> Thats a mighty big if. Last I was hearing, although I haven’t been paying close attention, I got
> the impression nothing was gonna be reused.

Actually, Bill, it’s more like the thousandth time you’ve heard. I’m glad you finally decided to listen.

> It seems to me that NASA funding of the lunar hopper challenge through the X Prize
> demonstrates a real interest in re-useable LSAM technology. Why else fund hopper development?

Because not everyone thinks LSAM will be the only lunar lander ever built, or that the Moon will be the only place where VTOL is ever used.

If NASA had a real interest in using Centennial Challenges to develop LSAM (or anything else), Griffin would be increasing funding for Centennial Challenges, not gutting it.

> A single stage fully re-useable LSAM would be quite useful if combined with lunar LO2 production,
> suborbital hops for exploration for example, as well as Luna to EML-1.

It would be much more useful to have a reusable lander that was cheap, and small enough to be launched affordably instead of requiring a huge expensive Shuttle-derived ELV. It might actually get you to the Moon in your lifetime.

It’s unfortunate that the Moonies and Marsies are dominated by fundamentalists who only want to quote their sacred books and shut their minds to any alternative approach that might actually get them where they want to go.

Why is COTS funding critical, Jim?

If COTS is critical, it means there is no redundancy in the system, no parallel paths. No other markets.

That is not true. Prompt Global Strike alone is already as large as what NASA’s planning to spend on COTS — and unlike COTS, Prompt Global Strike won’t go away when ISS is shut down after 2016.. When you add in all the other military missions that could be done by low-cost, highly operational spacecraft, you have a market that’s much larger than COTS.

> COTS should not become a single-string experiment in pseudo-capitalism. Because if COTS
> fails (for one of many reasons, some likely to be NASA’s “fault”), we will be stuck with yet another
> round of reasons to be angry at NASA, instead of a growing cislunar economy.

That is a good argument for *not* putting all our eggs in the COTS basket, Jim. No matter how many companies NASA picks for COTS, it will still be a single-string experiment by definition because it will be dependent on a single string (NASA) for funding.

> NewSpace supporters need to identify and advocate for MANY more windows-of-opportunity for NASA
> to enable and purchase commercial services. Lunar Comm/Nav is an obvious one, but there are others
> as well.

Of course there are others, like launching all VSE cargo and personnel — which the Launch Services Purchase Act already requires. Some of us have been saying that for years, Jim, while you’ve been telling us COTS is the only market Griffin has to give.

In the meantime, Griffin has been gutting Centennial Challenges and backpeddling on one promise after another.

We should advocate many more windows-of-opportunity but NOT for NASA because NASA CANNOT be trusted.

Forty years ago, Kennedy killed off the first military spaceplanes (Dyna-Solar, Reusable Atlas, etc.) so that Apollo would have a monopoly on manned space. Now, the Bush administration is neglecting military spaceplanes for Apollo on Steroids. We must not allow that to happen again.

Yes, straight up cryogenic space flight is dangerous. Who knew!

That may stop NASA from flying people on the Delta IV Medium, but the Delta IV Medium isn’t NASA’s vehicle, so I can hardly see how that can stop others from flying on it.

A expensive, heavy, armored CEV, using SRBs, is not an appropriate manner for transferring people to and from low earth orbit.

I heard something very interesting about EELV and CEV. The Delta IV is not a good bird to launch people on. The ascent profile is too steep due to the high energy first stage. The reentry loads in abort scenarios are too hard on fragile human cargo.

The Atlas V is just dandy though.

Dennis

**********************

Bill

What it tells us is that no one has been able to put the capital together yet to figure out something profitable for people to do in space. This, in my opinion, is only a matter of time.

Dennis

However, harvesting lunar LO2 all by itself, without (1) tourism; (2) mining He3 or PGM; private science projects; or (4) media/marketing simply will not generate any revenue. Selling LO2 to NASA remains a taxpayer funded operation even if it saves NASA money, which still is an altogether good thing.

Lunar LO2 does lower costs substantially. It does not produce revenue.

= = =

If people on Earth consider “space exploration” to be worth supporting, that in and of itself is a market.

Precisely. And Big Media should be able to tell and sell that story for a profit. Starting with the sale of TV rights for our lunar return.

What I call the “oxygen trade” really will count in exactly the way that better launch vehicles would count. Reducing the cost of space transportation helps everyone and everything you do in space. Suppose lunar oxygen were readily available in LEO. You instantly reduce the cost of supporting the Space Station be a rather large amount. That is “earned” money, retained opportunity costs, that can be deployed to something other than supporting the Space Station. (Note that, in this analysis, why we are supporting the Space Station is irrelevant. The fact that we are, and appear likely to continue doing so, means that finding ways to do it for less money is a commercially valuable benefit.)

To put it another way, if people on Earth consider “space exploration” to be worth supporting, that in and of itself is a market. If private companies can figure out ways to do the “space exploration” that people on Earth have determined (for whatever reason) is worth paying for, people on Earth should be willing to pay for that technology to reduce their total cost per unit result.

Orbital Recovery is a good case in point. They are marketing a service to the space industry in space that may reduce the cost of providing a completely different service to people on Earth. This is a net good for space industrialization, and we should hope and expect to see a lot more of it going forward. The “oxygen trade” would be an important part of that.

— Donald

There is a vibrant commerical space sector out there. It is called the GEO communications industry. It makes money. The economic metrics are very clear and there is an entire political, financial, insurance, and technical infrastructure that supports it.

The absence of any political, financial, insurance, and technical infrastructure for humans in space is quite telling, in contrast.

There is a vibrant commerical space sector out there. It is called the GEO communications industry. It makes money. The economic metrics are very clear and there is an entire political, financial, insurance, and technical infrastructure that supports it.

After a very long time and a good bit of anchor federal funding, the remote sensing industry is on the way to maturation. There is still a ways to go but it is far better than it was in the initial steps toward commercialization in the 1980’s.

Jim Muncy

I agree. Yet there is still hope and Orbital Recovery will be announcing something very interesting in the next several days.

Dennis

let’s just say that the signs are not terribly favorable.

– Jim