Trump may cancel NASA's powerful SLS moon rocket – here's what that would mean for Elon Musk and the future of space travel

[Admin]

Since Donald Trump’s recent electoral victory, rumors and speculation have circulated that NASA's giant moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), could be under threat.

Trump may cancel NASA's powerful SLS moon rocket – here's what that would mean for Elon Musk and the future of space travel : Read more

 

[George²]

SLS is DOA by design. Assembled with components from the 1960s, with minor improvements, if they can be called improvements at all.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

This article seems to miss the main point that Artemis already is dependent on the success of StarShip (or perhaps a Blue Origin competitor) for the actual landing on the lunar surface.

So, if StarShip cannot be made available in time, Artemis is not going to be ready in time.

From the perspective of supporting a lunar habitat for an extended duration, a successful StarShip program seems likely to be far more affordable than a successful SLS program.

So, it we want to "win the race" we definitely need to get StarShip into fully operational mode as quickly as possible.

And if we want to be cost-effective, I seems that StarShip is the less expensive alternative, IF it can actually do rapid turn-around of reusable launch vehicles and can succeed in refueling in weightless conditions.

So, even if it doesn't "win the race", it still seems to be the practical option.

The only other option would be to use SLS and a Blue Origin lander, which seem even less likely to "win the race" and more costly for continued use.

I don't blame NASA for this predicament. I blame Congressional budgeting decisions and shifting levels of support from successive Presidents.

 

[FireNWater]

If you can only launch SLS once every 2 years, and the engines aren't being produced anymore what's the point?
.
Just call SLS what it is - a welfare program for Boeing engineers and a vote purchasing program for northern Alabama.
.
Cancel it and give the money to Space X.
.

 

[edfran]

Since Donald Trump’s recent electoral victory, rumors and speculation have circulated that NASA's giant moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), could be under threat.

Trump may cancel NASA's powerful SLS moon rocket – here's what that would mean for Elon Musk and the future of space travel : Read more

TIME TO KILL ARTEMIS-SLS-ORION?

1. Artemis is a NASA program with the goal to “land a woman and person of color on the Moon”.
2. A single mission will cost over $4 Billion!
3. $4 Billion goes to the ocean on each launch; nothing in Artemis is reusable.
4. If program continues, NASA will have to build new engines; currently, SLS uses leftover Shuttle engines.
5. NASA’s new Artemis launch tower will cost over $3 Billion.
6. At the current pace, it will consume $200 Billion to repeat the Apollo Moon landings that took place over 55 years ago.
7. Reality: Artemis is a jobs program to sustain NASA Manned Spaceflight as the International Space Station winds down.
8. Our politicians have kept Artemis alive despite cost overruns, years of delays and serious design and quality problems.

NASA and Congress need to stop the madness:

1. Kill Artemis, Orion and SLS
2. Kill Boeing Starliner
3. Continue plan to de-orbit ISS in 2030
4. Downsize NASA Manned Spaceflight group
5. Focus NASA on robotic exploration
6. Prioritize Mars Sample Return

 

[George²]

NASA and Congress need to stop the madness:

1. Kill Artemis, Orion and SLS
2. Kill Boeing Starliner
3. Continue plan to de-orbit ISS in 2030
4. <s>Downsize NASA Manned Spaceflight group
5. Focus NASA on robotic exploration
6. Prioritize Mars Sample Return</s>

That is better(if the tag "s" works). We already are enough good with robotic exploration. This won't save civilization when the Earth's habitability come to end.

 

[ChrisA]

SLS is DOA by design. Assembled with components from the 1960s, with minor improvements, if they can be called improvements at all.

On it's first test flight, it carried a human-rated capule around the moon and it landed back on earth. No other rocet except saturn has done this. Falcon heavy can't and Starship is not even close to being able to carry a test load of concrete to orbit.

Remember that SpaceX had a working "cargo dragon" the needed to be converted to "crew dragon." that "simple" step took them almost a decade. We don't evenhave a "cargo starship" yet. All the tests are with no payload, not even with concrete simulated payloads. nd then it will take another decade to huma-rate the ship,just like it did for dragon.

They could do it, but we are talkinglate 2030s at least

You really do need Orion because of the heat shield and launch abort capability.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

China has none of those things, now, either, so why would they beat SpaceX if what you say is really the case?

 

[ChrisA]

If you can only launch SLS once every 2 years, and the engines aren't being produced anymore what's the point?
.
Just call SLS what it is - a welfare program for Boeing engineers and a vote purchasing program for northern Alabama.
.
Cancel it and give the money to Space X.
.

