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The proposal sounds technically interesting, but there seems to be growing skepticism of SLS even within NASA. Everyone from Blue Origin, Arianespace/ESA, China

by themgt 7y ago

The proposal sounds technically interesting, but there seems to be growing skepticism of SLS even within NASA. Everyone from Blue Origin, Arianespace/ESA, China etc are working on reusable rockets while SLS is over budget, behind schedule and looks like it may be effectively obsolete before it's even launching payloads (much less by the time (2025?) NASA can actually procure new "RS-25E" engines rather than using its handful of shuttle leftovers) The most exciting near-future space tech to me is SpaceX's goal to achieve in-orbit refueling with Starship. With their much cheaper reusable launches, you could plausibly put a Starship with payload in low orbit, launch 3-4 tankers to fully refuel it and then blast off to anywhere in or out of the solar system faster than anything now remotely conceivable. You could do a mission like this without the complex gravity assists. SLS is a massive pork program and going to be hard to shut down, but as soon as "BFR"/New Glenn are operational I think it's time to start looking at getting NASA out of the rocket business and focused on cool space/science missions.

CptFribble 7y ago
SpaceX has proven that the economics are finally there for private launching. The government should put all the SLS money into the science and extreme boundary-pushing tech research NASA's doing that the economics aren't there for: protections/psych research for long-term space habitation, space farms, probes to the next set of targets (Europa, Titan, interesting asteroids), solar-system scale communications, and orbital manufacturing. NASA laid the groundwork for a larger group of organizations to build on in the earth-to-orbit space. Now NASA should be laying the groundwork for a larger group of organizations to build on in the orbit-to-solar-system space.
rbanffy 7y ago
> launch 3-4 tankers to fully refuel it You could also use the tankers to add propellant (not necessarily fuel) to an NTR or an electric thruster with higher Isp than their methalox engines. A couple decades of low thrust would be pretty good.

by themgt 7y ago

CptFribble 7y ago

SpaceX has proven that the economics are finally there for private launching. The government should put all the SLS money into the science and extreme boundary-pushing tech research NASA's doing that the economics aren't there for: protections/psych research for long-term space habitation, space farms, probes to the next set of targets (Europa, Titan, interesting asteroids), solar-system scale communications, and orbital manufacturing. NASA laid the groundwork for a larger group of organizations to build on in the earth-to-orbit space. Now NASA should be laying the groundwork for a larger group of organizations to build on in the orbit-to-solar-system space.

rbanffy 7y ago

> launch 3-4 tankers to fully refuel it You could also use the tankers to add propellant (not necessarily fuel) to an NTR or an electric thruster with higher Isp than their methalox engines. A couple decades of low thrust would be pretty good.