22 thoughts on “The Falcon Heavy”

  2. SpaceX has launched the largest rocket in the world and will launch it couple more times within a year.
    And it’s reusable first stage rocket, plus Space X continues the high flight rate of Falcon 9 and is doing test flight of crewed dragon.
    Meanwhile, SLS has wasted tens billions of tax payer money, and suppose flown SLS already and keeps delaying it’s first test launch and it continuing to burning thru tax payer money at couple billion per year.
    Space X is capitism, Boeing is communism (all talk, all corruption, and abusive to American interests).

    1. It’s weird, but the Soviets had strong incentive to make central planning work as well as it could (which is not very well). The US had/has less incentive, so when we do central planning it often comes out even worse.

  3. Reminds me of the old story about the Swiss talking to German official in WW2. ‘How many men can you put in the field?’
    ‘Half a million.’
    ‘What will you do if I send an army of a million men over your border?’
    ‘Each of us will have to shoot twice’

    Modern version:
    ‘What will you do if we need 130 tons in LEO?’
    ‘We will have to launch twice’

  4. Google “corruption through dolgostroi”… A Soviet term where ‘lengthy construction’ was a corrupt practice where you deliberately delayed a project to keep the jobs ( and graft! ) flowing.

  6. The end of the SLS blurb invites readers to “Learn more about why the SLS is the right choice for NASA” by linking to a news story in the London Evening Standard. This is a conservative British tabloid owned by a Russian oligarch and former KGB agent, Alexander Lebedev.

    Boeing, NASA, and Trump are colluding with the Russians to build SLS by quoting with attribution to, but not linking, ArsTechnica.

    SpaceX has the advantage of a rocket that exists. Someday, SLS might exist but SpaceX will still have the advantage of being able to launch whenever their customers want. But SpaceX will also face competition from Blue Origin in servicing NASA’s launch needs for the 12 months of the year that SLS isn’t able to launch.

  7. Boeing built? That’s past tense. I think the right phrase is, Boeing imagined Space Launch System rocket.

    “Watch us Fly”, when? 2020? 2021? then maybe every other year? Oh wait, you said the biggest rocket ever, so more like 2025, if ever?

    But yeah, the F9H is too small, hence the BFR.

    Good on Eric Berger for telling the story accurately, including the Russian connection along with the circle jerk back to Ars Technica.

    1. It is quite common for publications to not provide links. Trying to assassinate the publication’s character, and assassinate Boeing’s through proxy, over attribution but no link seems a little petty. The owner of the publication or their perceived political slant have nothing to do with the story.

      Many publications write articles on topics that are not their prime area of expertise and don’t rely on original reporting. They are “Here’s whats going on out there” articles, not particularly in depth, and are usually just summaries of other publications reporting. Look at the author’s beat. It isn’t a surprise that Ars, who is owned by far left Conde Nast, does the same thing but uses links.

      There is an actually newsworthy angle here that isn’t an attempt to cash in on Russian collusion. Boeing didn’t cite Ars because they are critical of SLS and Boeing can’t cite too many science and technology publications because criticism of SLS is near universal. That would have been a far better point to make than trying to drag the KGB into it because of Berger’s own biases.

      1. NASA collusion with Russia is fairly well known. I know. I’ve met with Russians on behalf of NASA. It was all set up by someone named Clinton.

  8. Boeing’s CEO Muilenburg should be charging Elon Musk rent – ’cause he’s sure living in the guy’s head.

  9. What good is a rocket that’s too expensive to use? It’s so expensive that the only payload is an equally overpriced Orion capsule.

  10. Pretty cheeky of them to pull the “Safe, Simple, Soon” FUD again. But after all, it worked so well last ti—… oh.

  12. Some facts: TLI, Trans-Lunar Injection, is more or less where most of NASA’s near-future heavy launches need to go, so TLI payload is a useful point of comparison.

    SLS Block 1, the only version likely to fly through the mid 2020’s (or ever?) will put ~25 metric tons (mT) to TLI.

    (SLS Block 1B would put ~40 mT to TLI, but recent NASA hints are that its EUS upper stage may take a *lot* longer than planned.)

    Falcon Heavy with Block 4 boosters will do ~16mT to TLI all-expended, or ~14mT core-expended, side-boosters barge-recovered. (Core-only expended seems the economical choice.)

    Either Block 5 boosters or cross-feed would add near 10% to that. Both together conservatively would add ~15%.

    One last interesting FH option: Carry a single-RL10 transfer stage as part of the payload (a third stage if you will) and that core-expended ~14mT to TLI rises to ~21mT to TLI. Go to Block 5 boosters plus cross-feed and you should be getting very close to SLS Block 1’s ~25mT to TLI.

    At a guesstimated $120m for a core-expended FH, plus guesstimated $30m for a ULA-provided single-RL-10 transfer stage (plus of course paying SpaceX to add LH2 loading to at least one FH pad – call it a 50% markup for various FH upgrades and extra NASA paperwork in general) that’s a rough ballpark of $225m for very nearly the same ~25mT to TLI an SLS Block 1 gives you.

    As for what an SLS Block 1 will cost, realistically it’s going to be somewhere around one launch per year, at something like the current ~$2.5b/year SLS program funding, give or take.

    1. Looking at this from a slightly different angle, assuming orbital propellant transfer is a viable method:
      The Falcon Heavy is listed as capable of orbiting 63 metric tons. With the upper stage refueled (by multiple tanker launches) that entire payload could be sent towards the moon or beyond.

    2. As for what an SLS Block 1 will cost, realistically it’s going to be somewhere around one launch per year, at something like the current ~$2.5b/year SLS program funding, give or take.

      It’s not like they fire everyone at KSC for a year, and then hire them all back. Nah, you pay for all that, every year, whether you fly or not. And let’s not get into the cost of every contractor/vendor maintaining assembly lines for SLS hardware for decades, because NASA fears having to requalifying any flight hardware.

  13. The Falcon Heavy launch turned heads in February, but SpaceX’s rocket is a smaller type of rocket that can’t meet NASA’s deep space needs. Once the Boeing-built SLS is operational, it will be the most powerful rocket ever built.

    What’s particularly dishonest about this statement is that NASA has no deep space needs that can be or need to be met by the SLS. And anything that would require the SLS would in turn be fighting for funding against the SLS.

    1. And anything that would require the SLS would in turn be fighting for funding against the SLS.

      +1

  15. Too small for what? Completely nonsensical, unless you have a particular mission in mind. And SLS has no particular missions that I’ve heard about.

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