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NASA chief explains why agency won’t buy a bunch of Falcon Heavy rockets
“It’s going to be large-volume, monolithic pieces that are going to require an SLS.”
Eric Berger - 3/26/2018
Since the launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket in February, NASA has faced some uncomfortable questions about the affordability of its own Space Launch System rocket. By some estimates, NASA could afford 17 to 27 Falcon Heavy launches a year for what it is paying annually to develop the SLS rocket, which won't fly before 2020. Even President Trump has mused about the high costs of NASA's rocket.
On Monday, during a committee meeting of NASA's Advisory Council, former Space Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale raised this issue. Following a presentation by Bill Gerstenmaier, chief of human spaceflight for NASA, Hale asked whether the space agency wouldn't be better off going with the cheaper commercial rocket.
"Now that the Falcon Heavy has flown and been demonstrated, the advertised cost for that is quite low," Hale said. "So there are a lot of folks who ask why don't we just buy four or five or six of those and do what we need to do without building this big, heavy rocket and assemble things like we did with the space station?"
In response, Gerstenmaier pointed Hale and other members of the advisory committee—composed of external aerospace experts who provide non-binding advice to the space agency—to a chart he had shown earlier in the presentation. This chart showed the payload capacity of the Space Launch System in various configurations in terms of mass sent to the Moon.
“A lot smaller”
"It's a lot smaller than any of those," Gerstenmaier said, referring to the Falcon Heavy's payload capacity to TLI, or "trans-lunar injection," which effectively means the amount of mass that can be broken out of low-Earth orbit and sent into a lunar trajectory. In the chart, the SLS Block 1 rocket has a TLI capacity of 26 metric tons. (The chart also contains the more advanced Block 2 version of the SLS, with a capacity of 45 tons. However, this rocket is at least a decade away, and it will require billions of dollars more to design and develop.)
SpaceX has not publicly stated the TLI capacity of the Falcon Heavy rocket, but for the fully expendable version of the booster it is probably somewhere in the range of 18 and 22 tons. This is a value roughly between the vehicle's published capacity for geostationary orbit, 26.7 tons, and Mars, 16.8 tons.
Gerstenmaier then said NASA's exploration program will require the unique capabilities of the SLS rocket. "I think it's still going to be large-volume, monolithic pieces that are going to require an SLS kind of capability to get them out into space," he said. "Then for routine servicing and bringing cargo, maybe bringing smaller crew vehicles other than Orion, then Falcon Heavy can play a role. What's been talked about by [Jeff] Bezos can play a role. What United Launch Alliance has talked about can play a role."
“And,” not “or”
After this, Gerstenmaier reiterated NASA's default position with regard to the SLS and much cheaper commercial launch solutions—that there is room for everyone in the industry. "I don't see it as an 'either/or;' I see it as an 'and,'" he said. "We're trying to build a plan that uses SLS for its unique capability of large volumes and a large single mass in one launch. The cargo capability is pretty amazing with SLS. You can launch a big chunk of gateway in one flight; where it would take multiple flights, I'm not sure you could even break some of those pieces up into those smaller pieces to get them on a smaller rocket."
One difficulty with Gerstenmaier's response to Hale's question is that NASA does not, in fact, yet have any "large-volume, monolithic pieces" that could only be launched by the Space Launch System. The cornerstone of its 2020s exploration plans is the Lunar Orbiting Platform-Gateway, a small space station to fly in orbit around the Moon. The first piece of this station, a power and propulsion module, will launch in 2022 aboard a commercial rocket.
In fact, beyond this power element, NASA remains in the beginning stages of soliciting and accepting designs for the other components of this "gateway," including airlocks and habitation areas. These could, in theory at least, simply be designed to fit within the mass and size restrictions of a Falcon Heavy or other planned commercial launch vehicles. Potentially, this would save NASA billions of dollars and allow it to spend considerably more money on exploration activities.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03 … y-rockets/
Gerstenmaier didn't comment on the SpaceX BFR rocket which will probably be ready to launch before the SLS. Maybe he hasn't heard of it? Right. Ed Heisler
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Great - having an irrelevant discussion about Falcon Heavy while ignoring the BFR which is under construction now.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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Nasa really does not have much to put onto a launch using the heavy. Sure they could build up something for its use which is sort of what is happening with the SLS until we get beyond LEO and actually go somewhere.
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They could launch pieces a lot larger than 18 tonnes if they can mate it to a propulsion stage in orbit, using two or three launches instead of one.
Would the SLS get built if it wasn't the government doing it? Would a private company ever pitch the idea?
Use what is abundant and build to last
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The SLS has been described elsewhere by several authors as "the rocket to nowhere." So far: $15 Billion down the tubes on what appears to be a workfare program.
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The only reason for NASA not to taking a leap at the falcon heavy is the shape of the tonnage that can be lofted to orbit.
There is also a problem which is due to NASA being a vague paper recital of we can use it be used for...and then lots of things from a list of what we could use it for....
Remember asteriods mission, circa lunar spacestation ect....all dropping by the wayside partly due to cost plus and none of it being low cost....a proposed production run of 1 flight a year at most with a launch rate that was slower once going to mars.....
I say stand the army in the unemployment line rather than employing a standing army.....
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Its just pork.
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The lunar gateway space station is the excuse now being used to justify SLS/Orion. Yet, you don't need SLS/Orion to do this. It is very likely that Vulcan and New Glenn will fly before SLS, and Falcon-Heavy is already starting to fly. If you use smaller pieces and on-orbit (in situ) assembly, these launchers could do the job 10 times cheaper, as could Dragon 2 and the CST-100 capsules.
Yet, whether that space station is built in lunar orbit or at the cis-lunar L1 point, I don't see why we need such a thing. For exploiting near Earth asteroids, it makes far more sense to take the processing factory to the asteroid, not the asteroid to a cis-lunar space station. Both are significant delta-vees, but the factory is hundreds of tons to push as payload, while the unprocessed asteroid mass is hundreds of thousands of tons, if not millions.
Most of these proposals to process asteroids point to recovering immensely valuable water as well as rare metals and such like. The science does not support the presence of said water except in the larger bodies (which is why I said "millions of tons" in the previous paragraph). The small ones seem to be loose rubble piles, precisely because there is no volatile ice to bind them.
Some of these proposals point to manufacturing structures in space from asteroid mass. Really? Just how is this to be done? The science to support that only exists in mass conservation, but a whale of a lot more science is required than that, to support any sort of actual working technology. Such technology just does not yet exist, and won't for some time to come.
So what else might be the point of the gateway station? If just international cooperation, it would be cheaper and far easier to just update or replace ISS.
Sorry to poop on the parade, but facts do sometimes puncture the balloons of dreams.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-03-29 10:49:09)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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Some of these proposals are really "out there" and totally in La La Land. The real reason is "Not invented here (by NASA)." The FH has vastly greater capabilities than any other rocket flying--or that will fly for several years. NASA should consider the FH as the vehicle to loft the WFIRST telescope, and even for the Europa Clipper mission(s). It would allow for heavier and more useful payloads at a lower cost than even a Delta 4 vehicle.
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