Congress, Other

Praise, payback, and people

SpaceX picked up Monday some congressional kudos for its successful inaugural Falcon 9 launch. The Republican caucus of the House Science and Technology Committee congratulated SpaceX on the launch in a statement. “I wish SpaceX continued success as they prepare for next month’s first-in-a-series of flight demonstrations for NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) program,” Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), ranking member of the committee, said in the statement. Separately, Rep. Bil Posey (R-FL), whose district includes Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, also issued a statement praising the company. “I have worked for years to promote commercial space efforts in Florida, and this launch is an important step for America’s commercial space leadership,” Posey said.

The Houston Chronicle, meanwhile, is worried about the lack of support the Houston area is getting relative to Florida to deal with impending layoffs with the end of the shuttle program and plans to cancel most of Constellation. “We smell the stench of political favoritism in the consideration lavished by the administration upon Florida, a presidential swing state, while facilities in Alabama and Texas, two reliable GOP strongholds, are ignored,” the paper claims in an editorial on Monday. That lack of attention, it claims, may mean local Democrats “may get some payback at the polls come November.”

The Planetary Society, one organization that has come out in support of the administration’s plans for NASA, announced Monday that Bill Nye will take over as executive director in September. Nye succeeds Louis Friedman, who announced earlier this year plans to step down after serving as executive director since the organization’s founding 30 years ago. Nye has spent the last five years as vice president of the organization.

64 comments to Praise, payback, and people

  • Rep. Posey (R-FL) 6/7/2010: “I have worked for years to promote commercial space efforts in Florida, and this launch is an important step for America’s commercial space leadership,” Posey said.

    From Rep. Posey’s website, 6/4/2010: …Obviously, the Administration is not pleased with my efforts to extend the Space Shuttle program and continue Constellation, but even if we are able to extend these programs there will still be the need for several thousand space coast workers to transition into new careers and partisanship should have no part in that effort.”

    Hypocrite, thy name is politician.

    Small government GOPers keep twisting themselves into pretzels to justify a big government program.

    Luv it.

  • Vladislaw

    Did Posey introduce legislation calling for more funding for the STS and Constellation?

  • Mark R. Whittington

    By all accounts SpaceX will need a billion dollars in government money to build a man rated version of the Falcon 9/Dragon, so let us hear no more pious pronouncements about “big government” vs. the private sector. It is all big government.

  • Brian Paine

    My Australian perspective…

    Obama Space.
    “Flight to Houston, we have a problem.”
    The number you are calling is no longer connected.
    “Mother of God, what?”
    Please wait and one of our service personel will help you. To help us help you please choose one of the following options:
    If your call is about an unpaid account press one.
    If you are enquiring about one of our new saver plans press two.
    If you are experiencing difficulty achieving low earth orbit…

  • amightywind

    “We smell the stench of political favoritism in the consideration lavished by the administration upon Florida, a presidential swing state, while facilities in Alabama and Texas, two reliable GOP strongholds, are ignored,”

    The politicization of NASA is unprecedented by this administration. 1 1/2 years in and NASA is an absolute mess, worse than it has ever been.

    “need a billion dollars in government money to build a man rated version of the Falcon 9/Dragon”

    Yeah, lets trash ‘Apollo on steroids’ so we can build a vegan Gemini.

  • outside viewer

    It is funny to see that for some human space exploration is as important as Obama’s administration vouches it is. To those, the validity of what Obama has proposed is dwarfed by their politics bias towards it.

  • By all accounts SpaceX will need a billion dollars in government money to build a man rated version of the Falcon 9/Dragon

    Only by one account — Andy Pasztor’s.

  • Whittington – By all accounts SpaceX will need a billion dollars in government money to build a man rated version of the Falcon 9/Dragon, so let us hear no more pious pronouncements about “big government” vs. the private sector. It is all big government.

    Simberg – Only by one account — Andy Pasztor’s.

    Say this billion dollar claim is true, it’s still way cheaper than to finish Orion/Ares.

    Like by 49 billion dollars.

    If Obamanator’s NASA budget had been proposed by the likes of Mitt Romney or Newt, there would be no caderwalling by Whittington, Bishop or abreakingwind.

    Guaranteed.

