Author Topic: SLS General Discussion Thread 3  (Read 310811 times)

Offline Chris Bergin

SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« on: 07/04/2018 04:57 pm »
New Discussion Thread for SLS.

SLS Articles (lots of them):
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/?s=SLS

L2 SLS (Vast):
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?board=48.0

-

Do not post unless it's useful, on topic and interesting. This is not a place for the politics (that's in Space Policy), this is a place about the vehicle.

We won't stand for armwaving, "OMG, cancel it" or any of that crap here (it's boring). You can be against it, but saying you want it to be canceled for the 500th time is just dull. Posts that are not useful, up to the standards of this forum or anything the moderators deem to be crap will be deleted. Want to rant, go on Twitter.
(This warning is because the previous thread devolved into armwaving). :)
« Last Edit: 07/04/2018 05:03 pm by Chris Bergin »
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Offline johnfwhitesell

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #1 on: 07/04/2018 06:38 pm »
We won't stand for armwaving, "OMG, cancel it" or any of that crap here (it's boring). You can be against it, but saying you want it to be canceled for the 500th time is just dull. Posts that are not useful, up to the standards of this forum or anything the moderators deem to be crap will be deleted. Want to rant, go on Twitter.
(This warning is because the previous thread devolved into armwaving). :)

Can I preemptively ask for clarification on exactly where the line is drawn in regards to comparing SLS to other vehicles?  I think laying that out at the start might help.
« Last Edit: 07/04/2018 06:39 pm by johnfwhitesell »

Offline FinalFrontier

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #2 on: 07/05/2018 05:37 am »
We won't stand for armwaving, "OMG, cancel it" or any of that crap here (it's boring). You can be against it, but saying you want it to be canceled for the 500th time is just dull. Posts that are not useful, up to the standards of this forum or anything the moderators deem to be crap will be deleted. Want to rant, go on Twitter.
(This warning is because the previous thread devolved into armwaving). :)

Can I preemptively ask for clarification on exactly where the line is drawn in regards to comparing SLS to other vehicles?  I think laying that out at the start might help.
Seconded. Need to know if we can't criticize the vehicle or program here. If not fine but it would be good to know at the start.
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Offline Khadgars

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #3 on: 07/05/2018 01:59 pm »
I think we all understand the spirit of what Chris has stated.  This isn't a policy section for SLS/Orion. 
Evil triumphs when good men do nothing - Thomas Jefferson

Offline mike robel

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #4 on: 07/05/2018 02:31 pm »
Pretty much everything useful has already been said, we are talking past each other, and anything else will likely not shed any new light on the best course of action, especially since all said vehicles are are either still on paper or being fabricated.

The National HSF Mission is ill-defined and the commercial ones mostly support the owners goals and not any national objective.  Thus there is no main effort and no unity of command/purpose.

When one or more are launched, then there can be a new debate on how to proceed.

A poor plan, executed and supported vigorously now is better than a poorly executed and supported "perfect" plan at a later date.

We have four projects, for better or worse:  SLS, Space X vehicles, Blue Origin vehicles, and Vulcan.

The national main effort is arguably SLS (because it is supported (however poorly) by the President, Congress, and the nation and is probably executing as well as can be expected under the circumstances.

The others have varying amounts of support - whether it is public, private, or a combination.

We are not massing our resources in support of a main effort although we may be inadvertently be conducting economy of force because we don't know what we want to do and things may sort out in a satisfactory manner.

Manned spacecraft programs are in a similar state, with Orion, Dragon 2, CST-100, whatever Blue Origin is working on, and perhaps the DARPA space plane executing in the same manner. 

If the laws of the marketplace are allowed to operate, 2 or 3 of these competitors will likely drop out hopefully leaving us with 1 or 2 sound vehicles.  (The B-52 or C-130 of the space program, so to speak.)

I think it is reasonable to have two different boosters and two different spacecraft to provide continuous and redundant space operations.


----------- 

Perhaps we need a debate thread on just what the National Mission, Strategy, and Tactics should be and framed in 4, 8, and 12 year increments for the short term (because these are where elections align and we have trouble looking beyond them) with 25, 50 and 100 year with more long term goals that the shorter term goals can support.

