A major space power is grappling with a number of problems: constrained space budgets, debates about future programs, and concerns that, in the bigger scheme of things, space just isn’t a major priority. A description of the US? In fact, it’s a description of Europe’s current situation, as reported Monday in the Wall Street Journal.
The European Space Agency, its member states, and the European Union are all grappling with a number of problems, including potential budget cuts that could force countries to decrease their contributions to ESA next year by 20 percent or more, the Journal reports. There’s also debate about supporting developing of a new launch vehicle to succeed the Ariane 5, with Francois Auque of EADS complaining that major ESA countries don’t have “the impetus or the stamina” to carry out this or other major projects, or complete development of a long-term strategy. “Space exploration is quite low in the European priorities,” he said.
When the bottom is falling out of the economies of 1/3 to 1/2 of your members, you have to either figure out how to pay for or cut back on some rather lavish (relatively) social programs, and you have negative birth and immigration rates, space is just about the last thing you want to spend money on.
This simply mirrors what opinion polls have shown here for many years. The public doesn’t see government-funded space exploration as a priority.
All the more reason to hand over LEO access to the private sector.
Esa must build a manned craft..Atv derived…
Thats the goal,,not play with rockets which replicate the russians cheap rockets..
What a shame. The EU economy is larger than the US. They can afford to do better, in defense and in space. All civilized western countries, the US included, must re-embrace economic freedom, and slash government handouts.
Aggelos wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 8:17 am
“Esa must build a manned craft..Atv derived…
Thats the goal,,not play with rockets which replicate the russians cheap rockets..”
Er self defeating argument? ESA will use Soyuz for its Astronauts as the Russians do it more cheaply! ARV was and still is a hangover from the glory days of Hermes. It will remain PPT for some time. OTOH once ESA have used up the 20 odd Semyorkas for the Galileo GNSS project there may be launches of Crewed Soyuz from Guiana Space Centre. But that’s some time in the future. But then so is SKYLON!
In the mean time the GSC has a choice of three launchers whilst the size and payload capacity of Ariane 6 is being decided. Probably a smaller CCB capable of clustering in the manner of Angara. But I speculate…
“Play?”
http://www.spacenews.com/launch/100105-arianespace-revenue-boosted-launch-prices.html
“All civilized western countries, the US included, must re-embrace economic freedom, and slash government handouts.”
Which means the gov’t needs to use more commercial space services and less gov’t run programs.
“Er self defeating argument? ESA will use Soyuz for its Astronauts as the Russians do it more cheaply! ”
the atv derived vehicle will be if gts built 4.4 m diameter and with capabilities even for the moon..we talk about a 20t ariane 5 vehicle..
it will carry 4 crew for leo and the moon..
If in 2011 esa ministers give the go ..this vehicle will have far more capabilities than the old small soyuz..
this vehicle can become,,a cross between the orion design and the small leo taxis..
And it can be launched alone..something,that the senate bill cancels for orion which will launch on big hlv only…
Yes, let’s stop the government from operating a manned space programs beyond Earth orbit and let’s have government pay commercial space companies to build rockets and other space things so that when those things are developed, the space companies can sell those rockets and other things to the government.
A good space program includes government and private involvement and investment, manned and unmanned missions, and the possibility of many goals and destinations.
Unfortunately, at times in seems that groups of Apes are fighting over peanuts instead of working together to develop a garden,.
The Euros are a silly and perplexing bunch. They have a good rocket in the Arianne V and did a fine job developing the ATV. Adding a manned capability to the ATV can’t be that expensive. Why don’t you stop paying French farmers for not planting and build the darned thing!
Commercial manned space flight to LEO Â is in it’s infancy, a fact that I am sure everyone will agree with. (Some may say still in the birth cannal.) The questions for the proponents of the concept are quite simple:
1. What is the potential market?
2. How can this market be realized?
3. Is it financially viable?
The private market is (I believe) quite large but dependant on the type of transport.Â
The Space X launch vehicle does very little to tap this potential market. This is obvious when a price tag of at least $20 million per seat is being touted. At that cost per seat the market is so small the venture (without ALL government buisness) does not make sense and claims of “opening up space” in any meaningful way are ridiculous.Â
Space Ship 2, albeit a sub orbital craft, is steets ahead. Their market is defined by their cost per seat and must be in the order of at least a thousand times larger than that of Space X.
