There are no prawns or other extraterrestrials (that we know about) in Florida’s 19th congressional district, but it’s still of interest to the space community as it will host a special election this month to fill the House seat vacated by Robert Wexler earlier this year. The Palm Beach Post posed questions to the two major candidates, Democrat Ted Deutsch and Republican Edward Lynch, and threw in one question about space policy: “Was President Obama right to cancel the shuttle replacement and privatize the space program?”
Deutsch appeared to support the FY 2011 budget proposal in his response, but noted his concerns about the impact of the shuttle’s retirement on employment in the region. “While I welcome the private sector’s involvement, we need to strike a balance and protect the 9,000 workers who might lose their jobs – especially during this time of high unemployment.” Lynch, though, made it clear he was opposed to the new plan: “Farming out large portions of the manned space program to private firms is a mistake simply because we can’t guarantee that private firms will have enough capital to fund programs that by their very nature are risky, unpredictable, and subject to huge cost overruns. There is simply no good reason for putting our manned space exploration efforts on hold for the foreseeable future while our strategic competitors continue their space exploration efforts.”
The district, it should be noted, is strongly Democratic, and Wexler, who has endorsed Deutsch, handily defeated Lynch in the 2008 general election.
It is interesting that Lynch has actually found a rather sensible objection to the commercial space initiative. If the commercial space firms run into trouble, the American government will be on the hook to bail them out, mainly because they cannot be allowed to fail with American access to ISS on the line. His objection to the abandonment of space exploration is also very compelling.
The district is certainly heavily democratic. But as Scott Brown proved, there may be no safe seats for anyone with a D behind their names this year.
Agree with his position or not, Lynch’s response displays a depth of comprehension regarding space policy one rarely sees in politicians not directly attached to space matters or regions. Kudos to him and/or his briefing team for staying on top of the issue…and to the Palm Beach Post for posing the question.
“arming out large portions of the manned space program to private firms is a mistake simply because we can’t guarantee that private firms will have enough capital to fund programs that by their very nature are risky, unpredictable, and subject to huge cost overruns”
as my father, the attorney says “when you have no argument at all the weak one seems strong” and that is all this argument is.
If we “buy” the above argument, then it was a mistake to “farm out” the development of the EELV’s to Boeing and Lockmart. Or the KC 135 replacement to what is now Boeing.
Or even Ares to ATK…well that was a mistake.
The argument is that NASA having spent more money so far on Ares development then Boeing/Lockmart and SpaceX spent on their new booster(s) and having nothing to show for it proves that we must leave development in the hands of NASA least the commercial providers (who have actually developed flying or about to fly boosters) might fail.
and then leave us in a position where (gasp) we might have to rely on the Russians for access to the station. OH WAIT that is what we have already. The POR has been at it as hard as they can go, with all the money in the world and they cannot make it work…so gasp lets not let commercial people try who have already suceeded far beyond NASA.
Gee this argument (and frankly most of the ones) that Lynch puts out are what passes for GOP policy making these days. ie “we have to keep supporting the current system, even though it has failed (OK dont mention that part) because trying something different might fail”
All this is is the current version of Bush’s “stay the course” argument in the 06 election…which he promptly changed.
Robert G. Oler
As opposed to NASA, which when it runs into trouble falls years behind schedule and goes wildly over budget?!
The problems are the same on both sides, public or private. The difference is one is on the government budget, the other is not.
NASA under the FY 2011 budget proposal does not rely on one vendor. It’s a myth that it’s SpaceX or nothing. They’ve already made seed grants to plenty of private companies to grow multiple alternatives.
With NASA and federal funding, it’s one option and that’s it. All you need to do is look at what happened with Challenger and Columbia. In each case, human space flight was shut down for over two years.
Helping to grow multiple private sector vendors will hopefully minimize that problem in the future.
ULA’s Andrew Aldrin is saying something similar to what Lynch is saying – don’t expect private industry to advance commercial crew development costs.
http://www.spacenews.com/civil/100402-commercial-crew-plan–hinge-risk-sharing.html
Regarding EELV development, he says this:
The EELV precedent would seem to support Lynch’s concerns.
The proposed commercial crew program does appears to take into account such concerns by providing substantial development funds for the winning competitors. Compare the 6 billion total proposed for commercial crew to the 500 million for EELV and COTS respectively. It is a misnomer to think that the winning entrants must fund the full sums of the development of their crew vehicles and that the success of the effort rests on that being the case: the program is structured and funded such that large amounts of development funds will be competed over. The amount the contending entrants must also bring to the table is unknown, but a billion and a half dollars is nothing to sneeze at and moves the risk column away from being exclusively born by the entrants. The nature of the game is competitively awarded development funds, and the program is funded adequately to ensure a lesser degree of risk than the previous examples.
If companies fail to meet milestones then so be it; that is their responsibility. There is no responsibility on the part of NASA to continue funding companies that fail to meet their milestones to NASA’s satisfaction. The provision for multiple competing entrants is specifically to allow failure if a company cannot meet the task it is fielded and it signed up for. The remaining funds can then be realloccated or repurposed. Consider Kistler in the COTS competition: failed milestones, contract canceled, funds reallocated to new entrant.
Lynch: “Unfortunately, I believe this new policy direction by the Obama administration to lessen our national commitment to NASA is a mistake.”
