SLS dress rehearsal begins, with press coverage limited by NASA
NASA today began the two-day-long “wet dress rehearsal” countdown of its first SLS rocket, with T-0 expected to occur at 2:40 pm (Eastern) on April 3rd.
The article at the link provides all the information you could want about this rocket, which is now about seven years behind schedule and having a cost so far about $25 billion. This quote however tells us much about the mentality at NASA:
But much of the test will happen without independent press coverage. NASA plans to provide sanctioned updates on the two-day dress rehearsal via the agency’s website and social media accounts, but news media representatives are not being permitted to listen to the countdown activities.
NASA has cited security and export control restrictions for the move. Numerous media representatives requested access to the SLS countdown audio for the wet dress rehearsal. Launch countdown audio feeds for other U.S. rockets, including those developed by private companies and hauling sensitive U.S. military satellites into orbit, are widely available to the news media and the public.
…NASA plans to release only text updates through the weekend. NASA TV will not be airing any live commentary for the final hours of the practice countdown. The agency’s television channel has previously provided live coverage of similar events, such as space shuttle tanking tests. [emphasis mine]
NASA reasons for not allowing anyone to listen to its audio feed — “security and export control restrictions” — is an utter lie. The real reason is that NASA fears the public’s reaction should anything not go exactly as planned. By blocking access to the audio feed, they can hide any faux pas.
NASA’s fear of course is misplaced. This is a test. No one will be surprised or outraged if it doesn’t go perfectly. Better to be open and up front than try to hide problems, because eventually those problems will be revealed and the cover-up will do far more harm to NASA’s reputation than the problems themselves.
The many new private rocket companies, SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Astra, Virgin Orbit, understand this, which is why they all make their primary countdown audio feeds available, though of course they almost certainly have secondary private feeds where engineers can speak more freely. Similarly, NASA did the same in the 1960s, and then during the entire shuttle program.
Now however “export control restrictions” and “security” requires them to be secretive? It is to laugh.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
NASA today began the two-day-long “wet dress rehearsal” countdown of its first SLS rocket, with T-0 expected to occur at 2:40 pm (Eastern) on April 3rd.
The article at the link provides all the information you could want about this rocket, which is now about seven years behind schedule and having a cost so far about $25 billion. This quote however tells us much about the mentality at NASA:
But much of the test will happen without independent press coverage. NASA plans to provide sanctioned updates on the two-day dress rehearsal via the agency’s website and social media accounts, but news media representatives are not being permitted to listen to the countdown activities.
NASA has cited security and export control restrictions for the move. Numerous media representatives requested access to the SLS countdown audio for the wet dress rehearsal. Launch countdown audio feeds for other U.S. rockets, including those developed by private companies and hauling sensitive U.S. military satellites into orbit, are widely available to the news media and the public.
…NASA plans to release only text updates through the weekend. NASA TV will not be airing any live commentary for the final hours of the practice countdown. The agency’s television channel has previously provided live coverage of similar events, such as space shuttle tanking tests. [emphasis mine]
NASA reasons for not allowing anyone to listen to its audio feed — “security and export control restrictions” — is an utter lie. The real reason is that NASA fears the public’s reaction should anything not go exactly as planned. By blocking access to the audio feed, they can hide any faux pas.
NASA’s fear of course is misplaced. This is a test. No one will be surprised or outraged if it doesn’t go perfectly. Better to be open and up front than try to hide problems, because eventually those problems will be revealed and the cover-up will do far more harm to NASA’s reputation than the problems themselves.
The many new private rocket companies, SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Astra, Virgin Orbit, understand this, which is why they all make their primary countdown audio feeds available, though of course they almost certainly have secondary private feeds where engineers can speak more freely. Similarly, NASA did the same in the 1960s, and then during the entire shuttle program.
