SLS General Discussion Thread 7

[su27k]

Seems like there is a concerted effort to rebrand SLS for PR reasons:

https://twitter.com/KenKirtland17/status/1515053387167019020

NASA exclusively calls the vehicle the "Mega Moon Rocket" when referring to it.

Over the last 3 media calls I have never heard "SLS" I heard "Space Launch System" once when referring to an official program title.

I really feel like this is a top down directive.

[leovinus]

Did any of folks here know if 1/75 figure is still valid for discussion about SLS safety? Just want to make sure

While I cannot answer your question above directly, here are a few references to our previous discussions on LOC/LOM in these threads which might provide the background to your answer.

There was also this thread What's the accepted LOC risk for current HSF missions/contracts? and various on-topic LOC/LOM SLS posts here

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54967.msg2307487#msg2307487
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54967.msg2307494#msg2307494
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54967.msg2307504#msg2307504
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54967.msg2309860#msg2309860
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54967.msg2309918#msg2309918
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=53453.msg2235619#msg2235619
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=53453.msg2237277#msg2237277
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=53453.msg2237491#msg2237491
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54967.msg2309397#msg2309397
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54967.msg2307537#msg2307537

The attachments related to Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) "MAKING SAFETY HAPPEN” THROUGH PROBABILISTIC RISK ASSESSMENT AT NASA" and "Synthesizing a New Launch Vehicle Failure Probability Based on Historical Flight Data" and "SHUTTLE RISK PROGRESSION BY FLIGHT" will provide further insight. Check slide nr 8 in the Shuttle attachment.

EDIT: A bit of trouble with one of the attachments but all sorted now.

[VSECOTSPE]

Speaking of 1/75 LOC estimate from ASAP 2014 report, here's the FOIA documents from 2018 about EM-2

And the tweet mentioning that even this is already surpassed https://twitter.com/spacentiber/status/1469080031783792644?t=wYZ-gupsuOPZfCi28vTt_A&s=19

Did any of folks here know if 1/75 figure is still valid for discussion about SLS safety? Just want to make sure

My 2 cents...

The 1:75 figure comes from the 2014 Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel Report.  That’s an official, heavily reviewed document available to anyone via NASA website.  We know who wrote it.  We know the document’s provenance.

AFAIK, the provenance of the figures from the PowerPoint slide is anonymous Reddit and Twitter posts.  We don’t know if that PowerPoint slide is genuine or modified or made up, whether the slide was actually FOIAed or was leaked, what level of review the slide went through before release or leak, and who’s ultimately responsible for writing it and where they got their figures.

I’m not saying the PowerPoint slide from Reddit was faked or the person behind the Twitter account is lying.  I’m just saying that we should give a lot more credence to figures in an official ASAP report than figures from a PowerPoint slide on Reddit/Twitter.  I would take the latter with a much larger grain of salt than the former.

Assuming the PowerPoint slide is genuine and accurately reflects Orion Program figures, it’s important to remember that those are just Orion Program figures.  They’re created by advocates for the program, who have a vested interest in keeping the program supported.  I’m not saying they’re evil liars or anything like that.  But if you’ve been disappointed at how badly the Orion Program has misjudged budget or schedule estimates in the past, then you should be equally skeptical of their flight safety figures going forward.

I give more credence to the 1:75 figure in the ASAP report because it is an agency-level figure that has gone through a lot more non-advocate review.  There is no perfect crystal ball, but experts who don’t have a dog in a fight are usually much closer to reality than advocates who do.  And figures that have gone through more review in general are more likely to be closer to reality than those that have not.

Lastly, although PRA is the best we have, it is an inherently flawed analytical system.  It makes a lot of assumptions about hardware but makes none about the human behavior that is actually responsible for building, qualifying, and operating that hardware, behavior that is the root cause cause of nearly all failures.  This is why PRA figures are almost always too optimistic, and actual accident rates are worse than nearly all PRA estimates.  In the case of STS, only one analysis (from an independent firm) produced an LOC figure that was worse than the 1-in-68 that STS actually demonstrated.  Every other PRA analysis for STS was too optimistic, sometimes by a lot.

So even setting aside issues of provenance and program advocacy, when presented with an array of different PRA figures for a given vehicle or mission, I would take the most conservative one and assume that the actual LOM or LOC will be worse than that.  Orion/SLS will probably never fly enough times to know, but if it did, I would bet dollars to donuts that it’s actual LOC will be worse than the 1:75 from the ASAP report.  That’s not me trashing Orion/SLS.  I would say the same thing about the 1:200+ LOC for commercial crew.  It’s just the nature of the PRA beast and its history.

Hope this helps.

[Hog]

^^
PRA=Practice Ready Assessment? 

Thanks In Advance(TIA)

[leovinus]

^^
PRA=Practice Ready Assessment? 

