"desing-by-pork" ?
It means that the design of the Space Shuttle and SLS was driven by political considerations rather than engineering or technical. The SRBs and External Tanks of the Shuttle were specifically manufactured in Louisiana and (I think) Alabama so that the US senators and Congressmen who represented those states/districts would vote for the whole program, so that they could go to their constituents and say they brought high-paying jobs to them and get re-elected.
The damned queen and the relentless knight."Design-by-pork" is a term that I just coined, based on the term "design-by-committee". I'm referring to the process of creating the specifications for a project based on how much money it gives to contractors who provide jobs in the political districts of the legislators who are writing those specifications.
As just one example — I have to head out on errands so I'll keep it to the one — the reason why SLS uses the same solid rocket booster (SRB) design as the Shuttle is because Thiokol (now Northrop Grumman) already has manufacturing facilities for those boosters. If we were to switch to a different architecture, those facilities would sit idle and the workers would be out of jobs.
So it's not that the SRB design makes sense for this application but that it keeps Northrop happy, keeps Northrop's employees happy, and guarantees lots of sweet lobbying money coming into Congress.
Edit:
Edited by Fighteer on Dec 5th 2021 at 1:36:46 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"It's not just the US Congress that does this sort of thing. The EU has its own version and is struggling even harder than the US to adopt a commercial spaceflight model.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"ULA's STP-3 launch has been bumped
to December 7 at 09:04 UTC (4:04 AM EST). This means I'll do my launch summary post tomorrow.
This Ars Technica article
on Starship and planetary science has stirred up some
debates
on Twitter.
On the one hand, the idea that we could reduce our reliability margins in exchange for cheaper, more frequent rides is very exciting. On the other hand, the concern is that it's never been about the cost of transportation but the reputational risk of failure.
Of course, my answer to the latter is that if we really do want frequent, high-mass interplanetary launches, we can't rely on an architecture like SLS, which has yet to prove itself anyway.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
In fact, contingency plans were made for this during the Shuttle era, with a second one notionally ready to launch should the first be stranded in orbit for some reason. We never had to test this, although the crew of Columbia on STS-107 could have been saved by it had the damage to the heat shield been recognized prior to reentry. In fact, the rule was added because of that disaster.
After STS-107, the Shuttle also never went anywhere but the ISS (with one exception) so that there would be another haven should it be unable to reenter safely. That mission put the writing on the wall for the entire program.
In the case of Starship, the basic design of the architecture means that there could be dozens ready to launch at a moment's notice, any one of which could divert its mission to perform an orbital rescue.
The concerns about the lack of an abort system on vehicles like Shuttle and Starship are really about launch. Once they're in orbit, they're reasonably safe, or at least they won't die because of a rocket exploding. There are lots of other ways for them to die, though, and very few of them have practical escape options.
Edited by Fighteer on Dec 5th 2021 at 7:06:01 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!">Of course, my answer to the latter is that if we really do want frequent, high-mass interplanetary launches, we can't rely on an architecture like SLS, which has yet to prove itself anyway.
To be honest, fighteer, this is a response to a point the twitter account doesn't make. Rather, the person argues that faster cheaper science would likely rely on much smaller launchers. As they note, launch costs are not really the constraints since the missions being launched are vastly more expensive than the launch costs anyway. The problem isn't money or launches, but public opinion about those launches.
High-mass interplanetary launches are pretty much a completely separate category with a completely different application space. You don't need a launch capacity of 100 tons to mars to do lots of cheap science. You need that sort of capacity to build bases, labs, spacestations and the sort (also the reason Musk cites for developing this in the first place). And the person's argument is that... we could just build the same exact satellites for a 99% rather than 99.999% reliability, build 100 in stead and launch them on 100 conventional rockets at the same price.
I mean, the James Webb cost like what, 10 billion now? An ariane 5 costs around 200 million. you could buy 50 ariane's for one JWST
It's true that Starship would allow us to send 10 curiosities rather than 1, but the twitter person's argument is that we could also just launch 10 curiosities on 10 conventional rockets, and the reason we don't is because public opinion does not allow for hundred-million-dollar failures.
Now, i don't know how much Starship could change that math. Perhaps it can chance public opinion about what rockets even can be. Perhaps cubesats and the like change public opinion on what space missions can be. My own take is that starship can change what science missions are in different ways, and so the actual results are quite different (and unpredictable).
Edited by devak on Dec 5th 2021 at 7:45:37 PM
In the past there were options considered to rescue astronauts from orbit. One of them is the (in)famous MOOSE (Man Out Of Space Easy), basically an ejector seat with a heat shield and a parachute. The concept was never realized as it wouldn't really be safe either way.
Fjón þvæ ég af mér fjanda minna rán og reiði ríkra manna.The one thing to be regretted about the Shuttle's retirement, perhaps, is the fact that it had the ability to salvage spacecraft from orbit and repair satellites already in space— something current capsule-type spacecraft such as the Dragon and the Starliner cannot do.