  • Doug Lassiter

    “By all accounts SpaceX will need a billion dollars in government money to build a man rated version of the Falcon 9/Dragon, so let us hear no more pious pronouncements about “big government” vs. the private sector. It is all big government.”

    Which “pious pronouncements” are you referring to? The people on their knees at the confessional are the Constellation advocates. “Big government versus private sector” is a straw man. Big government is here paying the private sector for a service they need, rather than for a specific piece of hardware they want. The former is looking like it could be vastly cheaper than the latter but, of course, we’re several years away from seeing it fully realized.

  • amightywind

    “Say this billion dollar claim is true, it’s still way cheaper than to finish Orion/Ares.”

    Why penny pinch on HSF when Obama spending the country into ruin everywhere else? Especially with the increased technical risk and lack of oversight that Obamaspace entails. Won’t you liberals admit this is incongruous?

    Aviationweek has an interesting article this week where Bolden admits he plans to raid Constellation funds for non-HSF purposes. It highlights what ‘savings’ is really all about.

    “If Obamanator’s NASA budget had been proposed by the likes of Mitt Romney or Newt”

    Newt is a gadfly on the wrong side of too many issues, like global warming, for tea partier taste. He won’t make it. I liked Romney, but his part in Massachusetts state takeover of healthcare disqualifies him. Keep you eye on Chris Christie.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ June 8th, 2010 at 7:47 am

    “By all accounts SpaceX will need a billion dollars in government money to build a man rated version of the Falcon 9/Dragon, so let us hear no more pious pronouncements about “big government” vs. the private sector”

    nonesense…by the account of one reporter for the WSJ that has gotten just about everything wrong about SpaceX…I mean everything.

    SpaceX seems to have built the Falcon 1/9, launch facilities and DRagon (just skimmed the announcement) based on their announcement.

    What is stunning to me is that this is the kind of development YOU use to argue for. Now you are so stuck on a big government program you cannot see the change taking place before your eyes.

    Aviation and Space (even human spaceflight) use to be like this. The P-51 went from nothing to flying in a few months, the Tomcat in two years and Gemini was thought of and done in 3. During Gemini the folks running that program showed an amazing ability to adapt and modify.

    AND NOW YOU are supporting a program where Jeff Hanley in a memo openly admits he doesnt know if it is cheaper to toss the first stage or refurbish it. But goes on anyway.

    where did you go off track?

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ June 8th, 2010 at 8:18 am

    I am sorry. After your idiotic rants about the Falcon 9 not putting its second stage into orbit…you are in the Don Rumsfeld category…at times amusing but always inept.

    Robert G. Oler

  • tps

    amightywind wrote @ June 8th, 2010 at 11:12 am

    “Aviationweek has an interesting article this week where Bolden admits he plans to raid Constellation funds for non-HSF purposes. It highlights what ’savings’ is really all about.”

    Isn’t that what Area/Orion has been doing tot he rest of NASA for years? Hate to burst your bubble but NASA is more then HSF.

  • amightywind

    Oler

    Completely understandable given what was observed and the lack of information coming out of SpaceX. I am still puzzled on how F9 purportedly reached orbit with such radical off axis thrust and with a lower that expected burn time. Aren’t you? The dragon ‘simulator’ had to be light. For the record, I like Rummy.

  • David Teek

    Shortly after becoming administrator, Mike Griffin was quoted as saying something along the lines of “I don’t want to ever hear anything more about ‘spiral development’!” This as much as anything explains how we got where we are today.

    From the statements of OSTP director John Marburger, it seems that the Bush OSTP and OMB did not support much of Griffins direction, but did not want to spend the political capital to rein him in. You did see the Bush OMB consistently opposing attempts including the “Mikulski Miracle” to increase NASA’s budget to address added return to flight costs and other over-runs. When Griffin abandoned “”go as you pay” – that was when the Vision was truly set aside.

    Anyway, I understand that Houston officials are now finally applying for an economic emergency grant, which is a program established by law and and funded in part this year with recovery / stimulus funds. There is a process for these things that is pretty well defined – perhaps Barbara Lee’s office can help guide them. There is also teh google.

    HSF BEO – if it is to have a real future – is commercial to LEO from the Cape and an accelerated liquid HLV from KSC. The budget can support this – but CxP is unsustainable.

