Author Topic: SLS General Discussion Thread 3  (Read 310798 times)

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #220 on: 10/17/2018 12:14 am »
I noticed in the video's diagram diagram that some of the ticks were yellow and others green. The diagram may need a few blank boxes adding.

Offline Patchouli

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #221 on: 10/17/2018 12:21 am »
Especially since the "competition" LRBs were vastly superior, safer to fly, less expensive, more mass efficient and had a higher lift capacity. In addition they could be paired with an upper stage and would have made a damn good Orion crew launch vehicle, relieving SLS of that responsibility and making Orion an actually useful spacecraft. But with SLS being the only Orion launch vehicle and with the forecasted future SLS flight rate Orion will not taste space enough to be a truly certified operational spacecraft, let alone ever be a useful one. But as you said, politics ALWAYS overrides common sense.

I remember reading the F-1B Pyrios boosters outperformed every other booster concept by a large margin.

Offline clongton

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #222 on: 10/17/2018 12:20 pm »
Especially since the "competition" LRBs were vastly superior, safer to fly, less expensive, more mass efficient and had a higher lift capacity. In addition they could be paired with an upper stage and would have made a damn good Orion crew launch vehicle, relieving SLS of that responsibility and making Orion an actually useful spacecraft. But with SLS being the only Orion launch vehicle and with the forecasted future SLS flight rate Orion will not taste space enough to be a truly certified operational spacecraft, let alone ever be a useful one. But as you said, politics ALWAYS overrides common sense.

I remember reading the F-1B Pyrios boosters outperformed every other booster concept by a large margin.

The one thing that the Russian Space Agency has ALL OVER NASA is that they have never deliberately fielded launch vehicles that were sub par in order to satisfy some political hack's need for votes back home. They always pushed the edge of the envelop; sometimes successfully and sometimes not, but they never chose a sub par launch vehicle over a far better choice that outperformed it in every way just because some politician needed to enhance their reelection chances. The very last time that NASA pushed the envelope like that was when they fielded the Saturn-V. Shuttle was a marvel, but was sub par compared to the competing designs that NASA looked at and disqualified for one reason or another.

The LRBs that lost out to the SRBs were absolutely superior in every way and far more versatile than the big giant bottle rockets that won. And yet NASA considered them not good enough. But the standard that they didn't measure up to had absolutely nothing to do with lift capacity, versatility, usefulness, safety and economy. It had everything to do with keeping tons of money in the pockets of their favored military industrial complex buddies in Utah. The SRBs could do that and the LRBs couldn't, so they lost. The procurement process at NASA has been corrupted to the bone by their Congressional masters who are the ones that actually make every NASA decision of consequence. This is not a political thread but this was absolutely a political decision that had nothing whatsoever to do with the qualification and capabilities of the LRBs vs. the SRBs.
« Last Edit: 10/17/2018 12:24 pm by clongton »
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Offline woods170

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #223 on: 10/17/2018 12:45 pm »
Especially since the "competition" LRBs were vastly superior, safer to fly, less expensive, more mass efficient and had a higher lift capacity. In addition they could be paired with an upper stage and would have made a damn good Orion crew launch vehicle, relieving SLS of that responsibility and making Orion an actually useful spacecraft. But with SLS being the only Orion launch vehicle and with the forecasted future SLS flight rate Orion will not taste space enough to be a truly certified operational spacecraft, let alone ever be a useful one. But as you said, politics ALWAYS overrides common sense.

I remember reading the F-1B Pyrios boosters outperformed every other booster concept by a large margin.

The one thing that the Russian Space Agency has ALL OVER NASA is that they have never deliberately fielded launch vehicles that were sub par in order to satisfy some political hack's need for votes back home. They always pushed the edge of the envelop; sometimes successfully and sometimes not, but they never chose a sub par launch vehicle over a far better choice that outperformed it in every way just because some politician needed to enhance their reelection chances. The very last time that NASA pushed the envelope like that was when they fielded the Saturn-V. Shuttle was a marvel, but was sub par compared to the competing designs that NASA looked at and disqualified for one reason or another.

The LRBs that lost out to the SRBs were absolutely superior in every way and far more versatile than the big giant bottle rockets that won. And yet NASA considered them not good enough. But the standard that they didn't measure up to had absolutely nothing to do with lift capacity, versatility, usefulness, safety and economy. It had everything to do with keeping tons of money in the pockets of their favored military industrial complex buddies in Utah. The SRBs could do that and the LRBs couldn't, so they lost. The procurement process at NASA has been corrupted to the bone by their Congressional masters who are the ones that actually make every NASA decision of consequence. This is not a political thread but this was absolutely a political decision that had nothing whatsoever to do with the qualification and capabilities of the LRBs vs. the SRBs.

