jadebenn

Seems like NASA is still waffling on whether to kill the green run or not: My bet? They'll go for it, because if EM-1 fails to perform correctly after launch because they skipped the test, the delay and cost to the program will be a lot worse than if they'd just gone ahead with it.

I knew the Ars comment section was cancerous, but, this one's a new low. I had to bow out after reading a group of commenters hoping that the rocket blows up 39B and destroys the entire pad just because it'd kill the program. Let me reiterate: they were cheering at the possibility that EM-1 destroys 39B and the rocket. They hate the program that much. Like, I get people dislike it, but to actively root for it's failure? That's low.

Well, what else would you call an unmanned Orion other than cargo? But I digress. I found this video of a mock-up of the interior of the Orion capsule earlier today. It's fairly old and might have been discussed here, but I'm really surprised at seeing how big the interior is. I mean, sure, it's no shuttle, but when you fold those chairs down and out of the way, it's about the size of a small room. Like, judging by the distance between the cameraman and the person he's talking to, maybe about 75% of the area of my dorm. Much, much, bigger than the Apollo capsule's interior. Helps explain why Orion's so much heavier than the commerical LEO capsules, at least.

Throwing the NSF forum under the bus a bit, but this is the poll I was referring to: Yeah. Honestly, the NSF forums are great until someone mentions the word "SLS," whereupon things like this happen. If I was more of a jerk, I'd maybe make a poll with the title, "How badly do you think those SLS polls will age in a few years?" But I'm not that bitter about it. I'm just bitter enough to vent about it on another website entirely. So, you know, just mostly bitter.

There are quite a few people on the sites I frequent who would seriously claim that. My first post on the NASASpaceFlight forums (which I made last week or so) was actually me being incensed that the BFR won a super-majority on a poll of whether the BFR or SLS would fly first. I'd lurked on the site for years before that point, but that poll result flabbergasted me so much I felt like I had to make a post expressing my displeasure at it. I'd argue that EM-2 will fly first as well, but I can at least get why someone might believe the BFR may fly manned before the SLS does. I don't share that opinion, but I understand it. But the idea that the flight of EM-1 will somehow get beaten by the BFR when the SLS is being assembled is really, really, absurd at this juncture. Barring some huge unexpected catastrophe, there's no way that'll happen.

They're getting ready to mate the LH2 tank to the forward assembly. To save time, they're switching from vertical to horizontal integration for this step, and they're also doing it "out of order." Article Link The final assembly with the engines will still need to be done vertically, and there are some other parts they actually will have to hold off on doing until they go vertical again, but they're hoping they'll save them a few months, since they won't have to wait on the engine section to be ready. With these assembly changes, they're betting on the core stage being done by the end of the year. Strangely, none of the people who proclaim the BFR will fly before the SLS will take me up on my offer of a wager once I point this out. (To be fair to them, that's usually because they were unaware the flight hardware for SLS was actually already produced. One even seemed to change their mind after seeing that picture.)

On one hand: RIP 2020. On the other hand: the chances of EM-1 blowing up on the pad have drastically gone down. So, eh. I'm glad they were objective about it at least. Launch fever isn't a good thing. If you do a genuine analysis and it says you shouldn't skip the test, you shouldn't skip the test.

Half-agree. There are technical reasons, like this, that show why sticking with SRBs was suboptimal, but I think it's justifiable in the case of the SLS when it really wasn't for the shuttle. With the return to conventional stacking, a Challenger-like scenario occuring on the SLS would only result in the loss of the rocket, not the crew. We know that on the shuttle, all of the crew were most likely alive in the intact crewed orbiter section after the explosion, and we know for certain from some adjusted dials and switches that a few were conscious (though hopefully not until the very end, because that's a horrifying thought). The deaths of all crew members only occurred once the severed shuttle's crew cabin hit the water. If it had been a conventional stacked-capsule system like the SLS, the capsule would've been able to detach, and the crew would've been safely pulled clear of the ensuing explosion. Without a compromised design like the side-mounted shuttle, the safety factor of SRBs is not any more of an issue than with conventional liquid-fuelled rockets. There are technical reasons they're still somewhat suboptimal on manned rockets, but when it comes to safety, they're really not any more-or-less safe than liquid-fuelled boosters in that scenario. Just something that you need to design around.

