SLS

[Anonymous No.9512459]

Redpill me on the SLS. Will it get us to the Moon or even Mars? Is it better than the Saturn V in terms of thrust and lift capacity?

[Anonymous No.9512471]

Yes, it can definitely get us to the moon. It can probably reach mars orbit too. I don't know enough about the payload stuff to know if it can send a lander and all to mars.

[Anonymous No.9512478]

>>9512471
If I understand correctly they're introducing the SLS in stages, with the far more powerful models coming later on down the line. Are those later ones the ones that are potentially Mars-capable as you said, or are you simply referring to the most immediate iterations?
Sorry for the retard questions, I'm pretty fucking normie but I've been really interested in space shit as of late. (And no, the whole SpaceX launch wasn't the trigger)

[Anonymous No.9512490]

It will just be cancelled at some point after never launching or just doing 1-2 test launches
It's a pork program so they can keep paying all the same Shuttle folk

The benefit of never launching means they never have to spend money to create payloads.

[Anonymous No.9512506]

>>9512459
>Redpill me
no. Take your normie /pol/ memes back to /pol/

[Anonymous No.9512554]

>>9512459

The first version (Block 1) can get to orbit the Moon, but not have enough to land, at least with the Orion capsule it is using (or mandated to use). If it was using a smaller capsule like the Dragon 2, which could theoretically fly on the Falcon Heavy (Block 5 version has about the same capabilities), it could potentially land (not sure it could fly back).

The Block 2 version is twice as powerful, but that one is just a paper design and unlike Block 1, has no mandate from Congress to fund. However, the Block 1, Block 2, and even the Falcon Heavy all aren't powerful enough to have people and do something meaningful long term without assembling a bunch of modules in space. You really need something like the BFR that can refuel in space to get meaningful payloads to Moon / Mars.

[Anonymous No.9512588]

>>9512554
>even with all of this hope it won't get us to Mars
>we'll likely need tens of billions of $ more and at least another decade of R&D after the SLS is put into service
Christ

[Anonymous No.9512615]

>>9512588
You know how the US government is going to build a wall that costs $20 billions dollars and keeps Mexicans out of the USA?

Well, SLS/Orion is a wall that costs $40 billion dollars and keeps Americans off of the moon.

[Anonymous No.9512646]

>>9512588

Yup. When everything you want to do is going to cost $1 billion/launch, everything will be expensive. If they freed up the billions they are spending each year developing it and directed it towards making payloads like a moonbase, we would be further along. Using the Falcon Heavy is only $90 million a launch. Hopefully, with the BFR, we can get to the advertised payload of 150 tons (compared to current 60 tons with Block 1 SLS, 120 tons with Block 2) for $6 million/launch.

[Anonymous No.9512661]

>>9512646
iirc the Falcon Heavy isn't anywhere near as capable as the SLS in terms of lift capacity and range though, right? nevermind drawing a comparison to the Saturn V.
does the Muskinator have some sort of plan for an even more powerful reusable rocket in the near future?

[Anonymous No.9512693]

>>9512459
SLS isn't going to go to the moon or anywhere else because it has no real payload. Full development of SLS was started back in 2014, and they won't even be ready to fly their cobble job block 1 before 2020 at the earliest, so you can only imagine how long it would take NASA to develop any sort of lander for moon mission, or god orbit a transfer stage, habitat, lander, and ascent vehicle for Mars that could launch on SLS. This is a 35 billion (with a B) dollar program that's already obsolete today. Even accounting for maximum Elon time, there will be more than one vehicle that could launch heavy payloads in segments and do missions piecemeal, and this is absolute worst scenario where BFR never flies at all. There is no legitimate use for a billion dollar per launch vehicle built by NASA that would only fly a couple times a year. And even if it ever makes it to orbit, it'll suck NASA dry so that they can't afford an actual moon or Mars mission.

[Anonymous No.9512701]

>>9512459
>rocket cost 40+ billion dollars to develop
>despite almost all of the expensive parts(engines, fuel tank, SRB's), except orion having been designed, tested, and shown reliably(ish) to work decades ago
>the oldest part is a fucking engine designed in the 1960's used on the atlas rockets
>Uses the exact same rs-25 engines, and fuel tank from the shuttle
>they literally just stapled them onto the bottom of it, instead of on the shuttle
>it will still cost the same per launch as the shuttle, despite no refurbishments needed
>despite us already having all of the parts designed and tested, they have yet to build a rocket, even after 20 years of development
>the massive launch capacity will still be over shadowed by the massive cost per kg
>the thing still uses the less efficient, and less reliable SRBs, which can't be throttled or turned off
I hope they finish this clusterfuck of a project

[Anonymous No.9512711]

>>9512661
>does he have a plan
yeah, it's the BFR, and possibly ITS, but ITS may never be built

[Anonymous No.9512722]

>>9512701
I agree with you, but just to be pedantic, solids are throttled by working it into the propellant grain, and do actually throttle in flight, it just can't be actively controlled.

[Anonymous No.9512810]

this seems fucking retarded. so what do you anons think is the better alternative?:
NASA getting a budget double or triple the size they currently have
or
more hope in SpaceX

[Anonymous No.9512840]

>>9512661

Block 1 SLS has the same capacity as Falcon Heavy Block 5, or it will when it is completed in 2021.

[Anonymous No.9512842]

>>9512615
the wall won't keep anyone out of the USA, so does that mean SLS will actually manage to put Americans on the Moon?

[Anonymous No.9512846]

>>9512693
couple times a year is a fantasy
They won't get to 1 launch a year ever

>>9512646
if NASA can't do a launch vehicle, why would they be able to do the more difficult things like space craft?

[Anonymous No.9512868]

>>9512459
SLS Block 1 will be able to do lunar stuff pretty well, but Block 2 will probably be needed for any crewed Mars stuff.

That said NASA isn't working on any sort of lander, so the whole thing is kind of pointless.

[Anonymous No.9512869]

>>9512459
No one knows, it isn't built and flown yet.

[Anonymous No.9512870]

>>9512868
apparently NASA's full shtick is that they aren't planning on manned missions to the Moon until the late 2020s. and even their manned missions to Mars projected for the 2030s won't even include actual landings.

[Anonymous No.9512871]

>>9512810
Why not both? Or better yet, other companies doing it at the same time?

[Anonymous No.9512877]

>>9512870
Gotta milk those grants and funding for all they are worth for as long as possible.

[Anonymous No.9512914]

>>9512459
Somebody explain this lifting capacity meme to me. The shuttle, which had a smaller fuel tank, less powerful engines, and smaller Solid Rocket Boosters, had a maximum payload to orbit of 120 tons. This is only 20 tons less than the Saturn V, which is very impressive. Now the SLS is basically just a larger shuttle stack that gets rid of the orbiter in favor of a second stage. The basic Block I SLS has an extended shuttle fuel tank, extended Solid Rocket Boosters, more powerful engines, and an extra second stage as well. However, the SLS only has a payload of 70 tons to orbit! This makes no fucking sense to me, how does a smaller, less poweful rocket which is presumably WAY less mass efficient as well have a payload that exceeds the larger SLS by 50 tons? I know the SLS is designed to send a large payload on interplanetary trajectories rather than putting huge payloads into LEO, but I still can't wrap my head around this.

[Anonymous No.9512924]

>>9512870
They have no lunar lander and are working on no lunar lander
What they intend to do is some fly bys and a pointless "deep space gateway" station

I imagine no actual work is being done on any of this and its just paper program until these people retire.

[Anonymous No.9512925]

>>9512914
Where are you getting these numbers from? Shuttle's had a payload capacity of 24 tons.

[Anonymous No.9512929]

>>9512914
Don't know where you're getting your numbers.
Shuttle had about 1/5th the payload to LEO as Saturn V.

