[New] Space Launch System / Orion Discussion Thread

[tater]

At least if the NASA hearings in Congress mean anything we don't have to worry about ever seeing SLS do anything. They'll force the whole thing (Artemis) to be SLS, and SpaceX and BO will simply beat them to the lunar surface. I'd wager that an all SLS architecture might have a shot in something approaching 10 years given their track record.

I realize it's not supposed to have a reasonable cost, it's a jobs program... still, someone missed the memo that big dumb boosters are supposed to be cheap, that's kind of the point.

Edited November 14, 2019 by tater

[ZooNamedGames]

10 hours ago, tater said:

At least if the NASA hearings in Congress mean anything we don't have to worry about ever seeing SLS do anything. They'll force the whole thing (Artemis) to be SLS, and SpaceX and BO will simply beat them to the lunar surface. I'd wager that an all SLS architecture might have a shot in something approaching 10 years given their track record.

I realize it's not supposed to have a reasonable cost, it's a jobs program... still, someone missed the memo that big dumb boosters are supposed to be cheap, that's kind of the point.

Well NASA has been pushing for a SLS & Commercial Artemis development. We’ll have to see what the next term members will decide.

[tater]

Just now, ZooNamedGames said:

Well NASA has been pushing for a SLS & Commercial Artemis development. We’ll have to see what the next term members will decide.

Every year that the mission that is now desired is delayed has the potential to make SLS look even less fit for purpose. The problem of course is that it never really had a purpose, at least not for the two block 1 variants. Block 2 is a SHLV for cargo, which is great, and you can do all kinds of stuff with that---as long as flying it is cost effective.

 

[RCgothic]

They should always have gone straight to block 2.

[tater]

1 hour ago, RCgothic said:

They should always have gone straight to block 2.

Yeah, I agree. If the goal is to send Orion BLEO, then they needed a bigger rocket. It's not more complicated than that. SLS can't do the job of sending the crew vehicle they are given (Orion) anywhere useful at all.

We know what a minimal lunar surface architecture looks like in terms of mass to TLI. Apollo. So you either copy that, or you can't do, well, anything at all. This has always been the problem with SLS. @jadebenn always likes to point out the fanboyism for not-SLS companies, and the hate for SLS, and that SLS is not doing all that bad on schedule given X, Y, and Z---which can all be true!---but the old criticisms of SLS from 2010/2011 still apply. Those are that SLS/Orion is a system without a mission it can actually do. ARM was slapping a sort of mission on SLS/Orion in the same way Artemis is now (only ARM was perhaps more useful, but less interesting to people at large). ARM didn't need SLS/Orion, however, it could just have well been a sample return, no crew (and the getting of the sample was never to involve SLS in the first place).

SLS is a big booster. That's it. It's a (big) rocket that you put stuff on top, there is nothing special about it.

If they had skipped crew rating it, and gone straight to cargo, maybe it would have already been ready. Since they have no need for a BLEO crew vehicle, maybe it would have made sense to not develop Orion, but instead they could have accelerated commercial crew (the only actual use case for a crew vehicle we have right now), then added a commercial crew part 2 where they ask for the extant CCVs to be upgraded to BLEO capability. Launch something awesome to LEO with SLS, send BLEO CCV to deliver crew, go to destination. There's a use for SLS I could get behind.

We'd have a NASA SHLV, we'd have 2+ capsules (plus maybe Dream Chaser) for LEO, and adding heat shield capability and better SMs is not that big a deal.

 

EDIT for clarity: I tagged jadebenn because he's a strong advocate of SLS, and I'd like to hear the best counterargument, not as some sort of poke. <S>

Edited November 14, 2019 by tater

[RCgothic]

And not only because of the better architectures a larger rocket enables, but because constantly having to prove all new stages, as well as retooling VAB bays, MLPs and Pad 39B for different rockets, is completely stupid.

Block 2, all up, go!

Maybe the rocket explodes. Maybe bits fall off à la Apollo 6. But then you fix it.

Edited November 14, 2019 by RCgothic

[sevenperforce]

I know @tater and I feel like broken records, but damn, failing to upgrade Orion's capabilities after Constellation was canceled just simply makes no sense.

