[New] Space Launch System / Orion Discussion Thread

[tater]

2 hours ago, jadebenn said:

Considering the person who I suspect, I find that highly unlikely. Besides, Congress -the "porkmasters"-  kept asking NASA why they were delaying and in-general forcing NASA to turn over info and come up with plans instead of allowing them to drag their feet. Plus: how does letting the entire shuttle workforce get laid-off and have to be replaced keep those constituents in jobs and happy? I wouldn't vote for someone who let me lose my job and get replaced by somebody else.

The Shuttle workforce would not have been used. SLS was never on schedule to quickly switch over, and the changes meant the Shuttle workforce was basically useless. Shuttle C? That would have used the Shuttle workforce.

There is some sense in which NASA fought against the true "Shuttle derived" concept, I think. By making enough changes, they sort of guaranteed that they could be shot of Shuttle. It's my understanding that some of the Marshall people were more in that camp (ie: make a NEW rocket, not a stripped down Shuttle). It was clear from where the money was earmarked (COTS/Commercial Crew, decreases, etc) that Congress wanted SLS, and they write the checks. Nothing NASA did (or could do) was gonna change that.

[jadebenn]

11 hours ago, tater said:

The Shuttle workforce would not have been used. SLS was never on schedule to quickly switch over, and the changes meant the Shuttle workforce was basically useless. Shuttle C? That would have used the Shuttle workforce.

In our world, where SLS development started (at-earliest) in 2010? No. No it could not. I agree. A loss, a big one, was inevitable. I think it could've been slightly smoother, but it was too late to try and save a big chunk of the Shuttle infrastructure by then. It would have to be rebuilt either way. In some other world, where Ares I wasn't a thing sucking all the oxygen out of Constellation, and development of a "skinny Ares V" started in the midst of the Bush administration? I think you could've transitioned things much more smoothly.

Shuttle-C was considered, and perhaps unduly rejected, but really, I think most of the advantage of Shuttle-C came from running it concurrently with the Shuttle program. I feel that side-mount was hard to justify in 2010 for the exact reasons given above. You were losing a big portion of the Shuttle industrial base either way. Why compromise your design to save a small portion of the already small portion that was left?

11 hours ago, tater said:

There is some sense in which NASA fought against the true "Shuttle derived" concept, I think. By making enough changes, they sort of guaranteed that they could be shot of Shuttle.

I feel that was more of a thing during the Constellation days, where NASA seemed absolutely convinced that Congress was going to swoop in and confine them to another 30 years in LEO if they didn't do everything in their power to make sure that once Shuttle was dead, it stayed dead. At the same time, that seemed to be achieved by doing stuff like knocking down shuttle-specific infrastructure at KSC well in advance of the program's end, such as the FSS+RSS at pad 39B, not laying off contractors that made parts for it.

11 hours ago, tater said:

It's my understanding that some of the Marshall people were more in that camp (ie: make a NEW rocket, not a stripped down Shuttle).

I have heard as much. A camp really wanted to go back to RP-1 and come up with something that would've probably looked closer to a Saturn V than an SLS. The capabilities were better than what the SDHLV group offered, but the SDHLV group countered that to pursue the kerolox option NASA would need to spend years developing a new RP-1 engine design and/or a production line, a new first stage (though it turned out the SDHLV people had to do that too), and ditch almost all of the Shuttle and Constellation infrastructure they'd been working on for the past years. Flat budgets being a thing, that would mean many, many, years of waiting, so the SDHLV option was chosen for having lower development costs (example: SLS 5-segs were basically free - Ares I had already paid for 'em) and less political risk.

It's easy to say that it would've been better, in light of the difficulties with SLS and the need to make so many changes to the basic Shuttle design, but I think it's fallacious to assume that just because one option wasn't perfect necessitates that the alternatives must have been better. I mean, in a world where the Shuttle had never been built, I'm certain you'd hear people singing the concept's praises and cursing NASA for never approving it.

Edited August 26, 2019 by jadebenn

[ZooNamedGames]

Perhaps this was already posted but here's a news report-

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/08/sls-engine-section-ready-final-core-mate/

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/stennis/news/NASA-Prepares-for-Green-Run-Testing

[Kerbal7]

What's the running total ($) on this Space Launch System / Orion Moon push?

