CDSE Statement Following Senate Commerce Hearing with the NASA Administrator
“No launch vehicle other than the SLS can enable the launch of a fully-outfitted Orion, including the SM, to the Moon. As a result, the Administrator noted that this approach would require at least two launches of heavy-lift vehicles. It could also include in-orbit assembly of a launch vehicle with an upper stage, which would then be used to direct Orion and the SM to the Moon. The analysis to determine whether this approach is feasible is still ongoing. The integration challenges are significant. It is also clear that this approach would require additional funding, since the idea is to undertake both this mission and to continue development of the SLS apace.
The assessment of options such as these are the hallmark of both NASA and the aerospace industry that supports it. Distributed across all 50 states in civil, commercial and military space, the aerospace and defense industry is crucial to U.S. competitiveness across the globe and to American leadership in science, security, entrepreneurship and human exploration of space. The Coalition for Deep Space Exploration and its member companies strongly support forward-leaning efforts to speed human return to the Moon. We welcome the opportunity to join NASA in the flights of Orion, SLS and the Exploration Ground Systems that support these journeys, and the rapid expansion of science, commerce and human exploration at the Moon and beyond.”
Keith’s note: Looks like the SLS crowd is worried. Meanwhile, it is rather hilarious that The Coalition For Deep Space Exploration (created as a SLS/Orion lobbying organization) is suddenly worried that a commercial EM-1 might “require additional funding” after SLS has gone billions over budget and is 4-5 years behind schedule for EM-1 – thus creating the need for alternate thinking. Where was their outrage when SLS started to “require additional funding”?

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

40 replies on “Ironically SLS Supporters Are Worried About Commercial EM-1 Costs”

  1. It depends on whether they use a Falcon Heavy for one of the launches, and how much that costs. Using two Delta IV Heavy launches would possibly be more expensive than SLS, at $350 million each (whereas SLS Block 1 is supposed to be launching for $500 million each). They’d also need to pay for a larger payload fairing, since the Orion Service Module is too wide to fit in the existing fairings for D4H and FH.

    But of course it might cost much more than that if they have to delay the mission again because SLS won’t be ready in time.

    1. The SLS is more likely to be between $1.5B to $2.5B in cost per flight never mind the development cost. The last cost figure for the Delta IV Heavy is $450M in a GAO report.

      You don’t need a payload fairing with a over-sized capsule. Just the hammerhead boat tail adapter.

      1. You don’t need a fairing for the Orion crew capsule, but look at the service module. You would definitely need something to enclose those folded solar arrays. And the 5.2 meter diameter of the folded arrays is really inconvenient.

        1. It’s probably not too big of a problem if you launch Orion on a D4H. The ULA User Guide for Delta IV says they’ve examined larger fairings, and it should be feasible to build a fairing up to 6.5 meters wide and 25.9 meters long without needing to make changes to the launcher or launch pad (other than the expanded fairing size).

    2. You beat me to it.

      Two FH launches + payload fairing + whatever else it would likely cost would probably still be less than an SLS launch.

      They are correct though, that the SLS still needs certification data.

      …but not if Starship beats SLS to the punch and flies the moon loop mission first with a bunch artists. Then no amount of certification data will save SLS or Orion.

    3. I would imagine you’d use one Delta IV Heavy launch and one Falcon Heavy launch. Why? Pad availability. I don’t believe that either launch vehicle has more than one east coast launch facility (which maximizes payload to earth orbit, where the Orion and the upper stage would rendezvous and dock).

      1. That would be the best idea. The full Orion spacecraft would be launched on the Delta IV Heavy, both because NASA has already done a test flight with the Orion capsule atop a D4H, and because it will probably be easier to build an expanded payload fairing for it. The ULA User Guide for Delta IV says they’ve done analysis on larger fairings, and fairings up to 6.5 meters wide and 25.9 meters long should be feasible without needing to make extra changes beyond the fairing to the vehicle or launch pad.

        1. Throwing a Centaur on top of a Falcon Heavy is no trivial matter though.

          And doing it in 16 months if it is funded tomorrow? I don’t see it.

          Wouldn’t it make more sense just to fly the Orion+ESM on a Delta IV Heavy, and then the Centaur on an Atlas V 551? Or would the Centaur not have the fuel for a TLI burn after firing initially to get itself into orbit?

          Also does ULA have Delta IV Heavy’s, Centaurs and Atlas Vs just lying around? Because a D4H order-to-delivery time takes 48 months. If they don’t, what’s getting bumped?

