6 ms·

SLS: a worthwhile project to spend billions on? Or, a tremendous waste of time and money, existing only to keep govt. dollars flowing to the same contractors w

by marze 10y ago

SLS: a worthwhile project to spend billions on? Or, a tremendous waste of time and money, existing only to keep govt. dollars flowing to the same contractors who profited from Shuttle? The reason it exists at all is because average voters pay no attention at all.

dogma1138 10y ago
There isn't a reliable non governmental launch system currently in production. Space X has a long long way to go and they play a completely different game to ULA/NASA. The SLS is expensive but it's not only needed its long overdue.
- marze 10y ago
  True, they are different. The biggest difference is this: SpaceX target cost per person to Mars: $0.2M Govt target: $10000M (estimated) While SpaceX may not reach their target, one can't help but notice factor of 50000 difference.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    How about SpaceX becoming certified for human transport with it's current and next generation rocket before we talk about 500000 factor difference with it's 3rd (or Nth gen rocket)? SpaceX's reusability is brilliant but it's currently not considerably cheaper than ULA, if you count the fact that the a lower end Atlas V rocket launch costs about 100M and it's currently a more reliable system than the Dragon. http://breakingdefense.com/2014/05/ula-fires-back-at-spacex-at-space-symposium-details-launch-costs/ http://breakingdefense.com/2014/05/ula-fires-back-at-spacex-...
    - marze 10y ago
      SpaceX has years to work before they miss their first person on Mars timeframe estimate. I wouldn't be surprised if they are late, or over budget. But I'd be very surprised if they are 10000 times over budget. But I'd be even more surprised if the govt program was 20% under budget. Or if it ever made it to Mars, actually.
      - sangnoir 10y ago
        SpaceX will be late for sure: Musk likes setting out aggressive timescales
    - Retric 10y ago
      No they cost 164M. There is a contact covering 64 million per launch and an additional 100M cost per launch making the actual cost 164M. Which is two and a half times what a Falcon V launch costs before any possible reusability is included. It's like calling a 5 year car lease cheap after putting in a 20k down payment and ignoring that as a monthly cost. PS: There is something to be said for reliability. But, if your satellite costs less than 500M and Space X had a 20% failure rate that's still generally a better deal.
  - exDM69 10y ago
    SpaceX's target cost is talking about a long-term goal when the R&D costs are amortized by the number of launches. Ie. talking about the costs in 2040 (earliest) when they've had about 10 years of experience of regular Mars flights. Pretty sure that their costs for sending the first few humans to Mars are on similar orders of magnitude to Govt plans. What they outlined in their presentation was a long-term vision. We should be comparing to their "Red Dragon" efforts.
  - lmm 10y ago
    I've got a launch system in my backyard with a target cost per person to mars of $4, that's a factor of 50000 better than SpaceX. Where do I pick up my legion of internet fans? SpaceX has done great stuff but they also have a history of overpromising and underdelivering. Falcon Heavy was supposedly going to launch last year. Right now they don't even have a rocket that's cleared for flight. I wish them well but talk is cheap; let's judge them on what they've actually done.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  It's also incredibly valuable that we're developing multiple competing solutions to the problem. This means the problem will get solved, one way or the other. I recall multiple prototypes and development projects to replace the shuttle with newer spaceplanes during it's run. NASA would invest a lot of money and research into one design, and then they hit a fundamental roadblock that killed the project. And they were back to square one... the shuttle. Until they had a new idea, and started again. Additionally, two successful strategies will be far more helpful than one. Consider that when a space shuttle exploded, it shut down the entire US space program for a lengthy span (sometimes years) while everything was reevaluated, refit, and recertified. When we shut down the shuttle program, we no longer had a viable route to space except through Russia. If we have two viable craft from two viable contractors to get to space, we're able to rely on a persistent strategy that can weather unexpected events or problems.