    Rep. Posey has been a very strong proponent of commercial launch since the early nineties and did much work to move range reform and modernization further along. This does not automatically conflict with being a supporter for shuttle extension / CxP, it’s an honest opinion. Still, policymakers need to answer the fiscal, schedule and program issues raised by Augustine – something that is not likely to have sufficient public or congressional support for the $3 b / year additional funding needed (probably along with cuts to other NASA centers/missions).

    The quote from the SpaceX release pulled on NASA watch stating that Falcon 9 total development cost less than the Ares 1 tower should suggest to all fiscal conservatives that procurement reform is absolutely critical, and that a hard examination be done on what is actually in place now as result of $9 b in spending before making sunk costs arguments.

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ June 8th, 2010 at 11:56 am

    Oler

    Completely understandable given what was observed and the lack of information coming out of SpaceX..

    NO it wasnt.

    your behavior was both juvenile and technically inept. You took a premise and with almost no knowledge of the event or what “other” sources to look at to verify SpaceX claim stake your “thoughts” on what you believed and the best you could observe and then started LOUDLY making a donkey of yourself…

    and now dont have the good grace to shut up or apologize.

    While you were still loudly proclaiming as fact, your fiction, SpaceTrack had already released elements (TLE’s) for the vehicle showing it made orbit…

    I can understand why you like Rumsfeld…you both are like minds. I dont mind having disagreements with people, but not ones that make statements which have no grounding in reality on something that is completely fact based (ie the vehicle did or did not make orbit).

    when people are as inept as you are in that case, it tells me that their policy issues are equally worthless.

    Now you try to excuse it. loser

    Robert G. Oler

  • Bennett

    …not to mention that “roll” doesn’t effect thrust axis…

  • amightywind

    Oler,

    Wow! You seem really bent. Everyone here this.

    SpaceX deserves kudos. F9 is a fine accomplishment.

    The rest of my criticisms stand. I used to be a fan of SpaceX and the ISS resupply mission. I turned against them (as did many) when they started to have delusions of grandeur under Obama.

  • Michael Kent

    Mark R. Whittington wrote:

    By all accounts SpaceX will need a billion dollars in government money to build a man rated version of the Falcon 9/Dragon, so let us hear no more pious pronouncements about “big government” vs. the private sector. It is all big government.

    By only one account, Andy Pasztor of the Wall Street Journal. He has been contradicted by SpaceX, who have stated repeatedly that they need about three years and $300 million to develop a launch abort system, the final piece of man-rating.

    But let’s accept your $1 billion figure for the sake of argument. That compares to the $43 billion figure NASA needs to develop Ares I / Orion. For the money to be spent on Falcon 9 / Dragon we would get a system capable of placing a 7-man crew into low Earth orbit (LEO) for a launch cost of $50 million / flight. For the $43 billion to be spent on Ares I / Orion, we would get a system capable of placing a 4-man crew into LEO for a launch cost of $1 billion / flight. Can the choice be made any easier?

    amightywind wrote:

    Yeah, lets trash ‘Apollo on steroids’ so we can build a vegan Gemini.

    Your Apollo on steroids will not launch a crew to LEO until 2019, and in order to do that it will have to spash the ISS in early 2016. Given that it will have no destination, no payload bay, no robot arm, no airlock, and not even a toilet, the only missions it will be capable of performing this decade are a couple of test launches. Its first operational mission cannot happen until 2035.

    Assuming a commercial crew contract award by the end of 2011, a manned Dragon will be ready to fly by the end of 2014, according to Elon Musk. It will be able to perform operational LEO missions by delivering crew and cargo to the ISS and, later, the Bigelow space station.

    Again, the choice really isn’t that hard.

    Mike

  • Bennett

    “I used to be a fan of SpaceX and the ISS resupply mission. I turned against them (as did many) when they started to have delusions of grandeur under Obama.”

    Translation?

    I hate everything and anyone who associates with or has the approval of our foreign born black Mulim President. Even things I used to love, I now hate.

    Tea Party Madness

  • Tea Party Madness

    It’s a gross insult to Tea Partiers to associate “abreakingwind” with them.

