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SLS and Orion

NASA Flips A Coin Again To Pick A New SLS Launch Date

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 8, 2017
Filed under ,
NASA Flips A Coin Again To Pick A New SLS Launch Date

NASA Completes Review of First SLS, Orion Deep Space Exploration Mission
“While the review of the possible manufacturing and production schedule risks indicate a launch date of June 2020, the agency is managing to December 2019,” said acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot. “Since several of the key risks identified have not been actually realized, we are able to put in place mitigation strategies for those risks to protect the December 2019 date.”
Keith’s note: NASA says “December 2019” because it sounds better than some date in “2020” – even if the launch date was 1 January 2020. Its like saying that something costs $19.99 instead of $20.00. It sounds better. Truth be known they have no idea – as OIG and GAO have been saying again and again every year.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

37 responses to “NASA Flips A Coin Again To Pick A New SLS Launch Date”

  1. Brian_M2525 says:
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    Must be new and uncertain technology. Have they ever met a schedule?

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      Actually the massive amount of work needed to convert a fuel tank that was designed to only be side mounted into one strong enough to hold the weight of the entire stack on top while the rockets blast from below basically requires a new design. The Shuttle-C would have been a much better design.

      They would even have been be better off just dusting off the design of the old Saturn V and adapting it to existing production techniques. At least you start with something that worked.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        They decided to pretty much scrap everything from the shuttle to build Ares V (larger diameter tanks in the core than the ET, five segment SRBs, and etc.). So, when they were mandated by Congress to build SLS, they’d gone so far down the rabbit hole that they couldn’t just reuse the shuttle ET tooling anymore. So all new tooling, new manufacturing problems, and etc.

        If, from the very start, they had built a truly shuttle derived vehicle (four segment SRBs, SSMEs, reused ET tooling to build the core stage, and etc), it would have been flying now. This was the “Direct” and “Direct 2.0” proposals that came from *inside* NASA because many engineers didn’t like the Ares I plus Ares V due to the high cost.

        Yes, some details of the ET were different than Direct (inline would have required thicker tank walls in places and etc.), but the tooling could have been reused.

        • Vladislaw says:
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          It was my understand that the Ares V didn’t get any funding to speak of and it was barely past the power point slides?

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            True, but with Ares I, they started burning all of their “shuttle derived” bridges. Nothing on Ares I was reused from the shuttle, other than some aspects of the SRB design. But the five segment SRB really has a lot less in common with the shuttle SRB than you’d think.

            Also, the five segment SRB was supposed to be (more or less) common between Ares I and Ares V. The thrust profile would be different, but there were supposed to be enough commonalities that there would be “economies of scale” by using them for both vehicles.

        • Vladislaw says:
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          What? No cost plus, fixed fee, sole sourced, endless development FAR contracts? How dare you … smiles..

          There was no way congress was not going to milk the new system for every ounce of rendered pork possible.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          My feeling is that a shuttle derived vehicle would have been practical only if the shuttle itself were still flying. Otherwise the flight rate would not be sufficient to justify the overhead.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            I agree for side-mount shuttle derived. But Direct and Direct 2.0 proposed an inline shuttle derived launch vehicle. The goal was to reuse as much tooling and infrastructure as possible without the downsides of side-mount.

      • MountainHighAstro says:
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        “Dusting off” the Saturn V is a fallacy. Adapting the design (for whatever amount of it is still around) to current production techniques would require re-engineering the entire vehicle.
        That is not to say SLS was the *correct* decision to be made, but, as a local optimization, it’s better than the V or CxP

        • ThomasLMatula says:
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          I guess you missed that it was sarcasm 🙂

          The point is that the SLS is based on Shuttle technology which was originally designed in the early 1970’s, over 45 years ago, while the Saturn V was the peak of 1960’s rocket technology, only a few years older. Both are based on “ancient” technology and production systems 🙂

          • MountainHighAstro says:
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            It was entirely lost on me! Good to hear 🙂

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            Although the actual Saturn hardware would have been difficult to recreate, two of its design elements would still be apropos.
            1) No solids, due to weight, processing cost and the insanely large escape rocket that was needed on the Orion to get away from them.
            2) In the initial ascent thrust is important, not specific impulse. A hydrocarbon engine (whether RP-1 or methane) produces much more thrust for a given size and cost of engines and fuel tanks than does hydrogen.

      • Brian_M2525 says:
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        Your comment about Saturn V is really very accurate. By the time SLS goes into ‘regular’ use it will be as far away from now as Saturn V was ten years ago. SLS made sense if they would have carried over Shuttle suppliers and designs, but they didn’t do that and since SLS is so far out, they could have just as easily gone back to Saturn as starting with a new design.

      • MrLA says:
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        Agreed. The Saturn V worked. We got really good at launching it, using slide rules & vacuum tubes. We went to the moon in just 8 years after Kennedy “threw NASA’s hat over the wall.” Now we’ve spent 25% of what the entire Apollo program cost (in current dollars) over the course of 5 or 6 years…and we haven’t even got an unmanned rocket off the ground. It’s pathetic.

  2. Vladislaw says:
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    Keith and Marc you should sign up

    https://enjoythesilence.tod

  3. ThomasLMatula says:
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    If it doesn’t fly then there is no risk of any embrassing images to explain like the one of the Ares I staging that looked like it broke in half.

    Of course this schedule puts it in the middle of what is going to be a nasty Presidential election so if it fails it could well make NASA an issue to exploit. I could see the Congressional Hearings and finger pointing now (ignoring of course any mention of the role of Congress in the Senate Launch System).

