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SpaceX and other space stuff

#1,441
SBassman said:
Somebody explain to me why I don't have to be disappointed with SLS (lack-of) progress.

On the SpaceX side, we now have a super reliable rocket and capsule doing Routine visits to the space station. With reusability and cost efficiency. Along with verified crew capability. Buh-bye, Soyuz.

On the SLS side, we have design that, the one being qualified, is already obsolete. We have a second version down the road that will offer Marginal increase in heavy capacity. Yet we also have a whole lotta trillions spent - on solid and engine capabilities derived from the Shuttle tech. Yet, many years after the start, we didn't survive 60 seconds.

I am trying to be careful and not nudge this in an inappropriate political direction, but, maybe I can safely say - this whole SLS program is Highly suspect. And I am not the first interested party to utter that.

But, I have an open mind, and I welcome every new technology that moves us along in the space frontier.

Somebody talk me down from the ledge with regard to all the SLS spending to date, and, the corresponding *results*.
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Hopefully not flirting too much with the political line, but SLS is essentially designed by politicians, not engineers. rather like the old saw about a camel being a horse designed by committee...
 
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#1,442
SBassman said:
I also wish I could spend 15 minutes with Elon, and 15 minutes with a senior NASA member who can answer my questions. I get that the command module and lander designs probably had to be upgraded before we returned to the moon. But - when we launched Artemis, why weren't we able to use the Saturn V design for Phase 1, with this Other Stuff for Later?

Sure seems like our biggest problem is not rocket tech, but - priorities and project management. We had rocket capability in the 60s - supported by humans and slide rules, not AI - that the U.S. government still can't replicate. What am I missing?

I am in my late 50s. I have deep tech experience in manufacturing, engineering, process engineering, logistics, project management, and software design. I have done all of that for 35 years now. And, during all that time, through all those projects, I learned that the complexity always came from the politics, consensus building, priority management, and project management. The tech part - was the Easy part. Always. It sure seems like that is the same situation with the U.S. Space program in 2021.
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Yup, exactly.
 
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#1,446
SBassman said:
Looking at the projected and current spending on SLS, while watching yield per dollar with SpaceX, I am unable to just let them figure it out. Why do I think if we routed the same funds to SpaceX, we'd be back on the moon in 2023? With mega reliable tech.
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Certainly, if the funds that have been given to SLS had been given to SpaceX instead, we'd be there already! But the SLS plan was set before SpaceX had proven itself, keeps going under bureaucratic inertia and porkbarrelling.
 
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#1,448
Virgin Orbit Just Launched a Rocket From a 747

Launch was successful through 1st stage, sounds like it's currently in a coast phase waiting on a 2nd burn to circularize the orbit before deploying the payload satellites.

Last tweet I saw 45 minutes old said they were waiting to verify payload deploy and nothing since, which sounds quite possibly sub-nominal. Hope it's ok. Be nice to have a 3-way "Space Billionaires Boy's Club" competition going for real.
 
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#1,449
bholder said:
Virgin Orbit Just Launched a Rocket From a 747

Launch was successful through 1st stage, sounds like it's currently in a coast phase waiting on a 2nd burn to circularize the orbit before deploying the payload satellites.

Last tweet I saw 45 minutes old said they were waiting to verify payload deploy and nothing since, which sounds quite possibly sub-nominal. Hope it's ok. Be nice to have a 3-way "Space Billionaires Boy's Club" competition going for real.
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Oh me of little faith! They made it!
 
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#1,453
giphy.gif
 
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#1,456
SBassman said:
They always blame the software. :)
...
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Actually the software operated as intended. The article I just read said the engine hydraulic system pressure exceeded limits, and the software terminated the test. The software was responsible for issuing the test cut command, it's the hydraulic engineers that were responsible for loading software data tables with the correct pressure limit values. Hope they got it right :D

FWIW, I've had the pleasure of sitting at rocket engine test control room workstations with a head-set and computer monitors. The pressure limit value was known as a "red-line". The hydraulic pressure hit the red-line limit and the test was shutdown, we called that a "red-line cut". Happened a lot, especially on development programs. Can be hundreds of red-line parameters under software monitoring. Been there, done that. And I've been on the top levels of the B-2 test stand (top of the propellant tanks), it is absolutely gigantic.
 
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