PJYoung said:

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Though NASA finally launched its SLS rocket in 2022, that rocket took eighteen years to create, cost about $60 billion, and was about seven years late. And it won't launch again for another two to three years.

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Stunning.

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I think those numbers are inflated by grouping Ares, which Obama cancelled, and SLS together. SLS wasn't funded until 2011, so it couldn't possibly have taken 18 years. It was also supposed to launch in 2018. Still late, but not by 7 years. SLS cost has also been about $23 billion with inflation. $60 billion only makes sense of Ares is included, and even then it's sky high.

The ares program was rolled into the Artemis program, you can't disconnect the funding spent on that from the SLS program

ABATTBQ11 said:

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PJYoung said:

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Though NASA finally launched its SLS rocket in 2022, that rocket took eighteen years to create, cost about $60 billion, and was about seven years late. And it won't launch again for another two to three years.

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Stunning.

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I think those numbers are inflated by grouping Ares, which Obama cancelled, and SLS together. SLS wasn't funded until 2011, so it couldn't possibly have taken 18 years. It was also supposed to launch in 2018. Still late, but not by 7 years. SLS cost has also been about $23 billion with inflation. $60 billion only makes sense of Ares is included, and even then it's sky high.

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If you do want to trace the program back (as Eric Berger has done a few times) it's not like SLS was suddenly birthed in 2011 out of no where.

It's a new name on an existing program with tweaked ancient hardware using outdated ideas straight from the 60's. When you keep in mind how much was spent on Apollo, and that Ares was based on the Shuttle which was supposed to make re-usable space access vastly cheaper than continuing Saturn V launches, using the same damn crawlers/VAB/basic infrastructure of the Apollo program...it's a combination of hysterically funny and sad, at best.

The Stoke space stuff around 8 minutes in here is pretty cool/new to me;

Going into 2023, we’re coming in HOT.🔥
Take a look back at Stoke’s 22 Favorite Hotfires of ’22. pic.twitter.com/Pm1ukG25Fo

— Stoke Space (@stoke_space) January 5, 2023

Ag_of_08 said:

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The ares program was rolled into the Artemis program, you can't disconnect the funding spent on that from the SLS program

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It may have been rolled in, but it still isn't the same thing. Ares was meant to be two different launch vehicles. NASA may have continued the concept and used some of the development, but it's not really fair to lump them together as if there are no differences. Ares is ultimately just sunk cost on something that didn't pan out.

It's similar to the RAH-66 and the Blackhawks used to kill bin Laden. The Comanche was cancelled, but a lot of the development and technology was rolled into building heavily modified Blackhawk airframes for a stealthy spec ops role. It's not fair to lump the Comanche development costs into the cost for those conversions.

ABATTBQ11 said:

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Ag_of_08 said:

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The ares program was rolled into the Artemis program, you can't disconnect the funding spent on that from the SLS program

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It may have been rolled in, but it still isn't the same thing. Ares was meant to be two different launch vehicles. NASA may have continued the concept and used some of the development, but it's not really fair to lump them together as if there are no differences. Ares is ultimately just sunk cost on something that didn't pan out.

It's similar to the RAH-66 and the Blackhawks used to kill bin Laden. The Comanche was cancelled, but a lot of the development and technology was rolled into building heavily modified Blackhawk airframes for a stealthy spec ops role. It's not fair to lump the Comanche development costs into the cost for those conversions.

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No, it's not the same thing at all. Now, if the blackhawks had later been built by the exact same contractors as the RAH-66, and if it had been designed using the same design as used by the original Blackhawk predecessor (the UH-1) with a fancy new name, and those non-stealthy but somehow kinda new Blackhawk-Huey's had then needed 20 years and $60 billion to go get Bin Laden, ok. The timelines/scale would work, for the procurement of said vehicles.

Less laughably, is this something to be concerned with?

