Yes, we will just have to agree to disagree.

I have said all that I am going to say on this subject.

– Al

No, there doesn’t seem to be any common ground. You seem to believe that when someone makes a crazy statement like DHL will start suborbital transatlantic cargo service in 2011, or when some suggests that a $20 billion Mars prize we should all say All right! Great Idea! Instead of being honest and saying, you have got to be kidding…

To you all hype is the same and its ALL good. I bet if some new space firms came out hyping a form of anti-gravity system you would welcome them with open arms as new space firms.

And so you feel the serious firms should be forced to climb a much higher creditability barrier with investors, regulators and the business community rather then censure those who haven’t a clue about space, business or marketing. That those firms and individuals who haven’t a clue should continue to be allowed to poison the waters and make it harder for the rest to do business in states where the hype masters passed through first.

Yes, I do think we need to disagree as we are on different paths to the future.

I am interested in helping build the creditability of entrepreneurial space firms to lower the barrier for them. You seem just interested in undermining their creditability by grouping them in with the hype masters and viewgraph firms which may up such a percentage of new space. You seem interested in allowing those hype masters to free ride on the efforts of those trying to actually build legitimate space enterprises.

So yes, lets tolerate the new space hype masters and praise them as New Space pioneers and spokespeople. Let’s agree by our silence when they make outrageous claims and statement.

And lets allow them to drag the entrepreneurial space firms down to the level of the New Space “industry” …

And you wonder why folks have a problem with seeing New Space as nothing more then another run of the failed hype of “old” alt.space and CATS? And why legitimate firms have such a high barrier to overcome with investors?

Yes we must disagree. You just seem intent on associating firms like SpaceX and Blue Origins with viewgraph firms and the hype masters of New Space, dragging them down to that level. You seem intent on undermining the industry you claim to support rather then ruffle a few feathers.

Tom

While we both agree that hype exists, we differ on how much of a problem it is. You want to punish the entrepeneurs who engage in it, even though almost all successful entrepreneurs engage in hype (including Elon Musk, Bob Citron, Peter Diamandis, David Thompson and Jim Benson). My proposed alternative is to help them see if & when & where they are not being effective, and to help accelerate their learning process so that they can succeed.

Next, while we both agree that charlatans exist, that is highly charged “distinction” that must be backed up by *proof* before being thrown at any individual or company. Furthermore, I suspect that we have significantly different definitions of “charlatan” and how many charlatans are out there.

Based on your prior statements, I suspect that you would list a large number of existing entrepreneurs as “charlatans”. In my opinion (and this may not be your intention) but if you got your way I believe a witch hunt would ensue as we start debating who the charlatans are, and whether we should drown them, or burn them at the stake. If this became the modus operandi, everybody would be pointing their fingers at everybody else, trying to encourage the witch hunters to look the other way.

I suspect that many of the people you would call “charlatan”, I would call enthusiastic and passionate entrepreneurs who may be naive and ignorant at the moment, but who will learn from their mistakes, or who will fail and give up. These Americans are in the process of learning the most important lessons of being an entrepreneur … by actually starting a business … by trying, by failing, by learning, and hopefully then improving their plans and trying again and eventually succeeding.

You see bad people who are doing bad things and who need to be stopped.

I see good people who should be given a chance to learn (just like we gave Thompson, Citron, Benson and Diamandis a chance), who deserve to be respectfully coached (in private), and who deserve our help and encouragement because they are doing something that is quintessentially American and honorable at its core.

I don’t know if there is anything else for us to talk about on this subject.

I think we should just agree to disagree, and leave it at that.

– Al

Again as you your example shows, you prove the point of about alt.space being a cult, not a industry. Instead of saying yes, that some alt.space folks are just “charlatans” ( to use your word) and should not be considered part of the industry you embrace them all. And attack the person pointing them out as pure hype. And of course following the partyline you bring up the favor whipping boys of new space, the ISS and VentureStar while neglecting the role atl.space 1.0 and CATS (alt.space 2.0) thinking (and hype) played in them.

The ISS costs as much as it does because the original $8 billion dollar 1983 design was never built. Instead it was, at the request of Congress, redesigned and redesigned for over 15 years. And then in 1992 redsigned and placed in a new orbit to accommodate Russia. As you should know if you had any knowledge of space policy as you claim. Comparing the 1983 design to the ISS is comparing apples and oranges.

