NASA won't fly astronauts on first SLS rocket launch

NASA won’t fly astronauts on the first launch of a new exploration rocket from Kennedy Space Center, the space agency confirmed Friday.

A feasibility study requested by the Trump administration determined that it would be too risky and expensive to accelerate a crew’s launch in an Orion capsule atop a 322-foot Space Launch System rocket, which may not happen before 2022.

“The risk was reasonable, but it was additional risk,” Bill Gerstenmaier, head of human spaceflight programs at NASA, said Friday. “It was going to cost more.”

The study estimated that the SLS and Orion might be readied to fly astronauts on their first launch together by the first half of 2020 — if NASA received an extra $600 million to $900 million to finish Orion’s heat shield, life support systems and launch abort system, among other technical challenges.

Instead, NASA will stick with its original plan to launch the SLS first without a crew, a mission now targeted for 2019. The second SLS launch would send astronauts into orbit around the moon nearly three years later, using an upgraded version of the rocket equipped with a more powerful upper stage.

“The best plan we have is actually the plan we’re on right now,” said Gerstenmaier.

NASA said that decision was made jointly with the White House, which Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot said has supported the agency's goal to develop an exploration system that could reach Mars in the 2030s.

But questions persist about the long-term future of the program on which NASA has already spent $24 billion, according to the agency’s inspector general.

The Trump administration had hoped to see an exciting mission launch sooner.

In a conversation with International Space Station astronauts last month, President Donald Trump said he wanted a Mars mission flown “during my first term, or at worst during my second term.”

“So we’ll have to speed that up a little bit, OK?” he said.

It wasn’t immediately clear if he was joking. Lightfoot on Friday confirmed that NASA has not been asked to mount a Mars expedition in that timeframe.

But during the same period, two private companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin, are expected to introduce smaller but still powerful heavy-lift rockets that may be viewed as lower-cost alternatives to NASA’s SLS.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk plans to fly people around the moon in the next couple of years, and has bigger ambitions to colonize Mars. Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, the billionaire CEO of Amazon, has floated a program to ship cargo to the moon.

NASA says the government, private sector and other countries must partner to achieve deep space exploration goals.

“It’s going to take really all of us, frankly, to get this done,” said Lightfoot.

Before the SLS flies, Boeing and SpaceX are expected to launch NASA astronauts to the International Space Station on so-called “commercial crew” missions in low Earth orbit. Test flights are planned next year.

NASA is downplaying the importance of when the first SLS rockets launch, arguing that they are the start of a multi-decade program of missions that will take humans farther out into space than ever.

“Taking folks farther than we ever have before just isn’t necessarily the most easy proposition in the world,” said Lightfoot. “We’re looking for a sustainable program here, more than just one mission.”

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 orjdean@floridatoday.com.And follow on Twitter at@flatoday_jdeanand on Facebook atfacebook.com/jamesdeanspace.