Artemis (Moon Rocket) LIVE Engine Test Fire (1 Viewer)

[RKNSaint]

At Stennis. On hold now but hopefully 8 minute burn is successful.



For the big engine / space buffs.

 

[RKNSaint]

Time to fire in about 30 mts.

 

[RKNSaint]

Some cool facts. BIG engine.

Watch video of NASA test-firing the world's most powerful rocket stage

Firing up Space Launch System's core stage is a crucial step toward flying astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.

www.yahoo.com

Well it went off but they shut it down early. I would view this as a success. Live to fight another day.

 

[Rickboy]

Honestly, it wouldn’t upset me if it blew up.

Yea, I know it’s a crap thing to say but we’ve spent BILLIONS on this outdated rocket that will fly MAYBE once or twice. It’s a jobs project that is holding back NASA‘s moon plans. If it blew up, Congress would have the excuse to kill the project. Orion can still fly on Falcon 9 Heavy. Two F9H flights are cheaper than SLS. Starship is looking more and more like a cheaper and more powerful launch system as well.

Has NASA even figured out what engine will replace the RS-25D engines when they run out of them. Those engines are being reused from the old Space Shuttle Orbiters. We only have a limited number of them. There is no program for a next gen engine. I recall there was some talk of leveraging Blue Origin’s BE-4 Engine but that uses methane for fuel instead of hydrogen, which SLS currently uses.

 

[staphory]

Honestly, it wouldn’t upset me if it blew up.

Yea, I know it’s a crap thing to say but we’ve spent BILLIONS on this outdated rocket that will fly MAYBE once or twice. It’s a jobs project that is holding back NASA‘s moon plans. If it blew up, Congress would have the excuse to kill the project. Orion can still fly on Falcon 9 Heavy. Two F9H flights are cheaper than SLS. Starship is looking more and more like a cheaper and more powerful launch system as well.

Has NASA even figured out what engine will replace the RS-25D engines when they run out of them. Those engines are being reused from the old Space Shuttle Orbiters. We only have a limited number of them. There is no program for a next gen engine. I recall there was some talk of leveraging Blue Origin’s BE-4 Engine but that uses methane for fuel instead of hydrogen, which SLS currently uses.

I couldn’t agree more.
I think Boeing has completely lost it’s way and has morphed into a company hell bent on extracting as much money from Congress as is possible.
Their engineering seems to have regressed and innovation is all but dead.
As a company they are known to be pretty vindictive too.
I say pull the plug and quit giving them more money until they get their act together.

 

[Saint_Ward]

Honestly, it wouldn’t upset me if it blew up.

Yea, I know it’s a crap thing to say but we’ve spent BILLIONS on this outdated rocket that will fly MAYBE once or twice. It’s a jobs project that is holding back NASA‘s moon plans. If it blew up, Congress would have the excuse to kill the project. Orion can still fly on Falcon 9 Heavy. Two F9H flights are cheaper than SLS. Starship is looking more and more like a cheaper and more powerful launch system as well.

Has NASA even figured out what engine will replace the RS-25D engines when they run out of them. Those engines are being reused from the old Space Shuttle Orbiters. We only have a limited number of them. There is no program for a next gen engine. I recall there was some talk of leveraging Blue Origin’s BE-4 Engine but that uses methane for fuel instead of hydrogen, which SLS currently uses.

SLS can launch like double the payload.

I won't argue about Boeing... more contracts should have gone to Lockheed Martin.

 

[Maxp]

Boeing and Lockheed's super tax dollar black hole ULA designed it's latest rocket to use old Russian engines, then after SpaceX spanked them and Blue Origin, ULA decided to use BO engines. Crazy waste of money when SpaceX is doing it all right.

 

[Maxp]

SLS can launch like double the payload.

I won't argue about Boeing... more contracts should have gone to Lockheed Martin.

SLS is being designed to launch double the payload of the Starship/Superheavy combination?

 

[bclemms]

I went. Was less than 2 miles from the launch site. Could barely hear it. Could see it from the drone and got some pretty cool wide shots but nothing like NASA got with their exclusive access and TFR. Really wish these were still open to the public.

 

[Tapxe]

They had to shut it down after only 1 min it seems.

Massive moon rocket test firing aborted after early engine shutdown

It was not immediately clear what went wrong or what will be needed to fix it.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[RKNSaint]

Appreciate you guys chiming in and bringing some perspective. Sounds like there are better choices to pursue. Hopefully, that will occur as it sounds like these engines are a wasteful dead end.

 

[Rickboy]

SLS can launch like double the payload.

I won't argue about Boeing... more contracts should have gone to Lockheed Martin.

SLS Block one is designed for 209000lbs to LEO
Starship is being designed for 222000lbs to LEO and should be 100% reusable
Falcon 9 heavy 140000lbs to LEO and is the most reusable rocket currently in service.

Two F9H flights cost $250million at the most. SLS Block one is estimated to cost $2billion per launch. That cost doesn't include development costs. Right now that cost is $18.5Billion. NASA only spent ~$396million for development of the base Falcon 9. They didn't have to spend another dime for Falcon 9 Heavy development. There have been many scenarios put together that let us reach the moon with two or three F9Hs at a fraction of the cost of a single SLS launch.

BTW, there is an SLS Block 2 planned that would lift $290000lbs to LEO but as I mentioned that is dependent on new engines. It also depends on new SRBs. There is no funding for block 2 and it isn't likely to happen. I predict SLS will be killed off after they run out of RS-25D engines.

EDIT: I will give SLS one prop though. It has a diameter of 27.6ft. That kind of volume is important. The F9H has a max fairing diameter of 17ft. SpaceX has said they could potentially make it larger but there is no way they are getting to 27.6. However Starship's diameter is 30FEET. I'm not even mentioning Blue Origin's New Glenn yet. My opinion is that Blue Origin needs to prove itself with orbital flight before they should be seriously considered. I do think they'll get there but it's a matter of when.....

EDIT 2: I only put part of the blame on Boeing. It was Congress that mandated the design of the SLS. One reason SpaceX has been so successful is that they were able to make all of the design decisions. NASA only gave them the requirements and supervised. The COTS program is possibly the best thing to ever happen to spaceflight.

 

[Rickboy]

Just to throw more fuel on the fire

Just looking it up and there are 46 RS-25 engines in existence. So we can, at most, fly the SLS 11 times. So that's another $22billion. By comparison 33 F9Hs would cost, at most, $4.95Billion. Not even a quarter of the amount.

 

[Maxp]

Just to throw more fuel on the fire

Just looking it up and there are 46 RS-25 engines in existence. So we can, at most, fly the SLS 11 times. So that's another $22billion. By comparison 33 F9Hs would cost, at most, $4.95Billion. Not even a quarter of the amount.

Didn't Elon have to sue the US government pretty much showing these same numbers to get the Starship program eligible for Artemis?

 

[Rickboy]

Didn't Elon have to sue the US government pretty much showing these same numbers to get the Starship program eligible for Artemis?

I don’t recall. I’d have to check. The only lawsuit I can think of is the Air Force contract that was given to ULA. I think that was settled to Spacex’s benefit.

EDIT: OK it was against the AF but it was thrown out.