NASA Space Launch System (SLS)

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Byeman said:
That is all Boeing and nothing to do with MDAC.
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No, this is a legacy of the McD corporate takeover of the Boeing management.

Byeman said:
Hq location has no affect on Commercial airplane decisions in Washington.
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When you deliberately put several thousand miles between your corporate HQ and the main production site it most DEFINITELY does make an difference and these McD execs knew it (I'd love to see them, metaphorically speaking, get keel-hauled).
 
NMaude said:
When you deliberately put several thousand miles between your corporate HQ and the main production site it most DEFINITELY does make an difference and these McD execs knew it (I'd love to see them, metaphorically speaking, get keel-hauled).
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wrong again. It was only "a' production site for commercial aircraft. Wichita produces more fuselages than the Washington area. Boeing Defense makes more than Boeing Commercial.
 
"Wichita" was spun off years (2005) ago as free-standing Spirit AeroSystems (owned and managed by investment group Onex). It was sold off so as help "unlock investors value" in Boeing as effort was ramping up on the 7E7/787 effort.

The 787 program adopted the McDonnell Douglas philosophy of engaging Joint Venture partners in lieu of exerting direct control of subcontractors or investing in [internal] vertically integrated operations. Boeing later had to purchase the Vought (owned and managed by Carlyle Group) 787 operations in South Carolina as they were critical to the program and no one else would buy it. Boeing also had to buy Alenia Aermacchi's stake in Global Aeronautica (787 manufacturing) when that JV was floundering (and no one else would buy it).

Today, the integrated South Carolina facility continues to find new and creative ways to produce nonconforming 787 Dreamliner fuselages, 2400 miles (rounded) from the the design engineering authority in Seattle.
 
aim9xray said:
Boeing later had to purchase the Vought (owned and managed by Carlyle Group) 787 operations in South Carolina as they were critical to the program and no one else would buy it. Boeing also had to buy Alenia Aermacchi's stake in Global Aeronautica (787 manufacturing) when that JV was floundering (and no one else would buy it).
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Yeah, I'd actually forgot these problems Boeing had with trying to outsource production of key components and how it flopped badly.

aim9xray said:
Today, the integrated South Carolina facility continues to find new and creative ways to produce nonconforming 787 Dreamliner fuselages, 2400 miles (rounded) from the the design engineering authority in Seattle.
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This shows the importance of co-locating the factory with the design engineering facilities.
 
My mistake in spelling - should be Darleen Druyun.
 
NMaude said:
Yeah, I'd actually forgot these problems Boeing had with trying to outsource production of key components and how it flopped badly.



This shows the importance of co-locating the factory with the design engineering facilities.
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Not really see Atlas and Delta.
 
NMaude said:
The Atlas Centaur and Thor Delta aren't the same as the airliners, you are making a false equivalence.
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Wrong, they are complex systems. Maybe even more than airliners. And to further discredit your nonsense statement, most Air Force Plants products were designed elsewhere. B-1,B-2, B-21, B-52, B-47, Space Shuttle, and the list goes on.
In WWII, B=17, B-24 and many fighters were produced in licensee plants.
 
NMaude said:
Nonsense, while the Atlas centaur and the Thor Delta were complex systems they are NOT aircraft, the former are expendable the latter are NOT, false equivalence.
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wrong again. You really don't know what you are talking about. a. launch vehicle and spacecraft have tighter tolerances and lower load factors hence require more communications between engineering and production. Aircraft have higher tolerance to nonconformance. b. I listed several aircraft programs where engineering and production were separate.
 
I'd say that the SLS programme is looking a bit shaky at the moment, from TheSpaceBucket:


In a 74-page document released by NASA a few years ago, the agency goes over the entire plan for the next decade to return humans to the surface of the Moon. However, despite only being released around three years ago in 2020, already so much has changed in terms of mission plans and dates. This includes new delays, mission developments, completed hardware, and much more.
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Not long ago, the success of Artemis I marked a major first step and has propelled work toward the next mission, Artemis II. This being said, different cost concerns and slow development can have an equally powerful effect but in the opposite direction. Not to mention, this time around, NASA not only wants to land humans on the Moon, but set up a more permanent human presence.
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This will require extremely reliable launch options and mission operations not just for the next couple of years, but quite far into the future. Here I will go more in-depth into NASA’s current progress on the Artemis Missions, current complications, the next mission, and more.
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Full article here - https://thespacebucket.com/a-closer-l...
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It would appear that NASA needs to do a major revision of its' current Artemis programme plan and unsurprisingly the costs have ballooned.
 
