SLS alternatives

"Robert Clark" wrote in message
...

On Oct 23, 1:16 pm, Matt Wiser wrote:

On Tuesday, October 23, 2012 9:54:26 AM UTC-7, Robert Clark wrote:
On Oct 23, 1:40 am, "Matt Wiser" wrote:

Big problem for anti-SLS types: NO political support. There's a grand
total

of one congresscritter who's on record as opposing SLS: Rep. Dana

Rohrabacher (R-CA). And his motives are not entirely pu Space X
has a

facility in his district, and there's several commercial space
outfits with

facilities in SoCal, and no doubt some of his constitutents work at
those

firms.

Nice try, though....

Unlike many supporters of commercial space I'm neutral on the

question of the SLS. My view is that commercial space will go on

whether or not the SLS is funded.

Also, in an upcoming blog post I'll discuss that the very first

versions of the SLS scheduled to launch in 2017 will be able to launch

manned lunar missions.

Bob Clark

Which is something that NASA intends to to: The first human Orion/SLS
mission
will be Lunar Orbit. Maybe two or three lunar orbit flights of longer
duration before
going to L-2 or this President's precious NEO mission. I'm still a "Moon
First" type,
though..

After I wrote that post, I realized I left out a key word: with the
first launch of the SLS in 2017 we will have the capability to launch
manned LANDER lunar missions. This will be important since it will
provide an important, definite mission for the SLS from the very first
launch. The SLS has been called a "rocket to nowhere". That in fact it
will have the capability to return us to the Moon from the very first
launch will be an important point to promote its continued funding.

The key word there is "capability". Unfortunately there's really no real
drive or mission beyond platitudes to do so.

So it's still a rocket to nowhere that can do something no one really wants
to be pay for (monetarily or polically).


Likely this first launch in 2017 will serve as an unmanned test
mission to show the cryogenic space stages can safely land and take
off from the lunar service with a human-qualified capsule. But
certainly by 2019 we will be able to do the crewed missions, on the
50th anniversary of Apollo 11.


Able to do in 7 years? We're not even building any hardware to get there.
In 1962 we had firmer plans than now. And we were in a rush then.

So it's still a rocket o nowhere.



Bob Clark



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Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
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