Blind Freddy can see what is needed for the rapid expansion of the “manned space market,” quite simply it is a space plane capable of reaching LEO and that is where “commercial space” should concentrate its efforts.Â
The alternatives both restrict and constrict the market and could fail in hard times far quicker than a space plane(s) servicing a much larger market. Â
On that basis my first billion goes to that baby boomer Burt Rutan…not to companies who’s survival would depend to the greater extent on government buisness.
After all we are talking about commercial manned space flight are we not? ( Not just a budget solution for NASA! ) Â
What SpaceX, XCor Aerospace, Virgin Galactic and others are doing is certainly awesome, but they are private companies, and as soon as a manned rocket launch explodes or some other major disaster happens, their plans will grind to a halt. Commercial space exploration will happen and it will be successful, but without NASA taking the lead, America’s space exploits will be middling compared to China and Russia.
What SpaceX, XCor Aerospace, Virgin Galactic and others are doing is certainly awesome, but they are private companies, and as soon as a manned rocket launch explodes or some other major disaster happens, their plans will grind to a halt.
I don’t know why people continue to repeat this nonsense.
“The Euros are a silly and perplexing bunch. They have a good rocket in the Arianne V and did a fine job developing the ATV. Adding a manned capability to the ATV can’t be that expensive. Why don’t you stop paying French farmers for not planting and build the darned thing!”
industry says that the cargo capsule can be ready in 3 years and 300mil euros.. and manned for 1-1.5 bi euros..
and they will make with the crewed version in mind..and ariane 5 can be upgraded with composite srbs to 27t to leo..and lunar version.
now,eads astrium does the preliminary study.. next year will see..
we europeans also ,are also mad with this slow pace of esa..
I hope this will change..
its crazy a 1000wokers company like spacex to build a manned capsule and European Space agency dont have..
> Kyle Bogosian wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
> What SpaceX, XCor Aerospace, Virgin Galactic and others are doing is
> certainly awesome, ==
;/
>== but they are private companies, and as soon as a manned rocket
> launch explodes or some other major disaster happens, their plans
> will grind to a halt. ===
That depends. Congress could easily decide to shut it down for PR regions. Investors could get nervious adn pull out. Or the provider who had the crash could just lose to competitors. There are to many variables.
and they will make with the crewed version in mind..and ariane 5 can be upgraded with composite srbs to 27t to leo..and lunar version.
Oh, don’t say that! It doesn’t matter that they are simple, useful, and get you to space without incident. The peanut gallery will soon be screaming, “they aren’t safe!”, “they aren’t green!”, “you can’t shut them down!”, “accelerations are too high!”, “they’re too expensive!”
‘“accelerations are too high!—
ariane 5 has some problems with vibrations ,,but surely it can be solved..for manrating the rocket..
ares 1 and orion had to be built from scratch.
but esa has the rocket,the service module and avionics,,just the capsule is missing..
esa is closer to a ready vehicle than nasa,,logically,,but they are sleeping..
why nasa doesnt make composite the shuttle srbs?
is so expensive?
@ what Rand Simberg wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Seconded.
why nasa doesnt make composite the shuttle srbs?
Oh, ASRB’s with composite filament wound casings were on the books back in the 80’s. For all I know they were tested at ATK. NASA backed out after the challenger disaster. They supposedly had poor sway characteristics before the STS stack is released for launch. I think Thiokol just chickened out and went to the defensive design we have today. The 5 segment Ares SRB is of the traditional design.
The composites are supposedly intended to reduce costs, at least that’s what the Vega documentation hints at. Note that the Europeans are bickering over how to make Ariane smaller and cheaper.
Breaking news … Former NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe was one of the passengers aboard a fatal plane crash today in Alaska. News reports are conflicting, apparently there are some survivors. One fatality appears to be former Alaska senator Ted Stevens.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/10/alaska.plane.crash/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1
Kyle Bogosian wrote:
“What SpaceX, XCor Aerospace, Virgin Galactic and others are doing is certainly awesome, but they are private companies, and as soon as a manned rocket launch explodes or some other major disaster happens, their plans will grind to a halt.”
Automobile makers didn’t “grind to a halt” after the first car crash, nor did they stop making aeroplanes after the first air crash.