  • amightywind

    Bennett wrote:

    “I hate everything and anyone who associates with or has the approval of our foreign born black Mulim President. Even things I used to love, I now hate.”

    Good grief. There is enough to dislike about the politics of the congress and the President without getting into that silliness. It doesn’t do your side much good either. The litany is getting tired for America’s ears.

  • Bennett

    Sorry Rand, but he is a member of that organization, and his attitude is shared by many who are. You may see it differently, but many Americans see it as I do. Thus, the most recent poll numbers are no surprise.

    My apologies to any rational Tea Party folks in the crowd.

  • amightywind

    Bennett wrote:

    “…not to mention that “roll” doesn’t effect thrust axis”

    F9 wasn’t simply rolling. You know that. It started that way at about 7:00min. It was cork screwing, like 2 Falcon 1 second stages before it. As an engineer I am interested how they control roll. I would have guessed they were using turbine exhaust but I didn’t see the exhaust nozzle swivel. I also want to know why the video cut off when the gyration was reaching a maximum. All we were told was that ‘it was a good day’. Was the cut off a controlled shutdown due to inertial sensing or was the shutdown an emergency? For people who observed the negative minutae of Ares-IX you are awfully quiet.

  • he is a member of that organization

    It’s not an “organization.” They don’t issue cards. He can claim to have sympathies with some of their beliefs, but that’s no reason to slander them.

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ June 8th, 2010 at 2:34 pm

    Bennett wrote:

    “…not to mention that “roll” doesn’t effect thrust axis”

    F9 wasn’t simply rolling. You know that. It started that way at about 7:00min. It was cork screwing, like 2 Falcon 1 second stages before it. As an engineer I am interested how they control roll. I would have guessed they were using turbine exhaust but I didn’t see the exhaust nozzle swivel. I also want t…

    all those questions have easy answers if one simply does an “internets” search…as for the video…they went out of range of the tracking station.

    If you had been listening to the “commentary” instead of getting ready to make a donkey out of yourself on this forum, you would have recognized that the commentator was rambling on about x number of seconds to loss of telemetry.

    The rocket was rolling not corkscrewing…

    again try and not be “Col Flaggish”.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Bennett

    AMW:

    I read 3 things in the day following the launch, first that a device that controls roll (turbine exhaust) was damaged or simply wasn’t actuating, then that the roll was unanticipated (no mention of roll control damage). Where do you get that it was “corkscrewing”? To my eyes it was roll, but I am not an engineer.

    Anyone else?

    The video cutoff was anticipated WAY before it happened (noted by the announcer in CA), so I didn’t read anything sinister into it. Why do you? What is SpaceX supposed to be hiding? The launch exceeded their expectations, everyone’s expectations for that matter. A few glitches do nothing to lessen their accomplishment as far as I’m concerned.

  • Tea Party crowd brings the left together, who are mostly apathetic to politics, so it’s good for bringing out the will of the creative thinkers. Which is what Obama is asking for. Conservatives will love Obama in the long run as they start exploiting the technologies he paving the way for, read; big-corporate-buku-bucks down the road!

    The game change is not so much the technologies so much as the breadth of that creativity that Obama-Bolden engenders!

    Good luck to SpaceX, good luck to all of them, let’s just keep techno-export-controls in place, PLEASE!

  • amightywind

    Col Flagg. I liked that character!

    I just looked at the YouTube video of the launch. If the anomaly was a roll only rotating engine bore sight would be fixed on the horizon. The view would be repeated. It clearly is not. I count 3.5 revolutions until loss of picture. Each time the earth limb has a different position. You wouldn’t expect that so late in the flight. Look at the video starting at 10:00min. That garbage about loss of signal is just that. It wouldn’t go that quickly.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Space News is suggesting that the latest mandate from the administration for all agencies to cut their budgets by five percent suggests that Obama has already abandoned the commercial space policy.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ June 8th, 2010 at 3:16 pm

    Space News is suggesting that the latest mandate from the administration for all agencies to cut their budgets by five percent suggests that Obama has already abandoned the commercial space policy….

    goofy

    Robert G Oler

  • amightywind

    “irst that a device that controls roll (turbine exhaust) was damaged or simply wasn’t actuating”

    That explains it. The turbine exhaust was putting a constant off axis thrust on a spinning vehicle. It would get more pronounced as the stage lightened and the roll accumulated. QED. Thank you Bennett.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Bennett wrote @ June 8th, 2010 at 2:46 pm

    I dont know anyone at SpaceX and even if I did I would not say in public what they tell me in private! but to me it looks like a software issue OR they had some hardware issues with the roll control mechanism.

