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SLS and Orion

What's the True Cost of NASA's Space Launch System?

By Marc Boucher
NASA Watch
July 16, 2013
Filed under , ,

Revisiting SLS/Orion launch costs, John Strickland for The Space Review
A year and a half ago, I wrote an article very critical of the Space Launch System. To see if this assessment should now be updated, I checked a series of sources and found that little in the situation has changed, with no reliable cost estimates of an SLS launch yet available anywhere. It is actually amazing how hard it is to get cost estimates for any part of the SLS/Orion system. Another assessment corroborates this problem. While I was working on this article, two startling pieces of information came to light.
It is hard to see how a large rocket like the SLS, which is, with all of its components, destroyed in the course of a launch, could possibly cost a lot less than the Space Shuttle on a per-launch basis. It will probably cost considerably more, since all of the expensive rocket engines and other equipment will either smash into the ocean at high speed or reenter the atmosphere and burn up. Note that the Space Shuttle and SLS systems are somewhat comparable in the amount of mass that reaches orbit, although the shuttle’s functional “payload” is only what it carried in its cargo bay (about 20 tons) when it was being used as a launch vehicle, rather than the roughly 100-ton mass of the orbiter itself.

Marc’s note: This is an interesting perspective on the costs of SLS/Orion. With NASA’s budget set to shrink and SLS/Orion seemingly taking a larger percentage of the budget and at least commercial options available, it raises the question, why is NASA developing the SLS? Wouldn’t a commercial option be better value? Why not have NASA focus on an exploration vehicle like the Nautilus concept?
Congress of course mandated NASA to build SLS, so that question is easily answered. It’s a jobs creation program for those States that have have a stake in SLS. Isn’t time though that someone assert some leadership and steer NASA on its proper course? The public doesn’t understand the repercussions of the current mess Congress has made of this. Congress continues to say that we must retain our leadership in space yet by its very own actions is causing the opposite to happen. It doesn’t help that the White House isn’t providing any leadership either.

SpaceRef co-founder, entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, nature lover and deep thinker.

31 responses to “What's the True Cost of NASA's Space Launch System?”

  1. Oglenn Smith says:
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    It is quite simple – Senators Shelby, Hutchinson, and Nelson care moore about their personal interests than the future of NASA and America’s Human Space Program.

    • Tombomb123 says:
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      Hutchinson isn’t in office any more mate. and you should add Palazzo to that list too.

    • mattmcc80 says:
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      Identify for me, please, the last time any serious effort was made to develop a long-term (by that I assume beyond-LEO) human spaceflight program. The current lack of support, lack of missions, lack of anything resembling a serious plan, is not a new problem.

      • muomega0 says:
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        Internal NASA Studies Show Cheaper and faster Alternatives than SLS, Oct 2011. The depot centric architecture, also known as “spirals” was cast aside for HLV with ESAS in 2005.
        http://www.spaceref.com/new

        • dogstar29 says:
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          ESAS repeatedly distorted the facts to support the Constellation proposal originated by Mike Griffin. If there is even a single author of the ESAS who still believes it contains evan a shred of truth, I challenge him/her to speak up in this forum and defend his work.

    • Amerman says:
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      The Democrat congress and a Democrat POTUS passed/signed the orders to begin/fund the unneeded shameless pork SLS/Orion…. it is their responsibility.

  2. Odyssey2020 says:
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    Everything you need to know about the SLS is as follows:

    1. First and foremost it is a jobs program.

    2. Obama does not feel HSF is very important POLITICALLY. And he’s right, it isn’t.

    3. Bolden and Garver have to toe the party line.

    4. NASA is not going to send humans to a stupid asteroid.

    5. NASA is not going to send humans to the moon or mars either.

    • Anonymous says:
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      So all those people who crowed that NASA HSF was “over” after STS-135, were right? From Constellation to consternation.

