SpaceX's Falcon-9 Heavy Should Kill the SLS (Apollo, light, Mars)

[hhwdavid]

The private sector is so dynamic it put an unmanned car into space only 47 years after the public sector did it with a manned car.

[Toyman at Jewel Lake]

Originally Posted by hhwdavid

The private sector is so dynamic it put an unmanned car into space only 47 years after the public sector did it with a manned car.

Still think Musk is pretty optimistic to think he's going to find a charging station though...

[peebola]

Originally Posted by hhwdavid

The private sector is so dynamic it put an unmanned car into space only 47 years after the public sector did it with a manned car.

That's kind of funny. Yet incredibly sad for the advancement of humankind when you think about it.

[scarabchuck]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Just watched the Falcon Heavy lift off. Perfect mission. What a sight. The two side boosters stuck the landing.

Unbelievable ! It was amazing watching them come in for the landing. Now wasn't the large booster supposed to do the same thing onto the barge ? Not sure what happened there. Also , couldn't believe that the barge is fully autonomous.

[scarabchuck]

Originally Posted by hhwdavid

The private sector is so dynamic it put an unmanned car into space only 47 years after the public sector did it with a manned car.

Good point. Just think where we would be had the space program kept pushing the envelope these last 47 years. The space shuttle flights and the space station are /were great but it seems like it all has fallen to the wayside. Until Musk and Branson started creating hype for outer space again.

[wac_432]

Take off those rose-colored glasses.
If you wanted to go back to dedicating 30% of the entire federal budget to NASA for another decade, you could have had publicly-funded moon bases and Mars colonies any time in the past. Now you can get them without diverting all those resources.

Limping along at 0.5% of the federal budget for decades, you're lucky to get some cool robotic science missions, an international orbital laboratory, and a boondoggle rocket/jobs program out of NASA.

Saturn V launches cost about 8 billion dollars per flight.

Shuttle launches cost about 700 million dollars per flight. (Lifting only 2900kg of actual payload--not including astronauts wings, fly-back engines, etc etc--for 3.5 TIMES the unit cost)

SLS launches are forecast to cost 1 billion dollars per flight (Lifting about as much as the Saturn-V for 1/8th the cost/unit cost).

Falcon-9 Heavy launches cost 100 million dollars per flight (Lifting half as much as the Saturn-V for 1/80th the price or 1/40th the unit cost of a Saturn-V).

Tell me again how we haven't made progress? Now governments and private industry can get serious about roping in asteroids for mining, building outposts, or completely replacing all terrestrial communications (wires, cables, towers) with un-uninterruptible (storms, earthquakes, distance) satellite communications. Etc. Etc. Etc. The moon missions were an amazing one-off, but clearly unsustainable. We are finally at the dawn of the true golden age of space.

[markjames68]

Originally Posted by wac_432

Take off those rose-colored glasses.
If you wanted to go back to dedicating 30% of the entire federal budget to NASA for another decade, you could have had publicly-funded moon bases and Mars colonies any time in the past.

Where did 30% come from? NASA never even exceeded 5% during the build up to the moon landing at its peak. Mostly it’s been at 1% or less.

The peak years were when multiple Gemini flights occurred each year and during the initial Saturn V program, as well as the first moonshots.



If we put it back to 1-2% we could do a lot, and still let private industry take on as much as they can bear.

[wac_432]

We don't even need a budget increase, we just need to dump the boondoggle and utilize the existing launcher!

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/02/1...ace-telescope/

"NASA has spent some $23 billion on the SLS, Orion and ground system projects over approximately the last decade, with $15 billion of that expenditure coming since 2012, according to the agency’s inspector general."

Let's generously DOUBLE the price of the Falcon-9 Heavy launch...
With the money we've wasted JUST TO NOW (to get some ground equipment, a spaceship with no launcher, and a rocket that is still 50% paper) on the SLS boondoggle, we could have bought... 190 Falcon-9 Heavy launches. That's about 27 MILLION pounds of cargo into LEO, or about 9 MILLION pounds into lunar transfer orbits!!!

In this year alone, we are spending 3.7B on the SLS, which could have bought 18 Falcon-9 Heavy launches and put 2 MILLION pounds of equipment into LEO. Granted, SpaceX couldn't hit that sort of launch rate now. Maybe within a decade.

"In 2022, a power and propulsion module could be launched aboard a commercial rocket to begin the construction of a space station named the Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway. Employing solar-electric propulsion with plasma engines, the module was previously slated to launch on the NASA-owned Space Launch System."

So, if the modules are already being designed to launch on commercial rockets, WHY are we still building the SLS?

"An upgraded “Block 1B” version of the SLS with a bigger upper stage will debut on Exploration Mission-2, the first SLS/Orion flight with astronauts, capable of hauling 105 metric tons — 231,000 pounds — to low Earth orbit and 32 metric tons — more than 70,000 pounds — on a trans-lunar injection trajectory."

"SpaceX has an even bigger rocket on its horizon called the BFR. The gigantic rocket would be the most powerful ever built, capable of carrying around 150 metric tons — 330,000 pounds — to low Earth orbit — and is designed for reuse. The BFR is not likely to be flying space missions by the time the SLS debuts, but SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk said last year it could be ready to send cargo to the moon or Mars by 2022, followed by people a couple of years later."
I think the more realistic assessment is that the BFR will be flying around the same time as the block-I SLS. We've already slipped the SLS schedule from 2018 to 2020. I don't believe that SpaceX, (unless we divert a fraction of the SLS's funding to them) will have the BFR ready by 2022, but I think it's pretty likely the SLS slips out at least to 2024 or later. The SLS block I will probably become operational around the same time as the BFR. Hopefully, in the next year or so, folks at NASA will come to their senses and recognize that the launch problem has been solved.

This is not an issue of national security. We don't need garunteed access--especially with other commercial launchers likely to come online before the SLS. There is no reason to continue to fund Big NASA boondoggles. SpaceX has handed us the keys to space, and we have buried them in the backyard.

I mean, the writing is clearly on the wall here. It's time to stop playing politics and get some work done. The modules and space hardware can be built in Alabama or wherever, let's s***-can this overpriced LockMart albatross and divert the funding to companies that actually produce results. For the cost of completing SLS development (to say nothing of the 1B/launch price tag!!) we could build both the Gateway station, and a moonbase! We should be focusing on cutting metal for both of these projects NOW, because the launcher is ready to go!

[BlakeJones]

Originally Posted by wac_432

SpaceX has an even bigger rocket on its horizon called the BFR

yeah, the "BIG F**KING ROCKET"!!

[wac_432]

Officially:

Big Falcon Rocket.

But, yeah...