Strategy is what you are going to do, tactics is how you are going to do it.  Since we don't really have a National Mission, it is difficult to define strategy and tactics to accomplish it.

As an example, had someone made the mistake of making me a national decision maker, I would have asked/directed Congress/NASA, after the loss of Columbia, to:

     *Develop a spacecraft capable of providing crew rotations every 6 months for 3 people AND a vehicle for cargo delivery to the ISS every six weeks within 8 years or sooner on existing boosters.

     *Maintain the Shuttle at a launch cadence of two - four missions per year to sustain the ISS with a crew of two or three and restrict it to other high priority programs.

     *Retire the Shuttle after 4 successful cargo missions to the ISS.

     *Contract with Russia to provide crew rotation to the ISS until we have 4 successful crew rotations to the ISS.

     *Contract with other nations to provide cargo delivery at a rate to fill any gaps between the US and Russia after the retirement of the shuttle.

    *Direct NASA to determine the need, objective, and purpose of Human Space Flight for the next 25 - 50 years to include, but not limited to, an ISS replacement, mission to the moon, or missions to Mars.

     *As these milestones were reached, ask/beg congress to transfer money from shuttle and Russian crew rotation to the new programs.

I think I am going to go find my flak jacket now... :-\

Offline su27k

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #5 on: 07/05/2018 05:00 pm »
The National HSF Mission is ill-defined and the commercial ones mostly support the owners goals and not any national objective.  Thus there is no main effort and no unity of command/purpose.

The national HSF mission is very clearly defined as: "Lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities. Beginning with missions beyond low-Earth orbit, the United States will lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations;". Among the 3 major commercial players, two are always aiming for the Moon, the third is also willing and eager to provide transport to the Moon. So there is no divide between national goal and commercial players' goals, they are very well aligned.

The problem is USG is ignoring their own strategic goal, instead they just want job program for NASA centers and big defense contractors.
« Last Edit: 07/05/2018 05:24 pm by su27k »

Offline johnfwhitesell

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #6 on: 07/05/2018 05:21 pm »
I dont know if I'm crossing the line here (would appreciate a clarification!) but while these things might be true in theory, they aren't true if you follow the money.

SLS: The agency might have been told to do these things but the funds came with strings attached to use shuttle hardware.
BFR: Musk said that the BFR could go to the moon (probably with more then 10 tanker trips) but it's a horribly inefficient use of the BFR and they have put no resources into an orbital tug which would be vastly more efficient but be specialized moon hardware
ACES: Yay cislunar-1000.  But ACES isn't actually getting built yet so it's just talk about synergy right now.
NG/NA: Talk about the moon but so far all they are actually spending money on is making a big rocket that would require additional hardware for lunar payloads.  So it's also just talk about synergy right now.

So people might say they care about the moon but nobody is putting their money where their mouth is.

Offline mike robel

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #7 on: 07/05/2018 06:04 pm »

The National HSF Mission is ill-defined and the commercial ones mostly support the owners goals and not any national objective.  Thus there is no main effort and no unity of command/purpose.


The national HSF mission is very clearly defined as: "Lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities. Beginning with missions beyond low-Earth orbit, the United States will lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations;". Among the 3 major commercial players, two are always aiming for the Moon, the third is also willing and eager to provide transport to the Moon. So there is no divide between national goal and commercial players' goals, they are very well aligned.




The problem is USG is ignoring their own strategic goal, instead they just want job program for NASA centers and big defense contractors.


This is may sound semantical, but what you call a mission above is a goal and you properly reference it in your final comment.


A mission specifies who, what, when, and where and sometimes why, for example:  "First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.
« Last Edit: 07/05/2018 06:07 pm by mike robel »

Offline jkumpire

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #8 on: 07/05/2018 11:55 pm »
The problem is USG is ignoring their own strategic goal, instead they just want job program for NASA centers and big defense contractors.



With respect, can someone please offer some hard data that shows this is true and how it was proven? I have read this a gazillion times it seems but it is more like an article of faith than fact.

