NASA Starts To Confirm SLS Changes It Denied Last Week
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Keith’s note: Funny. Just last week MSFC was denying that there was any change in SLS launch plans.
Radical Shift in SLS Launch Plans Discussed at MSFC (Update), Earier post
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Keith’s note: Funny. Just last week MSFC was denying that there was any change in SLS launch plans.
Radical Shift in SLS Launch Plans Discussed at MSFC (Update), Earier post
“not as costly as we thought to human rate ICPS”
Turns out shifting some values in a spreadsheet isn’t expensive!
But SpaceX? Fly That Block 5 at least half a dozen times!
Many have commented on this seemingly inconsistent rule. But does anyone know the actual rationale for it? How does NASA explain it? I’ve looked as far as I can with no results (or, perhaps there’s no explanation).
They explain it via “heritage” of the design and “NASA’s insight” into the design.
Mind you, this is the same organization that argued publicly that EELVs were far too expensive to “man rate”, which was the justification for Ares I, which obviously would be super safe due to the “heritage” of the shuttle SRB being used in the design of the new 5 segment SRB. Never mind the entirely new upper stage on Ares I… Now they are telling us that it’s going to be “easier and cheaper” to “man rate” ICPS than originally thought. Huh, never would have guessed that, LOL!
The fact of the matter is that the higher ups make the decisions and the middle managers do their best to make the decision happen. Neither Ares nor SLS were “bottom’s up” decisions. One was pushed by Administrator Mike Griffin and the other by Congress.
The rationale, if you can dig deep enough to force them to actually acknowledge the hypocrisy, is quite literally that “NASA-designed” vehicles are inherently already certified for crew because NASA designed them. It’s perhaps the most hilarious stretch I can imagine, given NASA’s track record of safety after Apollo.
Why is this line of thinking “hilarious”?
NASA is looking for congruity between contractor-supplied hardware and the performance-style specifications NASA issued for that hardware. The Agency is charged with assuring that the delivered hardware, in other words, meets both the specs and the intent of the specs.
Criticizing the methods used in-house to achieve the desired level of understanding aside, doesn’t the goal of thorough cognizance makes sense?
If memory serves, NASA is expecting SpaceX and Boeing to show the risk of a fatal accident is under 1 in 270 for the Dragon 2 and CST-100 Starliner. That’s a hard (probably impossible) thing to prove. On the other hand, NASA does not apply that same standard to Orion. This appears to be due to confidence in their internal process. If they do it, that level of safety can be assumed rather than proven in advance.
But the only manned launch vehicle NASA has developed since Apollo is the Space Shuttle. It’s fatal failure rate was 2 in 135. That’s not a good basis for automatic confidence in the NASA process. At least not at the 1 in 270 level they expect of others.
And what would NASA require to human rate propulsive landing for the Dragon?
What about the outlying year rumored manifest for em-3, em-4 are they just rinse and repeat Apollo 8 style em-2 missions while they wait until EUS and mlp-2 to be ready in 2025? If em-1 is 2020, em-2 is crew in 2023 is the just Europa clipper somewhere in there or does it also have to wait for EUS ?
iirc I think they wanted clipper in 21-22.
The challenge with em-3 and em-4 is you need to either build the lop-g elements with thier own oms and attitude control or you would need to develop tugs to deliver them with (orion was supposed to pull double duty and fill this role in the original plan) This may have something to do with nasa wanting to buy more than one PPE
If you developed a tug (why not a Cygnus minus the pressurized module?), perhaps you could launch the modules on Falcon Heavy and save a lot of time and money versus launching them on SLS.
Blasphemy! How dare you suggest they save taxpayer money! The entire function of SLS is to fund taxpayer money into the Congress Critter districts.
iirc the Cygnus bus doesn’t have enough propellant to capture 10-20 tons worth of module into lunar orbit you’d need some sort of stretched deep space version of cygnus essentially resulting in orbitalAtk’s NextStep proposal (hey maybe they’d win a contract for this season) but why do that when you already have a perfectly good tug to mass produce in the form of the PPE? Having spares cluttered about opens up some interesting possibilities.
But yeah unless they can some how make block1b only cost less than 100 million more than block 1 to launch it doesn’t make sense to invest in comanifesting better to assemble the station with commercial rockets.
True. My point is that Orbital ATK has the heritage hardware from which a tug can be designed and built. It’s not like starting pretty much from scratch like NASA did with Orion (approximately $14 billion spent so far on a crew rated “deep space” capsule). I’m sure Orbital ATK could design and build a suitable tug for $1 billion or so. After that, the per copy cost would likely be in the ballpark of a Cygnus (perhaps a bit more due to the larger propellant tanks and such).
It would take developing a tug, and that could cost as much as developing Orion. Not necessarily, it could be closer to the development costs for the cargo version of the Dragon, or even less. That cost range is entirely about project management, not the tug’s capabilities. Your suggestion would also require learning to do large-scale propellent transfers on orbit. That also would cost something (and how much it would cost also uncertain and dependent on project management.) Along the way, we would get a tug and propellent-transfer experience, which are useful for many other projects. Assuming the next project doesn’t decide to scrap them and reinvent the wheel.
NASA has spent about $14 billion so far developing Orion. Why on earth would it ever cost $14 billion to develop an unmanned tug?
Again, Cygnus is essentially a tug already. After launching on a standard EELV, its purpose is to move a pressurized module to ISS for berthing. If Cygnus is certified for proximity operations near ISS, I don’t see why you couldn’t replace the bolted on pressurized module with a passive CBM attachment. Launch the thing on a Falcon Heavy (standard EELV interface) and I see no fundamental reason why it wouldn’t be able to do the job.
