This is not a NASA Website. You might learn something. It's YOUR space agency. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work - for YOU.
SLS and Orion

Wayne Hale: SLS is Not a Viable or Sustainable Program (Update)

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
October 9, 2013
Filed under , , ,

Keynote speaker at von Braun Symposium says NASA needs to ‘try new strategies’, Huntsville Times
“[Wayne] Hale outlined a mixed bag of NASA successes in wake of the Apollo moon missions, noting that the agency has languished for almost 40 years as different visions for NASA have died amid a lack of funding. The current Space Launch System – a heavy lift rocket under development at Huntsville’s Marshall Flight Center intended for deep space exploration – could soon fade away like other programs, such as Constellation in 2009. “The current plan is fragile in the political and financial maelstrom that is Washington,” Hale said. “Planning to fly large rockets once every three or four years does not make a viable program. It is not sustainable. “Continuing to develop programs in the same old ways, from my observations, will certainly lead to cancellation as government budgets are stretched thin. It is time to try new strategies.”
Keith’s note: Wayne Hale just posted this comment: “It was not my intention to imply that SLS/Orion should be cancelled. Far from it. The entire purpose of my speech was a call to action for the community – government and industry – to initiate the kind of revolutionary change in management systems and financial resources that will be necessary for any new space efforts to succeed. No program will succeed these days – large rockets or small rockets, moon or mars or asteroids – without radical improvements in management techniques. We will have to be as innovative in management and finance as we are in engineering.”
I am a little confused. If Hale’s comments are reported accurately in the original article, then he said “Planning to fly large rockets once every three or four years does not make a viable program. It is not sustainable.” This is exactly what SLS program plans to do. If this approach is not “viable” or “sustainable” wouldn’t the prudent course of action be to cancel the program? The only alternative would be to fly the SLS more often (I guess) but there is not going to be the money to do that. Not even close. So … (again if Hale was quoted accurately) cancellation would be the only course of action to take – if one agreed with what Hale said. Or is a program that is not “viable” or “sustainable” worthy of continued funding?
As for Hale’s NASAWatch posting, how is a change in management systems going to make SLS any better if it only launches “every three or four years”? Good management is not going to make a badly planned program any better — other than to make it more efficient in being badly planned, I suppose.

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

78 responses to “Wayne Hale: SLS is Not a Viable or Sustainable Program (Update)”

  1. Denniswingo says:
    0
    0

    Wayne nailed it in one.

    • Mark_Flagler says:
      0
      0

      Agreed.
      I don’t “blame” NASA for SLS, though. They were doing pretty much what they were told to do by Congress.
      If you want to see the pro-SLS side of public opinion, go over to AmericaSpace. The comments are a reality-free zone.

  2. islandivan says:
    0
    0

    He has his points. Part of the issue at NASA is the continual problem of looking ahead and getting the future expectations and needs all wrong both in mission and political realities. Case in point development of the J2-X and the impending mothball of that engine after (1B+ spent in a tough fiscal environment). While all along several smart guys and myself (I’m not the sharpest crayon in the bunch) asked why not the RL-10 for future use? I can guarantee you one thing Elon Musk, Richard Branson and others outside the NASA management beltway would not be so inclined to make such mistakes when the funds and politics are producing such headwinds.

  3. Spacetech says:
    0
    0

    Well lets see……..
    NASA bailed on X-33 after spending $3 Billion.
    NASA bailed on Ares after spending $10 Billion.
    Maybe NASA feels it hasn’t wasted enough yet to bail on SLS?

  4. Rocky J says:
    0
    0

    Petition – I will sign! Webpage – we need one – I will register. SLS NEEDS TO BE CANCELLED otherwise the U.S. – us, NASA, taxpayers will pay later, more.

    Blow the money now otherwise blow 3x the money later.

    It should be emphasized that the big problem lies with manned flight, HEOMD. SMD does have problems. Their stall horn is blowing but it is not the same level of waste and poor/no planning as HEOMD.

    • Denniswingo says:
      0
      0

      James Webb

      • Rocky J says:
        0
        0

        JWST is a disaster for SMD. It is a black mark on GSFC. I do not know the details but project manager position remains vacant. JWST ($7B over budget), MSL ($1B) – disastrous but would anyone like to list HEOMD over-runs of the last ten years?

