Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space

A Shocking Development

18 Comments

NASA has been fibbing to Congress about the SLS and propellant depots.

Bottom lines:

NEA Mission Observations – Mixed Fleet

* Costs $10s of billions less through 2030 over alternate HLLV/SEP-based architecture approaches
– Only $10B more than all Falcon Heavy approach
* Fits within conservative exploration budget through 2030 with extended ISS and budget cuts while allowing 3-4 NEA missions
* Breaking costs into smaller, less-monolithic amounts allows great flexibility in meeting smaller and changing budget profiles
* Allows first mission to NEA in 2024, potentially several years earlier than HLLV/SEP-based approaches, meeting President’s deadline and actual availability of NEA 2008EV5
* Launch capacity not much of an issue with two suppliers
– Availability risk also improved
* Use of two CLVs, similar to COTS, should reduce cost and risk through competition
* Integration of large CPS stage with multiple vehicles could reduce commonality and add complexity

Lunar Mission Observations -RP Depot/CPS

* Costs $10s of billions less through 2030 over alternate HLLV/SEP-based architecture approaches
– Only $2B more than LO2/LH2 Depot approach
* Fits within conservative exploration budget through 2030 with extended ISS and budget cuts while allowing 4-8 lunar missions
* Breaking costs into smaller, less-monolithic amounts allows great flexibility in meeting smaller and changing budget profiles
* Allows first lunar mission to in 2024, potentially several years earlier than HLLV-based approaches
* Launch capacity does not appear to be a major issue
* Dependence on a single CLV and provider likely unacceptable
* Integration of large CPS stage with small-diameter Falcon easier due to smaller stage size
* Integration of lunar lander on Falcon limits design options
* RP-based depot/CPS provides slightly higher LCC for lunar missions with lower risk

Just as I and others have been saying for years. But it doesn’t “save or create” the jobs in the right places.

[Update mid morning]

I’m looking through the briefing now. They have an interesting design reference mission to an asteroid that appears to use solar electric propulsion to get the departure propellant out to EML-1. If you look at the sandpile for the reference HEFT DRM-1, on chart 10, you can see how much the budget would be reduced if you forgo the development of the HLLV. It looks like about a third of the total, and doesn’t get you to the asteroid until eighteen years from now. Going with the depot approach saves tens of billions and accelerates the mission by half a decade.

For the lunar mission, they don’t do it they way I would — they have a LEO depot, and then do it Apollo style from there. I’d put a depot at EML-1, and send the lander up separately on a slow boat, to minimize the high-impulse delta vee necessary for the trip. Ideally, you’d have multiple depots and reusable space systems throughout the architecture. But the way they’ve done it gets the cost down to sixty billion through 2030 (presumably current-year dollars), with a lunar landing in 2024l with another mission every two years. So by my count, we get four lunar missions at a cost of fifteen billion each. Still very expensive, but a lot cheaper than with the SLS, and sooner. If you use Delta IV-H instead of Falcon Heavy, the price goes to $75B. Most likely one would use a mixed fleet for resiliency.

These architectures look an awful lot like the kinds we did at Boeing seven years ago for CE&I, that Mike Griffin never even looked at. All of their cost assumptions appear to be very conservative. And they probably don’t take into account the fact that you’d launch the hardware dry, which reduces structural weight.

[Update a few minutes later]

Wow. The cost comparison charts are devastating. In Chart 48, the heavy architecture is over twice as much in DDT&E as any of the others. If Dana was chairman, this would be the subject of a hearing, but he’s not, so it won’t be. But he can certainly issue a press release. I’m assuming that this is the briefing that he was asking for last month.

[Early afternoon update]

In finishing the briefing, I see that they have a lot of trade studies planned, and they haven’t done the risk comparison with the HLLV approach. The latter surely has to consider that anything that’s only flown once every couple years is intrinsically less reliable, because there’s no way to get the processing team in a rhythm. The SLS is such a monumentally bad idea that it could only have come from Congress.

18 thoughts on “A Shocking Development”

  2. Come on guys. In such a big and dysfunctional organization as NASA, it’s completely possible that the message got lost or garbled along the way. That said, it is pretty sad/frustrating that this news only got leaked out months after the SLS design got formally announced.

    ~Jon

    1. Yes, but this sort of mistake always seems to favor the program on record. At least, the message got out.

  3. Doesn’t contempt of congress come with up to five years for each count. Served consecutively they’d be witness to what they’ve been preventing for years.

  4. I am shocked, shocked! that NASA HSF might have had their thumb on the factual scale in selling their empire-preservation launch system.

    Seriously, it doesn’t matter whether the reason was institutional blinders or deliberate agenda-driven deception. I’ve seen plenty of both from NASA HSF over the years. I’m sure we’ll see plenty more, and alas we are unlikely to ever see anyone go to jail for it. No matter how much of our limited time and money for space (and all it means to this species) get wasted…

    SLS gets funded one year at a time. The vast majority of potential wasted SLS funding is still savable. Every bit of news like this coming out helps. It ain’t over till it’s over.