I'm just an interested reader and claim no knowledge on the level many of you are on. But this is frustrating to read every 10-20 posts.

Thank you



   
« Last Edit: 07/05/2018 11:56 pm by jkumpire »

Offline su27k

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #9 on: 07/06/2018 02:46 am »

The National HSF Mission is ill-defined and the commercial ones mostly support the owners goals and not any national objective.  Thus there is no main effort and no unity of command/purpose.


The national HSF mission is very clearly defined as: "Lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities. Beginning with missions beyond low-Earth orbit, the United States will lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations;". Among the 3 major commercial players, two are always aiming for the Moon, the third is also willing and eager to provide transport to the Moon. So there is no divide between national goal and commercial players' goals, they are very well aligned.




The problem is USG is ignoring their own strategic goal, instead they just want job program for NASA centers and big defense contractors.


This is may sound semantical, but what you call a mission above is a goal and you properly reference it in your final comment.


A mission specifies who, what, when, and where and sometimes why, for example:  "First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

Is there really that much difference? Your quote specifically said it's also a goal ("commit itself to achieving the goal"). Comparing the two the only difference I can find is the lack of when, who/what/where/why are all there.

So I say again: The national goal or mission or whatever is there, "who/what/where/why" is not a mystery, "when" is not included probably because they couldn't commit the funding necessary to meet a "when", but that's ok as long as you're making progress towards the goal. What's not ok is the government ignoring their own goal and heading in the opposite direction.

Offline su27k

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #10 on: 07/06/2018 03:36 am »
The problem is USG is ignoring their own strategic goal, instead they just want job program for NASA centers and big defense contractors.



With respect, can someone please offer some hard data that shows this is true and how it was proven? I have read this a gazillion times it seems but it is more like an article of faith than fact.

I'm just an interested reader and claim no knowledge on the level many of you are on. But this is frustrating to read every 10-20 posts.

Thank you

Well let's use SLS as an example and see how it measures up to Space Directive #1:

1. "Lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration":
1.1 SLS is not innovative, it's just recycled Shuttle technology and leftover from the Constellation program, which itself is described as "Apollo on steroid". So they're basically trying to use 1970s technology to re-enact 1960s space program, innovative it is not.
1.2 SLS is not sustainable: Read https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20170008892.pdf, NASA's own life cycle cost analysis shows building the 130t version of SLS basically leaves no funding for anything else:
Quote
Taking the Baseline Scenario forward, adding an Advanced Booster as in Figure 10, reveals how costs and ambitions increasing at a pace faster than budgets easily places a lien on 100% of any funding the end of the ISS might make available one day. This is just for the two launches per year, plus a replacement booster development in parallel, not payloads, not Mars or any mission in-space elements like habitation or landers.

2. "with commercial and international partners": This part is obvious, SLS is not partnering with commercial companies. No international partners either, but that's a good thing since the current international space cooperation model is completely broken (another topic).

3. "to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities.": Since SLS is projected to eat up all the funding, it's obviously not going to enable anything. Even if there's funding for payloads, SLS is limited to just 2 launches per year, that's just enough to send humans to the Moon for an Apollo style flag and footprint mission, no way it will be able to send humans further into the solar system.

4. "Beginning with missions beyond low-Earth orbit": This is the only thing SLS can do for the space directive. But FH and Dragon 2 can do this too, at a much lower price and much faster pace.

5. "the United States will lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization": Long-term exploration means a base of sort on the Moon at least, utilization means a factory/facility. The question is if SLS (and Orion) got all the funding, where is the money for the base/factory/facility? And SLS' flight rate is way too low to support any such ambitions. Worse, NASA is not even planning to landing humans on the Moon, instead they're building a space station around the Moon (called DSG or LOP-G), the reason is they have no money for a human lunar lander (SLS/Orion got all the money) and need to provide a destination for SLS/Orion.