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Yes, but regardless of competing designs you simply can't lose the ability to control your space launched as a superpower or any space faring nation. SpaceX can implode tomorrow, it can be sold to China, it can decide that it doesn't like Emperor Trump (shivers...) and it won't launch anything anymore for the Americans. NASA is good at doing very big and actually pretty efficient projects when you take reliability into account. Yes they are job projects, yes they feed contractors, but this is OK, the space program needs to be a job program this is how you reap one of the main benefits of it which is the distribution of knowledge and ideas across the industry there would be no SpaceX without NASA. If we learned anything from the Apollo days is that you can't stop making big rockets because once you do it would take you ages to regain that capability, the cost of the SLS and any follow up project after that would be worth it if nothing than to preserve knowledge, skill, and manufacturing capabilities for future generations. And on a side note I am very skeptical of SpaceX's "interstellar rocket" yes I'm just another ahole with an opinion but they are effectively trying out the same thing that the Russians did and very unsuccessfully as the new SpaceX design is effectively the Soviet moonshot rocket. The N1 had 30 engines, the design was deemed "ingenious" (even by the americans) the Russians could not build big engines, but they had an extremely safe, effective, and very very powerful small engine design that is still used today the NK-15/NK-33. So they put 30 of those on the first stage of the N-1 rocket and it failed badly, all 4 attempts failed for "different" reasons but all of them tied to a single thing - too many "moving parts" any problem with a single engine even a slight thrust imbalance would lead to disastrous results, and having 30 engines on a rocket that have to operate with near impossible tolerances was simply not something that was achievable then (and perhaps even today). There wasn't anything wrong with the engines, each engine on it's own was working pretty flawlessly, and on smaller scales the issues that the N-1 encountered during launch would most likely been controllable, or at least possible to compensate for long enough for the damn thing not to explode on launch or very shortly after it (the idea of an N-1 type rocket launching anywhere near a populated area is a freaking scary one). Now it's true that many things have changed, the Russians had to control the engines electro-mechanically, there was likely no software involved but still when you add parts to a system you increase the chances of failures. Both Blue Origin and ULA/NASA are basing their big rockets on a small number of big engines, SpaceX wants to use 42 Raptor engines which were initially designed for an upper stage single engine usage, I'm honestly very skeptical that this system can be reliable enough to get off the ground with that many engines.
- di4na 10y ago
  Problem is : have you look at the engine choice for SLS ? Yup the most unmaintainable and most ocmplex ever made and the one that is now super old... Welcome to Space Shuttle once again !
  - thelambentonion 10y ago
    The RS-25 remains one of the most impressive engineering feats to date, so I wouldn't worry about it being 'super old'. Much of the complexity associated with the RS-25s is necessary complexity in such a high-efficiency, multi-paradigm (i.e. sea-level and exo-atmospheric) system. To be honest, I'm unaware of an engine that would be better suited.
- exDM69 10y ago
  Yes, people seem to forget that SpaceX's long term plans are so for nothing but a vision and they're pretty far away from achieving their goals. They do have an excellent technology roadmap, but they still do need to execute on it. The Orion space craft is the only current deep space capable manned spacecraft that has flown to space and returned. Meanwhile the Dragon v2 has only completed a launch abort test and will initially serve low earth orbit only (it's designed to be upgraded to deep space capable, but this is years away). The Falcon Heavy and SLS rockets are both still development programs, and by the current schedule, the FH will fly (probably a satellite payload) only a year earlier than the SLS (which will fly with the Orion). The SLS has higher payload (70 vs. 55 metric tons) too. The SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System is just a visionary roadmap at this point and should be treated as such. They've only completed the first (but important) baby steps with the Raptor engine tests and composite tank manufacturing so far. SpaceX is doing a very good job, but the SLS + Orion program is a long way ahead of them if their schedules hold.

