🚀 Standing tall

Good morning, friends, it’s your Space Coast correspondent James Sparvero, and it’s a very exciting start to the week at KSC.

NASA on Monday is giving media the rare opportunity to go inside the Vehicle Assembly Building and see the Space Launch System rocket that could now send astronauts around the moon in 2026 during Artemis II.

I had the privilege of getting this access ahead of Artemis I a few years ago. And as if the VAB doesn’t make you feel tiny, standing next to NASA’s most powerful rocket ever certainly makes you feel just as puny.

Of course, I should also note the elephant in the room that you could argue is even bigger than a 320-foot rocket - the uncertain future of the over-budgeted, often delayed SLS.

It’s only been two weeks since administrator Bill Nelson announced that Artemis II is slipping from September 2025 to April 2026, and the moon landing mission with astronauts - Artemis III - won’t happen until at least 2027.

Nelson said NASA needs the extra time to make sure everything will be as safe as possible for the crew after a long investigation into how the Orion capsule’s heat shield was charred unexpectedly during the uncrewed Artemis I reentry two years ago.

NASA says it won’t have to replace the heat shield (that would’ve delayed Artemis II even longer). Instead, the Orion capsule with its first crew will return to Earth slower than Artemis I and, therefore, the capsule won’t get quite as hot.

So those are the plans, for now -- that we know about -- but we don’t know yet the plans of the next NASA administrator.

President Trump has nominated billionaire tech entrepreneur and private astronaut Jared Isaacman of Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn to lead the agency when Nelson’s time comes to a close as administrations change in January.

If Isaacman didn’t already have an argument for cancelling the SLS, the latest delays could certainly make any argument stronger.

However, during the update two weeks ago, Nelson gave his perspective on canceling SLS in favor of making SpaceX’s Starship carry the Artemis program on its own. While Starship is contracted to be the lunar lander for the Artemis III mission, Nelson pointed out SLS is still the only rocket that’s fully operational between the two right now as Starship is still in its testing phases.

NASA will have who they refer to as subject matter experts to talk to me today about the SLS booster and solid rocket boosters being prepared to be stacked, but I don’t expect any of them to comment further on speculation of the program’s future.

Nevertheless, I still expect to have a few jaw-dropping moments getting close to the huge hardware, and I look forward to showing you today as well!

📧 Do you have any specific space topics you’d like to discuss? Send me an email here.

👋 Here’s a little bit more about me.

Little did I know when watching Apollo 13 in the third grade that 20 years later, I was destined for a thrilling career as your Space Coast multimedia journalist.

Chemistry and biology weren’t so interesting to me in high school science, but I loved my Earth and Space class (Thanks, Mr. Lang).

Then in 2016, I traded Capitol correspondent in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for space correspondent. I’m proud that my first live report at News 6 happened to be the first time SpaceX landed a Falcon 9 booster on a barge. What seems so routine now was a really big deal that day in our newsroom!

From there, I’ve covered the Commercial Crew program and the return of human spaceflight to Kennedy Space Center (Demo-2 launched on my 33rd birthday!)

Now, as our coverage looks forward to missions to the moon and Mars, I often tell others I have the best job in local news. Because after all I’ve seen so far, I think I would be bored working somewhere else. I even bought a house near the Cape with a great view to the north so I never miss a launch even when I’m not working.

After eight years on the beat, though, I still consider myself a young space reporter and I always look forward to learning something new with every assignment.

Have a great launch into the rest of your week!