Posted on 02/21/2018 10:03:25 AM PST by Red Badger
NASA's latest tower for launching rockets has a little bit of a lean, which means it may be able to launch just a single rocket. The cost of this tower boondoggle? Almost $1 billion.
The tower in question is the Mobile Launcher designed for NASA’s upcoming Space Launch System, which would become the world’s most powerful rocket once completed in a few years. The tower is supposed to keep the rocket stable and upright on the platform during a launch. The system was built for NASA’s now-defunct Ares I rocket and later repurposed for the SLS.
The Mobile Launcher is a behemoth piece of equipment, standing nearly 400 feet tall and weighing more than 10 million pounds. It holds miles of cables, tubes, and pipes to ensure the SLS can remain operational on the launch pad. Building such a structure is a challenging task, which is why it cost approximately $912 million.
The sheer size and complexity may also be the cause of the difficulties the Mobile Launcher is currently facing. According to a report from NASASpaceflight.com, the launch tower is leaning slightly toward the North, which is in the direction of the rocket on the launchpad. The structure also seems to be twisting slightly.
While NASA seems to believe this lean is not enough to require additional construction, it will likely mean that the Mobile Launcher won’t be used for more than one or two launches. If the agency wants to launch more than a few SLS rockets over the next few decades, it will likely have to build a brand new launcher.
This isn’t entirely a bad thing, though. NASA had previously been considering building a second launcher anyway to accommodate the SLS Exploration Upper Stage, the larger version of the rocket’s second stage designed to send payloads deeper into the solar system. Because the Exploration Upper Stage is much larger than the standard upper stage, it would require either significant updates to the existing Mobile Launcher or a brand new one.
The Exploration Upper Stage is scheduled to be used on the second flight of the SLS, which means that even if the leaning Mobile Launcher is structurally sound enough to launch multiple rockets, it may be retired after the first one anyway. After all, there was a strong argument in favor of building a new Mobile Launcher even before the old one started bending.
Source: NASASpaceflight.com
I just remember in the months leading up to it, it was all anybody was talking about.
I am not saying that specifically. I am saying that the designer, and then the contractor, are stuck with time, location, and cost considerations that the Owners is able to give them for his own reasons.
See my reply to another at #59.
We often need a lot of forensic investigations and sometimes even courts to settle issues like this as far as “responsibility.”
When the tower in Pisa began to lean, I am sure that it was said, well this will soon be on the ground and forgotten. Sometimes first impressions are wrong.
Give me a plumb, Bob.
Huh?
When NASA paid Boeing North American, and Douglas to build the Saturn V they weren’t obsolete. When they paid Rockwell International to build the space shuttle. When they paid SpaceX to launch a bunch of rockets to the Space Station they weren’t obsolete.
So what changed? NASA pays people to build rockets, same as always. Just because some billionaires are kicking in some of their own funds does not radically change things. The idea that rockets ‘before’ were all NASA and now SpaceX are ‘private’ is seriously misrepresenting things. That isn’t how funding works
You think they could jack the thing in the right direction.
The Leaning Tower of Canaveral will likely rust away to dust before the SLS is actually ready to be launched.
SpaceX could have built that in half the time for a quarter of the money.
AND IT WOULD BE STRAIGHT.................
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So would have 1960s engineers with slide rulers ...
Nope we got nothing, zip, zilch, from that screw up.
Thanks again.
You are right. I’m speaking from a position of ignorance. I’m basing my whole perspective on my personal belief (this part IS based on experience) that when the government gets involved in things like this they tend to significantly over complicate the whole process and end result.
Case in point is from a few decades ago, when the Isreali’s came up with a remote controlled aerial camera platform that was based, basically, on a remote controlled airplane. It was cheap and effective. The US Government decided to do the same thing. Their specs became a cash cow for the vendors that produced it. It was a flying wing that cost hundreds of thousands per copy and was unwieldy to operate.
Private enterprise, with the profit motive, is lean and mean.
The first launch of NASA’s SLS rocket delayed again
Behind the Black ^ | February 21, 2018 | Robert Zimmerman
Posted on 02/22/2018 5:15:23 AM PST by Voption
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3634199/posts
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