NASA SLS/Orion/Payloads

[Wjolcz]

2 hours ago, _Augustus_ said:

Bridenstine willing to cancel SLS once commercial alternatives are available

http://spacenews.com/bridenstine-emphasizes-partnerships-with-industry-to-achieve-nasa-goals/

So, at this rate, before it flies.........

I was about to ask how likely it is to get cancelled even before the first flight.

I still need to see BFR and NG flying, but is there anyone at this point that has any hope in SLS anymore? What will they do with all the parts? They are already recycled (RS-25s) but perfectly functional AFAIK.

[StrandedonEarth]

Something NASA should look at doing is helping industry set up a production line for ECLSS systems,   ideally modular and involving plants,  for all the groups developing manned vehicles. After all, I can’t quite see SpaceX coming up with all the equipment to outfit the inside of its BFS itself

[sh1pman]

3 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

After all, I can’t quite see SpaceX coming up with all the equipment to outfit the inside of its BFS itself

They could outfit the Crew Dragon though. It’s yet to make its first flight, but I think it’s pretty much done at this point. With BFS there’s going to be much more stuff they’ll need to develop, but there’s still plenty of time. Was it in 2024 they were going for the first manned BFR flight? Or was it the first Mars flight?

Edited June 7, 2018 by sh1pman

[Wjolcz]

2 hours ago, sh1pman said:

They could outfit the Crew Dragon though. It’s yet to make its first flight, but I think it’s pretty much done at this point. With BFS there’s going to be much more stuff they’ll need to develop, but there’s still plenty of time. Was it in 2024 they were going for the first manned BFR flight? Or was it the first Mars flight?

Don't forget about Elon time. And, yeah, they know more about building rockets than they used to but there are all kinds of things that can get in the way. And NASA's man rating procedures is one of them.

[hms_warrior]

As long as they don't send NASA astronauts...

[wumpus]

41 minutes ago, hms_warrior said:

As long as they don't send NASA astronauts...

They only launch at NASA facilities, have NASA as a big customer, and are unlikely  to get FAA/FCC certification if NASA is unhappy.  Ignoring NASA would pretty much require selling the rocket to ESA to be an ESA manned mission.  There might be even more red tape launching through ESA (not to mention non-trivial legal expenses thanks to various challenges as well as all kinds of political pushback).  They will meet NASA requirements or simply won't send astronauts.

BFR to Mars may be a different story, considering that is the whole point of Spacex.  But manned Falcon isn't worth the cost of "beating NASA", even if you could.

[tater]

 

[Bill Phil]

On 6/8/2018 at 8:23 AM, hms_warrior said:

As long as they don't send NASA astronauts...

Well, considering NASA contracts are a major source of SpaceX income...

[NSEP]

Space tin can, very cool.

[Xd the great]

The problem about NASA is that it does not have enough funding, it has too much political burden, and it is not very active in terms of the next space race. So, WHY WONT NASA MAKE THE CORE BOOSTER STAGE FLYBACK LIKE THE FALCON 9?

[Canopus]

@Xd the great how would a fly back booster solve any of these problems? NASA already had a launch vehicle which was largely reusable, percentage wise probably more than even the Falcon 9. Didn't make it automatically cheaper though.

Edited June 23, 2018 by Canopus

[Xd the great]

Why not use x33? Why not use aerospike engines? Why not use sea dragon? That big dumb booster would have finish the entire constellation program in a launch.

5 minutes ago, Canopus said:

@Xd the great how would a fly back booster solve any of these problems? NASA already had a launch vehicle which was largely reusable, percentage wise probably more than even the Falcon 9. Didn't make it automatically cheaper though.

 

That question about flyback sls was kinda dumb.

Can China please start a space race with nasa?

Edited June 23, 2018 by Xd the great

[Canopus]

@Xd the great If you look into these topics a little bit you will see that each of them is flawed in some way. There is a reason none of them were brought into service by NASA or any other agency.

[Xd the great]

55 minutes ago, Canopus said:

@Xd the great If you look into these topics a little bit you will see that each of them is flawed in some way. There is a reason none of them were brought into service by NASA or any other agency.

I suppose the space shuttle is more flawed than the x33

[Bill Phil]

1 hour ago, Xd the great said:

The problem about NASA is that it does not have enough funding, it has too much political burden, and it is not very active in terms of the next space race. So, WHY WONT NASA MAKE THE CORE BOOSTER STAGE FLYBACK LIKE THE FALCON 9?

They've already spent 7+ years and billions of dollars engineering this thing. You want it to take another 7 to get off the ground?

57 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

Why not use x33? Why not use aerospike engines? Why not use sea dragon? That big dumb booster would have finish the entire constellation program in a launch.

 

That question about flyback sls was kinda dumb.

Can China please start a space race with nasa?

X-33 suffered major issues. The aerospikes performed worse than SSMEs. Sea Dragon, while an interesting idea, represents a very large investment.

A space race won't help anything. The last one only got us 12 men on the Moon, no lasting permanent presence beyond Earth orbit, and some cool probes on other planets. All for showing off. 

Just now, Xd the great said:

I suppose the space shuttle is more flawed than the x33

Shuttle could actually fly.

X-33? Not even capable of that.