[Anonymous No.9512930]

>>9512914
the first SLS launch is just some gerryrigged shitfest that they are slapping together to satisfy the "requirement" that they launch in 2016

[Anonymous No.9513108]

>>9512459

It will explode on the launch pad.

[Anonymous No.9513126]

>>9512925
>>9512929
Can I not get a retard to reply to my post? The Shuttle itself weighed almost 100 metric tons, combine that with a 20 metric ton payload and you have 120 metric tons to LEO. This isn't difficult to understand.

[Anonymous No.9513164]

>>9513126
>muh weight

[Anonymous No.9513170]

>>9513126
SLS core stage is considerably heavier than the shuttle's external tank was, and it has to lift the extra weight of the stage adapters, escape tower, and a 4th RS-25.

Also you should consider the upper stage as part of the payload if you're comparing it to the total shuttle mass, which adds another ~8000lbs to SLS payload.

[Anonymous No.9513174]

Man I wish project Orion was allowed to fully develop. Fucking chemical rockets are so shitty and useless.

[Anonymous No.9513183]

>>9513174
Nuclear pulse was never really practical. There's been renewed interest in nuclear thermal though.

[Anonymous No.9513195]

>>9512506
it's a matrix meme and won't die out any time soon

[Anonymous No.9513213]

>>9512711
BFR is ITS. They had to scale it down for it to be feasible both cost wise and size wise. Some of the SpaceX team have suggested that the idea isn't dead quite yet, just hidden in a closet.

[Anonymous No.9513219]

>>9512840
Only issue with that is the BFR will already be flying by then. The second stage/SSTO/payload part will be starting suborbital hops next year with the full stack in 2020. After how the Falcon 9 FTs performed, they decided that the BFR architecture is the way to go. Elon said that after last Tuesdays launch, the Falcon Heavy is practically done with R&D, and that the only changes they're even going to look into are necessary ones. Falcon 9 and Heavy are done, and its full steam ahead for BFR.

[Anonymous No.9513225]

>>9513126
The issue here is that the shuttle itself isn't considered part of the payload. On stat sheets and in general, the orbiters were part of the "launch platform" since they used mounted engines for thrust. When people talk about the shuttles payload, the weight of the orbiter is not included, only what they could carry in payload bay.

[Anonymous No.9513243]

>>9513225
that's the point, shuttle weighs 140 tons ie orbiter and cargo. With a tank so small and only 2 boosters, just like sls, it achieves basically double the payload to LEO. Now the shuttle carries it's own engines but still, I'm confused. I'm going to look at the dimensions now

[Anonymous No.9513595]

>>9513126
lol The shuttle doesn't count as payload. It is just the reusable section of the rocket that happened to have wings for reentry. Only the payload itself is the weight you count for lift, in this manner. Here are the correct numbers:

Shuttle
Mass 2,030 t (4,470,000 lb)
Payload to LEO 27,500 kg (60,600 lb)
Payload to ISS 16,050 kg (35,380 lb)
Payload to GTO 3,810 kg (8,400 lb)
Payload to Polar orbit 12,700 kg (28,000 lb)
Payload to Earth return 14,400 kg (31,700 lb)

That mass of 4,470,000 lb is to put up a max of 60,600 lb is absurd. Compare that to the Falcon Heavy, (140,700 lb)

Falcon Heavy
Mass 1,420,788 kg (3,132,301 lb)
Payload to LEO (28.5°) 63,800 kg (140,700 lb)
Payload to GTO (27°) 26,700 kg (58,900 lb)
Payload to Mars 16,800 kg (37,000 lb)
Payload to Pluto 3,500 kg (7,700 lb)

[Anonymous No.9513626]

>>9512506
Go back to >>>/r/eddit you newnigger

[Anonymous No.9513722]

>>9513595
>capsules don't count as payload

[Anonymous No.9513847]

>>9513243
the orbiter only weighed like 75 tons, totaly payload to orbit maybe 100 tons

[Anonymous No.9513855]

>>9513722
Rockets can still go to space without the capsule on them. Take the shuttle off of its launch stack, and you've just got a tank with two boosters that can only drop it in the ocean.

[Anonymous No.9513866]

>>9512615
Shouldn't we try to send americans to the moon and keep them there tho?

[Anonymous No.9513895]

>>9513847
According to wikipedia the total weight of the shuttle and payload during the Cassandra mission was 122 tons.

[Anonymous No.9513897]

>>9513855
Splitting hairs I see.

[Anonymous No.9513906]

>>9513897
That's not "splitting hairs". The shuttle orbiter is part of the launch vehicle. It contains the engines, the cargo bay, the deployment hardware, the guidance instruments, and the recovery hardware, including the accommodations for the human pilot and copilot, deemed by the designers to be necessary for recovery.

None of this is payload.

[Anonymous No.9513909]

>>9513213
That’s an interesting idea. If BFR is fully successful it would be a good next step in my opinion to build a full sized ITS. Since it’s theoretical lift capacity dwarfs that of BFR. It would allow some truly awesome payloads to LEO and beyond.

[Anonymous No.9513918]

>>9513866
You'd think so, but some congress critters are more interested in turning their constituents into high-class welfare queens.

[Anonymous No.9513935]

>>9513895
Well I guess its more like 100+ tons then

[Anonymous No.9513945]

>>9513895
They're probably counting the external tank to get that number.

[Anonymous No.9513957]

>>9513945
Ah, no, they were counting the propellant in the OMS. Note that it burns some of that propellant to get to orbit, after dropping the external tank, so less mass than they're claiming actually reached orbit.

[Anonymous No.9513966]

>>9513918
And NASA is filled with those welfare queens collecting their 6 figure paychecks producing effectively nothing
It is NASA's fault foremost, not congress or /we

[Anonymous No.9513982]

>>9513906
It is payload no matter how you twist it. How hard is it to comprehend? Whether you find that payload useful or not is irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.9514000]

>>9513982
Just pretending to be stupid isn't clever trolling, it's being a different kind but equal level of stupid and not realizing it.

[Anonymous No.9514010]

>>9514000
>hurr the orbiter is not payload its fairy dust
>you are trolling
I know this is /sci/ but you can do better.

[Anonymous No.9514036]

>>9513982
no its not payload
just because your orbiter weighs 10 times what it needs to doesn't mean you can count all that as payload

[Anonymous No.9514050]

>>9513722
The shuttle doesn't have a capsule. If it did, it would be part of the payload.

[Anonymous No.9514069]

>>9512693
The theoretical max Elon time is infinity after one of his toy rockets gets someone killed and he gets sued back to Africa.

[Anonymous No.9514076]

>>9512871
jef pls go

[Anonymous No.9514101]

>>9514036
It carried people, life support, power, maneuverability. It was payload, one that was permanently tied to the system without the freedom to replace with something else as is possible in other rocket systems. All these things, in any other system, would be considered "payload" because that is what they are. Liking the STS or not doesn't change the fact it carried 100 or so tons into leo.

Pic related would have offered more possibilities to the shuttle stack. And seeing how things developed after it was retired, it would have been the right choice.

[Anonymous No.9514104]

>>9512459
It's a job program.
It'a all about recycling Shuttle components, so people keep their jobs.
They didn't even bother building a second stage for it, they fucking outsourced it to the EU.
If you look at your picture, remove the upper part, put the orbiter on the back of the orange tank, and have the engines be 3 intead of 4 and placed on the orbiter, voilà, that's the fucking space shuttle.
decades to develop it for some reason.

