[New] Space Launch System / Orion Discussion Thread

[magnemoe]

On 9/12/2023 at 3:46 PM, kerbiloid said:

The truth about SLS origins is revealed.

  Reveal hidden contents

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

I thought it was the Apollo launch escape system test first. Did they use the same method here? As in using an bundle of solid rocket inside the first stage?
Now the Apollo launch escape test was hilarious in that the makeshift rocket broke up in flight so it was an real launch abort who was even better  

[kerbiloid]

3 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

I thought it was the Apollo launch escape system test first.

Apollo shroud is cone, and this is recognizably ogive.

[tater]

This is without Orion (~$1.2B per?).

This is also "deliverables" and doesn't include ground systems costs, nor any amortization of R&D (which commercial contracts have to include, or eat, but taxpayers are on the hook for for SLS).

[tater]

https://oig.nasa.gov/office-of-inspector-general-oig/audit-reports/nasas-readiness-for-the-artemis-ii-crewed-mission-to-lunar-orbit/

Quote

To this end, the Artemis I test flight revealed critical
issues that need to be addressed before placing crew on the Artemis II mission. In particular, the test flight revealed
anomalies with the Orion heat shield, separation bolts, and power distribution that pose significant risks to the safety of
the crew. Resolution of these anomalies is among the most significant factors impacting NASA’s readiness for Artemis II.
To its credit, the Agency is taking action to address these issues.

 

 

[OrdinaryKerman]

On 9/14/2023 at 4:06 PM, magnemoe said:

Did they use the same method here? As in using an bundle of solid rocket inside the first stage?

quick Wiki read says the booster used was a Peacekeeper ICBM first stage, looks like it has a shell around it to be the same diameter as the ESM fairings

Edited May 2 by OrdinaryKerman

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, OrdinaryKerman said:

quick Wiki read says the booster used was a Peacekeeper ICBM first stage, looks like it has a shell around it to be the same diameter as the ESM fairings

Makes sense, its not that they launch many Peacekeeper ICBM anyway and they have an expire date. 

[Flavio hc16]

OOooffff size: big.

 

 The last Part of the article, where Erik Berger puts his thoughts, are quite damning.

"Koerner's remark about redundancy almost certainly reflects the space agency's peevishness with the continual oversight of these bodies. In effect, she is saying, we are already aware of all these issues raised by the inspector general's report. Let us go and work on them.

However, the reality is that for those of us outside of the government, the inspector general provides valuable insight into supposedly public programs that are nonetheless largely shrouded from view. For example, it is only thanks to the inspector general's office that the public finally got a full accounting for the cost of a single Space Launch System and Orion launch—$4.2 billion. NASA, for years, obscured this cost because it is embarrassingly high in an age of increasingly reusable spaceflight.

It is somewhat chilling to see government officials openly attack their independent investigators. These officials are appointed by the president and confirmed by the US Senate. When President Trump did not like the findings of some of these officials in 2020, he purged five inspectors general from the Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies in six weeks. The Economist characterized this as a "war" on watchdogs.

It may be frustrating for NASA officials to have to repeatedly tell the public how it is spending the public's money. But we have a right to know, and these kinds of reports are essential to that process. My space reporter colleagues and I often have the same questions and want these kinds of details. But NASA can tell us to pound sand, such as the agency did with coverage of the Artemis I countdown rehearsal in 2022."

[StrandedonEarth]

7 hours ago, Flavio hc16 said:

For example, it is only thanks to the inspector general's office that the public finally got a full accounting for the cost of a single Space Launch System and Orion launch—$4.2 billion. NASA, for years, obscured this cost because it is embarrassingly high in an age of increasingly reusable spaceflight.

Ouch!

[kerbiloid]

What could they turn KSP into for that money...

[tater]

 

This should have been done ages ago.

[darthgently]

On 9/14/2023 at 4:10 AM, kerbiloid said:

Apollo shroud is cone, and this is recognizably ogive.

The Eastern Orthodox Church would approve

[Flavio hc16]

2 hours ago, tater said:

This should have been done ages ago.

We should have always had the EUS and the block 1B

[tater]

7 minutes ago, Flavio hc16 said:

We should have always had the EUS and the block 1B

Yes and no. Yes, in that ICPS was always stupid and wasteful—in the name of "saving money" for the first uncrewed test flight, use an existing stage that required building a one-off piece of expensive GSE. No in that the math from Constellation was clear—any useful vehicle needed to be able to send 71t to TLI. Minus that, this vehicle was always stupid.

[tater]

Guess the plan is to roll the dice with the heatshield. What could go wrong?

I'd like to at least see some work on an alternative heat shield. A boilerplate capsule with a new heatshield could probably fly an EFT-1 type mission with FH. It would need a sort of SM for attitude control, etc.

[Flavio hc16]

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/congress-apparently-feels-a-need-for-reaffirmation-of-sls-rocket/

 

 

The subtitle of this article.

 

I haven't laughed that much in a few weeks.

 

Pork is spooling again

[tater]

https://oig.nasa.gov/office-of-inspector-general-oig/nasas-management-of-space-launch-system-block-1b-development/

"As for the upper stage itself, NASA initially predicted development costs would be $962 million back in 2017. However, the new report predicts that the Exploration Upper Stage will actually cost $2.8 billion, or three times the original cost estimate."

$2.8B PER STAGE.  18 FH launches. 28 Starship complete stacks. For 1 upper stage. So a Block 1B will cost ~$7B.

Insanity.

[tater]

 

The initial (or first revision, actually) contract was for Artemis I – III, this might cover ground if the insanely expensive EUS is delayed. Note that $200M for 3 LVSA adapters is $66.6M each for a frustum of a cone.

