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#11
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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
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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
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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
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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 |
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Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations
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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
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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
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Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations
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#19
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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
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Doug Loverro resigns as Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations
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