          1. Looking at the launch manifest, there are only three Delta IV Heavy launches scheduled before 2022. NROL-44, NROL-68 and NROL-82. In this case, I believe NROL stands for, “No, it’s Really Our Launch vehicle.” NASA isn’t going to bump a national security mission.

      2. Just to play with the manifest, others have suggested the Delta IV Heavy for Orion, and a Falcon Heavy for the propulsive stage. But that’s probably going to be a Centaur or something similar, and SpaceX has no experience with liquid hydrogen. So the propulsive stage might have to fly on the Delta IV Heavy. And, since I agree with you about pad availability, that would mean flying Orion on the Falcon Heavy.

    4. Is that $500 million just the operational launching cost or is it accounting for the development costs as well? I realize that development costs, spent thus far, will never be returned but we should figure in future development costs into each planned launch.

  2. gee, multiple launches, in orbit assembly of a vehicle – sounds like good practice for a Mars mission

    1. https://youtu.be/BrqiahTkA1A

      A KSP video; Very bare-bones but something like that could, IMO, be done with existing commercial components such as Dragon, Cygnus (as a hab and storage module) and Centaur. We’re talking a ‘footprints and flags’ Mars landing as soon as the 2023 window.

  3. “EM-1 might “require additional funding” after SLS has gone billions over budget and is 4-5 years behind schedule”
    I think this is wishful thinking. Remember as part of Constellation, Orion’s first mission was to fly in 2011, only a short time after Shuttle ended. We heard the present JSC Center Director, Mark Geyer, then the Deputy Program Manager, testify to this in 2008. In response Sally Ride said they’d examined the plans and schedules and concluded 2014 or 2015 was a possibility, but 2017 or 2018 was more likely. Now it is 2019 and they are saying they hope they will fly an Orion in 2021, or maybe 2022. But that is several years away and so we can probably anticipate that 2025 or 2027 are just as likely. This is the never ending program [slip]. And remember Shuttle was terminated, in Gerstenmaier’s words, because they needed the budget for Orion. For a solution that was selected because it was “safe, simple and soon”, something is seriously wrong with NASA’s ability to design, build and fly a manned spacecraft.

      1. Do not blame Gerst my friend… Gerst is playing in the land of GoT. He is doing the best he can with what he has got.

        I would sincerely love to watch Gerst play the game without the Senate.

        IMHO

  4. This is sophomoric. We do not know the costs of what it would take to fly an Orion on either Delta IVH or a Falcon Heavy – neither of which are man rated. The truth of the matter is we have squandered away over $15 Billion with CxP and SLS.

    Worse – we have wasted 15 years of valuable time. Engineers who came on in 2000 will be in the game for almost 20 years and not developed one rocket. Instead they have been held over the barrel of a political shotgun and we have absolutely nothing, NOTHING to show for it.

    Orion doesn’t count as humans can’t fly it. The time is rapidly approaching were our political leaders need to be held to account for their decade of error. Thankfully Nelson, Mikulski, and Hutchison are GONE. Many in the house are GONE.

    We could do so much more as a nation if we removed the decrepit SLS structure which is “shuttle heritage”.

    2. EM1 is an UNMANNED flight .. you do not need a human rated rocket. If if it was going to have humans on the trip to the moon. Send the crew up on a F9 dock with orion or space walk to it .. and go from LEO..

    3. Unfortunately our process for “man rating” launch vehicles is not based on or shown to increase demonstrated reliability and is certain to increase complexity and cost.

  6. Well, since someone else has already quoted the Rev. Charles Dodgson in this context, I’ll add, “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” (From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.)

  7. Although this option – using commercial services for EM1 – has been discussed ad nauseam herein, I admit I never thought it would be discussed as if it were an actual possibility.

    Moreover, coming from the Administrator as well.

    1. Trump is a commercial corporation director at heart. He’ll always tell his people to use the cheapest option barring overwhelming problems in doing so.

        1. The Trump organization currently employees 22,450 people and most of the deals they invest in are very profitable. You don’t sustain that kind of employee count in real estate development without mostly lots of profitable deals.

  8. At what points do costs on this notional alteration become greater than the sunk costs of SLS and Orion?

      1. With SLS costing $2+ billion a year, I doubt that commercial launch of Orion would ever cost more than SLS costs. And that’s kind of the point here. SLS schedule slippage is doing more to kill the program than anything else.

