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NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

arstechnica.com

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Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#41

Post by SkyMarshal »

mannerheim wrote: post #27
techdragon wrote: post #5

Important context… SLS isn’t the rocket NASA designed or asked for in order to achieve its mission goals… it’s the rocket they were forced into using due to lobbying and senate shenanigans, there’s a reason it has the nickname “senate launch system”. The fact the pork barrel project is so bloated it’s “unaffordable” is irrelevant as far as the senators who are voting for it are concerned. My bet is that the senate wi…

If/when Starship flies (which, if it doesn't, raises other questions as to the future of Artemis), one has to wonder what the point of SLS will be.

Based on Starship’s partial-success in its very first test flight, as well as how routine rocket landing and recovery is becoming for SpaceX, I think Starship will fly, it’s only a matter of when not if.

The fact that SLS isn’t designed for reusability, making its per-launch cost something like $4billion, means it’s effectively already outclassed, outcompeted, and obsolete.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#42

Post by mcny »

danpalmer wrote: post #26
dotancohen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other engines burn methane, these RS-25s burn hydrogen.

This is a good point, but to extend it a bit, changing the fuel means changing the chemistry of the whole system, changing tradeoffs and thresholds, changing capabilities, all sorts. Rockets very much need to be designed around a particular fuel, it defines so much of the rest of the rocket either directly or indirectly.

At a savings of USD 80 million or more per engine, I'd say it is well worth it to push deadlines or whatever we need to do to consider the cheaper options.

Right now it looks and smells like corruption.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#43

Post by Rebelgecko »

danpalmer wrote: post #26
dotancohen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other engines burn methane, these RS-25s burn hydrogen.

This is a good point, but to extend it a bit, changing the fuel means changing the chemistry of the whole system, changing tradeoffs and thresholds, changing capabilities, all sorts. Rockets very much need to be designed around a particular fuel, it defines so much of the rest of the rocket either directly or indirectly.

I imagine it also impacts all the other infra (eg, what reagents dou need to store at the launchpad, what do you need to store nearby, do you need cryogenic cooling, etc

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#44

Post by marcusverus »

mannerheim wrote: post #27
techdragon wrote: post #5

Important context… SLS isn’t the rocket NASA designed or asked for in order to achieve its mission goals… it’s the rocket they were forced into using due to lobbying and senate shenanigans, there’s a reason it has the nickname “senate launch system”. The fact the pork barrel project is so bloated it’s “unaffordable” is irrelevant as far as the senators who are voting for it are concerned. My bet is that the senate wi…

If/when Starship flies (which, if it doesn't, raises other questions as to the future of Artemis), one has to wonder what the point of SLS will be.

Do we have to wait? Falcon Heavy already has ~75% of SLS Block 1's payload capacity (to LEO). For the $11.2 Billion that's earmarked for the next 4 years of SLS, you could buy 112 Falcon Heavy launces--one every ~17 days for four years. In contrast, the wiki lists a single planned flight for SLS during that period.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#45

Post by wkat4242 »

inetknght wrote: post #22
irrational wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or a federal free insulin plant. How much would it cost to manufacture and give free insulin to everyone that needs it compared to the cost for SLS?

> Or a federal free insulin plant. It's not just jobs. It's also relevant to US interests to keep industry skills sharp. Manufacturing insulin doesn't require the same skills that manufacturing a rocket requires. On the flip side: if the skills are so expensive that private commercial entities are doing it for one or two orders of magnitude cheaper then it's arguable that the skills being paid to be kept sharp aren't…

> That is: at this price, why can't they deliver while private commercial entities can for cheaper?

The contractors making the SLS are private commercial entities. That's the mad thing about it.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#46

Post by mcny »

WWLink wrote: post #31
bnralt wrote: post #14

While true, it's missing the forest for the trees. NASA spends almost half it's budget on human spaceflight, and there doesn't seem to be any particular goal there beyond "send people into space because we want to send people into space." Meanwhile, a measly 3.5% of the NASA budget is spent on aeronautics. Yes, the SLS is an inefficient way of performing a mission that NASA shouldn't be performing in the first place,…

I think you would have to be an incompetent principle investigator if you sent people to space and couldn't figure out a way to maximize scientific knowledge from it. We've been doing that for decades with the ISS and the moon trips and so on. I have no doubts - even a mars mission where you'd send people to interact with things in person and be able to react instantly and not 45 mins later with whatever the camera a…

> Sometimes the cost of a project goes up when a 3rd party group comes in and intervenes with "can't we do this cheaper?!" lol.

What if we made this third party (I'm guessing blue origin/space x) bear the cost until we have a proven result so they put their money where their mouth is...

They promise USD 1M per engine, they have to deliver at USD 1M per engine. Not a cent more.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#47

Post by Rebelgecko »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #2

SpaceX of ten years ago made SLS look ridiculous.

SLS isn't really comparable to the F9s that were launching a decade ago. Either in terms of payload capability or reliability/safety. on the other hand a decade from now its totally possible that Starship is going to make SLS look like the antiquated boondoggle it is.

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#48

Post by hypercube33 »

wkat4242 wrote: post #32
dotancohen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other engines burn methane, these RS-25s burn hydrogen.

And the whole reason for the hydrogen burning was to keep the space shuttle contractors jobs. Once again it's not a technical reason but a pork barrel one.

Possibility of corruption aside, these are clones of the Saturn 5 rocket engines and tech just scaled up - the whole thing is built for hydrogen which is clean burning (water is the byproduct) but you'd think SpaceX could take the design and make something for 20mil

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#49

Post by mannerheim »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #41
mannerheim wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If/when Starship flies (which, if it doesn't, raises other questions as to the future of Artemis), one has to wonder what the point of SLS will be.

Based on Starship’s partial-success in its very first test flight, as well as how routine rocket landing and recovery is becoming for SpaceX, I think Starship will fly, it’s only a matter of when not if. The fact that SLS isn’t designed for reusability, making its per-launch cost something like $4billion, means it’s effectively already outclassed, outcompeted, and obsolete.

SLS was already made redundant when the Falcon Heavy flew.

'Let’s be very honest, We don’t have a commercially available heavy-lift vehicle. The Falcon 9 Heavy may some day come about. It’s on the drawing board right now. SLS is real.' - Charles Bolden

Note the reason given here isn't that the Falcon Heavy didn't have as large a payload capacity - that excuse came after it started flying years before SLS, because apparently we're supposed to pretend things can't be assembled in space over multiple trips rather than sending up a multi-billion-dollar rocket.

I'm just wondering what the excuse for keeping SLS around will be after a cheaper vehicle that can beat its payload is here. Jobs, for sure. What else?

Re: NASA finally admits what everyone already knows: SLS is unaffordable

#50

Post by labster »

Sharlin wrote: post #36
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SLS isn’t the rocket NASA designed or asked for Any source?

Honestly, that's like asking for a source for the fact that people need oxygen to live. Fuck, they weren't even allowed to finally correct the design flaw in the solid rocket boosters that was the direct cause of the Challenger disaster – namely the fact that they were made of several segments not for any engineering reason but simply because they were manufactured in Utah (due to pork barrel) and could not be transp…

Water is wet, the Pope is Catholic, the SLS is a boondoggle.

Imagine being told to design Google in 2000, but in order to save money you have to reuse old software: database from Oracle, OS from IBM, and design around the code from AltaVista. That should only take a few hundred man-months, right?

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