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SLS and Orion

Hurry Up and Wait: NASA Is Not Planning to Use SLS Very Much

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
January 20, 2014
Filed under

Space Launch System Program (SLSP) Lgistics Support Analysis (LSA) Report 26 April 2013, NASA
Page 14 of 149: “Given the SLS Block 1 launch processing manifest (4-5 years with little to no activities), there is a potential of not having sufficiently trained personnel. Issue – Yellow (May require personnel with advanced skills not readily available)”
Space Launch System Program (SLSP) Integrated Logistics Support plan (ILSP), Version 1, 15 April 2013 , NASA
Page 8 of 111: “The developmental approach for the SLSP, consisting of 2 exploratory missions years apart, followed years later by the operations phase, presents unique logistics challenges.”

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

103 responses to “Hurry Up and Wait: NASA Is Not Planning to Use SLS Very Much”

  1. Vladislaw says:
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    Unfortunately, because of the “I want to do Apollo Again” crowd, reports like this just do not matter. The good news is that domestic commercial services for human cargo to LEO are around the corner with a domestic commercial destination. America will soon capture the global market in Earth to LEO services.
    Soon any 2nd or 3rd tier country can have a full up, human crewed, space program based in LEO for about 300 million+ per year. There are 40-50 countries that have a checkbook big enough for that.
    We do not need monster rockets, at this point in time, we need routine commercial services.

    • Robert Clark says:
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      You almost but not quite mentioned the magic word: “commercial space”.

      Bob Clark

    • Anonymous says:
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      Repeating past glories may be NASA’s only hope for sustained human deep spaceflights. In the years that follow the first Orion missions, I forsee commercial companies taking over the reigns from established government contractors.

      • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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        No. This will only lead to NASA continuing down the road to irrelevancy. There’s no money to repeat past glories and the political will simply doesn’t exist.

        In addition, it’s unlikely that we’ll see any Orion and SLS missions. Evidence no other funded hardware or missions for either SLS or Orion. Again, no money to sustain operations even if they get built. Legacy systems, legacy cost structures, legacy costs, decreasing or flat budgets.

        Why do people continue to expect different outcomes when the same methodologies and processes are used??!!

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      America will soon capture the global market in Earth to LEO services

      Good post, Vladislaw, but I wonder if the above statement isn’t totally economic and perhaps overlooks the political pressures that will affect the international marketplace. I think we’ll find that nobody wants to cede total space access dominance to any one nation, regardless of cost.

      • Vladislaw says:
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        I believe what we will see on that front is that other large space agencies will have to follow suit and turn some of their space activies over to the private sector to compete in this global sector.

      • Vladislaw says:
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        I look for once the transition takes place, that NASA will be enabled to move forward in a way undreamed of before.
        NASA might get to start acting more like a “rational consumer” a term from economics which basically means spending your money wisely. Something Congress has never allowed NASA to do but instead spend according to State/districts and the interest of the usual suspects.

        • Steve Whitfield says:
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          I don’t disagree with either of these statements, just the idea that America will “capture” the global market. For a start, for every country in NASA (one) there are 20 countries in ESA, plus a number of partnerships, including Russia and NASA, all of whom should be leaning towards developing commercial capabilities. That, combined with the geography and inclination factors, means that the US is not going to dominate the Earth/LEO market, unless they can undercut everyone else’s prices by more than 50% (a number I picked out of the air) — and still there will be those who buy at home rather than save a few euros or rubles.

          • Rocky J says:
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            Once F-9 cores are reused, it will cut prices 50% below its closest competitor – Proton-M. Already F-9 is under the cost of a Proton-M. From a previous discussion, I estimated that the fuel cost of returning a core, is under $100,000. Refurbishing the core probably costs more but still, reusing a Falcon core saves millions.

            The added length to the core in Falcon 9 v1.1 primarily adds fuel to lift the extra fuel that returns the core to a soft landing. Yeah, the Russians are likely to support Proton-M continued use but it is the satellite manufacturers, mostly GEO sats, that are very eager for price cuts. It opens the market to many smaller players. (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/s… )

          • Denniswingo says:
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            … it will cut prices 50% below its closest competitor – Proton-M……

            Russian Federation prices for the Proton-M are $15M dollars. The only reason that they cost what they do today on the “commercial” market is their deal not to undercut Ariane or Atlas/Delta.

            The interesting wrinkle here is that if my memory serves, the Proton can be priced on the International market at a price equal to the best commercial launch (currently Ariane). If SpaceX on the commercial market has lower prices (they do), watch the Russians lower their prices to match, and do it in the confines of existing international agreements.

          • Rocky J says:
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            Interesting but references material and how Proton-M is being used for commercial, it appears they do undercut Atlas & Delta now. Such agreements do not surprise me but $15M for a Proton-M seems mighty low.

            China and Russia could artificially match SpaceX prices but they will be losing or at best breaking even on each launch. I think SpaceX has a 5 year window, maybe 7 or 8 years, where they will dominate – produce the rockets and make a profit. It will take that time for China and/or Russia to ramp up both production of an existing design and develop a reusable rocket to really compete and be profitable.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Dennis: I wonder why such an agreement would exist?

          • Denniswingo says:
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            You are kidding right? We (including Europe) were shoveling money and them and response they had to not put Ariane out of business.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            The one thing that we keep overlooking in discussions like this one is that price is not the only factor. Putting aside, for a moment, safety, reliability and all of the other obvious considerations, the customer base can not comfortably move forward if launch services become a sole source vendor (or a sole source within the reduced price bracket). I suspect we’ll see some subsidizing of alternatives to SpaceX’s Falcons as insurance that people can still launch large payloads to LEO, GEO and GTO (and beyond) if anything should happen to SpaceX, and to keep their prices low. Otherwise, we’ll be over the SpaceX barrel instead on the Soyuz barrel.