I'm just wondering how many robots we could have sent to Titan with this money.

Are the methane oceans on Titan not "cool" enough?

[kerbiloid]

For this money Fedor would dig a whole launchpad trench on the Moon.

(Just would be supplied with a ton of expendable shovels.)

Edited August 27, 2019 by kerbiloid

[tater]

3 hours ago, Kerbal7 said:

What's the running total ($) on this Space Launch System / Orion Moon push?

I'm just wondering how many robots we could have sent to Titan with this money.

Are the methane oceans on Titan not "cool" enough?

SLS/Orion alone will have cost around 50 billion by the time they fly. Ignoring dev costs I expect that the marginal cost of SLS is likely around a billion, and the program costs are ~2.5 B$/year regardless of flights, so that makes every launch nominally ~3.5 billion (someday it can be just 1.75 B is they ever manage to fly 2 in one year!). All of that is minus anything related to Gateway/Artemis, so add more billions for that.

[ZooNamedGames]

7 hours ago, Kerbal7 said:

What's the running total ($) on this Space Launch System / Orion Moon push?

I'm just wondering how many robots we could have sent to Titan with this money.

Are the methane oceans on Titan not "cool" enough?

We're already going to Titan. See NASA's Dragonfly mission. 

[jadebenn]

4 hours ago, tater said:

SLS/Orion alone will have cost around 50 billion by the time they fly.

I'm gonna need a source on that. That'd be in the range of the Saturn V. Every analysis I've done of the two shows that, while SLS hardware costs are only about ~20%-30% lower than the the S-V, the SLS's development costs are much, much, lower, which is a conclusion that makes perfect sense considering how immature the technology was when the S-V was being developed.

4 hours ago, tater said:

I expect that the marginal cost of SLS is likely around a billion

Roughly, yeah. The GOA report on Europa Clipper gave it a price tag of about $0.9B. I calculate the Saturn V's marginal cost (adjusted for inflation) to be around $1.2B.

4 hours ago, tater said:

and the program costs are ~2.5 B$/year regardless of flights

The program costs are the big remaining mystery, actually. I don't think we have any official figures here. If we do, I haven't seen them.

We can make some estimates with a few assumptions. I think it's reasonable to assume that SLS figures are going to be less than Shuttle, because the SLS will fly less often and therefore the workforce will be smaller. However, the low flight rate also means that you're not getting great utilization out of said workforce, so the per-flight figure is gonna look worse because those will still be some pretty hefty fixed-costs.

So overall, I think it's a reasonable assumption that the total slice of the NASA "budget pie" devoted to SLS is going to be less than Shuttle, but still pretty big. I've heard some hearsay that NASA hopes they can get the whole SLS side of things down to a ~$3B/yr slice of the budget (the context I heard that in implies that includes SLS production, operations, and ground infrastructure, though I don't think Orion's in there). This roughly tracks with your figure, and that remark was phrased as a future goal, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's not true for the first couple of years.

4 hours ago, tater said:

All of that is minus anything related to Gateway/Artemis, so add more billions for that.

Gateway's pretty easy, and relatively "cheap" as far as hardware goes. The lander is the thing that everyone budgeting for Artemis should be losing sleep about. The two most likely possibilities I see are:

• Congress appropriates no lander money - NASA throws its hands in the air and continues to build Gateway while it waits for political winds to change. This is the realistic worst-case scenario.
• Congress appropriates lander money, but not as much as requested - NASA gets the lander eventually, but blows past the 2024 deadline. This one's not so bad, as while it means a longer wait, it also means that the hardware will be more mature once actual landings start happening. NASA might actually meet the original 2028 deadline under that plan (which I doubt would've happened otherwise).

Edited August 27, 2019 by jadebenn

[tater]

7 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

I'm gonna need a source on that. That'd be in the range of the Saturn V. Every analysis I've done of the two shows that, while SLS hardware costs are only about ~20%-30% lower than the the S-V, the SLS's development costs are much, much, lower, which is a conclusion that makes perfect sense considering how immature the technology was back then.

