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Build an industry, not a program

That’s the theme of the long-awaited part 3 of the essay on the future of the Vision for Space Exploration that Charles Miller and I published in this week’s issue of The Space Review. We noted back in part 1 that the Vision, as currently laid out, is threatened by a looming budget crunch as the Baby Boomer generation is retired; in part 2 we noted that one solution to this impending crisis is the development of cheap and reliable access to space (CRATS). Most everyone agrees that CRATS is vital, regardless of the future budget situation, but the past has been littered with a number of programs that tried and failed to achieve low-cost space access: the shuttle, NASP, X-33, and the National Aerospace Initiative. So how do avoid repeating those mistakes?

Our argument is that past efforts have focused on finding the solution to the problem: a single right answer that could be developed with the smartest people we know. It’s not a new problem: Samuel Langley had effectively the national aircraft program at the turn of the 20th century, but also failed; fortunately there were a couple of bicycle repairmen who had their own ideas of how to approach powered flight. So instead of going down the road of yet another national program to develop a low-cost space transportation system, we argue that what the country should be doing instead is funding a larger number of smaller research efforts, guided by a NACA-like organization:

If we adopt an NACA mindset for the critical national goal of CRATS, no one program will become “The Solution”, and there will be no “National” program or initiative. The programs will be smaller, more numerous, and more frequent. They will be small enough that any one program can fail without risking the entire initiative because of negative media attention. They will be numerous enough that the risk of failure is diversified. They will be frequent enough that we will make steady progress even in the face of failure by individual programs. This approach, if adopted, will eliminate the starts and stops we have experienced over the last 40 years by using the big program mindset to achieving CRATS.

25 comments to Build an industry, not a program

  • Tonto

    “If we adopt an NACA mindset for the critical national goal of CRATS”

    Who is this “we” of which you speak?

  • Someone

    How is the proposed solution different from what the AFRL has been quietly doing?

    And how will it help with the lack of demonstrated markets? Or a military requirement CATS? Those were the major drivers of aviation development. Those are the real factors that grew the aviation industry. And the $251 billion commercial space industry discussed in Taylor Dinerman’s Space Review article Financial risk analysis for the space industry in the same issue.

    Also is important to note that in its early days NACA really functioned much like the FAA AST COMSTAC does now. One of the factors driving the creation of NACA was the Wright patent lawsuit that paralyzed the U.S. aviation industry. And resulted in the U.S. falling behind the heavily government subsidized aviation research in Europe. It played a key role in its settlement. As noted in the NASA history of the NACA

    history.nasa.gov/SP-4406/chap1.html

    But the NACA’s role as mediator in the rancorous and complex dispute between Glenn Curtiss and the Wright-Martin Company represented its greatest wartime success. The controversy involved the technique for lateral control of aircraft in flight. Once settled, the resultant cross-licensing agreement consolidated patent rights and cleared the way for volume production of aircraft during the war as well as during the postwar era.

    Perhaps a quick and dirty way to create to test this idea is to just give FAA AST a budget the COMSTAC could award to address specific New Space problems. $3-5 million a year should do it and like the NACA is could be quietly added as an amendment to the next DOT Appropriations Bill. Seems this could be something Prospace could easily do.

    Also one note – its easy to dump on Dr. Largely but it also illustrates a blind spot many space advocates have, that the effort needs to be led by the best and brightest scientists. Apollo was successful because the NASA administrator was an experience Washington lawyer who skillfully kept the money flowing. Langley’s problem, as was the problem with X-22, SLI, etc. and New Space as well was not being able to keep the money flowing long enough to complete the project. The Wrights by contrast had their bike business to fund them.

    In retrospect Griffin and his pushing his engineering solution for VSE, instead of building a network of political support for VSE and letting the very skilled NASA engineers finish their roadmap studies, has probably destroyed VSE and doomed American space access to spma in a can (Falcon or EELV…). The next administrator should not be the best and brightest scientist, but instead an political operative who knows their way around Washington and have a passion for space.

  • “but instead an political operative who knows their way around Washington and have a passion for space.”

