The Cost For Each SLS Launch Is Over $2 Billion (arstechnica.com) 99
Acting director of the White House budget office Russell Vought said in a letter that the cost estimate to build and fly a single NASA large Space Launch System rocket in a given year is "more than $2 billion." "The article then notes how this cost is affecting the Europa Clipper mission, which has three launch options, with SLS mandated by Congress," writes Slashdot reader schwit1. From the report: The powerful SLS booster offers the quickest ride for the six-ton spacecraft to Jupiter, less than three years. But for mission planners, there are multiple concerns about this rocket beyond just its extraordinary cost. There is the looming threat that the program may eventually be canceled (due to its cost and the emergence of significantly lower cost, privately built rockets). NASA's human exploration program also has priority on using the SLS rocket, so if there are manufacturing issues, a science mission might be pushed aside. Finally, there is the possibility of further developmental delays -- significant ground testing of SLS has yet to begin.
Another option is United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy rocket, which has an excellent safety record and has launched several high-profile missions for NASA. However, this rocket requires multiple gravity assists to push the Clipper into a Jupiter orbit, including a Venus flyby. This heating would add additional thermal constraints to the mission, and scientists would prefer to avoid this if at all possible. A final possibility is SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, with a kick stage. This booster would take a little more than twice as long as the SLS rocket to get the Clipper payload to Jupiter, but it does not require a Venus flyby and therefore avoids those thermal issues. With a track record of three successful flights, the Falcon Heavy also avoids some of the development and manufacturing concerns raised by SLS vehicle. Finally, it offers the lowest cost of the three options.
Another option is United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy rocket, which has an excellent safety record and has launched several high-profile missions for NASA. However, this rocket requires multiple gravity assists to push the Clipper into a Jupiter orbit, including a Venus flyby. This heating would add additional thermal constraints to the mission, and scientists would prefer to avoid this if at all possible. A final possibility is SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, with a kick stage. This booster would take a little more than twice as long as the SLS rocket to get the Clipper payload to Jupiter, but it does not require a Venus flyby and therefore avoids those thermal issues. With a track record of three successful flights, the Falcon Heavy also avoids some of the development and manufacturing concerns raised by SLS vehicle. Finally, it offers the lowest cost of the three options.
Leave it to US government (Score:5, Insightful)
Leave it to US government to build a launch system twice as expensive per launch as the already astronomically expensive Space Shuttle. I'd be stunned if there aren't hundreds of millions in third world style kickbacks going under the table to congressmen to keep this gravy train rolling.
Re:Leave it to US government (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem in the USA is not mostly under the table kick backs. The whole thing is done more or less "legally" via lobbying, Super PACs [wikipedia.org] and so on. If you support what special interests want then they support you. They don't give the money directly but the effect is the same. You don't have to spend your own money and you get into positions which guarantee highly placed directorships afterwards. Effectively the country has become an oligarchy even though the voters could stop it tomorrow if they systematically voted against whatever the money wants.
Re:Leave it to US government (Score:5, Insightful)
Lobbying is just a PC word for bribery.
Re: Leave it to US government (Score:2)
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Lobbying is just a PC word for bribery.
No. Lobbying is an extension of your right to petition the government for redress of grievance.
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Maybe we can do a gofundme or kickstarter, if we all chip in, maybe we can buy our own politician to create laws for us, the people, for a change?
Here is the link for that (Score:2)
If you'd like to do some lobbying, to "buy a Congressperson", you can do that at http://eff.org/ [eff.org]
Or choose whatever issues matter most to you - there is a lobbying group for every issue.
Re: Leave it to US government (Score:2)
Yes, and for speaking your mind (Score:3)
> Lobbying is just a PC word for bribery
That's absolutely true. It's also another word for "talking to your Congressperson" - the Electronic Frontier Foundation does a lot of lobbying, for example.
If you're interested in flying remote control planes or toy drones, you're a special interest group who wants to do some lobbying regarding drone laws and FAA regulations. Are you a ham operator? That's a special interest group who lobbies the FCC.
Are you interested in receiving hundreds of millions of dolla
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It's unfortunately quite tricky to design a system that lets people speak up about what's important to them, allows people to support candidates who do what they think is right, without allowing people to influence candidates in ways that are unseemly.
Well, for the money part, just forbid any individual or single legal entity from donating more than 0.5% of the median US household income per year. Anything specifically endorsing a candidate or party (like 3rd-party-funded TV commercials) would be included, and also includes candidates spending their own money on the campaign.
So you aren't allowed to criticize a politician? (Score:3)
So you'd make it illegal to pass out flyers criticizing a politician. To include, of course, a petition to change the politicians decision in a certain area.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
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So you'd make it illegal to pass out flyers criticizing a politician.
