This year’s version is out.
I haven’t read yet, but I’m sure I will. It will be useful fodder for a new edition of the book. Note that while it criticizes Commercial Crew for a lack of transparency, SLS/Orion come in for more substantive criticism from a safety standpoint.
I’m stunned that they don’t mention (unless I missed it?) another ARM mission issue; NASA is planning on flying it with a totally unflown SLS upper stage – which happens to be against NASA’s own rules for a manned flight.
As for Orion… yeah, it’s darn near useless for ARM, but not as useless as it is for every other conceivable mission.
One of the arguments for cancelling the shuttle was 1 in 100 of loss of crew. Now we’re told SLS/Orion has a 1 in 75 LOC except 50% worse.
The concerns with transparent communications of CCP are with the Commercial Spaceflight Development Division, not the vendors which are meeting their contractual obligations. Also delays have been consistent with when the vendors started, so counting anything subsequent as a delay is a bit misleading.
The most important point I got from the report is…
…absent a well-defined mission, it is impossible to either efficiently or effectively plan, develop, build, test, validate, and launch the necessary system to achieve “something” that is not clearly described.
Basically they are criticizing flexible path and highlight that a minimum of $20b has been wasted on incomplete programs to create capabilities rather than focusing on specific goals. I have to agree.
I also see the days of SLS/Orion are numbered although not explicitly stated.
Well, Ken, of course it makes sense to cancel Shuttle due to a 1-100 LOC rate, but fly SLS with a 1-75 LOC rate. Why? Because a one in 75 chance of LOC is a lot safer than 1 in 100…. hey, that makes every bit as much sense as the rest of the SLS math…
🙂
Ken, you’re not comparing apples with apples, the Shuttle only did to and from LEO, the 1 in 75 for the SLS is for a full cislunar mission, for the launch it’s a 1 in 300 for the SLS, and for reentry its a 1 in 300, so for the equivalent of a Shuttle mission it’s a 1 in 150.
Hopefully, to be really useful, in the next ASAP report the authors will be kind enough to tell us which 1 in 150 flights will fail so that astronauts know which flight they should avoid.
I can tell them the mission to avoid… all of them because they will all fail a risk/benefit analysis. Oh, and you forgot the 50% adjustment to 1 in 150.