| Title | Charlie Bolden Says the Quiet Part Out Loud: SLS Rocket Will Go Away | |
| Date | Saturday September 12 2020, @09:38AM | |
| Author | Fnord666 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the from-the-are-we-talking-about-real-money-yet? dept. | ||
Charlie Bolden says the quiet part out loud: SLS rocket will go away:
Charlie Bolden, a four-time astronaut, served as NASA administrator from mid-2009 through early 2017. During that time, he oversaw the creation and initial development of the agency's large Space Launch System rocket.
Although some NASA officials such as then-Deputy Director Lori Garver were wary of the rocket's costs—about $20 billion has now been poured into development of a launch vehicle based on existing technology—Bolden remained a defender of the large rocket, calling it a lynchpin of the agency's plans to send humans beyond low-Earth orbit, perhaps to the Moon or Mars. He also dismissed the efforts of commercial space companies like SpaceX to build comparable technology.
[...] Since that time, a lot has changed. In February, 2018, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time. It has since flown successfully two more times, and it will play a role in NASA's future exploration plans. Meanwhile, the SLS rocket, originally due to launch in 2017, is now delayed until at least the end of 2021.
As a result of this, Bolden appears to have changed his mind. In an interview with Politico published Friday morning in the publication's Space newsletter, Bolden was asked what might happen during the next four years.
"SLS will go away," he said. "It could go away during a Biden administration or a next Trump administration... because at some point commercial entities are going to catch up. They are really going to build a heavy lift launch vehicle sort of like SLS that they will be able to fly for a much cheaper price than NASA can do SLS. That's just the way it works."
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printed from SoylentNews, Charlie Bolden Says the Quiet Part Out Loud: SLS Rocket Will Go Away on 2024-04-19 09:07:26