If they are solid gold flyers, and you only use them to criticize
politicians who refuse to be bought, then yes.
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How about taking money out of the equation? I get into trouble if I let a vendor invite me to lunch (let alone take any "gift" beyond the value of throwaway pen), while politicians take bribes of multiple million dollars?
These people are our employees. It's time we start treating them like it.
Only billionaires could run (Score:2)
There are two difficulties with that. First, if people can't donate to a candidate they support, that means the candidate has to pay for their own campaign. Which means only billionaires could ever be think about running for president. Only an ultra-wealthy person could serve in Congress. I'm not sure that we want that result.
There's also this important question - should you be allowed to hand out flyers expressing your opinion about a politician? The Constitution says:
Congress shall make no law ... ab
PS - Yes, it sucks (Score:2)
PS when I wrote:
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A lot of the money in politics is spent that way, supporting or criticizing a candidate rather than donating to their campaign. The first amendment protects your God-given right to say that Trump is an asshole, and Elizabeth Warren appreciates it when you do.
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Yes that also means that the owners of Solyndra can spend millions of dollars supporting Obama while the Obama administration is giving them $535 million of our money. That sucks. It really sucks. Unfortunately I don't see a good
Another PS - Art 1 Sec 8, 10th Amendment (Score:2)
Btw not only did the founders protect your right to say Trump is a jerk, they also thought ahead about federal politicians using their power to benefit wealthy donors. That's one reason the put in the Constitution Article 1, section 8. Just in case we forgot to actually read section 8, they repeated the same thing as the 10th amendment.
If we would actually pay attention to the shit they put in the Constitution not just once, but repeated twice, most of this crap of presidents and senators handing out hund
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Won't work. "The money" is more than smart enough to figure out what it happening, and adjust their contributions/bribes to make sure they get what they want.
Ultimately, the only way to get the big bucks out of Washington is to...get the big bucks out of Washington. As long as the President and Congress control the spending of $5T+ every year, people
Money chases power (Score:3)
Re:Leave it to US government (Score:4, Insightful)
There's also a huge amount of cronyism where unqualified family members (think Hunter Biden) end up in high-level positions or board positions at companies. Beyond that, there are also family-of-congressmen-owned companies that get useless but expensive no-bid contracts to provide dubious services to the government directly. Just one example:
https://www.rollcall.com/news/... [rollcall.com]
There's no way that's the only one.
Re:Leave it to US government (Score:5, Funny)
"There's also a huge amount of cronyism where unqualified family members (think Hunter Biden) "
Are you a stable genius by any chance?
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There are plenty of examples all around. The spouses and children miraculously become millionaires. It's statistically way out of whack they should be loaded with business geniuses.
Your error is in assuming this is an occasional side corruption rather than the main reason people go into politics.
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I'm not ignoring anybody as I don't even see this as a partisan issue.
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I don't think there is much of an argument that Hunter Biden's hiring wasn't meant to try and curry favor with his Father. Whether or not they were successful in that effort is a matter of debate although as of yet I've seen no evidence that it was. Sure, Biden was part of getting a prosecutor fired who was supposedly investigating Burisma, a claim made after the fact. The prosecutor was notoriously corrupt and it's questionable whether or not he would have done anything but take a bribe from Burisma had th
Re: Leave it to US government (Score:3)
There's also a huge amount of cronyism where unqualified family members (think Ivanka and Jared) end up in high-level positions in government. Beyond that, there are also family-of-president-owned companies that get useless but expensive contracts from foreign interests.
I know, right?
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The difference is, neither Ivanka nor Jared are taking any money to be there.
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Yeah, but it's okay, because Trump said he was going to "drain the swamp". So things must be pretty peachy by now, right?
There's been more wall building than there has been swamp draining. A wall you don't really need, versus a cleanup you do. Enjoy!
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The fact that anyone fell for the whole "drain the swamp" line is crazy. Trump is a Manhattan real estate developer. You can't elect a swamp monster and expect him to drain the swamp.
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>> The problem in the USA is not mostly under the table kick backs.
Citation needed. Please explain how congresspeople become multimillionaires from nothing on $174K/yr salary in an area with super high cost of living. I do very much suspect kickbacks are not only alive and well, but increasing over time.
What "government"? (Score:2)
You mean corporations leeching as much as possible out of your pockets and getting you to blame it on the only institution that could ever save you from that, wasn't it infiltrated by their lobbyist politicians but staffed by actually wise people (senate) and people who actually represent you (house)?
A situation that is only the case because of this blaming "the government" when regulation does not go the way of their profit in the first place!
(And no, it's not corporations because they are corporations. It
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It's been nicknamed the "senate launch system" for a reason. The whole project is filled with pork for red states.
