NASA SLS/Orion/Payloads

[tater]

The military application is not rapid response of troops (per Phil Bono in the 1960s), it's rapid access to orbit, at arbitrary inclination. They could have a payload that they keep on board, and image a target with a huge telescope on the first pass, so there is no time to hide what they are looking at. If such a flight costs only millions of dollars, that;s cheaper than a single (or a few) cruise missile, and they expend those by the hundreds at times.

Edited February 21, 2018 by tater

[Kerbal7]

3 hours ago, DAL59 said:

A signifigant portion will.  You only need a small percent.  Also, its main importance might be for military dropships.

No point if SpaceX can send dozens at once.  

So?  Its Musk's ship.

Rockets are extremely dangerous. They are nowhere near safe or convenient enough for commercial flight. That's why the launch pads are kept away from population centers. No one in their rights mind is going to put a BFR rocket port anywhere near a city for commercial travel. So 30 minute commercial flights from L.A. to Tokyo in a BFR are just as fantastical as BFR flights to Mars. Never going to happen.

  

Edited February 21, 2018 by Kerbal7

[tater]

4 minutes ago, Kerbal7 said:

So 30 minute commercial flights from L.A. to Tokyo in a BFR are just as fantastical as BFR flights to Mars. Never going to happen.

This is unrelated to SLS, entirely, BTW.

That said, I think that while point to point rocket travel is not likely in the near future, it's not impossible, it merely requires enough flights to demonstrate safety at an airline level. This would require so many flights as to make it extremely unlikely, but it's not impossible, so I'd not say "never," I'd say, "extremely unlikely." Hypersonic air travel also has more failure modes than extant aircraft, so that's unlikely as well, even though it might not be impossible.

[DDE]

3 hours ago, Canopus said:

Of all the crazy ideas for the BFR this is easily the silliest. Sorry but i doubt anyone is seriously thinking about that.

Ithacus has been throughly considered and rejected half a century ago, @DAL59.

[Kerbal7]

9 minutes ago, tater said:

This is unrelated to SLS, entirely, BTW.

The BFR and SpaceX is seen as a challenger to the SLS and NASA by the dreamers. It's difficult to talk about one without the other as discussion of the two often overlap.

[tater]

SLS is a dead man walking, honestly. BFR (the first stage) is clearly going to happen, it's F9 with a different propellant, and larger diameter. They need a next gen vehicle, and a 9m SpaceX rocket is without question flying in the operational SLS time frame. The BFS on top is another issue, and will likely evolve with data as it is the hard part. The booster is a solved problem.

Even with an expended stage 2, BFR is far, far cheaper than SLS, and will loft larger payloads (mass and volume). This is in addition to the lower capacity NG, that none the less can support SLS payloads in terms of volume. That will fly in the same time period, as well. NA? Who knows, but by definition it has to be an SLS-killer, since SLS can't even put manned spacecraft on the Moon in one launch.

BFS, as I said is the hard part, which is why SpaceX is working on it first. Now. They already tested a 12m LOX tank, after all, so they can demonstrably make a 9m craft.

Bottom line is that at some point in the middle of the EM missions when SLS is supposed to be building DSG, it's going to be either outclassed, or demonstrated to be grossly overpriced for what it does.

[Kerbal7]

1 minute ago, tater said:

SLS is a dead man walking, honestly.

I see no signs the SLS is a dead man walking. I see NASA making missions designed around it. There is too much momentum, both political and practical behind it to be stopped now. Where do you see signs the SLS project is going to be stopped?

[sh1pman]

13 hours ago, Kerbal7 said:

Its manned deep space exploration missions are going to use the SLS and Orion.

Orion is unable to go far beyond LEO anyway. Its deep space exploration missions will be capped at high/elliptical Moon orbit. To go anywhere further than that you'll need DST, which requires a working DSG, which is probably even further back in development than BFR.

[tater]

6 minutes ago, Kerbal7 said:

I see no signs the SLS is a dead man walking. I see NASA making missions designed around it. There is too much momentum, both political and practical behind it to be stopped now. Where do you see signs the SLS project is going to be stopped?

It will have to stop at the point it is demonstrably stupid. Sadly, due to the fact that it is not about capability, but about tech jobs in as many Congressional districts as possible, along with the internalized notion of sunk costs, it will literally take superior LVs launching at tiny fractions of the price for it to be an issue. SLS will only ever fly once a year, so it will not fly many times before this becomes obvious. It will certainly fly a number of times, so into the mid-2020s.

