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SLS and Orion

NASA Tries To Explain Changes To SLS Launch Plans

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
February 24, 2017
Filed under
NASA Tries To Explain Changes To SLS Launch Plans

Keith’s update: NASA held a hastily-arranged 30 minute media briefing this afternoon on the surprise plan to put a crew on the very first SLS mission.This plan was semi-officially announced last week.
NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate Bill Gerstenmaier said that NASA had been contacted by the Trump transition Team before and after the Inauguration about EM-1 options. He said that he has been asked by Acting Administrator Lightfoot to do a feasibility study of putting a crew on EM-1.
NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development Bill Hill said that they were not going to let the study affect current EM-1 and EM-2 plans. Gerstenmaier said that the White House had offered them some schedule flexibility on EM-1 if the decision to fly a crew was made. The extent of that flexibility was not detailed.
The basic idea is to send 2 crew on an 8-9 day flight around the Moon. Both Hill and Gerstenmaier said that they have no opinion one way or the other about whether this is a good idea and reiterated that they are just doing a study. When asked what the risk and loss of crew numbers were Gerstenmaier did not have an answer but said that they’ do studies, etc. No firm answer was given when asked about the advisability of flying humans on a new launch vehicle for the first time.
I asked Bill Gerstenmaier if the White House specifically asked or directed NASA to put a crew on EM-1; whether the White House explained the specific reasons why they wanted a crew on EM-1, and whether the White House promised NASA the funding required to make this happen. Gerstenmaier punted on my question and said (again) that this was a feasibility study and that no mention of budgets was made when they talked to the White House.
When asked what the astronaut office thought of putting a crew on EM-1 Gerstenmaier said he did not know and would not presume to guess what they thought. When asked if there was an astronaut on the team he said there was one and that the astronaut office would pick others to help out but he declined to name the astronaut that has already been chosen to be on the team.
At no point did Gerstenmaier or Hill ever say what the rationale for flying a crew on EM-1 was. Gerstenmaier seemed to be suggesting that they had been thinking about this already.
In summary: The White House asked NASA to look at putting crew on EM-1 and they are studying it – but no one knows – or will say why they are studying it.
Lightfoot Tries a SLS Hail Mary Pass, earlier post

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

70 responses to “NASA Tries To Explain Changes To SLS Launch Plans”

  1. Jafafa Hots says:
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    There’s ample precedent for this. Sure, the precedent is Khrushchev telling Korolev to do such things, but still…

  2. Bill Housley says:
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    “Gerstenmaier said that the White House had offered them some schedule flexibility on EM-1 if the decision to fly a crew was made. “

    I didn’t get to see the briefing, but did NASA ask for “schedule flexibility” for EM-1 and the White House responded with, “Maybe you can push the schedule back if you put a crew aboard EM-1”?

    • JJMach says:
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      This is what I am afraid of. NASA realizes that Orion and SLS are behind schedule, so rather than take their lumps for management issues or have to explain to the Administration and Congress what happens when you let lawyers and bureaucrats design a rocket, they move the goalposts. Then, they can claim (justly, I might add) that additional time and money is necessary to meet the newly redefined goal and quietly sweep previous issues under the rug. I agree that it is a canny political move, but at what price?

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        Depends on how many astronauts are on it and whether or not they come back alive. It’s a morbid thought, but it’s reality.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          On the ‘morbid’ issue, and surely part of the decision-making equation: what would be the effect on NASA if a rocket with astronauts blows up?

          How are timelines affected? How is budget affected? Does such an event force a sharp redirection for NASA away from HSF, in for of private companies? Or does the very low NASA budget come into focus? Or does public opinion conclude “what do you expect from the government, anyway?”

          Lots of questions, all with a really simple answer: test more. See Apollo 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Test, test, test.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            Don’t forget the earlier CSM flights (both manned and unmanned): AS-201, AS-202, Apollo 4, and Apollo 7.

      • Bill Housley says:
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        If SpaceX sends two people around the Moon in Dragon for a couple hundred $M, before an un-crewed SLS/Orion mission doing the same thing that costs $1B, that could endanger SLS/Orion. That might be the reason for this new study.