    1. It will probably be over when the entire projected SLS budget is spent, the investigation of it adding to that, nobody going to jail but promoted. You know, win, win.

      Taxpayers lose of course, but why would that matter?

  5. We already have a functional propellant depot on on orbit, its called Zarya aka FGB.
    IIRC Russians have an almost complete FGB2 spare sitting on the ground somewhere.

    Of course, its propellant tanks would be too small for mounting a significant BLEO stunt, but hey its a start.

  8. They didn’t exactly fib to Congress. NASA has to do what it’s told by congress. The Senate demanded they design a shuttle-derived super heavy launch system, and they did. Rohrabacher demanded this study and they presented it.

  9. I think the study ignores the cost of having a crew of three man the propellant depot in shifts. You can’t run a proper propellant depot without either Bob, Earl, or Jimmy working the cash register so NASA’s intrepid explorers can grab some smokes, beer, and Slim Jims while they’re filling up on pump 3.

    A private sector propellant depot operator would know that he’ll make a bigger margin on tobacco, alcohol, and jerky treats than on the fuel, especially knowing that NASA would send men into deep space with tubes of nutrient-goop that a North Korean wouldn’t feed to his pig.

  10. Jon, my friend, you’re wrong.

    The Administrator promised Congress to provide the comparison of a depot-based architecture vs SLS; to my knowledge, that has not happened.

    It is my view and concern that this comparison is being deliberately withheld from both the Administrator himself and the Congress. I took these concerns – in writing – to the Inspector General, at the end of July. My purpose in doing so was not to persuade the IG to favor depots over SLS per se – that sort of policy decision is clearly not his job – but to bring forward my concern, and the concern of several others within the agency, that information is being intentionally withheld from the Administrator and Congress in a manner which could result in the wastage of billions of dollars.

    That sort of deliberate (in my view) withholding of data from decision-makers IS something I believe the IG should investigate. I’ve been in NASA 37 years – 9 as a Senior Executive, including in the Shuttle Program Office, Space Station Program Office, and NASA HQ – and I honestly feel that things are clearly being manipulated beneath the level of the Administrator.

    I have been out of the office for many weeks now, recovering from (among other things) a stroke; but, to my knowledge, the IG has chosen not to investigate what I believe is intentional mis-management inside the agency designed to withhold critical information from, and even mislead, decision makers.

    Dave Huntsman

    1. Sorry to hear about the stroke. Be careful.

      As for the rest…I wouldn’t be surprised if what you’re saying is true, I just felt that Rand might have been overstating the case of what we could actually prove.

      ~Jon

      1. I’m doin’ much better, guys. I’m in rehab 4.2 days a week on the other side of town, and I’m driving myself there and back – albeit one handedly, since my left arm since the hospitalization is under-par. However, rehab is slowly bringing it back; and I use the computer without restriction. So don’t count me out of the game yet!

  11. I agree that it ain’t over till it’s over. However, we need to have general consensus on the part of us and leading space advocates who want to see the SLS killed sooner than later. But I believe that there is a fair degree of agreement on what that plan would be like:
    – small lunar pole prospecting mission,
    – fuel depots,
    – a “Lunar COTS” approach,
    – Moon first, Mars eventually,
    – landers that could that could fit in commercial launchers,
    – lunar pole destination,
    – cargo deliveries first to prove the landers,
    – teleoperations to prep for humans & start lunar ice harvesting & processing,
    – human return to the Moon,
    – extended stays thanks to ISRU life support and living under regolith,
    – development > exploration or science,
    – lunar greenhouse,
    – scaling up a Lunar Ice To LEO (LITL) system to propellant quantity production with the goal of an economically sustainable operation,
    – expanding ISRU to include metals & glass,
    – reduce the need for supply launches from Earth by increasing ISRU self-support,
    – apply skills gained, radiation & low gravity research, in-space propellant, and maybe lunar-derived shielding to a Mars mission.

    Whereas I think that this approximates the general idea for our way forward sans an HLV, such a plan needs a clear name and an organized group of space advocates & leaders to ensure that, when the SLS dies, it is not replaced with yet another bad idea.

    1. John, just fyi: A ‘lunar COTS’ approach has already been initiated, albeit on a smaller scale. Rob Kelso at JSC – lead lunar commercial space guy in the agency – has worked with NASA HQ and already has in place a project called ILDD, for innovative lunar data delivery. $30 is allocated to it. It is, essentially, a type of data purchase program, wherein NASA agrees to pay a total of up to $30m for private entities that can provide certain types of data (which is spelled out) that would be useful for future NASA lunar missions. Last time I heard Rob’s pitch, his next goal was to see if he could initiate something similar, kinda like a Phase II ILDD, which would award money to anyone who could demonstrate something like lunar ISRU oxygen or water production.

      What’s interesting with what Rob and his HQ cohorts are doing is that the ILDD type of vehicle has gotten the enthusiastic support of the NASA Procurement management – something COTS-like, Space Act Agreement things, do not – since it allows NASA to get new lunar-related data with absolutely no risk to NASA, since money is not paid out until data is delivered. One NASA procurement manager said, “Bring me more of these!”

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