SLS is still a national disgrace
Four years ago, unable to find a comprehensive summary of the ongoing abject failure known as the NASA SLS (Space Launch System), I wrote one. If you’re unfamiliar with the topic, you should read it first.
It is hard to believe four years have gone by, but in all that time, the SLS has launched only once. Time flies when the rocket doesn’t. I don’t often write blogs in a sharply critical tone, so as always, the usual disclaimers apply. I write in my personal capacity as some Guy with an Opinion on the Internet.
Four years ago, I wrote that the SLS was a cripplingly embarrassing national failure and a tragedy waiting to happen. That remains true, of course, but now I will go further and underscore that by continuing to humor this monstrosity, NASA has squandered its technical integrity and credibility.
In ways that are far clearer to me now, after three years of running my own budget- and schedule-constrained hardware technology development program, I have more insight into the structural issues that evidently underlie every part of the SLS program.
