NASA Defends Its SLS Rocketship, Says $2 Billion Price Tag Is Wrong

NASA's SLS catches a lot of flak.

The Space Launch System is a joint effort by contractors including Boeing (NYSE: BA), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), Aerojet Rocketdyne (NYSE: AJRD), and Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) to build the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V moon rocket -- and enable NASA to send astronauts back to the moon, and eventually to Mars. Problem is, the $35 billion project is overdue and over budget, and for months there have been rumblings that SLS could be destined for cancellation.

In 2018, for example, multiple space insiders attending the National Space Society conference in Los Angeles were quoted expressing doubts about SLS's technical immaturity. By early 2019, concerned with rising costs, the Trump administration's fiscal 2020 budget proposal called for cuts to SLS funding. And just last month, a report out of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) suggested that costs were so out of control that SLS, once thought to cost $1 billion per launch, is now more likely to cost "over $2 billion per launch" -- and by some estimates much, much more.

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Source Fool.com