False. NASA gets a big increase. Our national committment to NASA isn’t lessened.
Lynch: “By the end of 2010, there will be no space shuttle flights”
That has nothing to do with the new NASA direction. That was set in motion several years ago.
Lynch: “or a manned U.S. space program,”
False. We will still have the ISS (which we would not have after a few years with the old plan). We will actually use the ISS. We will expand ISS capabilities. None of this was possible with the old program. We will have robotic precursors specifically used to break ground for the U.S. manned space program. Well we have U.S. commercial cargo systems to support the U.S. space program, and then U.S. commercial crew systems to support the U.S. space program. We will have a strong exploration technology demonstration program for the manned space program. We will have a 42% increase in Exploration’s Human Research program. We will have a strong heavy lift and propulsion program instead of the minimal effort that can be afforded for Ares V for many years. We will have a greatly expanded general space technology development program that, although general, will surely include technologies that are applicable to exploration.
Plus, other parts of NASA (Earth observations, technology, Aeronautics, planetary science) will be in better shape, too.
What did we have with the old program? We had an expensive government rocket that might be ready by ~2019 with nowhere to go and nothing to do, Ares V that might be ready by ~2028 but with no payload affordable, and in 2035 … well it would have been shut down long before getting that far.
The old program was exactly what Lynch objects to: “no manned U.S. space program”.
Lynch: “and we will be effectively giving Russia and China a monopoly on space flight.”
If Lynch means HSF space access, the old program gave them this monopoly. The new program doesn’t get rid of it, but it shrinks it. U.S. commercial crew is expected, per Augustine Committee estimates, by 2016 at the latest, while Ares I/Orion were expected by 2017-2019.
Lynch: “Farming out large portions of the manned space program to private firms is a mistake simply because we can’t guarantee that private firms will have enough capital to fund programs that by their very nature are risky, unpredictable, and subject to huge cost overruns.”
Hmmm. This doesn’t make sense at multiple levels. We shouldn’t use commercial space because programs like Ares have huge cost overruns? We shouldn’t have commercial efforts that are risky? All sorts of commercial efforts are risky. Businesses know how to manage risk. We can’t guarantee anything. We can’t guarantee commercial space will work. We can’t guarantee Ares I/Orion will work. We do know that commercial space has many advantages that give it a much better chance to work: less political interference, focus on the objectives (rather than trying to solve the LEO access and lunar objectives all at once), commercial skin in the game, potential extra markets to strive for, etc.
The contrast between the COTS cargo effort and Ares I/Orion show that Lynch’s argument doesn’t hold water.
The issue of commercial funds being able to raise enough capital to fund commercial crew is overblown. It’s a risk, but look what happened to Ares – it couldn’t get the funds to succeed. Therefore, it failed. That’s a risk with both commercial and government programs, and there’s no reason to think the risk is greater on the commercial side. The $6B that NASA is putting on the table is a huge step that reduces the risk of commercial crew. NASA’s need for HSF space access, and ability to sign deals like it’s done with COTS cargo before the services are ready, is another huge step that reduces that risk. The availability of multiple rockets (EELVs, soon Taurus II and Falcon 9, etc) to start with is another huge advantage for commercial space. The soon-to-exist commercial cargo systems from SpaceX and Orbital to start with are yet more advantages for the commercial space approach. The multiple commercial competitors gives the commercial approach many chances to succeed, where Ares I/Orion only had 1 roll of the dice.
Lynch: “There is simply no good reason for putting our manned space exploration efforts on hold for the foreseeable future while our strategic competitors continue their space exploration efforts.”
As I described above, we aren’t putting our manned space exploration efforts on hold for the foreseeable future with the new plan. That was what was happening with the old plan.
Great job, red.
I’m just amazed — although I guess nothing Republicans say any more should amaze me — by the hypocrisy they spew. For all their talk about less government and complaints about “socialism,” they’re falling all over each other to complain about the Obama administration’s proposal to grow the commercial sector and reduce government-reliant jobs.
If Obama said go, they’d say stop. If Obama said stop, they’d say go. That’s all they know.
Is that any different with a republican in office and what the democrats do? I think not…
“Is that any different with a republican in office and what the democrats do? I think not”
54 fillibusters against clinton by republicans, it set a record, 64 democratic filibusters, which set a record, against Bush, there is already 112 fillibusters against Obama. No it is not the same at all. This is so over the top it falls into the extreme catagory.
What do filibusters have to do with anything? Filibusters is the only thing that the republicans have to combat the democrats so that’s what they have to do. That’s the only thing they got. Do you criticize them for voting party lines or for standing in the way of a Marxist agenda?
Folks, can you please stay on topic.
“Farming out large portions of the manned space program to private firms is a mistake simply because we can’t guarantee that private firms will have enough capital to fund programs that by their very nature are risky, unpredictable, and subject to huge cost overruns.”
No, because NASA can do it the way the DoD assures its access to space: by using ELC style capability contracts and redundant systems. The unpredictability is independent of the commercial/government issue. If you’re prepared to spend extra money on civil servants, you should also be prepared to spend extra money on contractors. The difference is that this time round there would be multiple suppliers during the whole lifecycle, not just during the initial phase when they are competing for a single source contract.
And note that much of the current work is in fact “farmed out” to private firms. Again, the main difference is ongoing competition. Lynch knows this of course, and he knows his preferred supplier will not be able to compete.