  3. Johnhouboltsmyspiritanimal says:
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    There is Risk taking and then there is basically jumping from John Glenn’s three orbits to an Apollo 8 mission with no test flights in between. Just cause an Orion capsule flew on eft-1 doesn’t mean the full up command and service module with life support, navigation, new heat shield and power and more is the same vehicle. Just cause the shuttle flew with an external tank and solids doesn’t mean SLS has a flight proven design. Spaceflight is hard and rushing to get a crew on board 4 plus days from earth to show progress during this Presidents term is risking NASA human spaceflight for a lot longer than waiting until 2023 when em-2 would most likely natural occur. Too many times has schedule pressure caused catastrophic failures of imagination and cost lives in the pursuit of exploration. Sure we are all embarrassed for NASA that it has been 11 years since Orion contract was awarded and wondered how did 50 years ago they go from no NASA to boots on the moon in 11 years with slide rules while flying many spacecraft and building the Saturn v but is it really the right move to suddenly feel a need for haste to fly a crewed Orion? Not like there is some pressing need/goal to go somewhere if they pull the mission off by chance. So what is the sudden rush besides old space feeling threatened by the new space upstarts.

    • Bill Housley says:
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      I for one have a great deal of confidence in NASA’s ability to predict failure modes and make this work…if they say they can. I also fully appreciate the need to make a niche for SLS. They don’t need to beat New Space to crewed LEO flight…nor do I think that would serve NASA’s momentum as I understand it. They do, however, need to beat New Space to crewed cis-lunar space and beyond or, I think, Orion has no mission. That might be what has prompted this study.

  4. RocketScientist327 says:
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    NASA is going to bust it’s butt to make this happen only to have a commercial option beat it to the punch. This is just a prediction but as the weight of bureaucracy increases with SLS the more time it gives “commercial” the time to evolve.

    Side note: The definition of “commercial” needs to be re-examined.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Why? Don’t confuse the government-as-customer with government supporting design development. Two different things.

      • Thomas says:
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        The government is supporting the design development for both so with all due respect Michael you’re off-base. The difference is, SLS is a jobs-works project similar to an FDR program but for people who went to college, whereas the commercial world is fed by dreams and profit and the unique human condition that fed the curiosity of Cortez, Magellan and others hundreds of years ago – the unknown; exploration. While the individual contributors for SLS are no doubt passionate, the system as a whole is failing. As one lead at Johnson would bellow “If you never finish, you never fail”. How pathetic a statement, yes, but accurate none-the-less.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          We’re in agreement on this; you phrased it more clearly.

          On you comment about finishing: in my business (well, before I changed professional focus), my main job was doing “look sees” for interested developers. They would hire me to look at a parcel, do some rough calcs, layout a subdivision or commercial development, and then assess the regulatory environment.

          The point is that not 1 in 20 of these things were ever built. My exposure due to errors was very low as a result (although in fairness the work is checked by so many people that errors don’t happen).

  5. Daniel Woodard says:
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    No matter how many studies you do, you cannot accurately predict the safety and reliability of an untested launch vehicle because the majority of major contingencies are the result of unanticipated failure modes. Analysis is no substitute for flight experience. Redundancy is no substitute for reliability. We have learned this lesson very painfully in the past, and those who do not remember the mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat them.

  6. richard_schumacher says:
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    A pressurized trunk on a Dragon would make for a much more comfortable lunar trip. It could hold a latrine.

    • Paul451 says:
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      How would you move between the capsule and the trunk?

      • richard_schumacher says:
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        Once in orbit Dragon separates, turns around, and docks with an adapter in the trunk. Though it sounds alarming a hatch through the heat shield is possible but would need more development.

        • Zed_WEASEL says:
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          You do realize that the Dragon trunk have the solar panels and radiators required to keep Dragon operational. And the heat shield is between the Dragon capsule and the trunk.

          If you want a simple space latrine. Just mount a PCM (pressurized cargo module) on the Falcon 9 upper stage that is small enough to fitted inside the Dragon trunk. Once in orbit the Dragon do an Apollo LEM style docking maneuver with the PCM. No need to modified the Crewed Dragon.

          All Dragon lunar missions are moot without major increase in Delta-V available. Additional propulsion systems and/or propellants is required.

          The current Crewed Dragon can not take off after landing on the Moon without replacing the hypergolic propellants. Never mind in order to land the Dragon discard the trunk prior to landing. Also the Dragon only have several hours of batteries power without the trunk.

