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SLS and Orion

Chris Kraft on NASA and SLS (Updated)

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
September 4, 2013
Filed under ,

Sunday conversation: NASA veteran Chris Kraft upfront with criticism, Chris Kraft, Houston Chronicle
“The problem with the SLS is that it’s so big that makes it very expensive. It’s very expensive to design, it’s very expensive to develop. When they actually begin to develop it, the budget is going to go haywire. They’re going to have all kinds of technical and development issues crop up, which will drive the development costs up. Then there are the operating costs of that beast, which will eat NASA alive if they get there. They’re not going to be able to fly it more than once a year, if that, because they don’t have the budget to do it. So what you’ve got is a beast of a rocket, that would give you all of this capability, which you can’t build because you don’t have the money to build it in the first place, and you can’t operate it if you had it.”
NASA’s original flight director calls agency’s direction a “tragedy”, Ars Technica
“But Kraft’s harshest words are directed right where they should be: at the top. “Bolden,” said Kraft of NASA administrator Charles Bolden, “doesn’t know what it takes to do a major project. He doesn’t have experience with that. He’s never known what it takes to do a massive program. He keeps talking about going to Mars in the 2030s, but that’s pure, unadulterated, BS.”

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

167 responses to “Chris Kraft on NASA and SLS (Updated)”

  1. Paul451 says:
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    “There’s no reason why you couldn’t set up a factory on the moon to build solar panels. You could provide enough electrical power on the moon from solar cells, and eventually you could supply enough power for half the people on Earth with a solar cell farm on the moon.”

    [sigh] …and he was doing so well.

    • LPHartswick says:
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      OMG! People are talking about building factory’s on the Moon when we can’t get everyone pulling together on the appropriate architecture and funding for BEO exploration. Woe is me! On the current budget numbers our grandchildren may, someday, perhaps return to the Moon. As for the rest, this sounds like a redo of “Faster, Better, Cheaper” and we all know what happened with that.

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        Faster, Better, Cheaper” was inarguably an example of shooting one’s self in the foot. But I think you’ve pointed out the really-big-problem-of-the-day — getting consensus and agreement on an “appropriate architecture and funding for BEO exploration.” Since doing BEO missions is the one (and only) idea that almost everyone seems to agree on, sorting out this one issue could go a long way towards eliminating, or at least reducing, the multi-faction space arena that has been holding us back for so long. Until we eliminate the us-and-them problem I think we’ll keep on going around in the same circles and getting nowhere.

        • Mark_Flagler says:
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          I suspect that in the long run this will be left to companies like Blue Origin, SpaceX, and others. Getting a sensible consensus in a body like our Congress is nearly impossible to imagine. Instead, Musk, Bezos, and others will do their thing and Congress will damn NASA for not having done it as a federal program.
          Politics, K Street, and HSF are like immiscible liquids.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            If you’re right on that, then I’d say that: 1) it’s going to be a longer time before we see any significant BEO action simply because of the rate at which money will be available (no COTS-like spending); and 2) SLS and Orion are even more of a waste than they seem now.
            PS: Careful that immiscible liquids don’t have you charged with libel for suggesting that they emulate questionable company!

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            I don’t disagree, but Musk has advanced development programs underway, expects to see some reasonabe non-governmental cash flow over the next few years, and he wants to get out there. It wouldn’t surprise me if, based on Merlin 2, he doesn’t build something larger than Falcon Heavy. The military and the NRO, especially, have an appetite for payloads massing between what the FH can launch and what the SLS would be needed for. And so does Musk. The point of diminishing returns may lie one notch above Falcon Heavy.
            I like having a wild card like that involved and mixing things up; the unexpected can be a good thing.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            I like your thinking. The only thing that I’d maybe like to see different is another company holding the wild card instead of everything being in SpaceX’s hand. Musk has shown that there is another, better way to do things in aerospace, and there’s nothing, except cash, stopping other companies from doing the same as SpaceX, just with a different sector of the total launch market.

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            As I see it, SpaceX has three things going for it. First, is its business model with its short or non-existant supply chains; doing everything under one roof increases control and saves money. The second is its lack of baggage; not being an old line aerospace company, it hasn’t accumulated the bureaucratic barnacles on its hull that its competitors have. Finally, there is Musk himself; he seems to be a rare combination of entrepreneur, leader, and inventor. Because of that, either his mind or his leadership, an unusually large number of ideas are pouring out of SpaceX that other companies can only envy.
            Now, the rest of the industry might copy the business model, but the other two would be either hard or impossible for them to duplicate.
            So, while I have hope for Blue Origin, and one or two other companies, I think they have an uphill climb ahead.
            On the other hand, I know a few people within SpaceX, and while they are very, very good, there isn’t anyone who could replace Musk, so to that degree, our eggs are in one basket. It’s uncomfortable but unavoidable.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Well, he’s not actually wrong. But by the same token, if I were to discover a large diamond deposit buried deep under my backyard then my money problems would be over. But Chris and I have the same problems — the hardware is not where we want it to be and our magically created resources would still be very hard to get to.

      Having shot that idea down, I think, in all fairness, that it really should be on our To Do List to be done at some scale, but not now. There are tech problems yet to be solved (like protecting them); the efficiency still needs to be improved; the cost has to come down more; the manufacturing process on the Moon has yet to be developed and proven (it will not be the same as on Earth, and shipping either the finished panels and electrical systems or all of their components to the Moon would be far too expensive); efficient storage against the long lunar nights needs development; etc.

      Solar plants on the Moon will at some point in the future be a valuable asset, how valuable depends on how we use them and what exactly we want to be doing in space at any point in time. There would be value in this even if no energy was transmitted to Earth (which my be prohibitive anyhow because of the magnitude of the waste heat at Earth’s surface).

      Even though it may be decades, or even centuries, before we look at actually trying this, I think we should be doing work now (at an appropriate level of priority) to figure out how to do it so that we can incorporate it into the long-term planning that should be going on. We can’t live only in the now.

  2. Jonna31 says:
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    Wait a sec…I thought the James Webb Space Telescope was the Beast that Ate the NASA budget? So which beast is it? And furthermore wasn’t the DIRECT 3.0 Jupiter, which the SLS is a reasonably close adaptation of, supposed to save us all from the “too big and too expensive Ares V”?

    Let’s spend big and spend once on the SLS, and figure out the cargo once we put this tool in our country’s space launch tool box. We can do without another son-of-the-JWST megaproject or yet another clean sheet Mars rover for a decade (beyond the 2020 rover, which isn’t clean sheet thankfully).

    Seems prudent considering this is no reason the SLS couldn’t be our super heavy lift rocket of choice for the majority of the remainder of the 21st century. Let’s get it right once, and have it for decades.

    • Anonymous says:
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      Can I have a job in your astroturf shill shop?

    • Neowolf says:
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      Let’s not “spend big” on SLS. It’s expensive, it’s unneeded, and the best case scenario for it is to fail and be cancelled as soon as possible. If we can’t do better, and much cheaper, than SLS, humanity has no future in space, and NASA’s efforts in that direction are pointless.

      • Mark_Flagler says:
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        Fortunately we can do better and with technology that is either already on the shelf or soon will be.

    • Denniswingo says:
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      So, in other words, you did not read the article.

    • Tombomb123 says:
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      See the problem is we have gone down this road multiple times before by building big government made and run heavy lift launchers and they all where eventually canceled because they were unsustainable! And you think if we “get it right” that this time it would be any different? Wake up! The main objective of this and the Orion program is to provide pork and everything else comes second! Bolden knows this congress know this and anyone well informed and has half a brain knows this.

    • SpaceBuzz says:
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      There is absolutely no need for the heavy lift system when you can accomplish the same job with existing launch vehicles. NASA is only working on it because it is mandated by law.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Of what use is a nice big sledge hammer that nobody can lift?

    • Andrew Gasser says:
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      JWST is the Beast that eats NASA SMD.

      SLS is the Beast that eats NASA HEO.

      Get it right. Both are big government bureaucracy jobs programs that eat the most valuable resources we have have. Time, money, and people.

      • mattmcc80 says:
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        A key difference is that if JWST flies, it has the potential to rewrite our textbooks. If SLS flies, it has the potential to do what other systems can already do while costing fifty times more to do it.

        JWST has a defined mission. SLS has experimental flights planned, but no mission hardware being designed or funded to accomplish anything except an Apollo 8 replay.

    • DTARS says:
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      Use a throw away rocket and flush our space future down the drain for another 50 100 years???

      I am in the list that thumbs down your comment I wish we could get names of people that dislike or disgree with our comments same as you can view those that agree???

      Why not? Don’t we learn more from people that think differently??

  3. MedicT says:
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    I strongly support a real US space program but this country has lost the will to achieve. There is very little point in continuing to spend money on this program if we will not be willing or able to exploit the vehicle’s capability. The government has given away our technological leadership and placed our exploration of space in the hands of for profit SpaceEx. When Elon Musk becomes bored with rockets and decides to go play with trains we will be left with no space program whatsoever.