[Xd the great]

Just now, Bill Phil said:

 

X-33 suffered major issues. The aerospikes performed worse than SSMEs. Sea Dragon, while an interesting idea, represents a very large investment.

A space race won't help anything. The last one only got us 12 men on the Moon, no lasting permanent presence beyond Earth orbit, and some cool probes on other planets. All for showing off. 

Well, sea dragon launches from the sea, so no launchpad upgrades. The technology is readily available, with a minimalist design that us just crazy. I think it will cost quite little to do R and D.

Yes, the last space race was kinda pointless, but this time we are aiming at S0ACE COLONIES.

Yes, cooling is a big problem on aerospike engies.

[Bill Phil]

Just now, Xd the great said:

Well, sea dragon launches from the sea, so no launchpad upgrades. The technology is readily available, with a minimalist design that us just crazy. I think it will cost quite little to do R and D.

Yes, the last space race was kinda pointless, but this time we are aiming at S0ACE COLONIES.

Sea Dragon would cost a lot. Remember, we'd have to develop the engines. But, even more expensive: develop a payload. 

No, we're not aiming at space colonies. We might be had we maintained a permanent presence beyond LEO for 50 years, but we haven't. This December will mark 50 years after Apollo 8 orbited the Moon. 50 years.

[Xd the great]

8 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Sea Dragon would cost a lot. Remember, we'd have to develop the engines. But, even more expensive: develop a payload. 

No, we're not aiming at space colonies. We might be had we maintained a permanent presence beyond LEO for 50 years, but we haven't. This December will mark 50 years after Apollo 8 orbited the Moon. 50 years.

Getting to mars, land and return with a single rocket?

The engine is not that expensive, it uses high pressure gas to push fuel into the combustion chamber. No crazy turbopumps required.

NASA wants a moon space station. Time for the sea dragon.

[Bill Phil]

19 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

Getting to mars, land and return with a single rocket?

The engine is not that expensive, it uses high pressure gas to push fuel into the combustion chamber. No crazy turbopumps required.

NASA wants a moon space station. Time for the sea dragon.

You... you do realize that building a payload costs more than launching one, right?

[NSEP]

There is more to developing a rocket than just the rocket. If we were to build a Sea Dragon, we also need workers to build it, tools for building it, a ship to carry it, an ISRU system to fuel it, et cetera, et cetera. And if the Sea Dragon was to be built like a submarine, it would probably take something like a year or two to just build one. Remember, Sea Dragon maybe a simple concept, but its also huge.

[Xd the great]

10 hours ago, NSEP said:

There is more to developing a rocket than just the rocket. If we were to build a Sea Dragon, we also need workers to build it, tools for building it, a ship to carry it, an ISRU system to fuel it, et cetera, et cetera. And if the Sea Dragon was to be built like a submarine, it would probably take something like a year or two to just build one. Remember, Sea Dragon maybe a simple concept, but its also huge.

So huge that it could have probable launch the entire ISS in under 5 launches.

[NSEP]

6 hours ago, Xd the great said:

So huge that it could have probable launch the entire ISS in under 5 launches.

*1

Cool, it can build an ISS in one launch, but do we really need that right now? If some space colonization company like SpaceX or Blue Origin wants to revive the Sea Dragon, i have nothing against it, but i don't think its the right choice for NASA. Remember, NASA is all about exploration, not colonization and launching huge things into space.

They built the ISS together with Russia, Canada, Japan, Great Britian and Europe not act as a space colony but a science laboratory, and to be fair, do we really need a bigger one? The ISS works fine, and if it aint broke, don't fix it! Sure, we have the LOP-G/DSG that is going to be built, but the Falcon Heavy can and the New Glenn can carry the components there for a low cost just fine.

Im not saying Sea Dragon is useless, im just saying there is no need for it now and we will have to wait a few years untill space colonization becomes a thing and we need a rocket to carry such large payloads.

There is more to rocket launches than just the launch cost and payload capacity.

[Xd the great]

true, but if we are to explore mars with humans, we need something large enough to carry things into orbit.

[NSEP]

4 hours ago, Xd the great said:

true, but if we are to explore mars with humans, we need something large enough to carry things into orbit.

SpaceX is working on the BFR, it may not be as big and simple as the Sea Dragon, but it can still do the job of getting massive payloads to Mars and beyond at a relatively low cost.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

On 6/23/2018 at 7:15 AM, Xd the great said:

Getting to mars, land and return with a single rocket?

The engine is not that expensive, it uses high pressure gas to push fuel into the combustion chamber. No crazy turbopumps required.

NASA wants a moon space station. Time for the sea dragon.

Sea Dragon was a concept for a big dumb booster for big dumb payloads, like propellants. It was not expected to have the same reliability as smaller rockets, but losing a cheap payload was not a big deal. Losing a multi-billion dollar station, OTOH, would not have been acceptable. Too many eggs in one basket.

Efficient engines require high chamber pressure, which requires high pressure pumps to inject propellants into the chambers. Pressure fed is not an option, especially with huge tanks to pressurize. Also, huge engines run into combustion instability problems (probably why the Soviet N1 had 30 engines!), which were never fully ironed out in the Saturn V's F1 engines.