“In brief, the people who are resigned to an LEO-only manned space program…”

Like Rick Boozer said, I don’t know who those people are, and I’m not one of them either. Your emotions are blinding you.

“…the ones who want to build tourist hotels in LEO…”

For myself, I have advocated that tourism will be an outgrowth of our expansion and exploration, not a driver, and I don’t factor tourism into my calculations for how quickly we can expand and explore space.

Again, your emotions are blinding you to what people are saying.

“…are content with this country having no Heavy-Lift launcher….”

Yep, I’m content for now that we don’t have one. Why do we need one? You and others have shown a lack of need.

Where are the payloads that will launch on the SLS in the early 2020’s? You know, the NEED for the SLS?

Why do you avoid that question? You don’t even make uneducated guesses, which is REALLY telling. No one else does either, so that kind of confirms our suspicions about the SLS being a political jobs program, and not a response to a lack of heavy lift capability.

“…who want to see this nation commit to a serious Heavy-Lift rocket program ASAP.”

Here’s the thing we don’t understand – do you want a “Heavy-Lift rocket program”, or do you want to explore? There are plenty of studies that show we can start exploring sooner, for less money, without an HLV. Why don’t you support that approach?

That you don’t support that kind of approach tells us that you are only interested in the SLS because you deem it as “macho”, and all the “real men” have “Big Frickin Rockets” (BFR’s).

From my perspective you don’t care about exploration, you only care about big toys. What say you?

“are content with this country having no Heavy-Lift launcher.
BEO can be started NOW using existing launchers if money is NOT wasted on SLS, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have an HLV. Falcon Heavy will probably be ready long before the 70mt iteration of SLS and will cost the taxpayer nothing (since SpaceX is paying for FH development themselves) versus billions of dollars for SLS. The first iteration of FH will have 53 mt payload, but Raptor is being developed concurrently with FH. An FH with a Raptor engine upper stage would exceed 70mt and will probably come into being long before the 70mt version of SLS. If that occurs, what do you think is going to happen to SLS?

“The only thing that can be done is to refute his repeated misconceptions in case someone is checking out this blog for the first time…”

Yep, that’s about the only reason I respond – kind of like not letting a lie, lie. In their case I don’t believe ignorance is bliss, and in fact it can be very damaging for those that are, like you pointed out, looking to this blog for information.

In general there are quite a few people that post here whose perspectives I enjoy reading – and I don’t always agree with them either. I can’t comment on every post I like or don’t like, so I tend to focus on those that I view as chances to persuade or just to refute if they are misinformed.

My $0.02

“Hello! Before February/April of 2010, WE DID INDEED HAVE A BEO PAYLOAD TASK FOR A HEAVY-LIFT ROCKET.”

Chris, try and stay with the present day reality here. As of TODAY, is there a funded use for the SLS, or any programs working their way towards funding in Congress? No.

And even Constellation was a short-lived program, in that the funding plan was for a set amount of trips. Maybe that could have changed, but maybe not, and then where would the Ares V have been used?

“All this was totally unnecessary; and why Congress failed to actually veto Mr. Obama on this matter, totally boggles my mind!”

It boggles your mind because you don’t know anything about how our government works. Congress passes laws, and the PRESIDENT is the one that can veto, not Congress. No wonder your thinking is so screwed up.

“Both the Orion & Altair Lunar vehicles can be built with unmanned, automated variants”

That can still be done today, without the SLS. Maybe you didn’t hear, but the MPCV will be going up on a Delta IV Heavy for testing, and it could easily be mated up with an EDS for a trip to the Moon – all using Delta IV Heavy, and saving the U.S. Taxpayer $30B. What’s wrong with that?

“a large alternate payload could be launched into an LEO parking orbit, in the place of the EDS. So future Mars-going cargo or habitat modules, for manned missions, could have their genesis, somewhere down the road.”

Careful here. Once you open the door to missions that are built up out of multiple launches, the need for the SLS goes away.

“They’d [future LEO space stations] just go up all in one launch, over the course of one day. Instead of the piece-by-little-piece approach.”

So you would limit the size of future space stations to what fit on ONE SLS? You do realize that the SLS can only put 286,600 lbs to LEO, whereas the current ISS is 990,000 lbs? You have that completely backward – the SLS would limit us under your “rules” (i.e. no space assembly).

Bottom line though is that your answer to my November 19th, 2011 at 11:13 am question is NO, you can’t think of any short-term or long-term use for the SLS.

And judging by the lack of responses, no one is even trying to justify a need for the SLS. That proves our point.

http://history.nasa.gov/DPT/Architectures/Moon%20-%20L1-Moon%20Lander%20Design%20JSC%20DPT%20Nov%2001.pdf

Note Orion masses about the same as the lunar transfer vechile and has about the same amount of Delta V on board. LM also considered this idea:

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/data/assets/ssc/Orion/Toolkit/LMFarsideWhitepaperFinal.pdf

It isn’t because we can’t afford these. It is because you can’t afford a NASA owned HLV and develop these at the same time. It does not fit into the NASA budget. All you can do in 2021 is l1 missions and Orbit the moon. Both of which can be done cheaper and faster via EELV. If you want to land on the moon it will take at least 5-10 years to develop a lander which can’t happen on this budget until post 2021—-assuming the HLV is on time(which odds are NOT!).

There is an old saying: “Beware a 12-division strategy for a 10-division army”

For NASA of 1963 to build the Saturn V makes sense. There are no commercial launch companies in 1963 and it’s huge budget could afford to develop a capsule, lander, Saturn 1B and Saturn V while running the rest of Mercury and Gemini at the same time. There were lots of technical challenges like space walking and docking that had to be solved and the reliability of 60ies rockets is not too good. That along with the poor capcity of 1960ies rockets (only Saturn IB has a lot of payload to LEO but little to none to higher orbits—which is why it was retired in favor of the Titan III). Even then they considered it(a moon shoot could be done with about 3 Saturn 1B launches).

For NASA of any decade after 1990 and esp. after the shuttle shutdown to even attempt to build an HLV is foolish. They don’t have a 1960ies budget. They had to shut down lunar lander development long before CXP was canceled due to budget. We have launch companies that can now transport up to about 25MT to orbit and if needed these rockets can be evolved up to 130MT. We have mastered docking, on orbit assembly and space walking(compared to the 60ies).

Ever wonder why there were 7 sayluts but only 1 Skylab? It is because unlike the Saturn V, the Proton rocket has uses other than manned spaceflight. The Soviets use proton to launch other things and would never shut it down without replacement. If Skylab massed about 12MT or so then it would have been possible for Saturn 1B, Titan III or the Shuttle to carry Skylab B to Orbit. Oh by the way all these stations were manned after their first launch and the ISS was able to support a crew after 3 launches.

This is what commercialization brings to the manned space program. It frees NASA to concentrate on other more important things. A HLV that only does trips to the moon and maybe an oversized space station isn’t economical. NASA would pay the full bill of keeping this system going and even worse the current political system would hamper any attempt at becoming more economical.

A commercially owned rocket on the other hand has other users and would be built as economically as possible.

It is possible to land on the moon in as little as 25MT chucks.

because it turns out better. RGO