    • Denniswingo says:
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      Agreed. However, as Spudis has stated many times, congress and the president are willing to give NASA a certain amount of money. It is the agency’s responsibility to spend it wisely to carry out its mission. Building a rocket that essentially bankrupts the agency in the hope that more money will be forthcoming is the height of hubris and misunderstanding of the political process.

      • Odyssey2020 says:
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        Didn’t the Obama administration cut NASA’s HSF budget in half a few years ago?

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        Dennis, I’m confused by your statement because:

        1) I thought I understood that certain members of Congress mandated several major constraints on the SLS requirements and design, and then passed legislation to make those constraints into law and therefore NASA is bound by them; and

        2) Congress / Administration doesn’t just hand over a total budget amount to NASA each year; that budget is broken down into allocations by directorate and often additionally subdivided by program, and NASA is not allowed to transfer funds between allocation items. And once again, this has the force of law behind it thereby binding NASA’s hands.

        How, then, can you say, “It is the agency’s responsibility to spend it wisely to carry out its mission” when the major spending decisions are already made and absolutely fixed before any money is handed over? NASA had/has: no authority in the matter of selecting the SLS program; no authority to modify those requirements that Congress mandated; no authority to spend money on SLS, or any program, in a manner other than specified in the budget allocations. Any wiggle room in which NASA might exercise decisions is down in the noise levels. You can’t make NASA, or anyone else, responsible for matters over which they don’t have the authority equivalent to that responsibility. It just doesn’t work, under any circumstances.

        • Denniswingo says:
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          Easy, follow the money from the contractors and subcontractors to the Senators involved.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            I’m afraid I see no connection between your response and either your previous statement or my question. You response alludes to collusion between the contractors / subcontractors and the Senators. Fine, I don’t imagine at this point that anyone would debate that for a second, but how do you see NASA fitting into the decision loop? NASA is clearly in the money loop, passing tax payer money from the NASA budget to the contractors.

            Are you saying that NASA is not “spending wisely” because of which contractors they award programs to and how much the contracts are for? If so, then it seem to me that you’re implying that either NASA is part of the collusion process, or that NASA had the choice of which contractors received the various contract awards, or both.

            It doesn’t make sense that NASA would be part of the collusion; it is entirely to their detriment, unless you’re saying there are NASA higher-ups getting kick-backs in some form, which I think would have been discovered and in the news long before now.

            As for the contract awards, several of the major contracts for both SLS and Orion were clearly targeted at single-source suppliers as a result of constraints mandated by Congress. NASA went through RFP and bid processes for contracts that were clearly only going to go to legacy component suppliers, as fixed into law by Congress. How could NASA have done anything differently without defying the law?

            NASA has many operational problems, that’s for sure. But in this case, I feel like you’re laying blame on NASA for activities wherein they are actually the injured party acting against their own best interests but with little choice.

            Why are we seeing this so differently? What am I missing?

          • Denniswingo says:
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            I am not addressing Orion, only SLS.

            The heavy lift vehicle was desired by the previous administrator as in his opinion it is the only way to do exploration, even though NASA had many studies and an ongoing Human and Robotic Technology program under Steidle and the CE&R studies that showed other ways of accomplishing exploration. Hell the Shuttle C would be flying today had the desire for “Apollo on Steroids” been absent.

            There were those in NASA even after Griffin left that legitimately thought that a heavy lifter was the only way to go, even though several congressional panels, independent reviews, and internal studies showed that without billions more PER YEAR, the SLS was a rocket to no where.

            Now Chris Kraft comes out (notice that the vehicle that he was holding was the original TSTO fully reusable shuttle from 1970) and declares what everyone knows is already the case.

            Why NASA is continuing on with this is anyone’s guess but with the current administrator’s fixation on Mars, the only political support is from the contractors and a couple of powerful senators.

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            Dennis, how would NASA get out from under the Congressional mandate? Can they legally do that?

          • Paul451 says:
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            Hell the Shuttle C would be flying today had the desire for “Apollo on Steroids” been absent.

            Can you elaborate?

            Whether sidemount or stick, 30 years of operating the shuttle doesn’t create knowledge of how to design a new vehicle from shuttle parts. Post-shuttle without going through a learning process that SpaceX went through, was going to suck no matter what the design.

            The time to start Shuttle C was 1982.

            (Actually, the time to build Shuttle C was the late ’70s as an unmanned test-bed to prove the stack, before flying the manned orbiter.)

          • Denniswingo says:
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            Paul

            The hard part of Shuttle C was done in the 80’s, all the way up to a full scale mockup. Several things would have been common besides the ET and SRB’s. The boattail was identical and that is where all of the plumbing was for the Orbiter. The computers could have been the same, cargo bay doors, internal arrangement for the trunions and payload mounts.

            The OMS was identical, the RCS system, fuel cells, damn near everything was identical in terms of systems. However, no more APU as they were going with electromechanical actuators for the engine gimbals.

            The biggest part is that the supply chain was still intact and the operational workforce was intact, and the PAPERWORK for the most part was identical. The SAFETY process would have been pretty much identical.

            I would estimate an 80-90% overlap between STS and STC. In 1989 the cost for Shuttle C was estimated at only about 2 billion, at the time when Endeavour was under construction and the workforce was trained and the manufacturing infrastructure was intact.

            Even the engineering teams at MSFC could have handled this far easier than the stupid stick or the Ares 5 or the SLS. It is just completely underestimated how much all that damn paper and process costs to rebuild from scratch, which you did not have to do with Shuttle C.

            It pains me what we just chucked in order to do it all over again.

          • Paul451 says:
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            Even 1989 seems much too late to build Shuttle-C. The major program was completed and most of the decision makers were already looking for the next shiny-thing to chase. (X-30/X-33, Freedom, etc.) Shuttle-C seemed to be seen as too mundane, a distraction.

            OTOH, had NASA gone ahead with the Boeing SDV proposal in the late ’70s, as a quick’n’dirty proof of stack tester, it would have developed into a cargo shuttle (even if not the Shuttle-C) in the early ’80s. It would have kept everyone too busy juggling Orbiters and Shuttle-C’s in the ’80s to worry about SSTO fantasies until the ’90s.

            [This would also have provided a vehicle on which to test more radical shuttle upgrades, like liquid boosters, or new ETs. Not to mention developing and testing new main engines. Without risking a crew or orbiter.]

          • Denniswingo says:
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            Even 1989 seems much too late to build Shuttle-C.

            Neither Rockwell International or NASA thought it was too late. I sat in on some of the meetings at MSFC and I actually stood in the cargo bay of the Shuttle C full scale mockup in building 4705. There was no one that thought it was not doable. Endeavour came off the production line at the right time and the people and the production machinery were there in place.

            The show stopper at the time was the cost of the SSME’s, which increased the per flight cost. Also the astronaut corps wanted to fly the Shuttle more.

            Shuttle C was doable in 2005 as well and could be flying today and we would be a lot farther down the road.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Mr. Wingo: I presume you are speaking of the workforce devastation in southern California early in the Reagan era after Mr. Nixon cancelled A18? It’s important I think to keep reminding the younger people that we have been here before. And that every iteration is more costly in terms of people’s lives. It’s a great loss for the nation.

          • Denniswingo says:
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            What the hell are you talking about? That workforce devastation as you call it did not come about until the 1990’s and it was because of our victory in the cold war. Now I absolutely blame Reagan for winning the cold war and Bush 1 and Dick Cheney for downsizing the military industrial complex, for which Clinton then took too far, but I know of no such southern Cal workforce devastation in the 80’s.

          • dogstar29 says:
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            Yes, that’s true, Apollo downsizing started after the development effort peaked in 1966.

          • Paul451 says:
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            Neither Rockwell International or NASA thought it was too late.

            Of course. The major program had reached its end and they were looking for the next big-shiny-thing. All that means is that someone waited at least five years too long to introduce the next step.

            Shuttle C was doable in 2005

            A thousand time no. A Shuttle-C in 2005 would have been as flawed as Ares. This is what prompted my first comment. Whether it’s a stick or a side-mount, you can’t expect a group to even begin to design a new vehicle after 30 years of not developing new vehicles.

          • Denniswingo says:
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            We are just going to have to disagree on this. I was working at MSFC at the time and there were plenty of really damn good people from PD, the manufacturing shops, and the engineering guys that were still around and it would have been a no brainer. This is also true of Rockwell, Boeing, and MacDac. I worked with a lot of those guys out there and the right stuff was still around.

            By 2005 that generation was gone for sure and the capabilities at MSFC a pale shadow of its former glory, but they old timers were still available as support and in a non ESAS NASA they would have been listened to. I talked with many of them (that I have known for over 25 years now), and that was the biggest problem. The new administrator in 2005 knew exactly what he wanted and no one that did not line up behind exactly that survived.

          • Paul451 says:
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            For the record, I am not saying that there’s any lack of “good people”. Nor smart people (NASA&co have more IQ per cubic metre than any other place on Earth.)

            My objection to 1989 is that it was too late to get Shuttle C chosen. By then, most of the major flaws in the shuttle design were known, you’d already lost a vehicle, all of which poisoned the well against shuttle-derived developments. People wanted to move away to a new shiny adventure, like SSTO.