[Anonymous No.9514122]

>>9514101
>it carried 100 or so tons into leo
Holy fuck, how retarded can you be

[Anonymous No.9514214]

>>9513982
You do realize the SR-25 engines were stapled on the shuttle, and not on the fuel tank, the fuel tank and SRB's would never reach orbit without the shuttle, also the shuttle isn't payload you fucking idiot, it was designed to act as a reusable third stage, with the payload bay acting to hold the payload.
The first stage boosters would be reusable, the second stage sr25 engines would be reusable, and the third stage orbiter and payload delivery device would be reusable

[Anonymous No.9514248]

>>9514101
Pic is how mars is meant to happen instead of sls cramming 4-6 astronauts into a worthless cannister with no construction modules once they reach mars. 20years of spaceshuttle and nasa turns back the clock to apollo. Spacex is the only in(sane) shot at mars rn.

[Anonymous No.9514292]

>>9514101
No it was dryweight
Same as every other launch vehicle has some amount of dryweight in the upper stage or in a pressurized vessel
The shuttle was the upper stage for the STS, it had the LH2/LOx engines.

Just because its needlessly heavy and they bring 4/5ths of that mass back to Earth doesn't make it payload

[Anonymous No.9514320]

>>9514248
Shuttle was an expensive piece of shit that killed two crews. I'd spit on its grave if I could.

[Anonymous No.9514328]

>>9514248
>the shuttle
>lol this unreliable, bloated, piece of garbage that couldn't even leave LOE because it wasn't designed to could totally go to mars
>just ignore the issue of dv, or deadweight since the SR-25 boosters would be effectively useless in orbit, or the fact that the frame couldn't withstand G forces when entering orbit at the speeds you reach returning from the moon/mars, or that the thing flew like a brick when it'd glide back to the landing pad
>also ignore the fact that 14 people died, and two of it's orbiters failed, one from unreliable SRB's, and the other literally just fell apart during reentry.
>Also ignore the 1 billion dollar launch cost, despite poor kg/loe prices

[Anonymous No.9514349]

>>9514328
also ignore that you can't store LH2 for any significant duration

[Anonymous No.9514394]

>>9513895
Sorry I meant Chandra mission

https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/13657/whats-the-largest-single-object-payload-ever-lifted-into-space

[Anonymous No.9514482]

meanwhile, in real life:

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/963493015091326977

SLS keeps getting pushed back and back and back, at the cost of billions.

[Anonymous No.9514494]

>>9514328
The idea with the Shuttle-C plan was to launch 80 ton modules to LEO, basically like building an ISS that flies to another planet.

It's not terrible as pre-SpaceX Mars concepts go. You just keep adding storable-propellant propulsion modules until you can get where you're going. Four modules should be able to push one to Mars, so at four launches per year, you get to throw one 80 ton payload to Mars per year and a half, or once every two year launch window cycle plus one module to test in orbit, and one lighter launch of ~30 tons to Mars.

You could plausibly get the first man on Mars after 6-10 years of that, if things went well.

[Anonymous No.9514546]

>>9514328
>muh design
>speeds/g's
Apollo 11: 25k mph
Shuttle: 17.5k mph
>muh $
$$$$ canister or $$$$ spaceship with flight surfaces, livable quarters

[Anonymous No.9514566]

>>9514482
>Eric Berger
>Literal SpaceX shill who constantly creates articles sucking them off.
>Reliable source.
Nice try shill.

[Anonymous No.9514585]

>>9514566
>shill shill shill
>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.9514601]

>>9514566
nigga we've known about this potential 2020 slip since last year https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/11/20/nasa-expects-first-space-launch-system-flight-to-slip-into-2020/

[Anonymous No.9514605]

>>9514546

[Anonymous No.9514889]

bruv

[Anonymous No.9514953]

d

[Anonymous No.9514958]

>>9514953
>yfw this will be the SLS

[Anonymous No.9515044]

>>9513909
If SpaceX manages to not only get BFR off of paper and into reality, but ALSO the original ITS concept, likely all before 2030-2035… hoooly fuck. BFR being real alone would turn the game upside down, but having ITS too the doors of space access would officially be blown off. I can't even imagine everything that would not only possible but also *feasible* with that monster.

Don't let me down elon.

[Anonymous No.9515067]

>>9515044
NON-MASS RESTRICTED PROBES EVERYWHERE

TITAN GETS A PROBE
CALLISTO GETS A PROBE
HYDRA GETS A PROBE
EEEEEEVERYONE GETS A PROBE

[Anonymous No.9515089]

>>9515067
Not to mention far more frequent manned missions (even just fly-by's) and space stations large enough to make the ISS look like a happy meal toy. Those things could carry enough equipment to make bootstrapping belt mining started not a total boondoggle.

[Anonymous No.9515272]

>>9515044
I'm worried that the launch industry won't grow enough to allow SpaceX to do everything they want to do.

[Anonymous No.9515317]

>>9515272
We'll see how it plays out, but honestly I don't think it'll be an issue. SpaceX already has a backlog worth $20B and they'll be creating their own demand with their LEO satellite internet grid.

[Anonymous No.9515408]

>>9514101
I think you're being silly about what constitutes "payload" but you have a point. Shuttle-C would have had a similar capability to SLS Block I so you have to ask what the point of all the extra stuff on SLS is. I guess it's because Block I is just a shitty design with a useless upper stage, if SLS was just a pure cargo lifter with a good upper stage like the old Ares V concept it would probably be useful but ironically that will be the version that will never fly.

[Anonymous No.9515445]

>>9515408
The SLS _IS_ the Ares V in a more sane and "practical" scale
It's all the same people, same contractors, same budget, same goals, etc
And it would be on the same schedule even if Ares V had not been "cancelled"

[Anonymous No.9515708]

>>9514122
Orbiter was 67 tons with 23 ton payload, do you have a fucking argument?

[Anonymous No.9515711]

>>9512459
>Redpill me
GTFO pill-popping /pol/esmoker pls

[Anonymous No.9515718]

>>9512459
Yes, it will link up with Adolf Hitler's space armada (Hitler's brain has been saved in an A.I. robot) where it will then launch an attack on Earth

[Anonymous No.9515738]

>>9512840
>2021
So a year before Musk plans to send two cargo BFR missions to Mars? Great job.

[Anonymous No.9515746]

>>9515445
Block 1b or 2 maybe. I just don't really understand why block 1 has an extra RS-25, upgraded SRBs, a stretched tank and an entire additional upper stage compared to Shuttle-C, but the exact same capability.

[Anonymous No.9515759]

>slipped again
The SLS might turn out to be a disaster.

[Anonymous No.9515904]

>>9515738
That date (the BFR one) will likely slip but I'm still confident the BFR will fly before the SLS launches men into space.

[Anonymous No.9516345]

>>9512554
>The Block 2 version is twice as powerful
no it isn't, it can put 130 tons into LEO on paper but structural limits mean it can't launch more than ~115 tons maximum, however it can get a light payload much further.

[Anonymous No.9516357]

Reminder that nasa spent 500 mil on refurbishing the crawler for SLS. Same as the entire FH program.

The best part is they plan to use the refurbished crawler FUCKING ONCE

[Anonymous No.9516372]

>>9513982
It's part of the launch vehicle, which means it is objectively NOT payload. It does count towards the total mass put into orbit, obviously, but that number doesn't matter so much as the fraction of the total mass which is payload, the object or objects being brought up to serve a purpose other than simply getting up into space.

Other rockets do not count the mass of their upper stage as payload mass, why should Shuttle?

[Anonymous No.9516387]

>>9515708
Yeah, that 67 tons came back.
Do you count the mass of the Falcon 9 second stage when discussing how much payload the rocket can put into orbit? If you do, you're retarded for the same reason you're retarded for calling the Shuttle itself a payload. The Shuttle went up by default, it was a part of the launch vehicle. Buran, the Soviet space shuttle that launched on Energia, actually WAS a payload because it was a separate and optional component of the Energia vehicle. In that case Energia was the rocket, and could carry any payload up to ~100 tons, and Buran was a specially designed payload which would only be sent up when needed. The reasoning behind this was that the Soviets could clearly see the Shuttle was retarded, but thought the US may have come up with some important use for it to justify building it, so the Soviets wanted their own. However, they weren't convinced completely, so they designed their orbiter and launch vehicle to be separate craft, so that if Buran turned out to be useless they could scrap it and keep a super heavy lift launch vehicle.