    Hmm… Jeff Foust for NASA Administrator? ;-)

  • Bob Mahoney

    And Keith Cowing as Deputy! Now THAT would be an interesting dynamic!

    But seriously, the article makes some interesting points worth consideration. I think the major difference from AFRL in the authors’ suggestion is their notion of having (like NACA) all the players coming together in a forum bent on developing the industry as a whole versus a particular player (AF) pushing particular promising technologies that it might find useful. The NACA laboratories served their role of contributing basic knowledge, alongside the industry research labs and the military’s. But the organization as a whole, with representatives from across the entire spectrum, allowed for cross-pollination & exchange of ideas & innovations even while navigating the challenging minefield of proprietary materials & research.

    If one includes such a group founding into a larger reinvention of the NASA organization (e.g., breaking off aeronautics with FAA into a separate National Aeronautics Admin, the space exploration tasks into a National Space Exploration Agency, the space applications & exploitation work into the NOAA & Commerce Dept), such a group/team just might make something happen that beats the earth-to-orbit hurdle…until the space elevator comes to fruition of course.

  • Me

    FAA is regulatory agency like the FCC. Not an R&D agency. A National Aeronautics Admin would bury aeronautics research deeper into the DOT.

    “Perhaps a quick and dirty way to create to test this idea is to just give FAA AST a budget the COMSTAC could award to address specific New Space problems”

    That would only be dirty answer and create more problems. Why only “newspace” problems?

  • gm

    again… I was RIGHT about the VSE hardware’s Ares-5 (but NASA has not made the right choice)
    nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5451
    TWO YEARS AGO (I repeat, TWO YEARS AGO!!!) I’ve said that the Ares-5 is underpowered:
    gaetanomarano.it/articles/011srb5.html
    and (again, TWO YEARS AGO!!!) I’ve ALREADY suggested the better, faster and cheaper solution:
    gaetanomarano.it/articles/006_superSLV.html
    NASA Ares-5: 5.5 + 5.5 = 11 segments
    “MY” Ares-5: 4 + 4 + 4 = 12 segments
    MY design offers MORE power at LESS costs and in LESS time!
    WHY did they have lost TWO years around a wrong design if the they can (simply) get the BEST design on my website??? :) :) :)

  • Someone

    Because CRATS seems to be a New Space issue. Not that the commercial space industry wouldn’t benefit from it. But their business models are not dependent on CRATS as the New Space bsuiness models are.

  • me

    gm,

    Quit polluting this website with your garbage

  • “Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it” — George Santayana, 1905

  • Dennis Wingo

    It seems to me that CRATS is no more than a reformulation of CATS from the 90’s with the acknowledgment that the private money in the investment world (as opposed to the self funded world if Musk, Bezos) does not see CATS as a good investment (hard to blame them).

    CRATS seems to be focused on finding ways of getting the government to fund things without government strings (NACA like risk reduction activities).

    Actually, in contrast with the article, I don’t see CRATS today, in 2008 as being the key issue to be addressed but opening markets. I smile when I see absolutely no reference to Zero G Zero Tax, which is a market neutral, market creating activity that if the government passed, would actually create CRATS, just not the way that the current crop of advocates would like.

    For example, in the 1980’s before Challenger when private industry (3M, Schering Plough) were developing their flight experiments, NASA’s costs were not an issue and were never the issue. The issue that killed microgravity after challenger was that we did not have frequent and repeated access to space (FRAS).

    I have counted that within the next 40 months there will be up to 8 separate vehicles that can carry cargo or humans to a destination in space where activities of many types can take place. These vehicles are:

    Soyuz
    Progress
    Proton (large payloads)
    ATV
    HTV
    STS
    COTS-1 (Musk)
    COTS-2 (Orbital)

    Most of these vehicles can carry microgravity payloads or tourists, or other things that enable people to make a profit, either directly or indirectly. Thus we have the core of FRAS, which as the market develops, will lead some smart people to start developing CRATS, but only after the market develops. Without a market, your CRATS only model will never work as you will never get what you want, which is more investment.

    As FRAS develops and customers see that they can get what they want from the station there will be a lot of new things done like Joe Carroll’s tether deorbit system for microgravity products. You will see augmentation of the station’s power system, and you will see more deals like Hamilton Sundstrand’s water purchase deal with NASA.