      • dogstar29 says:
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        We can still maintain and enlarge the ISS, and use it to advance earth and space observation of every kind. We can recognize the problem of cost and develop affordable human transport to LEO with fully reusable launch systems. If cost can be reduced to a practical level we can build sustainable commerce in human spaceflight and an infrastructure for hundreds of people in LEO at an affordable cost, for science, vacationing, and assemble and servicing of payloads to higher orbits. Ultimately we can use LEO as a base for human flight BEO in practical, reusable vehicles. All this was the original proposal of visionaries from von Braun to Arthur C. Clarke decades ago.

        All we really have to give up is the idea of Apollo on Steroids and human flight to Mars in giant throwaway rockets built with the technology of 50 years ago.

        • Odyssey2020 says:
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          If you want affordable HSF to LEO you’re NEVER going to get them via NASA. NASA only and always builds expensive rockets because of Rule #1(see my earlier post above).

          Commerical companies can build cheaper rockets, however they all seem to go after the govt. dime as well. Cheaper, but still expensive.

          The holy grail of LEO and beyond is CRRATS…and this may not happen for decades, or even in this century.

          • dogstar29 says:
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            Private companies have an incentive to cut costs if they are 1) competing for commercial launch contracts, and 2) if they are paid under a competitively awarded fixed price contract. SpaceX does both. Most federal contracts for RLV development or launch services are cost-plus (SLS) or, in the case of ULA, awarded without competition. Both approaches result in increased costs.

          • Amerman says:
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            Most Nasa contracts are cost plus BECAUSE Nasa dictates design, changes…. in any manner they please…. however incompetent, wasteful, stupid… no one would take such a contract any other way..

            SpaceX contracts are to deliver specific services (e.g. deliver X tons to/from the ISS), with how they do it (e.g. the design of the vehicles) left to SpaceX.

            SLS/Orion is shameless, unneeded, wasteful earmarked pork to legacy ‘big space’ shuttle profiteers.
            Instead Nasa should be using the private enterprise boosters/capsules which are far advanced/superior/efficient beyond anything Nasa is capable of.

        • Steve Whitfield says:
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          Right on, v4. When I look around at the non-SLS technology events taking place over the last few years in aerospace, I see more and more of a tendency towards smaller, more cost-effective equipment of all types.

          Also, in the LV department, we’re seeing an increasing number of viable alternatives to conventional, ever-larger rocket stacks.

          A third factor is that more developers are working on better BEO propulsion technologies.

          Logically, when all three of these are taken together, the future is looking like smaller payload packages going between Earth to LEO with more assembly in space (and not necessarily in LEO).

          The days of 1) blast hard, 2) coast, then 3) brake hard are hopefully coming to an end for most mission types, science and HSF, and may almost disappear within our lifetime. Only when we have something better than this old-school 1-2-3 will we really be able to start exploring and exploiting the solar system effectively and affordably.

          Assuming that weapons systems stay out of space, only the larger satellites and telescopes are going to require HLLVs, and I don’t think there will be enough of a remaining demand for them to require multiple suppliers, so I’m assuming that their price is likely to remain high (this assumes that ISRU will provide materials for space “construction”). The holy grail of bigger AND less expensive rocket stacks is finally starting to look like the fallacy that it is (in my opinion) — an outdated method that should be retired.

          The additional parallel goals of reusability and modularity will also be more readily realized with smaller equipment. Plus, the requirement for expensive, specialized manufacturing and processing equipment should be significantly reduced. It is the small, known things that will provide the keys to sustainability, not any “game-changing” breakthroughs. And, of course, maintainability will be a whole lot easier.

          I think we’re starting to see hopeful trends. The one big remaining “problem” that has yet to see changes for the better is the fact that these encouraging moves in the right direction are happening in spite of the actions of the various governments involved rather than because of their actions. But I’m not giving up hope; successful results speak for themselves, so the tail might yet wag the dog.

  3. muomega0 says:
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    If the fixed costs of SLS were 1B/year and the recurring cost 300M,
    ignoring development costs, SLS still cannot compete with the existing fleet. No one has ever suggested that 1B is achievable.