  5. SciFiFanLA says:
    0
    0

    What a surprise. A commerical space employee espouses the fact that NASA needs to rethink its process and ‘surprise’ – use more commercial approaches. Isn’t that what the whole effort underway at SpaceX and the like is about. I totally disagree with this concept that NASA is competing against SpaceX. NASA is funding SpaceX. Without NASA, there would be no SpaceX. Elon would never have funded SpaceX if it truly was a commercial venture only to recieve funds upon delivery with no compensation for development costs. The big issue I have is that people compare SpaceX to legacy space companies and do not bring into the discussion the totally different set of requirements between how these companies must operate. We are starting to see these results as Boeing competes with SpaceX and Sierra Nevada and is on par in cost once all of the NASA requirements/oversight is trimmed down.
    I hope SpaceX continues to have great success since that is good for all involved. But, there is no ‘commercial’ reason for SpaceX to be in the HLV business that is focused on deep space exploration unless he wants to join the legacy space arena and just become a new entry into that old business. If the NASA requirements do not change then SpaceX will lose its competitve advantage that it has today and will find itself in the same morass that the legacy companies are in. If the NASA does change its requirements, then these need to be provided to all involved which will result in cost reduction at the legacy companies and reduce the value of paying another company to come up to speed.

    • Mark_Flagler says:
      0
      0

      Most of SpaceX’s competitive advantage lies in its business model which is far different than traditional aerospace companies. And IMHO, since NASA didn’t spend a penny on SpaceX until it got deliverables, SpaceX bootstrapped itself into business–almost forcing Musk into bankruptcy and sending him to friends for investment and personal cash.
      As to a heavy lifter, assuming there is a demand, with the SpaceX business model, the company could probably a reusable heavy lifter far less costly to build and operate than the SLS. Whether it will or not, the idea has crossed minds in LA, and we do know that the company is working on F-1 class engines for some purpose.

    • space1999 says:
      0
      0

      Yes, I think that’s about right. NASA isn’t competing with SpaceX, it’s a (well, the) primary customer, and investor. As you note, for HLVs, NASA is basically the only customer… and as such, market forces don’t really come into play. Unless that changes, companies serving that “market” are essentially an extension of NASA, and there really is no benefit to involve commercial space other than access to existing technical experience/knowledge that NASA doesn’t have.

      • pennypincher2 says:
        0
        0

        IS NASA a customer for HLV? Or a supplier? They seem to have budget to build it but not to fly it. This is not a new situation.

        We had the money to go to the moon — but not the money to do something after we got there or retain the capacity to go there.

        We had the money to build and launch skylab but not to keep it up there.

        We had the money to build Shuttle but just BARELY (one vote) got the money to find a project to do with it (Station).

        We had the money to build Station but not to fund much research to do with it, and not the money to build it in a way that it was set up to do things other than research.

        And now we have the money to build SLS but no missions to fly on it, nor are we likely to have the money to keep it flying if it were to be built.

        • Ben Russell-Gough says:
          0
          0

          As I understand it, NASA is in the strange position of being their own prime contractor on the project. As far as I can tell, the only effect this has on SLS is to add several layers of bureaucracy, consume more resources and make it less likely the actual metal-benders will have said resources to build said product.

          Mr Hale is correct to say that the way this should be done needs to be changed. If I recall correctly, a recent study showed that it would cost about 3-4 times as much for NASA to build and deploy Falcon-9 as it actually cost SpaceX. That alone indicates that something desperately needs changing.

    • OpenTrackRacer says:
      0
      0

      Do you really think that the legacy aerospace companies created rockets and spacecraft without government funding? They all had a far better deal than SpaceX and Orbital have gotten.

      • SciFiFanLA says:
        0
        0

        No. I agree with you. The point was that SpaceX and others are not ‘true’ commercial since they receive funding for development. When I buy a car, the development cost is factored in the recurring cost and not paid up front while development is occuring. Again, I applaud SpaceX and others for their progress, but they are really just new entrants into the business and one day will be legacy companies themselves.

        • Paul451 says:
          0
          0

          since they receive funding for development.

          Technically, they receive payment for delivery. That’s the difference between the two funding models and specifically what people are excited about and hopeful for.

        • Vladislaw says:
          0
          0

          A commercial company sells to both the government and the private sector…. period. ANY commercial company, when asked by the government to provide a product or service that currently does not exist and doesn’t have a manufacturing history is going to get paid to develop it. The Federal government not only wanted a new product and service that didn’t exist, they also wanted that any firm choosen would build to NASA’s standards. In order for NASA to get the standards they wanted they issued milestones. The company had to complete the milestone on their own dime and only after it passed were they paid… SpaceX is a commerical company by any standard.

