Not having all the commercial players there was unusual to me... Not saying it was deliberate... But still...
I finally listened to the hearing and found it quite revealing. Consider this statement from NASA's William Gerstenmeier beginning at 0:21:25 (emphasis added):...Wow -- Is Gerstenmeier actually complaining about political interference in engineering matters? It's like he was channeling me. If it was meant as a criticism of Congress for having written SLS's specs into law, it didn't seem to get any reaction from the senators present, not even from Senator-"engineer" Nelson, who was one of SLS's key political "designers". Maybe it went over their heads.
Quote from: Proponent on 07/28/2016 05:52 pmI finally listened to the hearing and found it quite revealing. Consider this statement from NASA's William Gerstenmeier beginning at 0:21:25 (emphasis added):...Wow -- Is Gerstenmeier actually complaining about political interference in engineering matters? It's like he was channeling me. If it was meant as a criticism of Congress for having written SLS's specs into law, it didn't seem to get any reaction from the senators present, not even from Senator-"engineer" Nelson, who was one of SLS's key political "designers". Maybe it went over their heads.That was an excellent find, and I applaud the attempt by Gerstenmeier.However it didn't go over the heads of the Senators, they just chose to ignore what they already knew to be true.It's sad, but in this case the creation of the SLS by the Senate allowed for this level of interference. In a normal program Congress would not have the time or ability to be so prescriptive, and it would be very visible during the competitive bidding phase. But the SLS and the Orion were not "normal" procurement, they were meant to continue jobs that would otherwise have been cancelled with the end of the Constellation program, so it was about maintaining a status quo.But it was good that he got this on the record, so that it can be pointed to in the future if needed...
Not sure where to put this... so I will drop it here.Good stuff from the Chairman.“I am an enthusiastic advocate of competition and allowing the private sector to innovate, and I will continue to work closely with the commercial space industry to ensure that companies like SpaceX have the freedom to thrive.”http://www.kwtx.com/content/news/McGregor--Texas-Sen-Tours-SpaceX-390034281.html
I don't understand this sentiment regarding congressional language dictating SLS. While I believe that SLS costs way more than it is worth, SLS is tremendously better than the NASA defined Ares I and V rockets.
Different NASAs.Ares I and Ares V were defined and pushed by the Griffin regime at NASA under Bush. When Obama came to office, Griffin was out and the new NASA regime tried to kill killed Constellation. SLS was the result of Congress fighting back against the attempt to kill killing of Constellation, saving as much pork as possible of it (Ares V rebranded as SLS a BFR and Orion).So, it's not a matter of NASA versus Congress. It's a matter of Constellation-faction versus anti-Constellation-faction. The former held power in NASA until 2009 and in Congress from then on. They're to blame for Ares I, Ares V, and SLS.
SLS is definitely better than Ares I, though. You can actually make a coherent argument for why SLS makes sense.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 08/15/2016 12:57 amSLS is definitely better than Ares I, though. You can actually make a coherent argument for why SLS makes sense.Well then, do enlighten me because I cannot think of a single good reason as to why SLS would make sense.
Quote from: woods170 on 08/15/2016 11:20 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 08/15/2016 12:57 amSLS is definitely better than Ares I, though. You can actually make a coherent argument for why SLS makes sense.Well then, do enlighten me because I cannot think of a single good reason as to why SLS would make sense.It is an excellent jobs-generator project that will eventually probably launch something useful - even if the price is hilariously high, due to being a result of a jobs generation project that tries to dole out federal money to all the right districts - it does that quite well with large money bags moving around.As a launcher, it makes fairly little sense and has a very good chance of looking seriously obsolete by the time it flies a non-testflight mission.
Quote from: Jarnis on 08/15/2016 01:48 pmQuote from: woods170 on 08/15/2016 11:20 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 08/15/2016 12:57 amSLS is definitely better than Ares I, though. You can actually make a coherent argument for why SLS makes sense.Well then, do enlighten me because I cannot think of a single good reason as to why SLS would make sense.It is an excellent jobs-generator project that will eventually probably launch something useful - even if the price is hilariously high, due to being a result of a jobs generation project that tries to dole out federal money to all the right districts - it does that quite well with large money bags moving around.As a launcher, it makes fairly little sense and has a very good chance of looking seriously obsolete by the time it flies a non-testflight mission. Rockets, IMHO, are for launching things into space, not generate jobs with federal money. But that's just my opinion. With regard to SLS: it is already obsolete right now IMO. Tankage and avionics are state of the art. But the business ends feature propulsion systems based on 1970's technology. Yet the bl**dy thing is still costing tens of billions of US dollars to develop. Given that the US space industry is the best on the planet I really expected them to do better than SLS.
Quote from: CommercialSpaceFan on 08/14/2016 11:46 pmI don't understand this sentiment regarding congressional language dictating SLS. While I believe that SLS costs way more than it is worth, SLS is tremendously better than the NASA defined Ares I and V rockets.Different NASAs.Ares I and Ares V were defined and pushed by the Griffin regime at NASA under Bush. When Obama came to office, Griffin was out and the new NASA regime tried to kill Constellation. SLS was the result of Congress fighting back against the attempt to kill Constellation, saving as much as possible of it (Ares V rebranded as SLS and Orion).So, it's not a matter of NASA versus Congress. It's a matter of Constellation-faction versus anti-Constellation-faction. The former held power in NASA until 2009 and in Congress from then on. They're to blame for Ares I, Ares V, and SLS.
Rockets, IMHO, are for launching things into space, not generate jobs with federal money. But that's just my opinion. With regard to SLS: it is already obsolete right now IMO. Tankage and avionics are state of the art. But the business ends feature propulsion systems based on 1970's technology. Yet the bl**dy thing is still costing tens of billions of US dollars to develop. Given that the US space industry is the best on the planet I really expected them to do better than SLS.