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SLS and Orion

Drinking the SLS Koolaid

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 12, 2013
Filed under , ,

Boeing Executive Defends SLS as Only Deep-space Option, Space News
“People that say there are other options, or other ways to get beyond low Earth orbit — it’s just not a fact, it’s just not true. There are technologies you could develop that would be years and years in the future … but SLS gives you the capability to do that much, much quicker.” [John] Shannon, who spent 25 years at NASA before joining Boeing in January, pointedly dismissed the idea that NASA has to identify a specific destination and mission for SLS to make the big rocket worthwhile. “This ‘SLS doesn’t have a mission’ is a smokescreen that’s been put out there by people who would like to see that [program’s] budget go to their own pet projects,” Shannon said. “SLS is every mission beyond low Earth orbit. The fact that NASA has not picked one single mission is kind of irrelevant.”
Keith’s note: If NASA cannot spend the time to figure out what this monster rocket’s destination(s) should be, then how can you possibly justify building the rocket in the first place? Don’t the people paying for this rocket deserve at least a little preparatory homework on NASA’s part? The Space Station suffered from a cohesive mission for decades and we all know how that drove costs out of sight. As for “pet projects” – hmm, let’s see: Shuttle Sidemount and L2 Gateway anyone? This notion that John Shannon seems to be suffering from – that only NASA has the technology that can send things beyond low Earth orbit – now – is demonstrable nonsense. Falcon 9 could do it right now – if SpaceX had a customer to pay them to do it.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

87 responses to “Drinking the SLS Koolaid”

  1. Steve Harrington says:
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    An orbital rocket with no mission is like a product with no customers.  It is doomed the minute they go out for more money without a plan and get nothing. The SLS has had years to find a mission, and it has failed.

    • DocM says:
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      Oh, it found it’s mission – but it isn’t BEO or even LEO. Nothing near so lofty. Its sole purpose is delivering the bacon to former Shuttle dependent districts & states.

      • kcowing says:
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        The bacon must flow ….

        • Steve Whitfield says:
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          It seem to me the fact that the terms “pork bellies” (bacon) and “futures” are often used in the same sentence is a definite oxymoron.

          The SLS score at half time — Pork: 1, NASA: 0.

    • PeakVT says:
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      I can’t wait for when this rocket with no mission starts displacing funding for missions on other rockets.

      • dogstar29 says:
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        It already has, with the just-announced year delay in Commercial Crew. I have to agree with some of the other sentiments here, however. With so much political momentum behind it, particularly from major contractors, it’s hard to change course, even when it is a course that seems illogical. If the asteroid retrieval mission had to pay the full cost of the SLS and Orion they would probably choose a different launch vehicle.

  2. DocM says:
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    “This notion that John Shannon seems to be suffering from – that only NASA has the technology that can send things beyond low Earth orbit – now – is demonstrable nonsense. Falcon 9 could do it right now – if SpaceX had a customer to pay them to do it.”

    Online reports are that at Space Access ’13 Bruce Pittman stated that an F9 upper stage refueled at L2 could deliver a large payload to Mars. Seems sensible enough, and more so if a big methane stage using Raptor were used.

    As usual, the congresscritters will be a decade late and a half-$trillion over budget.

  3. Stardust526 says:
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    Keith, you don’t need a destination if you never really intend on launching the rocket.  So Shannon is right, the destination is irrelevant…

    • kcowing says:
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      Good point.

    • yokohama2010 says:
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      stardust526, even if NASA switches to a Falcon 9 / Atlas launch system, there will be the same debate about mission…

      funds saved by switching launch vehicles are not going to be reallocated to other NASA projects…

      the overall NASA budget will be reduced…

      AND we will be stuck debating the same topics. Only this time, it will be flying Falcons without a mission…

      The only way you can sell me on basing manned flight on Falcon 9s is if you include simultaneous development of Falcon X or Falcon XX…

      SLS has a 8.4 core diameter, Falcon 9 has 3.66 m…

      3.66 meter core is not sufficient…

      • Robin Seibel says:
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        Here’s what you’re missing:  Falcons already have missions.  SLS doesn’t and is extremely limited in what it allegedly can do and is all too expensive for as little as it will fly.  SLS isn’t what most people would call a “flexible” system.

        • yokohama2010 says:
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          Flying to the ISS and launching satellites are not missions…

          You are talking taxi rides and delivery trucks…

          Missions are traveling to lunar orbit, L5 or sending a spacecraft to Mars…

          We need to stop thinking that duplicating what the shuttle could do is good enough…

          • Joe Cooper says:
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            “Flying to the ISS and launching satellites are not missions”

            Yes they are… A rocket is a rocket… You are talking about what you put on it… Which for the SLS is nothing… Because they aren’t paying for it…

          • yokohama2010 says:
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            “Flying to the ISS and launching satellites are not missions”
            Sorry, they are missions, but not BEO exploratory missions…

            Which is my point, such missions can be run by the commercial sector…

            BEO exploratory missions should be the focus by NASA and we need to be unified about the USA being in the lead about this…

          • Robin Seibel says:
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            There’s nothing about SLS that puts the US in the “lead” on BEO missions.

          • Robin Seibel says:
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            Uhm, rockets like the Falcon and its follow on models (like Falcon Heavy) are designed to do a lot more than “duplicating what the shuttle could do.”  They’re designed with great flexibility in mind, including the flexibility to launch deep space missions.