[Anonymous No.9516457]

>>9515708
It's not payload, if it doesn't stay up there.
Do you have a fucking brain?

[Anonymous No.9516461]

Any word on upper stage for any actual mission?
I would guess not, because it doesn't exist.

[Anonymous No.9516473]

>>9516461
that's the thing, they don't have any actual payloads in the work for this thing.

[Anonymous No.9516481]

>>9516461
silly head, SLS is a money farming jobs program, the rocket isn't supposed to ever actually launch, it's a theater piece.

[Anonymous No.9516491]

>>9516461
They intend to just launch once between now and 2025
Then tell the next administration they are hopelessly behind schedule and that they need a "clean reset"

If Trump doesn't take a bulldozer to NASA now, nothing is going to happen in his term, and they will guarrenteed sabotage SpaceX

[Anonymous No.9516492]

>>9516473
>>9516481
inb4 10 more years of 'development' to get both.
By then, SpaceX will be on fucking Mars.

[Anonymous No.9516501]

>>9516491
Dear lord, they could have just kept the STS booster as is, put 3 SSME's on the back of the orange tank, and do whatever with an upper stage.
Sure it wouldn't be as powerful as SLS, but not that much lower.

[Anonymous No.9516507]

>>9516501
>SSME engines.
On that topic, I'm wondering just how much NASA is paying Rocketdyne, just to fucking hold their breath until they have to actually produce an engine.

[Anonymous No.9516515]

>>9516457
>It's not payload, if it doesn't stay up there.
fucking eliminate yourself

[Anonymous No.9516541]

>>9516515
Well, not in my books.
fucking have a nice cup of tea, retard.

[Anonymous No.9516593]

>"This budget enables a Europa Clipper launch readiness date in 2025. The Administration proposes to launch the Clipper on a commercial launch vehicle, which would be several hundreds of millions of dollars cheaper than an SLS flight and would not impact the availability of SLS rockets to support human exploration."
>Europa Clipper
>commercial launch vehicle

So, Orion is all that's left for the SLS?

[Anonymous No.9516601]

>>9516593
Well, as far as I'm concerned, they should just strap the largest, cheapest single mirror space telescope on it, and scrap it.
At least, they'd use that diameter for something.
But, apparently, nobody thought about it.

[Anonymous No.9516610]

>>9515904
Then you're retarded.

[Anonymous No.9516615]

>>9516593
Also all those missions to build the DSG. Also, it would probably go up on a Vulcan ACES since SpaceX's upper stages are dogshit.

[Anonymous No.9516664]

>>9516610
I'm realistic, see you in 2023 lol...

[Anonymous No.9516679]

>>9516664
>I'm realistic
>Building the largest and most complicated vehicle ever built by people who have never built such a massive rocket will happen quickly.
You're not realistic, you're retarded.

[Anonymous No.9516685]

>>9516615
The FH upper stage is actually very capable as shown last week, and unlike Vulcan it has the power to chuck something directly at Europa. Also ACES is due to be implemented in the mid 2024 and it may even slip as well. NASA won't put an expensive payload on a new vehicle, that's why JWTS is flying on a Ariane 5 and Clipper is not flying on the SLS. By 2025 the FH will be an experienced launch vehicle and therefore ideal for such a high priority mission.

[Anonymous No.9516692]

>>9516685
>The FH upper stage is actually very capable
l m a o

[Anonymous No.9516703]

>>9516679
Production and testing for it has already started and despite it's size the BFR isn't that complicated a rocket, it's really just an up sized Falcon 9 with different engines. The complicated part is the BFS (second stage) and they have 6 years until 2023 to figure it out. The human-rated version will definitely fly much later but an unmanned version will likely fly before 2023.

[Anonymous No.9516706]

>>9516703
>Largest and most complicated rocket ever with the most engines out of any rocket ever.
>Isn't that complicated.
Will Musk bootlickers ever take a hard look at reality?

[Anonymous No.9516708]

>>9516692
Those are the old statistics for FH block 1 which were posted ages ago, the current FH runs on block 5. Elon actually debunked these statistics yesterday on his twitter and SpaceX are currently submitting new ones that are up to date.

https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/963145162397396992

[Anonymous No.9516713]

>>9516708
>Calling Musk "Elon."
Do you know him personally, bootlicker?

[Anonymous No.9516718]

>>9516713
I wish I did, he seems like a cool guy, a bit autistic but still cool.

[Anonymous No.9516720]

>>9516679
BFR is not that complicated. It incorporates major simplications compared to Falcon Heavy.

For instance, they're eliminating the high-pressure helium system responsible for their only two Falcon 9 launch failures. They're eliminating the TEA-TEB hypergolic ignition system responsible for the loss of the center core on the FH maiden flight. They're using electric actuators for the engines, rather than a finicky hydraulic system. There are no side boosters, and thus no complicated aerodynamics or separation event relating to that. There are no downrange landings, with a drone ship far out to sea, rocking in rough waters.

[Anonymous No.9516721]

>>9516713
Not sure about him but I do and my dad works at SpaceX.

[Anonymous No.9516731]

>>9516720

BFR's never happening.

Rockets that large are near impossibly difficult.

See SLS.

[Anonymous No.9516738]

>>9516731
Want to provide some sources to back up your claim?

[Anonymous No.9516745]

>>9516738

FH delays and spacex already scaled down the BFR once.

If they make it smaller and drop the ridiculous upper stage recovery it might become more than scifi pipedream rocket.

[Anonymous No.9516759]

>>9516731
SLS was undertaken by people who had never designed a rocket of any size. NASA used the shuttle for three decades, after it spend another decade in development, and didn't build any new rockets in that time. None of the experienced engineers that built it were still around.

On top of that, their hands were tied by political requirements to use 70s-era technology and hire favored (highly inefficient) contractors.

Saturn V went from finalized concept to working vehicle in five years, in the dawn era of space travel.

SpaceX engineers are smoothly transitioning from their successful development of the Falcon 9/H family of rockets, straight into BFR development, eager to apply the lessons learned. Their motivations are uncompromised.

[Anonymous No.9516763]

>>9516720
So some refinements and small simplifications are somehow going to make the rocket less of a massively complex boondoggle? You're underestimating how complicated rockets are severely.

[Anonymous No.9516768]

>>9516759
SLS has been delayed less than the FH. Maybe if you took your face out of Musk's asshole you'd see that.

[Anonymous No.9516783]

>the good
NASA is going back to the moon
>the bad
The overall plan is a mess
>the ugly
It's going to cost ~$1b per launch

[Anonymous No.9516787]

>>9516745
They scaled back BFR because a 9 meter diameter rocket could be produced in their existing factories with modifications. And Falcon Heavy got continuously delayed because the Falcon 9 kept getting upgraded, and because of the redesigns they had to perform on the center core. Neither of these are fundamental issues related to the size of the rocket.

[Anonymous No.9516806]

>>9516759
pretty sure nowhere in any political requirements does it specify that they have to use certain contractors
Hell that would be illegal

All it says is they have to spend % of the money in certain states

[Anonymous No.9516813]

>>9516806
>you have to spend X% in Y state
>there is a single aerospace contractor in that state
They can word the terms so they have to use Z contractor without openly stating it, just like TopFuel drag rules never say you must use a Hemi, you just need the same value stem angles, seal diameters ect.