You remember how I said the Orion MPCV was still saddled with lots of design decisions from its days on the Ares I? This is one of them. Turns out that when your entire first stage was supposed to be an SRB that can't be turned off, you needed to design a pretty beefy LES to be capable of outrunning it. I'm not sure if it was intentionally kept around after the demise of the Ares I because being able to outrun a flaming SRB is still advantageous from a safety perspective on the SLS, but it's there, one way or another.

Right, yeah. What I'm trying to articulate though, is that I'm willing to speculate that Block 2 configuration you linked would not meet the 130 mT requirement. I've heard credible rumors that the dropping of the 5th RS-25 and the J-2X upper stage early on in the SLS program meant that some sort of supplement would be required in the future in order to beef up Block 2. Thus, they may be re-designating what they were recently calling Block 2 as Block 1B enhanced (since it doesn't make that figure), and pushing out the new Block 2 further into the future, with a new upper stage or side-mounted LRBs so that it does meet the 130 mT payload requirement. Y'know, if it's ever built. It's just speculation, but it would explain why the BOLE document referred to the SLS configuration with their boosters as Block 1B enhanced instead of just calling it Block 2. That seems too intentional to just be an oversight or mistake.

I think it's a bit premature to declare IB dead. I know the President's initial budget request didn't include the EUS, but that budget request is completely out-of-date now that the 2024 moon program goal's been announced. I wouldn't be surprised if the amended request (which will pop up sometime soon) has it back, as well as additional funding requests for the various lunar systems that now need to be thrown into full-gear. It ultimately comes down to Congress, though. They are free to listen to or ignore these budget requests at their sole discretion. They might fund an EUS even though it's not in the proposal. Or (hypothetically), they might kill it even though NASA asks for it. If past experience shows, odds are pretty good that Block IB will emerge unscathed. EDIT: You know, if I may speculate, it may be that the reason that they make a distinction between SLS Block IB enhanced and SLS Block II may be because even with these BOLE SRBs, they might still be short of the payload mandate for Block II. That would fit with what I've heard elsewhere: That the Block II's capacity suffered a lot because of the decision to drop the 5th RS-25E on the core pretty early on into the program.

I thought so too, but the report I linked kept calling it Block IB enhanced, so I figure they probably know something I don't. They considered that plan. It turned out that it'd delay the first SLS launch until 2023 or so, mainly because the EUS is so behind schedule. Any delays from man-rating ICPS are going to be peanuts compared to that. Ultimately, I think that's kind of the contradiction at the heart of the SLS's problems. With the role it's grown into (basically a slightly smaller Ares V), it probably would've been better to have done a clean-sheet design and not be shackled by the shuttle's limitations. But with the role it started with (keep the shuttle industrial base alive and minimize the transition time), sticking with the shuttle hardware was undoubtedly the way to go. Since it tried to do both, it ended up doing neither very well. Although I will say that it's doing a lot better in the "be a heavy launcher" realm than it ever did in the "don't let the shuttle industrial base dry up" one. The latter... didn't really pan out. At all.

It'll probably take a little less than 33 months with an all-new ML-2. Much easier to build new than to dismantle an existing ML, re-route all the pipes and wires, add your new stuff, and put it back together. Let's not forget that the current SLS ML-1 is actually the Ares I's. It had to be heavily modified and is now overweight because it wasn't originally designed to handle a rocket as bighuge as the SLS. A new SLS ML-2 wouldn't suffer from those issues.