            You should keep in mind that NASA has done studies on other ways to do big missions besides the “put it all in one giant rocket” method, and if  my memory serves me correctly, at least one of those studies showed that such missions could be done with less risk and/or more cheaply with several launches followed by on-orbit refueling and/or assembly.

          • Neil Underwood says:
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            The ULA, Orital, RSA, ESA, and even NASA would all disagree with your opinion.  Even in the military Logistics resupply is most assuredly a mission.

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        “not sufficient” for what, exactly?

  4. mmeijeri says:
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    There are technologies you could develop that would be years and
    years in the future … but SLS gives you the capability to do that
    much, much quicker

    This is quite simply not true. All we need is docking and hypergolic propellant transfer, both of which are very mature technologies. The other technologies he is referring to (like depots) are just icing on the cake and can be left to the market to develop in due time. Either Shannon is totally ignorant or he is a liar. And I don’t think he is ignorant. The man should be purged from NASA.

    • James Muncy says:
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      Mr. Shannon no longer works for NASA.  He is now Boeing’s manager for their ISS sustaining engineering contract. 

    • kcowing says:
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      John Shannon is neither ignorant or a liar. He’s actually an outstanding individual. Its just that he drinks the SLS Koolaid and says these things in interviews.

  5. yokohama2010 says:
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    Problem is that you SLS complainers don’t see the reality of things.

    The debate about Constellation / Jupiter / SLS ended a long time ago.

    You had your say. Your logic was considered and then dismissed…

    Congress chose differently than what you wanted.

    So now, the SLS rocket is being funded and being constructed albeit rather slowly.

    It is the program of record and has the support of Congress.

    The phrase “no bucks no buck rogers” is always being bandied about on this form….. Well, SLS is getting the bucks and other BEO systems simply are not.

    It will launch in 2017 whether you like it or not.

    You can talk about using a F9 or FH for BEO manned missions all day long, But it’s not going to happen cause Congress isn’t going to fund it.

    If the same stances were taken in the 60’s, we would have gone to the moon using modified Gemini spacecraft hooked up to a souped up Agena. (a program that would have been much less capable than the Saturn V)…

    At a certain point, the SLS critics are going to have to determine whether their stance is becoming detrimental to the progress of the space program.

    It’s great to have intellectual exercises and you can say hey lets do this instead… its cheaper etc etc

    Well folks, the American people through Congress decided not to take that path. SLS is what we have.

    Give up the fantasy that it’s going to be cancelled, the termination of the shuttle program without a ready-to-go follow on system was embarrassing enough.

    There is no way that Congress will cancel the SLS program (the only national space transportation system that we have).

    Start thinking about when you are going to get on the bus… if you wait too long, it’s going to pass you by AND there isn’t another coming along.

    Start thinking about what we can do with the rocket and it’s capabilities.

    It is for the next foreseeable future, the only ticket out of LEO that we got.

    • Engineer_in_Houston says:
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      2012 – 2022: 2 flights. $18 billion. Is that our plan?

      Seriously?

      How many Delta IV, Atlas V, or Falcon Heavy loftings would that buy? How much will the standing army cost the taxpayer to launch/maintain this SLS beast, regardless of whether it flies or not? How many launches per year would it take before the cost per pound to orbit is economically viable compared to what commercial launchers can or would be able to do at that time? Where do we expect the commercial launcher market to be when SLS is ready to launch payloads – and actually *has* payloads?

      NASA ought to focus on developing unique, crewed, deep-space vehicles, technology needed for deep space exploration and so on. Launch services ought to be provided by commercial providers. NASA can make the current approach work over the short term. But, it’s not sustainable over the long term. We can do so much better, and should.

    • Mader Levap says:
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      “It will launch in 2017 whether you like it or not.”
      I admit it is possible SLS wil not be cancelled any time soon and more bilions will be wasted on monster porkrocket to nowhere. However, I am sure it will not launch (presumably meaning first test flight) in 2017.

       “Give up the fantasy that it’s going to be cancelled”
      I bet you said same thing about Constellation.

    • Stardust526 says:
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      Wow, talk about drinking the koolaid!

      You clearly have no idea of what actually happened with NASP, X-33, SLI, OSP, Constellation; and is the certain fate of SLS.

      End of 2014 most likely FH will be flying — without any need for NASA funding or congressional action.  SpaceX already has two signed customers for FH!

      Once FH is flying, putting 53-55MT into LEO for less than $150M per launch, the SLS  house of cards will come crashing down, just like Constellation, OSP, SLI, X-33 and NASP before it.

      Past is prolog for SLS…

    • chriswilson68 says:
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      “It is the program of record and has the support of Congress.”

      Congress is deeply divided about SLS.  The administration doesn’t really support it, they just agreed to it as part of a deal with certain members of Congress.  You’re quite mistaken if you think the future of SLS is any more secure than the future of Ares I was a few years ago.

      The facts on the ground continue to evolve quickly.  Falcon Heavy is likely to be in operation in the next couple of years.  Crewed Dragon, and possibly other commercial crew vehicles are likely to be serving the ISS.  As much as SLS supporters like to claim such developments aren’t relevant to SLS, the larger public is unlikely to agree.

      Falcon Heavy and Crewed Dragon together cut the envelope of what SLS might be useful for dramatically.  They also point a spotlight on how glaringly expensive SLS is for what it does.  All of that together make it likely SLS will be cancelled before it ever flies.

      • yokohama2010 says:
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        Ares 1 should not have been cancelled.
        Ares V should not either…

        The problem was not primarily technical, it was funding.

        The Obama administration underestimated the public support for a national manned space program & thus had to reconsider their policies.

