Take $1b and fund 4 players.

This may end up being something like this:

1. SpaceX with Dragon. –medium risk
2. Atlas V with Dragon or lightweight version of Orion. –low risk
3. Fund 2 new player –high risk

At the end of the day, you might have 2+ protential commerical crewed suppliers to the ISS. This suppliers, could also offer their services to Bigalow or other countries who want to fly astronauts. The US has access to the ISS no matter what happens with the Constellation Program. Private industry is advanced. If one of the very high risk companies maybe T/Space gets operational, their cost may be less than SpaceX which again would allow for growth of the space industry. Again Bigalow has two or more suppliers to his complex. The more syuppliers he has, the more chance industry will see that they can get into space say x times/year. If I am a large company and I want to go to space, maybe I want to go next year? You cannot do this now. With 3 companies competing, you have alot better chance of getting a ride for your experiment.

What happens, if Ares 1 gets cancelled for some reason. We need a back-up. By funding 4 or 5 companies, we will have true American competion for space flight. That’s the American way.

The most likely success is to be had from the middle ground: using an existing launcher (eg, Delta-IV or Atlas-V), mitigating new launch vehicle cost (and significant risk), while putting most of the development effort into a human-rated vehicle that already has some pedigree behind it. The most interesting of these is SpaceDev’s DreamChaser on an Atlas-V; since DreamChaser has significant Russian and U.S. heritage behind it, and SpaceDev has continued to refine it over the past two years.

While Atlas V et al do not meet traditional government ‘man-rating’ criteria, that is not necessarily a show stopper to get something going. Accepting factors of safety of 1.25 vice 1.4 (for example) is something that might be accepted for early flights, with restrictions on launch day conditions, crew carried, etc. to add margin, particularly assuming an escape capability from a malfunctioning booster. There would be plenty of volunteers; not only NASA, but corporate as well. (I can remember one meeting in early shuttle flights when the then-head of the NASA Astronaut Office, John Young, demanded that a certain risk for one type of commercial payload not be accepted. When he wasn’t winning his argument, he threw down and said: “Then we won’t fly that thing”. To which our big boss, Chris Kraft, looked him in the eye and said: “If you don’t wanna fly it, we’ll find someone who will”.) And we flew it – many times.

Orbital’s go-slow-and-methodical approach ignores the pressing interests of the United States. SpaceEx’s attitude is to be commended – but their’s is absolutely the highest-risk approach. And simply giving more money that might magically come NASA”s way to NASA for Constellation is also not the right thing to do; it won’t necessarily fix the problems, close any gaps, or reduce risks – but it may hurt any possibility for further private financing for commercial ventures if financiers see NASA, right or wrong, as a competitor trying to continue its corner on human transportation,

Any such additional monies are therefore best used to fund several alternatives – including and especially the Middle, lower-risk, lower-cost path: an optimized mix of current vehicles and heritage hardware that also has the effect of further jump-starting a commercial space industry that will allow us to close the gap and stay in space, something NASA’s current plans do not do. It also has the greatest likelihood to meet the demand of not only ISS transportation, but private efforts like Bigelow’s, too. It would also demonstrate to the financial community that, like with COTS-cargo, NASA is absolutely committed to commercial answers to human taxi services; which, when combined with the existence of non-NASA drivers like Bigelow, stands the greatest chance of encouraging private capital to help finance the efforts.

A few issues here explain the difference in position.

1) The Taurus II is not that good at delivering people. Dr. Antonio Elias, a senior Orbital executive, has publicly posted statements at “NASAspaceflight.com” that Orbital has internally analyzied what it would take to send people to ISS on the Taurus II, and they think they can only transport 2 people per mission.

This means their system will be much more expensive per person.

For this reason, Orbital may think their chances of winning COTS-D are not that good.

2) Orbital has a conflict of interest as Orbital has a big subcontracted piece of the Orion project (the Launch Escape System)
http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/Publications/LAS_Fact.pdf

While the Orion is unlikely to be cancelled in the next Administration, even if the next Administration funds COTS-D, Orbital may be worried. This cost-plus contract is easy money for Orbital.

FWIW,

– Al

Orbital seems to be under-emphasizing the time-critical nature of the COTS-D issue. If we wait 4 or 5 years, we’ll miss the chance to fill the gap. Such a delay might also bring changes that would make COTS-D impossible (politics, budget, economy, etc). In the meantime, Ares will be the only option for ISS when it should be directed at the Moon. Finally, we could miss a window to push commercial crew services (eg: to Bigelow stations).