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Why SLS Has Always Been About Maintaining Jobs

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 30, 2016
Filed under
Why SLS Has Always Been About Maintaining Jobs

Why NASA Is Building An $18 Billion Rocket To Nowhere, Buzzfeed
“It is more the politics of pork than the politics of progress,” former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver told BuzzFeed News. “There’s a long-time pattern at NASA where money aimed at science and research ends up with builders and contractors instead.” … “The point is to spend money and create jobs the way the Soviet Union did on its rocket design bureaus,” Keith Cowing of NASA Watch told BuzzFeed News. The SLS “a rocket to nowhere,” as Cowing put it fits this pattern neatly because it provides thousands of jobs in space states. No one knows where it will go. Maybe to an asteroid (the Obama administration’s unloved notion), or to circle the moon, or boost astronauts on their way to Mars.”
NASA, We Have A (Funding) Problem, op ed, Mary Davis (staffer in Rep. Babib’s Office), Houston Chronicle
“The SLS and Orion are strategic national assets and have to be sufficiently funded to lead the race back to the Moon and to Mars. As Chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee, Congressman Babin is leading this fight for adequate funding of these programs. This will have a direct effect on his district in terms of lowering unemployment rates, inspiring young children, and increases economic competitiveness. It would also affect the entire nation by expanding international relations and advances national security interests.”
Public Law 111-267 – NASA Authorization Act of 2010
“SEC. 304. UTILIZATION OF EXISTING WORKFORCE AND ASSETS IN DEVELOPMENT OF SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM AND MULTI- PURPOSE CREW VEHICLE. (a) IN GENERAL.In developing the Space Launch System pursuant to section 302 and the multi-purpose crew vehicle pursu- ant to section 303, the Administrator shall, to the extent practicable utilize (1) existing contracts, investments, workforce, industrial base, and capabilities from the Space Shuttle and Orion and Ares 1 projects, including … (B) Space Shuttle-derived components and Ares 1 components that use existing United States propulsion systems, including liquid fuel engines, external tank or tank-related capability, and solid rocket motor engines; and (2) associated testing facilities, either in being or under construction as of the date of enactment of this Act.”

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

38 responses to “Why SLS Has Always Been About Maintaining Jobs”

  1. Michael Spencer says:
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    Well. For whatever reason, the dam has broken on SLS. I must say that when I see journalistic puffery regarding SLS the first question that comes to mind is: “Where the hell have you been?” SLS isn’t exactly new.

  2. Zen Puck says:
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    If I were a young and inspired engineer excited about exploring space, I would never work for NASA. I’d do everything I could to work at Space X.

    • SpaceMunkie says:
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      not after you saw your work contract

    • intdydx says:
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      NASA is still the lead in planetary science and in-space propulsion. And NASA Aero is still doing amazing work. But I would stay very far away from launch systems or mission control at NASA (which unfortunately get the lion’s share of the budget).

  3. Shaw_Bob says:
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    There’s an argument for SLS which actually *does* make some sort of sense – and that is to do with the strategic decision to retain some sort of industrial capacity in terms of non-commercial size launch vehicles. That’s a political choice, and may or may not be right; however, it runs the risk of becoming another Spruce Goose project if a bunch of upstart mammals come along and threaten the hegemony of the dinosaurs. We now see a commercial alternative to SLS on the horizon, and one which appears likely to be better, faster and cheaper. Now, where did we hear that slogan before…

    • Paul451 says:
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      If you (by which I mean SLS-defenders, not “you, Bob”) believe there is a strategic reason for having designers and engineers with knowledge of how to build large rockets, why would you choose a plan that involves the least new development of hardware for the money that you can possibly come up with.

      I mean, why recycle Shuttle engines (literally removed from Orbiters), why rejigger the Shuttle ET, why use 1970’s SRBs?

      If you believed there was a need for a strategic HLV engineering base, then that base has clearly been eroded by the 30yr STS development and the EELV stagnation. So your plan would instead be to launch a major technological development program, focusing especially on a new heavy-lift class liquid-fuelled rocket engine, ideally hydrocarbon/LOx; along with work on new manufacturing methods.

