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NASA To Waste $150 Million On SLS Engine That Will Be Used Once
schwit1 writes: NASA's safety panel has noticed that NASA's SLS program either plans to spend $150 million human-rating a rocket engine it will only use once, or will fly a manned mission without human-rating that engine.
"The Block 1 SLS is the 'basic model,' sporting a Delta Cryogenic Second Stage (DCSS), renamed the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion System (ICPS) for SLS. The current plan calls for this [interim] stage to be used on [the unmanned] Exploration Mission -1 (EM-1) and [manned] Exploration Mission -2 (EM-2), prior to moving to the [Exploration Upper Stage] — also to be built by Boeing — that will become the workhorse for SLS. However, using the [interim upper stage] on a crewed mission will require it to be human rated. It is likely NASA will also need to fly the [Exploration Upper Stage] on an unmanned mission to validate the new stage ahead of human missions. This has been presenting NASA with a headache for some time, although it took the recent ASAP meeting to finally confirm those concerns to the public."
NASA doesn't have the funds to human-rate it, and even if they get those funds, human-rating it will likely cause SLS's schedule to slip even more, something NASA fears because they expect the commercial manned ships to be flying sooner and with increasing capability. The contrast — a delayed and unflown and very expensive SLS vs a flying and inexpensive commercial effort — will not do SLS good politically. However, if they are going to insist (properly I think) that SpaceX and Boeing human-rate their capsules and rockets, then NASA is going to have to hold the SLS to the same standard.
"The Block 1 SLS is the 'basic model,' sporting a Delta Cryogenic Second Stage (DCSS), renamed the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion System (ICPS) for SLS. The current plan calls for this [interim] stage to be used on [the unmanned] Exploration Mission -1 (EM-1) and [manned] Exploration Mission -2 (EM-2), prior to moving to the [Exploration Upper Stage] — also to be built by Boeing — that will become the workhorse for SLS. However, using the [interim upper stage] on a crewed mission will require it to be human rated. It is likely NASA will also need to fly the [Exploration Upper Stage] on an unmanned mission to validate the new stage ahead of human missions. This has been presenting NASA with a headache for some time, although it took the recent ASAP meeting to finally confirm those concerns to the public."
NASA doesn't have the funds to human-rate it, and even if they get those funds, human-rating it will likely cause SLS's schedule to slip even more, something NASA fears because they expect the commercial manned ships to be flying sooner and with increasing capability. The contrast — a delayed and unflown and very expensive SLS vs a flying and inexpensive commercial effort — will not do SLS good politically. However, if they are going to insist (properly I think) that SpaceX and Boeing human-rate their capsules and rockets, then NASA is going to have to hold the SLS to the same standard.
Your (our) tax dollars at work.
A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
So what is the article objectively stating?
Propaganda against NASA?
For free libre whatever for something?
Mismanagement of funds?
The normal forgetting of that 150 millions is a drop in a bucket for a large enough corp?
I am just curious.
Also:
>plans to spend $150 million human-rating a rocket engine it will only use once
Why is this a bad thing? Its how prototyping works. Some years down the line, they might want a version 2 for something else.
That's enough to buy half an F-35C!
.
To put it in perspective, the F-35 program will spend roughly 10,000 for planes that are unnecessary. Not saying we should waste $150 Million, but that we have a war machine that is out of control.
It sounds like they're considering various alternatives and haven't made the final decision. I suppose it would be easier to make that decision if the commercial rockets were rated for manned missions, but the recent launch failures are a reminder that rocket science is right at the edge of what humans can engineer.
In this case, just let it be jettisoned into the sea.
The mermaids and the Rhine Maidens will use the rocket to rocket around in their oceanic world!
Most Respectfully Yours Mrs. Cleara Plastique
The cost of the F-35 and the cost of Obamacare are both off topic and not relevant to this discussion.
We know "we" can go to Mars. We can send whatever instruments we want to do whatever science we want. We can send whatever robots we want to operate those instruments. What do we get from sending a meat robot to mars, other than the sort of daredevil glory? We may as well load up the rocket with 1000 lbs of solid gold to raise the stakes even more and make it extra suspenseful.
I am all for NASA, and $150 Million is a drop on the bucket, but I just don't see the utility of sending human beings to mars. We won't learn anything new. We are just risking killing people and making the mission more expensive by trying to mitigate that risk.
One day it will be important for people to go to mars (e.g. like when we run out of space on earth). Until then, there is really no reason a machine can't do the job a human can do more safely and cheaper.