This has been published in literally every single article, ever about SLS costs to date. Orion and SLS are running about neck and neck, and I think as of a few years ago they were each around 17 B$. The system has continually been budgeted at billions per year (~4 these days), and that is not slowing. By the time crew climbs aboard Orion, it will certainly be well north of 40B$.

Edited August 27, 2019 by tater

[jadebenn]

Just now, tater said:

This has been published in literally every single article, ever about SLS costs to date. Orion and SLS are running about neck and neck, and I think as of a few years ago they were each around 17 B$. The system has continually been budgeted at billions per year, and that is not slowing. By the time crew climbs aboard Orion, it will certainly be well north of 40B$.

Wait, wait, wait. Are you talking about the development costs, or the sum of all the yearly appropriations? Because we might be talking past each-other here.

[tater]

12 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

Wait, wait, wait. Are you talking about the development costs, or the sum of all the yearly appropriations? Because we might be talking past each-other here.

Total cost.

At the time SLS/Orion flies, how much money will have been spent on the entire system since inception?

I'd add that we should then think about how we amortize that dev cost... over how many launches?

Shall we grant SLS/Orion 25 flights? 50?

So then annual program cost going forward might be only 2.5B$, plus 0.9B$ per flight (marginal), plus whatever figure we want to divide the dev cost by... if 25 flights, then add 2 B$ to each launch, and every single SLS launch at 1 per year costs 5.4B$. At 2/year that's only 4.15B$ each (a bargain!) You can knock a billion off each if you want to imagine SLS flies 50 times.

[AngrybobH]

45 minutes ago, tater said:

SLS flies 50 times

LOL

I'd wager the SLS doesn't fly more than 10 times if the program keeps going the way it is going and the fact that it does not appear the rocket has enough capabilities to warrant much more than that.

Don't get me wrong, I want to see my tax dollars the SLS fly and achieve it's mission goals. I just think in 10-15 years it will be obsolete and it will likely take 10-15 years to launch 10 of them.

[ZooNamedGames]

8 minutes ago, AngrybobH said:

LOL

I'd wager the SLS doesn't fly more than 10 times if the program keeps going the way it is going and the fact that it does not appear the rocket has enough capabilities to warrant much more than that.

Don't get me wrong, I want to see my tax dollars the SLS fly and achieve it's mission goals. I just think in 10-15 years it will be obsolete and it will likely take 10-15 years to launch 10 of them.

Just be cautious. Senators like using vehicles that are ready and built. It’s why the shuttle flew for as long as it did. And it wasn’t like the shuttle flew without superior competition- there were cheaper vehicles being flown (Delta, Atlas), etc etc. 

[AngrybobH]

1 minute ago, ZooNamedGames said:

And it wasn’t like the shuttle flew without superior competition- there were cheaper vehicles being flown

True. But, there is a lot more competition now(or at least will be) and the price difference seems to be significant.

[ZooNamedGames]

1 minute ago, AngrybobH said:

True. But, there is a lot more competition now(or at least will be) and the price difference seems to be significant.

Issue is SLS is man rated the moon. The only other comparable vehicle will (eventually) be SS/BFR and if it gets clustered with litigation, regulation and testing- it will leave SLS a long window before NASA will seriously consider it.

Assuming SLS is a money gravy train- those backing the gravy train will be for delaying any competition that would ruin the gravy. 

[Barzon]

Yes. SLS's only near term competitor is a combination of an upgraded Starliner, combined with ACES and in orbit refueling. Crew Starship is decades in the future.

[tater]

New Glenn is to be man rated (as is Vulcan).

F9 is already man rated.

Man rated is man rated. EoR is not any more risky than every single spaceflight for decades (nearly all of which have done EoR at ISS). There is also Crew Dragon, though like Starliner it would need a better SM (of course Orion needs a better SM, too, lol). Unlike Starliner, it might not need an entirely new heatshield, however.

Crew flights to the Moon are a thing not because we need them to be a thing, but because we have to find something for SLS to do, and for the foreseeable future the only payload is... Orion. SLS is the solution to the problem "What do we do with Orion?" And Orion is the solution to the problem: "What can we fly with SLS?"