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, tater said:

 

The initial (or first revision, actually) contract was for Artemis I – III, this might cover ground if the insanely expensive EUS is delayed. Note that $200M for 3 LVSA adapters is $66.6M each for a frustum of a cone.

If we are going to play with the gasoline fire of state price controls, I vote we apply them to big gov cost+ contracts first.  imho

[tater]

Note on the idiotic, grossly overpriced EUS:

The EUS tank volume is ~388 m³.

New Glenn's stage 2, also hydrolox, and 7m in dia holds ~354m³ of props.

The Isp of Be-3U is lower, 440s vs 460.1, still, the shocking difference in price is the thing—that 7m stage will be thrown away every launch on a vehicle competing on price with F9/FH. It will not cost $2.8B per stage, nor $280M per stage, not even $28M per stage. $2.8M is probably not high enough for stage cost... but it has to be on the order of 500X cheaper than EUS.

Edited August 22 by tater

[kerbiloid]

It's so sad to see the humanity which has lost the skill of building the silo towers...

[tater]

<blink>

[tater]

In the long run, the per launch cost of a given system needs to be the total input divided by flights. So for particularly expensive systems it seems worthwhile to make them "Jack of all trades" vehicles. The follow on, "master of none" is assumed by me.

For a rocket that was envisioned as enabling BLEO human spaceflight operations (SLS/Orion), the "trades" it needs to work on are cislunar, then presumably Mars (the only 2 near/mid future BLEO missions). So from "go" it needed to be able to do the easiest of the two, cislunar. As has been beaten to death in every SLS discussion, the minimum ante for capability in human cislunar missions is ~70t to TLI. As a result, any intelligent baseline design for the program would have had Block 1 capable of ~70t to TLI, with planned, or at least possible evolution to even higher mass to TLI. With such a vehicle the dev costs would have been roughly the same as we've had to now (since basically zero money was saved reusing Shuttle tech, and arguably they spent more trying to keep it), but in return we'd have an incredibly expensive vehicle that was actually useful.

NASA does not exist to cost-effectively do the things. So assuming a capable vehicle I would not complain about cost—the job of "jobs in districts" is actually a legitimate goal for many reasons. But the capability piece should not be negotiable.

I look at the Shuttle era as a wasted opportunity because the expensive vehicle we had was not leveraged, NOT because the vehicle was not capable. It was an expensive LEO workhorse—but it was in fact a workhorse. SLS is an expensive... thing. It is not a workhorse, and can never be a workhorse. Low cadence, low capability, high cost. It's the worst of every trade, and certain to be obviated before it ever flies enough to get the per flight amortized dev costs below the marginal launch. Current cost per launch is what, $85B? ($85B is a number I have seen for total cost of SLS/Orion in constant 2024 dollars, dating back from elements that overlap with Constelaltion—the min value is maybe $50B stated by NASA with an interest in minimizing the number). The next flight it might be more like $45B, by Artemis IV, it might be down to $25B/flight. If they can get to 10 flights we'd be down to just $12.5B/flight.

If each flight after the second or third was landing astronauts on the moon with cargo to start building a lunar base, right on, I'm all-in. But it's just not worth it for what it's actually going to do for that money—send 4 people to a distant lunar orbit with all the other work done by vastly cheaper vehicles that each obviate SLS with a different architecture choice.

Edited August 27 by tater

[Codraroll]

2 hours ago, tater said:

<blink>

That's roughly the same as (well, within 10% of) the cost of a 1550 -foot residential skyscraper in Manhattan, including the cost of land and air rights in one of the fanciest streets in the city (and by extension, in the world).

If Artemis comes out at $12.5 billion per launch, it means each launch would be roughly as expensive as building such a tower, giving away all its apartments for free, buying them back at market price, then dismantling the tower again, twice.

[darthgently]

34 minutes ago, Codraroll said:

That's roughly the same as (well, within 10% of) the cost of a 1550 -foot residential skyscraper in Manhattan, including the cost of land and air rights in one of the fanciest streets in the city (and by extension, in the world).

If Artemis comes out at $12.5 billion per launch, it means each launch would be roughly as expensive as building such a tower, giving away all its apartments for free, buying them back at market price, then dismantling the tower again, twice.

At what point does a man patiently, and somewhat gratefully, standing still while a stranger brushes reported lint off the man's jacket does he recognize the stranger from a wanted poster depicting the most clever pickpocket in town?

Edited August 27 by darthgently

[magnemoe]

On 8/22/2024 at 5:29 PM, tater said:

Note on the idiotic, grossly overpriced EUS:

The EUS tank volume is ~388 m³.

New Glenn's stage 2, also hydrolox, and 7m in dia holds ~354m³ of props.

The Isp of Be-3U is lower, 440s vs 460.1, still, the shocking difference in price is the thing—that 7m stage will be thrown away every launch on a vehicle competing on price with F9/FH. It will not cost $2.8B per stage, nor $280M per stage, not even $28M per stage. $2.8M is probably not high enough for stage cost... but it has to be on the order of 500X cheaper than EUS.

This now I think over $28 is more in the ballpark of New Glenn disposable second stage, price will go down with many launches. They are also working on an reusable second stage and by the Everyday astronaut interview. 
Its some sort of internal competition between reusable and disposable. Now unless the reusable is an hangar queen it will win then you have spare capacity or can simply launch more as in constellations. 
New Glenn upper stage will be nice for throwing stuff hard into deep space as its hydrolox and lighter than SS. 
Then you have refueling who tilt thing again. Interesting times, I love it  
SLS is kind of making an very nice V16 engine fighter plane in 1949, but all are moving to jets. 
Also price is out of control by order of magnitude.