          • Rocky J says:
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            I agree with this point in general. Depending solely on SpaceX is not wise for the industry but supply and demand will lead to a competitor soon. It may be artificially matched, at least close to SpaceX prices by government supported vehicles (Russia or China). But SpaceX tech is not normal. It is termed “disruptive technology”. The industry is not looking at price cuts of 10% or 20% but rather over 50%. Because launch contracts are locked in for years in advance, launch services will not all turn to SpaceX. Russia or China could not afford to match SpaceX but they might go half way for a few launches while they develop a reusable rocket to compete. No, its clear SpaceX will have a 5 to 8 year window where it dominates, but not the single source, while competitors scramble to build reusable.

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            A subsidy just means that the government sends two cheques instead of one.

            To match the price reusable version of the Atlas V or Delta IV or Antares or Blue Origin launch vehicle is needed.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            When any company, within a sector comes up with a distruptive innovation
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wik
            It allows that company to gain higher than average profits for that sector. There is one thing we have learned about this action. Capital automatically flows towards extra normal profits.
            Here is what we can expect when this happens:
            Speculation phase, capital comes flooding in the hunt for extra normal profits.
            Over production phase, to many firms start competing and prices start getting slashed.
            Shake out phase – over production and companies now trying to innovate (reusablity) and stay in the game, consolidations and mergers start taking place and unproductive companies go bankrupt and successful companies start buying up that production capacity for pennies on the dollar.
            New equilibrium prices set in.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            I had similar thoughts and then backed away from them. This, like Rocky’s supply and demand logic above, are normal responses, but because we’re talking disruptive technology and very high-priced items, I’m not sure either of these applies. We’re talking about a lot of money, so I think it’s a much more controlled market than the normal let-the-market-forces-decide that applies to potatoes, appliances and cars.

            Because launch services are so easily tied to national defense, even when we’re talking about commercial services, I think the more-controlled market is even more likely.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            Normally I would agree with you Steve but there are a couple things at play here that are not normal to this American model. You have to think of this in global terms now. Other space agencies, in order to stay in the game, will be moving capital towards their own commercial sector to compete. The game is bigger than it once was. U.S. Russia, China, EU, (look towards member governments helping their own aerospace firms more in the future) Japan, India, Brazil,

            The second thing is that we are at a unique stage with capital markets after the last crash, nearly 2 trillion in investment capital is basically sitting on the sidelines waiting for the next big thing. All looking for extra normal profits, (why I believe asteroid ownership law is so important)

            Another thing to look at is during the speculation phase you should see an increase in the capital markets of venture capitalists. We are seeing that now. In 1984 when President Reagan did the commercial space act there wasn’t any angel investment groups for space. When President Bush did the VSE there was 1 and 2 by the end of his second term. Now there are currently 8 venture capitalist groups that do commercial space. We are almost there.

            The dominoes are currently being stacked up in a row and the tipping point is VERY near.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            I see what you’re saying, and it makes sense, but I’d like to think about it a little more. I’m in Canada where we’re not part of the US economy, but we are a major import/export factor, so we watch it very closely.

            As I see it, the space industry outside the US breaks into two categories, the big guys and the little guys, and we all know which is which (Canada is a little guy). Two things that affect the big picture which are perhaps overlooked are:

            1) The little guys feed the big guys, as subcontractors, parts suppliers, specialty designers, etc., and the little guys are not so much countries as corporations nowadays, able to make contracts and change allegiances to their own advantage. Collectively, the little guys could affect the industry considerably (for better or worse) if they chose.

            2) Because there are many more players now, big and little, more and more of them are, and will be I think, avoiding direct competition in many areas (including the BFR realm) and looking for niches and new markets to service. Couple that will the fact that space “products” have been moving increasingly in the direction of small (microsats, etc.), not large, there is a lot more than just supply and demand to drive the marketplace. I think that the increase in types of space products will have as much effect on the market as the increase in the overall dollar values of the market. So supply and demand by itself no longer defines the market.

            I may be completely out to lunch on this, but that’s how I see things. The market is getting more complex — in both product offerings and alternative sources — which is at least as important as its growth and/or competition.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            Actually what determined big and little was how much money could be thrown at space through the governmental pork process and still get some kind of hardware for the effort.
            The paradigm shift that is about to take place is that basically ANY country will now beable to pursue a full up, human crewed, LEO based, space program. That includes Canada.
            Canada will beable to lease space at a bigelow station, have cargo and crew sent there, and do it without ANY NASA stipulations. Canada or any country will be able to direct decide and not have to worry about getting in the NASA line for what goes to the station and when. Space is really going to open up for 2nd and 3rd tier countries wanting to pursue their own interests.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            I hope you’re right about that Vlad, so let’s take it for a given and ask, What sort of international regulatory oversight/compliance is needed and how can/will it be introduced and enforced?
            Unlike some people, I think something is necessary, something with enough teeth in it to do the job, not like the current UN space treaties, which are quoted or ignored by everyone as convenient, but really have no enforceable effect. All analogies aside, space is not the Wild West, and in (and around) today’s world, where one man can kill millions of people with an afternoon’s work, we’ll need some respected “law” in space and some means to ensure the safety of all the people, not just astronauts and investors.

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            Take the Law of the Sea, update and apply to space. Make felonies committed inspace by US citizens and on US registered spacecraft and space buildings a punishable crime.

            China is getting raw materials from all over the world. It may be willing to agree to a space mineral rights treaty.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            There is already a lot industrial statuary law about handling, transporting, hazardous materials in the U.S. Also medical research is highly regulated. Being a U.S. industrial facility Bigelow Aerospace, as Owner would be both responsible and liable.
            A lease holder will also be responsible and liable for what goes on in their leased space. So even though it is LEO, Stations will already be under current regulations.
            According to the Outer Space Treaty the parent country is liable for what their citizens do in space.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Andrew, Vladislaw,

            I think you’re both overlooking the hard part of the issue — space is not in the US, so US laws and precedents aren’t a solution. It’s both an international and an extranational problem. Whatever solution is implemented, it will have to involve and apply to all of the nations on Earth, including the currently non-space-capable nations, which makes it a lot tougher because those who can’t have (right now) are going to try to constrain those who can have, both out of future considerations and to give the big guys back a little of their own in terms of political power, resource restrictions, etc.

