NASA Will Leave Its $4.1 Billion Rocket Outside As Nicole Approaches Florida (arstechnica.com) 71
As subtropical storm Nicole moved across the Atlantic Ocean toward Florida on Monday afternoon, NASA confirmed that its Artemis I mission would remain at the launch pad along the state's east coast. Ars Technica reports: The risks to these large and costly vehicles are non-zero, however, and appear to be rising as Nicole starts to strengthen. The space agency's primary concern from tropical systems is winds. Much of the rocket's structure is pretty robust, such as its tank-like solid rocket boosters. But there are sensitive elements prone to damage from debris and wearing effects due to high winds inside a tropical system. According to the SLS rocket's chief engineer, John Blevins, the rocket can withstand wind gusts up to 74.1 knots. Knots are a term used in meteorology and maritime navigation and are equal to 1 nautical mile per hour. In this case, the SLS rocket can withstand gusts up to 85 mph, or 137 km/h. Wind "gusts" are different from sustained winds. These are short-term bursts of wind, as opposed to sustained winds over one minute or longer.
On Monday, at the time NASA announced its decision to remain at the launch pad as Nicole approached Florida, there was just a 4 percent chance of such winds at Kennedy Space Center. NASA, therefore, was willing to take a calculated risk by staying at the pad. One reason for remaining outside was, somewhat ironically, wear and tear. The process of rolling the Artemis I mission four miles back and forth, between the Vehicle Assembly Building and launch pad, puts a lot of stress on the vehicle. When it computes risk factors for the Artemis I launch vehicle, NASA has a certain budget for rollouts. The rocket has now been out to the pad on four separate occasions since this spring. While NASA has not confirmed this, according to a source, NASA has just one remaining roll in its budget. This does not mean the rocket will fall apart with additional roundtrips, it's just that additional movements would incrementally increase the risk of damage.
NASA may also simply not have had time to move inside the protective confines of the Vehicle Assembly Building. It takes a couple of days to prep the rocket to roll back. By Monday, it may have already been too late because to roll back before Nicole's arrival would probably have meant doing so no later than Tuesday night. Asked whether NASA really had no choice but to remain at the pad, a spokesperson for the agency, Rachel Kraft, was non-committal. "The team reviewed the forecast and determined the rocket will remain at the pad," she said on Monday. The problem for NASA is that Nicole is now expected to transition into a tropical storm and come ashore just south of Kennedy Space Center as a Category 1 hurricane. "The corresponding odds for hurricane-force winds -- at or above the safety limit established by NASA for its rocket -- are now up to 10 percent," reports Ars. "This is higher than the forecast that prompted a rollback during Ian."
On Monday, at the time NASA announced its decision to remain at the launch pad as Nicole approached Florida, there was just a 4 percent chance of such winds at Kennedy Space Center. NASA, therefore, was willing to take a calculated risk by staying at the pad. One reason for remaining outside was, somewhat ironically, wear and tear. The process of rolling the Artemis I mission four miles back and forth, between the Vehicle Assembly Building and launch pad, puts a lot of stress on the vehicle. When it computes risk factors for the Artemis I launch vehicle, NASA has a certain budget for rollouts. The rocket has now been out to the pad on four separate occasions since this spring. While NASA has not confirmed this, according to a source, NASA has just one remaining roll in its budget. This does not mean the rocket will fall apart with additional roundtrips, it's just that additional movements would incrementally increase the risk of damage.
NASA may also simply not have had time to move inside the protective confines of the Vehicle Assembly Building. It takes a couple of days to prep the rocket to roll back. By Monday, it may have already been too late because to roll back before Nicole's arrival would probably have meant doing so no later than Tuesday night. Asked whether NASA really had no choice but to remain at the pad, a spokesperson for the agency, Rachel Kraft, was non-committal. "The team reviewed the forecast and determined the rocket will remain at the pad," she said on Monday. The problem for NASA is that Nicole is now expected to transition into a tropical storm and come ashore just south of Kennedy Space Center as a Category 1 hurricane. "The corresponding odds for hurricane-force winds -- at or above the safety limit established by NASA for its rocket -- are now up to 10 percent," reports Ars. "This is higher than the forecast that prompted a rollback during Ian."
