How the Artemis 1 Rocket is made a good example of the US and Europe building in cooperation together.

Trueturning · Sep 4, 2022

Freedommachine said:
Company I work for is the same way. They get paid cost plus and contract hours charged determines cost.

If a process is refined to reduce man hours the company loses money. They have no incentive to innovate what so ever. They have one customer and zero competition.

I have heard of large companies who waste time and expend resources. I have also seen in real life the competitiveness of companies and their contracts with the space program and have seen whole neighborhoods cleared out due to NASA changing contractors. Just the. Cutbacks in the Space program alone foster this.

I want to understand what you are referring to in your last paragraph. I have noticed that when commitment is very high tha the money and resources are highly available from whatever resource. They tend to support that where spin-off tech and money is to be made if for any other reason that the program pays off.

There is tremendous pressure on contractors to deliver otherwise they are cut loose or cut back and under pressure. It clears the way for new blood.

Thanks,
TT

Doug I missed the site for the PBS report would you please post it again and I will look it over. I just want to understand what the evaluation is about well. Thank you.
Just trying to understand

DDoug · Sep 4, 2022

Might have been Nova, Might have been Washington week in review.

DDoug · Sep 6, 2022

Gee, 30 billion for a one shot to the moon....

Gee, reusable, and stacked payloads:

Starlink

SpaceX is developing a low latency, broadband internet system to meet the needs of consumers across the globe. Enabled by a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites, Starlink will provide fast, reliable internet to populations with little or no connectivity, including those in rural...

www.starlink.com

"work smarter, not harder".
and no taxpayers were harmed in the implementation.

jaguar36 · Sep 6, 2022

Being able to reuse the spacecraft is not a new concept that SpaceX invented. The space shuttle was reusable. Nor is all of the Falcon 9 able to be reused, only the first stage is reused.
They could have made the solid rocket boosters on the SLS reusable pretty easily, however they are just simple tubes filled with fuel. The capture and refurbishment costs would have outweighed the benefits. The core stage with its expensive engines would be very valuable to reuse, however making it capable of landing and recovery would add alot of extra weight (reducing the SLS's payload capability) and alot of cost to the whole program. The Core stage of the SLS goes an order of magnitude faster than the first stage of the Falcon 9.

The SLS costs so much per launch because it has so few launches to amortize the cost over and because NASA imposed an extremely high requirement set and kept changing them during development, not because it isn't reusable.

mkd · Sep 6, 2022

BITD, I worked for a company making a set of the space shuttle's solid rocket fuel mandrels (or core plugs if you like casting terminology). Among other parts.
Pretty cool how we spent billions to find out how not to plug a hydrogen leak, on this latest boondoggle

mkd · Sep 6, 2022

cancelled!!!!

DDoug · Sep 6, 2022

jaguar36 said:
Being able to reuse the spacecraft is not a new concept that SpaceX invented. The space shuttle was reusable. Nor is all of the Falcon 9 able to be reused, only the first stage is reused.
They could have made the solid rocket boosters on the SLS reusable pretty easily, however they are just simple tubes filled with fuel. The capture and refurbishment costs would have outweighed the benefits. The core stage with its expensive engines would be very valuable to reuse, however making it capable of landing and recovery would add alot of extra weight (reducing the SLS's payload capability) and alot of cost to the whole program. The Core stage of the SLS goes an order of magnitude faster than the first stage of the Falcon 9.

The SLS costs so much per launch because it has so few launches to amortize the cost over and because NASA imposed an extremely high requirement set and kept changing them during development, not because it isn't reusable.

Either way, the cost is much lower.
Period, full stop.

Trueturning · Sep 22, 2022

Yes very good breakdown. Three launches yes this one is not reusing the solid boosters as the cost of doing so pays off in the long run of use. The Shuttle was a good example of where this was the case. No doubt something can be done yet then there is the cost. Leaks and other things do cause delays best to delay for sure.

DDoug · Sep 22, 2022

So this "breakthru" rocket is carrying dummies.....

We used to actually carry real people, to the moon, land there, brought a car to drive, and played golf there.

And then brought them all back home safely.