          • Paul451 says:
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            Just mount a PCM (pressurized cargo module) on the Falcon 9 upper stage that is small enough to fitted inside the Dragon trunk.

            F9 couldn’t send Dragon towards the moon, let alone Dragon + an extra PCM. You’d need to launch a booster stage on FH to which the Dragon capsule would dock.

            Never mind in order to land the Dragon discard the trunk prior to landing.

            A crewed Dragon could land on the moon, not enough delta-v. (Nor could it return.) So you’d need a separate landing stage. That would likely replace the trunk. (And honestly, why would you bother using Dragon instead of just adding a PCM to the lander. Dragon docks with the FH-launched lunar vehicle in LEO before returning to Earth. Or even use the ISS as a waystation. Lander docks again in LEO with a new Dragon on return.)

          • Zed_WEASEL says:
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            Sorry, I meant the Falcon Heavy upper stage. Which is the same as the Falcon 9 upper stage.

            Your last paragraph implies a whole slew of hardware for cis-Lunar space. Which will cost a lot to developed since you have to do them in parallel.

            LEO way station
            cis-Lunar capable space tug
            cis-Lunar habitat capability
            LLO way station
            dedicated Lunar lander
            dedicated Lunar ascender

            So a modified Lunar Dragon lander and a cis-Lunar Dragon transport based infrastructure seems cheap by comparison.

            AFAIK the ISS is not in orbital plane that is helpful for sending stuff to the Moon.

          • richard_schumacher says:
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            In contrast a round-and-back trip should be pretty easy :_>

          • Paul451 says:
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            LEO way station
            cis-Lunar capable space tug
            cis-Lunar habitat capability
            LLO way station
            dedicated Lunar lander
            dedicated Lunar ascender

            You’re inventing things that I didn’t say.

            There’s no LEO waystation (I said that ISS might be used as one, as a convenience. Not that a station was necessary.)

            There’s no “tug” other then the ordinary propulsion system that any lander would need to get from the Earth to the moon.

            No cis-Lunar habitat (other than the lander’s own pressure-vessel). And I can’t see anything that could possibly be misread to suggest one.

            There’s no LLO waystation, and again, no idea which orifice you pulled that from.

            And I’m not assuming a two-stage LEM-style lander. It might, it might not.

            So whatever you read, it wasn’t anything I wrote.

            I suggested launching a lunar vehicle on FH, sans crew. Launching crew via a conventional F9/Dragon. Crew-Dragon docks with the lunar vehicle, crew transfers over. Dragon returns to Earth empty. Lunar vehicle with crew flies to moon, lands, does it’s thing, then takes off and returns the crew to LEO. Upon return to LEO, LV docks with a fresh Dragon, the crew transfer over and land on Earth in the Dragon capsule. (It’s possible that Dragon has enough on-orbit time that it could remain in LEO for the entire mission.)

            I then suggested the ISS might be used for the docking ops in Earth orbit. It would allow the lunar crew to spend more time on-orbit, reducing the need to sync up the various launches, simplifying the scheduling. But I didn’t suggest it as a requirement.

            I didn’t specify an architecture for the lunar vehicle, since that wasn’t part of my intent. It might have a LTO/ETO-tug separate from the lunar vehicle, a la SM/LM. It might be TSTO, a la LM. It might be refuelled or even have a refuellable “uncrasher” stage. Or it might be an all-in-one, LTO+landing+launch+return. For the purposes of my comment, I didn’t care.

            So a modified Lunar Dragon lander and a cis-Lunar Dragon transport based infrastructure seems cheap by comparison.

            You. Cannot. Land. Dragon. On. The. Moon.

            One more time for those in the back.

            You. Cannot. Land. Dragon. On. The. Moon.

            In order to land Dragon on the moon, you have to add… an entire lunar lander. Dragon itself would only supply the pressure capsule and RCS systems. The entire delta-v to actually land on the moon and take off again must be supplied by an entirely separate vehicle. Dragon’s Superdracos would provide about 10% of the delta-v necessary for the landing alone, and cannot relaunch again. To add enough fuel to merely land, you’d need to fill the entire capsule and trunk with fuel.

            If you were doing an unmanned science mission, you could use a throw-away “crasher stage” to provide the 2.4km/s de-orbit burn, leaving only the last hundred m/s or so for the Superdracos.

