“Welcome to aerospace,” Pace said, pointing out that large space projects often end up as much as 50 percent over budget. He said that “is why you shouldn’t believe initial cost estimates.”
Umm, shouldn’t that be: “welcome to cost plus”?
“The budget is too small, the schedule is too aggressive, the program is wasting money and there’s too many delays” – any arbitrary GAO report. If you think half of those contradict the other half, welcome to bureaucratic report writing.
the schedule is too aggressive
They would say that.
The first crewed SLS mission (EM-2) is supposed to be in 2021, and it will just fly out to the moon and test systems. Our post-Shuttle program started with the Vision for Space Exploration in 2004, so that’s 17 years of development work using virtually the same SRB’s and SSME’s we’d already been using for 20 years.
17 years after the announcement of project Mercury (1958), we’d developed multiple vehicles and launchers, went to the moon and landed multiple times, and completed Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz.
Looking at the flight schedule, SLS is probably unique in that the sixth crewed mission will probably be flown by the children of the test pilots who flew the first crewed mission.
You are looking at the SLS totally wrong. This is purely a pork barrel program…when or if it ever launches has no bearing, it’s all about how many tax dollars can be squeezed.
I am reading “This New Ocean” about Project Mercury. Up until Sputnik there was a lot of good research done with minimal opportunity for graft. While Apollo was quite the short term achievement in the long run it has been a detriment to humanity in space.
I am thinking SLS is more likely to be launched down the toilet once one of the private companies loft a man in a can
This is purely a pork barrel program
You don’t say.
This is my shocked face.
Whaaaat?! How can this be?! The program was perfectly on budget and on schedule when all they were doing was designing the thing in a computer and filling out paperwork at the cost of $5 million a day. Surely actually building functional aerospace hardware is in no way more complex or difficult than sitting in a chair while creating spreadsheets and viewgraphs. If that is indeed the case then it throws into question every assumption about the way NASA manned spaceflight currently operates.
90 percent chance of not making the launch date of 2017? That’s dishonest; it’s a 100% chance, also known as a cast iron certainty.
So, let’s see, the original claim was EM-1 in 2017, Em-2 in 2021. Four years between the first flight and the second?
As for Em-2, supposedly the first crewed mission… They seem to be forgetting their own rules and plans; they currently say they’re going for the new upper stage in time for EM-2, but, oopsie, their own rules preclude a manned flight on the first flight of a stage.
12 billion to get us to a vehicle that can’t, as the report admits, get us to an asteroid or Mars. That’ll take many billions more – and STILL, even if block2 it achieves its claimed 130 tons to LEO (anyone want to buy a bridge in Brooklyn?) won’t be able to do Mars on a single launch, and the production and flight rate are heavy roadblocks to a multi-launch mission. In fact, SLS block 2 can’t even do a manned moon landing mission with envisioned hardware.
“(c) MINIMUM CAPABILITY REQUIREMENTS.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—The Space Launch System developed
pursuant to subsection (b) shall be designed to have, at a
minimum, the following:
(A) The initial capability of the core elements, without
an upper stage, of lifting payloads weighing between 70
tons and 100 tons into low-Earth orbit in preparation for
transit for missions beyond low-Earth orbit.
(B) The capability to carry an integrated upper Earth
departure stage bringing the total lift capability of the
Space Launch System to 130 tons or more.
(C) The capability to lift the multipurpose crew vehicle.
(D) The capability to serve as a backup system for
supplying and supporting ISS cargo requirements or crew
delivery requirements not otherwise met by available
commercial or partner-supplied vehicles.
(2) FLEXIBILITY.—The Space Launch System shall be
designed from inception as a fully-integrated vehicle capable
of carrying a total payload of 130 tons or more into low-Earth
orbit in preparation for transit for missions beyond low-Earth
orbit. The Space Launch System shall, to the extent practicable,
incorporate capabilities for evolutionary growth to carry heavier
payloads. Developmental work and testing of the core elements
and the upper stage should proceed in parallel subject to appropriations.
Priority should be placed on the core elements with
the goal for operational capability for the core elements not
later than December 31, 2016.”
I believe the original first launch was Dec 2016.
Thanks for that link.
This shows a very great deal. Section A, “The initial capability of the core elements, without
an upper stage, of lifting payloads weighing between 70
tons and 100 tons into low-Earth orbit in preparation for
transit for missions beyond low-Earth orbit.”
Without an upper stage? What were they thinking, SSTO?
