The Space Launch System
 | Author:
Jeff Ross
Contributor |
This week we were supposed to see the launch of NASA's newest launch vehicle since the Space Shuttle was retired. As we know now, the launch was scrubbed last Monday. This launch system is the much delayed and far over budget Space Launch System. SLS has never launched and with this scrub still hasn't.
In every way you look at it, SLS is a giant leap backward: back to single-use boosters that fall into the ocean never to be recovered or reused, back to the massively budget-breaking expense of starting from scratch every single launch. Worse, the rocket engines in the boosters are engines salvaged from the Space Shuttle, so have already made many trips to space and returned for reuse. If SLS ever gets off the ground, it will be their last trip. A watery grave in the deep ocean will be their fate.
Contrast that with what SpaceX, Blue Horizon, and RocketLab are doing with reusable boosters that separate from the main system with enough fuel left aboard to successfully land, ready for reuse after a simple retrofit.
In my first column for MT43 News, I bemoaned the fact that I think we need a new challenge in space. I applaud NASA's ambitious Artemis Moon program to put humans back on the Moon by 2025 but, much as it pains me to say so, it might be better for NASA to get out of the rocket design business and let another transportation provider haul the load.
While we might not be seeing the un(hu)manned Artemis rocket on its 42-day mission to the Moon in the night sky this week, there is plenty else to see. The Moon will be at First Quarter, rising around noon and setting around midnight. We still have 3 visible planets in our night sky this week, with Saturn the first to rise, followed by Jupiter and then Mars.
With clear skies, of course.
