On 2020-05-24 4:38 PM, JF Mezei wrote:
On 2020-05-24 14:54, David Spain wrote:

The motivation for that is believed to be Loverro's preference for
Boeing's proposal for the Artemis lander of one single assembly launched
on SLS rather than having Artemis assembled in orbit. The reasoning
being he thought this was a much more plausible approach to achieving a
lander by 2024.



Consider that no matter who does the lander, SLS is needed by 2024 to
send Orion to/from moon. No SLS, no moon.

As Robert Zubrin points out, that is not true. But Congress has its own
SCIFI show it wants to put on.

https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/moon-direct


Since failure of SLS kils the project even if all the other parts are
delivered on time, there is some logic is wanting to put all your eggs
in the SLS basket because that might increase the chances SLS would fly
on time.

VP Pense left open the door for the possibility of a moon program that
does not require SLS should it not come to fruition. Part of the reason
for the 2024 deadline I believe. But 2024 is unrealistic for many
reasons other than killing off SLS. There is a big problem here. An
unworkable deadline that is causing trouble on multiple fronts. It'll
probably be left to the *next* administration to figure it out.


Here, when government announce a bridge reconstruction, they make a nice
photo op launch of project annoucing 200 billion to rebuild the bridge.
What they don't say is they are allocating $2000/year over 100,000,000
years to rebuild it. So basically over a 4 years term they are
committing $8000 which has no impact on the budget, yet allows them to
make a great photo-op/political promise.

Until ARTEMIS, SLS was pure pork with no mission. It had a budget that
was low enough to remain under the radar, and high enough to keep plats
opened and employees hired with no real need to deliver anything.

ARTEMIS gives SLS a mission, but no additional budgets. Had Boeing
gotten the contract, then SLS could have moved from "life support of
plamts" to "need to deliver a product" budgets.

So in a way, giving Boeing the contract would have icreased the oods
that SLS would becoem real. So there is some logic in pushing it,
because it is doubtful that SLS in its current state of life support
will be ready.



I see where you are coming from here, but I don't agree. Boeing marches
to its own tune. As long as SLS remains under cost plus contracts I
don't see why anything would change. It would limp along as always,
eventually launching something (likely an Orion capsule) to LEO. We
still don't have an upper stage to attach to whatever Artemis ends up
being, which is still a set of competitive proposals at this stage.

This is where Kennedy's dreakm of landing a man on the moon and bringing
him back safely by 1969 was most excellent: it really drove contractors
to stop thinking about jobs and pork and think about delivering on time.

Alas, Trump's 2024 is not realistic.


But it's really not needed now. We have at least one private company
(maybe two) that will someday likely have the ability to execute this
previously solved problem of crewed lunar landings and do it on their
own. Lunar landings no longer capture the public's imagination because
it has been done. What will matter long run is if there is a dollar or
two to be made there. Even if it means grabbing bucks from
living-off-the-Earth-no-matter-what fanatics or their scientific
equivalents.

Dave