Me too! I really hope NASA just abandons their plans for a heavy launch system to get to the moon and mars. Use a mix of SpaceX F9 Heavy, Delta IV Heavy, and Ariane 5.

And Blue Origin's New Glenn.

And Ariane 6.

And Falcon 9 (which can lift as much as the Ariane rockets)

And BFR.

Yea, the US really should be spending $20B in taxpayer dollars building a new heavy lift rocket system that has zero re-usablity.

To be fair, those companies are just copying Russian/NASA designs, so maybe the money is semi-useful.

I think its pretty false to say that they are just copying Russian/NASA engines. While of course much of the basic research was done long before they started and they profit from it.

Both SpaceX and BlueOrigin have gone way beyond what either Russia or NASA ever did or are doing at the moment.

The SLS is a legacy rocket with legacy technology.

It will go down as the biggest waste of money in space history. I should be cancelled as soon as possible.

And the US/Russia just copied the V2.

And Von Braun just copied Goddard and Oberth.

And so far SpaceX is the only one to make re-usable commercial rockets.

Which everybody before them said was impossible.

>To be fair, those companies are just copying Russian/NASA designs, so maybe the money is semi-useful.

So you are saying the US should throw away $20 billion on the SLS because NASA originally developed a lot of the ideas that the SpaceX Falcon Heavy uses.

Do you happen to work for one of the SLS contractors?

Serious question, are there any new components in the SLS worth copying?

In SLS, if we are not talking about Orion, not really.

So, the engines is the same as the SpaceX Shuttle (RS-25). This is a great engine but nobody would build it today. It uses a fuel-rich design and almost universally people are now building Oxidizer-rich staged cycles. BlueOrigin BE-4 being a good example.

Second these RS-25 use hydrogen but currently everybody is building methane based engines. Building a new hydrogen engine would maybe make sense for upper stages in some situation but then you would probably copy the RL-10 or the new BE-3U that BlueOrigin is working on.

So I don't think that any modern project will try the same route as the RS-25 did.

The SLS is using new solid boosters that are not worth copying unless you want to build gigantic nukes. Solid fuel just does not make sense in space flight currently (outside a few specialised applications).

On the upper stage they will use very good but old and expensive engines (both in Block 1 and Block 1b).

Structurally the SLS is also behind the times. I don't think anybody would design something like it, they were just forced to use old stuff they had from the Space Shuttle.

So I don't think anybody would still copy SLS. Yes, SpaceX uses much of the old US and Russian ideas but in there current design, Falcon 9 they have already improved on pretty much everything. Their next Rocket, BFR, will go way beyond anything done in any other rocket. From the engines, to the structure, to the control, to cold gas thruster, fuel integration and so on.

Yes; much of the SLS requirements were forced by a certain bloc of congress who, since the 1970's have been directing pork-barrel $ at a few contractors' business. (in particular, Lockheed's Michaud facility in Louisiana, and Thiokol/ATK..now OrbitalATK, in the case of the solid rocket fuel). A lot of the original STS requirements were driven by this congressional delegation.

Good riddance to this form of "engineering".

That said: I'm not super bullish on the outcome of Blue Origin's efforts. The have not impressed me. SpaceX has; very much. And I do believe that Lockheed, Boeing, and even OrbitalATK will be very important players in the future. They're all continuing to do great work, but the government's got to start spending their money much smarter than they had been. (And perhaps the worst example was the cancellation of the X-33 Program).

There aren't many new components. The tech in the Orion capsule is new, but the capsule design is very similar to previous capsules (aerodynamics don't change). All the rest is basically re-used tech from the shuttle.

I may be wrong in this case about the upper stage. I don't know what they plan on using for those engines. If they're new engines (which I haven't heard of development regarding them), then that could be interesting, but they're likely reused OM engines from the shuttle or something like that.

my joy is the same as their current systems, that a private company can innovate in such an expensive and difficult industry.

between this and deep sea exploration it just amazes me that technology has opened this to private industry and people. that is the science "fiction" I have been waiting to see come about

It was my understanding that the F9H components cannot be recycled F9 units, despite me Musk's best efforts at engineering a solution.

Both the side boosters on the F9H inaugural flight will be reused boosters. The center boosters are only able to fly on F9H but are planned to be reusable.

Here are both the landing videos of the side cores that will be flying on the F9H https://youtu.be/4jEz03Z8azc https://youtu.be/DKqY8sy3nkM?t=55s

are they landing all 3 first stages - that would be so cool

That's the plan. The center core at sea on the ASDS, both side boosters back at the Cape.

It would be EPIC to see it

Go see it!

The two side boosters on the FH demo flight are recycled from previous F9 missions. The central core is new and will be recovered. I do not think it’s possible to use the central FH core on an F9 mission, but it will be re-used for further FH missions.

Any idea why that is? I could imagine that its structure being incapable of handling the additional mass.