9 thoughts on “The Continuing SLS Disaster”

  1. However, this source said horizontal mating of the engines has created problems.

    Why?

    It’s not like they rolled the Shuttle Orbiter over to the VAB, stacked it, and then installed the engines. No. They wheeled the SSME’s into the OPF and installed them horizontally into the back of the Orbiter prior to rollout to the VAB for stacking.

    NASA should just change their acronym to FUBAR.

  3. I wish I could say that nothing about this misbegotten program could surprise me anymore, but it seems I would be wrong to do so.

  4. I think I know what the problem is, and there may be hope.

    What they’re doing is trying to mount a low-rate incredibly expensive LH2/LOX engine to an expendable core that took forever to build, but some technician has noticed that what they should be doing is mating a high-rate low-cost LCH4 or Kerolox engine to a re-usable booster that was rapidly assembled. They’re simply trying to mate the wrong parts together.

    1. Last month, I attended an event at Rice University at which Jim Bridenstine gave an address. He attended a reception afterwards and I was able to speak to him personally. I tried to ask him what might be the political fallout of BFR beginning operational flights before SLS flies. He cut me off and said, very emphatically, that no such thing was possible. Given that he has since gone on the record as saying he would be pleased by such an outcome, I guess he has reevaluated the matter. I think that Bridenstine knows perfectly well that SLS is already obsolete, but is constrained, politically, from saying so and advocating its demise. If BFR does become operational first, that seems to me to be a big nail in SLS’s coffin. That might indeed please Bridenstine because it would put him a big step closer to being free of that albatross.

  7. We went from Alan Shepard in suborbital flight to Armstrong and Aldrin stepping on the Moon in a little over 8 years. These guys can’t even get to the ” let’s put it on the launch pad to see if it blows up” stage in that time. By the time they actually get to the Moon, a team from SpaceX will be helping them out of their lander.

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