Thursday, September 15, 2011

NASA Avoids Smelling Like Musk

  1. Congress cancelled funding for the previous NASA-planned heavy lifting rocket.
  2. NASA kept the Orion capsule from that system in their plans, but with no way to launch it.
  3. Elon Musk (SpaceX) has rockets that already work, and rockets in development that will be more than adequate for sending Orion capsules to Mars and beyond.
  4. NASA just announced plans for their next heavy lifting rocket (Space Launch System) which looks like a scaled shuttle booster system.
Liquid Hydrogen and liquid Oxygen may yield high amounts of thrust, but at significant cost - especially in a disposable system which must keep the two in liquid form. SpaceX can deliver as much thrust at far lower cost, and with fewer throw-away parts.

Given these factors, it's not really a surprise that NASA wants its own system, built and maintained by its traditional suppliers, is it? After all, they are a governmental agency. I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't someone from CERN advising them in this matter.

After all, this isn't rocket science, folks ... oh wait, it is rocket science. Frankly, rocket science is pretty darned simple, you know. So why do the rocket scientists seem to have such trouble with seeing how much their options cost? It's just simple arithmetic.

Posted by Procrustes 17

Related Posts:
Travels in Space and Time
The US Navy: Channeling Andre Norton
Occam and Lunatics
CERN's LHC Wants Your CPU Cycles
Slowly I CERN ... Step By Step ... Inch By Inch ...
Trying to disCERN the Truth

2 comments:

  1. NASA does not want this system, in fact it lobbied against the SLS, it delayed releasing it designs as long as possible in hopes that the senate change it mind. But Senators thinking they are space engineers and have written it into law that NASA has to developed a useless, over expensive, over complicated rocket to keep there campaign contributors happy. NASA bosses wants nothing to do with it. An are still trying to sabotage it, but leaking document showing internal costings for the programmes at 3 times the current costs.

    As soon as Falcon Heavy proves itself, and soon after SpaceX will undoubtedly announce a SHLV 130 tons + vehicle, probably before the end of 2013 beginning of 2014, the noise to cancel the SLS will be deafening and hopefully the senators will have no choice but to cancel this wasteful programme and just use the Falcon heavy and a theoretical Falcon 10 SHLV.

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  2. I can only hope that you're correct, Mr Knowles. The continued domination of science by politics in this an other fields is a frustration to those of us who are interested in a cool consideration of hypotheses in the light of empirical fact.

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