    • Andrew Gasser says:
      0
      0

      The statement about Elon not funding SpaceX is simply, and unequivocally, not true.

      Elon was funding SpaceX long before COTS ever came into existence. This is not to say SpaceX has not greatly benefited from NASA dollars. Elon has been on the record, many times, stating that NASA funding has sped up the development of SpaceX, but he would have gone it alone if he had to.

  6. Wayne Hale says:
    0
    0

    It was not my intention to imply that SLS/Orion should be cancelled. Far from it. The entire purpose of my speech was a call to action for the community – government and industry – to initiate the kind of revolutionary change in management systems and financial resources that will be necessary for any new space efforts to succeed. No program will succeed these days – large rockets or small rockets, moon or mars or asteroids – without radical improvements in management techniques. We will have to be as innovative in management and finance as we are in engineering.

    • Mark_Flagler says:
      0
      0

      If so, your remarks were badly misrepresented. Perhaps you could put them on your blog and give us a link.

    • OpenTrackRacer says:
      0
      0

      As Mark said, if your remarks were quoted correctly then I’m confused. Regardless of management changes, without a massive increase in funding SLS will be flown once a year at best (and probably once every 2-3 years in reality). That’s unsustainable no matter what.

      • DTARS says:
        0
        0

        Is that unsustainable if the rocket was reusable? But if it was reusable then you would/could afford to fly it more often right???

        • Anonymous says:
          0
          0

          There are no missions that require it to be flown more often. SLS is not exactly a flexible system.

        • OpenTrackRacer says:
          0
          0

          Reusability changes the equation. However, it depends on your definition of reusable. The Shuttle was “reusable” and it was expensive as hell.

    • Denniswingo says:
      0
      0

      No revolution in management can solve multibillion dollar shortfalls in funding. Management could get a lot smarter, starting by not mothballing an engine after spending billions of dollar on it. That is a management facepalm if there ever was one.

      Dr. Von Braun once said that building a bigger rocket it easy, just add more money. You can’t build a bigger rocket while money is being subtracted.

      • hikingmike says:
        0
        0

        Is the mothballing the facepalm or spending the money on it and now not having an obvious use for it the facepalm? Avoid the sunk cost fallacy.

        Personally I am ok with them building a new engine that fits an unfilled role. We have it and the tech knowledge learned in development if we need it later. Rocket engines are important beasts.

        • Denniswingo says:
          0
          0

          I am ok with them building a new engine, I have often opined on the value of the J2-X. The facepalm comes from not having a plan to use it in a timely or cost effective manner. In case you have not noticed NASA is getting a budget cut.

        • Paul451 says:
          0
          0

          We have it and the tech knowledge learned in development if we need it later.

          I’m not sure how you store engineering “knowledge” for later.

          In 10-15 years, you would start from scratch with a new team burning through another $1-2 billion, doing another update, in order to relearn the engineering for the same damn engine for a third time around.

          • hikingmike says:
            0
            0

            You said “relearn”, so you can at least relearn. J-2X is based on J-2 right? I know it’s not something you can just totally pick up where someone else left off, but we wouldn’t have a J-2X without a J-2 and we wouldn’t be working on an updated F-1 without the F-1. Fastrac/Merlin 1. We are still building upon past efforts. We have records of design, of testing, and have engine articles themselves. I don’t know much about rocket engine development but I’d think that knowing a bit about what can be done from past efforts can help with new efforts, so you aren’t just better off to really start from scratch. Would J-2X have cost the same, had similar performance, if it had really been starting from scratch?

          • Steve Pemberton says:
            0
            0

            The difference is that the large sums of money spent to develop J-2 and F-1 resulted in production engines that launched actual rockets. It was a side benefit to those programs that the basic designs and lessons learned could be applied to later engines.

            Spending several million on R&D for new engine technology and proof of concept is fine. However spending billion dollar amounts to develop an engine as if it were going into production, and then the only benefit that winds up coming out of it is lessons learned, that is a very poor payback and a wasteful use of the very limited resources that are available for spaceflight development.

          • Paul451 says:
            0
            0

            To get from J-2 to J-2X cost at least $1.2 billion. I’m suggesting that bringing back J-2X in ten or fifteen years (for SLS block 2, say) would be the same scale of program. So you haven’t actually gained anything with the J-2X program.

            Would J-2X have cost the same, had similar performance, if it had really been starting from scratch?

