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NASA Delays First Flight of New SLS Rocket Until 2019 (arstechnica.com)
schwit1 writes: Despite spending almost $19 billion and more than thirteen years of development, NASA today admitted that it will have to delay the first test flight of the SLS rocket from late 2018 to sometime in 2019. "We agree with the GAO that maintaining a November 2018 launch readiness date is not in the best interest of the program, and we are in the process of establishing a new target in 2019," wrote William Gerstenmaier, chief of NASA's human spaceflight program. "Caution should be used in referencing the report on the specific technical issues, but the overall conclusions are valid." The competition between the big government SLS/Orion program and private commercial space is downright embarrassing to the government. While SLS continues to be delayed, even after more than a decade of work and billions of wasted dollars, SpaceX is gearing up for the first flight of Falcon Heavy this year. And they will be doing it despite the fact that Congress took money from the commercial private space effort, delaying its progress, in order to throw more money at SLS/Orion.
The Obama years were all about waste and corruption.
This rocket was built on top of SLS Linux. Cool stuff!
What government brought to the table in the early days was motivation (from the space race) and a pile of money (from tax payers). The contractors always did most of the actual development. Now the contractors are getting motivation from their big fat egos, and money from a combination of tax payers and private industry. Government no longer brings enough to the table. It's a bit sad because of the history; but maybe we should just let it go and make NASA a bare-bones regulatory and acquisition agency that doesn't do any actual development at all. If it's primarily tax-payer funded, the NASA logo can still be the biggest one on the rocket; but the rocket might be better built by contractors.
It's not worth rushing it
SpaceX is notorious for delays.
The big and crucial difference between the two organizations is that SpaceX has been incrementing up to FH while simultaneously doing something commercially useful, as opposed to NASA's One Big Project approach (which it had to do for a variety of reasons.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
The much bigger problem with the Human Space Flight program is that there are no spacesuits for the future astronauts ... and wont be for decades to come.
Might as well push the SLS/Orion launch date, if crewed, to 2119. At least that would give a few decades of wiggle room to budget.
Did anyone seriously think they would kick the thing off on time? This is a govt. project.
Well, Congress ordered work to start on the current architecture of the SLS, in late 2011. Congress also stipulated 5 years, without a good estimate of how long it would take, or late 2016. Frankly, if it flies in mid 2019, I will give it better than expected performance for a government project. Now, Orion.... that is a big cost overrun.
...I WONT be going to Mars? I thought that was the plan.
True. I hadn't thought of that. But I'd note that Ariane-5 was developed in the mid-90s, and was based on the Ariane-4, which also had SRBs. I wonder if they would make the same design choices today?
Perhaps not but sometimes the best path forward is to not try to relive the past. Perfect can be the enemy of good. Something can be very useful without being optimal. The computer you are typing this on has a lot of historical cruft in it but removing that cruft is generally more expensive than simply building around it. If it is economically not viable in the face of some new technology then eventually it will get replaced (see SpaceX) but if it is "good enough" compared with the available alternatives then there is no point in reinventing the wheel. SRBs may not be perfect but they demonstrably have been economically useful.
I'm not arguing for or against SRBs but merely pointing out that if the expensive work of development has already been done then it makes sense to keep using them until something truly better comes along to replace them in the market. Whatever replaces them has to provide a substantial cost/performance savings or there is little point.
The solution is to ban private commercial space
Did anyone seriously think they would kick the thing off on time? This is a govt. project.
You say that as if private enterprise projects never miss a deadline...
SLS has always been a make-work program to preserve legacy jobs at Space Shuttle contractors.
Perhaps in part but it also serves a few other purposes. Probably the most important one is that it gives NASA a path to getting heavy lift capabilities in the event that the private enterprises working on the problem fail. It's a hedge of a sort, albeit an expensive one. Let's say hypothetically that SpaceX cannot get their Falcon Heavy to work for some reason. If NASA put all their eggs in that basket they could reasonably end up with no heavy launch vehicle. With SLS in the works NASA won't find themselves without options no matter what the private sector does.
Remember that as recently as a few years ago it wasn't at all clear that private companies like SpaceX would be as successful as they have been so far. It was uncharted territory and when you go into uncharted territory it's sensible to have a backup plan in place just in case things go wrong. Things are looking better by the day for private launch companies but there is still time for things to go tits up before SLS is operational.
I have a running bet with some friends on how many times the SLS will fly (if ever). My money's on two flights before it gets the axe.
I think it will depend heavily on how successful companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin turn out to be. You may very well be right but I would regard that as a best possible scenario. If SLS ends up seeing a lot of use it means that SpaceX and the rest failed.
Keep the dream alive !
