Pin of the Month: NASA's Space Launch System

In 2010, before the shuttle fleet was mothballed, the US government knew they’d need a replacement, so Congress gave NASA a budget and mandate to build the SLS. The Space Launch System wasn’t just supposed to replace the shuttle. It needed to return astronauts to the Moon, too. So engineers couldn’t just build Shuttle 2.0. They had to kick things up a few notches. The SLS rocket was designed to be modular, with different configurations for different missions. Sending humans to the Moon? Use one configuration. Sending a massive space probe on an interplanetary mission? A different configuration! Each configuration, however, has the same core stage with four shuttle main-engines stuck to the bottom. That’s one more than any shuttle used at a time, you need that many if you’re trying to get something all the way into lunar orbit. Combine these pieces of cannibalized space shuttle tech with a brand new paint job, and you can almost believe the SLS is the offspring of the shuttle and th