NASA derp derp derping away

[Manonthestreet]

I would happily accept a review of how NASA is performing its job. I’d be thrilled if lots of agencies got a good solid bit of oversight.

I’d also like to see NASA have some definitive mission goals and objectives like the days of yesteryear. Use this new moon project as the base for moving forward to manned missions to Mars. But make the goals clear and set some realistic deadline.

Thanks for making my point

 

[White 6]

Theyve only been working on it for 20 yrs

20 years! Damn, that's a pesky leak!

 

[BackAgain]

Thanks for making my point

If that was your point, happy to do so.

 

[BackAgain]

20 years! Damn, that's a pesky leak!

It could leave a stain on the launch pad.

 

[BackAgain]

Addendum:

The Moon is a jumping off point for Mars — Axios

NASA's vision of astronauts walking on Mars hinges on first getting them back to the Moon. Why it matters: NASA is planning to launch its first test flight of its new Moon rocket today, marking one of the agency's first major steps along a decades-long journey to Mars.

apple.news

First, the moon. Then, on to Mars. And maybe some asteroid mining to boot!

 

[22lcidw]

I would happily accept a review of how NASA is performing its job. I’d be thrilled if lots of agencies got a good solid bit of oversight.

I’d also like to see NASA have some definitive mission goals and objectives like the days of yesteryear. Use this new moon project as the base for moving forward to manned missions to Mars. But make the goals clear and set some realistic deadline.

It is time to move out from the confines of earth.

 

[fncceo]

I suspect they don't want to blow up the largest rocket ever built

That rocket, the Soviet N-1, already blew up. Back in 1972. In fact, the N-1 blew up and/or crashed four times before they finally gave up on it.

As for the "largest rocket ever built in America", that depends on how you look at it. Saturn V rocket is two feet taller without payload, SLS is one foot taller with payload, including escape tower (I suspect this was intentional).

SLS has 15% more thrust than the Saturn V (theoretically)... but the Saturn V had a lift capacity of 310,000 pounds to LEO, the SLS has only 49% of that capability 154,000 pounds to LEO ... making it significantly less efficient.

The cost of launching a Saturn V in today's dollars would be $1.25 Billion per launch (excluding payload and development costs). The SLS cost per launch is over $2 Billion per launch (also excluding payload and development costs).

NASA would have been better off going with the tried and tested Saturn V design than by reinventing a significantly less efficient wheel.

 

[BackAgain]

It is time to move out from the confines of earth.

I very much agree.

 

[fncceo]

I very much agree.

I used to agree ... But, today, I have to ask why? Also, the more specific, how?

Rocket technology is a non-starter. It can carry fewer than 7 humans at a time (only 6 in our current capability) and then only the low-earth orbit. We need different ships to go further.

There are no facilities to live there if we did go. There are no commercial opportunities that would serve as a reason to build facilities. The idea that a kernel of humans living off-world could be the start of a new expansion of humanity is laughable.

I'm afraid that humans will be a very earth-bound species for several centuries to come.

 

[White 6]

That rocket, the Soviet N-1, already blew up. Back in 1972. In fact, the N-1 blew up and/or crashed four times before they finally gave up on it.

As for the "largest rocket ever built in America", that depends on how you look at it. Saturn V rocket is two feet taller without payload, SLS is one foot taller with payload, including escape tower (I suspect this was intentional).

SLS has 15% more thrust than the Saturn V (theoretically)... but the Saturn V had a lift capacity of 310,000 pounds to LEO, the SLS has only 49% of that capability 154,000 pounds to LEO ... making it significantly less efficient.

The cost of launching a Saturn V in today's dollars would be $1.25 Billion per launch (excluding payload and development costs). The SLS cost per launch is over $2 Billion per launch (also excluding payload and development costs).

NASA would have been better off going with the tried and tested Saturn V design than by reinventing a significantly less efficient wheel.

Pretty interesting post, especially as you usually seem to usually be accurate with what you post as fact, and figure you are again factual this time.
Probably dumb question, but why not just rebuild another Saturn V, a proven performer?

 

[fncceo]

Pretty interesting post, especially as you usually seem to usually be accurate with what you post as fact, and figure you are again factual this time.
Probably dumb question, but why not just rebuild another Saturn V, a proven performer?

I suspect, because the two prime contractors of the Saturn V (North American Aviation and McDonald Douglas) have merged with other companies and the engineers who built that impressive rocket are long gone.

The SLS has been built and sitting around, ready for testing since 2016. I also suspect that many of the engineers who built it have gone off to other, more interesting projects with other contractors. So, they aren't around to help fix the problems in the rocket.

Our space program is really back where it was in 1961 with one notable exception. In 1961, NASA attracted the best and the brightest engineers in the country. Today, that is not the case.

 

[BackAgain]

I used to agree ... But, today, I have to ask why? Also, the more specific, how?

