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SLS - On the Scent of Inevitable Capitulation

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Eric Berger reports: NASA chief says cost-plus contracts are a “plague” on the space agency

[Nelson] said Congress needs to fund this lander contract with a fixed-price award, which only pays companies when they reach milestones. This contracting mechanism is relatively new for the space agency, which traditionally has used "cost-plus" contracts for large development programs. Such awards pay contractors their expenses, plus a fee.

"I believe that that is the plan that can bring us all the value of competition," Nelson said of fixed-price contracts. "You get it done with that competitive spirit. You get it done cheaper, and that allows us to move away from what has been a plague on us in the past, which is a cost-plus contract, and move to an existing contractual price."

"The old way to do things was always cost plus," Nelson said later during Tuesday's hearing. "And because of the competition that we've been talking about, we have been moving to the fixed price."

Nelson clearly has had a significant change of heart regarding the use of cost-plus contracting for NASA's development programs. Whether Congress will ultimately go along with this is unknown, but it would be difficult to find a better messenger for NASA than Nelson, who can articulate to his former colleagues why he has changed his mind.
Great to hear a NASA administrator finally point out the obvious.
 
One thing I didn't understand. He said the capsule won't be recovered so all they have to diagnose the failures is the telemetry.
Why aren't they recovering the capsule? I would think that is a fundamental requirement for, you know, bringing back astronauts.
I should say the issue was able to be recovered from by using backup thrusters.

But those thrusters are jettisoned and lost during return to earth.
 
One thing I didn't understand. He said the capsule won't be recovered so all they have to diagnose the failures is the telemetry.
Why aren't they recovering the capsule? I would think that is a fundamental requirement for, you know, bringing back astronauts.
The Starliner vehicle is very different from Crew Dragon in that the aft section of Starliner, which contains among other things the OMAC thrusters that partially failed during ascent, is jettisoned before the crew section of Starliner begins atmospheric reentry.

So the thrusters that malfunctioned cannot be physically examined later <face palm>
 
More news on the ongoing financial train wreck that is SLS. Eric Berger has obtained an internal NASA document showing possible timelines for SLS missions; two of the timelines have not previously been public and show that NASA is struggling to meet Artemis objectives and planning for alternatives.

Because the Orion system lacks the capability to go all the way to low lunar orbit and return to Earth, NASA decided to build the Lunar Gateway In orbit around the Moon, which would include a lunar lander. Given the ruinously expensive cost to build and launch an SLS rocket, the Gateway cost is very high. This stretches out the launch cadence over years because Congress has not and very likely will not provide enough funding to speed things up.

But then last year NASA selected Starship as the lunar lander (HLS), a vehicle which could go all the way to the surface of the Moon and back to Earth orbit (with LEO refueling before going to the Moon), negating the need for the Gateway. But NASA is locked into building the Gateway because it justifies the SLS program which Congress has mandated be continued. So NASA has developed alternate, non-public, timelines to try to keep the program going, albeit at a very slow launch cadence.

Eric’s conclusion:
NASA's internal schedules, however, splash cold water on the idea that the Lunar Gateway is sustainable alongside extended surface activities and a base camp. Given the near certainty that there will be more delays, the Artemis Program is probably at least 15 years from having a semi-permanent habitat on the surface of the Moon. That is just about long enough to be "never" in spaceflight terms, and it would push Mars exploration into the 2040s or 2050s.

My personal prediction; the future of NASA as a leader in manned space exploration is bleak. It is at least five years away from landing humans on the Moon and a semi-permanent base on the Moon may never come to be because SLS launches are just to expensive. NASA missions to Mars are so far in the future as to be essentially invisible. At some point in the next decade even Congress will realize that SLS is not worth it and kill the program leaving NASA with no alternative but to contract with SpaceX or Blue Origin for astronaut transport. But by then the public, and Congress, will be wondering why NASA needs to send its own astronauts to space at all when private US companies do It all the time with private individuals. Of course many Americans have been wondering just that for decades. Public support for a US government funded space program is minimal.

