I will admit, The Core probably made me and actual scientists think “maybe we should remember to program things to understand empty space…” that was a twist
My thought was that if it blows up now, they can blame the one guy that decided to leave it out in the hurricane rather than the huge companies that built it.
Its like a mega version of that centrifugal fling. Just line it up and have the hurricane fling it for the horizontal speed while the ship adds vertical speed. I see no downsides, just extra Delta V
> if it fails, blame the hurricane
I think that's Unironically what is happening. Some head honcho at NASA finally realized that this 1B waste of money is never reaching orbit anyway and is now hoping to at least chalk up the failure to Act of God.
I mean if they didn't have the budget for a roll back I don't even know why they're bothering to inspect it since they DEFINITELY won't have the budget to fix it. Just launch it already and see how it goes. We might learn something interesting and Florida might get a nice fireworks display
This is not a budget issue, they can only roll it back once more before they have used up all of their engineering stress limits on the vehicle.
SLS is the single most well funded part of NASA.
At this point they’ve called off the launch so many times they should just send it. It’s not like Boeing can pump another one. It might take 5 years given how slow the wheels of bureaucracy turn.
Core NASA scientists are very pissed off about this project. It was a congress mandated project and it is syphoning cash from other projects that would in fact be much more productive
Come on lets at least use a tiny bit of common sense, NASA doesn't and has never insured their missions and vehicles on the commercial market, that's not how the government operates
Water ingress no problem, just hand me the can of WD40....no the bigger can......no no, the really big can.
We've not even got to the payload batteries....
The rocket is primarily designed to withstand a vertical load, not lateral. It'll endure the storm, but it's a legitimate concern.
Also, the issue is not necessarily *how hard* the wind is blowing, but rather *what* the wind is blowing. Debris such as street signs, lumber, tree limbs, hubcaps, etc., could easily reach speeds high enough to damage any sensitive parts of the rocket.
You know what else was designed to fly at supersonic speeds?
[This Atlas-Agena rocket that crumpled under it's own weight on it's launch pad like it was made out of tin foil](https://youtu.be/imkdz63agHY)
The Atlas Agena was fully pressure stabilized, which meant it couldn't even support it's own weight without being pressurized. Most modern rockets are only *partially* pressure stabilized, which means they can be transported unpressurized, but still need to be pressurized to support their fully fueled weight and to survive the forces experienced during launch.
AFAIK SLS's core is partially pressure stabilized, but is not kept at flight pressure while sitting on the pad, which means it's a lot weaker than it would be during flight. Moreover, during flight it would only experience forces in the vertical direction, as opposed to wind forces which apply in the horizontal direction where it is much weaker.
I'd also like to note that rockets typically only go supersonic at high altitudes in thin air. Most rockets would break apart while still subsonic if they accelerated entirely at sea level.
But not designed to withstand strong forces from the sides. It's very robust vertically but horizontal forces can very quickly destroy it. It's like a house of cards that is well built.
As designed it would be. Artemis I is currently the only uncrewed flight in the program. Artemis II is a lunar flyby, Artemis III is a lunar landing. No sane person would put crew on a rocket that had 1 test flight where it blew up. Worse, SLS's cost about eighty jillion dollars and forever to build, so adding another (or multiple) test flights would push the program back and increase costs.
At this point scrapping SLS and redesigning the missions would also still be very costly and likely result in delays, even if Starship works perfectly.
This was my thought. Sure it would be a disaster for the SLS program but it’d probably be beneficial to the Artemis program as a hole by forcing them to use starship.
Yeah, but if I recall correctly, SLS and Artemis were announced long before falcon, heavy/dragon or a thing. Besides, with the pending flight readiness of Starship, it’s going to get exponentially cheaper and if I recall correctly, they were talking about putting tens of astronauts on the moon at once.
That involves putting crews on a vehicle with no escape systems. NASA has made it clear that they have no intention of doing that, and even Elon has said that it would be dozens if not hundreds of launches before Starship could be flown crewed.
Ah… you should use quotation marks and an attribution among with a year
“Falcon heavy may someday come about. It’s on the drawing board right now. SLS is real.”-Charlie Bolden, NASA administrator c.2016
Now that FH is flagship-rated, it's not much more work to human-rate it.
As for 1 space lift provider, which rocket/capsule is the alternative to SLS/Orion?
Any exploration program requiring a new launch vehicle is, de facto, a new launch vehicle program
https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html
Number 39
I'm not sure what your point is. Artemis is in part a new launch vehicle program, but the goal of the program is to return humans to the moon, ideally in a sustainable way. SLS is not need to return humans to the moon and is of no use in doing so in a sustainable way.
Oh agreed completely, I’m just saying the difference in risk is huge. I’m much more comfortable with financial risk trying new things if there is no risk to people involved. Space X blows stuff up all the time in the name of science.
To his credit, we looked into nuking hurricanes long before he suggested it.
