In article ,
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On 2018-04-14 20:52, Jeff Findley wrote:

I'm talking about today. SLS is bull$hit today. You don't allow
something this expensive and useless to keep on going due to decisions
made in the past based on assumptions that have changed.

But it can be argued that until SpaceX's manned Dragon flies
succesfully, it could be wise to continue NASA's manned rockets
development just in case. (what happens if Musk's business has to go
chapter 11, or some technical probvlem indefinitely delayed manned
Dragon etc etc.

And if Dragon is to become real say by end of 2018, then continuing SLS
until end of 2018 isn't that big a deal in the grand schjeme of things
(where military spends 700 billion a year).

Boeing's CST-100 (Starliner) is following the same schedule as Dragon 2.
The US will have 3 manned capsules, if Orion ever flies.

Commercial launch vehicles are here and they're cheaper than ever.

Not manned ones. (not yet)

Unmanned tests this year for both Dragon 2 and Starliner with possible
manned tests by the end of the year. NASA expects those dates to slip
with only the unmanned tests happening this year. From news reports,
it's NASA's certification process (they don't have enough people with
the right experience to review progress) that's slowing things down, not
the contractor's progress.

This is the classic spin-off argument. That's almost always bull$hit
too because the SLS program isn't doing much in the way of scientific
research,

No debate there. I was arguing that NASA direction should have been to
do massive R&D to develop new technooogies instead of being directed to
build a new rocket with technology choices imposed by politicians.

I'll buy that, but they should be working on near term tech with direct
application to space transportation. Things like fuel depots and the
like.

Nuclear thermal propulsion wouldn't be bad either, but I don't have much
confidence that today's risk averse NASA would make the same kind of
rapid progress they did on NTR that they did in the 1960s. This is one
reason I don't support NTR today. Even if funded, I feel like it would
always be "five years away" from first flight with NASA managing the
process.

But they'll still be dropping *all* of the SLS hardware in the ocean
for
each and every flight. In a world where reusables are coming into their
own, that's just stupid.

At the time ARES/Orion were launched, it was decided expandable was
cheaper than re-usable. SpaceX proved that to be very wrong, but that
is only very recent.

So what? We're talking about where we go from here, not where we should
go 10+ years ago!

For NASA, it is still better to have a bloody expensive SLS/Orion than
nothing (in case all other projects fail).

But all other projects have not failed. Falcon Heavy is a reality.
Both Dragon 2 and Starliner are both set to fly years before Orion.

Have you read the news? The Exploration Upper Stage for SLS is
slipping, BADLY! NASA is switching to using the Interim Upper Stage
for the first several SLS flights instead of just the first. The other
two commercial crew programs are not facing the same constant delays of
key pieces of their systems.

I suspect that once commercial has manned programmes proven and running,
it will be the end of NASA trying to build rockets, and NASA's
involvement with rockets will be the same as it has for commercial
airplanes. Pure R&D.

If that were true, we'd have just a scant two more years of SLS funding
meaning it wouldn't even get to first flight (which is still about 3
years away). I have a feeling the pork will keep flowing at least
through a few flights. Perhaps the Exploration Upper Stage will finally
be canceled, but I doubt that too.

I figure it will take both BFR and New Armstrong both flying before the
Congresscritters admit defeat and cancel SLS. So, we've got 5-10 years
to go by my guess. That's easily a lost opportunity cost of tens of
billions of dollars from here on out.

Jeff
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