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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

#101

Post by SubjectToChange »

stretchcat wrote: post #93
beerandt wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What would the military applications of SLS be? It seems like absurd overkill for lifting military satellites. And the companies contracted to make SLS (namely Boeing) are some of the same companies already contracted to make the rockets which are used for military launches.

It's a program to retain the industrial base. For example, Aerojet Rocketdyne would have definitely been bankrupt without SLS.

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

#102

Post by pfdietz »

akiselev wrote: post #89
giantrobot wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress and the Nixon administration trapped NASA in LEO. There was extensive planning inside NASA for applications of Saturn-Apollo technologies [0]. Two of the ambitious ones were a manned Venus flyby [1] and a permanent Lunar base [2]. After the Apollo I fire Congress lost its appetite for space and slashed NASA's budget [3]. The Nixon administration went all-in on the Space Shuttle which ate up all of NASA's man…

Not only that, but the nuclear rocketry program for Mars was making breakthroughs like the nuclear lightbulb hybrid reactor & closed loop rocket engine [1] - that the public wouldn't see until declassified papers hit JPL's archives in the 2000s. This program was cancelled by Nixon, setting us back at least half a century. [1] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19730003970

Not really a setback, because there was no place for that technology. Lack of space reactors wasn't and isn't a roadblock. Had that development continued it would have been largely wasted, and the knowledge gained would have decayed away.

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

#103

Post by pfdietz »

giantrobot wrote: post #83
mumblemumble wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Congress and the Nixon administration trapped NASA in LEO. There was extensive planning inside NASA for applications of Saturn-Apollo technologies [0]. Two of the ambitious ones were a manned Venus flyby [1] and a permanent Lunar base [2]. After the Apollo I fire Congress lost its appetite for space and slashed NASA's budget [3]. The Nixon administration went all-in on the Space Shuttle which ate up all of NASA's man…

It was the unsustainable expense of the Apollo architecture that did that. The decision to cancel was driven by that, not by a "lack of will".

It would have made some sense to incrementally improve some parts of that architecture (like the Saturn 1B, for example) rather than going down the Shuttle rabbit hole.

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

#104

Post by pfdietz »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #92
tailspin2019 wrote: post #37

You have to fail to move forwards. A lack of failure is a sign of a lack of trying anything new. Hasn’t SpaceX proved that? The negative commentary around this seems a little in contrast to how we’d talk about a SpaceX “failure” on HN. I know NASA and SpaceX are very different, but Elon is the king of drifting deadlines too. And SpaceX do fail, but they do a good job of “owning their failures” and they keep moving fo…

> A lack of failure is a sign of a lack of trying anything new. I may just have blindspots in my history knowledge here, but the moon landing was pretty much an unqualified success, no?

It was a pyrrhic success. It was so expensive it was a dead end.

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

#105

Post by Beached »

dblohm7 wrote: post #88

The thesis of this article is pure hyperbole. “Oh noes, one of the RS-25s failed, the whole program is a failure!”

It is widely agreed that the whole program is a failure. Almost 3 years past due date, and most people believe it will still need more than another year. More than double the estimated cost Is providing very little benefit over existing rockets, and providing no benefits over planned rockets in development by others. It is adding no new capabilities, or technologies, and is in fact a step backwards in rocket design, not forward or to the side. Its sole purpose is to employ people, not push the space industry forward of get NASA somewhere. For all those reasons, people think SLS is a huge failure of a program, except at giving Boeing money, which is does great at.

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

#106

Post by pfdietz »

sidlls wrote: post #97
mdorazio wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really tired of seeing this stupid argument that SpaceX is government funded. The entire aerospace industry is government funded because the government has huge amounts of money and offers large contracts to many companies. By this measure, Palantir and many younger startups are also government funded. It's a meaningless statement. Bash SpaceX for their work culture and other issues all you want, but their busine…

And I’m tired of seeing people worship private entities whose entire success story is dependent entirely on government work. Not just funding, but work (e.g. past research). A business that lives only with government support is a de facto government entity. Sorry that facts offend you.

You seem to be confusing a program that exists because of the government funding the development, and a commercial program that exists in part because the government is one of the buyers of its product.

Falcon 9 certainly benefited from the government buying launches, but the project was done with private investment. This is very different from how Atlas, Delta, the Shuttle, etc. were developed.

NASA (and DOD) continues to buy launches from SpaceX, but that's no more a subsidy than them buying pizza from Dominoes.

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

#108

Post by jariel »

tailspin2019 wrote: post #53
pfdietz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX learns by doing, not by years of expensive analysis that ends up not preventing failure anyway. SpaceX's approach also deals with the real problem, which is a program having the wrong goals, rather than making mistakes in working toward a given goal. How many of you have built a product that ended up working great, but was a failure because it was the wrong product?

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

The Gemeni and Apollo projects were very iterative, and rife with failures.

They launched a new mission every few months!

Apollo burned downed and killed the crew, the next Apollo was up a few months later! The second moon mission was launched a few months after the first.

1960's NASA was a little bit like SpaceX.

That said - we should remember that Space X is iterating on already established tech, at somewhat of a smaller scale. They started smaller. Let's see how it works with their newer, bigger gear that is breaking boundaries.

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

#109

Post by kaba0 »

ElFitz wrote: post #39
tailspin2019 wrote: post #37

You have to fail to move forwards. A lack of failure is a sign of a lack of trying anything new. Hasn’t SpaceX proved that? The negative commentary around this seems a little in contrast to how we’d talk about a SpaceX “failure” on HN. I know NASA and SpaceX are very different, but Elon is the king of drifting deadlines too. And SpaceX do fail, but they do a good job of “owning their failures” and they keep moving fo…

True, but they are failing very, very , slowly. The big difference between NASA and SpaceX lies in how fast they each move, and what they are failing at. Failing at launching the first private rocket on a tight budget, at landing a rocket for the first time, or at iterating on rocket designs at pace rarely, if ever, seen before is expected . As a matter of fact, it’s success that isn’t expected. Failing at making yet…

SpaceX gets tons of government funding, while NASA’s was greatly cut over the years..

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

#110

Post by frakkingcylons »

beerandt wrote: post #65
frakkingcylons wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The U.S. now already has alternatives in the form of SpaceX and ULA. I’m sure that the military wouldn’t mind having a third option, but I don’t think it’s the ultimate reason for the continued existence of SLS.
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