            And I think it’s probable that investment in space — by everyone, big and small — is going to be considerably less than it would be as long as this issue is unresolved. From a marketing standpoint, it’s currently a large uncontrollable variable which can be, and needs to be, changed into a controllable variable before proper ongoing market risk analysis can be done. This, I think, will particularly restrain the new-comers, the people who are most going to affect the emergence of competitive pricing and turn this into a more typical marketplace than it currently is, and therefore driven less by politics than it currently is.

            At least, that’s how I see it.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            Steve, if Nations are currently able to have laws that differ from other Nations, why would you think that just because you are 180 miles up it will change? Currently when you launch you are under that countries launch laws. Like ITAR for the US. Other countries are less strict then the U.S. of dual use.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            As I see it, Vald, as soon as you cross a geographical and/or political “line” you are changing from being under the jurisdiction of the origin to that of the destination, and either one, today, can be not your own country.

            When the destination is LEO, even if only temporarily, then you are passing through many countrys’ jurisdictions, if we try to apply Earth laws. That’s far too much to reconcile and resolve; I think we’ll need to have LEO, and other space “areas,” legally declared as separate from every Earth nation, with rules/laws that apply to everyone and are administered and overseen extranationally.

            Without that, we’ll be constantly facing unresolvable conflict situations with the ability to escalate into political, and even military, tensions. That’s the last thing we want in our new/final frontier. That may seem melodramatic, but I think its a real and serious problem. Just my opinion, of course.

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            Already done. See
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wi

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            The ‘Law of the Sea’ is not a U.S. law but a set of international treaties and practices.

            If you want to change the world first change yourself. The USA can pass laws saying what happens on its spaceships, space stations and bases in space. Since there are only 4 launch ‘nations’ that is 1/5 of the problem. The USA is now in a good position to negotiate a new treaty with the other countries.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            If you look at the following table associated with the treaty, we see what I think is the first hurdle that needs to be negotiated:
            The current Outer Space Treaty has no teeth — no enforcement or consequences — because it is a small handful of nations looking to gain advantage and the majority of the non-participating nations either trying to hold the handful back or ignoring the issue completely.

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            The Outer Space Treaty is enforced by nuclear war. It bans nuclear weapons in space.

            Now a way of resulting land disputes between individuals rather than countries may be needed. The ‘law of the Sea’ has such courts.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            Rocky, don’t look for NASA to use those reusables at first, I highly doubt congress would allow that savings to be passed onto NASA right away. Just like SpaceX wanted to reuse dragon on the cargo, NASA ordered a new one for each flight making the commercial cargo contract more expensive and closer to the Orbital launch prices.
            I believe that commercial space operations will be the first to benefit in the form of Bigelow Aerospace getting cargo hauled to their stations on refurbished dragons and reused F9 cores.
            just my thoughts.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            I should have been more specific, capture the global commercial market. Since there will be no commercial competition to either services. No money is coming forward for the commercial russian station and it is my understanding that production of soyuz for human launch is at max capacity right now.
            Japan has already signed an MOU with Bigelow Aerospace to lease more room on one of their facilities, once they come online.

          • Denniswingo says:
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            GEO Launches….

            That is where the money is.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            A few years ago I advocated for NASA to move to a LEO2GEO vehicle and create a VLP (very large platform) in strategic GEO locations, because the vast bulk of assets are there. My thinking was lets move first to where the current assets are.. As a means to somehow start getting out of LEO. If Mars and even Luna was out of the question maybe LEO2GEO would have a chance. We would get gas n’ go technology and fuel depots that could be used to sprial outward.

      • Rocky J says:
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        I think there are just two countries that can afford to pay premium price for lift to LEO/GEO – USA and China. And China has its own rockets. USA for now uses ULA vehicles because they still have the longer track record and regulatory approval over Falcon. This leaves a lot of demand that do want lower prices. The EU might hold onto Ariane like the USA does to ULA Atlas/Delta but not for long.

        Mentioning again, Spaceflightnow reports that Japan just bought a Falcon 9 ride to GEO in 2015. And looking at the SpaceX launch manifest page, Falcon Heavy moved up the list – now 2nd in 2014. This seems to indicate a launch surely before June. My nephew and I are planning to drive down to Vandenberg for this one.

        • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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          Hi RJ
          There’s no indication of any hardware in processing at SpaceX re: NSF L2 where lots of insider info’ available. It’s more than likely we’ll see a slip of FH to Q3 or even 4 particularly given the large flight manifest for 2014 but JM2CW.
          SpaceX is, as expected, a disruptive influence in the space launch business. ESA are targeting A5ME in a couple of years and A6 at a price point of about E70million. They are completely revamping their contracting. Remains to be seen how successful they’ll be but again, I predict they’ll lose most of their commercial business anyway as they haven’t been able to react sufficiently quickly. Same can be said for ULA.
          SpaceX on the way to getting DoD certification.
          I predict that further contracts will appear in the not to distant future. Also IIRC this latest one’s been pinched from ESA.

        • DTARS says:
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          I just read in Mr. Clark’s comments that a single falcon heavy could do a manned moon landing????