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publiusr said:
First they say it’s too expensive, then say there are too few.. .but a higher flight rate would bring costs down—if it had the second shuttle pad Falcon Heavy occupies.
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Consider the fact that both the Airbus 380 as well as the Boeing 747 have ceased production in an extremely well established transportation market with projected substantial growth that fully supports flexible demand based sizing.
 
publiusr said:
First they say it’s too expensive, then say there are too few.. .but a higher flight rate would bring costs down—if it had the second shuttle pad Falcon Heavy occupies.
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wrong again. Higher flight rate would not bring down "costs". it would still cost more money to increase flight rate. The only "cost" it would bring down is that the fixed costs would be "diluted" spread over more flights. But it would cost more. Plus there is the addition costs of payloads that don't exist for SLS. Would never be cheaper for Europa Clipper and HALO/PPE on Falcon Heavy.

Also, it has nothing to do with a 2nd pad. There are more constraints to a higher flight rate than just the 2nd pad. A single pad can handle more than 12 flights a year. VAB high bays, mobile launchers, Orion throughput, payload facilities, payload production, core production facilities, engine productions, upperstage production, SRB production, etc all will limit SLS flight rate before pad availability will limit flight rate.

Quick to blame SLS failings on others.
 
SLS was never designed to be a low cost system. It was designed to support a return to the lunar surface in a budget constrained environment. There was no budget available for a large DDT&E effort, so emphasis was placed on reusing proven systems to create a capability. Was it the optimal system based on the constraints? We can argue that point and probably come to a conclusion that it could have been done differently. However, based on what was known at the time (2008-2012), it was a decent compromise with what was available. Has it been overtaken by developments? Probably, but most systems are overtaken by tech developments.

To the point above, with the current CONOPs of SLS, a single pad can handle no more than 3 flights in a year. The entire SLS enterprise was designed around an initial capability of 1 flight/year with future growth to 5 flights every 2 years.
 
Calphor said:
SLS was never designed to be a low cost system. It was designed to support a return to the lunar surface in a budget constrained environment. There was no budget available for a large DDT&E effort, so emphasis was placed on reusing proven systems to create a capability. Was it the optimal system based on the constraints? We can argue that point and probably come to a conclusion that it could have been done differently. However, based on what was known at the time (2008-2012), it was a decent compromise with what was available. Has it been overtaken by developments? Probably, but most systems are overtaken by tech developments.
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It wasn't also suppose to cost more than the shuttle. It wasn't a "decent" compromise. There were other options. Congress designed SLS and not mission requirements. And $23 billion is plenty for a large DDT&E effort.

Calphor said:
To the point above, with the current CONOPs of SLS, a single pad can handle no more than 3 flights in a year. The entire SLS enterprise was designed around an initial capability of 1 flight/year with future growth to 5 flights every 2 years.
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No, the pad can handle more. The vehicle is on the pad for no more than 2 weeks. There are other items like mobile launchers that constrain it to 3 per year. And the fact that SpaceX uses 39A has no bearing on SLS flight rate .
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1712504224200736894
View: https://twitter.com/jeffvader10/status/1712504224200736894


The one good thing to come out of this is NASA concurring with the recommendation to evaluate commercial alternatives
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Recommendation 5: Include contract flexibility on future SLS acquisitions that will allow NASA to pivot to other commercial alternatives.

Management's Response: NASA concurs. The procurement strategy for EPOC has not been established, pending performance under the pre-EPOC evaluation and readiness effort. However, at that time, NASA will ensure appropriate flexibilities through the use of contract options or other means to explore the use of commercial alternatives, if feasible.

Estimated Completion Date: December 31, 2027.
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How does that compare to the money generated in its manufacturing though?