Also, I'd like to add, the complete turnaround in regards to usage of the SLS Block I has some interesting effects on the likely design for SLS Block IB. Since it's looking more and more like Block I will be the main variant of the SLS (at least for the next 4-5 years or so), most, if not all, of the shuttle legacy parts are going to be depleted by the time Block IB comes into service. Stuff like the SRB casings and the old SSMEs have replacements lined up if course, and for the SSMEs in particular, I believe they're already in production, but the original plan had the Block IB flying for several years using this extraneous STS hardware, and a full switch to new SLS hardware only occurring with the Block II. Now it's looking more like IB will maybe fly one or two times with the old STS stuff before they run out. Basically: the transition date's moved up. An interesting possiblity this opens up is an "early switch" so to speak. NASA may decide that it'd be more efficient to design Block IB to fly with the more advanced replacements from the beginning, instead of switching halfway through. This is speculation, but such a plan might allow some optimization of the Block IB design work. The remaining shuttle hardware would either be used up on the final launches of the Block I or placed back into storage. The new, better-performing hardware would be used to give Block IB a bigger 'kick.' Now, many of you may have read that neat little discussion a few pages back about the advanced boosters plan made when Block IA was the successor to Block I. Still, let me restate what happened with that just to make it clearer. The original plan for the SLS was an upgrade path called Block IA. Block IA was essentially Block I, but with the solids replaced with an advanced booster design. The first of the two contenders for those boosters was Rocketdyne's proposal. They proposed to replace the SRBs with an F1 derivative powered by RP-1 strap-on tanks. The second proposal was that of Orbital ATK. They proposed to stick with solids, but use a better, more powerful design they christened the "Dark Knight," named such due to its distinctive black appearance thanks to its more advanced materials. The primary advantage of Rocketdyne's proposal was power. The F1-B strap-on would undeniably make the SLS Block IA the most powerful rocket ever made. SLS performance issues would cease to be an issue. There were disadvantages however, namely in the fact that it would require significant modifications to the launch infrastructure at KSC, including (but not limited to), the pad, VAB, and mobile launcher. The primary advantage of Orbital ATK's proposal was backwards compatibility. For the same reason Rocketdyne's proposal would've been difficult, ATK's would've been easy. The disadvantage was that the Dark Knights, while significantly more powerful than their predecessors, weren't going to meet the requirements for SLS Block II. Ultimately, it was a moot question. After some deliberation, NASA decided that neither proposal would be used then, and that the Block IB development path would be easier than that of the Block IA. The advanced boosters upgrade would be deferred indefinitely. With the Dark Knights out of the running, Orbital ATK could still capitalize on their engineering work. Their new engine design was solid (pun not intended), but there was room for refinement. As part of their work on OmegA, they made a new SRB design, one that shared an old name, but is undoubtedly new. They called it CASTOR-1200. Still with me? We're almost done. Okay, so, now that the SLS is looking into the advanced boosters again, Orbital ATK (now part of Northrop-Grumman) submitted a new proposal for the Booster End-of-Life Extension (BOLE), and it knocks the Dark Knights out of the water. The new boosters would allow a payload performance of roughly 45 mT to TLI with the SLS Block IB, which is basically on-par with the Saturn V! Needless to say, this would be a substantial increase in the Block IB's performance (and, IMO, another nail in the Block II's coffin). Ultimately, it might end up that the SLS Block IB surpasses the Saturn V, if this all goes to plan. If any of you are super-nerds like me, you can find more info about the new boosters here

It all comes down to funding. At their current levels? Not happening. If Congress pitches in the extra dosh NASA asks for when they send in their modified 2020 budget request? Difficult, but possible. They gotta move fast though. Assuming they get the money, they really only have the remaining 7 months or so of this year to finalize design work before they need to start bending metal. The good news is that they've got a head-start - a lot of the Constellation design stuff can be reused here. But they can't treat it as business as usual. They're going to need to be lean, efficient, and quick about this. Basically, I think it's possible. But I wouldn't bet on 5 years. Even with the right funding and motivation, it might take longer than that. Still, I'm cautiously optimistic about this. I think a goal like this is exactly what NASA needs to get its excrements together. I suppose we'll see.

I'd like to correct some things here tater, as your info's slightly out-of-date. The best thing to happen to the SLS program in a long time has been the decision to switch from the 33-month rehab plan for the Block I mobile launcher you're speaking of, to a new plan where they instead just build a new mobile launcher for Block IB. This is the reason that many of the Block IB missions have been moved to Block I - that mandatory gap you're speaking of no longer exists, so Block I can launch more than once without pushing Block IB back. If this moon push all goes to plan, you should see them begin construction on said second mobile launcher fairly soon, coupled with a retooling of the EUS to optimize it for TLI. Block I will likely be the main workhorse for this initiative (so much for it being an "Interim" Cryogenic Propulsion Stage), but I think they're hoping they can at least have Block IB ready by the final year or so of it, which would really help with re-stocking the reusable lander down the line.

If EM-1 was a flyby it could do it on a free-return trajectory. But I don't think EM-1 is a lunar flyby anymore.

I think that's because the engineers knew the Block 1 had a much higher stated capacity than they made publicly available for a long time. Remember, that 70 mT figure was the Congressionally mandated minimum, and was really the figure you'd get by sticking with the 4-seg SRBs and non-stretched core. Once Block 0 - aka "Stumpy" - got thrown out in the early days of the SLS program, they were basically guaranteed to get a figure higher than that.