    As a side note, it was the failure of Vanguard on the eve of the 1958 election season, with only a single success and four more failures during the elections, that basically ended the Navy’s dreams of space, with Project Vanguard being transferred to NASA.

    So bureaucrats being bureaucrats expect the launch to be delayed to well after the elections…

  4. Michael Spencer says:
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    You have to wonder why Congress— you know, those charged with ‘oversight’—hasn’t pushed back on SLS.

    Not a peep. Maybe the money just gets lost in rounding.

    • Christopher Miles says:
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      There is an article on ARS Technica posted today which does cite some new “on the record” House rumblings. But that’s it-

      Rumblings.

      Sounds made when you eat too much and it doesn’t pass.

      Rather like this ~25 billion? and counting- SLS Turkey surprise.

      For any interested:
      https://arstechnica.com/sci

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      Because they’re the ones who created SLS in the first place. They don’t care if it flies, as long as it keeps the pork flowing.

    • Paul451 says:
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      It’s hard to make a man listen when his source of income depends on not listening.

  5. Patrick Underwood says:
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    Is there anything Trump isn’t responsible for?

    SLS was a giant train wreck for years prior to the current administration.

  6. Vladislaw says:
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    If Virginia was any indication of the mid term elections and then how many more indictments are coming .. I do not think space will be much of an issue going forward.

    • Bill Housley says:
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      We’ll see. As the Government becomes further distracted with noise (and maybe a short and nasty war), NewSpace will just keep launching stuff and NASA can quietly partner without Congress noticing.

  7. Bad Horse says:
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    Slow but expensive death spiral. The projects not real to many civil servants (does not matter). They suffer no loss when it dies. It’s just money and many civil servants will retire soon.

  8. Brian_M2525 says:
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    I think the goal is NOT to launch. The goal is to keep the project going and the money flowing.

  9. Paul451 says:
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    We mock SpaceX for Elon’s “aspirational” launch dates, but at least they have the decency to say “NET”, no earlier than.

    SLS will launch NET Dec 2019.

    • Bill Housley says:
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      …and to actually launch eventually. Also, FH will still push the envelope back, even with all the launch delays. Once FH, crew Dragon, etc. start flying missions then every passing month after that will also push SLS/Orion further behind the curve.

      NASA public statements seem to deny that FH and Dragon V2 are in competition with SLS/Orion, but they are.

  10. Bill Housley says:
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    One BIG difference between SLS and FH is that SpaceX doesn’t get (much) money until FH actually flies.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      And another difference: FH/ BFR are financed out of…wait for it!…profits!

      • Bill Housley says:
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        We’ll…the Air Force is helping a little with FH and with the BFR engines.

      • Daniel Woodard says:
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        The most important advance brought by Musk was the undrestanding that a major reduction in the cost of reaching space was essential to save the industry, and the proof that it was possible.

        Before SpaceX arrived we had gone five years without a single commercial (i.e. non government financed) payload launch from US soil. Now SpaceX is maintaining a phenominal launch rate. They have launched satellites for customers from around the world, including China. We can’t forget that.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          OK, I’ll bite: “The most important advance…?”

          It’s safe to say that cost reduction was then and is now understood to e a major stumbling block. Mr. Musk simply (!) DID something about it.

          In some ways Musk sort of ‘fell’ into making his own rockets; the existing industrial base couldn’t do it at a price he wanted (we all know the history). At that point he went into the rocket business.

          But to the larger point I want to make: isn’t it fair to say that the materials and methods used by Mr. Musk were available to anyone, and had been available, for many years? This point really intrigues me.

          In some ways Mr. Jobs’ iPod tech was also available, though not as readily. The point stands: at some point both of them took existing materials and methods and made something new. That’s the advance.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            It’s like building a new development. It requires a combinatin of resources, determination, and strategic vision. Musk was not the first person to suggest that reducing the cost of access to space was essential to expand the market, but talk is cheap. The traditional aerospce contractors saw no pressur to reduce cost because they focussed on short term profits and the most profitable customer, the US government, was insensitive to cost.

            It required a different vision, that reducing cost would increase the market size.Recovery of the booster was the first major technological advance SpaceX demonstrated, but even befeore that he had captured a major share of the market.. Musk was not even the first to suggest that the booster stage was the most important part of the rocket to recover, but he was the first to have the combination of resources, determination, vision, and technical ability to actually accomplish it.

  11. tutiger87 says:
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    Meanwhile, those of us that came here with big dreams of doing big things….

    • MrLA says:
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      At this point I don’t think the current NASA could pull off an Apollo mission, if they were given all of the hardware on a silver platter.

      We managed to get really good at launching the Saturn V, and that was without modern computers. We literally cannot get a man into orbit on our own. So sad.

  12. Donald Keller says:
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    Hard to believe this will ever fly with people aboard before it collapses under its own cost and schedule weight and likely successes by SpaceX and others with more and more capable lifters that cost far less. Hard to think of all the cool research and robotic exploration that these billions could have paid for along with helping to seed fund new commercial rocket ventures. Is it time for NASA to get out of the huge launcher business and stick to research in aeronautics and space along with studying the planet and developing and launching cool payloads?

  13. MrLA says:
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    Can someone enlighten me; how is it in 5 years, while spending the equivalent of 1/4 of the entire cost of the entire Apollo program (in current dollars) NASA can’t even get an unmanned rocket off the ground?

    I’m no expert, but I have been watching this project, and the first flight test of the launch vehicle get pushed back…again and again and again. I do wonder if the culture of NASA is changing, and instead of the best and the brightest they are concerned with political correctness. I don’t know, but I wonder if we as a nation will ever make it into LEO again.