In article , says...

On 2020-05-19 5:40 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:

Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for Human Exploration
and Operations
ERIC BERGER - 5/19/2020, 4:37 PM - Ars Technica
https://tinyurl.com/y7pd5ydx
[snip]

I smell Boeing.

Jeff


Yeah, what up with this?

Seems very strange to get booted for something that hasn't even been
built yet. There's something here that doesn't meet the eye.

NASA eliminated Boeing's lander from the competition completely. Even
worse, for Boeing, none of the landers chosen to continue on at this
time will use SLS. All of the landers will use distributed launch
instead.

This is one more nail in the coffin for SLS. Once the landers prove the
cost efficiencies of distributed launch, compared to the insanely high
price of an SLS launch, what's to stop NASA from shifting Orion to
distributed launch?

You could launch Orion on a Falcon 9, Vulcan, or New Glenn and then
launch a high energy upper stage on another launch vehicle (Falcon
Heavy, Vulcan, or New Glenn). Dock the two in earth orbit, and away you
go. You can get Orion to Gateway for less than half a billion in launch
costs compared to the $1-$2 billion it's really going to cost to launch
SLS. Heck, even the RS-25E engines for one SLS launch are going to cost
NASA $400 million alone.

Obviously Congress will have to relent and stop funding SLS, but the
above sets up SLS to be a highly visible boondoggle that's holding back
other spending on human exploration of the moon (crewed bases, crewed
rovers, in-situ propellant production, and etc).

Note that the above is all speculation on my part. But given what
Senator Shelby has done in the past this seems likely. Remember when
the news broke that Shelby told ULA to never mention propellant depots,
squashing all engineering development they were planning to do as ride-
shares on Centaur upper stages? ULA even has the PDF on their website
still.

https://www.ulalaunch.com/docs/default-source/extended-
duration/cryogenic-orbital-testbed-(cryote)-2009.pdf

Note the year, 2009! Politics has held back development of propellant
depots for over a decade now. ULA has more experience with long term
cryogenic storage of propellants than any other US company.
Deliberately holding them back is absolutely horrible for US technology
development.

Some Congress critter (Boeing) threatening to expose some kind of shady
business deal that Loverro missed? Or a self-deal Loverro forgot to
divorce himself from?

Good question. I'm hoping we find out for sure, but it seems likely
that this has to do with the way that the human lander selection was
handled, IMHO.

Jeff
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