NASA 'Will Eventually' Retire Its New Mega-Rocket if SpaceX, Blue Origin Can Safely Launch Their Own Powerful Rockets (businessinsider.com) 113
NASA is building a giant rocket ship to return astronauts to the moon and, later on, ferry the first crews to and from Mars. But agency leaders are already contemplating the retirement of the Space Launch System (SLS), as the towering and yet-to-fly government rocket is called, and the Orion space capsule that'll ride on top. From a report: NASA is anticipating the emergence of two reusable and presumably more affordable mega-rockets that private aerospace companies are creating. Those systems are the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), which is being built by Elon Musk's SpaceX; and the New Glenn, a launcher being built by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. "I think our view is that if those commercial capabilities come online, we will eventually retire the government system, and just move to a buying launch capacity on those [rockets]," Stephen Jurczyk, NASA's associate administrator, told Business Insider at The Economist Space Summit on November 1. However, NASA may soon find itself in a strange position, since at least one of the two company's systems may beat SLS back to the moon -- and possibly be the first to reach Mars.
Free up those dollars now! (Score:5, Interesting)
NASA should reallocate the billions of dollars which are being spent on a launch system which nobody expects to be useful or affordable and instead use those billions to put out RFPs for milestone missions that will further incentivize those private industry projects to get off the ground. NASA clearly cannot afford to just blow money on SLS and also pay to perform the space missions that would be required to do useful things in space.
NASA should be moving the ball forward, not reinventing the wheel for every mission.
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The American taxpayer should never be in the business of enriching for profit companies. Those companies should be required to sell to the US at cost + a % of overhead provided they meet deadlines and cost estimation projections. It's unfair and totally prone to abuse for for-profit companies to make profit off of taxpayers. We need to end corporate subsidies and return to the era of a separation of state and corporations. Companies are not people. Until Texas executes a company, they're not alive.
OK, so the parent company and final supplier creates independent subsidiaries to provide them with components/base materials at inflated costs, the proceeds of which are funneled back to the parent through licensing deals. Or are you going to enforce that all levels of the chain, and anyone dealing with a company involved in a government contract, work at cost-plus.
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...and then they'll whine about how much bureaucracy and regulation there is.
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The US government tends to not run these huge projects very well. Read up on the FBI's Trilogy project, that wasted most of it's half-billion dollar budget on software that doesn't work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Case_File
The problem isn't that they simply can't run these huge projects, that is too broad a brush, the mistake was in the initial project scope and management itself. They had apparently no well founded idea of how much it would cost or what it would take to get done.
Also, of note is that the follow-on project cost several times more money... essentially throwing money at the problem and yet still being considered a success because they came in on budget and nearly on time. So, a good rule of thumb might be to
Re:Free up those dollars now! (Score:5, Interesting)
"Cost plus" is precisely why NASA is stuck where it is. With cost plus, making your process more efficient means LESS money. That is why there was no innovation in the space industry for decades.
Cost plus is the reason that humans haven't been to the moon in my lifetime.
Re: Free up those dollars now! (Score:2)
You're not wrong, but for some things, who would be the customers of said products / services besides NASA? What is the market for manned space capsules besides NASA?
ESA? CSA? ISRO? Should I keep going? Or are you now going to argue that they shouldn't be allowed to sell to OTHER countries either, unless it's under a "cost plus" arrangement?
As long as you're going to argue in favour of a system which encourages inefficiency, yeah, the target market will likely be almost entirely limited to various governments. That's rather the point; the situation changes drastically as efficiency increases and costs decrease. As this article points out, there have already been r
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...and yet compared to the "Defense" budget, it's "a drop in the bucket."
"Cost plus" isn't why we haven't been to the moon in our lifetime; it's politics. We're no longer racing other countries, and the current budget has been oriented for low-orbit research, which might fuel innovations towards a manned-mission to Mars and further?
Not even when they are vastly cheaper? (Score:3)
The American taxpayer should never be in the business of enriching for profit companies.
Here is the logical endpoint of your position: The government must make its own computers, tools, cars, and even pulp its own paper.
Quite obviously that all is insane - so why do you carry that same philosophy to space flight, where a number of private companies can deliver space flight more cheaply AND safely than NASA can?
The very nature of what NASA does means private companies will always be superior, because they w
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The government must make its own computers, tools, cars, and even pulp its own paper.