By 2030 the Chinese will establish a base on the Moon. SpaceX will establish the beginnings of a permanent base on Mars using Starship missions that cost a very small fraction of an SLS launch. Long before 2030 the ISS will have been de-orbited and there will be no NASA replacement. There may be a private commercial station but what purpose will it serve to have NASA astronauts on board?

The Apollo program was part of my experience growing up in the 60’s. For many Americans a bit younger than I, the Space Shuttle program was part of their formative years (of course the two Shuttle tragedies left a permanent tarnish on that program). But for the generations after that, NASA astronauts are not something most of them give any thought to. When those generations are in power in Congress — and some already are — why will they vote to keep pouring money down the SLS rat hole? I don’t think so.
 
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Here is what Eric Berger wrote about the Lunar Gateway:
The [Gateway] station began nearly a decade ago, and it was created primarily because of the propulsion shortcomings of the Orion spacecraft's service module. In short, combined with the Space Launch System rocket, Orion does not have enough propulsive capability to fly all the way into a low lunar orbit and then return to Earth. So NASA devised the concept of a Lunar Gateway in a higher elliptical orbit. Pragmatically, this was an easy sell. NASA had built the International Space Station already in low-Earth orbit, so it knew how to move on to Gateway.

NASA has fit the Gateway into its Artemis plans, which came afterward. Artemis missions presently call for humans to launch to the Gateway in the Orion spacecraft and dock there. From the Gateway, they will board a lander and go down to the Moon's surface.

The problem with this solution is that, last April, NASA selected SpaceX's Starship to serve as a lunar lander. Starship is already larger than the proposed Gateway, and it replicates many of its power and propulsion capabilities. So if you already have Starship as part of your lunar architecture, and if NASA is really interested in activities on the lunar surface, why spend a decade and tens of billions of dollars building the Gateway?
Some may argue that the Gateway is needed because Starship is an unproven vehicle and we should not rely on it to get astronauts all the way from Earth to the Moon and back. But the Gateway is years away from being reality, so it is obviously unproven, and the entire SLS/Orion system is also unproven. In addition it is crystal clear that the Gateway/SLS/Orion program is astronomically expensive and far more complex than the Apollo system that actually put humans on the Moon.
 
Was hoping for some commentary on the latest SLS Wet Dress Rehearsal. I have only seen one report which seemed to indicate that they overcame several issues but the WDR was finally aborted around T - 25 seconds. What was not clear was if the WDR would be rerun or not. Does anyone have some additional info (or correction to my understanding)?

Thanks in advance :)

It certainly seems that the potential launch dates for SLS and Starship could be very close to each other! Wonder how many Starships will have flown before SLS launch 2 occurs?
 
This Eric Berger report should answer your questions.

A handful of technical problems occurred during Monday's test, the most significant of which was a hydrogen leak in a quick disconnect at the bottom of the mobile launch tower that supports the SLS rocket during fueling. This 4-inch hydrogen line is one of several that are released from the rocket just before liftoff and are connected to the tower's tail service mast.

NASA was unable to solve the problem with a leaky seal during the latter portion of Monday's test, so it instead chose to mask the leak from the ground launch sequencer, the ground-side computer that controls the majority of the countdown. This posed no risk to the rocket during the test but would need to be fixed before an actual launch.

With this bit of masking, the NASA launch team was able to get from T-10 minutes all the way down to T-29 seconds and demonstrate the ability to not only fill the SLS rocket but also keep its fuel tanks topped off. When the ground launch sequencer handed off to the rocket's onboard computer for the final portion of the countdown, the flight computer automatically ended the count.
Yes there was a problem but it was minor. They chose to continue the count to get more data and then deliberately stopped it at T-00:29.

NASA has yet to say if there will be a fifth attempt at a full wet dress rehearsal or if they will make a launch attempt in the near future.