            But they still couldn’t relaunch Dragon again, even if you could refuel them on the lunar surface. Hence even a crasher stage wouldn’t help for a manned mission. For a manned landing, you would need an entire separate lunar vehicle to carry the Dragon down and return it to orbit.

            In which case, why are you bothering to carry the Dragon at all.

            AFAIK the ISS is not in orbital plane that is helpful for sending stuff to the Moon.

            The plane change for lunar insertion is trivial, due to the scale difference in the orbital radius of ISS vs the orbital radius of the moon. You could launch from a low polar orbit to the moon if you wanted. (Or from a polar lunar orbit back to Earth.)

            The only reason you might not want to use the ISS as a rendezvous point is that Earth’s surface to ISS results in less payload capacity, because of the high orbital inclination. However, FH is optimised for LEO delivery, and actually has a fairly poor direct LTO “throw”. So there’s little cost for this scenario.

  7. Joe Solarsystem says:
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    This whole idea is very bad science fiction. NASA doesn’t even have a the life support system under contract yet, and why would they? Their first planned flight with humans wasn’t planned until 2023. Orion will not be ready to fly crew to LEO by 2019, let alone the Moon.

  8. Odyssey2020 says:
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    They’re so desperate to save the SLS..it’s understandable, obviously Obama didn’t do NASA or the public any favors HSF wise..now the new administration wants to do at least something with this SLS/White Elephant.

    The post shuttle blues..they’re real folks.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      I don’t think the new administration understands the whole “buying a pig in a poke” metaphor.

      • Thomas says:
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        You’ve got to keep all those super smart but unable-to-survive the marketplace people at the various meat packing plants, also known as NASA space centers, employed. I mean, between the badminton and volleyball, what else are they good for these days? Oh I know, supporting reviews with gems saying “I think we need to evaluate this further” or “well it might not work, so…..analysis”. If you never finish, you never fail, as one lead engineer at Johnson would say.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          unable to survive in the marketplace

          That’s a phrase I hear a lot in my business and it makes me wonder how the “marketplace” became the ultimate test of ability or quality.

        • tutiger87 says:
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          “unable to survive in the marketplace..”

          I did a damn good job in the marketplace after Shuttle. To the contrary, I would submit that we do quite well in “the marketplace”.

  9. Michael Spencer says:
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    You have to wonder if the WH has any sense at all about what’s actually happening in space (old and new). One supposes that Mr. Musk’s opportunities to brief 45 had very little to do with, you know, actual facts.

    Does anyone at 1600 actually understand the state of SpaceX’ hardware? More importanly, how SLS- a lovely machine if ever there was one – is actually prohibitively expensive? That compared to the cost of some new jet fighters, SLS will eat your lunch?

    I suspect the WH has the same level of NASA fever that the rest of the country has- which is this: NASA has been living on Apollo ‘can do’ for more than 50 years. When it comes to the rocket business, anybody who bothers to peak under the covers will find, not a vibrant youngster ready to take on the future, but a wizened old man.

    That vibrant youngster moved to Hawthorne.

    EDIT: on re-reading this comment a day later I realized it’s unfair to to those at NASA. By ‘wizened old man’ I was speaking metaphorically and more about management/leadership than the careers of dedicated science, engineers, and the like (who are being poorly served by management, in my view, but that’s a different issue).

  10. fcrary says:
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    Several people have commented on the risks involved with putting people on a first flight. I guess I have a slightly different perspective on this. I’m all for taking risks. But I don’t like taking risks just for the hell of it. Ideally, someone ought to look at the probability of success, costs of failure, the benefits of success. If the balance is positive, then taking the risks is justified; if it’s negative, the risks aren’t justified. I think that’s true whether the risks are large or small. In this case, I just don’t see any real benefits. Perhaps making some politicians or managers look good (or less bad), but that’s only a benefit to those individuals.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      I wonder about that, knowing nothing about how risk is assessed. What are the terms when assessing a Saturn or Jupiter or (hope springs eternal) an Neptune orbiter? Is the risk compartmentalized? LV, software, power supplies, engine design, etc.? After calculating risk for individual systems, how is risk aggregated when systems start working together?

