I’ve uploaded the Powerpoint to the site.
It’s an outgrowth of my “SLS Roadblock” project, which I’m figuring out how to either wrap up or extend.
[Update a while later]
Erratum: At the time I originally created these charts, for the FISO telecon at the end of January, Dana had proposed the Space Settlement bill. He has since actually introduced it.
Actually, if by “Apollo” we mean big, NASA space project, it has happened again twice in the form of the space shuttle and ISS. I am puzzled by this hatred of the Apollo program, which was the most successful peacetime project in human history, which garnered a wealth of scientific knowledge, created an enormous amount of technology and, according to most economic analysis, more than paid for itself. The reaction, expressed as “We should never do that again!” seems awfully curious to me.
I mean a big NASA project, extending over many years, costing billions per year, with minimal results in terms of opening up space.
Mark, you miss entirely the core justification for Apollo. It was the best response to Kruschev’s Space Technology propaganda campaign that went on full bore, from 1957 to 1968, then stopped when Apollo 11 landed. That core justification for the path of a large rocket is utterly lacking today. Yes, Apollo produced some good things, but t a price that was politically unsustainable once the core justification was realized, and no longer seemed relevant to the political community.
That core justification for a big single project simply is not present, nor is it likely to be again. No one is using spaceflight as a major expression of the legitimacy of their system of government, and should not. That phantasm was a product of the rise of the “socialist camp” reaction against industrial society, and its major protector, the US.
The currently robust reactions against industrial society (the Caliphate Revivalists and the Deep Ecology environmentalists) have little use for spaceflight beyond marking out their own participation to ensure their own populations see them as legitimate. Since there is no race between either nations or systems of governance for spaceflight prestige, there is no need to do things fast.
That allows a rational approach to settling the Solar System to be based on markets and engineering. That is what NASA could contribute to, by developing technology through TRL levels close to operational applications with its budget, but that would not direct the NASA budget to the members of the cost+ contractors club presently held in fealty to Chairs of NASA congressional oversight committees. Since SLS/Orion *does* hold the cost+ contractors club by the short hairs, ensuring their fealty, that is what Congress wrote into law, including *both* political parties in the SLS/Orion coalition in Congress.
I wouldn’t call it peacetime. We we simultaneously fighting a war in Vietnam and Apollo was a proxy battle in the Cold War against the Soviet Union.
The lost opportunity cost is what is frustrating. The difference in efficiency in various projects can be enormous.
That we can’t seem to do anything about it just adds more frustration.
Well, you’ve listed some reasons against the SLS, and some of those might seem pretty good. But let me list some major reasons to favor the SLS.
1) It’s big. It will be the biggest rocket ever launched.
2) It’s very loud. It will be the loudest rocket ever launched.
3) It’s expensive. It will be the most expensive rocket ever launched.
4) It’s impressive. It will be the most impressive rocket ever launched, especially if it blows up on the pad, which would also make it even louder than design specs.
5) It pushes technology.
a. The Space shuttle only had 4 segment SRB’s. The SLS uses 5 segment SRB’s. That’s never been done before.
b. The Space shuttle only used 3 RS-25 engines. The SLS uses 4. NASA has never run 4 RS-25’s at the same time before, so that will be a groundbreaking experience – driving technology forward.
6) It brings NASA into the realm of multi-generational ships. Each launch and support crew will likely be the direct descendants of those who worked the previous launch.
It will enable earthshattering advances in sarcastic hyperbole.
George; thanks for that. I’m ROTFLMAO
“it is not possible to say whether human off-Earth settlements could eventually be developed that would outlive human presence on Earth and lengthen the survival of our species”
Learning to live would lead to other expansion of the human sphere. ‘Not possible to say’ is irrelevant. Not going insures another certainty.