NASA has published incredible slow motion footage showing the final test of the rocket intended to take American astronauts to Mars in 2030.
The footage shows the final test of the Space Launch System (SLS), and offers a spectacular view of the test-firing of a full-scale version of the solid rocket booster. NASA engineers and scientists used a special camera called the High Dynamic Range Stereo X (HiDyRS-X) to film the test.
The SLS booster rocket in the footage was developed by the private space firm Orbital ATK. The actual test lasted for two minutes.
America is currently better prepared to visit Mars than it was to visit the Moon in the 1960s, according to a study by NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The total costs of current plans to send Americans to Mars come out to roughly $35 billion spent by 2025 to arrive in 2030. Previous plans for a Mars mission proposed by former President George H.W. Bush in 1989 were projected to cost $400 billion in 1989 over 20 to 30 years. In comparison, the Apollo program which landed astronauts on the Moon would have cost roughly $170 billion, making cost estimates for current plans appear inexpensive in comparison.
Despite the relatively cheap price, plans for SLS to carry astronauts to Mars have been repeatedly sabotaged by the Obama administration, which was accused of leaking information to the press about missions and has threatened to veto the projects.
Funds intended to develop the SLS were diverted by Obama into global warming research.
The space agency’s budget includes more than $2 billion for its Earth Science Mission Directorate for global warming science, which is specifically allocated to improve climate modeling, weather prediction and natural hazard mitigation. In comparison, NASA’s other functions, such as astrophysics and space technology, are only getting $781.5 and $826.7 million, respectively, in the budget proposal.
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