My perspective is if this was any other rocket NASA would require a complete wet dress down to right before engine ignition. But SLS is not just any rocket…
 
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Former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver has Written a book that is unsparing in its criticism of NASA.According to Garver’s book, when NASA ended Constellation, contracting companies attempted to be compensated for the cancellation of contracts. A “shitstorm” ignited when they were informed that wouldn’t be the case, but contracts were eventually renegotiated for billions of dollars.
In her book, Garver makes the case that existing NASA programs such as Space Launch System (SLS) are more costly and less successful than private sector efforts. She argues that while more funding goes into SLS than Commercial Crew, a program working with the space private sector, they are less efficient.

“The perpetual cozy system that shaped the behavior largely remains in place,” she writes.
She also reveals a nasty misogynistic culture at NASA:
She also writes of a persistent toxic male culture still prevalent at NASA and in the space community at large, writing that she and other women were subjected to misogynistic, sexist remarks and insults. In the book, she describes NASA culture as “reminiscent of the forts boys built and filled with cigarettes and girlie magazines.”
And it wasn’t just inside NASA:
At one point, the late Sen. Hatch wagged a finger in her face and said, “I know you are the problem here,” she recounted in her new book. People demeaned her with names like “ugly whore” and told her to “get laid” or said she was “going through menopause,” which she argued in her book was a result of her being a woman in the aerospace community.
Knowing what I know about Orrin Hatch, that is totally believable.

Garver now works at SpaceX. I hope she is happy there, she is valuable addition to the SpaceX team.
 
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This Eric Berger report should answer your questions.


Yes there was a problem but it was minor. They chose to continue the count to get more data and then deliberately stopped it at T-00:29.

NASA has yet to say if there will be a fifth attempt at a full wet dress rehearsal or if they will make a launch attempt in the near future.

My perspective is if this was any other rocket NASA would require a complete wet dress down to right before engine ignition. But SLS is not just any rocket…
Given the number of issues they have had getting to T-29secs it would seem a little foolhardy to assume the remaining 29 seconds would be problem free.
 
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Sorry for this basic question: Is SLS a 100% NASA built rocket (like Space Shuttle/Saturn V), or is it a NASA funded ULA/Boeing built rocket?
You could clarify how you define a “100% NASA built” vehicle. As you know, NASA does not own any rocket factories. As @Grendal pointed out, SLS is 100% funded by NASA, and that funding — provided by Congress — goes to pay other commercial rocket companies to build vehicles to NASAs specifications, with the kicker that Congress tells NASA who to give the money to.

In a broad sense, NASA has no control over how it can spend its budget. Of course it does have control over smaller (relatively) ticket items like which unmanned planetary exploration missions it choses to pursue.

Here is an analysis of the NASA budget by The Planetary Society breaking it down into categories. That article includes this pie chart (below). Close to half is spent on “human space flight” and most of that (to get back on topic) I assume is SLS since the annual cost to send less than 10 astronauts to the ISS on Crew Dragons is modest compared to, for example, the cost of just the first version of the SLS Mobile Launcher transporter/tower which is about $1 BILLION. And the SLS program costs roughly that much every year.

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Given the number of issues they have had getting to T-29secs it would seem a little foolhardy to assume the remaining 29 seconds would be problem free.
The comments I read from that article suggested that since the tankage was the main reason for the wet-dress, and they managed to fully tank, there would be little left that another WDR would reveal vs. just trying to launch. Any issues that come up during the last launch sequences would cause a hold or a scrub anyhow, and if they can take it all the way through to T-0 any issues that happen after launch wouldn't have shown in the WDR in the first place so there seems to be little risk in attempting the launch with not much left to learn from another costly WDR. Guess we'll see if that pans out or not.
 
Given the number of issues they have had getting to T-29secs it would seem a little foolhardy to assume the remaining 29 seconds would be problem free.
There’s also a hard limit to the number of times that rocket can be tanked and detanked. They didn’t want to risk breaching that limit given that other problems may indeed come up later when they try to launch.