        ____

        Falcon Heavy does not cut the edge dramatically…
        Only a Falcon X or Falcon X Heavy would do that.

        ____

        I support Space X, but the proposals kicked around this forum about using multiple Falcon 9 Heavy launches for this and that…

        Its all rehash of Gemini to the Moon…

        Sorry, you are just talking half baked cake…

        If you were proposing replacing SLS with a Falcon X Heavy or Falcon XX then we might be talking…

        These systems would need to also use the VAB and Complex 39 A & B.

        Put a big Bigalow space station in a Falcon X and replace the ISS…

        • dogstar29 says:
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          I would distinguish between public support and congressional support. The latter is in large part a function of lobbyists and campaign contributions. I do not see mass demonstrations demanding that tax dollars be spent on SLS, or for that matter, on space.

          • yokohama2010 says:
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            it does not take mass demonstrations…
            it requires a cohesiveness amongst the space advocacy groups…

            everyone has their own subjective agenda

            there has to be a unified plan or we will be stuck in LEO for some time to come…

            in high school, they told me that my generation would land on Mars, that’s over 20 years ago…

            sure we landed on Mars with robots, but boots on the ground was what i had in mind…

          • dogstar29 says:
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            When I was in high school we assumed Apollo would go on forever, but we couldn’t afford it even in an era of much higher taxes. How much more are you willing to pay? If we put boots on Mars it will have to be at an affordable cost. SLS/Orion is far too expensive to be practical, not least because it has no commercial customers. Without productive commercial industry that will create exports and jobs, we won’t have the tx dollars for human spaceflight.

          • yokohama2010 says:
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            “If we put boots on Mars it will have to be at an affordable cost.”

            A manned flight to Mars will never be ‘affordable’ in the conventional sense. The average businessman would never get the funding for such a dangerous and speculative venture.

            With the “only when affordable” position, we would not have landed on the moon and ventured beyond earth orbit.

            With the “only when affordable” position, Columbus would never have crossed the ocean. (thus no tomatoes for the Italian cooking)… (tomatoes are a native new world item)

            With space flight, it is impossible to determine what is really “affordable” until after the fact.

            Exploration on this scale is very speculative.

            With Apollo, we were not able to reap the full benefits of the program because we cut it short.

            It comes down to whether we are willing to spend the money and risk a zero or minimal return to explore places sometimes absolutely unknown.

            And we must be willing to push through occasional screw ups… we managed to survive Mars Polar Lander and now we got Phoenix and Curiosity…

            The driver here is not affordability, economics, ROI, stockholder return, and other elements associated with a business.

            It is a mix of national destiny, scientific advancement, and supportive economic development not necessarily in that order.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            yokohama2010,

            I’m sorry, but with that last bit you sound like you’re still in high school.

            Something to consider, or ignore, as you choose — I’ve been coming to NASA Watch for a quite a while now, and I sometimes make a statement or express an opinion that results in other posters giving me opinions and facts in return which indicate that 1) something I said isn’t right, and/or 2) I either didn’t understand or had faulty “facts” about the issue at hand.  When this happens, I take time to rethink and reevaluate, and more often than not I can see where I didn’t get it right, or didn’t understand.  At that point, I thank those who have corrected my thinking, because I’ve learned from it and perhaps then better understood the issue than I had before.  I try not to keep arguing my position post after post, because it’s not productive and gains nothing for anyone.  As a minimum I propose to “agree to disagree” and then end my participation in the thread, or at least the part I was arguing in.  I’d like to think that this approach helps to maintain respect and open-mindedness among those of us who post here.  But that’s just me, and I offer it only as something to think about.

            Steve

          • Ralphy999 says:
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            “It is a mix of national destiny, scientific advancement, and supportive economic development not necessarily in that order.”

            Dead center hit Yokohoma2010. The critics that describe the program as pork are completely overlooking this mix. The NASA space centers and their programs are not going away despite the Space X fans fervent wishes. Due to past performance I don’t know that the SLS concept will be able to compete for funding but I wish it well for the BEO missions that are sure to follow. It. Is. Our. Destiny.

            And, part of the American culture.  

        • grassrootsofone says:
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          “Ares 1 should not have been cancelled.”

          ATK has abandoned the concept, as last embodied in their Liberty rocket proposal. AFAIK there were never any voluntary customers for it, or for Ares-1.

          Lockheed Martin appeared to be quite content with switching to the Delta IV-H for their first test flight of the Orion. They apparently didn’t argue that the Ares-1 was the quickest, safest, cheapest way to get their capsule to orbit, and they had years of experience working with the proposal.

          http://spaceflightnow.com/n

          • Ralphy999 says:
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            It’s not like they had any choice about it. 

          • grassrootsofone says:
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            “It’s not like they had any choice about it.”

            I’m just just guessing that, as they’re big military-industrial players, they’ve got some clout, as this implies:
            http://lunarscience.nasa.go

            And recall how they, and not NASA, proposed the kissing Orions asteroid mission:
            http://www.lpi.usra.edu/sba

            However, there is a basic truth in what you say, because the Ares-1, supposedly the quickest, cheapest, safest way back to orbit, was not technically a reasonable option. That was so obvious it would be hopeless to suggest it, so in that common sense context, there was no choice.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            According to reports at the time, there were still major technical problems not solved when the PDR was announced as complete.  That was too much for me.  At that point the entire program was a hopeless joke and stood  a good chance of getting people killed, in my opinion.  Even if the funding had been doubled, Ares I still should have been cancelled. As a HSF LV it was never going to succeed.

