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from the cost-plus-contracting-the-spice-must-flow dept.
Rich Smith at The Motley Fool opines that NASA's SLS Rocket Just Got $3.2 Billion More Expensive:
How much is too much to pay for an SLS rocket? And how much is so much that it gets SLS canceled?
At an estimated $1.55 billion in cost per launch, and $209 billion total over its 30-year history, the U.S. Space Shuttle program was easily NASA's most expensive project since the Apollo Moon Program -- but NASA's next project is going to make it look like a bargain. Two years ago, an investigation by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimated that each time NASA launches its new Space Launch System (SLS), taxpayers will ante up "over $2 billion."
As it turns out, OMB was being optimistic.
[...] Last week, NASA awarded one of its main subcontractors on the SLS project, Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC), a $3.2 billion contract to build booster rockets for five SLS rockets that will participate in the Project Artemis moon program.
[...] These boosters are essential to the Artemis program, providing "more than 75% of the thrust for each SLS launch," as NASA explains, but they do come at a cost. Specifically, each rocket booster will cost taxpayers -- and benefit Northrop Grumman -- more than $290 million.
[...] For the cost of just one Northrop Grumman booster rocket (which will be discarded after launch), NASA could buy two entire SpaceX rocketships. For what Northrop is charging to help launch one single SLS, NASA could launch four Falcon Heavy missions.
Your tax dollars at work. Also: Re-usable shuttle engines on an expendable launcher.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday December 22 2021, @07:38AM
Nowhere near the required capacity, you'd need to cluster, say, a main ring of 24 engines at the outer edge of the booster and the core propulsion system consisting of the inner 6 engines at about half diameter, with the control system based on differential throttling of the engines of the outer ring for pitch and yaw.
You could give it a name based on its country of origin, the first big New Zealand rocket, so N1.