It Happened! Something Bad Is Happening With NASA Artemis. SpaceX to Save...
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It Happened! Something Bad Is Happening With NASA Artemis. SpaceX to Save...
NASA's efforts to return astronauts to the Moon's surface and build a space station orbiting the Moon have just become even more costly.
Recently, a report revealed that the estimated cost of NASA's launch tower has skyrocketed to nearly $3 billion. This new figure is even close to the entire cost of developing the Starship program up to this point!
So, why did the costs increase to such an insane amount? And how did Elon Musk react?
Let’s find out on today’s episode of Alpha Tech:
It Happened! Something Bad Is Happening With NASA Artemis. SpaceX to Save...
Nasa's massive Space Launch System (SLS), a rocket designed to send the Orion spacecraft to the Moon, will need an entirely separate launch tower, called Mobile Launcher 2, starting with Artemis IV.
This is because that mission is designed to kick off the construction of NASA's Lunar Gateway space station, an outpost in lunar orbit, no earlier than September 2028. The additional launch mass means NASA will need an even more powerful variant of its already enormous SLS—and a stronger launch platform.
Building this tower won’t be cheap; NASA estimates it will cost up to $1.8 billion and will be completed by September 2027. Now, according to a new harsh report from NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG), this tower could end up being much more expensive than initially expected. The office predicts that the 'total cost could reach $2.7 billion'—a bewildering figure that could significantly undermine NASA's ongoing efforts to establish a more permanent presence on and around the Moon.
It Happened! Something Bad Is Happening With NASA Artemis. SpaceX to Save...
OMG! No one wasn't surprised by this enormous number! Elon Musk, the head of SpaceX, with his large and small projects, even exclaimed, 'Holy smokes!' under a post about NASA's launch tower. Because, in reality, Elon Musk personally, for his space company and the entire trend of the current space industry, is moving towards the goal of reducing costs, making space exploration no longer considered a luxury.
With $2.7 billion in hand, you could do incredible things for SpaceX's services. Imagine renting 43 Falcon 9 rockets, each costing $62 million, to send a total of 762 tons of cargo into orbit. More interestingly, this mass is nearly 1/5 the weight of the launch tower itself! With an equivalent cost, we could even dream of sending the entire tower into space, skipping the intermediate steps.
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