          • Rocky J says:
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            Where is Clark’s comments? My first thought that the mass needed for an Apollo mission requires more than a F-H.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            Here is a comment RC made at america space:

            “Robert Clark

            May 3,
            2013 at 4:35 pm

            A couple of points of clarification. First, “low lunar orbit”, LLO, which was mentioned here and “lunar transfer orbit”, LTO, which I’m fairly sure what is actually meant, are not the same thing.Lunar transfer orbit refers to an upper stage putting a spacecraft or capsule into a trajectory from Earth that will meet the Moon. It’s the famous “trans lunar injection” trajectory of the Apollo missions. Quite often this is arranged so that the spacecraft will be put
            on a free return trajectory to loop around the Moon and return to the Earth, if no other burns are made.
            However, this is not enough to actually put the
            spacecraft in lunar orbit. To do this, i.e., to actually be put in “low lunar orbit” an additional burn is required of not insignificant delta-v (velocity change.) See this chart of typically delta-v’s required for flights in the
            Earth-Moon system:

            Delta-v budget.
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wik

            Secondly, no mission architecture has had a manned lunar landing mission without an additional in-space stage to actually put the spacecraft on a trajectory towards the Moon. So the criticism that the Falcon Heavy could not do this on its own is not valid because that was not planned for a SLS based mission either. That is, even for the SLS or its predecessor the Ares V an additional Earth Departure Stage (EDS) was planned to make the burn towards the Moon, i.e., TLI.
            However, it is notable that if you make your crew capsule small, say of Dragon size, then the Falcon Heavy can serve as the launch vehicle to get the mission elements to orbit (LEO) on a *single* launch. This could be done by following the “Early Lunar Access” architecture:

            Early Lunar Access – Encyclopedia Astronautica.
            http://www.astronautix.com/

            Early Lunar Access was proposed in the early 90′s using space shuttle and
            Titan IV launches. But all it needed was to be able to get 52 metric tons to
            orbit. This the Falcon Heavy can do in a single launch.

            I mentioned above that every lunar mission planned had a separate in-space stage to perform the TLI, i.e., the burn to send the spacecraft towards the Moon. But as I write this, your mentioning of the TLI payload capabilities of the Delta IV Heavy and Atlas V, and also actually of the Ariane 5, reminds me it might be possible to do this with these *current* vehicles IF you make your capsule small enough. What I’m discussing currently on my blog are possibilities for a crew capsule only 2 metric tons in dry mass, a quarter the size of the Orion.
            In such a case given the capabilities of these launchers to put 10+ metric tons into TLI, you might only a need a *single* in-space stage to do all of lunar orbit insertion, lunar landing, ascent to lunar orbit, and trans Earth injection for return to Earth.

            Bob Clark”

            http://www.americaspace.com

          • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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            Single Falcon Heavy able to do a manned Moon landing – Yes.
            Return trip – Errr.

            What you can do with 3 or 4 Falcon Heavies, LEO and low lunar propellant depots plus a SEP tug can be quite interesting.

          • Rocky J says:
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            I saw Vlad’s reply below. I wonder if Elon has himself and some SpaceX personnel on a short list to take an early trip in a Dragon? Where to? Maybe GTO, Moon free-return?

        • Vladislaw says:
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          France is pushing really hard for funding a new Ariane that is more competitive with the Falcon 9.

          • Rocky J says:
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            Try as they will, it’s China (PRC) has the potential to match SpaceX prices.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            it would have to be done through a subsidy system i would think. china could give cheap launches to countries they are trying to get resources from.

          • Duncan Law-Green says:
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            …that they *think* is more competitive with the Falcon 9 *as it exists now*. Ariane 6 won’t be online until 2021, and how much will the F9R have evolved by then? The French are playing to where the puck is, not to where it’s going to be, and that will be their downfall.

          • Gary Warburton says:
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            Exactly Duncan, that is what will happen. These established outfits can`t see into future. As witnessed by a recent video in Asia, where ESA people had a laugh at SpaceX`s expense. over SpaceX`s projected prices. The truth is they are fooling themselves if they think only a modest change is about to happen and they`ll have a long way to go to keep up later.. .

    • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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      You’re assuming that the funding will continue for commercial crew. As more pressure goes on the budgets, SLS and Orion will gradually eat more and more of the pie.
      One can only hope, that commercial crew will get far enough down the road so that if funding is significantly reduced, what’s left to be done will be taken up by the companies themselves.
      SpaceX pretty much a yes. Boeing unlikely, DC tentative yes if they continue to build partnerships.
      JM2CW

      • Vladislaw says:
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        With Congress’s failure to fund anything for the SLS to do, besides put a capsule at the ISS, it will be a very hard sell paying 750 million a seat to the ISS, especially when domestic services will be doing it for under 40 million. In my opinion the pork will just move into services, rather than make work. It is going to be a lot easier to sell higher traffic to the ISS at a lower cost.

        “Ya I will vote for an increase for NASA to buy seats to the ISS but .. I really think one of those Astronauts should be from my state”

        Look to NASA buying more seats to swap out crews. I believe you will now be moving more towards three types of stays. The two astronauts doing the long term 12 month stays. 2-4astronauts doing the 180 day stays and the rest doing like a one week stay. At seven seats for both the CST and Dragon NASA will not send of 3 -4 and leave the other seats open, but will send up astronauts for a week or so and come back with the crew being swapped out. Like when the shuttle stayed there. Just my opinion.

        • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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          Hope so but just can’t see the same pork being required or spent on ‘services’.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            instead of 1.5 billion going to one shuttle launch 1.5 billion goiing towards multiple commercial launches. same total dollars only more bang for the buck. Representatives will now be fighting to keep those services and trade offs will be made.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Business in the short term, yes. But then what? Let’s say 40 or 50 countries (your estimate, but the number hardly matters) manage to put up a space platform of some sort.

      So what?

      That puts them in the same position that we are in. Round and round, round and round. Nothing more. But cheaper!

      • Vladislaw says:
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        The other countries do NOT need to put up any space platform. They can just lease space at an American company, Bigelow Aerospace facility and get their astronauts to space utilizing American launch companies.
        So what? Do you think you could buy an airline ticket for a few hundred dollars if a boeing 747 only flew a couple times a year? The key to getting lower costs is to increase the flight rates. sheesh.. this is economics 101 ..

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          It’s not my point. Cheaper to orbit. Then what? Where are the ideas about what to do after that?
          I get that orbit is half where to anywhere. Still. Where?

