The Space Launch System rocket program is now a decade and a half old, and it continues to be dominated by two unfortunate traits: It is expensive, and it is slow.
The massive rocket and its convoluted ground systems, so necessary to baby and cajole the booster’s prickly hydrogen propellant on board, have cost US taxpayers in excess of $30 billion to date. And even as it reaches maturity, the rocket is going nowhere fast.
You remember the last time NASA tried to launch the world’s largest orange rocket, right? The space agency rolled the Space Launch System out of its hangar in March 2022. The first, second, and thirds attempts at a wet dress rehearsal—elaborate fueling tests—were scrubbed. The SLS rocket was slowly rolled back to its hangar for work in April before returning to the pad in June.
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