11 thoughts on “The “Cutting-Edge” SLS”

  1. defense companies are good at tech developement but historically they are poor at commercialization.

    KC-135 -> 707.

    C-5 went nowhere.

    GPS was awesome.

    Money was made by Trimble, Garmin, Magellan, TomTom…..

    DARPA pushed the internet and BBN and Honeywell proved the technology out.
    Much of the money was made by non-traditional companies(cisco) or non-defense.

    The instincts to manage a defense company makes them bad at commerce.

    1. dn-guy, why should they be? There’s lots of profit and lack of accountability and liability in development for the federal government.

      The instincts to manage a defense company makes them bad at commerce.

      I would call it “interests” rather than “instincts”. While much has been said of whose fault this is, it remains that a considerable portion of the US economy is oriented to acquiring funding from the various governments of the US rather than providing a competitive service to the private sector. And that these two categories of activities are partially exclusionary of each other.

  2. What happens when you break a log jam?

    “Space exploration is a small part of the Lockheed Martin business, but it’s one of the most attractive to new students coming out of school. Yeah, they want to build F-22 Raptors and Joint Strike Fighters, but they also want to go to Mars.”

    Over 200,000 have signed up with Mars One. But colonization is never going to happen if it costs the colonists their life savings to arrive destitute. Elon is never going to sell tickets for $500k when a space suit costs $10m.

    To commercialize space we need people out there. People that can’t afford it. Lot’s of them.

    We could do it at today’s costs for about $200 an acre. It would be a futures investment since they won’t get that price today. But nothing is worth anything until somebody possesses it.

    1. Over 7 trillion half acre plots are available on mars. If you don’t like my idea (which limits real estate the same way diamonds are limited here on earth) then sell each plot for a penny (or rather at auction.) The money gets held until some company puts a colonist on mars at which time only the cost of doing it is released to the company.

      This idea sucks, but at least points out that cost is not the issue.

      Make it a penny auction like Quibids and suddenly you raise 100 to 1000 times as much money.

      1. I would prefer bigger parcels. Then just let the developers deal with the small plots. 10 million acres for each of the first 10 teams that land on Mars. 100 million acres would be enough to start the ball rolling.

  3. I could defend the notion that the SLS is cutting edge, but I would be cruel and snarky and talk about the amazing engines it uses and the hurdles that were leaped in their development … back in the 1960’s and 1970’s. But hey, as an upgrade, they’re thinking of replacing the SRB’s with a liquid fueled booster based on an engine that was first fired in the 1959 and retired in the early 1970’s. Many of the people who developed the engines we’ll use on the SLS, which is slated to operate into the 2030’s, were born over a century ago.

    1. A further problem; those amazing engines, the SSME, number just 16. We probably can’t make more. So, they decided to use a new, expendable version after they use those 16 engines. They are assuming two very big things; one is that they can do it, and second, that they’ll have the same performance as an SSME.

      So far, this new engine is vaporware.

    1. Mining rights are a sovereignty claim which the OST prohibits.

      The good news is you don’t need any governments blessing to mine, claim, or take a leak.

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