9 ms·

I do not want to see it fail. I want to see the SLS launch be a complete success. Everything we've dreamed it could be, finally. I don't want to see all the por

• pstuart 4y ago
  Indeed! This should be the way for other endeavors too ;-).
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• pfdietz 4y ago
  It's in the long term interest of NASA for it to fail. I wonder what that does to the rigor of their QC process for a launch?
  • DoctorOetker 4y ago
    why would it be in the long term interest of NASA for it to fail?
    • pfdietz 4y ago
      NASA's future would be much brighter if its programs had a reasonable chance of leading to something worthwhile. Nothing based on SLS will ever be worthwhile.
      • biotinker 4y ago
        There could very well be worthwhile things spurred or inspired by things the SLS does. If the SLS indeed manages to put people back on the moon in the next 2-3 years, that could inspire a permanent moon presence, and that would be huge for development of future technology.
        • willglynn 4y ago
          > If the SLS indeed manages to put people back on the moon in the next 2-3 years Well, Artemis 2 is scheduled for May 2024. It is to take crew on a lunar flyby, i.e. not even entering lunar orbit, which in my view makes it a lot less inspiring than Apollo 8. Artemis 3 is to put people on the moon, but is currently "no earlier than 2025" with many missing pieces in the critical path. The spacesuits themselves are no earlier than April 2025, and while they loosened the Gateway requirement, it still needs a spacecraft to get from Orion to the moon and back. NASA selected Starship. If SpaceX can put Starship on the moon, what are the odds that Artemis 3 will be its first crewed trip? I don't think Artemis 3 has any chance of being the catalyst you describe.
          • gtowey 4y ago
            It's just my opinion, but I don't think Starship will ever reach the moon. The leap in difficulty from Falcon to Starship is too big for SpaceX. It's like the promise of fully autonomous Teslas. Musk will never deliver.
            • robin_reala 4y ago
              It’s provably possible to land on the moon using 60s technology. No-one has yet built a self driving car that can cope with all needed situations without endangering the occupants and other road users. I don’t think the two scenarios are really comparable.
              • gtowey 4y ago
                That's kind of my point though. SpaceX isn't claiming that Starship is boring old reliable 60's technology. He's promising a rocket with huge leaps in capability. It's a lot to ask to do all these new things and do it reliably enough for human-rated space travel. I mean, their engines are still melting which means they fundamentally don't have the lift capability they claim. I'm sure they could get them to work if they just ran them cooler, but cooler engines means less thrust and that changes everything about a rocket's capability. And that's what makes it exactly like the self-driving car problem in my mind -- they're stuck at an impasse that might not really have a viable solution all while Musk is saying they'll be delivering any day now. You just can't trust a thing he says about when and how much they'll deliver.
      • unethical_ban 4y ago
        Landing on the moon is worthwhile.
        • natch 4y ago
          Artemis will not land on the moon.
          • deleted 4y ago
            [deleted]
          • killyourcar 4y ago
            No one claimed the first Artemis mission would. The parent claimed "nothing the SLS will ever do" The SLS will (most likely) put people on the moon as part of a later Artemis mission.
            • natch 4y ago
              Nope. Starship will do that, not SLS. NASA already gave the contract for landing to SpaceX. And as for later versions of SLS after that… I highly doubt they will ever fly, because the insanity of the cost and they non-reusability will become too glaringly obvious to everyone.
            • adastra22 4y ago
              The SLS won't land people on the moon either. A completely unrelated rocket system that doesn't rely on the SLS in any way is used for that. SLS is totally redundant.
            • bayesian_horse 4y ago
              SLS isn't redundant. SLS+Orion is a system that is trusted and certified to put Humans into LEO and then lunar orbit. The "completely unrelated rocket" will not be certified to launch Humans in time. The modified Starship that is used as a lander will undergo some certification, but ferrying Humans from lunar surface to lunar orbit is a lot less difficult and risky than blasting off of Earth.
    • MichaelCollins 4y ago
      If you subscribe to the theory that SLS is impossible to cancel due to congressional politics, then SLS continuing to fail means NASA funding is secured indefinitely. Seems implausible to me. If SLS fails this year, you can forget about the second launch, meant to be a crewed launch, in 2024. And by that time I think Starship will be flying. The absurdity of keeping SLS going will become too great even for Congress to tolerate.
      • bayesian_horse 4y ago
        This mission will probably prove that SLS and Orion can bring Humans into lunar orbit. Starship hasn't gotten into orbit yet and is very far from being Human rated, both in terms of life support and launch reliability. By 2024, Starship MAY be doing return trips to LEO and they will be testing the lunar lander. SLS isn't more absurd than putting Humans on the Moon in the first place. It's an insane task in the best circumstances.
