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  #21  
Old 03-15-2019, 08:33 PM
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bernomatic bernomatic is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tbzep
Falcon Heavy will end up cheaper than Vulcan. I don't know if BFR will get into service anytime soon as a fully reusable rocket, but if it is only partially reusable, it will probably beat New Glenn. SLS will become irrelevant.


New Glenn is scheduled for 4 launches in 2021 from the info I've seen. The BFR is guestimated to be launched in 2027 or so. No where could I find anyone with any information on Blue Origin's New Armstrong, which, just going by B.O.'s naming philosophy, would be large enough to make a moon trip.

New Glenn will be the payload king until the BFR takes over, at least as planned now. Will New Glen be the King of Heavy Rockets

Another thing to consider about Blue Origin, until recently, they were not getting funding from the Feds. Their business model was more or less to self fund, using the near space joy rides and science experiments to create revenue. That model has changed somewhat lately I suspect with the adoption of the BE4 by ULA to power Vulcan. Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine Selected by ULA to Power Vulcan
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  #22  
Old 03-16-2019, 05:31 AM
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I had a college instructor that was around then. He told us about their idea of compact components.

Also said NASA engineers wasted a lot of money having custom resistors and capacitors made. We figured, since there is some variation in components, it would have been cheaper to hire a tech to find those parts out of a box. Also said that was how they saved money farming out the Mars rovers.
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  #23  
Old 03-28-2019, 12:15 AM
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Late to the party but NASA's own RAC-2 study done when the writing was on the wall that Ares I and the entire Constellation Program was soon going to be history showed that the most efficient and most flexible launch vehicle they could develop with the lowest recutting launch costs would be a large all-liquid serially staged three stage rocket with a large kerolox cluster first stage, a large hydrolox cluster second ascent stage, and a suitable in-space propulsion super lightweight hydrolox third stage... Any of this sounds familiar? Basically it called for a modernized Saturn V!

So why did we get SLS, which had MUCH higher per-flight costs, programmatic costs, and much less flexibility? Because the "thumb on the scale" was they CLAIMED that the shuttle derived solution was much cheaper and faster to develop... Using existing shuttle tech like SSME's and SRB's "as is" and only requiring "well understood and straightforward" modifications to things like the ET (and using pre-existing tooling) would make SLS much cheaper and faster to develop than a new all-liquid design. We know what an outright lie that was... Basically ALL the "preexisting" shuttle tech used on SLS had to be heavily if not completely redesigned, and the SLS is STILL a highly constrained design with limited growth options, and even the block 2 design will require BILLIONS of dollars and another decade of development to reach the pad... And growth options beyond that are pretty much nil.

It was a solution looking for a problem, but it checked all the right political boxes and got contracts to all the "usual suspects" among the old shuttle mafia contractors, so that's what we got...

Another thing that's patently obvious is, beyond the fact that we can either afford SLS, or we can afford PAYLOADS, *but not BOTH*, is that, barring a huge NASA funding increase (practically zero probability) we can either afford to keep running ISS, *OR* we can afford to do deep space missions, *NOT BOTH*! ISS has become every bit as much of an albatross around our necks as shuttle was-- it's a super expensive program that "sucks all the air out of the room" (funding wise) with no definite goal or purpose operating continually into the future with no defined end date in sight, and a huge politically motivated contingent lobbying for it (domestically and internationally). It costs NASA about $300-400 million a year and there simply is not sufficient funding to pursue BEO missions and continuing ISS operations at current US finding levels at the same time.

So someone will say, loudly, "but yeah, when they finish up SLS/Orion development, that'll free up money for hardware development and beyond Earth orbit missions!". This overlooks the HUGE "keep alive" costs associated with SLS and Orion and the infrastructure supporting it... During the post Challenger and post Columbia shuttle stand downs, just the SRB program "sustainment costs" (the cost just to maintain the capability to make them in the future, when though none were being flown at the time) was about $400 million or so a year! SLS/Orion will be similar, but much more.
It's not like a Chevy plant where you just shutter the plant for a few months and send everybody home on a furlough to wait by the phone for you to call them back in and start cranking them out again... The program itself costs almost as much to keep alive the capability whether you actually fly anything or not...

Later! OL J R
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