    Without focusing on markets, you will never reach your goals. With ZGZT, you will get your markets and with the investment in the 8 vehicles and the destination, you have FRAS which will lead to CRATS.

    However, something to remember is something a very wise owl said to me recently. You can have cheap access to space or you can have reliable access to space, you cannot have both, at least in the near to mid term.

    Elon Musk admitted in his speech at ISDC that it was unlikely that SpaceX will get the level of cost reduction that they originally aimed for. You you may criticize Elon but I really don’t see anyone doing any better out there.

  • Jeff Foust

    How is the proposed solution different from what the AFRL has been quietly doing?

    If you’re referring to FAST, that is certainly a step in the right direction, but it alone, at its current scale, isn’t sufficient.

    And how will it help with the lack of demonstrated markets? Or a military requirement CATS? Those were the major drivers of aviation development.

    You should re-read part 2. CRATS is arguably essential for anything beyond Tier 1 of ORS.

    Also is important to note that in its early days NACA really functioned much like the FAA AST COMSTAC does now.

    The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST), nor its Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC), does patent cross-licensing or technology R&D to any significant degree. Moreover a $3-5M R&D budget, unless very tightly focused, seems like it wouldn’t get you much.

  • Someone

    Jeff,

    Two points.

    First the cross patenting was in response to a major industry problem in 1915 that was paralyzing the U.S. aviation industry. It is not a problem today for space or aviation, largely thanks to the example set by the NACA.

    The point it was illustrating was that the problems the NACA focused on originally were much different then the popular vision of the NACA that we now have. That role emerged gradually as it worked to fill holes in basic aviation research, starting in the 1920’s and continuing into the 1950’s.

    In short NACA grew into its mission just as the aviation industry grew and in response to the needs of the industry. Trying to duplicate an organization model designed for one industry to jump start another is likely to be unsuccessful. You need to design the New Space “NACA” to address the problems of the New Space industry as they are today.

    What I would recommend is that instead of duplicating the NACA Model you propose duplicating the process that resulted in its formation by holding a series of meetings consisting of the key industry/government players to deter mine what is needed and what will work. Then draft what legislation and/or funding requests as needed to make it happen.

    In 1915, for the NACA, this consisted of the Army, Navy, Smithsonian, and industry leaders along with some Congressional staffers, all worried about how far behind Europe the lawsuits had caused the U.S, to fall in aviation technology. I am sure the people here could recommend a similar set of key players.

    Second, although the FAA AST is only involved in regulation, the same is not true of the FAA in general. It also works to promote the aviation industry. A review of the proposed 2009 $14.6 Billion dollar FAA budget reveals $2.8 billion allocated for matching grants to improve airports. The FAA is also spending some $2.7 billion for improving the elements of its ATC system. There are also a number of aviation research line elements included. The budget details are below.

    http://www.dot.gov/bib2009/htm/FAA.html

    Growing the FAA AST into a model similar to the aviation side of the FAA, by providing modest funding for similar programs for improving spaceports and basic research on launch system reliability, is not that big a step, but could be seen as a simple expansion of their current mission to facilitate the development of a commercial launch industry in the U.S. Its always easier to work within existing organizations and budgets then advocate new ones.

  • Someone

    Dennis,

    Excellent post!

    The only problem I see is that except perhaps for SpaceX, none on the list are “New Space” companies or “New Space” launch systems. Just a bunch of old space government funded systems :-)

    What you say is true, you could have cheap, you could have reliable, but you won’t get both at once and the search for CRATS/CATS has derailed progress in space development for over a decade. More if you count the original Shuttle decision.

    Also the current high launch rates have not stopped firms like Sirus, XM Radio, etc. from closing their business models. Or growing the commercial space industry to over $200 billion in annual revenues. I also agree that FRATS is more important now then CRATS and that CRATS will emerge as the markets develop.