            Anything later than 5 years before the final orbiter was delivered would be too late, and earlier would be better. It would have stretched budgets and schedules and everyone’s capabilities to their limits. And people like that don’t have a chance to form political factions, they’re too focused on getting their job done. (Haven’t you noticed how much your patience for people like me in these forums ebbs and flows with the stress of Real Life?)

            The other benefits of Shuttle-C I don’t have to justify to you, obviously. But the additional benefit I see is in keeping the skills working. 30 years of building shuttle-derived technology, instead of 30 years of operating a single design. The former group would be able to create a new SLS-type HLV in their sleep, pieced together from designs they already knew were robust. The later group, our reality, is virtually starting from scratch, learning their craft all over again. (The only good thing that came from Ares, it let them build and fail and start over.)

            By 2005 [the] old timers were still available as support

            I don’t believe its enough to just have the people who worked on the orbiters when they were young. You needed people who worked on the orbiters when they were young, who then kept building various designs based on (or replacing) shuttle technology. And the generation who learned while doing from them.

            [I know all of this is 20/20 hindsight, but it feels like the lesson is never learned. You don’t learn a skill by making one big thing. You learn it by making a dozen smaller things first.]

            tl;dr – You think of Shuttle C as a vehicle. I think of it as a workforce training tool.

          • Denniswingo says:
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            My objection to 1989 is that it was too late to get Shuttle C chosen. By then, most of the major flaws in the shuttle design were known, you’d already lost a vehicle, all of which poisoned the well against shuttle-derived developments. People wanted to move away to a new shiny adventure, like SSTO.

            None of the “flaws” in STS translated over to the Shuttle C. The SRB’s were fixed by then and foam shedding was irrelevant as were the other issues with the orbiters. Name me one problem with STS that translated over to the Shuttle C (1989 version). It was not too late at all. What killed Shuttle C was a congress unwilling to give ANY money to a G.H.W. Bush space program.

            I don’t believe its enough to just have the people who worked on the orbiters when they were young. You needed people who worked on the orbiters when they were young, who then kept building various designs based on (or replacing) shuttle technology. And the generation who learned while doing from them.

            You can believe what you want but it does not comport with the facts. The people that I am talking about in some instances went all the way back to Peenemunde. For many of the rest, like my ex boss that went to work for General Bruce Medaris in 1951 are STILL active engineers and scientists.

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            And then the Augustine Committee shot down Griffin’s Constellation, though parts of it live on.

          • dogstar29 says:
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            y impression is that only the name (and Ares I) were shot down. The program remains the same down to logos and most contractors and CS personnel.

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            Yep, and what was unaffordable and ill-advised before does not become an affordable good idea with a name change.

          • dogstar29 says:
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            I feel Shuttle C was doable as long as Shuttle was actually flying. Once Shuttle cancellation was announced all the overhead cost would have fallen on Shuttle C and it would have been unaffordable.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Dennis,

            Things got side tracked below with Shuttle C. Let’s please go back to the original issue, because I don’t understand how you can blame NASA for SLS.

            According to The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 (Public Law 111-267 — Oct. 11, 2010):

            • NASA was told to design and build SLS [Section 302(a)].

            • NASA was told what the performance requirements were [Section 302(c)].

            • NASA was told to use Shuttle and Constellation existing hardware where possible [Section 304(a)].

            • NASA was told to use Shuttle and Constellation existing suppliers where possible [Section 304(a)].

            • NASA was told to use Shuttle and Constellation existing contracts where possible [Section 304(a)].

            • NASA was told to use existing ground infrastructure and test equipment where possible [Section 304(a)].

            • NASA was told it may not terminate any contract that provides the system transitions necessary for shuttle-derived hardware to be used on SLS [Section 503].

            • NASA was told to use, to the maximum extent practicable, the workforce, assets, and infrastructure of the Space Shuttle program for SLS [Section 602].

            Taken together, this left very little in the way of decision making for NASA in terms of program selection, program performance, or program procurement.

            NASA was mandated — backed by very specific legislation — to build SLS and build it as described. In complying with the law of the nation, and in working with the inadequate budget that it was grudgingly given, how is NASA to blame for “Building a rocket that essentially bankrupts the agency“?

            NASA did not dream up SLS (unlike Constellation); it was forced upon them against their wishes. All that NASA could have done is what they have done — try to put the best face on things, comply with the law as best they could with the resources available, and let the chips fall where they may. Any other response to the hopeless situation NASA was in would only have made things worse for everybody.

            NASA has certainly made mistakes over the years, but I reject the idea that they are somehow to blame for SLS, a foolish program that has its roots firmly in Congressional pork and will most likely end up failing in every aspect except for the generation of that pork.

          • Denniswingo says:
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            Steve

            The Senators did not pull those parameters out of their ample rear ends now did they? You know better than this Steve.

            If NASA had wanted a 70 ton lifter they could have had it in the Shuttle C years ago. You are looking well downstream of the rock at the top of the cliff that got the SLS mess going.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            There are two issues here: the SLS lift capacity; and saddling SLS with the baggage from Shuttle and Constellation. It’s the second issue that bothers me. Shuttle C was not an unreasonable compromise proposal at the time it was proposed, but at the time when SLS was introduced NASA choosing to use the Shuttle and Constellation technology and contracts for SLS makes no sense to me at all. It seems like a rookie decision based on utterly simplistic logic. I can’t see NASA making that choice given that it makes everything about SLS more difficult and more likely to fail — and the operations costs for SLS will be at least as unacceptable as Shuttle and Constellation. I may be completely out to lunch on this, but I don’t think that decision was born at NASA at all. I believe it was put into the heads of certain Congress people by industry people associated with those who will benefit most from the pork that retaining outdated legacy technology will generate. The suppliers who had Shuttle and Constellation contracts are the only people on the planet who will benefit from this, except of course for those who get campaign contributions or other kickbacks in return.

          • Denniswingo says:
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            but at the time when SLS was introduced NASA choosing to use the Shuttle and Constellation technology and contracts for SLS makes no sense to me at all.

            Agreed, that is not what I said. I said 1989 or even 2005. In 2010 the Shuttle workforce was already mostly gone, the contracts for suppliers dead, and STS is as gone as Apollo.

            That would have been a political compromise that would have worked but in the absence of a 2005 NASA workforce NO HLV makes sense for NASA to build as it requires far too much money to bring into existence.

            Some good has come out of the SLS spending. The J2-X might be a good fit to enable more cargo from an Atlas V or Delta IVH, or even mated to the SpaceX Falcon heavy. We could hit around 70 tons to orbit with that combination. The F1B seems to make sense to me as well as something that could then be turned over to EVERYONE in the U.S. industry for production which would make the Falcon heavy possibly less expensive.

            At the amount of money that congress is willing to give NASA today, an HLV is a non starter because its costs will be so high as to not allow any significant payload development. The HLV would make sense if NASA had a $30-40 billion per year budget. Even then it should work in cooperation with the station, not in competition to it.

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            Agreed. Interesting thought, licencing the F-1B to SpaceX. I know they are tinkering with methane, and wonder if the design could be adapted to that.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            OK. Thanks Dennis. That’s makes more sense to me now. I could see certain people at NASA wanting a HLV to own and operate, although I don’t agree with that desire myself at all. As for the other issue, I could not imagine anyone at NASA, who was seriously a NASA person, wanting to be tied down with the Shuttle and Constellation stuff for SLS, or have any other conditions forced on them by outsiders. I guess my confusion came from the two issues always being tied together with SLS.

            I heartily agree with your idea of developing or upgrading new engines to be turned over to industry for everyone’s use — provided NASA doesn’t get into the manufacturing and selling business. The major risk I see in this lies with NASA’s tendency to not let go of something once they’re involved (ISS National Lab being the obvious recent worst case).

            I’m really not comfortable with SLS going forward. I certainly don’t have either the expertise or the information of the decision makers at NASA, or in government, but I’m completely convinced that the US space program has to make a choice — they can have SLS or they can have HSF; but they can’t have both. There’s just not enough soup in the pot to feed everybody sitting at the table, and there’s no more ingredients to make more soup, now or in the foreseeable future. And this is a situation where stone soup just isn’t going to cut it.

            I think it’s obvious that everybody involved really knows this down inside so, by elimination, they really must be hoping that if they can get into SLS far enough then the sunk cost fallacy will suddenly become valid and save them by somehow bringing in more money. When you look at programs like JWST, perhaps it’s not surprising that the decision makers believe this to be possible. The major flaw in that is the difference in the ratio of design/build costs to operating costs — JWST costs are mostly in the building and are one time, whereas SLS costs are mostly in the operations and will perpetuate and increase for as long as it is in existence.

            I think your point about SLS, or any LV or spacecraft really, working in cooperation with the station is an important one, but it seems to be overlooked or even perhaps covered up by certain folks at NASA. I see this insidious factor as almost like driving with the brakes on; it’s empire building, to everyone’s detriment, disguised as competition for scarce resources.

            Thanks for taking the time to straighten out my thinking on the SLS business. It can be frustrating to me being on the outside and having to try to piece together what’s really going on in current and recent events. By comparison, the history of the space program often seems so much simpler.