Now at 132% of my usual brightness! #Betelgeuse pic.twitter.com/ttjDddZXME

— Betelgeuse Status (@betelbot) January 7, 2023

Except ALL of the development from the Ares V went directly into the SLS.

nortex97 said:

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ABATTBQ11 said:

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Ag_of_08 said:

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The ares program was rolled into the Artemis program, you can't disconnect the funding spent on that from the SLS program

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It may have been rolled in, but it still isn't the same thing. Ares was meant to be two different launch vehicles. NASA may have continued the concept and used some of the development, but it's not really fair to lump them together as if there are no differences. Ares is ultimately just sunk cost on something that didn't pan out.

It's similar to the RAH-66 and the Blackhawks used to kill bin Laden. The Comanche was cancelled, but a lot of the development and technology was rolled into building heavily modified Blackhawk airframes for a stealthy spec ops role. It's not fair to lump the Comanche development costs into the cost for those conversions.

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No, it's not the same thing at all. Now, if the blackhawks had later been built by the exact same contractors as the RAH-66, and if it had been designed using the same design as used by the original Blackhawk predecessor (the UH-1) with a fancy new name, and those non-stealthy but somehow kinda new Blackhawk-Huey's had then needed 20 years and $60 billion to go get Bin Laden, ok. The timelines/scale would work, for the procurement of said vehicles.

Less laughably, is this something to be concerned with?

Now at 132% of my usual brightness! #Betelgeuse pic.twitter.com/ttjDddZXME

— Betelgeuse Status (@betelbot) January 7, 2023

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"my"?

We can be concerned but what ever we are seeing Betelgeuse happened 500 years ago, so not much we can do about it.

I saw a local article that mentioned a January 31st launch date for SPI. Is that a date that has been mentioned?

Pretty sure Betelgeuse is famous for its fluctuations.

Something will get the earth eventually, whether gamma ray burst or supernova or comet or eaten by our own sun - but a polarity shift or massive solar flare are probably more likely than all of the above. No benefit from worrying anyhow. Sleep easy!

Pretty funny follow on twitter though.

Boring (me) > killing itself (humanity) https://t.co/G1c9m66csW

— Betelgeuse (@IsBetelgeuseOK) December 1, 2022

We have a real shot at late February. March launch attempt appears highly likely.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 8, 2023

In the words of a marine EOD guy I met years ago "you either get it right, or it's not your problem anymore". In this case it's either not bad, or we won't have to worry much longer!

Will be fun to watch!!

Some are more pessimistic:

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A longshot bet:
I have a hunch that SpaceX won't launch its fully integrated Starship on an orbital test flight in 2023. Or at the very least, it won't successfully perform an orbital test in 2023. Musk has said as much, predicting early failures. The rocket is filled with new and untested components, making it likely for Starship to fail on its way up or down.

Indeed, the rocket still seems a bit half-baked to me, with full-fledged static fire tests of the booster's 33 Raptor engines yet to be performed (14 is the maximum performed so far). And then there's the whole issue of reusability, with the company's gigantic "Mechazilla" tower expected to assist the gigantic booster when making a controlled vertical landing back at the pad. The Starship upper stage will have to survive reentry, which may be a considerable technical challenge. This is really conceptual stuff, and it's going to take some time for SpaceX to figure it all out, which I'm sure it will. For the record, I also don't believe that Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket will fly in 2023.

And as loath as I am to admit this, I also feel that something bad will happen in space in 2023. There's just too much happening in low Earth orbit for something not to happen, whether it be a pair of satellites smashing into each other, a critically important piece of infrastructure suddenly going silent, or something we simply can't predict. Just a hunch.

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Four in the tent, one in the yard. Thats a hell of a row of nosecones outside Starbase tent 3.#Starbase #Starship #SpaceX
📸 Me for WAI Media @FelixSchlang pic.twitter.com/5CpmZQFP0y

— Kevin Randolph (@CosmicalChief) January 7, 2023

I don't think the analyses above in the linked article is right though. Elon has since come out as stated and said Feb/March are likely, and that's a lot of nose cones/sections/segments they've been producing if they aren't going to fire any of them upward into the sky.