DSG/LOP-G is good example of how USG is ignoring its own goal and heading towards the opposite direction, since the goal clearly called out long term human presence on the Moon surface, yet NASA and the National Space Council is bluntly ignoring it and trying to pretend a space station around the Moon equals long-term exploration and utilization of the Moon. And the reason behind this behavior is SLS/Orion, they have to find something for SLS/Orion to do, and the lunar space station is the best SLS/Orion can reach without significantly more money.

6. "followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations": Same as #3, SLS/Orion is just too expensive to do anything beyond the Moon. The National Research Council's 2014 report "Pathways to Exploration: Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration" concludes the following assuming SLS is used:
Quote
As long as flat NASA human spaceflight budgets are continued, NASA will be unable to conduct any human space exploration programs beyond cis-lunar space. The only pathways that successfully land humans on the surface of Mars require spending to rise above inflation for an extended period.

So the conclusion is SLS (and Orion) is not the right tool for accomplishing the goals set out in the space directive under the current budget constraints, yet they're still being funded as the center piece of US human spaceflight program, what other reason is there for their existence besides the fact they're providing jobs for certain congressional districts and big defense contractors?

PS: Everything I said has been repeated numerous times in previous SLS threads by people much more knowledgeable than me, including former NASA employees. If you have read the previous threads enough to feel this is repeated "every 10-20 posts" you should already know all the facts.
« Last Edit: 07/06/2018 03:46 am by su27k »

Offline ncb1397

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #11 on: 07/06/2018 04:45 am »

3. "to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities.": Since SLS is projected to eat up all the funding, it's obviously not going to enable anything. Even if there's funding for payloads, SLS is limited to just 2 launches per year, that's just enough to send humans to the Moon for an Apollo style flag and footprint mission, no way it will be able to send humans further into the solar system.


Twice per year is 4 launches per mars opportunity. That is IMLEO of 380,000-520,000 kg per launch window. BFR is supposedly 100 people with an IMLEO mass in the 1,500,000 kg range. That is only 15,000 kg per person. In fact, SLS could launch a fueled ~1/10th scale BFR-like vehicle with a crew of ~10 in one launch.I guess with ISRU, your assumptions go out the window. Or SpaceX's numbers are questionable.


6. "followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations": Same as #3, SLS/Orion is just too expensive to do anything beyond the Moon. The National Research Council's 2014 report "Pathways to Exploration: Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration" concludes the following assuming SLS is used:
Quote
As long as flat NASA human spaceflight budgets are continued, NASA will be unable to conduct any human space exploration programs beyond cis-lunar space. The only pathways that successfully land humans on the surface of Mars require spending to rise above inflation for an extended period.

There is no flat NASA budget or NASA human space flight budget, the 2018 NASA budget was a 6.2% increase over the previous budget. The prior year was a 1% increase. The year before that was a 7.2% increase. Compared to a 1.9%-2.1% inflation rate for those years. As opposed to the years with the sudden end to ISS construction, the cancellation of constellation and end of Shuttle when the budget dropped 4%/5% per year.
« Last Edit: 07/06/2018 05:32 am by ncb1397 »

Offline Steven Pietrobon

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #12 on: 07/06/2018 05:40 am »
2. "with commercial and international partners": This part is obvious, SLS is not partnering with commercial companies. No international partners either, but that's a good thing since the current international space cooperation model is completely broken (another topic).

True for SLS and EGS, but not for Orion and LOP-G.

Quote
Even if there's funding for payloads, SLS is limited to just 2 launches per year, that's just enough to send humans to the Moon for an Apollo style flag and footprint mission, no way it will be able to send humans further into the solar system.

Sortie missions to the Moon is a lot better than what we've had for the last 46 years. Also, Apollo was much more than Flags and Footprints. Our knowledge of the Moon (and the rest of the planets) was fundamentally changed by what was learned from the Apollo missions.
Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Offline su27k

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #13 on: 07/06/2018 05:56 am »
2. "with commercial and international partners": This part is obvious, SLS is not partnering with commercial companies. No international partners either, but that's a good thing since the current international space cooperation model is completely broken (another topic).

True for SLS and EGS, but not for Orion and LOP-G.