  • Joe Smith

    Wingo’s analysis is interesting, but there’s something missing:

    Soyuz
    – effectively no downmass
    Progress
    – no dowmass
    Proton (large payloads)
    – no downmass (and a lousy reliability record of late)
    ATV
    – no downmass
    HTV
    – no downmass
    STS
    – downmass, but retiring in 2010
    COTS-1 (Musk)
    – downmass, but doesn’t exist yet, schedule slipping
    COTS-2 (Orbital)
    – downmass, but so early on in schedule that there’s no chance yet for schedule to slip (plus, notice how OSC has not been emphasizing its downmass capability?)

    All those precious station users who would take advantage of ZGZT won’t if they can’t get anything more than data back from station. Frequent and Repeated Access *to* Space means nothing if you don’t also have Frequent and Repeated (and Reliable) Access *from* Space as well.

    Not sure that’s something either FRAS or CRATS can solve.

  • Someone: The next administrator should not be the best and brightest scientist, but instead an political operative who knows their way around Washington and have a passion for space.

    Seconded. The latter is far more important to any large government space project than engineering and science — and Dr. Griffin has been notably poor at politics (even the NASA internal variety) from the beginning.

    Dennis: Without focusing on markets, you will never reach your goals.

    Seconded, again — in fact, you could have taken the words right out of my mouth. I agree with most of your post, although I would focus less on government “virtual” markets (e.g., tax credits, et cetera) and more on real “physical” markets (e.g., comsats and the Space Station).

    Your list of vehicles is illuminating — we may be winning the battle for diversity in space access, if not quite low price. It does not really matter that most of these are government vehicles, in my opinion, since they will still be “competing” for market share. That should let us “evolve” toward lower cost access (please, could we lose some of the acronyms?) — the only way this is likely to happen short of the kind of national emergency (World War II) that pushed airplane development far beyond what market forces could have achieved. I do agree that the government pie should be divided into multiple projects. All the advantages (recovery from failures and mistakes, multiple routes to success, et cetera) are manifest in the admittedly early history of NASA’s subsidies for Kistler, SpaceX, and Orbital.

    Someone: Launch costs had little to do with the satellite radio industry’s success or otherwise. First of all, the industry suffers more from over-expectation than lack of success. Both companies have been more successful by almost any measure than satellite TV was at a comparable period in its history and, in spite of management distraction (see below), both are well on the way to being profitable. Both companies had more trouble getting their receivers to work than getting their satellites into orbit and launch costs are a relatively small part of their cost structure.

    The real problem is that they have taken their eyes off the ball of convincing people to buy their products, wasting 1.5 years and counting in an insane effort to circumvent a direct condition of their licenses, that satellite radio not be allowed to become a monopoly. As for why they should not be allowed to combine, let me count the ways,

    http://www.donaldfrobertson.com/satellite_radio_consolidation.html

    Instead of developing new and innovating receivers, products, and programming, and marketing them, they are using all their energy playing corporate and financial games that benefit nobody but managers with ridiculous parachutes and stockholders (of which, admittedly, I am one) — an encapsulation of much of what is wrong with American industry today.

    — Donald

  • Someone

    Donald,

    Instead of developing new and innovating receivers, products, and programming, and marketing them, they are using all their energy playing corporate and financial games that benefit nobody but managers with ridiculous parachutes and stockholders (of which, admittedly, I am one) — an encapsulation of much of what is wrong with American industry today.

    Just as Rockefeller, Carnegie, Hill, etc. did in the golden age of business. Look at U.S. Steel and Standard Oil. Markets aren’t about progress, but about self-interest. Progress is only a side-effect in the battle to control the market.

    Sounds like the Satellite Radio industry is demonstrating pure market based competition at its best, eliminating your competition via buyout, merger or driving it out of business. In this case merger seems to work better then fighting over subscribers. Ayn Rand should be smiling that the government decided not to stop it.

  • Someone

    Joe,

    When a demand for downmass develops systems to deliver it will as well. But having so many options for upmass is good.

  • me

    ” FAA AST into a model similar to the aviation side of the FAA, by providing modest funding for similar programs for improving spaceports and basic research on launch system reliability, is not that big a step,”

    Big difference, FAA does not research aircraft reliability

  • Some shakeups in aerospace industry leadership might help. Jeff and Charles talk about how some smart people become arrogant and stop listening to others. I personally witnessed this at NASA Goddard. This kind of behavior caused major damage to the group in which I worked. High status people in the group expressed the view that outsiders should be forced to do what was right. I actually heard the phrase “My way or the highway!” used in discussions between members of management.

