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More Flights of SLS Block 1
NASA is apparently having problem with their new upper stage and is
now planning on flying at least the next three missions on the original SLS Block 1 hardware. Current estimates say the new upper stage won't be ready until at least the mid-2020's. This means a couple of things. 1) NASA is talking about flying three missions and using 12 of their small stock of Shuttle engines on missions that don't really further their plans. Block 1 hardware with Ares on it is about 9 tonnes short in payload, which means none of the Lunar Gateway deployment can happen. 2) They could just as easily fly those missions on something like Falcon Heavy and save a lot of money (and those engines). By the time they get the new upper stage ready, they'll need funding for a new contract to produce more engines so that Block 1B can fly. -- "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 |
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JF Mezei wrote on Sat, 14 Apr 2018
15:13:55 -0400: It's important to consider that at the time the Shuttle was killed, "COTS" had not proven itself yet AND NASA was now stuck with lots of "rocket business" staff with nothing to do. But they didn't go on to do 'rocket business'. They went on to invent a preposterously expensive launcher that was required to be based on 'Shuttle technology'. A make work project for NASA's rocket busines makes sense to keep the organisation going so that if commercial doesn't pan out, NASA can return to making rockets to fill the gap commercial had failed to fill. That makes no sense at all. No multi-billion dollar per year program should be 'make work'. Imagine if the "make work" mandate had been to let engineers loose and given a mandate to develop the warp drive or whatever else they could come up with. (aka: a true R&D organisation for the rocket business, just as NASA does a lot of R&D for commercial airplanes). That ought to be NASA's role in space launchers these days. Unfortunately, there is such an incestuous relationship with ULA that they probably couldn't do that correctly, either. While NASA might not have come up with a "rocket" system, surely its engineers would have come up with a number of useful technologies and also tested certain tech and found them to not be the way to go. On 2018-04-14 12:18, Jeff Findley wrote: Agreed. Waste of perfectly good SSME's. In a context where SLS is to have a fixed number of flights, then yeah, you want each flight to count as much as possible since any additional test flight ends up killing a real flight at the end. In a context where production of SSMEs has restarted and is fully funded forever, then it matters less that it takes 3 more flights to get the new second stage. Except nothing is 'fully funded forever'. This smacks of NASA burning up engines for no good reason in an insane game of Three Card Monte where they continually try to make the cost already sunk large enough that more must be spent to 'use' it. Burn up all the engines before the new stage is ready and Congress HAS to support follow-on engine orders. Plus it's putting people on an upper stage that wasn't planned to be "man rated". But NASA writes the rules and the waivers, so that's never been a real problem. From a hardware/software point of view, is there much difference between a man rated second stage and one that isn't? Probably not, but the expensive part is PROVING that and documenting it. (apart from the obvious need to support capsule and its ejection system). At launch, apart from the design to allow capsule ejection, is the second stage otherwise considered inert, so man rating is all about its mission after MECO and when Stage1 has separated? You need certain reliability when it comes to NOT firing or blowing up and firing on command and for precisely what is commanded. All that has to be proven and documented. The "upside" is that it "gets Orion flying more often and sooner", so the Congresscritters will be happy that their pork spending is "producing results". Different spin: NASA to congress: We have completed the development and testing of SLS/ORION and are now ready to do space missions with it. So please authorize funding to start on-going SSME production. That point is half a decade down the road or more. Remember that for SLS, 'more frequent flight' means one a year or fewer. At that point, if they don't authorize it, it looks like Congress spent billions and billions of dollars to get NASA to develop new rocket but won't make use of it. On the other hand, if you get a couple of flights that are "production" before the initial batch of SSMEs runs out, it is possible that Congress will declare "Mission Accomplished" and shut it down. So SLS may have greater chance of getting an extension if the end of funding corresponds end of test flights. Except that would be even more insane. Pardon my language, but SLS is a burning dumpster fire. The lost opportunity cost, going forward from here, is staggering. Correct when you look at it from the point of view of NASA as a science/exploration organisation. But if you look at NASA as a means to keep ATK and Michoud alive then SLS has been highly succesfull in its mission. Not really, since the money sunk into NASA could have done that mission much more cheaply. And, if we're lucky, BFR will be flying by the time the Exploration Upper Stage starts flying. BFR becomes a huge headache for ATK lobbyists because politicians will need much stronger ammunition to contine to fund that boondogle when BFR can do more at lower cost. There will be some reason they can't use it. It's a lot easier to get the military to spend $500 on a hammer because it can stipulate that military missions require gold plated hammers to ensure fake reason which nobody can challenge. But for commercial flight, when BFR uses standard $10 hammers without problem, it becomes harder for NASA to claim that the $500 hammers are absolutely necessary. I see you don't understand why things for the military cost what they do. IT'S THE