4 ms·

I don't understand - what is the motivation here? The article is a little short, and it gives good insight into just how expensive this is (compared to other si

by voz_ 6y ago

I don't understand - what is the motivation here? The article is a little short, and it gives good insight into just how expensive this is (compared to other similarly classed potential space purchases). However, what I am failing to grasp is... why? Why spend so much when these other options are available? Surely not ignorance. Is it malice? corruption? Someone's ego?

m3nu 6y ago
Last sentence: Politics. > Men and women in all 50 states are hard at work..
__m 6y ago
You just assume that there are other options that meet their requirements, which might not be the case
- NikolaeVarius 6y ago
  The requirements were made so that the SLS would be the only thing that would be rated to launch it
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Is there another moon-capable rocket i dibt know about? And please dont say starship - its highly experimental, has never flows, and spacex has never flown people.
Joeri 6y ago
This is a jobs program which happens to produce rockets. The rockets are not the key objective, the jobs are.
- golergka 6y ago
  Playing devil's advocate here: wouldn't "preserve institutional knowledge about building rockets" also be it's goal?
  - KorematsuFred 6y ago
    > preserve institutional knowledge about building rockets No it would be "preserve institutional knowledge about building OUTDATED rockets" If you are a tech company are you going to run your own outdated servers at 10x the cost because you would like to preserve institutional knowledge about running outdated hardware ? Your argument would be correct if the cost difference was not that huge, the fact that it is so huge indicated that the tech they are using is very very outdated. No point in preserving anything about it.
    - golergka 6y ago
      "Outdated" also means well-researched, well-tested, with very little unknown unknowns. I do not mean "safer", necessarily - but the data about how safe they are is much more reliable. > If you are a tech company are you going to run your own outdated servers at 10x the cost because you would like to preserve institutional knowledge about running outdated hardware ? As a startup CTO, I will think twice about using the freshest framework or programming language, which is sexy and cool - just because I haven't seen enough people use it long enough yet. I will build a hobby project with it and love it, but or a small product that is allowed to fail, but I will not start an important new product with something like that.
    - ethbro 6y ago
      The cloud hardware metaphor is a good one. Preserving knowledge is easy and cheap. Preserving capability (that is to say, people and companies with knowledge and ability to use it) is not. To use the metaphor, a huge part of the military procurement budget is dedicated to continue building, deploying, and operating on-prem servers. Not because it's more efficient, but because at an international level, having a cloud provider (or in this case Russia or China) tell you "No" when you ask to renew or expand, is unacceptable. Unlike tech, machine shops filled with trained people can't be provisioned with a click...
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- kds3 6y ago
  But do we really need those C*O jobs and increased shareholder value? Probably keeping many of rocket science jobs could have been cheaper for taxpayers. But no one cares about that today, our children will be paying our debt, not us.
  - mdorazio 6y ago
    It's not C-level jobs, it's thousands of normal blue collar and white collar aerospace jobs across multiple states for many years.
    - valuearb 6y ago
      Those jobs exist whether we build the utter waste of the SLS or not, those people will just be actually building something useful.
ragebol 6y ago
Not that I like the answer, but the reason is assurance: it was not certain these alternatives would exist. And since NASA is beholden to politics with shorter cycles than rocket development cycles, it's also jobs program.
Melting_Harps 6y ago
> Why spend so much when these other options are available? Surely not ignorance. Is it malice? corruption? Someone's ego? I went into my disappointment with Bezo's choice to focus on Amazon rather than take the lead at Blue Origin while Boeing is on its knees in both their commercial airliner and Aerospace program a week ago knowing something like his would occur. It just raised $25 Billion in a Bond sale [1] and now we're back to this stagnant entity clogging up the heavy lift system and we revert back to the same nepotism that has plagued aerospace for decades. > SLS will cost upwards of a billion per launch. Compare that to $90 million for a reusable Falcon Heavy launch or ~$150 million for a disposable one. But this helps clarify things, too. 1: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boeing-raises-25-billion-bond-071511873.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boeing-raises-25-billion-bond...
helsinkiandrew 6y ago
I'd say there's two main justifications: 1. Lower Risk - based on 40+ year old proven rockets. NASA can't have failures if it wants to get future funding. 2. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs! - spreading out jobs means politicians are more likely to approve funding
- valuearb 6y ago
  40 year old rockets proven to kill 17 people and miss every cost and performance metric when they were operated.
  - scrumbledober 6y ago
    Were any of those deaths due to a failing engine though? That's the only part they're really reusing afaik
    - valuearb 6y ago
      They are reusing very similar SRBs, which killed one crew and complicates SLS abort modes since SRBs cant be turned off and Orions parachutes will melt if they come into contact with SRB exhaust. The RS-25 also requires Hydrogen fuel, which in addition to being a terrible first stage fuel because of its low density and heavy tankage (which is why SRBs are required) also has been a causative factor in most of the SLS delays to date. The RS-25 is viewed as the Ferrari of engines because of its complexity and high ISP (which is only because it uses H2 as fuel). The main thing it has proven us that it’s far too expensive for any useful application. When used on the Shuttle each RS-25 had to be entirely torn down and rebuilt between flights, a process that took months and great expense. So the SLS takes these enormously expensive engines and burns them up after each use. The only reason RS-25s aren’t long ago put into junkyards is congress trying to favor existing space contractors. A keralox or metholox first stage would not need super expensive SRBs, would be far easier and cheaper to build. Raptors cost $2M each in prototype form and are expected to cost under $1M in production. Each raptor also provides more thrust than an RS-25, using a far denser and easier to handle fuel.
dotancohen 6y ago
The motivation as proposed was to reuse already existing and certified STS (Space Shuttle) components in the next generation rockets, to reduce costs. The Falcon rocket family did not exist at the time that the SLS was proposed and green-lit.
- JshWright 6y ago
  Falcon Heavy didn't exist, but the Falcon family certainly did (and had flown).
mpweiher 6y ago
As far as I can tell, this is the space industry's "Wile E. Coyote" moment[1]. A long one at that. This kind of largely unquestioned cost structure ("cost plus" contracts[2][3]) has been going on for such a long time now that nobody in that part of the industry has really accepted that the party is over. And of course industry players don't actually have to accept that the party is over as long as government pays those old-style prices, which have been outrageous for some time and have only gone up. (They seem to have gone up even more egregiously recently, which might be an indication that industry is actually very well aware that the game is up and is trying to rake in as much as possible while they still can). And yes, there are justifications, some of which may also be reasons (jobs, know-how, whatever ...), but I am sure that inertia is a huge part of this. If this were being decided from scratch, I doubt the outcome would be the same. And yes, the current industry is almost certainly doomed. Yes, Falcon and Falcon Heavy are already dramatically cheaper. But Starship, if it works, is something else entirely. Game over. I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation that showed a fleet of 10 Starships, if reused as planned, having such an increase of capacity over what we have now that the current yearly launch capacity of the entire world becomes a footnote, a few percent of what those Starships will be able to haul into orbit by themselves. And they're planning to mass-produce these. Game over. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wile_E._Coyote_and_the_Road_Runner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wile_E._Coyote_and_the_Road_Ru... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost-plus_contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost-plus_contract [3] https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/elon-musk-knows-whats-ailing-nasa-costly-contracting/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/elon-musk-knows-what...
nickik 6y ago
I guess this is more target at people who want to keep up with NASA. NASA has to build SLS, the company knows that they are the only ones, so they can charge whatever they like. Thankfully NASA is slowly moving away from insane stuff like this, but SLS/Orion are still done this way.