Automobile makers didn’t “grind to a halt†after the first car crash, nor did they stop making aeroplanes after the first air crash.
They did not exist in the legal and political environment of today. The Japanese have a saying, “Fix the problem, not the blame.” Sadly, we do the opposite. This country (and administration) increasingly loves a scapegoat. One wonders what long term harm this does to innovation and economic growth.
“Automobile makers didn’t “grind to a halt†after the first car crash, nor did they stop making aeroplanes after the first air crash.”
The technologies developed 200 to 100 years age like trains, plans and automobiles, were developed during a time when we were much less risk adverse. There was a sense that we needed these technologies to grow.
This is a much more risk adverse time especially with technologies that are seen as superfluous. The lawsuits that will come about will doom the company that has the accident and most likely stop any other company from doing human space flight for a long time.
One thing has me curious, I wonder it the likes of Rand and others on this site who so mercilessly savage NASA for the lost crews of Challenger and Columbia will also be just as hard on their beloved commercial companies. I don’t think they will.
amightywind wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
They did not exist in the legal and political environment of today. The Japanese have a saying, “Fix the problem, not the blame.†Sadly, we do the opposite……
nonsense. There is no more corporate friendly environment then both political parties. The GOP spent almost a trillion bailing out the banks that had failed, BP will continue as a group…
some airlines have gone under because of crashes, but Colgan air still exist and the latest crash it had was a spectacular example of corporate incompetence.
If a company can financially survive a mishap in human spaceflight is one question; but it is quite unlikely that the government will simply step in and say “stop”. They didnt with Colgan.
Robert G. Oler
This article is just the latest sign of the end of government sponsored space flight by humans as a significant activity in the West. The Russians have no real plans passed just flying Soyuz and keeping their folks on ISS, the Chinese are “dithering” at a human spaceflight program, and NASA’s efforts are imploding of their own weight.
We are coming to the end of the “centralized” government space efforts in human spaceflight except in small specialized areas and even those will start to falter if the Western economies keep imploding.
The mismanagement of the American economy, the engine of the western world faltered with Bush the last but has continued with Obama and we are in for a long period of decline until it is sorted out.
Robert G. Oler
Latest news is that Sean O’Keefe apparently survived the crash. News is still sketchy.
Robert G. Oler wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 4:09 pm — “If a company can financially survive a mishap in human spaceflight is one question; but it is quite unlikely that the government will simply step in and say “stopâ€. They didnt with Colgan.”
There probably will be a lot of big and small print on the bottom of federal checks cut for commercial companies.
http://www.space.com/news/former-nasa-chief-okeefe-survives-plane-crash-100810.html
…The NASA watchdog website NASAWatch said a family member has confirmed that O’Keefe’s son Kevin was also on the plane and that both survived. According to NBC News, which cited a source close to the O’Keefe family, the former NASA chief suffered a broken pelvis and several other broken bones in the crash….
amightywind wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
there is a video somewhere, ..where the SRB’s you are referring to were tested “prone”…one could see the ripple going up and down the casing with the Mark 1 eyeball.
they were a disaster waiting to happen
Robert G. Oler
Anne Spudis wrote:
The NASA watchdog website NASAWatch said a family member has confirmed that O’Keefe’s son Kevin was also on the plane and that both survived.
That’s the first I’d heard his son was on the plane, thanks for the added info. We know that five survived and four died, one of the fatalities is former Senator Stevens but that’s about it.
“If a company can financially survive a mishap in human spaceflight is one question; but it is quite unlikely that the government will simply step in and say “stopâ€. ”
They’ll stop using them for access to the ISS efecivly putting themout of business.
Stephen C. Smith wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 8:08 am <- Rubbish.
Hand over? Nothing is stopping commercial space from flying but the very constraints of the free market. That's why governments do it. But feel free to approach the private capital markets for investors, generate financing and go flying. The world awaits— see Conestoga 1 for details– or Destination Moon for a rough business plan.
@amightywind- SRBs are not the way to go to progress human spaceflight. Griffin was just myopic and wrong with this concept. Nature abhors a vaccum and with no strong leadership from the WH toward NASA for years this kind of mediocre management was inevitably going to fill the void.
