Comments on: GAO predicts more delays and cost increases in NASA’s big projects

By: Edward

Edward — Sun, 06 May 2018 21:54:35 +0000

Localfluff wrote: “Orion makes no sense, should be canceled. SLS has come so far so it will probably fly to save face.”

Likewise, it could be that Orion also flies just to save face. SpaceX’s Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) and Blue Origin’s New Armstrong are likely to make SLS obsolete, and at the rate its schedule is slipping, SLS may not launch before the BFR.

It is too bad that Congress has NASA spending so much money working on expensive hardware that have no mission. It would have been so much better for them to set a mission so that NASA could design the hardware to match. Instead we have hardware in search of a mission — or even a single useful task. The money misspent on these projects could have gone toward more innovative projects.

The Europa probe could be launched on other existing rockets, meaning that using SLS is not a particularly useful task for that rocket. Thus, the Europa project is only another excuse for continuing the wasteful expenditure on SLS, and if we amortize the SLS development cost (relative to the planned EM-1 non-productive manned flight) into the cost of the Europa project, that would make it the most expensive probe we have ever built or will build for decades to come.

By: wodun

wodun — Fri, 04 May 2018 08:36:40 +0000

I suspect we will see some major changes to the LOP-G concept. NASA just did an RFP for Earth to Lunar surface payload services. This seems to be about rovers but direct flights points to the possibility of similar trips for humans, meaning the LOP-G is bypassed.

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2018/04/commercial-luna-1.html

By: Localfluff

Localfluff — Thu, 03 May 2018 19:04:37 +0000

Orion makes no sense, should be canceled. SLS has come so far so it will probably fly to save face. If it were put to good use as an uncrewed launcher it could be worth its price. Like Mars sample return, Skylab sized space station segments to replace the ISS, astronaut shelter and equipment to the Moon’s surface, an Europa probe, an 8 meter telescope mirror.