by voz_ 6y ago

m3nu 6y ago

Last sentence: Politics. > Men and women in all 50 states are hard at work..

__m 6y ago

You just assume that there are other options that meet their requirements, which might not be the case

NikolaeVarius 6y ago
The requirements were made so that the SLS would be the only thing that would be rated to launch it
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Is there another moon-capable rocket i dibt know about? And please dont say starship - its highly experimental, has never flows, and spacex has never flown people.

Joeri 6y ago

This is a jobs program which happens to produce rockets. The rockets are not the key objective, the jobs are.

golergka 6y ago
Playing devil's advocate here: wouldn't "preserve institutional knowledge about building rockets" also be it's goal?
- KorematsuFred 6y ago
  > preserve institutional knowledge about building rockets No it would be "preserve institutional knowledge about building OUTDATED rockets" If you are a tech company are you going to run your own outdated servers at 10x the cost because you would like to preserve institutional knowledge about running outdated hardware ? Your argument would be correct if the cost difference was not that huge, the fact that it is so huge indicated that the tech they are using is very very outdated. No point in preserving anything about it.
  - golergka 6y ago
    "Outdated" also means well-researched, well-tested, with very little unknown unknowns. I do not mean "safer", necessarily - but the data about how safe they are is much more reliable. > If you are a tech company are you going to run your own outdated servers at 10x the cost because you would like to preserve institutional knowledge about running outdated hardware ? As a startup CTO, I will think twice about using the freshest framework or programming language, which is sexy and cool - just because I haven't seen enough people use it long enough yet. I will build a hobby project with it and love it, but or a small product that is allowed to fail, but I will not start an important new product with something like that.
  - ethbro 6y ago
    The cloud hardware metaphor is a good one. Preserving knowledge is easy and cheap. Preserving capability (that is to say, people and companies with knowledge and ability to use it) is not. To use the metaphor, a huge part of the military procurement budget is dedicated to continue building, deploying, and operating on-prem servers. Not because it's more efficient, but because at an international level, having a cloud provider (or in this case Russia or China) tell you "No" when you ask to renew or expand, is unacceptable. Unlike tech, machine shops filled with trained people can't be provisioned with a click...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
kds3 6y ago
But do we really need those C*O jobs and increased shareholder value? Probably keeping many of rocket science jobs could have been cheaper for taxpayers. But no one cares about that today, our children will be paying our debt, not us.
- mdorazio 6y ago
  It's not C-level jobs, it's thousands of normal blue collar and white collar aerospace jobs across multiple states for many years.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    Those jobs exist whether we build the utter waste of the SLS or not, those people will just be actually building something useful.

ragebol 6y ago

Not that I like the answer, but the reason is assurance: it was not certain these alternatives would exist. And since NASA is beholden to politics with shorter cycles than rocket development cycles, it's also jobs program.

