OIG report: NASA transitioning SLS to commercial contract

[VSECOTSPE]

NASA’s Transition of the Space Launch System to a Commercial Services Contract
NASA Inspector General Report 24-001 (10/13/23)

What We Found

After reassessing NASA’s planned strategy to shift SLS production, systems integration, and launch services to DST under a services rather than the current sole-source contract structure, the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate added 3 years to the timeline for transitioning these responsibilities and consolidating existing SLS-related contracts under DST. During this 3-year evaluation and readiness period, NASA will continue to manage the individual SLS contracts until DST is ready to fully assume that role. We believe this Pre-EPOC transition contract is a positive step as it will include an insight/oversight team to monitor and evaluate DST’s ability to manage the full scope of SLS production and integration. For example, the transition period provides Boeing more time to improve its quality control efforts for core and upper stage production at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility, a concern raised by DCMA since 2019.
 
Our analysis shows a single SLS Block 1B will cost at least $2.5 billion to produce—not including Systems Engineering and Integration costs—and NASA’s aspirational goal to achieve a cost savings of 50 percent is highly unrealistic. Specifically, our review determined that cost saving initiatives in several SLS production contracts such as reducing workforce within Boeing’s Stages contract and gaining manufacturing efficiencies with Aerojet Rocketdyne’s RS-25 Restart and Production Contract were not significant and, as a result, a single SLS will cost more than $2 billion through the first 10 SLS rockets produced under EPOC.

That said, moving SLS production from separate cost-reimbursable contracts to a combined commercial services approach may potentially reduce SLS production costs in the long term if a fixed-price contract is used to codify a reduced price. However, the Agency has yet to determine the extent to which fixed-price contracts will be used with DST. Considering the $4.3 billion cost increase the Agency incurred with cost-reimbursable contracts used to build the space flight systems for the first Artemis mission, continuing to use this type of contract under EPOC calls into question the suitability, affordability, and effectiveness of NASA’s contracting approach to SLS production. Moreover, a contractor’s ability to manage costs has typically accounted for only 25 percent of its evaluation under the SLS’s current cost-reimbursable contracts, so the SLS Program’s significant past cost overruns have had little impact on the award fees NASA provided to Boeing and Northop Grumman.

Moreover, NASA’s ability to reduce SLS costs and negotiate a fixed-price contract with DST will be impeded by a lack of competition for heavy-lift launch services, a characteristic that historically has helped drive down costs. Further, NASA has permitted current SLS contractors to incorporate limited rights data into the design of the core stage and Exploration Upper Stage, effectively blocking other contractors from competing to build the SLS system. That said, inclusion of several Federal Acquisition Regulation provisions in EPOC such as incentive fees may assist NASA in contract negotiations, mitigate the impact to schedule and cost overruns, and ensure remaining data rights are retained to the fullest extent possible by the government. Finally, while DST intends to reduce costs by increasing economies of scale by building more SLSs, its efforts to find customers outside of NASA have been unsuccessful to date. Although the SLS is the only launch vehicle currently available that meets Artemis mission needs, in the next 3 to 5 years other human-rated commercial alternatives that are lighter, cheaper, and reusable may become available. Therefore, NASA may want to consider whether other commercial options should be a part of its mid- to long-term plans to support its ambitious space exploration goals.

Under EPOC, NASA’s goal is to achieve a 50 percent cost savings in producing flight-ready SLS vehicles, which by our calculation would reduce the contract cost of a single SLS Block 1B rocket from a current production cost of at least $2.5 billion per launch vehicle to $1.25 billion. According to Agency officials, this goal is aspirational and not based on actual analysis, and in our estimation is highly unrealistic. Specifically, our review of current SLS contracts, affordability initiatives, and cost estimates for the DST Boeing-Northrop Grumman joint venture leads us to conclude that SLS production costs will remain at over $2 billion per rocket for at least the first 10 SLS launch vehicles under EPOC.

Excerpts from Table 1:  SLS Block 1B Contracts

Stages Contract (Boeing), $482M per launch, $9.7B total
Stages Production & Evolution Contract (Boeing), $1B per launch, $3.2B total
Boosters Production & Evolution Contract (NG), $336M per launch, $3.2B total
RS-25 Restart & Production (AJ), $583M per launch, $3.6B total
RL10 Engines (AJ), $69M per launch, $257M total
Universal Stage Adapter (Dynetics), $20M per launch, $406M total

Boeing’s Stages Contract. A major cost of producing the SLS’s core stage is the large workforce required to build the system. Although Boeing’s efforts to increase affordability include workforce reductions, bulk material purchases, and decreases of certain production lines from three shifts to two, we have not identified significant cost reductions that would result from these actions. For example, Boeing reported a 13 percent reduction in workforce for building a core stage between Core Stage 1 and Core Stage 2. Given the transition from the development of the time-intensive Core Stage 1 to additional core stages, we would have expected a greater workforce reduction. In addition, our analysis of the company’s budget reporting and financial management documents indicate that Boeing will continue to employ a large workforce and therefore have minimal cost reductions.

Aerojet’s RS-25 Restart and Production Contract. Despite initiatives aimed at cutting costs by gaining manufacturing efficiencies utilizing 3D printing and using less costly materials for RS-25 engines beyond Artemis VII, we instead found cost increases for future engines. For example, while NASA continues to claim a 30 percent reduction in RS-25 engine costs compared to those produced during the Space Shuttle era, we estimated the per-engine cost for SLS will exceed the $104.5 million cost per RS-25 Shuttle engine.26 Moreover, our analysis identified a 13 percent increase in the RS-25 Restart and Production contract costs to date. NASA’s cost savings calculation excluded overhead and other associated costs with recertification, industry base restart, and production efforts for 24 new engines.

Another factor that will make it difficult for NASA to negotiate reduced launch prices from DST is
that the Agency has relinquished significant data rights and property—such as tooling and welding machines—to the current SLS contractors making it hard for other companies to compete in the future. Specifically, to leverage potential cost savings and existing technology possessed by Boeing and its subcontractors, since 2012 NASA has allowed limited rights data to be incorporated into the design
of core stages and the Exploration Upper Stage.33 Allowing limited rights data effectively blocks other potential contractors from competing to build the system. In effect, a potential new contractor would not be able to use data developed by Boeing and its subcontractors under the SLS development
period and instead would need to establish agreements with suppliers that possess the data rights—
a potentially time consuming and costly endeavor—or risk substantial cost and schedule delays by redesigning the stages launch system. Given the impracticality of a new contractor establishing such agreements with Boeing and its suppliers, the cost to duplicate the core stage and Exploration
Upper Stage without obtaining data rights would exceed $4.5 billion and add 10 years to the schedule according to the JOFOCs used for the Stages Production and Evolution Contract and Exploration
Upper Stage. Like Boeing, Aerojet’s RS-25 and RL10 engines contain license rights, limited access,
and permissions that prevent the Agency from sharing data with other contractors and, as a result,
the cost of another company producing and certifying similar engines would exceed $3 billion.

EPOC is not the first time NASA has transitioned operations of a large human exploration program and consolidated those efforts under a single prime contractor. With the Space Shuttle Program, the Agency employed a similar strategy which resulted in an increase of operational costs rather than the savings that were envisioned.

However, despite Boeing's intent to increase production and secure additional SLS customers to achieve its cost reduction targets, to date these efforts have been unsuccessful. For example, the Department of Defense, specifically the Air Force and Space Force, have declined to use the SLS due to lower-cost alternatives with existing capabilities that meet their needs such as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and ULA’s Atlas V, as well as ULA’s forthcoming Vulcan Centaur rocket. Moreover, even though Congress initially directed NASA to use the SLS for the Science Mission Directorate’s Europa Clipper mission, NASA subsequently received congressional approval to use another launch vehicle and the Agency contracted with Space X for a Falcon Heavy rocket at a cost of $178 million.

In the near term, the SLS remains the only launch vehicle with the capability to lift the 27-metric ton Orion capsule to lunar orbit. However, in the next 3 to 5 years other human-rated commercial alternatives may become available. These commercial ventures will likely capitalize on multiple technological innovations, making them lighter, cheaper, and reusable. Further driving down costs is the competition between aerospace companies such as SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin, with both SpaceX and Blue Origin currently developing reusable medium- and heavy-lift launch vehicles that will compete with NASA’s SLS single-use rocket.

Although Congress directed NASA in 2010 to build a heavy-lift rocket and crew capsule using existing contracts from the canceled Constellation effort to meet its space exploration goals, the Agency may soon have more affordable commercial options to carry humans to the Moon and beyond. In our judgment, the Agency should continue to monitor the commercial development of heavy-lift space flight systems and begin discussions of whether it makes financial and strategic sense to consider these options as part of the Agency’s longer-term plans to support its ambitious space exploration goals.

Conclusion

To its credit, NASA has acknowledged the high costs of its Artemis goals—the SLS in particular—and since at least 2016 has been exploring ways to make the missions more affordable. The EPOC initiative is designed to transfer SLS production, integration, and launch to a Boeing-Northrop-Grumman joint venture known as DST using a commercial services construct. In our judgment, despite NASA's noteworthy adjustments to the EPOC transition plan and its affordability initiatives, the price of the SLS Block 1B rockets will not be significantly reduced through such a sole-source contract with DST.

NASA’s aspirational goal is to achieve a 50 percent cost savings over current SLS costs using DST, which by our calculation would reduce the contract cost of a single SLS rocket from the current $2.5 billion to $1.25 billion. Our analysis shows this goal realistically cannot be achieved and the production cost alone will remain over $2 billion. We reach this conclusion after examining what we believe are a variety of unrealistic assumptions on NASA’s part. First, the Agency expects to achieve cost savings by reduced SLS production costs under a contract with DST. However, ongoing affordability efforts by SLS contractors to reduce the workforce and improve manufacturing processes have yet to achieve cost savings on the high-cost stages and RS-25 engine contracts. Second, DST expects to drive down costs by increasing the SLS production rate by entering into contracts with non-NASA entities such as the Department of Defense and commercial entities. However, thus far other potential users have declined to use the SLS due to lower-cost alternatives. Finally, NASA’s ability to negotiate less costly services with DST will be hindered by the lack of competition given EPOC is not subject to competition but rather sole sourced to the existing SLS contractors.

Despite these challenges, NASA can take steps to improve EPOC’s cost savings potential. In the near term, NASA can maximize potential savings by stabilizing technologies and requirements to maximize the use of fixed-price contracts. The continued use of SLS cost-reimbursable contracts by EPOC will likely stymie any significant cost saving efforts. In addition, several FAR provisions may assist NASA in contract negotiations and mitigate the impact of schedule and cost overruns. Finally, in the long term, commercial competition in launch services will be more practicable for the Agency to better leverage less costly commercial alternatives while achieving its mission goals. Several U.S. space flight companies are already implementing multiple technological innovations, making heavy-lift systems lighter, cheaper, and reusable. In the end, failure to significantly reduce the high costs of the SLS launch vehicle will significantly hinder the overall sustainability of the Artemis campaign and NASA’s deep space human exploration efforts.

https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-24-001.pdf

[VSECOTSPE]

SLS working to overcome supply chain, weld issues to complete Artemis II Core Stage this year
Phillip Sloss (10/13/23)

Completion and delivery of Core Stage-2 was delayed from early in 2023 due to supply chain issues and core stage prime contractor Boeing is also dealing with a new weld tool issue at MAF that has delayed completion of the liquid oxygen (LOX) tank for the subsequent unit, Core Stage-3. Despite the extra obstacles, the SLS program still sets the completion of Core Stage-2 for late this year and wants to have Core Stage-3 complete in late 2024 or early 2025.

Dunno if “team members” refers to workforce or subcontractors or both, but the inability to retain them during the long periods between launches does not bode well for schedule or flight safety.

That engine was the first to be “soft mated” to the stage in the number two position on Sept.  11, followed by engine 2047 in the number one position on Sept.15, engine 2062 in the number three position on Sept. 19, and finally engine 2063 in the number four position the next day on Sept. 20. ”It’s been some time since we installed the engines for Artemis I, there are some new team members that are working the install for Artemis II that were not there for Artemis I,” Jonathan Looser, NASA SLS Core Stage Design Team Lead, said in a recent interview with NSF. (emphasis added)

And low priority relative to other government customers implies that contractor base is oversubscribed and NASA should widen it by using other suppliers.

The engines were shipped to MAF from Aerojet Rocketdyne’s engine facility at nearby Stennis Space Center in Mississippi over a year ago in September 2022 and were originally prepped for installation early in 2023, but delays in putting together the core stage pushed engine installation until September. One of the major hold-ups this year was due to a liquid oxygen feedline segment that had to be reworked at a supplier.

Two large-diameter LOX feedlines, also called downcomers, run from the LOX tank at the top of the stage down to the engine section at the bottom. The downcomers are assembled from several segments and completion of the final downcomer was delayed until recently. “That’s a component that has experienced some delays at one of the sub-tier suppliers and we’ve known about this for several months and that component has been reworked,” Looser said.

“The issue that we experienced at the sub-tier supplier was both a non-conformance and also just a supply chain prioritization, where there are some other government programs that out-prioritized our hardware,” he added. (emphasis added)

And FSW, combined with a lack of resilience in production and hardware, continues to be a single-point failure weakness that can hold up the entire schedule.

The forward dome and two barrels were welded in the VAC in the summer and fall of 2022, but an unspecified issue welding an aft LOX tank dome has stalled the overall completion of the tank. The propellant tank domes are welded together from a gore section, end cap, and ring in a Circumferential Dome Welding Tool (CDWT).

“We’ve been going through some weld issues on the LOX aft dome for the last several months,” Looser acknowledged. “I don’t want to get into too many of the technical details of that as Boeing is still working through and completing the root cause and corrective action, but I will say that we are nearing the end of that and on a path to resuming welding on the LOX aft dome.”

“The forward two-thirds of the LOX tank is in the VAC, waiting on the LOX aft dome, and that team is working as we speak to get back into welding to be able to complete that aft dome and complete the LOX tank.” The issues have also kept the VAC from being used for welding other Core Stage and Exploration Upper Stage structures. (emphasis added)

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/10/aii-core-weld-issues/

[Zed_Noir]

From gleaming the quotes posted by @VSECOTPE

One have the impression that further examples of the SLS beyond Artemis II will be more expensive and prone to delays.

[woods170]

From gleaming the quotes posted by @VSECOTPE

One have the impression that further examples of the SLS beyond Artemis II will be more expensive and prone to delays.

That is pretty much a given, based on past experiences.

[deltaV]

NASA’s Transition of the Space Launch System to a Commercial Services Contract
NASA Inspector General Report 24-001 (10/13/23)

Adjusting SLS contracting mechanisms to save money is like responding to the high cost of 24-karat-gold toilet paper by switching to 23-karat-gold toilet paper.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/kenkirtland17/status/1712582437023195391

This is the type of document on SLS I have been wanting for YEARS so simple and easy to understand.

Of course it comes out when I’m super busy but I will be using this for many years to come I’m sure.

OIG report also attached for reference

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/jeffvader10/status/1712504224200736894

The one good thing to come out of this is NASA concurring with the recommendation to evaluate commercial alternatives

Recommendation 5: Include contract flexibility on future SLS acquisitions that will allow NASA to pivot to other commercial alternatives.

Management's Response: NASA concurs. The procurement strategy for EPOC has not been established, pending performance under the pre-EPOC evaluation and readiness effort. However, at that time, NASA will ensure appropriate flexibilities through the use of contract options or other means to explore the use of commercial alternatives, if feasible.

Estimated Completion Date: December 31, 2027.

[AmigaClone]

NASA’s Transition of the Space Launch System to a Commercial Services Contract
NASA Inspector General Report 24-001 (10/13/23)

Adjusting SLS contracting mechanisms to save money is like responding to the high cost of 24-karat-gold toilet paper by switching to 23-karat-gold toilet paper.

I suspect that if NASA uses the same contractors as currently, the action might be better compared to responding to the high cost of 1-ply of 24-karat-gold toilet paper by switching to a 2-ply 23-karat-gold toilet paper. In this case 'ply' refers to the number of sheets of gold that are bonded together to form the toilet paper.

[Coastal Ron]

I thought this section was pretty interesting:

Our analysis shows a single SLS Block 1B will cost at least $2.5 billion to produce—not including Systems Engineering and Integration costs—and NASA’s aspirational goal to achieve a cost savings of 50 percent is highly unrealistic. Specifically, our review determined that cost saving initiatives in several SLS production contracts such as reducing workforce within Boeing’s Stages contract and gaining manufacturing efficiencies with Aerojet Rocketdyne’s RS-25 Restart and Production Contract were not significant and, as a result, a single SLS will cost more than $2 billion through the first 10 SLS rockets produced under EPOC.

NASA has been saying that they were working on cost reductions for many years now, and there is no evidence that cost reductions are on the horizon. In fact it is more likely that the overall costs will continue to increase.

I think many (most) of us hope that the SLS Program never exceeds 10 flight units, so we'll have to keep a watch for any effort by the Artemis contractors to start long term buys for flight units #11 and on...

[VSECOTSPE]

https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-ig-skeptical-of-major-sls-cost-savings-from-services-contract/

[VSECOTSPE]

https://twitter.com/jeffvader10/status/1712504224200736894

The one good thing to come out of this is NASA concurring with the recommendation to evaluate commercial alternatives

It’s a good report for calling bs on the suppossed savings from contract consolidation years before NASA starts down that road.  And the report puts a little sunshine on some cost data.

But in terms of effecting change, the report’s recommendations are pretty toothless — so much so that I didn’t bother quoting them.  Admittedly, there’s only so much an IG can do to force an agency to give up a current program and pursue a different one.  But the report doesn’t even directly address termination costs, which were the major stumbling block to terminating Constellation contracts during the Obama Administration, nevertheless force the agency to produce independent cost analyses, an independent analysis of alternatives, etc.  There’s little to nothing in this report that would prevent a repeat of the agency’s past mistakes, bureaucratic drift, and programmatic hijackings.  I’m exaggerating, but an ESD intern could read a Wikipedia article on competing heavy launch systems while Free and the rest of his organization continue to roll over on contract negotiations and overruns, and NASA would still meet the letter of the vague, loosey goosey recommendations in this IG report.

In terms of a path forward, the IG also totally misses the fact that SLS has been reduced from an aspirational, multi-payload HLV to a single-use crew launcher, despite the report noting the payloads that SLS has lost and been unable to secure.  Getting off SLS means getting off Orion and that means NASA must pursue a different lunar crew transport capability.  Exploring or even purchasing commercial heavy launch won’t change anything.  NASA has already migrated some Artemis payloads to Falcon Heavy.  NASA has to let go of the lunar crew transport function. If not, it will continue to saddle Artemis with Orion/SLS cost, flight rate, flight safety, and related issues.

[DanClemmensen]

In terms of a path forward, the IG also totally misses the fact that SLS has been reduced from an aspirational, multi-payload HLV to a single-use crew launcher, despite the report noting the payloads that SLS has lost and been unable to secure.  Getting off SLS means getting off Orion and that means NASA must pursue a different lunar crew transport capability.  Exploring or even purchasing commercial heavy launch won’t change anything.  NASA has already migrated some Artemis payloads to Falcon Heavy.  NASA has to let go of the lunar crew transport function. If not, it will continue to saddle Artemis with Orion/SLS cost, flight rate, flight safety, and related issues.

Not quite. I think they should kill both SLS and Orion, but it is at least possible to kill SLS and keep Orion. It's a lot more expensive and the extra design time would probably mean an extra SLS/Orion mission. The trick is to pay SpaceX enough to launch Orion on Starship, using an expendable special-purpose second stage that has Orion sitting on top.  Yuck.  I'm not sure SpaceX would want to do it.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/10/inspector-general-on-nasas-plans-to-reduce-sls-costs-highly-unrealistic/

NASA should consider commercial alternatives to SLS, inspector general says
"NASA’s aspirational goal to achieve a cost savings of 50 percent is highly unrealistic."

by Eric Berger - Oct 13, 2023 7:07pm GMT
12

In recent years NASA has acknowledged that its large Space Launch System rocket is unaffordable and has sought to bring its costs down to a more reasonable level. The most recent estimate is that it costs $2.2 billion to build a single SLS rocket, and this does not include add-ons such as ground systems, integration, a payload, and more.

[VSECOTSPE]

Not quite. I think they should kill both SLS and Orion, but it is at least possible to kill SLS and keep Orion. It's a lot more expensive and the extra design time would probably mean an extra SLS/Orion mission. The trick is to pay SpaceX enough to launch Orion on Starship, using an expendable special-purpose second stage that has Orion sitting on top.  Yuck.  I'm not sure SpaceX would want to do it.

Difficult to know for sure without running the analysis, but I doubt the Orion LAS would be compatible with Superheavy.  Much bigger fireball to escape.  If Orion had to stick around, I bet it would wind up on a F9H with a modified upper stage.  But the amount of money that would have to be spent to keep Orion viable on a new launcher would just be better spent qualifying Starship or other crew vehicles.

[DanClemmensen]

Not quite. I think they should kill both SLS and Orion, but it is at least possible to kill SLS and keep Orion. It's a lot more expensive and the extra design time would probably mean an extra SLS/Orion mission. The trick is to pay SpaceX enough to launch Orion on Starship, using an expendable special-purpose second stage that has Orion sitting on top.  Yuck.  I'm not sure SpaceX would want to do it.

Difficult to know for sure without running the analysis, but I doubt the Orion LAS would be compatible with Superheavy.  Much bigger fireball to escape.  If Orion had to stick around, I bet it would wind up on a F9H with a modified upper stage.  But the amount of money that would have to be spent to keep Orion viable on a new launcher would just be better spent qualifying Starship or other crew vehicles.

I agree that killing SLS but keeping Orion would be a really bad idea. My point is that it is not impossible.

[Zed_Noir]

In terms of a path forward, the IG also totally misses the fact that SLS has been reduced from an aspirational, multi-payload HLV to a single-use crew launcher, despite the report noting the payloads that SLS has lost and been unable to secure.  Getting off SLS means getting off Orion and that means NASA must pursue a different lunar crew transport capability.  Exploring or even purchasing commercial heavy launch won’t change anything.  NASA has already migrated some Artemis payloads to Falcon Heavy.  NASA has to let go of the lunar crew transport function. If not, it will continue to saddle Artemis with Orion/SLS cost, flight rate, flight safety, and related issues.

Not quite. I think they should kill both SLS and Orion, but it is at least possible to kill SLS and keep Orion. It's a lot more expensive and the extra design time would probably mean an extra SLS/Orion mission. The trick is to pay SpaceX enough to launch Orion on Starship, using an expendable special-purpose second stage that has Orion sitting on top.  Yuck.  I'm not sure SpaceX would want to do it.

Don't think it will take much effort by SpaceX and cost all that much to put the Orion on top of an expendable austere Starship variant without the payload compartment. All it takes is an adapter interstage between the Orion stack and the SH/SS stack.

However agree the Orion should be axed as soon as possible. Since it could only be use as infrequent crew taxi to NRHO around the Moon and as sole payload for the SLS Block 1s.

The SLS/Orion stack is going to be more expensive and prone to delays in the future.

[TrevorMonty]

Not quite. I think they should kill both SLS and Orion, but it is at least possible to kill SLS and keep Orion. It's a lot more expensive and the extra design time would probably mean an extra SLS/Orion mission. The trick is to pay SpaceX enough to launch Orion on Starship, using an expendable special-purpose second stage that has Orion sitting on top.  Yuck.  I'm not sure SpaceX would want to do it.

