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  #21  
Old 03-04-2022, 11:36 AM
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Winston2021 Winston2021 is offline
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Finally, we know production costs for SLS and Orion, and they’re wild
Someone finally said the quiet part out loud.
3/1/2022


https://arstechnica.com/science/202...-unsustainable/

Martin broke down the costs per flight, which will apply to at least the first four launches of the Artemis program: $2.2 billion to build a single SLS rocket, $568 million for ground systems, $1 billion for an Orion spacecraft, and $300 million to the European Space Agency for Orion's Service Module. NASA, Martin said, had checked and confirmed these figures.

What is striking about these costs is that they do not include the tens of billions of dollars that NASA has already spent developing the Orion spacecraft since 2005 and the Space Launch System rocket since 2011. If one were to amortize development costs over 10 flights of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, the $4.1 billion figure cited by Martin would easily double.
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  #22  
Old 03-04-2022, 02:14 PM
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Ouch, ouch, and ouch!!

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  #23  
Old 03-04-2022, 02:22 PM
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I’m thinking that the SLS will be a one and done - maybe two launches at the most - so if they really do get the first one ready we’re planning on making a dash to FL.
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  #24  
Old 03-04-2022, 02:23 PM
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And that's with used shuttle engines and SRB segments! Wait until they have to start using new ones!

(We won't have to wait. It will be canceled by then.)



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  #25  
Old 03-04-2022, 02:53 PM
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This is all hard to swallow in the face of *successful* flights (and I DO hope they succeed). But how bad does it look if Artemis 1, for whatever reason(s) is a failure? Yikes!

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  #26  
Old 03-04-2022, 07:06 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott_650
I’m thinking that the SLS will be a one and done - maybe two launches at the most - so if they really do get the first one ready we’re planning on making a dash to FL.


I predict three. Let's see who wins!
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  #27  
Old 03-04-2022, 07:51 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by frognbuff
I predict three. Let's see who wins!


I hope you’re right - three gets us, per NASA’s current schedule, at least to a manned lunar landing though I won’t be surprised to see Artemis III hauling the first Gateway module instead while SpaceX does the manned lunar landing mission. Still an obscene amount of money spent for what we’re getting - LBJ’s decision (which Nixon happily carried out) to cut Apollo sure looks like one of the most boneheaded and shortsighted decisions ever made by the POTUS!
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  #28  
Old 03-04-2022, 08:58 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tdracer
That's a big reason why they used kerosene for Saturn V first stage. Fuel weight isn't as critical for the first stage, and the size rocket needed to carry that much H2 was simply too much (remember what a stretch the size of the Saturn V was at the time - H2 fueled first stage would have made it massively bigger).

SLS has been going on for over a decade in one form or another - with vastly improved technology over what we had in the 1960's - and still hasn't flown. The Saturn V went from concept to taking men around the moon in ~7 years. Oh how the mighty have fallen...

ABSOLUTELY!!

Just read an article yesterday that the Inspector General of NASA, testifying before a Congressional committee, started per his research as IG of NASA that EVERY SL S launch is going to cost over $4 BILLION dollars, JUST for the rocket and ground hardware! Even shared for inflation, that is OVER TWICE the cost per launch of Saturn V!! It's insane! The Saturn V used NO preexisting hardware, everything in it was all new and had to basically be invented or engineered for the purpose from scratch, from the engines to structures, materials, processes, electronics, guidance, navigation, stability, you name it. The whole point of SLS was supposedly by using PREEXISTING shuttle engines, boosters, and ET tooling they'd save years of development and billions of bucks. All the engines are reused shuttle engines, reused shuttle boosters, only the core structure and avionics/ control is new, and the capsule which has only flown once 8 years ago on EFT-1 on Delta IV Heavy. Even the service module for Orion is adapted from the European ATV resupply vehicle that used to fly to ISS, provided under agreement to NASA by the Europeans. SLS was formally "approved" in the wake of Obama's very correct cancellation of Ares I and the rest of the Constellation Program in 2010, because after 6 years and over $9 BILLION dollars in development, the Ares I was still underperforming and incapable of performing the mission it was being designed for, and was dragging down Ares V with it because the extra stuff Ares I couldn't carry was being shoved onto Ares V, causing its design to hot the performance ceiling. SLS was "Ares V lite" so basically back burner with had been done on it since 2004-5, and then full tilt from 2011 on, and here we are 11 years later and it STILL hasn't flown! It's utterly pathetic! All this PREEXISTING stuff, plus 60+ years of experience, data, all the new computer design and simulation capability now, the experience and existing data, and it's taking longer and costing over twice as much as guys who had to invent everything from scratch using slide rules and 1960's technology...