    Rohrabacher pressed NASA scientists to give their estimates for a booster for the Space Launch System (SLS) in Huntsville, Ala., but they were unable to provide one. http://thehill.com/blogs/hi

    The concept of reducing costs to LEO is quite simple:

    The US pays the fixed costs of the shuttle derived product lines and the existing fleet of Delta/Atlas/Falcon. The world and the US have excess launch capacity.
    – delete the fixed costs of SLS/Orion: 2.5B/year for decades

    + retain the lower cost existing fleet
    = spend one/two years of the savings on:
    + a Zero Boiloff LH2 LEO depot (the gas station is space)
    + tankers and transfer stages
    + EP
    + a habitat and GCR mitigation/testing

    So for a mere $10B, give or take, and a say a decade, one has the infrastructure to enable all the deep space or planet or moon destinations.

    But it is much better: it gives the NASA project managers the flexibility to move funding from launch costs to hardware/technology development each year. IPs could launch propellant too, giving them flight rate and reducing US costs further, especially those Mars missions. The unmanned programs could gain margin or an additional science instrument: simply offload propellant and fill up on orbit.

    There is so much exploration and technology to develop that there will be no shortage of work. So what/who is holding the nation back?

    http://www.floridatoday.com

    “On a rare party-line vote, the Republican-led House Science, Space and
    Technology Subcommittee on Space agreed to set the space agency’s
    maximum budget at $16.8 billion a year for fiscal 2014 and fiscal 2015. The bill includes an annual authorization of about $3 billion for the
    Space Launch System designed to carry astronauts to Mars by the 2030s.”

    This flexible plan forward provides economic spinoffs almost immediately
    with the hope of gathering resources in the future when zero spinoffs
    were expected for decades for the current plan. Its quite an the
    inspirational path forward.

    • dogstar29 says:
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      The GOP plan also zeros out NASA earth science. They apparently believe that global warming will stop if they close their eyes and stick their fingers in their ears.

  4. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    It’s a two pronged attack by lawmakers to crush commercial ventures they can’t control. SLS funding keeps their campaign supporters happy and the money taken away from purely commercial space development makes them happier.

    On top of that, neither the lawmakers or the contractors for SLS care if it ever flys. That’s simply not important to them.

    tinker

  5. TheBrett says:
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    HSF isn’t dead, but it is treading water. I suppose we should at least be grateful that we’re getting the commercial crew assistance while SLS gradually makes its way through the cycle of failed justifications and drastic budget cuts before they finally cancel the whole thing in 2017.

    • dogstar29 says:
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      We should also be glad we still have ISS. We need it as a port of call for every new RLV concept. If we abandon ISS we will not be stuck in LEO. We will be stuck on the ground.

  6. CadetOne says:
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    It seems we have a president who doesn’t care about HSF. A Congress who is primarily concerned with funding & protecting their own constituents. And a NASA Administrator who seems relatively ineffective and shaping direction.

    Strickland’s article nicely summarizes the results of such a combination.

    Sigh… 🙁

  7. dogstar29 says:
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    Remarkably, there are many within NASA who simply close their eyes to the handwriting on the wall and say that if we have a change in president, NASA will return to the glory days.

    • mfwright says:
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      “if we have a change in president, NASA will return to the glory days.”

      This has been going on for about 40 years…

  8. Anonymous says:
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    Marc,
    IMHO these programs are all driven by BIG government to keep the public workers working… It’s a form of white collar welfare living off the taxpayers. The days of Apollo and Space Shuttles are gone forever. I actually came out of retirement in 2007 to work on the follow-on to the Space Shuttle where the goal was to return to the moon. But in 2010 the program was cancelled for a pipe dream of flying off to catch a rock… which IMHO again will never happen. Maybe someday humans will travel to Mars but they will be Chinese and/or Russians. — Grandpa Dave from the good old Mercury and Gemini days. 🙁

    • Michael Reynolds says:
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      “IMHO these programs are all driven by BIG government to keep the public workers working”
      You seem to forget the workers at ATK, Boeing, Lockheed, et al.
      …and their bottom line of course!