Difficult to know for sure without running the analysis, but I doubt the Orion LAS would be compatible with Superheavy.  Much bigger fireball to escape.  If Orion had to stick around, I bet it would wind up on a F9H with a modified upper stage. 

 SLS 1A US stage comes from Delta so shouldn't be hard for ULA to make Orion work with Vulcan. Whether it has enough performance to get it to LEO is question.

[joek]

In terms of a path forward, the IG also totally misses the fact that SLS has been reduced from an aspirational, multi-payload HLV to a single-use crew launcher, despite the report noting the payloads that SLS has lost and been unable to secure.  Getting off SLS means getting off Orion and that means NASA must pursue a different lunar crew transport capability.  Exploring or even purchasing commercial heavy launch won’t change anything.  NASA has already migrated some Artemis payloads to Falcon Heavy.  NASA has to let go of the lunar crew transport function. If not, it will continue to saddle Artemis with Orion/SLS cost, flight rate, flight safety, and related issues.

They did not lead with it, but certainly implied, if not explicit (emphasis added) ...

However, despite Boeing's intent to increase production and secure additional SLS customers to achieve its cost reduction targets, to date these efforts have been unsuccessful. For example, the Department of Defense, specifically the Air Force and Space Force, have declined to use the SLS due to lower-cost alternatives with existing capabilities that meet their needs such as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and ULA’s Atlas V, as well as ULA’s forthcoming Vulcan Centaur rocket. Moreover, even though Congress initially directed NASA to use the SLS for the Science Mission Directorate’s Europa Clipper mission, NASA subsequently received congressional approval to use another launch vehicle and the Agency contracted with Space X for a Falcon Heavy rocket at a cost of $178 million.

In the near term, the SLS remains the only launch vehicle with the capability to lift the 27-metric ton Orion capsule to lunar orbit. However, in the next 3 to 5 years other human-rated commercial alternatives may become available. These commercial ventures will likely capitalize on multiple technological innovations, making them lighter, cheaper, and reusable. Further driving down costs is the competition between aerospace companies such as SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin, with both SpaceX and Blue Origin currently developing reusable medium- and heavy-lift launch vehicles that will compete with NASA’s SLS single-use rocket.

[joek]

I thought this section was pretty interesting:
...

And this one (emphasis added) ...

According to Agency officials, this goal is aspirational and not based on actual analysis, ...

[Robotbeat]

Not quite. I think they should kill both SLS and Orion, but it is at least possible to kill SLS and keep Orion. It's a lot more expensive and the extra design time would probably mean an extra SLS/Orion mission. The trick is to pay SpaceX enough to launch Orion on Starship, using an expendable special-purpose second stage that has Orion sitting on top.  Yuck.  I'm not sure SpaceX would want to do it.

Difficult to know for sure without running the analysis, but I doubt the Orion LAS would be compatible with Superheavy.  Much bigger fireball to escape.  If Orion had to stick around, I bet it would wind up on a F9H with a modified upper stage.  But the amount of money that would have to be spent to keep Orion viable on a new launcher would just be better spent qualifying Starship or other crew vehicles.

On the contrary: The Orion LAS is oversized for a pure liquid launch vehicle. Easier to escape a Super Heavy failure than SLS which has motors which cannot turn off.

[joek]

On the contrary: The Orion LAS is oversized for a pure liquid launch vehicle. Easier to escape a Super Heavy failure than SLS which has motors which cannot turn off.

Maybe. As interesting as that discussion may be, please take it elsewhere. This thread is about the OIG report.

[Robotbeat]

Which talks about commercial alternatives to SLS. Since Orion is the only payload, it’s kind of important.

[joek]

Which talks about commercial alternatives to SLS. Since Orion is the only payload, it’s kind of important.

And as the report points out (albeit a bit nuanced), Orion is not the only solution if SLS is removed from the equation. Which begs the question: Why would other solutions have to cater to Orion? Simple answer: they don't. SLS and Orion are tied at the hip; they live and die together.

[DanClemmensen]

Which talks about commercial alternatives to SLS. Since Orion is the only payload, it’s kind of important.

And as the report points out (albeit a bit nuanced), Orion is not the only solution if SLS is removed from the equation. Which begs the question: Why would other solutions have to cater to Orion? Simple answer: they don't. SLS and Orion are tied at the hip; they live and die together.

We have been discussing one SLS/Orion replacement for about 3 weeks at
    https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=59662.0
The idea is to use no new hardware types except what's being developed for Artemis III already: Tanker, Depot, HLS, plus Crew Dragon. Use Crew Dragon for Earth-LEO and LEO-Earth. Use an OTV (which is a secind instance of Starship HLS) for LEO-NRHO-LEO. Use the first Starship HLS for NHRO-LS-NHRO as in Artemis III.

Please discuss in that thread, not here.

[Robotbeat]

The report doesn’t make that point clear at all. I think the report is supposed to be limited in scope to SLS in particular

[yg1968]

https://twitter.com/jeffvader10/status/1712504224200736894

The one good thing to come out of this is NASA concurring with the recommendation to evaluate commercial alternatives

It’s a good report for calling bs on the suppossed savings from contract consolidation years before NASA starts down that road.  And the report puts a little sunshine on some cost data.

But in terms of effecting change, the report’s recommendations are pretty toothless — so much so that I didn’t bother quoting them.  Admittedly, there’s only so much an IG can do to force an agency to give up a current program and pursue a different one.  But the report doesn’t even directly address termination costs, which were the major stumbling block to terminating Constellation contracts during the Obama Administration, nevertheless force the agency to produce independent cost analyses, an independent analysis of alternatives, etc.  There’s little to nothing in this report that would prevent a repeat of the agency’s past mistakes, bureaucratic drift, and programmatic hijackings.  I’m exaggerating, but an ESD intern could read a Wikipedia article on competing heavy launch systems while Free and the rest of his organization continue to roll over on contract negotiations and overruns, and NASA would still meet the letter of the vague, loosey goosey recommendations in this IG report.

In terms of a path forward, the IG also totally misses the fact that SLS has been reduced from an aspirational, multi-payload HLV to a single-use crew launcher, despite the report noting the payloads that SLS has lost and been unable to secure.  Getting off SLS means getting off Orion and that means NASA must pursue a different lunar crew transport capability.  Exploring or even purchasing commercial heavy launch won’t change anything.  NASA has already migrated some Artemis payloads to Falcon Heavy.  NASA has to let go of the lunar crew transport function. If not, it will continue to saddle Artemis with Orion/SLS cost, flight rate, flight safety, and related issues.

The best scenario to hope for is to have redundancy for SLS and Orion through a commercial option. I don't think that Congress is going to kill SLS and Orion in the short term especially if a commercial replacement isn't yet available.

[DanClemmensen]

The best scenario to hope for is to have redundancy for SLS and Orion through a commercial option. I don't think that Congress is going to kill SLS and Orion in the short term especially if a commercial replacement isn't yet available.

This will depend on the definition of "available". One scheme proposes a second instance of HLS as an OTV to ferry crew from a Crew Dragon in LEO to NRHO. it uses no hardware that is not already needed for Artemis III. Is it "available"? How does its availability differ from EUS, Gateway, or an Orion with an NDS port?

[laszlo]

The best scenario to hope for is to have redundancy for SLS and Orion through a commercial option. I don't think that Congress is going to kill SLS and Orion in the short term especially if a commercial replacement isn't yet available.

They did exactly that to the Shuttle. Your optimism and faith in Congress is touching.  Considering that this House is willing to torch the good faith and credit of the USA, a little thing like a Moon landing wouldn't be much of an obstacle to them.

[OTV Booster]

Which talks about commercial alternatives to SLS. Since Orion is the only payload, it’s kind of important.

And as the report points out (albeit a bit nuanced), Orion is not the only solution if SLS is removed from the equation. Which begs the question: Why would other solutions have to cater to Orion? Simple answer: they don't. SLS and Orion are tied at the hip; they live and die together.

Can you expand on SLS and Orion being joined at the hip? Straight up question. No snark.


As for another solution catering to Orion, that's more political than technical. Getting Congress to kill off the SLS turkey will be hard enough. Expecting them to kill Orion too seems to assume higher level of collective congressional rationality than I've come to expect.🤣


IF they ditch SLS and the run a few Artemus missions with the overpriced Orion spam can without ditching the whole program, then MAYBE there will be enough pressure to use one of the less expensive alternatives that will hopefully be fully developed by then. Or maybe they'll ditch the whole thing and learn Chinese so they can vacation at a lunar resort.

[Tommyboy]

Which talks about commercial alternatives to SLS. Since Orion is the only payload, it’s kind of important.

And as the report points out (albeit a bit nuanced), Orion is not the only solution if SLS is removed from the equation. Which begs the question: Why would other solutions have to cater to Orion? Simple answer: they don't. SLS and Orion are tied at the hip; they live and die together.

Can you expand on SLS and Orion being joined at the hip? Straight up question. No snark.


As for another solution catering to Orion, that's more political than technical. Getting Congress to kill off the SLS turkey will be hard enough. Expecting them to kill Orion too seems to assume higher level of collective congressional rationality than I've come to expect.🤣


IF they ditch SLS and the run a few Artemus missions with the overpriced Orion spam can without ditching the whole program, then MAYBE there will be enough pressure to use one of the less expensive alternatives that will hopefully be fully developed by then. Or maybe they'll ditch the whole thing and learn Chinese so they can vacation at a lunar resort.

Without SLS, Orion hasn't got a ride to NRHO.
Without Orion to launch to NRHO, SLS hasn't got a reason to keep existing.

[pochimax]

What you have to keep in mind is that the SLS not only launches the Orion but also an additional payload.
(I do not consider it realistic or possible to commercially replace the SLS of Artemis III, which is already very advanced in its construction).
So the commercial proposals would have to take charge of launching the Orion to the Moon and also in another launch the Gateway modules or whatever. Including the design and construction of a tugboat.

[DanClemmensen]

What you have to keep in mind is that the SLS not only launches the Orion but also an additional payload.
(I do not consider it realistic or possible to commercially replace the SLS of Artemis III, which is already very advanced in its construction).
So the commercial proposals would have to take charge of launching the Orion to the Moon and also in another launch the Gateway modules or whatever. Including the design and construction of a tugboat.

The only planned SLS cargo I know of is the I-HAB module for Gateway. It is intended to launch together with an Orion on a Block 1B SLS during Artemis IV. It cannot launch until the Block 1B is built and its ML-2 launch platform is built.

IMHO, Gateway is worthless except as a nanny for Orion, which cannot survive on its own during a long Lunar mission. However, if you really, really want to add a big habitat to the tiny initial gateway, then just keep the first HLS or the second HLS or both after they return to NRHO from the lunar surface, instead of throwing them away. Each HLS has larger pressurized volume than I-HAB. This would require some mods to HLS. A better alternative is a custom Gateway based on Starship, probably derived from HLS.

As to Artemis III being "advanced in its construction": sunk costs are sunk. If a viable alternative can be delivered in the same timeframe as the longest-lead Artemis III deliverable, then the existence of this hardware is irrelevant.

[Eric Hedman]

What you have to keep in mind is that the SLS not only launches the Orion but also an additional payload.
(I do not consider it realistic or possible to commercially replace the SLS of Artemis III, which is already very advanced in its construction).
So the commercial proposals would have to take charge of launching the Orion to the Moon and also in another launch the Gateway modules or whatever. Including the design and construction of a tugboat.

The only planned SLS cargo I know of is the I-HAB module for Gateway. It is intended to launch together with an Orion on a Block 1B SLS during Artemis IV. It cannot launch until the Block 1B is built and its ML-2 launch platform is built.

IMHO, Gateway is worthless except as a nanny for Orion, which cannot survive on its own during a long Lunar mission. However, if you really, really want to add a big habitat to the tiny initial gateway, then just keep the first HLS or the second HLS or both after they return to NRHO from the lunar surface, instead of throwing them away. Each HLS has larger pressurized volume than I-HAB. This would require some mods to HLS. A better alternative is a custom Gateway based on Starship, probably derived from HLS.

As to Artemis III being "advanced in its construction": sunk costs are sunk. If a viable alternative can be delivered in the same timeframe as the longest-lead Artemis III deliverable, then the existence of this hardware is irrelevant.

Regardless of if any of these ideas proposed here are good or not, I don't see any of this happening anytime soon.  You would have to get NASA, the White house and Congress to agree.  Outside of discussions on a few websites like this, I don't see anyone else having a serious discussion about this.  At best it would take 3 to 4 years to get all parties to sign off on this.  Then it would take another 3 or 4 years minimum (very optimistic on my part) to get all the design and testing done.  By that time construction of hardware is probably under way for Artemis VII and VIII.  I don't see any NASA funded human flights to the Moon on anything other than SLS and Orion this decade.

Where I do see possibilities of alternatives are after Starship is flying commercial cruises to the Moon and the lower cost option stares Congress in the face.  The other possibility is after New Glenn is flying and has a refuelable upper stage and the option of putting Orion on it becomes possible.  Either of these could finally put the pressure on to retire SLS especially if budgets get tighter.  In the meantime I don't believe the required decision making parties will take any alternative to SLS/Orion seriously and construction of hardware will continue on regardless of if it is a good idea or not.  I see us committed out to Artemis VIII at a minimum.

[joek]

Can you expand on SLS and Orion being joined at the hip? Straight up question. No snark.

Only launch manifest for SLS in the foreseeable future is Orion as part of Artemis. Only LV manifested to launch on SLS is Orion. That is very unlikely to change. SLS is simply too expensive for other missions (one reason why Europa Clipper moved to FH). Orion is tied to Artemis, which is tied to SLS. Could Orion be untied from SLS? Maybe--a number of other threads discuss options. But the cost for an Orion mission is still very steep--regardless of LV--so once you take one out of the equation, think the other will follow.

edit: p.s. OIG report hints at that with the statement "NASA’s SLS single-use rocket". Single use = Orion/Artemis.

[yg1968]

Can you expand on SLS and Orion being joined at the hip? Straight up question. No snark.

Only launch manifest for SLS in the foreseeable future is Orion as part of Artemis. Only LV manifested to launch on SLS is Orion. That is very unlikely to change. SLS is simply too expensive for other missions (one reason why Europa Clipper moved to FH). Orion is tied to Artemis, which is tied to SLS. Could Orion be untied from SLS? Maybe--a number of other threads discuss options. But the cost for an Orion mission is still very steep--regardless of LV--so once you take one out of the equation, think the other will follow.

edit: p.s. OIG report hints at that with the statement "NASA’s SLS single-use rocket". Single use = Orion/Artemis.

SLS will also be used for Gateway modules: IHab and Esprit (and perhaps the Airlock). However, Orion will also be part of these missions.

[Zed_Noir]

Can you expand on SLS and Orion being joined at the hip? Straight up question. No snark.

Only launch manifest for SLS in the foreseeable future is Orion as part of Artemis. Only LV manifested to launch on SLS is Orion. That is very unlikely to change. SLS is simply too expensive for other missions (one reason why Europa Clipper moved to FH). Orion is tied to Artemis, which is tied to SLS. Could Orion be untied from SLS? Maybe--a number of other threads discuss options. But the cost for an Orion mission is still very steep--regardless of LV--so once you take one out of the equation, think the other will follow.

edit: p.s. OIG report hints at that with the statement "NASA’s SLS single-use rocket". Single use = Orion/Artemis.

SLS will also be used for Gateway modules: IHab and Esprit (and perhaps the Airlock). However, Orion will also be part of these missions.

Only if NASA have the SLS Block 1B available. More likely the Falcon Heavy will launch the iHab, Esplit and airlock modules to NRHO due to cost and scheduling. Since the SLS Block 1B be on schedule is extremely unlikely, IMO.

Kinda of silly waiting for a $4.5B+ SLS Block 1B/Orion stack (according to NASA IG) when you can booked several Falcon Heavies for less than $200M each immediately. So @joek is likely correct that the Orion will be the only payload for the SLS. Which NASA is unlikely to get the Block 1B version operational any time soon.

[tbellman]

Only if NASA have the SLS Block 1B available. More likely the Falcon Heavy will launch the iHab, Esplit and airlock modules to NRHO due to cost and scheduling. Since the SLS Block 1B be on schedule is extremely unlikely, IMO.

Kinda of silly waiting for a $4.5B+ SLS Block 1B/Orion stack (according to NASA IG) when you can booked several Falcon Heavies for less than $200M each immediately. So @joek is likely correct that the Orion will be the only payload for the SLS. Which NASA is unlikely to get the Block 1B version operational any time soon.

The problem is not to throw those modules on a trans-lunar injection (TLI) trajectory, but to bring them from that trajectory and over to the NRHO orbit, meet up with the Lunar Gateway and dock with it.  Falcon Heavy can't do that on its own.  Nor can SLS, of course; Orion is planned to do that.  But Falcon Heavy can't throw Orion+IHab on a TLI.

A space tug could certainly be developed to perform that task, and it would almost certainly be significantly smaller and cheaper than Orion.  But that development needs to be done.

[DanClemmensen]

Only if NASA have the SLS Block 1B available. More likely the Falcon Heavy will launch the iHab, Esplit and airlock modules to NRHO due to cost and scheduling. Since the SLS Block 1B be on schedule is extremely unlikely, IMO.

Kinda of silly waiting for a $4.5B+ SLS Block 1B/Orion stack (according to NASA IG) when you can booked several Falcon Heavies for less than $200M each immediately. So @joek is likely correct that the Orion will be the only payload for the SLS. Which NASA is unlikely to get the Block 1B version operational any time soon.

The problem is not to throw those modules on a trans-lunar injection (TLI) trajectory, but to bring them from that trajectory and over to the NRHO orbit, meet up with the Lunar Gateway and dock with it.  Falcon Heavy can't do that on its own.  Nor can SLS, of course; Orion is planned to do that.  But Falcon Heavy can't throw Orion+IHab on a TLI.

A space tug could certainly be developed to perform that task, and it would almost certainly be significantly smaller and cheaper than Orion.  But that development needs to be done.

Yep, it's a problem. by co-manifesting I-Hab with Orion, the two launch together into the same TLI orbit and can then mate to each other. Orion then moves this combined spacecraft into NRHO and performs the RPOD. I have not done the math, but just qualitatively this seems it will be pretty challenging to dock the I-HAB to HALO using Orion. the I-HAB port to be docked is at the "front" of I-HAB/Orion/EUS, while the Orion thrusters are more or less in the middle of I-HAB/Orion/EUS.

So now what? unless the new OTV is co-manifested, you need your new OTV to RPOD with the Gateway-bound module after it's launched and before it needs to change orbits to reach Gateway. If it's co-manifested, then your LV (FH or other) must lift the whole thing.

My preferred solution as a Starship enthusiast is to replace Gateway entirely, using a custom Starship. It's likely to be cheaper than an individual Gateway module and its LV, and this is certainly true if the module launches on SLS/Orion.

[pochimax]

Only launch manifest for SLS in the foreseeable future is Orion as part of Artemis. Only LV manifested to launch on SLS is Orion. That is very unlikely to change.

Since Artemis IV, every SLS is for launch Orion + other thing. In the case of missions IV and V, the "other things" are Gateway modules already being made in Europe and Japan.

Obviously, as of today, if NASA doesn' t want to made "other things" for lauching on SLS the problem of finding a commercial substitute will be easier, as the problem reduces then only to launching Orion. If NASA continues to initiate contracts to launch payloads jointly with the Orion beyond Artemis V, the commercial alternative becomes a little more complicated (due to the need for the tugboat, that is, you need not only a rocket but also a tugboat).

[pochimax]

My preferred solution as a Starship enthusiast is to replace Gateway entirely, using a custom Starship. It's likely to be cheaper than an individual Gateway module and its LV, and this is certainly true if the module launches on SLS/Orion.

very difficult to cancel or modify the gateway for a Starship. NASA would have to pay Europe and Japan for everything invested so far. I don't think ESA or JAXA could be convinced of the change. It's a very, very unrealistic scenario.

So, ...actually the problem is simplified and reduced to launching the two or three international modules of the Gateway with the SLS or with a commercial alternative. Any other variant is not a plausible scenario.

[pochimax]

Which talks about commercial alternatives to SLS. Since Orion is the only payload, it’s kind of important.

And as the report points out (albeit a bit nuanced), Orion is not the only solution if SLS is removed from the equation. Which begs the question: Why would other solutions have to cater to Orion? Simple answer: they don't. SLS and Orion are tied at the hip; they live and die together.

In reality, it is quite likely that NASA will find itself in the future with a problem to be solved but that would be easily solved: a commercial alternative (modified Starship) available to launch Orion ships, in turn already manufactured and paid for, and which could be cheaper than spending 2.5 billion on an SLS to launch them. And at the same time much more economical than building new replacement ships for Orion ships that would be completed or almost completed or in the recycling process.

[pochimax]

The best scenario to hope for is to have redundancy for SLS and Orion through a commercial option. I don't think that Congress is going to kill SLS and Orion in the short term especially if a commercial replacement isn't yet available.

This will depend on the definition of "available". One scheme proposes a second instance of HLS as an OTV to ferry crew from a Crew Dragon in LEO to NRHO. it uses no hardware that is not already needed for Artemis III. Is it "available"? How does its availability differ from EUS, Gateway, or an Orion with an NDS port?

If we follow the OIG and NASA report, it is not considered that there is currently any commercial alternative available. They estimate that there could be one within a period of 3 to 5 years.

As to Artemis III being "advanced in its construction": sunk costs are sunk. If a viable alternative can be delivered in the same timeframe as the longest-lead Artemis III deliverable, then the existence of this hardware is irrelevant.

So, according to OIG and NASA, there is no alternative currently nor will there be in at least 3 years. That is why it is physically impossible to find any alternative to Artemis III, since by the time the alternative is available, the rocket will be on the pad or launched.

[DanClemmensen]

My preferred solution as a Starship enthusiast is to replace Gateway entirely, using a custom Starship. It's likely to be cheaper than an individual Gateway module and its LV, and this is certainly true if the module launches on SLS/Orion.

very difficult to cancel or modify the gateway for a Starship. NASA would have to pay Europe and Japan for everything invested so far. I don't think ESA or JAXA could be convinced of the change. It's a very, very unrealistic scenario.

So, ...actually the problem is simplified and reduced to launching the two or three international modules of the Gateway with the SLS or with a commercial alternative. Any other variant is not a plausible scenario.

The partners agreed to exchange seats to Gateway for gateway hardware, and their sunk costs are sunk. In a rational world, NASA would offer to replace these few seats to Gateway with quite a few more seats to gateway plus seats to the Lunar surface. The partners would agree to abandon the in-progress Gateway components and begin contributing to fitting out the Starship Gateway. I doubt this can actually happen because of institutional inertia.

[DanClemmensen]

The best scenario to hope for is to have redundancy for SLS and Orion through a commercial option. I don't think that Congress is going to kill SLS and Orion in the short term especially if a commercial replacement isn't yet available.

This will depend on the definition of "available". One scheme proposes a second instance of HLS as an OTV to ferry crew from a Crew Dragon in LEO to NRHO. it uses no hardware that is not already needed for Artemis III. Is it "available"? How does its availability differ from EUS, Gateway, or an Orion with an NDS port?

If we follow the OIG and NASA report, it is not considered that there is currently any commercial alternative available. They estimate that there could be one within a period of 3 to 5 years.

