NASA's Artemis Program Has Big Problems And Few Solutions
Keith’s note: There was a media briefing today. NASA Administrator Senator Bill Nelson gave an Artemis update and guess what: everything is delayed and it will cost billions more than it was going to cost yesterday. Surprise.
Mostly Nelson blamed lack of NASA progress on Artemis on unrealistic schedules set by the Trump Administration (2024 etc.); the Blue Origin lawsuits; Congressional issues; and of course COVID. And, for good measure he threw in a Chinese threat he has been creating out of thin air saying that China may be landing humans on the Moon sooner than expected – without a single reference to substantiate his claim.
At no point did Nelson or anyone else from NASA accept any blame for things being years late and billions over budget either by NASA or its contractors. Instead there was a lot of happy talk from people reading words that someone else wrote in a monotone, disinterested tone of voice – not exactly the best way to inspire confidence among NASA employees and all of those stakeholder types that they “get it” at NASA. Nelson did say “we have to do better” but he never really defined who “we” is – and no one speaking on behalf of NASA today ever mentioned anything that was “better”.
The obvious solution is to distract people from the obvious and split HEOMD into two new directorates since that will make everyone more efficient and happier. Next, NASA will somehow consolidate all SLS activities into a new single contract that sounds a lot like United Space Alliance from the Shuttle era. And of course everything is delayed. Artemis I will be launched no earlier than February 2022. Artemis II – the crewed lunar fly around mission – is now no earlier than May 2024. And there will be no flags and footprints on the Moon with Artemis III until some time in 2025. Oh and Nelson says that NASA still needs an additional $5.7 billion over the next six years to meet the 2025 date. If that additional money is not found then 2025 becomes unlikely and we’re talking about 2026 – or beyond.
NASA wants to cut the cost of flying SLS to 50% of what it is now. So, you ask, how NASA is going to lower the SLS cost to 50% of whatever it is now – if we do not know what it costs – now? Pam Melroy was asked what the current cost is. She avoided answering that but said that NASA wanted to get the SLS per flight cost down to a $1 – $1.5 billion. If you apply a little logic that means that a SLS flight cost somewhere around $2 to $3 billion – but of course that is according to NASA’s math using funny money.
Even if that SLS cost reduction aspirational goal is met, everything else associated with Artemis will still cost more. Because it always costs more. The new projected cost baseline for SLS/Orion – computed from from FY 2012 to the first crewed flight – will be dialed up from $6.7 billion to $9.3 billion. That is up by almost $2.6 billion from the earlier baseline. And then Nelson said that Congress wants a competition for human landers for the 10 or so landings in the notional Artemis storyline. And that is going to cost a lot of money too. Of course the promised windfall that Nelson thought he had discovered in the whole Infrastructure cookie jar never materialized for Artemis.
When asked about other ways to do this Jim Free, the new AA for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD), said that using a direct landing by Starship would not work since the crew has to be launched on a SLS/Orion. OK. So launch the Artemis III crew on a Falcon-9/Dragon – and save some money while you are at it. Nelson added that there is “only one rocket that can do this – SLS/Orion”. But he added that if anyone happened to know about another rocket to please give him a call.
Speaking of other rockets – the SpaceX Starship test flight will likely happen before SLS ever flies and it will be testing a precursor of the Artemis III human lander. But NASA wants you to keep your eyes on SLS – not on that shiny new Starship thing. That said Nelson and his 9th floor posse will be going down to SpaceX in Texas to see the other rocket as soon as they can i.e. next year. Why hurry?
As for the whole Artemis program itself Nelson says that it is being done so that we can learn how to live on Mars and that he expects NASA to send crews there by the end of the 2030s. Charlie Bolden used to say that we’d do this by the early- to mid-2023s. At the rate NASA is dragging its feet it will be the late 2040s/early 2050s.
Just sayin’.
P.S. If you thought today’s Artemis news was fun just wait until tomorrow when the NASA IG office releases a report on NASA SLS.
Let us all hope that Mr. Musk makes good progress on the Star Ship. In that case we might make 2024 for the landing, and we won’t even need Orion or SLS.
That presupposes that SpaceX doesn’t encounter problems that delay Lunar Starship to beyond 2025…say failure to get an environmental impact statement approved by…uh, ah..another “gubmint” agency!
he could always accelerate the off shore launch platform if the beach hippies cause problems for Boca Chica.
If Lunar Starship is a position where it is manrated and capable of doing landings before SLS/Orion is ready for its part of the mission, it’s going to be pretty tempting for NASA to just plan out a mission aboard that if possible and keep SLS/Orion “for later”.
