Quote:
Originally Posted by kscherer
If SLS works, then it's an engineering achievement worth celebrating. But, the bashing is due to the fact that SLS is less a means to get men back on the moon as much as it's a means to get politicians reelected.
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I’m no fan of SLS. It’s 5 years late, it’s bloated, and ridiculously expensive. It’s not even as capable as Saturn V. I fully know why SLS exists and it’s due to clowns like Senator Shelby.
BUT….. I’m able to separate the politics of it and realizing SLS is the crap platter that was handed to NASA. Bash SLS and the politics that is keeping it alive. But don’t bash for bashing sake because it’s the popular thing to do. I personally don’t have an huge issue with them going for a launch attempt without testing this bleed system fully. If it worked it worked. If it didn’t, it didn’t. This was not an issue that would cause the rocket to blow up mid-flight. If it failed, it failed in the exact manner we saw yesterday. For me it was an acceptable risk to take. Now them considering skipping the green run or making Artemis-1 crewed, that is an unacceptable risk. Heck I’m unsure about only do doing only one uncrewed flight. It took two unmanned launches of Saturn V to find big issues with the current design. Apollo 4 went smooth, but issues presented themselves with Apollo 6. So I’m glad they decided against skipping green run and keeping it uncrewed. I still question how Ars if they were around during the Apollo days would react to Apollo 4. An all up test was not the norm back then. But due to Saturn V development falling behind, they took that risk to help catch back up. That was by far a greater risk taken then NASA going for a launch attempt with SLS yesterday. Heck STS-1 was by far the riskiest thing NASA has ever decided to do. So don’t expect me to latch onto Ars trying to stir outrage over them not doing another WDR just to test the bleed system.
SpaceX has had far more blunders in starship/super heavy development and they get a pass from the public/media( besides the at the time great articles after a boom). Heck a lot of it isn’t even covered( again the orbital tank farm was a complete cluster of a mess up).