[tater]

17 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

I know @tater and I feel like broken records, but damn, failing to upgrade Orion's capabilities after Constellation was canceled just simply makes no sense.

Yeah, as much as we bash SLS (and it deserves much of it), Orion is a lot of the problem. If a ship that large was needed, then SLS isn't the right LV (particularly if it ever got a decent SM). If Orion need not be that big, then Orion is certainly the problem.

For all Constellation's flaws, the distributed nature of crew vs cargo was NOT one of them. It reduces risk, and scheduling risk (less hoops to jump through not having to crew rate). The loads can be designed for cargo, not humans. If you can get 130t to LEO---without the crew vehicle counting against that---you're in pretty good shape.

A Crew Dragon up massed to 12.5t (using the full 3t of trunk cargo as SM) could dock to a 45t lander attached to an SLS upper stage for a total SLS-launched stack in LEO of 130t (so 142.5t total with the Dragon) can be sent to TLI by that SLS Block 2 delivered lander/upper stage stack. The proposed Boeing lander---launched on SLS Block 1b cargo---is limited to 37t. So I'm allowing for more props on the descent stage (to do Altair-like LOI), as well as more crew volume (can fit in a 8.4 - 10m fairing). The lander would be available as crew hab during transit.

1 Commercial launch, plus 1 SLS, better than Apollo lander on the surface.

Starliner would be more, obviously (more for the launch, and they'd probably charge billions and half a decade to upgrade the heat shield), but the same math works.

Edited November 14, 2019 by tater

[sevenperforce]

28 minutes ago, tater said:

A Crew Dragon up massed to 12.5t (using the full 3t of trunk cargo as SM) could dock to a 45t lander attached to an SLS upper stage for a total SLS-launched stack in LEO of 130t (so 142.5t total with the Dragon) can be sent to TLI by that SLS Block 2 delivered lander/upper stage stack. The proposed Boeing lander---launched on SLS Block 1b cargo---is limited to 37t. So I'm allowing for more props on the descent stage (to do Altair-like LOI), as well as more crew volume (can fit in a 8.4 - 10m fairing). The lander would be available as crew hab during transit.

Plus, let's not forget that the 37-tonne Boeing lander places no less than 3,030 m/s in dV requirements on the descent stage, whereas going straight to LLO would be only 2,770 m/s. Then again, the descent stage would need to brake Crew Dragon into LLO. Then again, the ascent module would only need to provide 1,870 m/s to meet Crew Dragon rather than the 2,600 required to get back to LOP-G, so I think direct to LLO still wins out.

[jadebenn]

6 hours ago, tater said:

EDIT for clarity: I tagged jadebenn because he's a strong advocate of SLS, and I'd like to hear the best counterargument, not as some sort of poke.

I don't know what you want me to say.  Saying anything other than, "No, I don't agree," would be implicitly accepting some arguments I fundamentally don't agree with.

For example, I find the statement that ARM was more useful than Artemis ridiculous on its face. What would sending a team of astronauts out to grap a small rock (not even really an asteroid - the grabber got downsized) teach us? How would that be useful? There are legitimate arguments for going back to the Moon, not so much for ARM.

Or in another example: The idea that NASA will get "beat" to the Moon if they don't move quickly. I have zero faith in SpaceX's ability to meet the timelines or costs they're promising for Starship. It's ridiculous on its face to claim they'll be flying astronauts on their new spaceship in just a few years when it's taken them 8 years and counting for Crew Dragon, essentially the same time as "oldspace" Boeing. SpaceX does have credibility in lowering costs, but not to the ridiculous levels they're promising. $2M per flight is ridiculous. That's less per-kg than air freight. SpaceX made similar claims about the Falcon family early in its lifetime, and while the Falcon was cheaper than the competition, it never even came close to being as game-changingly cheap as promised. So the Starship timeline isn't going to happen, and neither are the cost estimates. You can quote me on this.

Finally, just because some representatives at the House feel a certain way about certain testimonies doesn't mean they'll get their way. I don't expect there to be a big shake-up in the Artemis Lunar architecture at this point.