Re: Why is it at the pad anway? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: Why is it at the pad anway? (Score:4, Funny)
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That's a lot of considerations. (Score:3, Funny)
Who knew protecting rockets is like rocket science.
Re:That's a lot of considerations. (Score:4, Informative)
Who knew protecting rockets is like rocket science.
The solution is to make cheap rockets, so you don't need to worry.
SpaceX is building rockets for 2% as much as NASA.
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Who knew protecting rockets is like rocket science.
The solution is to make cheap rockets, so you don't need to worry.
SpaceX is building rockets for 2% as much as NASA.
The NASA rocket also has the ability to carry almost 6x [wikipedia.org] the payload [wikipedia.org] (though admittedly I'm not super familiar with understanding rocket specs).
That's not to say that SpaceX (and private industry in general) isn't more efficient. But it's an Apple to Oranges comparison since NASA's rockets are both doing a much harder job, pushing the tech much further (more R&D), and they're used less frequently (no economies of scale).
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What about the Falcon Heavy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] 63.8T for the heavy vs 95T for the SLS
Or if we are going to use rockets that have not flown.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] 100T for starship.
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What about the Falcon Heavy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] 63.8T for the heavy vs 95T for the SLS
Or if we are going to use rockets that have not flown.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] 100T for starship.
If I read the SLS stuff correctly it has 3 configurations, Blocks 1, 1B, and 2. The Block 1 is 95T, but 1B is 105T and 2 is 130T, so there's still a decent gap.
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Not really. If you put a £100 million satellite on top of a £50 million launch device, you've got a £150 million post sitting out in the rain. If you put a £100 million satellite on top of a $5million launch device (10% the cost), you've still got £105 million sitting out in the rain, not £15 million (10% the cost).
An additional complicating factor is that as the push do
What Could Happen? (Score:1, Insightful)
Rollout cost (Score:4, Interesting)
It's interesting that moving the rocket to the pad has such a high wear and tear that they can only do it 5 times safely. If you've ever seen how slowly those movers go you would think there'd be zero impact to the rocket, although maybe the stress is caused by wind blowing it while unsupported by the tower, much like a skyscraper. Rockets aren't great with sideways stress, so I could see the many days of slowly driving back and forth in the open air eventually accumulating wind damage.
Seems like an unusual situation though, I bet they never really expected to have to move one back and forth as much as this one has been.
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It's pathetic, is what it is. Especially at this time I have an all-time low level of regard for Elon Musk, so this is conclusively not about him, but the appalling fragility of SLS is a real contrast to SpaceX's reusable rockets. Everything we learn about this project proves that it should not exist, and should never have existed. It is purely a jobs program. What other more useful projects could not happen because of the money being spent there?
Re:Rollout cost (Score:4, Informative)
With full technical information on the predecessor Space Shuttle program, and with the contractors and manufacturers that supplied the Space Shuttle program working on this, and with even some of the same engineers that worked on the Shuttle program, it has taken longer for the successor program to not fly than it took for the Shuttle to fly from when its program kicked-off in-earnest.
Yes, I am counting Constellation as part of this program. Because this is all in-succession to the Space Shuttle and despite renaming it and throwing a bunch of its dead-end engineering out when it became SLS, this set has had all of that Shuttle stuff the whole time.
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I don't take any pleasure in SLS's failure, I want it to succeed.
That being said, from watching the vast offering of space related youtube, people such as Everyday Astronaut and Scott Manley and Anton Petrov, it seems to me a basic failure of philosophy.
The Space Shuttle was built in the classic NASA way: with a huge investment in an optimal design before a single weld was made, cost overruns, and the finished product being essentially a series of hand-built prototypes that needed to be run over engineering
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Even ULA, which frankly is probably another doomed company since their rocket factory has never come close to the production rate it was designed for and manufactures consumable rockets, is actually iterating their designs, both within rocket families (Delta and Atlas respectively) and into the new rocket (Vulcan).