As to Artemis III being "advanced in its construction": sunk costs are sunk. If a viable alternative can be delivered in the same timeframe as the longest-lead Artemis III deliverable, then the existence of this hardware is irrelevant.

So, according to OIG and NASA, there is no alternative currently nor will there be in at least 3 years. That is why it is physically impossible to find any alternative to Artemis III, since by the time the alternative is available, the rocket will be on the pad or launched.

It is not possible to replace SLS to launch Orion without substantial new hardware development and crew qualification of the launcher. However, it is probably feasible to replace SLS/Orion using hardware that is already in development for Artemis III. Replacement of SLS/Orion was not addressed in the OIG report.

[yg1968]

Can you expand on SLS and Orion being joined at the hip? Straight up question. No snark.

Only launch manifest for SLS in the foreseeable future is Orion as part of Artemis. Only LV manifested to launch on SLS is Orion. That is very unlikely to change. SLS is simply too expensive for other missions (one reason why Europa Clipper moved to FH). Orion is tied to Artemis, which is tied to SLS. Could Orion be untied from SLS? Maybe--a number of other threads discuss options. But the cost for an Orion mission is still very steep--regardless of LV--so once you take one out of the equation, think the other will follow.

edit: p.s. OIG report hints at that with the statement "NASA’s SLS single-use rocket". Single use = Orion/Artemis.

SLS will also be used for Gateway modules: IHab and Esprit (and perhaps the Airlock). However, Orion will also be part of these missions.

Only if NASA have the SLS Block 1B available. More likely the Falcon Heavy will launch the iHab, Esplit and airlock modules to NRHO due to cost and scheduling. Since the SLS Block 1B be on schedule is extremely unlikely, IMO.

Kinda of silly waiting for a $4.5B+ SLS Block 1B/Orion stack (according to NASA IG) when you can booked several Falcon Heavies for less than $200M each immediately. So @joek is likely correct that the Orion will be the only payload for the SLS. Which NASA is unlikely to get the Block 1B version operational any time soon.

What is the point of launching IHab, Esprit and the Airlock with FH if you can't get to them with Orion? Woods170 had mentioned that NASA was considering using FH for other Gateway modules but I don't think that anything has been announced on that front. 

[DanClemmensen]

Can you expand on SLS and Orion being joined at the hip? Straight up question. No snark.

Only launch manifest for SLS in the foreseeable future is Orion as part of Artemis. Only LV manifested to launch on SLS is Orion. That is very unlikely to change. SLS is simply too expensive for other missions (one reason why Europa Clipper moved to FH). Orion is tied to Artemis, which is tied to SLS. Could Orion be untied from SLS? Maybe--a number of other threads discuss options. But the cost for an Orion mission is still very steep--regardless of LV--so once you take one out of the equation, think the other will follow.

edit: p.s. OIG report hints at that with the statement "NASA’s SLS single-use rocket". Single use = Orion/Artemis.

SLS will also be used for Gateway modules: IHab and Esprit (and perhaps the Airlock). However, Orion will also be part of these missions.

Only if NASA have the SLS Block 1B available. More likely the Falcon Heavy will launch the iHab, Esplit and airlock modules to NRHO due to cost and scheduling. Since the SLS Block 1B be on schedule is extremely unlikely, IMO.

Kinda of silly waiting for a $4.5B+ SLS Block 1B/Orion stack (according to NASA IG) when you can booked several Falcon Heavies for less than $200M each immediately. So @joek is likely correct that the Orion will be the only payload for the SLS. Which NASA is unlikely to get the Block 1B version operational any time soon.

What is the point of launching IHab, Esprit and the Airlock with FH if you can't get to them with Orion? Woods170 had mentioned that NASA was considering using FH for other Gateway modules but I don't think that anything has been announced on that front.

These modules are not powered. They cannot get from TLI to NRHO without a tug, and they cannot RPOD to Gateway without a tug. Orion serves as the tug.  To boost a module using FH,You will need to design some sort of OTV that can launch with the module and can perform these functions. Yuck.

[Asteroza]

Can you expand on SLS and Orion being joined at the hip? Straight up question. No snark.

Only launch manifest for SLS in the foreseeable future is Orion as part of Artemis. Only LV manifested to launch on SLS is Orion. That is very unlikely to change. SLS is simply too expensive for other missions (one reason why Europa Clipper moved to FH). Orion is tied to Artemis, which is tied to SLS. Could Orion be untied from SLS? Maybe--a number of other threads discuss options. But the cost for an Orion mission is still very steep--regardless of LV--so once you take one out of the equation, think the other will follow.

edit: p.s. OIG report hints at that with the statement "NASA’s SLS single-use rocket". Single use = Orion/Artemis.

SLS will also be used for Gateway modules: IHab and Esprit (and perhaps the Airlock). However, Orion will also be part of these missions.

Only if NASA have the SLS Block 1B available. More likely the Falcon Heavy will launch the iHab, Esplit and airlock modules to NRHO due to cost and scheduling. Since the SLS Block 1B be on schedule is extremely unlikely, IMO.

Kinda of silly waiting for a $4.5B+ SLS Block 1B/Orion stack (according to NASA IG) when you can booked several Falcon Heavies for less than $200M each immediately. So @joek is likely correct that the Orion will be the only payload for the SLS. Which NASA is unlikely to get the Block 1B version operational any time soon.

What is the point of launching IHab, Esprit and the Airlock with FH if you can't get to them with Orion? Woods170 had mentioned that NASA was considering using FH for other Gateway modules but I don't think that anything has been announced on that front.

These modules are not powered. They cannot get from TLI to NRHO without a tug, and they cannot RPOD to Gateway without a tug. Orion serves as the tug.  To boost a module using FH,You will need to design some sort of OTV that can launch with the module and can perform these functions. Yuck.

You could stick yet another PPE to those modules to get them there. Gateway would be swimming in PPE's though, which might not be a bad thing per se...

[DanClemmensen]

Can you expand on SLS and Orion being joined at the hip? Straight up question. No snark.

Only launch manifest for SLS in the foreseeable future is Orion as part of Artemis. Only LV manifested to launch on SLS is Orion. That is very unlikely to change. SLS is simply too expensive for other missions (one reason why Europa Clipper moved to FH). Orion is tied to Artemis, which is tied to SLS. Could Orion be untied from SLS? Maybe--a number of other threads discuss options. But the cost for an Orion mission is still very steep--regardless of LV--so once you take one out of the equation, think the other will follow.

edit: p.s. OIG report hints at that with the statement "NASA’s SLS single-use rocket". Single use = Orion/Artemis.

SLS will also be used for Gateway modules: IHab and Esprit (and perhaps the Airlock). However, Orion will also be part of these missions.

Only if NASA have the SLS Block 1B available. More likely the Falcon Heavy will launch the iHab, Esplit and airlock modules to NRHO due to cost and scheduling. Since the SLS Block 1B be on schedule is extremely unlikely, IMO.

Kinda of silly waiting for a $4.5B+ SLS Block 1B/Orion stack (according to NASA IG) when you can booked several Falcon Heavies for less than $200M each immediately. So @joek is likely correct that the Orion will be the only payload for the SLS. Which NASA is unlikely to get the Block 1B version operational any time soon.

What is the point of launching IHab, Esprit and the Airlock with FH if you can't get to them with Orion? Woods170 had mentioned that NASA was considering using FH for other Gateway modules but I don't think that anything has been announced on that front.

These modules are not powered. They cannot get from TLI to NRHO without a tug, and they cannot RPOD to Gateway without a tug. Orion serves as the tug.  To boost a module using FH,You will need to design some sort of OTV that can launch with the module and can perform these functions. Yuck.

You could stick yet another PPE to those modules to get them there. Gateway would be swimming in PPE's though, which might not be a bad thing per se...

A PPE could get a module to NRHO. I don't think is has the right thrusters to RPOD, though.

[woods170]

What is the point of launching IHab, Esprit and the Airlock with FH if you can't get to them with Orion? Woods170 had mentioned that NASA was considering using FH for other Gateway modules but I don't think that anything has been announced on that front. 

Still actively being worked on by groups at NASA. The idea is to use NG's Cygnus-based tug vehicles to deliver the modules to Gateway. Remember: before HALO was merged with PPE, it was supposed to be delivered as a separate module, where a modified service section of a Cygnus CRS vehicle would act as the tug. Which would make perfect sense given that the HALO pressure hull is directly derived from a Cygnus pressure hull. The major difference between a standard Cygnus and the originally conceived HALO, was that the service section (the tug) could detach itself from the pressure module.

When NASA decided to merge PPE and HALO into one integrated vehicle, they didn't do away with the idea of having a modified Cygnus service section as a tug.

[Zed_Noir]

Can you expand on SLS and Orion being joined at the hip? Straight up question. No snark.

Only launch manifest for SLS in the foreseeable future is Orion as part of Artemis. Only LV manifested to launch on SLS is Orion. That is very unlikely to change. SLS is simply too expensive for other missions (one reason why Europa Clipper moved to FH). Orion is tied to Artemis, which is tied to SLS. Could Orion be untied from SLS? Maybe--a number of other threads discuss options. But the cost for an Orion mission is still very steep--regardless of LV--so once you take one out of the equation, think the other will follow.

edit: p.s. OIG report hints at that with the statement "NASA’s SLS single-use rocket". Single use = Orion/Artemis.

SLS will also be used for Gateway modules: IHab and Esprit (and perhaps the Airlock). However, Orion will also be part of these missions.

Only if NASA have the SLS Block 1B available. More likely the Falcon Heavy will launch the iHab, Esplit and airlock modules to NRHO due to cost and scheduling. Since the SLS Block 1B be on schedule is extremely unlikely, IMO.

Kinda of silly waiting for a $4.5B+ SLS Block 1B/Orion stack (according to NASA IG) when you can booked several Falcon Heavies for less than $200M each immediately. So @joek is likely correct that the Orion will be the only payload for the SLS. Which NASA is unlikely to get the Block 1B version operational any time soon.

What is the point of launching IHab, Esprit and the Airlock with FH if you can't get to them with Orion? Woods170 had mentioned that NASA was considering using FH for other Gateway modules but I don't think that anything has been announced on that front.

It's up to NASA if they want to keep completed Gateway components in ground or orbital storage at the Gateway, if the Orion don't have a ride.

As for getting crew to the Gateway if the SLS Block 1B is unable to met the schedule and the ICPS stage isn't available. Then the SpaceX HLS Starship could be press into service as crew transport and maybe orbital tug between LEO and NRHO, if it is operational.

[DanClemmensen]

What is the point of launching IHab, Esprit and the Airlock with FH if you can't get to them with Orion? Woods170 had mentioned that NASA was considering using FH for other Gateway modules but I don't think that anything has been announced on that front. 

Still actively being worked on by groups at NASA. The idea is to use NG's Cygnus-based tug vehicles to deliver the modules to Gateway. Remember: before HALO was merged with PPE, it was supposed to be delivered as a separate module, where a modified service section of a Cygnus CRS vehicle would act as the tug. Which would make perfect sense given that the HALO pressure hull is directly derived from a Cygnus pressure hull. The major difference between a standard Cygnus and the originally conceived HALO, was that the service section (the tug) could detach itself from the pressure module.

Can a Cygnus with an attached Gateway element perform the RPOD maneuvers to actually dock the element to Gateway? Could the Dragon XL (if it existed) do this? I think the Gateway element would need to be mated to the tug prior to launch from Earth, since AFAIK the element is not equipped with reaction wheels or thrusters and so cannot act as a docking target. Is FH powerful enough to launch this combined payload?

[pochimax]

Is FH powerful enough to launch this combined payload?

Good question. Maybe just wait for Starship (launcher)

***

As for the tugs, many modifications would have to be made to the currently existing hardware. Here is one of the 2019 proposals. I don't think any of this will be cheap (hundreds of millions of dollars per mission), but compared to the cost of the SLS, I imagine it will be a bargain.

https://twitter.com/northropgrumman/status/1190687724040269824

[pochimax]

It's up to NASA if they want to keep completed Gateway components in ground or orbital storage at the Gateway

I do not share this opinion. ESA and JAXA could decide to launch their modules and continue with the Gateway on their own. They could even invite India.

I don't see NASA abandoning Gateway, it would be an international ridicule and a mess... It would destroy the intricate collaboration currently existing between NASA and ESA/JAXA, both in the Artemis program and in LEO.

Therefore, for the commercial alternative to SLS I understand that it must be kept in the equation that the additional Gateway modules will be launched as designed. The only question is whether they will do so as payloads alongside the Orion on the SLS or through commercial alternatives.

[Zed_Noir]

It's up to NASA if they want to keep completed Gateway components in ground or orbital storage at the Gateway

I do not share this opinion. ESA and JAXA could decide to launch their modules and continue with the Gateway on their own. They could even invite India.

I don't see NASA abandoning Gateway, it would be an international ridicule and a mess... It would destroy the intricate collaboration currently existing between NASA and ESA/JAXA, both in the Artemis program and in LEO.

Therefore, for the commercial alternative to SLS I understand that it must be kept in the equation that the additional Gateway modules will be launched as designed. The only question is whether they will do so as payloads alongside the Orion on the SLS or through commercial alternatives.

To clarified about the 'orbital storage'  in my previous post. It meant the modules are send to to the Gateway at NRHO and docked with the station. Waiting for the next crew tour for module(s) commissioning. Since it is much easier to keeping station on orbit with one object rather many objects.

[woods170]

What is the point of launching IHab, Esprit and the Airlock with FH if you can't get to them with Orion? Woods170 had mentioned that NASA was considering using FH for other Gateway modules but I don't think that anything has been announced on that front. 

Still actively being worked on by groups at NASA. The idea is to use NG's Cygnus-based tug vehicles to deliver the modules to Gateway. Remember: before HALO was merged with PPE, it was supposed to be delivered as a separate module, where a modified service section of a Cygnus CRS vehicle would act as the tug. Which would make perfect sense given that the HALO pressure hull is directly derived from a Cygnus pressure hull. The major difference between a standard Cygnus and the originally conceived HALO, was that the service section (the tug) could detach itself from the pressure module.

Can a Cygnus with an attached Gateway element perform the RPOD maneuvers to actually dock the element to Gateway? Could the Dragon XL (if it existed) do this? I think the Gateway element would need to be mated to the tug prior to launch from Earth, since AFAIK the element is not equipped with reaction wheels or thrusters and so cannot act as a docking target. Is FH powerful enough to launch this combined payload?

Emphasis mine.

Cygnus service section as-is can't do the "D" portion of RPOD. Hence why NASA and NG are looking into a modified version of the Cygnus service section. Docking of new modules will be needed multiple times, because the initial PPE-HALO combination lacks Canadarm3 to support a MRM-style assisted docking of additional modules. In fact, as far as I know, under current planning Canadarm3 won't be delivered to Lunar Gateway until after iHAB has arrived. And I've heard exactly nothing about the vehicle that is to deliver Canadarm3 (Dragon-XL, HTV-X, mounted on a new module, ??)

[yg1968]

What is the point of launching IHab, Esprit and the Airlock with FH if you can't get to them with Orion? Woods170 had mentioned that NASA was considering using FH for other Gateway modules but I don't think that anything has been announced on that front. 

Still actively being worked on by groups at NASA. The idea is to use NG's Cygnus-based tug vehicles to deliver the modules to Gateway. Remember: before HALO was merged with PPE, it was supposed to be delivered as a separate module, where a modified service section of a Cygnus CRS vehicle would act as the tug. Which would make perfect sense given that the HALO pressure hull is directly derived from a Cygnus pressure hull. The major difference between a standard Cygnus and the originally conceived HALO, was that the service section (the tug) could detach itself from the pressure module.

Can a Cygnus with an attached Gateway element perform the RPOD maneuvers to actually dock the element to Gateway? Could the Dragon XL (if it existed) do this? I think the Gateway element would need to be mated to the tug prior to launch from Earth, since AFAIK the element is not equipped with reaction wheels or thrusters and so cannot act as a docking target. Is FH powerful enough to launch this combined payload?

Emphasis mine.

Cygnus service section as-is can't do the "D" portion of RPOD. Hence why NASA and NG are looking into a modified version of the Cygnus service section. Docking of new modules will be needed multiple times, because the initial PPE-HALO combination lacks Canadarm3 to support a MRM-style assisted docking of additional modules. In fact, as far as I know, under current planning Canadarm3 won't be delivered to Lunar Gateway until after iHAB has arrived. And I've heard exactly nothing about the vehicle that is to deliver Canadarm3 (Dragon-XL, HTV-X, mounted on a new module, ??)

Canadarm 3 will be delivered by Dragon XL. It was in the RFP and it's been mentioned a number of times by NASA.

[DanClemmensen]

What is the point of launching IHab, Esprit and the Airlock with FH if you can't get to them with Orion? Woods170 had mentioned that NASA was considering using FH for other Gateway modules but I don't think that anything has been announced on that front. 

Still actively being worked on by groups at NASA. The idea is to use NG's Cygnus-based tug vehicles to deliver the modules to Gateway. Remember: before HALO was merged with PPE, it was supposed to be delivered as a separate module, where a modified service section of a Cygnus CRS vehicle would act as the tug. Which would make perfect sense given that the HALO pressure hull is directly derived from a Cygnus pressure hull. The major difference between a standard Cygnus and the originally conceived HALO, was that the service section (the tug) could detach itself from the pressure module.

Can a Cygnus with an attached Gateway element perform the RPOD maneuvers to actually dock the element to Gateway? Could the Dragon XL (if it existed) do this? I think the Gateway element would need to be mated to the tug prior to launch from Earth, since AFAIK the element is not equipped with reaction wheels or thrusters and so cannot act as a docking target. Is FH powerful enough to launch this combined payload?

Emphasis mine.

Cygnus service section as-is can't do the "D" portion of RPOD. Hence why NASA and NG are looking into a modified version of the Cygnus service section. Docking of new modules will be needed multiple times, because the initial PPE-HALO combination lacks Canadarm3 to support a MRM-style assisted docking of additional modules. In fact, as far as I know, under current planning Canadarm3 won't be delivered to Lunar Gateway until after iHAB has arrived. And I've heard exactly nothing about the vehicle that is to deliver Canadarm3 (Dragon-XL, HTV-X, mounted on a new module, ??)

If you need Canadarm to already be on the Gateway to berth new Gateway components, then the Canadarm must be delivered with a components that can  actively dock, right? So you you need to solve the docking problem for component deliveries up to and including the Canadarm delivery. Of course, you can deliver Canadarm on any SpaceX HLS. It docks to Gateway as part of its primary mission and it has the spare payload capacity.  This would solve the docking problem, but a tug is still needed for the rest of the component delivery.

The notional Dragon XL has a payload capacity of 5000 kg. The nominal I-Hab mass is 10,000 kg. If I-HAB is not delivered by the SLS block 1B during Artemis IV, I don't think NASA can count on an unmodified FH+Dragon XL to do the job. I don't know what FH is used for  the notional Dragon XL mission. Perhaps a fully-expended FH would do the job.

[pochimax]

Of course, you can deliver Canadarm on any SpaceX HLS.

I don't know if it would be that simple.
For example, in Grumman's proposal, the robotic arm travels on the outside of the cargo ship, exposed to space, but launched inside a fairing, and once on the Gateway the robot self-deploys (I think).
I don't know how the robot arm would travel on a Dragon XL, I imagine it would be in a similar way since this ship is also launched protected by a fairing in a Falcon Heavy.

(See here again, after 1.20' )

twitter.com/northropgrumman/status/1190687724040269824

However, I'm not sure how it would travel on a Starship HLS. It cannot travel on the outside of the ship because it is not launched protected. Does it have a non-pressurized cargo compartment? And how would the robot arm be deployed from the compartment until it reaches the nearest module?

I am not sure that the transport and deployment of the robotic arm did not require certain important modifications to the Starship HLS.

[DanClemmensen]

However, I'm not sure how it would travel on a Starship HLS. It cannot travel on the outside of the ship because it is not launched protected. Does it have a non-pressurized cargo compartment? And how would the robot arm be deployed from the compartment until it reaches the nearest module?

I am not sure that the transport and deployment of the robotic arm did not require certain important modifications to the Starship HLS.

My assumption is that it can travel in the garage. The garage has a large hatch that can be opened to space. I don't know if the garage is pressurizable or not, but in normal operation on the lunar surface that big hatch is opened to vacuum to move big cargo onto the big elevator.

Yes, the HLS might need some external attachment points to let the canadarm "walk" onto the Gateway. However, the HLS visits Gateway to support crew. The crew can EVA to move the Canadarm.

[pochimax]

My assumption is that it can travel in the garage. The garage has a large hatch that can be opened to space. I don't know if the garage is pressurizable or not, but in normal operation on the lunar surface that big hatch is opened to vacuum to move big cargo onto the big elevator.

Yes, the HLS might need some external attachment points to let the canadarm "walk" onto the Gateway. However, the HLS visits Gateway to support crew. The crew can EVA to move the Canadarm.

I understand the concept of the Starship garage, but I imagine it to be too far from the Gateway modules for the robotic arm to be able to move from inside the garage to the closest module. It may not be so. I don't know.

An EVA to help the robot arm seems complex to me and that NASA would try to avoid doing it.

The problem with Starship HLS's external attachment points for the robotic arm is getting them to survive atmospheric friction during launch. It may not be feasible. Not sure about this.

[DanClemmensen]

My assumption is that it can travel in the garage. The garage has a large hatch that can be opened to space. I don't know if the garage is pressurizable or not, but in normal operation on the lunar surface that big hatch is opened to vacuum to move big cargo onto the big elevator.

Yes, the HLS might need some external attachment points to let the canadarm "walk" onto the Gateway. However, the HLS visits Gateway to support crew. The crew can EVA to move the Canadarm.

I understand the concept of the Starship garage, but I imagine it to be too far from the Gateway modules for the robotic arm to be able to move from inside the garage to the closest module. It may not be so. I don't know.

An EVA to help the robot arm seems complex to me and that NASA would try to avoid doing it.

The problem with Starship HLS's external attachment points for the robotic arm is getting them to survive atmospheric friction during launch. It may not be feasible. Not sure about this.

If SpaceX decides to put an IDSS port on the airlock deck, possibly in an airlock outer wall, the big door will be near the Gateway. This placement might require HLS to dock to the Gateway axial port normally used by Orion.

[woods170]

<snip>
And I've heard exactly nothing about the vehicle that is to deliver Canadarm3 (Dragon-XL, HTV-X, mounted on a new module, ??)

Canadarm 3 will be delivered by Dragon XL. It was in the RFP and it's been mentioned a number of times by NASA.

Excellent. Thanks!

[VSECOTSPE]

The Orion LAS is oversized for a pure liquid launch vehicle. Easier to escape a Super Heavy failure than SLS which has motors which cannot turn off.

As Antonio Elias pointed out on Ares I, it’s doubtful any LAS could escape a still-thrusting SRB chasing its capsule.  Rather, the Orion LAS was designed to escape the miles-wide radiant heat cone created by burning pieces of a deflagrated SRB — heat that would melt a capsule’s parachutes — although there was some question about whether the Orion LAS could actually do that a decade or so ago:

https://phys.org/news/2009-07-air-ares-crew-couldnt-survive.html

I dunno to what extent those analyses have been revisited for two, deflagrated, burning SRBs like SLS employs.

My point was that Superheavy/Starship launches with several times the liquid propellant mass of SLS.  I don’t know how LOX/LCH4 compares to LOX/LH2 in terms of detonation, but I doubt the Orion LAS would work with SH/SS given the disparity in propellant mass.