      • Anonymous says:
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        Michael… You seem to forget when USA, ATK, Boeing, LockMart, etc. are laying-off their, private employees, the civil service folks, of BIG government, never (I say again) NEVER loss their jobs. They get reassigned and have a job for life with great benefits and pension. Go back and check your facts…

        • Michael Reynolds says:
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          That is a fallacy. I never implied that big government didn’t have its own issues; I pointed out the other half of the issue in multiple inefficient and corrupt corporations basically buying big contracts worth 10’s of billions with campaign donations, threats of mass layoffs, and loss of tax revenues for “certain” districts if they don’t feed the pork. Which is a BIG reason that we are now building a big expensive rocket that doesn’t even have a mission or purpose outside of being built and supporting jobs (private and public)
          Truth be-told IMHO; the future of humans in space (especially for economic purposes) is vastly more important than the bottom line of a few companies and a very small segment of the american public that work for them. One thing I will not apologize about is demanding not only accountability about how my tax money is spent but making sure I get value out of it. I’m not getting my value as a taxpayer out of SLS, NASA, or a good portion of any company working on non-competitive cost-plus contracts (that goes for military contracts as well).

          • Anonymous says:
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            So, you believe that the private sector where “multiple” inefficient and corrupt corporations are to blame for the current state of affairs. Well, maybe you are right… Free enterprise should be stomped out and the Republic should be converted to a Socialist Democracy where BIG government decides everything for you so you don’t have to think and if you demand accountability you might disappear. Anyway I do agree that SLS is another black hole at NASA which will fade away after Obama.

            Oh… could you site these multiple corporations
            or are you just batting your gums? I worked in the private sector for over 40 years and I don’t recall multiple inefficient and corrupt corporations. I think “inefficient and corrupt” corporations like Space-X and Orbital Science are the future for space with the backing of the American people.

          • Michael Reynolds says:
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            Wow! Either you are an ideologue, have a reading disorder, or you are an internet troll. Nothing that I said in anyway indicated that I favor a socialist government. Also you apparently missed this part when asking me to cite these multiple corporations, “ATK, Boeing, Lockheed, et al.”, or this part, “any company working on non-competitive cost-plus contracts”. Since neither Space-X or Orbital Science are contracted out by the government through non-competetive cost-plus contracts they do not fall into the corporate welfare category. Although of the two, I believe that only Space-X could stand on its own without government contracts.

  9. Saturn1300 says:
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    Seen that image of a huge building filled with machined slabs of aluminum for the sides of the core? Material not cheap, but robots can do most of the work. I wonder how much the cost a Atlas V with a 16′ core and 7 solids would be? They say it will lift 70 tons. Somebody ought to ask for a bid. 30′ fairing is needed for SEP. That is only 7′ bulge. That is doable. It is amazing they keep SLS going when nobody thinks it is a good idea. It will be known as Nelsons’ folly.

  10. Ralphy999 says:
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    The mission scheduled for 2017 is under a change request to expand to a 25 day mission and to go 70,000 km past the moon into a “distant retrograde orbit”. This is to “align” with a possible asteroid capture mission in 2019 if it should occur. There you have it.

  11. Mark_Flagler says:
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    The Falcon Heavy would launch 26,000 lb to GTO at an advertised price of about $130 million. That’s about $5000/pound, and is an all-inclusive cost.
    By contrast, the initial version of SLS would launch about 50,600 lb to GTO at about $1-billion for the core alone, exclusive of other costs. That’s about $19,800/pound for the core alone, and associated costs would probably be some multiple of core cost.
    Thus two Falcon Heavy launches, costing a total of $260 million could launch slightly more mass (52,000 lb) into GTO than a single SLS launch at >>$1-billion.
    The ratio of costs to LEO would be similar, though the masses would be greater in each case. Thus it is fair to say that the cost per pound to orbit of SLS would be at least four times that for a Falcon Heavy, and probably more.
    If all associated costs for SLS are included, we might be looking at costs per pound ten times that of Falcon Heavy.
    SLS’s business case, does not close. The launcher is not even close to being competitive.

  12. Stardust526 says:
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    Man its got to be brutal if you’re a SLS/Orion supporter reading through these comments.

    No fun being the tailor when everyone knows, and is saying, that the King has no clothes.