    Our current NASA administrator, Mike Griffin, shows some very strong points. I think, though, he would be helped quite a bit by a man such as his predecessor, Sean O’Keefe. O’Keefe came into an agency to which major damage had been done by the previous administrator. While O’Keefe was certainly not technical, he showed an extraordinary ability to communicate with people of all different types. Griffin, in contrast, has spent his career — especially his early years — working with techies. This shows up in many ways. Yes, I would also Jeff Foust and Keith Cowing in some sort of formal adviser roles. Keith brings an insider/outsider take on things. Jeff is independent and younger. He’s also quite likable.

    Oh — it’s not really fair criticizing Griffin for having shortcomings with regard to internal NASA politics. Having shortcomings vis-a-vis internal NASA politics is normal. I remember one time Keith posted a note about Goddard had different unwritten rules from group to group. As someone who worked there, I can only agree. Failing at least some of the time with regard to internal NASA politics seems normal — especially when some of the people making the rules show significant psychological problems.

    Oh, if you like these ramblings, you might be interested in my blog posting Aerospace Workforce Issues.

  • Someone

    Me,

    Big difference, FAA does not research aircraft reliability

    I am sure this is news to the FAA Centers of Excellence

    http://www.coe.faa.gov/mission_vision.htm

    The purpose of the research element is to identify and conduct high quality research that will foster significant advances in transportation science and technology and generate basic, fundamental and applied knowledge in the appropriate disciplines.

    Although aircraft reliability is not the problem it used to be airworthy assurance I think would fall under that classification.

    http://www.coe.faa.gov/funding.htm#AACE

    Of course they are not the mega contracts you get from a NASA or the USAF, but they are in the range of the old NACA work in the 1930’s which was usually done in partnership with universities. It was only after WWII that NACA worked with the USAF on larger projects via the X-Plane program.

    But if its a program of mega contracts to build X-Rockets for CRATS then you are probably looking at NASA again. But that was not the impression I got from reading the article.

    But again, why not leverage what the FAA has been doing for years with aviation to the New Space industry?

  • Jeff, I just read your and Mr. Miller’s excellent essay. Thank you for being willing to gore all oxes — which is why I think you come vary close to a workable strategy for getting lower cost access to space in a realistic budget and political environment. Provided, however, that a political, commercial, and / or military market exists or continues to exist.

    I understand that you are very specifically talking about cheap access to LEO, but I’d urge one note of caution about over-extending analogies. The aerospace industry may offer a good model for flying through the atmosphere to LEO; it offers a terrible model for going beyond that. With its spectacularly inhospitable environment, long travel times, need to carry your resources with you, and lack of existing destinations requiring supply, deep spaceflight is far more similar to early sea-going travel, and beyond getting to LEO I think the development of air travel has very little to teach us.

    I think we should keep in mind in our arguments that atmospheric flight to LEO and deep space transportation involve vastly different environments and an economic model that works for one is unlikely to work for the other.

    — Donald

  • Dennis Wingo

    Joe Smith

    Downmass is why I mentioned Joe Carroll’s work. On a phase II SBIR level funding he developed a tether based recoverable system that could bring 150 kg back to the surface and this system is scaleable. If you want to bring more back, I am sure that Spacex’s human capsule can be used to do that quite easily.

    What we need in the micrograv business is to take the limited production hardware up, do what is needed, and then return the material of interest. Some of the other ideas, such as my orbital assembly, need no return mass at all.

    Quit picking at nits when there is a huge universe of opportunity opening up.

    Another huge milestone just happened with Space Adventures purchasing their own Soyuz. There are some amazing possibilities starting to open up and as we move forward the private interests will be able to at first compliment, then suppliment, then supplant the existing systems. This will be evolutionary, not revolutionary until the moment when the market is large enough for the investment to pay off for a revolutionary approach.

