A recognition by NASA that the vehicle has no missions. Too bad Congress doesn’t understand that.
This is what happens when you come up with Design Reference Missions to match a design, instead of the right way around.
@NASASpaceflight Look up the phrase "solution looking for a problem," and you'll see a picture of SLS.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 12, 2016
[Update Wednesday morning]
More from Loren Grush over at The Verge:
But the SLS is expensive, and NASA’s budget is at the lowest it has been in decades, even with the new budget allotment of $19.3 billion for the 2016 fiscal year. The cost of developing the SLS through 2017 is expected to total $18 billion. And once the rocket is built, each launch is going to cost somewhere between $500 and $700 million, which makes it unlikely that the rocket will carry astronauts more than once a year.
If they’re only flying once a year, there’s no way the launch cost is that low. It’s at least two billion. I don’t know where that $500-$700M number comes from, but it’s probably marginal cost, which is a meaningless number for a vehicle with such a low flight rate.
[Bumped]
Congress wants NASA to have a big honking rocket in the very worst way and that’s exactly how they’re going about getting one. To an even greater extent than the Shuttle and ISS, SLS/Orion are vehicles in search of a mission.
Congress doesn’t care if NASA has a big honking rocket. They care that the funds flow to their districts.
If digging ditches and filling them in again paid as much, they’d have BoeLockMartATK doing that.
I’ve been thinking of some ways to speculate on opportunity costs without being too detailed on actual payloads or missions but obviously the more information you have, the better your speculation is.
Which brings me to the real question here, how is the kickstarter project going Rand?
Rand,
Actually, coming up with DRMs to match the design is exactly what they should be doing–they just should be matching the design of existing commercial launch vehicles, not spending tens of $B on a new launch vehicle…
~Jon
SLS already has a clear mission: to deliver large sums of tax money to Huntsville and KSC.
Telling Congress that they should replace SLS with some other program, which doesn’t support that mission, misses the point.
But the vehicle does have a mission: funneling government pork.
Rand is being just a little misleading. The SLS is taking people beyond LEO, specifically Mars. What is under discussion is what to do with ot leading up to that. NASA has to be keenly aware that anything it decides now will be revisited by the next administration.
The SLS is taking people beyond LEO, specifically Mars.
That is a fantasy, Mark, not a fact.
Indeed. I laughed when I read that line. That’s like a stupid ad line in the background of a B sci-fi movie. You can imagine after a fake “I’d buy that for a dollar”, a gussied up commercial with an ULA logo as a smiling family boards an SLS and the narrator says “The SLS is taking people beyond LEO”. I’m sorry, but the Robinsons have no chance of being lost in space if the SLS is their ride.
Really? SLS is going to have that much delta vee? It’s going to be able to take people to Mars and back? Without refueling in orbit?
Of course, if it has to refuel, then there’s no need for an SLS at all…
Mark, the little tiny problem with your claim regarding SLS is that it’s impossible.
Even the most optimistic estimate of SLS block II performance leaves it far short of the performance it would need to push even the most optimistic mass estimates for a full mission payload through the TMI burn.
A Mars mission would be a lot of mass. Consumables, life support, a hab for the journey (Orion is far too small to be the sole hab) the Mars lander (far more massive than the lunar LEM due to delta/v requirements plus far larger payload due to surface mission duration) etc, etc, etc.
Run the numbers yourself if you don’t believe me. The most optimistic SLS forecast ability for TMI (assuming optimal window) is 31 tons. The mass of the Orion spacecraft (service module plus capsule) alone is, most optimistically, 26 tons. Even if the Orion service module has the delta/V to both enter Mars orbit and then perform the TEI burn (it doesn’t) that leaves 5 tons for a lander, long term life support, a hab space of some sort, consumables, etc. (for reference, even the tiny-by-comparison LEM massed 15 tons).
Multi-launch with assembly in LEO? Sure, but then you don’t need SLS at all, because it’s one shining feature (high ISP upper stage) won’t be doing the TMI burn, so there’s no point (you’ll need to launch and fuel a dedicated TMI stage anyway).
Maybe assembly on Mars surface could make sense? Preposition and build a base and return vehicle on Mars with multiple robotic SLS flights, then send astronauts with a lander.
I’m still dubious it’s better than, e.g., a Falcon Heavy, but that scenario seems like the best-case for SLS.
The SLS is taking people beyond LEO, specifically Mars.
Using the present tense for something that isn’t scheduled for five years? That’s a little bit misleading.
I don’t know where that $500-$700M number comes from, but it’s probably marginal cost, which is a meaningless number for a vehicle with such a low flight rate.
I think it was Gersternmeier in Alabama a couple of years ago (either the Von Braun Symposium of at the George. C. Marshall Institute) who said that NASA hoped to get the cost of an SLS down to $500 million. As you say, the only way that could even have the right number of zeroes is if it’s a marginal cost.
Judging by the cost of the RS-25 contract, $500 million would barely cover just the cost of the SLS hardware, minus any payload including the Orion capsule. It wouldn’t cover any of the related ground personnel costs (they will be enormous) and other things that go into flying the SLS.
The SLS can economically fulfill just about any existing mission by simply adding bags of lead shot to the payload. Even a small satellite can now have a couple tons of radiation shielding, preserving the life of the electronics and thus lowering costs.
Yeah. I’ll be here all night. Try the veal.
I think you’re onto something, George. 🙂
In some ways it is really depressing looking at the opportunity costs of what we could be doing right now or even when SLS is operational, especially if SpaceX drops their prices for NASA.
It is also encouraging. If SpaceX was comfortable with their current level of gross profits, could reuse a core 10 times, and it cost $1m a pop to refurb it, I think they could cut their market price by close to $30m and still make a little more profit than building new cores for each launch.
Playing around with the F9 vs SLS numbers is a lot of fun. Its just too bad there aren’t better number to go on.
Well, I DO like the fact that the Senate has basically taken these kinds of projects out of the president’s hands. An anti-space president like Obama is devestating when you’re trying to develop a new launch vehicle, as opposed to a pro-space one like Clinton or Reagan. That said: they’re th senate. They don’t know nothin from nobody, and I honestly don’t think this sumbitch will ever fly.