Should NASA cancel Block II SLS?

[Bill Phil]

Here's the thing: if NASA fails, they get punished. If they succeed, they also get punished. But lightly, and of course they get a good pat on the back.

[RocketSquid]

They could potentially commercialize it, get somebody else to build payloads and pay to use the SLS.

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, RocketSquid said:

They could potentially commercialize it, get somebody else to build payloads and pay to use the SLS.

Only problem is that it's not useful commercially.

[Bill Phil]

20 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Only problem is that it's not useful commercially.

True... Maybe if they could scale it down and then put a bunch of commercial payloads on it.

[DerekL1963]

3 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Maybe if they could scale it down and then put a bunch of commercial payloads on it.

The federal government is not allowed to compete with private industry.

[fredinno]

12 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

True... Maybe if they could scale it down and then put a bunch of commercial payloads on it.

That would require enormous changes- SRBs, unlike LRBs, need a lot more work to reduce down or up in segments (shown in the switch from 4 to 5 segs).

The SSMEs are too expensive to use in any commercial rocket, and there would likely need to be a diameter change- otherwise, the rocket would be too wide. Two things the Energia-M did not have a problem with. It's possible to remove the SRBs entirely, but that often ends up in an expensive rocket per kg.

And at that point, it'd be an entirely different rocket.

Edited February 15, 2016 by fredinno

[Bill Phil]

9 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

The federal government is not allowed to compete with private industry.

Yeah I know. It's supposed to "create" competition for the private industry.

1 minute ago, fredinno said:

That would require enormous changes- SRBs, unlike LRBs, need a lot more work to reduce down or up in segments (shown in the switch from 4 to 5 segs).

The SSMEs are too expensive to use in any commercial rocket, and there would likely need to be a diameter change- otherwise, the rocket would be too wide.

And at that point, it'd be an entirely different rocket.

I was thinking more of a smaller second stage and a smaller core, cutting off some length, which would actually solve a problem, as in it lowers the pressure of the intake to the SSMEs, which are currently outside performance, unless they managed to solve it in the last few months. And they want 10 tons of extra payload and the SSMEs aren't identical. As in the design is not very smart, and it's drowning in beauracracy.

Seriously, though, some SSMEs can't throttle as high and others can't throttle as much in either direction.

[fredinno]

9 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Yeah I know. It's supposed to "create" competition for the private industry.

I was thinking more of a smaller second stage and a smaller core, cutting off some length, which would actually solve a problem, as in it lowers the pressure of the intake to the SSMEs, which are currently outside performance, unless they managed to solve it in the last few months. And they want 10 tons of extra payload and the SSMEs aren't identical. As in the design is not very smart, and it's drowning in beauracracy.

Seriously, though, some SSMEs can't throttle as high and others can't throttle as much in either direction.

Yeah, you're describing Block I SLS, which is still OP at 70T to LEO. And the use of the Shuttle SSMEs are to save money, like the use of leftover Apollo hardware for Skylab, though it DOES cause difficulties sometimes.

[lugge]

SLS cannot be used for customer payloads

- as someone mentioned, NASA must not compete with private suppliers

- even if they were allowed, they cannot compete, they could never lower their prices like private companies

- what customers do you know in need of such a huge payload capacity? weather sats?

SLS also cannot be downgraded. It was mentioned a couple of times, but here again: you have to put THIS MUCH work in the rocket, you never get this paid off. And if you did, you would end up with a completely different rocket.

It's not like KSP were you take your rocket, strap or remove some boosters, add a little bit of fuel...

SLS is a dead-end.

 

Edited February 15, 2016 by lugge

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, lugge said:

SLS cannot be used for customer payloads

- as someone mentioned, NASA must not compete with private suppliers

- even if they were allowed, they cannot compete, they could never lower their prices like private companies

- what customers do you know in need of such a huge payload capacity? weather sats?

SLS also cannot be downgraded. It was mentioned a couple of times, but here again: you have to put THIS MUCH work in the rocket, you never get this paid off. And if you did, you would end up with a completely different rocket.