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            Not just HSF. Planetary science has taken a huge hit as a result of the congressional SLS funding mandate.
            See Orlando Sentinel today for a story about SLS, probable delays, and a unilateral move away from planetary exploration. Much of this is conjecture, but much of it also has the ring of truth.

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            One might argue that NASA could have fought back against the design, but IMHO, they didn’t have the leverage to make it stick. I’m not a huge fan of the present administrator, but I can’t hang this one on him; I just don’t see where he could have gotten traction especially in the House.
            And this is one of those cases where presidential backing would only have made things worse.
            I know of one House staffer who refers to Bolden, NASA, and Obama’s space proposals, interchangeably as “Spades in space.”
            That sort of attitude is hard to counter with logic and reason.

        • Steve Pemberton says:
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          How much responsibility for SLS belongs to NASA? NASA was plowing full steam ahead with CxP which was basically just a different version of SLS. Then a new administration came along and cancelled CxP. The Senate was not happy that WH cancelled CxP and so they basically forced NASA to reinstate it, which NASA did as a renamed and somewhat modified system.

          If NASA was forced to go back to doing what they were doing before they were interfered with, are they then off the hook in terms of responsibility?

          That might be true if after the cancellation of Constellation NASA felt relieved, having been unburdened from SDV by the White House, and they were looking forward to starting over using brand new technologies. This freedom being short-lived however as the Senate quickly saddled them with specific requirements and timelines which forced them back into SDV.

          However another theory is that NASA was actually panic stricken when they were told by WH that they can’t continue with SDV, since that is all they knew how to do anymore. They were thus relieved when the Senate came to their rescue and “forced” them back into it with their requirements. And now NASA can’t be blamed if it fails since their hands are tied. What a nice position to be in.

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            The Augustine Committee recommendations were a key link in the chain of events here. If I had been in the WH, I would also have cancelled CxP as unaffordable.
            Now one has to wonder how many of the committee’s conclusions could be appled to SLS/MPCV.
            A surprisingly large number, I’ll bet.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            Part of what made Constellation so unaffordable is that it included hardware to actually do something. By removing Altair, SLS can on paper sort of fit within a budget. And the initial Flexible Path flyby destinations suggested by the Augustine Committee do not require the extra hardware. So I would suspect that the Augustine hammer would not fall on SLS the same way that it did with Constellation.

            However that doesn’t mean that a future committee will see things the same way. If we assume that another Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans occurs in 2017, committee members will by then have a pretty clear view of the progress of SLS in terms of budget and schedule, and they will be comparing the massive amount of expenditure that will have occurred by then with the minimalist missions that SLS will be flying. The possible result being another falling hammer in 2018.

            Back to my point, NASA had an opportunity to break out of this cycle when WH (Augustine if you prefer) essentially set them free to do what they want. But NASA seemed completely unprepared to take advantage of this opportunity, perhaps (my theory) because they were more comfortable with what they were doing before, thus giving the Senate an opening to step in and call the shots. I realize some may say that the Senate would have gotten their way anyway, but I think that it would have been much more difficult if NASA had put together a credible plan which did not include SDV architecture and mega launchers. But they didn’t, and the cycle continues.

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            Well, at her goodbye party, Lori Garver cited as one of her ten lessons that “People do not like change,” so you just might have a point.
            It’s a pity nobody was prepared to blast out a rational architecture for human space exploration the day after the Augustine report went public. But perhaps something like Apollo based on shuttle hardware was simply part of their DNA by then.
            Thank God for COTS.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            I hear what you’re saying, but I see one big difference — NASA-Griffin and NASA-Bolden. NASA doing Constellation was driven by Griffin, and hearsay was that anybody who challenged any aspect of his CxP architecture was liable to lose their head or their job. Things certainly don’t appear to work that way under Bolden.

            What was forced onto SLS I see as more Shuttle-based than CxP-based, but either way, at the start of SLS, legislation was telling NASA thou shalt use technology that’s is up to 50 years old and buy from suppliers still doing things the way they did 30 years ago who will charge you every penny you can pay and then some. Although this may have actually seemed like the easy way out to some of the old-timers at NASA, I still have trouble thinking that anyone at NASA could be happy about this at the point in history when it happened. It’s guaranteed to fail — if we can all see that, then surely the decision makers at NASA can see it. And yet it still goes on and NASA appears to be putting the best face on it they can.

            I’m going to stick with the theory that NASA sees things as it’s SLS or nothing HSF, so they’d better do whatever they can with SLS.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            “I still have trouble thinking that anyone at NASA could be happy about this”

            If you are referring to the people at NASA who want to see NASA do great things, which I believe is most of them, then you are probably right. But those people are also amazingly loyal, and when given a task they will do it with everything they’ve got.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            I see. That would tend to suggest that there are two possible answers for who saddled SLS with the Shuttle and CxP baggage — it was either people outside of both NASA and Congress who have the ability to affect Congressional decisions, or the senior managers within NASA who actually propose/make the decisions about which programs NASA will undertake (when they have the choice), and the major requirements of those programs (again, when they have the choice), or both groups in collusion.

            In the past, others on NASA Watch have claimed that the “problems” are at the NASA managerial level and that the working people underneath them are just following orders. I usually considered that statement just a little too convenient and short on details, and people weren’t saying which level(s) of management were at fault (and sometimes implied all levels), or exactly why, except when they were shooting down Bolden and Garver, which I think is a whole different thing.

            I can’t see where the NASA managers have anything at all to gain by making decisions that are contrary to NASA’s welfare and needs, unless there were some illicit financial or future benefit compensations going on, and I can’t help but think that if that was the case, with the number of people involved, it would have been discovered and all over the news long before now.

            So, when I try to put it all together into a pattern that seems reasonable, it appears to me that (industry) forces outside of both NASA and Congress are affecting the decisions that certain Congress people are making — by agreement, not through pressure — and those decisions, even though they are definitely contrary to both the needs of the national civil space program and to NASA, are being mandated onto NASA through legislation, thereby putting NASA, as a whole, in the position of having legal requirements enforced on them, against their wishes, and (I believe) contrary to NASA’s desires and best interests.

            My honest feeling is that the requirement to use Shuttle an CxP baggage on SLS did not originate anywhere within NASA, but NASA is adopting it because they have no choice, even though it will make SLS harder and more expensive to do, and will cost much more to operate and longer to turn flights around, than was ever necessary given the advances in technology over the last 35 years. In short NASA, being in a position where they have no choice and will gain nothing by publicly objecting, is simply putting the best face on things so as to minimize controversy and get on with the work they’ve been mandated to do. If I am wrong about any part of this conclusion, I apologize to all involved for my stubborn insistence. I might also mention that, with everything else that’s going on, the debate over the use of SRBs on SLS seems to have fallen by the wayside, so I guess we’re going to be stuck with them, as least for the version 1.0 SLS. A human-rated HSF LV with huge SRBs — seems like a definite oxymoron to me; a combination only a Griffin could love.

            Sorry for the extended rant.

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            I often think that if Congress and K Street were to disappear, NASA would suddenly find itself doing very good things. Especially with all that SLS/Orion money now free to use constructively.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Yeah. Even if just K Street disappeared things would change for the better. Everybody would have to start thinking for themselves; and Congress would have to find someone else to tell them what to think and another source of campaign funds.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            Steve I am glad that you are pressing in on this, continue to do so. If we want HSF to stay on course we need to know who is really influencing all of the decisions. I suspect that there is no easy or single answer.

            I think possibly you are being thrown off track by the belief that the only explanation for managers making decisions that are “contrary to NASA’s welfare and needs” is that they would have to be doing this consciously and for some illicit purpose, which you see as unlikely. I agree with the last part but not the first part. I think career managers (all managers not just NASA) are quite capable of making counterproductive decisions while fully believing that they are doing their job correctly. That’s because they have been trained in and live in a management culture that is based on certain ways of thinking, with risk aversion being top priority, so they go with what they know or what has been proven as that seems the safest.

            Meanwhile people from the outside, or internal people who are looking beyond the current boundaries, may see great long term risk in staying with the status quo, but their warnings unfortunately often go unheeded as it is not always easy to prove.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Thanks for the input Steve. It seems to me that this issue has been simply left to float. A great many people know there’s a problem, or several problems, but I don’t see any effort by the responsible parties to get a handle on it and turn things around. Left to itself, this misdirected programming of NASA can only get worse. Perhaps there are efforts being made, but there’s no evidence of it that I can see. Obvious bad decisions are being made and are being supported at the highest levels.

            I suspect that there is no easy or single answer

            I absolutely agree. I think the starting point is to try to identify the root causes. It seems that everybody concentrates on the consequences, but I think we need to look closely at the causes, not just the effects.

            I think career managers (all managers not just NASA) are quite capable of making counterproductive decisions while fully believing that they are doing their job correctly.

            Yes, we’ve all seen this happen over the years. I don’t know what’s “normal” for a government agency, but in a well-run business when this happens the safety net of the hierarchy kicks in. Major decisions are reviewed by superiors, often by other managers at the same level with whom the decision maker interacts, and ideally even by the manager’s senior subordinates. I’m not talking about witch hunts, just the normal review process, sanity checking. I’m getting the impression that NASA managers’ decisions are perhaps not reviewed this way, and that despite all of the buddy-buddy PR, some of these people are extremely protective of their domains. If so, that is not a characteristics of a well-run organization.

