Think about that, for every single launch of the 130 ton we could fund a company like spacex who quote 300 million per launch.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1979/1

“One estimate of individual SLS launch costs (not including the payload) can be obtained from private launch cost projections, which are now about ten times lower than the current prices for government-sponsored launchers like the Delta 4 Heavy, which are actually increasing due to reduced launch rates. If the projected cost for the Falcon Heavy is about $850–1,000 per pound, or $100 million per 53-ton launch, for about four launches a year, then the cost per pound for an SLS payload would be about ten times higher at $8,500 to $10,000 per pound to low Earth orbit (LEO). This would equate to about $1.3 billion for the 70-ton payload version and $2.45 billion for the 130-ton version. Projected launch costs for the proposed Falcon Super Heavy (150 tons to LEO) are about $300 million, giving cost per pound that are comparable to the Falcon Heavy or still about ten times cheaper per pound than existing costs or projected SLS costs. Some estimates for the SLS test launch costs are as much as 25 times more per pound ($25,000 per pound) than those for the Falcon Heavy. These estimates are based primarily on the development costs. If we include a typical government payload, the cost per mission (vehicle costs, operational launch costs and payload costs) approaches $5 billion or more per launch. It is thus probable that the cost of each SLS launch with payload will be much more than the cost of a shuttle launch, which recent calculations have shown to be about $1.5 billion apiece. The Shuttle did recover the “upper stage” (the Shuttle itself) with all of its expensive rocket engines”

NASA is not about getting hardware in space and exploring that is now painfully obvious to everyone now.

If you can not see the reality of the insane costs for NASA’s SLS then therapy is the only answer.

Please list 10 payloads to the Moon that require this lift capability.

“I have given talks on where we should concentrate in space activity, and why, and it is not Luna.”

I would imagine you and Dr. Spudis are not close friends…

“Congress won’t give a blank check to anyone not even themselves.”

I was being facetious, when you read some of the posts on space blogs, including here, they seem to think that Governor Romney will be going against what he has already stated and fully fund Constellion v2.0 and start on Griffin’s plan for a lunar base.

This is either hopelessly vague, or a circular definition.

Who needs any reason other than to build “cathedrals” for the astronaut cult:

http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Uncommentary.html

And what heavenly body is more holy than the one that houses the shrines of Apollo?

Go away, Mike. You’ve done enough damage to America’s space program.

You make my point. It’s a launcher without affordable payloads, so launching four to six unaffordable payloads a year makes life easier? Who are you kidding? (But yes, if your fantasizing includes launching tons of shielding for a cis-lunar space hab to allow people to stay up there safely for years at a time, that could be pretty cheap!) Also, as I’ve said, ISS isn’t going away soon, so counting those dollars is just fantasizing. Lots of fantasizing going on here, actually.

I thought he told Rand Simberg it wasn’t the time or place. Or does he just mean “experts” he already has a consensus with? The AIAA should have picked a better leader.