Total Members Voted: 214
Voting closed: 06/08/2018 07:04 pm
On the less cynical side, I think SLS is a good, if not exactly great, program. Once the design settles down, say in 2035 or so, SLS will be real workhorse.
Trump will kill SLS in 2018 after the midterm elections.It’s not a priority and risks are too overwhelming to actually make the attempt for launching crewZero
Neither SpaceX, Blue or ULA has a history of attaining their deadlines or expectations about those deadlines.
Quote from: high road on 05/10/2018 08:57 am Neither SpaceX, Blue or ULA has a history of attaining their deadlines or expectations about those deadlines.This is true. However it's also true that the SLS is extremely unlikely to make it's deadline of first flight in 2017. BFR and ACES do not appear to be behind SLS in development and the organizations moving them appear to have a lot more fire under the asses to actually get the job done.
This is mostly not true. SLS has a lot of flight hardware built and qualified while neither BFR nor ACES have any built as far as we know. And ULA does not appear to be in any hurry at all to move ACES along.
Quote from: envy887 on 05/14/2018 01:46 pmThis is mostly not true. SLS has a lot of flight hardware built and qualified while neither BFR nor ACES have any built as far as we know. And ULA does not appear to be in any hurry at all to move ACES along.More ACES hardware has flown then SLS hardware.
Quote from: johnfwhitesell on 05/15/2018 03:13 amQuote from: envy887 on 05/14/2018 01:46 pmThis is mostly not true. SLS has a lot of flight hardware built and qualified while neither BFR nor ACES have any built as far as we know. And ULA does not appear to be in any hurry at all to move ACES along.More ACES hardware has flown then SLS hardware.Such as? They haven't flown an IVF test, and without IVF it's just Centaur, not ACES. ULA haven't even picked an engine for ACES yet.Flight testing components is not the same, development wise, as having built, fully integrated, and tested flight qualified hardware. You can have flight tested components without being anywhere near finishing development of a flight qualified vehicle.SLS has hardware ready to be stacked and flown (not that it matters, but some of it - the RS-25s and SRB casings - have already flown).
ULA haven't even picked an engine for ACES yet.
Such as?