Second SLS flight delayed until 2023?
Government in action! The second flight of NASA’s SLS rocket, originally scheduled for around 2021 as the first manned mission, faces a possible delay of two years to 2023 so that it can be outfitted to launch the lander/orbiter planetary probe to Europa rather than flown manned.
The upper stage will be a new design that has never flown before. Thus, it has to be flown at least once unmanned to test it. Moreover, Congress in its most recent budget mandated that SLS be used for the Europa mission, probably in a team effort with NASA management to find a purpose for this missionless rocket that Congress has micromanaged from the beginning.
NASA has not officially decided to replace SLS’s original lunar manned mission for this second flight with the Europa mission, but I fully expect them to do so. They can’t fly the rocket with humans on it without first testing that upper stage engine at least once. Furthermore, the entire goal of SLS is not to fly missions but to employ people in Congressional districts. Delaying the first flight two years to outfit it for an unmanned planetary probe serves that absurd mission wonderfully.
The situation thus is that SLS will have a launch rate of once every five years, with a giant standing army of NASA and contractor employees paid during those years to do practically nothing while waiting for the next launch. While the article notes the high cost of building anything for SLS, it doesn’t explain that the reason things cost so much is that the government is slow-walking the construction of everything.
Note also that this means that Lockheed Martin will have an additional five years or so to finish its third Orion capsule. By that point the company will likely have spent about $20 billion, to build three capsules. Only a fool and a Congressman would consider this a good buy for the money.
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:
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Government in action! The second flight of NASA’s SLS rocket, originally scheduled for around 2021 as the first manned mission, faces a possible delay of two years to 2023 so that it can be outfitted to launch the lander/orbiter planetary probe to Europa rather than flown manned.
The upper stage will be a new design that has never flown before. Thus, it has to be flown at least once unmanned to test it. Moreover, Congress in its most recent budget mandated that SLS be used for the Europa mission, probably in a team effort with NASA management to find a purpose for this missionless rocket that Congress has micromanaged from the beginning.
NASA has not officially decided to replace SLS’s original lunar manned mission for this second flight with the Europa mission, but I fully expect them to do so. They can’t fly the rocket with humans on it without first testing that upper stage engine at least once. Furthermore, the entire goal of SLS is not to fly missions but to employ people in Congressional districts. Delaying the first flight two years to outfit it for an unmanned planetary probe serves that absurd mission wonderfully.
The situation thus is that SLS will have a launch rate of once every five years, with a giant standing army of NASA and contractor employees paid during those years to do practically nothing while waiting for the next launch. While the article notes the high cost of building anything for SLS, it doesn’t explain that the reason things cost so much is that the government is slow-walking the construction of everything.
Note also that this means that Lockheed Martin will have an additional five years or so to finish its third Orion capsule. By that point the company will likely have spent about $20 billion, to build three capsules. Only a fool and a Congressman would consider this a good buy for the money.
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.
You have something against the American Worker, Bob? SLS is all about Good Jobs At Good Wages.
Yay for launch delays extending the program to the right!
We need more diggers!
Then we’ll need more fillers!
Unemployment solved.
You’re Welcome,
The Federal Government
Charles,
At the risk that you were actually being sarcastic (as an engineer, I seem to be sarcasm-challenged), what we want is value for our money. If the scientists, engineers, and technicians working on SLS are not going to produce a rocket that provides a valuable service, then we might as well put them all on welfare — saving enough money either to buy other useful goods or services or to fund other welfare recipients. However, I would prefer that we direct these scientists, engineers, and technicians to space projects that would be beneficial.
If SLS costs more than it is worth, then SLS looks like Icepilot’s suggestion to dig and fill ditches; just makework that makes workers feel useful.
On a general note:
At least SLS now has a mission. But do we need a 70 tonne capability in order to explore Europa? We have sent missions to Jupiter and to Saturn with less capable launch vehicles.
Since the article says that the original intention was to use an Atlas V, this would suggest that the needed capability is only 18 tonnes. That is quite a difference. It seems that we are going to pay several billions of dollars for something that should cost 1/10 as much. Those are a lot of squandered space-bucks that could have funded plenty more science missions. We could have employed a bunch of people to do several productive science programs and the several rockets needed to launch them, rather than to build one larger-than-needed rocket.
The missions that we propose for SLS should need the capabilities of SLS. Presumably that is why Congress designed it for such capabilities. Otherwise we are squandering valuable resources, including the talents and expertise of our workforce.
I agree; we could have employed those people to dig ditches (with spoons — hat tip to Milton Freedman) and then to fill them in again.