Given the SLS Block 1 launch processing manifest (4-5 years with little to no activities), there is a potential of not having sufficiently trained personnel. Issue – Yellow (May require personnel with advanced skills not readily available).
As I write in the book, even ignoring the cost implications:
From a safety standpoint, it means that its operating tempo will be far too slow, and its flights too infrequent, to safely and reliably operate the system. The launch crews will be sitting around for months with little to do, and by the time the next launch occurs they’ll have forgotten how to do it, if they haven’t left from sheer boredom to seek another job.
A good survey at The Economist on the coming tsunami on unskilled labor, for which no government is prepared. They’re right that the most important thing is to reform K through post-grad education, root and branch, but there are a lot of entrenched interests that will continue to fight that.
Looks like they’re in big trouble. It was a business model set up to compete with the Space Shuttle, not a truly reusable vehicle with modern technology. They may continue to get some business for Ariane 5 for political reasons, but I’d say their only chance is back to the drawing board with Ariane 6.
The losers in this scenario would be aircraft manufacturers, which have built up record backlogs on a cocktail of high fuel prices, low cost of capital, and new technology. Lower oil prices mean new aircraft models promising 15-20% fuel consumption reduction are not as attractive from a financial perspective. Coupled with the current trend of increasing cost of capital, this could mean a wave of cancellations of sexy new aircraft models. Or it could mean manufacturers need to revisit pricing assumptions. What is a fair price for a new widebody like the Boeing 777X, for example, in an $85/barrel world where its annual fuel cost falls by $3-4 million?