            I can only contrast with the only other (smaller) US engine programs of recent years, Fastrac and the Merlins. I don’t know how much Fastrac cost, but the X-34 program cost less than $200m before it was killed. And SpaceX spent less than half a billion turning Fastrac concepts into an actual launch system.

            J-2 is bigger and burns LH, but still, a working clean-sheet design for maybe half a billion versus an update of an old design for over $1.2 billion? You don’t seem to save money by “storing knowledge”.

          • SciFiFanLA says:
            0
            0

            I understand that J-2X might have expended $1.2B, but I suspect that not all of that was for the engine itself. Since this was the first NASA engine in quite a while to be built with the intent of supporting manned space, there was a lot of ‘processes’ and methods that had to be developed and refined. Additionally, now we have certain key suppliers back online to support manned space. This will help the industry as we go forward. I have to assume that the money spent on J-2X will provide for lower expenses going forward on SLS and might help companies that use suppliers.

    • Brian_M2525 says:
      0
      0

      I am more familiar with Constellation and its management problems which started on day 1 with Griffin or someone edicting a vehicle configuration without bona fide requirements and I have watched as Orion has continued to have problems for 8 years with requirements issues and how these translate to design and operational mission problems.

      Most notable of course is the oversize, overweight, which determined a crew size reduction, water landings, non-reusability…Flying a mission every few years is no more likely han for the SLS.

      These were all technical problems caused by poorly established requirements which was the result of poor management implementation.

      The requirements and technical problems have never been resolved.

      It should not be a monetary issue since they seem to have all the time in the world to fix their simple design, and since they are only building a CM and have given the bigger job of the SM to ESA.

      Whats it going to take before Bolden, Gerstenmaier and Geyer fix it? Or is someone else needed to fix it? Or does it simply die and along with it hopes for a future human space flight program?

      • Denniswingo says:
        0
        0

        I have on good authority from an impeccable source who was there who says that the most rigid requirement for Orion was that it be too big to fly on an EELV, which came from the very stratosphere of management.

        • Brian_M2525 says:
          0
          0

          If so, poor political and poor technical management. If it was going to fly on an Ares 1 then it could have flown on several different EELV heavies.

          Griffin is long gone but the problem has still never been resolved. They would have been better off to take the existing Apollo design and upgrade it to current technology, especially since they are not developing any new technology anyway.

          But typical NASA HSF management – they are going to do it better and different.

          My guess is that Orion will be cancelled (hopefully before too much longer) and its purposes served by Dragon or CST.

          • Denniswingo says:
            0
            0

            Ares 1 lift to orbit = 25,400 kg
            Delta IVH lift to orbit 23,950 kg
            Atlas V551 lift to orbit 18,550 kg

            The wikipedia page for Orion says 21,250 kg, which should make the Delta IVH viable. However, The Delta IV uses a lofted trajectory to get the booster out of the atmosphere as fast as possible, leading to black out zones for the Orion vehicle where there is no recovery if a problem occurs. Flying a depressed trajectory greatly lowers performance.

            Interestingly, the latest performance card for the DIV-H shows 28,370kg but that is with the RS68A’s that did not exist when the orion decision was made….

          • Ben Russell-Gough says:
            0
            0

            It is my understanding that ULA rebutted the ‘black zone’ issue fairly early on but NASA just ignored them. I also believe that the Atlas-V-5H2 would have been able to lift the Orion to LEO with margin to spare but NASA rejected that option because of the second staging event (jettisoning the outboard boosters).

            In the end, even Ares-I was going to be flying a very non-standard trajectory just to get Orion to a point where its own engine could complete the ascent. It’s performance had fallen so short that the most it could do was get the spacecraft onto a ballistic missile-like trajectory (with a perigee that had a minus figure).

            I also suspect that the flight article of Orion will go a lot above that 21.25t mark – that figure is the ‘stripped down to the hull and spars’ figure from where Lockheed were going to start trying to re-introduce needed components as best as they could as the mass budget for Ares-I became clearer (the penalties for the TO mitigation system was never defined, for example).

          • hikingmike says:
            0
            0

            And now they’re going to fly the test on it.

            I guess capsules like Orion can’t take a straight down fall? Parachutes?

          • dogstar29 says:
            0
            0

            I never saw _any_ data presented to support the assertion that an abort (very rare) during the lofted portion of the trajectory, the so-called “black zones”, would cause significant injuries or risk of life. The “routine” deceleration limits for the crew would have been slightly exceeded, but this is a rare emergency, the crew is lying down and there is absolutely no evidence the acceleration loads would have been nonsurvivable, or indeed any higher than the 21.3G encountered by the Soyuz 18a during its high-altitude launch abort, which has not dissuaded NASA from using the Soyuz. I would hope someone who wrote the LSAS/ESAS study would chip in and explain their logic.