And VentureStar failed because NASA bought into the CATS route (atl,space 2.0 hype…) instead of simply funding it 100% as a Shuttle replacement as you are proposing for COTS. Remember the Launch Services Purchase Act? Alt.space 1.0 crowning achievement?

http://www.cwo.com/~davida/

If NASA just funded a Shuttle replacement at 100%, as you are proposing for COTS, it probably would have been built. Or a more likely one of the other X-33 contenders. The technical issues could have been solved with more money, but oh wait, NASA was only allowed to contribute so much with the rest coming from industry because of the huge commercial demand for CATS… After all X-33 was only a technical demonstrator to help industry…

In short, VentureStar it was a experiment built on alt.space hype as you well know if you were around at the time. And because it was seen as a technical demonstrator (X-33) NASA also selected the most technically difficult of the three options. Which is what you do if you are building an X-craft as you learn the most that way. If instead NASA had pursued it as a Shuttle replacement the vehicle selected would have likely been much different and less of a technical risk. Its also possible it would had replaced the Shuttle years ago if NASA has viewed it as a simple Shuttle replacement, not a radical commercial technology.

And BTW I and a number of folks involved with the SRS Task Force advised New Mexico to past on VetnureStar. But the alt.space “road show” kept talking up all the benefits of CATS (I remember one meeting where flyers were passed out pointing out Paris was 45 minutes from WSMR by suborbital flight…) and the state bought into it hook line and sinker. I hope they haven’t made the same bad deal with VG. Also the spaceport effort in New Mexico didn’t start with the VentureStar, it started with the DC-X. But then I never saw you around at any of the early planning meetings so I guess you wouldn’t know first hand.

And which brings us back to this thread. If New Space is so important to you why do you defend the “charlatans” and group them in with the serious firms? Why don’t YOU care about the image of New Space and work to weed them out?

Individuals and organizations that make outrageous claims or prediction are the ones hurting the creditability of the New Space industry far more then someone who is willing to point out some firms are real and others just vaporware – beware. Or that a 20 billion dollar Mars prize is shear nonsense.

Or do you actually believe DHL will be providing sub-orbital transatlantic package delivery in 2011? That if NASA rained 4 billion on a start-up with no experience with orbital vehicles it would get a cheap SSTO RLV in a few short years? That if a 20 billion dollar Mars prize was offered as a replacement to VSE corporations would line up to compete and investors would line up to fund them? If you don’t why don’t YOU speak up instead of attacking those that do?

Allowing the “charlatans” (to once again use a word you introduced) the same right to use the New Space name, and defending their hype and viewgraphs simply drags the image of the entire industry to their level.

You are the one doing the New Space industry a disservice by saying there is no different between the “hype” firms like Spacehab and SpaceX and the “hype” of the viewgraph firms claiming they will revolutionize spaceflight if only someone gave them a few billion. Or the “prophets” claiming that transatlantic suborbital cargo flights and orbital college campuses are only a few years away. All you are doing is giving them a free ride and creditability on the accomplishment of firms that are actually helping to expand space commerce.

Let’s see first if suborbital tourism actually amounts to an industry before using it as an example or calling the X-Prize a success. As Alan Boyle points out it always seems to be about 2 years in the future…

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/05/23/201976.aspx

Again, think about it. Who is the real threat? The person who points out the Emperor has no cloths or the ones assuring him how beautiful they are? Which one is really serving the Emperor interests best? Who is really best serving the interests of “New Space”? Ask yourself that question…

Tom

Dr. Matula,

Do you really believe that “referred conference papers and journal articles” is how real policy work gets done?

– Al

Again, you keep harping on alt.space/NewSpace as if they are the only ones who do this.

Maybe we should invent a hype scale — and hypometer — and compare the hype?

What about what Lockheed did in the late 1990s? They persuaded about a dozen potential launch port states that “they had a good chance” to be the home location of VentureStar. I talked to a number of them — they all believed that it was down to them and one or two other states. It was sad. The New Mexico spaceport of today is a descendent of the team that wanted to land the VentureStar deal. The same goes with the existing Oklahoma spaceport.

More specifically, if you look at the general history of “port” deals, and local/state economic development in general, states and local communities shovel huge amounts of money into attempting to bring some industry or company to their state. It is almost always a bad investment, on average, for the taxpayer. But the average taxpayer does not understand this, and it is good for the politicians who bring home the “big visible public win.”

But back to the space industry …

OldSpace helped NASA sell the Shuttle as flying 50 times per year, at $10 million per flight. That was complete hype, and it cost the American taxpayers 50 BILLION dollars and we lost 30 years and and entire generation of possibility.

QUESTION: Where would you put the “Shuttle marketing campaign of the 1970s” on the hype scale?

OldSpace helped NASA sell the nation on a space station that was supposed to only cost $8 Billion, and do everything for everybody, but whose true cost is now over 100 BILLION DOLLARS, and at a small fraction of its original planned capability.

QUESTION: Where would you put the “Space Station marketing campaign of the 1980s/1990s” on the hype scale?

More recently, Mike Griffin made a speech justifying >$100 BILLION investment in the Constellation program, based on the fact that we built cathedrals hundreds of years ago.

QUESTION: Where would you put that speech on the hype scale?