Now however “export control restrictions” and “security” requires them to be secretive? It is to laugh.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
While I agree with you that NASA is passing a load of bull with “export controls” and such on this one, I have to disagree with you on the concept that everyone understands this is a test. The mass media is a ravenous cesspit these days. Just witness how they treat any kind of SpaceX mishap at Boca Chica. Now magnify that a thousand times as this is the big glorious NASA rocket. The potential views of an article headlined “SpaceX prototype fails to land” vs “NASA’s $50 billion super-rocket fails critical milestone” are probably around two orders of magnitude. And those mainstream readers will NOT understand that it’s just a test, and small to moderate issues are not unexpected.
David Eastman: I must ask then, why are the private companies not afraid of this bad press? Why especially is SpaceX not afraid of it, with its giant Starship/Superheavy rocket? I guarantee when SpaceX does that first orbital launch, it will be shown in a very open manner, warts and all. And the interest from the mainstream ignorant press will be as high, if not more so.
The issue here is that NASA is ruled by fear, fear of failure, fear of bad press, fear of everything. This is why it takes so long to build anything, and spends so much doing it. The secrecy now goes along with that fear.
Private companies can’t afford that fear. They must produce, and live with the risks that this demand brings them.
No organization likes bad press. Generally private companies are just as afraid of bad press as government agencies are. Spacex has made a business decision that the advantages of openness outweighs some bad press. Some other companies have taken the opposite approach.
There is another more charitable possible explanation for what NASA is doing, NASA works closely with Russia and may be affected by a lot of new polices put in place recently, They may not have the time or resources to quickly decide just what they can be allowed to show.
As for Zimmerman’s explanation, it makes sense also. SpaceX has enough fans and enough attention to overwhelm any momentary bad press. The same can be said for the more productive parts of NASA. If James Webb failed, the public would have memories of past triumph in the back of their minds. SLS/Orion has no such record to speak of. If there are major SANFUs in this event, the press would indeed say it is just a dress rehearsal. But it would do so in passing while dwelling on SLS’s sad record of failure. Better for the program to handle the pubic Soviet style. Give a polished PR version after the fact. After all, SLS is a Soviet style program and always has been. Ironically, the only thing that might make SLS worthwhile is the Artemis accords. Yet no one watching mainstream news will hear a peep about that.
SANFU:
A martial art practiced without martial arts: sans-fu.
Situation As Normal [Fouled] Up
And I thought that at NASA, spin control was the purview of the GNC …. not the PAO.
What’s next … are they going to hire Baghdad Bob (or his modern counterpart, Jen Psaki) for the latter position?
Cloudy, I think that denying the Russians information was a far more significant concern at the start of our space program … yet in stark contrast to the blanket of Soviet secrecy, we chose to report on our flights in real time, and did so without giving away the national-security store … for it illustrated the difference in governance between the two superpowers, for other nations to assess.
And I don’t think a failure of Webb, short of it being hit with an asteroid, will be viewed charitably … it will be seen as Hubble Fail 2.0, only a lot more expensive and beyond our reach to repair this time. SLS, as mismanaged as it has been by NASA’s risk-averse culture, at least evokes memories of the Saturns carrying us into space on their columns of fire.
Methinks NASA’s concern these days is less about the Russians, and more about the Congress and the voters who (allegedly) put them there.
I share fully in the scorn rightly directed at NASA about this decision, but let’s be honest—watching this test is about as exciting as watching (orange) paint dry.
Patrick Underwood: You point out another reason for being as transparent as possible. There are very few people really interested in listening to the whole thing, or interested in the boring engineering nuts and bolts of any snafus that occur during this dress rehearsal. Unless the whole thing blows up when filled with fuel, I doubt anything that happens will interest the mainstream press.
And if it does blow up, blocking access to the audio feed will not have made a damn bit of difference.
Seeing that only engineers will watch this justifies their stance. LM-9 designers are watching. Lay China figure this one out for themselves.
Robert commented: “The issue here is that NASA is ruled by fear, fear of failure, fear of bad press, fear of everything. This is why it takes so long to build anything, and spends so much doing it. The secrecy now goes along with that fear.”
I think the there is much merit to this thought, but some of the reasons may not be obvious.