          • hikingmike says:
            0
            0

            I’d like to see something too, but I did notice this –

            The rocket trajectory, though, must be designed so that astronauts would survive an abort. Unmanned rockets such as the Delta IV and Atlas V, which have relatively underpowered second stages, fly a “lofted trajectory,” where the first stage shoots them very high and they actually start falling before the second stage lifts them again. If astronauts abort near the high point, their capsule could plummet
            straight down and belly flop on the atmosphere at extreme G force. “Structural safety margins will be blown to hell, and you’ll almost certainly kill people,” Musk says flatly. “This was one of the main reasons given by NASA for not using those vehicles for manned spaceflight.”

            http://www.airspacemag.com/

          • jamesmuncy says:
            0
            0

            Dennis, is that 25,400 kg the actual analyzed performance of the 5-segment + J2-X + other changes Ares 1 as of late 2009, or just the initially promised capability? Because I remember that Ares 1 kept losing performance, even as Orion got bigger. But I wasn’t working in either program…

          • Denniswingo says:
            0
            0

            Jim

            I think, and I would have to go back into my archives to make sure) that the number from wikipedia is a low end number. The original plan for the Ares 1 was to go suborbital and have the orion service module do the final burn into orbit. My memory is that this was over 30,000 kg to that suborbital trajectory.

          • Rocky J says:
            0
            0

            Reading this string on Orion is certainly disheartening. Six years ago, I read the requirements of Orion as part of a contract proposal. Its no longer reusable? Its carrying capacity is reduced and weight increased? Is this project beyond repair? Do International partners severely limit the choice of actions? There are alternatives to finishing SLS. So now, is Orion a viable option vis-a-vis Dragon and CST?

          • Paul451 says:
            0
            0

            But typical NASA HSF management – they are going to do it better and different.

            I think Dennis was implying that Griffin (or a high-ranking Griffin appointment) was trying to be “clever” and entwine the capsule and Ares so thoroughly that when Ares went over-budget, Congress couldn’t cut Ares and still keep Orion flying.

            It seems to be Griffin’s plan for Constellation as a whole. Low-ball the bid for a Big Program, which will later force Congress to add more funding when the Big Program goes over-budget and the only alternative is to fly nothing.

            It’s also the same mentality you see floating around here occasionally crying “If NASA (or Obama) had a Grand Vision, then Congress would give them the funding!”

          • Robert Clark says:
            0
            0

            “I think Dennis was implying that Griffin (or a high-ranking Griffin appointment) was trying to be “clever” and entwine the capsule and Ares so thoroughly that when Ares went over-budget, Congress couldn’t be cut Ares and still keep Orion flying.”

            Griffin certainly did have an attachment to the “Stick” since that was a manned launcher idea of using a single SRB as a first stage that he first proposed before becoming Administrator.

            Bob Clark

        • Anonymous says:
          0
          0

          See: http://www.newscientist.com

          From the article- “Now, Griffin has implied the teams may have to go back to the drawing
          board. “The CEV, with all that I want it to do in terms of its ability to service the space station and, later, go to the Moon, cannot be easily assumed to weigh less than 30 tonnes – the weight of the Apollo Command and Service Module stack,” he said at a breakfast meeting in
          Washington, DC, US, according to SpaceRef.com.”

    • Tritium3H says:
      0
      0

      Here, here. Well said, Mr. Hale. Now, if NASA and the Administration (whatever Administration) could just convince the American Public that the next logical step is long-term human presence/settlement on the Moon…with eventual self-sustaining “colonization”…I think that would be an endeavor many folks could get behind. There seems to be so many advantages of working in the low gravity field of the Moon, and possible exploitation of it’s resources…it just seems like a no brainer.

      In any event, short-term “footprints in the regolith”, and planting a Flag is NOT the answer. NASA needs to make an impassioned case for long-term settlement, starting with a lunar base (however modest the first, initial infrastructure).

      And from this outpost, we make the next logical step to Mars.

      And to think it all could potentially be accomplished by cancelling the ridiculous F-35 program.

      • Paul451 says:
        0
        0

        Now, if NASA and the Administration [….] could just convince the American Public that the next logical step is long-term human presence/settlement on the Moon […] I think that would be an endeavor many folks could get behind.

        You say “if” but you didn’t add the “then”. If NASA/whoever could convince the public… then what? What do you think will happen?

