Business, Economics, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The SLS Disaster

7 Comments

Eric Berger writes that Congress is forcing NASA to eat its seed corn for the #JourneyToMars.

Yes.

[Update a while later]

This is a key point:

Since Tuesday, I have been asking communications officials in NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate for clarification on what this extra funding will be used for and whether it’s needed. I haven’t received a response.

Because they don’t have a response. It is programmatic insanity to just throw hundreds of millions of dollars at a manager and expect them to spend it sensibly in a single year.

7 thoughts on “The SLS Disaster”

  1. This was the death cycle for Constellation. The first thing to go was the technology to actually land and live on the moon. We kept Orion and the rocket, until it was realized there was no point having a moon capable rocket when you couldn’t do anything but fly by the moon. Constellation was then cancelled and replaced by SLS, which can do nothing more than maybe fly by other planets using an orbiter exploration vehicle with a 2 week duration.

  2. I’ve not been following the SLS sago, so could someone please explain to me
    1) Why it uses old Shuttle engines instead of RS-68’s from Delta 4?
    2) Why it is costing so much to develop from old Shuttle tech?

    1. 1) Because they don’t have sufficient performance, and they don’t meet the stupid law that it utilize Shuttle hardware.
      2) Because the whole purpose of the program is to employ people, not to build an affordable rocket.

    2. Anther part of #2 is because there was deliberate self-foot-shooting.

      DIRECT was a plan to “use shuttle hardware” to make a large rocket. It included using pretty much the exact ‘external LOX’ fuel tank the shuttle did – now shifted to ‘inline’. All the tools to make this tank were still sitting there and functional.

      But the NASA brass didn’t -like- this plan. They were still aiming for the money for a ground-up redesign. So the fuel tank assembly line was closed, and the pricey tools sold off (or moved out into the rain).

      Then Congress orders “use shuttle hardware” and the design specs are raised. So now they’re in the position of having to (A) redesign -anyway-, (B) retool, (C) find -something- from the Shuttle they can reuse … which ends up being the engines, and thus (D) putting ‘designed as expensive reusable engines’ on ‘designed to be used once’ rockets.

  3. After so many years of 50% or more plus-ups for SLS, I would assume that the program office plans for that well ahead of time.

    There’s the fictitious request, and then there’s their real plan

  4. There is plenty of money for any state’s constituents to make through business. And wouldn’t these businesses still support a politicians that looks out for a broader set of interests? I don’t really understand the actions of congress but then again, no one is giving me money to tip scales.

  5. Of slight relevance, has anyone seen NASA’s FY-16 Agency Mission Planning Model? The ones for FY-14 and FY-15 were the only explicit sources for SLS/Orion launch cadence (one every two years) that I’ve seen. They also said that destinations and payloads other than Orion for all missions were TBD. It would be interesting to see if the FY-16 AMPM holds to that.

    https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/FY14_AMPM.pdf

    https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/FY15_AMPM.pdf

Comments are closed.