Today we stand on the threshold of a new golden age of space exploration.
The first of three missions that will see humans return to the moon for the first time
in 5 decades.
The SLS, or Space Launch System, today rests on the stand, waiting to ignite its engines,
taking the Orion capsule on a journey around the moon.
This is an exciting launch for any true aerospace enthusiast, but legitimate questions about
the SLS have been raised.
Questions about its very existence.
In an era of innovation that has allowed the private space industry to drastically reduce
the costs of launch.
Why is NASA building its own, completely un-reusable, rocket?
Why has it cost so much money to manufacture?
And why does it exist at all?
The SLS is a massive rocket, building on not just the legacy of the Saturn program, but
the Space Shuttle Program.
Borrowing concepts and actual parts from each system.
The SLS consists of 2 solid rocket boosters.
Together they will produce more than 75 percent of the rocket’s thrust at launch, burning
five tonnes of propellant every 6 seconds and providing the equivalent thrust of 14
- 4 engined 747 jumbo jets…each.
[1]
These boosters are essentially the same boosters that flew on the Space Shuttle, in fact they
are using many leftover parts from the space shuttle program.
With some updated designs to the nozzle and an additional 5th booster segment, giving
this new generation booster 25% more fuel capacity over the Shuttles.
However, unlike the solid rocket boosters of the Space Shuttle, these boosters will
not be recovered and refurbished.
In an era where we can literally fly our boosters back to the ground, this seems like a strange
choice.
Why did NASA decide to go this route?
To understand that we have to look back in time.
Two programs were canceled in 2011.
The Space Shuttle program and the Constellation Program.
We are all familiar with the Space Shuttle Program, but the constellation program is
less known, due to the fact it only ever flew a prototype rocket.
The Ares prototype flew in 2009 and tested the Orion launch abort system.
If that name sounds familiar, that’s because Orion is the same spacecraft that will be
flying on top of the SLS.
The Orion spacecraft was originally designed for the constellation program before its cancellation
in 2011.
In fact, if we look at the final planned Ares rocket design, the Ares V, it bears a striking
resemblance to the SLS.
That’s no coincidence, just as parts from the Space Shuttle program were scavenged for
the SLS, designs and employees were taken from the Constellation program.
We see this pattern play out throughout the SLS’s design.
The giant orange insulation covered core stage, containing two gigantic propellant tanks holding
2 million liters of liquid hydrogen and 742 thousand liters of liquid oxygen, will be
feeding 4 RS-25 engines.
These engines are not only the same design used for the Space Shuttle, but they are literally
scavenged from previously flown Space Shuttles.
The four engines for Artemis 1 have these serial numbers, and from that we can track
their flight history.
These engines have a rich history within NASA, bringing components of the ISS to orbit and
flying astronauts to Hubble to repair and maintain it.
[1]
These are tried and tested engines that in theory would save NASA money, but oddly, the
SLS program's greatest criticism is its cost.
Running up a bill of 23 billion dollars.
When Barack Obama released the US government's budget in 2010, the constellation budget showed
all zeros.
The program was effectively canceled.
Obama’s vision for NASA’s future was for collaboration between commercial space partners
like SpaceX, while shifting NASA’s budget and focus to projects which were not commercially
viable.
[2]
A vision that is largely coming to fruition today.
So, if the Constellation program was canceled in 2010, how is this resurrected frankenstein's
monster standing on the pad today, ready to launch to the moon?
The answer.
Politics.
“This legislation will define NASA’s future by building on its past”
Obama’s cancellation of the Constellation program was met with criticism from politicians
from all over the United States.
The elevated costs of the program was partially by design.
NASA gains support in congress by spreading jobs all across the United States, ensuring
widespread support by the constituents of the politicians in each region.
When the constellation program was canceled it left thousands of people without work.
People were understandably upset.
This forced the Obama administration to back peddle, resulting in the NASA Authorisation
Act of 2010 being signed.
Providing NASA budget to both the commercial space launch industry, and in effect, brought
the constellation program back from the dead under a new name.
Artemis
The act even specified that NASA needed to reuse technology, contracts and workforce
from the constellation program.
[3]
And so, here we are, 12 years later, with the ghost of constellation flying to the moon,
itself a Frankenstein's monster of space shuttle components.
This is clearly not an efficient way of developing a rocket, canceling one over budget project
and then bringing it back a couple months later with added design restrictions.
That’s perfectly obvious to anyone and everyone involved.
It’s just how bureaucracy in a democratic system shakes out sometimes.
Could that money have been spent better elsewhere?
Absolutely.
Would it have been spent in NASA without the intentional cost inefficiencies?
Probably not.
This was a jobs program where we get an incredible rocket as the output.
The SLS, despite its inefficiencies, is undeniably cool.
The sound from solid rocket boosters is something I have dreamt of experiencing.
I don’t think anyone with an honest love of aerospace can look at this machine and
not be in awe.
It looks like someone asked midjourney to create a hybrid of the Saturn V and Space
Shuttle.
And perhaps that’s nostalgia for an era I was born too late to experience, but that
era took us to the moon.
I have a tattoo of Buzz Aldrin on the moon on my leg.
To say I’m excited is an understatement.
This machine, if all goes to plan, is going to take us back to the moon.
With the progress happening in the commercial space industry following hot on NASA’s heels,
we will have cheaper heavy lift rockets capable of taking us to the Moon and further, NASA
won’t need to funnel money into a project like this again.
Instead being able to focus on projects like the James Webb Telescope.
This is an exciting time in aerospace and human space flight after a lull of more than
50 years.
Times are changing.
This is a stepping stone to a permanent human habitat on the moon, and maybe someday, Mars.
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