/sci/ - Science & Math

>>12159642
If there was a single guy coming up with the bad ideas it'd be a hell of a lot easier to fix, but instead it's just a blob of entrenched overlapping financial and political interests forcing outcomes that nobody would have designed.

You have to remember that 2011 was a very different time than 2020. There had been a grand total of 2 falcon 9 flights, and most people had given up on the idea that we could drastically reduce launch costs just by building a better rocket. Any moon program on the table was going to be expensive and time-consuming. Yes, a new hydrocarbon first stage would have been better, but it didn't look THAT much better at the time. Solid-boosted hydrogen cores have been intuitively appealing to aerospace engineers ever since the Air Force was looking at their own moon program in the late 50s. When NASA was given much more freedom to choose their new rockets with Constellation, they still wanted to stick with solid-boosted hydrolox (albeit with new engines).

>>12159696
The Dems controlled the White House and Senate when SLS was mandated. It's far from just Shelby.