The progress of the entire project gives reason to believe that the Americans fenced the entire history of SLS only on the basis of the principle "so that it was" - at the moment they did not and do not seem to have any real needs to launch such heavy missiles. I had to invent them on the go.
So, in the first manifesto of 2013, only three missions planned until 2032 were made public. Their list included one launch of a rocket with an unmanned spacecraft in 2017 to fly around the Moon (EM-1), a similar mission, only already in 2021 and astronauts on board (EM-2), and finally, in the 2032 region, they planned send a drone to Mars. The strangeness of this plan is that in order to maintain the reproducibility of the most complex technical processes and maintain a high level of reliability, the rocket must be sent into space at least once a year. And here in 15 years only three launches …
The year 2016 has come, and with it a sobering up against the background of real results. The masterminds revisited their plan again. Now there is a desire to send a drone to the moon in November 2018. The automatic ship was supposed to fly in low-earth orbit in 25 days, and then go to the moon and return Orion to Earth. Between the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2023, the Americans planned to equip a manned mission to the moon under the abbreviation EM-2. It was supposed to spend from 3 to 6 days in low orbit of our natural satellite, but even here there were many variants of embodiment. NASA's deputy head for manned programs, William Gestenmeier, once at a meeting of the Agency's Advisory Board said that the flight could be performed according to a special economical scheme. In accordance with the idea, the expedition will set off on a trajectory that does not require turning on the engines to enter a circumlunar orbit, and will return on a similar principle. Such a focus was even given a name: "A minimal mission with multiple impulses of departure to the Moon and free return." Time will show whether this fantasy will become a reality, but while calculations are being made and testing in near-earth space is being prepared.
Barge Pegasus and SLS components.
The EM-6 mission is planned to be the most unusual in the history of SLS, as it is aimed at the study of a small near-earth asteroid, previously delivered to the orbit of the Moon. They want to do this so quickly that they are even ready to send a real living American astronaut instead of a machine gun. So far, these are only plans dated 2016 and have a very shaky foundation. Professor of the US Naval War College John Johnson-Freese is pessimistic: “In the coming years, under the new president and Congress, anything can happen. Perhaps due to government decisions, we will have to abandon dreams of Mars and focus on building a space base somewhere closer to home. Some in Washington DC have an almost pathological nostalgia for going to the moon."
Perhaps it was the capture of the asteroid that was the most promising direction for realizing the giant potential of SLS - the project would provide an answer to the origin of the solar system. But most importantly, such a race for an asteroid would give skills in repelling the asteroid threat by redirecting cosmic bodies from Earth or even destroying them. However, Donald Trump came to power, and all good intentions were covered up.
SLS rocket hydrogen tank cover.
Under the new president, infrastructure development has come to grips with it. The fact is that SLS Block I has not been certified according to NASA standards for a manned flight, and this may take more than one year. Therefore, Block IB is being prepared, which requires a mobile tower to land astronauts, which also serves as a farm for maintenance. It will also take at least 4 years. And only in March of this year, after long meetings, it was possible to knock out money for such an expensive project from the Trump administration.
The story of the Americans throwing themselves towards the SLS project does not end there. In September 2017, the DSG (Deep Space Gateway) "Portal to deep space" appeared, which at the beginning of 2018 was renamed into LOP-G (Lunar Orbital Platform - Gateway) "Lunar orbital platform - portal".
Lunar Orbital Platform - Gateway
In accordance with the program, the Americans will build a transshipment base for flights to the Moon (intermediate stop) and a whole space plant for assembling ships from separate modules. It was for such hyperambitious projects that they decided to reshape the SLS flight program. The strangeness of this whole venture is in the very need to build such transfer stations - by cosmic standards, the moon is just a stone's throw away. Why invest billions when it is quite possible to fly in with one march? It would be much more logical to build such an object on the way to Mars, but here the money will be spent on a completely different scale. In general, the whole idea with DSG and late LOP-G looks like only an image project of the Trump administration, which may well be abandoned halfway.
Experts are trying to soberly assess the investments of the American people in SLS and agree that it took at least $ 9 billion by 2017. And all the R&D on the topic of the rocket will well exceed $ 35 billion. Now NASA already has certain difficulties in its work - it is necessary to convince the public of the country that without SLS in space, well, absolutely nothing. That is why they are rushing about in search of the most beautiful outer wrapper of the hyperproject.
SLS rocket hydrogen compartment
What do the opponents of the program cite as counterarguments? The most important thing is the presence of automatic probes, which are great at coping with their unmanned research missions. Why fence such a colossus SLS, if everything has already been invented, and if not invented, then it can be implemented with much less investment? Pessimists have calculated that the approximate cost of the start-up alone, taking into account all investments, can reach half a billion dollars! Of course, if you shoot SLS more than once a year, the price tag will drop, but the plans are, at best, annual single launches. And the picture with the exploration of Mars looks even more colorful - the current money is definitely not enough, and the approximate cost of delivering astronauts to the Red Planet will reach 1 trillion. dollars!
The idea of "omnipotent privateers" like Musk with his SpaceX or Bezos (Blue Origin) has become very popular, capable of launching anything into space more efficiently and cheaper than state companies. But this is a myth. Aerospace giants Lockheed Martin and Boeing did not enter serious business with the state yesterday and do not just swallow billions of budget money for a reason. It is precisely the compliance with the high standards of reliability and safety of NASA that has become the "black hole" into which taxpayers' dollars go. Private traders, with all due respect, do not have even a part of that technological "background" that allows launching a person even into near space.
What is on the side of the positive American public? First, many consider the scientific value of manned missions to Mars to be much higher than the work of soulless automata. The real meaning of travel to other planets is, after all, to find a new habitat for a person. Therefore, someday we will still have to switch to space heavyweights, so why not do it with the SLS? Alternatively, it is possible to build a station in low-earth orbit for assembling ships to Mars, which will reduce dependence on heavy rockets. But, according to William Gestenmeier, the total mass of the apparatus for the delivery of astronauts to the Red Planet may exceed 500-600 tons. This poses questions for missiles such as Falcon Heavy and New Glenn, which will require 10-12 pieces against 4 SLS. The "miniature" Delta IV Heavy will generally be able to carry out such work in 20-28 launches. While commercial space will still revolve around purely commercial projects, they are unlikely to be allowed into large programs. And the idea of assembly in orbit is not so flawless. Gestenmeier says in this regard: “We used shuttles to assemble the ISS, and the whole process took several decades. But the biggest drawback of in-orbit assembly is the accumulation of a large number of objects in one place - living quarters, interplanetary ships, fuel storage … For assembly work, you will have to make a huge number of docks. It is inevitable that some parts will not function properly and are unlikely to be repaired on site. The complexity and risk of operations is progressively increasing."
The hydrogen tank in full glory.
"SLS will cut the flight time to Jupiter's moon Europa from six to two and a half years," said Scott Hubbard, director of the Stanford University Business Programs Innovation Center. "It will be of great help to other, as yet unfeasible scientific expeditions." Indeed, launching an automatic Clipper station with the SLS to explore Europe is the most viable American heavyweight mission. It has enough power to deliver a satellite only at the expense of its own energy, without being distracted by gravity assist maneuvers near large objects. And this will greatly save mission time.
But it is obvious that the most significant impetus for real work on SLS will be similar projects in Russia and China, which are still only in vague plans.