          • Vladislaw says:
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            Once the transistion is complete and NASA is finally out of the design, develope, operate monster rockets game it will be left with literally only one option to stay in the game. Space based, reusable, gas n’ go vehicles, like the Nautilus X.
            THAT is the end game for me. NASA actually on the bleeding edge of technology we need for not only living in space (ISS) but as we spiral outward living and operating actual vessels to carry us outward.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            Michael, for me, if we dive right back into another gravity well, that costs will get us bogged down in a single location. I believe we should put the actually landings on the back burner for a bit and utilize that funding for nailing down fuel operations in space, closed loop life support, aerobraking, power and propulsion etc.
            I look at like this, you have a pickup truck and now you do some road trips in the lake country. There are various poiints of interest you can travel to but for those first trips you leave the boat and trailer at home for awhile. Once you have gas n go nailed down all destinations are open.
            Traffic is going to be a key compenant. Just as traffic to LEO will be. Any place the government is making routine trips to (think of the railroads and shipping) commercial interests always set up shop with some form of outpost.

          • Duncan Law-Green says:
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            Dozens of nations and several hundred people in LEO and you shrug your shoulders and go “so what?”. That would represent a radically new ecosystem. No-one can tell what new business opportunities would arise from that.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            OK, I will try again. Were are any plans whatsoever to do anything in space other than taxi to ISS and put up satellites of one type or another?

            SpaceX is a cheaper way to get to the same place. Round and round. I want to go someplace else but hear nothing but dreams. Where is the leadership? Where is the step by step?

            And I do appreciate Vlad’s most excellent pickup truck notion. It’s what I see, too. What I HOPE to see. As of now I don’t see anyone planning beyond cheaper orbit.

            And a big ole’ too-expensive rocket. What a mess.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            I have said this a few times but I still think it’s funny. Look for reality TV to head to LEO
            ALIEN HUNTERS
            What our fearless alien hunters look for UFO’s from space station alpha….
            (camera pans to the window)
            WHAT’S THAT? (something goes by the window)
            Oh that is just some frozen pee from an old space shuttle mission … but tune in next week when ….
            My point I was trying to make through humor was .. we really do not know. Wealth Investors tend to keep possible future ventures close to the vest but I would really keep an eye on the crowd funding sites once commercial access and destination is up running.
            We do know that medical and material sciences will be big. Space stations and the wide diversity that will be using them will also promote a lot of new product testing for what works in zero g … with a lot faster turn around times then tradition with NASA.

          • Duncan Law-Green says:
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            “Were are any plans whatsoever to do anything in space other than taxi to ISS and put up satellites of one type or another?”

            Um… is that a serious question?

            Bigelow
            Planetary Resources
            DSI
            Moon Express
            Astrobotic
            Golden Spike
            Mars One
            Reaction Engines Skylon
            SpaceX MCT

            etc.. etc…

          • Vladislaw says:
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            I agree Duncan. Consider this, a person starts doing some real science experiements in middle school. Then in high school more complex and or difficult experiments, then on to college, for a BS, Masters and a PHD. All with more complex and difficult experiements.

            Now consider going into LEO, that same learning curve will have to be experienced all over. From the simple to the complex.

            Unfortunatly without multiple services able to have realistic turn around times doing just a single experiment in LEO is almost a legacy career project.

            The more people just learning and doing experiements in LEO gives us more opportunities for that EUREKA moment.

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wik
            (or netscape moment if you are not into greek history)
            The more minds that we can put into that enviroment the better.

  2. Steve Whitfield says:
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    While I applaud the level of detail that the ILS team has presented in this report with respect to the ILS analysis and the team’s activities, I have to wonder what it cost to produce this 150-page report, which concludes only what we already knew anyhow.

    One major shortcoming, I thought, was the matter of sustainability, with respect to both construction and operations. It is basically just identified as an issue to be worked out in the future and integrated into the rest of the plan and implementation strategy. Because there is no quantification, it has the potential to be very costly, in time and money, down the road; just one more TBD of this nature, which collectively will almost certainly continue to inflate the program budget and schedule.

  3. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    I agree with Vladislaw that “Unfortunately, because of the “I want to do Apollo Again” crowd, reports like this just do not matter.”

    I also note that it’s the same crowd that wants to kill the commercial launch industry so there’s no competition either.

    There is no solution for dealing with ‘the crowd’ either because space just isn’t a ‘make or break’ issue at the ballet box.

    Vladislaw is also right that others, not necessarily Americans, will pick up the ball and run with it. Already, Airbus Space & Defense (formerly Astrium) is completely rethinking their whole business model because they know that the Ariane V is toast now the SpaceX Falcon 9 is becoming operational. Their jobs are on the line and they know it. Unfortunately for about 3000 employees, they’ll no longer have jobs once the culling is over.

    The ‘genies out of the bottle’, as it were. SpaceX’s example can’t be ‘swept under the carpet’ so easily. There’s enough public knowledge about SpaceX’s techniques (metal comes into the factory, rockets and capsules come out) for the brave to fill in the blanks and replicate the effort for themselves.

    ‘The crowd’, however, will keep there jobs… and so will most of their pet contractor’s employees.

    tinker

  4. Jonna31 says:
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    I don’t see the problem with this really. Once we build SLS, we’ll essentially have it forever. Or are people proposing an late 2030s Mars program in which the US has to build a launch vehicle, a transit vehicle, a landing vehicle, a habitat, and a return vehicle… all at the same.

    Do people need to be reminded that just before Constellation was killed, the Altair lander was cancelled?

    Not building SLS early means epic budget crunch later. Building capability a bit at time over a decade and a half – launch vehicle first, habitats and lander next, transit after that – is… I don’t know… practical and affordable?

    I really don’t understand how having lived through the Constellation budget crunch, the spread out nature of what SLS will be used for is in any way a complaint. Years SLS is not flying is spent building things. That is, unless the ISS gets another pointless stay of execution past 2024 for some godforsaken reason.