6 hours ago, tater said:

The problem of course is that it never really had a purpose, at least not for the two block 1 variants. Block 2 is a SHLV for cargo, which is great, and you can do all kinds of stuff with that---as long as flying it is cost effective.

You keep saying this, and I frankly find it a bit baffling. Block 2 isn't much more capable than Block 1B. The real jump in performance is between Block 1 and Block 1B. The EUS makes a big difference.

Are you perhaps thinking of the original SLS evolution path?

Edited November 15, 2019 by jadebenn

[jadebenn]

Also note that I'm quite certain Block 1B payload figures are going to increase over the estimates shown here due to:

• Operational maturity giving a better understanding of its capabilities 
• The RS-25D phase-out and the RS-25E (which has higher thrust) phase-in
• The introduction of BOLE SRBs (currently slated for flight 8 with the depletion of STS casings, can be pushed forward if neccessary)

I very much expect Block 1B to be a Saturn V-class vehicle once the dust clears.

Edited November 15, 2019 by jadebenn

[tater]

13 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

I don't know what you want me to say.  Saying anything other than, "No, I don't agree," would be implicitly accepting some arguments I fundamentally don't agree with.

For example, I find the statement that ARM was more useful than Artemis ridiculous on its face. What would sending a team of astronauts out to grap a small rock (not even really an asteroid - the grabber got downsized) teach us? How would that be useful? There are legitimate arguments for going back to the Moon, not so much for ARM.

I personally think that resource extraction makes more sense minus the gravity well of the Moon. I was never actually an ARM fan to the extent that SLS was involved, however, that was always make-work for Orion (which is too heavy without enough dv to do anything useful at all).

13 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

Or in another example: The idea that NASA will get "beat" to the Moon if they don't move quickly. I have zero faith in SpaceX's ability to meet the timelines or costs they're promising for Starship. It's ridiculous on its face to claim they'll be flying astronauts on their new spaceship in just a few years when it's taken them 8 years and counting for Crew Dragon, essentially the same time as "oldspace" Boeing. SpaceX does have credibility in lowering costs, but not to the ridiculous levels they're promising. $2M per flight is ridiculous. That's less per-kg than air freight. SpaceX made similar claims about the Falcon family early in its lifetime, and while the Falcon was cheaper than the competition, it never even came close to being as game-changingly cheap as promised. So the Starship timeline isn't going to happen, and neither are the cost estimates. You can quote me on this.

One, SpaceX is making Starship for their own reasons, and it costs us exactly nothing at all. Doesn't matter when it happens, they're not sending us a bill for not meetng their promises (like Boeing just did for commercial crew).

Regarding cost---we have no idea what Falcon has done to cost. None. What people get charged is not cost. There is zero incentive to grossly undercut everyone when the government will give ULA what they pay now for the same thing (ie: SpaceX could charge 5 M$/launch to the USAF, and the AF would STILL also pay 150M$ for exactly the same launch half the time to ULA. The government in this case kills competitive forces. Commercial Crew is a prime example, Boeing bid 2X SpaceX, and is somehow getting additional money in spite of a "fixed price" contract. Anyway, retail prices will not ever drop without meaningful competition, there's simply no reason to.

 

13 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

You keep saying this, and I frankly find it a bit baffling. Block 2 isn't much more capable than Block 1B. The real jump in performance is between Block 1 and Block 1B. The EUS makes a big difference.

Are you perhaps thinking of the original SLS evolution path?

The figures in the second pic are basically the same as the first. The second image is including the upper stage mass in the cargo. The earlier Orion was lighter. That's it. The TLI values are basically the same. Orion got bloated, which has reduced the comanifested cargo.

My primary point (which stands), is that a Cargo version with EUS (no Orion) is the only useful SLS.

Orion is useless for literally anything. A beefed up SM Orion could be useful BLEO, but that's a 1b lofted vehicle (Block 1 can't lift that), and with almost no other cargo since the SM would be so much heavier.

45t to TLI is great, but useless if Orion is on top---since Orion is too heavy, with not enough capability for the added mass (the capsule is just too heavy).

 

[tater]

25 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

I very much expect Block 1B to be a Saturn V-class vehicle once the dust clears.