        Do you think NASA will suddenly be swimming in money, a la Apollo? That it will suddenly manage programs better? That Congress will suddenly become a bunch of space fanbois?

        Let me offer you another case. Do you think SpaceX has captured the popular zeitgeist? Do you think they have strong support and advocacy from many pro-space campaigners? Do they have support of the Administration? Do they seem to get lots of positive coverage from the media, including places that normally wouldn’t care about NASA topics?

        If the answer to all those questions is yes, then can you explain why the House kept zeroing the commercial crew budget every single year, and the Admin had to fight tooth and nail to just keep it merely half what they asked for?

        The public perception of SpaceX is as good as any space project can possibly get today. If they can’t get Congress to support a mere $800m program, what chance does NASA have of increasing its budget by the necessary multiple billions it would take to reach the moon again, let alone Mars.

        • dogstar29 says:
          0
          0

          There might be a good chance of supporting CCCP (Commercial Crew and Cargo Program) with $800M if NASA could cut $3B elsewhere….

      • Vladislaw says:
        0
        0

        newt ran on that and he became a joke on latenight..

    • Anonymous says:
      0
      0

      I’m very glad an emphasis is being placed on management and finance as much as engineering, and from someone with the credentials to say so. It’s been well known, and some of the first good literature with data shows up on this as far back as the mid-80’s, that complex aerospace systems costs are mostly indirect costs. That is, the further you get from the visible product, be it the design process in development, or the hardware in operations, the more money you find. Worse still, the trend just keeps getting worse as more and more data accumulates from different programs over the years.

      One challenge is to understand what’s happening here with indirect costs in industry, and how NASA can play a role in it’s management, finance and overall acquisition process that both enables and favors industry partners with the “radical improvements in management techniques”. We just can’t continue to prioritize tradition, and therefore traditional industry players, on the justification that this avoids risk. It’s a different kind of risk that increases when we do this – the risk programs defined this way will not be sustainable. Engineering risks can be controlled, as so much knowledge has spread and matured, even if favoring radical improvements in management technique means new partners. Albeit there is risk. Yet we know that management risk can not be controlled when sticking with traditional ways of doing business, almost by definition, as history keeps showing over and over again.

      As well, another challenge is to turn this insight into actions that fit an engineering/scientific culture with a tendency to priortize the engineering over the management and financial meaning of it all. The cultural emphasis will have to shift if NASA is to remain relevant to space exploration. Good words from respected leaders start that shift in community perspective, and are so welcome.

    • Andrew Gasser says:
      0
      0

      Mr. Hale,

      I agree with your statement that we need revolutionary change in the way we finance our programs inside NASA. This is why Space Act Agreement based programs have been so successful and the Federal Acquisition Regulation programs continue to struggle.

      Even though COTS was underfunded and did not have strong support in Congress (the support was tacit at best) the developmental costs for both the ANTARES and Falcon vehicles were less than $1.5 Billion over six years.

      Moreover, COTS was underfunded – much like iCap, SLS, and Orion are now. There was even a failure with Rocketplane Kistler and yet, we are on the verge of lower cost options to explore and settle space.

      Everyone is feeling the pain.

      With SLS and Orion being underfunded, over budget, and falling further behind schedule, how can we not call to cancel it?

      In talking to people on Capital Hill I do not see how you can either change the funding levels for NASA to adequately fund SLS and Orion or change the contracting methods for SLS and Orion… and if we cannot change funding levels and contracting how can we continue down this path?

      Most Respectfully,
      Andrew Gasser

      • Rocky J says:
        0
        0

        All good points. The government is no longer suited to building chemical based launch systems. Commercial demand has driven the cost well below what a government developed system costs. If NASA wastes more time, ion propulsion will be next. Government needs to do exploration as a public trust. Imagine commerce selling discovery to the highest bidder. Case in point, discovery and initial survey of near-earth asteroids should go into the public domain but NASA needs to be on the cutting edge of tech. SLS and Orion are not.

    • Rocky J says:
      0
      0

      NASA management is the root cause of HEOMD’s (and SMD’s) cost over-runs and schedule delays. Hale’s clarification leaves a statement that, sure, management needs to be changed but he is unwilling to take a stand on a position that is absolutely polarizing, one that if he was still in his upper level HEOMD management position would spell personal disaster. It is one tied to old friends with their careers, families, paychecks.

