Space Launch System: The Hits Just Keep On Coming

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Yesterday, 2021-11-15, the NASA Office of the Inspector General issued a report, “NASA’s Management of the Artemis Missions” [PDF]. Here are two key paragraphs from the “What We Found” section.

NASA’s three initial Artemis missions, designed to culminate in a crewed lunar landing, face varying degrees of technical difficulties and delays heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic and weather events that will push launch schedules from months to years past the Agency’s current goals. With Artemis I mission elements now being integrated and tested at Kennedy Space Center, we estimate NASA will be ready to launch by summer 2022 rather than November 2021 as planned. Although Artemis II is scheduled to launch in late 2023, we project that it will be delayed until at least mid-2024 due to the mission’s reuse of Orion components from Artemis I. … Given the time needed to develop and fully test the HLS and new spacesuits, we project NASA will exceed its current timetable for landing humans on the Moon in late 2024 by several years.

In addition, NASA lacks a comprehensive and accurate cost estimate that accounts for all Artemis program costs. For FYs 2021 through 2025, the Agency uses a rough estimate for the first three missions that excludes $25 billion for key activities related to planned missions beyond Artemis III. When aggregating all relevant costs across mission directorates, NASA is projected to spend $93 billion on the Artemis effort up to FY 2025. We also project the current production and operations cost of a single SLS/Orion system at $4.1 billion per launch for Artemis I through IV, although the Agency’s ongoing initiatives aimed at increasing affordability seek to reduce that cost. Multiple factors contribute to the high cost of ESD programs, including the use of sole-source, cost-plus contracts; the inability to definitize key contract terms in a timely manner; and the fact that except for the Orion capsule, its subsystems, and the supporting launch facilities, all components are expendable and “single use” unlike emerging commercial space flight systems. Without capturing, accurately reporting, and reducing the cost of future SLS/Orion missions, the Agency will face significant challenges to sustaining its Artemis program in its current configuration.

So, according to the NASA Inspector General, each SLS/Orion launch will cost US$ 4.1 billion which is, however you calculate it, between two and three times the cost of a Saturn V/Apollo launch in inflation-adjusted dollars. And this is supposed to be the heart of a “sustainable” lunar exploration program.

By comparison, Elon Musk recently estimated the cost per launch for Starship as around US$ 2 million, with US$ 900,000 of that being the liquid methane and oxygen propellants consumed by the rockets. So, if Starship works as intended, its cost per launch will be two thousand times less than NASA’s Space Launch System. With on-orbit refueling (which will require multiple Starship launches), it will be able to deliver 150 tonnes to a trans-lunar trajectory, while the Block I version of SLS has a capacity of 27 tonnes and the most advanced planned derivative, Block 2, whose development is not expected to start before the “late 2020s”, will increase this to 46 tonnes, less than a third of Starship.

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Truly astonishing! And one wonders about the denizens of Congress, wasting time on transgendered bathrooms and such like instead of doing their job of setting direction & controlling the purse strings.

Economists sometimes talk about the “Sailing Ship Effect” – the best sailing ships ever built were launched while steam ships were rapidly improving and taking over the market for ocean transport. The desperate attempt of sailing ship designers & shipyards to keep up resulted in all kinds of innovations – too late, of course, to save the sailing ship.

NASA seems to have patented the “Reverse Sailing Ship” effect – throwing increasing sums of money at launch systems that are more expensive/worse than what they could accomplish half a century ago. while ignoring the orders-of-magnitude cheaper alternatives already in existence. Senate Launch System indeed!

Sadly, NASA is too emblematic of the declining West. Why are “We the People” tolerating this?

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The delays and cost overruns are even more “impressive” when you consider that this entire launch system is based upon Space Shuttle technology developed in the 1970s and, in fact, the first several SLS launches will use main engines and solid rocket booster segments which were manufactured and flew on the Shuttle. On SLS launches, they will be dropped into the ocean and discarded. The space shuttles now in museums have dummy mock-up engines so that the real engines could be removed to be flown, for the last time, on expendable SLS launches.

The main argument for a “shuttle-derived” launcher such as Ares V (cancelled, then re-incarnated as the less ambitious SLS) was that by using “off the shelf, proven” technology, development risk, time, and cost would be minimised.

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Any project is doomed by a budget too small – or too large for the task at hand. --Ron Montesano

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You’ll probably be startled to learn that Boeing, the Chicago-based financial speculation company that used to build great aircraft in Seattle, is the prime contractor for the Space Launch System overall and builder of the vehicle’s core stage.

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I think one of the last Qanon posts implied that the Biden Administration was Trump’s 5D chess move, managed by Military Intelligence under a special state of emergency or something, to push Clown World into such a state of absurdity that even the NPCs would find it impossible to get outraged at Trump being reelected and given a full bore mandate to restore the Constitution.

This is sort of what SLS reminds me of in contrast to SpaceX.

Of course, the big problem is, as pointed out by Scott Adams, both Trump AND Musk could be getting set up for assassination by Clown World:

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On 2023-11-30, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (I find it difficult not to giggle when pronouncing that name) issued a new report on NASA’s Artemis project, “NASA Artemis Programs: Crewed Moon Landing Faces Multiple Challenges”. Here are the “Fast Facts” from the report.

NASA is taking steps to return astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972—in a mission called Artemis III.

NASA and its contractors made progress since our last report on the Artemis missions, but they are still facing challenges with developing the lunar lander and space suits. For example, some flight tests have been delayed, which could affect the timing of subsequent tests. And a significant amount of complex work remains. As a result, we found that the lunar landing mission is unlikely to occur in 2025 as planned.