The dummies are the American taxpayers.

gustafson · Sep 22, 2022

DDoug said:
So this "breakthru" rocket is carrying dummies.....

We used to actually carry real people, to the moon, land there, brought a car to drive, and played golf there.

And then brought them all back home safely.

The dummies are the American taxpayers.

C'mon Doug, they did that the first try, right?

List of Apollo missions - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

How many unmanned test launches?

DDoug · Sep 25, 2022

gustafson said:
C'mon Doug, they did that the first try, right?

List of Apollo missions - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

How many unmanned test launches?

We did go beyond that point, with humans.
Instead of a mannequin, why don't you go up ?

No fears, it's been delayed yet again, must need to make more payments to the vendors.

They will milk this for all it's worth.

memphisjed · Nov 16, 2022

Just another example of second shift getting it done.
We like the moon.

MCritchley · Nov 16, 2022

DDoug said:
So this "breakthru" rocket is carrying dummies.....

We used to actually carry real people, to the moon, land there, brought a car to drive, and played golf there.

And then brought them all back home safely.

The dummies are the American taxpayers.

Doug your insulting everyone in manufacturing. with your dummy comment. I know that’s an old comment, but NASA nailed the launch.
You do realize the Apollo mission did an unmanned launch? I don’t think you can fathom the amount of engineering that went into building that rocket.
That launch was the biggest engineering win this country has had in a long time.
Would you rather NASA build a border wall with Mexico?

Do some research and look at the trickle down effects of NASA, we all reap the benefits.
I stayed up for the launch, and it was spectacular. Glad I helped pay for it.

Trueturning · Nov 16, 2022

Yes we like it sending people will make it something that people will keep up with. Regardless of the support being there or not for this part of the Space program or not that is human nature. If it were a drone then there is no humans at risk.

A good bit in the way of tech and jobs spin off from NASA. It is good the private sector plays such the critical role really. Space X and Blue Origin and others have been a great boom.

Now drones are taking the place of satellites and so the cost of those might likely go down. Maybe they will get more expensive. Who the heck knows for sure? This mission will complete about Dec. 15. Test run basically and the passenger capsule will be tested extensively. That is wise to protect lives-a necessity.

triumph406 · Nov 16, 2022

Before you all get hard when you think about SpaceX.

Do business with them, talk to other vendors who do business with them. Then you'll discover there a bunch of c****, starting from Musk all the way down. SoCal has lots of machine shops who despise SpaceX after doing business with them.

Doing business with NASA is a calkwalk compared to SpaceX.

With the exception of NASA Langley, their dickheads.

CalG · Nov 16, 2022

The ISS has been a very useful example of co-operative efforts for some time.
How quickly we forget which nation has been doing all the heavy lifting.

Politics are evil!

Trueturning · Nov 16, 2022

triumph406 said:
Before you all get hard when you think about SpaceX.

Do business with them, talk to other vendors who do business with them. Then you'll discover there a bunch of c****, starting from Musk all the way down. SoCal has lots of machine shops who despise SpaceX after doing business with them.

Doing business with NASA is a calkwalk compared to SpaceX.

With the exception of NASA Langley, their dickheads.

Trueturning · Nov 16, 2022

Well I guess Elon and that culture is challenging. I have hear say on that. I do know personally persons who work for him and they have no problems. I have no evidence on rumors.

This trade is no different if you have been exposed enough to it. SpaceX served its purpose and the truth is that there are difficult people there is not all that surprising.

triumph406 · Nov 16, 2022

Trueturning said:
Well I guess Elon and that culture is challenging. I have hear say on that. I do know personally persons who work for him and they have no problems. I have no evidence on rumors.

This trade is no different if you have been exposed enough to it. SpaceX served its purpose and the truth is that there are difficult people there is not all that surprising.

The Engineers who work at SpaceX for the most part respect Musk and his abilities.

It's Vendors who don't like SpaceX. The last place I worked will not release parts to SpaceX until the money is in the bank for instance

Trueturning · Nov 16, 2022

Vendors sometimes need to do a check on their attitude. They may want to stop doing business with a customer. It is a free country and even the customer can choose another shop to do business with.

How the Artemis 1 Rocket is made a good example of the US and Europe building in cooperation together.

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