The government exists for defense and the things the private sector can't/won't do. Now that there are multiple private rocket companies NASA should be refocused to things like breakthrough propulsion (EM Drive, Warp Drive, even Orion-style nuclear, etc), life support/reclamation (as opposed to the current wasteful system of "crack water and dump the shit overboard"), and other supporting technologies to colonization of space. The government, including NASA, is always going to be slower than the private sector in production, it only really shines when there is no incentive for private corporations to do a thing.
This is why you set goals and let the scientists & engineers figure it out. When Apollo was built we didn't have Congress constantly dictating to NASA how it should be built, where it should be built or making design decisions. Fast forward to the 21st Century, we have endless committees getting nowhere with a constant tug of war on where components should be built and by whom.We've laid off the core of NASA who knew how to make the shuttle work and yes, regrettably we've had to spend tax dollars on busy work to keep ATK and others from going out of business.
In the meantime, ISS manned missions will be handled by the Russians who are our sometimes on again/off again friends. Now, because of these relationship issues, do any of us believe that the costs of doing business with the Russians won't significantly increase over the next few years? The ISS will be shuttered before it's end of life in 2024, another multi-billion dollar boondoggle that now the US can't fully support yet we provided most of the funding for. Bravo!
After billions spent on Orion/SLS, we still have no way to get our astronauts into LEO much less beyond. Didn't we win the race to the moon?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
NASA's response to the GAO report, included in the report, is that its revised schedule depends on an assessment of its schedule. In other words, they don't know what the frak they're doing and need to have their various contractors get together and tell them how to manage. Good luck with that. There's every chance that the program will slip to 2020. And unless Trump can somehow pay for another "Moon shot" program (he can't), his request (order?) for the space capsule (scheduled to be ready by 2023, but experiencing significant delays (significant being > 6 months)) to be manned and launched in his first term is just another proof of his, at best, tenuous grasp of reality.
Did anyone seriously think they would kick the thing off on time? This is a govt. project.
You say that as if private enterprise projects never miss a deadline...
Oh they do, but Government work does it better and for a higher cost.....
I'm dismayed that thing is still moving forward. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin have spent less than $1 Billion and they both have operational/nearly operational orbital launchers that are well on their way to partial reusability. SLS can't produce a single prototype without burning more than $15 to 30 Billion (don't forget about all of the stuff they inherited from Constellation). With the money burnt just in developing the Block 1 SLS you could launch hundreds of commercial rockets and thousands of tones of cargo.
be able to tell us what he really thinks. I wonder if 30 years from now he will say, "None of you understood the situation and some of the [insert scenerio here] that I was facing and all the [insert list of dirty laundry here]."
mfwright@batnet.com
Hand over the money to Musk.
He has already proved that he is able to deliver complex solutions ahead of everyone else.
And in no time.
"Congress took money from the commercial private space effort, delaying its progress, in order to throw more money at SLS/Orion."
What a bad judgement call.
Yeah, but they tend to hit them more often then they miss. Most govt. projects miss their deadlines.
It was NASA that went onto the moon. I hate the hipsters that trash NASA.
My only nitpick would be that NASA has been getting along without heavy lift capability since the Saturn-V was retired.
That's true but I'm not convinced it is a relevant issue. We gave up our heavy lift capability because the powers-that-be many decades ago decided the shuttle was the way to go and they couldn't get funding for both given the politics of the day. In hindsight that was a mistake but at the time the best path forward wasn't so clear. So you have to ask the question whether lacking heavy life capability was good policy or an error in planning? I would argue that we've been "getting along" without heavy lift because there wasn't any heavy lift to be had. The government was the only organization until recently in a position to fund development of such a beast and for various reasons congress decided other items (like the shuttle) should take priority. I see it more as an error in planning rather than a lack of any need.
It's kind of a chicken-vs-egg question. You cannot utilize heavy lift capabilities that don't exist and it's hard to justify building heavy lift rockets until you can prove there is demand for them. Nobody is going to design something to go into space that requires a launch vehicle that doesn't (and won't) exist.
Think how much money probably could have been saved in construction of the ISS if we had heavy launch capability? It likely could have cut the number of launches or improved the capabilities significantly.
That is why I still give at least equal weight to the "pork-barrel" theory for SLS.
Oh have no doubt that pork is a piece of the puzzle but I just think it is a smaller piece in regards to SLS than many think it is. Nothing government funded gets done without some amount of pork. The problem as I see it is that in the best case scenario SpaceX and Blue Origin come out with wildly successful launch vehicles. Then congress will see that and ask NASA why they needed to spend billions on a redundant launch vehicle which makes NASA look worse than they deserve. It's hard to sell the idea that we needed to spend billions just in case SpaceX fails.
That is so laughably false.