        • Joe Cooper says:
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          “Ares 1 should not have been cancelled.”

          Nor, perhaps, should have anything else. And that’s unfortunate. But the cold hard reality is that these sorts of programs get cancelled all the time. Literally the last one to not get cancelled was the Space Shuttle which flew first in ’81.

          That is 32 years ago.

          Now tell us again how big NASA programs don’t get cancelled.

          • yokohama2010 says:
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            The Space Shuttle was not cancelled because it was the cornerstone of the manned spaceflight program.

            If we had cancelled it, we would not have had anything else.

            It was well known that the orbiters had a life of 100 missions.

            And it was thought that each would be used for those 100 missions…

            All the other programs (X-33, spaceplane etc etc )  were secondary to STS.

            Now, all we have at NASA is the SLS and Orion. It has taken the place of the space shuttle system. All other programs, including commercial are subordinate to it.

            Do not misunderstand, Dragon and Dreamcatcher should be funded and put into service. (not so sure about Boeing’s capsule)… They are the taxi services to ISS and to other LEO destinations that’s what they are going to be… (a Dragon taxi flight is not a space mission…)

            However, for real space exploration missions, we have SLS and Orion.

          • Stardust526 says:
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            Reality check: we once had a rocket for “real exploration missions”, the Saturn-5.  It was abandoned because it was too expensive to operate, something the Space Shuttle was supposed to fix.  

            After 30 years of trying, the Space Shuttles were retired earlier (way below their 100 mission lives) because they were both too expensive and too dangerous to continue operating.  By the way, they were too dangerous because serious design flaws were forced into their development due to lack of federal funds to do the job right (like developing a reusable fly-back first stage, which would have avoided both the Challenger and Columbia accidents).

            Way before the Shuttles were retired, starting in the late 1980’s, several attempts were made to come-up with a new vehicle or rocket for “real exploration missions”.  These include the NLS, ALS, NASP, X-33, SLI, OSP, and Constellation.  Despite sending billions of $$, and consuming the careers of countless engineers, none of these programs produced any operational hardware. 

            The only break in this disappointing history is the COTS/CRS program which has had a huge role in spawning the SpaceX Falcon-9, and soon the Orbital Sciences Antares.  

            Right now the SpaceX Falcon-9 is launching payloads to orbit for under $2000/lb.  With the Falcon-H, the price drops to around $1000/lb.  And this is even before we see any cost savings from the reusable systems that Elon is putting in-place.

            With Shuttle we were paying at least $10,000/lb and probably closer to $30,000/lb.  The numbers I’ve seen on SLS point to costs at least this high, if not higher.  And that is assuming it ever gets built, which looks very unlikely.

            With the pressure being put on the federal budget to deal with our national deficits, the reality of the cost saving opportunities provided by SpaceX and other commercial operators, and the unsustainable costs of SLS to build and operate will become inescapable, to everyone.

            Hate to burst you bubble, but SLS just isn’t going to happen.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            If those are your definitions, then don’t expect to see any real space missions in your life time.  You do realize, of course, that you’ve just insulted every astronaut from every country who’s ever gone into space, Gagarin and every one of them since…

          • nasa817 says:
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            Uh, excuse me.  But the Shuttle was cancelled.  Where have you been?  SLS will not fly in 2017, you can count on that.  No amount of money can get that rocket off the ground in 2017.

          • dogstar29 says:
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            “Now, all we have at NASA is the SLS and Orion.”
            That is the position of many at NASA. They regard SpaceX as outsiders, the competition. I believe that view is shortsighted. The NASA budget is not going to increase. Even space enthusiasts won’t pay higher taxes. The entire NASA budget will never pay enough to keep more than 6 people in space with current technology. Unless we are satisfied with having essentially the same number of Americans in space when we die as there were in 1967, we need radically lower costs that will permit a commercial market to develop. NASA needs to facilitate this development, as NACA facilitated the development of practical commercial air transportation. 

        • Steve Whitfield says:
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          The problem was not primarily technical, it was funding.

          You loose your entire argument with this one statement.  If you had been following the facts at the time they happened you would have known that this statement is just plain wrong.

    • PeakVT says:
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      Start thinking about what we can do with the rocket and it’s capabilities.

      Oh, it’s easy to think of things to do with a rocket.  The problem is that there’s no chance of them being funded.  And part of the reason they won’t be funded is that SLS itself is so expensive.  If it was a $3-4 billion program, then putting a couple of $3-4B missions on top would be possible.  But as it stands, they won’t be funded, and once the inevitable cost overruns kick in, SLS will crowd out other missions.

      • yokohama2010 says:
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        Yes… it is easy to think what to do with a rocket…

        So, lets pick a mission that we all agree about, unite forces, and get Congress to fund the mission…

        However, we can’t even agree about whether to land on Mars or the Moon first…

        Everything that comes down the pipe is debated until everyone is sick of talking about it.

        We debate SLS, Constellation, Ares 1, X-33, Space Station Freedom…

        Well… with all of this talk and talk and talk, we have lost the capability to launch our astronauts on a domestically sourced vehicle.

        End the division, end the debate, 

        Unite behind the SLS and push it capabilities…

        SLS will be the transportation system… lets agree to board the ship and set a certain destination…

        An SLS can carry several fuel depots…
        An SLS could loft a very big station to replace the ISS…

        Talk is wasted debating launch systems…

        When you go on a cross country camping trip, do you really debate whether to travel via a Willebago or Airstream or Westfalia or Thor…

        If you do, well you end up not doing much traveling at all…

        • PeakVT says:
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          When you go on a cross country camping trip, do you really debate
          whether to travel via a Willebago or Airstream or Westfalia or Thor…

          At the risk of continuing a horrible analogy, yes, you debate which vehicle to travel in because one might be so expensive you can’t afford to pay to fill it up.