Destin from Smarter Every Day did a tour of the ULA factory with the company CEO. It's a cool place, they do a lot of incredible work there. I hope they can figure out how to move on to reusable
Re:Units (Score:5, Informative)
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It used to be one minute, but has since been redefined as 1,852m. To get a feel for it, it's a bit less than 2km.
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Distinction without a difference, arising from the fact that the Earth isn't a perfect sphere.
Historically a nautical mile was defined as the length of one minute of arc along a meridian of a spherical earth. An ellipsoid model leads to a variation of the nautical mile with latitude. This was resolved by defining the nautical mile to be exactly 1,852 metres. However, for all practical purposes, distances are measured from the latitude scale of charts. As the Royal Yachting Association says in its manual for day skippers: "1 (minute) of Latitude = 1 sea mile", followed by "For most practical purposes distance is measured from the latitude scale, assuming that one minute of latitude equals one nautical mile".
Median arc [wikipedia.org]
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The kilometre is a perfectly good metric unit of distance, provided you have a reasonable metric unit of angle. Instead we have an irrational one so everyone uses the old non-metric unit instead. When you do that, nautical miles make more sense.
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We have, on Earth, a perfectly good metric unit of angle. It's the kilometre - whose original definition was as one 10-thousandth of the distance from the Equator to the North Pole along a meridian (line of longitude) passing through Paris.
Personally, when I was having to steer oil wells, I got to thinking of angles in terms of radians, because for small deflections (< < 0.1 radians, about 6
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I'm sure you're aware that the kilometre is a unit of length, not angle. This becomes quite obvious when you try to apply it to an arc that is not an idealized line of longitude like, for example, the rim of your coffee mug.
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In the 1730s, 40s, possibly even into the 50s - I'd have to check - there was a lot of work done to try to improve geodetic surveying to better understand the "figure of the Earth". There was dispute over whether the centrifugal "force" due to the Earth's rotation was sufficient to make the Earth noticeably oblate - which survey
Won't matter anyway. SLS is a dead end. (Score:1)
I've said it before, but it bears repeating:
Throwaway SLS has no future.
Launch it or scrap it now, it won't affect the future.
NASA must stop throwing money at more SLS missions and commit to modern, reusable alternatives.
Spacex or potential future competitors, it doesn't matter who, as long as they are not Old Space.
Because Old Space is dead.
Re:Won't matter anyway. SLS is a dead end. (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be putting all their eggs in SpaceX's basket. Until SpaceX demonstrates that they can perform the missions that SLS is designed to do, reliably, NASA needs to keep its options open.
Re:Won't matter anyway. SLS is a dead end. (Score:4, Informative)
What happens if Starship doesn't work out though?
Musk's track record is mixed. Tesla recently scrapped the Hyperloop test facility, and Musk admitted in an interview that he only came up with the idea to nerf high speed rail in California. What if taking Starship to the Moon is just to nerf his competition for launches?
Then you have stuff that is simply a failure or endlessly delayed, like Full Self Driving and his "boots on Mars" timeline.
There is also an issue with compatibility with Artemis. Starship isn't really a good fit for going to the Moon, because it's too big. Maybe of use when setting up operations there, but for regular movement of people and supplies there is simply no point taking all that additional mass. It only makes sense if you are making the long journey to Mars.
Re:Won't matter anyway. SLS is a dead end. (Score:5, Insightful)
"What happens if Starship doesn't work out though?"
As I wrote above: Spacex or potential future competitors, it doesn't matter who, as long as they are not Old Space.
This is not a race to put vaginas on the moon. It is about planning the future development of the US' space launch capabilities.
"there is simply no point taking all that additional mass."
Really ? You cannot conceive of how more mass will make for better, safer, more productive moon missions ?!
Re:Won't matter anyway. SLS is a dead end. (Score:5, Insightful)
The US is treating the Chinese manned space programme like a new space race, and wants to be back on the moon before they get there. There is also the fact that the ISS is wearing out and it looks like cooperation with Russia will be impossible for the foreseeable future. NASA will have nowhere to go once that's out of commission.