      Which was the 2010 proposal that the SLS supporters in Congress blocked and replaced with SLS.

      So, no, strategic HLV capability is not an argument for SLS. It’s a sad, sad realisation of what you could have had, but lost.

      • SpaceMunkie says:
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        It’s because “we the SLS designers” have very little to say about the technology. It is all driven by the current group of contractors that use NASA to keep their profits up and shareholders happy.

      • Shaw_Bob says:
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        The Soviet Union’s rockets are still flying using old technology which has been gradually upgraded, so you don’t *have* to be cutting-edge to do the job. Soyuz first flew with a man on board in 1967 – imagine what 50 years of slow development of 1960s US hardware would have given us! But yes, you’re right – the implementation of SLS (and Orion) has been shocking (and half a dozen other manned and unmanned projects, too). These folk have not merely been rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic, they’ve been actively steering towards the biggest icebergs they can find.

  4. Anonymous says:
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    Saw this on Buzzfeed this morning. A bit worried because headlines like this will make NASA look really bad in the eyes of general public, and the net effect may not be improvement of NASA policy as we all hoped, but irreversible damage to NASA’s public support. There is already plenty of people, particularly on the left of the political spectrum, arguing we should put earthy matters ahead of space exploration, as if NASA is stealing money from the poor and from the fight of global warming.

    • jamesmuncy says:
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      Ah yes… here it is, right on cue. “If you criticize our human spaceflight strategy then the bastards will just cut NASA’s budget and we won’t have anything”.

      B.S.

      • Anonymous says:
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        C’mon, the article is not critizing your hsf strategy, it is criticizing the funding priority set by politicians. Most of us are not happy with that. The question is can An average voter tell the difference between a congress stupidity and a nasa stupidity? I doubt it. If the buzzfeed title of the article targets politicians, I would not be bothered. Unfortunately, it is not. It is about nasa being incompetent.

        Btw,pls don’t sign your posts, totally unnecessary.

  5. JadedObs says:
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    Professor Lambright is right – politics is always part of how things get done in a democracy (and even more so in an autocracy) but its not always so simple. The Buzfeed article is filled with simplistic critiques. Just one example: Webb and LBJ decided to locate NASA Centers in the south early on as part of an effort to reinvigorate the poorest part of the US – LBJ’s native South, If he wanted political clout, he would have put a NASA facility in in New York, then the most populous state with the biggest Congressional delegation. And if they did it to shore up wavering support for Apollo later in the decade they sure were prescient to decide on it in 1961 right after Alan Shepard’s first flight; JSC opened its doors in 1963.

    SLS is taking so long to develop and costing so much due to the fact that we are developing it on a shoe string compared to the Saturn V; we are dragging it out due to an unwillingness to adequately fund NASA to do a human mission beyond earth orbit in a reasonable time. This reality is exacerbated by the fact that the Republican Congress HATES Obama & so won’t agree to anything he wants and Obama has not made this a priority for his Presidency – so while we wait for another roll of the electoral dice, at least NASA is making progress on two elements – Orion and SLS; cancel them and it will be another decade before anything happens.

    Sorry to say but SpaceX and Elon Musk do not have a magic wand that can make things happen quickly and cheaply for a human Mars mission; it is a private company with fewer resources than NASA. While they have done great things and will no doubt contribute greatly to human Mars exploration with innovation and precursors such as Red Dragon, going to Mars will require really big spacecraft elements – unless we want to spend two decades assembling them like we did with the ISS, we need a big rocket and there is no commercial market for vehicle with a nearly 30 foot diameter fairing.

    If this politically fraught process is not good enough for exploration advocates they can ask themselves, would they rather do it this way or not at all? I wish the Space station had been completed in the early 1990’s as was planned when it first started in 1984 but its far better that it was built the way it was than if they’d cancelled it because it was taking so long. Quit whining about how much better things could be and devote some energy to trying to get more money for exploration.

    • Paul451 says:
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      SLS is taking so long to develop and costing so much due to the fact that we are developing it on a shoe string compared to the Saturn V; we are dragging it out due to an unwillingness to adequately fund NASA to do a human mission beyond earth orbit in a reasonable time.