The best scenario to hope for is to have redundancy for SLS and Orion through a commercial option. I don't think that Congress is going to kill SLS and Orion in the short term especially if a commercial replacement isn't yet available.

Not to repeat prior posts, but appropriators will oppose funding for Orion/SLS alternatives/augments, regardless, so it will be up to the executive branch to push for change.  But given the funding constraints imposed by the recent budget agreement and House Republican efforts to further squeeze discretionary accounts, I don’t think the funding is there to pursue alternatives/augments for at least a couple fiscal years.  And even if the fiscal environment relaxes then, it will take at least several years after that to budget, procure, and qualify one or more lunar crew transport capabilities.  Given how Orion/SLS costs are increasing from within, how false and far-out any Orion/SLS savings are, and how topline Artemis budget growth will end or reverse over the next couple years, I’m not sure the program and its schedule survive even in its current, slow, drawn-out, sub-Apollo state.

The way out of this box would be to redirect SLS Block IB budget to lunar crew transport alternatives, additional DCSS upper stages for more Block I launches during the transition, and transport alternatives for the oddball Gateway payloads co-manifested with Orion.  I don’t expect this or any future Administration expend the political capital necessary to effect such a change until they have no choice (flight accident, program schedule totally falls apart, even more crippling budget, etc.).  But in a budget-constrained environment like we have, whether we should keep throwing billions into a system with terrible and worsening cost and schedule impacts to Artemis or whether we should create some less costly and more capable off-ramps for Artemis is a legitimate argument that could be made.

Only if NASA have the SLS Block 1B available. More likely the Falcon Heavy will launch the iHab, Esplit and airlock modules to NRHO due to cost and scheduling. Since the SLS Block 1B be on schedule is extremely unlikely, IMO.

Kinda of silly waiting for a $4.5B+ SLS Block 1B/Orion stack (according to NASA IG) when you can booked several Falcon Heavies for less than $200M each immediately. So @joek is likely correct that the Orion will be the only payload for the SLS. Which NASA is unlikely to get the Block 1B version operational any time soon.

Those Gateway modules would need the transit and “last-mile” capabilities provided by Orion and its SM.  But the fiscal logic is still valid.  NASA thinks it can get an ISS de-orbit tug out of industry for less than $1B:

https://spacenews.com/nasa-planning-to-spend-up-to-1-billion-on-space-station-deorbit-module/

A Gateway transit/rendezvous/dock (or berth) capability would probably be in the same ballpark.  That’s a minor fraction of one $4B-$5B Orion/SLS mission according to IG accounting.  So buy two capabilities.  Seriously.  Or pocket the funding and just have the foreign partners develop their own trans-lunar/Gateway transport capabilities (ESA did ATV and JAXA did HTV) in exchange for giving their astronauts some early rides to the lunar surface.  Seriously.  It makes zero sense to continue blowing $5B a launch for the sake of two or three Gateway modules when domestic capabilities for sending those modules separately could be had for a fraction of one launch or foreign capabilities could be had for seats to the lunar surface.

As an aside, this isn’t big enough and who knows when Blue Origin will start delivering.  But based on last week’s Blue Ring announcement, industry wants to develop these kinds of capabilities, anyway.  Accelerate them.  Enlarge them.  Use them.  For a couple billion.  Stop blowing $5B a year on the world’s most expensive trunk space.

https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-unveils-plans-for-orbital-transfer-vehicle/

[Robotbeat]

The Orion LAS is oversized for a pure liquid launch vehicle. Easier to escape a Super Heavy failure than SLS which has motors which cannot turn off.

As Antonio Elias pointed out on Ares I, it’s doubtful any LAS could escape a still-thrusting SRB chasing its capsule.  Rather, the Orion LAS was designed to escape the miles-wide radiant heat cone created by burning pieces of a deflagrated SRB — heat that would melt a capsule’s parachutes...

No, this is false. And now I can see where exactly the misconception the started your mistaken logic comes from. It is not the radiant heat but the actual chunks of burning solid rocket propellant. This is a particular problem with solid rocket motors, as you can see from one of the Delta II failures. It looks like the incendiary bombs Russia sometimes drops on Ukraine.



It is these incendiary flaming chunks of propellant that are the risk to the parachutes from the solids, not "radiant heat" from the explosion. And that's why Starship does not have the same kind of risk. You get a big deflagration (not detonation, btw) on failure, like we saw with F9Rdev1 or IFT1. That's not as much of a risk to the parachutes as the high ballistic coefficient flaming chunks of propellant from the SRBs (which burn white hot and melt anything close, plus travel farther than lightweight tankage).

[Zed_Noir]

The Orion LAS is oversized for a pure liquid launch vehicle. Easier to escape a Super Heavy failure than SLS which has motors which cannot turn off.

As Antonio Elias pointed out on Ares I, it’s doubtful any LAS could escape a still-thrusting SRB chasing its capsule.  Rather, the Orion LAS was designed to escape the miles-wide radiant heat cone created by burning pieces of a deflagrated SRB — heat that would melt a capsule’s parachutes — although there was some question about whether the Orion LAS could actually do that a decade or so ago:
<snip>

Think it is not that hard to design a LAS to escape the still-thrusting SRBs. Just have to gain enough separation from the oncoming SRBs before executing a boost back burn to travel to a reciprocal direction. Somewhat like the trajectory of the Falcon booster for a return to launch site after staging. Of course there is a very slight chance of colliding with one of the runaway SRBs during the boost back.

However the current Orion LAS uses a brute force approach to attempt out running the SRBs.

 

[VSECOTSPE]

No, this is false. And now I can see where exactly the misconception the started your mistaken logic comes from. It is not the radiant heat but the actual chunks of burning solid rocket propellant.

I wrote “burning pieces [same thing as ‘chunks’] of a deflagrated SRB”.  There’s a cone of debris where either being struck by a piece of burning aluminum or being too close to the radiant heat emitted by burning aluminum will weaken, warp, deform, melt, or put holes in the kevlar and nylon that makes up Orion’s parachutes.

It is these incendiary flaming chunks of propellant that are the risk to the parachutes from the solids, not "radiant heat" from the explosion... flaming chunks of propellant from the SRBs (which burn white hot and melt anything close...

I’m not trying to be pendantic, but you’re speaking out of both sides of your mouth here.  On one side, you wrote that radiant heat poses no risk to the parachutes.  And on the other side, you wrote that chunks of SRB propellant will melt anything close.  Both of those statements can’t be true.

And that’s why Starship does not have the same kind of risk.  You get a big deflagrated (not detonation, btw) on failure, like we saw with F9Rdev1 or IFT1. That's not as much of a risk to the parachutes as the high ballistic coefficient flaming chunks of propellant from the SRBs (which burn white hot and melt anything close, plus travel farther than lightweight tankage).

Escaping debris (including burning debris) and escaping blast waves are two very different things.  Starship probably has less of a debris challenge, but the blast wave challenge is likely considerably larger, and it’s doubtful that the Orion LAS could handle it in terms of timing, thrust, vector, etc.

Also, if the flight termination system is engaged, we’re usually talking detonation, not deflagration.

It’s all angels on a pinhead, anyway.  No one is going to put an Orion on top of a Starship.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Recommendation 5: Include contract flexibility on future SLS acquisitions that will allow NASA to pivot to other commercial alternatives.

Management's Response: NASA concurs. The procurement strategy for EPOC has not been established, pending performance under the pre-EPOC evaluation and readiness effort. However, at that time, NASA will ensure appropriate flexibilities through the use of contract options or other means to explore the use of commercial alternatives, if feasible.

Estimated Completion Date: December 31, 2027.

Two things about this:

1) I've found it quite heartening that NASA's been dragging their feet on EPOC, with nobody complaining too much.  IMO, this is the biggest indicator of broad agreement within the upper echelons of NASA that SLS is ultimately not sustainable, and doing anything that locks them into it is likely to be a career-ending mistake for anybody under the age of 50.

2) That 12/31/2027 date is interesting.  Is that when they intend to execute the EPOC contract?  Is it the point at which they'll have concluded evaluating the possibility for a commercial alternative?  Is it both?

Note that we should know pretty much everything about Starship's success or failure by the end of 2027.

[TheRadicalModerate]

I think many (most) of us hope that the SLS Program never exceeds 10 flight units, so we'll have to keep a watch for any effort by the Artemis contractors to start long term buys for flight units #11 and on...

I think the point of no return is if they finalize EPOC.

[TheRadicalModerate]

The best scenario to hope for is to have redundancy for SLS and Orion through a commercial option. I don't think that Congress is going to kill SLS and Orion in the short term especially if a commercial replacement isn't yet available.

I agree that this is likely the best case, but there's a huge problem:  Both SLS and Orion have been carefully crafted, and their launch cadences set, so that they keep the existing workforces employed just enough that nobody feels any particular pain.  If the cadence increased, the incumbents would have to hire more people and add more manufacturing infrastructure--which could result in a costly loss if NASA then had to reduce the cadence for budgetary reasons.  But if the cadence is reduced, then the staff they currently have is unsustainable.

I'm a big fan of the "second source" strategy, but everybody should understand that the existence of a second source probably causes the entire SLS/Orion supply chain to collapse.  That is, indeed, what should happen.  But if a commercial effort is adopted, claiming that it's a second source is a con job.  It's a con job that might work, because there are only a handful of geeks in a NASA basement somewhere who understand the supply chain.  But the second source framing of the problem is fundamentally dishonest.

That makes it... distasteful.  However, almost everything to do with the US government's budget is distasteful if you look close enough.

[TheRadicalModerate]

These modules are not powered. They cannot get from TLI to NRHO without a tug, and they cannot RPOD to Gateway without a tug. Orion serves as the tug.  To boost a module using FH,You will need to design some sort of OTV that can launch with the module and can perform these functions. Yuck.

SpaceX'd be pretty close if they removed the pressure vessel from the DXL.

FHE, according to the NASA LSP calculator, can take 15.4t to C3=-1.2, which ought to be good enough to get to BLT.  I think all of the co-manifests are maxing out at about 8t, so a 7.4t DXL would work pretty handily.

Not sure about the fairing geometry.  Again, removing the pressure vessel would help a lot.

[TheRadicalModerate]

My assumption is that it can travel in the garage. The garage has a large hatch that can be opened to space. I don't know if the garage is pressurizable or not, but in normal operation on the lunar surface that big hatch is opened to vacuum to move big cargo onto the big elevator.

Yes, the HLS might need some external attachment points to let the canadarm "walk" onto the Gateway. However, the HLS visits Gateway to support crew. The crew can EVA to move the Canadarm.

I understand the concept of the Starship garage, but I imagine it to be too far from the Gateway modules for the robotic arm to be able to move from inside the garage to the closest module. It may not be so. I don't know.

An EVA to help the robot arm seems complex to me and that NASA would try to avoid doing it.

The problem with Starship HLS's external attachment points for the robotic arm is getting them to survive atmospheric friction during launch. It may not be feasible. Not sure about this.

I don't think the garage hatch is big enough to deploy Gateway modules, irrespective of whether there's something to berth them.  To do that, you'd need a cargo Starship with a chomper.

[woods170]

These modules are not powered. They cannot get from TLI to NRHO without a tug, and they cannot RPOD to Gateway without a tug. Orion serves as the tug.  To boost a module using FH,You will need to design some sort of OTV that can launch with the module and can perform these functions. Yuck.

SpaceX'd be pretty close if they removed the pressure vessel from the DXL.

FHE, according to the NASA LSP calculator, can take 15.4t to C3=-1.2, which ought to be good enough to get to BLT.  I think all of the co-manifests are maxing out at about 8t, so a 7.4t DXL would work pretty handily.

Not sure about the fairing geometry.  Again, removing the pressure vessel would help a lot.

Not as simple as you think. Like on Crew Dragon the pressure hull is the mounting point for most "service section" systems. Crew Dragon and Dragon XL are not classic capsules where you have a capsule (= pressure hull) and a service module. The vast majority of classic "service module" systems are attached directly on the pressure hull. SpaceX would have to totally redesign the Dragon XL vehicle to turn it in an OTV or tug.

You want a tug? Start with the service module of the current Cygnus space freighters. That's your starting point.

[DanClemmensen]

My assumption is that it can travel in the garage. The garage has a large hatch that can be opened to space. I don't know if the garage is pressurizable or not, but in normal operation on the lunar surface that big hatch is opened to vacuum to move big cargo onto the big elevator.

Yes, the HLS might need some external attachment points to let the canadarm "walk" onto the Gateway. However, the HLS visits Gateway to support crew. The crew can EVA to move the Canadarm.

I understand the concept of the Starship garage, but I imagine it to be too far from the Gateway modules for the robotic arm to be able to move from inside the garage to the closest module. It may not be so. I don't know.

An EVA to help the robot arm seems complex to me and that NASA would try to avoid doing it.

The problem with Starship HLS's external attachment points for the robotic arm is getting them to survive atmospheric friction during launch. It may not be feasible. Not sure about this.

I don't think the garage hatch is big enough to deploy Gateway modules, irrespective of whether there's something to berth them.  To do that, you'd need a cargo Starship with a chomper.

My post was about delivering the Canadarm on the garage, not about delivering Gateway modules. The idea was that PPE+HALO gets to NHRO on its own, then HLS delivers Canadarm, and then Canadarm is available to berth the other modules when they arrive, boosted by other LVs. The presence of Canadarm might allow for slightly simpler OTVs that can handle most of the RPOD except for the last meter or so. Canadarm needs a crew member in the Gateway, but the existing Artemis architecture requires crew to be present (in Orion) when a new gateway module is being delivered with an SLS 1B, so this is not a new burden.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Not as simple as you think. Like on Crew Dragon the pressure hull is the mounting point for most "service section" systems. Crew Dragon and Dragon XL are not classic capsules where you have a capsule (= pressure hull) and a service module. The vast majority of classic "service module" systems are attached directly on the pressure hull. SpaceX would have to totally redesign the Dragon XL vehicle to turn it in an OTV or tug.

You want a tug? Start with the service module of the current Cygnus space freighters. That's your starting point.

I don't disagree that Cygnus would work fine, although you have to remove its pressure vessel as well.

As for the D2, the service section is basically a torus, with stuff presumably anchored to the interior and the top of the torus, which are indeed parts of the pressure vessel.  The outer part of the torus is fairing.  The doughnut hole in the torus is filled with pressure vessel.  In the crew and cargo versions, it's pressurized storage.  In the DXL, they're planning on putting an IDSS-compliant docking ring at the bottom.

What I'm proposing is simply cutting away everything but the structural portions needed to secure the service section:  the outer fairing, the pressure vessel bottom (i.e., the bottom of the doughnut hole), and all of the pressure vessel above the service section.

There's other work, obviously:  You have to find a new home for the nose Draco thrusters and their plumbing, you need an IDSS/GDSS docking port on the "nose", and you need to have trusswork that can transmit launch and injection loads to the payload.

I'd guess it's roughly the same amount of work they'd put into the DXL itself.

[TheRadicalModerate]

My post was about delivering the Canadarm on the garage, not about delivering Gateway modules. The idea was that PPE+HALO gets to NHRO on its own, then HLS delivers Canadarm, and then Canadarm is available to berth the other modules when they arrive, boosted by other LVs. The presence of Canadarm might allow for slightly simpler OTVs that can handle most of the RPOD except for the last meter or so. Canadarm needs a crew member in the Gateway, but the existing Artemis architecture requires crew to be present (in Orion) when a new gateway module is being delivered with an SLS 1B, so this is not a new burden.

Fair enough.

The problem of thrusters providing attitude control far from the center of mass must be more-or-less solved.  Apollo was nose-heavy after transposition and docking with the LM, and Orion has obviously been engineered with co-manifesting in mind.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that some minimal modification of an off-the-shelf spacecraft will have the necessary thruster arrangements to do precision docking.  But somebody knows how to make the arrangement work.

[Jim]

I don't disagree that Cygnus would work fine, although you have to remove its pressure vessel as well.

No need to remove it.  It isn't mated to the SM until after arrival at the launch site.  The pressure vessel is shipped to the launch site directly from Italy.

[yg1968]

The best scenario to hope for is to have redundancy for SLS and Orion through a commercial option. I don't think that Congress is going to kill SLS and Orion in the short term especially if a commercial replacement isn't yet available.

I agree that this is likely the best case, but there's a huge problem:  Both SLS and Orion have been carefully crafted, and their launch cadences set, so that they keep the existing workforces employed just enough that nobody feels any particular pain.  If the cadence increased, the incumbents would have to hire more people and add more manufacturing infrastructure--which could result in a costly loss if NASA then had to reduce the cadence for budgetary reasons.  But if the cadence is reduced, then the staff they currently have is unsustainable.

I'm a big fan of the "second source" strategy, but everybody should understand that the existence of a second source probably causes the entire SLS/Orion supply chain to collapse.  That is, indeed, what should happen.  But if a commercial effort is adopted, claiming that it's a second source is a con job.  It's a con job that might work, because there are only a handful of geeks in a NASA basement somewhere who understand the supply chain.  But the second source framing of the problem is fundamentally dishonest.

That makes it... distasteful.  However, almost everything to do with the US government's budget is distasteful if you look close enough.

I am not sure that I understand, the cadence of SLS and Orion would be the same: once per year. The commercial option would also be once a year. So you would have two lunar surface missions per year.

[DanClemmensen]

The best scenario to hope for is to have redundancy for SLS and Orion through a commercial option. I don't think that Congress is going to kill SLS and Orion in the short term especially if a commercial replacement isn't yet available.

I agree that this is likely the best case, but there's a huge problem:  Both SLS and Orion have been carefully crafted, and their launch cadences set, so that they keep the existing workforces employed just enough that nobody feels any particular pain.  If the cadence increased, the incumbents would have to hire more people and add more manufacturing infrastructure--which could result in a costly loss if NASA then had to reduce the cadence for budgetary reasons.  But if the cadence is reduced, then the staff they currently have is unsustainable.

I'm a big fan of the "second source" strategy, but everybody should understand that the existence of a second source probably causes the entire SLS/Orion supply chain to collapse.  That is, indeed, what should happen.  But if a commercial effort is adopted, claiming that it's a second source is a con job.  It's a con job that might work, because there are only a handful of geeks in a NASA basement somewhere who understand the supply chain.  But the second source framing of the problem is fundamentally dishonest.

That makes it... distasteful.  However, almost everything to do with the US government's budget is distasteful if you look close enough.

I am not sure that I understand, the cadence of SLS and Orion would be the same: once per year. The commercial option would also be once a year. So you would have two lunar surface missions per year.

OK, either you have been conned or you are colluding in the con. When we have one SLS/Orion mission per yr at $8 Billion and one "alternate" mission per year at $1 billion, and the alternate mission has a bigger crew and a longer stay, what do you think will happen?

[VSECOTSPE]

Orion/SLS direct costs are about $4.5B/yr and the IG puts the cos

[Coastal Ron]

The best scenario to hope for is to have redundancy for SLS and Orion through a commercial option. I don't think that Congress is going to kill SLS and Orion in the short term especially if a commercial replacement isn't yet available.

I agree that this is likely the best case, but there's a huge problem:  Both SLS and Orion have been carefully crafted, and their launch cadences set, so that they keep the existing workforces employed just enough that nobody feels any particular pain.  If the cadence increased, the incumbents would have to hire more people and add more manufacturing infrastructure--which could result in a costly loss if NASA then had to reduce the cadence for budgetary reasons.  But if the cadence is reduced, then the staff they currently have is unsustainable.

I'm a big fan of the "second source" strategy, but everybody should understand that the existence of a second source probably causes the entire SLS/Orion supply chain to collapse.  That is, indeed, what should happen.  But if a commercial effort is adopted, claiming that it's a second source is a con job.  It's a con job that might work, because there are only a handful of geeks in a NASA basement somewhere who understand the supply chain.  But the second source framing of the problem is fundamentally dishonest.

That makes it... distasteful.  However, almost everything to do with the US government's budget is distasteful if you look close enough.

I am not sure that I understand, the cadence of SLS and Orion would be the same: once per year. The commercial option would also be once a year. So you would have two lunar surface missions per year.

That is an assumption that Congress would just add a commercial version onto the existing Program of Record (PoR), but that is just your assumption. We don't know what Congress would actually fund, or de-fund in such a case.

[VSECOTSPE]

Just to clarify, Orion/SLS direct costs are about $4.5B in FY 2024.  There’s another $3.5B in FY 2024 for other Artemis and Moon-to-Mars elements, but most of that is in early development and/or not launching on Orion/SLS missions (Artemis I, Artemis II, Artemis III, etc.).  So you can get to ~$8B per year for the overall effort if that’s what you’re after.  But assuming Artemis missions — the crew transport element on Orion/SLS — go off once a year, they’ll be about half the total.  Most of the rest flies on Falcon Heavies (major Gateway elements and resupply), is HLS launches, or would be payloads on the HLS launches (suits, rovers, surface habs, etc.).

Absent change, it’s doubtful that Artemis missions ever hit a cadence of one per year.  Just based on the existing manifest, Artemis I thru IV will struggle not to fall below an average rate of one mission every two years.  And between Orion/SLS costs growing with every IG report from below and a fiscal environment that will flatten or reverse budget growth from the top, the budget wedge to support developments for Artemis V and later missions will be squeezed, causing those missions to stretch out beyond the notional one per year on the FY 2024 manifest.

Personally I think a rate of even two missions a year is sub-par.  Apollo did that half a century ago.  The mission rate should be driven by research, economic development, or Mars prep goals.  But since the program doesn’t have such a driver, I’d be aiming for four missions a year, double Apollo.  If we can’t be allowed to make intelligent decisions to do better than we did 50 years ago with an investment of $8B annually, then what the heck are we doing?

[yg1968]

The best scenario to hope for is to have redundancy for SLS and Orion through a commercial option. I don't think that Congress is going to kill SLS and Orion in the short term especially if a commercial replacement isn't yet available.

I agree that this is likely the best case, but there's a huge problem:  Both SLS and Orion have been carefully crafted, and their launch cadences set, so that they keep the existing workforces employed just enough that nobody feels any particular pain.  If the cadence increased, the incumbents would have to hire more people and add more manufacturing infrastructure--which could result in a costly loss if NASA then had to reduce the cadence for budgetary reasons.  But if the cadence is reduced, then the staff they currently have is unsustainable.

I'm a big fan of the "second source" strategy, but everybody should understand that the existence of a second source probably causes the entire SLS/Orion supply chain to collapse.  That is, indeed, what should happen.  But if a commercial effort is adopted, claiming that it's a second source is a con job.  It's a con job that might work, because there are only a handful of geeks in a NASA basement somewhere who understand the supply chain.  But the second source framing of the problem is fundamentally dishonest.

That makes it... distasteful.  However, almost everything to do with the US government's budget is distasteful if you look close enough.

I am not sure that I understand, the cadence of SLS and Orion would be the same: once per year. The commercial option would also be once a year. So you would have two lunar surface missions per year.

OK, either you have been conned or you are colluding in the con. When we have one SLS/Orion mission per yr at $8 Billion and one "alternate" mission per year at $1 billion, and the alternate mission has a bigger crew and a longer stay, what do you think will happen?

That will eventually happen either way when crewed Starship comes online. SLS isn't getting canceled any time soon and you are "conning" yourself if you think that it is. How about you introduce some realism in your what if scenarios. I suppose that you can argue that adding a commercial option isn't that realistic either but it's more realistic than thinking that SLS is about to be cancelled, it's just not. It has always been a political rocket with broad support and the latest OIG Report won't change that. How about we stay away from this con nonsense, it's rude and doesn't add anything to the conversation.

