8 thoughts on “The Latest SLS Slip”

  1. Can I just have the interest on that wasted money? I could put together a better program with just that.

    Disfunctional government anyone?

  3. If SLS doesn’t slip again, I’ll be astounded. I’m still sticking with my 2020 guess for first flight, and late 2020 at that.

    Then there’s the RS-25 main engines (a redesigned SSME). They’ll be using old SSME’s for the first three flights (maybe for the fourth, *if* none have any flaws, and *if* they manage to cobble together a 16th SSME from parts). After that, SLS needs the RS-25, which doesn’t exist. Worse, its specs are exceedingly challenging (they specced its weight, thrust, and ISP on what SLS block 2 needs for performance to get 130 tons to LEO, rather than what they know they can get the engine to do, so they’ll need to surpass the SSME byt quite a bit) . I predict a big slip (in both time and performance) in that department, too.

    I consider the slips a good thing; IMHO the more it slips, the more likely it is to be canceled. Granted, the chances are slim, but better than none at all.

    1. I predict a big slip (in both time and performance) in that department, too.

      Anything is possible if you lower your standards far enough. The SLS will be a success once you properly define the meaning of success. For politicians, it’s already successful at pumping money into their districts. That’s really all that matters.

  4. There were two surprises in this announcement:

    1) That is was made at all. Despite SLS being a make-work project foisted on NASA by Congress, there were significant constituencies within NASA – MSFC being the main one – that were enthusiastic consumers of the mandated pork.

    I take the mere fact of this announcement as likely evidence that the pro-SLS factions within NASA may no longer have the upper hand anent anti-SLS factions. This would, in my view, be a nearly unalloyed good thing.

    2) That the slipped-to date is now November 2018 instead of the September 30, 2018 date already floating around for awhile based on leaked internal NASA documents. This suggests that, in whatever time has elapsed since the composition of those leaked NASA documents, the notional SLS schedule has decayed rightward by at least an additional 30 days and perhaps by as much as 60.

    This, in turn, suggests that additional slippage is nearly inevitable. As Constellation amply demonstrated, once a slipping schedule gets up even a modest head of steam, it tends to continue on its rightward vector until it slams into the immovable brick wall of program cancellation.

    Even an additional 60 days of SLS schedule decay between now and the inauguration of President 45 in January 2017 will put the initial unmanned test flight of this monstrosity into January 2019 – the middle of his or her first term.

    Given that:

    1) The initial manned flight of SLS is scheduled for a full four years beyond this date.

    2) NASA wants to use the yet-to-be-designed, quad-RL-10 Exploration Upper Stage for the first manned mission.

    3) NASA rules prohibit flying crew on the first mission of an untested stage.

    4) NASA now wants to address this dilemma by shoehorning in an extra SLS test flight to qualify the Exploration Upper Stage before EM-2, the first manned flight.

    5) SLS planned production and flight rates are for an average of only one mission every other year.

    6) The reason for the four year gap between the initial unmanned and manned missions of SLS was to allow an interim unmanned launch to test the Launch Escape System of the Orion capsule in actual flight.

    EM-1, therefore, seems sure to slip an additional two years, increasing the gap between the initial unmanned SLS mission and the initial manned mission to a full six years.

    As of right now, that would put EM-2 into November 2024 – right about the time of the election to choose President 46, assuming President 45 has been fortunate enough to win re-election in the interim. Even a relatively trivial additional slip of 60 days, over this entire ten-year interval starting now, puts EM-2 into the administration of President 46 – or 47.

    As President 45 – even a two-term President 45 – will derive no significant political benefit from continuing to fund SLS at currently expectable rates for the eight years following the end of the Obama administration, I think it’s a virtual certainty that he or she will, instead, put the misbegotten thing out of our misery fairly early in his or her first term.

    That makes it “Game Over.” No first unmanned flight. No flight of any kind. The SLS hardware will likely suffer the same fate as the additional battleships still abuilding at the end of WW2 – broken up on the ways and sold for scrap.

    1. To quote a line from lord of the rings.

      Now now young master eagleson, lets not be hasty ….

      “The SLS hardware will likely suffer the same fate as the additional battleships still abuilding at the end of WW2 – broken up on the ways and sold for scrap.”

      There has to be SOME remant left so it can be used as a musuem show piece. Gosh what NASA center wouldn’t want a “monster” rocket display.

  5. I take the mere fact of this announcement as likely evidence that the pro-SLS factions within NASA may no longer have the upper hand anent anti-SLS factions. This would, in my view, be a nearly unalloyed good thing.

    Why? The anti-SLS faction that emerges is likely to be the Shuttle C faction or the Direct faction or something similar. So, the process will just start over again with a new rocket program that will continue for years and spend billions of dollars until it gets canceled.

    It’s time to accept that NASA is not “fixable” and look for other approaches.

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