          That is what you don’t get.  There’s only so much money to go around.  Continuing with SLS will not make tens of billions of dollars for a Moon mission or a Mars mission magically appear.  By choosing to continue with SLS, other missions will be canceled or not even started.

          There is no point in uniting behind something that is pointless.

        • Steve Whitfield says:
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          end the debate… just agree with me.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Well folks, the American people through Congress decided not to take that path. SLS is what we have.

      You make THIS statement and then accuse other people of fantasy?!!

      By the time the American people knew anything about it, it was a done deal. The American people were not consulted and not asked to review it.  Hell, most of the American people don’t really even understand the issue, if they’ve paid it any attention at all.

      SLS was done by a handful of Congress people in the name of pork, and they couldn’t care less where, if anywhere, the damn thing flies, or how often, or at what cost.

      As for your mission theories, the head pork gatherer publicly asked Bolden, repeatedly, in a committee meeting, What is NASA going to use SLS for? (even though it wasn’t NASA’s idea and NASA didn’t even want it).  Obviously he hadn’t given it any thought himself and didn’t have a clue, and therefore just as obviously didn’t particularly care about the answer.  He just wanted to shift the fallout onto NASA.

      SLS has absolutely nothing to do with BEO missions.

    • Gonzo_Skeptic says:
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      It will launch in 2017 whether you like it or not.

      Maybe.  But if it does launch in 2017, the next launch won’t be until 2018 or later. 

      At the rate of approximately one launch per year, how many unmanned launches do you think NASA can afford before they human-rate the system?

      • nasa817 says:
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        The current manifest is two flights, one in 2017 and one in 2021, no one is planning beyond that right now.  Building systems based on more than a two flight life cycle is cost prohibitive with the current funding profile.  In other words, things you would do to reduce operational costs, or make a more robust system designed for multi-decade operations, cannot be designed into the system today because it makes it too expensive to design and build.  So if SLS ever did fly (which it won’t), we couldn’t afford to operate it.  Just like the Augustine commission on Constellation said, “If Santa Claus placed this system on our doorstep tomorrow, our first task would be to cancel it because we can’t afford to operate it.”  This is SLS in a nutshell.

    • nasa817 says:
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      Falcon Heavy will fly before SLS.  And it is not completely dependent on NASA like you think.  Even if NASA backs out of funding SpaceX, Elon Musk will continue his trek to fly bigger and bigger rockets.  There is enough traction with SpaceX now that they will continue to fly with or without NASA’s help, albeit at a slow pace than with NASA funding assistance.  SLS is totally dependent on NASA funding, SpaceX is not.

      SLS will not fly in 2017, nor ever.  You can take that to the bank.  You are thinking of the NASA of the past.  That NASA is gone, and with it the capability to develop large-scale flight vehicles.

  6. Saturn1300 says:
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    Excalibur Almaz claims they can go to the Moon, L1, and beyond(Mars?). No funds to do so though.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Correction — they claim they will be able to.  They’re not actually doing it yet.

    • chriswilson68 says:
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      And the guy pushing the shopping cart along the street mumbling to himself claims to be able to build a time machine, if only he had the money.

      Excalibur Almaz will never get within even two orders of magnitude of the funding they would need, and even if they did, they’d be the wrong people to try to make it work.  Their only claim to fame is that they bought some rusted old Soviet-era space station hardware that was being sold basically as scrap.

      Sorry, I forgot, they have a second claim to fame — being sued for allegedly committing fraud to trick ignorant investors into giving them money for their space plans.

  7. sch220 says:
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    This program is clearly about pork and nothing else. It will not fly, but that is not its purpose. As long as it provides white collar welfare to congressional districts having a big role on the program, it will continue to receive funding, at the expense of other more worthy NASA programs.

    • nasa817 says:
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      Exactly correct.  A pork rocket to nowhere.  This program is good at what it was designed to do, keep NASA civil servants employed and as many contractors as we can drag along.

  8. Ben Russell-Gough says:
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    This basically ties in with what Administrator Bolden said about ‘not changing direction again’.  In essence, we are too far into SLS (although it is far from perfect… doesn’t even come close in fact) so that any alternative HLV seriously be proposed a this point will take just as long if not longer and will likely cost even more than SLS.

    The only alternative that is both quicker and cheaper is an 50t IMLEO-class program as suggested by ULA and potentially enabled by Falcon Heavy.  However, that ignores the political realities which are, as Keith points out, to continue to funnel federal funds to certain favoured organisations and corporations.  The destination is irrelevant because the SLS and Orion are ends in of themselves.

    Oh, I’m sure they’ll come up with some make-work missions in time.  The asteroid capture and visit is a good example of one of these: you can actually see how the mission has been built backwards from the opening brain-storming question: “What mission can we do with just SLS Block-I and Orion and nothing else?” Expect to see more GSO, EML-2 or HLO make-work missions appear in the relatively near future.