In the course of our work, NASA stated it was reviewing the schedule for developing the lunar lander.

The “Fast Facts” are about the only thing “fast” mentioned in the report. From “Highlights—What GAO Found”:

  • An ambitious schedule: The Human Landing System program is aiming to complete its development—from project start to launch—in 79 months, which is 13 months shorter than the average for NASA major projects. The complexity of human spaceflight suggests that it is unrealistic to expect the program to complete development more than a year faster than the average for NASA major projects, the majority of which are not human spaceflight projects. GAO found that if development took as long as the average for NASA major projects, the Artemis III mission would likely occur in early 2027.

  • Delays to key events: As of September 2023, the Human Landing System program had delayed eight of 13 key events by at least 6 months. Two of these events have been delayed to 2025—the year the lander is planned to launch. The delays were caused in part by the Orbital Flight Test, which was intended to demonstrate certain features of the launch vehicle and lander configuration in flight. The test was delayed by 7 months to April 2023. It was then terminated early when the vehicle deviated from its expected trajectory and began to tumble. Subsequent tests rely on successful completion of a second Orbital Flight Test.

  • A large volume of remaining work: SpaceX must complete a significant amount of complex technical work to support the Artemis III lunar landing mission, including developing the ability to store and transfer propellant while in orbit. A critical aspect of SpaceX’s plan for landing astronauts on the moon for Artemis III is launching multiple tankers that will transfer propellant to a depot in space before transferring that propellant to the human landing system. NASA documentation states that SpaceX has made limited progress maturing the technologies needed to support this aspect of its plan.

  • Design challenges: Axiom is leveraging many aspects of NASA’s prior work to develop modernized space suits, but significant work remains to resolve design challenges. For example, NASA’s original design did not provide the minimum amount of emergency life support needed for the Artemis III mission. As a result, Axiom representatives said they may redesign certain aspects of the space suit, which could delay its delivery for the mission.

Read the full report [PDF, 47 pages].

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When the George W. Bush administration launched the Constellation program in 2004, its stated goal was “return to the Moon no later than 2020”. After a Marx brothers series of cancellations, re-scopings, redesigns, commercial competitions, and renamings, if Artemis III manages to land on the Moon in 2027, that will be 23 years after the U.S. proclaimed its “return to the Moon” and seven years after the original goal for that milestone. Artemis, which on the NASA side uses the Space Launch System (SLS), which is cobbled together from 1970s era parts of the Space Shuttle (for its early launches, literally from leftover hardware, some removed from museums), stands in contrast to the Apollo program, which went from Kennedy’s “landing a man on the Moon” speech in May 1961 to Tranquillity Base in July 1969, a little more than eight years, during which entirely new spacecraft, launchers and their engines, and launch facilities had to be developed from scratch.

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On 2024-01-09 NASA held a media teleconference discussing “Upcoming Artemis Crew Missions”. This is an audio-only recording of the conference.

Here is an Ars Technica summary of the major announcements.

The new dates, according to NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free, are:

  • September 2025: Artemis II crew flight around the Moon and back in a free-return trajectory
  • September 2026: Artemis III crewed lunar landing, with two astronauts going down to the surface in SpaceX’s Starship lander
  • September 2028: Artemis IV crewed mission, first flight using upgraded version of Space Launch System rocket, lunar landing in Starship.

“We must be realistic,” Free said. “We’re looking at our Starship progress, and need for propellant transfer, the need for numerous landings. We’re looking at our spacesuits that we’re acquiring in a different manner than we’ve done before, and developing the new spacesuits as well. It’s an incredibly large challenge and a really big deal.”

The heat shield on the Orion capsule flown on the Artemis I mission did not behave as expected.

During Orion’s return through the atmosphere in Artemis I, some pieces of the charred heat shield were unexpectedly “liberated.” The heat shield has plenty of margin, but NASA has studied this extensively because it doesn’t want a piece of the heat shield slamming into the spacecraft and damaging it. Kshatriya said NASA spent 2023 assessing the problem from many angles and expects to identify a root cause this spring.

The Artemis III Moon landing mission faces other “challenges”.

Chief among the agency’s concerns is the development of Starship.

SpaceX must not only demonstrate the capability to fly the vehicle safely, the company must master the ability to transfer and store cryogenic fuel in orbit, so that a Starship can launch into orbit, be refueled, and then fly out to lunar orbit to rendezvous with Orion.

Before the Artemis III mission, SpaceX will likely fly dozens of Starship test flights; the campaign to fuel a Starship in orbit alone will take about 10 tanker flights, said Jessica Jensen, a senior engineer at the company. SpaceX must also demonstrate an uncrewed test landing on the Moon and an unprecedented launch of Starship from the lunar surface using cryogenic fuels—liquid oxygen and methane.

During the conference, pretty much every participant repeated the incantation “crew safety is our highest priority” as if it were burned in as some kind of brain macro. But, as Rand Simberg observed in his 2013 book, Safe Is Not an Option, if crew safety is your highest priority, then why fly? Certainly, sitting in the office, reading “studies”, and conducting “public outreach” events is safer than blasting off to the Moon in a billion dollar rocket made by Boeing.

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Why do my eyes keep reading ‘Orion’ as ‘Onion’? Perhaps presumption of the source?

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Could it be layers of fragrance (odor?). Reminds me of the old saw: “something’s rotten in Denmark”. (I will now search the etymology).

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This reminds me of an older engineer I worked with in the early 90s when safety became the “highest priority”. Safety was defined as zero loss time accidents. He proposed that we interlock the production machines with the door such that if anyone entered the factory all machines would emergency stop.

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