    CATS and CRATS are 20th century ideals that simply will not happen without FRATS (I like that change) being fully developed. The great part is that all the chess pieces are in place to do so.

  • Jeff Foust

    Second, although the FAA AST is only involved in regulation, the same is not true of the FAA in general. It also works to promote the aviation industry.

    Actually, it’s the other way around. AST has a dual mandate to regulate and promote the commercial space transportation industry in the US, while the rest of the FAA is charged with regulation but not promotion of aviation. (See GAO report 07-16 for a discussion of this, starting on page 30, including whether those dual roles should be separated.)

  • Someone

    Jeff,

    I am aware of the attempts to eliminate the promotion part of FAA’s aviation mission, dating to the ValueJet crash and the raise of the discount carriers. And there will likely be another wave following the recent grounding of aircraft through missed inspections this Spring.

    But organizational cultures die hard and a significant portion of the FAA’s budget is still focused on promotion of aviation via money for airport construction, capital improvements and research on aviation via universities. Although it is justified now by its potential to improve aviation safety the reality is that this spending also serves to promote the aviation industry by lowering industry costs. For example if an FAA grant covers 90% of the cost of a runway expansion at a local airport for “safety” reasons, the impact goes beyond safety to allowing the airport to accommodate larger business aircraft without raising landing fees or local taxes significantly. Spaceport proponents have long argued for a similar FAA role in funding commercial spaceports.

    Similarly a FAA AST funded focus to improve the reliability of launch could also be justified under its mission to facilitate the safety of launch operations. If the mission of the FAA AST is also to promote commercial launch operations so much the better to justify the creation of such a research budget.

    As for the dollar amount. That really depends on what you wish to accomplish with it. If you want to follow the NACA model for growing an industry then a modest budget, funneled through universities would be the strategy. This was the basic NACA model in the 1920’s and 1930’s. And the model still used in the FAA’s Centers of Excellence for its research grants.

    Granted you won’t get any X-Rockets funded that way, but it would go a long way towards helping many of the New Space firms reduce the technology risk of their designs. Just as the teaming of early aviation firms with local universities via the NACA reduced their risk. And produced innovators like Kelly Johnson.

    If your goal is just to get a son of SLI or a mini-COTS via the NACA model to fund a bunch of X-Rockets then that is not likely to be any more successful. The New Space firms that would benefit most will still need to reduce their technological risk before any investors step in. Look at the RpK case. And if you provide a flood of government money it will just turn them into government contractors like Orbital. Also there is no real sentiment in Congress for such mega-million solutions for CRATS at the moment. And unlikely to be even if the spaceflight Gap becomes an issue. Any crash programs will go to the majors via NASA, not New Space, and focus on the speed of the results, not CRATS. Expect spam in a can on an EELV as the likely result.

    By contrast a modestly funded R&D office managed by the FAA AST utilizing the existing FAA Centers of Excellence is quite doable using only the addition of a line item to the next DOT budget. And likely to produce your desired results of growing the industry. Yes it will take time, there will be no overnight breakthroughs. But I think most people in New Space are recognizing that building launch systems take time. Look at SpaceX, look at VG. Loook at XCOR. All have scaled back their rhetoric of overnight success they used to preach in the old days. .

    Note that the proposed research budget for the FAA Centers of Excellence is $191 million. So a modest $20-30 million CRATS budget would be very practical and might even be tacked on the next FAA budget with only a minor effort by the New Space community.

    Remember the Prefect is the enemy of Good. The NACA was not prefect when it was funded. It was a compromise tacked on as a $5000 amendment to a Navy Appropriation Bill that just slipped through Congress unnoticed. It grew into its role as the king of the X-Planes over forty years in response to serving industry needs one problem at a time. If you really want to grow an industry like New Space with a NACA type of organization you must be willing to design it to grow itself one problem at a time just as NACA did. Not try to jump start it with a new COTS or SLI level of funding. There is nothing that will doom New Space faster then a flood of government money as was demonstrated by RpK and COTS.

  • Upheman

    Prefect is the enemy of Good

    Got any other tired old and LAME uphemisms for us?

    Apollo on Steroids perhaps?

    Nobody is buying it.

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