My question is, why can't they? The government is the one actor within a country that stands in the unique position that they "could" do all of this. And to an extent they sort of do since a lot of what you just mention has Government specific customization, but I agree it's not 100% which I assume is what you mean. Being the head of a nation and having the ability to at will dictate resources within a border confers some pretty powerful abilities that private companies don't get. As an aside which is w
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Your argument is ridiculous.
Yes, you can always reinvent the wheel and oversee more of the process yourself/produce something directly, as opposed to buying an existing commercial product. As a rule, you spend a lot more resources doing this UNLESS there is some kind of unique synergy from vertical integration or you need something that is so unlike everything else out there that it justifies this otherwise inefficient approach.
NASA hasn't had a launch vehicle that's been competitive in $/kg or reliability
Re:Free up those dollars now! (Score:4, Informative)
The American taxpayer should never be in the business of enriching for profit companies.
ALL of the options on the table are made by for-profit companies. The lead contractor for SLS is Boeing.
Those companies should be required to sell to the US at cost + a % of overhead
NO!! This is the problem, not the solution. This incentivizes companies to add bloat and additional expense any way they can.
provided they meet deadlines and cost estimation projections.
This DOES NOT WORK. Contractors make a low ball bid, and then requirements change, and they ask for outrageous additional payments, for work to be done in strategically chosen congressional districts. Since the "sunk cost" fallacy does not apply to government contracts, the new expenses are approved slice by slice until you typically end up three times over budget. Delay is also incentivized, since it leads to more opportunities to tack on expenses.
There is a long, long track records of "cost plus" leading to dismal results. To hold it up as some sort of ideal alternative to a competitive market for launch services is just idiotic.
SLS should be cancelled. The sooner the better.
If Boeing wants to continue it on there own dime, so they can bid against Space X for launch services, that is fine. Probability of them doing that: 0%. They aren't that stupid when they are spending their own money.
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The American taxpayer should never be in the business of enriching for profit companies. Those companies should be required to sell to the US at cost + a % of overhead provided they meet deadlines and cost estimation projections. It's unfair and totally prone to abuse for for-profit companies to make profit off of taxpayers. We need to end corporate subsidies and return to the era of a separation of state and corporations. Companies are not people. Until Texas executes a company, they're not alive.
Good idea in theory, lousy one in practice. Cost plus contracts are often used on big projects where costs can't be accurately estimated for a variety of reasons, the least of which is the govenrment often does a bad job of writing specifications so it is not clear what is in or out of spec. It also makes it easier to make changes to the specification since any added cost is covered.
That said, companies will not take on high risk projects if there is a lot of uncertainty as to their profitablity; and 5 year
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In the power industry, under rate base (power industry jargon for 'cost plus %') the expression was: 'We can make a profit remodelling the executive offices.' So they did, every year or two, at great expense.
They also continued to run uneconomical plants, because they were paid for (which is insane, given the physical plants cost about 2-3% of the lifetime cost). They were typically in bed with the fuel supplier.
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In the power industry, under rate base (power industry jargon for 'cost plus %') the expression was: 'We can make a profit remodelling the executive offices.' So they did, every year or two, at great expense.
I haven't heard that one in a while.
When I was building plants the experession was "We'll give them the plant for nothing and make a killing on the change orders..."
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In the power industry, under rate base (power industry jargon for 'cost plus %') the expression was: 'We can make a profit remodelling the executive offices.' So they did, every year or two, at great expense.
I haven't heard that one in a while.
When I was building plants the experession was "We'll give them the plant for nothing and make a killing on the change orders..."
I was in a group that sold turbines, and that was not the intent when we sold them. Power plant bidding is very competitive most of the time. We frequently bid projects at between 0 and 5% margin just to have something to keep people busy.
Change orders do tend to rack up cost, but that is generally due to issues with project management of either the prime or a subcontractor. One delay can quickly cascade through the entire project. Good project management is hard.
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'Competing, competing, competing' at giving congresscritters blowjobs isn't what we want, but it's what we've been getting.
Bidding on federal contracts is a speciality, those that do, basically do nothing else. Those that never have, are excluded until many blowjobs are given.
