Need to be clear... There is nothing legally stopping NASA or Congress from directing funds for such development. Whether NASA could actually employ it is another matter.
Ares I or Liberty on steroids.
Developing is the same as employing.
I think it's a difference that makes a difference. The principal justification for this SRB-X would be massive risk reduction it offers SLS with advanced boosters, because it provides a way for the boosters to get flight history without risking the entire SLS mission stack. That's something no commercial launcher can offer. (And that's nothing like the justification for the original SRB-X.)Indeed the same could be said for SRB-X use of EUS. No commercial launcher can offer to flight-test that. And by doing these test flights we allow the precious few RS-25 engines to be expended (by the SLS core stage) only when needed.
The SRB -X is on drawing board, Orbital/ATK call it NGLV. The difference is Blue supplied BE3 US.
NOPE. SRB-X was a proposal by USAF to NASA and industry to develop a STS/Titan-III/later Titan-IV hybrid. SRB-X has no relation at all to the OA NGLV EELV Proposal. SRB-X's sole purpose was to get Military STS payloads in to orbit by using SLC-39 and SLC-6 pads so that military payloads would not have to rideshare with other civil/commercial payloads. Date of first proposal was in 1984 and would have flown in 1988. The proposal would reoccur several times over the following decades. Its latest reviving was in the beginning second decade of the 2000's as a post shuttle replacementhttp://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/srb-x.htm
Here's a side-by-side comparison of NGLV-X next to the other planned heavy lifters.Please, someone, stop me. - Ed Kyle