Stephen C. Smith wrote @ April 3rd, 2010 at 8:18 pm
Great job, red.
I’m just amazed — although I guess nothing Republicans say any more should amaze me — by the hypocrisy they spew. For all their talk about less government and complaints about “socialism,†they’re falling all over each other to complain about the Obama administration’s proposal to grow the commercial sector and reduce government-reliant jobs….
yes it was a great job by Red.
and you made a good point.
In reality the GOP does not (and the Dems are likely the same way) as a function of the power brokers really believe their rhetoric…because really it isnt THEIR rhetoric. Most of what the GOP is mouthing now is a third or fourth generation clone of what Reagan and the Reagan revolution actually did believe both in foreign and domestic policy.
People forget now that Ronaldus the great tried as a matter of policy to “commercialize” space and the space shuttle. It was not the most pressing thing on his agenda and I agree with those who say that quickly the bubble came off of the effort because of a few issues (including the tragic and shameful indictment of Jim Beggs).
What the GOP is running on now is “Reagan third or fourth generation” done by people who are mostly pretenders to the crown…and have not really articulated a concept of governance in this century or this time span.
What is amazing is that this is happening along side a Democratic party that is trying to channel FDR. NOW there is a case to be made that the social and economic changes going NOW are as great as those that happened in the 30’s which needed something like “the new deal” to lay the foundation for America leaving the era of the Waltons and becoming a superpower.
What separates Obama from the GOP is that he at least has a notion that some transformation is needed; I dont think that he has as a rule hit on a workable formula…whereas the GOP is just stuck trying to redo America as Fox news sees it from the 50’s.
It is surprising to me that the GOP has not as a space pork block gotten together and come up with an alternative to the Obama plan which would in my view attract some DEM space pork people. There really is no alternate plan to compete with Obama’s there are in fact alternate plans (two: save the shuttle or save Ares) and none of them have the advantage of a in power administration with a in power Congress pushing them.
Obama is no more or less vulnerable in 2012 then Ronaldus the great was in 1982 for 1984. In fact if anything he might be a little less vunerable. The GOP opposition facing him is the most inept since the AuH2O days.
Robert G. Oler
Robert G. Oler wrote:
Most of what the GOP is mouthing now is a third or fourth generation clone of what Reagan and the Reagan revolution actually did believe both in foreign and domestic policy … What is amazing is that this is happening along side a Democratic party that is trying to channel FDR.
I know our host is sensitive about these conversations drifting too far out of the space realm, although this is “Space Politics” and you really can’t have space without the politics. To quote the famous line from The Right Stuff, “No bucks, no Buck Rogers.”
Personally, I’m registered non-partisan and have been since 1992. The notion that party allegiance should triumph over what’s best for the country disgusts me. We saw that in the health care debate. At least the Democrats were allowed to vote their conscience, whereas no Republicans were allowed to vote against party heirarchy.
I think the big problem is what I call the space-industrial complex, a variant of the military-industrial complex.
Back in the days when we were in a Space Race against the Russians, the Space Center system was set up by LBJ when he was chair of the Senate committee responsible for creating the agency. At the time, it was a genius political move because it put NASA in multiple districts across the nation, assuring enough political support to get funding for the program through Congress.
But now that’s become an albatross. Just as the Pentagon can’t kill unneeded weapons programs because Congresscritters want to protect jobs in their districts, the same is happening now with NASA. Partisan affiliations and political philosophies go flying out the window in the name of vote pandering.
The AP ran this story yesterday about politicians in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming who are opposed to Obama’s recently announced nuclear arms reduction treaty. Why? To protect local jobs, of course.
Never mind that failure to implement this treaty means that the Russians will have 700 more nuclear missiles aimed at us than if it doesn’t.
It’s the same thing with Obama’s NASA budget proposal. Everyone realizes it’s too late to extend Shuttle, and Constellation was a money pit, but it doesn’t matter to Kosmas and Posey. Keep shovelling money into that pit, all in the name of getting themselves re-elected.
Although philosophically I’m opposed to him, I’ll give credit to California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher as one of the few Congresscritters willing to support the Obama proposal. He’s favored commercialization and privatization for many years, and he’s sticking by his words even though it’s a Democrat who’s now proposing what he wanted. But Rohrabacher so far seems to be a lone voice among Republicans who claim to want smaller government and deficit reduction.
Bob Mahoney wrote @ April 2nd, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Mr. Oler,
I’m pretty sure that Dr. Spudis has never advocated a specific fixed timeline for his lunar-first approach; I remember him not to long ago specifically pointing out the original VSE’s pay-as-you-go intention, especially for the unmanned lunar precursor missions that got dumped by the wayside to make room for Constellation…
Bob. I wanted to think a bit about you’re post and formulate a “thoughtful” reply that was a bit more then just off the cuff.
Dr. Spudis in my view is one of the bright lights of his field and he also has “the gift” which is to take scientific “things” and turn them into concepts that “ordinary” people can grasp. In his professional field and in the latter trait he is well above his peers.
Having said that…in my view he doesnt have a clue about the politics of human spaceflight and how right now it is reacting with the politics of the nation.
