4 ms·

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.
        kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
        Their plan of landing a single stage is pure fantasy. The risk of tipping over or damaging the engines with debris makes it unworkable. At best they might be able to pull off a special two stage variant with landing legs but they aren't going to get there in three years.
        versteegen 4y ago
        The issue with stability is not that it's a single stage, but rather the tall shape of the lunar Starship. A single stage lander/ascender, with all the weight of the engines on the bottom, will be beneficial for stability. The mass of the engines is a significant fraction of the total because there's rather little propellant. (E.g. the Apollo ascent stage had a propellant mass ratio of exactly 1:1 (2,353kg to 4,700kg gross), despite a low ISP of only 311s.) But certainly you're right about the risk of damage on landing.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    SLS wouldn't put people back on the moon. The actual moon lander is Starship. If people land on the moon. Starship will be the impressive inspirational thing, not SLS. And Starship is what you need to have a permanent moon base. Its a simple fact that there is not enough budget for a moon base, as long as NASA is forced into SLS. Do the math and you will see. There is a reason literally everything other then Orion is already taken away from SLS. Both science missions and all other moon missions and landers are no longer going to use SLS. SLS is literally just there to put Orion into moon orbit. That's it. And that could be achieved other ways as well. SLS is just a crouch that NASA is forced to use. And on the pictures on television, when Astronauts get out on to the moon, it will be a large SpaceX rocket.
- 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.)

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.
      - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
        Their plan of landing a single stage is pure fantasy. The risk of tipping over or damaging the engines with debris makes it unworkable. At best they might be able to pull off a special two stage variant with landing legs but they aren't going to get there in three years.
        versteegen 4y ago
        The issue with stability is not that it's a single stage, but rather the tall shape of the lunar Starship. A single stage lander/ascender, with all the weight of the engines on the bottom, will be beneficial for stability. The mass of the engines is a significant fraction of the total because there's rather little propellant. (E.g. the Apollo ascent stage had a propellant mass ratio of exactly 1:1 (2,353kg to 4,700kg gross), despite a low ISP of only 311s.) But certainly you're right about the risk of damage on landing.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  SLS wouldn't put people back on the moon. The actual moon lander is Starship. If people land on the moon. Starship will be the impressive inspirational thing, not SLS. And Starship is what you need to have a permanent moon base. Its a simple fact that there is not enough budget for a moon base, as long as NASA is forced into SLS. Do the math and you will see. There is a reason literally everything other then Orion is already taken away from SLS. Both science missions and all other moon missions and landers are no longer going to use SLS. SLS is literally just there to put Orion into moon orbit. That's it. And that could be achieved other ways as well. SLS is just a crouch that NASA is forced to use. And on the pictures on television, when Astronauts get out on to the moon, it will be a large SpaceX rocket.
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.)