      • paganel 4y ago
        > means NASA funding is secured indefinitely. (...) Seems implausible to me With China on the geo-strategic horizon, and maybe even with Russia really getting back into the game, I'm pretty sure that NASA or any other Western-based (and US-led) space agency will get funding for an indefinite period of time. Case in point, just show a short video like this [1] to any decision-taker in DC and I can assure you that that funding will get instantly approved: > The Nudol missile, which Russia will use to shoot down enemy satellites in case of war. > Flight speed from 2000 to 5000 meters per second. In this video, you can judge the speed yourself. [1] https://twitter.com/TobiAyodele/status/1563635402967322624 https://twitter.com/TobiAyodele/status/1563635402967322624
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • adastra22 4y ago
      Not the person you are replying to, and I'm not 100% sure they are correct, but I think I understand where they are coming from. The SLS+Orion architecture is a colossal waste of Spruce Goose proportions. It was a project designed by congress to be maximally inefficient (AKA employ the most contractors in key districts) and without any regard to actual exploration needs. And since use of SLS and Orion is literally mandated by law, NASA has designed its entire Artemis architecture around this pointless rocket which can't even reach the Moon. That's the real reason NASA is building a space station in a bizarre near-rectilinear halo orbit distant from the Moon itself: that's as close as Orion can actually get. Back at the beginning of the Obama administration NASA had a blue-ribbon committee to investigate what should be done about the over-budget exploration program that was supposed to replace the Shuttle. The conclusion was that NASA should scrap the Shuttle-derived launcher it was working on and develop a "flexible path" program of exploration where rides are bought on commercial vehicles, used to explore whatever the frontier is that is reachable with off-the-shelf commercial technology. This would be paid for by cancelling the rocket and Orion capsule that was being worked on. The legacy aerospace companies that were making bank obviously didn't want the gravy train to end, so they got their bought and paid for congressional reps to literally write in the NASA authorization law a mandate for NASA to design and use their own rocket (the SLS) and the Orion capsule. Congressional staffers even wrote in the exact specifications of this rocket without consulting NASA about whether the specs made any sense at all (they didn't--they were designed to ensure sole source contracts to existing contractors, but with enough changes that lucrative development work would be needed). As such we went from a rocket that was supposed to launch 2-4 times per year, to one which costs 10 times as much and launches once per every 2 years. And one that is even incapable of getting its spacecraft payload to the Moon. Furthermore, because use of this rocket is mandated by law the entire exploration program around it had to be adjusted to accommodate its inefficiencies. Since the rocket can't get to the moon, a whole space station (Gateway) is built in a totally useless deep space orbit to serve as a destination and staging area for lunar missions. But because of orbital dynamics this prevents many portions of the moon from being accessible to lunar missions, and limits options for direct abort, making lunar missions significantly more dangerous. Also all the effort that could go into making a permanently occupied based on the moon is instead being spent on this useless tollbooth in the middle of nowhere. My favorite anecdote about the absolute waste of this program is regarding the SLS main engines. The SLS uses 4 modified space shuttle main engines on its first stage. The SLS rocket that is currently prepping for launch in Florida actually has 2 engines on it that were pulled off Shuttle Atlantis before it was put in a museum. These are historic engines that flew many missions in space and arguably ought to be in a museum themselves, or at least cut apart in cross section as teaching tools in engineering colleges. Instead these fully reusable engines, which initially cost about $40M each, were refurbished at a price of $150M(!) each to make them expendable(!!), and are going to be unceremoniously chucked into the ocean a few hundred miles off the coast as part of the SLS launch. That is not a typo: they spent $150M to make a $40M already reusable engine single-use. Actually they spent $600M, over half a billion dollars, to throw away 4 of these engines. Madness. So the argument goes: this insanity is doing nothing but wasting national treasure and distracting NASA from any meaningful exploration. The SLS is a cancer which has mestasticized to infect the entire human spaceflight program. It needs to be cancelled ASAP, and all the architectures built off it rethought from the ground up if we are to have a national spaceflight program that is in any way meaningful. (The counter-argument is that cancelling the SLS + Orion programs won't free up money for other exploration projects. This is congressional pork. If you cancel the program, NASA budget will be reduced in the process. Arguably for the taxpayer and the nation this is a good thing, but not for NASA. From the perspective of NASA the SLS + Orion is a free gift of a corrupt congress, and beggars can't be choosers.)
