Do we have to wait? Falcon Heavy already has ~75% of SLS Block 1's payload capacity (to LEO). For the $11.2 Billion that's earmarked for the next 4 years of SLS, you could buy 112 Falcon Heavy launces--one every ~17 days for four years. In contrast, the wiki lists a single planned flight for SLS during that period.
It's cheaper to buy, for sure. But we don't know the costs. It's possible that these launches are far less expensive than SLS, but equally unsustainable.
How might that be? SpaceX doesn't have to manufacture whole new rockets for every Falcon Heavy launch, but even if they did, as far back as 2016 they could build 16 new cores (5 Falcon Heavy's worth) per year.
Based on Starship’s partial-success in its very first test flight, as well as how routine rocket landing and recovery is becoming for SpaceX, I think Starship will fly, it’s only a matter of when not if.
The fact that SLS isn’t designed for reusability, making its per-launch cost something like $4billion, means it’s effectively already outclassed, outcompeted, and obsolete.
SLS was already made redundant when the Falcon Heavy flew.
'Let’s be very honest, We don’t have a commercially available heavy-lift vehicle. The Falcon 9 Heavy may some day come about. It’s on the drawing board right now. SLS is real.' - Charles Bolden
Note the reason given here isn't that the Falcon Heavy didn't have as large a payload capacity - that excuse came after it started flying years before SLS, because apparently we're supposed to pretend things can't be assembled in space over multiple trips rather than sending up a multi-billion-dollar rocket.
I'm just wondering what the excuse for keeping SLS around will be after a cheaper vehicle that can beat its payload is here. Jobs, for sure. What else?
Isn't it the case that f9h's lift capacity has increased over the years due to engine improvements and stage lengthening..? Iirc fairing size is still a major limiting factor.
The quote didn't say Falcon Heavy wasn't heavy lift, which was my point. It said Falcon Heavy was just something on the drawing board, versus SLS which was real. Except then Falcon Heavy ended up flying years before SLS eventually did.
I concur not much excuse remains. I suppose FH needs to be human-rated, but Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon module recently achieved that rating so FH could probably get it too without undue difficulty.
That's the answer. It's keeping the jobs (i.e. voters) in orbit around the senators. They could care less about space, as long as they can say they brought "jobs" to their state. If it does that, it works as designed.
It's probably not that simple as they could do what the EU does and create those jobs in purely civilian industries.
It's more about the political economy where funneling through certain well connected companies generate a lot of goodwill among the middlemen who then funds pac's and pay for advertisements then it's about a direct relationship between the senate and the employment status of their workers.
It is exactly that simple. Closing down a tank factory to build something in another state isn't going to help the representative in that district get elected.
But running that tank factory is probably the least effective way of converting tax dollars into employment.
And thats one senator in one district it takes 50% of both senate and congress to pass a bill and not everytone gets contracts that big assigned to their district so the system is not individual senators all trying to secure the biggest employment gain for their district, it's much less rational.
> And thats one senator in one district it takes 50% of both senate and congress to pass a bill and not everytone gets contracts that big assigned to their district so the system is not individual senators all trying to secure the biggest employment gain for their district, it's much less rational.
I can assure you that the people who live in Lima are aware of the politics surrounding the tank plant. If you don't live in Lima, I wonder why you believe you would have heard "anyone say they voted for senate based on Abrams tank manufacturing."
The way it works is, the politicians who got the plant created out there earned some cachet with voters, and politicians today would get crucified by voters and the unions if they tried to move the plant. It's important enough that presidents give speeches there. (to put that fully into context: there is absolutely no other reason for politicians to give speeches there or even to be there, except perhaps some obscure form of self-flagellation) And of course voters in the entire surrounding state are pretty sensitive to the notion of losing industrial jobs, which earns the plant some protection from the state's US senators as well. People on the other side of the state might not be talking about it today, but they'd be talking about the plant if it got closed. Politicians understand this.
> I always hear this and I never hear anyone say they voted for senate based on Abrams tank manufacturing or whatever.
You never see a senator take credit for a plant opening/expanding on their re-election blurb/townhall? You must be in an incredibly safe state.
> Why doesn't the logic apply to infrastructure projects which seem more marketable?
It applies to them, too. Again, if you're not seeing this, either your senator isn't doing much of it, you're not paying much attention to their campaign, or they are in such an incredibly safe district that their only challenger is Bozo the Clown.
I didn't say that, I said I've never seen it swing a vote. I'm sure people working at the missile factory vote but it's a relatively small number.
Re: infra, you're right, I guess I'm just letting my personal bias in when wondering why they don't do more of that compared to the weapons. It seems like such an easier sell to voters, but the emphasis seems to go the other way.
(Also, in my limited sample size, all of this has taken a smaller and smaller back seat to culture war stuff in modern day campaigning)
Raytheon employs 12,000 people in Tucson alone, about 6% of the number of people who voted in the election for Arizona's 7th congressional district in 2022. Those people also have friends and family who would care if they got laid off.