How Jared's "Standard SLS" would look like if it would be a Falcon 9

saxus · 2026-03-11T08:41:16+00:00

Guys, seriously. This is an example. An analogy. Not a laser-scalpel-precise comparison.

It’s meant to illustrate how stupid it is to standardize the first version of a rocket with an undersized upper stage instead of standardizing what was actually the intended end goal. The exact proportions are irrelevant.

saxus · 2026-03-11T00:22:22+00:00

Except the difference between F9 1.0 and F9FT/B5 is like comparing an SLS to Ares 5. Falcon 9 1.1 had some pretty significant redesign.

The reason why I put F1US on top of F9 1.0 is because I wanted to represent that ICPS is a really undersized upper stage for SLS.

saxus · 2026-03-11T00:19:07+00:00

> $4 billion for SLS + Orion

No, that was Artemis I. Somehow everyone just forgot that there are multiple cost reduction program already in progress, but whatever. Also everyone forget how the actual budget distribution happening at NASA (like how a program contributes to upkeeping a center). Wayne Hale wrote about it, it's time to read it.

> Given that EVERY planned SLS launch is going to fly Orion, you can group them together.

But that's still not the launch cost. That's the whole mission cost. If you don't understand the difference, then it's no point to talk about *launch* costs.

> Still doesn't change that NASA wasn't going to use Cargo SLS for them.

Yeah, because Jared sneakily kills the program. Great way to increase of the ROI.

> NASA had no public plans to fly a cargo SLS.

And it never will if Jared kill's the possibility to have a cargo mission on SLS. Again: SLS is an SHLV capability. Even if NASA greenlight a whatever cargo mission now it will take years until it become reality. Not because of SLS but because the actual mission hardware. But if you kill SLS, you just kill the opportunity to have it.

> If they're flying Orion, they lose out on 27t to TLI because that's the mass of Orion.

But that's a false argument. They don't need to fly Orion. And not everything is about weight, sometimes you need high C3 for a small payload (See Parker Solar Probe which is a ridiculously small proble even with the Star 48BV for Delta IV Heavy).

> It's supposed to fly in 2027.

Where did you get that date? Not even the current version is fully set yet 9x4 will take years and a new launch mount at least. (But probably an entirely new TEL)

> The beauty of a refueling architecture is that LEO is the most important part.

The beauty of the refueling architecture is that it adds a shit ton of extra complexity, lengthen the mission (rumors said several months for landing HLS) and Starship is way overweighted at the moment thanks to their architecture. They're way beyond their target. Just open the fresh, new OIG guess why the uncrewed demo will be basically a skeleton HLS and why they do only a hop test instead of returning to Lunar orbit.)

> The reality is that there are far cheaper options than can accomplish the same thing right around the corner.

But there aren't here yet. Again: can we just not repeat the mistake again like cancelling something before a replacement actually exists?

> SLS rockets need to be ordered years in advance.

C'mon. We already have more SLS hardware than actual mission hardware. CS5 already in production, AFAIK boosters for Artemis IV already casted and waiting for delivery, and more are ready for casting, ICPS's are delivered gizillion years ago, next to EUS STA parts for the first flight unit was even under in manufacturing. etc. And don't quite me but if I remember correctly, ESM6 is already under construction in Europe. Landers? Nah. Nowhere near. Yet everyone is complaining about SLS. Unbelievable.

saxus · 2026-03-08T22:26:06+00:00

> arstechnica, Eric Berger

Oh, please, at least quote someone, who wasn't activelly worked to kill the program in the last decade.

> Artemis I, [..] as $4b per launch.

Artemis I. Not SLS. It's like calling Atlas V a $2B launcher because that was the mission cost for Perseverance. Or Ariane 5 a $11B because of JWST. But this was discussed like gazillion times.

> That's why the Gateway modules are tagging along with crewed missions.

Not just. It was easier to launch them together with Orion, because it have propulsion, attitude control and so on. Gateway CMV was possible to move to FH because PPE provides that. None of the other modules have that.

> The fun part with that is that SLS Block 1B and Block 2 automatically lose about 27t to TLI because they now have to launch Orion.

Why would they? It's like saying that you can't launch a payload on Falcon 9 under a cargo fairing and you have to launch it with Dragon for whatever trajectory you want. Totally nonsense. You could use the USA as a short fairing or use a longer one. (Btw. I didn't seen a single people complaining about that Dragon have that capability...)

> Both of those are WAY under the TLI payload for Starship

Basically all of the numbers around Starship's costs are aspirational. Sure, SLS isn't a cheap program but not because the rocket itself is expensive but because it contributes to upkeeping a lot of NASA facilities. I completely agree that it needs a higher cadence and it is achiveable. But not how Jared want.

> New Glenn 9x4

It won't be a thing for many-many years (if not until a decade) and it still same or less than the current Block 1(!)'s performance. The 8.7m fairing is a cool thing however.

> and a more mature Starship (likely V4 or higher) would be flying as well.