• systemvoltage 4y ago
  Agreed, if it’s a success, I still want us to stop pork barreling but with style. Regardless of funding politics, lot of people worked hard and earnestly to make this possible. I wish them success.
  • bayesian_horse 4y ago
    Space exploration is always "pork barreling". It's just a quest of where to send the insane amount of money. Putting it all with Elon Musk isn't exactly the free enterprise way either.
    • wumpus 4y ago
      So if SpaceX wins a contract, such as Commercial Crew, that's pork barreling?
      • bayesian_horse 4y ago
        Is it that different? You're pouring hundreds of millions into a single private company, enriching its share holders, and some of the money is making its way through various state's industries. There's just less of a democratic process behind distributing the taxpayer's money.
• bottlepalm 4y ago
  Why, so more money can be wasted so it can fly again? This needs to fail to clear the way for more practical systems.
  • GoOnThenDoTell 4y ago
    They’ll build a second one regardless of how this one goes, its so entrenched in congress
    • irrational 4y ago
      The main Congress man who has been pushing it is retiring. I hate to say it, but I hope between his retirement and a spectacular failure tomorrow that this boondoggle will be ended before more good money is thrown at it.
  • killyourcar 4y ago
    What's a more practical system that matches its capabilities and flight readiness?
    • bottlepalm 4y ago
      That’s my point, NASA could have used the money to build a reusable heavy lift system that is reusable and can launch more than once per year. Everything SLS is not. An incapable system that was billed as being flight ready in 2016. Who knows when the next one ever will be. What a disaster.
      • bayesian_horse 4y ago
        Such a reusable system would have to be built from scratch. It would delay the return to the moon by a decade or more. It may not even be cheaper. And it would be frought with massive engineering insecurity. Also you could say NASA is supporting SpaceX and others in doing something similar, which is better than having one single program in-house. SLS is the safest bet for a soonish return to the moon. Anything else is just speculation.
• xupybd 4y ago
  >But if it does, I hope it leads the US government to change course on this nonsense. I see no reason why a failure of this rocket would change the way they do business. The political motivation is for local high prestige jobs, not for any outcomes outside of that. NASA does well to fight for the science they do, but the funding model is not aligned with that goal.
  • agrajag 4y ago
    The NASA contract model has already changed substantially. Even Bill Nelson, the current administrator and former senator thinks that cost-plus contracting is no longer the way foreward. A lot of this is directly attributable to the success of the Commercial Crew program.
    • imglorp 4y ago
      Commercial crew just proved something else, too. In a controlled experiment, we ran the ossified incumbent with a storied 100 years of experience against a challenger. The challenger delivered in May '20 and the incumbent, paid way more, will be about 3 years late to get people to ISS: OFT-1 is currently NET Feb'23. This says more about Boeing's business structure than anything else. Its mission is different.
  • panick21_ 4y ago
    NASA has already changed. SLS/Orion are left over relics from old NASA propped up by congress.
• bayesian_horse 4y ago
  There are good reasons that those contracts aren't that harsh. There aren't a lot of contractors able to bid on these jobs at all in the first place. If the government forces them to shoulder all the considerable risk, there either won't be any bidders, or after winning some contracts and blowing them there won't be any contractors left standing. And "total mission success" isn't the only goal of these programs. Progress in manufacturing and engineering is a considerable factor. Governments, like big banks, are better at taking on risk than most businesses or individual persons. That's how health care works in most civilized countries, disaster relief and other things. And expensive space programs had to be started by governments because they were too risky with too little benefit, and in some respects this is still the case.
  • panick21_ 4y ago
    Yeah for what did we consolidate the whole industry into a few giants like NG, LM and Boeing when you can not then ask them to shoulder some risk? > And "total mission success" isn't the only goal of these programs. Progress in manufacturing and engineering is a considerable factor. This is such a copout and nonsense. The idea that SLS does anything for 'progress in manufacturing and engineering' is a bad senator talking point with essentially no relevant for the real world. In fact, giving money to innovative space companies would achieve those things far better. > Governments, like big banks, are better at taking on risk The whole point of SLS was that it was low risk legacy technology. SLS is the EXACT LITERAL opposite of what you suggest, its low-risk incredibly conservative with minimal technological advancement.
    • everforward 4y ago
      > Yeah for what did we consolidate the whole industry into a few giants like NG, LM and Boeing when you can not then ask them to shoulder some risk? Up until recently, there was no profit motive to create private rockets, so the government was the only source of work on rockets. The government doesn't need that many rockets, so it's not shocking that there are a small number of contractors. And no, you can't just force them to shoulder risk. They're private companies that aren't contractually obligated to accept other contracts. If we wanted someone we could force risk onto, we would need a public entity that designs and manufactures the rockets. Or rather, I guess we could legislatively force them to accept the risk, but I would expect private capital to flee, so it would become a de facto public organization.