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Government is the system by which poorly-run and too-expensive projects get the most money. In contrast, markets are the system by which the most-efficient projects get the most money.
Elon tweeted the other day that Starship now has a launch-cost target of $2M - or a thousand times cheaper per launch than SLS. And that's not even calculating that Starship/Heavy can lift more mass to orbit than SLS.
This is simply a game-theoretic incentives problem. Those whose religion I just insulted with arithmetic wil
Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
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... and when you read the small print of the Boeing SLS sales advert, it says "Supports one launch only".
Reusable rockets are the future, you just need to look at SpaceX eating up the European launch market to see that Ariane is also in trouble. SpaceX has disrupted the launch market making it obvious that the incumbent launch vehicles are going to be quickly superseded.
Unfortunately, for SLS it is far too late in the day to grab a market share, it risks being stillborn. The only positive for SLS is its hig
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I'm a big fan of Musk and SpaceX...but the cost for the SLS bakes in the cost of development,
It's literally re-used space shuttle parts. They aren't building a single rocket engine for the first launch, let alone designing one! You've been had.
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There are two huge differences.
First, the taxpayer is paying for the cost of development for SLS, but not Starship.
Second, we also have the no-development cost sticker price for SLS, the contract price per launch after the initial 10. It's $500 Million. SpaceX's estimate can be off by two orders of magnitude and still be less than half that.
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Re: Leave it to US government (Score:2)
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According to Google and Wikipedia, Space Shuttle cost was $450M per mission. 10x of Soyuz, roughly, but not $1.5B.
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According to NASA's own accountants,
And yes, it IS fair to divide the program costs across each launch, and you will note that was NOT mission costs. That was simply the fixed and variable costs of the STS.
Optimistic (Score:4, Insightful)
holly hell thats not cheap is it?! (Score:1)
Re:holly hell thats not cheap is it?! (Score:5, Insightful)
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It was helped along by a previous politician finishing off the space shuttle to save money, and to save more, thought it a great idea to rent launches from Russia.
When that went south, this got put on the fast track, which means $$$$$ multiples in government terms.
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If you look at it from the perspective of job creation, it's much better than paying some people to dig holes and then paying others to fill them in again. Think of the entire field as a sheltered workshop.
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If that's the goal, how about creating some jobs that do something sensible that the private sector simply won't offer because there's no money to be had? Like, say, educating people without money or caring for the elderly that can't pay 10 grand a month to get someone to wipe their ass?
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or caring for the elderly that can't pay 10 grand a month to get someone to wipe their ass?
You seriously need to educate yourself [usdebtclock.org]. The federal government is a pension plan with a military. All other concerns (like policing, building roads, funding research) are tiny.
$1.2T - Medicare/aid
$1.0T - Social Security
$0.7T - Defense/wars
$0.3T - "Welfare"
$0.3T - Federal pensions
$0.02T - NASA
Now tell us again how we need to spend more on the old and the poor and less on NASA?
Trump cut funding. It's an Obama-era project (Score:2)
> why don't the masses realize how bad this current administration are at budgets?!
Because they don't think "this current administration" asked for, and received, these billions of dollars in 2010 and 2011?
Trump's budget actually cut SLS spending by getting rid the the block 1B and block 2 variants for now. NASA now has to fly one before they spend a hundred billion developing the next two versions.
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Re: holly hell thats not cheap is it?! (Score:2)
For comparison (Score:5, Informative)
For comparison, Falcon Heavy [wikipedia.org] has a payload capacity to LEO of 53,000 kg, and is currently priced at $95 million at 90% max capacity. That's $2000/kg.
The Space Shuttle [wikipedia.org] was about $450 million per launch in 2011, with 27,500 kg of payload. Adjusting for inflation, that's $19,000/kg. But that was at least partly excusable because the payload was ferried inside a 75,000 kg reusable vehicle.
This is what happens when every Senator and Congressman wants a finger in the pie, and requires NASA to purchase or build part of the rocket from their state or district.
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And Elon Musk is talking to the Air Force, pitching Starship, with 150,000kg to orbit, for $2 million. That's $14 per kilogram.
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Yeah, that figure is so far out of the normal range, and it was said by Elon Musk (although, to be fair, he didn't say launching 150 tonnes would only cost $2,000,000), so you have to figure it's got to be bullshit.
Re:For comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing about Elon Musk is that 50% of the time he's able to backup his bullshit. Given the level of bullshit he spews, that really fucking impressive and no one else has been able to match his track record. Supposed Tesla killer electric car companies have folded up shop, the other commercial space programs and even NASA's program are nowhere near close, no one else is even trying on hyperloop and holy shit, the Boring company is right out of James Bond level equipment. Investors get pissy because he doesn't make it 100% of the time but, they're never happy unless they can guarantee the manufacture of money and even then they'll complain it isn't enough. He'd be this generation's Edison if Edison wasn't a thieving crook.