            Maybe a convincing answer, or better yet the truth, will emerge if enough questions are asked. I guess I’ll keep asking people questions until either I learn something convincing, or they all tell me to get lost.

      • Mark_Flagler says:
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        Yes, they don’t call it the Senatorial Launch System for nothing. Unfortunately Congressional hubris seems to have no penalty clause.

    • One_NASA says:
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      Lockheed Martin’s Atlas V and Boeing’s Delta IV will be launching for decades to come. They are very successful “for profit” operations. The Orion spacecraft will be launched on a Delta IV in 2014 as part of development testing. Studies for man-rating the Atlas V and Delta IV are already being conducted. This really is a no-brainer. The only real issue is the politics.

      • Jeff Havens says:
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        Delta yes, Atlas… did anyone catch that little dittie last week about Russia’s “threat” about not selling us any more engines for the Atlas V? Political beholding! Only good I can see outta that is an opening for Falcon 9 Heavy as an alternative… 🙂

      • DTARS says:
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        Spacex’s falcon heavy is about to make these vehicles obsolete.
        MedicT Musk stands to make so much money that he could afford to play with trains on the side. reinvesting our space dollar into earth transport! Lolol win win!

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          Except that SLS is supposed to put 130 tones in LEO, while Falcon as far as I can see is designed to loft 60 tons to LEO. One can argue about the need for single-launch of so much mass over multiple and possibly cheaper launches of FH, but the sheer size of the SLS means there’s no comparison.

          • Skinny_Lu says:
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            Irrelevant “that SLS supposed to…”. The point you avoid, is the key one. Lets argue about the need for single-launch so much mass. To launch what?

          • Mader Levap says:
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            Problem is not with payload, there ARE concepts for large telescopes 10x more capable than Hubble and things like that.

            Problem is, of course, there is *no money* for those payloads. This is why SLS is rocket to nowhere.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Simply denying SLS because ‘we can use FH’ misses the key point that the two aren’t in the same class.

            The payload issue is a different one.

          • dogstar29 says:
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            Real issue is cost, as always. Space must pay for itself. SLS is an extremely expensive system to process. The cost of Apollo on Steroids has not been accurately determined, nor has its actual value to the taxpayers. Not even the government has a payload so valuable and so large that it is needed.

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            I question the statement that space must pay for itself. Almost none of the cutting edge uses of space can pay for themselves. Once you get beyond the various observation, scientific, intel, and communications satellites in Earth orbit, nothing breaks even in the financial sense. I doubt that we will go back to the moon or beyond at all if we insist that space pay for itself. Even science missions beyond cislunar space yield returns that are nearly impossible to evaluate financially. These are things we do for other immediate reasons, and the payback if any is extremely long term, and often in the form of knowledge rather than money.
            I think it is more useful to think of space as a technology driver with its returns in non-space areas.
            Returns do come, but in the long run and not necessarily in dollars; if we were to insist on a P&L for each new program, we’d only launch comm sats.
            So we need to think of space as a long-term investment; if we hang “the time-value of money” around its neck, space is doomed.
            On the other hand, even that attitude doesn’t justify a blatant waste of money and misdirection of resources like SLS/MPCV.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            At the end of the day, if both LVs can do the job in some fashion, then it comes down to cost, availability and track record (reliability and safety). If we accept that idea, then until both LVs are completed and the collection of heavy-lift missions to be performed is detailed, this question can not be answered, so we’re all just speculating based on minimal data.

          • DTARS says:
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            Can’t argue you that at the moment Mr. Spencer but how long till they really fly SLS will it be? How soon will Musk be testing Raptor?? Couldn’t he almost beat SLS to heavy lift with falcon x falcon x heavy or falcon xx?? And of course I have said here that Musk should stand two falcon heavyies back to back which I call a falcon six pack under a truss for large payloads. Or build a version of tinkers heavy lifter to put 400 foot tall by 40 foot diameter tanks/living real estate into space. The six tugs with tanks about space shuttle tank size all fly back to be reused. That would be a methane version of tinkers tanker which I think could be made out of much of the tech/engines which are used to build MCT mars colonial transport. So a spin off of Spacex mars effort could be a giant 2001 like gravity wheel.

            PS you do know that very shuttle tank could have be haul to orbit and be been saved and reused as fuel depots or space stations but NASA choice to burn them up just like SLS!!!!!!!

          • DTARS says:
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            Iittle spacex got to ISS with just 2000 people they are now 3 thousand and growing. He can innovate even faster if he manages his people right!!!! Really kick ass!!!!

          • richard_schumacher says:
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            Quite true, but there is no sane reason to launch anything in 130 tonne chunks. 50 tonnes is plenty. Bigger than that, assemble it in orbit.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            I wonder about ‘no sane reason’. I see a future where FH is popular and frequent, but where SLS does the occasional science lofting, a mission that NASA will own for the foreseeable future. Maybe we don’t see missions now. They will appear.

            I also think that expecting our current financial situation to be any sort of ‘norm’ is silly. This is an incredibly rich country, misled over the past decades by war mongering, and now we are deeply in debt.

            It won’t last. Doesn’t anyone remember the same tired arguments in the 90s before Clinton/Gingrich made a deal, paying off all our bills and building a surplus? Same will happen, though more slowly, as the right is entrenched now and not willing to make a deal.

            But in the long term my sense is the USA will shine again and when it does the SLS will be a very nice thing to have in the arsenal indeed.

            Stay tuned.

          • dogstar29 says:
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            But Gingrich sold the GOP on becoming so partisan that compromise is impossible, and Reagan sold the taxpayers on the idea that taxes are evil and unnecessary and produce nothing worthwhile.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            True, but simple comparison does not equate to need or cost or efficiency or reliability or availability, etc.

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            SpaceX’ new Falcon Heavy site page is quite interesting. The Heavy is shown with landing gear, and the company is not quoting not just LEO and GEO mass, but also “mass to Mars.” Gotta admire that 🙂

        • tutiger87 says:
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          Falcon Heavy is a paper rocket, until launched. Will be a good minute before it can even think about approaching the reliability of Delta & Atlas.

          • kcowing says:
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            [SLS] is a paper rocket, until launched. Will be a good minute before it can even think about approaching the reliability of Delta & Atlas.

          • tutiger87 says:
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            Touche’ Keith
            In the end, I think the real question is ‘How much money is he willing to spend until he turns a profit?’. Elon is rich, but he isn’t Bill Gates/Warren Buffett/Carlos Slim rich.
            And I’m still waiting for the business case for manned spaceflight, as of today. Not 50-100 yrs from now.

          • dogstar29 says:
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            This issue has been well studied. Most major launch vehicle programs achieve a very high level of reliability within at most a dozen launches as experience is gained and unanticipated design errors are corrected. The Shuttle took longer because it had no flying prototypes and the design was frozen before flight and could not evolve as problems were discovered. The Falcon is the first new rocket designed from the start for both manned and unmanned commercial operations, so should have ample opportunity to build flight experience before the first manned flight.

    • CadetOne says:
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      placed our exploration of space in the hands of for profit SpaceEx.

      You sound very socialist there. Should space only belong to governments?

      When Elon Musk becomes bored with rockets and decides to go play with trains we will be left with no space program whatsoever

      Fortunately NASA has never walked away from a rocket/spacecraft development effort. No, wait…

      • MedicT says:
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        Socialist? Absolutely not……..Realist? Absolutely……”Space Exploration” is not a money making venture. Hauling freight to and from LEO maybe for the short term. A manned mission to Mars is beyond even the enormous resources of Mr. Musk. I applaud SpaceEx for their work but no private venture could or would accept that kind of risk. Of course NASA and the US have walked away from that kind of risk however, if we actually want a program geared toward manned space exploration then we must accept that risk and be willing to devote resources necessary to do so. Anything less is simply playing in the sand. Why develop a heavy lift booster if we are not willing to use it? Well, unless the NSA has an even larger surveillance payload to be launched.

        • Mader Levap says:
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          It is hard to take you seriously when you even do not know correct name of venture you criticise. It is SpaceX, not SpaceEx.

          • MedicT says:
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            I do not criticize SpaceEx or SpaceX or Elon Musk. You will note, I applaud their efforts. For that matter, I am not critical of SLS development. I want to point out the futility of spending those resources IF we are not willing or able to exploit the systems capabilities. We will be left with more really nice, very expensive, museum displays.

      • kcowing says:
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        No more name calling. No second warning.

  4. One_NASA says:
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    NASA is going to use the Delta IV for the EFT missions. Why do we have to reinvent the wheel yet again and develop a new launch vehicle. NASA needs to be making spacecraft, moon and mars bases, and rovers. The USA already has a fleet of launch vehicles available. Pick one, have new pads built for the contractor provided launch vehicle, and move on to building things that don’t already exist.

    • Victor G. D. de Moraes says:
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      “… and move on to building things que do not already exist.” Perfect thought. We need new things.