The Starship will theoretically be able to do that, but until it enters service, there will be a distinct vacancy for a spacecraft with these abilities.
Except that the launch cost of a Space Shuttle is more than the cost of most satellites, including manufacture and launch. Hubble is a notable exception. There were some satellite servicing missions of the Shuttle back in the '80s, but since then, launch costs have gone way down (and probably satellite manufacture costs too), so there is simply no point of servicing satellites. Starship might change the equation again though. But having Starship does not automatically mean that it can be used to service satellites. It would require a Starship that is not only crew rates, but also have the necessary EVA capabilities such as airlock, a manipulator arm, etc.
I've always been a bit skeptical of one of the big current arguments against repairing satellites in orbit— namely, that it's cheaper to simply launch large numbers of cheap, short-lived satellites than to launch a few and continuously repair them. Add to that the fact that large numbers of re-entering satellites might damage Earth's ozone layer
, and I genuinely wonder whether satellites designed to last a long time and be serviced in orbit might be a better idea after all.
This is fine if we're going to continue doing things the way we have been. Interplanetary missions mostly don't require super-heavy launchers because they're built around our current capabilities. Europa Clipper is by far the most massive thing we'll have sent out of Earth orbit by the time it launches note and it was conceived as a use case for SLS.
So here we see that there is a demand for this type of architecture, yet SLS Block 1B is likely to cost $2-3 billion per launch when all is said and done. A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later you're talking real money. By choosing to launch Europa Clipper on Falcon Heavy, NASA saves itself nearly $2 billion that it can spend on other things... like more spacecraft.
If Starship can fill that niche for less than a tenth the price of SLS (less than a hundredth when you consider the payload capacity), then we should take advantage of it. I've also seen proposals that Starship can itself become the body of a telescope or other science instrument. Why bother deploying a spacecraft when you have a thousand cubic meters of space to put all your stuff in and it comes with its own power, propulsion, and communications?
The argument about small probes on small launchers is certainly reasonable, and Rocket Lab in particular is looking to serve that market. Great. There's no reason why we can't do both at the same time, but you can't launch something the size of Perseverance or Clipper on an Electron.
The best argument I can see for SLS on these big, expensive launches is that, "If we are doing something that important anyway, we might as well pay for the highest chance of success," which is interesting considering that SLS has no track record yet. We're just assuming that spending this much money means it's going to work.
I also don't buy that Starship will be inherently riskier. By the time we'd even consider expending one on something like Clipper it will have launched dozens if not hundreds of times. That's the point.
Equally important is that the risk tolerance that makes interplanetary spacecraft so expensive is built in part on the cost of launching. If you can send a dozen spacecraft for the same price, you can afford to build to lower tolerances because the mission isn't hosed if you lose one or two.
Saying that the public will be turned off is disingenuous. It's only an issue because we make it one — see all the hype around JWST. Starship could launch a telescope three times larger than Hubble every day. At that point it becomes a commodity and people stop worrying.
This is an interesting point. Right now a satellite or other large orbital debris object reenters every few weeks. When they're reentering on a daily basis as they reach the ends of their lives, there could be unknown, undesirable effects on the upper atmosphere.
To reach this point, we first have to achieve the kinds of launch rates envisioned by companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX, but let's assume we get there. Someone is going to solve the problem sooner or later. The advantages of LEO for things like Internet are just too great to ignore, but that means thousands or tens of thousands of satellites, and that's just too many to service.
Sending humans up on repair missions is very expensive, very risky, and very time-consuming, and it's just not worth it when the cost of the launch is more than the value of the satellite you're fixing. A single Starlink satellite is estimated to cost around $200k to manufacture. Compared to the cost of a mission to repair it, that would be like paying a private courier to take your grocery-store ball-point pen back to the factory for new ink.
There's just no reasonable way to justify that kind of architecture for most satellites. If demisability poses an environmental risk, there may be other ways to solve that, like alternative materials.
Rocket Lab tweeted
that its next launch is pushed back to Dec 8 because of weather. That means that ULA's STP-3 mission is once again up next, launching tomorrow morning.
Edited by Fighteer on Dec 6th 2021 at 8:05:43 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Using Starship as the frame of a telescope is an interesting idea. However, launching that would cost more, probably hundreds of millions, because the main reason Starship is supposed to be cheap is full reusability, and now you need a dedicated Starship for your mission. On the other hand, that telescope can be refueled in orbit, or it can even come home on its own power for servicing, then be relaunched for a regular Starship launch price.
Fjón þvæ ég af mér fjanda minna rán og reiði ríkra manna.Hubble cost $1.5 billion when it was launched; that would pay for dozens of expendable Starships. The cost of the rocket body is almost trivial in comparison with the overall price of the mission. The biggest argument against using it in this way is that it would be a custom design and a lot of the propulsion elements would be useless once it reached its target orbit.