    In my darkest moments, I have an unhappy vision; I don’t know how accurate it is, but it goes something like this: Sometime around 2030, there are boots on the Moon and they haven’t been put there by NASA but by commercial companies, funded by various governments and even academic institutions in the US who want to do Lunar science and have no other way to do so.  NASA, meanwhile has been flying a measly single crew a year no further than EML-2 on missions of debatable usefulness since the ISS was splashed in around 2025.  Consequently, the agency is beginning to look like a rather eccentric Federal aid program to aerospace.  The end comes after a multinational Mars mission is proposed.  NASA states it will not participate as it has its own Mars program and confidently announces that it will put boots on Mars in ‘twenty years time’; then a Senator or Congressman points out that they are thirty years on from the first time NASA said this and the committee room goes quiet.

    All this must make me seem like I’m anti-NASA.  Well, I’m not.  I’m pro-NASA but I like to imagine that I’m also a realist.  The figures that came out of the Augustine Report really aren’t good for an HLV-based program in the current budget environment (as bitter as that was for a DIRECT supporter like myself).  In my view at least, the fact that the Administration didn’t jump on ULA’s EELV Phase-1 program the moment it appeared does suggest it’s happy for NASA to either just spin its wheels or consume itself building a rocket that is simply too expensive for NASA to afford right now.

    NASA has been set up to fail and has blindly stumbled into the trap.

    • Robin Seibel says:
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      While you complain about the Administration’s decisions, you should also complain about Congress’ decisions because they’re the ones that actually pass the budgets.  They’re the ones that have mandated and designed the expensive, missionless system that NASA has to work on…..for now.  You should also blame the public because frankly there isn’t and hasn’t been a great outpouring of support for NASA from the public.  LIkewise there has been no great hue and cry from the public about NASA direction.

  9. Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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    When Elon Musk says that his Falcon 9 Heavy can launch large mass to orbit for 1/6th the cost of  Boeing’s  Delta IV Heavy ( using a $$$ launch cost per pound orbitted factor ) ,  THAT gets my full attention…

  10. Stardust526 says:
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    The very encouraging thing I see regarding SLS is that informed part of the aerospace community sees it for what it really is:  a pork rocket that has no serious mission or utility, outside of delivering billions of $$ of pork to certain congressional districts, and most likely will never fly (and certainly not operationally).

    Having seen and lived the charade of NASP, X-33, SLI, OSP and Constellation up close and personal, I can’t tell you how much less distressing it is this time around to see so few people drinking the SLS koolaid — SLS, the rocket to no where.

    We’re making progress.  Its painfully slow, but we’re making progress.

    • Rune says:
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      Yup, it’s amazing how 90% of the people with sufficient knowledge and (I presume) no skin in the game, all agree that SLS will at most perform a few test flights before succumbing to the “we don’t have money to pay for stuff to put on top of it” syndrome. Especially if none of the hoped-for budget increases NASA is always dreaming about materialize, which is likely.

      You can guess yourself why people building the rocket will want to keep building the rocket, and I don’t fault them for trying to save their bacon, but I won’t listen to them either, since it is my opinion that they suffer from a pretty huge bias.

      The sad part is that, at one time, NASA was launching several (up to six) space shuttle stacks each year each with its own ~25mT payload. Considering it’s pretty much the same thing, it should be possible to launch what is essentially a shuttle stack with a bigger payload just as often, or perhaps only slightly less so on account of the bigger and probably more expensive payload. One has to wonder how the hell they ended up with that low and incredibly expensive flight rate, lack of ideas? More pork to spread around that way?

      My prediction? By the time SLS makes it’s first Moon trip, a refueled upper stage will have already taken people there already for a fraction of the cost, most likely tourists. If by then a new administration hasn’t axed it already. That would be a cancellation I could get behind, if the money is redirected to building actual in-space hardware. There are already enough launchers out there, or in the process of being out there.

      A look at the gazillion proposals over the years for deep-space architectures based on present-day ELV’s by ULA would be most informative. Even that pork-loving, wasteful, an horribly un-competitive frankenstein of a company can beat SLS on price and capabilities for every conceivable mission.

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        That would be a cancellation I could get behind, if the money is redirected to building actual in-space hardware.

        …and developing procedures for in-space operations such as refueling spacecraft, storing and restocking fuel depots, modular assembly of hardware larger than a single payload, etc.

        • Rune says:
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          Yup, all of the above. But the main thing: redirect it, not take it out of the budget altogether while nobody is looking.

          You’ll have to watch out your Congress/Senate/President for that… I have a feeling if I run the numbers for the shuttle budget and take into account stuff like inflation, the amount of money used to fly it will be missing form this years’ budget.

  11. space1999 says:
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    The F-1 engine was developed to meet an Air Force requirement for a very large rocket engine… not sure what the Air Force had in mind, but when NASA took over the engine in 1959, “… no vehicle existed to use the F-1. In fact, no designated mission existed either. Even though engine development was undertaken with no specific application in mind, this approach was not unprecedented. The complexities and uncertainties in the evolution of propulsion systems encouraged their prior development.” According to http://history.nasa.gov/SP-….

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Yes, but that was the very beginning of the spacecraft industry, when very little was known.  Not a valid comparison to today at all.

      • space1999 says:
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        My main point was that history shows that development of a capability without a specific mission or goal is often a worthwhile investment… as can be seen with the F-1. To your point… first successful flight of the F-1 was 12 years after start of development. SpaceX’s Merlin 1-A engine took about 5 years of development to first successful flight. So less time, and of course the F-1 development was likely a much larger effort, but then again the problems are more difficult with an engine the size of the F-1.

        No engineer wants to simply replicate what was done in the past, so even if the principles and issues encountered in past development are well understood, that doesn’t ensure that development time will be substantially less than before.