[Anonymous No.9516826]

>>9516813
When has NASA ever contested these requirements? They like it just as much as Congress likes it
There is nothing as specific as that anyways, nor is there any state with only a single contractor.

NASA is just as much to blame for the state of affairs as Congress, if not more so since they are the ones who designed the Constellation/SLS rockets.
I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't NASA who went to congress asking the budget to be written like that too.

[Anonymous No.9516837]

>>9516826
I agree, you can't expect a government agency to work with the same contractors for 60 years without nepotism seeping in.
The only time I know that NASA has ever threatened to drop a contractor was when Morton-Thiokol said they shouldn't fly Challenger below 55F and that was just to strong arm them into saying it was fine (spoiler, it wasn't).

[Anonymous No.9516847]

>>9516768
>SLS has been delayed less than the FH.
SLS is a continuation of Ares V development. It dates back to the 2004 Constellation Program, when SpaceX was only two years old. The first SLS test flight has officially slipped to 2020, and is likely to slip further, with no further flights scheduled until years after that. It will fly at far under its original Ares V specified performance, and without its planned two-launch mission architecture capability, because the development team was unable to meet their goals. It has cost over $20 billion in R&D, and will be so expensive to fly that many analysts have questioned the ability of NASA to afford any payload of significant interest at the same time as they have to pay for this rocket to fly it on.

Falcon Heavy has flown, and will begin routine service this year. It has far over its original Falcon Heavy 1.0 specified performance, and with major additional capabilities, including booster recovery for reduced cost and increased launch availability, and a long-coast upper stage capable of insertion directly into GEO with no additional kick motor, because the development team found opportunities to exceed their goals. It has cost about $500 million in R&D, and will be so affordable to fly that we can expect it to be a staple of the commercial launch market.

[Anonymous No.9516875]

Another nail in the coffin - one of the only payloads for SLS, Europa Clipper, is now going on a commercial LV.

rip SLS, 2001-2018

[Anonymous No.9516881]

>>9516847
It'll be interesting to see how many flights it gets.
On one hand GEO without a kicker is makes the payload cheaper but will it save enough to be worth the extra cost over a Falcon 9 block 5?
It has huge fairings but how often does anyone launch anything the size of Hubble?

I hope it finds a market but he has really gone balls out on this one running on the idea "if you build it they will come".

>>9516875
They will find an excuse to fly them, probably until they run out of RS-25's.

[Anonymous No.9516890]

>>9516881
>they'll fly them
This. Barring any catastrophic events during assembly (bigger than dropping the lox tank) EM1 will fly in the early 2020's. I doubt they'll get the chance to use the remaining 8 or so SSME's though.

[Anonymous No.9516892]

>>9516731
BFR is smaller then Saturn V, which worked fine, fuck off SLS shill. I'm going to be laughing my ass off when BFR is setting up moonbase alpha while you tax dollar theives are still fucking around with that useless piece of shit.

[Anonymous No.9516912]

>>9516890
>8 or so SSME's
I thought there were more, that is one test flight and one payload flight until they are out of them.

[Anonymous No.9516921]

>>9516881
>On one hand GEO without a kicker is makes the payload cheaper but will it save enough to be worth the extra cost over a Falcon 9 block 5?
FH isn't competing with F9, but Ariane 5. F9 can only launch 5.5 tonnes to GTO with booster recovery, the $62 million price advertised is for no more than that. Ariane 5 can launch 11 tonnes to GTO, which has often split 6.5/4.5 between a primary and secondary payload. 5.5 is a little light for what the market wants. SpaceX is offering 8 tonnes for $90 million on FH.

This kills the Ariane 5.

[Anonymous No.9516925]

>>9516912
I believe there are 12 scra - reused - from shuttles. The production too was limited without generous investment.

[Anonymous No.9516936]

>>9516921
The thing about FH is that it's got this insanely high capability, but it doesn't have the costs to go with it.

They don't need to go hunting for customers who need to launch more than they could put on any other rocket. They're going to be perfectly okay flying payloads for which there's already an established market, even if they're using less than half of the payload capacity. In fact, the lighter the payload, the more gentle they can be with the reusable boosters.

[Anonymous No.9516940]

>>9516921
>~$100m cheaper
RIP Ariane.

>>9516925
I wonder if they will put them back into production to reduce reliance on the RD-180.

[Anonymous No.9516945]

>>9516745
cry more ULA nigger

[Anonymous No.9516950]

>>9516768
This rocket has every single major component designed and tested, all of the engines, all of the designs, literally everything that would make up the bulk of time and expenses has already been developed . They have been working on a rocket, made out of old parts stapled together since 2004, and it doesn't look like any launch is happening until late 2019, most likely 2020, and these are just test launches/ payload launches
god knows when this is gonna put people in orbit

[Anonymous No.9516961]

>>9516892
>BFR is smaller then Saturn V
BFR is much bigger than Saturn V, BFR will put more into orbit in fully reusable mode than Saturn V could in fully expendable mode. That doesn't matter though, because there's nothing fundamentally harder about building a bigger rocket compared to a smaller one, in fact in some ways it's easier because the way the hardware scaled up it's easier to get a good mass fraction. SpaceX will build BFR in as much or less time than NASA took to build the Saturn V.

[Anonymous No.9516965]

[Anonymous No.9516967]

>>9516961
I'm willing to bet it'll be much faster than the Saturn V simply because SpaceX does just about everything in house. No time wasted waiting for contractors to deliver things they claim work but in reality they don't and you have to start from scratch.

[Anonymous No.9516970]

>>9516940
>reduce reliance on the RD-180.
Are you implying they'd use RS-25 engines as a replacement for the RD-180?

Not going to happen, you can't just swap engines on rockets out, especially where they use an entirely different fuel with far lower density and temperature. Besides, the plan is already to get rid of the Atlas V and replace it with Vulcan, using the BE-4 engine. It's far easier to design a new rocket from the ground up around new engines than it is to modify an existing rocket to use different engines.

[Anonymous No.9516973]

>>9516967
Also SpaceX has things like CAD drawings and computational flow dynamics, way better manufacturing techniques, etc.

[Anonymous No.9516977]

>>9516970
I know they would build a new vehicle but given the time and money Blue Origin has already burnt I'm not so sure on the BE-4 being delivered. The AR-1 is probably a safer bet as it's Rocketdyne and despite forcing taxpayers money into combustion chambers a rates measured in tonnes per second they do tend to deliver eventually.

[Anonymous No.9516988]

>>9516977
I mean, the BE-4 has been test fired already. ULA themselves seem to be leaning very heavily on the side of the BE-4, saying the contract is 'Blue's to lose'.

[Anonymous No.9517005]

>>9516988
Ok, I couldn't find any ISP data from it so figured it hadn't been fired yet.
Good to see them get a contract even if the ~$1b given to Rocketdyne for AR1 RnD is a waste.

[Anonymous No.9517013]

>>9516988
It's been test fired and they blew something up, its not that close to completion even if they are producing "finished" engines to show off pictures of

[Anonymous No.9517034]

>>9516988
Engines are usually test fired for years before a rocket flies, it's the first part of development that occurs. For example, a prototype for SpaceX's Raptor engine was first tested in 2016.

[Anonymous No.9517070]

>>9516988
It's not actually ULA's choice to go with a completely unproven new engine supplier, and they've been saying that they wanted to go with BE-4 for years. They said they were going to make their final selection in 2016, and now it's 2018 and the choice still isn't made.

ULA lives on government money, and on the sufferance of its parent companies, who don't like each other very much and are uncomfortable owing a joint venture. Vulcan is still only getting funding approved on a quarter-by-quarter basis. At least one of the parents just wants to sell ULA to Rocketdyne and be done with it.

