Ehhh, two years late for a rocket isn’t terrible. Space is hard.
But yeah 2030 is an aggressive timeline. I’m shocked NASA didn’t go for an Apollo-style service module and lander that gets assembled in-orbit, launched by Falcon Heavies. That seems like the least crazy architecture and requires very little new technology.
They’ve also blown their entire development budget and have received another billion dollars in development funds.
The sheer number of people looking at starship’s delays and cost overruns and not seeing the exact same issues SLS had with Boeing are kind of staggering.
If you think that Starship has the exact same issues that SLS has you’re truly stretching reality. A billion dollars and two years is a TINY cost overrun compared to what they are doing. I know it sounds like a lot but for comparison, SLS costs like $2.5 billion per launch, not including development costs.
For comparison SLS spent about 2 billion in taxpayer money per year in development costs, and in the 4 years since the development contract was awarded to spaceX, they’ve spent around 5 billion in taxpayer money in development costs. (~1.25 billion per year)
For launch comparisons, the SLS can take a payload directly to the moon for 2.2 billion, while the proposed starship launch requires 10-12 refueling launches at ~1-2 million per launch (proposed, but falcon 9 heavy costs like 90 million per launch, so that puts it closer to 900 million-1.1 billion per combined launch)
I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch in reality to question these costs.
Ehhh, two years late for a rocket isn’t terrible. Space is hard.
But yeah 2030 is an aggressive timeline. I’m shocked NASA didn’t go for an Apollo-style service module and lander that gets assembled in-orbit, launched by Falcon Heavies. That seems like the least crazy architecture and requires very little new technology.
They’ve also blown their entire development budget and have received another billion dollars in development funds.
The sheer number of people looking at starship’s delays and cost overruns and not seeing the exact same issues SLS had with Boeing are kind of staggering.
If you think that Starship has the exact same issues that SLS has you’re truly stretching reality. A billion dollars and two years is a TINY cost overrun compared to what they are doing. I know it sounds like a lot but for comparison, SLS costs like $2.5 billion per launch, not including development costs.
For comparison SLS spent about 2 billion in taxpayer money per year in development costs, and in the 4 years since the development contract was awarded to spaceX, they’ve spent around 5 billion in taxpayer money in development costs. (~1.25 billion per year)
For launch comparisons, the SLS can take a payload directly to the moon for 2.2 billion, while the proposed starship launch requires 10-12 refueling launches at ~1-2 million per launch (proposed, but falcon 9 heavy costs like 90 million per launch, so that puts it closer to 900 million-1.1 billion per combined launch)
I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch in reality to question these costs.