SLS was nothing compared to Gulf War x, etc.

SLS haters sharpening the same old axe.

Even at 3 billion a pop, that’s three cents a week if that per person at best.

SLS isn’t propped up by plants in China.

SLS is all American, and if anyone did get hurt building it—they would not need go fund me’s as much as the family affected here:
www.space.com

SpaceX technician in coma after rocket test accident: report

OSHA fined SpaceX $18,475 for two safety violations related to the incident.
www.space.com www.space.com

Some thoughts
 
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publiusr said:
How does that compare to the money generated in its manufacturing though.
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It doesn't generate money. It only consumes it. It doesn't bring additional money to NASA or contractors.
publiusr said:
SLS was nothing compared to Gulf War x, etc.
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Again, not a relevant comparison. Different pots of money and different requirements/policy.
 
Seems someone is firmly in the "government should do everything important, not private industry, no matter the expense" central planning camp.
 
Nice to see RDREs popping into concept planning. hope they get the money to develop some.
 
Moose said:
Nice to see RDREs popping into concept planning.
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Is there a thread that gives a detailed description of how RDEs work? I'm still a bit hazy concerning their combustion-chambers.
 
As you ought to know, the number of launches each Starship will require to land on the Moon is in flux. However, it doesn't really matter, given that NASA is paying SpaceX a fixed price for Artemis 3 and 4. It isn't the number of launches; it's how quickly they're accomplished, how much they cost, and what we get for them. It will take until the end of the decade, if not later, for Boeing to increase core production to even one per year; if NASA is mandated to continue using SLS for Artemis crew transport, there will be none to spare for flights to Mars.

There are plenty of ways to make paper plans to use the SLS. They can even be fun! But my guess is that virtually all of them will turn out like the numerous paper proposals scientists have written for the Shuttle, Ares V, ALS, and other flying or proposed launch vehicles.
 
SLS…SD-HLLVs in general—faced opposition unlike anything else. Planetary Scientists didn’t want small NASA budgets going to LV development at all…this is pre-Musk mind you. Had it been a boost-back program like Falcon, the EELV lobby, sub-orbital enthusiasts, etc. would probably have hated it too.

Mars Sample Return looks to cost more than two SLS launches…for something you could put in a pup trailer.

SD-HLLV advocates still get more venom though.

I want hydrolox infrastructure kept for its own sake—and for NTRs, high-energy missions to ice giants-etc.

Mars is crawling with bomb-disposal robots as it stands.
 
publiusr said:
SLS…SD-HLLVs in general—faced opposition unlike anything else. Planetary Scientists didn’t want small NASA budgets going to LV development at all…this is pre-Musk mind you. Had it been a boost-back program like Falcon, the EELV lobby, sub-orbital enthusiasts, etc. would probably have hated it too.
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Forgive me for my rudeness, but I don’t see why anyone should care. The SLS and SD-HLLVs have, in my opinion, faced the opposition that they deserve. Without presuming that the opposition hates spaceflight, NASA, or you, have you ever asked what values people might have that would lead them to opposing the SLS?
publiusr said:
Mars Sample Return looks to cost more than two SLS launches…for something you could put in a pup trailer.
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MSR being exorbitantly expensive does not justify the price tag of the SLS.
publiusr said:
SD-HLLV advocates still get more venom though.
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I suspect you’re taking things personally where they were never intended as such, but your advocacy gets more opposition because the SLS is seen as an ongoing failure, while MSR is a one-off.
publiusr said:
I want hydrolox infrastructure kept for its own sake—and for NTRs, high-energy missions to ice giants-etc.
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None of that requires the SLS, and the latter two don’t require hydrogen.
publiusr said:
Mars is crawling with bomb-disposal robots as it stands.
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And? If you want to see more investment into space, and more money going to your favorite ideas, you have to persuade people that it’s worth it in the first place. A large part of that means junking expensive, expendable systems; it will never make sense to deploy a factory, solar power satellite, habitat, or asteroid mining mission from the SLS. Caltech, Vast, AstroForge, Starlab, and Varda all chose SpaceX for a reason.
 
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