      It’s not easy being an interested citizen:-)

  11. Steve Pemberton says:
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    Alan Shepard was furious when Wernher von Braun decided to insert one more unmanned Redstone test flight in March 1961, pushing Shepard’s flight to May. Reportedly as Shephard watched Mercury-Redstone BD successfully lift off he felt vindicated, and commented that he should have been up there.

    Was Shepard right? In hindsight I suppose, however in the early 60’s rocket development was known for leaving failed boosters scattered about, so you can’t really fault von Braun for wanting one more unmanned test flight.

    By the 1980’s it was felt that astronauts could safely fly on the first Space Shuttle launch. Of course not much choice if you wanted to recover the orbiter, since it couldn’t automatically deorbit and land (I think the landing gear switch for example was not computer controlled). But surely they could have made that a requirement, à la Buran, and insisted on an unmanned first flight of the Shuttle stack.

    However it seems to me that very few rockets nowadays fail on their first launch. Falcon 1 comes to mind, but that was a brand new system, built by a start-up company with no previous experience launching rockets. Falcon 9, built by the now more seasoned SpaceX, didn’t experience a failure until the 19th flight. What brings down rockets nowadays it seems is not glaring oversights that will appear on the first launch attempt, but those small hidden design failures or fault intolerances that don’t occur every time, but rear their ugly head only after several successful flights.

    Nearly two decades into the 21st century, rocket design is much more advanced, based on over sixty years of experience, and now with computers aiding every step of the process. Does this mean that they shouldn’t have an unmanned SLS launch and push the first manned launch until later? I don’t know. But I don’t think it hurts to at least analyze it and see what the risk/benefit is, which is all they are doing. We aren’t in a space race anymore, at least not of the Cold War kind, but we have been woefully stalemated and any delay should at least be scrutinized as to its necessity. I suspect that they will decide to stick with the current plan and do an unmanned test flight. Although I’m not sure if Alan Shepard would have agreed.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Shepard was properly vetoed. Three of the previous five Redstone rockets blew up.

      He was a gung-ho guy and he was doing his part – anybody strapping themselves on top of those rockets, even the current ones, is a hero to me- but he was myopic, missing the Big Picture. Loss of an American at that point could have derailed the program.

      • Steve Pemberton says:
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        I thought that’s what said, but I guess the term “in hindsight” can be taken different ways. I meant it in the sense of an obvious choice when you already know the outcome. As I tried to indicate, I think at the time von Braun made the decision it made sense, for the reasons that you state.

        But it should also be remembered that we came very close to losing the second American in space. And Glenn could have died, it was completely unknown and untested what happens when the retro pack is left on during reentry. And Carpenter was a very close call. One could make the argument that Grissom, Glenn and Carpenter were in more danger than Shepard. My point is that first launches don’t seem to have as much of a monopoly on risk as it may seem.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          I wasn’t thinking about Glenn but good catch. And what about Apollo 10 (I think) when “Snoopy” went into uncontrolled oscillation for 8 minutes?

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      By all rights STS-1 should have been a loss of crew. When the SRBs ignited the shock wave reflected back from the flame trench and pushed the body flap 15 degrees away from the neutral position, in which it was held by closed valves in a triply redundant hydraulic system. All three hydraulic lines were pressurized to three times their specified burst pressure. The redundancy proided no protection, since the lines were exposed to a common failure mode. Withotu the body flap the Orbiter would have been uncontrollable on entry. For undetermined reasons the manufacturer, by chance, had used lines much stronger than required by the NASA spec. Maybe they were the only ones available. The lines held, and the crew lived. In the early flights of the Shuttle the problems with the O-rings and the impact of foam on the TPS were noticed, but their seriousness was not appreciated. The design had already been frozen and man-rated before the first flight, and it was difficult to make any changes. An early flight had a near burn-through of an SRB nozzel, which would also have doomed the crew.

      The Apollo One fire, the Apollo 13 explosion, the Apollo Soyuz hypergol exposure, one was fatal and the other two would have been but for chance.

      Part of the difficulty with this field is that analysis of reliability is often performed by people with little or no hands-on experience with actual hardware and actual failures.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        I wonder if anyone ever learned why the hydraulic lines were over-spec?

        As to reliability of analysis without experience: that’s sort of a horse/cart thing, isn’t it? With the benefit of 20/20, could the STS-1 issue, or the Apollo 13 issue, have ever been modeled without some flight experience?

