NASA Adopts Disco Era Paint Scheme for SLS
NASA Completes Critical Design Review for Space Launch System
“Artist concept of the Block I configuration of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS). The SLS Program has completed its critical design review, and the program has concluded that the core stage of the rocket will remain orange along with the Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter, which is the natural color of the insulation that will cover those elements. Credits: NASA”
Keith’s note: OK – the Core stage color makes sense. But why do the SRBs have a disco-era paint scheme – like you’d expect to see on a 70s muscle car? Does this make the rocket go faster or easier to track? Did the SLS program formally decide on this?
To be honest it looks like someone saw the James Bond film “Moonraker” (left) a few too many times. Earlier NASA artist’s concepts of SLS were done to make people think of the Saturn V. Before that Ares V images wanted you to know there was a shuttle hardware heritage.
This new SLS paint scheme has those swoops on the SRBs that sort of remind you of Space Shuttle wings that are no longer there – or the Rockwell International logo (they built the shuttle). These paint schemes are all political. Is this really what SLS is going to look like? If NASA is going to use graphic design to make their rocket look better they really need to consult professionals.
Larger image, Alternate view, Diagram, View of SLS in flight
– SLS, Saturn V, And Ares V Color Schemes (Update), earlier post
– Nickname for Liberty, earlier post
– Repainted Ares 1 For Sale as “Liberty”, earlier post
Ask any muscle car enthusiast – go-faster stripes definitely make the car go faster.
Personally, I think it looks slick.
I hope they do it for the first launch, at least.
I like it too!
Yeah…it has a certain flair I have to say, vintage muscle -classic, if not classy.
Why would the conical adapter section (just below the spacecraft) carry the color of the SOFI tank insulation?
I would guess to avoid cooking the 2nd stage LOX tank and engines.
I like it! Go SLS!
Reminds me of the mission patch for the final Shuttle flight.
Perhaps that’s what they’re trying to evoke?
http://www.nasa.gov/images/…
MOONRAKER was an awesome film.
Moonraker was shoehorned in.
If you watch the end credits of the preceding film (the name of which I can’t be bothered to remember…) it says “James Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only.”
But For Your Eyes Only came after Moonraker (which also said “James Bond will return in For Your…etc. in its credits.)
Moonraker was cobbled together and stuck in the middle for some reason.
It was 1977’s “The Spy Who Love Me”, and “Moonraker” was made before “For Your Eyes Only” to cash-in on the space craze launched by “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters” in 1977.
Agreed – loved the whole idea of USAF shuttles filled with Space Marines. That would be ‘the’ posting to get if you were in USMC.
Or perhaps they are thinking really old school?
http://www.logodesignlove.c…
Indeed!
I have no problem with this. Leave some white on the solid booster in between the diagonal/curve and the main rocket body to get it closer to Atari.
I think it is ugly. I helped to pay for it so I get to have an opinion.
You’re certainly grouchy, Keith! Now get off my lawn!
So we pay extra for a customer paint job, then we dump it in the ocean 🙁
And you wonder why the public thinks space is a waste?
BUT it looks nice as it sits on the pad for months until it launches.
Seen worse… the Liberty booster, and the Turkey Feather Phallic Rocket come to mind…
I the paint scheme really the most important SLS news to be talking about?
Better they should give the beast a name! We’ve used most of the names of the planets in our solar system…except maybe the seventh planet. Of course there would be a problem with the pronounciation! But call it some imaginative name! “SLS” just does’t fire the imagination. Maybe something related to Orion, like “Regulus”.
Personally I think the name Ares IV would suit SLS just fine. I think NASA will name it eventually. We have to wait and see.
It would be a good name. However, given what happened to the Constellation program and its Ares V, I doubt that would happen during the present administration’s term. Such a name application may depend on the occupant of the White House after January 20, 2017. Of course, all that would depend on whether there is continued funding of the SLS, regardless of its name. And also whether there is a definite destination decided upon!
Ad Luna! Ad Ares! Ad Astra!
I can not imagine this system being funded until a first human launch in 2023… That would mean the next President would have to keep funding it through their entire first term and not get a launch… this is a dead man walking.
Well Obama is not a fan of SLS at all and yet he continues to fund it (although below what is needed).
Also the next President will definitely get a launch in the first term, EM-1.
If the next President actually funds SLS/Orion to the level needed and puts the administration’s support behind it I think we could easily get a 2021 human launch.
I predicated it on a “human” launch.. which I believe NASA has hinted at being moved to 2023. Actually the President presents a non-binding budget PROPOSAL to congress. Congress is free to both authorize and appropriate whatever they choose, they can even backdoor sequestion if they choose. They can fund SLS exactly how much it needs to succeed and risk a veto it appears they choose NOT to do it.