Thanks In Advance(TIA)

Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) see reply #881 above

[dglow]

This is a re-post from the CLPS thread, in which Administrator Nelson provided an interesting answer to a question about SLS. The context was an in-person event for revealing Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander that took place earlier today. Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen was also in attendance. The transcript below is from 39:38 into the video, which you can find linked in the CLPS thread. (not providing a direct link here as the video cannot play within NSF / outside of YouTube)


JORDAN WRIGHT, The Angry Astronaut:
You’ve mentioned the SLS, and there are two types of people that I run into when I cover spaceflight: it’s either people that don’t know that we’re going back to the moon, or people who do know and are frustrated about SLS.

And I’m just curious, [the] Office of Inspector General reported that it’s an unsustainable price tag for future launches. Does NASA have a plan to rectify this situation, or is it a problem at all?

BILL NELSON, NASA Administrator:
So your organization is known as “Angry Astronaut?” How can you be an angry astronaut?  (audience chuckles)

So the IG report is talking about the per-unit cost with all of the development costs piled-in. When you start adding those flights at one a year over a longer decade, and when you start truing-out some of the efficiencies that we are constantly looking for, then the price comes down.

But I think one of the reasons that a dozen years ago we started this public-private partnership was so that we could get industry to show the government how you can do things cheaper – and still reliable, and still, of course, safe.

And you take … for example, they’re going to launch next year on a Falcon Heavy – SpaceX – has got three Falcon 9s all strapped together. All three of those first stages come back and land, and they reuse them. And they’re reusing that core stage as much as eleven times. And therefore it’s not a throwaway cost.

So, as you get on in to further spacecraft in the future that are entirely government spacecraft – in addition to the close contracting that we do with commercial spacecraft – you will start to see those costs come down.


^{edit: add context, typo}

[clongton]

BILL NELSON, NASA Administrator:
So your organization is known as “Angry Astronaut?” How can you be an angry astronaut?  (audience chuckles)

A lot of words to sidestep the question and say absolutely nothing worthwhile. A typical politician.

[Khadgars]

BILL NELSON, NASA Administrator:
So your organization is known as “Angry Astronaut?” How can you be an angry astronaut?  (audience chuckles)

A lot of words to sidestep the question and say absolutely nothing worthwhile. A typical politician.

How so?  I mean I get it everyone in this thread wants SpaceX to launch everything but he literally went in how the unit costs are including all of the development costs, thats why you have such a large number for the first launch and he expects that number to go down with costs savings and spreading the development costs over increasing number of launches.

[su27k]

BILL NELSON, NASA Administrator:
So your organization is known as “Angry Astronaut?” How can you be an angry astronaut?  (audience chuckles)

A lot of words to sidestep the question and say absolutely nothing worthwhile. A typical politician.

How so?  I mean I get it everyone in this thread wants SpaceX to launch everything but he literally went in how the unit costs are including all of the development costs, thats why you have such a large number for the first launch and he expects that number to go down with costs savings and spreading the development costs over increasing number of launches.

Except that Nelson is wrong and the IG number didn't include development cost:

The $4.1 billion total cost represents production of the rocket and the operations needed to launch the SLS/Orion system including materials, labor, facilities, and overhead, but does not include any money spent either on prior development of the system or for next-generation technologies such as the SLS’s Exploration Upper Stage, Orion’s docking system, or Mobile Launcher 2.

[VSECOTSPE]

Nelson appears totally clueless or in denial about how big a problem he has on his hands.  Exactly the wrong leadership at the wrong time.

[Alvian@IDN]

BILL NELSON, NASA Administrator:
So your organization is known as “Angry Astronaut?” How can you be an angry astronaut?  (audience chuckles)

A lot of words to sidestep the question and say absolutely nothing worthwhile. A typical politician.

How so?  I mean I get it everyone in this thread wants SpaceX to launch everything but he literally went in how the unit costs are including all of the development costs, thats why you have such a large number for the first launch and he expects that number to go down with costs savings and spreading the development costs over increasing number of launches.

This strawman is no different than Nelson's Angry Astronaut "fun" remark. It's becoming clear to me each day that SLS advocates didn't want a change, which causes further pessimism in NASA HSF

[Athelstane]

The heat to light ratio on Jordan Wright's YT channel is just too high even for my tastes. But I admit, it wasn't a bad question, and I'm kinda glad Bill Nelson was forced to try to answer it.

The answer, as you all have already pointed out, was revealing.

[dglow]

Nelson appears totally clueless or in denial about how big a problem he has on his hands.  Exactly the wrong leadership at the wrong time.

I don't think he's in denial at all. From Nelson's perspective everything is going according to plan. No?

[Khadgars]

BILL NELSON, NASA Administrator:
So your organization is known as “Angry Astronaut?” How can you be an angry astronaut?  (audience chuckles)

A lot of words to sidestep the question and say absolutely nothing worthwhile. A typical politician.

How so?  I mean I get it everyone in this thread wants SpaceX to launch everything but he literally went in how the unit costs are including all of the development costs, thats why you have such a large number for the first launch and he expects that number to go down with costs savings and spreading the development costs over increasing number of launches.