Who knows how it might go then? Shelby’s out after 2022, which means SLS has lost its great defender.
NASA have to worry about some other paying customer might booked a ride to the Lunar surface first. AIUI the HLS contract is for a service not hardware.
Mr. Shelby is hardly the only SLS supporter in Congress. And whoever replaces him after the 2022 election is very likely to be very much in favor of NASA money going to Alabama. The main difference is that Mr. Shelby’s successor will be a very junior senator, with few committee positions, none as a chairman, and without Mr. Shelby’s long list of connections and other Senators who owe him favors.
With all the new work that is/will come to HSV, ending SLS and making MSFC a facility and no longer a Space Flight Center can happen with minimal economic impact.
if Crew Dragon can get to HEO to transfer to starship then the only issue for Starship direct to the Moon is can it hold enough prop to land on the Moon and then come back to earth orbit for transfer crew back to a crew dragon? I would think you wouldn’t try direct earth entry with your lunar starship or maybe you can give it the needed entry shielding for earth as well as the thermal protection it needs for south pole 7 day mission.
Instead of the current LHS lander. SpaceX could just installed the cosine thrusters with hatches on a regular Starship. Of course that will reduce the time on the Lunar surface, but that is what Artemis III was planning to do anyway.
A Crew Dragon can’t get to a high Earth orbit. And a Starship, even fully fueled can’t go from low Earth orbit to the lunar surface and back. Unless the Starship can take the crew to Earth with a direct entry, what you suggest isn’t possible. But there are other ways to use Starship and Falcon 9/Dragons to bypass the need for SLS and Orion. They aren’t as simple, and depend on things like using two Starships or refueling a Starship in lunar orbit. But those are technically possible mission modes.
You could man rate a FH and get crew Dragon way above LEO.
An FH? That’ll be some trick though. Man-rating all those interconnected systems. I can imagine the FMECA on that! Then the 2FT redesign effort or dodgy fingers-on-the-scales justifications…
..Also does the dragon have the heat shielding for a HEO re-entry? I do recall somewhere that it was being designed for that, but then it was going to be designed for a land recovery too..
There aren’t any formal, technical evaluations required for “man-rating” a launch vehicle. There are criteria for launch vehicles qualified to fly the government’s most valuable payloads (and astronauts count as one of those.) Falcon Heavy should satisfy those requirements before the end of next year. For a vehicle produced by a company which has previously build a similarly rated vehicle, and a vehicle derived from such a vehicle, the requirement is six successful launches of which three must be sequential. That, and a bunch of paperwork which SpaceX has said they aren’t interested in bothering with.
As far as reentry is concerned, I don’t think the heat shield has changed. It was originally designed for a reentry from a Mars return trajectory and I believe that’s still the case.
I have heard this before and it is a sort of sophistry. We are constrained by the consequence of the failure and the required mitigation levels. Unmanned the worst failure can only ever be a LOM. The SPF and general failure management is somewhat relaxed. Once manned the worst case failure is a LOC… SPF management goes up an order of magnitude. Where we have no choice about SPFs such as tanks and pipes; the level of demonstrated margin required is higher. Getting out the gate with a launcher is as commercial an endeavor as anything else. So why would anyone in their right mind sink an unwarranted cost into a system, such as validating to a higher standard than strictly necessary or indeed including additional hardware to move the reliability of the system beyond four nines? By all means design in the margin if it has no material cost (it probably will have a cost) but why accrue the cost now that can be deferred to later and indeed may never be realized at all?
They aren’t as simple, and depend on things like using two Starships or refueling a Starship in lunar orbit. But those are technically possible mission modes.
Right. And in the end, when SLS is finally phased out, that’s what will probably happen.
Dragon XL, or something derived from it, may be able to serve as a service/propulsion module for Dragon to allow lunar flights.
Dragon is only designed for 10 days of free flight. The 210 day limit is for sitting docked to ISS, effectively in storage.
Which is much of the reason for the Dragon XL.
SLS / Artemis 1 will fly in 2022. SpaceX Starship 20 / Super Heavy 4 will fly in 2022 SLS will be cancelled in 2023. SpaceX will take over heavy lift at LC39A and LC39B, and Starbase. By 2030, SLS (or what is left of SLS) will be in museums, touting the glory days of NASA. The End.
I am afraid Orion and SLS will be representative of the end of NASA. They already represent the tremendous waste and lack of progress NASA has become. The glory days are already represented by the Shuttles.
The end of NASA human space flight perhaps. SMD, STMD, and ARMD will continue to be relevant with or without the SLS/Orion boondoggle.
They were mandated by Congress. They are Congress’ fault, not NASA’s.
