NASA's ROAD BACK TO THE MOON - Very Big rocket Launch - 2nd Sept 18:48

On a happier note

"it might be a small step for a human, it’s a giant leap for lambkind"

The Mars Climate Orbiter was lost because Lockheed Martin didn't use metric software, though NASA should have caught that, and the guidance people's advice to do symmetrical burns was ignored, which would have cancelled the effect, instead it was off by 57Km when it got to Mars.

1960's Centaur and Saturn V upper stages were to be relativity cheap and quick because they built on the 1950's hydrogen work for the USAF Lockheed CL-400 Suntan. (The USAF also looked at Boron based fuels. Money wasn't an issue for them.) Centaur and it's RL10 are workhorses that have been flying since 1962.

The shuttle was to be relativity cheap and quick because they built on the hydrogen tech from Saturn V, mostly the J-2.

Ares etc. were to be relativity cheap and quick because they built on the tech from the Shuttle.

SLS was to be relativity cheap and quick and low risk because it built on the tech from the Shuttle. But they threw away all the stuff that looked easy and found out it wasn't.

Shuttle-C could have put 77 tonnes into LEO while reusing everything off the shuttle without modification except the wings and fuselage of the orbiter. There were even plans to modify two remaining orbiters. Program was cancelled in 1990 because the RS-25 engines would have cost $38m each ($86m adjusted for inflation). Instead for SLS a cheaper simpler non-reusable version, the RS-25F engine was developed with the help of three decades of progress in metallurgy and 3D printing and now cost $145m* each including R&D. ( the second batch only cost $100m )

Back in the days of Saturn V there was a need to inject money into the economy and the high priority and importance and sheer national pride of the project lead to new levels of quality control in addition to technical advances in electronics and when the program was over the workforce was able to take this ethos and knowledge into the industry. That was the real payoff of the Apollo program. Now over half of NASA's budget goes to US aerospace ie. competitors of Airbus who ironically are building the Service Module.

SLS and it's predecessor programs by contrast have been dragging on since before the Shuttle was cancelled, it isn't the cold war anymore and everyone and their dog knows the main purpose is to get Senators from the deep south re-elected. It's been dragging on so long that SpaceX have come out of nowhere by comparison.

*Falcon Heavy can put 63 tonnes into LEO for $150m vs 70 tonnes for Block 1 of SLS , it can't launch Orion and it's service module though. The next block of SLS should have better performance. A Starship refuelled in orbit would completely own it though.

November 14. .. NASA will have a 69-minute launch window starting at 1207 EST (0507 UTC). If the flight succeeds, the SLS will send the Orion capsule into lunar orbit where it will spend about 25 days in space before splashing back down to Earth on December 9.

The SRB's are reaching their use by date.

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Could this be a new fall (sorry) tradition ?

Every November the SLS is rolled out to the pad, and if you see its shadow then it's 1 more year of testing

If they get lucky the storm will take out the rocket and there'll be another year of pork.