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Costs will come down - while yes, it'll still be more expensive because its a heavy lift vehicle - comparing it to SpaceX is comparing Apples and Wednesday. Th

by Aloha 4y ago

Costs will come down - while yes, it'll still be more expensive because its a heavy lift vehicle - comparing it to SpaceX is comparing Apples and Wednesday. The way SpaceX does programatic accounting, and the way NASA does programatic accounting are I suspect, wildly different. NASA itself estimates costs of about 800m+ each (depending how you account for program overhead). Also, if SLS is used to launch stuff to LEO, its a cosmic waste of money. None of the Falcon rockets can really meet the program goals of SLS.

panick21_ 4y ago
A whole number of things wrong here. First of all, that 800m number is mostly a very optimistic estimate that might come true sometime around 2030 or later. And even then its only true if you completely ignore amortization of development cost, something SpaceX can't really do. Some of the items that are getting ordered now are for rockets in the late 2020s and if you look at those unit prices its not close to 800m yet. 1b will also need a new upper stage, the price of that is as of yet pure speculation and anybody that has watched the SLS program knows that will happen before its done. And the unit price will also not be there. SLS will almost certainty be canceled before they reach anywhere close to 800m a launch. > None of the Falcon rockets can really meet the program goals of SLS. That is simply not true, or rather, its only true as so far as the whole Artemis program was designed to use SLS. When the NASA administrator suggest that Falcon Heavies could be used some in congress threatened him and seriously suggested he should resign. He shut up quite fast after that. Many at NASA in the early 2010s didn't want SLS, simple because such a rocket is not required. And even today with a few changes and tweaks it wouldn't be required. But of course if you spend 45 billion into a specific solution it will be better then the solution you spend 0$ on. But even so, its still not to late, even now canceling SLS and redesigning Artemis would be worth it. Artemis assumes that Starship will exist anyway, and human transport to LEO is fixed already. Starship is the lander already. So really, only thing you need is somehow to get humans from LEO to the moon. And guess what, Starship already has to fly that anyway.
- Aloha 4y ago
  > SLS will almost certainty be canceled before they reach anywhere close to 800m a launch. Thats, speculation, one covered in the source article, that notes, because of the spread of the project - virtually every state makes something for it, its proven itself more or less immune to budget cuts because of this. Beyond that, there is a dearth of heavy lift rockets out there, the idea of a single source from SpaceX is.. one, contrary to normal federal procurement rules, and two, not a sane idea - if for no there reason than it doesnt match the mission profile for a lunar mission. I'll note, that even a Block I SLS launches 30t more into LEO than Falcon Heavy does, the numbers go up even higher for later blocks, presumably this advantage is even high for lunar missions.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    > Thats, speculation Its speculation but informed speculation. > more or less immune to budget cuts because of this That is true so far but not a law of nature. There are many in congress who don't like it. It touches every state, but some state far more then others. And an alternative solution would also spend money. SpaceX is in California, Texas, Florida and Washington. And other commercial providers like BlueOrigin are in Alabama and Florida. Originally it was a Alabama and Florida Senator who pushed SLS. A Florida senator didn't want commercial space, he wanted SLS launching from Florida. However since then every Florida senator will understand that SpaceX aud Commercial launch is 1000x more important for Florida then a SLS launch every year. So a state like Florida was incredibly pro SLS, now this is no longer true. Alabama and Utah will continue to be pro SLS. However Texas and California (slightly relevant stats) will certainty not be. There are forces in congress that don't like the waste and Alabama/Utah dominance and when Starship fly's regularly before Artemis 2 even launches you will see some series attacks on SLS castle. And if SLS has any series issues it will be easy to topple. Even just delaying funding for the new upper stage can kill it. Its a very long time from now until late 2020s. Consider the difference in the industry over the last 7 years. 7 years ago there were still influential voices who thought reusable rockets would never be real, now reusable rockets are so boring that even hard core space nerds don't watch all the launches anymore. SLS already looks like a flying antique in a few years it will just be comical. > one, contrary to normal federal procurement rules Federal procurement rules don't really apply to large NASA missions. As SLS is single sourced right now. > two, not a sane idea So then by your own logic SLS is not a sane idea. I guess we agree. > I'll note, that even a Block I SLS launches 30t more into LEO than Falcon Heavy does, the numbers go up even higher for later blocks, presumably this advantage is even high for lunar missions. We are not talking about Apollo. This is not a single all-in-one launch architecture. Artemis already relies on multiple launches for all its missions. Anything but single launch payload comparison will come out much better using commercial rocket. Falcon 9 heavy can launch literally 5-20 times as often while you can launch 20 of them for the price of single SLS launch. 20 Falcon Heavy rockets costing 140M a pop (likely would be less) cost would literally be cheaper then Artemis 1 launch cost alone. You can also do the numbers for New Glenn, Vulcan, Terran R, Neutron and all the other commercial rockets. Going to a multi launch architecture designed for launch vehicles of current size is sensible, far more so then single source multi-billion SLS. You could literally pay for 10 years of all launches required with the price of just the Artemis 1/Artemis 2. Its financial idiocy beyond rime or reason and nobody who seriously looks at the numbers can defend it. There are so many other architecture that could make sense. Even dumb things like launching the Service Module and Orion separately would work and if you did, Falcon Heavy would be totally doable and far, far cheaper then the current architecture. But of course current Orion isn't designed to do that, no-no, we couldn't do sensible architectures like that. If you actually gave space mission architects freedom from the the political milestones, not a single one of them would ever come up with the current Artemis program. All of this is before we even consider the existence of Starship. SLS/Orion are terrible ideas BEFORE you even consider Starship. If you consider Starship (and Artemis already has a hard dependency on it) SLS/Orion go from terrible ideas to borderline insanity.
icelancer 4y ago
> None of the Falcon rockets can really meet the program goals of SLS. This is not accurate even according to the NASA administrators in the past. Falcon Heavy should be able to meet the vast majority of the goals if not all; many of which were arbitrarily defined to only fit SLS anyway.
- phkahler 4y ago
  Falcon Heavy is not rated for carrying humans. That's only because SpaceX chose not to bother because 1) low demand and 2) starship will do it anyway.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Falcon Heavy is not rated to carry humans because NASA has no need for it, had they designed Artemis around it, SpaceX would have been happy to do so. Its literally just paper work, Falcon Heavy is already DESIGNED AND BUILT TO MEET human rating standards. They just didn't to the paper work.
    - wumpus 4y ago
      Falcon Heavy is fully certified for the most difficult level of uncrewed launches by NASA and the Space Force -- including reusing side boosters. NASA's crewed rating is one step farther, but not a huge step farther.