Rand Simberg wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 12:18 pm “I don’t know why people continue to repeat this nonsense.” <– Because it's not. And the fact you can't acknowledge this speaks volumes.
And the fact you can’t acknowledge this speaks volumes.
Why would any sane person acknowledge nonsense? The fact that a moronic troll like you agrees with it is what speaks volumes.
DCSCA wrote @ every day at all times < nothing but volumes of nonsense.
DCSCA has yet to post one relevant point on why must spaceflight must be gov't run despite evidence to the contrary.
1. All NASA unmanned launches are performed by commercial services
2. NASA most used commercial payload processing services
3. ISS logistics will be handled by commercial services
4, The bulk of the shuttle workers (90%) are from a commercial company.
5. Gov't managed spaceflight has killed 7 people in the last 10 years
6. The bulk of launch vehicle expertise is in industry vs NASA
7. The bulk of spaceflight expertise is in industry vs NASA
NASA is no longer the center of the spaceflight universe.
To continue Byeman’s points:
Most satellites are designed, built, and launched commercially.
The Conestoga 1, Pegasus, Athena 1, Athena 2, Sea Launch, Atlas III, Delta III, Delta IV Medium, and Falcon 1 launch vehicles were all financed through the “private capital markets.” In addition, Taurus, Atlas V, and Falcon 9 were partially financed through “private capital markets.”
The point of spending public funds on commercial crew is not to make money for private shareholders, it’s to save the taxpayers boatloads of money!
Commercial crew aims to produce three 7-man space transports and three man-rated launch vehicles for 87% fewer taxpayer dollars* than the LEO portion of Constellation (which would develop only a single 4-man capsule). That’s a savings of around $39 billion.
$39 billion. Why would anyone want NASA to spend an extra $39 billion for less capability?
Mike
*$35 billion for Ares I + $10 billion for Orion vs. $6 billion for commercial crew
“-not to make money for private shareholders.”
No one believes that part. No one.
“one could see the ripple going up and down the casing with the Mark 1 eyeball.
they were a disaster waiting to happen”
Does not sound good, but just for the sake of argument a commercial airline wing does not look very safe when it is flexing and wobbling around in turbulence. But it is supposed to do that.
Was the composite case ripple anticipated or was it actually some scary unanticipated event?
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) – A former NASA spokesman says ex-NASA chief Sean
O’Keefe survived the plane crash in Alaska that killed former Sen. Ted
Stevens.
Glenn Mahone says O’Keefe’s teenage son, Kevin, was also among the four
survivors.
The plane crashed Monday night near a remote fishing village in Alaska,
killing five.
The former spokesman for the space agency says he has talked to
O’Keefe’s family. They told him that O’Keefe and his son had some broken
bones and other injuries.
@Simberg
There was a ‘stupid’ fella;
With a reactionary guile;
Who squawked a ‘stupid’ theory;
Laced dismissively in style.
Betraying angst frustrations;
Fueled by insecurities;
For his Musk has flown nobody;
The world knows this, you see.
Our Musketeers love theory;
They promise and propose;
Yet still nobody’s flying,
Their Emperor has no clothes.
The bottom line they’re eyeing;
To ‘privatize’ their case;
As days and months go flying;
Without human’s flown in space.
The time for talk is over;
Let actions speak, not words;
Commercial space our future?
Free markets say: absurd.
Investors remain wary;
Hear grandiose plans they speak;
Human spaceflight has a future,
With NASA- not Wall Street.
Stop talking. Start flying.
“The point of spending public funds on commercial crew is not to make money for private shareholders, it’s to save the taxpayers boatloads of money!” — Spend money to save money, eh? No. Not with taxpayer funds borrowed from foreign lands. The place to source your capital investments in the private sector capital markets- not the U.S. Treasury. If it’s a sound plan with a good return on investment, you’ll have investors flocking your door. But you won’t because the market is limited. That’s why governments do it.
There was a ‘stupid’ fella;
Ah, repeating idiotic “poetry” that was not funny the first time. Repetition in general is a true sign of a troll.
@Simberg<- the learning curve will be steep with this one.
Tick-tock, tick-tock. Stop talking. Start flying.