NASA is in a strange place right now. Commercial launch capability is growing quickly, but the recent SpaceX failure underlines the fact that they may not be ready for prime time just yet. So the question is - does NASA spend these dollars to develop a heavy launch capability, or do they wait, cross their fingers, and hope that there is a commercial capability in place during the desired timeline?
At best, they spend the money and have a redundant launch capability. At worst, they don't spend the money AND commercial launch capability dies on the vine, and we are then left with no heavy lift capability at all.
And for the anti-NASA crowd that will be chanting "Pork! Pork! Pork!" - note that NASA is also trying to slow a massive brain drain of experience and knowledge from the shuttle program (yeah, which happens to keep the district congress-critters happy). Not having a project to work will mean watching all that experience walking out the door, gutting NASA's capability to do anything in the future.
NASA has a lot of judgements to make, several of which in hindsight will be seen to be redundant and costly, but without a crystal ball they need to make the decisions based not on cost-efficiency, but what will leave them with a exploration lift capability. That sucks, but that is not NASA's fault; they have to ride the waves (with a period T of 4 years) of the political seas.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
NASA was a great, even fantastic thing back when there was no commercial motivation to do research on space and powerful rockets. Back when there was little to no commercial launch market.
Now NASA is full of pork.. You cannot kill it because . . . pork. In every congressional district.
NASA is not and never has been efficient. At one time that was irrelevant because of the nature of what they did. Now is is more about letting bureaucrats CYA when something blows up. And to make sure money flows freely to as many congressional districts as possible. The traditional contractors are not designed to be efficient either, except at maximizing how much they can suck from the government teat.
One way NASA might end is that with lower and lower budgets NASA simply cannot do anything. Alternately, they might end because they get budgets big enough to actually do something, making the real inefficiency clear for all to see.
NASA must be held to the same safety standards that commercial providers are held to. Otherwise, a culture of evading or ignoring those safety standards will creep in.
The only role that NASA might have left is projects that require large investment to overcome a lack of commercial motives. For example, going to Mars. Maybe for operating a space station. Probably not for mining asteroids.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Does [anyone else] find that this [summary] is (a bit) hard to read? The (highly)-disjointed nature gives [me] a "headache" ((H)-DNGMAH).
Please update the word "Waste" to "Spend" in the title:
Current: "NASA To Waste $150 Million On SLS Engine That Will Be Used Once"
Recommended: "NASA To Spend $150 Million On SLS Engine That Will Be Used Once"
Less biased.
What do we get from sending a meat robot to mars, other than the sort of daredevil glory?
You get the most sophisticated tool we possess on Mars. One that can make discoveries orders of magnitude faster than any other tool we possess. You also learn a TON along the way about human physiology, botany, medicine, shielding, agriculture, and countless other subjects not relevant to mechanical robots that you would not otherwise discover. You'll also inspire a lot of people to get into science and engineering - far more than any robot mission ever could.
If you want to talk spinoff technology from manned spaceflight, so far we have infrared ear thermometers, ventricular assist devices, artificial limb enhancements, "invisible" braces, scratch resistant lenses, memory foam, enriched baby food, cordless tools, freeze drying techniques, water purification, pollution remediation technologies, food safety tech, and quite a bit more just from NASA alone. That is many billions of dollars worth of technological achievement that is directly attributable to manned spaceflight. The spinoff technologies alone have easily repaid the entire budget of NASA many times over.
There is nothing wrong with sending robots. We can and we should send more than we already are. But the notion that you gain nothing by sending people is demonstrably nonsense. The dumb thing to do would be to not send people. We don't have to do it tomorrow - I think it legitimately will take another 30-50 years at least to develop the technology to do it properly for an Apollo style mission to Mars. But if there is an investment with better bang for the buck in the long run I'm not sure what it is.
Commercial launch capability is growing quickly, but the recent SpaceX failure underlines the fact that they may not be ready for prime time just yet.
NASA has blown up plenty of rockets before SpaceX. This rocket failure won't be the last. Let's not get all chicken little because one rocket blew up.
All we need to end human space exploration is to start commonly blowing up bunches of people. If you want human space exploration bite your tongue and fund it.
One would hope, in a perfect world, that NASA and the SLS team would certainly want to be held to the same standards that they require others to be help do. This, however, is SLS - the low down dirty manipulative sneaky underhanded make works project that will not die, even though NASA and the Administration have tried. NASA will write a waiver and SLS will fly with unrated engines - OR - they'll take even more money from the Commercial Crew program (because they haven't delayed it long enough yet) and do the tests - and fly regardless of the results.