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Who do you think is building SLS? Do you think there are a bunch of Federal employees working welders and shit making fuel tanks and turbopumps for rocket motors? Or, just maybe is all of that contracted out to aerospace companies like Aerojet Rocketdyne, Northrup Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Boeing just like it always has been? Here's a hint for you: the Apollo Command Module was made by North American Aviation, and the Lunar Module was made by Grumman in the 1960s. The list of contractors involved goe
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NASA should be moving the ball forward, not reinventing the wheel for every mission.
Could agree more. They need to be focused on reclaimation tech (so we aren't stuck shipping consumables to Mars and even so the ISS doesn't need water shipped up to crack Oxygen off.) And for God's sake, buy the Eagleworks lab a fucking vacuum chamber and give them a real budget, they're the only people seriously looking at interstellar propulsion systems.
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NASA clearly cannot afford to just blow money on SLS
NASA is being required to develop the SLS. They have no say in the matter, and moreover they have no say in many of the technical choices such as which engines to use.
Hence the moniker "Senate Launch System".
They should make that even more clear in their budget requests by requesting zero funding for SLS. It is one thing to be "required" by Congress... it is another to regularly include SLS in the budget request to Congress. I realize the politics, but when the music stops someone needs to stop dancing.
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NASA should reallocate the billions of dollars...
Slight problem. The SLS was mandated by congress. Only congress has the capacity to abandon the SLS right now.
Re: Free up those dollars now! (Score:2)
The SLS was mandated by congress.
And for that those sycophants should be used as reaction mass on its first - and hopefully only - flight.
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Efficiency would suck, they should be used for launchpad cooling and noise suppression on launch.
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Agreed. NASA's role is to pioneer that way so commercial industry can take over.. They've done that with space launch, long ago. Sadly, it was government rules keeping industry out of space, not capabilities or even incentives.
Areas in which NASA could help today include, developing technologies for long last missions and colonization of space and other worlds. Even for this, most of the know-how is already there. They need to test and refine them to make them more practical and safe. Most the compete
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NASA doesn't have the budget authority to redirect Congressionally mandated spending. And that's something a lot of folks commenting don't seem to grasp - SLS is commonly known in the space community as the Senate Launch System... Because it was imposed on NASA by fiat by Congress.
N
He's saying "if", not "when"... (Score:2)
Just saying. Because "if those commercial capabilities come online" doesn't mean the same as "when those commercial capabilities come online". It means he doubts that they will come online.
Which honestly is just reasonable. Especially BFS (SpaceX) as a fully and quickly reusable spacecraft that at the same time is a high-performance low-mass second stage still is more of a dream than a plan. Yes, SpaceX is building some tank components as test articles, they have fired the first engine prototypes but everyt
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BFR will fly before SLS (Score:5, Interesting)
Everyone involved with the SLS project have shown nothing but sheer incompetence. The "shuttle-derived launcher" concept dates back to the 80s. Shuttle-C in '87, NLS in '91, Constellation in '05, Jupiter in '08, and finally SLS in '10. They're cobbling together existing engines (literally raiding the Shuttle parts bin), existing boosters (from a Shuttle upgrade that was designed and built but never flew), scaled-up tanks, and an off-the-shelf upper stage. The only really new thing is the Orion capsule, which is somehow the component closest to being flight-ready.
SLS is never going to fly more than once. They might do a single test flight just to "prove" the money wasn't wasted, but no, the money was wasted. They're still a year and a half out from their uncrewed first test, and I all but guarantee it will be delayed.
BFR design started in 2012. Brand-new engines, using a fairly novel propellant (methalox) and cycle (full-flow staged combustion). They started testing them in 2016. "Hop" tests of the upper stage are supposed to start next year, with the scheduled first flight in 2020, and first crewed flight in 2023. That schedule will probably slip as well (this *is* SpaceX), but at this point it's a question of who's going to slip more: the people who went from an overgrown hobby rocket to the biggest launch company on the planet in a decade, or the ones who've spent thirty years talking about taking Shuttle parts and building a normal rocket with them?
Re:BFR will fly before SLS (Score:4, Insightful)
Everybody's an expert, except the people who actually design/build them.
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Everybody's an expert, except the people who actually design/build them.
At some point it doesn't take an expert to notice the billions that NASA is spending on a rocket that will cost billions to fly and compare that to the hundreds of millions of dollars that SpaceX is spending on a rocket that will cost tens of millions to fly... NASA is off by at least an order of magnitude.
