[New] Space Launch System / Orion Discussion Thread

[tater]

30 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

SLS is kind of making an very nice V16 engine fighter plane in 1949, but all are moving to jets. 

I'd disagree with this analogy in that the prop aircraft of ww2 (including some that were designed during the war and only really flown much just after the war) were nearly idealized piston engine aircraft for their purposes. Sea Fury, F8F, later P-51 marks, etc.

SLS is not idealized at all. Better might be: Everyone is thinking about switching to jets while making optimized piston engines, and SLS is like an interwar aircraft.

 

35 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

This now I think over $28 is more in the ballpark of New Glenn disposable second stage, price will go down with many launches.

Yeah, closer to $28M than $2.8M for sure, over mass production presumably more like F9 stage 2 cost.

[magnemoe]

18 hours ago, tater said:

I'd disagree with this analogy in that the prop aircraft of ww2 (including some that were designed during the war and only really flown much just after the war) were nearly idealized piston engine aircraft for their purposes. Sea Fury, F8F, later P-51 marks, etc.

SLS is not idealized at all. Better might be: Everyone is thinking about switching to jets while making optimized piston engines, and SLS is like an interwar aircraft.

 

Yeah, closer to $28M than $2.8M for sure, over mass production presumably more like F9 stage 2 cost.

Good correction there, I was mostly thinking about making an obsolete product. Early jets was also very fuel inefficient so range and time in the air was limited. It was also a few planes with both piston engine and a jet because of this. Fighter planes not the B-36. 

SLS, we make an rocket out of the shuttle parts, without the shuttle dry weight it would have a massive lifting capacity and be an fast an cheap solution, well in KSP it would be.  Wonder where all the money goes? 
On the other hand for disposable rockets two stages and SRB is very efficient so lots of rocket has used it. 
Its the go to in KSP for me unless launching something tiny like an satellite or something very heavy, and the joy of using Soyuz side boosters on an Saturn 5 core is notable. 

It don't work well with reuse however. 

[tater]

Yes.

Option:

Fly it as is, with crew.

Change the entry trajectory or heat shield and test with 4 humans aboard.

Change trajectory/heatshield and test first.

 

 

[RCgothic]

If they could even match Apollo cadence of 2-4/year this wouldn't be a problem. Kick the crew off the next flight to test and delay by 3-6 months. No big deal. Considering the space shuttle SLS is derived from managed significantly better than that in stretches I am genuinely baffled how they've so failed to match what came before.

[StrandedonEarth]

6 hours ago, RCgothic said:

If they could even match Apollo cadence of 2-4/year this wouldn't be a problem. Kick the crew off the next flight to test and delay by 3-6 months. No big deal. Considering the space shuttle SLS is derived from managed significantly better than that in stretches I am genuinely baffled how they've so failed to match what came before.

*coughBoeingcough*

They can’t seem to touch anything these days without it being fubar’d

[tater]

7 hours ago, RCgothic said:

If they could even match Apollo cadence of 2-4/year this wouldn't be a problem. Kick the crew off the next flight to test and delay by 3-6 months. No big deal. Considering the space shuttle SLS is derived from managed significantly better than that in stretches I am genuinely baffled how they've so failed to match what came before.

2-4/year with the same annual cost? Sure. That's $1B to $2B per flight. At a higher cadence, the fact that SLS is entirely useless would not matter, they could do distributed SLS mission architectures. You'd need a ~35-40t lander with storable propellants, and a decent SM for Orion—send lander ahead, meet it in LLO with a better Orion 6 mo later.

[Codraroll]

4 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

*coughBoeingcough*

They can’t seem to touch anything these days without it being fubar’d

f'dubar, if we're being technical.