      Is NASA unaware of its budget?

      Did it not know that the budget for JWST was less than a fifth of what they are now estimating? Did they not know that the original budget for Freedom Space Station was $9 billion? Did they not know what Constellation’s budget was? Have they been tricked into thinking that SLS/Orion is getting even more than its $3b/yr budget?

      Are they incapable of reading the publicly released budget documents for their own agency? Or are they throwing a kind of incompetence-tantrum, hoping that if they manage their budget badly enough they’ll be given more?

      If not, please stop pretending they are not adequately funded.

      If we want to know why they aren’t doing new projects that we’d like, then yes we can say “well, there’s no money for that additional projects”, but it is not a justification for incompetently managing the budget they have been given.

      And there is not a single shred of evidence that they would suddenly change their practice of mismanaging every major project if they were given a 10, 20 or even 100% budget hike. NASA cannot manage its budget. Change its budget and it will fail to manage that budget.

      • JadedObs says:
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        Actually, NASA IS unaware of its budget – OMB just gave them one number and Congress increased it by nearly a billion for SLS and who knows what a President Trump or Clinton will do? Managing a multiyear program in the midst of political budget tussles, government shutdowns, etc. is yet another example of why this process is expensive.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          Bull.

          SpaceX (again, sorry, but they are the obvious comparison) dealt with blowing up rockets and with stages bumping into one another and with running out of money. They prevailed.

          The race is over. The rest of it is just picking up the pieces. NASA is out of the rocket business and the transition was completely botched by the General and his minions, all of whom certainly saw the handwriting before any of us did.

          • Paul451 says:
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            and the transition was completely botched by the General and his minions

            If by “the General”, you mean Bolden, then no, he had no choice to develop SLS/Orion, nor did he have any choice in using recycled Shuttle parts. It wasn’t the job he signed up for, it wasn’t the job the President wanted; it was forced on them by Congress. Blaming Bolden for that disaster is retarded.

            My point was about the general cry of “NASA is underfunded” or “SLS is underfunded”. They aren’t. They, and the primary contractors, simply don’t manage the available funding correctly.

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      You say that “SpaceX and Elon Musk do not have a magic wand that can make things happen quickly and cheaply for a human Mars mission” and that may prove to be true. But, by NASA’s own accounting models, SpaceX has developed both launch vehicles and cargo spacecraft for ISS and is developing a manned spacecraft for ISS for far less money that NASA accounting models predicted. So if SpaceX doesn’t have a “magic wand”, NASA has something like a boat anchor holding it back.

      • JadedObs says:
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        NASA probably does have a boat anchor or two on its tail; most government bureaucracies do – but that misses the point. SpaceX has taken largely proven technologies (e.g. pintle injectors, LOX/Kerosene engines, basic space vehicle structures – even landing a rocket and re-flying it was done by the DC-X in the 1990’s) and implemented them much more cost effectively while also aggressively growing their market capture to spread out their fixed costs. They have also re-used existing assets in Hawthorne, CA, the Cape, etc. But while we know they are bold and willing to do things established companies won’t, we really don’t know if they are profitable (unlikely or if so at thin margins), if they have paid off their investment (almost certainly not) or if they would continue as a going concern if Elon Musk got run over by a bus.
        Thinking that because SpaceX has done some innovative things commercially with proven technologies means they can do what’s needed for a Mars mission assumes they can solve the challenge of doing things humanity has never done before like assuring crew can survive prolonged weightlessness and galactic cosmic rays in deep space for over two years on a Mars mission, developing a long term habitats that reuse extremely high percentages of water and O2 and tapping into Martian in-situ resources, etc. is simply magical thinking.
        NASA’s systematic approach to solving these types of difficult challenges- incorporated into SLS and Orion – while not sexy, cheap or quick, has gotten robotic spacecraft throughout the solar system, revolutionized astronomy, space and earth science while launching almost 500 people into space and creating a habitat in space that has been successfully crewed for over a decade and oh, by the way, landing people on the moon!
        Take off the rose colored glasses; Mars is hard and its a fantasy to think that it will be either quick or cheap if its “commercial”