There is enough blame to go around. Congress and both democratic and republican presidents deserve their fair share of blame, but so does NASA who until recently meekly went along with whatever was handed them without comment. NASA’s recent choice of Space X for the moon shot and telling congress this is all we can do with the money you appropriated is tremendously encouraging.
NASA did more than meekly go along with it. Even just recently, look at Loverro violating procurement rules in an attempt to favor Boeing in the first part of the HLS competition. Parts of NASA are very comfortable with things as they are and are not happy with anyone rocking the boat.
The irony of “Nelson the administrator” not taking any responsibility for the programs “Nelson the senator” foisted in NASA knows no upper bound.
You can also be sure that, no matter how cost-effective, successful and efficient Starship is, old NASA hands and Congressional figures (both politicians and lobbyists) will be bitterly describing SpaceX as having ‘killed NASA’ for years to the point where it will become a group-think reality in some quarters.
Conceptually I’m a huge NASA supporter. I love the planetary and cometary missions. But think of the waste and what else could be done with that SLS money over the past decade, and the upcoming decade.
You are mistaken. The SLS money is only for the SLS, otherwise NASA wouldn’t have the SLS money at all.
It’s not allocated from a big pool that would otherwise be given to other projects, but NASA’s total budget remains fairly stable over time. Without SLS, NASA would have about the same amount of money, just being spent on things other than the SLS, and the manpower and facilities dedicated to the SLS would obviously be occupied with more useful projects.
Think of the waste with the JWST. 20 years and counting.
JWST surely could have been managed better, but technology development followed by great new science is an overall win.
wasn’t the tech design frozen like before the first iphone came out? is JWST really cutting edge anymore?
A chunk of that tech is of very questionable value. Much of the complexity and difficulty in building the JWST was with the technologies that allow it to fold up into a shape that’ll fit within an Ariane 5’s 4.5m payload fairing. That is very much a product of the time in which it was designed (mid 2000s) and for cost-sharing purposes.
Today, the Falcon Heavy has a designed (but not flown or built) extended fairing. The SLS has an 8.4M fairing (with a potential for a 10m fairing). Starship has a 9m fairing.
If the JWST were designed today, rather than the EELV-era, it likely would have been planned to launch on either an SLS or a Falcon Heavy, like the Europa Clipper mission. The increased volume would have enabled a less complicated folding mirror than the one we got.
And that’s the tragedy of the JWST: it’s a technological advancement, but mostly a one off. The next major space telescope (such as the one proposed in the Decadal Survey last week) is unlikely to scale up the JWST design. It’s more likely to use one of the alternative large mirror technologies that have been proposed over the years, or operate on another principle entirely, such as manned or robotic assembly in space.
If JWST technology were carried forward, then the 20 years would have been worth it. As it stands though? It’s the F-35: Space Edition – a lot of interesting ideas fit for the late 2010s and 2020s that were about 15 years too early and implemented with mid 2000s technology.
The next great observatory must be built in space. Would make a worthy recipient of that SLS money.
Way too soon to declare it waste. You really need to see what the scientific returns are before declaring it’s a waste.
It seems such a zoo or I find the Artemis method(s) of going to the moon confusing. At least with Apollo it could be explained how to land on the moon to a five year old. Then add 95% of the discussion is not technical but scheduling, budget, and lawsuit issues. I have to admit I don’t fully understand Starship but then that is a private company and we all know private companies don’t show all the details on new products prior to market.
“Mostly Nelson blamed lack of NASA progress on Artemis on unrealistic schedules set by the Trump Administration”
That’s the “First Envelope” played. Only two strikes left! Mind you the COVID reference looks very like a “Second Envelope” play..https://http://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comm...
Covid and BO lawsuit is definitely second envelope. SpaceX didn’t stop working over the 7 months
so we can pay $3B more to keep Orion chugging along with it’s ever slipping to the right schedule or pay $2.9B to SpaceX to build their lunar lander. hmm which is a better use of the money.
Note: The politicians have a different answer to this than you do.
FYI – SLS Block 1 is NOT human rated.
Nelson did say “we have to do better” … seriously ? you mean we can’t continue with the status quo ??
This starts with understanding what the problem is.
Are you bench marking against SpaceX ? Then IMHO there are significant organisational issues to be resolved before any progress can be made.
Should you bench mark against SpaceX ?
Has the world changed now that SpaceX, as an example, can design their own rockets without NASA’s help/guidance/expert opinion/… ?
Maybe NASA should focus on the missions, on the science, and have others provide the hardware ?
Continuing doing the same and hoping for a different outcome is lunacy.
