupting systems.

                  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @11:31PM (1 child)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @11:31PM (#641502)

                    Men aren't angels. So, why put them in control of a culturally blessed, violently imposed monopoly? Fool.

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @05:21AM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @05:21AM (#641641)

                      I'll bite this bait.

                      Back at you sucka, but yer too stoopid to understaaaaand

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:33PM (6 children)

      by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:33PM (#641267)

      Except for a few places, the Mob is typically not considered a government.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:18PM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:18PM (#641336)

        I've heard both Uncle Sam and the Mob described as "That gang of thugs."

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:47PM (4 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:47PM (#641353)

          I know I would prefer Uncle Sam to Uncle Tony any day. If you think they are equivalent then you've been buying the propaganda of "they're all equal / the same!" No, no they are not.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:08PM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:08PM (#641373)

            The absolute Monarchy in France was preferable to Kim's North Korean regime. What's your point, straw man?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:39PM (2 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:39PM (#641456)

              Do some more research mud guy, the French monarchy was not always good otherwise the heads wouldn't have rolled. You still have no reply on how to make your system work or how to overcome the human aspects.

              You fail hard yet again, no value added to this conversation.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @02:54AM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @02:54AM (#641591)

                Nobody claimed that the French monarchy was always good.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @12:20AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @12:20AM (#642108)

                  More and more I think you might be a bot. Or a human with sub 100 IQ. The best you can do is regurgitate the arguments used against you, but the obvious misapplication gives you away. The only thing going for you is your vocabulary, but with thesaurus.com that isn't exactly solid backing on the net.

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:27PM (1 child)

    by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:27PM (#641214)
    Given that the Police are under no legal responsibility to actually protect you or your family [freerepublic.com] having no government isn't much different as having one in that regard.
    --
    "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
    • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday February 22 2018, @07:59PM

      by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday February 22 2018, @07:59PM (#641940) Journal

      Given that the Police have indeed protected me and my family on more than one occasion, and that when I stop to render assistance at accidents as a Good Samaritan I've always had the police there in short order to offer scene protection as I do medical stuff (if they weren't there already), yeah I think there is indeed a big difference between having government and police and having an anarchic mob with roving street gangs. But you are very welcome to live a region where they offer no protection at all as a matter of course. Let me know when you find such a place that also isn't under the protection of something like ISIS or a warlord.

      --
      This sig for rent.