    • Vladislaw says:
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      There is nothing being funded … TODAY .. to fly on the SLS tomorrow. That means the only destination for Orion is the ISS or lunar flyby/orbit. If SLS costs 1.5 – 2.5 billion per launch and the water landing disposable orion capsule costs a tad over 1 billion per launch, it is going ot be freakin’ EXTREMELY hard sell in congress to NON space state representatives and Senators. Especially when commercial services are selling seat prices to the ISS for 1/20 of the price of a SLS/MPCV.
      At 3.5 billion per lunar flyby, and with that entire stack and capsule getting spashed after every flight … ya … good luck selling that in congress.

      • Jonna31 says:
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        And that is perfectly fine.We build SLS today. We fly it on a few test flights tomorrow. And then tomorrow we’ll fund the cargo / mission to fly on SLS the day after that.

        And Congress has already bought onto it. I know it remains an article of faith among the anti-SLS crowd that it is going to be canceled, but it’s years later… the clock is ticking down, and the anti-SLS crowd has no victories in their attempt to deep six the program. You have a platform you press, but you have no points in your column. And you’re running out of time.

        There is no way we go to Mars or anywhere else building the entire system of systems within one decade. Constellation tried it (with respect to the moon). And large portions of it were being canceled in a piecemeal fashion because the time table was absurd. Two new rockets, all that infrastructure and a lander, in a decade? After years of US Budgetary problems and NASA under-investment? Ridiculous.

        It’s a really, really bad complaint. So we build SLS, and we fly it once every couple of years until we fly a few of them in short succession on a Mars mission (or something of that nature) that was built utilizing systems built between launches. It really makes a shocking amount of sense. I mean if the point of the SLS is to be a big lifter to put 130 tons of cargo into space, there is no need it changes for fifty years. A big dumb booster. That’s what it is. So we build it now, and it enables destinations by virtue of it existing. It will then be up to us to choose.

        • Odyssey2020 says:
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          Not to beat a dead horse but there has to be a political reason for the U.S. to send humans to Mars, Moon, or anywhere else for that matter. I seriously doubt that political reason is going to happen anytime before 2040 but you never know.

          Maybe SLS fills the niche of being a “have rocket, will travel” somewhere down the road but probably not. It most likely is a rocket to nowhere.

          Mars – way too expensive and no political reason to go
          Moon – way too expensive and no political reason to go
          Asteroid – way too expensive and nobody important wants it to happen
          LEO – Let Musk and the Russians do it

          • Denniswingo says:
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            ……..the clock is ticking down, and the anti-SLS crowd has no victories in their attempt to deep six the program. You have a platform you press, but you have no points in your column. And you’re running out of time…..

            ________________________________

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wik

          • Vladislaw says:
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            The anti SLS crowd just does not put as many reelection campaign dollars into Shelby’s pac as the usual suspects building the SLS are doing.

          • jamesmuncy says:
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            Vlad, that’s actually ridiculous. Sen. Shelby does what he does to support the economy of North Alabama. Not to win PAC contributions.

            You may not agree with his choices, but he has a valid (to him) reason for his choices.

            [Of course, now my fellow SLS critics will bash me as some sort of sell-out.]

          • Gary Miles says:
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            Appreciate the honesty Jim. So many people criticize NASA as a jobs program and SLS as Congressional pork. Of course it is! That was the way NASA was set up by James Webb. To spread the federal dollars around to provide political sustainability to NASA and its programs. That is NASA’s strength and weakness.

          • Gary Miles says:
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            Ad victorem mortis.

        • Vladislaw says:
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          You REALLY just don’t get it do you…. IF they DO actually fly the SLS, THAT cost.. JUST the flight costs will eat the budget.. if they fly it there will be NO FUNDS for anything else. If they do NOT fly it, the costs of maintaining that standing army at NASA is going to cost 280 million per month .. now do the freakin’ math!!! …. do you understand that? It will cost almost the entire budget.. whether they fly it or not .. there will NEVER be funding for the other stuff. … sheesh.. this is freakin’ ECONOMICS not rocket science…

          • Anonymous says:
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            Well put. You realize though, you are correcting someone who seems to think SLS and Orion will be cheap to fly. Thats so off its “not even wrong”.

          • Jonna31 says:
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            I don’t think it’ll be cheap to fly. I think it’ll be incredibly expensive to fly. And I think it should only be flown for those occasional, worthwhile missions (i.e. Manned Mission to Mars, Uranus orbiter, a Mars sample return that doesn’t break the bank).

            But I think the incredible expense of a specialty item in the national launch toolbox is not a reason for not utilizing it. It’s a reason for not launching every two-bit New Frontiers or Flagship mission on it. But more broadly, expensive and infrequent is perfectly fine.

            And moreover, it could launch twice a year and still be significantly less than the Space Shuttle’s 5-6 launchers per year were. And that was flown for decades, you know, decades filled with the ISS, Hubble, Spitzer, Compton, Chandra, three Mars rover programs, New Horizons, COBE, WISE and so much mire. It was not a cheap system either, and we did plenty with it flying regularly.

            So me not buying one ounce of the Anti-SLS rhetoric and seeing it for what it is, which is the same old dumb turf battles? It’s easy for me. I just have to look at what we did during the Shuttle Era, the cost of the shuttle, and the comparative (and cheaper) cost of the SLS (as a function of it’s lifetime costs), and the case pretty much just makes itself.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            As a taxpayer I am incrediably offended by your statement. An AMERICAN company has stated they could build 140 ton heavy lift for 2.5 billion and 300 million per launch. SpaceX will create high paying jobs for americans.
            Senator Shelby would rather have 20 engineers in his state turn one bolt. SpaceX will hire ONE engineer to turn that bolt.
            I would rather see my taxes go towards NASA buying a flight for 300 million and that extra 1 billion go towards buying ACTUAL HARDWARE that will be launched into space.

          • Jonna31 says:
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            Well here’s the problem. I’m a taxpayer too, and I want it. You know what has to happen? Compromise. We live in this country together, and the thing about budgets is not everything you or I like gets funded. Things we entirely resent will get funded. I think the Mars 2020 rover is an entirely wasteful money sink whose main purpose is to keep JPL in the Mars Robot building business until they ask for funds for a JWST-scale sample return mission late next decade. I think Martian geology science not connected to the direct search for life or human missions deserves Discovery not Flagship level funding.