Orion has international partners, but so far Orion's international partnership only served to slow it down. The current international partnership framework is based on ESA's Geo-return policy which the European themselves are trying to abandon, hardly a glowing endorsement.

Quote
Quote
Even if there's funding for payloads, SLS is limited to just 2 launches per year, that's just enough to send humans to the Moon for an Apollo style flag and footprint mission, no way it will be able to send humans further into the solar system.

Sortie missions to the Moon is a lot better than what we've had for the last 46 years. Also, Apollo was much more than Flags and Footprints. Our knowledge of the Moon (and the rest of the planets) was fundamentally changed by what was learned from the Apollo missions.

1. Sortie mission is not in the space directive, we're talking about national goals here.
2. You need to wait 10+ years for even a sortie mission to the Moon, which we did 46 years ago. At this rate "enable human expansion across the solar system" is nothing but a pipe dream.

Offline su27k

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #14 on: 07/06/2018 06:07 am »

3. "to enable human expansion across the solar system and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities.": Since SLS is projected to eat up all the funding, it's obviously not going to enable anything. Even if there's funding for payloads, SLS is limited to just 2 launches per year, that's just enough to send humans to the Moon for an Apollo style flag and footprint mission, no way it will be able to send humans further into the solar system.


Twice per year is 4 launches per mars opportunity. That is IMLEO of 380,000-520,000 kg per launch window. BFR is supposedly 100 people with an IMLEO mass in the 1,500,000 kg range. That is only 15,000 kg per person. In fact, SLS could launch a fueled ~1/10th scale BFR-like vehicle with a crew of ~10 in one launch.I guess with ISRU, your assumptions go out the window. Or SpaceX's numbers are questionable.

No, it's the 3rd reason: you misunderstood SpaceX's mission architecture.
1. For the first human mission to Mars, SpaceX will have 4 cargo ships in addition to 2 crew ships
2. The first mission will only have a dozen or so crew members, not 100.
3. So IMLEO mass per person is 750t
So your SLS based architecture can barely support sending one (1) person to Mars based on SpaceX's numbers.


Quote

6. "followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations": Same as #3, SLS/Orion is just too expensive to do anything beyond the Moon. The National Research Council's 2014 report "Pathways to Exploration: Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration" concludes the following assuming SLS is used:
Quote
As long as flat NASA human spaceflight budgets are continued, NASA will be unable to conduct any human space exploration programs beyond cis-lunar space. The only pathways that successfully land humans on the surface of Mars require spending to rise above inflation for an extended period.

There is no flat NASA budget or NASA human space flight budget, the 2018 NASA budget was a 6.2% increase over the previous budget. The prior year was a 1% increase. The year before that was a 7.2% increase. Compared to a 1.9%-2.1% inflation rate for those years. As opposed to the years with the sudden end to ISS construction, the cancellation of constellation and end of Shuttle when the budget dropped 4%/5% per year.

NASA's life cycle analysis in https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20170008892.pdf disagrees:

Quote
1) Budgets will increase only at their historical rate, here at 1.95% a year, from data going back 15 years and project costs will increase at the rate published in the NASA New Start Inflation Indices, 2.5% a year.
* By relation, NASA will continue to lose purchase power, as it has historically (a 9% loss of purchase power since 2003).

Offline meberbs

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #15 on: 07/06/2018 06:41 am »
There is no flat NASA budget or NASA human space flight budget, the 2018 NASA budget was a 6.2% increase over the previous budget. The prior year was a 1% increase. The year before that was a 7.2% increase. Compared to a 1.9%-2.1% inflation rate for those years. As opposed to the years with the sudden end to ISS construction, the cancellation of constellation and end of Shuttle when the budget dropped 4%/5% per year.

NASA's life cycle analysis in https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20170008892.pdf disagrees:

Quote
1) Budgets will increase only at their historical rate, here at 1.95% a year, from data going back 15 years and project costs will increase at the rate published in the NASA New Start Inflation Indices, 2.5% a year.
* By relation, NASA will continue to lose purchase power, as it has historically (a 9% loss of purchase power since 2003).
And here is some data to back up the flat budget the report assumes. Data current as of 2015, for some reason it is annoyingly difficult to find recent versions of this graph.
Source
This shows that the increases that ncb1397 mention (one year was actually a net decrease due to inflation) had a starting point below the recent average, putting the most recent number probably a bit above the average effective value from the last few decades. Some relatively small variation around this number is typical.