    • Anonymous says:
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      Agree entirely with Mr. Kraft although it’s sad to think that once ISS is gone NASA HSF will as well. Disagree with him about Constellation, though. It died the ignominious death it did because of the architecture. SLS/MPCV will be no different. They’re already proving to be prohibitively expensive to develop – and no doubt to operate (twice as expensive as 2 shuttle launches). No defined goals from the President (inspite of Charlie Bolden’s utterances) other than some visit to an asteroid in some vague and unrealistic timeline. Still, NASA’s eight new recruits should make the most of the perks of their illustrious job (T-38 training and travelling across the planet – our’s that is) until they go somewhere, someday… one hopes!

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        No defined goals from the President
        There’s a good reason for that. Every time President Obama has proposed something Congres has immediately shot it and him down, for no other reason than that he proposed it. So, every good idea gets removed from the list of possibilities the moment Obama or any of his people suggest it. This is petty, but it’s happened over and over. So, I suspect that the WH is sitting tight until a mutually acceptable idea comes along.

    • SpaceBuzz says:
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      Because congressman and senators wants to keep jobs in their district. The SLS is not an engineering solution, it is a political solution.

      • CadetOne says:
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        Because congressman and senators wants to keep jobs in their district. The SLS is not an engineering solution, it is a political solution.

        Accurate and to the point, and I don’t expect it to change anytime soon. 🙁

  5. DTARS says:
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    Mr. Craft said “A: The problem with the SLS is that it’s so big that makes it very expensive. It’s very expensive to design, it’s very expensive to develop. When they actually begin to develop it, the budget is going to go haywire..”
    If SLS is so expensive because it is so big, why is it not designed out of smaller units. I just looked a delta lifting off and think about falcon heavy with its cross tanking and I don’t understand why they don’t bundle 5 or 6 cores under a truss for super wide payloads. Wouldn’t these smaller cores be cheaper and easier to manufacture??? Couldn’t some of these core/boosters be recovered with spacex’s new booster recover technology???

    Why is NASA spending billions on and old fashion throw away design that even me with few minutes thought can design better.

    DTARS

    • SpaceBuzz says:
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      Because NASA’s budget is controlled by Congress and Senate. And Congressman and Senator’s priority is to keep jobs in their districts. So they are forcing NASA to build the vehicle using the existing work force leftover from the Space Shuttle program.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Your suggestion is logical, but not necessarily technically feasible. The Soviet/Russian LVs are based on putting together “clusters” of four rockets each in physically symmetrical configurations. This has worked well for them, but their rockets (derived from the old R-7) and their clusters have been designed for this from day one.

      Trying to tack together units that have not been designed for that purpose from the start is a very different matter. Aside from everything else, structural reinforcement of your “bundles” to hold it all together would add significant mass and structure, and would almost certainly require redesign of the cores to: 1) provide attachment points that will survive a launch; and 2) recalibrate the thrusters and flight control computers for the changed center of mass of the amalgamated cores.

      A lot of other things, from the Launch Abort System to fine extinguishers, would all have to be revisited and probably redesigned and retested. It would almost be easier to start from scratch.

    • Mark_Flagler says:
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      This idea has been suggested on this website by Tinker.

  6. One_NASA says:
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    According to Senate testimony in 2011 the cost of SLS development through 2017 is $10 billion. The Delta IV heavy has cost between $140 to $170 million per launch. So the cost of SLS development through 2017 could pay for 58 Delta IV heavy launches. I know this is a simplistic evaluation but it does make one wonder. Also that $10 billion is an estimate of only part of the complete development costs of the SLS. Source: Wiki.

    • Skinny_Lu says:
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      A Delta IV Heavy costs about twice your figure… but your point is still valid and well taken.

    • Denniswingo says:
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      Yep, now calculate, at 4,000 kg per landing, how much material we could have put on the Moon by now. 236,000 kg

    • fred says:
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      Good illustration. Also, eep in mind the $10B just gets you through the DDT&E. Then you’ll be paying over a $1B for every launch. Throw in risk and the old adage of “all eggs in one basket” comes to mind. Only a bureaucrat can be blind to the obvious.

    • SpaceBuzz says:
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      NASA internal estimate has the cost of the SLS through first 9 flights at $35 billion (2011-2032). Even if they could fly that many in that time frame, that’s $3.5 billion per flight…which is double the cost of the Space Shuttle.

      I agree with you, by not doing SLS, there is so much money to buy commercial launch vehicles it’s not even funny.

      • CadetOne says:
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        I agree with you, by not doing SLS, there is so much money to buy commercial launch vehicles it’s not even funny.

        And (a certain amount) of profits from those purchases are typically plowed back into R&D to create ever more capability or reduce costs. SpaceX’s Grasshopper is a good example of this.

        That much money to buy launches could also help attract investors. Obvious government competition in a market tends to drive away investors.

        If costs are driven down enough, new customers come into the market to buy launch services for new and innovative purposes. Then the amount of money put into space exploration grows. In other words, the government’s purchases serves as a catalyst to grow the total space pie.

        As an economist might say, his is how virtuous cycles are created.

        • Mark_Flagler says:
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          Even if reuse is not achieved soon, the price differential between the all-up cost of SLS versus EELV/Falcon/Falcon Heavy makes it sensible to consider modular space systems, launched using multiple boosters, and assembled on orbit. If we could have the money being poured into the SLS, we could afford such programs, and probably have cash left over.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            I wonder about that.

            Since SLS has twice the capacity of FH, using FH implies a workforce in space to assemble parts. Can this really be less pricey, so much less that it justifies using multiple FH launches?

          • Paul451 says:
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            Since SLS has twice the capacity of FH,

            50 X 2 = 70?

            using FH implies a workforce in space to assemble parts.

            What “parts”? We’re not launching lumber and nails. Even if SLS was capable of launching double the payload, FH means you’ve got two components instead of SLS’s one. They simply dock in orbit. That’s all “assembly” means in this context.

            The Apollo stack was launched on a single vehicle, but consisted of three separate parts, lander, SM and capsule. They still had to perform an orbital docking manoeuvre to “assemble” those parts even though they were launched on a single vehicle. (Von Braun apparently wanted to use smaller launchers and assemble (dock) in orbit. But the administration supported Apollo solely to produce and demonstrate a HLV larger than the Soviets were capable of.)

            The same is true of most mission profiles. Multiple smaller modules. If you’ve got three modules that mass, in total, 70 tons (or even 130t) then you can certainly build the same three modules at under 50 tons each.

            [Of course, the price difference between SLS and FH means you could fund and launch ten modules on FH for each SLS launch.]

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            Autonomous docking is now relatively proven, and the basic technology could be adapted to the assembly of quite large structures in orbit. Nothing with the complexity of the ISS yet, but certainly fairly substantial deep-space vehicles. Humans might act as a “finishing crew.”
            Given this, the projection of a declining cost per kilo to orbit, a lower direct cost per flight (e.g., FH), and the potential for booster reuse, I see less and less reason for an SLS. We will be able to everything necessary without it–not in the same way, perhaps, but probably more cost effectively, IMHO.

    • CadetOne says:
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      the cost of SLS development through 2017 could pay for 58 Delta IV heavy launches.

      And from the original article:

      The Russians have lots of rockets, which are very reliable, and they get reliable by using them. And that’s something the SLS will never have.

      The opportunity costs of SLS are huge, and launch frequency drives down costs and drives up reliability.

      SLS would make much more sense if NASA had a budget to launch 4-5 SLS rockets per year, build reasonable payloads for it to carry (e.g., landers), and was part of a large-scale, long-term strategic colonization of space. Without such a large budget, SLS is an anchor.

    • Mark_Flagler says:
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      Need to factor in operating costs, too, which will be huge.

  7. Tombomb123 says:
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    Why does it have to be NASA that send’s people to mars? Why cant we just have an xprize to go to mars lets say 20$ billion for the first american company of organisation to send a man to mars and back? Same results but doing it this way could be sustainable if the company can offer a transport system that is affordable and the taxpayers are willing to invest!

    • fred says:
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      Probably because a private company is driven by profit and not charity. Going to Mars and back would cost north of $100B, and putting $100B at risk for a return of $20B would do only one thing and that is get the CEO and Board FIRED!

      • DTARS says:
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        I don’t believe that going to mars would have to cost a 100 billion dollars their are to many opportunies to make money along the way. Why do you all seem to think in terms of expensive missions instead of opportunity? Don’t we have to grow our way to mars? First step affordable lift which create opportunies. I think that’s Musks quest for mars will end up taking us to other places closer sooner as REAL spinoffs from his technologies.

        • fred says:
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          In fantasy land it would not cost $100B and there would be this “miracle” economy providing all sorts of opportunities that would pop up from going to Mars, that everyone would be jumping in on. What you and many others fail to see is that Musk is in it for the money, and there is no economy to go to Mars, he is barely making it to LEO with a capability proven 50 years ago. To go to Mars requires new technologies and capabilities that we don’t have. He does not have a business case to go forward with because he understands business, if there were one he and others would have defined it by now. If you think there is one please enlighten us so we can all jump in.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            ‘He does not have a business case’ [for a trip to Mars]. I wonder if this is true.