Later! OL J R
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  #29  
Old 03-04-2022, 09:05 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tbzep
This unmanned flight will orbit then return. The next flight is supposed to be manned and will be an elongated version of Apollo 13's profile. It is supposed to take humans farther from earth than ever before.

Yeah because the service module and interim upper stage doesn't have enough propulsive power to put it in low lunar orbit and get it back out again, so they're flying some bizarre looping "orbit" of the moon which is basically a highly elliptical orbit with a, IIRC, 70-ish mile perilune, and like a 10,000 mile apolune (going from memory). So it'll swing down low over the Moon for about an hour, then spend a day or two coasting up to apolune, and then falling back... But the high apolune is necessary to minimize propulsive requirements to enter and leave this weird orbit... Basically just a slight burn is needed to break out at apolune for TEI... Later! OL J R
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  #30  
Old 03-06-2022, 01:16 PM
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Winston2021 Winston2021 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by luke strawwalker
ABSOLUTELY!!

Just read an article yesterday that the Inspector General of NASA, testifying before a Congressional committee, started per his research as IG of NASA that EVERY SL S launch is going to cost over $4 BILLION dollars, JUST for the rocket and ground hardware! Even shared for inflation, that is OVER TWICE the cost per launch of Saturn V!! It's insane! The Saturn V used NO preexisting hardware, everything in it was all new and had to basically be invented or engineered for the purpose from scratch, from the engines to structures, materials, processes, electronics, guidance, navigation, stability, you name it. The whole point of SLS was supposedly by using PREEXISTING shuttle engines, boosters, and ET tooling they'd save years of development and billions of bucks. All the engines are reused shuttle engines, reused shuttle boosters, only the core structure and avionics/ control is new, and the capsule which has only flown once 8 years ago on EFT-1 on Delta IV Heavy. Even the service module for Orion is adapted from the European ATV resupply vehicle that used to fly to ISS, provided under agreement to NASA by the Europeans. SLS was formally "approved" in the wake of Obama's very correct cancellation of Ares I and the rest of the Constellation Program in 2010, because after 6 years and over $9 BILLION dollars in development, the Ares I was still underperforming and incapable of performing the mission it was being designed for, and was dragging down Ares V with it because the extra stuff Ares I couldn't carry was being shoved onto Ares V, causing its design to hot the performance ceiling. SLS was "Ares V lite" so basically back burner with had been done on it since 2004-5, and then full tilt from 2011 on, and here we are 11 years later and it STILL hasn't flown! It's utterly pathetic! All this PREEXISTING stuff, plus 60+ years of experience, data, all the new computer design and simulation capability now, the experience and existing data, and it's taking longer and costing over twice as much as guys who had to invent everything from scratch using slide rules and 1960's technology...

Later! OL J R
The SLS... Senate Launch System designed as a continued employment program for Shuttle manufacturers "saving money" by using, at first, left over SMEs designed to be reusable in totally disposable mode, later a "lower cost" version along with SRBs that, unlike with the Shuttle, will also be disposed of on each flight... not that I could ever find firm info that the Shuttle SRB reuse ever actually saved money.

WHY do we "need" a heavy lift vehicle anyway? DESIGN heavy stuff to be launched in sections into orbit on smaller launch vehicles and then assemble in Earth orbit. Auto-docking could be used for assembly or even telepresence robotics due to low signal trip delay in Earth orbit.

What a HUGE boondoggle and total waste of money...
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