by Aloha 4y ago

panick21_ 4y ago

A whole number of things wrong here. First of all, that 800m number is mostly a very optimistic estimate that might come true sometime around 2030 or later. And even then its only true if you completely ignore amortization of development cost, something SpaceX can't really do. Some of the items that are getting ordered now are for rockets in the late 2020s and if you look at those unit prices its not close to 800m yet. 1b will also need a new upper stage, the price of that is as of yet pure speculation and anybody that has watched the SLS program knows that will happen before its done. And the unit price will also not be there. SLS will almost certainty be canceled before they reach anywhere close to 800m a launch. > None of the Falcon rockets can really meet the program goals of SLS. That is simply not true, or rather, its only true as so far as the whole Artemis program was designed to use SLS. When the NASA administrator suggest that Falcon Heavies could be used some in congress threatened him and seriously suggested he should resign. He shut up quite fast after that. Many at NASA in the early 2010s didn't want SLS, simple because such a rocket is not required. And even today with a few changes and tweaks it wouldn't be required. But of course if you spend 45 billion into a specific solution it will be better then the solution you spend 0$ on. But even so, its still not to late, even now canceling SLS and redesigning Artemis would be worth it. Artemis assumes that Starship will exist anyway, and human transport to LEO is fixed already. Starship is the lander already. So really, only thing you need is somehow to get humans from LEO to the moon. And guess what, Starship already has to fly that anyway.

