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NASA 'Will Eventually' Retire Its New Mega-Rocket if SpaceX, Blue Origin Can Safely Launch Their Own Powerful Rockets (businessinsider.com)
NASA is building a giant rocket ship to return astronauts to the moon and, later on, ferry the first crews to and from Mars. But agency leaders are already contemplating the retirement of the Space Launch System (SLS), as the towering and yet-to-fly government rocket is called, and the Orion space capsule that'll ride on top. From a report: NASA is anticipating the emergence of two reusable and presumably more affordable mega-rockets that private aerospace companies are creating. Those systems are the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), which is being built by Elon Musk's SpaceX; and the New Glenn, a launcher being built by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. "I think our view is that if those commercial capabilities come online, we will eventually retire the government system, and just move to a buying launch capacity on those [rockets]," Stephen Jurczyk, NASA's associate administrator, told Business Insider at The Economist Space Summit on November 1. However, NASA may soon find itself in a strange position, since at least one of the two company's systems may beat SLS back to the moon -- and possibly be the first to reach Mars.
NASA should reallocate the billions of dollars which are being spent on a launch system which nobody expects to be useful or affordable and instead use those billions to put out RFPs for milestone missions that will further incentivize those private industry projects to get off the ground. NASA clearly cannot afford to just blow money on SLS and also pay to perform the space missions that would be required to do useful things in space.
NASA should be moving the ball forward, not reinventing the wheel for every mission.
Everyone involved with the SLS project have shown nothing but sheer incompetence. The "shuttle-derived launcher" concept dates back to the 80s. Shuttle-C in '87, NLS in '91, Constellation in '05, Jupiter in '08, and finally SLS in '10. They're cobbling together existing engines (literally raiding the Shuttle parts bin), existing boosters (from a Shuttle upgrade that was designed and built but never flew), scaled-up tanks, and an off-the-shelf upper stage. The only really new thing is the Orion capsule, which is somehow the component closest to being flight-ready.
SLS is never going to fly more than once. They might do a single test flight just to "prove" the money wasn't wasted, but no, the money was wasted. They're still a year and a half out from their uncrewed first test, and I all but guarantee it will be delayed.
BFR design started in 2012. Brand-new engines, using a fairly novel propellant (methalox) and cycle (full-flow staged combustion). They started testing them in 2016. "Hop" tests of the upper stage are supposed to start next year, with the scheduled first flight in 2020, and first crewed flight in 2023. That schedule will probably slip as well (this *is* SpaceX), but at this point it's a question of who's going to slip more: the people who went from an overgrown hobby rocket to the biggest launch company on the planet in a decade, or the ones who've spent thirty years talking about taking Shuttle parts and building a normal rocket with them?
Cancelling SLS is long overdue - but without it, what is NASA's mission when it comes to space? This is a bigger question than most people think it is. SLS is a continuation of NASA's traditional support and funding of industry developed boosters. When the first Falcon 9 landed successfully, I would argue that this piece of NASA's ongoing mandate just became obsolete. Another part of NASA's history is supporting the ISS, I hope that in a few years ISS will become more commercial and government support will become less of an operator and more of a customer of ISS resources.
So, what is NASA's mission when it comes to space?
Deep space probes will continue being something NASA builds and supports. From the big hardware perspective they should be looking at things that industry isn't and utilizing their government connections. I would argue that one of the things would be nuclear engines for deep space travel - a very high isp engine (let's target 10x current engines or 5,000+s) mated to an interplanetary "taxi" would significantly reduce travel times to Mars, asteroids and outer planets with great utility, even if it only provided transport for unmanned probes.
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The American taxpayer should never be in the business of enriching for profit companies.
Here is the logical endpoint of your position: The government must make its own computers, tools, cars, and even pulp its own paper.
Quite obviously that all is insane - so why do you carry that same philosophy to space flight, where a number of private companies can deliver space flight more cheaply AND safely than NASA can?
The very nature of what NASA does means private companies will always be superior, because they will be handling vastly more launches which means they need to be reliable in a way NASA has never had to be, along with volume that reduces costs in a way NASA cannot match.
NASA can play some useful roles in helping with launch facilities but at this point it makes ZERO sense for NASA to be building rockets, they should be building more advanced spacecraft that can reach space on commercial space delivery systems.
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Given the fact that the Private Sector is doing so well developing these systems, NASA should step back and be setting standards for such critical systems such as Life Support, Power, Communications, Docking facilities, etc.
How the private companies get people and stuff to space can be left up to them. But once it's up there, these things must be interchangeable between vendors for routine and emergency situations.
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The SLS is a completely new system. It's currently discussed to scrap the demo flight and put crew on the very first flight of an unproven rocket.
Falcon 9 is fully man-rated. Try reading the news!
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It is long past time that NASA got out of the business as a design and launch agency and become more of a regulatory agency like the FAA. NASA should have a probe and research but they should let the active launches go to private companies.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
If Blue Origin develop New Glenn into a heavy variant (three cores) and if BFR doesn't happen as planned, they'll be the only cheap option for getting very heavy payloads into space, and can make a profit if lots of people decide they want to take advantage of this by designing very heavy payloads. There were a whole lot of 'if's in there.
FH has similar capabilities to NG, is already flying, has hardware proven by 60 launches, and has construction facilities optimized during the building of >60 rockets. Both rockets expend their second stage, but FH's second stage is smaller, so I expect is cheaper.
Few current payloads require the capability of FH or NG. Where SpaceX can offer F9 for smaller payloads, NG is all or nothing. Even if both rockets were equally mature in manufacturing and launch experience, I think the F9/FH combo would be more economic than NG.
If NG turns out cheaper than FH and the market reacts by building many payloads requiring NG or FH, then NG may turn out OK in the long term - but nobody would have been committing serious money to building such payloads prior to FH's test launch, so they are years away still.
Blue Origins huge advantage is they have very deep pockets behind them. If NG flies, recovering R&D costs is optional. Unless Musk cashes out of Tesla, SpaceX has to pay for R&D as they go.
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