Newspace has been so successful. Musk's friend at NASA just paid $3 billion for SpaceX to develop a rocket that blew up and NASA doesn't even own the result. Shrewd. Give me SLS and lets restore the order we had with Apollo. SLS is a winner.
Not science. Not exploration. No even jobs. It is all about keeping the gravy train going for the big contractors.
Unmanned (the "Science Directorate") missions is where the exciting stuff happens.
Douche. You want to talk about wasting tax dollars you don't have to look any further than the DOD. The money wasted on far surpasses any perceived waste by NASA.
You've solved much harder problems than this, think Apollo 13.
Pull your collective heads out of your ass and solve this one, after all, it's not rocket science..... oh wait!
Rocket engines are almost always single use. Once we are done with them, we drop the spent stage into the ocean? Remember?
The SLS was never planned to be reusable. All its first stage motors were always planned to be single use.
The shame of the SLS is not its reusability. The shame of the SLS is that it's garbage cobbled together from spare parts by politicians, and is not properly funded.
I (had (no (problem)) reading (this (summary)))
What the heck is ``SLS''? The first paragraph of the linked article helps to decrypt some of the unexpanded acronyms from this jargon-heavy newsworthy article:
NASA officials have admitted the interim Upper Stage for the Space Launch System [SLS] is at the top of their “worry list”, as the Agency’s key advisory group insists NASA should make a decision about bringing the more powerful Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) online sooner. The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) fears NASA is at risk of wasting $150m on an Upper Stage they intend to “toss away”.
By the way, NASA is the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration, not to be confused with the National Security Agency [NSA]. ;-/
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I just won 149 million in the lottery. So, I'll take care of it. It's true, I'll have to take on that last million in unrecoverable debt, but that's ok. I don't mind. My kids can go to school on loans like I did. And, that new house would have been too big anyway. I'll work out an excuse for my wife when she asks where the money went.
NASA doesn't have the funds to human-rate it, and even if they get those funds, human-rating it will likely cause SLS's schedule to slip even more, something NASA fears because they expect the commercial manned ships to be flying sooner and with increasing capability. The contrast — a delayed and unflown and very expensive SLS vs a flying and inexpensive commercial effort — will not do SLS good politically.
This is the real reason why CCP had it's funding reduced.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Congressional oversight and acquisition laws are fucking NASA by forcing them to spend more on program management then the programs themselves.
The most sophisticated tool we possess, discovered a way to make discoveries without leaving earth.
Some discoveries. Very slowly. With very limited flexibility and substantially reduced spinoff benefits. Robots are a great way to explore some things but they are not the preferred way to explore everything.
What can a human being learn about botany in space that a human can't learn on earth by controlling a robot botanist?
How digestible the plant is by people in space to start with. How the plant interacts with humans in a different environment for another. You cannot discover a lot of things that relate to humans without a human being present.
As an engineer, (and not an astronaut), I think I am far more interested in making the thing that actually goes to mars and does the work, rather than making something that is so deficient that it requires a human being to be in close physical proximity to operate it.
Who said anything about making something deficient? Strawman argument you have there my friend. Don't try to put words in my mouth.
I think we will invent good spinoff technology regardless of whether we send humans or robots. In fact I would say the *best* spinoff technology to come from the space race were the advances in automation.
Of course we'll invent good spinoff technologies. But they will be DIFFERENT technologies. There are some technologies that will only and can only be developed if you plan to send people. And this robot vs human thing is a false dilemma. It does not have to be an either/or proposition. We can and should do both. Hell we could triple NASA's budget by taking the money from our military. The obstacles are not financial or even technical, they are merely political.
As for which technologies are best I think that is a matter of opinion, not fact and you didn't clarify what criteria establishes "best". Best by what measure? And even if you come up with a measure I'm not sure that's a very useful thing to do.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have people on mars. We should when it benefits us. Automation removes the *need* to put humans on mars to actually do things on mars. We should go when there is a tangible benefit to going.
There already is a tangible benefit to sending people. I outlined a large number of them. It will also take us decades to get to the point where sending people is a realistic option. The NASA administrator was interviewed on Startalk radio recently and he claims their on pace (funding permitting) to get boots on Mars in the 2030s. I'm extremely dubious that we will get there that fast but that's ok. If it takes longer so be it. What I think would be a tragedy would be to stop funding the research for how to get a person there.