I agree that it is unfair to lump him with the “timetable” people. I have never heard him express such a notion…but he has target fixation on a “goal” in human spaceflight (lunar resource management) and everything I have read of his, including his latest effort at Air & Space bemoans the fact that “the goal” of the Moon and lunar resource use is not the goal of this administration. His position “NASA Needs a goal” is really no different then Senator Nelson’s (although what the goal is differs). Both in my view outside of a very narrow space audience are tone deaf politically and terrible national “planning”.
In his latest missive Spudis expresses chagrin that while Mr. Bush of the last administration articulated a clear goal of going to the Moon to use lunar resources…that no one else seemed to get it…then or now. There are a couple of reasons for that. Corporate NASA doesnt really give a fig about anything past program maintenance (ie just having a program to do) but the main reason that “no one else gets it” is that the American people do not view such a goal as either credible (ie that it can be done at all with the dollars hanging around) or even remotely useful.
Spudis argument is that national space policy should be to spend federal dollars on opening up lunar resources. Problem is that was similar thinking which lead to the US spending a lot of money building the space station (ie to open up microgravity etc) to endeavors from Earth…and 100 plus billion later all we have are a few astronauts being kept on orbit for over 10 million a day each, blowing soap bubbles…ie doing nothing that has even come close to giving value for the cost.
Spudis might agree with me that the reason for this is that it is a government centered government focused program which has exploded in cost and is being done to simply be done. We might also agree (at least I use to argue in print) that going to the Moon could be done much differently and involve private enterprise as partners so that when great things were discovered then PE was there to take advantage of it…and make something of it.
Where I think we disagree is that I do not think that can be done given the current human spaceflight structure in the US, given the current state of commercial human spaceflight (embryonic) and given the current dollars that the US can afford to spend on discretionary space. Where we disagree (I think) is that I dont ever see the US spending the dollars needed to open the Moon for resource use…unless there is a functioning human spaceflight industry in low earth orbit (for lots of reasons)…and until that exist I dont see the need to have any “goal” along those lines. Because I dont think that the American people would give those arguments the time of day.
Somehow I think Spudis knows this…because at one point his arguments flailed into the “we have to get there before the Chinese do” to “save the Moon for free people” (My quotes but a good paraphrase).
And that is where the “we have to have a goal” people go off the cliff. Somewhere along with going to the goal “a miracle” occurs and somehow the entire effort diverges from Apollo and becomes sustainable both politically and economically.
It is like those folks who see some “magic” moment where we stop running gasoline powered vehicles (on earth) and magically go into either hybrids or full electric vehicles…without figuring out how the infrastructure evolves from what it is to what it would take to support such systems.
Until we have a better system for human exploration and we have a space industry that can contribute things to such exploration without full scale development…we will always be where South Pole exploration was without the DC-3. Toast.
Robert G. Oler
you really can’t have space without the politics.
Back in this galaxy, we have a thriving real commercial space sector that doesn’t have to make its living by getting government contracts.
[…] Space Politics » District 19 […]
Stephen C. Smith wrote @ April 4th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
I’ve bent our host so hard, Jeff must be a pretzel but he is gracious and so I will try to honor his request as well.
To me there are two problems both large (nationally) and small (spacewise).
The overall scheme is that both parties have in my view run out of horsepower as the current problems have grown way out of any resemblance to the solutions of the past. Because of weak national leadership and the anchoring by both parties of extreme bases…people with “innovative” ideas have tended to suffer in the political process. The GOP is showing this the worst as they are out of power and most of their ideas have floundered on the Bush Presidency. Obama’s difficulties in getting health care through were based in large part on him trying to coral the fissures that are going through his party…for that he should be given a lot of political credit.
The irony of course is that one of the few really new ideas to come out the Obama administration is his space policy. It would have been easy to come into power, figure that the problem with Constellation was bad management (that is accurate of course NASA has managers that simply couldnt survive elsewhere) get a new administrator who is a kick butt, fire the John Shannon’s of the world and try again.
Indeed I would suggest that if the Lori Garver who I watched in space policy up until the last time (hopefully) I left for the Mideast were still “alive” and in charge…that is where the entire space effort would go.
But I would bet money that three things changed it:
1. I dont think that the administration could find a person who would be administrator under those conditions. If the corporate culture wont change at NASA after killing two sets of crews and losing two orbiters…almost nothing other then dehydration will change it.
2. The DoD wants more launchers. The space race of the next 5 years is going to be between China, India, the European/Russian alliance, and the US to field a launcher system which can afford ably and with good reliability launch national security payloads.
3. The DoD (Mr. Gates) wants to change the military (space) industrial complex to look less like the one that let Marines die in Anbar while it fiddled to field an urban combat vehicle and more like the one that found the P-51 in not a lot of months (or Built the B-29 or the Essex Class carriers or the COUGAR in Iraq)
Once one strips the veneer from all the arguments, this is what the “stay the course” or “save our jobs” or “build DIRECT” groups are fighting (well DIRECT is fighting the notion of a rocket put together in photoshop as well).
To bring it back nationally. Obama has watched Reagan. Once one changes course, the heading may alter a tad port or starboard, but usually the course change is for many decades if not permanent. This is why the GOP’s “repeal the bill” just shows how either nutty the party leadership is or how stupid they think the Fox News crowd is.
nice conversation
Robert G. Oler
googaw,Back in this galaxy, we have a thriving real commercial space sector that doesn’t have to make its living by getting government contracts.
Yeah, because the government never helped produce the technology for the commercial space sector ever. It did it all on its lonesome.