If we need Ares V launch capability, Block 2 can theoretically do that. Though like I said earlier, even if the other SLS variants end up living a long, happy, productive service life, I wouldn't count on Block 2 ever being built, mainly because the jump between them is so big. You know how SLS Block I turned out to be about 25 mT stronger than it was originally supposed to be (largely due to the aforementioned mods that sunk DIRECT)? Well Block 2 as currently designed has the opposite problem. Thanks to the changes made to I and IB, just slapping some better solids on the side ain't gonna cut it anymore. You'll need a new upper stage or something better than solids (like those F1Bs) to hit that 130 mT figure now, and that means you'll need to mod the VAB, MLP, and launchpad appropriately. It's a lot bigger of a jump than moving from Block I to IB, and even that was looking pretty sketchy for a while. To be honest, the limited payload is kind of a blessing in disguise for the lunar program? Stay with me here. The SLS's margins mean the Gateway is necessary for moon landings, which means NASA has a hell of an easier time justifying why it needs funding for permanent lunar infrastructure to Congress. If we had the full capacity of the Ares V or an SLS Block 2 available right now, it'd be hard to resist the temptation to pull off another "flags and footprints" mission like Apollo, and then we could be waiting another few decades for a return depending on how commercial space shakes out. With LOP-G, while it's not as efficient from a pure financial perspective, you're "tangling-up" the politics enough that it's going to be a sustained thing. You have the commercial companies who will be launching supply missions to it, you have the international partners who want to see their money in use, you have the contractors that are building modules for it, etc. It's a lot like the ISS in that regard: even if it's just a target, its existence stimulates demand that wouldn't otherwise exist. There are probably figures out there, but considering the state of the program when it was cancelled... I wouldn't put too much stock into them. Around SLS sounds about right. The Ares I in particular would've suffered a lot from essentially being made redundant with COTS; there's a reason that an ISS-oriented SLS was considered for, at most, half-a-year into the project's development before being unceremoniously dropped (which once again ties into the DIRECT thing, but I digress). Fair point, and we have the benefit of hindsight, but I can't see a future where it would've worked out. Even without NASA's assistance, the commercial space market was really beginning to heat up. For all the criticism of SLS, it at least has something that other rockets can't replicate right now. Ares I would not be so lucky, assuming it was ever built. They didn't know this at the time, of course, so I can't be too harsh on them, but in the end it was always going to be a doomed rocket. I think what the HSF division of NASA is terrified of more than anything is being confined to LEO once again. They accepted it after Saturn, and they did a lot of cool stuff in there, but everything I "get" from them shows that they consider it to be used-up at this point. They've done pretty much everything they wanted to do there, and learned pretty much anything they wanted to learn. And they did learn things. NASA's a hell of a lot better at stations now than they used to be for example, and you can basically thank their cooperation with the Russians on the ISS for that. But they're tired of being limited to Earth science, and I can't really blame them. I mean, honestly, if you look at some of the last shuttle missions, we were really starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel on "scientific LEO stuff we can justify needing humans to do." The current plans for LOP-G suggest to me that NASA is interested in trying out the principles of refueling tech and re-usable orbital architecture. I just think they're scared of doing it in LEO because then Congress might ask the question, "Well, why are we funding this BEO platform then?" OmegA? Is that some kind of supplement? Well no thanks, I already had my vitamins today. Nah but in all seriousness, for a platform that's basically "here's our leftover spaceship parts put together," it's a pretty neat and practical idea. Just... not a very interesting one. Perhaps I should've clarified. It's not so much the use of SRBs that boggles me with the Ares I, it's the exclusive use of them (or, it, rather). When you've got a beefy core stage with a poor initial TWR, SRBs make a lot of sense. Having "thrust-in-a-can" is insanely useful for launch, and on sensibly-designed platforms, they pose little additional risk over liquid rockets. Key phrase being "sensibly designed," of course. So why NASA would ever want to make an orbital spacecraft that's entirely reliant on an SRB initial stage escapes me. That's using none of their advantages for all of their downsides! This is probably one of the times where I'd honestly accept, "because we wouldn't get funding without using SRBs," as the most logical answer. Huh... yeah, I basically agree with you here. The tech behind Starship isn't crazy or unrealistic. My hangup has always been its business plan. It reminds me a little too much of the shuttle when a platform's promising low, low, prices predicated on the assumption that it can handle a bazillion launches per year and bring costs down due to reusability. I get the two aren't really that comparable technically, but that kind of business plan makes me nervous nonetheless, because there's a lot of ways it might not work out. I don't think that's an entirely accurate assessment. You're correct when you say that (compared to optimum), the SLS core stage is over-sized and doesn't have a lot of thrust, but trust me on this: the boosters burn long enough. Think of the SLS core as a 1.5 stage rocket. It's got a huge sustainer stage coupled with two "thrust-in-a-cans" to get it off the pad, and that core stage burns for a long time, doing the work of what would be two stages in most rockets. If you want to make the architecture better, you basically either strap something bigger with tons of thrust onto it instead of the SRBs (like that Dynetics F1B proposal), or you stick a bigger stage on the top, possibly above the already-existing one. Both of these options were at one point considered by the mainline program, and the fact that we're stuck with either an Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage that's no longer looking very "interim," or an Exploration Upper Stage that will either disappear or be refined into what would be more accurately labelled a "Lunar Insertion Stage," is really an accident of history. Basically, the upper stage is really the bottleneck right now - and it's not an easy fix.