When SpaceX was very publicly blowing up its rockets in attempts to land on a barge (now called an autonomous drone ship), it had another test article nearing readiness for launch. How many Falcon 9s was SpaceX manufacturinging in 2014 an 2015, as it was learning to land them? Losing one hardly mattered, because another one would be launched in a couple of months or so. Not only was failure an option, it was expected. How many boosters does it manufacture these days, with its current fleet of reused Falcon 9 boosters?
NASA, on the other hand, has only one SLS rocket, and the next one will not be ready for a couple of years. If this one does not work reasonably properly, then they have a two-year delay in beginning operational launches. Great care must be taken in order to assure success. Failure is not a viable option.
Another factor, closely related, is that SLS is not in a development phase, like the falcons were, but in a final phase for the beginning of operations. It is closer to being like Dragon in 2019, when one blew up on the test stand. That was bad for SpaceX and delayed operational capability for Dragon for a few months (although not for two years, as would happen to SLS, and thus Artemis).
Also compare a potential problem with SLS with the experience that Boeing is having with Starliner. They, too, are experiencing a two-year delay in operational capability.
What is the difference, and why doesn’t SpaceX fear the embarrassment of failure? (SpaceX even makes fun of its own failures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ 2-minutes of “How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster.”)
Answer: management.
1) SpaceX’s R&D is focused on failure recovery. This is a key in rapid development, as the rocket industry had already learned in the 1950s.
2) A culture of expecting failures during development work. Even the Saturn V engineers needed to find problems in order to fix them, so they were sorely disappointed when the first Saturn V test launch (Apollo 4) worked so well. They didn’t learn very much. It worked too well. Even though the next test launch (Apollo 6) successfully reached orbit, the Saturn V had enough problems during launch that the engineers finally learned several lessons, and they were happier. SpaceX, on the other hand, learns a whole lot on its development launches, and even on many of its operational launches. For years, the Falcons were being tweaked so much that almost every launch taught them something.
3) Expense: if NASA has a failure with SLS, after all it has spent, then it will get an earful from just about everyone. SpaceX was spending its own money (profit on the contract) and was not spending much of that. It blew up a Dragon, and all they got was a reaction similar to, “Whoa, does an astronaut really want to ride that to orbit?” Boeing is currently getting the same treatment, plus people are wondering whether it is about to lose money on its contract.
4) The specter of yet another 18-month congressional investigation. NASA lost two Shuttle crews, one Apollo crew, and almost lost a second Apollo crew, each of the four resulted in criticisms, and at least one of which resulted in premature program cancellation. This is a recent experience and may be a major source of fear and caution.
5) The loss of the “can-do” culture. Is anyone from the “can-do” days still at NASA? It has been lost at NASA, but it seems to be reincarnated at SpaceX. It may even be at Rocket Lab and perhaps a few other newspace companies.
So, yes, with the lost of “can-do” all NASA’s manned space program has left is fear of failure and fear of Congress. In the 1990s, when Congress balked at the cost of the proposed Mars mission, NASA failed to rework the mission into something affordable. There was no “can-do” even by then. When single stage to orbit test rockets failed, again in the 1990s, NASA dropped the concept and even the idea of a Shuttle replacement, so Columbia caught them
with their pants downunprepared for the next generation of manned launch vehicle.I don’t want to say that NASA has been a cluster Brandon, but its government masters have destroyed the manned space program, with Congress using it as a political tool rather than an exploration tool, and with Obama leaving NASA adrift ( http://www.houstonchronicle.com/nasa/adrift/1/ ) and in a state in which “Regrettably, strategic confusion currently abounds in the American civil space program.” — Paul Spudis, The Value of the Moon. The rocket scientists in Congress designed SLS for NASA, and now we know that there are no rocket scientists in Congress. Oh, wait:
6) The “rocket scientists” in Congress designed SLS, so how much confidence does NASA have in this rocket? https://lechatnoirboutique.com/proddetail.php?prod=FSRS
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