Still, we are going to expend some Starships, especially at first. Why throw away a nine-meter-diameter steel can when you could make productive use of it?
Edited by Fighteer on Dec 6th 2021 at 8:10:00 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Josef Aschbacher, the new director-general of ESA, said that Europe’s readiness to help the rapid expansion of Musk’s Starlink satellite Internet service risked hindering the region’s own companies from realizing the potential of commercial space.
“Space will be much more restrictive [in terms of] frequencies and orbital slots,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times. “The governments of Europe collectively should have an interest to... give European providers equal opportunities to play on a fair market.”
“You have people like Elon Musk, just launching constellations and satellites and throwing Teslas up into orbit. We need to set common rules. Colonization, or just doing things in a completely deregulated space, is a concern,” he said on the sidelines of the New Space conference in Luxembourg.
Astronomers worry that huge numbers of satellites will interfere with ground-based telescopes and could “impact the appearance of the night sky for stargazers worldwide,” according to a report by the American Astronomical Society.
Ralph Dinsley, founder of NORSS, which tracks objects in space, said the fact that Musk manufactured his own satellites and could launch them with his Space "X" rocket company meant he could move faster than rivals to occupy the most desirable orbital planes. “At the speed he is putting these into orbit, he is almost owning those orbital planes, because no one can get in there. He is creating a Musk sovereignty in space.”
Aschbacher said it was clear that US regulators, as part of a national government, were “interested in developing not only the economy, but also certain dominance of certain economic sectors. This is happening... very, very, very, very clearly. And very strongly.”
In short, there should be more regulation about who gets to put stuff into space and where, and how much.
Also, Musk needs to stop throwing Teslas into space.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesNow see, my impression is that some of the ESA folks were afraid that they'd be outcompeted by SpaceX. But then, a crowding-out effect is an externality, so it can be a genuine problem too.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanThe ESA is suffering from what I will call "sore loser syndrome". They repeatedly failed to make any sort of push for the sort of rapidly reusable launching infrastructure that SpaceX pioneered until very late in the game and now they want regulation to restrain that technology until they can catch up. Their first demonstrator for propulsively landing boosters isn't expected until 2023-2024.
Let us not forget that Europe was a leader in commercial launches during the post-Space Shuttle era until the US opened up the marketplace for private companies to compete for those services. Russia is in a similar boat, although its Soyuz platform was genuinely competitive prior to Falcon 9 (and still is in many ways; it's dirt cheap for an expendable vehicle).
Now, we definitely need regulation on space traffic. This is quite the conundrum, but SpaceX isn't the cause of it, merely its herald. Starlink incorporates automated collision avoidance technology that makes use of government databases of orbital objects, but it can't dodge things it doesn't know about, and an overwhelming number of untracked debris objects come from Chinese (and now Russian) ASAT tests.
So, first on people's minds should be stopping those tests. Second should be forming international agreements and an international organization dedicated to tracking orbiting objects, coordinating avoidance maneuvers, and setting standards for the use of low Earth orbit such as demisability and astronomical interference. Someone should probably get on that. *cough*
In the meantime, however, calls to restrain US industry from taking advantage of orbital real estate are both toothless and hypocritical given that Europe is trying to launch its own constellations.
Also, that Tesla isn't in Earth orbit, geniuses (referring to the complainers in the article, not the people in this thread).
Edited by Fighteer on Dec 6th 2021 at 9:37:09 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Astra has announced
that its next launch (presumably LV0008) will be from Cape Canaveral SLC-46 in Florida and will carry a demonstration payload for NASA's Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) program. NASA's website
lists five cubesats that will be on the mission.
The launch is to take place January 2022.
Edited by Fighteer on Dec 6th 2021 at 9:48:32 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"That bit about the Teslas was from Luxembourg's economy minister, mind you, not the author of the article.
I'm not sure what he meant by that. Perhaps he is suggesting that we should not put frivolous projects in orbit because of practically guaranteed disastrous and long-term consequences should something go wrong.
I can't help but agree with that. LEO is too valuable an asset and too vulnerable to accidents to take risks with art projects and marketing stunts. So no putting (metaphorical) Teslas in LEO.
And I agree with Fighteer that the ESA is basically protesting falling behind, though half of LEO being occupied by one person's satellites is concerning nonetheless. We should not let Musk monopolize LEO, regardless of what country's perspective we take. Those orbits are ultimately a limited resource, and it would be unfair to the rest of the world to let Musk (and by extension the US) hog all the best slots.
And perhaps that is the real reason behind the criticism: a fear that the US will dominate space over everyone else.
Something like that would seem like a good solution, yes, except that this would have to be a global registry, which everyone with access to space would have to follow, including Russia and China.
Edited by Redmess on Dec 6th 2021 at 4:07:17 PM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