      Commercial launch vehicles will lift a pound of payload at 1/4th the cost of SLS. [tell me if wrong, that its actually 1/3rd or 1/2, as if that makes it palatable to complete SLS] SLS is a works program now and Hale and no one else is willing to stick their neck out to call for its end. The pain to friends in management and to thousands of NASA employees cannot be swallowed and they do not have alternative work for those well paid workers. SLS needs to be shut down and assisting those employees in finding new jobs needs to be undertaken but no one is willing to take a stand.

      Hale is correct that NASA management needs a complete overhaul by some independent team that is also independent of the aerospace industry. If Mikulski wants to make a true legacy for herself and her relation with NASA, she might have the clout to force such an action.

      But a perfect management change will not make SLS worthwhile. The industry has changed and changing fast. Constellation and SLS’s chance to be used in the NASA framework has come and gone.

      NASA management has been full of managers with integrity, gentlemen & gentlewomen. They stayed between the lines, maintained their posts or climbed the ladder and eventually retired. They know how much they can speak out without destroying their career. There are a few that effectively destroy their career or walk away from NASA, too. And their are a slew of lower managers that, like the older upper management, don’t rock the boat. And there are the young engineers that do their job, love their work, and are told to keep working and stay clear of the politics.

      So nothing has ever changed. Two Space Shuttle crews were lost due to management decisions and something close to $100 Billion has been wasted in the last 35 years. It will take Hale with quite a few others, with reputable backgrounds, to stand together and call for the end of SLS and provide a means to re-integrated the affected employees back into NASA or the US workforce in general. We can end SLS and also not be callous, re-invigorate HEOMD and NASA as a whole and save the taxpayer probably $20B by the time the last SLS would be spent.

      • DTARS says:
        0
        0

        Great post!

      • Littrow says:
        0
        0

        Rocky J-You have characterized this exactly right!.
        I get a bit irritated with people who say the NASA management is brilliant because of their honesty and intelligence, but when they go along with things like SLS then all they are doing is stealing money from the American people because they know it is being wasted. The NASA management does not have the courage of their convictions. They just do what it takes to get along and continue on and yet they are getting no closer to new achievement or success.

        We need some management who have the toughness and forthrightness to be honest technically and managerially. The people in there today are not those people. NASA is dying and the current management is the reason why.

      • Engineer_in_Houston says:
        0
        0

        Well stated. SLS is not sustainable. There are a lot of good people working on SLS, and as for me I’m sure SLS can be made to be a fine rocket. But I have not yet seen how this is supposed to be developed, and then the payloads developed and then the rocket used to launch these payloads towards any kind of goal that doesn’t amount to a “flags and footsteps” stunt – for anything that is close to affordable. I don’t want to see the workforce that is developing SLS be jobless, I would like to see those people funded to develop payloads, and have those payloads launched from whoever wins a launch services competition. The amount of money being thrown at SLS could have purchased a huge amount of existing or evolved launch capacity.

        • Rocky J says:
          0
          0

          Good points. To re-iterate, its not right to proclaim SLS obsolete without raising the question of how to re-assign the SLS workforce. I agree, there is a degree of stunt to the manned NEA mission but as you state, SLS personnel could be re-assigned to building the payload and mechanisms needed to do something interesting. The NEA mission can be made useful but we have to accept that manned exploration will always cost 5x to 10x more than robotics. SMD researchers are happy to get their terabytes of observational data with robotics but we must face the fact that as humans we need to permit ourselves, our emissaries (astronauts), to go out and explore. But this doesn’t justify SLS – the wasted time and taxpayer money. SLS cannot be revised cost-effectively now that there are alternative launch vehicles that define a new price point and development cost.

          • Robert Clark says:
            0
            0

            Good points, Engineer and Rocky. I am a strong supporter of commercial space but I’m neutral on the question of whether the SLS should be cancelled. I think the cost savings of commercial space will be come so obvious that the U.S. and the other governments with space programs will HAVE to adopt this approach.
            However, I would like to see this gradually phased in so that NASA employees can be absorbed into commercial space entities.

            Bob Clark

    • Vladislaw says:
      0
      0

      If congress ultimately can design by legislation what does reorganizing NASA management do? Will not NASA still ultimately have to order builds for the next SLS boondoggle if congress orders it? Would it not be better to make NASA more independant of yearly back and forth dictates by porkonauts in congress who control NASA’s direction into the endless development cycles?

      • Anonymous says:
        0
        0

        It would be difficult to make NASA independent of Congress or budgeting issues. Congress won’t be willing to give up their access to NASA largesse for their communities. Congress is loathe to give up control of anything. Moreover, NASA would still be at the mercy of budget decisions by Congress.