NASA and Nelson are talking as though Artemis is a done deal. Some of it, like the Gateway, are unfunded and not a real program. Space X is just now getting some funding for the lander. NASAs program may never become real.
Starship is mostly self-funded.
In FY21, Gateway was funded to the tune of $698 million.
NASA Delays Planned Moon Landing To 2025
– NASA will not land astronauts “back on the moon before 2025 and says it will need additional funds each year starting in 2023 to keep its Artemis lunar program on schedule.
See above, repeat yearly.
Based on the NASA experience to date: Artemis, Orion, SLS, ISS, if we are now in 2021 saying 2025, maybe 5X this 4 year plan is reasonable? Remember, in 1984 when it started, ISS was an 8 year plan flying in 1992, anniversary of Columbus. First element launch was in 1998 and completion not until 2011. That was 27 years. Orion was started in 2004; safe, simple and soon we were told. Flying in 7 years, 2011. Now, maybe it will fly with a crew in 2023? That is 20 years. Artemis to the Moon? Space X has a better chance.
I’m hopeful, because this is starting to sound like the beginning of The End for the SLS cluster fuzzcheck.
I sure hope so!
The Chinese are not racing the US back to the Moon – but I wish they would. Suddenly a lot of money would be found, and things would speed up dramatically – or, NASA would have to accept the inevitable, ditch the SLS and Orion, and go with SpaceX Starship and Lunar Starship. Imagine the humilation for America, if China did actually get to the Moon before America, simply because NASA lacked the will, flexibility and vision to throw aside outdated technologies and approaches, and go with a transformational approach to space exploration.
How can China get to the Moon before the US? You know we’ve already been right?
“not racing the US back to the Moon”…
There’s real geopolitical prestige implications if Chinese Taikonauts are the ‘next’ humans on the lunar surface – it reinforces their narrative that the US is a declining power and they are a rising power.
The Apollo program was a great achievement at the time. But it’s 2021 and rockets are reusable nowadays…. =)
No law exists today that would prevent Musk from landing a starship on the moon (if he uses his own money). He has the funds to do that many time overs. Imagine its 2025 and SpaceX is landing on the moon while NASA announces the second SLS launch is delayed until 2027. SpaceX could sell seats to international astronauts. I can think of many nations that would pay well for the change to put a national on the moon. I suspect his mission would be far less than 3 billion + dollars.
Even better, A SpaceX Starship passes Orion in LEO on its way to the moon.
Funny that Nelson or anyone else would blame the un-achievability of the 2024 date on Trump. Under Trump’s predecessor we were heading Orion to pick up a rock from a probe that it got from an asteroid. The Moon was not in the picture because “we’d been there, done that”. Thanks Obama-he delayed us 8 years. Trump turned us in a reasonable direction.
Here we go with the “Blame Obama” nonsense again. Please. He killed the ridiculousness that was Constellation.
Constellation doesn’t look very dead to me.
This one year slip is bad for Artemis and good for SpaceX. Every delay in Artemis means that it becomes increasingly certain that the return of humans to the Moon will be done entirely by Starships, probably in 2024.
NASA has already set the stage for this eventuality by awarding the HLS Option A contract to SpaceX and Starship. That $2.89B will cover the development costs for the uncrewed cargo-only Starship with 100-150t (metric ton) payload, for the crewed Interplanetary (IP) Starship with up to 20 astronauts and 100t payload, and for the uncrewed tanker Starship.
These three versions of Starship will be completed and ready to launch in early 2023. Refueling in LEO will be perfected by the end of 2023.
Then the uncrewed cargo Starship can be launched, refueled in LEO (four tanker Starship flights) and land on the lunar surface with 100-150t (metric tons) of payload. That Starship becomes a permanent part of the first lunar base.
The first astronauts follow in the IP Starship that leaves low Earth orbit (LEO) along with a tanker Starship and both Starships fly to low lunar orbit (LLO). The tanker transfers 100t of methalox to the IP Starship that lands on the lunar surface, incoming cargo and passenger are unloaded, returning cargo an passengers are loaded, and the IP Starship returns to LLO. The tanker remains in LLO.
The tanker transfers another 100t of methalox to the IP Starship and both do their trans Earth injection (TEI) burns and return to landing pads at or near Boca Chica. The Starships in this scenario are completely reusable.
The operating cost for launching the IP Starship and ten tanker Starships to LEO is $10M per launch x 11 launches = $110M. That is roughly the cost for a single Falcon Heavy launch. It’s likely that the operating cost for a single Starship launch will be considerably less than $10M.
Note: This post is an edited version of a post that I made to the SpaceX subreddit yesterday.