    You can see “roll” correction occurring (the roll is probably a result of the nozzle and thats expected) during the early part of the second stage burn then it tapers off…and the device that does the roll control seems to be inactive…ironically just as the commentator was pointing it out.

    Without any more information it would be hard to nail it down but if I had to bet I would bet that they had some software issues…which are easy fixes.

    Robert G. Oler

  • DCSCA

    Space exploitation is not space exploration.

  • Space exploitation is not space exploration.

    What’s your point?

    Or do you not have one?

  • Vladislaw

    If NASA is going to have to reduce their budget to meet the 5% budget reduction I would imagine that the Orion crew return vehicle will have to be cut.

  • common sense

    @ DCSCA wrote @ June 8th, 2010 at 4:18 pm

    “Space exploitation is not space exploration.”

    Nice slogan, but what is “space exploitation” exactlyAccording to you anyway?

    Because one of the definitions of “exploitation” I see here
    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&defl=en&q=define:exploitation&sa=X&ei=AK0OTJSrKursnQfEj42gDQ&ved=0CBIQkAE is “the act of making some area of land or water more profitable or productive or useful”.

  • amightywind

    “If NASA is going to have to reduce their budget to meet the 5% budget reduction I would imagine that the Orion crew return vehicle will have to be cut.”

    Seems to me earth and climate science are the juicier targets.

  • kert

    Sadly, Trent, you are right. It was a little bit interesting before they came out from under the stone bridges.

  • I went to the monthly National Space Club luncheon here in Cape Canaveral today. The guest speaker was KSC Director Bob Cabana.

    We were lucky enough to sit next to the small table occupied by SpaceX personnel. Many aerospace corporations buy tables; 29 at this meeting. Executives and managers typically attend, although sometimes it’s just whatever employees they send on lunch break.

    SpaceX had four or five employees, all dressed casually, unlike many of the big boys who sent exeuctives dressed in suits or other formal attire. They were pretty quiet and didn’t circulate … until I went over, stuck out my hand, and said, “I just wanted to say congratulations.”

    They all beamed.

    I kinda got the impression they’ve been shunned at prior meetings, or at least they were treated as if they were lepers.

    The emcee read off all 29 corporate participants. When he got to SpaceX, he paused to say SpaceX deserved a round of applause for their achievement. They were given a big ovation. Again, they beamed, even blushed a little.

    One SpaceX employee told me they’d had a lot of tentative inquiries from potential customers prior to the launch, but since Friday the phone has been ringing off the hook. They should be announcing a lot of new customers and launches in the next few weeks.

    SpaceX sent a huge shockwave through the commercial launch industry. It appears the space-industrial complex is starting to realize just how huge it was.

  • kert

    It appears the space-industrial complex is starting to realize just how huge it was.

    Which is scary. The last thing you want to happen to this company any time soon is an acquisition.

  • Fred Cink

    dad2059 wrote “caderwalling” it’s “caterwauling” but hay, hukt on foniks werkt for mee 2

  • Neil H.

    > “Space exploitation is not space exploration.”

    Correct. Exploration of new frontiers is the precursor to the more important goal of exploiting those frontiers for human benefit.

  • Sen

    Spacex is a private company, and elon owns most of it. It cant be bought unless he decides to sell. Sorry no buy out in the cards.

  • The last thing you want to happen to this company any time soon is an acquisition.

    I wouldn’t worry about that. Elon didn’t start this company to cash out.

  • Derrick

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ June 8th, 2010 at 3:16 pm….

    Wow. That’s not essentially a non-sequitur….

