4 ms·

As cool as Raptor is, I feel that ESA, as a government organization, making any effort towards a truly reusable engine is very good when over here in the US, NA

As cool as Raptor is, I feel that ESA, as a government organization, making any effort towards a truly reusable engine is very good when over here in the US, NASA is still forced to pour billions into resuscitating the RS-25 while Boeing continues to embarass itself with Starliner and ULA rushes full speed into using reusable engines in the least effective ways.

panick21_ 3y ago
NASA doesn't need to invest in its own engines. RS-25 is just something congress forced on them. In reality the private companies are developing lots of engine, Raptor is just one example. I have documented this in my top level post. NASA and DoD are both committed to buying rockets on commercial rockets, and all of the competitors view engine development as a majorly important. There are at least 10 major reusable engines in development in the US. And of course Merlin is already flying and Prometheus has a very, very long way to go until to reach it. > while Boeing continues to embarass itself with Starliner True but that's a fixed price contract. Boeing is spending its own money to finish that program. NASA actually has crewed spaceflight, something Europe never even came close to. > ULA rushes full speed into using reusable engines in the least effective ways Not sure what you mean? ULA is adopting a pretty modern engine. That engine took a while to develop but that isn't so surprising. And it isn't ULAs fault.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  >NASA doesn't need to invest in its own engines. RS-25 is just something congress forced on them. In reality the private companies are developing lots of engine, Raptor is just one example. I have documented this in my top level post. NASA and DoD are both committed to buying rockets on commercial rockets, and all of the competitors view engine development as a majorly important. I was trying to convey that NASA hasn't been able to systematically embrace efficient reusability. Put differently, in the US, reusability is a thing *despite* the 'old guard' (NASA hasn't pushed the development of reusable vehicles itself, it has merely accepted them when private individuals got frustrated enough to do it themselves), while in Europe, it's promising that the ESA itself is invested in reusable rocketry. >Not sure what you mean? ULA is adopting a pretty modern engine. That engine took a while to develop but that isn't so surprising. And it isn't ULAs fault. I'm not taking a shot at BE-4, it's a modern engine, it's reusable and development delays are in the past now. What I'm saying is that ULA, for its so-called next-gen rocket, plans something as 'dumb' as 'SMART' reuse for those engines, which is a waste given their capabilities. Overall, my argument was that NASA and the contractors it has been mostly associated with, are far less invested in truly reusable rocketry (ie not the Shuttle) than Europe is right now. As far as Europe's crewed spaceflight capability goes, they do have experience building space station modules. So I wouldn't go as far as saying that they have never even "come close to" crewed spaceflight, but I agree that by my own argument, Europe is not as invested in crewed spaceflight than the US. To explain why this bothers me, as part of Artemis, NASA has repeatedly used the phrase "sustainable presence", yet the way they behave as an organization does not correspond with wanting to be sustainable. To me it's seeming increasingly more likely that Artemis too will fade out after a few landings.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    > But differently, in the US, reusability is a thing despite the 'old guard' (NASA hasn't pushed the development of reusable vehicles itself, it has merely accepted them when private individuals got frustrated enough to do it themselves), while in Europe, it's promising that the ESA itself is invested in reusable rocketry. That is totally wrong. What NASA did do is create a platform for private competition with the hope that some kind of innovation would come out of it his. The policy foundation for this was set up in the 90s and this allowed companies like SpaceX to come up and have the chance to innovate without direct government control. This innovation was then quickly adopted by NASA and DoD who saw that it was useful. NASA and DoD have a much stronger adoption of reusability then anything we see from ESA. Yes, SLS is not reusable unfortunately, but NASA by now can't really change that from happening anyway. NASA itself doesn't have to be involved in re-usability development because its already solved for them. > while in Europe, it's promising that the ESA itself is invested in reusable rocketry. So they are invested in re-usability and yet the first real rocket planned with it might happen in the late 2030s? The reality is that ESA was actively hostile to re-usability literally up to the point of self delusion and then begrudgingly started to do some minor investments in it. > What I'm saying is that ULA, for its so-called next-gen rocket, plans something as 'dumb' as 'SMART' reuse for those engines, which is a waste given their capabilities. ULA is a political creation and its lobbying power depends on using parts from different large companies and that includes solids. Solids make full stack re-usability hard. Now while 'SMART' re-usability might be 'dumb' is a whole heck of a lot better then no re-usability of Ariane 6. > NASA and the contractors it has been mostly associated with SpaceX is NASA largest contractor outside of SLS/Orion program, and those were adopted before SpaceX was relevant. In recent years SpaceX has won the waste majority of contracts. Blue has one some, and the are in on re-usability. The contractors you mention that are not focused on re-usability have consistently not been winning many contracts. > To explain why this bothers me, as part of Artemis, NASA has repeatedly used the phrase "sustainable presence", yet the way they behave as an organization does not correspond with wanting to be sustainable. To me it's seeming increasingly more likely that Artemis too will fade out after a few landings. I agree that the SLS/Orion program is not 'substainable' or embraces re-usability. But those programs are 15-25 years old and once they started its politics that substain them. If NASA could go back and redo those things today, it would look very different. Politics has force NASA into situation where SLS/Orion is politically unkillable and NASA is doing its best to use the rest of their budget to actually make progress. Using the moon lander funding and giving it to Starship is a fantastic move to break SLS only (if fake) claim to relevance.