We shouldn't send people to mars to repair robots.
I never claimed that we should. Not sure who's argument you are responding to but it certainly isn't mine. We should send people to Mars to explore. There isn't a robot you can design that can do the sort of exploring that a person can do. Robots should supplement the experience, not be an avatar for it.
Is spending money on a single use item automatically "waste" now? Man I sure wasted some money on that air bag... Not to speak of all the money I have wasted on food!
I appreciate acronyms being defined once (1x)
Just read a scientific article earlier where the AAAS was neither defined in the summary OR the association's website. A summary with 'outsiders' in mind is a good summary and helps make us 'insiders'.
ROTFLMAO. I just love it when the cargo cultists quote NASA on how wonderful NASA is.
Damm few of those come from NASA, at best NASA used them and took credit for using them, and that's been spun into NASA creating them. Take freeze dried food for example - the process was first used commercially in 1938. The modern process was perfected just a few years later when it was used to preserve blood products during WWII. Or cordless tools, first available commercially in the 1950's. Etc... etc...
What are they doing having them sit on top for months while pelting it with gold?
There's a ton of basic science getting done for that $150 mil you're ignoring. I don't even get too made at the F-35s. At the end of the day it's all just socialism. Military Spending is about the only way we lower castes have ever managed to pry money away from the 1% (not counting a few minor victories with Unions that really only happened thanks to the Cold War).
Eisenhower talked about it in his memoirs. He and a bunch of progressives created the Military Industrial Complex as a way of redistributing wealth. It was the only way he could keep the US Economy going instead of grinding to a halt when the 1% took everything for themselves. As I recall he was guilty over it and thought the harm done was worse than the help, but the only folks I know doing OK right now have gov't jobs that either are or depend on the Military...
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but saving up for a down payment on house is already impossible in my neck of the woods. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
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then somebody else can pocket it. Either for their own pet project or as tax cuts.
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when the President cancelled all manned US Spaceflight except for US crews visiting ISS on Russian rockets for a few years until ISS is retired (a policy BOTH parties in congress resoundingly rejected as almost the only bi-partisan vote in congress that year) the Obama administration has insisted that the congress has given it too much money for SLS. The congress ordered the SLS by a very specific law that specifies what the minimum payload capacity of the rocket must be (in order to force the current administration to build a Mars-mission-enabling launch vehicle for future administrations to be able to use) as a response to his 2010 budget proposal to kill-off NASA (the commercial crew program Obama brags about now was derived from the Bush-era commercial cargo program which was explicitly created to kick-start a commercial crew program and his embrace of it was AFTER the 2010 budget proposal debacle.
This spring, the President again ordered his NASA administrator to complain to congress that congress was providing too much money for SLS (Google it). We already paid to develop a new very-capable man-rated upper stage engine for SLS (called the J-2X, derived from the Saturn V J-2 engine). The J-2X finished its testing this spring and has been mothballed, probably never to be used.... because we cannot afford to develop a large very-capable upper stage for SLS that would enable a Mars mission....because congress has given NASA too much money for SLS.... yup.... that's the Obama admin position. The shiny new man-rated J-2X is too powerful for the dinky upper stage that Obama's people want to put atop SLS for the two pointless and minimal missions Obama has planned for SLS. The engine at the center of this current Slashdot article is an issue because the administration is trying to make SLS less-capable by hacking a small Delta rocket upper stage onto SLS instead of a proper SLS-sized upper stage... essentially like Von Braun ordering his team to fit an old Atlas upper stage onto a Saturn V in place of its S-IVB thereby converting a Saturn V into an ugly Titan.
This entire thing is just another Obama passive-aggressive thing. He has been ordered to build SLS, but he hates it and hates being told what to do, so he slow-walks it, tries to cripple it, tries to under-fund it, and has in EVERY year since 2010 tried to shift funds from it to study Global warming, fund commercial crew, build new office buildings, fund diplomatic missions, etc. President Obama NEVER actually proposes fully funding both commercial crew AND the SLS, which would be a rounding error on a small fragment of the national budget, because he tries to use commercial crew to justify to his war on SLS to his supporters who like space and who would otherwise oppose attacks on a new launch vehicle designed to support manned missions to Mars.
This problem comes about because it is assumed Boeing will deliver the EUS on time so that the ICPS will only be needed once for a manned mission. But seriously, what are the odds of that???
Chances are there will be delays and the ICPS will be needed for manned missions several times, in which case having it human-rated makes sense.