How? It needs to get a CSM to LLO, then back to Earth, AND it needs to take the lander with it, all up, in one launch. If the CSM was Apollo? Maybe. With Orion? Nope.

The Apollo CSM was ~30t. The capsule was ~5,500kg. The LM was 16.4t. So we can nominally do Apollo with 46t, which I agree might be in the realm of SLS at some point. The trouble is that the Orion capsule is 8.5t, which means the SM has to be bigger, or the lander descent stage needs to be bigger to do the same job---turns out it needs to be about 10t larger assuming the lander is the same as Apollo.

So we need 56t to TLI to have SLS match Apollo---assuming Orion, and a LM clone at 16t. If we want a lander that can have more than 2 crew, and they needs to stay on the surface for any time... more than 56t to TLI.

Note, as I said up thread, that if Orion was sent ahead to LEO with "not SLS," then Block 2 (or Block 1b cargo, whatever, either works) can send a lander (Constellation style) that can do the LOI burn for the stack, and Orion can get home easily from LLO with the current SM, and the case closes. Still distributed launch, but NOT 2 SLS launches (which is absurd on multiple levels).

The trick is getting a cheap ride to LEO for 26t (with a 10t LES going part of the way as well). (currently DIVH, or FH, or NG (soon™))

Edited November 15, 2019 by tater

[jadebenn]

31 minutes ago, tater said:

One, SpaceX is making Starship for their own reasons, and it costs us exactly nothing at all. Doesn't matter when it happens, they're not sending us a bill for not meetng their promises (like Boeing just did for commercial crew).

It is my problem when people want to destroy the current BLEO PoR in favor of it simply because they have blind faith they'll meet those promises. I'd rather have an inefficient BLEO program that ends up getting replaced because I was wrong than no BLEO program at all because I ended up being right.

31 minutes ago, tater said:

Regarding cost---we have no idea what Falcon has done to cost. None. What people get charged is not cost. There is zero incentive to grossly undercut everyone when the government will give ULA what they pay now for the same thing (ie: SpaceX could charge 5 M$/launch to the USAF, and the AF would STILL also pay 150M$ for exactly the same launch half the time to ULA. The government in this case kills competitive forces. Commercial Crew is a prime example, Boeing bid 2X SpaceX, and is somehow getting additional money in spite of a "fixed price" contract. Anyway, retail prices will not ever drop without meaningful competition, there's simply no reason to.

I've heard this argument before. It's exceedingly weak. If this is true, then why should I care what SpaceX does? What's the point of reducing the cost to access space if one company's just pocketing the difference? Nothing changes on our end.

Frankly, if that were true (and thankfully, I doubt it is), any of Boeing's "price-gouging" pales in comparison.

31 minutes ago, tater said:

My primary point (which stands), is that a Cargo version with EUS (no Orion) is the only useful SLS.

Is that not one of the uses of SLS? I'm legitimately confused here, because you seem to be acting as though the Block 1B crewed configuration is the only Block 1B configuration. 

The cost of a Block 1B SLS is going to be similar to the cost of a Block 1 SLS (this comes from my buddy at MSFC), which I'd imagine is one of the reasons Block 1A was not pursued. The ability to co-manifest payload on a crewed launch is a "bonus." The real drive for Block 1B is for the pure cargo configuration, there's just no point in using Block 1 for the crewed launches once you have Block 1B. You may as well pack a module into the extra space; It's cheaper than maintaining two different SLS configurations.

19 minutes ago, tater said:

How?

In payload to TLI, not in architecture. You misinterpreted my statement.

The LEM was a marvel of engineering, but if we want to do anything more than staying on the Moon for a few days, it's not something we should replicate.

Both Boeing and the National Team have the right ideas with their lander proposals. New landers should support longer surface stays and have more capabilities, which means more mass. There's no point just making a new LEM.

Edited November 15, 2019 by jadebenn

[sh1pman]

16 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

What's the point of reducing the cost to access space if one company's just pocketing the difference? Nothing changes on our end.

