Space Launch System

Space Launch System

Ever since 1958 when National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) replaced the foregoer National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) there has been great programs and missions coming from it. From Project Mercury to Project Gemini to the famous Apollo moon-landing mission one may start to wonder what will be coming next. Well on September 14, 2011 NASA made public that a new design for the Space Launch System had been chosen.

The Space Launch System, also known as the SLS, is a design that, when completed, will be used to take NASA’s astronauts deeper into space than America has ever gone before. Reason for doing this is, more or less, to start a new era for future space investigation. Also, as stated on the NASA website, they explain, “We will learn more about how the solar system formed, where Earth's water and organics originated and how life might be sustained in places far from our Earth's atmosphere and expand the boundaries of human exploration. These discoveries will change the way we understand ourselves, our planet, and its place in the universe.” (NASA website)
           
            The blueprint for this new program has been elaborately drawn and measured to scale. The actual objects that make up the SLS are an initial crew shuttle and an evolved cargo shuttle. Each of these has been created to suit its own special needs. While they both have a core stage and space shuttle main engines, the crew shuttle includes a multi-purpose crew vehicle, solid rocket boosters, and a launch abort system. The cargo shuttle consists of solid (or liquid) rocket boosters, an upper stage with a different J-2X engine, and a cargo fairing that helps the craft reduce drag.

            Sizing is important in this program. 320 feet will be the size of the crew’s craft. And will way roughly 5.5 million pounds. But that’s a mere nothing compared with the cargo craft; it will be measuring in at 400 feet and 6.5 million pounds! How much weight they will be taking is pretty impressive too. Crew shuttle will be taking 70 metric tons into orbit. The cargo spacecraft will be carrying almost two times that at 130 metric tons.

            Although on the U.S. Space Launch System Fun Facts sheet it says that this program is a “safe, affordable, and sustainable to advance America’s exploration of space” (NASA website), one might get a different feel for the price while looking at the estimated expenses for this trip into space. When NASA first announced their exciting new program they said that the estimated development cost would be $18 billion with SLS being completed with building in 2017. The amount has been split into three sections. With $10 billion heading towards the SLS rocket itself, $6 billion being spent for the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) which will be a back-up for the commercial cargo and crew and the other $2 billion for the launch pad upgrades and other places being used at the Kennedy Space Center (Wikipedia). Just to throw this out there, I don’t know many people who just have that sort of money sitting in their wallets ready to jump out and go to space. Nonetheless, Lori Garver, the NASA Deputy Administrator, conveyed that NASA been “driving down the costs […] by adopting new ways of doing business and project hundreds of millions of dollars of savings each year” (NASA website).

            As for the total schedule this SLS project is going to be on, it’s pretty darn exciting. Even though it’s very fundamental and unofficial, since the project is still in its first stages, this is a worst case scenario budget outline. As stated above, the deadline for the actual completion of the spacecraft and launch pad is in six years in 2017. Then the same year in December NASA would send the MPCV on its very first unmanned trip around the Moon. Again in August 2019 it would be sent on another one. In more than a decades time (August 2024) SLS Cargo configuration will be having its first launch. A year later there will be a manned “exploration” mission. In August of the consecutive years after that there will be a cargo launch, a manned launch, another cargo launch, yet another manned launch, new configuration with a cargo launch, a manned mission, and finally ending up in August of 2032 they’d have an additional new configuration with a cargo launch (Wikipedia). Another thought is that if NASA’s budget doesn’t get tied down as much we could be moving a lot faster than this. Instead of this whole schedule taking up 21 years since now it could be moving a lot quicker. Maybe even cut off almost a decade.

            After all of this, who knows? We could be on our way to collect rocks off of Saturn. So many things can happen because of this project, so many doors can be opened unto us if we just let it. What NASA’s doing with the resources it’s given and the challenge from President Barak Obama to be bold and dream big about space exploration is amazing. It is completely obvious that now we have the next huge mark in the outer space realm in America’s hands because of the Space Launch System from NASA.