• simonebrunozzi 4y ago
  You are being upvoted, but I think that when looking at your proposal seriously, it has flaws. Let's try with an example. Until now: government pays $100 to build a rocket to go to the Moon, say $50 now and $50 at launch. Rocket explodes? No problem, you still get your $50. Your proposal: government pays $100 to build a rocket to go to the Moon. $50 now, $50 if it lands. Ops. No one shows up. Err... Let's try $60 now, $40 if it lands? Nope... Still nobody around to get this contract... Why? Because a company would charge you (simplifying a bit) $150, of which $100 now, and $50 if the rocket lands. Congratulations. You have contributed to ballooning the Space budget. Taxpayers are thankful.
  • dmurray 4y ago
    Spacex seem to be quite successful with a business model of undercutting the cost-plus incumbents. Why wouldn't other companies do this if government incentives were tweaked to favour them a bit more?
    • hef19898 4y ago
      We have no financials of SpaceX, except some partial leaks that are now almost a decade old. On the other hanf we have fully audited budgets of NASA. Hard to conpare those two.
      • panick21_ 4y ago
        If SpaceX overspent on fixed-cost programs by billions and billions they wouldn't exist anymore.
  • wumpus 4y ago
    There are several examples of recent competitions that undercut your thought experiment: HLS, Gateway Resupply, Commercial Crew, Commercial Cargo, ...
  • mabbo 4y ago
    But that isn't how it works now. How it works now is "You build a rocket to go to the moon. Try to keep the price down, but we'll pay whatever it costs. Plus a profit margin when you're finished." The bidder say "I can do it for $100". Fantastic! Then they go 'over budget' (as planned) and spend $1000, and the government pays it anyway because the contract says they must. Plus $20 profit. Meanwhile the Commercial Resupply Services missions have been a poster-child for cost-savings. The taxpayers truly thank you for 'saving them money'.
• fnordpiglet 4y ago
  I’ve never seen a risky engineering endeavor lead with an accurate estimate. Literally every major project or program I’ve been involved in in my entire career has overrun. It became so bad we all switched to agile. Why do you expect flying to the moon to be easily estimated up front?
  • wumpus 4y ago
    The HLS and Gateway Resupply contracts were fixed price. I'm sure neither was easy to estimate.
• Isinlor 4y ago
  That's sunken cost fallacy. Single flight of SLS will cost 2 billion dollars. 2 billion dollars! Each, single flight. You could build, launch and operate 3 Kepler Telescopes for that. Kepler is the telescope that was used to discovered ~3 thousand planets. You could build, send and operate another Curiosity/Perseverance rover to Mars for 2 billion.
  • kurupt213 4y ago
    And that still wouldn’t fill the niche that SLS fills. Nobody is saying SLS isn’t wasteful, but heavy lift and interplanetary travel is still the scope of nation-states, not private companies. Sure spaceX claims to be working on some of this, but they could cease to exist tomorrow, and governments (ie MILITARIES) need control of their platforms and more than one option. Space travel is only peaceful until it isn’t. Your logic is akin to ‘why are we building aircraft carriers when we could could build 20 Destroyers for the same cost’ Because we project our power with aircraft carriers, not destroyers
    • Isinlor 4y ago
      First of all, Falcon 9 is a heavy lift vehicle. Falcon Heavy is a super heavy lift vehicle. Exactly the same class as SLS. The biggest issue is that SLS is not even available. NASA flagship Europa Clipper mission had to be moved out of SLS to Falcon Heavy due to lack of availability of SLS. Also interplanetary travel is not only in scope of nation states, but also private companies. Perseverance rover has been launched on ULA Atlas V rocket. But more importantly SLS+Orion can not deliver people to the surface of the Moon. That's the job that NASA has given to Starship and SpaceX. Also, huge chunks of Lunar Gateway (let's skip the fact that Lunar Gateway is useless in itself) will be delivered by SpaceX with Falcon Heavy. Also, resupply of Lunar Gateway will be done by SpaceX with Dragon XL. Without SpaceX Artemis program will be failure whether you have SLS or not. But you could get rid of SLS and Orion. You could use Falcon 9 with Crew Dragon or Boeing Starliner to load people to Starship in Earth orbit. Then you could send Starship to the Moon. It goes there currently anyway. The kicker is that Starship will have the same internal volume as ISS, many times bigger than Lunar Gateway + Orion.