Sorry, this meme from you is tiring, if you can’t get the sarcasm. For an example, 8 out of 20 of the Atlas V launches were for the military alone, and 4 out of 20 were NASA. That’s 12 out of 20 launches of Atlas V. You go back further and you can see dozens upon dozens, half of the manifest or more, of the Atlas line was military. Every time the line extended it was for military. I just looked at the rest of the ULA flight history and it’s appalling how much they rely on government contracts.
ULA has sucked at the government teat since its inception. This is precisely why ULA is downplaying commercial manned space with the argument that it’s “too risky.” These people are freaking terrified of actual attempts to do things the right way by lowering costs and not depending solely on government coffers. I am ripping a video I will post to YouTube that illustrates the status quo behavior quite well. (March 30th Q&A at MSFC.)
Robet G. Oler wrote:
Obama’s difficulties in getting health care through were based in large part on him trying to coral the fissures that are going through his party…for that he should be given a lot of political credit.
I think he had a lot of momentum through last summer, but during the Congressional recess the insurance industry had time to reload with FreedomWorks and wind up the Tea Partiers. That was the first mistake; Obama had the momentum but sat back and let Congress proceed at its own pace.
Also throw into the mix the hidebound nature of the Senate. I’m currently reading Obama’s The Audacity of Hope, written when he was in the Senate and before he announced his presidential candidacy. It’s pretty clear he has a less than stellar opinion of the Senate, although he admires individual Senators. He writes about the glacial pace, how nothing can be done quickly, how the filibuster is used to stop the most routine of proposals, etc. Health care was doing fine until it got to the Senate, which gets us back to the aforementioned first mistake.
Health care was a nationally visible issue, but despite groupie sentiments to the contrary NASA isn’t. Outside of the Space Center districts, I don’t think anyone is going to make much of a fuss. We’ll have to see if the obtuse Senate rules allow some Senator to block it.
NASA has managers that simply couldnt survive elsewhere …
I’ve worked in both the public and private sector. NASA doesn’t have the monopoly on Dilbert-esque management. The company in California that laid me off in 2008 after 14 years did me a favor, it was the worst run company I’d ever been with. It made NASA look nimble.
The space race of the next 5 years is going to be between China, India, the European/Russian alliance …
I’m not sure there’s going to be a “race.” The ISS is a partnership, and its members are actively courting China and India. As the Obama administration properly notes, space exploration is just too darn expensive for one nation to do it alone.
National ego can justify the cost only so far. JFK’s famous Moon proposal was in the context of the Cold War. Its sole justification was to prove to the world that our technology was better than the Soviets. In retrospect, it was a $145 billion (in current dollars) publicity stunt. If Obama proposed that today with such flimsy justification, he’d be ridiculed and justifiably so.
I think the Chinese, Indians and everyone else will eventually come to the same conclusion. Sure, multiple nations will have their own LEO launchers and so will the private sector. But travel beyond LEO will be by international partnerships to share the cost.
This is why the GOP’s “repeal the bill†just shows how either nutty the party leadership is or how stupid they think the Fox News crowd is.
Actually, it’s just to raise more money from their gullible base.
Even my wife, who’s very conservative in her views and always votes Republican, is starting to see the light. When I showed her all the attack ads coming out from Republicans accompanied by solicitations for money, she finally realized how the people she’s been voting for have been trying to manipulate her.
In any case, I don’t think support or opposition to Obama’s NASA proposal runs along partisan lines. The national GOP reflexively attacks everything Obama does, but they’re sure not spending time or energy on the NASA proposal. They’re more concerned now about fighting the Wall Street reform bill.
I’m looking forward to the April 15 space summit. I don’t think Obama will change the minds of those who just want to protect their government-funded jobs. But those people really don’t have the power to stop his proposal anyway. I’m hoping that he publicly airs all the dirty laundry that other Presidents overlooked, publicly kissing up to the government space bureaucracy while their appointed commissions kept warning about the consequences. Obama tells people what they want to hear, whether they want to hear it or not, which is one reason why some people get so mad at him.
He does need to address his campaign promise in Titusville to save the thousands of space jobs at KSC; he can’t get away from that. One NASA friend of mine wants him to say how he’s going to “close the gap” on the downtime after Shuttle when we’re flying on Soyuz, but Ares I wasn’t going to be ready until almost 2020 so it’s a pretty big gap to close. Some people reflexively freak out about Americans flying on a Russian craft, but we’ve been doing that since 1995 and Soyuz hasn’t lost a life since it started flying in 1967. The Russians aren’t going to cut us off from ISS, because they lose their biggest customer and access to all the non-Russian modules. I’m not the least bit worried about it, although some people are, so I hope he addresses that too.
Correction on above … Meant to write, “Obama tells people what they need to hear,” not “what they want to hear.”
Anyway …
Josh Cryer wrote:
“ULA has sucked at the government teat since its inception. This is precisely why ULA is downplaying commercial manned space with the argument that it’s “too risky.†These people are freaking terrified of actual attempts to do things the right way by lowering costs and not depending solely on government coffers.”
