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After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test

arstechnica.com

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Re: After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test

#61

Post by maccam94 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #33
BurningFrog wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That USAF person in the back of the room with their finger on the destruct button. I'm not going up until that job is eliminated!

Then you aren't going up. Rockets are massive tanks of explosives flying through the air at supersonic speeds. That person is there to protect the people on the ground. Launch escape systems will protect the crew, but given the energies involved, the crew is less important than the potential for killing hundreds on the ground, or potentially thousands onboard a cruise ship.

> massive tanks of explosives flying through the air at supersonic speeds

I mean, so were Concorde jets...

Re: After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test

#62

Post by stretchcat »

Animats wrote: post #54

NASA forgot how to make rockets: “Both NASA and contractor officials explained that nearly 50 years have passed since development of the last major space flight program—the Space Shuttle—and the learning curve for new development has been steep as many experienced engineers have retired or moved to other industries.”

It seems like a textbook case of 'use it or lose it.'

Re: After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test

#63

Post by beerandt »

ryandrake wrote: post #52
tw04 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the negativity is directed at NASA so much as Boeing. They've made a business out of grifting, and this is just another example of it. Shelby is more concerned with staying in office than making advances in space, and it shows. That's not NASA's fault, they're trying to do the right thing IN SPITE of the political pressure to waste money in order for a politician to be able to claim he's "creating jobs"…

NASA probably could be as nimble as SpaceX if they didn’t have to rely on Congress, whose goal is not to build a successful rocket, but to spread the money funnel across the States. Imagine if SpaceX’s board suddenly said “the company’s goal is now not to get to Mars, but to employ as many people and contractors as possible in all 50 states!” You’d basically get NASA.

So basically... government could be as efficient as the private sector if it wasn't government?

Re: After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test

#64

Post by maccam94 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #13
Isinlor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great comparison of SLS vs. Starship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA69Oh3_obY Key points: https://i2.wp.com/everydayastronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2... Mass to the Moon: - Saturn 5: 49 metric tonnes - SLS: 43 metric tonnes - Starship: 156 metric tonnes Price per launch: - Saturn 5: 1.2B dollars - SLS: 0.875B dollars - Staraship: 0.1B dollars worse case scenario (Elon aims at 0.002B$) Price per kg: - Satrun 5: 2…

>> Staraship: 0.1B dollars worse case scenario (Elon aims at 0.002B$) Lol. No. That is beyond pipe dream territory. There a innumerable costs associated with spacelaunch that have absolutely nothing to do with reusability. Range closures. Payload integration. Regulatory compliance (ie safety). Telemetry. That USAF person in the back of the room with their finger on the destruct button. That stuff doesn't happen for f…

Falcon 9 launches are often less than $60M. A big chunk of that is the disposable second stage. Fairings are also a few million dollars. Insurance rates on Falcon 9 launches are currently 4%, so ~$2.4M. I'd be shocked if non-rocket/fuel costs were more than $15M.

Re: After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test

#65

Post by beerandt »

frakkingcylons wrote: post #50
mhh__ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a jobs program. It's not nicknamed the senate launch system for nothing. If they were doing it now I'm sure they'd be tempted in just contracting out and just building the payloads, but when it was being laid out they didn't exist.

As jobs programs go in the U.S., I’d rather they waste money on an obsolete launch system for space exploration rather than weapons. Unfortunately the bar is pretty low in the U.S..

You think the US funding an alternative, government controlled launch system for redundant access to space isn't ultimately for military purposes?

Re: After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test

#66

Post by darepublic »

mumblemumble wrote: post #57
tailspin2019 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waterfall got us to the moon. Agile will get us to Mars...