            But sadly for my mere opinions, the chances of Mars 2020 flying is pretty high. The chances of my taxpayer dollars being used for something I disagree with? Pretty good. But similarly, lots of things I do agree with are funded. Moral of the story: you can’t win them all.

            So I’m sorry if you’re offended as a taxpayer. But your opinion isn’t THE opinion. We have elected officials for that who are at least supposed to reflect the will of their constituents, and so far funding for the “Senate Launch System” (a name it should wear with pride) looks pretty air tight.

            You may rather your taxpayer dollars be spent on certain things, but how, in any way, is that different from the opinion of the American taxpayer who want’s their dollars spent “on problems at home”, rather than any kind of space science or exploration all together? It’s in no way different. What needs to happen is the politics need to change. And unfortunately for the Anti-SLS crowd, that isn’t happening.

            Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge SpaceX fan. Using SLS to go to the ISS is wasteful in the extreme and Falcon Heavy should be used whenever possible for things it is scaled for. But you can’t do the missions that SLS makes possible with Falcon Heavy. We wont be able to build the whole system of systems of to to Mars, or really anywhere else besides the Moon, with Falcon Heavy. Something SLS scale will be required. Better than the costs are spread out over two and half decades, than one. Because if we don’t spend money on this now, the day will come it is Constellation All over again, and by that I mean, the insanity of trying to fund an expensive rocket and it’s expensive cargo all at the same time.

            Folks here say it’s a slight. I think it’s a bonus. Sure that may mean no missions until later, compared to parallel development, but that’s the only way it’s happening with the budget.

          • Anonymous says:
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            I think I see some of the disconnect here. Let me clarify. The SLS / Orion will be wholly unaffordable to fly, and unaffordable EVEN WHEN NOT FLYING. It will be more costly per year than the Shuttle, even adjusting for inflation. And it will fly less, as you have pointed out as well.

            Greason put this very well in the Human Space Flight “Augustine” committee hearings, referring to Constellation. His phrase was that if Santa Claus gave us the Cx system tomorrow FOR FREE, fully baked and ready, we would have to cancel it the next day, as we could not afford to operate it. The same remains true of SLS/Orion.

          • Denniswingo says:
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            The last published NASA DRM for a Mars mission required 7! launches in a 170 day period.

            Add those numbers up, and then throw in a couple of tens of billions for the hardware in orbit.

          • Jonna31 says:
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            I see this as a lot of handwaving, but not a lot of logic.

            The space shuttle cost per flight when you factor in lifetime costs (the metric that is applies to the SLS to be fair), is $1.3 billion. The Space Shuttle was flown what… five or six times a year sometimes (usually 3-4 in the later years).

            And the SLS? $1.86 billion to build and launch… once every couple of years.

            So how does that work, to be budget breaking exactly? What has changed?

            Rhetorical question. I understand exactly what has changed. Commercial grew and the ISS crowd wants to protect it’s share of the pie independent of the SLS program. This isn’t about pragmatism. It’s about turf and money.

            It’s about wanting money for the meta-Flagship level Mars Sample Return in the late 2020s.

            It’s about wanting money for ATLAST.

            It’s about wanting money for an Infrared successor to the JWST late next decade.

            It’s about it the same pointless battle between manned exploration and space science that has raged for years.

            There is no way any amount of mathematical contortion will turn one SLS flight every couple of years into being the monster that breaks NASA, when the Space Shuttle was flown at even greater cost for 30.

            And you know what the irony of it is? One just has to look at the ESA’s manifest the next few years. It dwarfs our own. That’s not the manned program doing that. That’s the JWST. That’s Curiosity. That’s poor planning at work. The ESA’s little budget is doing so much, while all we here from NASA space and planetary science is how the SLS will drive them into poverty. Yeah. It sounds ridiculous, because it is.

            The SLS will fly, and it will have cargo. This may mean ATLAS is smaller. This may mean there is no infrared successor to JWST. This may means Mars Sample return doesn’t happen. You know what the word for that is though? Fair.

          • jamesmuncy says:
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            From what do you get SLS per launch costs of $1.8 billion with one launch per every three (or even two) years. Right now SLS’ budget is nearly $2billion. They will continue to get that much into the future. So if you assume 1 flight per two years, that’s $4billion per launch, by your process.

            The problem is not that it’s too expensive to fly, it’s that it’s too expensive whether or not you fly it.

          • Vladislaw says:
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            And that also includes giving Congress a complete gimmie and not forcing them to include the amoratized development costs. The first fliight … since constellation, will have cost about what .. 40 – 50 billion? Total insanity.

          • Jonna31 says:
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            I get the costs from this:

            http://www.nasawatch.com/im

            and

            http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4

        • Kasponaut says:
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          AGREED 100%!!!! Stop those anti-SLS people!!!!

        • Anonymous says:
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          You are so not getting it.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          Every few years won’t build much of an operations or reliability record. Meanwhile other rockets will have been flying for many years at a fraction of the cost. These arguments have been made here ad naseum.

          It’s good to have alternative points of view, but I don’t see anything new in your argument. And you ignore the cost of operating the thing.

          On the other hand, it will be one bitchin’ rocket 🙂

        • jamesmuncy says:
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          You’re absolutely right that we can’t afford to develop SLS and a lander (or other mission-unique hardware) at the same time. In fact, the Augustine report talked about this in detail. That’s why the Flexible Path — which simply placed NEOs *before* the Moon, not instead of it — delayed surface operations until after heavy lift.

          But that’s not your problem. The problem is that without the +$3 billion/year in budget authority, NASA can’t even afford the fixed costs of maintaining SLS while doing anything else.

          You claim that we can develop SLS and then have it. Not exactly. It costs money to maintain the capacity to build and fly it. Same for Orion. It will probably cost $2-3 billion just to tread water… flying Orion on an SLS every few years. Unless you kill ISS, or add billions to the NASA budget, you really don’t have much money for doing anything exciting with Orion and SLS.