        And wouldn’t it be fair to say that while many accuse NASA of ‘analysis paralysis’, it’s exactly those instances that you cite they are working to avoid? At some point you have to just fly the damn thing. There must be a huge body of knowledge and technique that helps to determine the line between flying and analyzing.

        The Apollo 1 fire was different, in my view (lots of smart people disagree).

      • Steve Pemberton says:
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        Considering how many things can go wrong, and the number of things that must be modeled and predicted, it’s quite a tribute to the designers and engineers (and yes the risk analyzers) that the majority of first launches are successful. Remarkable really.

        But again, we are not only asking for their predictions about the first launch, but also about the second, the third, the tenth…. the risk never really stops. If we carry this to the nth degree, every time a modification is made to a launcher or vehicle then another unmanned test flight is needed.

        Spaceflight is risky business, no one doubts that or wants to unnecessarily risk lives. At least not at the engineering level, the problems in the past seemed to be more at the managerial level. It’s easy for the managers to insist on an unmanned test flight. But how about insisting on standing down for a few months while a recently discovered potential risk is analyzed. Even though there have already been successful flights in that configuration. Or even more unlikely is to stand down for a year or two to implement a modification to eliminate a recently identified risk, again when the vehicle has launched successfully without that modification. That part of the safety equation worries me more than first launches, because a first launch only happens once, and has a tremendous amount of attention on it. It’s the launches down the line that have proven to be more risky, perhaps because of the successful launches that preceded them.

      • tutiger87 says:
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        Who told you the Orbiter was uncontrollable without the body flap?

  12. Steve Harrington says:
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    From an engineering perspective this is a dumb idea. As politics it is brilliant. If the astronauts die, you cancel an expensive program and blame Obama . If they live, then you are making America great. Win-win, unless you are one of the expendable astronauts.

  13. Bernardo de la Paz says:
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    While I’m certainly skeptical of this move, let’s not get carried away with the notion that SLS is completely untried. It does have quite strong shuttle flight experience heritage.

    On the other hand, this bit of recent news is probably more interesting and more relevant:
    http://spacenews.com/nasa-a

    • muomega0 says:
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      Spend a $B on a capsule (and LV 5X too big, 10x $) would be consistent for the party that threw out the DOD fleet for shuttle derived when in control in 2004 with ESAS and its flawed assumptions: AR&D risk forced “less than 3 launches” for 130mT (130/1 or/2 = SLS size), blackzones, etc. Will POTUS throw out the depot study that shows that alternatives are $57B cheaper? https://alternativefacts.com

      “Two days before the Trump administration approved an easement for the Dakota Access pipeline to cross a reservoir near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe reservation, the U.S. Department of the Interior withdrew a legal opinion that concluded there was “ample legal justification” to deny it.”

      • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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        If you’re going to argue about it, at least try to read the article and pay attention to what you are arguing with. If you had, you would know that the Senate bill specifically calls for launching Orion to ISS on something other than SLS. From the linked article: “The language in the new bill would require NASA to confirm that Orion has the ability to carry out missions to the ISS. The NASA report would determine when Orion, launched on a vehicle other than the SLS, would be able to carry crew and cargo to the ISS.”

        You would also know that this bill was written with bipartisan support in the committee: “In a Feb. 17 statement about the bill’s passage, the bill’s sponsors did not mention Orion study language or other changes to the bill. “This bipartisan legislative achievement provides NASA and the future of the U.S. space program with the stability and certainty it needs moving forward with a new administration,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Senate space subcommittee and lead sponsor of the bill. “This bill directs NASA to send humans to Mars, expand commercial space activity and ensures that work will continue on the next generation of rockets, engines and capsules that are currently being constructed in Florida and across the country,” said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee and a co-sponsor of the bill.”

        • muomega0 says:
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          Orion and SLS are not Mars hardware so its ‘false news’. Orion will not go to Mars since Apollo 13 showed the world the 6 day capsule is of little benefit on a longer journey other than ascent/reentry. Four other capsules are available for LEO access with the possibility of reuse or to land on land to further reduce costs or common with another portion of a real architecture.

          Orion also could not return from an asteroid, a decades old stepping stone mission, because Avcoat like Apollo was the heat shield.

          The bill has the wrong architectural elements as they are not based on reuse and Economic Access to Space. Continuous shifting goalposts.