  12. James Stanton says:
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    I agree with you whole heartedly Keith. Its his sort of talk that makes me wonder whats it all about. Still, it should be built and then it can be used or the Falcon 9 when the time comes. Better to have the rocket ready to go rather than say Lets go to Mars and then have to build it.

  13. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    Only two numbers should matter here:

    – Cost per kg. to orbit: If it’s something like half the mass to orbit for a fiftieth the price then it’s a no-brainer. When Falcon Heavy flys, it’ll be a no-brainer. At a hundred million dollars (and (hopefully) dropping) per launch, I can think of some really large or heavy payloads to put on top of a Falcon Heavy. I could even make a business case for lobbing forty tons of water to LEO at that price! 🙂

    – Maximum payload to orbit: The larger the payload capacity of your launcher, the fewer payload options you have and fewer companies will be able to capitalize on using them. As long as SLS is used exclusively for government missions to nowhere, there will be a place for it. The moment that rug is pulled from under it, well, the bigger they come…

    tinker

  14. Steven Rappolee says:
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    Side mount was a great opportunity now lost;
    the best synergy’s would have been to have done shuttle C decades ago.we could have put the ET into  a greater rate of production.we could have had a side mount with a Delta IV derived CBC with a massive buy of RS-68-A engines that would have benefited that program.we could have cross-feed the the RS-68’s CBC to the ET.Skylab II would instead have been a massive space station made of ET tanks that Delta CBC cross feed could have brought to orbit.An ET with a Methane gelled in Liquid hydrogen could been the mother of all fuel depots. 

    • VLaszlo says:
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      This is an issue that always shocked me – is there any consensus among you learned folks about the (mis)use of the ETs?

      Was such a magnificent station just a pipe dream, or did political bureaucracy truly allow 100+ usable volumes to incinerate over the oceans? Is this as appalling as it sounds?

    • chriswilson68 says:
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      Side mount, or any other shuttle-derived launcher, is a terrible idea.  The shuttle was a disaster in terms of cost.  We shouldn’t let any part of that disaster live on.  The only conceivable benefit from using a shuttle-derived launcher is to cut near-term development costs and time, but at the cost of making the system cost more on an ongoing basis.  And I’m highly skeptical that even the supposed near timer development cost and time benefits are real.  Just look at Ares I, Ares V and SLS — all were sold as cutting development time and cost by re-using shuttle components, but as the programs progressed, they found they needed to make more and more changes to the components that were from the shuttle and there were more and more complications from using an unusual design dictated by the shuttle hardware rather than a straightforward, simple, well-understood standard rocket launcher.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      The Shuttle was in many ways a valuable and necessary learning experience, but we’ve wrung every bit of value out that stack that we can, and it was clearly time to move on.  The important thing is to make use of what was learned from Shuttle, but that message somehow seems to have been lost when so many people are set on repeating the past.

      • dogstar29 says:
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        The time to take Shuttle out of service was when a replacement system for access to ISS was operational. That is what the CAIB commission report says. They assumed at the time that the OSP (similar in design and capability to commercial crew, although different in management) would be the replacement system. 

        • Steve Whitfield says:
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          Agreed, in an ideal world.  The problem was what I think of as “The Era of Endless Ignored Studies” which started well before cancelling the Shuttle was first considered and lasted until after Constellation was cancelled.  It almost seems like there was a conspiracy ensuring that nothing started ever got finished.

          But my comment was actually about the design rather than the use of Shuttle.  Reusing the basic design and/or the leftover hardware was considered expedient at the time, but in hindsight we can see it was not a good decision.  There are no short-cuts.  Progress is made by moving forward, backward or sideways.

  15. docscience says:
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    The SLS DOES have a destination… the bank.

  16. nasa817 says:
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    If SLS is the BEO vehicle, then we’re just going to have to redefine BEO.  How about Below Earth Orbit, because that’s as far as this thing is going to go.  Maybe it stands for Bail Everyone Out, or better yet, Biggest Employment Opportunity.  That’s it.  SLS, the BEO vehicle.

  17. Daniel_Kerlakian says:
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    I am having difficulty understanding that there are no other ways of getting beyond low earth orbit.  Is it just that there are no crew rated ways of getting beyond low earth orbit?  An Atlas V put Curiosity BEO so there are other ways, correct?  Someone please enlighten me.  Thanks.   If there are currently no other ways of putting people BEO, then I don’t see what the problem with SLS is when we are simultaneously funding/investing in commercial LEO activities that could be used for BEO activities in the future – aside from the lack of funding for NASA of course. 

    • Robin Seibel says:
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      SLS doesn’t offer anything in terms of BEO missions that other systems either already online or coming online–before SLS–don’t/won’t offer.  Further, these other systems will likely do so less expensively and will be/are flexible systems that can be used for other missions, unlike SLS. The one thing that SLS does better than these other systems is make less money available for other NASA missions or solutions.

    • dogstar29 says:
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      von Braun believed the place to build a vehicle to go BEO was in LEO – at the Space Station. 

  18. Steve Whitfield says:
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    You know, something just occurred to me — with all of this talk about SLS actually being about pork, I wonder what Inspiration Mars is actually about. So far, we’ve taken them at their word about the “inspiration” part.  Now I’ve got to wonder, are there other motivations behind it that we’ve not been made aware of?  Is adding in SLS actually preplanned collusion between IMF and NASA?  That makes about as much sense as some of the pro-SLS arguments I’m reading here, but this thing is turning into a soap opera.