          Of course, what I call a “bug” can also be called a “feature”, in that the high fixed costs of the Shuttle-SLS infrastructure (large cores/tanks, SSMEs, solids, Michoud/MSFC/Stennis/KSC) — not counting Orion — keep a lot of constituencies fed.

          Unfortunately, those constituencies don’t command enough political support to actually fund real missions to use SLS.

          • Jonna31 says:
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            Oh I understand which is why I have said repeatedly that we should kill the ISS after 2024. Frankly, I think even the 2024 extension is pretty outrageous for the costs.

            The one thing I am not is a romantic. I view technology as a tool. I view the impending demise of Cassini as a practical decision within a limited budget, which is perfectly okay, because it’s served it’s purpose and funding it longer will come at the expense of other things. If Ending Cassini a couple years early (though many years after the end of it’s primary mission) means we can start funding a Europa mission, that should be an easy decision. The answer should be of course ‘yes’.

            My position on the ISS is the exact same philosophy. What do you think the chances are that when the year 2024 rolls around, there will be conversations about keeping the “aging surprisingly well” station past 2028, or at the most de-orbiting some of the older pre-2000 sections and replacing them? Knowing how NASA holds onto things and never let’s it go, I’d say pretty good. Let’s not forget, this is the agency that pre-Columbia, was ready to fly the Space Shuttles into 2020, and maybe beyond.

            If flying the ISS means that other things do not happen, the ISS should not fly. If the ISS needs to be deorbited in order to fund a mission to the Moon, Mars or Phobos or or anything else that capability gained since the ISS was built allows, then it should absolutely be scrapped.

            Holding onto the ISS… holding onto Cassini… they are symptomatic of a fear of loss of capability. Giving up some capability to gain newer, more ambitious capabilities is okay. Giving up the ISS in order to go beyond LEO should be okay.

            So from my perspective, I don’t see the SLS’s costs as a “vehicle without cargo” indefinitely, because I do not see the ISS there, taking up billions of dollars, indefinitely.

  5. Rocky J says:
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    In one respect, I see NASA standing as a deer in the headlights of the oncoming SpaceX Juggernaut. We will see how much NASA is owned by private concerns and how much by the public … “before the end of the decade.”

    • Mader Levap says:
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      I do not understand why so many people pities SpaceX and NASA against each other.

      Truth is they need each other. SpaceX got knowledge and experience from NASA (whole “standing on shoulder of giants” thing) – and NASA badly needs very cheap launch services…provided by guess who.

      • Rocky J says:
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        We’re 100% in agreement but the strip doesn’t portray pitting one against the other but rather that SpaceX Falcon is a grave threat to SLS/Orion for those unwilling to consider the possibilities – the great opportunity as we choose to see it.

        • Mader Levap says:
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          SLS was forced on NASA by Congress. If they weren’t bound to pork by politicians, I am sure they would make very, very different choices.

  6. Jonathan A. Goff says:
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    Keith,

    One part of the reason why SLS will fly so little between 2017 and 2024 is that that first SLS flight isn’t really the operational version of SLS. They’re trying to force a flight early so they can claim “SLS is operational–can’t cancel it now” without a vehicle that’s really useful for exploration. It won’t be till the mid 2020s that they’ll have an upper stage that actually allows SLS to do deep-space missions, and they won’t be transitioned over to the SSME-derivative expendable engines until that point either–the first several flights will be using leftover engines that aren’t the long-term ones they intend to use. In the process they may also be upgrading the booster engines.

    Basically, SLS won’t really be ready for exploration until ~2024, but they knew that if they waited that long to declare operational status, they’d be in trouble, so they’re flying something early that will only fly 2-3x max before being retired. Also, they’re flying something early because the total SLS development (and standing army) costs through 2024 will be nearly double those through 2017, and they don’t want to draw attention to the real expense.

    ~Jon

    • Andrew French says:
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      Jon – I agree that these are the key points. OMB/WH are aware of this lack of capability, but don’t want to point it out, for fear a few members of Congress will add even more $ to SLS/Orion and cut technology/commercial crew even further. So pork barrel politics wins (for now) and the rest of us wait for either a member of Congress to highlight this as wasteful in the deficit talks, the Administration being willing to stand up for what they believe in or a decent journalist to take up the story… Place your bets!

    • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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      Now where have we seen this before? Oh yes, Ares-1X wasn’t it on a sub-orbital flight and they don’t get it! Sheesh!!

  7. Anonymous says:
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    The press id still not asking the right questions…close…but not quite.

  8. Chuck_Black says:
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    I’m wondering if all the people who are advocating SLS have noticed that any company able to drop launch costs as much as SpaceX by building a potentially reusable rocket with landing struts and a restart capability is likely going to be able to figure out how to build low cost orbital fuel depots reasonably quickly.

    Then there will be even less need for the SLS.

    • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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      Don’t know about SpaceX plans for fuel depots et al, but Elon definitely has a roadmap for getting to Mars. Latest on that roadmap is FH, Raptor and GH with F9R.
      He’d like to partner with NASA but I’d say he would with anyone sufficiently interested, motivated and funded.

  9. Bernardo de la Paz says:
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    Admiral Steidal started things off on a good path, but everything since has pretty much been management instead of leadership. It failed because everyone in charge from Griffin up till the present moment ignored the one key aspect of the VSE – sustainability.

  10. Veeger says:
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    This is honestly not some new revelation. The plan has been 1 launch, maybe 2 in a good year. It will be like a first launch just about every time. Keeping a highly skilled team to prepare and launch the SLS will be a challenge….

  11. Brian_M2525 says:
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    The shame is is the opportunity cost that is lost because so much is being spent on such wasteful and useless projects like SLS and Orion. If the money were going to useful projects we could be much further along much more quickly. The only real consolation is that NASA seems to get so little accomplished and take such a long time not getting anything done that maybe if they put the money into a more valuable project, they probably would not make much progress on that project either. Hows that for logic?