NASA has hinted at the movement because they are assuming the President’s budget for the next 8 years, which has consistently been lower for SLS/Orion than what Congress has appropriated.
You are correct that Congress has the authority to appropriate whatever it wants. That said more or less Congress does follow the budget outline given by the President. As you said the President does have veto power so he has a substantial impact on the budget. Also the President sets the executive agency policy. Congress is behooved to consider how the administration feels.
Right now SLS/Orion are subsisting because the President is not a fan of them. A new President who favors them in concert with Congress will get the budget to an acceptable level.
Every executive since Nixon and the end of apollo was been trying to move NASA out of the hands of congressional space states and space transportation to assume a more traditional path. Reagan had the Space Act of 1958 modified to include:
“(c) The Congress declares that the general welfare of the United States requires that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (as established by title II of this Act) seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space.”
He also got through congress the Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984:
“Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 is a United States federal law authored to facilitate the private enterprise of the commercialization of space and space technology. The Act of Congress set forth the quest to acquire innovative equipment and services offered by entrepreneurial ventures from the information technology services, remote sensing technology, and telecommunications industries. The Act recognized the United States private sector as having the capability to develop commercial launch vehicles, orbital satellites, and operate private launch sites and services.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
That was the opening salvo against a Congressional space state/NASA monopoly. The second shot came when the executive branch signed off on the Commercial Space Act of 1998:
TITLE II–FEDERAL ACQUISITION OF SPACE TRANSPORTATION SERVICES
Sec. 201. Requirement to procure commercial space transportation
services.
Sec. 202. Acquisition of commercial space transportation services.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pk…
What did the next executive do with this authorization? President Bush brought in “The Vision for Space Exploration” and called for retiring Congressional space state transportation, e.g. the space shuttle, and called for COTS or Commercial orbital transportation Services.
The Nation only managed to gain the commercial cargo part of COTS but it had a PART D for commercial crew that was left unfunded under Griffin. Now we move to the next executive to the oval office. What did President Obama do with this 40 year odyssey? He managed to fight off congress enough to get commercial crew started.
This was a long answer for a very short question. What will the next executive to the whitehouse do with the congressionally mandated SLS? Well if the last 35 years is showing a trend, that trend is that the congressionally mandated SLS is going to be canceled and space transportation will FINALLY be in the hands of commercial service providers.
The President lacks line-item veto power so has to veto the entire budget and possibly shut down the government. It seems unlikely he or she would do that for a human spaceflight line item.
Exactly, the NASA budget rarely is even given an asterick at the bottom of a budget graph. 18 billion from a 4 trillion budget.. rarely gets a second thought from a president and it is never something they risk political capital on.
Remember Daniel that the budget is passed in around 12 separate omnibus spending bills. NASA is put in with similar agencies. You can veto one bill without vetoing the other 11.
Unless the government has been reorganized since the last time I checked, the bill containing NASA funding also contains some items which have nothing to do with science and technology, and which would be hard to veto. At one time, benefits for military veterans were in the same bill as NASA.
Under “normal” budget operations you have a number of spending bills covering various agencies. Recently there have been a lot of CRs (continuing resolutions) which are “all or nothing”.
The President has shown that he will veto a military bill. He just vetoed the NDAA.
If Congress tried to massively increased spending on the BEO program the President would veto it or direct his allies in Congress to torpedo it.
Congress has to deal not only with Presidential opposition to increased spending on BEO but also the budget caps from the sequester and other agency budgets.
Look I am not saying that Congress is doing a good job, just that they are constrained with what they can do.
“I am not saying that Congress is doing a good job”
Whew. Close one.
Congress is, however, not requires to put the entire budget into one act. Bundling many appropriations together into one act is a long standing, legislative trick to force the President into an all-or-nothing choice. It could be done differently if Congress wished to do so.
The president doesn’t decide funding. Congress does. Obama has been trying to cut funding each year in his budget requests, and Congress has always restored the funding.
From Wikipedia:
Ouranos [oːranós] was the Greek prononciation. Sounds strong. God of the sky and all that. But wait… “The most probable etymology traces the name to a Proto-Greek form *worsanós (Ϝορσανός)[5] enlarged from *ṷorsó- (also found in Greek ouréō ‘to urinate’,”
Names for something, even dull sounding ones, can often have negative implications for some people. Especially when multiple languages are considered. A university I know of once started a “Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science” (PAOS). A Greek scientist at that university absolutely refused to pronounce that acronym. In greek, “paos” happens to by a mildly obscene word for male reproductive anatomy. You just can’t find a name which no one, at any place, will not object to.
I would point out that the actual sounds of Greek during the classical period are largely
conjecture.
Unless the paint has some protective properties, save the money and the weight.