The USAF wants ULA to stop dicking around and just re-engine Atlas V with an American-made equivalent to RD-180 (which Rocketdyne is getting hundreds of millions of dollars to build for them) like they were told to, preserving a strategic asset they rely on, instead of this bullshit plan of building a whole new launch vehicle, and no one knows when it will be ready, what it will actually cost, or how reliable it will be.

This is going to be an ugly political fight to the end, because that's how things are done in porkland.

[Anonymous No.9517086]

>>9516501
>Dear lord, they could have just kept the STS booster as is, put 3 SSME's on the back of the orange tank, and do whatever with an upper stage.
As has been mentioned several times in this thread, that's essentially what Shuttle-C was, with no upper stage and the existing Shuttle hardware. And it was actually more powerful than SLS block 1, not less. Something doesn't add up.

[Anonymous No.9517099]

>>9517086


what would be wrong with a 4x SRB first stage and regular (centaur or whatever ) second stage

[Anonymous No.9517133]

>>9517099
There were some proposals for something like that, but I think 4 SRBs as a first stage would have required too many changes to the launch pad (and would cause all sorts of problems with vibration and overacceleration). It's not viable as a heavy lift vehicle either, SRB-X was only intended to put 4 t payloads into GEO

[Anonymous No.9517140]

>>9516706
Post 1 (one) space-related claim of his that he didn`t deliver on in a reasonable timeframe.

[Anonymous No.9517147]

>>9517086
This "something not adding up" is NASA very obviously not using their funds for what they are ought to be used. They probably don't want to start developing a rocket that is going to get canceled again, so they are using the money for god knows what.

[Anonymous No.9517152]

>>9517147
Theres plenty of ways to just kill time in bureaucratic run arounds and tens of thousands of contractors

So they draw up a list of a decade worth of testing & development, leaving zero money or manpower to actually build the product

[Anonymous No.9517189]

>>9517086
SLS is Obama's retarded baby. His administration wanted to cut Constellation entirely, but it had too much support from congress pork-grubbers. So he made it into a stupid and pointless rocket to nowhere and pushed the possibility of flight to the end of his second term so nobody would hold him accountable if he corrupted NASA beyond the point where it could actually put things in space.

[Anonymous No.9517190]

>>9517133
The rocket in your picture is very reminiscent of Orbital ATK's planned NGL rocket which is basically a jobs program to keep solid rocket motor engineers employed (just like the SLS). It's comprised of a space shuttle/SLS SRB first stage with two smaller SRB's on the side and a liquid fuel upper-stage.

[Anonymous No.9517199]

>>9516961
>>9516967
>>9516973
>>9516847
>>9516921
D E L U S I O N

[Anonymous No.9517205]

>>9517140
Just one? Take a pick faggot.

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/elon-musk-goals/

[Anonymous No.9517227]

>>9517190
Watch: Northrop Grumman Orbital ATK will displace ULA as the backup national security launch option to SpaceX, which is becoming the first choice.

NGL doesn't use a shuttle SRB, it's just a solid of similar size.

There are lots of advantages to solid rockets, especially if they're only going to fly rarely. They're mechanically simple, so you can store them for a long time, and rugged, so they can fly in rough weather conditions. With NGL, the pad can be quite simple and low maintenance, with only enough fuelling capacity for the upper stage.

[Anonymous No.9517282]

>>9517205
The only canceled project I see under SpaceX is the Falcon 5, sure plenty of things are years late but that is industry standard.

>>9517227
I'm a fan of the "Big Dumb Booster" SRB approach. Their main drawback is it's harder to configure the thrust curve but I can't see why you couldn't have half a dozen grain geometries that you mix and match depending on mission profile and a widely throttleable upper stage.

[Anonymous No.9517289]

>>9517282
It hasn't been updated to mention the fact that tourist Lunar missions have been cancelled.

[Anonymous No.9517293]

>>9517227
A pure solid rocket would make sense as a backup launcher intended to sit there for emergencies only

Not sure how profitable that would be for the company, if NASA bought 5 and then never again

[Anonymous No.9517297]

>>9517289
It's not cancelled, they have just shifted them onto the BFR when it is done. Who fucking cares anyway about the rich yuppie tourists if it gets the BFR done faster.

[Anonymous No.9517301]

>>9517289
True.
While I don't want it to happen I'll be interested to see how he reacts when SpaceX inevitably kills someone and how it effects any space tourism plans.
As far as I can tell Branson has slowed right down with Virgin Galactic since killing a test pilot.

[Anonymous No.9517312]

>>9517301
Virgin slowed down because they took good Scaled Composites design and attempted to make it bigger beyond of what the design made it possible to reach.And they wasted 10+ years doing this shit while Bezos made Blue Origin and Musk made SpaceX and now Branson is the kid eating glue in the corner.

[Anonymous No.9517372]

>>9517070
literally not a single thing about your post is correct

[Anonymous No.9517407]

>>9517034
>Engines are usually test fired for years before a rocket flies, it's the first part of development that occurs.

Correct, so considering Blue Origin is test firing their engine already while Aerojet-Rocketdyne has not even come close to that point yet, it's more likely that the BE-4 will be chosen.

[Anonymous No.9517410]

>>9517086
>abandoned when it was found the concept had no cost advantage over existing expendable launch vehicles
HA
If only the Shuttle had suffered the same fate before we spent 30 fucking years launching the things.

[Anonymous No.9517417]

>>9517301
Virgin Galactic is a joke, they've been fucking around for over a decade attempting to build what is essentially an X plane. The carrier aircraft is retarded, they could have just bought a plane, doesn't that guy own a fucking airline? The 'feathers' on the wigs are also retarded, and already managed to kill people lol.

>>9517312
This. Although I hate to say they slowed down, because they've been pretty glacial from the beginning.

[Anonymous No.9517425]

>>9517407
>Aerojet-Rocketdyne
they don't move a muscle until those government dollars start flowing

[Anonymous No.9517438]

>>9517372
From 2015:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(rocket)
>Aerojet Rocketdyne's AR1 engine is being retained by ULA as a contingency option, with a final decision to be made in 2016.
It's 2018. Still no final decision.

>In March 2016, executives from ULA indicated that the practice of quarter-by-quarter investment for Vulcan development would continue.
Every three months, they need to go back to Boeing and Lockheed Martin for a review of whether it's okay to keep spending money on Vulcan.

ULA doesn't make its own decisions. It exists for the sole purpose of serving the US government, so it can't do anything that they don't accept, and it's jointly owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, so it can't do anything they don't want.

It's not like SpaceX, that can just decide to develop a new engine or vehicle with its own money, and only has to worry about the FAA telling them it's unsafe (which they can fight in court). ULA's not doing diddly without government funding and parent company approval, and re-engining Atlas V with AR1 vs. building Vulcan with BE-4 is a political fight.

[Anonymous No.9517688]

>>9514101

Atlas 5 Phase 2 > Shuttle C

[Anonymous No.9517700]

>>9517425
Thats one of the worst parts of ths whole cost plus government ocntractor shit
The
"We don't do ANYTHING, even if it would save us money immediately, without government paying us to" idea

[Anonymous No.9517748]

wish more billionaires did cool space stuff like Musk and Bezos and Allen, instead of blowing it on yachts and golfing resorts.

I suppose new-money billionaires (tech etc) are more interested in space stuff than old-money billionaires (housing, oil, whatever). Bigelow seems to be the exception

[Anonymous No.9517867]

>>9517417

Man, I remember being so excited about them and the possibility of lowering launch costs. It was sad to see how launch costs were increasing since Apollo and the government wasn't really trying to lower it. The moon/Mars plan would never work since they had to be expensive due to the expensive launch costs. People talked about lunar cities and whatnot, but the entire US government budget would have to fund the way they wanted to do it. Even more so during college and we had some NASA folks speak in our engineering class and it was clearly obvious they were stuck in their old ways and didn't want to rock the boat/retire.