Neither vehicle is the solution to the problem: "How can we land humans on the Moon?" since neither vehicle is actually capable of that mission. They'd need ~45 tons to TLI to replicate Apollo (else lighter spacecraft using modern materials).

Edited August 27, 2019 by tater

[mikegarrison]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

SLS is the solution to the problem "What do we do with Orion?" And Orion is the solution to the problem: "What can we fly with SLS?"

This is the fundamental issue.

[tater]

12 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

This is the fundamental issue.

Europa Clipper is another possible payload, to be sure.

That said, the basic problem with SLS from the start was that given nearly Shuttle level annual program costs (by design), and low flight cadence, with high marginal launch cost on top of that, what payloads can NASA afford to fly that justify a multi-billion dollar launch every year?

NASA doesn't have 1-2 multi-billion dollar payloads ready to fly every 6 months (assuming SLS can ever fly 2X a year), they just don't have the money for that, nor even for 1---unless the 1 is Orion (since it gets the same large check written).

If they wanted to maximize SLS utility (scientifically), they'd fly a huge space probe every year, either distantly with normal sized spacecraft using the huge C3 it has, or closer, with much larger payloads. No such projects have been started, of course.

Edited August 27, 2019 by tater

[tater]

 

[ZooNamedGames]

47 minutes ago, tater said:

New Glenn is to be man rated (as is Vulcan).

F9 is already man rated.

Man rated is man rated. EoR is not any more risky than every single spaceflight for decades (nearly all of which have done EoR at ISS). There is also Crew Dragon, though like Starliner it would need a better SM (of course Orion needs a better SM, too, lol). Unlike Starliner, it might not need an entirely new heatshield, however.

Crew flights to the Moon are a thing not because we need them to be a thing, but because we have to find something for SLS to do, and for the foreseeable future the only payload is... Orion. SLS is the solution to the problem "What do we do with Orion?" And Orion is the solution to the problem: "What can we fly with SLS?"

Neither vehicle is the solution to the problem: "How can we land humans on the Moon?" since neither vehicle is actually capable of that mission. They'd need ~45 tons to TLI to replicate Apollo (else lighter spacecraft using modern materials).

And can Vulcan match SLS? I’m not really factoring in NG since they haven’t even begun production (last I heard at least- I hope they’ve finally started). Even once both fly akin to Starliner, it’ll be a while, maybe a decade before they’re considered man rated by NASA- who will be the one operating these vehicles.

A big issue with EOR missions is that is extends required life support- which for such a long duration mission like going to the moon is a huge hit to its ability. What even is D2’s LS limit? Star liner? Orion? It takes a day just to get to the ISS. Which requires an additional day just to reach the vehicle, and additional time for your approach, alignment and then final docking. Then then time spent station keeping and preparing for the burn you would’ve done more than a day prior- if you didn’t stick around in LEO.

Also you claim SLS doesn’t have payloads in a later post but SLS has had payloads. Webb Telescope originally was a SLS payload. SLS also was going to launch an asteroid collection and return spacecraft to support the ARM program- but since NASA’s focused on SLS and Orion- they haven’t had much funds to spend on payloads. Besides- no LV means nothing that they can launch anyway. It’s easier to make a payload than a brand new SHLV. So once it’s flying, other payloads can (comparatively) be built quickly. 

[tater]

1 minute ago, ZooNamedGames said:

And can Vulcan match SLS? I’m not really factoring in NG since they haven’t even begun production (last I heard at least- I hope they’ve finally started). Even once both fly akin to Starliner, it’ll be a while, maybe a decade before they’re considered man rated by NASA- who will be the one operating these vehicles.

Do you just type stuff randomly?

It will not be a decade for them to be considered man rated. Vulcan will be what Starliner flies on as soon as it can (not sure which version it requires). It's being built man rated from the start, as is NG, though there is no crew payload for NG that we know of (I'd wager BO has one someplace, they had been working on a biconic capsule, previously).

No, they are not as big as SLS, but SLS isn't big enough to do anything useful, either. It;s far too big/expensive for LEO, and too small to do meaningful lunar missions itself (launch 2 of them a few days apart, and we're good, however---when do you expect that to be possible?).

