NASA conforms order for 18 SSME/RS25

On Tuesday, May 12, 2020 at 7:52:14 PM UTC-4, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

On 2020-05-12 17:53, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:

Oh wait, and 12 craft by 2020 and the first won't even fly until next year
at the earliest.

Yeah, kill the pork.


They have 16 SSMEs from Shuttles
6 early early production RS25s
18 new RS24s with recent order.

Total of 40 engines or 10 flights.

And they order 12 Orions that can only be launched on SLS.

So 12 reusable Orions to fly on 10 SLS launches. This is like buying a
10 pack of hot dogs, but they only sell the buns in 8 packs. Only in
this case, the "hot dogs" cost many hundreds of millions of dollars.

WThe extra Orions will be begging for an extension of RS25 and SLS
contracts to prevent those Orions from going to waste. So spend an extra
$2b for an SLS to prevent a $1b Orion from goung to waste :-)

Don't underestimate the intelligece of pork.

It's stupidity. No way is Congress ever going to approve enough money
to increase the SLS flight rate, so at one flight every 9 months (which
is limited by the SLS core production rate), it will take about 9 years
to cycle through all the Orions. So that means NASA has 9 years to
refurbish each Orion! Yeah, really "reusable".

The SLS/Orion program makes the space shuttle look "affordable".

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.

So NASA hasn't explained WHY they want 12? Now I'm not an expert but could possible reasons be:

1. It's pure pork. Spend a lot of $ even though you don't need 12. I think this is unlikely because the current administration is favoring NASA. Why would they waste money on pork? SLS not withstanding.

2. Is NASA envisioning losing any Orions? If so, are there 12 for back ups?

3. Is NASA emulating the US Navy? I.E., you need 12 aircraft carriers to have 6 available because three are undergoing overhaul and three are in transit.

Just my speculation. I'm certainly not an expert.

"Dean Markley" wrote in message
...

On Tuesday, May 12, 2020 at 7:52:14 PM UTC-4, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

On 2020-05-12 17:53, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:

Oh wait, and 12 craft by 2020 and the first won't even fly until next
year
at the earliest.

Yeah, kill the pork.


They have 16 SSMEs from Shuttles
6 early early production RS25s
18 new RS24s with recent order.

Total of 40 engines or 10 flights.

And they order 12 Orions that can only be launched on SLS.

So 12 reusable Orions to fly on 10 SLS launches. This is like buying a
10 pack of hot dogs, but they only sell the buns in 8 packs. Only in
this case, the "hot dogs" cost many hundreds of millions of dollars.

WThe extra Orions will be begging for an extension of RS25 and SLS
contracts to prevent those Orions from going to waste. So spend an
extra
$2b for an SLS to prevent a $1b Orion from goung to waste :-)

Don't underestimate the intelligece of pork.

It's stupidity. No way is Congress ever going to approve enough money
to increase the SLS flight rate, so at one flight every 9 months (which
is limited by the SLS core production rate), it will take about 9 years
to cycle through all the Orions. So that means NASA has 9 years to
refurbish each Orion! Yeah, really "reusable".

The SLS/Orion program makes the space shuttle look "affordable".

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.

So NASA hasn't explained WHY they want 12? Now I'm not an expert but could
possible reasons be:

1. It's pure pork. Spend a lot of $ even though you don't need 12. I
think this is unlikely because the current administration is favoring NASA.
Why would they waste money on pork? SLS not withstanding.

2. Is NASA envisioning losing any Orions? If so, are there 12 for back
ups?

3. Is NASA emulating the US Navy? I.E., you need 12 aircraft carriers to
have 6 available because three are undergoing overhaul and three are in
transit.

Just my speculation. I'm certainly not an expert.

It's all speculation at this point. Keep in mind, only 15 Block II Apollo
capsules were bought... none were designed to be re-usable, and most had
flights allocated.
We have an order for 12 re-usable craft and not even 4 missions planned.


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