Canceling it sets the entire moon and mars project back at leat 10 years. It might save money but, you'd loose a decade. SLS is an rational rocket that has alray flown to the moon. Nothjing else is even close to doing this. Do remember how long and what it cost when Spacex converted Cargo Dagon to Crew Dragon. Even SpceX could not do these quickly or cheap. No doubt they could but then you'd be looking at a landing in the 2040s

The huge problem with Starship is an abort. It is like the Space Shuttle in that if anything goes wrong on launch "everyone dies". All current manned capsules can survive an explosion on the pad, prelaunch or a failed rocket that explodes half way to space.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Chris, at some point the criteria for safety systems for crewed launches will get changed. They were established when explosions on the pad and during ignition of upper stages was not uncommon. But, those probabilities have been substantially diminished over the decades. For instance, when has a U.S. crewed capsule launch been aborted by an explosion on the pad or after liftoff and before achieving orbit? The Challenger disaster is the only one that I can think of. And that did not stop NASA from continuing to use the system. It took the Columbia reentry disaster to seal the fate of the Shuttle program.

I think the bigger issue is going to be what to do about the return trip from the Moon. NASA has always designed for the return to go directly to atmospheric braking, with no retro rocket deceleration. I don't think StarShip is designed for that. I think it would require enough fuel to get reentry velocity down to something more like reentry velocity from LEO. It might even go into LEO and require a crew to transfer to a special reentry craft, with the trans lunar craft being designed without heat shield and landing legs or fins to maximize its efficiency for payload to the Moon. There will eventually probably be such craft serving as tankers to get fuel to the Moon "gateway" orbiter for such specialized trans-lunar crewed craft.

I expect that will all depend on the realities of in-orbit refueling, as we discover them in the development process.

 

[George²]

simple" step took them almost a decade.

The problem is that today's engineers do not have and do not want to have real knowledge and skills, because acquiring them requires knowledge in many natural sciences and a lot of mental effort, so as long as the methodologies are recorded in digital form and played on computers, engineers prefer to play like children with sandcastles, which they try until they get something that does not self-destruct. Musk and his fans call it an iterative trial and error approach. The truth is that by working slowly, they receive their solid salaries for a longer period of time than if they did their work in a shorter period of time. Why should I do the work in one year and only receive the salaries for one year, when I can procrastinate and hang around for ten years and even retire within the framework of the project for which I was hired when I was young.

 

[ChrisA]

Chris, at some point the criteria for safety systems for crewed launches will get changed. They were established when explosions on the pad and during ignition of upper stages was not uncommon. But, those probabilities have been substantially diminished over the decades. For instance, when has a U.S. crewed capsule launch been aborted by an explosion on the pad or after liftoff and before achieving orbit? The Challenger disaster is the only one that I can think of. And that did not stop NASA from continuing to use the system. It took the Columbia reentry disaster to seal the fate of the Shuttle program.

I think the bigger issue is going to be what to do about the return trip from the Moon. NASA has always designed for the return to go directly to atmospheric braking, with no retro rocket deceleration. I don't think StarShip is designed for that. I think it would require enough fuel to get reentry velocity down to something more like reentry velocity from LEO. It might even go into LEO and require a crew to transfer to a special reentry craft, with the trans lunar craft being designed without heat shield and landing legs or fins to maximize its efficiency for payload to the Moon. There will eventually probably be such craft serving as tankers to get fuel to the Moon "gateway" orbiter for such specialized trans-lunar crewed craft.

I expect that will all depend on the realities of in-orbit refueling, as we discover them in the development process.

Going into LEO before atmospheric entry is using circular logic. How do you slow down enough to enter LEO unless you have enough fuel. In fact slowing down to LEO requires the same amount of fuel you used to get from LEO to ther Moon.

One option is aero-braking. This is where they just nearly slow just enough to big a looping orbit and not continue into deep space. And then they do this again and again to gradually circularize the orbit. But this process takes weeks or months. It works for cargo but not humans. The only way is to carry huge amounts of fuel to the Moon or to build a larger heat shield. A shield is much cheaper. It is also way-hard b because we can not predict the atmosphere well enough. The Space Force is actually doing a very scaled back test of aerobraking right now with their space plan but the amount to orbital change they are going for is very tiny, It is very risky because guessing wrong will kill the crew. So we do the "'direct dive".

The criteria for safety will not be reduced. NASA has set it for "loss of crew in one out of every 500" They consider killing 0.2% of astronauts acceptable. The space shuttle was 10X less safe and killed roughly 2% of the crews who flew it.

If you read NASA's document. They don't care how you get to 1 in 500. You can use an abort or you can test your booster. But testing is EXPENSIVE because to get statistically relevant data you need way more than 500 launches. It turns out it is cheaper to have 2nd and 3rd and 4th level backup plans so that the multiplier come out better than 1:500 with fewer than 5,000 tests. So you use some logic and a few tests, the redundant backups help reduce the cost of certification.