As for the performance specs… That’s where they got the specs for the RS-25E from; they calculated what the RS-25E would need, performance-wise, to get to the SLS mandated performance. They have 15 SSME engines in stock (RS-25D) but the RS-25E has to have, per the specs, even higher performance than the SSME, in thrust, ISP, and thrust-to-weight. What I’m getting at is they did it backwards; instead of seeing what they could do with a redesigned SSME, they let the SLS mandated specs dictate the engine’s requirements. They are relying on this engine (which is only partially designed at present) having these capabilities. Whether it will or not is unknown, but unlikely.
Also, Block1 with the adapted Delta IV upper stage (a grossly underpowered stage for a rocket this size) is going to have to have a miraculous dry weight to get 70 tons to LEO on the SSME’s they plan to use for the first four flights.
I think you’re right on the original first launch date.
“The initial capability of the core elements, without
an upper stage, of lifting payloads weighing between 70
tons and 100 tons into low-Earth orbit in preparation for
transit for missions beyond low-Earth orbit.”
Without an upper stage? What were they thinking, SSTO?
I think that language just meant that the RS-25-powered core with two 5-seg SRBs was supposed to have an LEO capability of 70 tons. All by itself, that’s not outrageous. Of course, it is outrageous for Congress to write rocket specs into law….
For the remainder of the Obama administration there is going to be nothing positive done about the monstrosity that is SLS/Orion because the White House is increasingly focused on fund raising and golf rather than actual governance. Given the Obama administration’s amply demonstrated genius for finding, as one pundit put it, the “sour spot” in virtually every issue it has actually chosen to address over the past five and a half years, that may be more a feature than a bug for we advocates of rational and cost-effective space policy at this point.
Another indicator of more OldSpace stasis to come – at best – is that most of SLS/Orion’s biggest advocates in Congress are Republicans and none seem likely to lose their seats this year. The best possible outcome between now and 2017 when a new administration takes over and actually has some bandwidth allocated to looking at problems rather than away from them is for SLS/Orion to be held to roughly their current budgets and not permitted to raid the rest of NASA.
We may well get such a result as an accidentally occurring side effect of the now-perennially broken Congressional budget process. If Commercial Crew, for example, avoids the “certified costs” reporting Sen. Shelby has tried to impose it is likely to be only because no new NASA budget gets settled upon by Congress at all and things proceed based on a continuing resolution. That would mean CCDev would not be getting the increased funding called for in the stalled new budget. Even on shortened rations, however, I think CCDev can advance, in one more year, to a point within a short striking distance of at least one manned test flight by one participant (SpaceX). Meanwhile, SLS/Orion will, as usual, make little forward progress and might even come in for some questioning about things like the latest GAO report on its budget and (lack of) progress. Short form prediction for the coming year of Washington-based space efforts? Same shit, different day X 365.
This makes it imperative that both SpaceX and Bigelow make as much forward progress as possible in the coming year. Among the milestones for SpaceX I’d like to see – and expect to see, not necessarily in this order – by July 24, 2015:
1. Both Dragon V2 abort tests accomplished.
2. First Dragonfly flight – then more.
3. First Falcon 9R Dev2 flight at Spaceport America – then more.
4. First feet-dry recovery of Falcon 9R 1st stage.
5. First second launch of recovered Falcon 9R 1st stage.
6. Falcon 9R EELV certified.
7. LC-39A refitted and operational.
8. First mission of Falcon Heavy.
As for Bigelow, I’d be happy with a formal and detailed announcement of the roadmap to his future plans, in partnership with SpaceX, to get his habs into orbit and to supply and crew them thereafter. Formal contracts would be even better. Bonus Bigelow milestone? Put a BA330 test article into LEO on the first mission of Falcon Heavy.
There are challenges ahead for NewSpace, especially for those elements of it with government contracts. But I think the coming year can be a good one anyway and see a lot of forward progress.
That’s a good list, although I suspect that reflying recovered stages will turn out to be more difficult than they expect, at least at first.
Put a BA330 test article into LEO on the first mission of Falcon Heavy.
I like that. My original idea was to send an unmanned Dragon on a circumlunar flight if a paying customer can’t be found. That would be good publicity and would show laypeople that we’re not as far from being able to go back to the Moon as they thought.
Yeah. If Bigelow doesn’t have a BA330 handy, I’m completely up for putting something into near-lunar space. There’s so much to do and we can’t afford to be ultra-picky about the exact order in which it gets done.