Presumably you’re referring to the Andrew Aldrin article on SpaceNews at:
http://www.spacenews.com/civil/100402-commercial-crew-plan–hinge-risk-sharing.html
Aldrin was quoted as saying:
“I think we can make commercial crew work, I think we can do it in such a way that we build a robust industrial base, and I think we can do it saving the taxpayers a lot of money. But it’s a program that’s got a lot of risk, and a lot of that risk is really embodied in how you define commercial and what the actual details are of an acquisition strategy,” Aldrin said. “Let me be clear, this is a great program, but we are certainly capable, as we’ve demonstrated in the past, of screwing this up.”
Before I was laid off in October 2008, my last two years with my hidebound ex-employer were in internal auditing. I got a strong dose of what auditing is all about — risk.
I think all they’re saying is that they want the government to assume the risk if things go wrong. Now, there are ways to handle that. You don’t just let the private sector spend and spend without accountability, but at the same time I can understand the desire to want some financial backup from their primary customer, especially considering how fickle federal politics can be. For example, the government has to pay $2 billion to the Constellation contractors for cancelling the program.
I think Bolden, Garver and crew are playing it the smart way. They’re funnelling seed money to small and nimble companies like SpaceX and Orbital, who will gladly accept some risk to run rings around the big boys. That will help take care of the “risk” issue.
Josh, the main reason ULA has so little real commerce is that the same kind of thing I am warning about for SpaceX has already happened to them — they customized their EELVs so much for the DoD and spent so much time focusing on that one dominant government customer that they drove most real commerce away. Alas, in the case of SpaceX and NASA HSF the customization and bureaucracy are going to be even worse.
Fortunately there’s far more going in space than U.S. government contractors with some real commerce as a side business. The vast majority of the launches of the the two leading commercial launch providers, International Launch Services (ILS) and Arianespace, are real commerce. SpaceX still has a chance to become a leader in this thriving business, with a lower-cost rocket, if they bow out of “Commercial” Crew. Otherwise the dream of lower launch costs will be lost for another generation, unless it comes out of Russia.
Josh Cryer wrote @ April 4th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
g
ULA has sucked at the government teat since its inception. ..
the really amazing “loss” of the last 10 years has been the leaving of the commercial platforms from any American launch vehicle to a combination Russian/European.
In the 1980’s there was an Av Week publication called “Commercial Space” and one of the efforts published one of my op eds which argued that the space policy of the time (launching commercial payloads on the shuttle) while not a true FE solution was an adequate challenge to the Europeans who were just starting to steam with AS. And eventually the shuttle might transition to a system run by a “company” (probably an orbiter mod 2).
As the notion of NASA doing anything but flying the shuttle as an entitlement floundered what also died with it is the notion of a commercial launch industry in The Republic. Today that evolution is complete with the EELV’s…where they should be competitive with AS but not even an effort is made.
Hopefully Musk will rectify that…that is what I think has ULA somewhat “excited”. Robert G. Oler
Stephen C. Smith, you are correct, the new administration is clearly putting their eggs in a new basket, because they know that old space companies are not going to want to change their internal infrastructure. And it is going to be hard for them to do it, no doubt about that.
And yes I was referring to the Andrew Aldrin video. That quote is the most anti-market quote I’ve heard yet from these guys.
googaw, the thing is that I see nothing wrong with government buying flights. Those GPS satellites? They have to be regularly upgraded. GOES satellites? Recon satellites? Nothing wrong with paying commercial providers to do it. But when there’s only two players in town, there’s no significant competition, indeed the formation of ULA made it so that any satellite launched that was big was done by one congolmerate, proving that Lockeed and Boeing didn’t really compete with one another.
ULA doesn’t have a problem offering fixed price launches for satellites. It’s just that they’re freaking out about manned flights because they love the government money that they get. Strike that, ULA is probably intimidated by SpaceX even with satellite launches. They’re building classic anti-capitalist strawmen in order to save their cost-plus contracts, but they have no argument against satellites since they already launch at fixed price for the most part. So they hate that they can’t use the same arguments with regards to SpaceX launching commercial satellites.
There’s a huge difference though with how SpaceX was formed and how Boeing and Lockheed (now ULA) were formed, with regards to their rocket launch infrastructure. Boeing/Lockheed started off as cost-plus contractors as far as I can tell, being largely supported by the military. SpaceX on the other hand started off and is continuing within the realm of fixed price contracts. That is, effectively, their modus operandi. It is unlikely that that will change, because they see how killed other competitors and made them government leeches.
The little formula that the SpaceX guy showed was telling. Work within your forseeable budget! Don’t pretend money is coming from the government! We see where that got old space now, didn’t we?
As someone that has some insight into SpaceX daily financial & engineering operations, I continue to be surprised by individuals on this board in the way they continue to place the future of U.S. LEO HSF on this yet unproven company.
The facts, if they were generally known outside of Mr. Musk’s inner circle would, if fully made public, require a reexamination of recent policy decisions.
SpaceX is having significant issues with integrating 9 Merlin 1c engines into the Falcon 9. The design of the Dragon capsule is months behind, if not a full year, the have not even intitiated preliminary design of the design of the SAP/EPS or performed V&V of the GNC software. And the Dragon is suppose to fly this fall and rendezvous with the ISS (COTs Demo 2)
Falcon 9 issues are so significant, and unknown, that they do not expect a successful launch until demo flight 3 or 4. And yes, with the exception of the Shuttle, most new launch systems fail during their first test launches. But remember, SpaceX has sold the Falcon 9 as not using new technology and therefore very reliable.