New Glenn has a 7m fairing. It can easily use an SLS-sized fairing, assuming there are any payloads that actually care.

BFR will have a larger fairing if done as just a giant F9 (throwing away stage 2). Both will be vastly cheaper than the 2.5 billion per launch of SLS. NASA is not monolithic in support of SLS, BTW. The centers that work on it like it (it's their cash cow), the other centers... not so much.

 

Note that they are already working on EM-2 stuff for SLS. That's 2023. So 6 years ahead. That's how long it takes to build SLS/Orion stuff. 6 years of work times the labor force. No wonder it's overpriced.

Edited February 21, 2018 by tater

[tater]

To be fair, Falcon 9 is a dead man walking as well. SpaceX is intentionally replacing it with BFR. The difference is that F9 will likely fly well over 100 times (200?) before it is retired.

Edited February 21, 2018 by tater

[Kerbal7]

9 minutes ago, tater said:

It will have to stop at the point it is demonstrably stupid. Sadly, due to the fact that it is not about capability, but about tech jobs in as many Congressional districts as possible, along with the internalized notion of sunk costs, it will literally take superior LVs launching at tiny fractions of the price for it to be an issue. SLS will only ever fly once a year, so it will not fly many times before this becomes obvious. It will certainly fly a number of times, so into the mid-2020s.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. No one knows the operating cost or safety of rockets until they've been operated. The SLS and Orion are going to be used for real exploration missions. You don't need to launch many SLS rockets a year with this objective. NASA is testing the waters of deep space flight. Not going off half-cocked and getting a bunch of people killed. And NASA is not making ridiculous predictions like, "now loading, gate 39A, Shangai to New York on the new SLS. Sit down and enjoy the flight with a cocktail." like wonder boy.

In manned space flight the cost is not the bottom line. Crew safety is. 

[tater]

1 minute ago, Kerbal7 said:

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. No one knows the operating cost or safety of rockets until they've been operated. The SLS and Orion are going to be used for real exploration missions. You don't need to launch many SLS rockets a year with this objective. NASA is testing the waters of deep space flight. Not going off half-cocked and getting a bunch of people killed. And NASA is not making ridiculous predictions like, "now loading, gate 39A, Shangai to New York on the new SLS. Sit down and enjoy the flight with a cocktail." like wonder boy.

In manned space flight the cost is not the bottom line. Crew safety is. 

They're going to be used for "make work" not real exploration. DSG does nothing that cannot be done in LEO, except use a vehicle that is only useful past LEO.

Real exploration would be done by unmanned spacecraft, they are vastly more cost effective. For the cost of SLS/Orion, they could send dozens of real exploration missions using cheaper, extant LVs.

[Kerbal7]

1 minute ago, tater said:

Real exploration would be done by unmanned spacecraft, they are vastly more cost effective. For the cost of SLS/Orion, they could send dozens of real exploration missions using cheaper, extant LVs.

True. But that's not as fun. 

[tater]

1 minute ago, Kerbal7 said:

True. But that's not as fun. 

Crew is a stunt. A stunt I love, but a stunt nonetheless. Any use of "science" to justify SLS just lost the argument the other day. FH can send probes far, far cheaper than SLS, even forgetting all dev costs. 150 M$ max, vs 2.5 B$. You could send 10 probes (including the cost of the probe) for a single launch of SLS/Orion. (you'd have to keep them pretty cheap).

 

[sh1pman]

1 minute ago, Kerbal7 said:

True. But that's not as fun. 

I'd rather have another JWST or Curiosity or Juno, etc. than a second ISS designed as a busy work for an overpriced rocket.

[Starman4308]

7 minutes ago, Kerbal7 said:

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. No one knows the operating cost or safety of rockets until they've been operated. The SLS and Orion are going to be used for real exploration missions. You don't need to launch many SLS rockets a year with this objective. NASA is testing the waters of deep space flight. Not going off half-cocked and getting a bunch of people killed. And NASA is not making ridiculous predictions like, "now loading, gate 39A, Shangai to New York on the new SLS. Sit down and enjoy the flight with a cocktail." like wonder boy.

In manned space flight the cost is not the bottom line. Crew safety is. 