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The SLS is a completely new system. It's currently discussed to scrap the demo flight and put crew on the very first flight of an unproven rocket.
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It's currently discussed to scrap the demo flight and put crew on the very first flight of an unproven rocket.
No it's not. Trump asked them to do that (and with them wasting so damn much time I actually agree with him) but of course they were all like, "No! We can't do anything that might jeopardize our plans to delay this program indefinitely!"
NASA's manned space program is a make-work project on a massive scale. They have no intention of ever launching anyone.
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SLS is not completely new. It is basically a rehash of Space Shuttle (STS) engines. The only reason it is still around is Congressional support bought and paid for by the STS/SLS contractors.
SLS is a boondoggle just like the Space Shuttle was a boondoggle. We should be supporting a competitive commercial launch environment, not building a one-launch-a-year pork project that will probably turn in to a no-launch-ever pork project.
And while I don't work on launch systems, I am a NASA systems engineer, so I do
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Falcon 9 is fully man-rated. Try reading the news!
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Design is ready, it just needs certification flights. Middle of next year IS close for these kinds of things.
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Of course, you ignore that SpaceX is completely blowing off the engineering rigor that NASA demands for human spaceflight. It's easy to get the congress to tell USAF to pencil whip shit, we'll see if NASA will do the same thing with people onboard.
Jesus... NASA lost two space shuttles full of astronauts for all their engineering rigor.
And I even fixed your spelling of "engineering".
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Everybody's an expert, except the people who actually design/build them.
You appear to be attempting sarcasm, but in the case of NASA, that's literally been true ever since the mid 70s.
Re: BFR will fly before SLS (Score:1)
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I'm not saying I could have done better - but I don't have to be a rocket scientist to see how badly run this project has been, just as you don't have to be an architectural engineer to know that the Tower of Pisa has some stability problems.
The entire Saturn program took seven years from "vague design requirements" to "Saturn V flying". That included developing the intermediate Saturn I and IB rockets, multiple new engines (H-1, J-2 and F-1), massively ramping up LH2 production (a single Saturn V used an o
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Everyone involved with the SLS project have shown nothing but sheer incompetence.
As far as I can tell, everything you complain about is built-in to the project requirements. The people involved in the design are not incompetent just because they do as they are told. It is not like there are a million jobs out there in rocket design, except perhaps in certain dubious regimes.
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SLS is never going to fly more than once. They might do a single test flight just to "prove" the money wasn't wasted, but no, the money was wasted.
The acronym has not been called the "Senate Launch System" for nothing. The amount of pork it has generate has been propping up many a senator - and for that reason the money spent on the SLS has not been wasted.
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You mean the Saturn V? You are comparing a rocket that we cant even build anymore, to a rocket that lands on its tail (25+ landings so far)after successfully delivering its payload..
SLS cost $23 Billion to develop and will not fly for years. Falcon Heavy cost $500 million to develop and is taking orders..
SLS costs between $1.5 and $2.5 Billion *per launch*, FH is offering $90 million flights.
SLS is outright fraud on the taxpayers,
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And of course, there aren't actually any payloads that require SLS's capacity. Currently, all it's planned to be used for is to throw 10 t LOP-G modules out to a cislunar NRHO, along with an Orion containing some people because...well, because what else are you going to use Orion for? It can't go anywhere else.
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Wait, BFS never flew, we don't even know how it will look like. Same thing for New Glenn. They and SLS are all at the same step which is "no rocket". And considering that SpaceX is a hype machine and Blue Origin is so secretive, there is no way we can get a reliable picture.
Falcon 9 and SLS don't even compare. The first one is a workhorse rocket designed to put a typical payload into LEO cheaply. SLS is designed to go beyond earth orbit. It is reflected by the fuel choice in the second stage. Falcon 9 uses
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And considering that SpaceX is a hype machine and Blue Origin is so secretive, there is no way we can get a reliable picture.
I still find it interesting that people are still, today, willing to bet against SpaceX. Hype machine? I mean, I'm ok to be cautious, the BFR is quite a project, but damn did SpaceX deliver on the Falcon, and it looks good for the Falcon Heavy. But betting against them and saying all is hype? Other than BFR, I'd like to understand where that comes from. They'll do nearly 18-20% of all rocket launches this year. That is HUGE.
