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Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations



 
 
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  #11  
Old May 24th 20, 07:54 PM posted to sci.space.policy
David Spain
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Posts: 2,901
Default Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for HumanExploration and Operations

On 2020-05-24 2:50 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

Scott Manley's take on the resignation:
https://youtu.be/pHV14Tc2Jmw (8:47)

I watched that last night, nothing really new there.

Speculation is he gave Boeing information that he should not have.
Likely information that they should have changed their proposal to make
it more competitive. Possibly even specific information on the other
proposals.

Jeff


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. Why he thought that and acted on it (enough to kill his
job), I don't know. Boeing's track record for SLS (and Orion) being what
it is.

Dave
  #12  
Old May 24th 20, 07:57 PM posted to sci.space.policy
David Spain
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Posts: 2,901
Default Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for HumanExploration and Operations

On 2020-05-24 2:54 PM, David Spain wrote:
Boeing's track record for SLS (and Orion) being what
it is.


Oops I meant the CST-100 Starliner. Don't let the subconscious do the
typing....

Dave


  #13  
Old May 24th 20, 08:12 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
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Posts: 2,307
Default Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations

In article , says...

On 2020-05-24 2:50 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:
Speculation is he gave Boeing information that he should not have.
Likely information that they should have changed their proposal to make
it more competitive. Possibly even specific information on the other
proposals.


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. Why he thought that and acted on it (enough to kill his
job), I don't know. Boeing's track record for SLS (and Orion) being what
it is.


I agree completely, but the faith in "old space" companies is very
strong with some people. I left the Space Hipsters Facebook group
largely because of this. That attitude coupled with an unhealthy dose
of astronaut worship (Space Fest anyone?) made the group unpalatable to
me.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
  #14  
Old May 25th 20, 01:02 AM posted to sci.space.policy
David Spain
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Posts: 2,901
Default Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations

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

  #15  
Old May 25th 20, 02:34 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,307
Default Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations

In article ,
says...

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.


It would be entirely possible to launch Orion on something else, but
you'd also need another launch to put an upper stage in orbit that Orion
could dock to. Once docked, the upper stage would send Orion on a
trajectory to its destination high lunar orbit.

Say, launch Orion on the heaviest version of Vulcan (because the people
in NASA who trust Boeing also trust ULA) and launch the upper stage
using a Falcon Heavy. Yes it requires two launches in somewhat rapid
succession (I'd launch the Falcon Heavy first, so that you know you have
something to dock with when you launch Vulcan/Orion). But, we did it
with Gemini several times, so we can do it again.

I believe that the problem with that plan is that the first two Orion
spaceships (one uncrewed, the next crewed) won't be able to dock with
anything, so they wouldn't be able to go around the moon (their intended
flight plans) if launched on anything but SLS. This would likely delay
the program by requiring the third Orion flight be the first test flight
around the moon instead of landing on the moon. But I don't think that
landers will be ready for crew by 2024 anyway, so this really isn't a
delay!

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.


Except that this isn't true. Dropping SLS won't necessarily kill the
program. Orion can be launched on other vehicles. It will, however,
delay the program past the 2024 deadline. Of course, SLS is delaying
itself, which is making 2024 human landing on the moon very unlikely,
IMHO.

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.


The problem with SLS being late isn't a lack of money. The SLS program
receives about $2 billion a year.

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.


Bull****. Boeing is failing on so many fronts, they couldn't even put
forth a decent enough human lander proposal to be one of three picks to
continue forward. That lander proposal would have required the EUS
(which isn't needed for anything else!), which is more development money
for SLS as well as all the money they would have gotten for a human
lander.

Giving more money to Boeing is just throwing good money after bad, IMHO.

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.


Also bull****. The creation of JSC was entirely political and required
handing off control from KSC to JSC in flight. Given 60's technology,
that was kind of a pain in the ass to do.

The spreading out of all the awards for Apollo/Saturn across the entire
country was entirely political. That was how the program maintained
enough support for the insane amount of money they were spending at the
time.

Alas, Trump's 2024 is not realistic.