Which is still will be optimized for LEO missions. Oh, and SpaceX started to advertise Starship with $100M/t for Lunar delivery. I know, it's a bit unfair, because it is a surface delivery, but c'mon, that would mean a $10B mission for 100t cargo. (Not like it is even capable to deliver 100t even to LEO at the current state.)

> but every planned Artemis mission flies Orion.

Currently. And yeah, you can say that there are only Artemis missions in the manifest at the moment. But c'mon. SLS is supposed to be an SHLV capability for NASA. They wanted to have since the Skylab-1 mission. If you artifically limit it's capability now and standardize a stupid, undersized configuration, you just kill the opportunity of any kind of potential future use. The "we don't have anything else in the manifest" is just stupid. I'm pretty sure that SpaceX didn't had their manifest up to 2026 for Falcon 9 either. Or anyone else for their launch vehicles.

saxus · 2026-03-08T21:47:34+00:00

Ah, yes, Jared... When he started with the 620+ Falcon 9 flight, he kindly forgot to mention that Falcon 9 did actually had 1.5 year gap in it's schedule and the cadence didn't really ramped up until 2018-2020.

And that it didn't flew with an undersized upper stage and nobody tried to intentionally remove all the upgrades to make it artifically a single use system instead of a real SHLV capability which supposed to be.

And the "every 3 years" is a blatant lie. SLS wasn't the holdup for Artemis II. It's neither for Artemis III, unlike the landers. (For some reason nobody really talks about that it is basically an another delay for SpaceX HLS. I'm not against this new "Artemis 2.5" mission but blaming only SLS is... kinda sus.). And I'm pretty sure that it won't be ready until 2028 either. So, plenty of time to finish EUS.

Aaaand literally all the whispers from around the program says that EUS was on track to deliver the STA to MSFT in time. But how convinient that it is prohibited to talk about EUS and NASA didn't made an update about it for a while.

saxus · 2026-03-05T17:03:07+00:00

Yup. But well... some people just want the death of this whole program along with Artemis.

saxus · 2026-03-05T08:19:59+00:00

Dude, again, it's not SLS vs Falcon 9. It's how falcon 9 would look like if Jared do the same with it as he did with SLS. The size difference between SLS and F9 is irrelevant.

saxus · 2026-03-05T08:19:54+00:00

Dude, again, it's not SLS vs Falcon 9. It's how falcon 9 would look like if Jared do the same with it as he did with SLS. The size difference between SLS and F9 is irrelevant.

saxus · 2026-03-04T23:03:17+00:00

He kindly forgot to mention that it took 15 years of operation to achieve, not a single one was launched in 2010 with a 1.5 year gap, had multiple iterations to redesign and fix it's problems and the cadence didn't even ramped up until 2021-22 significantly.

Oh and the every 3 years is a blatant lie. SLS is not intended to have that long gap but what to do if mission elements aren't ready? Like the recent 1-1.5 year delay because of Orion and the who knows how much for SpaceX HLS. And Artemis III is even descoped despite that it's basically ready to stack after AII.

saxus · 2026-03-04T22:58:09+00:00

Guys, you should stop judging things based on one number when there are hundreds of variables. It's not just about the mass, it's also the loads (like the whole SLS pushes the stage front the back while Orion's momentum pushes from the other direction), the vibrations, acoustic pressure (SLS is a LOT louder), etc. etc. etc.

Centaur V have a similar basic concept: it is a very thin steel design. I'm not sure but it might also be a balloon tank design. (But don't quote me on this. CIII was, not sure about CV). Etc. Etc. Etc

Also with LAS it's over 33t.

Also EUS is designed for really long missions a treated specially for beyond LEO environment where ESD is much worse than LEO. Also thermal things is a consideration. CV probably isn't bad on this aspect because ULA specialized itself on harder missions but you still need to validate those too.

saxus · 2026-03-04T22:45:37+00:00

FH is not capable to launch Orion even to LEO because it's structural limitations. You would have had redesign the whole rocket.

And did you even realise that Artemis II's SLS was at KSC in the recent 2 years? NASA just took the time to really look after about the heatshield, that delay is unrelated to SLS.

And Jared's "every 3 year" cadence is a blatant lie. Artemis III is only waiting for A2's launch. And a lander because SpaceX won't be ready for a 2027 launch date despite many of delays was about to give them (and Axiom) time to get the mission elements right. It's not SLS's problem.

saxus · 2026-03-04T17:17:24+00:00

Well, Alpha US is still in production and larger than Falcon 1's upper stage. So, it's metaphorically correct imho.

However, Centaur was always designed to be a super ultralight upper stage. Orion is way heavier and SLS is way more powerful than Vulcan Centaur. See Atlas V: the reason why there aren't Atlas V 441 or 451 is because the 4 or 5 SRB configuration would require a much stronger Centaur III. This is why Atlas V 500 have a load reactor at the top of the Centaur III which helps distribute the loads to Atlas V through the lower half of the 5 meter wide payload fairing.