It's not like KSP were you take your rocket, strap or remove some boosters, add a little bit of fuel...

SLS is a dead-end.

 

SLS is actually the only way you can make lemonade out of lemons, making the Shuttle into a HLV (the actual rocket used for the Shuttle was already a HLV)

SLS isn't really a dead end- more it's being built at a time when it's not really useful.

[Dr.K Kerbal]

Hell no. The SLS is an amazing rocket! It is actually more powerful than the Saturn 5 rocket. Dude. If there is any rocket you should cancel, it'smmodel rocketry. I hope the government decides to give everyone a huge scale model of the SLS. Then, we can attach go-pros onto the ship and if the SLS's are big enough, well then, I want mine to be the first in a polar orbit!

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

On 2/12/2016 at 4:22 PM, Bill Phil said:

I was under the impression that Block II was effectively cancelled, but not officially.

That was Bock 1b

[wumpus]

On 2/12/2016 at 0:59 PM, fredinno said:

Your proposal would not work- it would only fuel conspiracy theorists, and anyone can easily tell if a rocket actually goes into Orbit or not.

Well they could blow it up and say "oops, it exploded".  It might cause a budget hiccup, but not so much.

The point of my post was that there are clear legal reasons that NASA doesn't have any say over how budgets are spent (at least in buckets of $100,000,000).  Congresscritters will hear the squealing the moment the properly connected don't get their pork.

[PacThePhoenix]

Can someone explain to me in layman's terms exactly what a 'block' is? Is it just another version of a rocket or something else?

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, PacThePhoenix said:

Can someone explain to me in layman's terms exactly what a 'block' is? Is it just another version of a rocket or something else?

It's something like "model years" are for cars, a way of identifying a particular configuration or performance level or whatever.

[fredinno]

11 hours ago, Dr.K Kerbal said:

Hell no. The SLS is an amazing rocket! It is actually more powerful than the Saturn 5 rocket. Dude. If there is any rocket you should cancel, it'smmodel rocketry. I hope the government decides to give everyone a huge scale model of the SLS. Then, we can attach go-pros onto the ship and if the SLS's are big enough, well then, I want mine to be the first in a polar orbit!

I'm referring to the Block II version- having a HLV is great, but if you can't use it due to lack of money...

6 hours ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

That was Bock 1b

No, Block IB is the primary block for the near future- Block IA, however, was cancelled.

Block IIB, Block 0, Block III, etc, where all looked at, but are not being built.

4 hours ago, wumpus said:

Well they could blow it up and say "oops, it exploded".  It might cause a budget hiccup, but not so much.

The point of my post was that there are clear legal reasons that NASA doesn't have any say over how budgets are spent (at least in buckets of $100,000,000).  Congresscritters will hear the squealing the moment the properly connected don't get their pork.

No, because people will start demanding the money is spent elsewhere if a rocket keeps exploding.

3 hours ago, PacThePhoenix said:

Can someone explain to me in layman's terms exactly what a 'block' is? Is it just another version of a rocket or something else?

It's just versions of a rocket- Block I is the smallest, Block II is the largest.

[Bill Phil]

6 hours ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

That was Bock 1b

Well that was from an engineer working on the project.

[Dr.K Kerbal]

Oh

 

 

[fredinno]

13 hours ago, Dr.K Kerbal said:

Oh

 

 

Oh, what?

[Dr.K Kerbal]

Oh that it would cost too much money and junk...

[Mikki]

On 12.2.2016 at 5:18 PM, DerekL1963 said:

No, that's not a real world example because NASA's budget doesn't work that way.  

NASA doesn't have any of it's "own" money to spend, it all comes from Congress.   If Congress funds payloads, then there are payloads.   If Congress doesn't fund payloads there are no payloads.  It's just about as simple as that.

Where i live (europa) we call this system "Communism". Congrats.

[Bill Phil]

20 minutes ago, Mikki said:

Where i live (europa) we call this system "Communism". Congrats.

NASA is an organization founded by the government, and it answers to the government, and receives funding from the government. It's not a privately owned business or anything.