    • dogstar29 says:
      0
      0

      Wayne, the current design and program are the result of the existing management structure. How could a better management structure (say, Commercial Crew and Cargo Program) make SLS/Orion work unless it abandoned the current hardware and mission concept?

    • Eddie Maddox says:
      0
      0

      “We will have to be as innovative in
      management and finance as we are in
      engineering.”
      The state of the art of our
      sociology (management)
      has not kept pace with
      the state of the art of our
      technology (engineering).

  7. SciFiFanLA says:
    0
    0

    I would like to ammend this a bit with my thoughts. In a perfect world, NASA and some of its key subs would develop new engine technologies, techniques etc, but not full new engines. Let NASA develop a new engine cycle, propellant etc. Than pass this on to the commercial companies which are better suited to bring thatt technology forward into a useable engine if that engine has a need. This would limit the risk of developing full engines that might not be needed and allow for the expensive development work to be done by NASA and shared by all for the betterment of the whole.

    • dogstar29 says:
      0
      0

      This occasionally works (i.e Whitcomb winglets) but more commonly when technology is tossed ‘over the wall’ into the commercial world it disappears because it is NIH and not exactly what industry wants or has a market for. A model which has been more successful is the one often followed by NACA and to some degree by NASA (in the commercial crew and cargo program) in which government and industry act in partnership from the beginning. But this requires NASA to first ask industry what it needs and then provide some funding for it.

  8. dogstar29 says:
    0
    0

    It isn’t clear what Mr. Hale suggests as corrective action. However I have noticed that among those from the NASA establishment who acknowledge the problem with SLS/Orion, there is a tendency to blame the “leadership”, i.e. under a Republican administration they would get the additional billions that would make SLS/Orion viable.

    • Paul451 says:
      0
      0

      i.e. under a Republican administration they would get the additional billions that would make SLS/Orion viable.

      One day my prince will come and, with love’s true kiss, free me from my curse.

    • Robert Clark says:
      0
      0

      I don’t know about that. Apollo manager Chris Kraft also is opposed to the SLS because of its huge cost. But he’s in favor of expendable rockets and commercial space, which the current administration favors.

      Bob Clark

  9. DTARS says:
    0
    0

    I read this speech and these comments and I just get angry. NASA doesn’t need new management techniques. They need to fire the dead weight which is most of their management. They are not needed.
    What happened on September 30th? Spacex got their booster through tough part. It almost made a controled soft splashdown. What does that mean? It means the new age of recoverable much cheaper spaceflight is here. Some of you think that like shuttle it may not be much cheaper. It will!
    For this man to say that we should continue building a throw away giant rocket is absurd!

    What is the common thread between SLS and bloated management?
    Jobs that don’t accomplish anything constructive!

    I once was hoping to be alive when we landed on Mars(we being humans, not public space) That dream is about gone! And I sure don’t want another boots and flags thing.

    What is the percentage of management staff to engineers at Spacex??

    Sure bet Spacex has less chiefs and more Indians than NASA

    I’m tired of my money being wasted. I want invested in productive future in Space!!! If not let me keep my money

    Joe Q Public

  10. LPHartswick says:
    0
    0

    I say again; no one is going anywhere much on the cheap; certainly not to Mars! I don’t care how may times you rub the Lamp; the Genie won’t appear. It took us 4% of the budget to go 250,000 miles For Gods sake! I don’t see how were going anywhere if were not willing to spend 1% of the federal budget on space exploration. To think otherwise is delusional, and will get some of your fellow Americans killed. Space exploration is neither easy or safe. by the way, NASA didn’t invent wasteful government spending. I could tell you non
    NASA stories that would turn your hair white. Our energies would be better spent in a united front educating our fellow citizens, and the politicians on the importance of an appropriate investment in a country’s future. But I guess I’m really talking to myself here.

    • Robert Clark says:
      0
      0

      The key clue is in that one word you used: wasteful government spending.
      Then the idea of “commercial space” is to get government out of the way. It isn’t totally government free yet because it is partially government funded. Still reducing the government involvement has cut development costs by 90%(!)

      Bob Clark

  11. Robert Clark says:
    0
    0

    Participants at the NASA workshop on the asteroid mission also suggested following a commercial approach to cut costs:

    Commercial Firms Push
    Alternative Approaches for NASA Asteroid Initiative.
    By Irene Klotz | Oct. 4,
    2013
    http://www.spacenews.com/ar

    Bob Clark