Yes, you’ll have to tweak a few things so it can operate in lunar orbit instead of LEO, but that’s not going to cost $14 billion.
Because NASA is the kind of agency that can spend $14 billion to (start to) build a capsule.
“NASA has spent about $14 billion so far developing Orion. Why on earth would it ever cost $14 billion to develop an unmanned tug?”
I didn’t it would or should cost that much, just that it could. NASA payed SpaceX about half a billion to develop the Dragon 2, and Boeing about a hundred million more to develop the CST-100 Starliner. That doesn’t count what those companies payed themselves, but I doubt that would take the development cost up to a billion dollars.
Neither one of those vehicles is an order of magnitude less capable than Orion, so you wouldn’t think developing Orion ought to cost $14 billion. Similar comparisons could be made between developing Falcon Heavy and SLS Block 1.
So, yes, I agree a Earth to Moon tug could be developed for a reasonable price. Especially if it’s a modification of an existing design (although more changes than you think might be required). But it could also very expensive. It depends on who is building it.
Well NASA could fly the Europa Clipper on a SLS block 1. About the same arrival time as with a Atlas V 551 launcher, just about 12x more expensive in launch cost.
That’s unclear. As I understand it, Clipper can’t get to Jupiter on a direct trajectory without the Exploration Upper Stage. That is based on old (2014) project documents and presentations, and on answers people involved have made to questions at conferences. So “as I understand it” isn’t rock solid, but probably about as good as anyone outside the project can manage.
The trip to Jupiter would be two or three years longer if they can’t manage a direct trajectory. And it’s likely that could be done with a Atlas V 551, Falcon Heavy or Delta IV Heavy. The later choice would, in my opinion, be dim due to the high cost of the Delta IV Heavy. On the other hand, doing more-or-less the same thing with a SLS Block 1 would cost even more.
In terms of arrival time, a 2022 launch on an EELV, with an indirect, six-year cruise, might get there before waiting for a SLS Block 1B and a three-year cruise.
In terms of payload, many ideas for secondary payloads were tossed around when they thought they had 250 kg to spare. E.g. multiple CubeSats or small, secondary spacecraft or a micro-lander with an emphasis on “micro”. Those ideas aren’t currently on the table but a SLS Block 1 launch and an indirect cruise might make them viable again. It might allow quite a bit more mass for secondary payload, but the schedule is pretty tight for developing them for launch in 2023 or so.
I’ll also say I keep reminding people of the original “Voyager” mission. Not the outer planets one, but the huge Mars lander which would have been part of the Apollo Applications Program, would have flown on a Saturn V, and which was canceled in 1968. The use of an extraordinarily expensive launch vehicle was not an option. I keep feeling like flying Clipper on SLS will be repeating that history.
Stretch the Delta IV based upper stage propellant tanks about 30% percent; substitute the RL-10 engine for MB-60 engine – which is a Japanese/U.S. collaborative engine – and watch the Block 1 SLS improve it’s BEO payload by more than 5 metric tons. This modification would cost far less than the multi-billion dollar ‘Exploration Upper Stage’ project and could be usefully applied to ULA and other launchers.
I know that ‘Rockets Aren’t Legos’ but it would be a worthwhile compromise.
Stop talking about the RL-60/MB-60 engine. It is dead and buried. You need to start from scratch again since the tooling for it is gone AFAIK. Basically developing a new engine.
No – I’ll keep mentioning it when it’s salient, thanks all the same. The RL-60 project transferred much of it’s technology to the Mitsubishi MB-60 project, which then completed more than 80% percent of it’s development work. This engine project is LESS dead and shelved than the J-2X is! Just send money!! MB-60 has been talked about seriously as an engine for the SLS EUS. But since the EUS now may never be built, this wont be an option. The engine for the JAXA H-IIB is the LE-5 family; which has more thrust than an RL-10C with similar specific impulse.
Engines similar to LE-5 is the Ariane Vinci upper stage engine – again with more thrust than an RL-10B or C. The ATK OmegA launcher is to have an upper stage with twin RL-10C engines. It’s not in the realms of impossibility that this could be stretched to become a fine replacement for the ICPS…
This is no different than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. No matter what they do this is a doomed program, the legacy of bad decisions made by Administrators Griffin and Bolden. It’s just a shame they have to waste so much of the taxpayers money on it. Even worst is all the good engineering talent they are wasting that could be used on more productive efforts.
They denied your assertion that crew launches would wait until EUS flies in the mid-2020s. They didn’t deny that they were looking at the possibility of additional Block 1 missions.
They denied everything including the use of ICPS on missions after EM-1 which is now happening. Stay tuned. They will be admitting to much more very, very soon.
now will the non space state members say enough and refuse to fund SLS anymore?
Probably not. It’s going to need more publicity. If Trump started posting about it to Facebook, as an example of how the “swamp” works and of congressional pork, or if anyone created similar, negative publicity, then that might make difference. Congressmen from non-space states wouldn’t want to be associated with news like that. As it stands, the facts are becoming more and more obvious, but the number of people who know and care isn’t large enough to matter.
No, one rule when NASA itself is directly involved in launch vehicle development, and a different rule when they are only specifying requirements and buying services. That’s, “If we do it ourselves, we’re confident we’ll do it right; if someone else does it, we’re not sure and will require proof it was done right.”
So what’s the point of EM-2 then? They’re not delivering any building blocks and they could test Orion with people in it from a low Earth orbit, right?
Maybe the question I should ask is how Pence views NASA; a red state jobs program (thus not important to do useful work), a tech R&D organisation, or a way to project soft power for the US.