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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            Agreed that there are currently no credible humans to Mars plans, but the new thing in this bill isn’t about Mars, it’s about sending crews on Orion to ISS. There is currently only one vehicle available for crew transport to ISS and in the new era of Red Scare 2.0, nobody wants to continue on that path. All of the other options are still in development. I personally agree that reusability seems to be a necessary part of reducing costs to a sustainable level, but it is not yet clear that any of the current programs will actually achieve reusability, let alone actually achieve meaningful cost savings through reusability. (Note that despite reusability being a primary goal from day 1, after 15 years of trying and 35+1 flights, SpaceX has yet to reuse anything. Boeing has chosen a path to reuse that Orion started with but abandoned long ago due to low prospects for being economically beneficial. Shuttle on the other hand actually achieved a higher degree of reusability than either system from its very first flight, yet it too never demonstrated real cost savings from reusability.)
            Not sure what you mean by “shifting goalposts”. Perhaps you forget that ISS support was actually supposed to have been Orion’s first mission when the program was started, but that function was cancelled by the previous administration in favor of starting multiple new alternatives that have taken far longer to develop than it would have taken to get Orion flying to ISS under the original plan. The news here today is that apparently now Congress wants to go back and revisit that decision.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            The rationale is unclear. Orion will not be available until years later, has a smaller crew capacity, and is substantially more expensive to recover. Because it is a great deal heavier than either the CST or Dragon it will also be more expensive to launch.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Note that despite reusability being a primary goal from day 1, after 15 years of trying and 35+1 flights, SpaceX has yet to reuse anything

            Not entirely fair, is it? If we recognize that reusability is an entirely new thing in launch vehicles, and that there is to be normal development process, wouldn’t we look at the steps taken by SpaceX as groundbreaking? The launch of a refurb should clear up any mis-understanding.

            In any case, throwing away billion dollar machinery just makes no sense on any level.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            That might not be true in a month or so.

          • Terry Stetler says:
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            Correct. The F9 SES-10 launch will reuse the CRS-8 booster, and CRS-11 will be a reused Dragon.

          • Bernardo de la Paz says:
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            But reusability is not an entirely new thing. Shuttle did it decades ago, with dozens of relights per vehicle and with a higher degree of reusability and more challenging technical development than any of the players actively in development now. I’m not a shuttle hugger, but credit where credit is due. On the other hand, as I said, shuttle never came close to achieving it’s cost savings goals.

            I fully expect SpaceX to finally achieve a refurbished launch pretty soon and I agree that will definitely be a groundbreaking thing in its own right, but achieving the hoped for cost savings is an entirely different question and a much more uncertain prospect.

            I agree that expendable space flight architectures seem doomed to never achieve breakthrough cost reductions. However, in the context of the present discussion, reusability is probably a moot point anyway. It looks like CRS-1 at least will be completed with no reusability despite having been heavily touted as one of the advantages of Dragon / Falcon in the beginning of COTS. It is also starting to look like none of the rather limited number of crew flights currently contracted to flight out ISS support will really end up using refurbished hardware before the currently planned end of ISS.

  14. Jafafa Hots says:
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    I think you overestimate the interest of the SnapChat generation.

  15. C,P. Lucas says:
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    The USA precedent is STS-1. First launch of Shuttle was manned.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      It was a mistake to launch it manned, because it was nearly doomed by an unanticipated failure mode. The shock wave from the SRB ignition was reflected from the bottom of the flame trench and hit the body flap and aft bulkhead, distorting the latter and driving the body flap 15 degrees from its neutral position. This produced an overpressure in the (triply redundant) hydraulic lines far beyond their specified burst pressure that by all rights should have ruptured all three and left the shuttle uncontrollable on re-entry. By chance the lines installed were much heavier than specified and held. But it was pure luck. Otherwise Young and Crippen would have been stuck in orbit, knowing that they would eventually run out of consumables and have to deorbit, facing almost certain death.

      The lesson we should learn is that it is _not_ possible to accurately predict the reliability of an untested launch vehicle. Those interested in a more rigorous approach to the engineering discipline of space launch vehicle reliability may wish to begin with the seminal article by Chang on page 22 of the Spring 2005 issue of Crosslink: http://aerospace.wpengine.n

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        I wonder if rocket design will ever approach the reliability of airframe design. Modern airplanes are designed then constructed; when they head down the runway, they take off, and they behave as expected. Even with new materials (787, for instance).