Thanks goodness someone like Musk came along and Bush managed to squeeze out the commercial crew program. I am thankful Obama didn't allow it to get cancelled early on when SpaceX was still small compared to ULA (NASA folks I met were really scoffing at the new guys doing something better than them...)

[Anonymous No.9517871]

>>9517867
Yea and even today you can watch these presentations to crowds of old fuckers, just giving the same old buzzwords, same old garbage "plans", same anticipated delays so they never have to deliver, etc

It's really a crime how bad NASA has gotten, but then again thats the same throughout the Democrat run government bureaucracy.

[Anonymous No.9517887]

>>9517867
>>9517871
What really makes me sad is once NASA was crazy enough to pursue NERVA and Orion, now they can't imagine reusable rockets despite the fact 2 companies are using them.

[Anonymous No.9517901]

>>9517887
I think Orion was strictly an airforce project, but it is sad how far NASA has fallen in their ambitions.

[Anonymous No.9517904]

>>9517748
A lot of billionaires support cool projects besides just Musk and Bezos. One of the google founders supports SENS research, and Alphabet itself is currently running Calico. Richard Branson has Virgin Galactic, and is also funding companies that are trying to bring back supersonic travel for the masses.

[Anonymous No.9517970]

>>9517887
Orbital Battleship makes my peepee hard.

[Anonymous No.9518106]

>>9517086
Actually upon reading the SLS wiki, the 70t capability to LEO is a bit weird and includes the upper stage as payload, and is also to an apogee of 1,800km.

>Block 1, scheduled to fly Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) in 2019,[5] will use the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS). This stage will be a modified Delta IV 5–meter Delta Cryogenic Second Stage (DCSS),[62] and will be powered by a single RL10B-2. Block 1 will be capable of lifting 70 t in this configuration, however the ICPS will be considered part of the payload and be placed into an initial 1,800 km by -93 km suborbital trajectory to ensure safe disposal of the core stage. ICPS will perform an orbital insertion burn at apogee, and then a translunar injection burn to send the uncrewed Orion on a circumlunar excursion.

So that makes more sense, I guess we don't actually know what its theoretical payload to a more normal circular orbit would be.

[Anonymous No.9518125]

>>9518106
The SLS has a really weird and inefficient design for a rocket. The first-stage with the 4 SSME's and the massive orange fuel tank actually takes it all the way to orbit, then it's tiny second stage (which is about the same size as the Apollo 3rd stage but with a worse engine) puts the craft into TLI. This seems really impractical and inefficient when literally every other rocket ditches it's first-stage at around 70 km, before using a lighter and vastly more efficient second stage to put the payload into orbit and beyond instead of lugging a heavy fuel tank with them. What's the reasoning for this?

[Anonymous No.9518162]

>>9518125
>What's the reasoning for this?
Literally so they can use shuttle parts. I'm not sure what else they could have done though really, the core stage could have been smaller but then you'd have to design an entire new second stage, and you'd also be wasting the SSMEs by ditching them early when they're some of the most efficient vacuum engines ever made.

Maybe it could launch purely on the SRBs and then air-light the SSMEs on a smaller core, but that's probably too complicated or not viable.

[Anonymous No.9518165]

>>9518125
Hackjob.
It was designed that way so they can put it to work quickly. Just gather shuttle parts and get ares up and running, it can't possibly be that hard, right?

[Anonymous No.9518229]

>>9513982
Ok, next time I deliver something to you by truck I will charge you for the weight of the truck.

[Anonymous No.9518238]

>>9518125
Because the shuttle tank has that much propellant in it. They could design the rocket with appropriately sized propellant tanks but then they couldn't use the shuttle tank.

SLS is not being built to achieve some objective, it exists purely for political reasons. Turns out bureaucrats and piliticians don't give a shit about anything besides securing steady jobs for themselves.

[Anonymous No.9518352]

>>9516713
>gets BTFO
>shifts the topic
quality argument, please stop posting. thanks.

[Anonymous No.9518419]

>>9518125
>The first-stage with the 4 SSME's and the massive orange fuel tank actually takes it all the way to orbit, then it's tiny second stage (which is about the same size as the Apollo 3rd stage but with a worse engine) puts the craft into TLI.
That's just the first test launch. It's a cobble job with an upper stage they'll never use again. They were originally doing it just to meet the 2016 deadline for the first SLS launch, now it makes no sense to not save this first SLS to test the real upper stage.

>What's the reasoning for this?
It's based on shuttle hardware. The shuttle main engines are sustainer engines meant to go to orbit, and the tank is sized for this purpose, so the engines can be brought back down on the shuttle.

It was based on the shuttle hardware officially because this was supposed to save on development and facility cost, in reality because the districts where the shuttle spending was done had become addicted to that pork.

[Anonymous No.9518425]

>>9513982
>"Shuttle has 100 ton payload!"
>"Ok I have 100 ton satellite plaese launch"
>"Oh sorry it can only lift an extra 24 tons"

[Anonymous No.9518429]

>>9514328
Guys what about US shuttle + Russian Energia? That whay the SSMEs can wait till they're in orbit to ignite and fly to Mars

[Anonymous No.9518437]

>>9517189
Why do you blame EVERYTHING ON BLACK PEOPLE? NASA sucks because the cold war ended plain and simple, stop blaming us (and the Jews) for everything sheesh.

[Anonymous No.9518460]

>>9518437
NASA sucked during the cold war, too.

Constellation was also a shitty plan, and the shuttle and ISS have been almost ridiculously bad in terms of results for money spent. However, the Obama administration brought it to stunning new levels of suck. 8 years of nothing.

Apollo LARPing was at least some kind of plan to do something interesting in space. Dumb as building ISS with the space shuttle, but not just a rocket to nowhere.

[Anonymous No.9518465]

>>9518460

SLS will deliver.

Deal with it.

[Anonymous No.9518475]

>>9518465
That's the question isn't it? what exactly will it deliver?

[Anonymous No.9518502]

>>9512506
this

polfags kys, and take your ignorance with you

[Anonymous No.9518512]

>>9517688

what were they thinking when they made this graphic?

>damn lots of space left in the presentation
>shit, delta has a family, why not atlas too?
>delta has 3 cores, lets give atlas 3 of those
>shit, need to fit more in the frames
>make cores shorter & fatter
>extend 2nd stage and fairing
>haha, lets keep going

man that 5 core 5 engine 5m ccb 8.4m 40+m fairing would have been a sight to see

>>9518475
>That's the question isn't it? what exactly will it deliver?
delicious pork, to louisiana, alabama, and florida

[Anonymous No.9518589]

>>9517199
A R G U M E N T

[Anonymous No.9518624]

>>9518512
reality is just like kerbal though ! just keep adding shit to a rocket !

[Anonymous No.9518650]

>>9513195
Matrix stole it fromm Total Recall.

[Anonymous No.9518701]

>>9518512
140 tons is a magic number. It's what Saturn V could do, including the upper stage with propellant.

>make cores shorter & fatter
There's only so long they can stretch them before they have to go to a larger diameter.

[Anonymous No.9518818]

>>9518352
>Gets btfo.
Sure friend.

[Anonymous No.9518822]

>>9518589
You don't have any.

[Anonymous No.9519262]

>>9518818

[Anonymous No.9519310]

>>9518701
It's crazy that we can blast 140 tons clear into outer space, even most airplanes can't lift that much.

[Anonymous No.9520068]

>>9519310
Most planes can fly for longer than 10 minutes though.