Feel free to argue against all that, but that's why waiting an indefinitely is not an option. I think the fact that women are allowed to participate now is a very small part of it, although perhaps the thought that the first woman on the moon might be Chinese plays a part.
As for additional mass, the plan is to set up a station in orbit, and then use a lighter weight craft to descend to and return from the surface. That makes sense because it requires a lot less fuel. The station itself will be taken up the same way as the modules of the ISS were, on a rocket that delivers them to their destination. There's no point that mission being manned, that would just be extra weight and risk for a job that a robot will do. With the distance of the moon the time delay for ground control isn't a big issue, so it doesn't even have to be all that highly automated.
For manned trips to the moon there's little point taking Starship. You would need a lot of propellant to land it on the moon and lift off again. There aren't many missions planned that would need that kind of capacity on the surface. It's not really worth trying to live on the moon for long periods, it's a very harsh environment compared to Mars and there isn't a lot of interested stuff to do there. The regolith destroys all the equipment operating there, including EVA suits.
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For manned trips to the moon there's little point taking Starship. You would need a lot of propellant to land it on the moon and lift off again. There aren't many missions planned that would need that kind of capacity on the surface.
You are aware that NASA has selected Starship as the planned lunar lander [nasa.gov]? Meaning Starship *is* the "lighter-weight craft" you're referring to for descent and return?
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Starship HLS is very different to the vehicle they are currently testing. The plan is to launch it uncrewed, refuel it in orbit, have it fly to lunar orbit (probably very slowly, since nobody will be on board) and only then rendezvous with an Orion spacecraft that will have the crew on board. It will only be manned going down to the lunar surface and back up to lunar orbit, and will doubtless be much smaller than the current design to reduce weight and therefore fuel requirements.
So as I said, it makes no s
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I understand your thinking. So far, I'm not seeing it [wikipedia.org] reflected in the planning - Starship HLS seems to be building on the same chassis, with massive (~100T) up- and down- mass capabilities from lunar orbit to surface.
That said, using a similar, full-build Starship as an earth-moon shuttle would also work -- if Starship is planned to be able to launch from here and make Mars, translunar seems straightforward - though fuel costs might be a question.
But I think either goes around the point of other comments,
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The moment SLS is cancelled is the moment NASA starts doing space right again.
--
Woke, n: "A person who likes their own idea of fairness and making sure no-one else's ideas will be heard. qv 'sanctimonious', 'cancel', 'hatred'.
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With excellent reason. A program that can launch lunar landing capable craft to escape velocity can put quite large military satellites in geostationary or other high altitude orbits. There were reasons the old "Nuclear War" game's trump combination was a Saturn V with a 100 Megaton nuclear payload.
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With excellent reason. A program that can launch lunar landing capable craft to escape velocity can put quite large military satellites in geostationary or other high altitude orbits.
The focus of the military in the last decade has been to move away from large military satellites toward swarms of small satellites delivering the same capability. Large satellites are too vulnerable.
There were reasons the old "Nuclear War" game's trump combination was a Saturn V with a 100 Megaton nuclear payload.
What?!?
No.
Nobody ever proposed this. Liquid fueled boosters are too fragile and take too long to launch. The winning combination was ICBMs that were small, rugged, cheap, solid fueled, could be launched on a moment's notice with no fueling needed, and had multiple warheads.
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The game, which was a card game, made the successful point that such large launch vehicles could launch large military payloads. There were several proposals to actually use Saturn V's for nuclear payloads, such as the Icarus project for asteroid deflection.
You may not remember the 1960's and early 1970's. I do. The potential nuclear payload of a Saturn V was commonly discussed, in particular to launch thermonuclear weapons due to their necessarily larger physical size. Their ability to reach higher velocit
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A Saturn V is a fucking lousy delivery system for a nuclear warhead, and if "the potential nuclear payload of a Saturn V was commonly discussed", those common people discussing it had no knowledge of military requirements.
Re:Won't matter anyway. SLS is a dead end. (Score:4, Insightful)
What happens if Starship doesn't work out though?
Then it will not work out more cheaply than SLS, which isn't working out.