  • Glad to see that their are senators who are smart enough to appreciate commercial companies and their success. SpaceX said it could make a successful vehicle, they are delivering, and some senators are smart enough to notice. Can’t say that for all of them I’m afraid…

    Other than that, Congrats to Bill Nye, I think he will continue to do a great job with the planetary society. Btw, although I have the same last name, I am not related to him. =)

  • Fred

    Mark R. Whittington wrote
    “By all accounts SpaceX will need a billion dollars in government money to build a man rated version of the Falcon 9/Dragon, ”

    So far SpaceX has built Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and Dragon. A program which includes 4 engine types. Kestrel, Ablative Merlin, Reg Merlin and Draco.
    And they’ve done all this for about $500M.
    So an abort system is going to cost $1B?
    Wow.
    What are you drinking?
    And where do I get it?

  • Patrick

    1, it’s really weird how desperate Mark Whittington is getting.

    2, it’s really scary that amightywind is an engineer. Really?

    3, it’s amazing how ingrained and reflexive anti-conservative bigotry has become.

    4, it’s REALLY amazing (but not surprising, given human nature) how some conservatives can instantly abandon their free-market principles when it suits their prejudices or their immediate political needs.

  • Just curious, with all the talk about roll vs. “corkscrew” motion occurring with the 2nd stage, didn’t *anyone* notice the nearly one-quarter roll rotation to Falcon 9’s first stage immediately upon liftoff?

    The dead giveaway is watching the SpaceX logo on the lower portion of the first stage. It goes from head on to the pad camera perspective and clearly rotates to the right as the vehicle slightly skews toward the strong arm gantry. Watch the hi-res video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wymbcXc54c

    It almost gives one the impression it would have rolled right into the strong arm if its forward momentum or the gyros hadn’t nulled out further movement about T+2 seconds into flight.

  • Mark R. Whittington, whose “account” claims that SpaceX would need a billion to fly crew? You are aware that the COTS-D agreement is under $300 million aren’t you? Of course, ongoing contracts, such as the CRS contract, could well reach into the billions, but that would be over a span of quite a few years, and dozens of crewed flights. All said and told SpaceX will have achieved its goals for under a billion bucks, that includes cargo resupply and crew transportation.

    And all that other nit picky stuff like a refurbished pad and doubling their number of employees (twice).

    dad2059, the billion dollar claim is not true. You add up COTS and the stimulus money it comes out less than $600 million. Of course, any rationalist capitalist would know that spending money to help spur business is a good thing, therefore any cash that SpaceX has received will be returned to the taxpayer by the factor of 5 cost reduction that has resulted because of government trusting private space over bureaucracy.

    amightywind, “why penny pinch”? Is NASA “penny pinching”? Is NASA avoiding any safety criteria for the PDRs and CDRs? Do you have any evidence of this whatsoever? Because as far as I can tell NASA is doing everything by the book, at the highest engineering standards conceivable. The reason costs are lowered is because the taxpayer no longer has to assume the risk, it’s investors and workers who assume the risk. This is actually a more compelling reason to get things right, because if you fail you lose all of that R&D because you are taking the risk! Failing to pass NASA’s PDR and CDR will assuredly result in a company completely falling apart if their margins are thin (which SpaceX’s were early on in the development phase).

    As far as your continued and bizarre roll statements, Falcon 9 second stage did not “corkscrew.” It was a relatively gentle roll, and barely did three revolutions before engine shutoff.

    David Teek, the Ares I launch tower costs contrasted with the development costs of Falcon 9 is a good one. Thanks for pointing it out. I’ve known it, it’s just not been an interesting talking point. Think about it, readers. An orbital rocket for less than the cost of a launch tower. What real argument is there against private space?

    Patrick, detractors are likely to be engineers, I’ve found. Check out the “Salem hypothesis.” Of course, it’s unlikely that amightywind is indeed an engineer, however, as he would be well aware that the feat that SpaceX accomplished 4 days ago was quite unlikely, and well deserving of praise.

  • Bennett

    Jim Spellman wrote @ June 8th, 2010 at 11:48 pm

    This was mentioned but not explored. I’ve thought about it and wonder if actuating the hold-downs (releasing) imparted a measure of “twist” at liftoff. The avionics seemed to get a grip on it in short order and I’m sure the engineers at SpaceX have been working on it since about 15 minutes after T-0. The second launch of Falcon 9, while not having quite as much high drama, will be very telling. I’m looking forward to it!

  • Bennett

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ June 8th, 2010 at 6:54 pm

    That must have been a great time. Thanks for the report.