The COTs contract is very clear – 3 demo successful demo flights before CRS. If a Falcon 9 continues to have develop issues – will NASA step up and provide additional funding past COTs to SpaceX?
However, the most disturbing issue with SpaceX is financial. Mr. Musk no longer has the financial resources to continue funding SpaceX at its current pace. Between his recent divorce & funding of Tesla Motors, the company has only limited cash reserves to continue funding. He is depending on the upcoming IPO of Tesla to continue funding SpaceX. Internal discussions within the company
With the exception of the Falcon 1 (which took 4 test launches to become successful), the company is unproven. From the inside it appears the company has reached the limit of its capability and has a high probability of failure.
It is unfortunate that failure of SpaceX would have a negative impact to the entire Newspace Industry. In the end we may all look back and realize that SpaceX was offering too much for too little.
Stephen C. Smith wrote @ April 4th, 2010 at 6:20 pm
I think he had a lot of momentum through last summer,..
I thought so as well until recently and my “guess” now (and of course that is all it is) is that Obama was slow to recognize how badly the party is fractured and it took him some manuevering to fix it. Plus, and I wont tap on this to lightly, Obama badly underestimated the “lock step” nature of the GOP.
That is amazing to me actually. In the run up to the 06 election people like George Allen were carrying water for Bush the last and his Iraq policy. “Stay the course” was a mantra that Allen took for real, even though his political people urged him to hedge his bet. It really must have bent Allen (and quite a few others) who got their walking papers when shortly after the election, Bush changed course.
the sad thing for anti Obama huggers like Whittington, is that this lock step only exist on issues that make it to Fox News..(and I agree with your analysis on the “repeal” notion) the partisan divide I dont think works for human spaceflight particularly since spaceflight is located in another budget.
I’ve been (pleasantly) surprised at the incompetence of the anti Obama space policy forces. They cannot seem to agree on anything.
Robert G. Oler
Shadowdriver wrote @ April 4th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
this sounds a lot like the guy who “knew” where the WMD was…or the one who had the names of “500 communist in the State Department” in his suit pocket…
you state things and then assuming them as fact proceed on to analysis.
“The facts, if they were generally known outside of Mr. Musk’s inner circle would, if fully made public, require a reexamination of recent policy decisions.”
share.
Robert G. Oler
Shadowdriver:
NASA is entrusting its crew program to the winners of a competitive selection which may include, but not be limited to, SpaceX. SpaceX is but a possible contender in a contest that has yet to be awarded. A spot for them is not guaranteed; they will have to earn it by placing. Even if they do win, they will be but one company in a field of several who are developing their crew systems.
The outcome of NASA’s commercial crew program does not rest upon the exclusive success of SpaceX. They could fail to complete their system and the program would still be successful if one of the other companies succeed in their venture. They could fail to even qualify and the program would proceed without them.
I certainly hope Shadowdriver is just a competing contractor blowing smoke. But if Shadowdriver is right, we’ll get to see within the next year or two to what extent the NASA/SpaceX fixed-price milestone contract differs in practice from a cost-plus contract. If SpaceX falls further behind schedule and subsequently gets more “acceleration” payments, (i.e. catch-up-to-the-schedule payments), it will have deteriorated into a relationship that is economically equivalent to a cost-plus contract. The fixed-price milestone contract is only an improvement over the cost-plus contract if NASA can credibly threaten to cut SpaceX off if it gets substantially behind schedule.
@ libs0n
NASA has not yet established parameters to guide the commercial crew selection process. What you described is to be hoped for:
NASA is entrusting its crew program to the winners of a competitive selection
however as to today, that “competitive selection process” remains entirely aspirational.
Shadowdriver wrote @ April 4th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
on these boards who someone is is usually “some fun” but snide comments of comparison to Donald Duck Rumsfeld aside…
this line in your post makes me think twice about the entire post
“And yes, with the exception of the Shuttle, most new launch systems fail during their first test launches. But remember, SpaceX has sold the Falcon 9 as not using new technology and therefore very reliable.”
not only does that misstate Musk statements (he has said over and over that the first shot probably would not succeed) but you clearly are either misstating the notion of “reliability” on purpose or you do not understand it.
In a “complex” system one of the drivers of reliability is not the individual parts but “how they sum”. If Musk did not know that before he certainly has a good grasp on it after the “near misses” Of the Falcon 1 which “mostly” were the result of integration issues not hardware failures. There really is no way to completely “iron” these out except by actual flight testing.
And worse for your point, as long as the system comes to completion and meets its marketing niche (and cost) no one really cares all that much about the bumps and grinds along the way.
I dont know about Musk finances…but your statements will either prove themselves out, or prove to not be valid. Everyone except the Federal government seems to have some limit on what they can spend…but so far Musk seems to be “staying above” water.
A year will tell the story.
Robert G. Oler
Mr. Oler,
Thank you for acknowleding your mischaracterization of Dr. Spudis’s position. Perhaps if you had placed it in the comment string to which it pertained a few less heads might have been scratched.
Shadowdriver, your statements about “Musk’s inner circle” tell the whole story. SpaceX has an open discussion policy. If there were problems like you’re exaggerating, then it would be known by now. A COTS demo or two will fly this year.
Josh, and by “this year” you mean 3 months after this year right?