        Rockets, though, condense so much more energetic material.

        • muomega0 says:
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          Inspection of aircraft and their failures is invaluable to determine the extent of the components and systems ‘demonstrated reliability’, now impossible to do as the engines, booster casings, etc are dropped into the ocean after decades of post flight inspection.

          Its not the same heritage hardware in so many ways.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            It’s possible that, for instance, that while Delta is very reliable some piece or part is stressed very close to failure on every flight, and that we won’t know that because it’s in the ocean. Makes sense.

        • Jeff2Space says:
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          Perhaps, but only when the designs are sufficiently similar to eliminate the unknown unknowns. Is a five segment SRB sufficiently similar to a four segment SRB or not? We’ll find out when we fly one. Is a core SLS stage sufficiently similar to a shuttle ET and shuttle engine compartment? I’d say not. NASA simply does not have enough recent experience to say SLS will fly without incident based on past designs. How many engineers are still around from the Apollo/Saturn V days? That experience seems more relevant in many ways that the shuttle experience when talking about SLS.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          The 787 was revolutionary in terms of materials, and its development was slow and difficult. But its mechanical systems and maximal and cyclic loads for both airframe and engines were tested in ground simulation. So far, this is not possible with launch vehicles to nearly the level of precision, in part because of the wider flight regime from zero to Mach 25, and the rapid design evolution.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            I never realized – so directly, anyway – just how quickly orbit is achieved until SpaceX started their charmingly-narrated reports. Less than 10 minutes. It’s breathtaking. Including a return to base.

            And as I said above, it’s the stunning amount of energy packed into a very small space that makes it so difficult.

      • fcrary says:
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        That’s the problem with precedents. If someone makes a really bad decision and gets lucky, there is now a precedent for repeating the mistake. I am, for example, not convinced the Mars 2020 rover’s landing will be as easy as some people assume. The fact that the sky crane idea worked once, for Curiosity, doesn’t mean it’s a safe and reliable system.

  16. Terry Stetler says:
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    ASAP doesn’t sound impressed…

    http://spacenews.com/safety

  17. Michael Spencer says:
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    That’s simple! #LyingNASA!

  18. Jeff2Space says:
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    This is an absolutely stupid idea. Anyone who’s studied the numerous problems that occurred on STS-1 should know this. A quick look at Wikipedia will give an overview of the issues and what John Young thought about them after he landed the thing and found out how bad the damage, which occurred on launch, really was.

    Also, they’d have to (quickly) “man rate” the interim upper stage. Anyone care to guess how much this would delay the EM-1 test flight?

  19. richard_schumacher says:
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    When have they ever told the Emperor that he has no clothes?

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      I’m reminded of a book by Gen. McMaster: “Dereliction of Duty”, in which the General concludes, after writing a history of the Vietnam experience, that the Joint Chiefs failed to fully inform Pres. Johnson that certain actions were likely to have disappointing consequences. As the new National Security Advisor, the General has his work very carefully defined for him.

      It’s natural, prudent, and right for Administration officials to want to please the Boss. But what do you do if the Boss turns around and denigrates you and your professional opinion in the press?

      I think that all of us – the space aficionados, the professional scientists, the working press like Keith, the working, everyday scientists, engineers and support staff so important at NASA – all of us who love space and who love our country would be much better off without glaring illumination from Washington. Indeed even if it’s a 4/8 year holding pattern, we surely don’t need the nightmare presently experienced by the intelligence community.

      However we don’t always have the luxury of choosing our battles.

  20. Tally-ho says:
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    How about a couple monkeys? Seriously. Remote it the whole way. Even if there is a risk that the program is cut, it isn’t good enough to jeopardize two astronauts.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      The days of Ham are over, man. Laika, too. We don’t torture animals anymore.

      • Tally-ho says:
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        You’re joking right? The bio-research wing at least at Ames has what we call the “monkey burner”, because they burn monkeys in it. We just cleared out two labs to make room for our work (not bio). In it was a tiny centrifuge with a little chair, an operating table, and a cabinet with jars of monkey heads in it with electrodes screwed into them. If they used primates for the SLS test they’d be treated like royalty by the public and they’d make a buck off stuffed animals at the gift shop.