Maybe.

But I clearly remember a KSC guy, at this forum, explaining why LRB's were a no-go with the then-leading plan of reusing the old Ares I ML for SLS. Simply put: there was no way in hell to add the additional systems for LRB's in the space available on the re-designed ML.
« Last Edit: 10/17/2018 12:46 pm by woods170 »

Offline clongton

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #224 on: 10/17/2018 02:23 pm »
Especially since the "competition" LRBs were vastly superior, safer to fly, less expensive, more mass efficient and had a higher lift capacity. In addition they could be paired with an upper stage and would have made a damn good Orion crew launch vehicle, relieving SLS of that responsibility and making Orion an actually useful spacecraft. But with SLS being the only Orion launch vehicle and with the forecasted future SLS flight rate Orion will not taste space enough to be a truly certified operational spacecraft, let alone ever be a useful one. But as you said, politics ALWAYS overrides common sense.

I remember reading the F-1B Pyrios boosters outperformed every other booster concept by a large margin.

The one thing that the Russian Space Agency has ALL OVER NASA is that they have never deliberately fielded launch vehicles that were sub par in order to satisfy some political hack's need for votes back home. They always pushed the edge of the envelop; sometimes successfully and sometimes not, but they never chose a sub par launch vehicle over a far better choice that outperformed it in every way just because some politician needed to enhance their reelection chances. The very last time that NASA pushed the envelope like that was when they fielded the Saturn-V. Shuttle was a marvel, but was sub par compared to the competing designs that NASA looked at and disqualified for one reason or another.

The LRBs that lost out to the SRBs were absolutely superior in every way and far more versatile than the big giant bottle rockets that won. And yet NASA considered them not good enough. But the standard that they didn't measure up to had absolutely nothing to do with lift capacity, versatility, usefulness, safety and economy. It had everything to do with keeping tons of money in the pockets of their favored military industrial complex buddies in Utah. The SRBs could do that and the LRBs couldn't, so they lost. The procurement process at NASA has been corrupted to the bone by their Congressional masters who are the ones that actually make every NASA decision of consequence. This is not a political thread but this was absolutely a political decision that had nothing whatsoever to do with the qualification and capabilities of the LRBs vs. the SRBs.

Maybe.

But I clearly remember a KSC guy, at this forum, explaining why LRB's were a no-go with the then-leading plan of reusing the old Ares I ML for SLS. Simply put: there was no way in hell to add the additional systems for LRB's in the space available on the re-designed ML.

And yet they now have the money to build another one. They came up with lots of reasons why it wasn't "feasible" to go with the LRB - none of which had anything to do with looking down the road past the next election - none.
Spaceflight is a long term endeavour. Refusing to look and plan long term in favor of short term conditions is one of the definitions of stupidity.
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I started my career on the Saturn-V F-1A engine

Offline clongton

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #225 on: 10/17/2018 02:28 pm »
The LRBs that lost out to the SRBs were absolutely superior in every way and far more versatile than the big giant bottle rockets that won. And yet NASA considered them not good enough.  But the standard that they didn't measure up to had absolutely nothing to do with lift capacity, versatility, usefulness, safety and economy. It had everything to do with keeping tons of money in the pockets of their favored military industrial complex buddies in Utah. The SRBs could do that and the LRBs couldn't, so they lost.

Unlike Congress's parochially driven SLS/Orion, it was Nixon WH budget constraints that drove STS design decisions:

That's the history of the STS SRB decision and was one of the things that hurt Shuttle overall.
But we are talking about the decision to use SRBs on SLS, not STS.
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Offline UltraViolet9

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #226 on: 10/17/2018 03:00 pm »
That's the history of the STS SRB decision and was one of the things that hurt Shuttle overall.
But we are talking about the decision to use SRBs on SLS, not STS.

My bad.  Brain fart.  Post removed.  Apologies.


Offline envy887

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #227 on: 10/17/2018 05:17 pm »
Especially since the "competition" LRBs were vastly superior, safer to fly, less expensive, more mass efficient and had a higher lift capacity. In addition they could be paired with an upper stage and would have made a damn good Orion crew launch vehicle, relieving SLS of that responsibility and making Orion an actually useful spacecraft. But with SLS being the only Orion launch vehicle and with the forecasted future SLS flight rate Orion will not taste space enough to be a truly certified operational spacecraft, let alone ever be a useful one. But as you said, politics ALWAYS overrides common sense.

I remember reading the F-1B Pyrios boosters outperformed every other booster concept by a large margin.