Now, I'll be shocked if the mechazilla catching mechanism works as hoped for this year. The first couple of boosters I'd guess would be expended as gently as possible into the gulf.

They've also been producing/testing/shipping a LOT of raptor 2's, including with the new electric control/vectoring.

Raptor 2 Tracker #15 -- 24/12/22 -- R1 -> R200

Merry Christmas Everyone!

EasyZoom Links:
1-100 https://t.co/O1DhShDpBm
101-200 https://t.co/ft6XPhhSYJ pic.twitter.com/JadmVdmjJD

— Rhin0 (@SpaceRhin0) December 24, 2022

R112 spotted by Keven Randolph in tent 1 alongside a raptor with an interesting label! https://t.co/b0ivJBELhv pic.twitter.com/d200zAUhYy

— Rhin0 (@SpaceRhin0) January 7, 2023

Aside, Rocket Lab May mission to Venus I think is on schedule.

https://www.mdpi.com/2226-4310/9/8/445

https://www.republicworld.com/science/space/rocket-lab-introduces-worlds-first-private-mission-to-venus-launch-targeted-in-2023-articleshow.html

Yeah if Elon is saying Feb/March then you gotta believe we are within 6 or 7 months now of the first attempt.

Starlink needs Starship flying orbital deliveries to build out his l his next gem Starlink constellation.

I think I heard Scott Manley say the new satellites are bigger

Ship 24 stacked on Super Heavy Booster 7 at Starbase in Texas pic.twitter.com/hLcghfq349

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 10, 2023

What sci-fi movie is that footage from?

Virgin Orbit was nearly out of cash before today's launch. This is very, very bad. I hope they pull through, but I am not sure where the funding is going to come from, especially in current market conditions.

— Michael Baylor (@nextspaceflight) January 10, 2023

I think Virgin had an issue with second stage. They took down the video that I posted earlier of the live feed.

SpaceX meanwhile...

Ship 24 stacked on Super Heavy Booster 7 at Starbase in Texas pic.twitter.com/hLcghfq349

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 10, 2023

As we find out more, we're removing our previous tweet about reaching orbit. We'll share more info when we can.

— Virgin Orbit (@VirginOrbit) January 9, 2023

Some friends of mine worked there in very senior roles and left to start their own thing, doesn't bode well.

Demosthenes81 said:

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Ship 24 stacked on Super Heavy Booster 7 at Starbase in Texas pic.twitter.com/hLcghfq349

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 10, 2023

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I wonder if it's stacked for the eventual launch now?

I'm hoping it's stacked for a 33 Raptor static fire.

Falcon Heavy launch this weekend more than likely.

Dual side booster landing at the Cape.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-falcon-heavy-ussf-67-rollout-launch-prep/

I have a hunch, if starship is not flying by February, we will see an uprated FH with a bigger fairing by 2024.

The issue on a bigger (wider) fairing was just that ULA was pressuring RUAG not to build one for it, I believe (as the wider than 5.4m fairings are key to retaining their remaining monopoly for certain classes of DoD bids/launches, specifically class 3 ones). They have an extended one already now. Who needs a bigger one, short term, for an F9 heavy?

Maybe a larger one would enable the bigger starlink 2.0 satellites to go up on them, but they could do that with a regular F9 I believe. They could just choose to make their own fairings but I doubt they want to start blasting F9H's up with starlinks as it is a lot more expensive, and they aren't going to GTO/GEO orbits or anything like that.

Realistically, I am guessing they are toying around with what the heck to do with a 'Starlink 3.0' type of design since the FCC won't give them as many shells now, and it might make sense to keep them as small as possible to fit them on F9's for a period past 6 months from now. I've read just last month:

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The Note here is that even with the first generation yet to be fully deployed. Sometime soon the next generation will start being deployed. A few at first to do validation and debugging of systems and then a ramp up of deployment at the tail end of the Gen 1 deployment.