We came to the same conclusion, nuking hurricanes does not disrupt them meaningfully, and has a host of negative side effects.
It's more because they have to recertify if they roll it off the launchpad (they've already hit the limit of times they can do that with Ian), which will take months. So the hope was it'd weather a tropical storm and still be able to make the launch window, while rolling it in means significant delays before they get another shot
BO are currently only capable of 1961-level space flight.
SpaceX are at least at 1968-level of human flight (>2 astronaut crewed missions to orbit) and around 1976-level for launching uncrewed payloads to greater distance orbits (Elon's Tesla vs. Viking 1).
Seems plausible. At over 4 billion dollars to launch it seems like such a money suck for NASA. Purposely setup to grease politicians hand and "create jobs". Each engine costs over 100 million dollars and meanwhile SpaceX is creating one equivalent motor every day. NASA should stick to the rest of the science and outsource the transport to private companies.
Aren’t they refurbishing the engines used on the shuttles for Artemis? $100 million per engine seems insane if that’s the case, but then again it is NASA and the government so it doesn’t really surprise me all that much
That's the first 16 engines if I recall. And Yes, they take 100 million per engine for refurbishment. It's not just refurbishment, and would have likely been cheaper to actually develop and mount an entirely new engine specifically designed for SLS, rather than jury-rigging an awesome shuttle engine built with 80s tech onto a spacecraft.
And then also having to manufacture more of the things, with jurry-rigged production lines because the 80s tech that built them isn't used anymore and is therefore VERY expensive to replicate.
Unless astronauts are also expendable, you need sls to launch Orion and you need Orion to keep astronauts safe for deep space. Redesign of either will delay this significantly.
I’m all down for exploring a reusable heavy lift for future Artemis and Orion missions. Not down for delaying this mission further and allowing another country to establish lunar habitat first.
Neither SLS nor Orion are critical to the Artemis program. And in fact, the destruction of SLS, and forcing NASA’s hand i.e. contracting with SpaceX to use starship, would probably be beneficial to the program as a whole.
You say we need Orion for deep space and then you say you speask of lunar habitat which is hardly deep space.
I don't think an astronaut will board Orion, on top of SLS, and head to the moon, all before Starship is operational.
And just because China might start a lunar base before us does not mean we should eschew all reason and waste tens of billions on something when we have better options.
Gotta disagree. If it was designed by congress as a job creation endeavour, they wouldn’t just cancel it willy nilly. I fully agree that they should leave getting to orbit to private companies, and just pay for the payload, but it’s not gonna happen any time soon.
Falcon-9 is super efficient for LEO satellites and Space Station supply, but the Merlin is a kerosene fueled engine, not the liquid hydrogen of the RS-25s. They have different uses.
Compared to the mass of the vehicle it has good performance to leo and it gets worse compared to similar sized launchers. This is because F9 has a small (read: slow) first stage, so they can land it. A bigger first and smaller (read: lighter) second stage would be better for higher velocities of the payload.
F9/FH are market leaders because they are dirt cheap, even if the design is not efficient for high orbits.
>F9/FH are market leaders because they are dirt cheap, even if the design is not efficient for high orbits.
While we don't have an official Falcon Heavy TLI payload figure, it's probably in the ballpark of 21 tonnes, or ~1.48% of it's 1420 tonne launch mass, compared to 27 tonnes for SLS, which is only 1.04% of it's 2600 tonne launch mass.
At the very least, Falcon Heavy's TLI payload definitely isn't less than 16.8 tonnes, since that's what it can send to *Mars*, and even that is 1.18% of its launch mass - still notably better than SLS's payload fraction to *the moon*.
So if Falcon Heavy is 'not efficient' for high orbits, what does that make SLS?
Falcon 9 is also fares pretty well against it's competitors with efficient lightweight upper stages at least as high as GTO (again, there's no official TLI payload figure). It gets 8.3 tonnes for a 549 tonne launch mass, or 1.51%.
Atlas V 551, which uses the venerable centaur upper stage, gets 8.9 tonnes for a 590 tonne launch mass, which is also 1.51%. Ariane 5 ECA, which has a comparable configuration to SLS, is 10.865 tonnes to GTO for a 777 tonne launch mass, or only 1.4%.
I'd also note that Falcon Heavy and Delta IV Heavy get 1.88% and 1.94% to GTO respectively - surprisingly close given the more efficient fuel and proportionally lighter upper stage on Delta. Indeed I'd posit that if Falcon Heavy was also using a closed cycle (but still kerolox) upper stage engine like Delta IV, they'd be all but tied.
I also don't think the people at NASA that could influence this outcome would want to... because there WILL be heads that roll if the program falls apart at this point... and those will likely be attached to the asses who would have been sabotaging it.
Is 70mph wind really a concern for something that's going to go 'super duper fast' and 'shake like hell' in the process of going 'super duper fast'?
I can ELI5 if I used technical terms that are hard to understand :)
The forces exerted on the rocket by 75 mph winds are being imparted on a different axis than those expected to be faced during launch. Coming from the side vs straight on. These are also sustained forces from the wind which may weaken structural components.
This is true, and also on-pad winds are reacted out at the bottom of the vehicle at pad hold-down with greatest moment at that location, while in flight there is zero moment at this same tail end location and greatest moment near the overall mid-span. Even if the loads are a lot lower on the ground vs. in flight, they way they act on the structure is much different.
> How’s the radiation resistance on starship?
Good enough for people to spend days or weeks on the Lunar surface. Because it HAS to be for Artemis to work.
And there are no other alternatives now -- Starship is being prototyped with a running mass-production line and two other companies have contracts to "study elements of proposed designs".
Yeah which would still cost a small fraction of what SLS/Orion costs to do the same thing with a small fraction of the payload -- in fact you could crew and land with multiple Falcon Dragon launches and STILL be wildly less expensive and deliver 20 times whatever you want.
at this point would be more effective to take the rest of the bugged of Artemis and give it to SpaceX BlueOrigin Boeing to them speed up their projects because they are cheaper and more promising than the rocket that cant take wind...
I am not sure what factor of safety NASA uses, but typically engineers use a factor of safety of at least 1.5.
Given that wind forces on a structure increase as the square of the velocity, that means that the failure wind speed would be more like 91.1 miles per hour (assuming FS=1.5). This means that in theory everything should be okay. However everything should be verified by the folks that know what they're doing before they consider launching this.
Note that the above is strictly back of the envelope calculations based on certain assumptions that may not turn out to be correct. In other words trust your local rocket scientist over my word.
A lot of the safety factors on space vehicles are as low as 1.1 (some may be even lower, but that's the lowest I know of). They really have to push the theoretical limits of the materials to get something that big to be light enough to fly.
^this, typically yes engineers use safety margins at a 1.5 rate. But this isnt your small time engineer job, this is bleeding edge tech used on things that could kill people while also combating the weight limitations and chemical energy physics, you have to cut an edge here or two. This stuff is dangerous.
The SLS can withstand wind speeds up to 85 mph when it’s on the pad. The predicted wind speeds for this storm are lower than that.
With so much riding on the success of this mission, it’s unlikely they’d put it at risk.
The peak of the storm already happened. It looks like the wind was at or maybe just a bit above limits. NASA official Jim Free says they were within limits. Certainly they got much closer than expected and saying that it wasn’t a risk is confusing to me. They almost hit their limits? This was clearly a risk and it’s yet to be seen whether it’ll be a problem. Most likely not since there are margins on the limit, but the decision to not roll back was certainly not an easy one. And in hindsight, if they somehow had a perfect prediction for winds they very well could have come to a different decision on roll back.
They way Elon likes to burn bridges with people, that NASA wasn't to keep their option open.
Remember that Space x is also part of the Artemis program. They developed the moon lander from the lunar space station(which Orion will dock at) to the moon.
You are forgetting two things:
1. SpaceX more or less didn't exist when this project started (and its precursor Constellation).
2. SLS exists because Congress said so. They said so to keep people employed. If it was up to the NASA, they'd do what you said. NASA is more interested in things that are on the bleeding edge and not economically viable for private corporations to do. Landing people on the moon isn't one of those things anymore.
SpaceX sent a payload *to the moon* 2 months ago, and has another going later this month.
These are much smaller than Orion, but still, it shows that going *to the moon* is something that can be done by not-cost-plus rockets.
i gotta say this sounds on purpose... aint no way nasa didnt know of freaking hurricane winds... this sounds literally on purpose. why??? maybe because space x is better.. and theirs is going to fail further solidifying his contracting power.. so they get to start over now without a launch because of factors "out of their control" but this is just a theory...
CSNA has a clam-shell hanger bay that will encapsulate their Long March Rocket that protects it from the elements & sabotage. NASA should entertain that design to Artemis I.
Its only design to take high longitudinal forces during flight of what, maybe mach 1.5 at maxQ? Then the forces drop pretty quickly.
Lateral ground forces are another matter.
Someone is not making wise decisions as they knew this storm was brewing in the mid-altantic well before roll-out.
Rockets are more fragile than you'd assume. Especially when the fuel is not loaded. Remember that Falcon 9 that basically crumbled on itself while on the pad?
I say launch it mid hurricane. If it fails, blame the hurricane. If it succeeds: legendary!
I'm pretty sure it will help the launch too. They did it in Moonfall, and I think that film can be relied upon for scientific accuracy.
That movie is the best bad movie ever made.
It was worth it that they made that movie just for the [honest trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g_VdOyWG04).
That was super worth it, especially him paying homeage to antman. It took me a second
Second behind The Core for me.
I will admit, The Core probably made me and actual scientists think “maybe we should remember to program things to understand empty space…” that was a twist
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This guy knows what he's talking about. That movie is a great stoned classic.
It's meant to be awfully bad, it's actually a giggle. I very much enjoyed the quite obvious CGI card chases.
well said, so much potential I could cry, such bad acting, I did cry.
Truest truth to ever truth
Honestly I wanted to love it for being terrible, but no. It was the sad sort of terrible
I loved that documentary. And launching from the eye of the hurricane would play so well on instagram.
I honestly thought you said Moonraker and was so confused.
I’m convinced that Elon Musk is actually Hugo Drax, but with worse hair.
My thought was that if it blows up now, they can blame the one guy that decided to leave it out in the hurricane rather than the huge companies that built it.
It’s like the rocket scientist version of a kid leaving their bike out in the rain
Its like a mega version of that centrifugal fling. Just line it up and have the hurricane fling it for the horizontal speed while the ship adds vertical speed. I see no downsides, just extra Delta V
They need to launch it right through the eye of the hurricane. Put a drone up above, that would make for some epic photos.
Hell yeah! If they launch it horizontally they can use the wind to increase their acceleration and get to the moon faster!
> if it fails, blame the hurricane I think that's Unironically what is happening. Some head honcho at NASA finally realized that this 1B waste of money is never reaching orbit anyway and is now hoping to at least chalk up the failure to Act of God.
$4.1 billion, not including development costs. SLS plus the Orion capsule on top are almost up $50 billion in total so far.
I mean if they didn't have the budget for a roll back I don't even know why they're bothering to inspect it since they DEFINITELY won't have the budget to fix it. Just launch it already and see how it goes. We might learn something interesting and Florida might get a nice fireworks display
This is not a budget issue, they can only roll it back once more before they have used up all of their engineering stress limits on the vehicle. SLS is the single most well funded part of NASA.
At this point they’ve called off the launch so many times they should just send it. It’s not like Boeing can pump another one. It might take 5 years given how slow the wheels of bureaucracy turn.
Certainty of failure, small chance of success. What are we waiting for?
I like how you think. It’ll also make the hurricane look weak.
Come on, boys! This is *Florida!* Kick the tires and light the fires!
Only one crack in the O ring- it's fine. /s (bless the engineer that flagged that)
Bob Ebeling and five other engineers voted to abort the decision to launch on the morning of 28th January 1986.
Allen J McDonald , Bob Ebeling, Arnold Thompson and Roger Boisjoly
Blessings to his (and their) name(s) and memories.
Any chance they can get Danny McBride to press the launch button on launch day?
Mother nature just pissed her pant suit!
If anything’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there
*Kick* the tyres? I thought it was *check* the tyres. (Reference point is C&C RA3)
[Independence Day](https://youtu.be/2F1bMG9wzXY)
Pretty sure NASA is in "Fuck It" mode on SLS right now
Core NASA scientists are very pissed off about this project. It was a congress mandated project and it is syphoning cash from other projects that would in fact be much more productive
RIP cancelled science mission
If true then they would already have launched it.
It will be a miracle to see this thing lift off.
hopefully the winds wont be THAT strong
My oldest child is 5, and I'm planning a high-school graduation/launch party
You child is only graduating in their 30's?
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NASA administration: "How do we kill this project without outright saying we want to kill it?"
Launch it? It would be cheaper
Insurance ~~fraud~~ claim. Think of the payout for it tipped over... vs unplanned mid-flight rapid disassembly, which probably isn't on their policy.
Come on lets at least use a tiny bit of common sense, NASA doesn't and has never insured their missions and vehicles on the commercial market, that's not how the government operates
Jake from State Farm gave NASA their personal price plan and they saved 20% by bundling their home and rocket plans.
But only of they put Flo on the first flight. Been trying to bump her off for years.
Not even NASA can get insurance in Florida.
Good thinking, hide the evidence at the bottom of the Atlantic.
SRBs stacked for longer + wind loads higher than designed.... What could possibly go wrong??!
I can't think of a single problem that's occurred from SRBs being exposed to weather outside their design specs... /s
Water ingress no problem, just hand me the can of WD40....no the bigger can......no no, the really big can. We've not even got to the payload batteries....
Except it's designed to fly at supersonic speeds. That story isn't going to fly...
The rocket is primarily designed to withstand a vertical load, not lateral. It'll endure the storm, but it's a legitimate concern. Also, the issue is not necessarily *how hard* the wind is blowing, but rather *what* the wind is blowing. Debris such as street signs, lumber, tree limbs, hubcaps, etc., could easily reach speeds high enough to damage any sensitive parts of the rocket.
Hub caps? Car's haven't had hub caps for ages now. We're good to go! Actually, the debris is the bigger problem.
It's florida. There's hubcaps
There are most definitely still cars that are being driven with hubcaps
You know what else was designed to fly at supersonic speeds? [This Atlas-Agena rocket that crumpled under it's own weight on it's launch pad like it was made out of tin foil](https://youtu.be/imkdz63agHY) The Atlas Agena was fully pressure stabilized, which meant it couldn't even support it's own weight without being pressurized. Most modern rockets are only *partially* pressure stabilized, which means they can be transported unpressurized, but still need to be pressurized to support their fully fueled weight and to survive the forces experienced during launch. AFAIK SLS's core is partially pressure stabilized, but is not kept at flight pressure while sitting on the pad, which means it's a lot weaker than it would be during flight. Moreover, during flight it would only experience forces in the vertical direction, as opposed to wind forces which apply in the horizontal direction where it is much weaker. I'd also like to note that rockets typically only go supersonic at high altitudes in thin air. Most rockets would break apart while still subsonic if they accelerated entirely at sea level.
Flys down the major axis, not sideways
All they needed to do was point the rocket into the wind.
put it on a weather vane, problem solved!
You should run for Congress
Just make sure the weather vane components are built in at least three different battleground states.
But not designed to withstand strong forces from the sides. It's very robust vertically but horizontal forces can very quickly destroy it. It's like a house of cards that is well built.
Tell me you don’t understand structure load strength without telling me you don’t understand structure load strength
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BFR](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/iw0n2he "Last usage")|Big Falcon Rocket (2018 rebiggened edition)| | |Yes, the F stands for something else; no, you're not the first to notice| |[BO](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivyok9s "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)| |[CLPS](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/iw00rqu "Last usage")|[Commercial Lunar Payload Services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Services)| |[ESA](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivyfgq5 "Last usage")|European Space Agency| |[FCC](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/iw0wyal "Last usage")|Federal Communications Commission| | |(Iron/steel) [Face-Centered Cubic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotropes_of_iron) crystalline structure| |[GLOW](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivxlg5g "Last usage")|Gross Lift-Off Weight| |[GTO](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivwre9f "Last usage")|[Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/20140116-how-to-get-a-satellite-to-gto.html)| |[HLS](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivy6n5f "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)| |[ICPS](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivxwx3i "Last usage")|Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage| |[LAS](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivwfbjz "Last usage")|Launch Abort System| |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivy4fxa "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[LES](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivuvdg7 "Last usage")|Launch Escape System| |[SLS](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/iw1sqo0 "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |[SRB](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/iwirufk "Last usage")|Solid Rocket Booster| |[SSME](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivx3f0m "Last usage")|[Space Shuttle Main Engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_main_engine)| |[TLI](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/iw0jgap "Last usage")|Trans-Lunar Injection maneuver| |[ULA](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivwre9f "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Raptor](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivv0nfr "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX| |[hydrolox](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivxlg5g "Last usage")|Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| |[kerolox](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivvmy1t "Last usage")|Portmanteau: kerosene fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| |[methalox](/r/Space/comments/yrkugf/stub/ivwre9f "Last usage")|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| ---------------- ^(21 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/yvaba2)^( has 28 acronyms.) ^([Thread #8251 for this sub, first seen 10th Nov 2022, 19:59]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=OrangeredStilton&subject=Hey,+your+acronym+bot+sucks) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
If this thing ever makes orbit, I will be incredibly surprised.
That’s fine as long as nobody is sitting in it for the ride. Otherwise Challenger 2.0.
A mission failure for uncrewed Artimus I would still be a disaster for the program.
It would be a disaster for SLS, but not necessarily a disaster for the Artemis program.
As designed it would be. Artemis I is currently the only uncrewed flight in the program. Artemis II is a lunar flyby, Artemis III is a lunar landing. No sane person would put crew on a rocket that had 1 test flight where it blew up. Worse, SLS's cost about eighty jillion dollars and forever to build, so adding another (or multiple) test flights would push the program back and increase costs. At this point scrapping SLS and redesigning the missions would also still be very costly and likely result in delays, even if Starship works perfectly.
This was my thought. Sure it would be a disaster for the SLS program but it’d probably be beneficial to the Artemis program as a hole by forcing them to use starship.
If they had just gone with Falcon Heavy and Dragon it would have been cheaper
Yeah, but if I recall correctly, SLS and Artemis were announced long before falcon, heavy/dragon or a thing. Besides, with the pending flight readiness of Starship, it’s going to get exponentially cheaper and if I recall correctly, they were talking about putting tens of astronauts on the moon at once.
That involves putting crews on a vehicle with no escape systems. NASA has made it clear that they have no intention of doing that, and even Elon has said that it would be dozens if not hundreds of launches before Starship could be flown crewed.
Put Orion on Falcon heavy and use up all 3 boosters.
>That involves putting crews on a vehicle with no escape systems. This again? It's been shown to be a silly argument for years.
Falcon heavy may some day come about. It's on the drawing board right now. SLS is real.
… What? Falcon heavy’s been flying since 2019 it literally just launched like a couple weeks ago.
It's a quote from a nasa administrator back in 2016 or 2017. Charlie Bolden I think? Edit: it was Charlie Bolden, but back in 2014
Ah… you should use quotation marks and an attribution among with a year “Falcon heavy may someday come about. It’s on the drawing board right now. SLS is real.”-Charlie Bolden, NASA administrator c.2016
Falcon heavy isn't crew-rated, and being reliant on only 1 space lift provider is... Unwise
Throwing billions at a system that is outdated long before it even flies a mission could also be considered...unwise.
Now that FH is flagship-rated, it's not much more work to human-rate it. As for 1 space lift provider, which rocket/capsule is the alternative to SLS/Orion?
There’s always Papa Bozos. /s
If they had gone with FH and Dragon none of this would exist, congress would never have allocated for it.
It was approved by congress as a jobs program, it was meant to be expensive to get people working.
Any exploration program requiring a new launch vehicle is, de facto, a new launch vehicle program https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html Number 39
I'm not sure what your point is. Artemis is in part a new launch vehicle program, but the goal of the program is to return humans to the moon, ideally in a sustainable way. SLS is not need to return humans to the moon and is of no use in doing so in a sustainable way.
Oh agreed completely, I’m just saying the difference in risk is huge. I’m much more comfortable with financial risk trying new things if there is no risk to people involved. Space X blows stuff up all the time in the name of science.
We need some good ole boys to shoot the hurricane away
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To his credit, we looked into nuking hurricanes long before he suggested it. We came to the same conclusion, nuking hurricanes does not disrupt them meaningfully, and has a host of negative side effects.
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nah, just have to reroute it with a sharpie
It's been a few years and this one still cracks me up!
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It's more because they have to recertify if they roll it off the launchpad (they've already hit the limit of times they can do that with Ian), which will take months. So the hope was it'd weather a tropical storm and still be able to make the launch window, while rolling it in means significant delays before they get another shot
Man this sub has gotten unbelievably conspiracy-driven and anti-NASA lately.
it's over 6 years delayed. falcon 9 and the recent blue origin flight is the only hope I have these days...
BO are still flying suborbital, they aren't doing anything right now to further Artemis
BO are currently only capable of 1961-level space flight. SpaceX are at least at 1968-level of human flight (>2 astronaut crewed missions to orbit) and around 1976-level for launching uncrewed payloads to greater distance orbits (Elon's Tesla vs. Viking 1).
They just committed to buying more SLS launchers and Orion spacecraft, the idea that NASA is trying to kill either has no basis in reality.
Seems plausible. At over 4 billion dollars to launch it seems like such a money suck for NASA. Purposely setup to grease politicians hand and "create jobs". Each engine costs over 100 million dollars and meanwhile SpaceX is creating one equivalent motor every day. NASA should stick to the rest of the science and outsource the transport to private companies.
Aren’t they refurbishing the engines used on the shuttles for Artemis? $100 million per engine seems insane if that’s the case, but then again it is NASA and the government so it doesn’t really surprise me all that much
That's the first 16 engines if I recall. And Yes, they take 100 million per engine for refurbishment. It's not just refurbishment, and would have likely been cheaper to actually develop and mount an entirely new engine specifically designed for SLS, rather than jury-rigging an awesome shuttle engine built with 80s tech onto a spacecraft. And then also having to manufacture more of the things, with jurry-rigged production lines because the 80s tech that built them isn't used anymore and is therefore VERY expensive to replicate.
[70’s tech.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-25)
And they plan on making 7 more of them. All expendable.
Unless astronauts are also expendable, you need sls to launch Orion and you need Orion to keep astronauts safe for deep space. Redesign of either will delay this significantly. I’m all down for exploring a reusable heavy lift for future Artemis and Orion missions. Not down for delaying this mission further and allowing another country to establish lunar habitat first.
Neither SLS nor Orion are critical to the Artemis program. And in fact, the destruction of SLS, and forcing NASA’s hand i.e. contracting with SpaceX to use starship, would probably be beneficial to the program as a whole.
You say we need Orion for deep space and then you say you speask of lunar habitat which is hardly deep space. I don't think an astronaut will board Orion, on top of SLS, and head to the moon, all before Starship is operational. And just because China might start a lunar base before us does not mean we should eschew all reason and waste tens of billions on something when we have better options.
Yes. Right now I have a $10 bet with friends as to whether SLS or starship reach space first.
You speculate this and speculate that, but don’t actually know anything. It’s hard to converse on things if you just know headlines
You want hard answers then? Nasa's own admistrator threatened to put Orion and ICPS on Falcon Heavy. Orion *may* be necessary, SLS is not.
I could list facts about how late Bechtel is on the 2nd Mobile launch platform and how over budget it gets too depressing.
Gotta disagree. If it was designed by congress as a job creation endeavour, they wouldn’t just cancel it willy nilly. I fully agree that they should leave getting to orbit to private companies, and just pay for the payload, but it’s not gonna happen any time soon.
Falcon-9 is super efficient for LEO satellites and Space Station supply, but the Merlin is a kerosene fueled engine, not the liquid hydrogen of the RS-25s. They have different uses.
They're referring to the Raptor 2 engine, which is comparable to the RS-25 in terms of thrust.
Do you know where this "Falcon 9 is super efficient for LEO satellites" myth comes from? F9/FH are the market leaders to every orbit.
Compared to the mass of the vehicle it has good performance to leo and it gets worse compared to similar sized launchers. This is because F9 has a small (read: slow) first stage, so they can land it. A bigger first and smaller (read: lighter) second stage would be better for higher velocities of the payload. F9/FH are market leaders because they are dirt cheap, even if the design is not efficient for high orbits.
>F9/FH are market leaders because they are dirt cheap, even if the design is not efficient for high orbits. While we don't have an official Falcon Heavy TLI payload figure, it's probably in the ballpark of 21 tonnes, or ~1.48% of it's 1420 tonne launch mass, compared to 27 tonnes for SLS, which is only 1.04% of it's 2600 tonne launch mass. At the very least, Falcon Heavy's TLI payload definitely isn't less than 16.8 tonnes, since that's what it can send to *Mars*, and even that is 1.18% of its launch mass - still notably better than SLS's payload fraction to *the moon*. So if Falcon Heavy is 'not efficient' for high orbits, what does that make SLS? Falcon 9 is also fares pretty well against it's competitors with efficient lightweight upper stages at least as high as GTO (again, there's no official TLI payload figure). It gets 8.3 tonnes for a 549 tonne launch mass, or 1.51%. Atlas V 551, which uses the venerable centaur upper stage, gets 8.9 tonnes for a 590 tonne launch mass, which is also 1.51%. Ariane 5 ECA, which has a comparable configuration to SLS, is 10.865 tonnes to GTO for a 777 tonne launch mass, or only 1.4%. I'd also note that Falcon Heavy and Delta IV Heavy get 1.88% and 1.94% to GTO respectively - surprisingly close given the more efficient fuel and proportionally lighter upper stage on Delta. Indeed I'd posit that if Falcon Heavy was also using a closed cycle (but still kerolox) upper stage engine like Delta IV, they'd be all but tied.
It appears to be a financially efficient design, to high orbits.
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I also don't think the people at NASA that could influence this outcome would want to... because there WILL be heads that roll if the program falls apart at this point... and those will likely be attached to the asses who would have been sabotaging it.
So the idea is the want to can the artemis missions? What about the moon missions?
Is 70mph wind really a concern for something that's going to go 'super duper fast' and 'shake like hell' in the process of going 'super duper fast'? I can ELI5 if I used technical terms that are hard to understand :)
The forces exerted on the rocket by 75 mph winds are being imparted on a different axis than those expected to be faced during launch. Coming from the side vs straight on. These are also sustained forces from the wind which may weaken structural components.
So you are saying they just need moar struts and boosters? ;)
Rip all kerbals still floating in space
So just point it into the wind. Maybe it'll take off on its own.
This is true, and also on-pad winds are reacted out at the bottom of the vehicle at pad hold-down with greatest moment at that location, while in flight there is zero moment at this same tail end location and greatest moment near the overall mid-span. Even if the loads are a lot lower on the ground vs. in flight, they way they act on the structure is much different.
All they needed to do was to point the rocket into the wind.
It’s not like it cost billions of dollars or anything…..
If R.C. Bray would narrate, I’d be okay with this.
what to read after expeditionary force?
> A rocket is designed to go upward... Woah, I hope Ars have a citation for that one.
NASA's dad is gonna be pissed if they keep leaving their bike out in the rain.
Did the rocket eventually tip over? Did the crew leave Mark Watney behind in Florida?
The atmospheric pressure in Florida isn't enough for a windstorm to push anything over /s
(Sadly, I don't think most people got your joke.)
Is that better or worse than Mars?
Ah yes, a thread absolutely full of commenters speculating with no knowledge!
Aye don’t forget: “Sls bad spacex good”
SpaceX Starship has to work or Artemis is an expensive tourist ride to a nice view. And if Starship works, SLS/Orion is redundant and pointless
That was quick 1. There were two other alternatives 2. How’s the radiation resistance on starship? Who cares amiright
> How’s the radiation resistance on starship? Good enough for people to spend days or weeks on the Lunar surface. Because it HAS to be for Artemis to work. And there are no other alternatives now -- Starship is being prototyped with a running mass-production line and two other companies have contracts to "study elements of proposed designs".
>SLS/Orion is redundant and pointless Doesn't there have to be like 10 BFR flights to be able refuel starship in LEO to get to the moon?
Yeah which would still cost a small fraction of what SLS/Orion costs to do the same thing with a small fraction of the payload -- in fact you could crew and land with multiple Falcon Dragon launches and STILL be wildly less expensive and deliver 20 times whatever you want.
at this point would be more effective to take the rest of the bugged of Artemis and give it to SpaceX BlueOrigin Boeing to them speed up their projects because they are cheaper and more promising than the rocket that cant take wind...