If you have F-1B engines and aren't going to do reuse anyway, it makes far more sense to use them on the core stage under a large J-2X upper stage, and ditch the RS-25 completely.

You get Block 1 performance to both TLI (26+ t) and LEO with just 2 stages (the RP-1 core and LH2 upper), and you get Block 2 performance to both TLI (45+ t) and LEO with 2.5 stages (standard 5 seg boosters, RP-1 core, LH-2 upper).

The core stage ends up a lot smaller and cheaper (the same size as the SLS LH2 tank), the F-1B is probably cheaper than new RS-25s which it replaces 1 for 1, and you don't need advanced boosters or a new upper stage for Block 2 performance.

Offline clongton

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #228 on: 10/17/2018 05:40 pm »
Especially since the "competition" LRBs were vastly superior, safer to fly, less expensive, more mass efficient and had a higher lift capacity. In addition they could be paired with an upper stage and would have made a damn good Orion crew launch vehicle, relieving SLS of that responsibility and making Orion an actually useful spacecraft. But with SLS being the only Orion launch vehicle and with the forecasted future SLS flight rate Orion will not taste space enough to be a truly certified operational spacecraft, let alone ever be a useful one. But as you said, politics ALWAYS overrides common sense.

I remember reading the F-1B Pyrios boosters outperformed every other booster concept by a large margin.

If you have F-1B engines and aren't going to do reuse anyway, it makes far more sense to use them on the core stage under a large J-2X upper stage, and ditch the RS-25 completely.

You get Block 1 performance to both TLI (26+ t) and LEO with just 2 stages (the RP-1 core and LH2 upper), and you get Block 2 performance to both TLI (45+ t) and LEO with 2.5 stages (standard 5 seg boosters, RP-1 core, LH-2 upper).

The core stage ends up a lot smaller and cheaper (the same size as the SLS LH2 tank), the F-1B is probably cheaper than new RS-25s which it replaces 1 for 1, and you don't need advanced boosters or a new upper stage for Block 2 performance.

There are no design direction decisions that were made wrt the SLS that "makes more sense". Every major design decision for the system was a political decision instead of the sensible one, including the decision to stick with Shuttle derived hardware like the RS-25. I cited the decision to go with SRBs in lieu of LRBs as a case in point.
« Last Edit: 10/17/2018 05:41 pm by clongton »
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Offline woods170

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #229 on: 10/18/2018 07:25 am »
But I clearly remember a KSC guy, at this forum, explaining why LRB's were a no-go with the then-leading plan of reusing the old Ares I ML for SLS. Simply put: there was no way in hell to add the additional systems for LRB's in the space available on the re-designed ML.

And yet they now have the money to build another one. They came up with lots of reasons why it wasn't "feasible" to go with the LRB - none of which had anything to do with looking down the road past the next election - none.
Spaceflight is a long term endeavour. Refusing to look and plan long term in favor of short term conditions is one of the definitions of stupidity.

Emphasis mine.

That doesn't matter. They didn't have that money back then when they had to make the decision with regards to either re-using the Ares I ML or building a completely new one. The available budget left them no choice but to re-use the old Ares I ML.

Offline Oli

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #230 on: 10/18/2018 11:02 am »
But we are talking about the decision to use SRBs on SLS, not STS.

The SRBs are the least expensive part of SLS. Given how much NASA pays for the liquid core/engines based on existing technology, LRBs would have been a disaster.

Offline clongton

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #231 on: 10/18/2018 11:47 am »
The SRBs are the least expensive part of SLS. Given how much NASA pays for the liquid core/engines based on existing technology, LRBs would have been a disaster.

So the LRBs being vastly superior, safer to fly, less expensive, more mass efficient with a higher lift capacity and could be paired with an upper stage to be an Orion crew launch vehicle is your definition of a disaster? Ok. Wow. You should run for Congress.
« Last Edit: 10/18/2018 11:47 am by clongton »
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Offline Oli

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #232 on: 10/18/2018 12:09 pm »
The SRBs are the least expensive part of SLS. Given how much NASA pays for the liquid core/engines based on existing technology, LRBs would have been a disaster.

So the LRBs being vastly superior, safer to fly, less expensive, more mass efficient with a higher lift capacity and could be paired with an upper stage to be an Orion crew launch vehicle is your definition of a disaster? Ok. Wow. You should run for Congress.

Superior, safer to fly, less expensive? In what fairytale land? Maybe if the competition was held today with SpaceX/BO competing.
« Last Edit: 10/18/2018 12:10 pm by Oli »

Offline niwax

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #233 on: 10/18/2018 12:21 pm »
But we are talking about the decision to use SRBs on SLS, not STS.