Lore suggests that that's a misconception, born of the Agile myth that the only thing that existed before the invention of either XP or Scrum was waterfall. The truth is perhaps more like this: agility got us to the moon, bureaucracy trapped us in low earth orbit, agility seems to be offering our best hope at getting back out of LEO again, including to Mars. For example, see https://www.computerweekly.com/news/224011…

Agility, sure, but don't confuse agility with agile

Re: After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test

#67

Post by mjevans »

beerandt wrote: post #63
ryandrake wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA probably could be as nimble as SpaceX if they didn’t have to rely on Congress, whose goal is not to build a successful rocket, but to spread the money funnel across the States. Imagine if SpaceX’s board suddenly said “the company’s goal is now not to get to Mars, but to employ as many people and contractors as possible in all 50 states!” You’d basically get NASA.

So basically... government could be as efficient as the private sector if it wasn't government?

It could be a lot more efficient if they stopped trying to be subtle and instead spent more time thinking.

Openly admit NASA is a basic infrastructure assurance program, much like the Interstate highway system is. (Yes, it's Military capable infrastructure, for moving troops and stuff around. It turns out that useful infrastructure improves overall economic fitness and activity as well.)

Then group up all of the infrastructure spending and make sure it gives every citizen roughly equal value. Sometimes this can be justified in lower shipping costs for produced items from farms and backbone redundancy across the country. Other times it's connecting land and sea ports to the cross country grid. Evaluating a fair share of the commons and of resources to maintain the commons is a hard problem.

NASA also falls under various civic services the government proves because it makes sense for just one place to do the work; or at least for a baseline that private entities can compete against. The distribution of these programs also forms part of the weight to balance government improvements programs among areas.

Re: After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test

#68

Post by jbay808 »

beerandt wrote: post #63
ryandrake wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA probably could be as nimble as SpaceX if they didn’t have to rely on Congress, whose goal is not to build a successful rocket, but to spread the money funnel across the States. Imagine if SpaceX’s board suddenly said “the company’s goal is now not to get to Mars, but to employ as many people and contractors as possible in all 50 states!” You’d basically get NASA.

So basically... government could be as efficient as the private sector if it wasn't government?

I don't think that's a charitable reading of the GP. More like "the government is aiming for something other than efficiency, and it gets what it's aiming for".

If the government were aiming for efficiency, we might see NASA taking a different path.

Re: After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test

#69

Post by Beached »

michaericalribo wrote: post #8

Bummer! Especially this line: > All of this casts very serious doubt on NASA's plans to launch its Artemis I mission—an uncrewed precursor mission to sending humans to the Moon—before the end of this year. This outcome seems like good safety engineering: prioritize safety and control over speed. Still, it’s a disappointing setback. I want to go to space now! And this moves the eventual realization of space tourism ba…

SLS never was going to enable space tourism. You have private companies doing that, and doing it better than Boeing.

SLS is worse than existing rockets in every way but one. Lift Capacity. Near term expected Space tourism doesnt need super heavy lift capacity. cheaper, faster, more reliable rockets already exist to get humans into LEO

While Falcon Heavy or Delta may be able to do some of the artemis missions, they currently cannot do all of them planned. Simply because of lift capacity or payload volume. However it will be interesting to see what happens to SLS if SpaceX gets starship going before SLS. Since SLS has already been in development for almost 10 years, and Boeing is in charge, many people think we will see an orbital Starship come to market before SLS hits orbit, and essentially rendering the entire SLS program a complete waste of time and money.

But dont worry, SLS will in no way slow down you getting to go to space, or your kids becoming belters. That timeline is independent of SLS, and may even be accelerated because of SLS failures.

Re: After a decade, NASA’s big rocket fails its first real test

#70

Post by jbay808 »

maccam94 wrote: post #58
tailspin2019 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t mind failure and I understand there are going to be setbacks. I just wish they would fail faster. I do agree with this. I just took issue with the lede being “rocket test fails” as if that’s a bad thing. The underlying points are all valid, speed, cost etc but a failed test is not the thing to be focussing the argument on in my view.

SLS proponents have been claiming that all of the extra time and money spent on process and formal verification would lead to a rocket that works without having to do lots of trial-and-error like SpaceX. Heck, even the name of the test campaign, the "Green Run," kind of reflects this hubris and shows that NASA expected the tests to largely be a formality.

Doesn't a green run refer to a beginner level course? Like a practice ski hill?
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