Bob Mahoney wrote @ April 5th, 2010 at 11:45 am
you are free to characterize my comments however you want, that is the nature of debate. I stand by them and the fact that Dr. Spudis has succumbed to the “goal driven” Mentality of the past. He does not have a timeline associated with it, but he and his plans meet every other test.
Robert G. Oler
Lynch was quoted saying:
“Unfortunately, I believe this new policy direction by the Obama administration to lessen our national commitment to NASA is a mistake.”
If commitment is measured by the amount of funding you receive and President Obama increased funding then his commitment must be increasing.
“By the end of 2010, there will be no space shuttle flights or a manned U.S. space program, and we will be effectively giving Russia and China a monopoly on space flight.”
In 2004 when President Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration, “the gap” was automatically created thereby handing over the monopoly to Russia and China, where was his concern in 2004 in opposing the VSE because of the gap it created and the monopoly.
Farming out large portions of the manned space program to private firms is a mistake simply because we can’t guarantee that private firms will have enough capital to fund programs that by their very nature are risky, unpredictable, and subject to huge cost overruns.”
That is exactly what NASA has been doing with Constellation, farming out large cost plus contracts to private firms and creating huge cost overruns.
“There is simply no good reason for putting our manned space exploration efforts on hold for the foreseeable future while our strategic competitors continue their space exploration efforts.”
That is exactly what Dr. Griffin did by the choices made in the ESAS, the program of record is putting our exploration efforts on hold until the 2030’s. I believe that constitutes the “foreseeable future”. If commercial space launches to the ISS in the 2015-16 time frame what will Russia and China explore and how many launches in human space flight?
Russia is launching manned flights about 4 time per year? Of those 12 seats available per year how many are US and European crew and how many are Russian and what is the destination of ALL soyuz flights?
As all those launches goto the ISS Russia will be doing the exact same exploration as the U.S.A.. China will make how many manned flights in the next 5-6 years, 3-6? And where will they be going? Everything I have seen is they will be in LEO and working on a “mini” space station, practicing docking, assembly and EVA’s. The same thing that the US, Europe and Russia will be doing.
Only while the Chinese are doing what we have already done, we will be doing the technology research on the next generation of beyond earth orbit, space systems. Advanced propulsion, advanced power systems, radiation midagation, closed loop life support, precursor missions of support systems, inflatable habitat technology.
Off-topic but this audience would probably enjoy watching it …
A friend arranged for us to access the VIP area this morning to watch the STS-131 launch. We were at the Turn Basin site, which is in front of the press area and the famous countdown clock. (It’s where you see the review stands on TV from time to time.)
I filmed the launch but also some of the happenings nearby, which you usually don’t see on TV.
You can watch the video at:
http://spaceksc.blogspot.com/2010/04/sts-131-launch-video.html
And for the paranoid among you who think the government black helicopters are coming to get you, you’ll see NASA’s black helicopter at the end of the video.
KC has an interesting comment up at NASAWatch concerning a “Plan B”. he has good sources but it would be surprising to me if most of that happens. I can see Orion morphing into some sort of development of space vehicles that do not return to Earth (using station/Orion hardware)…I dont see more shuttle flights.
It would be a massive change for Obama and there is no reason for him to do that. He is winning.
we will see the 15th isnt all that far away
Robert G. Oler
Bill White would be pleased with the Shuttle-C option. I actually does sound a whole lot like the Aldrin plan. If it goes down that way, I’m happy with it. Though I do prefer the prospects of low cost EELV, Shuttle-C may be able to be run for $1-2 billion a year. Until we have actual BEO activities it will be a jobs program, unfortunately, but it has potential.
Robert, that and NASA Watch is a pathetic source of stupid rumors that never pan out.
Josh,
You can’t run Shuttle C for $1-2b per year. The fixed costs of the Shuttle infrastructure alone are $2b per year. Actually making/launching stuff costs more. And none of this counts development cost and the time it takes to free up that money in the budget wedge.
Those who demand shuttle-derived heavy lift either:
a) care more about preserving Shuttle-related jobs than exploration
b) would rather wait longer for big heavy lift than start small and use
propellant xfer and storage
I cannot see how and why the WH would change the current plan to satisfy a limited audience. Shuttle-C may have been a good cargo only vehicle years if not decades ago. DIRECT, well DIRECT… Orion-Lite? Very, very difficult. If nothing else, I hardly see Boeing, a CCDev contender, somehow bowing (nice huh?) to LMT yet again! In essence LMT would get all the development cash from Orion and then compete with Boeing that is starting from “scratch”???? Nonsense! Or that may be the last time Boeing ever bid a NASA proposal. And that would be very very bad for the country. Now of course they may offer something to Boeing in exchange but I doubt it…
Oh well…
@ Jim Muncy
My belief is that shuttle derived lift is necessary to win the votes in Congress needed to sustain human space exploration done with federal tax dollars.
Q: Can we do human exploration without HLV, using depots for example?
A: Of course we can, but only if Congress gets on-board since technical feasibility does not equal political feasibility.
The FY2011 budget proposal released February 1st created an opportunity to refute my belief about the political necessity of shuttle derived lift, however in the ~60 days since February 1st it appears only Dana Rohrabacher stepped up to openly support that proposal.
I see FY2011 as having been a trial balloon, testing Congressional waters and looking for political support for an all “commercial” approach and it seems to me Congress isn’t buying.
Thus, proposals for compromise emerge.