True. I should've clarified that they're generalist for the things NASA wanted to do. That was part of their political gambit. A president's a lot less likely to saddle you to LEO when your rocket's optimized for BEO, but at the same time you want it to be general enough that the cancellation of a specific goal (Do Mars! No, do asteroid! No, do Moon!) doesn't kill off the whole thing, like how the end of Apollo killed off the Saturn. Again, I fundamentally agree with you here, but NASA was working with what they felt was the political reality. Too big, and the rocket gets cancelled if there's not a big enough goal to go along with it. Too small, and you're stuck in LEO for the foreseeable future. They went with the biggest rocket they felt they could get political approval for, which had to be unwieldy enough to stay out of LEO, but not too big for Congress to get sticker shock (that would come later, when they were already invested in the program). I mean, Constellation really needed to go. Maybe there was something worth salvaging in the Ares V, but I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone thought the design of the Ares I was a good idea. Not only was it screwing up the other components of the plan (the modern Orion MPCV is still saddled with a lot of its legacy), it was just a really, really, dumb concept. Why use a solid for your first stage? They're great for ICBMs, or when you need a bit extra thrust, but they're terrible for manned flight, especially when they're on their own! I agree that the SLS is a flawed program, but I think it has its uses. My view of its utility mainly comes from my intense skepticism over commercial SHLV capability. I'd be happy to be proven wrong on this point, I assure you, but I just don't see it happening anywhere near as soon as they say it will. I'd rather not derail the thread by explaining every minute detail of why I feel this way, so let me just do the abridged version: Until we have a commercial SHLV flying, I do not feel comfortable cancelling the SLS. I'm fine with giving LEO over to the likes of SpaceX, but I don't think they're ready for BEO yet. Eh, crew-cargo integration has its uses, mainly in massively simplifying mission planning. The main reason why it was so taboo to do for the shuttle was because in all honesty the shuttle was a deathtrap (comparatively, at the very least). It's different when you're not talking about putting the cargo in the same vehicle as the crew, just the same rocket. For example, putting the lunar lander on the Saturn V actually saved lives compared to launching separately. But yeah. I see your point, and I can see the utility in a non-man-rated Shuttle-C coupled with a proto-COTS program. Though assuming current trends would've held, we still would've seen a large gap in human launch capability. But we wouldn't have lost the shuttle industrial base, so that's a pretty big deal. Eh. Maybe. It would've been a heckuva lot cheaper operationally and R&D than the SLS, but I think the launch cadence might've suffered just because it'd become harder to find things to do with it. We wouldn't be able to talk about the Moon missions right now, for example, and it'd be harder to justify in a world where commercial space can clearly handle LEO operations. I guess it really depends on how extensible the DIRECT platform would be. Could we get SLS-like payload figures without sacrificing the lower cost, perhaps by stacking enough upper stages, or through other incremental upgrades? Maybe. It's kind of pointless to discuss now that the STS industrial base is gone, though.