Aloha 4y ago
> SLS will almost certainty be canceled before they reach anywhere close to 800m a launch. Thats, speculation, one covered in the source article, that notes, because of the spread of the project - virtually every state makes something for it, its proven itself more or less immune to budget cuts because of this. Beyond that, there is a dearth of heavy lift rockets out there, the idea of a single source from SpaceX is.. one, contrary to normal federal procurement rules, and two, not a sane idea - if for no there reason than it doesnt match the mission profile for a lunar mission. I'll note, that even a Block I SLS launches 30t more into LEO than Falcon Heavy does, the numbers go up even higher for later blocks, presumably this advantage is even high for lunar missions.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  > Thats, speculation Its speculation but informed speculation. > more or less immune to budget cuts because of this That is true so far but not a law of nature. There are many in congress who don't like it. It touches every state, but some state far more then others. And an alternative solution would also spend money. SpaceX is in California, Texas, Florida and Washington. And other commercial providers like BlueOrigin are in Alabama and Florida. Originally it was a Alabama and Florida Senator who pushed SLS. A Florida senator didn't want commercial space, he wanted SLS launching from Florida. However since then every Florida senator will understand that SpaceX aud Commercial launch is 1000x more important for Florida then a SLS launch every year. So a state like Florida was incredibly pro SLS, now this is no longer true. Alabama and Utah will continue to be pro SLS. However Texas and California (slightly relevant stats) will certainty not be. There are forces in congress that don't like the waste and Alabama/Utah dominance and when Starship fly's regularly before Artemis 2 even launches you will see some series attacks on SLS castle. And if SLS has any series issues it will be easy to topple. Even just delaying funding for the new upper stage can kill it. Its a very long time from now until late 2020s. Consider the difference in the industry over the last 7 years. 7 years ago there were still influential voices who thought reusable rockets would never be real, now reusable rockets are so boring that even hard core space nerds don't watch all the launches anymore. SLS already looks like a flying antique in a few years it will just be comical. > one, contrary to normal federal procurement rules Federal procurement rules don't really apply to large NASA missions. As SLS is single sourced right now. > two, not a sane idea So then by your own logic SLS is not a sane idea. I guess we agree. > I'll note, that even a Block I SLS launches 30t more into LEO than Falcon Heavy does, the numbers go up even higher for later blocks, presumably this advantage is even high for lunar missions. We are not talking about Apollo. This is not a single all-in-one launch architecture. Artemis already relies on multiple launches for all its missions. Anything but single launch payload comparison will come out much better using commercial rocket. Falcon 9 heavy can launch literally 5-20 times as often while you can launch 20 of them for the price of single SLS launch. 20 Falcon Heavy rockets costing 140M a pop (likely would be less) cost would literally be cheaper then Artemis 1 launch cost alone. You can also do the numbers for New Glenn, Vulcan, Terran R, Neutron and all the other commercial rockets. Going to a multi launch architecture designed for launch vehicles of current size is sensible, far more so then single source multi-billion SLS. You could literally pay for 10 years of all launches required with the price of just the Artemis 1/Artemis 2. Its financial idiocy beyond rime or reason and nobody who seriously looks at the numbers can defend it. There are so many other architecture that could make sense. Even dumb things like launching the Service Module and Orion separately would work and if you did, Falcon Heavy would be totally doable and far, far cheaper then the current architecture. But of course current Orion isn't designed to do that, no-no, we couldn't do sensible architectures like that. If you actually gave space mission architects freedom from the the political milestones, not a single one of them would ever come up with the current Artemis program. All of this is before we even consider the existence of Starship. SLS/Orion are terrible ideas BEFORE you even consider Starship. If you consider Starship (and Artemis already has a hard dependency on it) SLS/Orion go from terrible ideas to borderline insanity.

icelancer 4y ago

> None of the Falcon rockets can really meet the program goals of SLS. This is not accurate even according to the NASA administrators in the past. Falcon Heavy should be able to meet the vast majority of the goals if not all; many of which were arbitrarily defined to only fit SLS anyway.

phkahler 4y ago
Falcon Heavy is not rated for carrying humans. That's only because SpaceX chose not to bother because 1) low demand and 2) starship will do it anyway.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Falcon Heavy is not rated to carry humans because NASA has no need for it, had they designed Artemis around it, SpaceX would have been happy to do so. Its literally just paper work, Falcon Heavy is already DESIGNED AND BUILT TO MEET human rating standards. They just didn't to the paper work.
  - wumpus 4y ago
    Falcon Heavy is fully certified for the most difficult level of uncrewed launches by NASA and the Space Force -- including reusing side boosters. NASA's crewed rating is one step farther, but not a huge step farther.