Any chance people could stop misrepresenting data so that we can keep this thread on topic for a change?

Offline MATTBLAK

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #16 on: 07/06/2018 07:07 am »
2. "with commercial and international partners": This part is obvious, SLS is not partnering with commercial companies. No international partners either, but that's a good thing since the current international space cooperation model is completely broken (another topic).

True for SLS and EGS, but not for Orion and LOP-G.

Quote
Even if there's funding for payloads, SLS is limited to just 2 launches per year, that's just enough to send humans to the Moon for an Apollo style flag and footprint mission, no way it will be able to send humans further into the solar system.

Sortie missions to the Moon is a lot better than what we've had for the last 46 years. Also, Apollo was much more than Flags and Footprints. Our knowledge of the Moon (and the rest of the planets) was fundamentally changed by what was learned from the Apollo missions.
I keep saying this to some people, Steven; and it's like to talking to a wall. The Apollo J-Series missions were some of the greatest scientific explorations in history. Why can't some people get that?! If the next Lunar landing missions land 2 or 4 people, then get to easily eclipse the Apollo achievements in just a handful of missions - will some people still persist in using that rusty, worn-out, barely relevant 'flags & footprints' pejorative? >:( :(
« Last Edit: 07/06/2018 07:16 am by MATTBLAK »
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Offline tea monster

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #17 on: 07/06/2018 07:19 am »
Back in 1963, NASA had the goals and general objectives of the Apollo program worked out:

The goal was to land on the moon. The lunar lander was under development.

Compare that with SLS today. The whole SLS program has been to build a huge rocket - with no thought as to what to put on top of it or how to actually use it to go anywhere. Not only is there no money to build a lander, but no real plans exist for any kind of lunar exploration architecture. There is LOP-G, but this is a recent development, and wasn't part of the initial concept of the rocket - and still doesn't include a lander!
« Last Edit: 07/06/2018 07:20 am by tea monster »

Offline Proponent

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #18 on: 07/06/2018 07:28 am »
The problem is USG is ignoring their own strategic goal, instead they just want job program for NASA centers and big defense contractors.



With respect, can someone please offer some hard data that shows this is true and how it was proven?

Consider the NASA 2010 Authorization Act.  In that act, the politicians wrote into law the rocket they wanted (SLS) and the spacecraft (MPCV).  They were vague about what the hardware was to be used for.  To my mind, that all by itself is good evidence that the government's major interest in Orion/SLS is jobs and pork.  Politicians have no business writing rocket specs into law, especially when there is no visible input from engineers.

Contrast this state of affairs with how Apollo was handled.  The politicians (JFK, with congressional support) told NASA to go to the moon within the decade.  Given that requirement, NASA's engineers then argued at length over the best hardware to use (the famous Apollo mode debate).  In July 1962, they chose lunar-orbit rendezvous.  That decision was reviewed by the White House and might have been overturned given some urgent reason to prefer another approach, but the engineers' decision prevailed.

I would also point out that Orion and SLS have slipped by many years and over $10 billion, yet the politicians have had almost no complaints about it.  If the politicians really care about space exploration, why aren't they banging the table demanding to know why Orion and SLS are so far behind schedule and so far over budget?

Offline ncb1397

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #19 on: 07/06/2018 07:43 am »

2. The first mission will only have a dozen or so crew members, not 100.
3. So IMLEO mass per person is 750t


It is 15,000 kg for the trip to Mars, is it not? Or does the "fleet" need to siphon resources off of the cargo ships in order to get there with the 100 people? Even if you multiple by ten in order to support the crew on the surface and get them back, we are still talking about decent crew size akin to ISS/Apollo/Shuttle/etc with the 400,000-500,000 kg. It also matches estimates I have seen from NASA for IMLEO assuming certain technologies are used.

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