[DanClemmensen]

I am not sure that I understand, the cadence of SLS and Orion would be the same: once per year. The commercial option would also be once a year. So you would have two lunar surface missions per year.

OK, either you have been conned or you are colluding in the con. When we have one SLS/Orion mission per yr at $8 Billion and one "alternate" mission per year at $1 billion, and the alternate mission has a bigger crew and a longer stay, what do you think will happen?

That will eventually happen either way when crewed Starship comes online. SLS isn't getting canceled any time soon and you are "conning" yourself if you think that it is. How about you introduce some realism in your what if scenarios. I suppose that you can argue that adding a commercial option isn't that realistic either but it's more realistic than thinking that SLS is about to be cancelled, it's just not. It has always been a political rocket with broad support and the latest OIG Report won't change that. How about we stay away from this con nonsense, it's rude and doesn't add anything to the conversation.

I apologize. Let me rephrase. I do not know if the magical " commercial option" can ever be created by congress. Your scenario seems to imply that you believe it will and that SLS/Orion and "commercial option" will fly, each once a year. I was attempting to say that I do not believe that this would be a stable situation, because of the very large differences in cost on the one hand and capabilities on the other. Thus, I cannot understand why you believe that it would be a stable modus vivendi.

As to the timeframe for the commercial option: I (perhaps mistakenly) think that it will fly quite quickly after it is funded, because is can be based on hardware that is already in development and that must already be available for Artemis III.

[yg1968]

Getting back on topic, here is what is being proposed in terms of commercial alternatives:

Recommendation 5: Include contract flexibility on future SLS acquisitions that will allow NASA to pivot to other commercial alternatives.

Management’s Response: NASA concurs. The procurement strategy for EPOC has not been established, pending performance under the pre-EPOC evaluation and readiness effort. However, at that time, NASA will ensure appropriate flexibilities through the use of contract options or other means to explore the use of commercial alternatives, if feasible.

Estimated Completion Date: December 31, 2027.

It seems that the OIG is simply recommending that NASA doesn't lock itself in future SLS acquisitions. The OIG appears to think that this would give NASA more leverage when negotiating future SLS acquisitions. It should be noted that NASA added a big disclaimer at the end of their response: "if feasible".

[yg1968]

I do not know if the magical " commercial option" can ever be created by congress. Your scenario seems to imply that you believe it will and that SLS/Orion and "commercial option" will fly, each once a year. I was attempting to say that I do not believe that this would be a stable situation, because of the very large differences in cost on the one hand and capabilities on the other. Thus, I cannot understand why you believe that it would be a stable modus vivendi.

As to the timeframe for the commercial option: I (perhaps mistakenly) think that it will fly quite quickly after it is funded, because is can be based on hardware that is already in development and that must already be available for Artemis III.

I started out by saying that the best thing to hope for would be for NASA to add a commercial option, I didn't say that it was going to happen. I am not convinced that Congress would accept it. But it might be worth for the President to recommend it in their budget. From a cost cutting point of view, an entirely commercial option would obviously be better but is less likely to be accepted by Congress. In any event, it seems that the OIG is starting to see that SLS may have a limited life, so I guess that is the good news. The fact that both NASA and OIG agree that NASA needs to keep its options open is an interesting development in and of itself.   

[yg1968]

The best scenario to hope for is to have redundancy for SLS and Orion through a commercial option. I don't think that Congress is going to kill SLS and Orion in the short term especially if a commercial replacement isn't yet available.

I agree that this is likely the best case, but there's a huge problem:  Both SLS and Orion have been carefully crafted, and their launch cadences set, so that they keep the existing workforces employed just enough that nobody feels any particular pain.  If the cadence increased, the incumbents would have to hire more people and add more manufacturing infrastructure--which could result in a costly loss if NASA then had to reduce the cadence for budgetary reasons.  But if the cadence is reduced, then the staff they currently have is unsustainable.

I'm a big fan of the "second source" strategy, but everybody should understand that the existence of a second source probably causes the entire SLS/Orion supply chain to collapse.  That is, indeed, what should happen.  But if a commercial effort is adopted, claiming that it's a second source is a con job.  It's a con job that might work, because there are only a handful of geeks in a NASA basement somewhere who understand the supply chain.  But the second source framing of the problem is fundamentally dishonest.

That makes it... distasteful.  However, almost everything to do with the US government's budget is distasteful if you look close enough.

I am not sure that I understand, the cadence of SLS and Orion would be the same: once per year. The commercial option would also be once a year. So you would have two lunar surface missions per year.

That is an assumption that Congress would just add a commercial version onto the existing Program of Record (PoR), but that is just your assumption. We don't know what Congress would actually fund, or de-fund in such a case.

It's not really an assumption, I just said (in my first post) that it is the best thing to hope for. Do I think that it likely to happen, from a political point of view? Not really. I think that NASA will only start to use commercial options after they are commercially available. I don't expect the President and NASA to be proactive on this issue in the next few years (at least not during this administration).

[deltaV]

I am not sure that I understand, the cadence of SLS and Orion would be the same: once per year. The commercial option would also be once a year. So you would have two lunar surface missions per year.

Your plan requires a major funding increase since it includes SLS/Orion, the gateway (which IIUC Orion requires), the commercial SLS/Orion alternative, and twice as many lunar landers as the program of record. In the current political climate such a big funding boost is not at all realistic. Also even if NASA could miraculously afford all that they'd only be able to afford one commercial SLS/Orion alternative provider. That's unfortunate since commercial only works well with competition.

Only SLS/Orion cancellation unlocks the funding for a healthy program. Even with SLS/Orion cancellation and careful planning we'd likely have 3-5 years without any lunar missions while the commercial replacements are developed. That's life with constrained budgets.

[yg1968]

I am not sure that I understand, the cadence of SLS and Orion would be the same: once per year. The commercial option would also be once a year. So you would have two lunar surface missions per year.

Your plan requires a major funding increase since it includes SLS/Orion, the gateway (which IIUC Orion requires), the commercial SLS/Orion alternative, and twice as many lunar landers as the program of record. In the current political climate such a big funding boost is not at all realistic. Also even if NASA could miraculously afford all that they'd only be able to afford one commercial SLS/Orion alternative provider. That's unfortunate since commercial only works well with competition.

Only SLS/Orion cancellation unlocks the funding for a healthy program. Even with SLS/Orion cancellation and careful planning we'd likely have 3-5 years without any lunar missions while the commercial replacements are developed. That's life with constrained budgets.

The more likely scenario is that NASA and the President will wait for crewed Starship to be online before proposing a commercial option. I hope to be wrong but I don't see NASA and the President being proactive on the commercial HLV and spacecraft option.

[Asteroza]

I am not sure that I understand, the cadence of SLS and Orion would be the same: once per year. The commercial option would also be once a year. So you would have two lunar surface missions per year.

Your plan requires a major funding increase since it includes SLS/Orion, the gateway (which IIUC Orion requires), the commercial SLS/Orion alternative, and twice as many lunar landers as the program of record. In the current political climate such a big funding boost is not at all realistic. Also even if NASA could miraculously afford all that they'd only be able to afford one commercial SLS/Orion alternative provider. That's unfortunate since commercial only works well with competition.

Only SLS/Orion cancellation unlocks the funding for a healthy program. Even with SLS/Orion cancellation and careful planning we'd likely have 3-5 years without any lunar missions while the commercial replacements are developed. That's life with constrained budgets.

The more likely scenario is that NASA and the President will wait for crewed Starship to be online before proposing a commercial option. I hope to be wrong but I don't see NASA and the President being proactive on the commercial HLV and spacecraft option.

A successful Dear Moon mission would probably be enough to get the conversation started.

[Coastal Ron]

I am not sure that I understand, the cadence of SLS and Orion would be the same: once per year. The commercial option would also be once a year. So you would have two lunar surface missions per year.

Your plan requires a major funding increase since it includes SLS/Orion, the gateway (which IIUC Orion requires), the commercial SLS/Orion alternative, and twice as many lunar landers as the program of record. In the current political climate such a big funding boost is not at all realistic. Also even if NASA could miraculously afford all that they'd only be able to afford one commercial SLS/Orion alternative provider. That's unfortunate since commercial only works well with competition.

Only SLS/Orion cancellation unlocks the funding for a healthy program. Even with SLS/Orion cancellation and careful planning we'd likely have 3-5 years without any lunar missions while the commercial replacements are developed. That's life with constrained budgets.

The more likely scenario is that NASA and the President will wait for crewed Starship to be online before proposing a commercial option. I hope to be wrong but I don't see NASA and the President being proactive on the commercial HLV and spacecraft option.

There is no need to wait for "crewed Starship", which implies that Starship meets NASA's safety goals for carrying crew from Earth, and returning to Earth. No such certification program exists, and Starship is so different from any other type of space transportation system that has existed that it would be impossible to predict when NASA would feel comfortable with flying crew on Starship.

And we don't need to wait for "crewed Starship" because there are ways to move crew to space today without the use of Starship - Commercial Crew. There is a whole thread devoted to this topic, so I won't duplicate it, but there are a variety of missions enabled by using Commercial crew to launch crew from Earth, rendezvous with a Starship for various missions, and once the missions are done Commercial Crew will return the crew to Earth.

All we need is leadership devoted to stopping the waste of so much taxpayer money...

[VSECOTSPE]

When the White House/Executive Branch has wanted to terminate a major human space flight program, Congress has always followed that lead and it’s always happened.  Nixon Administration nixed Apollo.  Bush II Administration set STS termination after ISS Core Complete.  Obama Administration put Constellation out of its misery.  If the Biden or next Administration decided to kill off Orion/SLS, it would happen.  Aside from a handful or two of appropriators, no Congress-critters will fight these terminations and the vast majority will go along to get along.  The big question is if/when the Administration decides to kill off Orion/SLS.  With the two-year budget agreement basically flatlining the discretionary agencies like NASA and leaving them to their own devices, I don’t see the White House taking an interest until at least the FY 2026 cycle.  And even then, they’ll need a strong reason to do so.  Successful dearMoon-type missions are probably not enough.

The other big question is what replaces the terminated program.  This is where successive Administrations have failed to formulate effective programs and/or align the NASA workforce accordingly.  The Nixon Administration took the ginormous Apollo workforce and threw it at a single spaceplane project to ensure a political win in California while simultaneously engaging in the magical thinking that this spaceplane would dramatically reduce launch costs while still employing that ginormous Apollo workforce.  The Bush II Administration started off with a reasonable exploration plan and then took their eyes off the ball and let a self-dealing missile defense manager and his highly conflicted former astronaut juke studies and sole-source the bulk of the funding towards a poorly conceived, highly duplicative medium-lift launcher that had little to do with (and was actually ruled out by) that exploration plan.  And while the Obama Administration also had a reasonable plan focusing on much-need technology investment and commercial transitions, they didn’t have a plan for the workforce, leaving a void that Congress filled with the overreaching 2010 NASA Authorization, saddling the agency with yet another white elephant launcher.

Maybe we’ll get it right someday, fully think through what comes after before setting the next termination in motion, and actually follow through.

[hektor]

I have difficulty to imagine Biden II or Trump II killing SLS/Orion. So we can reopen this discussion in 2027.

Now there is a potential Administration with another third guy, but as time passes by, it seems less and less likely.

[yg1968]

I am not sure that I understand, the cadence of SLS and Orion would be the same: once per year. The commercial option would also be once a year. So you would have two lunar surface missions per year.

Your plan requires a major funding increase since it includes SLS/Orion, the gateway (which IIUC Orion requires), the commercial SLS/Orion alternative, and twice as many lunar landers as the program of record. In the current political climate such a big funding boost is not at all realistic. Also even if NASA could miraculously afford all that they'd only be able to afford one commercial SLS/Orion alternative provider. That's unfortunate since commercial only works well with competition.

Only SLS/Orion cancellation unlocks the funding for a healthy program. Even with SLS/Orion cancellation and careful planning we'd likely have 3-5 years without any lunar missions while the commercial replacements are developed. That's life with constrained budgets.

The more likely scenario is that NASA and the President will wait for crewed Starship to be online before proposing a commercial option. I hope to be wrong but I don't see NASA and the President being proactive on the commercial HLV and spacecraft option.

There is no need to wait for "crewed Starship", which implies that Starship meets NASA's safety goals for carrying crew from Earth, and returning to Earth. No such certification program exists, and Starship is so different from any other type of space transportation system that has existed that it would be impossible to predict when NASA would feel comfortable with flying crew on Starship.

And we don't need to wait for "crewed Starship" because there are ways to move crew to space today without the use of Starship - Commercial Crew. There is a whole thread devoted to this topic, so I won't duplicate it, but there are a variety of missions enabled by using Commercial crew to launch crew from Earth, rendezvous with a Starship for various missions, and once the missions are done Commercial Crew will return the crew to Earth.

All we need is leadership devoted to stopping the waste of so much taxpayer money...

I hope to be wrong but I don't see these political changes happening until there are private astronauts landing on the Moon. I am not convinced that SpaceX will ever offer a crew Dragon and HLS-Starship option for private lunar surface missions. However, I do expect SpaceX to offer a crewed Starship-HLS-Starship option for private lunar surface missions at some point (after Artemis III or IV).

[DanClemmensen]

I hope to be wrong but I don't see this happening until there are private astronauts landing on the Moon. I am not convinced that SpaceX will ever offer a crew Dragon and HLS-Starship option for private lunar surface missions. However, I do expect SpaceX to offer a crewed Starship-HLS-Starship option for private lunar surface missions at some point (after Artemis III or IV).

You may be right, but SpaceX and Jared Isaacman may be crazy enough to try a Crew Dragon-to-HLS mission. Agreed: after Artemis III, but possibly before Artemis IV. It would only fly before Artemis III if the Artemis program gets into serious non-HLS funding or technical trouble.

[VSECOTSPE]

There’s no causal link between the first commercial human space flights around/to the Moon and a policy or political decision for NASA to use those capabilities and/or terminate Orion/SLS.  Governments do not work on economic principles.  There’s no competitive market or pricing pressure on the federal government that requires the government to use a (much) lower cost or efficient provider.

The decision will emanate from the Executive Branch/Administration, and it will driven by programmatic or policy pain that can no longer be ignored.  A flight accident.  A multi-billion dollar cost increase that can no longer be absorbed.  A schedule that has slipped past irrelevance.  Lack of funding for much higher R&D/S&T priorities.  A major economic/fiscal contraction.  Etc.  Those are the kinds of things that force the White House to spend political capital.  An Isaacman flight or landing does not.

They’re also the kind of things that can’t be predicted, especially from the outside.  A crisis may be brewing in the next couple months, or it may take years for such a crisis to emerge.  The two-year budget agreement raises the bar for such a crisis to force the Administration’s hand during that timeframe.  But there’s nothing that absolutely rules it out over the next couple years, either.  Anyone who says “I don’t see it happening until X is flying” doesn’t understand what actually drives these decisions.

Lastly, because these decisions are forced by crises, the decision may not be the logical one to substitute a (much) lower cost provider while maintaining or enhancing the rest of the program.  The decision may also be to dramatically downscale the overall effort or terminate it completely and redirect the savings.

[Greg Hullender]

Since people are going to ride HLS down to the moon, I gather the problem with certifying Starship for humans is not the upper stage but the lower one (plus staging). Is that correct? Or is going from Gateway to the lunar surface and back that much easier than going to LEO after staging?

[DanClemmensen]

Since people are going to ride HLS down to the moon, I gather the problem with certifying Starship for humans is not the upper stage but the lower one (plus staging). Is that correct? Or is going from Gateway to the lunar surface and back that much easier than going to LEO after staging?

I think the critical issues are launch from Earth (with a launch Abort system) and EDL (entry, descent, landing) on Earth. These are historically the most dangerous parts of a mission. HLS does neither of these.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Just to clarify, Orion/SLS direct costs are about $4.5B in FY 2024.  There’s another $3.5B in FY 2024 for other Artemis and Moon-to-Mars elements, but most of that is in early development and/or not launching on Orion/SLS missions (Artemis I, Artemis II, Artemis III, etc.).  So you can get to ~$8B per year for the overall effort if that’s what you’re after.  But assuming Artemis missions — the crew transport element on Orion/SLS — go off once a year, they’ll be about half the total.  Most of the rest flies on Falcon Heavies (major Gateway elements and resupply), is HLS launches, or would be payloads on the HLS launches (suits, rovers, surface habs, etc.).

It always helps to play with the numbers, because you immediately find things you don't understand.

The first thing is that there's a fundamental discrepancy between the OIG's previous report, which put the cost of an SLS/Orion launch at $4.2B per mission, and the NASA budget request, which puts the cost at $4.5B per year. That yearly number must assume a cadence of about 18 months/mission (0.67mission/yr), which would make at least the next couple of missions cost closer to $6.8B/mission.

The average out-year cost/year is about $3.8B, in which case the OIG's number sorta-kinda makes sense.  But of course the out-year numbers have been derived using the rectal extraction cost accounting method.

What we should really be looking at is how mixing in some second-source missions affects the money that can be spent for SLS/Orion.  In doing this, I used the current year $4.5B number, extended out to infinity, on the assumption that the out-year numbers have a certain odor.

In all scenarios, I assumed that the second source was the D2 + OTV-LSS kludge mission that we've discussed up-thread and elsewhere.  Using fairly pessimistic assumptions, I came up with a figure of $900M/mission.¹

Next, keeping the total transit budget fixed at $4.5B/year, I looked at various mixtures of kludge and SLS/Orion missions, which should be able to show us how much money bleeds away from the incumbent contractors if NASA adopts the second source.  I did this both for SLS/Orion costing $4.2B/mission (per the OIG estimate) and $6.75B/mission (per this year's budget request and an assumption of 18 months between missions).

The governing algebra is:

yearlyBudget = cadence*(kludgeToSls*kludgeCost + slsCost)/(kludgeToSls+1)

...where "kludgeToSls" is the mixture of kludge missions to SLS missions, ranging between 0 (the current situation) and 4:1.  Results attached below.

My tentative conclusion from this little exercise is that the two OIG reports combined expose either a lot of slack and undeserved money flowing to the SLS/Orion incumbents, or some unjustified reliance on make-believe budget numbers for the NASA deep-space exploration out-years.

If it's the former, then there are really good arguments to initiate the second source, because the incumbents can't really complain that they won't get as much free money, can they?  And if it's the latter, then the program is in much, much worse shape than we thought.

PS:  It's the "money to SLS per year" column that to pay attention to.  As that number falls with richer mixtures of kludge missions, it'll first eat into their profit margins, and eventually will drop below the level required to maintain their staffs.  That's the point where the supply chain collapses, as various contractors start to bail out, figuring that paying the termination penalties is cheaper than bleeding to death.

But if there are mixtures where the SLS/Orion contracts simply trim their profit margins, that's an interesting situation.  Who knows?  It might even result in a $2.5B/mission SLS/Orion!



______________________
¹860t prop/mission @ $50M/tanker @ 150t/tanker = $300M/mission for tankers
1 OTV-LSS, reusable 5x @ $400M = $80M
1 F9/D2 @ $300M
Total:  $680M
So $900M/mission is pretty pessimistic.

Note that this doesn't include the prop for the HLS-LSS, or the amortization for the HLS-LSS itself.

[TheRadicalModerate]

The decision will emanate from the Executive Branch/Administration, and it will driven by programmatic or policy pain that can no longer be ignored.  A flight accident.  A multi-billion dollar cost increase that can no longer be absorbed.  A schedule that has slipped past irrelevance.  Lack of funding for much higher R&D/S&T priorities.  A major economic/fiscal contraction.  Etc.  Those are the kinds of things that force the White House to spend political capital.  An Isaacman flight or landing does not.

Presumably, since the OIG seems pretty hot to de-pants SLS/Orion as thoroughly as possible, they'll put another report once firm costing information is available from public SpaceX sources on the retail price of tanker launches, and internal data on the cost to NASA for both D2 flights and HLS-LSS marginal costs.

That's not exactly a crisis as you've described them above, but it's something that looks really, really bad for whatever administration has to answer the report.  At some point, the disparity between the two costs gets juicy enough that both the media and Congress will use it to harvest more eyeballs, and then it's something approaching a crisis for the administration/NASA.

I sure wish Musk hadn't made himself radioactive to the Biden Administration.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Since people are going to ride HLS down to the moon, I gather the problem with certifying Starship for humans is not the upper stage but the lower one (plus staging). Is that correct? Or is going from Gateway to the lunar surface and back that much easier than going to LEO after staging?

I think the critical issues are launch from Earth (with a launch Abort system) and EDL (entry, descent, landing) on Earth. These are historically the most dangerous parts of a mission. HLS does neither of these.

Two things to add:

1) Risk tolerances for landing/ascent to/from the Moon are much, much higher than what would be acceptable for ascent/landing on Earth.

2) For HLS, it's powered descent the whole way.  That simply doesn't work on Earth.

[OTV Booster]

There’s no causal link between the first commercial human space flights around/to the Moon and a policy or political decision for NASA to use those capabilities and/or terminate Orion/SLS.  Governments do not work on economic principles.  There’s no competitive market or pricing pressure on the federal government that requires the government to use a (much) lower cost or efficient provider.

The decision will emanate from the Executive Branch/Administration, and it will driven by programmatic or policy pain that can no longer be ignored.  A flight accident.  A multi-billion dollar cost increase that can no longer be absorbed.  A schedule that has slipped past irrelevance.  Lack of funding for much higher R&D/S&T priorities.  A major economic/fiscal contraction.  Etc.  Those are the kinds of things that force the White House to spend political capital.  An Isaacman flight or landing does not.

They’re also the kind of things that can’t be predicted, especially from the outside.  A crisis may be brewing in the next couple months, or it may take years for such a crisis to emerge.  The two-year budget agreement raises the bar for such a crisis to force the Administration’s hand during that timeframe.  But there’s nothing that absolutely rules it out over the next couple years, either.  Anyone who says “I don’t see it happening until X is flying” doesn’t understand what actually drives these decisions.

Lastly, because these decisions are forced by crises, the decision may not be the logical one to substitute a (much) lower cost provider while maintaining or enhancing the rest of the program.  The decision may also be to dramatically downscale the overall effort or terminate it completely and redirect the savings.

I half agree with you but there is one important element missing that completely changes the context of the issues.


Putting it bluntly, China has been portraying the USA as a "has been" in world affairs. It's pointless to debate the truth of that image here but it's existence does does have to be acknowledged and IMO it has some traction in the developing world at a minimum. Washington can not afford walk away from the moon. To do so would be to admit being a has been. IMO Artemus will go forward.


How it goes forward is open to discussion, but it will go forward. Some opinionated analysis follows.


Congress, and more importantly, its constituency, has little grasp of the fallacy of sunk costs. SLS/Orion has inertia because of this. NASA will not transition to a commercial system until a commercial system has shown itself to be within spitting distance of doing the job. Hard to say when this will happen but we might see the beefier versions of SLS cut back or cancelled and NASA told to make do.


This is when a commercial replacement would have good leverage if it's technically ready. I doubt NASA would drag it's heels if this comes to pass and I also doubt any SLS's already in construction would be scrapped. That momentum thing, plus it gives some lead time to cushion the effects of workforce reduction. Maybe some of the savings could go to a new, but firm fixed price project. Nuke rocket anybody?