1 minute ago, ZooNamedGames said:

A big issue with EOR missions is that is extends required life support- which for such a long duration mission like going to the moon is a huge hit to its ability. What even is D2’s LS limit? Star liner? Orion? It takes a day just to get to the ISS. Which requires an additional day just to reach the vehicle, and additional time for your approach, alignment and then final docking. Then then time spent station keeping and preparing for the burn you would’ve done more than a day prior- if you didn’t stick around in LEO.

EoR doesn't extend life support requirements, the crew flies last. They dock, then do TLI.

At 1/20th or 1/30th the price of an SLS launch, I think the issues with EoR architectures could be dealt with. You could fly 20 existing (or soon to exist) rockets to do the lunar mission for the less money than 1 SLS flight. Launch storable prop stages, and your lander stack. Have seats in the lander, crew transfers to lander for TLI (so they don't have neg gs). Stages dropped. There's a stage for the LOI burn, too. T

This is assuming the lunar surface is the goal (of course had that been the goal for SLS, we'd not be having this argument, because SLS would just do the mission---something it cannot do.

1 minute ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Also you claim SLS doesn’t have payloads in a later post but SLS has had payloads. Webb Telescope originally was a SLS payload. SLS also was going to launch an asteroid collection and return spacecraft to support the ARM program- but since NASA’s focused on SLS and Orion- they haven’t had much funds to spend on payloads. Besides- no LV means nothing that they can launch anyway. It’s easier to make a payload than a brand new SHLV. So once it’s flying, other payloads can (comparatively) be built quickly. 

ARM was a mission to nowhere for Orion. It was what we have now, but another LV would send a craft to grab a sample off an asteroid, then bring it near the Moon so Orion crew could EVA and take it inside. For reasons. (instead of doing what other sample returns do, and just bring it to Earth).

JWST is poor salesmanship, full stop. It's another train wreck. The fact that even delayed it is not an SLS launch is telling. If it had been designed for a much, much larger fairing (Block 2), it would have been easier, too. They had such little confidence in SLS, they made it fit in a tiny, 5m fairing (no need for SLS).

Other payloads CANNOT be built quickly, did you not understand what I wrote? Other payloads that require a multi-BILLION dollar launch, themselves cost multiple billions. You don;t fly a 100 M$ spacecraft on a 3 billion+ LV. NASA simply doesn't have the budget to make a 5+ billion dollar probe every year or two (that's the min required for SLS to be worth using, the payload should exceed launch cost).

 

[tater]

22 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Perhaps this was already posted but here's a news report-

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/08/sls-engine-section-ready-final-core-mate/

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/stennis/news/NASA-Prepares-for-Green-Run-Testing

That second link is interesting. The replica is presumably pretty expensive (can you buy 8.4 meter pipe off the shelf?).

So they have a structural test replica they used for one test, that looks sorta like a real core stage, then they also have this, separate boilerplate item. Why not use the one for both? Likely 2 different companies (in different States, I'd wager) made them.

[ZooNamedGames]

2 hours ago, tater said:

That second link is interesting. The replica is presumably pretty expensive (can you buy 8.4 meter pipe off the shelf?).

So they have a structural test replica they used for one test, that looks sorta like a real core stage, then they also have this, separate boilerplate item. Why not use the one for both? Likely 2 different companies (in different States, I'd wager) made them.

Ones likely more of a shape test using whatever materials was in hardware stores- the other has likely accurate/correct mounting points manufacturing and materials. Just lacking flight hardware. 

Also depending on your source- that can be easier than it appears. Such as submarine yards, aircraft fuselage manufacturers, or as SpaceX proved, water tank manufacturers.

[tater]

2 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Ones likely more of a shape test using whatever materials was in hardware stores- the other has likely accurate/correct mounting points manufacturing and materials. Just lacking flight hardware. 

Also depending on your source- that can be easier than it appears. Such as submarine yards, aircraft fuselage manufacturers, or as SpaceX proved, water tank manufacturers.

True, but the water tank guys are building an actual rocket, after all.

If the cost of the "replica" used even approaches the cost of a retail launch (10s of millions), we've been had (we being the taxpayers). Given that I read a news article that a rural level crossing for our choo-choo here costs 10 M$, the replica costing as much as a rocket launch would not surprise me.