All of the Air Force missions, NRO, etc that fly on EELV’s have big mission decals on them… ULA puts ‘dedication’ text on rockets to commemorate the loss of a coworker… shark teeth on the Delta IIs… we’ve done this sort of thing for a long time. Just look at it as nose art.
I mean really, this is an ugly rocket with all of that orange SOFI on there. A few racing stripes help it a bit.
I kinda like it. I’m gonna have to get used to the Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter being orange too. I don’t know… it’s like superman not wearing red trunks anymore. Looks “off”.
Still looks much better than a big orange stick with two smaller white sticks on the side. And looks does matter. It’s a foundation of public support. The Space Shuttle stack is iconic. When historians talk of the end of the Cold War and the post-Cold War era, a picture of the Space Shuttle lifting off will be in any article about America during that time period. Forever. Iconic imagery matters and “cool” counts.
The SLS won’t be a looker comparatively. It’s hard to imagine it lifting off will be iconic in any form, especially since a Mars Mission will need several launches and the vehicle assembled in orbit. A single SLS lifting off will be hard for a layman looking at a screen to tell it apart from a Delta IV Heavy.
Some visual flair is fully justified given what it is and what it is planned to do, even if only for the first missions. I mean again, going back to the Space Shuttle, sure only the first two missions had the tank painted white, but those pictures were used for decades… kids had them on their wall… text books had them.
If there is some weight margin, yes, let’s make it look completely awesome. If that mass is needed, then keep it plain.
Taking racing stripes from cars: I wonder if those crafty folks are going to give as much attention to the sound as auto manufacturers do.
As a very long time Florida resident I watched/heard/FELT several Apollo launches and can’t wait to witness this thing. If boondoggles fly, that is.
And while I’m thinking about it: our great nation is building this monumental critter- and it’s barely a budget blip, as someone pointed out. Just think of what we could do if someone actually thought about it.
I would like to see NASA adopt a scheme to convince congress this is to expensive of a boondoggle .. do a SAA milestone based COTS type program where the government buys JUST launch services.. and quit pretending it can launch rockets in a sustainable manner.
Agreed. NASA building a rocket (at the behest of Congress) contradicts the stated mission of NASA to develop new technologies that push us forward. There is precisely *nothing* new about a big rocket, and they certainly aren’t pushing the boundaries of efficient design and production work with this project.
These billions should be invested in developing fast interplanetary systems, habitats for new planets, power systems for colonies, etc., not in getting big piles of stuff off the surface of the Earth.
Also the stated MANDATE of NASA to both seek and encourage to the maximum extent possible the commerical use of space.
But what if all those habitats and power systems can’t get off the ground because there isn’t a rocket big enough to do it? I would call that a large waste of money.
SLS is based on legacy systems but that doesn’t mean it is worthless. Not everything NASA uses has to be brand new.
That is why, if NASA needs a larger rocket, do it through SAA’s and milestones so that NASA actually has enough money left over to BUILD the habitats and power systems. Instead we have a system that is sucking up all the funding we need for those other systems.
I agree with you that NASA procurement strategies need to change. SLS/Orion should have been fixed price, not cost-plus.
That said the contract structure for SLS/Orion is now water under the bridge. What we need to do IMO is use them once we get them online while insisting that items like habs and landers are fixed price.
True, but that problem will still INFECT all the oher hardware procurements needed for NASA to spiral outward.
We truely have to start thinking differently about space. I know I am beating a dead horse here by repeating something I say a lot .. but ..
~~~[ space is place, not a program ]~~~
If the Nation truely wants to see more Americans working, vacationing, exploring, manufacturing, et cetera IN space then we have to put some of the most effective capital markets and the planet’s best yankee peddlers/entreprenuers moving and thinking about that frontier. I really believe NASA has a roll to play in that future. But I see it more as the incubator, the pump primer, the anchor tenant. increase the TRL (technology readiness level) of the tech and then shovel it into the private sector as fast as possible so it is available as COTS ( commercial off the shelf) to not only NASA but to the Nation’s commerical sector.
America and the Nation’s businesses should be totally DOMINATING the inner solar system. Providing transportation and leasing space habs to any and all takers.
THAT is my vision for NASA.
Good vision. But it requires that the cost of putting a human in space be reduced, by a lot. It is hard to see that happening with this particular launch system. The manufacturing and processing costs are high, the facilities are expensive to maintain, and there is little potential for practical reuse.
Agree 100% .. we are not going anywhere if Congress’s space arm, NASA is provide transportation. The fundamental fact was expressed several times after it was decided the shuttle program would end. Congressional member after member stated it was a jobs program. As long as it is a jobs program and not about the Nation gaining a new commercial transportation system.. we are dead in our tracks.
Your vision isn’t wrong or bad. What it is though is highly idealistic.