    2. Let’s see. At $150 million a launch that would take about a 100 launches of the FH to equal the money already wasted on SLS. If it’s used at the same slow launch rate of the SLS, about once a year, that would take a hundred years. Of course given the estimated $1.5 billion per SLS launch the real answer is never…

      1. See this?

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        Blue Origin, LLC

        Pens; notebooks Bags Drinkware Clothing, namely, shirts, sweaters, and hats Toy aerospace vehicles; model toy aerospace vehicles; toy rockets; board games; playing cards and card games Travel services, namely, arranging high altitude flights; launching commercial payloads of others in rocket launch vehicles”

        https://twitter.com/SciGuyS…

        https://trademark.trademark…

  10. I’ve been following, here and elsewhere, the discussion of commercial options to launch EM-1 in two parts. Informative – to sum up, doable but not at all easy on that schedule.

    But, there are two other points here that don’t seem to be getting much attention so far.

    One is that Bridenstine saying of June 2020 EM-1 that he won’t let it be just another endlessly fluid deadline, we MEAN it now, is fairly obviously a mule training device. (Mark Twain on training a mule: “First you hit it with a two-by-four. Then when you have its attention, you can begin training it.”)

    Now that Bridenstine presumably has the NASA SLS/Orion establishment’s attention (including its Congressional wing) he can begin to see how trainable they are. (Or, whether they can once again take the two-by-four away from a White House and its Administrator…)

    Two, politically speaking this has a very useful effect. SLS recently has been slipping at one year per year or more. Their feet were already to the fire. This just makes that somewhat more public. Meanwhile, Orion has been having its own problems, but SLS slipping has been keeping the heat off them. No rush to be ready to launch if the launcher won’t be ready, after all.

    Now Orion’s feet are to the fire also. They have to re-plan for a two-launch mission on commercial launchers, fast. Can they effectively handle that exercise? I wouldn’t bet on it. And even if they can, if as I suspect the basic Orion just won’t be ready in time, this will put that problem right back out in the spotlight.

    So, from a NASA reformer’s point of view, politically this is a win-win. Either NASA SLS/Orion rises to the occasion and flies EM-1 commercially (not necessarily by a year from June but they’d better be well on track by then) or more likely they both demonstrate in full public view that they’re simply not up to their nominal jobs anymore.

    At which point, moving core NASA completely onto a new more effective buy-space-transport-services-commercially path finally becomes politically possible. The “Bridge To Nowhere” died as soon as the public knew it was going nowhere. One way or another, this EM-1 mandate should finally publicly clarify where SLS/Orion is going.

  11. The upper stage for the 1st SLS flight is finished and ready. A Delta IV can loft it. Dock with a separately launched Orion and off you go!

    Once that is proven (especially when done within a year or so) SLS development becomes redundant. The Money for this would come from SLS. It must by law.

  12. From the Huntsville newspaper. It appears that (surprise!) Senator Shelby’s believes the Orion should stay on the SLS…

    https://www.al.com/news/hun…

    NASA may take first Orion capsule launch from SLS
    Updated Mar 13, 4:52 PM; Posted Mar 13, 4:32 PM

    “The idea of using commercial boosters quickly met with skepticism from U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “While I agree that the delay in the SLS launch schedule is unacceptable,” Shelby said, “I firmly believe that SLS should launch the Orion.”

  13. I realize last night while watching godfather 2 and reading all the back and forth between SLS apologists and others that SLS is the Fredo in our story of exploration. It is being passed over for it’s kid brother new space and feels slighted and marginalized by this new FY2020 budget proposal. Whining about “I can launch gateway hardware. Europa clipper can fly on me. I was your older SHLV i desire respect”
    How much longer before Bridenstine has our Fredo taken out fishing with Moose and Rocko one last time?

    The scene in question for those who don’t remember
    https://youtu.be/5Weaop_aiTg

    1. OMFG.

      For those of you not part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, “Fredocon” is a derisive term for the “smart set” Republicans/Conservatives who know what’s best for the rest of the party/movement, and therefore regularly ignored their wishes. To repeat an oft-used phrase, “this is how you get Trump”. (By the same accord, pro-Fortune 500 policies of establishment Dems like Hillary is how you get AOC. So it’s a bipartisan phenomenon.)

      Anyways, you have rechristened SLS as the FredoRocket.
      It will be respected, or else.

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