“Welcome to aerospace,” Pace said, pointing out that large space projects often end up as much as 50 percent over budget. He said that “is why you shouldn’t believe initial cost estimates.”
Umm, shouldn’t that be: “welcome to cost plus”?
“The budget is too small, the schedule is too aggressive, the program is wasting money and there’s too many delays” – any arbitrary GAO report. If you think half of those contradict the other half, welcome to bureaucratic report writing.
They would say that.
The first crewed SLS mission (EM-2) is supposed to be in 2021, and it will just fly out to the moon and test systems. Our post-Shuttle program started with the Vision for Space Exploration in 2004, so that’s 17 years of development work using virtually the same SRB’s and SSME’s we’d already been using for 20 years.
17 years after the announcement of project Mercury (1958), we’d developed multiple vehicles and launchers, went to the moon and landed multiple times, and completed Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz.
Looking at the flight schedule, SLS is probably unique in that the sixth crewed mission will probably be flown by the children of the test pilots who flew the first crewed mission.
You are looking at the SLS totally wrong. This is purely a pork barrel program…when or if it ever launches has no bearing, it’s all about how many tax dollars can be squeezed.
I am reading “This New Ocean” about Project Mercury. Up until Sputnik there was a lot of good research done with minimal opportunity for graft. While Apollo was quite the short term achievement in the long run it has been a detriment to humanity in space.
I am thinking SLS is more likely to be launched down the toilet once one of the private companies loft a man in a can
This is purely a pork barrel program
You don’t say.
This is my shocked face.
Whaaaat?! How can this be?! The program was perfectly on budget and on schedule when all they were doing was designing the thing in a computer and filling out paperwork at the cost of $5 million a day. Surely actually building functional aerospace hardware is in no way more complex or difficult than sitting in a chair while creating spreadsheets and viewgraphs. If that is indeed the case then it throws into question every assumption about the way NASA manned spaceflight currently operates.
90 percent chance of not making the launch date of 2017? That’s dishonest; it’s a 100% chance, also known as a cast iron certainty.
So, let’s see, the original claim was EM-1 in 2017, Em-2 in 2021. Four years between the first flight and the second?
As for Em-2, supposedly the first crewed mission… They seem to be forgetting their own rules and plans; they currently say they’re going for the new upper stage in time for EM-2, but, oopsie, their own rules preclude a manned flight on the first flight of a stage.
12 billion to get us to a vehicle that can’t, as the report admits, get us to an asteroid or Mars. That’ll take many billions more – and STILL, even if block2 it achieves its claimed 130 tons to LEO (anyone want to buy a bridge in Brooklyn?) won’t be able to do Mars on a single launch, and the production and flight rate are heavy roadblocks to a multi-launch mission. In fact, SLS block 2 can’t even do a manned moon landing mission with envisioned hardware.
It’s indeed a rocket to nowhere.
From the Senate Bill that gave the start up funding for SLS:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111s3729enr/pdf/BILLS-111s3729enr.pdf
“(c) MINIMUM CAPABILITY REQUIREMENTS.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—The Space Launch System developed
pursuant to subsection (b) shall be designed to have, at a
minimum, the following:
(A) The initial capability of the core elements, without
an upper stage, of lifting payloads weighing between 70
tons and 100 tons into low-Earth orbit in preparation for
transit for missions beyond low-Earth orbit.
(B) The capability to carry an integrated upper Earth
departure stage bringing the total lift capability of the
Space Launch System to 130 tons or more.
(C) The capability to lift the multipurpose crew vehicle.
(D) The capability to serve as a backup system for
supplying and supporting ISS cargo requirements or crew
delivery requirements not otherwise met by available
commercial or partner-supplied vehicles.
(2) FLEXIBILITY.—The Space Launch System shall be
designed from inception as a fully-integrated vehicle capable
of carrying a total payload of 130 tons or more into low-Earth
orbit in preparation for transit for missions beyond low-Earth
orbit. The Space Launch System shall, to the extent practicable,
incorporate capabilities for evolutionary growth to carry heavier
payloads. Developmental work and testing of the core elements
and the upper stage should proceed in parallel subject to appropriations.
Priority should be placed on the core elements with
the goal for operational capability for the core elements not
later than December 31, 2016.”
I believe the original first launch was Dec 2016.
Thanks for that link.