[VSECOTSPE]

I half agree with you but there is one important element missing that completely changes the context of the issues.

Putting it bluntly, China has been portraying the USA as a "has been" in world affairs. It's pointless to debate the truth of that image here but it's existence does does have to be acknowledged and IMO it has some traction in the developing world at a minimum. Washington can not afford walk away from the moon. To do so would be to admit being a has been. IMO Artemus will go forward.

I’m not as certain, for a couple reasons.

One, China/US competition takes place on a lot of different fronts, and each side gets to pick and choose their battles.  The Moon race became a priority in the Cold War because both sides chose to use it as a proxy for intercontinental missile development.  The US may not make that kind of choice this time around.  Artificial intelligence, Indo-Pacific naval capabilities, Indo-Pacific alliances, aid to the Global South, etc. will all arguably be higher US spending priorities in competition with China than lunar return if push comes to shove.  There’s a legitimate argument to be made that the US achieved its human lunar landing a half century ago and it’s fine if China wants to catch up, but the US has moved on to more important things.

Two, China may not turn out to be the competitor we thought it would be just a few years ago, broadly speaking or specifically with respect to space flight. 

China is generally facing a lot of headwinds and vulnerabilities.  A tech sector and foreign investment paralyzed by Xi’s persecution of perceived threats among wealthy Chinese and foreign firms.  A slow post-Covid recovery and high youth unemployment exacerbated by over-investment in infrastructure and resulting real estate implosions.  Major neighbors like Australia, India, Japan, and South Korea turning away because of aggressive foreign policy missteps by China.  Lack of access to high-end computing because of US sanctions.  High reliance on petroleum, fertilizer, and food imports from faraway locations with vulnerable supply chains.  Per capital wealth that is still only a third of the US and only half that of the West.  Etc.  No doubt, China remains a very large economy and antagonistic to the rules-based international system set in place by the West after WWII.  But whether China will have the resources to really challenge that system in the years ahead seems more in doubt now than it has been in the past couple decades.

In space flight specifically, the CMSA has given presentations about landing taikonauts on the Moon before 2030 and some more permanent effort to follow ILRS the next decade.  But it’s unclear the degree to which the CCP has endorsed these goals and is funding them.  There’s no Five-Year Plan or similar announcement or document from above that space agency that supports these goals and programs, at least not that I’m aware of.  Last I knew, China only spent about $10B (in US dollars) annually on all of its space efforts — military, intelligence, civil applications, civil robotic science, and human space flight.  (NASA’s budget alone is more than double that, forget the other US civil space activities and military/intel spending.)   And the Chinese human space flight program already has Tiangong on its plate.  I’m not that close of a China space program watcher to know for sure, but I just don’t see the funding commitments and budget increases that would be necessary to implement the kind of program the CMSA is talking about.  And China’s partners in ILRS — Russia (maybe), Belarus, Pakistan, Venezuela, etc. — don’t bring much to the table.  There could be a major announcement by Xi tomorrow, but until something like that materializes, I remain somewhat skeptical.

To be clear, I think an effective and vibrant US civil human space exploration program can and will broadly pay dividends in foreign affairs.  But I don’t think that argument alone carries the program generally or specifically with respect to China.

I’d also say that if the Administration just wanted some flags-and-footprints insurance against a China human lunar landing, we’re going about it in practically the most expensive and stupid way possible.  That kind of insurance could probably be had for as low as one-fourth of what we’re wasting on Orion/SLS/Artemis.

Congress, and more importantly, its constituency, has little grasp of the fallacy of sunk costs. SLS/Orion has inertia because of this. NASA will not transition to a commercial system until a commercial system has shown itself to be within spitting distance of doing the job. Hard to say when this will happen but we might see the beefier versions of SLS cut back or cancelled and NASA told to make do.

This is not born out by history.  We chose to move ISS cargo and then ISS crew transport to commercially owned and operated systems long before they were “within spitting distance of doing the job”.  The Administration could make that decision tomorrow regarding lunar crew transport and Congress would eventually and begrudgingly go along.  But the decision requires enough of a crisis in the ongoing program for the Administration to be willing to expend the political capital necessary to effect the change in direction.  Your guess is as good as mine as to when such a crisis may emerge.

... it gives some lead time to cushion the effects of workforce reduction. Maybe some of the savings could go to a new, but firm fixed price project. Nuke rocket anybody?

I don’t know whether nuke propulsion should be a priority or not.  But realigning the workforce away from an Apollo capsule retread and the nation’s fifth or sixth and least competitive heavy lifter and towards actual obstacles to human space exploration would be both technically and politically necessary.  No Administration has gotten that right since the end of Apollo.  It’s really the key to making a lasting change.

FWIW...

[Coastal Ron]

...
The first thing is that there's a fundamental discrepancy between the OIG's previous report, which put the cost of an SLS/Orion launch at $4.2B per mission, and the NASA budget request, which puts the cost at $4.5B per year. That yearly number must assume a cadence of about 18 months/mission (0.67mission/yr), which would make at least the next couple of missions cost closer to $6.8B/mission.

I don't recommend using that kind of logic, because we have to remember that NASA has been paying for quite a bit of Artemis hardware prior to both production and to launch. So what we see in NASA's budget requests is money to FINISH paying off Artemis hardware, and anticipated real-time mission costs too.

That is why the NASA OIG has a better view into ACTUAL cost, because they can see what has already been spent and what still needs to be spent for hardware and missions. Those of us in the public don't have access to that level of detail. All we can do is add up contract prices for contracts that have been made public.

[jstrotha0975]

I can't wait until SLS is cancelled.

[pochimax]

I can't wait until SLS is cancelled.

don't hold your breath

[OTV Booster]

I half agree with you but there is one important element missing that completely changes the context of the issues.

Putting it bluntly, China has been portraying the USA as a "has been" in world affairs. It's pointless to debate the truth of that image here but it's existence does does have to be acknowledged and IMO it has some traction in the developing world at a minimum. Washington can not afford walk away from the moon. To do so would be to admit being a has been. IMO Artemus will go forward.

I’m not as certain, for a couple reasons.

One, China/US competition takes place on a lot of different fronts, and each side gets to pick and choose their battles.  The Moon race became a priority in the Cold War because both sides chose to use it as a proxy for intercontinental missile development.  The US may not make that kind of choice this time around.  Artificial intelligence, Indo-Pacific naval capabilities, Indo-Pacific alliances, aid to the Global South, etc. will all arguably be higher US spending priorities in competition with China than lunar return if push comes to shove.  There’s a legitimate argument to be made that the US achieved its human lunar landing a half century ago and it’s fine if China wants to catch up, but the US has moved on to more important things.

Two, China may not turn out to be the competitor we thought it would be just a few years ago, broadly speaking or specifically with respect to space flight. 

China is generally facing a lot of headwinds and vulnerabilities.  A tech sector and foreign investment paralyzed by Xi’s persecution of perceived threats among wealthy Chinese and foreign firms.  A slow post-Covid recovery and high youth unemployment exacerbated by over-investment in infrastructure and resulting real estate implosions.  Major neighbors like Australia, India, Japan, and South Korea turning away because of aggressive foreign policy missteps by China.  Lack of access to high-end computing because of US sanctions.  High reliance on petroleum, fertilizer, and food imports from faraway locations with vulnerable supply chains.  Per capital wealth that is still only a third of the US and only half that of the West.  Etc.  No doubt, China remains a very large economy and antagonistic to the rules-based international system set in place by the West after WWII.  But whether China will have the resources to really challenge that system in the years ahead seems more in doubt now than it has been in the past couple decades.

In space flight specifically, the CMSA has given presentations about landing taikonauts on the Moon before 2030 and some more permanent effort to follow ILRS the next decade.  But it’s unclear the degree to which the CCP has endorsed these goals and is funding them.  There’s no Five-Year Plan or similar announcement or document from above that space agency that supports these goals and programs, at least not that I’m aware of.  Last I knew, China only spent about $10B (in US dollars) annually on all of its space efforts — military, intelligence, civil applications, civil robotic science, and human space flight.  (NASA’s budget alone is more than double that, forget the other US civil space activities and military/intel spending.)   And the Chinese human space flight program already has Tiangong on its plate.  I’m not that close of a China space program watcher to know for sure, but I just don’t see the funding commitments and budget increases that would be necessary to implement the kind of program the CMSA is talking about.  And China’s partners in ILRS — Russia (maybe), Belarus, Pakistan, Venezuela, etc. — don’t bring much to the table.  There could be a major announcement by Xi tomorrow, but until something like that materializes, I remain somewhat skeptical.

To be clear, I think an effective and vibrant US civil human space exploration program can and will broadly pay dividends in foreign affairs.  But I don’t think that argument alone carries the program generally or specifically with respect to China.

I’d also say that if the Administration just wanted some flags-and-footprints insurance against a China human lunar landing, we’re going about it in practically the most expensive and stupid way possible.  That kind of insurance could probably be had for as low as one-fourth of what we’re wasting on Orion/SLS/Artemis.

Congress, and more importantly, its constituency, has little grasp of the fallacy of sunk costs. SLS/Orion has inertia because of this. NASA will not transition to a commercial system until a commercial system has shown itself to be within spitting distance of doing the job. Hard to say when this will happen but we might see the beefier versions of SLS cut back or cancelled and NASA told to make do.

This is not born out by history.  We chose to move ISS cargo and then ISS crew transport to commercially owned and operated systems long before they were “within spitting distance of doing the job”.  The Administration could make that decision tomorrow regarding lunar crew transport and Congress would eventually and begrudgingly go along.  But the decision requires enough of a crisis in the ongoing program for the Administration to be willing to expend the political capital necessary to effect the change in direction.  Your guess is as good as mine as to when such a crisis may emerge.

... it gives some lead time to cushion the effects of workforce reduction. Maybe some of the savings could go to a new, but firm fixed price project. Nuke rocket anybody?

I don’t know whether nuke propulsion should be a priority or not.  But realigning the workforce away from an Apollo capsule retread and the nation’s fifth or sixth and least competitive heavy lifter and towards actual obstacles to human space exploration would be both technically and politically necessary.  No Administration has gotten that right since the end of Apollo.  It’s really the key to making a lasting change.

FWIW...

I have to disagree on some of your well thought out points. Rather than drag this too far OT I'll PM you. Cheers.

[TheRadicalModerate]

...
The first thing is that there's a fundamental discrepancy between the OIG's previous report, which put the cost of an SLS/Orion launch at $4.2B per mission, and the NASA budget request, which puts the cost at $4.5B per year. That yearly number must assume a cadence of about 18 months/mission (0.67mission/yr), which would make at least the next couple of missions cost closer to $6.8B/mission.

I don't recommend using that kind of logic, because we have to remember that NASA has been paying for quite a bit of Artemis hardware prior to both production and to launch. So what we see in NASA's budget requests is money to FINISH paying off Artemis hardware, and anticipated real-time mission costs too.

That is why the NASA OIG has a better view into ACTUAL cost, because they can see what has already been spent and what still needs to be spent for hardware and missions. Those of us in the public don't have access to that level of detail. All we can do is add up contract prices for contracts that have been made public.

I'm pretty sure the OIG $4.2B number was a marginal cost, stripped of all DDT&E costs.  I'm not sure how they dealt with EUS, USA, and ML2, so there may be DDT&E costs for that amortized in.  To a first-order approximation, I think it's likely that the marginal cost for EUS/USA is the same as for ICPS/LVSA.  Better approximations would probably have EUS cost more than ICPS, but also have core costs decline to obscure the difference.

NASA's actual numbers in the budget request for Common Exploration Systems (SLS, Orion, EGS, and a bit of administrivia) are as follows (in $M):

FY24: $4525.4
FY25: $4241.7
FY26: $4009.3
FY27: $3557.3
FY28: $3529.7

We get no visibility at all into how much of that is marginal cost for a mission vs. DDT&E for Block 1B and Block 2, but it's safe to think that they're assuming three things:

1) Launch cadence moves from 0.5mission/yr to 1.0mission/yr through the out-years. 

2) Marginal per-mission costs for SLS/Orion might decline somewhat, although this is exactly what the OIG report is disputing.  However, NASA probably has this assumption baked into the out-years.

3) DDT&E tails off to almost zero as EUS, USA, and ML2 are finished.

The result of all of these trends should be that the FY28 $3.5B number is close to what NASA thinks long-term marginal cost will settle at.

I don't trust the out-year budget numbers at all, but I do think we can assume that a second source won't appear until SLS and Orion have stabilized at the lowest prices the incumbents are willing to charge.  The OIG seems to think that there may not be any cost reduction at all, or even a slight increase, but whatever the number is, the lower it goes, the harder it will be to authorize a second source, because that means a bigger hit for the incumbents if they have to share missions with a fixed budget.

Sad to say, but it's probably better for Artemis in the long run if SLS/Orion is expensive as possible.  That provides the best chance for a second source to get authorized.

[pochimax]

It would be very interesting to separate the Orion figures from those of the SLS
Some maintain that the fate of the Orion ship is linked to that of the SLS and I don't see that at all clear.
At the moment the OIG report only refers to the SLS and the possibility of using commercial rockets to replace it, logically with the intention of launching the Orion.
At the moment I don't see movements in NASA criticizing the Orion spacecraft or complaining about its price, which does happen with respect to the SLS.

[DanClemmensen]

It would be very interesting to separate the Orion figures from those of the SLS
Some maintain that the fate of the Orion ship is linked to that of the SLS and I don't see that at all clear.
At the moment the OIG report only refers to the SLS and the possibility of using commercial rockets to replace it, logically with the intention of launching the Orion.
At the moment I don't see movements in NASA criticizing the Orion spacecraft or complaining about its price, which does happen with respect to the SLS.

As of now, Orion only has one mission: take crew to NRHO and bring them back, and it needs SLS to get there. Some folks (like me) think that the development work needed to put Orion on a new LV would be more expensive than a functional replacement of SLS/Orion using elements of the already-in-development Starship HLS system. This would be true even if Orion itself were free, but it's not. NASA deemed Orion to be too expensive to use to take crew to ISS back before 2010, and all estimates I have seen for an SLS/Orion mission (like Artemis I or Artemis II) are more than $4 billion, while SLS is estimated at more than $2.5 billion. Some of that $4 billion must be for Orion.

Of course, Starship might fail, but if so, Orion will not have a meaningful mission before about 2030 anyway.

[yg1968]

It would be very interesting to separate the Orion figures from those of the SLS
Some maintain that the fate of the Orion ship is linked to that of the SLS and I don't see that at all clear.
At the moment the OIG report only refers to the SLS and the possibility of using commercial rockets to replace it, logically with the intention of launching the Orion.
At the moment I don't see movements in NASA criticizing the Orion spacecraft or complaining about its price, which does happen with respect to the SLS.

If you replace SLS with a contract for commercial crew transportation services to Gateway/NRHO, Orion would also get replaced. Perhaps, LM could team with Blue and bid for this commercial services contract.

[pochimax]

As of now, Orion only has one mission: take crew to NRHO and bring them back, and it needs SLS to get there. Some folks (like me) think that the development work needed to put Orion on a new LV would be more expensive than a functional replacement of SLS/Orion using elements of the already-in-development Starship HLS system. This would be true even if Orion itself were free, but it's not. NASA deemed Orion to be too expensive to use to take crew to ISS back before 2010, and all estimates I have seen for an SLS/Orion mission (like Artemis I or Artemis II) are more than $4 billion, while SLS is estimated at more than $2.5 billion. Some of that $4 billion must be for Orion.

Of course, Starship might fail, but if so, Orion will not have a meaningful mission before about 2030 anyway.

Totally disagree with your assumptions here.

I don' t understand the logic of Starship being magical in every aspect of spaceflight EXCEPT launching Orion.

[pochimax]

If you replace SLS with a contract for commercial crew transportation services to Gateway/NRHO, Orion would also get replaced. Perhaps, LM could team with Blue and bid for this commercial services contract.

SLS is a rocket. OIG was talking about replacing it, not any word about any commercial crew transportation services to Gateway/NRHO.

Orion is NASA property, AFAIK. If NASA finds a cheaper way of launching it to the Moon than SLS, is ok.

[yg1968]

If you replace SLS with a contract for commercial crew transportation services to Gateway/NRHO, Orion would also get replaced. Perhaps, LM could team with Blue and bid for this commercial services contract.

SLS is a rocket. OIG was talking about replacing it, not any word about any commercial crew transportation services to Gateway/NRHO.

Orion is NASA property, AFAIK. If NASA finds a cheaper way of launching it to the Moon than SLS, is ok.

The Report only recommended that NASA not lock itself in with SLS given that commercial alternatives might become available (see the link below). That is as far as their recommendations went. If the report was about Orion, they would probably recommend the same thing for Orion.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=59686.msg2534472#msg2534472

[DanClemmensen]

As of now, Orion only has one mission: take crew to NRHO and bring them back, and it needs SLS to get there. Some folks (like me) think that the development work needed to put Orion on a new LV would be more expensive than a functional replacement of SLS/Orion using elements of the already-in-development Starship HLS system. This would be true even if Orion itself were free, but it's not. NASA deemed Orion to be too expensive to use to take crew to ISS back before 2010, and all estimates I have seen for an SLS/Orion mission (like Artemis I or Artemis II) are more than $4 billion, while SLS is estimated at more than $2.5 billion. Some of that $4 billion must be for Orion.

Of course, Starship might fail, but if so, Orion will not have a meaningful mission before about 2030 anyway.

Totally disagree with your assumptions here.

I don' t understand the logic of Starship being magical in every aspect of spaceflight EXCEPT launching Orion.

Starship is not magical. In the minds of sophomore engineering students and us armchair spectators, it is very easy to imagine a new custom Starship variant to do just about anything that needs up to 150 tonne payload mass to LEO (reusable) or 250 tonne expended. However, in the real world the design and manufacture of each of those custom designs must be paid for by someone. A Starship for Orion-type payloads is not currently planned, and Orion may be the only such payload, so the design would need to be amortized over the Orion missions only.

Speaking as an armchair enthusiast (I'm not a rocket designer) I see no simple way to launch Orion except exposed at the top of an LV stack under its specialized fairing, due to the LAS. But there is no Starship variant in planning that works this way. One cargo variant uses a clamshell and another uses a "pez dispenser". I also see no way for a Starship with a top-of-stack payload to also be reusable (booster is still reusable). So, the Orion SS will be be expended and will only fly once every 18 months or so, starting after a long painful funding and procurement process that SpaceX will almost certainly not participate in.

[pochimax]

...and procurement process that SpaceX will almost certainly not participate in.

this is unthinkable.
The rest of the assumptions, I simply do not agree with you.

[DanClemmensen]

...and procurement process that SpaceX will almost certainly not participate in.

this is unthinkable.
The rest of the assumptions, I simply do not agree with you.

Why do you think SpaceX would prppose to build a Starship variant to launch Orion? What incentive would they have?

[pochimax]

Why do you think SpaceX would prppose to build a Starship variant to launch Orion? What incentive would they have?

Money. 

[TheRadicalModerate]

Let's suppose that NASA actually decided to release a commercial cislunar BAA.  SpaceX would have three possible proposals:

1) The D2/OTV-LSS kludge.
Pros:
- Very little development.
- Easy to bring online very quickly.
Cons:
- Two extra RPODs (in LEO).
- A bit more prop-expensive, and it costs at least one F9/D2 launch.
- Fires a shot across LockMart's bow, in addition to Boeing, NorGrumm, and L3H-R.

2) Bid a launch/EDL crew-certified Starship.
Pros:
- It's the ultimate solution, and therefore highly desirable to SpaceX.
- A bit more prop-efficient, and no D2 involved.
Cons:
- Much, much more DDT&E, and an extremely uncertain schedule.
- Requires crewed refueling in LEO.
- Annoys all the incumbents, just like the kludge.

3) Bid an Orion-based Frankenrocket.
Pros:
- Turns LockMart into SpaceX's friend--maybe.
- If you're willing to expend the SuperHeavy and the rump Starship, no refueling.
- Fully expendable performance very similar to Block 1B.
- Co-manifests could stay pretty much as-is.
Cons:
- It's a Frankenrocket.  Probably not as much DDT&E as native Starship, but you're still replacing the Starship's nose with a big interstage and re-qualifying the Orion.
- Needs all kinds of weird facilities for stacking and checkout.
- It's a throwaway as far as SpaceX is concerned.

Unless one of the BAA's requirements is explicitly, "No RPODs allowed in LEO," the kludge is by far the best and nearest-term solution.  That doesn't prevent SpaceX from cutting over to launch/EDL-capable Starship when it's ready, but I think they could be ready to go in 18 months from contract award with the kludge (mod however long the Blue Origin nuisance suit takes).

[DanClemmensen]

3) Bid an Orion-based Frankenrocket.
Pros:
- Turns LockMart into SpaceX's friend--maybe.
- If you're willing to expend the SuperHeavy and the rump Starship, no refueling.
- Fully expendable performance very similar to Block 1B.
- Co-manifests could stay pretty much as-is.
Cons:
- It's a Frankenrocket.  Probably not as much DDT&E as native Starship, but you're still replacing the Starship's nose with a big interstage and re-qualifying the Orion.
- Needs all kinds of weird facilities for stacking and checkout.
- It's a throwaway as far as SpaceX is concerned.

Frankenrocket/Orion must also be crew-qualified. In a rational world this would require an uncrewed qualification with a real Orion, but I suppose NASA would bend all their rules again and fly crew on the first flight based on Orion already being crew qualified. On the plus side, Orion's LAS should be much more effective with Frankenrocket than with SLS.

Yeah, the least bad way to stack this mess would be a highly customized launch tower, which would need to be amortized over a very few flights. If those extra facilities cannot be added to the regular tower in a way that lets it also retain its normal SS functions, then the cost of the system increases a whole lot.

[whitelancer64]

3) Bid an Orion-based Frankenrocket.
Pros:
- Turns LockMart into SpaceX's friend--maybe.
- If you're willing to expend the SuperHeavy and the rump Starship, no refueling.
- Fully expendable performance very similar to Block 1B.
- Co-manifests could stay pretty much as-is.
Cons:
- It's a Frankenrocket.  Probably not as much DDT&E as native Starship, but you're still replacing the Starship's nose with a big interstage and re-qualifying the Orion.
- Needs all kinds of weird facilities for stacking and checkout.
- It's a throwaway as far as SpaceX is concerned.

Frankenrocket/Orion must also be crew-qualified. In a rational world this would require an uncrewed qualification with a real Orion, but I suppose NASA would bend all their rules again and fly crew on the first flight based on Orion already being crew qualified. On the plus side, Orion's LAS should be much more effective with Frankenrocket than with SLS.

Yeah, the least bad way to stack this mess would be a highly customized launch tower, which would need to be amortized over a very few flights. If those extra facilities cannot be added to the regular tower in a way that lets it also retain its normal SS functions, then the cost of the system increases a whole lot.

There are a couple of boilerplate Orions available if an uncrewed demo launch is necessary. It wouldn't need to do much of anything in flight since Orion itself is already flight qualified.

[Zed_Noir]

<snip>
Frankenrocket/Orion must also be crew-qualified. In a rational world this would require an uncrewed qualification with a real Orion, but I suppose NASA would bend all their rules again and fly crew on the first flight based on Orion already being crew qualified. On the plus side, Orion's LAS should be much more effective with Frankenrocket than with SLS.