The SRBs are the least expensive part of SLS. Given how much NASA pays for the liquid core/engines based on existing technology, LRBs would have been a disaster.

Expendable SSMEs and performance bonuses worth five F9 flights for shoddy work are not the right metric for comparison. A luxury yacht for crew return would be the least expensive part of SLS.
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Offline spacenut

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #234 on: 10/18/2018 12:27 pm »
NASA had or has 15 F-1 engines left over from Saturn flights that got cancelled.  Two F-1's on a 5.5 m booster with two boosters on the SLS would have gotten SLS into the 150 tons to LEO range.  The F-1's were paid for, and the cost of an F-1 is comparable in cost to engines made today.  Ares 1 would have used one of these boosters with a J2X upper stage.  Ares V could have used this same upper stage for moon based launches like Saturn V. 

These were all suggested back in the early 2000's and would have been far superior to what we have.  The program however would have been Saturn Derived vs Shuttle Derived. 

Solids vibrate, are very heavy, and not as cost effective as one would assume.  They have to be assembled in the VAB building, which costs labor.  The vibration issues were part of what caused the Ares I cancellation. 

Fly back boosters were also suggested, but deemed too expensive to develop. 

Read the old threads on the Constellation program.  Shuttle derived wasn't/isn't so cost effective as you think. 

Offline Oli

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #235 on: 10/18/2018 12:37 pm »
Shuttle derived wasn't/isn't so cost effective as you think.

SLS with LRB would have been Saturn Derived and Shuttle Derived combined in one.

Offline Lars-J

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #236 on: 10/18/2018 04:04 pm »
NASA had or has 15 F-1 engines left over from Saturn flights that got cancelled.  Two F-1's on a 5.5 m booster with two boosters on the SLS would have gotten SLS into the 150 tons to LEO range.  The F-1's were paid for, and the cost of an F-1 is comparable in cost to engines made today. 

Are you suggesting that those F-1s were in a flyable shape? I find that implausible.

Shuttle derived wasn't/isn't so cost effective as you think.

SLS with LRB would have been Saturn Derived and Shuttle Derived combined in one.

Or the worst of both worlds, potentially.
« Last Edit: 10/18/2018 04:05 pm by Lars-J »

Offline Hog

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #237 on: 10/18/2018 07:55 pm »
Especially since the "competition" LRBs were vastly superior, safer to fly, less expensive, more mass efficient and had a higher lift capacity. In addition they could be paired with an upper stage and would have made a damn good Orion crew launch vehicle, relieving SLS of that responsibility and making Orion an actually useful spacecraft. But with SLS being the only Orion launch vehicle and with the forecasted future SLS flight rate Orion will not taste space enough to be a truly certified operational spacecraft, let alone ever be a useful one. But as you said, politics ALWAYS overrides common sense.

I remember reading the F-1B Pyrios boosters outperformed every other booster concept by a large margin.
150 tons with 2 F1-Bs at 1.8 pounds thrust each x2 per booster and 4 x RS25 and J-2X.
"with enough head-room in the overall booster design to add another 20MT of total lift capacity without requiring significant engineering changes, to meet other SLS design goals a bit down the road."
Paul

Offline FinalFrontier

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #238 on: 10/18/2018 08:13 pm »
NASA had or has 15 F-1 engines left over from Saturn flights that got cancelled.  Two F-1's on a 5.5 m booster with two boosters on the SLS would have gotten SLS into the 150 tons to LEO range.  The F-1's were paid for, and the cost of an F-1 is comparable in cost to engines made today. 

Are you suggesting that those F-1s were in a flyable shape? I find that implausible.

Shuttle derived wasn't/isn't so cost effective as you think.

SLS with LRB would have been Saturn Derived and Shuttle Derived combined in one.

Or the worst of both worlds, potentially.

You can get similar performance with other engines, this is the one that get's discussed most often because it was the leading option the LRB RAC team looked at.
AR-1, merlin 1 D dense version, or even BE4 clustered all can give you an LRB with similar performance. Of course you (NASA) would have to order and pay for these to be built by whoever your LRB contractor was. Might still cost less to design LRBs with modern off the shelf engines clustered together as needed on each booster, than it would cost to restart F1 production.

I do not think the F1s in storage could be safely flown you risk an antares style failure doing that.
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Offline brickmack

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Re: SLS General Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #239 on: 10/19/2018 01:33 am »
6x AR-1s offered better performance, probably would have been cheaper (if shared with Vulcan), and should have been more throttlable to help with the near-BECO acceleration limit issue

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