No, it's not. And doubling down on SLS isn't realistic either. At $2
billion a year in funding (and no EUS in sight) and a build rate of *at
most* one every 9 months, picking Boeing for the lander would have meant
a mission rate of one every 1.5 years *at most*. That's not a
sustainable program in any way, shape, or form. It's repeating Apollo,
which will end up canceled after a few missions due to the high cost and
low rewards.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
  #16  
Old May 25th 20, 02:40 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,307
Default Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations

In article , says...
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.


Nit: The SLS Block 1A has enough delta-V to send Orion on a trip around
the moon. I believe that is the plan for the first uncrewed flight of
SLS/Orion. Essentially an uncrewed repeat of Apollo 8.

SLS Block 1B would have been needed to launch Boeing's (very heavy)
crewed lander to high lunar orbit, as the 1A simply isn't big enough for
that. But, since none of the selected lander proposals will use SLS for
launch, the 1B simply isn't needed for Artemis, so the logical thing to
do would be to stop work on the no longer needed EUS (which is way
behind anyway).

But, we'll see what Congress wants to do. My guess is they'll continue
to fund EUS, even though the SLS Block 1B will truly be unnecessary at
that point. They'll likely require Europa Clipper to launch on a SLS
Block 1B, just to give the appearance that it was "needed". And I'm
sure that NASA will find something to co-mainifest with Orion on SLS
Block 1B flights to the moon. Perhaps propellant for the reusable lunar
lander?

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
  #17  
Old May 25th 20, 06:16 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Greg \(Strider\) Moore
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 752
Default Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article ,
says...

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.


It would be entirely possible to launch Orion on something else, but
you'd also need another launch to put an upper stage in orbit that Orion
could dock to. Once docked, the upper stage would send Orion on a
trajectory to its destination high lunar orbit.

Say, launch Orion on the heaviest version of Vulcan (because the people
in NASA who trust Boeing also trust ULA) and launch the upper stage
using a Falcon Heavy. Yes it requires two launches in somewhat rapid
succession (I'd launch the Falcon Heavy first, so that you know you have
something to dock with when you launch Vulcan/Orion). But, we did it
with Gemini several times, so we can do it again.

I believe that the problem with that plan is that the first two Orion
spaceships (one uncrewed, the next crewed) won't be able to dock with
anything, so they wouldn't be able to go around the moon (their intended
flight plans) if launched on anything but SLS. This would likely delay
the program by requiring the third Orion flight be the first test flight
around the moon instead of landing on the moon. But I don't think that
landers will be ready for crew by 2024 anyway, so this really isn't a
delay!

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.


Except that this isn't true. Dropping SLS won't necessarily kill the
program. Orion can be launched on other vehicles. It will, however,
delay the program past the 2024 deadline. Of course, SLS is delaying
itself, which is making 2024 human landing on the moon very unlikely,
IMHO.

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.


The problem with SLS being late isn't a lack of money. The SLS program
receives about $2 billion a year.

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.


Bull****. Boeing is failing on so many fronts, they couldn't even put
forth a decent enough human lander proposal to be one of three picks to
continue forward. That lander proposal would have required the EUS
(which isn't needed for anything else!), which is more development money
for SLS as well as all the money they would have gotten for a human
lander.

Giving more money to Boeing is just throwing good money after bad, IMHO.

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.


Also bull****. The creation of JSC was entirely political and required
handing off control from KSC to JSC in flight. Given 60's technology,
that was kind of a pain in the ass to do.

The spreading out of all the awards for Apollo/Saturn across the entire
country was entirely political. That was how the program maintained
enough support for the insane amount of money they were spending at the
time.

Alas, Trump's 2024 is not realistic.


No, it's not. And doubling down on SLS isn't realistic either. At $2
billion a year in funding (and no EUS in sight) and a build rate of *at
most* one every 9 months, picking Boeing for the lander would have meant
a mission rate of one every 1.5 years *at most*. That's not a
sustainable program in any way, shape, or form. It's repeating Apollo,
which will end up canceled after a few missions due to the high cost and
low rewards.

Jeff


Heck, it's WORSE than Apollo. Apollo had its first Saturn V launch in 1967.
It last flew in 1973.
So in 6 years, it flew 13 times. That's better than 2 a year, and that
includes the delay after Apollo 13.

So this is far worse than Apollo!