[Anonymous No.9520136]

>>9517901
such things happen when you let them get infested with people who give negative fucks about the thing they're working for
this applies to all businesses and agencies

[Anonymous No.9520585]

>>9512930
>satisfy the "requirement" that they launch in 2016
kinda hard to satisfy unless they are pursuing a much more ambitious R&D project

[Anonymous No.9520596]

>>9513982
>It is payload no matter how you twist it. How hard is it to comprehend?
did your mother smoke crack AND dropped you on your head as a baby?

youre counting fuel tanks as payload

your knowledge of the field is obviously literally 0.0000

[Anonymous No.9520602]

>>9518429
>US shuttle + Russian Energia?
why not use the buran? it was superior in every way

united space american astroanut killing killer of killers space shuttle: blows up explosively if the weather is even 0.000000001 degrees different from optimal


soviet communist helpful god tier peace loving master buran masterwork of engineering of the people to gently condiuct awesome space missions in an heroic weight:

takes of in the -1238901328901 degrees cold, goes unaided to space and is basically a space robot that goes and comes back

why even need the capitalist baby killers?

[Anonymous No.9520607]

>>9520068
could an airplane lift off with 140 tons and fly for 10 minutes?

[Anonymous No.9520615]

>>9518460

>However, the Obama administration brought it to stunning new levels of suck.

Obama administration supported the development of SpaceX, the best thing to happen in spaceflight since Apollo ended. That is more than what any other administration did.

[Anonymous No.9520627]

>>9520607
An-225 can carry over 300 tons.

[Anonymous No.9520632]

>>9520627
lol the airplanes are boning

[Anonymous No.9520637]

>>9520602
>why not use the Buran
It has no onboard engines.

[Anonymous No.9520652]

>>9520637
how did it deorbit then?

[Anonymous No.9521144]

yes

[Anonymous No.9521178]

>>9520615
>Obama administration supported the development of SpaceX
They just continued the policy of the Bush administration in that regard. Obama entered office in 2009. The COTS program started in 2006, SpaceX won the contract in 2007, they signed the CRS contract in 2008, and Falcon 9 / Dragon flew in 2010. That was all set up before there was an Obama administration.

In fact, the increased incompetence at NASA under Obama prevented Dragon from replacing the shuttle as America's crew vehicle in a timely and affordable manner. It was designed from the beginning to be a crew vehicle. The original plan was simply to add basic life support, a conventional tractor LAS, and emergency abort software to Dragon, which could have been accomplished on demand. It was supposed to be the backup plan for if Ares I / Orion wasn't ready on time. This would have made it safer than the shuttle, and probably as safe as Soyuz, while definitely being cheaper and avoiding the humiliation of becoming dependent on Russia for crew transportation.

Under Obama, there was no will to fight the ass-covering bureaucratic default at NASA and make results happen.

[Anonymous No.9521311]

>>9521178
So that's why all the early SpaceX crew program CGI renders contain a version of the normal Dragon, thanks anon and of course... thanks Obama! Atleast because of the incompetence of his administration we get the hotness that is the Dragon 2.

[Anonymous No.9521321]

>>9521311
NASA was never onboard with Dragon 2's most significant planned features: propulsive landing, rapid reusability, and high-speed (i.e. interplanetary) atmospheric entry capability. SpaceX has basically dropped them at this point in order to get through NASA's design review process (which has held up Dragon 2 for years, and threatens to hold them up even longer).

Dragon 2 is of little interest now. Even SpaceX is just looking past it to BFR.

[Anonymous No.9521337]

>>9520652
The same way the shuttle did, using glorified RCS.
>>9520637
The shuttle cannot use the onboard engines without the fuel tank, genius. Energia is the big shuttle fuel tank with the engines mounted on it instead of the orbiter.

[Anonymous No.9521341]

>>9521321
eh NASA is paying tons of money for Dragon 2 development, and SpaceX has not had extra F9 launches to do anything with Dragon 2 anyways

So I'm sure SpaceX didn't mind too much, and I'm sure they have done tons of work billed to NASA that can also be applied to BFR, like composites or avionics or w/e

[Anonymous No.9521342]

>>9521337
>Energia is the big shuttle fuel tank with the engines mounted on it instead of the orbiter.
haa but the shuttle allows the engines to be saved allowing for quick and easy reusability, checkmate communists

[Anonymous No.9521391]

>>9521341
>NASA is paying tons of money for Dragon 2 development
NASA is also *costing* tons of money for Dragon 2 development, while occupying key SpaceX talent with a dead-end project.

>SpaceX has not had extra F9 launches to do anything with Dragon 2 anyways
They would certainly have prioritized it over comsat launches, and may have done a few extra Falcon 9 1.0 launches during their slow years if they were tasked with such an important function. They've allowed their launch rate to be lower than it absolutely had to be because their business has consisted almost entirely of price-sensitive commercial launch customers and low-urgency NASA cargo missions.

NASA has flown 24 US astronauts on Soyuz since the cancellation of the shuttle, and 16 since Falcon 9 1.1 started flying. Four Dragon launches could have carried those 16, and SpaceX could certainly have found four launches among their forty or so since then.

The October 8, 2012 Dragon launch could have carried crew rather than cargo if that's what the priority had been, and it would have spared America the embarassment of a prolonged inability to launch its own crew.

[Anonymous No.9521399]

>>9521391
SpaceX could have left the crew program if they absolutely didn't want it

Overall I'm sure they are taking a big enough profit that they can accept the fact that Dragon 2 will rarely be used, and that any truly key personnel have been moved to more important things like BFR.

[Anonymous No.9521673]

>>9521399
dragon 2 will be used a lot probably. And currently, Elon has made D2 the super-first priority

[Anonymous No.9521848]

>>9521391
>NASA has flown 24 US astronauts on Soyuz since the cancellation of the shuttle, and 16 since Falcon 9 1.1 started flying. Four Dragon launches could have carried those 16, and SpaceX could certainly have found four launches among their forty or so since then.
you idiot, you cant concentrate astronaut launch they have to go and return in limitied parties of 3

[Anonymous No.9521878]

>>9521342
The shuttle still costs more than an expendable rocket launch so that's a bit of a moot point. The main feature it ever had was the ability to bring shit back down from orbit. It failed in every other regard.

The vodkaniggers apparently planned/are planning to turn the energia rocket into a wholly reusable system. But they failed/are going to fail because the vodkaniggers have been in a permanent state of economic recession since some drunk, lost vikings founded the place back in the 9th century.

[Anonymous No.9522681]

>>9521399
>I'm sure they are taking a big enough profit
still believing that spacex is a private company

[Anonymous No.9523404]

>>9521848
>you cant concentrate astronaut launch they have to go and return in limitied parties of 3
So that's why for Commercial Crew, NASA specified seating for 4, eh?

ISS crews are limited by docked emergency escape craft. When the shuttle was visiting they could have ten or more people in the ISS, but the extras had to go home when the shuttle did, after about a week. Only Soyuz and Dragon have been able to stay at the ISS long-term, waiting to be loaded for the return trip, and only Soyuz has been allowed to carry crew.

[Anonymous No.9523513]

>>9523404
Anyway, point was that the ISS can use a capsule that takes crews of 4.

You might say that 3 flights of a 4-crew capsule isn't good for exactly the same things as 4 flights of 3-crew capsule, and that's true, but so is the reverse. A 4-crew capsule allows larger crews on ISS for the same number of docking points.

If NASA had flown crew on Dragon a few times, it would be able to claim both that had crew launch capability, and that it was pulling its own weight in crew launch, two points of significant embarassment for America in how it actually played out.

[Anonymous No.9523839]

>>9518465

SLS and Orion will deliver minimal results for 3+ billion a year spent every year indefinitely.

While Elon Musk will show you in just a few years how many golf trips on the moon 3 billion a year will buy you.

[Anonymous No.9524157]

d

[Anonymous No.9524217]

>>9522681
they are one, you irredeemable fuckwit