Quote from: baldusi on 01/05/2016 03:42 pmIs the justification document available on the Internet or L2?Available on L2 in this L2 thread, post #30.http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=34671.20
Is the justification document available on the Internet or L2?
The other item is it is going to take 11 years to produce 6 engines. 2016 to 2027. There must be a lot of subcontractor parts suppliers requiring a long time to restart. And some suppliers that went out of business!
I personally think SLS will be canceled and NASA directed to work collaboratively with SpaceX via Space Act Agreement. It would be silly to continue pursuing this thing if something cheaper and more robust comes on line.
It will be interesting if AR can do this without going over-budget and on schedule.The recent RS-68A upgrade program should gave some insight.
Great article!A small glitch: The "SLS Forum Section" link actually points to the SpaceX forum section.
Quote from: Zed_Noir on 01/05/2016 08:46 pmIt will be interesting if AR can do this without going over-budget and on schedule.The recent RS-68A upgrade program should gave some insight.If they cant re-build their own engine on an extremly generous budget like this and over an 11 year time line within budget and schedule then AR is utterly useless and deserve to be killed off, and forgotten in all enternity.
Or they could, you know, put it up for bids in an open competition as to who could design such an engine instead of shoveling out more corporate welfare.
Quote from: shooter6947 on 01/05/2016 10:23 pmOr they could, you know, put it up for bids in an open competition as to who could design such an engine instead of shoveling out more corporate welfare.Problem is that the other current active US large liquid engine manufacturers is not interested in large HydeoLox engines. So basically asking AR how much they want.
Well they wanted to keep the industrial complex (jobs) involved with the STS, so a clean sheet design was off the table for SLS. I'm really curious btw on why did they choose to get rid of the RS-25E designation for the improved/expendable SLS variant. It seems like they want to call it simply RS-25 from now on.
PS There will be a follow up article with quotes we've got from Aerojet on how they will be reducing the costs per moving from RS-25D to RS-25E.
It's $1.5bn in total, of which $1.16bn for the production restart.So $340m for 6 engines, or $57m per engine.