NASA wants to buy SLS rockets at half price, fly them into the 2050s
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Disclaimer: I lack some knowledge on this topic.
Would it be possible for NASA to fly Orion on the Falcon Heavy?
Even if Falcon Heavy is flown in expendable mode, I'm assuming it would still be cheaper than SLS right? Even if you include the costs to get it astronaut rated. Or does the Orion capsule just not have the capability to fit on the Falcon Heavy?
Would it be possible for NASA to fly Orion on the Falcon Heavy?
Even if Falcon Heavy is flown in expendable mode, I'm assuming it would still be cheaper than SLS right? Even if you include the costs to get it astronaut rated. Or does the Orion capsule just not have the capability to fit on the Falcon Heavy?
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SLS will be a retired laughing stock after one flight, two at most (and thats assuming neither of them explode).
That would take us to 2025, by which time even Blue Origin may have something working and cheaper, and SpaceX will have a working beast that dwarfs SLS in every way.
The idea that a for-profit private enterprise would pick up such a white elephant is absurd.
That would take us to 2025, by which time even Blue Origin may have something working and cheaper, and SpaceX will have a working beast that dwarfs SLS in every way.
The idea that a for-profit private enterprise would pick up such a white elephant is absurd.
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It's not unreasonable to have doubts about Starship's intended level of reusability. It's fairly unreasonable to deny that, simplified, it can work like a much larger F9 - plus if you cut the wings, heatsheild and everything else required for reuse them it's potential mass to orbit heads towards huge values.
But rather than consider this option, which would overwhelm SLS on both lift and cost, instead we want to create a pure pork bung to those who have done NASA over time and time again.
There's simply no reasonable explanation.
And of course this entirely puts aside the chance that Starship or even you know, Jarvis might work as intended.
But rather than consider this option, which would overwhelm SLS on both lift and cost, instead we want to create a pure pork bung to those who have done NASA over time and time again.
There's simply no reasonable explanation.
And of course this entirely puts aside the chance that Starship or even you know, Jarvis might work as intended.
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Snarky Robot
Ars Legatus Legionis
Given the cost overruns and general mismanagement, it’s good to see they’re bailing on the project, well after it launched. Wonder who’s getting the golden parachutes, though.
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It's called "failing upwards." It's a classic pattern for high-level executives, and in stark contrast to how all the rest of us get rewarded for failure.
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30 years of pork. Unbelievable. No, actually believable that the lobbyists would be able to get NASA to propose this with a straight face.
SpaceX and probably even Blue Origin will be embarrassing the hell out of NASA, Boeing, et al in 10 years.
SpaceX and probably even Blue Origin will be embarrassing the hell out of NASA, Boeing, et al in 10 years.
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From a single-use rocket, built to be disposable, with almost nothing of value to offer the launch industry relative to its competitors...
Is NASA suggesting that pigs can fly if we just believe it hard enough? Did they throw Tinkerbell into a blender or something?? Because what they 'want' from SLS is the complete opposite of everything the rocket is or can ever be. The odds of AT&T becoming a socially conscious and responsible company, driven by ethical and moral decision making, is far and away more likely than this pork-fueled pipedream.
In point of fact it did not. Costs escalated. That's what happens when you have a state-sponsored monopoly...
Is NASA suggesting that pigs can fly if we just believe it hard enough? Did they throw Tinkerbell into a blender or something?? Because what they 'want' from SLS is the complete opposite of everything the rocket is or can ever be. The odds of AT&T becoming a socially conscious and responsible company, driven by ethical and moral decision making, is far and away more likely than this pork-fueled pipedream.
In point of fact it did not. Costs escalated. That's what happens when you have a state-sponsored monopoly...
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ColdWetDog
Ars Legatus Legionis
Fifty percent of an unbelievably high number is still an unbelievably high number.
EDIT: Somebody needs to show this article to Cancun Cruz. He could babble on how the Dems are spending money and then wander off to some bizarre tangent that would lighten up our day.
EDIT: Somebody needs to show this article to Cancun Cruz. He could babble on how the Dems are spending money and then wander off to some bizarre tangent that would lighten up our day.
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I thought for a while I was reading about the Russian space program. This brings “fake it ‘till you make it” to new levels.
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I think the government need to demand a bigger discount. Fifty percent of the price tag is still a huge ripoff.
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One more absurdity in a long line of absurdities. I'm almost embarrassed-no, check that, I am embarrassed- to see this latest comedy act coming from my nation's space agency.
Face palm after face palm.
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The aerospace contractors are starting to feel the heat and their lobbyists are hard at work. The New Space companies are coming to eat their lunch so they've got to lock in the long-term pork now.
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Wouldn't the industry standard be somewhere between Falcon Heavy and DIVH? Getting such an impressively porcine launch vehicle to even that level seems a fool's errand, though.
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Even if you put every other ridiculous aspect of SLS aside, this part is horrifying to me. I guess there might be other buyers lining up for a $1b a time ride to space, but realistically the US Gov and these crewed launches would likely be the only launches.
At a rate of only 1 per year, I think it'd be really hard to get the kind of safe, practised processes in place. I think we've seen this recently with the ULA launches (DIVH?) that were repeatedly delayed for launch infrastructure issues.
To me, the safe way to launch humans into space is with something that is routinely and regularly flying lots of missions. That may be mixing human crew with cargo missions (like F9) or lots of crewed launches. I just can't see how only 1 flight a year could ever approach the same level of reliability.
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"Among the rocket's chief architects was then-Florida Senator Bill Nelson"
That sentence right there is all you need to know about SLS.
That sentence right there is all you need to know about SLS.
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Orion's too chunky. It's ~26.5 tonnes to TLI. I don't have FH's numbers to TLI, but an expended FH is 26.7 tonnes to GTO and the TLI number was estimated at 18 to 20 tonnes. You'd need to shave about 1/3 of the mass off of Orion to allow FH to get it on its way to the moon.
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With the way lobbyists and pork-gorged NASA 'managers' are flinging these ridiculous deflection 'proposals' around to hide how big of a mess SLS is, one could go so far as to say that it should come as a surprise if SLS *EVER* launches.
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An alternative question is how much work would need to be done to adapt Crew Dragon so that it could replace Orion in Artemis, and would FH be able to get that capsule to the moon?
Edit: a very quick google suggests Crew Dragon is about 12 tonnes. So even beefing that up quite a bit to cope with a lunar mission, there seems a good margin. Which makes sense now I think about it for more than a few seconds, as SpaceX were originally talking of using FH to do a sightseeing trip around the moon.
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Omega_Prime
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Ha ha good one... Porcine fueled systems such as SLS require dollars like an oxidizer.
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Demanding discounts for something that the industry most likely doesn't want to touch unless it gets paid big, seems like a losing proposition to me.
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It's mind boggling to see multi-billion dollar aerospace projects using the same logic as big clothing retailers and inventing wildly inflated base prices for the purpose of pretend discounts.
This weekend only! Huge sale! SLS launches only $2 billion! It's 80% off the totally-real-price we didn't just make up! Buy now and get 10 Boeing Bucks free!
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It's absurd to think that the promised profit wouldn't be coming in. That's a guaranteed monopoly on a government-bought resource! You open a subsidiary, squeeze it for all it's worth, then close up shop after two or three bailouts.
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It'll probably launch once in 2023 with a payload of concrete, and that'll be it.
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