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"Let’s be very honest, We don’t have a commercially available heavy-lift vehicle. The Falcon 9 Heavy may some day come about. It’s on the drawing board right no

"Let’s be very honest, We don’t have a commercially available heavy-lift vehicle. The Falcon 9 Heavy may some day come about. It’s on the drawing board right now. SLS is real."(2014)[0] - Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator, 2009 – 2017 [0] https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/item/NASA-Adrift-Part-2-29938.php https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/item/NASA-Adrift-Part...

BelenusMordred 6y ago
> After a thorough review of the rocket program, the agency committed to a maiden flight by November 2018, but officials kept open the possibility of having the SLS ready to fly sooner — perhaps as early as late 2017 on the scheduled NASA touted since the launch vehicle’s inception. https://spaceflightnow.com/2014/12/16/despite-budget-boost-space-launch-system-will-not-fly-before-2018/ https://spaceflightnow.com/2014/12/16/despite-budget-boost-s...
deleted 6y ago
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hiharryhere 6y ago
Bolden's recently changed his tune: “SLS will go away," he said. "It could go away during a Biden administration or a next Trump administration… because at some point commercial entities are going to catch up. They are really going to build a heavy lift launch vehicle sort of like SLS that they will be able to fly for a much cheaper price than NASA can do SLS. That’s just the way it works.” https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/former-nasa-administrator-says-sls-rocket-will-go-away/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/former-nasa-administ...
- zachrose 6y ago
  Took me a second to realize he said this before the election. Whew.
Rebelgecko 6y ago
I mean, he's right. AFAIK SpaceX dropped whatever plans they had to get the F9H man-rated
- taylortbb 6y ago
  That's less of a "FH can't be human-rated" and more of a "there's not point in human-rating FH right now". FH is heavily derived from the human-rated F9, but what capsule would fly on FH? Crew Dragon flies fine on F9, and NASA isn't looking to fly Orion on FH. If the latter part changed I'm sure SpaceX would undertake the human rating.
  - dlgeek 6y ago
    F9 can't fly crew dragon into a lunar orbit though, can it? I thought you need a FH class booster for that.
    - spiritplumber 6y ago
      You could launch a separate kicker on a different F9, but that may be my KSP/BARIS talking.
- avmich 6y ago
  To me having a particularly heavy rocket to be man-rated is like stepping into Shuttle problems again. That is, trying to make a system both very safe and having a large mass payloads. Why to have a larger than necessary rocket, which has additional problems with just getting stuff to orbit - FH is more complex than F9 - to carry humans, who requires extra care? Much better, from the point of safety, is to have a moderate-sized launcher human rated and specializing in bringing humans safely to orbit. After that it's much safer to use whatever means of travel are brought to space by any other launchers, those with focus on economy and less on safety. A counterargument is usually a variation of "it's very expensive", but that's just, roughly, because human life is valued cheap enough to allow for suboptimal choices.
  - 6y ago

BelenusMordred 6y ago

> After a thorough review of the rocket program, the agency committed to a maiden flight by November 2018, but officials kept open the possibility of having the SLS ready to fly sooner — perhaps as early as late 2017 on the scheduled NASA touted since the launch vehicle’s inception. https://spaceflightnow.com/2014/12/16/despite-budget-boost-space-launch-system-will-not-fly-before-2018/ https://spaceflightnow.com/2014/12/16/despite-budget-boost-s...

deleted 6y ago

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hiharryhere 6y ago

Bolden's recently changed his tune: “SLS will go away," he said. "It could go away during a Biden administration or a next Trump administration… because at some point commercial entities are going to catch up. They are really going to build a heavy lift launch vehicle sort of like SLS that they will be able to fly for a much cheaper price than NASA can do SLS. That’s just the way it works.” https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/former-nasa-administrator-says-sls-rocket-will-go-away/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/former-nasa-administ...

zachrose 6y ago
Took me a second to realize he said this before the election. Whew.

Rebelgecko 6y ago

I mean, he's right. AFAIK SpaceX dropped whatever plans they had to get the F9H man-rated

taylortbb 6y ago
That's less of a "FH can't be human-rated" and more of a "there's not point in human-rating FH right now". FH is heavily derived from the human-rated F9, but what capsule would fly on FH? Crew Dragon flies fine on F9, and NASA isn't looking to fly Orion on FH. If the latter part changed I'm sure SpaceX would undertake the human rating.
- dlgeek 6y ago
  F9 can't fly crew dragon into a lunar orbit though, can it? I thought you need a FH class booster for that.
  - spiritplumber 6y ago
    You could launch a separate kicker on a different F9, but that may be my KSP/BARIS talking.
avmich 6y ago
To me having a particularly heavy rocket to be man-rated is like stepping into Shuttle problems again. That is, trying to make a system both very safe and having a large mass payloads. Why to have a larger than necessary rocket, which has additional problems with just getting stuff to orbit - FH is more complex than F9 - to carry humans, who requires extra care? Much better, from the point of safety, is to have a moderate-sized launcher human rated and specializing in bringing humans safely to orbit. After that it's much safer to use whatever means of travel are brought to space by any other launchers, those with focus on economy and less on safety. A counterargument is usually a variation of "it's very expensive", but that's just, roughly, because human life is valued cheap enough to allow for suboptimal choices.
- 6y ago