First, there’s going to be more than one company with cheap reusable heavy rockets, and their competition WILL drive the prices down. 
Second, this “difference” will be invested into the development of even better and cheaper rockets to make BLEO activities more accessible. 
If LEO activity can be successfully offloaded to commercial rockets developed through fixed-price contracts, why can’t the same be done with BLEO missions?

[jadebenn]

3 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

If LEO activity can be successfully offloaded to commercial rockets developed through fixed-price contracts, why can’t the same be done with BLEO missions?

Because there's a proven market for communications satellites whereas every attempt to create a fully private HSF program (in LEO or otherwise) has been met with failure?

Even the "mixed" programs haven't had much luck finding non-governmental customers. People forget that there were supposed to be customers other than NASA for CCrew. Those utterly failed to materialize.

Edited November 15, 2019 by jadebenn

[StrandedonEarth]

5 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

Even the "mixed" programs haven't had much luck finding non-governmental customers. People forget that there were supposed to be customers other than NASA for CCrew. Those utterly failed to materialize.

Yeah, still waiting to hear that Hilton has contracted to buy a Bigelow BA-330 outfitted as a hotel, to be launched and supplied by SpaceX or BO 

[tater]

 

 

27 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

It is my problem when people want to destroy the current BLEO PoR in favor of it simply because they have blind faith they'll meet those promises. I'd rather have an inefficient BLEO program that ends up getting replaced because I was wrong than no BLEO program at all because I ended up being right.

The current BLEO concept is not really a thing WRT SLS. SLS can;t do it. SLS requires commercial LVs do do literally anything, and doubly true with cost. If NASA wants a human BLEO program, I want to see whatthe mission is, then how SLS (alone, no help) accomplishes this if we're gonna push ahead with Orion sitting on top.

 

27 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

I've heard this argument before. It's exceedingly weak. If this is true, then why should I care what SpaceX does? What's the point of reducing the cost to access space if one company's just pocketing the difference? Nothing changes on our end.

Frankly, if that were true (and thankfully, I doubt it is), any of Boeing's "price-gouging" pales in comparison.

They're spending it right in front of us in a couple construction yards. As far as the taxpayer is concerned, we are already paying a fraction of what ULA charges (50-100M$/launch vs 150+). Commercial crew is 55M$/seat for SpaceX, and 90M$/seat for Boeing (actually 102M with the added 287M they just got for being late  ).

27 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

Is that not one of the uses of SLS? I'm legitimately confused here, because you seem to be acting as though the Block 1B crewed configuration is the only Block 1B configuration. 

The cost of a Block 1B SLS is going to be similar to the cost of a Block 1 SLS (this comes from my buddy at MSFC), which I'd imagine is one of the reasons Block 1A was not pursued. The ability to co-manifest payload on a crewed launch is a "bonus." The real drive for Block 1B is for the pure cargo configuration, there's just no point in using Block 1 for the crewed launches once you have Block 1B. You may as well pack a module into the extra space; It's cheaper than maintaining two different SLS configurations.

My point is that there is no use case at all for Orion on top of SLS.

None.

What mission is accomplished with Orion on Block 1b? Like, "There we go, done!" Nothing at all. It's incredibly wasteful to comanifest any cargo that could be sent an order of magnitude cheaper on any other LV, so delivering any element to Gateway is make-work, not a real mission. A real mission would be landing on the Moon (there's literally nothing else near the Moon useful for people).

It can't even do Apollo 8.

 

27 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

In payload to TLI, not in architecture. You misinterpreted my statement.

No, I get it, it's absolutely nearly, and possibly actually Apollo level in TLI throw. That's awesome---but entirely wasted in the case of SLS, because it's a system that includes Orion, sadly. Useful means it can accomplish some mission. Pick a mission that SLS can accomplish BLEO with crew. Any mission where the goal is not "sending people BLEO so that we can say we sent people BLEO." Something that requires people to do something other than bump up their lifetime radiation exposure (already very well understood).

27 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

The LEM was a marvel of engineering, but if we want to do anything more than staying on the Moon for a few days, it's not something we should replicate.

Agreed.

27 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

Both Boeing and the National Team have the right ideas with their lander proposals. New landers should support longer surface stays and have more capabilities, which means more mass. There's no point just making a new LEM.