This strawman is no different than Nelson's Angry Astronaut "fun" remark. It's becoming clear to me each day that SLS advocates didn't want a change, which causes further pessimism in NASA HSF

No strawman here but I appreciate you comparing me to Nelson.  The difference I think is SLS "advocates" believe SLS will play an important part for missions to the moon along with other providers.  We'll soon find out.

[SoftwareDude]

How many jobs at NASA, I wonder, does SLS fund?

[JayWee]

How many jobs at NASA, I wonder, does SLS fund?

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54967.msg2346817#msg2346817

SLS employs over 28,000 people.  See point #2 on second slide below:
https://www.naco.org/sites/default/files/event_attachments/MATERIALS_MSFC%20Tent%20Card%20Top%2010.pdf

[VSECOTSPE]

I don't think he's in denial at all. From Nelson's perspective everything is going according to plan. No?

As Administrator, Nelson initially surrounded himself with smart folks who had demonstrated in prior lives that they got it in terms of how the industry was changing and how NASA human space flight also needed to change to leverage industry and have relevance.  I’m specifically thinking of Melroy, Cabana, and Leuders.  Based on those appointments, I thought maybe Nelson was open to reform now that his job was no longer dependent on getting re-elected and whatever parochial Orion/SLS spending in Florida (sorta maybe) supported that.

But when Nelson let another multi-billion dollar Orion overrun go thru unchallenged and appointed Free, a former Orion manager, to head up the new exploration directorate, it became clear that there would be no reform under Nelson.  Nelson doesn’t get anything substantive from Orion/SLS now that he doesn’t run for election.  I don’t think there’s some kickback scheme that’s going to pay off for him when he leaves NASA.  But Nelson still appears to be running on Orion/SLS inertia — either because he can’t think differently or because his ego has a vested interest in the “Monster Rocket” he associated himself with.

I think Nelson’s only plan is to be the Administrator in office that gets NASA back to the Moon.  Who wouldn’t want that legacy?  But aside from supporting the second lander, which was really his predecessor’s plan, he’s not taking steps necessary to make that happen with a high degree of confidence.  I think he’s on autopilot and will see the landing slip beyond his ability to stay in office.  A bit tragic, but rather fitting.

[SoftwareDude]

How many jobs at NASA, I wonder, does SLS fund?

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54967.msg2346817#msg2346817

SLS employs over 28,000 people.  See point #2 on second slide below:
https://www.naco.org/sites/default/files/event_attachments/MATERIALS_MSFC%20Tent%20Card%20Top%2010.pdf

Seems like the loss of SLS would be devastating to NASA in terms of employees. Mr. Nelson is likely posturing when he talks about SLS because SpaceX is a threat to a large part of NASA.

[VSECOTSPE]

How many jobs at NASA, I wonder, does SLS fund?

If you mean NASA civil servants, we don’t really know.  NASA doesn’t publish (maybe doesn’t collect) that information by program.  Best we can do is approximate using the budget.  The total NASA civil servant workforce is ~18,700.  SLS — just the flight system contracts — is 9.9% of the total NASA budget, which would indicate that the civil servant workforce is ~1,850.  If we include the ground systems that launch SLS, the percentage is 12.8% or ~2,400.  If we also include Orion, the percentage is 18.0% or ~4,670.  These are rote guesstimates.  I’m sure the number is somewhere in the low thousands, but I wouldn’t take any of these figures as exact.

If you mean NASA contractors, then the 28,000 figure linked above is the best out there to my knowledge.  By comparison, the entire SpaceX workforce is around 9,500 and United Launch Alliance is around 3,400.

Seems like the loss of SLS would be devastating to NASA in terms of employees.

Not to civil servants.  After the first year, it’s incredibly hard to fire General Schedule federal employees, which is nearly all of what we’re talking about here.  They might not have much to do for a while, but they would not be fired.

With the contractor workforce, it depends on how it’s handled.  The reality is that if we want a serious federal human space exploration program, then NASA still needs a lot of that expertise and capacity.  NASA just needs them doing more important things than SLS.

Mr. Nelson is likely posturing when he talks about SLS because SpaceX is a threat to a large part of NASA.

Orion/SLS is its own threat to Artemis and NASA, regardless of SpaceX.  We didn’t need a competitor or replacement to shut down Saturn V and Apollo.

[JayWee]

How many jobs at NASA, I wonder, does SLS fund?

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=54967.msg2346817#msg2346817

SLS employs over 28,000 people.  See point #2 on second slide below:
https://www.naco.org/sites/default/files/event_attachments/MATERIALS_MSFC%20Tent%20Card%20Top%2010.pdf

Seems like the loss of SLS would be devastating to NASA in terms of employees. Mr. Nelson is likely posturing when he talks about SLS because SpaceX is a threat to a large part of NASA.

To quote again from VSECOTSPE's post I linked to:

That doesn’t mean that NASA exploration doesn’t need most of those 28,000 workers. But it needs them doing lots of things other than reassembling the world’s most expensive Space Shuttle jigsaw puzzle.

And that takes imagination, courage and a vision. (But remember how Obama's Technology development got shot down)