Re:After years of setbacks, NASA’s SLS moon rocket is ready ...
by panick21_ on Monday August 29, 2022 @09:50AM
(#32638215)
> NASA is pure cost, so of course it costs more.
Not sure what you mean, NASA can literally just buy stuff from the open market at market prices. NASA only costs more if they do special things. So part of not having large cost is not building some NASA only special thing like SLS/Orion.
> And spacex doesn’t have a fully scoped moon base platform.
Neither das NASA.
> It doesn’t even have a full heavy lift yet.
NASA doesn't have that either. They might have one test flight now, and then nothing for many years.
Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy over the next couple years could lift literally 100x more then NASA could ever do.
And many people have pointed out that distributed launch was an option. Even back in 2011 many people at NASA saw that given Falcon 9 and Atlas 5 launching commercial only was an option. But congress didn't allow that.
The fact is, Artemis is already a multi-launch architecture. That could be slightly extended in many ways and make SLS totally unnecessary. This has been shown again and again 100 times since 2011 and even before that. But somehow people still don't get that. Its pretty basic, but I guess we just have to defend whatever architecture some senators from Alabama wanted.
> Why? Because the costs are too great.
Again, Falcon Heavy is literally a super heavy lift class commercial vehicle. And Starship will commercial and far bigger then SLS. New Glenn and Vulcan are also in development.
The idea that NASA needs to spend 20 billion for some slightly bigger rocket that can launch once every few years is absurd.
> Hence, the public funds the leap frog over business and paves the way for private industry.
I'm sorry, but frankly this is a total misunderstanding of how NASA works. The opposite is true, SLS/Orion are starving the rest of the space industry because they are so absurdly expensive.
NASA in 2011 wanted to consider commercial rocket providers for 'SLS' but Senate didn't allow it. Had they done, that money would be 100x better invested now.
> That’s the benefit of the public funded model. It advances us faster than is natural.
You can't just put public money on a pile light in on fire and then say 'look public is funding a this amazing thing'.
The SLS/Orion programs are the perversion of the model you are advocating. Instead of public money funding amazing advisement in space, it goes to support legacy contractors developing products that are totally noncompetitive and backwards.
20 billion and not a single new engine developed, not a single next generation avionics system deployed, no significant advances in structural engineering. This is literally the opposite of innovation and progress.
Not sure what you mean, NASA can literally just buy stuff from the open market at market prices. NASA only costs more if they do special things. So part of not having large cost is not building some NASA only special thing like SLS/Orion.
> And spacex doesn’t have a fully scoped moon base platform.
Neither das NASA.
> It doesn’t even have a full heavy lift yet.
NASA doesn't have that either. They might have one test flight now, and then nothing for many years.
Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy over the next couple years could lift literally 100x more then NASA could ever do.
And many people have pointed out that distributed launch was an option. Even back in 2011 many people at NASA saw that given Falcon 9 and Atlas 5 launching commercial only was an option. But congress didn't allow that.
The fact is, Artemis is already a multi-launch architecture. That could be slightly extended in many ways and make SLS totally unnecessary. This has been shown again and again 100 times since 2011 and even before that. But somehow people still don't get that. Its pretty basic, but I guess we just have to defend whatever architecture some senators from Alabama wanted.
> Why? Because the costs are too great.
Again, Falcon Heavy is literally a super heavy lift class commercial vehicle. And Starship will commercial and far bigger then SLS. New Glenn and Vulcan are also in development.
The idea that NASA needs to spend 20 billion for some slightly bigger rocket that can launch once every few years is absurd.
> Hence, the public funds the leap frog over business and paves the way for private industry.
I'm sorry, but frankly this is a total misunderstanding of how NASA works. The opposite is true, SLS/Orion are starving the rest of the space industry because they are so absurdly expensive.
NASA in 2011 wanted to consider commercial rocket providers for 'SLS' but Senate didn't allow it. Had they done, that money would be 100x better invested now.
> That’s the benefit of the public funded model. It advances us faster than is natural.
You can't just put public money on a pile light in on fire and then say 'look public is funding a this amazing thing'.
The SLS/Orion programs are the perversion of the model you are advocating. Instead of public money funding amazing advisement in space, it goes to support legacy contractors developing products that are totally noncompetitive and backwards.
20 billion and not a single new engine developed, not a single next generation avionics system deployed, no significant advances in structural engineering. This is literally the opposite of innovation and progress.