What you keep harping on …

1) Is not unique to the charlatans in the NewSpace industry. As I previously illustrated, the successful NewSpace entreprenuers (David Thompson, Bob Citron, Jim Benson) do it too.

2) Is NOT special to NewSpace. OldSpace does it too.

3) Is NOT even special to the space industry. Every industry does it.

4) It is NOT even special to industry. Government agencies do it too.

Big companies and small companies, new companies and old companies, private industry and government agencies … do exactly what you are complaining about.

You are taking a problem related to human nature — and over generalizing it as some sort of problem that is unique to NewSpace.

Meanwhile, there are many companies in the NewSpace industry who do not resort to “hype” — many who are doing hard and quiet work … many who are taking a Clayton Christiansen approach — and you are not doing them any favors by trashing the industry as a whole.

Therefore, when you say you are doing us all a favor, I don’t buy it.

If you really wanted the industry to succeed, you would be a teensy bit more selective … and a teensy bit more focused … in your criticism.

Since you refuse to do that, I can only conclude that you don’t want the industry to succeed.

– Al

Last two grafs of the above were mine, the first one was Dr. Matula’s.

Of course a digital computer isn’t a breakthrough–we’ve been doing that for over half a century. But making one that people can afford to have on their desks is.

You are the one attempting to dress up your “new space” agenda as something else other then hype and a blog as something more then simply a moderated discussion board focused responses to news articles.

My public space policy work is out there, in referred conference papers and journal articles which is the appropriate venue for policy work. Just do a google and you will see them. The purpose of a blog by contrast is for frank discussions on policy much as you would have in a coffee house. Not a substitue for workshops, conferences, studies or work groups as you are inferring.

Yes, billion dollar prizes are crazy. Even a 100 million dollar one is pushing the envelope. And the case is still out if the X-prize actually have created an industry or only short-circuited its birth. 2-3 years should tell the story on that one.

In business you take off the rose colored glasses and look long and hard at what is reality. The field of dream approach only works in the movies. Viewgraphs are not hardware. Duplicating something done 40 years ago is not a breakthrough. And alt.space/new space “industry” is only a minor fraction of the $110 billion dollar space commerce industry. These are realities that you continue to ignore when defending new space.

And you ignore how the hype of new space has caused states and local governments to waste millions in taxpayer dollars chasing after it. Have you tried to go to Kern County to get an industrial bond for a rocket company recently? If you have they will probably show you an old “new space” rocket they are looking to get rid of… Or approach states like Texas on spaceports? Those waters have been well poisoned by buying into new space hype and learning the reality the hard way.

That is why I see new space as its currently promoted doing far more harm then good to the efforts to expand the space economy. And why I see a need to speak against it instead of keeping silent and letting it continue to do its damage.

Tell me. Do you believe that transatlantic suborbital cargo service will begin in 2011 or North Carolina will have a campus in orbit in 2020? Both were presented to North Carolina policy makers as possible scenarios by the Space Frontier Foundation in this 2004 policy analysis.

http://www.ncsu.edu/kenan/ncsi/Docs/AeroSpaceEconomyInNC.pdf

Those predictions are on page 22. The Space Frontier Foundation is listed on the title page. I. Yes, if you only believe… I wonder if North Carolina still believes them? I wonder what would be the reaction of the state to a legitimate spaceport proposal following this introduction to “space commerce”.

I have seen other similar “policy analysis” by new space groups causing states to go off on wild gooses chases.

The late Gulf Coast Regional Spaceport is another good example. The new space hype passed through there about 6 years ago via a firm called Space Access which argued it would get billions from NASA to build a SSTO for tourism. The state spent about 1.4 million on studies and pre-licensing activities in Brazoria County before it realized that it was hype and the reality of what markets a spaceport there would actually serve. Raised expectations dashed it just pulled the plug, killing off any chance for a realistic spaceport which could have benefited the region. Wasted taxpayer dollars. Sad to say that new space hype (actually I guess you would call it CATS hype since that was the term of the day for New Space…) basically poisoned the waters for any legitimate plans for a coastal spaceport in Texas because they would never measure up to the expectations caused by the hype.

I know “buyer beware”. If these states invested in new space hype its their fault, not the new space advocates that came through with their viewgraphs… But is it really? Ask yourself that honestly? Are the “raised expectations” of the “New Space” PR machine actually doing far more damage to expanding space commerce then helping it?

Yes, I have seen first hand the damage new space hype has done and how hard it is to clean up after the raised expectations. How hard it is to overcome the cynicism they created among the policy markets. Which is why I think you need to see if the COTS experiment actually works before pushing it as the answer to all of NASA’s problems, bringing us once again back to the point of this BB thread. And why I have become antagonistic and cynical about alt.space 3.0, AKA “New Space”.

Tom