Let's Do Some Rocket Math
Watch TIME’s Exclusive Footage of NASA’s Most Powerful Rocket Ever Under Construction, Time
Time’s Jeffrey Kluger says “A rocket this big does not come cheap. Developing both the SLS and the ground systems that will support it will cost $11.5 billion, NASA says. And this is for a rocket that, unlike the space shuttle or the reusable boosters built by SpaceX, will be flown once and thrown away. According to a 2019 estimate by the Office of Management and Budget, the cost of building and flying a single SLS will reach $2 billion.”
Keith’s note: Well the NASA OIG just told us the other day that “In total, NASA has spent $37.2 billion to date on Artemis-related program activities.” So Kluger’s numbers are off by several hundred per cent. He cites OMB numbers – so maybe OIG numbers should be considered as well.
Kluger also says “NASA answers that while the private rockets may have muscle, they don’t have as much as the SLS. The Falcon Heavy’s liftoff thrust, for example, is 5 million pounds (2.25 kg). That makes a difference, since it may take two launches of a Falcon Heavy to lift as much payload as a single SLS, significantly cutting into any savings from a switchover to private rockets.”
The advertised cost of a Falcon Heavy launch is $150 million. Let’s just say that it would take two Falcon heavy’s to launch something that only one SLS is required to launch i.e. a cost of $300 million. Kluger cites a $2 billion per launch cost of a SLS – so let’s use that cost too. So – using only one Falcon Heavy would save $1.85 billion – but using two Falcon Heavy’s would save taxpayers less, only $1.7 billion. Please tell me what is wrong with ONLY saving $1.7 billion per launch by using Falcon Heavy’s instead of a SLS? Is this not a “significant” savings? Saved money is money that can be used for other things.
Using more math, at 2 Falcon Heavys = 1 SLS, this means that with the $1.7 billion saved by using Falcons instead of SLS, you save enough to launch an additional 5.6 SLS equivalents of upmass. All told for the launch of one SLS at $2 billion you can launch the equivalent upmass, using Falcon Heavy’s, of 5.6 SLS launches.
Just sayin’
A Falcon Heavy launch might cost NASA $200 to $250 million. The basic price for one is $150 million, but SpaceX does charge extra for special services and non-standard requirements. And NASA has lots of those. So the difference in savings in launch costs, relative to a SLS launch, might “only” be $1.5 billion. But the standard argument for SLS (and its predecessors) is that developing a payload which could be split between two launches and then assembling the them in orbit, would be both risker and would eat up most of those savings. I have trouble believing that. The cost of building ISS (about $100 billion not including launch costs) is used as a justification, but I think that just proves that, if you do things the hard way, it’s can be very expensive.
And no one included “extras” for the SLS launch either so it is a wash.
So, is this a video of Boca Chica’s High Bay?
That headline does say NASA’s most powerful rocket. A Starship won’t belong to NASA unless they buy one from SpaceX
Worse, the way they actually proposed using SLS was to launch payloads as cargos co-manifested along with an Orion and then sent way out to cislunar space, which required splitting payloads up into even smaller ~10 t pieces and a whole bunch of SLS launches. Which has ended up with Falcon Heavy now launching two of the Gateway components together, with neither SLS nor Orion involved…something the SLS supporters insisted wasn’t an option.
What a ridiculous math that of Kluger. Does anybody believe that crap?
Keith is right again. Years after it retired, the government admitted the partially reusable Space Shuttle cost over one billion dollars per launch. SLS is based on this old technology and is not reusable at all for any part. Further the real competition is the Starship which is coming along nicely as opposed to SLS which is massively over-budget and behind schedule.
Nobody seems to talk about fiscal responsibility any more. At least 20 or 30 years ago, some politicians were pretending it was important to them.
NASA’s budget is less than 1% of the federal budget, so they’re not contributing significantly to the budget deficit.
But the question is,is NASA contributing in any significant way to human space flight? The show we witnessed earlier today with 4 crew going to the ISS was entirely a Space X show. A Space x rocket, a Space X capsule, Space X spacesuits, Space X flight controllers. I thought it was funny that NASA produced a 2 minute show on how their NASA launch ‘controllers’ and NASA flight ‘controllers’ “monitored” everything Space X did. Superfluous people having no meaningful role. We were reminded that the Russians might pull out of ISS partly for political and economic reasons but also because their modules are worn out and leaking. So.some suggested the US could launch Node 4 to help fill the volume. Node 4 that has no propulsion or power; that was why the US brought in the Russians; those systems were too hard and expensive for NASA. Node 4 was originally Node 1 but was thrown away when due to poor US design (NASA and Boeing) it tin canned when it was pressurized; much of the metal structure was destroyed. The new Node 1 had to be redesigned with European assistance. And Nodes 2 and 3 they just asked the Europeans to build because NASA and its PRIME contractor could no longer be relied upon.
I’m not sure if you have your history correct. NASA had been planning a space station long before it became an international project. If memory serves, involving Russia was a political decision. To keep what is now Roscosmos alive and able to pay its employees, since the alternative was the risk of Russian rocket engineers emigrating to nations the US didn’t like and helping them develop ballistic missiles. It was not about the US being unable, in terms of technology, to build space station modules with the same capabilities.
The European involvement was largely about the US wanting to have international partners, not needing them. If the US had wanted to do the whole thing on their own, they could have. It would have cost more, but that’s a budget issue, not a technological capability issue.
Regardless of why the international’s got involved initially, they made a difference when we gave up capabilities and placed them into the critical path. While at one time the US might have done the entire thing, we gave up some key capabilities. Space X now seems to have reestablished some for the US.
Um…It isn’t entirely a SpaceX show.
NASA is being forced to do more with a budget that’s not increasing by much. SLS/Orion is the deep space transportation system mandated by Congress. But it’s sucking up so much of the budget NASA is being forced to do HLS as a commercial contract. This is mostly the fault of Congress.
For those who want to relive Apollo with a couple crew, short duration, flags and footprints mission, Orion and SLS with some other lander is
a perfectly fine solution. And given that it is NASA and the cost plus big contractor boys, we’ll pay through the nose for it, just as we have been on Orion and SLS. Always remember those companies are trying to earn their stock holders the biggest bucks with the least amount of effort and they have it down to perfection. And remember too that NASA has a stake in this-they like their people appearing to be “operating”, even if they are not required. That is also a lot of costly overhead because those people do not offer anything that is required and they could be doing other useful things. But if we want to establish a foothold in commerce and civilization in space and on other worlds, the Space X Star Ship is the only choice.