Falcon heavy could do nearly all unmanned missions we could want for the forseeable
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Everyone involved with the SLS project have shown nothing but sheer incompetence.
I beg to differ. SLS contractors have shown if anything uncanny competence at getting paid despite cost overruns and delays, even picking up performance bonuses for their failures.
If you look at companies that are actually trying to reduce costs, a startling divide emerges between them and the defense contractors behind SLS. Companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Stratolaunch are billionaire vanity projects, and they don't fulfill their purpose unless they actually achieve something.
The defense contracto
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If it falls apart, carry a spare...The Chinese military are plenty brave.
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NASA needs to define their mission (Score:3)
Cancelling SLS is long overdue - but without it, what is NASA's mission when it comes to space? This is a bigger question than most people think it is. SLS is a continuation of NASA's traditional support and funding of industry developed boosters. When the first Falcon 9 landed successfully, I would argue that this piece of NASA's ongoing mandate just became obsolete. Another part of NASA's history is supporting the ISS, I hope that in a few years ISS will become more commercial and government support will become less of an operator and more of a customer of ISS resources.
So, what is NASA's mission when it comes to space?
Deep space probes will continue being something NASA builds and supports. From the big hardware perspective they should be looking at things that industry isn't and utilizing their government connections. I would argue that one of the things would be nuclear engines for deep space travel - a very high isp engine (let's target 10x current engines or 5,000+s) mated to an interplanetary "taxi" would significantly reduce travel times to Mars, asteroids and outer planets with great utility, even if it only provided transport for unmanned probes.
Citing the 'We can't compete' clause (Score:1)
I guess.
But anyway, congrats for sticking to the reality of life and the world.
Not every Administration does that.
Ok then (Score:2)
Big Falcon Rocket (BFR)
See you need to be rich so you can name your own stuff.
Finally! (Score:2)
I have told it!
?? WHy New Glenn (Score:2)
Though I guess having all 3 running would be reason enough for SLS to drop out.
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If Blue Origin develop New Glenn into a heavy variant (three cores) and if BFR doesn't happen as planned, they'll be the only cheap option for getting very heavy payloads into space, and can make a profit if lots of people decide they want to take advantage of this by designing very heavy payloads. There were a whole lot of 'if's in there.
FH has similar capabilities to NG, is already flying, has hardware proven by 60 launches, and has construction facilities optimized during the building of >60 rockets.
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Corporations already build the SLS for NASA. Do think NASA has a production facility somewhere? Their point is, the SLS corporations are charging ridiculously high prices compared to the commercial rockets.
PROK FOR THE PROK GOD! (Score:2)
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You mean the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility? Actually THEY DO.
But yeah the building is allocated to different private contractors to do the actual work.
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I think the facilities there themselves are important to retain because they're strategically located if you want to ship large components from anywhere connected to the Mississippi, assemble them, and ship them to Florida. Still, yeah, SLS sucks.
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Seems like a great idea to outsource to third parties for everything.
If it's less expensive why not? I mean, I suppose you could decide to let the taxpayers keep all of their money and not spend anything, but once you've decided to spend, find the least expensive option.
I'm sure that you change your own oil, do your own electrical wiring, grow all of your own food, prepare your own medications and remedies, assemble your own furniture, and so on, but the rest of us poor bastards are going to need to outsource a lot of what we do to third parties. We beg your understanding
NASA Should be Setting Standards (Score:5, Interesting)
Given the fact that the Private Sector is doing so well developing these systems, NASA should step back and be setting standards for such critical systems such as Life Support, Power, Communications, Docking facilities, etc.
How the private companies get people and stuff to space can be left up to them. But once it's up there, these things must be interchangeable between vendors for routine and emergency situations.
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P.S: I'm disregarding the "pork barrel" factor in my example, I think everyone already knows this and then they
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There already is a NASA docking standard at least.
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You know that every single rocket that NASA has ever launched was built by a corporation under contract, right?
Every.
Single.
One.
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Ever heard of the Redstone Arsenal? At one point US government employees actually designed the systems although the work was often outsourced to contractors.
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At one point US government employees actually designed the systems although the work was often outsourced to contractors.
although the work was often outsourced to contractors.
outsourced to contractors.
contractors
And who were those contractors? Jim's welding shop down the way, or big aerospace corporations?