PAPERWORK REQUIRED BY LAW. But taking a step back, it is also possible to see SLS in a good way: backup solution using proven military-grade excessive spending to build a rocket in case the inexpensive commercial method doesn't pan out. Utter bull****. Today, SLS looks like a boondogle because SpaceX succeeded. But had all the commercial ventures flopped, the conclusion might have been that rockets really need lots of time and money to get done right and cutting corners doesn't work, and SLS might be viewd as necessarily expensive but at least having delivered. No. SLS was an expensive boondoggle when judged by the old standards. Now that commercial ventures have shown they can do the job, the question becomes: what happens to NASA's rocket scientists once SLS is put out of its misery. Does NASA become a pure R&D for rocket science and its engineers let loose to think up the next generation of rockets, or does NASA wind down rocket business because in the end, private enterprise gets to innovate at faster rate? NASA will stay in the 'rocket business' because that's where the civilian jobs come from (manufacturing ****). -- "Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong." -- Thomas Jefferson |
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More Flights of SLS Block 1
JF Mezei wrote on Sat, 14 Apr 2018
16:23:52 -0400: On 2018-04-14 15:34, Fred J. McCall wrote: No. SLS was an expensive boondoggle when judged by the old standards. Yes. But still a "placeholder" project to keep NASA rocket business alive. No. It's far too expensive for that. It eats the seed corn of any future endeavour, so isn't holding a place for anything. Out of curiosity, forgetting red tape and politics. If you build a new rocket using existing technologies (SRBs, the ET and SSMEs), is there a reason why it should take so long and cost so much? Yes, there is, because those individual parts are expensive and would be being used in ways for which they were not originally intended. That means you have to do some amount of reengineering (in some cases to the extent of essentially redesigning things). I can understand the SRBs causing problems with vibration as you grow them. But apart from that, shouldn't building SLS have been a no brainer? What sort of challenges were there that caused the project to fail so miserably? Uh, I don't think the ET is used at all on SLS. Calling something the same name doesn't make it the same thing. They would have known right away that the ET would need structural changes since it would no longer support a side load (the shuttle) but instead support a top load AND engines at the bottom. So no surprises there, right? Not the same thing. In terms of the SSME upgrades. Wouldn't the new electronics simply re-use the same logic as the old controllers? (I realise that there still needs to be tested, but if you already know the outcome, it becomes easier to ensure the new controlers reproduce the same outcome as the old ones. (the fact that Rocketdyne would be studying new more efficient ways to produce new SSMEs should not slow down the work to use already-built SSMEs) NASA will stay in the 'rocket business' because that's where the civilian jobs come from (manufacturing ****). Wasn't much of Michoud converted into a movie studio? In the end, is there logic behind maintaining a NASA presence there if there is no need for that production facility? Irrelevant. The jobs everyone cares about are at contractors like Boeing and Lockheed. If NASA were s private "Facilities" owner (aka: no red tape), would outfits such as SpaceX see an campetitive edge in renting space at Michoud to do work? I wouldn't think so. What's the advantage in assembling things in New Orleans when all your launches are somewhere else? -- "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 |
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More Flights of SLS Block 1
ANYTHING having to do with SLS gives me a headache these days.
Just say no. Dave |
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More Flights of SLS Block 1
JF Mezei wrote on Sun, 15 Apr 2018
20:35:30 -0400: 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. You're confusing rockets with capsules. Manned Dragon and Orion don't compete, since the purpose of one is LEO trips and that's only a secondary mission for the other. 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). You're comparing apples (manned capsules) with aardvarks (launch vehicles). Commercial launch vehicles are here and they're cheaper than ever. Not manned ones. (not yet) You're comparing apples (manned capsules) with aardvarks (launch vehicles). 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. And just who picks the 'new technologies'? 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. Well, no, not so much. For NASA, it is still better to have a bloody expensive SLS/Orion than nothing (in case all other projects fail). Except that NASA is more likely to fail (and cause others to fail by expending preposterous amounts of money) than anyone else. 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. I suspect you're wrong. -- "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 |
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More Flights of SLS Block 1
JF Mezei wrote on Sun, 15 Apr 2018
20:37:44 -0400: On 2018-04-14 22:10, Fred J. McCall wrote: I wouldn't think so. What's the advantage in assembling things in New Orleans when all your launches are somewhere else? So, how do policitians find a face saving way out of Michoud if it loses what is left of rocket building activity/jobs there ? Why, they'll continue to fund some rocket to nowhere, just like they do now, of course. Look at where we are. SLS Block 1 is roughly equivalent to Falcon Heavy. NASA will now be flying SLS Block 1 at least through 2025. By the time SLS Block 1A is ready, it will probably once again be behind the commercial competition. Has SLS been cancelled? Nope. Nor will it be. -- "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 |
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