panick21_ 3y ago

NASA doesn't need to invest in its own engines. RS-25 is just something congress forced on them. In reality the private companies are developing lots of engine, Raptor is just one example. I have documented this in my top level post. NASA and DoD are both committed to buying rockets on commercial rockets, and all of the competitors view engine development as a majorly important. There are at least 10 major reusable engines in development in the US. And of course Merlin is already flying and Prometheus has a very, very long way to go until to reach it. > while Boeing continues to embarass itself with Starliner True but that's a fixed price contract. Boeing is spending its own money to finish that program. NASA actually has crewed spaceflight, something Europe never even came close to. > ULA rushes full speed into using reusable engines in the least effective ways Not sure what you mean? ULA is adopting a pretty modern engine. That engine took a while to develop but that isn't so surprising. And it isn't ULAs fault.

dotnet00 3y ago
>NASA doesn't need to invest in its own engines. RS-25 is just something congress forced on them. In reality the private companies are developing lots of engine, Raptor is just one example. I have documented this in my top level post. NASA and DoD are both committed to buying rockets on commercial rockets, and all of the competitors view engine development as a majorly important. I was trying to convey that NASA hasn't been able to systematically embrace efficient reusability. Put differently, in the US, reusability is a thing *despite* the 'old guard' (NASA hasn't pushed the development of reusable vehicles itself, it has merely accepted them when private individuals got frustrated enough to do it themselves), while in Europe, it's promising that the ESA itself is invested in reusable rocketry. >Not sure what you mean? ULA is adopting a pretty modern engine. That engine took a while to develop but that isn't so surprising. And it isn't ULAs fault. I'm not taking a shot at BE-4, it's a modern engine, it's reusable and development delays are in the past now. What I'm saying is that ULA, for its so-called next-gen rocket, plans something as 'dumb' as 'SMART' reuse for those engines, which is a waste given their capabilities. Overall, my argument was that NASA and the contractors it has been mostly associated with, are far less invested in truly reusable rocketry (ie not the Shuttle) than Europe is right now. As far as Europe's crewed spaceflight capability goes, they do have experience building space station modules. So I wouldn't go as far as saying that they have never even "come close to" crewed spaceflight, but I agree that by my own argument, Europe is not as invested in crewed spaceflight than the US. To explain why this bothers me, as part of Artemis, NASA has repeatedly used the phrase "sustainable presence", yet the way they behave as an organization does not correspond with wanting to be sustainable. To me it's seeming increasingly more likely that Artemis too will fade out after a few landings.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  > But differently, in the US, reusability is a thing despite the 'old guard' (NASA hasn't pushed the development of reusable vehicles itself, it has merely accepted them when private individuals got frustrated enough to do it themselves), while in Europe, it's promising that the ESA itself is invested in reusable rocketry. That is totally wrong. What NASA did do is create a platform for private competition with the hope that some kind of innovation would come out of it his. The policy foundation for this was set up in the 90s and this allowed companies like SpaceX to come up and have the chance to innovate without direct government control. This innovation was then quickly adopted by NASA and DoD who saw that it was useful. NASA and DoD have a much stronger adoption of reusability then anything we see from ESA. Yes, SLS is not reusable unfortunately, but NASA by now can't really change that from happening anyway. NASA itself doesn't have to be involved in re-usability development because its already solved for them. > while in Europe, it's promising that the ESA itself is invested in reusable rocketry. So they are invested in re-usability and yet the first real rocket planned with it might happen in the late 2030s? The reality is that ESA was actively hostile to re-usability literally up to the point of self delusion and then begrudgingly started to do some minor investments in it. > What I'm saying is that ULA, for its so-called next-gen rocket, plans something as 'dumb' as 'SMART' reuse for those engines, which is a waste given their capabilities. ULA is a political creation and its lobbying power depends on using parts from different large companies and that includes solids. Solids make full stack re-usability hard. Now while 'SMART' re-usability might be 'dumb' is a whole heck of a lot better then no re-usability of Ariane 6. > NASA and the contractors it has been mostly associated with SpaceX is NASA largest contractor outside of SLS/Orion program, and those were adopted before SpaceX was relevant. In recent years SpaceX has won the waste majority of contracts. Blue has one some, and the are in on re-usability. The contractors you mention that are not focused on re-usability have consistently not been winning many contracts. > To explain why this bothers me, as part of Artemis, NASA has repeatedly used the phrase "sustainable presence", yet the way they behave as an organization does not correspond with wanting to be sustainable. To me it's seeming increasingly more likely that Artemis too will fade out after a few landings. I agree that the SLS/Orion program is not 'substainable' or embraces re-usability. But those programs are 15-25 years old and once they started its politics that substain them. If NASA could go back and redo those things today, it would look very different. Politics has force NASA into situation where SLS/Orion is politically unkillable and NASA is doing its best to use the rest of their budget to actually make progress. Using the moon lander funding and giving it to Starship is a fantastic move to break SLS only (if fake) claim to relevance.