        • Tom Billings says:
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          One step at a time, you can walk around the world. SpaceX is interested in doing that, but Congress isn’t. That is the difference, and always will be.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          LOX densification to near-freezing temperature is a “proven technology”? 3-D printing of thrusters is a “proven technology”? Propulsive soft landing of an LV booster stage and a spacecraft is a “proven technology”? Methane fuel is a “proven technology”? Horizontal integration with a liquid propellant LV that spends hours on the pad instead of weeks is a “proven technology”? The only “existing asset” SpaceX might reuse at Cape Canaveral is the steel framework of the FSS.

          But the most revolutionary concept SpaceX has implemented is the understanding that the cost of launch must be radically reduced, something the existing contractors only began to understand when they started losing contracts.

          • JadedObs says:
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            In fact, LOX densification was developed in the 1990’s as was landing a booster equivalent (DC-X); horizontal integration was done on the Delta IV and even earlier on the Soviet era launch vehicles; while they haven’t always made it, Delta IV’s were designed to launch within 72 hours or erection to vertical. Meanwhile, the Falcon9 booster spacecraft, hopefully, continues on to orbit the spacecraft does not come back with the booster. While 3D Printing is a recent development; last time I looked, while they plan to develop a LOX Methane booster, the LOX-Methane one is still a few models off – though here again, LOX-Methane is not a revolutionary technology. Bottom line, incremental improvements of previously developed technologies are important steps and smart choices for a commercial but not the kind of revolutionary developments needed to go to Mars; there’s no magic “commercial” solution – you just have to incrementally engineer the hell out of it!

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            Delta IV used horizontal integration, yet it was very expensive to process, in part because major processing tasks such as SRB integration had to be done on the pad and total processing time on the pad became excessive.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          Nobody is so blind as he who will not see. Or something like that.

          Elon at this point has little to do with the future of space travel. Oh, sure, he will dominate for another few decades. But no matter. The dam is broken and the ideas are out there. If not him, someone else will pick up the mantle.

          Once someone demonstrated how to do it, many will do it. Here comes Curtis, and Glenn Martin, and all the rest of them, just waiting in the wings.

        • duheagle says:
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          You correctly list many of the main problems standing between humanity and routine access to places such as Mars. Where you err is in assuming that NASA is employing some “systematic approach” to solving them. In truth, NASA is putting virtually no resources into solving any of them. We don’t really know what resources SpaceX is throwing at the same problems, but, given the miniscule NASA efforts, it’s by no means impossible that SpaceX is actually spending more on the hard problems impeding Mars settlement than NASA is. And SpaceX gets a lot more bang per buck than NASA does too.

          And of course SpaceX is profitable. If SpaceX’s per-mission launch margins were as thin as so many profess to believe, the firm would have been in Chapter 11 years ago. Believing otherwise because the alleged “older and wiser heads” at NASA and the legacy contractor-plex have never figured out ways to do things parsimoniously, and now hold that it’s simply impossible, is just rank superstition. SpaceX doesn’t do things like NASA and the legacies. It couldn’t afford to starting out and has seen no need to adopt superannuated bad habits since.

          As for paying off its investors, that depends upon what, precisely, you mean by that. So far as I know, all of SpaceX’s original investors are still “in.” While SpaceX has yet to go through that venerable rite of entrepreneurial firm passage, the Initial Public Offering (IPO), SpaceX does have stock shares and there are regular “liquidity events” in which people or, one presumes, investors who own shares and wish to “cash out,” in full or in part, can do so.

          The value of each share is based upon SpaceX’s estimated or demonstrated valuation at the time. An example of demonstrated valuation would be last year’s Google-Fidelity investment of a billion dollars in SpaceX for less than 10% of the equity. That placed SpaceX’s value at over $10 billion. Since then both cash flow and profits have certainly risen so the company has gained still more in value.

          Market value calculations based upon standard financial documents is routine in the finance world. Only a minority of corporations have stock shares that are publicly traded, but every firm needs to be able to borrow money and do other things that require bankers and others to know what the total value of the firm is to a pretty high degree of accuracy. There are standard ways to do this as any CPA should be able to attest.

