Jeff Findley wrote on Sun, 31 Mar 2019
15:15:17 -0400:

In article ,
says...

http://www.moondaily.com/reports/US_...asy_999.h tml

What are the chances of this really happening?

Without major structural changes? Zero.

What would need to change:

1. Cancel SLS (not useful ever) and defer Gateway (may be useful later).


SLS should have been cancelled several years ago. I've never quite
got the point of Gateway, since it seems to make the main development
goal something that isn't useful until years after it's done.


2. Find another way to launch Orion using commercial launch vehicles.
If NASA can crew rate Falcon 9 and Atlas V, surely they can do the same
for a vehicle which has the payload capacity to launch Orion.


They can launch it but they can't get it to anywhere important. They
need a high energy upper stage that can be independently rendezvoused
with and docked to Orion (and its Service Module).


3. Full speed ahead on commercial lunar landers. Starting small and
working up to something crew rated in about 5 years is going to be
challenging at best. The only way this will happen successfully is if
NASA runs this like they did commercial cargo. If they run it like
commercial crew, they're going to stick their noses in places they don't
need to be and slow the entire process down.


I (vaguely) recall that NASA thinks they can get a lander done in 24
months. Personally I think they're smoking something.


4. Full speed ahead on commercial LEO propellant depots. You don't need
SLS if you can refuel your upper stage in LEO. Doubly true for
refueling the lunar lander(s). Landers can become reusable if an
additional propellant depot is attached to Gateway (I'm assuming it
can't be killed).


I'm not a fan of propellant depots. They restrict orbital plane and
such you can refuel in. It still makes more sense to me to use
'tankers' and launch them as you need them.

I admire Bridenstine's
boldness, but this seems incredulous to me, as there haven't even been any
contracts awarded for building a lander. In addition, NASA is attempting to
build the Lunar Gateway and SLS at the same time.

I'd immediately cancel SLS and defer Gateway until after the first (in
this century) lunar landing. But that's not going to happen. Canceling
ISS won't happen either.


They'll never get a lunar landing by 2024 if they insist on building
their architecture around Gateway.

If Bridenstine's serious about this he should cancel ISS, SLS and the Lunar
Gateway and start developing an architecture based on Falcon Heavy hauling
up and assembling subsections of a lunar mission (lander, service module,
reentry capsule, Trans-Lunar Injection stage) in orbit.

Falcon Heavy and all other US launch vehicles which can do the job.
We're not going to drive down prices and have assured access without
more than one provider.


Falcon Heavy costs like half of what Delta IV Heavy. The fastest
approach might be to develop the four strap on Falcon and use that.

But given the current political climate, I don't see this ever becoming
reality.

Nope. At best SLS will lumber on for a couple more years. Hopefully by
then we'll see both Starship/Super Booster and New Glenn flying. I was
hoping for New Armstrong, but at the pace Blue Origin is moving, New
Glenn will have to do. The good thing about New Glenn is its *huge*
payload fairing. Perfect for a big crewed lunar lander.


I don't think we're going to kill SLS. I think we'll complete
development and blow a billion dollars a year to shoot one off
annually for no good purpose.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw