Audit finds SLS unlikely to launch in 2018
A NASA audit has found that it is unlikely that the first SLS test flight will take place as scheduled in 2018, and that the first manned flight is also likely to be delayed from its 2021 launch target.
“NASA’s first exploration missions — EM-1 and EM-2 — face multiple challenges that will likely delay their launch,” the report states. The missions “are not likely to launch by 2018 or 2021, respectively,” it continues.
When might a crew launch? Hard to say.
The report says incomplete NASA information makes it “more difficult for both the agency and external stakeholders to gain a full understanding of the costs of that mission or to assess the validity of the agency’s launch date assumptions.”
If the first manned flight happens in 2023, as now expected, it means that it will occur 20 years after George Bush first proposed the Crew Exploration Vehicle (Orion) and the heavy lift rocket to put it into space. The total cost to fly this one mission will be approximately $43 billion.
Let me repeat that: $43 billion and 20 years to fly a single manned mission. Does no one in government see something wrong with this picture?
Posted from the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
A NASA audit has found that it is unlikely that the first SLS test flight will take place as scheduled in 2018, and that the first manned flight is also likely to be delayed from its 2021 launch target.
“NASA’s first exploration missions — EM-1 and EM-2 — face multiple challenges that will likely delay their launch,” the report states. The missions “are not likely to launch by 2018 or 2021, respectively,” it continues.
When might a crew launch? Hard to say.
The report says incomplete NASA information makes it “more difficult for both the agency and external stakeholders to gain a full understanding of the costs of that mission or to assess the validity of the agency’s launch date assumptions.”
If the first manned flight happens in 2023, as now expected, it means that it will occur 20 years after George Bush first proposed the Crew Exploration Vehicle (Orion) and the heavy lift rocket to put it into space. The total cost to fly this one mission will be approximately $43 billion.
Let me repeat that: $43 billion and 20 years to fly a single manned mission. Does no one in government see something wrong with this picture?
Posted from the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
This right here is why I can’t for the life of me figure out why the gentleman took issue with your paper on commercial vs. government run space flight.
I know rockets aren’t legos, but how the heck it has taken them 20 years to reconfigure pieces of an already developed launch system is beyond me.
“This right here is why I can’t for the life of me figure out why the gentleman took issue with your paper on commercial vs. government run space flight.”
The gentleman, “Scott Pace”, is part of the Beltway academic space culture that is fed straight out of grants from the federal government. He took over from John Logsdon, in a Space Policy chair, IIRC. This position, and physical proximity to the people that control the money, makes one very skeptic that the system of delivering that money will ever be disrupted.
Yet, that is what will be happening eventually. Scott naturally finds it hard to believe his Patrons will go from Big Frogs in a Small Pond, to little amphibians being hunted by fast moving fishy predators through the estuary of a river that leads down to the sea. All that has to happen for that to take place is for several commercial companies to burst through the walls of the small NASA Pond, giving us all access to the river. Tadpoles are still in denial.
“I know rockets aren’t legos, but how the heck it has taken them 20 years to reconfigure pieces of an already developed launch system is beyond me.”
It would stretch on forever if the committee chairs had their way, as long as it keeps feeding people in their districts, so that those voters have no incentive to donate to primary challengers come the next election. Primary challenges are the bane of professional politicians. Even when they win the primary, their chances of losing the general election go way up.
This is why it often takes a war to make progress. Sad!
Juan wrote: “how the heck it has taken them 20 years to reconfigure pieces of an already developed launch system is beyond me.”
I think that Congress is not committed to their project. Many (such as Tom Billings, above) believe that SLS and Orion have devolved into jobs programs that make Congress feel good and spread jobs to various congressional districts. If true, then Congress is squandering the talent, skills, and knowledge at NASA and several contractors at the expense of our progress in space exploration and expansion. Either way, research into how space can make our lives on Earth better is delayed by the delays in exploring the possibilities of space.
A secondary problem is the White House. Bush’s Constellation project would probably have already flown people around the Moon, by now, had Obama not killed it, and money would already be being spent developing a lunar lander. I suspect that Trump is trying to not further delay NASA’s manned flight program by messing up what NASA already has, as Obama did.
There are others who are truly committed to exploring and expanding into space. Private companies and organizations such as SpaceX, the Planetary Society, and Mars One (if Mars One is serious) are committed to Mars. Other companies and organizations seem committed to return to the Moon. Privately designed rockets are proposed to perform either or both missions. For the past decade, Bigelow Aerospace has tested, on-orbit, relatively inexpensive space habitats, and these could be employed for either or both missions as well as for privately owned space stations or even space tourist destinations. I believe that all of these organizations are more likely to reach their goals earlier than any government program can.
“A secondary problem is the White House. Bush’s Constellation project would probably have already flown people around the Moon, by now, had Obama not killed it, and money would already be being spent developing a lunar lander.”
No, and no!
Had Constellation continued, the first flight of Ares 1 / Orion wouldn’t have been until 2019, and that was only if the Shuttle retired in 2010 and the Space Station splashed in early 2016 (neither event happened then). Ares 1 / Orion needed the Shuttle and Station budget just to meet 2019, during which it would fly a test flight. Then those programs would have paused (without the Station, there would have been no where for an Orion to go), and Ares V would have received the bulk of the funding in order to be ready for a test flight by 2028.
Then Ares V would have paused, and funding for the Altair lander and the Earth Departure Stage would have received priority. All of that would have been done for the first all-up test flight of the Constellation system in 2035.
That was the Constellation program as it actually existed. Don’t mistake it for a budgetary fantasy where NASA gets billions more in free money every year to speed it up.
mkent
You wrote: “That was the Constellation program as it actually existed. Don’t mistake it for a budgetary fantasy”
I will defer to your timeline. I was going on the original “return to the Moon no later than 2020” goal, and did not find a more reality-based (historical) timeline for Constellation. Reality (read: “politics” or “budget”) always gets in the way of the original intent (read: “fantasy”). It seems that reality was especially harsh for Constellation.
“$43b over 20 years with nothing to show for it?”
Taxpayer: “Disgusting!”
Politician: “Happy times are here again!”
Scientist getting the pork: “Justified.”
Scientist out in the cold: “I’m a taxpayer, damn it!”