Yeah, but there's no point in making a SHLV that's just a little bit shy of being able to launch the mission in 1 flight. That's the problem. If the Boeing lander is a cool goal, and it's 37t, then we need 37t plus a CSM. All at once. That's the goal the clean sheet designer aims for. 76t to TLI, or whatever it is.

As soon as the architecture is distributed launch, your payloads to LLO either need to be identical, or you need 2 different LVs. The cost of every single SLS variant is basically the same, so if you could send 45t to TLI for X billion, and you just send a 26t Orion, that's a waste.

[sh1pman]

2 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

Because there's a proven market for communications satellites whereas every attempt to create a fully private HSF program (in LEO or otherwise) has been met with failure?

Even the "mixed" programs have met trouble trying to find non-governmental customers. People forget that there were supposed to be customers other than NASA for CCrew, and those failed to materialize.

Are these non-government customers of vital importance to the program? I don’t think so. CCrew vehicles can exist on NASA funding only, serving as a LEO taxi for NASA astronauts and their international partners.

[jadebenn]

3 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

Are these non-government customers of vital importance to the program? I don’t think so. CCrew vehicles can exist on NASA funding only, serving as a LEO taxi for NASA astronauts and their international partners.

Of course, and there's absolutely no problem with that! But I was using it to illustrate my point: HSF commercialization hasn't really been a "thing." All that's been commercialized is its transportation.

[sh1pman]

2 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

Of course, and there's absolutely no problem with that! But I was using it to illustrate my point: HSF commercialization hasn't really been a "thing." All that's been commercialized is its transportation.

Well, it's a start. If the goal is commercialization of HSF, especially in BLEO, then it’s better to have cheap heavy rockets, compared to one ridiculously expensive rocket that can launch once or twice a year. Hilton is less likely to spend $4 billion to launch their space hotel to the Moon than to spend whatever it costs to launch a reusable rocket by a company that previously developed a cheap rocket for NASA’s commercial Moon missions.
 

[tater]

I'm trying hard to make a use case for SLS in general (since it never got a mission FIRST, then a design that accomplished that mission), and the use case I find is as a big dumb booster for large mass, and particularly large volume cargoes (8.4m or even 10m dia is a big deal).

NASA had no other options when this process started in some respects, but they WERE aware of commercial crew (which was delayed partially because SLS poached some of their budget the first couple years). So I agree with criticizing "new space" fans who say it should have been SpaceX... yeah, no, SpaceX wasn't a thing then.

A better strategy would have been to leverage commercial crew. Commercial Crew is a service, but it's a contract, and that contract could have been done differently. It could have left an option for NASA to buy vehicles outright, or buy variants for BLEO work at some cost to be renegotiated. Vehicles get done for ISS, then after testing and cert, they get altered for BLEO EDL.

What mission is ideally suited for launch on SLS? Europa Clipper? Only because of direct trajectory (not required), not for any real reason. Are there any other gajillion dollar projects that require SLS?

All that said, I think that having some agility would help, not hurt the program. They should have realized a while ago that Orion was just not suited for SLS. They need a lighter CM, better SM.

They should have dumped block 1 entirely (before MLP was made for Block 1), and they should have gone right away to EUS and a cargo variant SLS, IMO.

Edited November 15, 2019 by tater

[jadebenn]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

Are there any other gajillion dollar projects that require SLS?

LUVOIR and the Boeing lander.

You're not going to see many more proposals until SLS Block 1B has flown and there's confidence it will be available in the future. Even LUVOIR has a less-capable EELV-sized backup design just in case.

[tater]

1 minute ago, jadebenn said:

LUVOIR and the Boeing lander.

You're not going to see many more proposals until SLS Block 1B has flown and there's confidence it will be available in the future. Even LUVOIR has a less-capable EELV-sized backup design just in case.

The former is also considering Starship, and the Boeing lander is not a mission (unless you are suggesting it launches and returns to Earth in 1 launch).

 

I could suggest that SLS launch some form of Gateway in 1 launch---so that Orion has someplace to go, to do nothing. That's not a mission.

[jadebenn]

Just now, tater said:

considering Starship

Considering? Yes. Baselining? No.