  19. nasa817 says:
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    $2 billion per year is a LOT of money to develop a new rocket.  Unless you are forced to pay for hundreds of facilities, thousands of civil servants, and even more thousands of contractors.  This is NASA’s problem, huge amounts of physical and human infrastructure that they must support.  That and the fact that the workforce has grown incompetent over the last 3 decades when it comes to design and development of large-scale systems.

    Case in point: we’ve spent $10 billion in the last 8 years on the Orion capsule that will only be ready for a stripped-down test flight next year with no real functionality.  The first crewed flight is still another 8 years and $10 billion away.  $20 billion on a capsule whose full-up version can only reach orbit using SLS, which will never fly.  Maybe NASA can buy rides for Orion on the Falcon Heavy when it comes online around the time SLS is slogging through CDR. 

  20. muomega0 says:
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    It should be clear to all that with both 70 *and* 130 mT,  Congress did not specify not just a single HLV, but a HLV that includes many configurations including 5 seg solids, liquid boosters with both SSMEs and F1s, two different LAS systems, J2X and SLS/Orion for BLEO only–IOW: multiple engine programs–it is not about destinations.  It is quit clear that elimination of these product lines would result in significant savings for other things.  What would those be?

    GCR mitigation and the proper environment…
    To head to Mars, like Apollo/Gemini, it must be demonstrated that the crew and hardware function for the 1 year trip time in the proper environment which includes micro-g and galactic cosmic radiation–within the mass budget.

    ISS is protected by the earth’s magnetic field, the moon provides 1/6th g, and the moon blocks half the GCR in low lunar orbits.    Perhaps many more crew will stay at ISS gather data on bone loss, rather than limit duration to 6 months or less.  ISS and the moon however, do not address GCR mitigation for the trip to Mars.  GCR *cannot* be adequately simulated on the earth today.

    Pet projects…..
    In 1972, Robert Farquhar outlined the advantages of “a Halo-Orbit Lunar Station”, basically for communication (control lunar rendezvous and docking, ascent/descent trajectories, surface expeditions).    Staging in a 100 km polar lunar orbit constrains operations to 14 day intervals, whereas the delta V to L2 is almost trivial at 200 ft/s), and increases launch window flexibility.  L2 could provide a safehaven for lunar ops.

    It is easy to see how a L2 Gateway is viewed as a ‘pet project’.  ISRU could be controlled from earth; one is only moving ISS to another location, as Keith stated.  but wait a minute…

    GCR and bone loss demonstration..Two Options.
    Two options are discussed to provide the demonstration of 1 year in orbit in the proper environment prior to heading to Mars.  The option forward depends on your POV on GCR mitigation.

    The first option sends Orion with its 1500 kg of plastic to L2 for 1 year (like Tito’s Mars Flyby but to L2 with a 3 day abort).  The first option could be conducted in one mission, or over several gradually extending the duration, just provide additional supplies.

    In short, the L2 gateways is a location to demonstrate that a trip to mars (hardware and crew) is feasible and only a short distance away (less energy and cost).  One could start this process by shifting the orbit of the uncrewed
    SLS/Orion and crewed version to L2 rather than Apollo 8 redux in 2017
    and 2021.  Why is this not in the plans?

    Of course, many feel that the plastic passive absorber is inadequate for GCR mitigation for the 1 year trip to Mars.  Some studies indicate tons of water or rocks are necessary.  If so, this mass is not included in the Mars DRM 5.  A lighter weight solution is necessary.

    The Second option is a L2 Gateway, as a backup plan in case the plastic does not work out as many expect.  The crew tended L2 Gateway habitat would have advanced GCR subscale prototypes deployed around its structure, and would continue to gather long term data with or without the crew.

    Today, estimates for a full scale active system are an order of magnitude less mass than passive rocks, water or plastic for the same level of exposure (duration and levels).  But unlike passive absorbers, the active systems could achieve another order of magnitude reduction in mass with R&D with guaranteed spinoffs back to earth applications.

    Today’s shifting plans…..
    The asteroid mission does not approach the mars transient trip time, and rocks have been proposed to provide the GCR mitigation–not the solution for a trip to Mars. 

    In short, the Gateway location is either a one time one year mission (or as few missions as possible) in an environment that combines micro-g and GCR– but becomes a critical need if the 1500 kg of plastic/water passive absorbers do not not work out.  The data is required.

    Alternatively, the crew tended L2 gateway would demonstrate hardware in the proper environment to develop GCR mitigation strategies to protect the crew by combining both radiation and micro-g bone loss for the year trip, provide guaranteed spinoffs back to earth, and allow the flexible option of proceeding to lunar, Mars, or other asteroids.  It most certainly is not a destination, only a critical stepping stone.

    Another bonus is that it increases the flight rate beyond earth orbit with less energy than the lunar surface, asteroids, or Mars, and flight rate reduces $/kg each year for the smaller existing fleet.

    The intent was not to create another pet project, the intent was simply to wring out the GCR mitigation strategy, not in the plans for lack of budget.

  21. SOEJINN says:
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    NASA , the President, and Congress need to commit to a MARS mission. Otherwise, NASA building a heavy lift rocket makes no sense and it will have its budget slashed by Congress the first chance they see.

    SpaceX’s Falcon HEAVY rocket (people need to stop confusing it with the Falcon 9), can do a lot of what NASA needs. It’s smarter for NASA to push development of BEO rockets by commercial companies that they can use for Mars and beyond. NASA can focus on the lander and other new necessary technology, while working in partnership with commercial companies. This way NASA can avoid some of the budget craziness by congressional political and budget battles.