            I’ve been re-reading Robinson’s Mars series (actually, listening to it on my daily beach jog!). KSR takes liberties, as fiction writers must, but he’s also a very thoughtful guy, and he’s built an interesting and plausible scenario that involves Mars in the last part of the current century.

            Lots of investment required to make it happen. But let’s see: trillions wasted on war, or invested in Mars infrastructure?

            The business case (a phrase thrown around, it seems to me, often by those with no business experience), is plain and simple: raw materials will start the ball rolling.

          • fred says:
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            So are you saying there is a business case to be made today? Or are you submitting the writings of a science fiction writer as the blue print for going forward and reaching Space Exploration’s Shangri-La? Please respond seriously to the question by stating why all the Space enthusiast Entrepreneurs have not jumped on your suggestion? Is it they never read Robinson’s Mars or perhaps they, Who do have business experience, understand the shear non-sense of all the pontification espoused by people that are blind to reality?

      • Tombomb123 says:
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        How do you Know it “would cost north of $100B”? do you have a crystal ball or something? Maybe a way of determining how much it would cost a private company is to get a quote off of them. Not make up number’s off the top of your head! “Probably because a private company is driven by profit and not charity” Wow I didn’t know prize money is determined charity thanks for enlightening me.

      • DTARS says:
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        Charity is money that congressmen send to their states that create “jobs” that build rockets that will never fly. Do you have one of those cushey “jobs” fred?

      • gbaikie says:
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        fred

        Tombomb123

        2 days ago

        “Probably because a private
        company is driven by profit and not charity. Going to Mars and back
        would cost north of $100B, and putting $100B at risk for a return of
        $20B would do only one thing and that is get the CEO and Board FIRED!”

        It would not cost 100 billion.

        A NASA Manned Mars program would cost more than 100 billion.

        But NASA manned program would not simply be sending a crew to Mars surface and returning them to Earth.

        NASA manned program would require more than decade to complete, probably more than 2 decade to compete.

        It would include robotic missions and multiple crewed missions.

        But doing with a 10 billion dollar prize is flags and footprint type one shot mission to Mars. You are buying a stunt.

        Offer to give any party 5 billion dollars to go to Mars, a large line will form of those who want to do it.

        If instead you offer a 10 billion prizes, and you would not get an immediate large line of people you want to try- as they they had raise the capital to get the prize, which would be difficult to do.

        But 10 billion prize would cause people like Elon Musk change their plans from the current plan maybe sent crew to Mars at some point a decade or more into the future, to can I do it within 5 years? So might a disaster for Musk because it might tempt him to do something which costs more money then he could spend, but he and others would be encouraged
        to try to do it. And they might succeed, and they did it and they were successful and even it cost more than 10 billion, they could still quite happy to have done it.
        Though they could happier if actually cost them less than 10 billion- and it’s quite possible it would cost 10 billion or less. It’s also possible it all ends in ruin- rockets blowing up. Million spent on stuff that simply does not work. A project gets delayed for various reasons. Crew die, etc, etc.

      • Mark_Flagler says:
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        Musk is on record as saying break-even is OK so long as his corporate goals are met, and he tells every investor that it will be a long time before they see a dividend. That long term view, and the size of the mountain SpaceX has to climb is one reason the company is still private.

      • Vladislaw says:
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        100 billion if you are planning on building a gold plated, gem encrusted Orion capsule.. that the OIG estimates will end up costing 16.5 billion.
        Three Falcon heavies .. 500 million, Bigelow habitat 500 million … where are the hundred billions coming from?
        Also, world governments would pay handsomely for Mars data, sample returns, fuel generation etc… and not even counting the rocks that sparkle.
        “but sweetheart .. bill gates bought HIS wife a mars diamond”

        • fred says:
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          Geez ….why then has not Elon and the other Entrepreneurs jumped at this ground floor opportunity of going to Mars?…. Because unlike many of the blind zealots, they live in the real world of real supply and demand and not fantasy land.

    • DTARS says:
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      Tom said why cant we have an x prize of say 20 billion to go to mars

      Because the money would go to small teams like spacexs people that are busting their @#$es, 60 70 hours a week, to achive a goal instead of to people that sit around thinking space 40 hours per week.

      And that would be a threat to the current charity space program.

      Welfare for the best and brightest to achieve less!!!!!

      • tutiger87 says:
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        Not all of us around here just sit around and think….

        • DTARS says:
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          I realize i am generalizing which invites trouble. I do realize that people that work for NASA do many wonderful and varied things. My comment came from reading here that Spacex’s work schedule is unsustainable because they work so many hours. Along with Newt Gingrich saying NASA people just sit around and think space.

        • DTARS says:
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          I work in construction as both management and labor so I know what its like to work 60 70 hours a week till the project is done. Short term goals can be very motivating and cost effective.

          What is your job with NASA and what do you do????

          • tutiger87 says:
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            Trajectory analysis & IV&V for expendables. Before this, I used to work in Shuttle flight design and also worked as a flight controller.
            Trust me, there are just as many of us who work here who are frustrated with the status quo. Many of us came to the business expecting to be on Mars, or at least back to the Moon by now. But the folks in DC call the shots. Like my favorite line from ‘The Right Stuff’:”No bucks…No Buck Rodgers…”

          • Mark_Flagler says:
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            There are a lot of frustrated technologists within NASA wearing “What would Elon do?” tees under their shirts…

          • dogstar29 says:
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            The difficulty is that today there are only a limited number of bucks to be had from the taxpayers. We have to be more practical than in the past.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      That was the same Idea proposed by Newt Gingrich

  8. Stardust526 says:
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    Kraft knows of what he speaks — put this down in your diary, to look at in a year or two from now when things go just as he says they will.

    • Rocky J says:
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      Isn’t it easy now to recognize that we should have never abandoned the Saturn rocket? The F1 and J2 would have been upgraded. A formidable space station could have been constructed from 4 Skylab modules. Constructing a base on the Moon or visiting/grabbing near-Earth asteroids would have been possible. Going to Mars would have been next on the list, right now (with added international cooperation). Buts its water under the bridge. SLS will fly a couple of times and then commercial vehicles will take its place due to cost. That’s probably the best we can hope for.

  9. majormajor42 says:
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    He’s right BUT there is a lot of right to go around. Chris Kraft is simply not able to shape the debate in DC to replace SLS with a more sensible and sustainable choice. He could, after all, try to get himself invited to testify before a committee and repeat much of what Steve Squyres said recently about being concerned about the minuscule flight rate and lack of SLS missions budget. Dr. Squyres was not able to change any minds on the committees. Even if Kraft testified, they could always throw Cernan or Griffin up there too to balance the debate. Alas even that is wishful thinking because there really is no debate. SLS has its support in congress from both sides of the aisle. It was essentially almost killed once by the Admin but resurrected and is now seen as the vehicle of comprise. I doubt this President will lead an effort to kill it again even if he wanted too (for an alternative). No, the budget will go haywire. SLS will not be killed until a few possibilities force some hands. No amount of logical argument from esteemed experts will change anything. That is how this great democracy works. Take it or leave it.

    No, we await the real possibilities that could kill SLS. One, SpaceX flies FH and that is somehow seen as a prudent alternative to SLS by most. Until it flies, clearly the SLS crowd will continue to chant how FH cannot be an alternative if it has not flown (yes, even though SLS has not flown either). Even then, it will take some convincing since FH will still be less capable than SLS. If the Delta Heavy alternative argument has not worked, then why should the FH (even with a stronger upper stage) argument work? I can only hope that much of America is not aware of FH yet and when it flies it will be big news and some minds will change. Regular folks, with help from the media, will ask why spend billions more on that other rocket when this one is good enough?

    Two, as Kraft says, the budget blows up. A sad ending to SLS since by then, even more billions of dollars will have been spent. I hope it doesn’t end his way, but when they get to a point where it just can’t be done without such a huge change in allocation that even supporters of SLS will have to give up other things in their own districts, it’s over.

    • Mark_Flagler says:
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      No amount of rational testimony before Congress will be able to kill SLS/Orion. It has too much political and contractor momentum. No, it will take a budget so unrealistically, visibly high that Congress is embarrassed by it.
      This will come, but a lot of money will be wasted, and time lost, before it does.

  10. Bradley Smith says:
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    Here’s a better question: what national missions need to be accomplished in space (LEO, HEO, etc.) by the United States?
    1) Astronomical Early Warning of near earth objects;
    2) Terrestrial-focused early warning/reconnaissance/meteorology;
    2) Terrestrial-focused navigation/communications/electronic intelligence;
    3) Use of space for terrestrial economic sustainement, development, and capability enhancement;
    4) Protection of US strategic interests – namely, the prevention of political claims by terrestrial nations of off-earth bodies so as to prevent elevating space into an arena of international conflict; see the US policy on Antarctica and the Arctic Ocean as the obvious analogies;
    5) General astronomical, planetological, and aerospace technical research designed to further 1-5, above;
    Now, did I miss anything, realistically?
    Now, ask yourself – in what way do NASA’s current expenditures further 1-5, or even 1-6, above?
    And what does that say about how the taxpayers’ dollar is being spent?

