Hello All,

I'm no fan of the SLS, but if it's going to fly--however many or few times--we might as well get as much use out of it as we can, since we're spending so much money on it anyway. NASA has come to the same conclusion, as their latest plan indicates (see: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/S...yloads_999.html ). On the SLS's first test flight, 11 secondary payloads will also be carried; two of them are solar sail spacecraft based on CubeSat designs. NEA Scout will visit and study a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA), while Lunar Flashlight will utilize a solar sail to illuminate permanently-shadowed polar craters on the Moon, so that instruments aboard its spacecraft can collect data on and images of these perpetually dark areas (which contain useful supplies of water ice and possibly other deep-frozen volatiles).

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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
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NAR #54895 SR

Don't forget all those little rock-spider things that live in the bottom of those perpetually dark Moon craters like we saw in the documentary "Apollo 18"... LOL

Good they're going to get SOME use out of the vehicle other than a simple engineering test flight...

Later! OL JR

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

I haven't had the pleasure of viewing that one (or "Santa Claus Conquers Mars" either, now that I think of it :-) ). The UFO folks will no doubt find some such "suppressed data" (that strangely, only they succeed in uncovering) from the Lunar Flashlight mission. SLS could probably loft the 46 mile-long (from tip-to-tip) *manned* (with centrifugal artificial gravity) two-bladed heliogyro (like a two-bladed helicopter rotor) solar sail Mars spaceship that was studied some years ago; it would be ironic if that rocket helps to usher in solar sails and "puts them on the technological map" with NEA Scout and Lunar Flashlight, as Deep Space-1 did for ion-propelled interplanetary spacecraft.

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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

Ya'll are talking as if SLS will actually fly before being canceled.

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I love sanding.

Exactly...

Later! OL JR

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

I'm torn on this--I'd like to see SLS cancelled as soon as possible, but I'd like to see those two solar sail missions fly. (Once solar sails are proven and mission designers become comfortable with them, they will enable all kinds of interesting and practical missions, from "cylindrical geosynchronous orbit" satellites to outer planet probes [solar sails work okay out to Saturn's distance, although with lower acceleration] to quicker visits to Mercury.) But NEA Scout and Lunar Flashlight, even if they are "orphaned" by the demise of SLS, will get rides into space from elsewhere, whether aboard Falcon 9 or Dnepr rockets.

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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR

Well, at least part of the problem with SLS it the name. We went "Mercury" (pretty cool), "Gemini" (also cool), Apollo (Nice!), Shuttle (I ride that at the airport), Space Launch System (hrmmmm).

"Space Launch System" just sounds dull. Like even NASA knows it's never going to fly, and they don't want to waste a cool name on it.

I go to the SLS web site and see cool stuff like "We're going to send humans to an asteroid in 2025". Not only do I not believe it, but it fills me with a mediocre beige apathy. Personally, I would be far more impressed if we grabbed an asteroid with an un-manned mission and brought it into Earth Orbit, then just fly up to take a look with a Dragon (which exists, and has flown).

The two solar sail missions actually sound pretty cool! I hope they get to fly on something!

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John Adams
"There is a lot of rocketry under 20ns"

The solar sail payloads are tiny. They could be launched on almost anything if the payload section were set up for them.

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I love sanding.

When I was in grad school taking a computer architecture class, as a class, we designed a theoretical new computer (way beyond the bleeding edge then and way, way behind what's currently in most folks' computers now!).

When it came time to name it, I suggested Enterprise. It is a name well established in American history, and I thought it was a great name to borrow. My classmates showed no enthusiasm for my suggestion. Instead, they chose a name then-well-known in the St Louis area. It was business establishment just across the McKinley Bridge in Brooklyn, IL.

I mighta had a beer or two there over the years, and surely enjoyed the entertainment, too.

So, borrowing from that experience, I suggest the SLS be renamed Roxy

Doug

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YORF member #11

Yes, both NEA Scout and Lunar Flashlight are tiny CubeSat (probably 3U size) spacecraft, but launches heading toward the Moon aren't that common (although a Falcon 9 geosynchronous satellite launch with a lighter satellite might be able to budget the propellant to boost one or both solar sails to near-escape velocity, after which they could sail to their respective destinations). Regarding names:

I've wondered if the Pluto probe's strange, plural, and platitudinous name ("New Horizons") might have been a factor in its on-again, off-again development history. Unlike Pioneer, Mariner, Voyager, Viking, Surveyor, Ranger, Genesis, Stardust, and Deep Impact, "New Horizons" doesn't sound romantic or inspiring at all--it sounds like something thought up by a focus group for a public school English class book.

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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050
http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com.
NAR #54895 SR