Right now when the Air Force wants to buy airplanes they can enter a contract with Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop, Airbus, Embraer, and a few others. When the Army wants to buy Helicopters, they deal with Bell, Sikorsky, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and a few others. They’re all healthy companies and a federal contract is just one contract in a wider portfolio.
If NASA wants to buy rockets right now, their options are ULA, Orbital and SpaceX.
In the ULA case, their two rockets are hughely expensive government-subsidied designs – Atlas V and Delta IV, that pale in comparison to the more modern SpaceX offerings. Their “next generation” successor, Vulcan… well if that’s a vision of what ULA intends to do next, they’re going to need all the luck they can get to stay afloat.
In the Orbital case, we have a company that for their larger rockets, uses Russian engines, or hardware canibalized from US and Russian government sources.
Which brings us to SpaceX, whose entire portfolio is revolutionary, successful and hugely ambitious. Nothing bad to say about what they’re doing.
Except for one thing… for your position to have a legitimate shot of being realistic, the launch industry needs three more SpaceXs.
It wasn’t going to be like this. Over a decade ago, as you probably recall, there were lots of companies that said “we’re going to provide launch services at prices far less than ULA”. SpaceX was just one of those companies. And they way they did it was a highly focused incrimentalism… they made the engine, then a small rocket, then a better engine, then a big rocket, then a bigger rocket, then a basic capsule, and then a better capsule, and so forth. Every step of the way, it’s been earned. Everyone else – remember Rocketplane Kistler for example – long on promises, short on results. Lots of CG art, but nothing even launching. And the worst ones were the companies that tried to cannibalize surplus or retired government hardware – Orbital being just the one that made it.
“Commercial Space” is in no way healthy right now. It’s basically ULA, SpaceX and Orbital, and that’s being generous. And their next generation vision for lower cost launch vehicles are well known.
NASA buying launch services in the way you describe would be little different then what is currently going on… maybe worse because certainly independent of government involvement, no one would build an SLS-sized vehicle (it’s a real question if there is even a market need for Falcon Heavy-level capabilities at this stage, much less 70-105-130t).
And the thing is, this was natural. The Commerical Space companies that didn’t make it failed because they couldn’t secure capital or couldn’t produce. I mean somewhere else we were discussing Bigelow Aerospace. It’s kind of ridiculous that people still imagine an inflatable Space Station, when the last time that particular company had anything put into orbit was before Obama became the Democratic nominee. Sure BEAM will go up to the ISS in 2016 – a closet sized inflatable room, 9 years later. It’s really emblamatic of the immense gulf between the Commercial Space that does exist and the one many folks would like to exist.
Yes, in a perfect world NASA would not be building a rocket. But let’s imagine right now the SLS was killed tomorrow and billions annually were made available to buy rockets. Who are they buying from? SpaceX, Orbital, and ULA. The first two, they’re buying rides from on the ISS anyway and will in the future. The last one just means trading SLS for EELVs through the early 2020s, and then maybe Vulcan which hardly something to get excited about. It would be a change of rockets and change of destination and a lowering of ambition, but hardly this “less expensive” vision you have. And any other start up… a legitimate SpaceX clone… faces 15 years of development to get where SpaceX is today, and we’re not waiting for that. And sure you could maybe tell Lockheed and Boeing that they can’t work together on ULA anymore, but it is more likely one of them would just leave the industry all together. In a perfect world, Blue Origin wouldn’t have fallen years behind SpaceX either, but it happened.
So with all due respect… enough with the “in a perfect world” scenarios.
“Except for one thing… for your position to have a legitimate shot of being realistic, the launch industry needs three more SpaceXs.”
Nope we just need ONE launch company able to achieve EXTRA normal profits. The commecial space acts of 1984 and 1998 and more importantly the increase in a regulatory regime now makes it easy for capital to flow into launchers. just look at how much captail is flowing into smaller space launchers.
Capital AUTOMATICALLY flows to extra normal profits as long as there are not government barriers prohibiting that movement.
SpaceX is already forcing capital movement into innovation and reusablity. Once SpaceX lands a rocket it will prove it is possible and capital will automatically start intering the market.
Much the same as we did for STS.
Does the Orion have an 8-track?
If they’re going to do vintage 20th century, then gotta have launch/entry pressure suits such that astronauts have to carry an A/C unit. I always think that was the coolest aspect off being an astronaut: Marching to the Astrovan carrying the A/C unit. Stripes and A/C units now!
They had portable A/C units on the Shuttle, but they only used them for launch. Never for landing, even when they were walking around in their suits in the Florida heat.
We just reached the date that Marty McFly traveled to in Back to the Future.
Looking at this beautiful giant rocket, I think we should honor it,
by calling it,
FORWARD TO THE PAST
Pretty obvious to me