The inability to know beforehand what the cost and safety of a rocket will be is exactly why they're planning to use an only partially tested stack for the first launch of astronauts on SLS, right?

The SLS has not been funded for any real exploration missions. Its absurd cost will almost certainly prevent it. Plans are a dime a dozen at NASA, money with which to carry them out is what is lacking. It's happened several times that an ambitious manned program has been planned, NASA spends billions on it, only to be cancelled at the point where it starts to cost tens of billions to actually carry it out.

Even by the standards of conventional expendable launch vehicles, SLS is a hugely expensive pork barrel project rather than a practical vehicle for anything. Too big to waste on LEO, too big for unmanned missions, too little for a standalone lunar mission.

[DAL59]

7 hours ago, Canopus said:

Of all the crazy ideas for the BFR this is easily the silliest. Sorry but i doubt anyone is seriously thinking about that.

Why?  Isn't the ability to send a hundred troops anywhere in the world very quickly useful?  

4 hours ago, Kerbal7 said:

Rockets are extremely dangerous. They are nowhere near safe or convenient enough for commercial flight. That's why the launch pads are kept away from population centers. No one in their rights mind is going to put a BFR rocket port anywhere near a city for commercial travel. So 30 minute commercial flights from L.A. to Tokyo in a BFR are just as fantastical as BFR flights to Mars. Never going to happen.

The point of the BFR is being far safer than any previos rocket.  

4 hours ago, DDE said:

Ithacus has been throughly considered and rejected half a century ago, @DAL59.

True.  Geopolitics have changed in the last 50 years, though.

[Canopus]

20 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Why?  Isn't the ability to send a hundred troops anywhere in the world very quickly useful?  

I think you brought this up already in the SpaceX thread. It has been discussed and there are a million reasons this doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Don't have to start this all over in this thread.

[tater]

53 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

The point of the BFR is being far safer than any previos rocket.  

BFR so far is safer than no other rocket, because it doesn't exist yet. You can say it's the safest for crew if it actually is, someday, not before.

[Kerbal7]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

The point of the BFR is being far safer than any previos rocket.  

Rockets

Are 

Not

Commercialy 

Safe

 

Not the SLS, not the BFR. None. The BFR is is even bigger than a Saturn V. If there was a fueling or early flight failure this thing would be like a small nuclear device exploding. And you want to have it taking off and landing next to cities. Not on God's green earth.  

 

 

Edited February 21, 2018 by Kerbal7

[PB666]

15 hours ago, T-10a said:

To be honest, as much of a boondoggle as the SLS is, it seems to finally be getting somewhere at last. I'd be impressed if they can make the SLS go above and beyond all the naysayer talk, but I'm doubting if such a thing is possible considering the bickering beast that is Congress.

Its all dependent on the contractors building the service module. I would not count on it launching on time. There is already an ongoing investigation.

 

Edited February 21, 2018 by PB666

[PB666]

5 hours ago, tater said:

To be fair, Falcon 9 is a dead man walking as well. SpaceX is intentionally replacing it with BFR. The difference is that F9 will likely fly well over 100 times (200?) before it is retired.

For that matter everything is a dead man walking . . . . .100 flights . . . . . .and when I see it I might believe it.
 

[Note once again the thread was hijacked]

[tater]

It's hard for an SLS thread to not be hijacked, since Constellation-lite, erm, SLS is such a bad concept.

The whole point of the way dev has run, not concurrently, is that they don't have the money to develop multiple crew vehicles at once. So make SLS and Orion, then, and only then spend the freed up dev money to work on a lander. SLS is a hot mess.

[T-10a]

Better than nothing, however, considering how slow progress was for Constellation (still think they should have gone with DIRECT, but hey, I'm no NASA manager/engineer)

Edited February 21, 2018 by T-10a

[Starman4308]

8 minutes ago, T-10a said:

Better than nothing, however. (still think they should have gone with DIRECT, but hey, I'm no NASA manager/engineer)

I'm not sure I agree. The billions of dollars spent on Constellation and SLS/Orion could have funded a lot of unmanned scientific missions launched on commercial vehicles. Even ULA at their most price-gougey weren't as bad as SLS.

If the United States government isn't going to fund ambitious manned space programs properly, the least they can do is fund less-ambitious (and, really, more scientifically rewarding) unmanned missions for a fraction of the cost.

Edited February 21, 2018 by Starman4308