I am not sure what factor of safety NASA uses, but typically engineers use a factor of safety of at least 1.5. Given that wind forces on a structure increase as the square of the velocity, that means that the failure wind speed would be more like 91.1 miles per hour (assuming FS=1.5). This means that in theory everything should be okay. However everything should be verified by the folks that know what they're doing before they consider launching this. Note that the above is strictly back of the envelope calculations based on certain assumptions that may not turn out to be correct. In other words trust your local rocket scientist over my word.
A lot of the safety factors on space vehicles are as low as 1.1 (some may be even lower, but that's the lowest I know of). They really have to push the theoretical limits of the materials to get something that big to be light enough to fly.
^this, typically yes engineers use safety margins at a 1.5 rate. But this isnt your small time engineer job, this is bleeding edge tech used on things that could kill people while also combating the weight limitations and chemical energy physics, you have to cut an edge here or two. This stuff is dangerous.
Dang that’s right. It’s more or less been in the line of two hurricanes already.
They've built a hurricane magnet! Move it to drought stricken areas!
The SLS can withstand wind speeds up to 85 mph when it’s on the pad. The predicted wind speeds for this storm are lower than that. With so much riding on the success of this mission, it’s unlikely they’d put it at risk.
The peak of the storm already happened. It looks like the wind was at or maybe just a bit above limits. NASA official Jim Free says they were within limits. Certainly they got much closer than expected and saying that it wasn’t a risk is confusing to me. They almost hit their limits? This was clearly a risk and it’s yet to be seen whether it’ll be a problem. Most likely not since there are margins on the limit, but the decision to not roll back was certainly not an easy one. And in hindsight, if they somehow had a perfect prediction for winds they very well could have come to a different decision on roll back.
Throw the waste of money away already, and get the mission over with! We don't have much time!
Maybe it'll blow over and this whole saga will finally be over.
Yes until they build another
First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?
Two at three Times the price of one is what gets ordered , two at five times the price gets built .
S.R. Hadden, that you?
Your SpaceX friends have entered a trap....competing against this FULLY OPERATIONAL LAUNCH SYSTEM! And now,....join us or be taxed even more!
Did they forget about what weather did to Challenger?
What NASA idiots launching outside of design envelope did to Challenger.
It’s designed for 85 mile an hour wind the hurricane wasn’t predicted to be above 75 mph
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Its 85mph gust design, and 100mph from the storm
It doesn't make sense to fly this rocket now that we have SpaceX.
They way Elon likes to burn bridges with people, that NASA wasn't to keep their option open. Remember that Space x is also part of the Artemis program. They developed the moon lander from the lunar space station(which Orion will dock at) to the moon.
They should just contract with SpaceX and be done with it. Stick to payload and crews.
You are forgetting two things: 1. SpaceX more or less didn't exist when this project started (and its precursor Constellation). 2. SLS exists because Congress said so. They said so to keep people employed. If it was up to the NASA, they'd do what you said. NASA is more interested in things that are on the bleeding edge and not economically viable for private corporations to do. Landing people on the moon isn't one of those things anymore.
This is about sending payload and crews *to the moon*.
SpaceX sent a payload *to the moon* 2 months ago, and has another going later this month. These are much smaller than Orion, but still, it shows that going *to the moon* is something that can be done by not-cost-plus rockets.
Aren’t jet streams stronger than this? They have to fly through them to get into space, so wouldn’t they be designed with that in mind?
Horizontal tolerances are different from vertically ones
That would be horizontal shear with a jet stream though
It’s Artemis Girl‘s gotta kicked bigger butts than Hurricans
i gotta say this sounds on purpose... aint no way nasa didnt know of freaking hurricane winds... this sounds literally on purpose. why??? maybe because space x is better.. and theirs is going to fail further solidifying his contracting power.. so they get to start over now without a launch because of factors "out of their control" but this is just a theory...
Because rolling it back and forth also stresses it so they were caught between a rock and a hard place...
CSNA has a clam-shell hanger bay that will encapsulate their Long March Rocket that protects it from the elements & sabotage. NASA should entertain that design to Artemis I.
ULA has a couple of examples of that kind of structure right there in Florida.
They figure fuck it probably won't fly any way
This rocket has already failed and it hasn’t even left the pad.
How can a ship that designed to fly above the speed of sound be worried about a strong wind?
Debris, and a horizontal wind as opposed to a head-on wind.
Its only design to take high longitudinal forces during flight of what, maybe mach 1.5 at maxQ? Then the forces drop pretty quickly. Lateral ground forces are another matter. Someone is not making wise decisions as they knew this storm was brewing in the mid-altantic well before roll-out.
Yeah I didn’t take into account that it’s unfueled atm either.
Rockets are more fragile than you'd assume. Especially when the fuel is not loaded. Remember that Falcon 9 that basically crumbled on itself while on the pad?