“This investigation began three months ago, the March 18 demand letter was carefully written with a purpose in mind…”

Duh. Build the biggest rocket in the world to keep constituents in certain states working, and build it with with ATK solid fueled boosters for the Utah delegation. No where in that spec does it say to spend the taxpayers money wisely, which is what NASA is trying to do.

You’ll notice that Congress doesn’t have the same goals, thus the “investigation”, which is really political theater of the absurd…

This investigation began three months ago, the March 18 demand letter was carefully written with a purpose in mind, and no, NASA will not have long to respond since the Agency has well understood since March 18th what it needs to do.

And the fewer launches of plutonium or enriched uranium the better.

Better for what? Politics, maybe. From a safety standpoint, the goal is to release as little radioactive material as possible in case of an accident, as such more launches with small amounts of fissile material are more desirable than fewer launches with larger payloads.

The larger the vehicle the more safety measures can be incorporated.

Non sequitur.

Sure, just like Japan’s reactors were all safe designs in an earthquake zone.

The catastrophic events in Japan were not a result of earthquake damage.
Not that that is even relevant, but bringing that up exposes you as kind of a dick.

And as for the SLS having no destination, the destination is the Moon.
You just do not like it.

Is it? Lunar orbit, maybe, which doesn’t really require a HLV of that class however. It can’t be the moon’s surface, since there is no funded project for a lander or surface hardware.

Dogpile me all you want. The foolish remarks and lack of critical thinking is exposing the real agenda here.

You had me ROTFL at “lack of critical thinking”.

The only agenda I’ve seen the folks here promote is that they want a US space program that works in the real world and leads to actual progress.

Since I think a robust US space program would be of benefit to humanity, I tend to agree with them, despite not being a US citizen.

I don’t know why you keep mentioning lunar water, since there is nothing special about it and if you are going to use lunar water you have even less to do with an HLV. Water lifted from the moon is water not lifted from Earth and propellant, water and other bulk materials are about the only affordable payloads that could be launched in the quantitites needed to keep an HLV occupied.

Either you believe you need an HLV to go to the moon, in which case you are ignorant, especially since people have pointed this out to you many times, or you are trying to fool people into believing that, in which case you are being dishonest.

And as an aside: Lagrange points are superior to lunar orbit as staging points and only slightly more expensive to reach from the moon.

Atomic bomb propulsion Martijn.

Which is why it is not friendly to LEO. It might be possible to detonate pulse units in an eccentric hi polar orbit and avoid fallout getting sucked into the magnetosphere and then into the atmosphere- but doing from the Moon is a better way to go considering the water is there for cosmic ray shielding.

“The larger the vehicle the more safety measures can be incorporated.”

Why not just stick the fissionables in a crew vehicle? If the rocket blows up, the crew vehicle returns to Earth and lands safely. No need for a BFR, just an off-the-shelf safe crew system. No need to over-engineer a solution.

Now if you disagree, please tell us what “more safety measures can be incorporated” in an HLV that can’t in a medium-heavy rocket like Atlas V or Falcon 9 with crew capsules?

“And as for the SLS having no destination, the destination is the Moon.
You just do not like it.”

Gary/Virgil, you could say Pluto is the destination and my reaction would be the same – where is the money from Congress? You hope & dream there will be a funded missions some day, but as of now the SLS does not have any funded missions to anywhere.

“The foolish remarks and lack of critical thinking is exposing the real agenda here.”

If you think that pointing out facts is foolish, then we as a civilization are not going anywhere. Hiding your head in the sand is not a solution. Ignoring reality is not a solution.

Your theories about the need for nuclear propulsion and the maximum number of rocket engines on a rocket are just that, theories. People disagree with you, including people that are real rocket scientists building real rockets, so who do we believe?

Critical thinking, in general, refers to higher-order thinking that questions assumptions. If you can’t stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen.

So what kind of nuclear propulsion are you talking about then? A nuclear salt-water rocket?

There is no reactor in the Nuclear Propulsion System I am talking about.

“Utterly false. All the reactors noted above launched without an HLV.
Don’t make stuff up.”

I did not say anything about reactors. You did.
I said fissionables. And the fewer launches of plutonium or enriched uranium the better. The larger the vehicle the more safety measures can be incorporated.

“It’s as “friendly” as any other location in the solar system.”

Sure, just like Japan’s reactors were all safe designs in an earthquake zone.

“Hawaii has been explored, we should move on.”

Obviously LEO is not Hawaii. Puh-lease.

And as for the SLS having no destination, the destination is the Moon.
You just do not like it.

Dogpile me all you want. The foolish remarks and lack of critical thinking is exposing the real agenda here.

“It’s got a date with Davy Jones in 2020”

I’ve pointed this out before, but notice how the things you predict don’t seem to happen?

Since the Russians have a significant amount invested in the ISS, and nothing to follow it, they stand to lose as much, if not more, with a 2020 end date for the ISS. They don’t have a manned space program without the ISS, and Bigelow won’t depend solely on them for their business, so the likelihood of them voting to end their participation in the ISS is pretty low.

I wonder what happened to the sidemount…. I wonder what some think when Coats says there is no budget for SLS/MPCV… I don’t know. Is Coats also against SLS/MPCV? Or is it the foolish nonsense of the pro-commercial cheerleaders? Just askin’

Whatever…