    • Rocky J says:
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      I would agree with Kraft that SLS is another big development mistake. Also, executing a series of Apollo landings is a waste of money. What needs to be done is an orchestrated series of robotic missions that setup a Moon base, no help from Humans… except with a joy stick from Earth. This is where the Moon can be a proving ground for Mars. That robotic built base will be a precursor to the habitat that will be built on Mars and that welcomes the first settlers (or long duration stay). Here is our stepping stone to Mars. No SLS needed for a robotic-built moon base and it could be done with a consortium of space agencies. Astronauts, Taikonauts, Euronauts could arrive once the welcome mat is laid down.

  11. Gary Warburton says:
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    The real problem here is that it is the politicians that are designating what rockets are to be built, something they have no expertise in, for pork barrel reasons only. Their job is financial only. They are there to decide how much money they want to spend. It is scientists and engineers that must decide what should be built and how it should be built. What you should be worrying about is how you`re going to change the system and get these money wasters out of the way so that the proper people are deciding what rockets are to be built for what ever reasons.

  12. Rocky J says:
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    With the present budget, NASA astronauts are not going to the Moon. Executing a series of Apollo landings is a waste of money. What needs to be done is an orchestrated series of robotic missions that setup a Moon base, no help from Humans… except with a joy stick from Earth. This is where the Moon can be a proving ground for Mars. That robotic built base will be a precursor to the habitat that is built on Mars to welcome the first settlers (or long duration stay). There is your stepping stone to Mars. Congress forced SLS on NASA to save jobs and money for specific congressional districts and prime contractors. I’ve said it before – SLS will fly a couple of times and will be canceled once the cost comparison to commercial vehicles is on the wall. It is a waste of tax payer money and of funds NASA could have used more wisely. Consider also that once SpaceX or United Space Alliance start flying Astronauts to ISS, eyes will open. At that time, the cost of SLS will be more clear and suddenly “the deciders” will have an epiphany – commercial efforts can fly us anywhere. But it will be politically difficult to stop the building and launching of 2 or 3 SLS vehicles. Maybe a democrat majority in the house could do it but more importantly some representatives from AL, FL and TX have to lose re-election or retire (those…not likely).

    • DTARS says:
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      Robot builder sounds smart!

      Call Bigelow , NASA!

      • Rocky J says:
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        I’m all for using private enterprise to supply technology. NASA needn’t develop tech that, say, Bigelow is developing now. Also, with modular design and robotics, there is not much need for space walking and long duration human excursions to build space depots, moon bases.

        • DTARS says:
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          Rocky About a year ago I thought about putting wheels on dragons and using them As lander/ rover/ hoppers and all kinds of crazy thoughts. Paul is a loony and he would help me with my cheap silly ideas using used dragons as lander/rovers. Also noofcsq made it very clear that we should start with human outposts that moon missions, maybe tourist just visit. saving the expense of contunously maintaining human life, keeping it cheap.

          Fred these are just thoughts how NASA or spacex’s could use spacex’s mars architecture to study/ developed the moon on the cheap.

          Not a business plan but opportunity ideas that could reduce mission costs and start inner solar system tourism.

          tick pilots d a go bit or work in Leo working together with robots. They live in dragon trunk habs of course.

          Lolol course if we had humans on a bases we would have humanoid avatar robots that let earthling virtually explore/ play on the moon lol one of the jobs I had in 2027

          Parallel lines

        • mattmcc80 says:
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          Bigelow probably wasn’t the greatest example, since NASA did actually develop it (Transhab). Bigelow has licensed it and updated it.

          • Rocky J says:
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            Point well taken. Ok. There is SpaceX, Sierra Nevada. Surely they are not borrowing or licensing from NASA. Ha! 😉 No, but they have advanced tech NASA first thought of. They are targeting tech that is really needed. They are spinning off tech from NASA; something NASA has always prized as proof of their value to the country. These companies are manufacturers which NASA and the Feds are not suppose to do or certainly not good at doing.

    • hikingmike says:
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      Completely agree. This is a total no brainer and I wonder why this isn’t talked about more. Develop the robots – there are PLENTY of companies and universities ready to work or already working on the robotics and AI that could be put to work in this. Send up the robots (relatively cheaply). Test them out, perform tasks, see what works and what doesn’t, provide feedback into next batch of robots and AI and continue process. This is a development project as much as a building project. Once finished, we’d have the knowledge and ability to build, deploy, and operate very useful robots on another planet. No risk to people, cheaper, big tech gain, big capability gain, and infrastructure pre-built waiting for humans whenever we do send them.

      • Mark_Flagler says:
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        That’s pretty much my position, too. We can do a lot of the advance work on the moon using robots–surveying, exploration, resource location and extraction, and–eventually–construction. The robots can be sent on launchers now, or soon to be, available, and could be built cheaply enough so that many could be sent. Meanwhile we would learn a great deal, and perhaps explore the use of von Neumann automata.
        I see no reason why humans should have to rough it when they do return to the moon; with robotic ISRU and large scale 3D printing, a relatively spacious starter base could be waiting for them to land. Might need some finishing, but it beats camping out in a lunar module or the equivalent of a pup tent.

  13. fred says:
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    Actually I don’t think we disagree on Elon’s motivation. He has several passions including Space Exploration as well as making money (making money though is a common denominator to most if not all of his other passions). In other words when making money (i.e. sound business case) and another one of his passions crisscross he goes for it. That’s why he is so successful. Mars meets only the passion part but not the business part for him.

    • frosty says:
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      every business has one and only one motivation – profit. If you are running a company and money is not your primary reason for existence of that company then you are conducting a hobby; that includes SpaceX and Elon.

      • Mark_Flagler says:
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        Not true. One of Musk’s key motivations is idealism, and the goal of making humanity multiplanetary. He is very clear about this with his investors, warning them that they need to take a long-term view. As for profit, he is on record as saying that he just needs enough to operate and develop the necessary technology.

        • frosty says:
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          then he’s a hobbyist, not a businessman, business exists to make profit, something that every business school teaches the incoming freshmen;

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        I have an idea that, over the long term, this type of thinking will be tempered, as more realize what it does to the fabric of society.

  14. Brian_M2525 says:
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    There is a lot that does not make sense about the path that NASA is on. I’m a little surprised that Chris did not speak out more against the Orion capsule approach, but perhaps that is too close to home for him.

    I am glad that Chris spoke up and wish a a lot more of the old guard would speak out in favor of developing a meaningful plan, since the current NASA management seems to have their hands tied and their mouths taped shut.

    They are wasting billions of dollars and years of effort and a generation of expertise.

  15. Michael Reynolds says:
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    Asteroid missions can make sense; the current mission does not.

  16. Mark_Flagler says:
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    Kraft is saying things here that many of us have been saying since the original Constellation program was proposed–and that’s a long time ago.
    It’s a pity that nobody in Congress listens.

  17. Mark_Flagler says:
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    True. And this is why the company is still private, and will probably remain so for some time.

  18. Michael Spencer says:
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    I am just a semi-informed, non-technical citizen, appreciative of the smart sciency-people here.

    And I wonder about comments like ‘anything bigger than 50 tons should be assembled in space’, or ‘we will never need the lift capacity’.

    Maybe these comments are true, maybe not. To me, they sound a little like Ford’s quip about faster horses.

    So, with that in mind, could someone say why we would never need this big rocket? Even at the price, with infrequent launches/missions, coupled with FH, and F9, and other current rockets, make sense to have in the arsenal? Does it make sense to keep the workforce, and to swallow the huge budget pill now to have options in the unseen future?

    A different way to ask the question: what if the budget were much, much larger. Would the naysayers have a different view in that context? Is that a useful thought exercise?

    I get that LEO is halfway to anywhere and that plenty of rockets get huge masses to LEO. Still. Isn’t there an infrequent role for the monster? I know I never needed a smart phone, using the Razr, until the new tech was available, and now it’s hugely improved my life. Who knew I could monitor my diet, count exercise steps, see weather radar…applications nobody thought about. Hell, any App Store shows what happens when underlying tech improves.

    • Paul451 says:
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      could someone say why we would never need this big rocket?

      It’s not that there’s no use for a 70 ton-to-LEO launcher. It’s that there’s no use for a 70-ton-to-LEO launcher than costs so much it prevents you from being able to afford missions hardware.

      The potential “need” for a HLV is not large enough to offset the harm done by buying the most expensive launcher you can think of.

      Analogy: You own your own truck transport company. You have the choice to buy a 70 ton capacity truck which costs 1 million dollars. Or you can buy and operate a fleet of ten 50 ton capacity trucks for less than the annual running costs of the 70 ton truck, freeing up your entire $1m budget to buy cargoes to make use of that newly available 500 tons.

      Sure there might be a few cargoes that only fit in a 70 ton truck, but which choice lets you expand your business faster: 70 ton capacity and no money left over, or 500 ton capacity plus $1m for cargoes?

  19. Gary Warburton says:
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    What really needs to be done is to offer all rocket companies the incentive to build reusable rockets. This would bring down costs and create a boom in the Space Industry. There is no benefit in building huge monster rockets with 1970`s technologies. This has happened because politicians with no imagination and little expertise have been in charge. Lets save the tax payers a bundle and start this boom in Space development right now.