Melting_Harps 6y ago

> Why spend so much when these other options are available? Surely not ignorance. Is it malice? corruption? Someone's ego? I went into my disappointment with Bezo's choice to focus on Amazon rather than take the lead at Blue Origin while Boeing is on its knees in both their commercial airliner and Aerospace program a week ago knowing something like his would occur. It just raised $25 Billion in a Bond sale [1] and now we're back to this stagnant entity clogging up the heavy lift system and we revert back to the same nepotism that has plagued aerospace for decades. > SLS will cost upwards of a billion per launch. Compare that to $90 million for a reusable Falcon Heavy launch or ~$150 million for a disposable one. But this helps clarify things, too. 1: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boeing-raises-25-billion-bond-071511873.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boeing-raises-25-billion-bond...

helsinkiandrew 6y ago

I'd say there's two main justifications: 1. Lower Risk - based on 40+ year old proven rockets. NASA can't have failures if it wants to get future funding. 2. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs! - spreading out jobs means politicians are more likely to approve funding

valuearb 6y ago
40 year old rockets proven to kill 17 people and miss every cost and performance metric when they were operated.
- scrumbledober 6y ago
  Were any of those deaths due to a failing engine though? That's the only part they're really reusing afaik
  - valuearb 6y ago
    They are reusing very similar SRBs, which killed one crew and complicates SLS abort modes since SRBs cant be turned off and Orions parachutes will melt if they come into contact with SRB exhaust. The RS-25 also requires Hydrogen fuel, which in addition to being a terrible first stage fuel because of its low density and heavy tankage (which is why SRBs are required) also has been a causative factor in most of the SLS delays to date. The RS-25 is viewed as the Ferrari of engines because of its complexity and high ISP (which is only because it uses H2 as fuel). The main thing it has proven us that it’s far too expensive for any useful application. When used on the Shuttle each RS-25 had to be entirely torn down and rebuilt between flights, a process that took months and great expense. So the SLS takes these enormously expensive engines and burns them up after each use. The only reason RS-25s aren’t long ago put into junkyards is congress trying to favor existing space contractors. A keralox or metholox first stage would not need super expensive SRBs, would be far easier and cheaper to build. Raptors cost $2M each in prototype form and are expected to cost under $1M in production. Each raptor also provides more thrust than an RS-25, using a far denser and easier to handle fuel.

dotancohen 6y ago

The motivation as proposed was to reuse already existing and certified STS (Space Shuttle) components in the next generation rockets, to reduce costs. The Falcon rocket family did not exist at the time that the SLS was proposed and green-lit.

JshWright 6y ago
Falcon Heavy didn't exist, but the Falcon family certainly did (and had flown).

mpweiher 6y ago

As far as I can tell, this is the space industry's "Wile E. Coyote" moment[1]. A long one at that. This kind of largely unquestioned cost structure ("cost plus" contracts[2][3]) has been going on for such a long time now that nobody in that part of the industry has really accepted that the party is over. And of course industry players don't actually have to accept that the party is over as long as government pays those old-style prices, which have been outrageous for some time and have only gone up. (They seem to have gone up even more egregiously recently, which might be an indication that industry is actually very well aware that the game is up and is trying to rake in as much as possible while they still can). And yes, there are justifications, some of which may also be reasons (jobs, know-how, whatever ...), but I am sure that inertia is a huge part of this. If this were being decided from scratch, I doubt the outcome would be the same. And yes, the current industry is almost certainly doomed. Yes, Falcon and Falcon Heavy are already dramatically cheaper. But Starship, if it works, is something else entirely. Game over. I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation that showed a fleet of 10 Starships, if reused as planned, having such an increase of capacity over what we have now that the current yearly launch capacity of the entire world becomes a footnote, a few percent of what those Starships will be able to haul into orbit by themselves. And they're planning to mass-produce these. Game over. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wile_E._Coyote_and_the_Road_Runner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wile_E._Coyote_and_the_Road_Ru... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost-plus_contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost-plus_contract [3] https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/elon-musk-knows-whats-ailing-nasa-costly-contracting/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/elon-musk-knows-what...

nickik 6y ago

I guess this is more target at people who want to keep up with NASA. NASA has to build SLS, the company knows that they are the only ones, so they can charge whatever they like. Thankfully NASA is slowly moving away from insane stuff like this, but SLS/Orion are still done this way.