This shows a very great deal. Section A, “The initial capability of the core elements, without
an upper stage, of lifting payloads weighing between 70
tons and 100 tons into low-Earth orbit in preparation for
transit for missions beyond low-Earth orbit.”
Without an upper stage? What were they thinking, SSTO?
As for the performance specs… That’s where they got the specs for the RS-25E from; they calculated what the RS-25E would need, performance-wise, to get to the SLS mandated performance. They have 15 SSME engines in stock (RS-25D) but the RS-25E has to have, per the specs, even higher performance than the SSME, in thrust, ISP, and thrust-to-weight. What I’m getting at is they did it backwards; instead of seeing what they could do with a redesigned SSME, they let the SLS mandated specs dictate the engine’s requirements. They are relying on this engine (which is only partially designed at present) having these capabilities. Whether it will or not is unknown, but unlikely.
Also, Block1 with the adapted Delta IV upper stage (a grossly underpowered stage for a rocket this size) is going to have to have a miraculous dry weight to get 70 tons to LEO on the SSME’s they plan to use for the first four flights.
I think you’re right on the original first launch date.
I think that language just meant that the RS-25-powered core with two 5-seg SRBs was supposed to have an LEO capability of 70 tons. All by itself, that’s not outrageous. Of course, it is outrageous for Congress to write rocket specs into law….
For the remainder of the Obama administration there is going to be nothing positive done about the monstrosity that is SLS/Orion because the White House is increasingly focused on fund raising and golf rather than actual governance. Given the Obama administration’s amply demonstrated genius for finding, as one pundit put it, the “sour spot” in virtually every issue it has actually chosen to address over the past five and a half years, that may be more a feature than a bug for we advocates of rational and cost-effective space policy at this point.
Another indicator of more OldSpace stasis to come – at best – is that most of SLS/Orion’s biggest advocates in Congress are Republicans and none seem likely to lose their seats this year. The best possible outcome between now and 2017 when a new administration takes over and actually has some bandwidth allocated to looking at problems rather than away from them is for SLS/Orion to be held to roughly their current budgets and not permitted to raid the rest of NASA.
We may well get such a result as an accidentally occurring side effect of the now-perennially broken Congressional budget process. If Commercial Crew, for example, avoids the “certified costs” reporting Sen. Shelby has tried to impose it is likely to be only because no new NASA budget gets settled upon by Congress at all and things proceed based on a continuing resolution. That would mean CCDev would not be getting the increased funding called for in the stalled new budget. Even on shortened rations, however, I think CCDev can advance, in one more year, to a point within a short striking distance of at least one manned test flight by one participant (SpaceX). Meanwhile, SLS/Orion will, as usual, make little forward progress and might even come in for some questioning about things like the latest GAO report on its budget and (lack of) progress. Short form prediction for the coming year of Washington-based space efforts? Same shit, different day X 365.
This makes it imperative that both SpaceX and Bigelow make as much forward progress as possible in the coming year. Among the milestones for SpaceX I’d like to see – and expect to see, not necessarily in this order – by July 24, 2015:
1. Both Dragon V2 abort tests accomplished.
2. First Dragonfly flight – then more.
3. First Falcon 9R Dev2 flight at Spaceport America – then more.
4. First feet-dry recovery of Falcon 9R 1st stage.
5. First second launch of recovered Falcon 9R 1st stage.
6. Falcon 9R EELV certified.
7. LC-39A refitted and operational.
8. First mission of Falcon Heavy.
As for Bigelow, I’d be happy with a formal and detailed announcement of the roadmap to his future plans, in partnership with SpaceX, to get his habs into orbit and to supply and crew them thereafter. Formal contracts would be even better. Bonus Bigelow milestone? Put a BA330 test article into LEO on the first mission of Falcon Heavy.
There are challenges ahead for NewSpace, especially for those elements of it with government contracts. But I think the coming year can be a good one anyway and see a lot of forward progress.
That’s a good list, although I suspect that reflying recovered stages will turn out to be more difficult than they expect, at least at first.
Put a BA330 test article into LEO on the first mission of Falcon Heavy.
I like that. My original idea was to send an unmanned Dragon on a circumlunar flight if a paying customer can’t be found. That would be good publicity and would show laypeople that we’re not as far from being able to go back to the Moon as they thought.
Yeah. If Bigelow doesn’t have a BA330 handy, I’m completely up for putting something into near-lunar space. There’s so much to do and we can’t afford to be ultra-picky about the exact order in which it gets done.