If I am not mistaken there are less than a 1000 Gen 1 left to be deployed. This year was 1700 sats deployed. So finish of Gen 1 deployment will take ~half a year.

Another interesting item is that all of the Gen 1 constellation 4,400 sats at ~0.36t each is a total of ~1,500t. This next constellation so far just 7,500 sats with mass of >1t each would be ~8,000t. The aim would be to try to get these 7,500 sats deployed in 3 years. Or ~2,500 sats average per year. It actually would be more of a steep ramp up in launch rate totals year to year.

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So, if they are going to have to put gen 2 up in 3 years, a bigger fairing might help if starship isn't available to do so by the end of this year, I guess, yet at the same time it depends what those gen 2 starlinks wind up looking like/how they are configured/packaged.

My understanding was that DoD had already requested a bigger fairing on FH, and that the bigger fairing would be usable on f9 and FH. It would allow the bigger 2.0 starlinks to go( and not at that significant of cost increase, especially in a fully reusable configuration), and it would open up the DoD payloads that ULA is struggling to fill. While the risk of a starship failure is definitely there I think people forget that, while lower, the risk of Vulcan failing is there as well. M y confidence in the BE4 and any project Boeing/Lockheed are involved in working right the first time is... lowered.

ABL got off the pad yesterday but the engines shutdown prematurely and the rocket fell back onto the pad. Aside from that, the liftoff images are nice.

They said their second rocket is already assembled, so should be ready to go quickly after investigation. Hopefully the fix is an easy one.

pic.twitter.com/DcPtOCHRTY

— ABL (@ablspacesystems) January 11, 2023

bmks270 said:

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ABL got off the pad yesterday but the engines shutdown prematurely and the rocket fell back onto the pad. Aside from that, the liftoff images are nice.

They said their second rocket is already assembled, so should be ready to go quickly after investigation. Hopefully the fix is an easy one.

pic.twitter.com/DcPtOCHRTY

— ABL (@ablspacesystems) January 11, 2023

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SpaceX makes it look so easy - but it's not. What they have accomplished over the past 5-7 years is amazing.

Heard about that yesterday. Are there any pictures or video of it "impacting" the pad?

Jock 07 said:

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Heard about that yesterday. Are there any pictures or video of it "impacting" the pad?

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I saw one picture on Twitter from a far distance of a mushroom cloud.

Ag87H2O said:

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bmks270 said:

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ABL got off the pad yesterday but the engines shutdown prematurely and the rocket fell back onto the pad. Aside from that, the liftoff images are nice.

They said their second rocket is already assembled, so should be ready to go quickly after investigation. Hopefully the fix is an easy one.

pic.twitter.com/DcPtOCHRTY

— ABL (@ablspacesystems) January 11, 2023

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SpaceX makes it look so easy - but it's not. What they have accomplished over the past 5-7 years is amazing.

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Well the first 3 Space X attempts also failed, their first rocket also fell back to Earth in a similar fashion.

Virgin Orbits first attempt failed and blew up a few seconds after engine on.

Rocket Lab first attempt failed.

Firefly first attempt failed.

And now add ABL to the list of first attempt failures.

Up next to try, Relatively Space. Relativity is probably going to be extra cautious considering their huge capital raises and PR they've been generating. They may have the most to lose in terms of optics and future fundraising and company valuation. Relativity has pulled a lot of experience from the other launch companies so I think they have a good chance at it, but it's still a new and more complex architecture than all of the other current rockets. I believe it is Methane-Lox with separate fuel and Ox turbo pumps.

I'm also really anticipating Blue Origins New Glenn debut when they get around to it. They have been building experience with New Shepherd so I think they'll be successful with New Glenn on their first shot.