NASA's Space Launch System Searches For a Mission

schwit1 writes: Managers of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) are searching for a mission that they can propose and convince Congress to fund. "Once SLS is into the 2020s, the launch rate should see the rocket launching at least once per year, ramping up to a projected three times per year for the eventual Mars missions. However, the latter won’t be until the 2030s. With no missions manifested past the EM-2 flight, the undesirable question of just how 'slow' a launch rate would be viable for SLS and her workforce has now been asked." Meanwhile, two more Russian rocket engines were delivered yesterday, the first time that's happened since a Russian official threatened to cut off the supply. Another shipment of three engines is expected later this year. In Europe, Arianespace and the European Space Agency signed a contract today for the Ariane 5 rocket to launch 12 more of Europe’s Galileo GPS satellites on three launches. This situation really reminds me of the U.S. launch market in the 1990s, when Boeing and Lockheed Martin decided that, rather than compete with Russia and ESA for the launch market, they instead decided to rely entirely on U.S. government contracts, since those contracts didn’t really demand that they reduce their costs significantly to compete.

Comments

Ooh I Got One!

[Greyfox]

Can we use it to shoot Congress into Space? We could call it an "Emergency preparedness for giant asteroid strike" or something! Of course once IN space, they might have to stay there for a while. Giant asteroid and all that. Earth might not be habitable again for decades!

Re:Ooh I Got One!

[ShanghaiBill]

did Congress tell NASA which contractors to pick for the Saturn V?

Yes. The Saturn V project contained immense amounts of pork. Almost every congressional district benefited in some way, with congressional leaders grabbing the biggest pieces. The biggest prize (the Houston Space Center) went to LBJ's home state, and former congressional district.

Screwed up Congress

[surfdaddy]

NASA has a lot of problems and bureaucracy. While I like the IDEA of NASA, unfortunately the current REALITY is quite different. NASA is full of bureacracy, it's horribly inefficient and risk-averse. Congress is micromanaging the tasks and budget. So when we criticize NASA for no mission, part of that is because they really can't do anything with any consistency. And Congress is mostly interested in preserving pork jobs in their own districts. So we get the SLS, a huge rocket that is costing billions, without a decent mission, and a low flight rate that will make it horrendously expensive....forever... Meanwile, an efficient upstart called SpaceX is actually DOING THINGS and being BOLD, and certain senators are trying to make sure they don't succeed because SpaceX is disruptive and endangers their districts' jobs. So the US is basically fucked - we aren't leading, we aren't spending our money wisely, and NASA has become an expensive shell of its former self. And our newest hope, SpaceX, is only there because of the vision of Elon Musk... and even he is having to play politics to make sure his company isn't shut out of future NASA business. Thank our corrupt Congress, where local district money is more important than the health and leadership of the entire country.

Re:Screwed up Congress

[trout007]

NASA doesn't build much. The only reason their employees do any engineering at all is so they stay somewhat competent enough to write requirements and evaluate contracts. Most of the money and work has been, is done, and will continue to be done by contractors.
Take Apollo. North American made the command and service module and second state, Grumman made the LM. The Saturn V first stage was built by Boeing with Rockedyne Engines. The third stage was built by Douglass, The avionics by IBM.The escape system by Lockheed.

Now since most of the integration work can be done by industry NASA has started to even back out of the integration role. Let the contractors build the whole thing. This doesn't mean NASA doesn't do anything. SpaceX, Orbital, etc uses NASA technology and experts all of the time. The difference is these companies go to NASA to ask for help where in the past the contractor had to pass NASA design reviews which slowed things down and made everything cost more.

I for one like this direciton. Launching rockets is proven technology. It's time for business to figure out how to make it economical. With these savings NASA can spend more on more payloads. If launch costs go down significantly then the spacecraft costs will drop as well. You don't launch a $10M spacecraft when you have to pay $200M for the rocket. But if the rocket costs $10M then you just might. 20 times the missions even if a bunch fail is still quite a bit of science.

Problems with SLS

[catchblue22]

Aside from the horrific cost of the SLS (18 billion dollars) it is worth considering the fundamental flaws of it. If you use it to launch astronauts with the Orion spacecraft, you are using somewhere around a quarter of the SLS's lift capacity. If you want to use it to send things to Mars, you will need to add another stage, which is non-trivial. Overall, this seems like a giant corporate welfare program for NASA's contractors.

Wanna cut cost ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you guys truly want to cut cost to the bone why don't you guys outsource your space program to India?

I mean, the cost of the Indian rocket launch system is literally peanuts compare to what NASA pays for its rockets

Re:Field of Dreams

[ShanghaiBill]

we needed to establish heavy lift as a foundation to do any manned or heavy robotic exploration and exploitation of space.

Why does robotic exploration have to be "heavy"? I have some friends working on the Lunar X Prize. Their lander is the size of a carton of cigarettes, and weighs less than a kilogram. The $18B spent on the SLS would have been better spent on mechanical miniaturization, which would have many applications here on Earth, as well as in space. If you want to accomplish great things, you need to stop thinking big and start thinking small.

If it even gets off the ground

[Dereck1701]

So far SLS isn't setting itself far enough apart from the boondoggle which was Constellation for my tastes. Its budget has grown from 10 Billion to, by many estimates, $41 Billion by the time it has actually launched a few prototypes. And its per launch estimates are up in the air at the moment, NASA's "$500 Million" per launch is laughable. For the money we're burning on the development of SLS alone we could launch the mass of a Naval frigate into orbit on commercial launchers. Just think of what could be done with that kind of payload capacity.

Wrong way to do it...

[Kittenman]

Aren't you supposed to have the problem before you have the solution?

Nasa: Hey, we have this great launch system
Everyone: Cool! What are you going to do with it?
Nasa: .....

No slight to Nasa (who've done amazing things) or to the States (ditto), but shouldn't you set a goal, and then go towards it with the right tools? (something like ....First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.)