In his 1961 novel The Winter of Our Discontent, John Steinbeck wrote of loss, “It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”
The death of NASA’s Exploration Upper Stage today represents the inverse of that sentiment. The world of spaceflight is so much brighter now that its light has gone out.
The rocket’s death came via a seemingly pedestrian notice posted on a government procurement website: “NASA/MSFC intends to issue a sole source contract to acquire next-generation upper stages for use in Space Launch System (SLS) Artemis IV and Artemis V from United Launch Alliance (ULA).”
