>Coastal Ron wrote @ July 23rd, 2010 at 11:44 am

> If the mythical $100/lb to LEO actually existed, then there would
> be a lot of demand – but it doesn’t exist.

I didn’t say it exists, I said the TECHNOLOGY FOR IT EXISTS. I.E. the reason the costs are not that low or for market reasons, not technology reasons.

Think of it as the same new car that cost $600 in Lease or payment, and $200 a month for insurance. Well if you commute 80 miles a day 1600miles a month, 1800 miles with non-commuting miles.

$800/1800 = $0.44 a mile.

Same car, but you are retired and only drive 10 miles a week. Same car, same tech

$800/40 = $20.0 a mile.

You want $100 a pound, you need to be part of a big market – there are ways for that, but not in effect now.

“Problem is, its not a technology question. The technology would support cost to orbit down below $100 a pound pretty easily – its the market side that’s lagging.”

If the mythical $100/lb to LEO actually existed, then there would be a lot of demand – but it doesn’t exist.

If you think it does, please provide details and explain, because no one else has been able to figure it out.

SpaceX, which offers the lowest non-subsidized price to LEO, charges $56M/flight for their Falcon 9, and with a payload to LEO of 23,050, that works out to $2,430/lb. You’re trying to tell everyone that it’s easy to lower that cost by a factor of 24?

Show us.

No that’s not their attitude. Griffen wanted NASA out of the transportation business (I.E. shuttle concept of NASA as a national transport infrastructure, and fostering space development with safe routine space access) – back to space being rare spectacles that would be more exciting because they were so rare and big.

Congress also wants NASA developing useful tech – but if they can’t get that (or anything else) they figure they absolutely need NASA pouring money in districts to get them votes. Sadly, that (adn national pride) is generally what the public wants from NASA.

> I saw the Obama/Bolden budget proposal as a way to
> get NASA back to it’s roots, which is in my mind:

Yeah I just can’t see how anyone could see Obamaspace that way, or generating below.

> – Creating technology that commercial companies
> are not capable of creating, ==

That would be good – but its very definitely not in the budget – the budgets crafted to LOOK like its doing that, while just throwing out pork.

> – Exploration. The bulk of our exploration has been using
> robotic systems, and this should continue and expand.==

Our robotic explore has gone way down and really its time to do something in space, or shut done the robotic precursors.

> – Teach commercial companies to do the routine tasks
> NASA has pioneered, and by doing that NASA can save money,
> and focus their efforts on the cutting-edge tasks that NASA is staffed to tackle.

NASA doesn’t know anywhere near as much as the companies. They USED to be the innovators, but they can’t keep top people liker that no staff under civil service rules.

>= Instead of Congress designing an HLV that does
> not have a defined need, they should be focusing on c
> reating the technology and techniques that will lower the
> costs to access space, ==

Problem is, its not a technology question. The technology would support cost to orbit down below $100 a pound pretty easily – its the market side that’s lagging.

Would be good if NASA was doing cutting edge tech things again – but I think that era is long passed.

“You know what has got my goat here. All the negative statements about NASA. How quickly we have forgotten about all the miracles of modern engineering that NASA has demonstrated throughout the years.”

My comments to date about NASA have been a reflection of the direction that people like Griffin or Congress have wanted to take NASA, which I believe has been outside of the core NASA mission.

NASA’s core competency is not in designing and running a transportation company, and yet administrators like Griffin and some people in Congress somehow perceive that only NASA can launch a rocket without it blowing up – despite the obvious evidence one way or the other.

I saw the Obama/Bolden budget proposal as a way to get NASA back to it’s roots, which is in my mind:

– Creating technology that commercial companies are not capable of creating, and both passing it along to American companies for their use, and using on NASA programs. NASA is tax supported, and part of it’s job is to pass along their knowledge to commercial companies. They do it already, and they need to focus on it even more.

– Exploration. The bulk of our exploration has been using robotic systems, and this should continue and expand. We now have the ability to go back to the Moon and do some serious robotic exploration to determine what we can eventually do on the Moon with people.

– Teach commercial companies to do the routine tasks NASA has pioneered, and by doing that NASA can save money, and focus their efforts on the cutting-edge tasks that NASA is staffed to tackle.

Instead of Congress designing an HLV that does not have a defined need, they should be focusing on creating the technology and techniques that will lower the costs to access space, and let the market solve the supply & demand questions – that is their core competency, not NASA’s.

IF (very big) the House version was to become law, it would not surprise me (read: it would be absolutely hysterical) to see all the commercial companies other than SpaceX and Orbital walk away, leaving NASA more or less screwed.

This is not true, and you know it. NASA needs an LV to deliver supplies and astronauts to the ISS. We can either pay the Russians, or we can spend a little money to speed up the development already under way (by a US company) in order to stop paying the Russians to boost our supplies to the ISS.

This formula has worked in dozens of other industries and is working for our country’s commercial space companies.

It’s the American Way and I’m proud that companies like SpaceX are growing to meet our governments needs.

Constellation needed ten times as many billions from the USG to get there. With no guarantee they would deliver (and good reason to think they wouldn’t).

Congress rightly concluded Ospace, in one sense, was no different than what Nasa has been doing for decades, funding primes for hardware and services.

If Congress concluded that, they were as uninformed as you.