--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net
IT Disaster Response -
https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/

  #18  
Old May 25th 20, 08:12 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,307
Default Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations

In article ,
says...
No, it's not. And doubling down on SLS isn't realistic either. At $2
billion a year in funding (and no EUS in sight) and a build rate of *at
most* one every 9 months, picking Boeing for the lander would have meant
a mission rate of one every 1.5 years *at most*. That's not a
sustainable program in any way, shape, or form. It's repeating Apollo,
which will end up canceled after a few missions due to the high cost and
low rewards.

Jeff


Heck, it's WORSE than Apollo. Apollo had its first Saturn V launch in 1967.
It last flew in 1973.
So in 6 years, it flew 13 times. That's better than 2 a year, and that
includes the delay after Apollo 13.

So this is far worse than Apollo!


Agreed. But, it's extremely hard to convince the supporters of SLS of
this fact. There is some sort of magical thinking surrounding SLS that
ignores the facts of its high cost and low flight rate.

Of course, the supporters of SLS for its pork don't care how often it
flies or even if it ever flies. Sending cash to Boeing and Aerojet
Rocketdyne and all the workers at MFC seems to be the primary ongoing
concern of these SLS supporters.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
  #19  
Old May 26th 20, 05:18 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,307
Default Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations

In article ,
says...

On 2020-05-25 15:12, Jeff Findley wrote:

Of course, the supporters of SLS for its pork don't care how often it
flies or even if it ever flies.



Within NASA, are there supporters of SLS, or is it seen as a necesary
evil that needs to be done?


Yes, reportedly NASA's former chief of human spaceflight, Doug Loverro,
was one such person. We just discussed this less than a week ago:

Here's why NASA's chief of human spaceflight resigned - and why it
matters
Loverro was ardently trying to fulfill his 2024 Moon landing mandate.
ERIC BERGER - 5/20/2020, 11:31 AM
https://tinyurl.com/y8j9bsc9

AkaL: do they all agree it is a boondogle, but agree to work for it, and
spin the project positively because it is their job? or are there actual
beleivers in the design/technooogy, beleivers in use of SRBs ?


There are many supporters of "old space" within NASA. The SLS program
gives NASA more control than if they just procured commercial launches.
And more control means more NASA oversight, which means more NASA
personnel working on SLS. So, yes, there are many people inside NASA
supporting SLS because it's their job to do so. As such, they're likely
quite biased (because of course SLS is awesome, because they are part of
the program and know how great it is).

I can understand poiticians and contractors pushing SLS because of the
jobs in states and profits for contractors. But curious if there are
true beleivers in NASA, or just people who do their job?


See above.

Jeff

--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
  #20  
Old May 27th 20, 12:54 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Jeff Findley[_6_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,307
Default Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations

In article ,
says...

It's been mentioned that Orion could be launched on something other than
SLS.

Assuming 2024 target, and assuming NASA is cautious about risk of not
meeting target:

would developping whatever is needed to launch Orion on FalconHeavy, and
launch the trans-lunar stage separately be considered more risky than
hoping SLS wi9ll be ready in time?


Falcon Heavy is not rated by NASA for crew, so that would need to
happen. The problem is that you still need another launch vehicle to
launch an upper stage. So, NASA would need to pick that as well and be
able to dock them in orbit. That can't happen with the first two Orion
spacecraft because they have no docking adapter (didn't need one, so
penny pinching meant they didn't install them on the first two Orion
capsules).

Which is more risky in terms of schedule is a matter of opinion. We've
been told for many years now that the first SLS core is nearly ready to
fly. Right now, it still has to pass its "green run" tests, so it's not
a sure thing. Remember how Boeing botched the first Starliner demo
flight? Boeing is the prime contractor for the SLS core stage.

Also, remember that under Mike Griffin's leadership, NASA told us the
EELVs could not be crew rated and CEV (now Orion) was too big for them
anyway, so Ares I was needed. Yet, Atlas V will fly crew on Starliner,
so crew rating an EELV wasn't really the big problem NASA would have led
us to believe.

But this is all for naught. Congress is funding SLS, so it is the
program of record and it will fly, eventually. I'm guessing there will
be a large gap between the launch of SLS-1 and SLS-2 to incorporate
"lessons learned" into the next launch. Eventually, they may get up to
their predicted flight rate of once every 9 months, which is quite a bit
worse than Saturn V during testing for Apollo and for the Apollo lunar
missions (Skylab was obviously a one-off).

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.
 




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