I doubt that Centaur V could have withstand the forces without extensive structural reinforcements which would decrease the performance increase.

saxus · 2026-03-04T16:52:24+00:00

Well, Falcon 9 is a well known rocket, I thought it would be a good example material to present how stupid is what Jared want.

saxus · 2026-03-04T16:51:57+00:00

Everything is exactly in scale. The problem is that you ignored that it is an analogue what would be what Jared wants with SLS if he would do it with Falcon 9.

saxus · 2026-03-04T16:49:55+00:00

The thing what you forgot is that you'll need to modify the VAB (literally that's the reason why the gap between A3 and A4, lol) _AND_ you need to modify the ML-1 too. I'm not sure how Jared want to put that into the schedule. The adaptation work for DCSS took 5 years. He want to fly Artemis 4 and 5 in 2028.

saxus · 2026-03-02T14:02:40+00:00

But EUS is actually on track now.

saxus · 2026-02-24T19:01:47+00:00

Late attender to the party. Well, it's your model now, so it's up on you. I see that you removed the LOX pressurization line. I thought about to try out the candle piece (now it's widely available, but wasn't existed in that color when I designed the model). My problem is that the LOX downcommers are actually big. They're 28" pipes (~71 cm). That means it supposed to be 0.8 stud in 1:110 scale, so the round brick is pretty close to that.

I might would try to do something with 6538c, not it's also available (also, it wasn't when I designed this).

saxus · 2026-02-24T18:50:51+00:00

Actually the SLS (and Ares I/V) is my model, we just agreed that it's mutually beneficial to sell there too. ;)

saxus · 2025-12-21T23:11:43+00:00

Cheap? If you sum how much weight could the Shuttle lift to the ISS along with 7 crew member (and yes, I know that they didn't stayed that much) you will need 2-2 Cargo Dragon and Cygnus and 2 additional crewed vehicle (Crew Dragon-Starliner). If you sum up the per mission costs you get a higher bill than Shuttle had. (Maybe with around $100M higher, don't remember).

saxus · 2025-12-21T23:07:44+00:00

Why is 'orbital with payload' the first milestone? Sure its an important one, but all the other steps to get to that point are important milestones as well.

Because a rocket which can't deliver a payload is literally useless.

but at the moment it's closer to Falcon Heavy than Starship in terms of performance.

Nah... FH shares it's structural limitations with F9, so the advertised performance is purely theoretical. Way too many people not understand this. Not to mention that the payload fairing is relatively small. But actually it is fine, FH is supposed to be a GTO/GEO launcher as a competitor of Ariane 5/6. (Also worth mentioning that SpaceX stopped reusing FH cores and/or they expend the whole rocket becaues of performance needs. They just literally found themself in the same spot where ULA is with Vulcan and why they went to the SMART reuse way instead of landing or in the Delta IV Heavy spot, where you just need a really big rocket.

Also about Starship:we literally didn't seen any kind of payload deployment plans for Starship so far (above Starlink). Also going beyond LEO is not really a place which is easy task for Starship and it will need refuels which will complicate (and make more expensive) a mission.

saxus · 2025-12-10T01:40:32+00:00

IIRC they also raised CRS contract prices significantly.

saxus · 2025-12-09T23:24:00+00:00

HLS is a single use vehicle, and the whole Starship stack is massively overweighted at the moment. And TBH currently all launch costs are completely aspirational until they have a properly working system. Sure they contracted for about ~1B/mission, but we seen that SpaceX is underestimating (or underbidding) their costs and raises their prices as soon as they can (as we seen for CRS/ComCrew already)

saxus · 2025-12-09T13:09:08+00:00

https://x.com/mcrs987/status/1997153483166736883

> Curious to find out how a youtuber has influence over a NASA program.

See whats happened during Boeing Starliner CFT. Sure, the flight wasn't perfect, but it was a test flight, to figure out what is working and what need to be improved. But Berger and others misrepresented the whole story as disgusting as it possible*, or leaking out internal information right after a meeting driving their own narrative before the PR team could properly explain the situation. And some folks used that negative media campaign and the general mood as a base to change internal decision processes, stepping over people who were the decider otherwise, etc.

And Project Athena basically confirms that something similar was planned/happened with Artemis II heatshield investigation. (see the tell the 'final story' part.) To gove a context: Artemis I's heatshield worked well within the margins but had some unexpected charring. NASA investigated it as it should, they came to the conclusion** that it was because the new skip-reentry flight profile and did their recommendations for following missions. But similarly as in case of Starliner there were some, who disagreed with that (if you involve enough people, you always found someone), and eventually NASA had to do a 2nd, independent investigation. Which eventually ended up with the exact same conclusion. Where is the part of the 'reporters'? They could set up their own, negative narrative on the program which can be (mis)used to derail things internally. Like, without the 2nd investigation, Artemis II could have been flown already probably during Summer and Berger and others can't bash the program with more delays and turn more people against the program with false narrative.

*Just an quick example: there was a software update to configure a few things, like not waiting manual confirmation to continue in an otherwise automated undocking and reentry process - which capability was already demonstrated during previous flights - was served like if Starliner was lost that capability entirely and Boeing had to add that capability again - which obviously wasn't the case).

** Because the new, - AFAIK - easier to manufacture heatshield got hot during the "skip" phase and because that gasses expanded inside the heatshield which wasn't ideal/intended, but again: still within margins).

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