Yeah, the least bad way to stack this mess would be a highly customized launch tower, which would need to be amortized over a very few flights. If those extra facilities cannot be added to the regular tower in a way that lets it also retain its normal SS functions, then the cost of the system increases a whole lot.

Why would there be a need for highly customized launch tower? Just use the chopsticks as it is. After the LES tower and the Orion/ESM in the universal stage adapter is stacked off site on a Starship variant and move to the pad with SPTMs.

One of the likely modification is maybe adding some umbilical connections for data and utilities to the chopsticks for when the Starship and the Orion stack is being lifted at the pad. If those umbilical connections couldn't be routed through the Starship.

Of course SpaceX will have to provided a Crew access arm.

[DanClemmensen]

<snip>
Frankenrocket/Orion must also be crew-qualified. In a rational world this would require an uncrewed qualification with a real Orion, but I suppose NASA would bend all their rules again and fly crew on the first flight based on Orion already being crew qualified. On the plus side, Orion's LAS should be much more effective with Frankenrocket than with SLS.

Yeah, the least bad way to stack this mess would be a highly customized launch tower, which would need to be amortized over a very few flights. If those extra facilities cannot be added to the regular tower in a way that lets it also retain its normal SS functions, then the cost of the system increases a whole lot.

Why would there be a need for highly customized launch tower? Just use the chopsticks as it is. After the LES tower and the Orion/ESM in the universal stage adapter is stacked off site on a Starship variant and move to the pad with SPTMs.

One of the likely modification is maybe adding some umbilical connections for data and utilities to the chopsticks for when the Starship and the Orion stack is being lifted at the pad. If those umbilical connections couldn't be routed through the Starship.

Of course SpaceX will have to provided a Crew access arm.

I see several issues, but maybe I'm wrong. One is that the CoM of dry Orion/SS is very high. This affects both the SPMT transport and the lift by the chopsticks, which cannot grab the SS any higher than just below the EUS ESM. The other is the need for the umbilicals very high on the tower, which might(?) need to provide for loading the hypergolics for the EUS ESM.

[Zed_Noir]

<snip>
I see several issues, but maybe I'm wrong. One is that the CoM of dry Orion/SS is very high. This affects both the SPMT transport and the lift by the chopsticks, which cannot grab the SS any higher than just below the EUS. The other is the need for the umbilicals very high on the tower, which might(?) need to provide for loading the hypergolics for the EUS.

The CoM isn't that high. There is no payload section in the Starship variant.

AFAIK hypergolics is pre-loaded aboard US spacecrafts away from the pad currently.

Note - think you meant the ESM (European service module) instead of EUS.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Why would there be a need for highly customized launch tower? Just use the chopsticks as it is. After the LES tower and the Orion/ESM in the universal stage adapter is stacked off site on a Starship variant and move to the pad with SPTMs.

One of the likely modification is maybe adding some umbilical connections for data and utilities to the chopsticks for when the Starship and the Orion stack is being lifted at the pad. If those umbilical connections couldn't be routed through the Starship.

Of course SpaceX will have to provided a Crew access arm.

First, let me disclaim that Frankenrocket is, in general, a very bad idea compared to the D2/OTV-LSS kludge.

But if for some reason (pork) this is what's needed to make SLS go away, then you'll have to replicate the Orion integration environment, which I suspect has a pretty fuzzy line between standalone checkout and stacking.  If you were doing this on an SLS, you'd be stacking in a VAB high bay with all kinds of highly customized facilities.  Replicating that in one of the Starbase mid- or high-bays would be non-trivial.

I think Dan's got a point that the CoM might get tricky.  It's not an issue for SLS because Orion is stacked in the VAB.  But for the FrankenStarship, you have the USA, which is basically the mass of its payload, and the empty LCH4/LOX tanks, with the LAS, CM, ESM, and the ESM fairings + spacecraft adapter.  All of the Orion stuff is quite dense and fueled.  All of the rump Starship stuff is... not, except for the engines and thrust structure.

Again:  not a good idea.  But it's a better one than SLS.

[John Santos]

Why would there be a need for highly customized launch tower? Just use the chopsticks as it is. After the LES tower and the Orion/ESM in the universal stage adapter is stacked off site on a Starship variant and move to the pad with SPTMs.

One of the likely modification is maybe adding some umbilical connections for data and utilities to the chopsticks for when the Starship and the Orion stack is being lifted at the pad. If those umbilical connections couldn't be routed through the Starship.

Of course SpaceX will have to provided a Crew access arm.

First, let me disclaim that Frankenrocket is, in general, a very bad idea compared to the D2/OTV-LSS kludge.

But if for some reason (pork) this is what's needed to make SLS go away, then you'll have to replicate the Orion integration environment, which I suspect has a pretty fuzzy line between standalone checkout and stacking.  If you were doing this on an SLS, you'd be stacking in a VAB high bay with all kinds of highly customized facilities.  Replicating that in one of the Starbase mid- or high-bays would be non-trivial.

[remove stuff about CoM, which is irrelevant to my comment.]

Again:  not a good idea.  But it's a better one than SLS.

If this idea ever comes to fruition, I'm sure it would be launched from 39A, not Starbase, so the Orion/LAS/ESM could and probably would be stacked in the VAB or whatever adjacent facility it is stacked in for SLS.

[DanClemmensen]

Why would there be a need for highly customized launch tower? Just use the chopsticks as it is. After the LES tower and the Orion/ESM in the universal stage adapter is stacked off site on a Starship variant and move to the pad with SPTMs.

One of the likely modification is maybe adding some umbilical connections for data and utilities to the chopsticks for when the Starship and the Orion stack is being lifted at the pad. If those umbilical connections couldn't be routed through the Starship.

Of course SpaceX will have to provided a Crew access arm.

First, let me disclaim that Frankenrocket is, in general, a very bad idea compared to the D2/OTV-LSS kludge.

But if for some reason (pork) this is what's needed to make SLS go away, then you'll have to replicate the Orion integration environment, which I suspect has a pretty fuzzy line between standalone checkout and stacking.  If you were doing this on an SLS, you'd be stacking in a VAB high bay with all kinds of highly customized facilities.  Replicating that in one of the Starbase mid- or high-bays would be non-trivial.

[remove stuff about CoM, which is irrelevant to my comment.]

Again:  not a good idea.  But it's a better one than SLS.

If this idea ever comes to fruition, I'm sure it would be launched from 39A, not Starbase, so the Orion/LAS/ESM could and probably would be stacked in the VAB or whatever adjacent facility it is stacked in for SLS.

The Artemis rocket is stacked in the VAB, on the mobile launch mount, starting at the bottom and building upward. Does this mean the specialized Orion stuff is done high up in the VAB? can this gear easily be moved to a lower location to stack it on a truncated SS sitting on its transport stand?

[John Santos]

If this idea ever comes to fruition, I'm sure it would be launched from 39A, not Starbase, so the Orion/LAS/ESM could and probably would be stacked in the VAB or whatever adjacent facility it is stacked in for SLS.

The Artemis rocket is stacked in the VAB, on the mobile launch mount, starting at the bottom and building upward. Does this mean the specialized Orion stuff is done high up in the VAB? can this gear easily be moved to a lower location to stack it on a truncated SS sitting on its transport stand?

The Orion is stacked, including the LAS and conical Orion Stage Adapter, in two of the former Shuttle Processing buildings (the MPPF and the LASF) and is transported as a unit to the VAB,.

For the Delta 4-H flight test, that entire assembly was transported as a unit to 37B and lifted atop the D4H as a single unit.  For SLS-1, the assembled Orion plus OSA sits on top of the ICPS.  For SLS-1B, it sits on top of the lower adapter (the LVSA) which in turn sits on top of the EUS.  I don't know if the LVSA would be used in the FrankenRocket (good name for Halloween  ), or if the OSA would sit directly on top of a truncated Starship, or if the FrankeRocket would include its own equivalent of the OSA.  The LVSA provides space for carrying any co-manifested payloads on SLS-1B, such as Gateway modules, in addition to supporting the ICPS (SLS-1) or Orion (SLS-1B) directly above it.

[Zed_Noir]

<snip>
First, let me disclaim that Frankenrocket is, in general, a very bad idea compared to the D2/OTV-LSS kludge.
<snip>
Again:  not a good idea.  But it's a better one than SLS.

I agree.

[Jim]

1.  The Orion is stacked, including the LAS and conical Orion Stage Adapter, in two of the former Shuttle Processing buildings (the MPPF and the LASF) and is transported as a unit to the VAB,.

2.   The LVSA provides space for carrying any co-manifested payloads on SLS-1B, such as Gateway modules, in addition to supporting the ICPS (SLS-1) or Orion (SLS-1B) directly above it.

1.  They were payload facilities and not shuttle.

2. No, that would be the USA, Universal Stage Adapter.   USA is for EUS to Orion interface.  LVSA is only for ICPS to Core interface..

The USA containing co-manifested payloads would be stacked on the EUS in the VAB and then Orion/LAS stacked on it.

[TheRadicalModerate]

If this idea ever comes to fruition, I'm sure it would be launched from 39A, not Starbase, so the Orion/LAS/ESM could and probably would be stacked in the VAB or whatever adjacent facility it is stacked in for SLS.

The Artemis rocket is stacked in the VAB, on the mobile launch mount, starting at the bottom and building upward. Does this mean the specialized Orion stuff is done high up in the VAB? can this gear easily be moved to a lower location to stack it on a truncated SS sitting on its transport stand?

The Orion is stacked, including the LAS and conical Orion Stage Adapter, in two of the former Shuttle Processing buildings (the MPPF and the LASF) and is transported as a unit to the VAB,.

For the Delta 4-H flight test, that entire assembly was transported as a unit to 37B and lifted atop the D4H as a single unit.  For SLS-1, the assembled Orion plus OSA sits on top of the ICPS.  For SLS-1B, it sits on top of the lower adapter (the LVSA) which in turn sits on top of the EUS.  I don't know if the LVSA would be used in the FrankenRocket (good name for Halloween  ), or if the OSA would sit directly on top of a truncated Starship, or if the FrankeRocket would include its own equivalent of the OSA.  The LVSA provides space for carrying any co-manifested payloads on SLS-1B, such as Gateway modules, in addition to supporting the ICPS (SLS-1) or Orion (SLS-1B) directly above it.

Well, we're down the rabbit-hole now, aren't we?

SLS is stacked in the VAB, with service platforms aligned to assist in the stacking and checkout. 

The the Orion assembly (LAS, CM, ESM, and Spacecraft Adapter with the ESM fairing panels) is stacked on top of it.  For Block 1, it's put on top of the Orion Stage Adapter, which mounts onto the ICPS, which is mounted to the core with the LVSA.  For Block 1B, it's put on top of the USA, which is mounted to the EUS, which is mounted to the EUS interstage, which is mounted to the core.

As with the SLS itself, the Orion assembly has platforms positioned to assist in its stacking and checkout.

If there were to be a FrankenStarship, you might just stack it in the VAB, then haul it out to the pad and use the chopsticks to stack it onto the SuperHeavy.  Or I suppose you could stack it on the SuperHeavy in the VAB--except the VAB isn't tall enough to deal with it.  In either case, none of the infrastructure in the VAB will line up with the FS.  Cheesy diagram attached.

It's probably easier to do the launch at Starbase, where one of the mid-bays could be re-kludged, using SpaceX processes, which don't require 90 different EGS contractors fiddle-fartin' around for three or four years.

Again:  terrible idea in general.

[DanClemmensen]

SLS is stacked in the VAB, with service platforms aligned to assist in the stacking and checkout. 

The the Orion assembly (LAS, CM, ESM, and Spacecraft Adapter with the ESM fairing panels) is stacked on top of it.  For Block 1, it's put on top of the Orion Stage Adapter, which mounts onto the ICPS, which is mounted to the core with the LVSA.  For Block 1B, it's put on top of the USA, which is mounted to the EUS, which is mounted to the EUS interstage, which is mounted to the core.

As with the SLS itself, the Orion assembly has platforms positioned to assist in its stacking and checkout.

Again:  terrible idea in general.

My hare-brained concept was that if all that fancy stuff near the top of the VAB must be used and cannot easily be lowered, then start by building a platform up at the appropriate height and lift the stubby SS onto it. That would put the Orion at the proper height to be accessed by the fancy stuff. After Orion is completely and properly mated to Stubby SS, lift the stack about 30 cm, remove the platform, and lower the stack onto the usual SS transporter. I think this is a horrible idea, but it's completely consistent with Frankenrocket.

[Jim]

It's probably easier to do the launch at Starbase, where one of the mid-bays could be re-kludged, using SpaceX processes, which don't require 90 different EGS contractors fiddle-fartin' around for three or four years.

dozens of NASA EGS leading 90 different.....

[native chicken]

Well, we're down the rabbit-hole now, aren't we?

SLS is stacked in the VAB, with service platforms aligned to assist in the stacking and checkout. 

The the Orion assembly (LAS, CM, ESM, and Spacecraft Adapter with the ESM fairing panels) is stacked on top of it.  For Block 1, it's put on top of the Orion Stage Adapter, which mounts onto the ICPS, which is mounted to the core with the LVSA.  For Block 1B, it's put on top of the USA, which is mounted to the EUS, which is mounted to the EUS interstage, which is mounted to the core.

As with the SLS itself, the Orion assembly has platforms positioned to assist in its stacking and checkout.

If there were to be a FrankenStarship, you might just stack it in the VAB, then haul it out to the pad and use the chopsticks to stack it onto the SuperHeavy.  Or I suppose you could stack it on the SuperHeavy in the VAB--except the VAB isn't tall enough to deal with it.  In either case, none of the infrastructure in the VAB will line up with the FS.  Cheesy diagram attached.

It's probably easier to do the launch at Starbase, where one of the mid-bays could be re-kludged, using SpaceX processes, which don't require 90 different EGS contractors fiddle-fartin' around for three or four years.

Again:  terrible idea in general.

The second stage of this Franken Starship rocket does not require a height of 29 meters (1200 tons of fuel, which should be approximately 600 tons of fuel). Because the total mass of the upper stage loading of the SLS1B or SLS2 hydrogen oxygen rocket is approximately 140-210 tons
PS, the latest version of LM9 in China, is similar to the concept of the Franken Starship rocket designed here. The takeoff mass is 4400 tons, with the first stage fuel and Starship being approximately 3300-3400 tons, the second stage fuel being 600 tons, and the third stage fuel and payload being approximately 150 tons

[TheRadicalModerate]

The second stage of this Franken Starship rocket does not require a height of 29 meters (1200 tons of fuel, which should be approximately 600 tons of fuel). Because the total mass of the upper stage loading of the SLS1B or SLS2 hydrogen oxygen rocket is approximately 140-210 tons
PS, the latest version of LM9 in China, is similar to the concept of the Franken Starship rocket designed here. The takeoff mass is 4400 tons, with the first stage fuel and Starship being approximately 3300-3400 tons, the second stage fuel being 600 tons, and the third stage fuel and payload being approximately 150 tons

Just to be clear, we're not talking about using the SLS second stage (i.e., the EUS) in this scheme.  It's a SuperHeavy booster and a regular Starship with the nose cut off and replaced with the Orion stack:  LAS+CM+ESM+SCA+USA.  That's it.

I ran this through Sliverbird as a purely expendable stack, using the Raptor 3.1 numbers.  Note that these are quite conservative now, and only assume 6 Raptors on Starship, instead of the 9 that have been proposed, and using the old prop numbers, which have also been proposed to increase as the thrust goes up. I had to guess on the vacuum performance, so I just used 110% of sea level, which is likely too conservative.

I also treated the Orion LAS and ESM fairing panels as if they were payload fairings, jettisoned 230s into flight.  The remainder of the stack (CM+ESM+SCA+USA) weighs 31.2t, and a co-manifested payload could weigh up to 10t.

I used C3=-1km²/s² for TLI, which is probably a bit much.

So, even with conservative numbers for SH/FrankenStarship, the lower end of the 95% CI will come eerily close to Block 1B performance.  And if you go to Raptor 3.2 performance, with stretched tanks and more Starship engines, I suspect it's better than Block 2.

As an expendable system, FrankenStarship with expendable SuperHeavy and 75% gross margin might cost $800M/launch, as opposed to a best-case $2.5B/launch for SLS Block 1B.  And of course the Orion costs roughly $1B, maybe $700M once they get reuse figured out.

It's still a bad idea compared to the D2 + OTV-LSS kludge, because the FrankenStarship would likely cost a $2B-$5B in DDT&E, while the kludge costs maybe $200M in DDT&E, and considerably less in cost/launch.

[DanClemmensen]

. . . the FrankenStarship would likely cost a $2B-$5B in DDT&E.

SpaceX' DDT&E for expendable Stubby SS would be quite small, I think: call it $200 million. Is the rest of this is in the GSE for stacking and the development for the Orion portion of the interface, which would be largely non-SpaceX?

[TheRadicalModerate]

. . . the FrankenStarship would likely cost a $2B-$5B in DDT&E.

SpaceX' DDT&E for expendable Stubby SS would be quite small, I think: call it $200 million. Is the rest of this is in the GSE for stacking and the development for the Orion portion of the interface, which would be largely non-SpaceX?

You're going to need:

1) Lots of new GSE.  If SpaceX does it at BC, it'll cost whatever's required to move Orion/USA from checkout to BC, plus all the integration and stacking widgets.  But SpaceX can probably stack it in a mid-bay using SpaceX methods, which are likely 10% of the cost of VAB changes.  If they launch from Florida, I think your "put the stubby Starship up on a platform so it looks like the top of the SLS core" thing will help, but there's still a lot of work to do to get the current servicing platforms to work with a 9m diameter system instead of an 8.4m one.

2) Unlike with the D2/OTV kludge, you're going to have to re-qualify the Orion for ascent.  At the very least, there are aerodynamic issues, which may or may not be significant.  You also have to re-jigger all the abort zones and look for black zones.  The fact that the LAS is still there helps enormously, but there's some work to do.

3) You have to re-design and build the USA.  You could potentially build a short (1m long? 2m?) boat-tail to adapt the existing 8.4m USA to the 9m stubby Starship.  If that works structurally/aerodynamically, cool.  Otherwise, Dynetics will have to do a redesign.

4) Here's a stupid one that could be a deal-breaker:  The ESM Solar Array Wings.  They have to deploy before TLI (so the crew can abort if they don't deploy), but then they have to tilt back to reduce the load on the hinges.  And that's just for a single RL10 that's throttled down to ~70kN (a guess).  With FrankenStarship, you're looking at a single RSL, which can maybe throttle down to 1200kN (another guess).

Burnout acceleration of EUS (one engine burning)+USA+ESM+CM: 70kN/44.4t = 1.7m/s²
Burnout acceleration of Starship (one RSL burning)+USA+ESM+CM: 1000kN/76.2t = 13.1m/s² (I'm assuming the stubby is 45t dry).

That's a pretty big difference, and will likely involve a complete redesign of the SAWs.

5) And then there are whatever changes there are to the Mechazilla.  Probably some minor chopsticks mods, and the crew access system.

6) You probably need an all-up test launch.

Big guesses on cost here, all of which are eminently debatable:

VAB changes:  $1B - $2B?
ESM SAW changes: $500M - $1B.
USA changes:  anywhere from $100M to $1B.
Mechazilla crew access/chopsticks changes: $100M? 
Getting the stubby structure and aero good to go: $100M.
Generalized Orion requalification angst:  $300M.
Test launch with Orion boilerplate: $1B. ($700M SpaceX, $300M LockMart/Dynetics)
-----------------
Total: $3.1B - $5.3B

Still a bad idea.  Kinda cool as an engineering exercise, but a bad idea.

[tgr9898]

. . . the FrankenStarship would likely cost a $2B-$5B in DDT&E.

SpaceX' DDT&E for expendable Stubby SS would be quite small, I think: call it $200 million. Is the rest of this is in the GSE for stacking and the development for the Orion portion of the interface, which would be largely non-SpaceX?

If the VAB is used for Frankenrocket stacking one additional cost will be transport to LC39A since there's currently an HIF sitting on the crawlerway. While SPMTs will likely be used (rather than the traditional crawlers), there will need to be some type of modification/bypass around the HIF. And will the SPMTs provide a smooth enough ride for Orion? On their own SpaceX would rebuild it in an afternoon for $2500 & a free lunch, but getting all the partners to agree might be more expensive (Artemis s primarily a jobs program after all)
Just some additional parameters for costing

[DanClemmensen]

. . . the FrankenStarship would likely cost a $2B-$5B in DDT&E.

SpaceX' DDT&E for expendable Stubby SS would be quite small, I think: call it $200 million. Is the rest of this is in the GSE for stacking and the development for the Orion portion of the interface, which would be largely non-SpaceX?

If the VAB is used for Frankenrocket stacking one additional cost will be transport to LC39A since there's currently an HIF sitting on the crawlerway. While SPMTs will likely be used (rather than the traditional crawlers), there will need to be some type of modification/bypass around the HIF. And will the SPMTs provide a smooth enough ride for Orion? On their own SpaceX would rebuild it in an afternoon for $2500 & a free lunch, but getting all the partners to agree might be more expensive (Artemis s primarily a jobs program after all)
Just some additional parameters for costing

I took a look at google Map view of the area a few months ago. There is a nice wide paved route from the VAB to LC-39A that looks to be a whole lot smoother and wider than Texas highway 4 in Boca Chica. Use the crawlerway almost to the HIF then use Saturn Causeway, which goes around the side of the HIF and appears to be a wide two-lane road.
   https://www.google.com/maps/@28.6037088,-80.6051176,941m/data=!3m1!1e3?authuser=0&entry=ttu

[pochimax]

ESM SAW changes: $500M - $1B.

I doubt it.

Anyway, it is not an ESA cost? paying with seats, zero money.

VAB changes:  $1B - $2B?

why so much? 

I' m in love with Franckenrocket 

[Zed_Noir]

VAB changes:  $1B - $2B?

why so much? 
<snip>

Just a guess. Removing the old service platforms and replaced them with new service platforms in the VAB then hooking up everything. Plus operating and maintaining the new service platforms.

[TheRadicalModerate]

VAB changes:  $1B - $2B?

why so much? 
<snip>

Just a guess. Removing the old service platforms and replaced them with new service platforms in the VAB then hooking up everything. Plus operating and maintaining the new service platforms.

Another thing to keep in mind is that a second source for cislunar transport probably doesn't mean an instant cancellation of SLS/Orion.  So the VAB would need to be able to switch back and forth between FrankenStarship and SLS/Orion.

My most recent understanding is that High Bay #3 is the main SLS/Orion integration area.  NorGrumm was going to use HB #2 for Omega, but it's gone.  SLS uses HB #4 for pre-integration activities--I don't understand what these are.

So SpaceX could do something with HB #1 or #2, but we're talking about a complete build-out of one of these high bays, which would indeed be a couple of $B, once all the VAB contractors had gotten their beaks wet.

They might do better building their own mid-bay on Roberts Rd., but then they'd have to get it qualified to stack the Orion.  That sounds like a thankless (and expensive) task.

[pochimax]

So SpaceX could do something with HB #1 or #2, but we're talking about a complete build-out of one of these high bays, which would indeed be a couple of $B, once all the VAB contractors had gotten their beaks wet.

How is it possible that SpX makes a whole new development of a never-before-seen lunar lander for only 3 billion and now it turns out that for two scaffolds and four platforms SpX is not capable of doing it for less than 2 billion?
I don't find any logic.