by marze 10y ago

dogma1138 10y ago

There isn't a reliable non governmental launch system currently in production. Space X has a long long way to go and they play a completely different game to ULA/NASA. The SLS is expensive but it's not only needed its long overdue.

marze 10y ago
True, they are different. The biggest difference is this: SpaceX target cost per person to Mars: $0.2M Govt target: $10000M (estimated) While SpaceX may not reach their target, one can't help but notice factor of 50000 difference.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  How about SpaceX becoming certified for human transport with it's current and next generation rocket before we talk about 500000 factor difference with it's 3rd (or Nth gen rocket)? SpaceX's reusability is brilliant but it's currently not considerably cheaper than ULA, if you count the fact that the a lower end Atlas V rocket launch costs about 100M and it's currently a more reliable system than the Dragon. http://breakingdefense.com/2014/05/ula-fires-back-at-spacex-at-space-symposium-details-launch-costs/ http://breakingdefense.com/2014/05/ula-fires-back-at-spacex-...
  - marze 10y ago
    SpaceX has years to work before they miss their first person on Mars timeframe estimate. I wouldn't be surprised if they are late, or over budget. But I'd be very surprised if they are 10000 times over budget. But I'd be even more surprised if the govt program was 20% under budget. Or if it ever made it to Mars, actually.
    - sangnoir 10y ago
      SpaceX will be late for sure: Musk likes setting out aggressive timescales
  - Retric 10y ago
    No they cost 164M. There is a contact covering 64 million per launch and an additional 100M cost per launch making the actual cost 164M. Which is two and a half times what a Falcon V launch costs before any possible reusability is included. It's like calling a 5 year car lease cheap after putting in a 20k down payment and ignoring that as a monthly cost. PS: There is something to be said for reliability. But, if your satellite costs less than 500M and Space X had a 20% failure rate that's still generally a better deal.
- exDM69 10y ago
  SpaceX's target cost is talking about a long-term goal when the R&D costs are amortized by the number of launches. Ie. talking about the costs in 2040 (earliest) when they've had about 10 years of experience of regular Mars flights. Pretty sure that their costs for sending the first few humans to Mars are on similar orders of magnitude to Govt plans. What they outlined in their presentation was a long-term vision. We should be comparing to their "Red Dragon" efforts.
- lmm 10y ago
  I've got a launch system in my backyard with a target cost per person to mars of $4, that's a factor of 50000 better than SpaceX. Where do I pick up my legion of internet fans? SpaceX has done great stuff but they also have a history of overpromising and underdelivering. Falcon Heavy was supposedly going to launch last year. Right now they don't even have a rocket that's cleared for flight. I wish them well but talk is cheap; let's judge them on what they've actually done.
ocdtrekkie 10y ago
It's also incredibly valuable that we're developing multiple competing solutions to the problem. This means the problem will get solved, one way or the other. I recall multiple prototypes and development projects to replace the shuttle with newer spaceplanes during it's run. NASA would invest a lot of money and research into one design, and then they hit a fundamental roadblock that killed the project. And they were back to square one... the shuttle. Until they had a new idea, and started again. Additionally, two successful strategies will be far more helpful than one. Consider that when a space shuttle exploded, it shut down the entire US space program for a lengthy span (sometimes years) while everything was reevaluated, refit, and recertified. When we shut down the shuttle program, we no longer had a viable route to space except through Russia. If we have two viable craft from two viable contractors to get to space, we're able to rely on a persistent strategy that can weather unexpected events or problems.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Yes, but regardless of competing designs you simply can't lose the ability to control your space launched as a superpower or any space faring nation. SpaceX can implode tomorrow, it can be sold to China, it can decide that it doesn't like Emperor Trump (shivers...) and it won't launch anything anymore for the Americans. NASA is good at doing very big and actually pretty efficient projects when you take reliability into account. Yes they are job projects, yes they feed contractors, but this is OK, the space program needs to be a job program this is how you reap one of the main benefits of it which is the distribution of knowledge and ideas across the industry there would be no SpaceX without NASA. If we learned anything from the Apollo days is that you can't stop making big rockets because once you do it would take you ages to regain that capability, the cost of the SLS and any follow up project after that would be worth it if nothing than to preserve knowledge, skill, and manufacturing capabilities for future generations. And on a side note I am very skeptical of SpaceX's "interstellar rocket" yes I'm just another ahole with an opinion but they are effectively trying out the same thing that the Russians did and very unsuccessfully as the new SpaceX design is effectively the Soviet moonshot rocket. The N1 had 30 engines, the design was deemed "ingenious" (even by the americans) the Russians could not build big engines, but they had an extremely safe, effective, and very very powerful small engine design that is still used today the NK-15/NK-33. So they put 30 of those on the first stage of the N-1 rocket and it failed badly, all 4 attempts failed for "different" reasons but all of them tied to a single thing - too many "moving parts" any problem with a single engine even a slight thrust imbalance would lead to disastrous results, and having 30 engines on a rocket that have to operate with near impossible tolerances was simply not something that was achievable then (and perhaps even today). There wasn't anything wrong with the engines, each engine on it's own was working pretty flawlessly, and on smaller scales the issues that the N-1 encountered during launch would most likely been controllable, or at least possible to compensate for long enough for the damn thing not to explode on launch or very shortly after it (the idea of an N-1 type rocket launching anywhere near a populated area is a freaking scary one). Now it's true that many things have changed, the Russians had to control the engines electro-mechanically, there was likely no software involved but still when you add parts to a system you increase the chances of failures. Both Blue Origin and ULA/NASA are basing their big rockets on a small number of big engines, SpaceX wants to use 42 Raptor engines which were initially designed for an upper stage single engine usage, I'm honestly very skeptical that this system can be reliable enough to get off the ground with that many engines.
di4na 10y ago
Problem is : have you look at the engine choice for SLS ? Yup the most unmaintainable and most ocmplex ever made and the one that is now super old... Welcome to Space Shuttle once again !
- thelambentonion 10y ago
  The RS-25 remains one of the most impressive engineering feats to date, so I wouldn't worry about it being 'super old'. Much of the complexity associated with the RS-25s is necessary complexity in such a high-efficiency, multi-paradigm (i.e. sea-level and exo-atmospheric) system. To be honest, I'm unaware of an engine that would be better suited.
exDM69 10y ago
Yes, people seem to forget that SpaceX's long term plans are so for nothing but a vision and they're pretty far away from achieving their goals. They do have an excellent technology roadmap, but they still do need to execute on it. The Orion space craft is the only current deep space capable manned spacecraft that has flown to space and returned. Meanwhile the Dragon v2 has only completed a launch abort test and will initially serve low earth orbit only (it's designed to be upgraded to deep space capable, but this is years away). The Falcon Heavy and SLS rockets are both still development programs, and by the current schedule, the FH will fly (probably a satellite payload) only a year earlier than the SLS (which will fly with the Orion). The SLS has higher payload (70 vs. 55 metric tons) too. The SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System is just a visionary roadmap at this point and should be treated as such. They've only completed the first (but important) baby steps with the Raptor engine tests and composite tank manufacturing so far. SpaceX is doing a very good job, but the SLS + Orion program is a long way ahead of them if their schedules hold.