Re:For comparison (Score:5, Funny)
He'd be this generation's Edison if Edison wasn't a thieving crook.
If Musk had launched an elephant into space instead of his Tesla Roadster then we could say he is this generation's Edison.
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Re:For comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
Thing is, that number almost makes sense.
Rocketry itself doesn't improve with scale. If you build a bigger rocket, you need more fuel, which itself needs more fuel, which needs more fuel, and so on. Launching a giant rocket brings a giant per-launch price tag just for the fuel.
On the other hand, all of the ancillary work does improve with scale. Executing launches becomes a routine. Automated systems become feasible. A stable supply chain manufacturing and transporting fuel to the launch site becomes a viable infrastructure investment. Catching rockets and fairings becomes a regular industry. Processing those reusable parts becomes an assembly-line process... and all of those things come with performance improvements and cost reductions.
Eventually, there's enough infrastructure that the per-launch overhead cost is minimized, and the primary expense is just the fuel and non-reusable components. While those don't improve with scale, they also don't get unreasonable. A massive launch vehicle with a massive payload still carries a significant non-reusable bill, but its processing costs are literally minimal. Per-kilogram, it's the cheapest way to get to space.
Like most of Musk's ventures, this is what SpaceX is counting on throughout its business model. In my opinion, that's why Starlink exists. It's much more than just a communications network. It's a promise to investors that there will be a consistent series of launches making use of the developed processes. It justifies the cost estimates when Musk says "at $X total cost for Y launches, this new infrastructure costs $(X/Y) per launch", because SpaceX itself can also promise at least those Y launches will happen. SpaceX is building not just the supply for its main product (launch services), but demand (Starlink launches), and building supply for that market (satellites) based on a separate demand (consumer demand for comm services). Musk's avoiding the chicken-and-egg problem of a niche market by redirecting demand from another market, just like he did with PayPal combining payment services with banking, Tesla building large-capacity batteries for SolarCity and its vehicles, and of course Boring digging tunnels for Hyperloop.
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Re: For comparison (Score:2)
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Not disagreeing with any of your points or numbers, just wondering about
"...The Space Shuttle [wikipedia.org] was about $450 million per launch in 2011, with 27,500 kg of payload. Adjusting for inflation, that's $19,000/kg. But that was at least partly excusable because the payload was ferried inside a 75,000 kg reusable vehicle...."
If you're getting the price per kg from launch cost divided by PAYLOAD (ie not whole launch vehicle) you're already crediting the system the reusable part, no?
Otherwise, I don't
Re: For comparison (Score:2)
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Your numbers are about as crystal clear an argument for how/why private industry does things more efficiently than government.
(No, Falcon Heavy is not PURELY private enterprise, they have plenty of subsidies and assistance, but that pales in comparison to the effectively 100% subsidy that is NASA.)
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Re: For comparison (Score:2)
SpaceX Starship (Score:2)
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Old Corrupt Congresspeople (Score:4, Insightful)
These Congresspeople don't care if we go to space. They realize all the fun interesting stuff that could happen out there won't happen in their lifetime. But rather than effectively set things up smartly for the next generation, they focus on pork-barrel spending. They want to line their pockets with money and the pockets of their lobbyist friends, and then retire/die with their fortune.
They see dollar signs, not warp drive.
How come nobody is trying booster rendezvous? (Score:5, Interesting)
We've mastered automatic docking already. Just send up the payload and an extra booster on separate launch vehicles. Dock in orbit, fire up booster and you're on the way with extra kick. Two Falcon Heavies are still an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE cheaper than a single SLS.
Re:How come nobody is trying booster rendezvous? (Score:4, Informative)
I mean, the Falcon Heavy can almost get the fully fueled second stage to orbit on its own if it doesn't have a payload (though that would require expending the core booster probably due to it acquiring so much delta V to survive reentry). The only payload on the second stage would be an adapter to mate with the payload from the other launch (which would have its own kick stage). You can then just use the Falcon Heavy's second stage as the booster to get the payload and kickstage on a quick path to Jupiter.
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True, but this doesn't matter as long as it's the *second* part of the spacecraft to be launched. You launch the spacecraft and kick stage with a Falcon Heavy. Your kick stage uses something storable like hydrazine or whatever, and it just sits passively in orbit.
Once you know it's up there, then you can launch your booster stage when the window is good and rendezvous within a few hours, wasting very little LOx to boiloff. You time this rendezvous so your orbital inclination lines up with the interplanater
Re: How come nobody is trying booster rendezvous? (Score:2)
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Easy solution to this (Score:2)
Why build 1? (Score:2)
Why build 1 when you can build 2 at twice the price? and keep one of them hidden and secret?