that is fine Frank G hasnt gotten a thing correct in almost a decade…he is stuck in the cold war.

As for Casey’s statement, you are reading far to much into it, but anyone who supports Frank G is capable of that.

Sorry Frank has never apologized for all he got wrong about Iraq.

Robert G. Oler

Frank Gafney is out pushing that line, but I am not so sure that Mr. Gates agrees with it.

Nor do “most” of the folks in the E ring of the Pentagon.

I also know that Gafney and others (Whittington has it on his blog) are pushing the “bush developed space weapons”. And Sarah Palin is a thoughtful person
>>
OK… gratuitous slam on Sarah Palin… check

I think I’ll take Frank Gaffney’s opinion on this over Gates.

Are these “‘most’ of the folks in the E ring” the same folks who feel that “diversity” is more important than stopping future mass killings such as the Major Hasan Ft. Hood shooting? I’m referring to U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Casey’s statement that “It would be a shame — as great a tragedy as this was — it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well”. My point being that the folks in the E ring aren’t necessarily immune from politics and utopian idealogies.

“The most disturbing thing about this new policy is the push for preemptive surrender of U.S. space weapons.”

Your statement implies that the U.S. is saying “we won’t have U.S. space weapons, and we hope you don’t either”.

In reality, the Obama administration is going back to the view of Reagan, Bush the Wise and Clinton in stating that Washington will “consider proposals and concepts for arms control measures if they are equitable, effectively verifiable and enhance the national security of the United States and its allies.”

I hope you’re not calling Reagan a wuss…

“I doubt anyone will beat the Russians on launch costs.”

To a certain degree, the U.S. Government doesn’t need a cheaper option as long as it’s a U.S. crew system. That means any U.S. capsule (Orion, Dragon, CST-100, etc.) is good enough if launched on a U.S. launcher. Political considerations can easily override the need to save money for the government.

The only per/seat quote that we can use for direct comparison is the $51-56M/seat that Soyuz currently charges (3 seats total), and the $20M/seat that SpaceX is quoting for Dragon (7 seats total).

SpaceX charges $56M for a Falcon 9, which leaves $44M for capsule, recovery, profit and other costs per flight. Keep in mind that SpaceX will have 12 once-used Dragon capsules leftover from the COTS program, so they save a lot of money when they retrofit Dragon from cargo to crew. This price seems pretty reasonable to me, but even if they raised the price to $30 – 40M/seat, it would still beat Soyuz on both price and volume (number of passengers).

For Orion, just the launch costs on a Delta IV Heavy would cost $50M/seat (6 seats total), and you still need to add in the capsule, recovery and all the other stuff. For commercial crew on a ULA Atlas V, they plan to charge $130M/flight just for the launcher, and you have to provide your own capsule. Using the CST-100, that would work at to $18.6M/seat (7 seats total) just for the launcher, so CST-100 could beat Soyuz if Boeing does a good job on holding down the costs (one of their stated concerns).

I think Congress would prefer Orion as a 1st choice, but any U.S. capsule provider would probably get government business no maker what the per seat price.

The most disturbing thing about this new policy is the push for preemptive surrender of U.S. space weapons. Any treaty banning space weapons would be completely unverifi….

Frank Gafney is out pushing that line, but I am not so sure that Mr. Gates agrees with it.

Nor do “most” of the folks in the E ring of the Pentagon.

I also know that Gafney and others (Whittington has it on his blog) are pushing the “bush developed space weapons”. And Sarah Palin is a thoughtful person

Robert G. Oler