8/15/2023 0 Comments Sls rocket![]() So here we are, nearly a dozen years after that authorization act was signed, and NASA is finally ready to launch the SLS rocket. Because of this, lawmakers have overlooked years of delays, a more than doubling in development costs to above $20 billion, and the availability of far cheaper and reusable rockets built by the private sector. It has been efficient at precisely one thing, spreading jobs around to large aerospace contractors in the states of key congressional committee leaders. NASA's SLS rocket program has been a hot mess almost from the beginning. The core stage's 8.4-meter diameter was identical to the space shuttle's external tank, which carried the same propellants for the shuttle's main engines.Īlas, construction wasn't that easy. The newest part of the vehicle would be its large core stage, housing liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel tanks to feed the rocket's four main engines. Its side-mounted boosters would be slightly larger versions of those that powered the shuttle for three decades. No problem-the SLS rocket would use engines left over from the space shuttle program. The most challenging aspect of almost any launch vehicle is its engines. And in some sense, this new SLS rocket was already built. At the time, NASA had been launching rockets, including very large ones, for half a century. ![]() Among its provisions, the law called on NASA to create the Space Launch System rocket and have it ready for launch in 2016. ![]() President Obama signed a NASA Authorization Act on October 11, 2010. Less than 11 years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon. At the time, the United States had put about 30 kg of small satellites into orbit. President Eisenhower signed the law establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on July 29, 1958.
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