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Comment by worik | Hacker News Reader

The SLS being a government funded competitor to SpaceX has little hope...

That said I am unsure if that is that much of a blow. The government is very good at some things, it looks to me (I am a casual observer) that SpaceX has eaten their lunch in terms of a space programme.

But the James Webb was exactly the sort of incredibly difficult, high risk project that NASA (and Government labs generally) excel at. No private company would ever do something like that. It is a huge achievement and is changing our view, again, of the Universe.

So I guess it will be doomed now too. Noting so dangerous as a good example.

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The SLS being a government funded competitor to SpaceX has little hope

SLS was never about being the most practical and/or efficient launcher. It is a pork barrel project, but one with an important role. In particular, it is maintaining vital aerospace industrial capacity. If the US wants things like ICBMs then programs like SLS are a necessary evil.

Oh man, Elon is going to propose a Falcon-9 based ICBM isn't he? Might as well go full Bond villain at this point.

ICBMs have usually been solid fuelled as they can be stored ready to launch.

Typically when you have a situation warranting nukes you won't have time to fuel a falcon 9.

There's lots of bad ideas currently becoming government policy, and that's not even a unique flaw of the USA or Trump or Musk.

So, just because idea of using Falcon 9s as a delivery solution for a strategic nuclear deterrent may be as bad as ordering your chief designer to throw a big steel ball at the window of the new model of car you're currently in the middle of announcing even despite the guy's obvious reticence, doesn't mean it won't happen.

This is a stretch.

Someone makes an uneducated point but it must be defended because Musk bad...

Do you think you're making a good point here?

I don't think it's a stretch at all. GP is pointing out a specific instance that illustrates that Musk doesn't truly understand the capabilities of the things he builds. He talks a good game, but he's not actually a rocket scientist/engineer. But he'll push for whatever he wants to push for, and people like Trump will eat it up and let him do what he wants.

If Musk wants to push for "Falcon 9-based liquid-fueled ICBMs", he'll do so, even if he actually does know they're not the best/right tech for the job. And someone like Trump will listen to him.

It's also a bit in bad faith of you to play the "you only disagree because Musk bad" card, when GP explicitly acknowledges that these sorts of bad government decisions are not unique to the US/Trump/Musk.

US-based ICBMs, yes. Russia and China have actively fielded liquid-fueled ICBMs.

The USA also fielded liquid-fueled ICBMs, but I believe they have all been decommissioned in favor of solid-fueled missiles, which are more reliable and easier to store.

No one is seriously going to propose a liquid fueled rocket for the nuclear deterrence mission. It simply doesn't work.

However, there are potential military applications for a vehicle like Falcon 9. For example, imagine being able to insert a Special Operations team almost anywhere in the world on a few hours notice. In a potential near-peer conflict there will also be a need to quickly launch replacement military satellites to make up attrition losses.

If the US wants ICBMs they'll leverage existing designs. The SLS has nothing to do with them, not in the slightest, aside from the fact that they're all cylindrical in shape.

Maybe they are also orange?

Not the designs, the people and supply chains that build them…

I can't imagine there's much overlap. The early SLS uses space shuttle solid rocket booster casings (because the people involved are only the dumbest people on the entire planet Earth) which don't have parts commonality with anything else. The later SLS, bleh who cares what they'll do, with any luck cancellation.

I can't imagine there's much overlap.

Just look at the suppliers working on the SLS SRBs and those working on the LGM-35 program, perhaps then you'll see the extent of the overlap. Furthermore, you might want to look into why the space shuttle had the architecture it did, and why space shuttle SRBs were being shipped out of Utah. Large scale SRB manufacturing has been, and continues to be, an enormous problem for the DoD. Hence why wasteful programs like SLS exist.

> Just look at the suppliers

I suspect the facilities working on SLS solid rocket boosters are owned by Northrop Grumman, just like the companies that were left over from making Peacekeeper missiles, now making Sentinel missiles, are probably now owned by Northrop Grumman. This doesn't show that Sentinel - or any other program - is benefitting from SLS's supply chains in a meaningful way. It's hard to see how that's possible, given SLS's low-volume nature. But I guess I'll try to keep an open mind...

> Furthermore, you might want to look into why the space shuttle had the architecture it did

I have lots of opinions about that, but if you have some reference material you'd like to recommend, please do! (and if they support the notion that SLS SRB production is somehow a boon to SRB makers everywhere, I guess I'd be intrigued by that as well)

"there's less missile business, and the missile people are making moon rockets now, but I don't see how that could possibly help them make missiles again if they were asked to"

This conversation is painful because people don't seem to understand that, okay, military boosters and civilian boosters are both related businesses, but the SLS SRB business is something separate and is as similar to the others as a fish is to a turnip.

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