  • The roll at lift off was due to an initial bias from gas-generator exhaust and the spiral-wound nozzle. It will be tuned out in later flights.

  • DCSCA

    SPACEX ILLUSTRATES PRIVATIZATION RISK

    “Space entrepreneur Elon Musk made history last week with the successful launch of his Falcon 9 rocket, but he has acknowledged that he worried a few years ago that his project would have to shut down for lack of cash.

    The story of how Mr. Musk’s start-up, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., managed to buck financial turbulence—at one point even flirting with Northrop Grumman Corp. about a possible partnership—underscores how risky privately funded space endeavors can be.
    Friday’s nearly flawless flight, which blasted a prototype crew capsule into a 155-mile orbit, opened what is likely to become a new chapter in manned space exploration. The Obama administration wants NASA to outsource cargo and astronaut transportation to the international space station through at least the next decade.

    Mr. Musk, along with several competitors, is expected to vie to handle much of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s manned space program. President Obama believes his approach will both save money and spawn a vibrant U.S.-based space industry. But Congress has stalled the plan, and some critics say that portions of it amount to a back-door bailout of companies like Mr. Musk’s.

    Mr. Musk’s closely held company still needs a cash infusion of more than $1 billion in the next year or two to reach its goal of transporting astronauts to the international space station later this decade. That’s twice the total investment by SpaceX, as the company is known, since its creation in 2002. And while Mr. Musk tapped his own fortune for some $100 million of that, U.S. taxpayers are the most likely source of future assistance.

    In an interview in March, the 38-year-old Mr. Musk, SpaceX’s brash founder and chief executive, recalled the serious cash squeeze the company confronted repeatedly from mid-2007 to mid-2009. Describing the intense pressure as “the worst two years of my life,” he said there were “certainly many times when we were not far from running out of money.”

    Mr. Musk made his fortune when he sold his Internet company, PayPal, to eBay Inc. Since then, he has invested heavily in two projects, SpaceX and the electric-car company Tesla Motors Inc.

    At SpaceX, rocket development and other costs kept climbing, partly because the Air Force refused to allow the fledgling outfit to launch from Florida, forcing it to ship fuel, parts, machinery, employees and other gear to Kwajalein, an isolated Pacific atoll 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii where U.S. missiles have been tested for decades.

    Throughout this period, SpaceX’s image and prospects were reeling from three consecutive botched launches of the smaller Falcon 1 rocket, including one attempt that never got off the pad. Prospective customers, from Pentagon brass to foreign governments and scientific organizations, were reluctant to sign contracts with SpaceX. Add to that the collapse of the overall economy, and “it was pretty tough slogging,” Mr. Musk recalls.

    As the summer of 2008 rolled on, he mulled exchanging a minority stake in SpaceX for a swift financial lifeline. And by early August, according to people familiar with the details, he had already engaged in preliminary but ultimately unsuccessful talks about teaming up with Northrop. Northrop and SpaceX officials have declined to comment.

    That month, Mr. Musk did agree to sell a sliver of the company to Founders Fund, a private-equity group run by some long-time business associates. Later, he sold a similar stake to the venture-capital group Draper Fisher Jurvetson, another Northern California venture-capital group. In the March interview, Mr. Musk said, “it was never my intention to take outside investments” but “I simply didn’t have the money to put in.” The two funds, and three other investors with smaller stakes, together have a 20% stake in the company.

    Then, at the end of 2008, SpaceX won a competition to snare the largest share of NASA’s planned cargo flights to the space station. And in July 2009, the crisis finally eased when SpaceX successfully launched a satellite for the Malaysian government.

    But Mr. Musk’s ambition to eventually make space travel routine for average people may make it difficult to find additional private backers. “Some of those [goals] may not sit well with investors who are looking at next quarter’s profits,” he concedes.

    Mr. Musk essentially taught himself rocket science, and he bristles when critics snipe at him for taking the title of chief technical officer at SpaceX. He likes to recount that when he took an engineering aptitude test as a youngster, he “got the highest score they had ever seen” in his native South Africa.

    One of the worst mistakes many companies make is separating the technical experts from the executives who control the purse strings, he says. “I understand both, so I can make decisions very quickly,” he adds. “They mostly are the right decisions.”