Rocket technology is a non-starter. It can carry fewer than 7 humans at a time (only 6 in our current capability) and then only the low-earth orbit. We need different ships to go further.

There are no facilities to live there if we did go. There are no commercial opportunities that would serve as a reason to build facilities. The idea that a kernel of humans living off-world could be the start of a new expansion of humanity is laughable.

I'm afraid that humans will be a very earth-bound species for several centuries to come.

My short answer is that we are basically — at present —putting all our eggs in one basket. It’s called Earth. We humans are the fragile eggs. Spreading the risk out might yet help humanity survive.

And I don’t know what future technology holds. Lots of science fiction is premised on current day scientific thinking. And some proposed future technology could yield generational ships for even interstellar flight. They could hold hundreds of individuals in theory.

Such long-term thinking (now) might be fanciful. But so was heavier than air flight at one point not that long ago.

Mining the asteroids could provide us with massive resources. Nothing comes cheap or easy. But, I love the prospects

 

[fncceo]

Spreading the risk out might yet help humanity survive.

I would agree if ... there were another basket, one not literally designed to kill us, and ... we were actually capable of putting a large enough sample of humanity somewhere other than Earth.

There is an interesting theory called The Toba Event that states approximately 70,000 years ago, a super-volcano in Indonesia, created a catastrophic cooling event that whittled the human population of The Earth to between 3,000 and 10,000 people. The minimum number required genetically to get us back to where we are now.

Every human alive today is descended from one of those survivors.

We don't have anywhere near the technology required to get 300 humans off planet, forget about 3,000. If we did, after a few centuries, they would bear little resemblance to present day humans. They would have to develop bodies adapted to low gravity, resistance to radiation, ability to live off a significantly less diverse food supply, etc.

It took 14 BILLION years of development in a very benevolent environment for us to develop into what we are today. We are literally born and bred to live on Earth. Every other place in The Universe wants to kill us.

 

[White 6]

I suspect, because the two prime contractors of the Saturn V (North American Aviation and McDonald Douglas) have merged with other companies and the engineers who built that impressive rocket are long gone.

The SLS has been built and sitting around, ready for testing since 2016. I also suspect that many of the engineers who built it have gone off to other, more interesting projects with other contractors. So, they aren't around to help fix the problems in the rocket.

Our space program is really back where it was in 1961 with one notable exception. In 1961, NASA attracted the best and the brightest engineers in the country. Today, that is not the case.

Hmmm. Possibly, but they still own the design and engineers and systems people are available that can understand and work with that designs, as well as contractors that can fabricate from designs tried and true. While you might need the absolute best design engineer to create the design, do you need the same, to build another one? To me, it seems there is a lot to be said for building something, you already know works. Obviously, I am no engineer, unless maybe talking about stair systems.

 

[fncceo]

Hmmm. Possibly, but they still own the design and engineers and systems people are available that can understand and work with that designs, as well as contractors that can fabricate from designs tried and true. While you might need the absolute best design engineer to create the design, do you need the same, to build another one? To me, it seems there is a lot to be said for building something, you already know works. Obviously, I am no engineer, unless maybe talking about stair systems.

There are also new technologies and materials, particularly in aerospace manufacturing, available to us today that weren't available to Von Braun and his team.

Although, the don't seem to have yielded a better ship. Just a different one.

The SLS rockets are the same design as The Space Shuttle, as is the concept of externally mounted solid rocket boosters.

There are a lot more engineers around today familiar with Space Shuttle technology than with Saturn V... I suspect they went with what they knew best.

 

[Manonthestreet]

20 years! Damn, that's a pesky leak!

Thats the whole program.....20 yrs ,,,,,,NASA is so bloated and lazy and woke it needs a damn good and deep housecleaning

 

[fncceo]

Thats the whole program.....20 yrs ,,,,,,NASA is so bloated and lazy and woke it needs a damn good and deep housecleaning

I think NASA just needs to go away, or be legislatively mandated to work on nothing but social justice issues as it has for the past 25 years.

JPL can remain as they are the only segment of NASA doing any real space work ... albeit only unmanned space work.

Unlike Betty White, NASA just doesn't get better with age...

 

[White 6]

Thats the whole program.....20 yrs ,,,,,,NASA is so bloated and lazy and woke it needs a damn good and deep housecleaning

Sounds like operating on a non-priority budget with extended timeframe.

 

[Manonthestreet]

MSN

www.msn.com

and its a 20 billion price tag...not 4-5

 

[fncceo]

MSN

www.msn.com

and its a 20 billion price tag...not 4-5

Not becoming. Has become. NASA, once the world's leader in manned space exploration, as of 2010, no longer has a manned space vehicle, and no longer has a manned space vehicle in the works.

NASA's primary job has become social justice and climate activism.