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What will happen if the 1st SLS fails...


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Personally, I would be very disappointed. The construction of the rocket is going so slowly that they seem to make big news of "we glued the fairing to the capsule"...

America as a whole would become yet more inclined to stop space-ing.

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There, I fixed that for you. :D

And :(

Unless they decide to launch from some super remote location, I don't think that any of us here on Merritt Island are not going to notice the largest rocket since the Saturn V exploding during launch or otherwise failing somehow.

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Unless they decide to launch from some super remote location' date=' I don't think that any of us here on Merritt Island are not going to notice the largest rocket since the Saturn V exploding during launch or otherwise failing somehow.[/quote']

And I'm sure Paris Hilton will flash some part of her anatomy or something 10 seconds before launch, and the rest of the world will be watching that instead.

Sorry, I'm hyperbolizing the sad state of news reporting of science. I'll stop. Carry on.

Regarding my actual thoughts, it would be terrible tragedy that would cause the US government to overreact, cutting NASA's budget while increasing restrictions, making future launches near impossible (if not actually impossible).

...and causing SpaceX's stock to rise even further.

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as soon as one blows up they are going to be declared unsafe. nasa will use them for a few more years, and then can the whole line. a few years after that the government is going to want a new ship. they are going to spend billions to re-develop 1960s technology. the project will get canned right as the last screw is being turned, and a cheaper even more sloppy project will take its place.

meanwhile in russia, they will be launching a mars ship.

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I think some American news reporter would wear a plunging top so no one would care in America except NASA, the US government, and people like us who argue over the fact that something might be able to be 1 m/s slower than something else. However I think that if it exploded near the ISS and caused massive damage to it everyone would care and The US would have to pay a lot of money to the other space-bound counties. :D

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To be completely honest, I'd be OK with the first SLS failing. That doesn't mean I "want" to see it fail. What it means is that I think it's better to have it break when you can still re-design the part that broke, as opposed to having to do on-orbit inspections using a camera on a robot arm to make sure whatever it launched got up there in one piece. That's what they did with every Shuttle launch after the Colombia disaster. I know that at the point in the Shuttle's lifetime when it happened, re-designing the ET was a waste of time and money because it was scheduled for retirement anyways.

If that had happened on the first or second launch on the other hand, they would have probably done something like reinforcing the foam with a high-tensile strength polymer net, which would do for the foam what re-bar does for concrete. Not sure how much mass that would take up, but I'm thinking something like a monofilament fishing net made of Kevlar buried in the final layer of foam, so it might weigh about the same as the white paint on the first few tanks did. Maybe less, maybe more, point is that it would hold the foam so that it couldn't come off in one big chunk like it did.

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Bad. I think there'll be a lot of finger pointing and acrimony, the public and Congress probably more interested in who to blame than in how to fix it. I expect Astrium, the European company who will build the Orion Service Module, will be the media's favourite people to blame in the days after the failure, purely because they're not American. Almost certainly some senior NASA managers would lose their jobs over the failure, while on the other hand if the failure is traced to a part from a contractor, none of the managers there will have anything to worry about.

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meanwhile in russia, they will be launching a mars ship.

I'll believe it when I see it. Russia can't even manage a successful trans-Mars burn with a probe and last I checked they haven't gotten the new Angara off the ground.

Who knows what an SLS failure would do. I suspect that the US wants a larger rocket for big DoD payloads and they'll get something one way or another.

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If the SLS fails, it would be pretty high-profile and because NASA's main purpose is to be a showcase of national prestig, they will do everything possible to launch successfully again.

Then after 2 or 3 launches it will get cancelled because there are no payloads for it.

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Rockets failing in the first few launches are pretty common, industry people know it, I hope politicians know it too.

Ariane 5 first flight was a complete failure, and the second didn't reach the right orbit, and it ended up being one of the most successful launchers ever.

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Rockets failing in the first few launches are pretty common, industry people know it, I hope politicians know it too.

Ariane 5 first flight was a complete failure, and the second didn't reach the right orbit, and it ended up being one of the most successful launchers ever.

But ariane 5 wasn't 363 feet tall with national prestige on it's back.

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If you look at the two Shuttle loses as an example, they will probably shut the program down for two and a half years.

Considering that there isn't much of a flight schedule for it, I don't think it well effect it much in the long run.

I don't dislike the SLS, ideally it would be good to have a big heavy lifter if you have the money to use it and launch something useful that needs it.

I just think the money could have been spent on something more cost effective. Maybe an enlarged man-rated Delta or researching how to build a Mars transporter in smaller modular sections over several launches.

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But ariane 5 wasn't 363 feet tall with national prestige on it's back.

It was the largest ever European built rocket, and had a lot of prestige on its back, being our ONLY way to independent space (Ariane 4 was programed to stop), and that's why they didn't stop the program.

We needed that rocket, for political, image and economic reasons

When the space shuttle exploded, NASA kept using it. When it exploded a second time, they still kept using it for some time.

The first SLS will be, by definition, a prototype, and prototypes can fail, it's expected, that's why you make them, and that's why they won't put a manned Orion capsule on top of it.

If it explodes, they will spend time ( a few months I imagine) figuring out why it exploded, how to correct that, and how much it will cost. If it's a "small" thing, like the computer code of Ariane 5 or Challenger's O-ring, and the senate is slightly more competent than a herd of brain damaged manatees, the program will go on.

If the fault requires serious re-engineering, as with Columbia, they might pull the plug. But still, between the sunken costs and the prestige, they might keep it alive, the way they kept the Shuttle alive for decades when they knew it would never deliver the cheap spaceflight it promised. Especially if Russia and China do well with their manned program.

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If you look at the two Shuttle loses as an example, they will probably shut the program down for two and a half years.

Considering that there isn't much of a flight schedule for it, I don't think it well effect it much in the long run.

I don't dislike the SLS, ideally it would be good to have a big heavy lifter if you have the money to use it and launch something useful that needs it.

I just think the money could have been spent on something more cost effective. Maybe an enlarged man-rated Delta or researching how to build a Mars transporter in smaller modular sections over several launches.

I doubt that actually, mostly because the first several SLS launches won't be manned.

Regardless of what public outcry might arise due to SLS failing at first, they aren't going to shut down the program just because they lost an unmanned rocket.

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I doubt that actually' date=' mostly because the first several SLS launches won't be manned.

Regardless of what public outcry might arise due to SLS failing at first, they aren't going to shut down the program just because they lost an unmanned rocket.[/quote']

Congress can be pretty crazy...

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I doubt that actually' date=' mostly because the first several SLS launches won't be manned.

Regardless of what public outcry might arise due to SLS failing at first, they aren't going to shut down the program just because they lost an unmanned rocket.[/quote']

They might just insert another flight between 2017 and 2021! :P

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Congress can be pretty crazy...

Yeah but I was thinking more along the lines of NASA shutting down for investigation and possible redesign, like they did with Columbia and Challenger. Congress nixing the budget altogether is a whole other bag of worms.

If SLS fails (and Congress isn't fazed) it'll just be similar to when they were testing the first rockets. It'll blow up, they'll try again after they fix the problem(s).

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Comparing a failed inaugural SLS launch to Challenger and Columbia is pretty unfair. This SLS launch will be unmanned and essentially a hardware test. When it succeeds, awesome. IF it fails, then they'll learn why and fix it. That's the WHOLE POINT of test flights.

Challenger and Columbia, however, were catastrophic losses of life on what should have been routine missions. Of course NASA needed to shut down and investigate, because people died.

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