          SpaceX has appreciated hugely in value from the time of its founding. If its most consequential investors are standing pat, as appears to be the case, it can only be because they view SpaceX’s prospects for future value appreciation as superior to other alternatives. When you’re already saddled up on the fastest horse on the track, why would you be looking at other horses?

        • Paul451 says:
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          but that misses the point. SpaceX has taken largely proven technologies (e.g. pintle injectors, LOX/Kerosene engines, basic space vehicle structures – even landing a rocket and re-flying it was done by the DC-X in the 1990’s) and implemented them

          It’s the “SpaceX does not innovate” argument that completely misses the point. Everything SpaceX did was therefore available to NASA and the primary contractors.

          If SpaceX has no magic, then it makes NASA and its primary contractors even more incompetent or corrupt (respectively).

          SLS is literally reusing Shuttle technology. Taking actual SSMEs from the orbiters and using them on the first four SLS launches. Using stock SRB’s on the first “Block 0” launches. Using a minimally modified ET construction system for the first stage. Using old engine designs (not just “proven technologies”, but the literal engine designs) for the upper stage.

    • Tom Billings says:
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      “If this politically fraught process is not good enough for exploration
      advocates they can ask themselves, would they rather do it this way or
      not at all?”

      Well, now. There is the key question, …or is it? In fact, getting cheaper spaceflight has *never* been a congressional priority. Indeed, their pattern of cutting and cancelling new tech developments that can save money in settling the Solar System makes that clear. Congress has no interest in it, so it will not be funded by them. Private industry must do the development without the pork surcharge that boosts NASA budgets for projects 10/1 over what is needed without congressional focus on jobs, jobs, jobs.

      “Quit whining about how much better things could be and devote some energy to trying to get more money for exploration.”

      In short, “keep kissing up to our political class masters, or get no space entertainment, and stop dreaming of settlement, because government controls all.”

      No sale!

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      SLS is pricy and lengthy because we are not throwing enough money at it? Seriously? SpaceX has dissuaded me from that argument completely with F9 and with FH, which will fly much sooner than SLS and at a fraction of the cost. And SLS is hardly anything new, as smart people point out.

      And the notion that everything must be built on the ground and then flown in a 10M fairing? This is OldThink. Smaller and much cheaper rockets mean we can fly the bits to LEO for assembly.

  6. Rich_Palermo says:
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    The article by the young staffer in the Congressman’s office make me wonder about the standards of the Fellowship she holds.

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      “Standards of the fellowship” to the Congressman, or to fellow US Taxpayers?

      • Rich_Palermo says:
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        Both and neither. It is disturbing when Public Policy equates to padding a press release.

  7. Gonzo_Skeptic says:
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    SLS was designed to deliver high-value pork to the appropriate Congressional districts in a timely manner for elections.

    Everything else it might do is a mere artifact of reality.

    • SpaceMunkie says:
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      I think that SLS was designed to deliver high-value contracts to the appropriate contractors in a timely manner for re-election funding donations.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      This entirely and completely misses the point.

      There’s nothing wrong with NASA developing a new rocket. Period. The issue here is in choosing to rework very old technology rather than turn lose the engineers and designers. It’s not even the money.

      Imagine if all of those billions were spent, say, on SSTO? (I’m reaching, I know). What if SLS were truly revolutionary?

      But it is not.

      • Paul451 says:
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        There’s nothing wrong with NASA developing a new rocket. Period.

        Sure there is.

        It explicitly goes against their charter. They are not allowed to compete with commercial aerospace companies, and they are required to encourage and support the development of commercial aerospace industry.

        Imagine if all of those billions were spent, say, on SSTO?

        For nearly a decade, they were.

        SSTO is a good example of why NASA shouldn’t be building rockets.

  8. Larry J says:
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    It’s important to remember that politicians use different metrics than we do when determining the success or failure of a government program. We foolishly consider value, necessity, and capabilities delivered as our metrics. Politicians value things like votes bought, money pumped into their districts, campaign contributions generated, cronies enriched, and elections won. To them, nothing else matters.