[tater]

LOL

Some hilarious tidbits:

"Four years ago, I wrote that the best time to cancel the SLS was 20 years before, and the second best time was then. Four years on, the program has consumed another $20b with nothing to show for it. $20b, bringing total development cost to over $100b. This program burns $12m per day! "

"

Aerojet managed to “earn” 10 times the purchase price for the SLS engines, which NASA already owns

As of 2020, Aerojet officially earned $146m per SSME engine that NASA already paid to develop and build and already had in a warehouse leftover from the Shuttle program. For reference, that’s more than the entire purchase price of a Falcon Heavy. Per engine. "

He goes on that AJR were paid to refurb 16 engines, but only did 5, so the actual cost per engine is in fact $420M. <blink>

Hehehh:

 

On the problems with Orion:

"Or, recognizing that even if Orion had worked flawlessly it’s still too heavy and too expensive to do anything useful, so cancel it. Success has never been in the set of possible outcomes, so remind me why we continue to burn billions of dollars on this program every year?"

A comment on the part I bolded in that quote: This has always been the problem with the entire SLS/Orion system, success—accomplishing a useful mission by itself—was never a possible outcome. It's a rocket to nowhere, an indelible fact.

 

[darthgently]

I imagine it is succeeding, for a certain definition of pocket-lining success

[Ultimate Steve]

What appears to be the unfortunate reality is that what is a good moon program (from an engineering perspective) doesn't overlap with what is a fundable moon program as much as everyone had hoped, without a massive amount of governmental support a la Apollo.

NASA has spent a long time trying to get out of LEO, only for the efforts to be not funded (the rest of STS, every SHLV proposal besides SLS) or cancelled (Constellation, Apollos beyond 17).

This has put us into a weird situation where the program is being optimized for support rather than for its merits as a sustainable program.

Tying as many people into the program as possible to make it borderline uncancellable. You get a billion dollars in your home state. So do you. Legacy contractors, new contractors, international partners, international astronaut seats, gateway for a sunk cost pointer and easier collaboration, throw in a little bit of "beat China!" and there you have it.

I guess I'd rather have a moon program than no moon program.  I don't know at what point that becomes untrue due to that program being so goofy.

A lot of people seem to think that the choice is between SLS/Orion and a better system. With the exception of what SpaceX may cook up in the next decade, that isn't really the choice. It is a choice between SLS/Orion and nothing (or rather, another attempt with all of its own problems in 20 years time).

Granted this is a little bit of sunk cost fallacy but I'd love to see people back on the moon before I'm 50.

I don't think that's the way it should be. But more and more I'm thinking that's the way it is.

Even within this framework, 420 million dollars per engine seems absurd.

[tater]

25 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

A lot of people seem to think that the choice is between SLS/Orion and a better system. With the exception of what SpaceX may cook up in the next decade, that isn't really the choice. It is a choice between SLS/Orion and nothing (or rather, another attempt with all of its own problems in 20 years time).

Agreed. As I have said before here, I'd be fine with SLS/Orion if it didn't suck. I'd be fine with the $100B, and $4B marginal launch cost—if that accomplished a mission. The fact that it doesn't, and that literally 100% of the hard part of that cislunar architecture is done by not SLS/Orion is what drives me nuts.

Bezos wants the Moon, and assuming they get NG off the ground soon he could do it himself.

[darthgently]

32 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

420 million dollars per engine seems absurd.

Seems absurd?  Trust your gut, man.  These are single use disposable throwaway engines.  It is absurd.  
Imagine you are selected to go before the taxpayers to publicly defend these continued expenditures alongside others who are to defend other gov spending.  How would your honest statements above hold up against other program’s defenses?
Remember, you are looking into the eyes of working class taxpayers who are trying to make their mortgage payments.  It’s important to remember that.

 Don’t get me wrong, I want a moon program, but is this a moon program?

[tater]

$420M for engines we already owned.

$1.68B in engines on the bottom, it's insane. It's insane at 'only" $584B, honestly.

And again, it's not just the absurd cost, it's that all that money accomplishes no mission. Not now, not ever.

[tater]

 

[Minmus Taster]

3 hours ago, tater said:

 

 

[RCgothic]

I don't expect Isaacman  to be sentimental about SLS when he takes charge of NASA.

[BagofToast]

I wish NASA could just put something together without massive cost overruns. With SLS looking to be scraped, looks like we'll be relying on NG and Starship for the future. Until NASA creates another program to cancel a la Constellation. 

[tater]