SLS is never going to make sense and its funding process was arguably illegal. Boeing is total garbage post-McDD and should not be allowed to build anything for anyone.
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What happens if Starship doesn't work out though?
Even if there are zero improvements possible and Starship is such a failure that SpaceX has to close tomorrow, it's still a net gain cos SpaceX proved that you can do reusable rockets relatively cheaply at the least - to the rest of the world.
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If Starship doesn't work out, SpaceX will iterate something better. If SpaceX goes bankrupt, the Chinese government is already copying their designs, I am sure they will be good at iterating. NASA may in turn need to copy those Chinese designs (put all those cyberwarriors to use).
Musk has already nerfed his competition for launches. By both shattering what was thought to be possible and explicitly not patenting his technology, he has trapped his opposition quite neatly. The 'smart' way to compete with h
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It is already obvious that Starship is more likely to be able to perform the missions that SLS was designed to do but has not
I would say that this is likely, but it's not "obvious", since Starship is a rocket that has yet to fly.
Until it's flight proven, about all we can say so far is it looks like a good bet, but the proof is in the flight.
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That would be putting all their eggs in SpaceX's basket.
Then throw some contracts to Blue Origin if you want dual-sourcing.
SLS is a pointless dead-end money pit. It needs to die.
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That would be putting all their eggs in SpaceX's basket. Until SpaceX demonstrates that they can perform the missions that SLS is designed to do, reliably, NASA needs to keep its options open.
I would agree with you. However, SLS has not demonstrated that it can perform the missions it was designed for, either.
As soon as SpaceX gets their Starship into orbit, the two outfits will be at roughly the same point. The difference being that NASA does it at extreme (taxpayer) cost and under the capricious control of politicians. While SpaceX demonstrates a scalable, commercially viable, solution.
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SLS can't demonstrate that they can perform the missions that SLS is designed to do.
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Here is a prescient article from 2011 [huffpost.com] that explains the design and budget behind the Senate Launch System (SLS). The only thing this 2011 document gets wrong, is underestimating the time and money still being wasted.
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Spacex or potential future competitors, it doesn't matter who, as long as they are not Old Space.
I think you fail to remember just how many "new space" launch vehicle companies there were that failed before SpaceX finally succeeded with the Falcon-9. OTRAG, Kistler, Connestoga, Beal, Roton, Rocketplane... the list goes on.
(and, even there, SpaceX didn't succeed until they started working with NASA... who at the time were the only customers willing to work with a company with a launch record of three failures, no successes.)
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How much has NASA wasted on SLS ?
Which spending was better value for money ?
It will never fly anyway (Score:1)
It's not a trick, it's a Boeing.
Who cares (Score:2)
It's insured. Sort of. It's insured by Taxpayer Inc. Boeing & Lockheed will get their congressmen to have taxpayers pay for a new one. They don't make these multi-billion dollar rockets disposable for nothing.
This will save the embarrassment (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe the calculation is that it will be damaged which will therefore push the mission back which will require alternatives which will cause NASA to throw up its collective hands and go with a better alternative. Right now there's a 10% chance of saving face.
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which will therefore push the mission back
Which will buy SLS some time to hunt down the bugs in the system which they haven't managed to find and fix yet.
Meanwhile, Over at SpaceX... (Score:2)
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Space X vehicles fit in hangars. We had similar risks for Saturn V rockets when I was much younger.
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The SLS goes in a hangar too. That's what this article is about, leaving the rocket out vs putting it back in its hangar.
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Good point. Apparently it is big enough and survived the last hurricane.
Unfortunately (Score:2)
Kia made the ignition sequence and some hood rats stole it for a TikTok.
NASA/Boeing want SLS damaged (Score:3)
It gives them an excuse for more delays. The program's goal is to keep the money train flowing. Delays enable that.
It was getting dusty sitting around (Score:3)
Just Launch It ! (Score:2)
The thing has been sitting there rusting and dragged back and forth for too long. It's not getting any better. /billions have been wasted on this government boondoggle.
Just launch it now. Better to have it blow up now than after more $ millions
Giggle (Score:2)