    Still, Mr. Musk’s self-confidence, combined with some slipups, contributed to the cash crunch at SpaceX. When the company and NASA started discussing potential manned missions for Falcon 9, Mr. Musk boldly predicted he could provide reliable crew-escape hardware for less than $350 million, a projection that was ridiculed within the industry. “That was, in retrospect, naively low,” Mr. Musk now concedes.

    Since President Obama has asked Congress to fund commercial manned flights, SpaceX has recalibrated its estimate, saying it needs about $1 billion to develop and deploy an emergency escape system.

    Looking back on some of SpaceX’s dark days now, Mr. Musk recalls how stress related to his divorce and to taking on more day-to-day responsibilities running Tesla, where he is the controlling shareholder, increased the crisis atmosphere.

    But running both companies simultaneously also provided the ultimate test of Mr. Musk’s renowned tenacity and focus. “The sheer amount of work,” he said in March, “was way beyond fun.”

    In the afterglow of Friday’s success, though, Mr. Musk didn’t dwell on past struggles. He told reporters his team intended to “drink a few margaritas, [and] maybe more than a few,” to celebrate. “I couldn’t think of a better reason to have a party,” he added.” – source, Andy Pasztor, WSJ 6/7/10

  • Elon says that Pasztor is wrong, and he never told him it would take another billion for an LES. That number is off by a factor of ten. He said that it would take no more than a billion, total, and probably less to get the system ready for transport of seven crew (including money spent to date).

    The “billion for an LES” number apparently came from ATK (which was spreading FUD), not SpaceX.

  • John Malkin

    DCSCA should use a link instead of copy and paste.

    I think the markup coming this month will be more telling than this request.

  • DCSCA

    @JohnMalkin- normally, yes, but not in this instance.

  • Sorry, it is a billion more, not including money spent to date. But that money includes development of the escape system, and three test flights: two abort tests, one on the pad and one high altitude, and a demonstration flight to and from ISS. Price per seat on Falcon/Dragon will be $20M. Price per seat on Ares/Orion will be an order of magnitude more.

  • DCSCA, yes, Elon Musk is a businessman, a billion or two sounds about right, if you include the crew delivery contract (like CRS). Musk obviously cannot get COTS-D to “pay more” than the $300 million that is allotted. Therefore, as a businessman, he needs to be able to guarantee his company future earnings. Once they complete the first couple of PDRs and maybe a CDR or two I am certain he will be expecting NASA to give him a CTS (Crew Transportation Services) contract. It’s business. He implies this on the post launch teleconference.

    That does not change the fact that the full costs of Falcon 9 plus a crewed Dragon will not cost taxpayers a billion bucks.

    BTW, here’s a link to the article you posted (no doubt violating copyright) but didn’t feel like providing a link to.

    Rand Simberg, I don’t think you understand the article, it says that “SpaceX needs a billion.” Even if it were true (and other commentators here imply that the author may not be trustworthy), currently SpaceX is only linked to taxpayers under COTS-D (money yet to be delivered) for about $300 million. That is the total cost to finish developing COTS-D. Now a crew transportation contract to the ISS could well be in the billions, over dozens of flights over several years, and on the post-launch news conference Elon implied that they’d really need some kind of contractual assurance.

  • Fred

    CRC award to SpaceX for cargo delivery to ISS was for 12 flights @ $1.6B. total which works out at 2-3 flights a year through 2015.
    This is a fixed price contract and works out at $133M per flight.
    Essentially the cargo Dragon is the same as crew Dragon with a few mods. Thus the price should be close to the same. Say $140M.
    Carrying 6 crew equals $20M per seat with no reusability of the Falcon or the Dragon.
    It looks as though Musk’s estimate of $20M per seat is right.
    On flights to a Bigelow space station with reusability of just the Dragon the price would be lower.

  • I don’t think you understand the article, it says that “SpaceX needs a billion.”

    I understand the article just fine.

  • […] Release 7.6.2010; Popular Mechanics, Space Policy 10., Orlando Sentinel, Flight Global, Orion 9., Space Politics 8., The Space Review, Tracker, Space.com 7., Washington Post, AFP, Universe Today, Bad Astronomy, […]

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