Issue with Shuttle-C was being saddled with that side-mounted design. Fine for cargo, but not something I'd want to stick with for manned considering how conclusively the shuttle program showed that to be a bad idea. I mean, it'd still be safer than shuttle, because at least then you can stick an LES on the capsule, but long-term, moving back to top-mounted was definitely the way to go. I don't actively dislike the SLS like a lot of people in the space community do, but I can especially understand why the DIRECT people loathe it. Their idea was compromised the second NASA decided to switch to 5-segment SRBs. That set off a domino effect, where then they needed to strengthen the core stage, and then since they were already re-designing the core stage they may as well stretch it, and oh hey let's add another engine to the core as well while we're doing that, and so-on and so-forth until the resultant product was barely shuttle-derived at all. Thus, SLS failed at the job the DIRECT people wanted it to do, and as a consequence it burnt a lot of them on NASA permanently.

Folks, let me elucidate you all on the sad story of a project known as DIRECT. The idea was simple, and may sound familiar: build a new heavy lifter out of old shuttle parts to minimize downtime in-between the shuttle transition. It was basically an engineer revolt from inside NASA against the (ill-fated) Ares I and V rockets of the Constellation program. DIRECT is similar to SLS, and in many ways was the program's "father," but it was distinct from the end-product in a number of ways. The primary motivation behind DIRECT was to close the launch gap. The shuttles were going. It had already been decided and no-one wanted to revisit that. However, the promise of DIRECT was that the majority of the shuttle workforce and infrastructure could be retained. This is a big deal: any more than a few years downtime and a large amount of that knowledge just goes away as people retire or move onto new jobs. DIRECT was supposed to prevent this. Here's how: This rocket, known as Jupiter, is basically just a shuttle rocket, minus the... y'know, shuttle. Very little modification. The biggest change would be moving the three SSMEs to the bottom of the external tank and flattening its top. The resulting rocket would be highly capable, with a payload capacity of about 70 mT to LEO per launch. Hey, wait a minute! Doesn't that number sound familiar? Don't worry, I'm getting to that. When the Obama administration canceled Constellation, NASA and Congress freaked out. Eventually, with the help of the DIRECT people, a compromise was reached. Orion was "un-cancelled" and Congress wrote the goals of the DIRECT program (more-or-less) into law. They called the resulting rocket the Space Launch System, or SLS for short. Feeling satisfied, DIRECT disbanded. They didn't get everything they wanted, but they felt pretty good about this new "SLS" thing. After all, it seemed to follow the principles they had set out that would allow maximum commonality with shuttle equipment and minimize the gap between the shuttle program and its successor. What could go wrong? Well, uh, NASA management interpreted this act far differently than they intended, and the result was essentially a fusion between the original vision for DIRECT and the canceled Ares V. Unfortunately this brought about the exact situation DIRECT was meant to avoid, and well... let's just say that most ex-DIRECT people you'll find won't have very nice things to say about the SLS.

If they ever get to Block 2, they'll have to switch from SRBs anyway if they want to meet their payload target. Would be nice to see this a variant of this proposal revived: I wouldn't hold my breath, though. Even if the other SLS variants have a long and successful career, I have severe doubts Block 2 will ever fly.

It's no conspiracy. It's politics. Back when Obama was pushing ARM, NASA made the decision to basically do what you're saying: 'skip' Block I in favor of Block IB. Unfortunately, they were told to keep EM-1, so they compromised on doing one Block I mission then switching over (which IMO is the worst of both worlds, but whatever). Five years later, and thanks to this new aggressive schedule, it looks like Block I is going to be the real workhorse of the fleet, and Block IB's future is uncertain. A complete reversal over just five years! Seems like a lot of time, but it's really not that long at all when you're dealing with literal rocket science. This is why a lot of people bang on about having clearly-defined mission goals: because then you don't have to deal with a rocket constantly in flux. But the politics don't let you, because if you specifically build a moon rocket and the next guy doesn't want to go to the moon, welp, there goes your moon rocket. Thus NASA overbuilds generalist rockets that can be adapted to fit the politics, because it's the only way they can get anything built at all.

I like Bridenstine a lot. Guy's got an actual enthusiasm for his job. He's reasonably adept at navigating changing political winds, which is a plus. I don't always see eye-to-eye with him, but he's grown on me. It's nice to have a NASA administrator put so much effort into everything he does. If Trump gets booted out of office in the next election, I hope whoever replaces him asks Bridenstine to not tender a resignation and to stay on NASA during the next administration.