[DanClemmensen]

So SpaceX could do something with HB #1 or #2, but we're talking about a complete build-out of one of these high bays, which would indeed be a couple of $B, once all the VAB contractors had gotten their beaks wet.

How is it possible that SpX makes a whole new development of a never-before-seen lunar lander for only 3 billion and now it turns out that for two scaffolds and four platforms SpX is not capable of doing it for less than 2 billion?
I don't find any logic.

The folks here, especially including me, are just guessing, but the guesses have some basis. Among other things, a NASA contract for a straight SLS replacement will likely be quite different from the original HLS contract. For another I think we are assuming that the FrankenStarship, and especially its GSE, would be unique to Orion, so the Orion launches would need to cover the costs. By contrast, the bulk of the HLS development directly leverages the work SpaceX already intended to do fr generic Starship. If you wish to compare bid prices, look at the original $6 B bid for the first BO HLS, or the $9 B bid for the Dynetics HLS, or even the $3.4 B bid for the BO Appendix P HLS was was actually awarded. All of these were for unique special-purpose hardware with very low use rates. By contrast, SpaceX was apparently willing to bid just enough to cover the incremental costs (and presmably a nice profit) while still funding the base Starship using its own money.

The other problem is that Frankenstarship must be co-developed with major non-SpaceX components, especially GSE. SpaceX may very well be able to develop the stubby SS for $200 M (or whatever). The rest of the $2B is for mostly non-SpaceX work at KSC.

[whitelancer64]

*snip*
My most recent understanding is that High Bay #3 is the main SLS/Orion integration area.  NorGrumm was going to use HB #2 for Omega, but it's gone.  SLS uses HB #4 for pre-integration activities--I don't understand what these are.

*snip*

For Artemis III and onward, the SLS core will have its engines installed in the VAB instead of at Michoud. NASA also stores various parts and equipment there. I also think that SRB segments are kept there until they are stacked.

[pochimax]

The folks here, especially including me, are just guessing, but the guesses have some basis. Among other things, a NASA contract for a straight SLS replacement will likely be quite different from the original HLS contract. For another I think we are assuming that the FrankenStarship, and especially its GSE, would be unique to Orion, so the Orion launches would need to cover the costs. By contrast, the bulk of the HLS development directly leverages the work SpaceX already intended to do fr generic Starship. If you wish to compare bid prices, look at the original $6 B bid for the first BO HLS, or the $9 B bid for the Dynetics HLS, or even the $3.4 B bid for the BO Appendix P HLS was was actually awarded. All of these were for unique special-purpose hardware with very low use rates. By contrast, SpaceX was apparently willing to bid just enough to cover the incremental costs (and presmably a nice profit) while still funding the base Starship using its own money.

The other problem is that Frankenstarship must be co-developed with major non-SpaceX components, especially GSE. SpaceX may very well be able to develop the stubby SS for $200 M (or whatever). The rest of the $2B is for mostly non-SpaceX work at KSC.

Well... simply:
Contract the entire process (modifications, rocket, launch, support, etc.) completely with SpX. Avoid other contractors.

I think SpX needs a place to mount vertically integrated payloads on the Starship. I understand that the cheapest thing is to lease and modify the VAB to SpX but if SpX has another plan, simply integrate the Orion there. Surely then it will be even much cheaper.
There will probably be dozens of launches of vertically integrated payloads, for DoD, NASA, Government, etc...., surely SpX will have an idea of how to make those types of launches compatible with those of the Orion. Actually, I think the cost of these investments for NASA should be literally zero, since that investment will probably be paid for by the DoD
NASA just has to send Orion to SpX, ready to launch. To VAB or wherever. SpX will take care of everything else.

Furthermore, with the savings we have by avoiding SLS, the Orion can be launched twice a year to the Gateway or even more frequently. Europe is ready to increase its production rate of ESMs and even modify them so that they have more delta-v and test other types of missions (asteroids).

[Zed_Noir]

<snip>
Furthermore, with the savings we have by avoiding SLS, the Orion can be launched twice a year to the Gateway or even more frequently. Europe is ready to increase its production rate of ESMs and even modify them so that they have more delta-v and test other types of missions (asteroids).

Afraid upgrading the European service module might not be needed. Since a refueled stubby Starship variant could act as the canceled Altair lander for Earth departure and trans injected to destination orbit roles.

Frankly even the Orion might be phased out early and be replace by a simpler Earth reentry vehicle (EaRV) with a stubby Starship variant as orbital transfer vehicle, cargo transport and habitat. The Orion with 2 weeks of life support is simply too expensive, when you can get several Starship/EaRV sets for the cost of one Orion and its sprawling support infrastructure footprint.

Sadly the SLS and Orion are linked together. They only exists to justified each other. Since the only payload that needs the SLS is the Orion, which currently have no other launcher. If one gets axed, the other will also get axed.

[pochimax]

<snip>
Furthermore, with the savings we have by avoiding SLS, the Orion can be launched twice a year to the Gateway or even more frequently. Europe is ready to increase its production rate of ESMs and even modify them so that they have more delta-v and test other types of missions (asteroids).

Afraid upgrading the European service module might not be needed. Since a refueled stubby Starship variant could act as the canceled Altair lander for Earth departure and trans injected to destination orbit roles.

Frankly even the Orion might be phased out early and be replace by a simpler Earth reentry vehicle (EaRV) with a stubby Starship variant as orbital transfer vehicle, cargo transport and habitat. The Orion with 2 weeks of life support is simply too expensive, when you can get several Starship/EaRV sets for the cost of one Orion and its sprawling support infrastructure footprint.

Sadly the SLS and Orion are linked together. They only exists to justified each other. Since the only payload that needs the SLS is the Orion, which currently have no other launcher. If one gets axed, the other will also get axed.

SpX will actually launch a Starship on a nominal flight (>100 Tm, Starlink or whatever) several years before the Starship HLS crewed lunar landing flight happens.
From the moment of that first flight, let's say in 2025, NASA will have to consider the possibility of launching the Orion using the Starship rocket and put that option out to tender. I don't know how long it would take SpX to modify the rocket to launch the Orion, but probably even in time to overtake the Artemis IV SLS.
On the other hand, an alternative to Orion based on the Starship HLS will not be seen in any case BEFORE the moon landing has actually occurred.
I even see it as highly likely that an Orion launch on a Starship will happen before a NASA astronaut lands on the Moon on an HLS.

[TheRadicalModerate]

So SpaceX could do something with HB #1 or #2, but we're talking about a complete build-out of one of these high bays, which would indeed be a couple of $B, once all the VAB contractors had gotten their beaks wet.

How is it possible that SpX makes a whole new development of a never-before-seen lunar lander for only 3 billion and now it turns out that for two scaffolds and four platforms SpX is not capable of doing it for less than 2 billion?
I don't find any logic.

Well, first, it's a lot more than $3B, because the majority of it has been opaquely funded by SpaceX for non-HLS purposes.  The $3B is for the work to turn a vanilla Starship into an LSS, with a bit of refueling tech being subsidized.  (Note:  Starship doesn't need refueling tech for anything happening in LEO or GTO, so NASA is paying to accelerate it somewhat.)

Second, why would SpaceX want to do FrankenStarship unless the DDT&E profit baked into it far exceeded the opportunity costs incurred by moving a bunch of engineers off Starship enhanced reusability, refueling tech, improved lunar landers, and stuff for Mars?

Third, and by far the most serious, is that to engage with Orion's infrastructure is to engage with a whole bunch of interests that have nice, cushy cost-plus contracts, which would have to be modified (increased) to provide support for Orion stacking infrastructure, no matter how much of it SpaceX was willing to take over.  Not only do those interests fear anything that starts to tear down the SLS/Orion industrial complex, but they know they're in the driver's seat when it comes to any part of EGS that touches on Orion.  I don't know the percentage of that, but my guess is that it's non-trivial, both from a DDT&E perspective and as a marginal, per-mission cost.

SpaceX can't do this on their own, because Orion's certification is all tied up in that rats' nest of EGS activities.  And the people who control those contracts are going to look at this as a big, fat, slow-moving barge of money traversing their field of view.

Frankly, I don't see much incentive for SpaceX to participate in this.  It's much easier for them just to start flying D2 - OTV kludge missions and let Orion stew in its own juices.  I think they might be fine providing the stubby Starship, because that actually has a lot of uses.  But beyond that, they've got lots of plans for their own ground systems, and none of them involve Orion.

From the moment of that first flight, let's say in 2025, NASA will have to consider the possibility of launching the Orion using the Starship rocket and put that option out to tender.

NASA may have to consider replacing SLS/Orion altogether.  But they only have to consider using Orion if it's actually cheaper than other options, or provides capabilities that other solutions don't have. 

It's almost certainly not cheaper.  And the only capability it provides that's even partially defensible is eliminating two RPODs in LEO or if rolling co-manifests to CLVs is insurmountably difficult.  If RPODs are going to be a problem, then the whole refueling architecture probably won't work.  And if NASA can't get a co-manifested payload to work on something else, they're doomed.

[pochimax]

Frankly, I don't see much incentive for SpaceX to participate in this.

NASA would be asking for it... I don't understand why it seems like little incentive. Can anyone really believe that SpX is going to refuse a NASA request? 

NASA may have to consider replacing SLS/Orion altogether.

I do not see it. There is a very important temporal problem. There will be a potential competitor to the SLS several years BEFORE there will be a potential competitor to the Orion spacecraft. NASA cannot wait for the Orion competitor to exist before it can look for commercial replacements for the SLS. Perhaps in the not near future it will be able to look for a replacement for the Orion, but at first it will have no choice but to try to launch the Orion on a Starship rocket.

[DanClemmensen]

Frankly, I don't see much incentive for SpaceX to participate in this.

NASA would be asking for it... I don't understand why it seems like little incentive. Can anyone really believe that SpX is going to refuse a NASA request? 

NASA may have to consider replacing SLS/Orion altogether.

I do not see it. There is a very important temporal problem. There will be a potential competitor to the SLS several years BEFORE there will be a potential competitor to the Orion spacecraft. NASA cannot wait for the Orion competitor to exist before it can look for commercial replacements for the SLS. Perhaps in the not near future it will be able to look for a replacement for the Orion, but at first it will have no choice but to try to launch the Orion on a Starship rocket.

We have a basic disagreement here, so we keep restating the same things. I (and others) feel that an SLS/Orion mission can be functionally replaced by a mission that uses Crew Dragon to LEO and a Starship HLS acting as an OTV to take crew to NRHO and back to LEO. This does not replace Orion with Dragon, or SLS with HLS-OTV. Instead, it replaces (SLS/Orion) with (D2/OTV). By definition, HLS OTV will be ready at the time of the first Starship HLS Lunar landing: it's a second instance of the Starship HLS. Not temporal problem. More, any contract to replace SLS with FrankenStarship will take several year to get through the entire procurement cycle, while (D2/OTV) uses hardware that is already being developed.

For some reason, you seem to believe that NASA will insist on replacing SLS, and separately eventually replacing Orion, so we are talking about different things. You may in fact be correct, but I (and others) simply do not agree.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Frankly, I don't see much incentive for SpaceX to participate in this.

NASA would be asking for it... I don't understand why it seems like little incentive. Can anyone really believe that SpX is going to refuse a NASA request?

NASA can't just ask SpaceX for this.  They'd have to issue an RFP and get a bid.  Most likely, they'd have to write a JOFOC (justification of other than fair and open compeitition) to explain why SpaceX was the only bidder capable of providing the service.  And they can't make SpaceX do the work; if SpaceX thinks the work would distract too much from things they actually care about, they'd jack the price up until it made decent business sense.

Or they might just tell NASA to JOFOC themselves...

But it'd be much, much cleaner for NASA simply to issue a BAA for a second source for the Earth-NRHO-Earth segment and throw it open to public competition.  The only reason not to do that is if the congressional appropriation for the program insisted that Orion be used.  But if Congress has actually gotten embarrassed enough to appropriate for this, it seems unlikely that they'd want to attach any strings.

Note that we're nowhere near the pain point where Congress would appropriate money for this.  The OIG report is a pretty good whack upside the head, as was the previous OIG report that laid out the $4.2B marginal cost for each SLS/Orion launch.  But it's likely a few additional whacks will be required before anything happens.

[VSECOTSPE]

But it'd be much, much cleaner for NASA simply to issue a BAA for a second source for the Earth-NRHO-Earth segment and throw it open to public competition.

This.  So much this.

I get that folks like to LEGO-engineer their pet solutions using the systems and subsystems laying around and then imagine how easy it would be to just sole-source their genius.  But folks should also remember that’s what Mike Griffin and Scott Horowitz did, and it got us Ares I.  And it’s what NASA Senate detailees Tom Cremins and Jeff Bingham did, and it got us SLS.

Let industry do its job.  Let competition do its work.  The process is actually as important, if not more so, than the specific solutions.

[yg1968]

But it'd be much, much cleaner for NASA simply to issue a BAA for a second source for the Earth-NRHO-Earth segment and throw it open to public competition.

This.  So much this.

I get that folks like to LEGO-engineer their pet solutions using the systems and subsystems laying around and then imagine how easy it would be to just sole-source their genius.  But folks should also remember that’s what Mike Griffin and Scott Horowitz did, and it got us Ares I.  And it’s what NASA Senate detailees Tom Cremins and Jeff Bingham did, and it got us SLS.

Let industry do its job.  Let competition do its work.  The process is actually as important, if not more so, than the specific solutions.

Speaking of Mike Griffin, here is what he had to say about these public-private partnerships:

Speaking at the American Astronautical Society’s von Braun Space Exploration Symposium Oct. 27, former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin discussed the “regrettable square-wave flip from it’s all government all the time in space to if it isn’t commercial, why are we bothering to do it?”

Griffin did not specifically mention LTV or other programs that have taken the services approach, but he argued that the shift to commercial approaches deprived government agencies of doing “a certain amount of work themselves,” in the process building up experience they can then apply to other programs.

He also said companies advocating for commercial approaches are doing so because they want government money without the rules and regulations involved in traditional government contracting approaches. “Until we can return to the proper definition of commercial we’re going to be kidding ourselves.”

https://spacenews.com/nasa-delays-artemis-lunar-rover-award-by-four-months/

[VSECOTSPE]

Speaking of Mike Griffin, here is what he had to say about these public-private partnerships:

I didn’t know that anyone still paid attention to what that corrupt whiny hack has to say, so I didn’t quote him.

Foust also strangely jammed Griffin’s comments into an article on LTV, when Griffin’s comments weren’t about LTV, trying to create a controversy or story where there wasn’t one.

Speaking at the American Astronautical Society’s von Braun Space Exploration Symposium Oct. 27, former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin discussed the “regrettable square-wave flip from it’s all government all the time in space to if it isn’t commercial, why are we bothering to do it?”

Usual bogus lying from Griffin.  What complete flip?  In Artemis, NASA is still stuck with Orion (thanks to Griffin) and SLS, both NASA-managed projects.  They consume something approaching $5 billion per year, over half the Artemis budget, while at the same time constraining future Artemis mission rates and sizes to four astronauts once every year or two, maybe someday out in the 2030s.  In Space Ops, NASA is still stuck blowing a couple billion of dollars a year on ISS, another NASA-managed project with productivity that is a small fraction of its cost, for the rest of the decade or more, while a piddling couple or few hundred million dollars are spent annually to develop its successor(s).  In Science, there’s one small, experimental program (CLPS) to use commercial landers to access the lunar surface for tens to very low hundreds of millions of dollars.  The vast majority of the rest of the ~$8B annual Science budget is either competitive, PI-led missions or NASA center-managed flagship missions.  Because NASA has always grossly underfunded Technology, those small projects have always had to look for cost-sharing partners, commercial or otherwise.

Griffin did not specifically mention LTV or other programs that have taken the services approach, but he argued that the shift to commercial approaches deprived government agencies of doing “a certain amount of work themselves,” in the process building up experience they can then apply to other programs.

There’s nothing wrong with using certain projects as insurance so that NASA has access to experienced, trained managers.  But insurance of any type should only consume a small portion of the available budget, not the vast majority of it.  No one pays $20K for a car and then another $10K to $20K annually to insure it.  No one pays $400K for a house and then another $200K to $400K annually to insure it.  Only NASA...

And these training projects can’t be major national human space flight objectives or on the critical path to them.  No one trains brain surgeons or nuclear engineers by putting grads in charge of operating wards and reactors.

If NASA wants experienced aerospace development managers, then go to where they’ve been ever since the Apollo draw-down, in industry.  This is an H/R problem, not a flight project problem.  Back in the late 90s, NASA was given H/R authorities to rapidly hire small numbers of experienced private sector managers at considerably higher salaries than the civil service.  Use them.

He also said companies advocating for commercial approaches are doing so because they want government money without the rules and regulations involved in traditional government contracting approaches. “Until we can return to the proper definition of commercial we’re going to be kidding ourselves.”

Griffin has been stupidly or dishonestly hung up on the definition of “commercial” ever since COTS, when the cost-sharing (public-private partnership) aspect of these projects is about the fourth most important aspect of them behind competition, requirements definition, and fixed-price.  NASA can have projects with those three elements without any commercial cost-sharing.

What NASA can’t have is corrupt Administrators hand-picking technical solutions, justifying those solutions with technically flawed studies, and then sole-sourcing the resulting contracts in the absence of competition in exchange for cushy jobs with universities and companies in Huntsville after leaving NASA.

Ugh... bleah...

[Emmettvonbrown]

How about the EELV black zones - dear God. I followed that "debate" on this very forum at the time (I'm a very long time lurker) , and it's still infuriates me to this day.
Blaming EELVs for (mostly imaginary) black zones was quite outrageous, considering the pogo / vibrations issues marring Ares 1. Also that air-started SSME, wait, no, that J-2X struggling with an overweight Orion...

The proverbial mote and beam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_and_the_Beam

 "Dear Mike Griffin : why beholdest thou the black zone that is in thy EELV boosters, but considerest not the pogo issue that is in thine own Ares 1 ? "

 

It was easier to blame EELVs and reject them for mostly imaginary flaws - than acknowledging that the Prefered Rocket (Ares 1) was flawed - for real. Also Pork Barrel would not tolerate EELVs because they didn't used SSME... wait, neither did Ares 1 with its J-2X - so forget that argument.

[VSECOTSPE]

Yeah, it’s unusual for a former NASA Administrator comment on the agency’s current program decisions.  Goldin, O’Keefe, and Bolden aren’t doing that.

But it’s especially striking to hear Griffin claim that programs are skirting rules today when he hired a former astronaut from ATK to be his Exploration AA, that former astronaut then sole sourced contracts back to ATK, and his chief of staff was illegally directing funds to Mississippi State U. (and taking a cut, for which he served nearly 3.5 years in prison).  The gall...  Why AIA (a professional org for which I once volunteered as treasurer) gives a platform to the disgraced likes of Griffin or Doug Cooke (whom Boeing pays six figures to argue on their behalf), I’ll never understand.

Back on topic... regarding the IG report on the unlikelihood of SLS cost savings, Boeing defense and space is no longer doing fixed-price contracts.  No one may realize or acknowledge it yet, but that puts a stake through the heart SLS contract consolidation efforts, regardless of whether they could ever produce cost savings.  If Boeing won’t accept fixed-price arrangements, then Deep Space Transport (DST), the joint venture of Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and P&W to service the consolidated SLS Exploration Production and Operations Contract, is effectively dead.

In a conference call with analysts on Wednesday, Boeing's chief executive, David Calhoun, and chief financial officer, Brian West, expressed disappointment in these results from the defense and space division. They reiterated their goal of returning the company's defense and space businesses to profitability by the 2025 to 2026 period.

Notably, the pair pinned the blame for performance by its defense and space division, referred to internally as BDS, on fixed-price contracts. As the BDS division seeks a return to profitability, West said Boeing will not be using fixed-price contracts anymore.

"Perhaps most importantly, we instituted much tighter underwriting standards," he said. "As you know, part of the challenge we're dealing with are legacy contracts that we need to get out from under. Rest assured, we haven't signed any fixed-price development contracts, nor intend to.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/10/boeing-says-it-cant-make-money-with-fixed-price-contracts/

[woods170]

Frankly, I don't see much incentive for SpaceX to participate in this.

NASA would be asking for it... I don't understand why it seems like little incentive. Can anyone really believe that SpX is going to refuse a NASA request? 

Why carry this discussion any further? NASA is realistically NEVER going to ask SpaceX to fly Orion on anything other than SLS.

This entire back-and-forth over what SpaceX would or would not do, with regards to Orion, is completely hypothetical and pretty much pointless. It only serves a protracted "heels-firmly-planted-in-soil" back-and-forth between some folks here, until it reaches the point where the moderators will intervene and either:

A. Clean up this mess
B. Don't bother to do A and just lock this thread.

[woods170]

Speaking of Mike Griffin, here is what he had to say about these public-private partnerships:

Speaking at the American Astronautical Society’s von Braun Space Exploration Symposium Oct. 27, former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin discussed the “regrettable square-wave flip from it’s all government all the time in space to if it isn’t commercial, why are we bothering to do it?”

Griffin did not specifically mention LTV or other programs that have taken the services approach, but he argued that the shift to commercial approaches deprived government agencies of doing “a certain amount of work themselves,” in the process building up experience they can then apply to other programs.

He also said companies advocating for commercial approaches are doing so because they want government money without the rules and regulations involved in traditional government contracting approaches. “Until we can return to the proper definition of commercial we’re going to be kidding ourselves.”

https://spacenews.com/nasa-delays-artemis-lunar-rover-award-by-four-months/

Mike Griffin would be well advised to STFU on this subject. Failed engineer and worst NASA administrator ever "gifting" the world with the worst launcher ever (Ares I) shouldn't be giving highly uninformed (and that's putting it mildly) "advice" on how today's NASA should run things.
The spaceflight community would IMO be a much better place if people stopped giving attention to Griffin.

[Eric Hedman]

Speaking of Mike Griffin, here is what he had to say about these public-private partnerships:

Speaking at the American Astronautical Society’s von Braun Space Exploration Symposium Oct. 27, former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin discussed the “regrettable square-wave flip from it’s all government all the time in space to if it isn’t commercial, why are we bothering to do it?”

Griffin did not specifically mention LTV or other programs that have taken the services approach, but he argued that the shift to commercial approaches deprived government agencies of doing “a certain amount of work themselves,” in the process building up experience they can then apply to other programs.

He also said companies advocating for commercial approaches are doing so because they want government money without the rules and regulations involved in traditional government contracting approaches. “Until we can return to the proper definition of commercial we’re going to be kidding ourselves.”

https://spacenews.com/nasa-delays-artemis-lunar-rover-award-by-four-months/

Mike Griffin would be well advised to STFU on this subject. Failed engineer and worst NASA administrator ever "gifting" the world with the worst launcher ever (Ares I) shouldn't be giving highly uninformed (and that's putting it mildly) "advice" on how today's NASA should run things.
The spaceflight community would IMO be a much better place if people stopped giving attention to Griffin.

Don't hold back.  Tell us how you really feel.

P.S. I agree with you

[yg1968]

Speaking of Mike Griffin, here is what he had to say about these public-private partnerships:

I didn’t know that anyone still paid attention to what that corrupt whiny hack has to say, so I didn’t quote him.

Here is Griffin's entire speech, if you are interested. As you expect, he criticizes the HLS program and the commercial crew program (incidentally, I agree with your post above):



Senator Nelson's thinking on commercial crew and HLS has evolved but it's unfortunate that Griffin's ideas haven't changed since Constellation.