 

[edfran]

That is better(if the tag "s" works). We already are enough good with robotic exploration. This won't save civilization when the Earth's habitability come to end.

These same resources should be working to save the one planet that we have.

 

[ChrisA]

The problem is that today's engineers do not have and do not want to have real knowledge and skills, because acquiring them requires knowledge in many natural sciences and a lot of mental effort, so as long as the methodologies are recorded in digital form and played on computers, engineers prefer to play like children with sandcastles, which they try until they get something that does not self-destruct. Musk and his fans call it an iterative trial and error approach. The truth is that by working slowly, they receive their solid salaries for a longer period of time than if they did their work in a shorter period of time. Why should I do the work in one year and only receive the salaries for one year, when I can procrastinate and hang around for ten years and even retire within the framework of the project for which I was hired when I was young.

Engineers do not decide on the policy. Musk does that. I live near the Hawthrone SpaceX building and worked in the business for a long time. I know people who work there. They are the SAME people who worked for Boing or Northrup. Engineers a mobile and swap companies frequently. "everyone" has worked at the other places. All the companies swap employees like crazy.

Also Musk's "crash and burn and then fix it policy os not burning more money. it is actually cheaper. That is why he does it. He might be right but the policy is endless and not guaranteed to even succeed. It might be that one thing after another goes wrong and they are still crashing after 100 tries. I doubt that but the point is we can't know. It looks like SLS is no longer the hold-up

You have to remember that SpaceX is paying for this. Yes NASA paid for a lunar lander but the contract says they can not mix the lander funds with general development. The government is very carefully NOT funding the launcher development but is saying they want to be a customer once it is finished.

 

[ChrisA]

China has none of those things, now, either, so why would they beat SpaceX if what you say is really the case?

China's announced plans are always very conservative. They are just as likely to be ahead of schedule than behind. The US changes direction after every election but China can make plans and stick to them. We already know that whatever changes Trump and Musk make to NASA's plans, those changes will be reversed in only 4 years. Then there will be some other plan. And so on and so on.

The way you make a conservative plan is to ask your engineers not "how soon can this be done?" and then add all those estimates. That is what we do because the project has to be sold to Congress every year. In China they can do it right and ask their engineers "At what date will you have an equal chance of being late or ahead of schedule?". Then when you add all those together you have some certainty. that if you add resources and ask for a re-estimate you can get things done.

In China about 33% of all university students study science or engineering. In the US it is about 9% They have enormous resources and manage them efficiently.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Chris, As you point out China does not have the funding/planning issues that Congress poses for NASA. But, neither does SpaceX. So predicting SpaceX technology development timelines should be more like predicting Chinese timelines. My point being that if you think China can get to the Moon before SpaceX, starting from now, you need to work with the proper development rates for each. At this point, only NASA had been to the Moon, and it can't get back without SpaceX (or maybe Blue Origin), and neither SpaceX nor China have gotten there yet, but both are working on it with their own funds. Of course, China doesn't need FAA and EPA approvals.

Regarding launch safety: Space X had a more reliable system because of its use of so many rocket motors per stage. So, a problem with one, or maybe even 5 of SuperHeavy's motors would not likely prevent attaining orbit. Yes, there could be common mode failures of many engines, and there could be other problems that could blow up the whole stage. But, avoiding strap-on solid rockets also avoids a lot of the potentially disastrous failure mechanisms, including the ones that killed the Challenger crew and caused problems with the second Vulcan launch.

But, one issue with StarShip is that it is apparently going to require the "chopstick catch" for landing, so an abort of some sort that puts it down in another location, especially at sea, would be more of an issue than for the Orion capsule. I am waiting to see how that issue plays out. Maybe retractable legs for crewed launches? That might be an issue for effective heat shielding of the leg mechanisms during the belly-flop reentry.

 

[CreatedEvolution]

I am not sure but there have been a lot of recent improvements in space travel. Is it possible they found a much safer way than a rocket? I believe trump will back Elon so there was probably a new discovery.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

No way to get things into orbit other than a rocket. Star Trek transporter beams are still only a Hollywood fantasy.

 

[CreatedEvolution]

I have theories that involve powerful rotating EMFs with a lot of open electricity in the middle that will be used as propulsion. I know the cathode ray tube exerts force therefore my emf will theoretically be able to escape the atmosphere and possibly reach orbit. Nikola Tesla had an electric space craft idea, he was already discredited once in this site. But this is how I theorize his idea worked. He had a massive iq I doubt he planned on just electrical charge reaching orbit.

 

[COLGeek]

Lets not stray off topic, please. Thank you.