MrEarl wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 4:00 pm <- It's a bogus argument for human commercial spaceflight proponents to make to begin with. And they know it. The Russians and NASA has been lofting people for half a century and lost crews and vehicles through errors in management, design and procedure. Commercial space companies have orbited absolutely nobody. When they get some skin in the game and a few successful flights on the scoreboard, they can begin to present a viable position. As of now– as it's been for decades– it's all just talk.
@Byeman “NASA is no longer the center of the spaceflight universe.” <- Yes, it is, at least for the United States. Commercial space has orbited nobody.
@DCSCA
I’m confused as to what you’re adding to this discussion. Do you honestly think the people you’re speaking to have the power to “start flying”?
“Do you honestly think the people you’re speaking to have the power to “start flyingâ€?”
No, that is the problem- THEY are the ones who think that. Some of us are just trying to tell them what morons they are in the hope they will one day stop making fools of themselves.
No, NASA is not he center of the spaceflight universe. The better and interesting jobs are in contractors.
As for orbiting anybody, NASA hasn’t either, the industrial contractors have.
> Michael Kent wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
> Commercial crew aims to produce three 7-man space transports
> and three man-rated launch vehicles for 87% fewer taxpayer
> dollars* than the LEO portion of Constellation (which would develop
> only a single 4-man capsule). That’s a savings of around $39 billion.
> [$35 billion for Ares I + $10 billion for Orion vs. $6 billion for
> commercial crew]
Just a nit but Commercial crew and associated stuff under Obama was going to cost far more then $6B. Its was $6B for oversight until 2015. Plus “Orion lifeboat”, then the cost of the Commercial crew “operations program” 2016-2020 (probably at least another $6B incudingKSC adn other overhead NASA will need to add), then the Orion life boat program adn launches. Then you get to the actual commercial crew launches – probably another $6B.
> Byeman wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
> No, NASA is not he center of the spaceflight universe. The better
> and interesting jobs are in contractors. ==
The jobs always have been with the contractors. NASA just the center of the funding.
That governments around the world are backing away from manned spaceflight just shows what a dubious value proposition it is.
Another one beat the dust
Mimir wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 8:46 pm <– That's a question to address to commercial human spaceflight advocates. Their criticisms of the successful, valued and historied half century of government funded and operated space programs on elements of cost, competence and planning aside, they've flown absolutely nobody in orbit. Nobody. Yet insist they are the path to the future or human spaceflight activities when history has demonstratively shown otherwise. Recently Emperor Musk professed himself the visionary for the future of human space activities while asking for gobvernment subsidies. And his company has flown nobody. It's nonsense. Figuratively speaking, yes, it's time for them to stop talking and start flying. Actions speak louder than words. And it would be a welcomed achievement.
Paul D. wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
That governments around the world are backing away from manned spaceflight just shows what a dubious value proposition it is. <- That, of course, will be news to the People's Republic of China.
@Mimir Don’t mind DCSCA. He rarely contributes solutions, as I suspect he mostly comes here just to complain.
With that said, he *is* giving William McGonagall, apparently, so he’s got that going for him. Which is nice.
Giving William McGonagall a run for his money, rather.
spacermase wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 11:04 pm <- More idle talk from a musketeer.
This article is just the latest sign of the end of government sponsored space flight by humans as a significant activity in the West.
=blink= The ‘West’ will look forward to the correction.
“Forty-nine years after [the NY Times published an] editorial mocking Goddard, on July 17, 1969 — the day after the launch of Apollo 11 — The [paper] published a short item under the headline “A Correction.” The three-paragraph statement summarized its [mistaken] 1920 editorial, and concluded: Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th Century and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.”
DCSCA wrote:
Commercial space companies have orbited absolutely nobody.
Every astronaut ever launched into space by NASA flew there in a vehicle
designed and built by Boeing. Every single one.
Boeing is a commercial space company. They are currently designing
and building the CST-100. It will be their fourth manned space capsule.
Your insults of Musk will not change these facts.
Mike
Kelly Starks wrote:
Just a nit but Commercial crew and associated stuff under Obama was
going to cost far more then $6B.
I was comparing the $6 billion development cost of three commercial crew systems to the $45 billion development cost of Ares I / Orion. That’s a fair and proper comparison.
True, I did not include the operations cost of commercial crew, but I didn’t include the operations cost of LEO Ares I / Orion either. Let’s do that.
Ares I is slated to cost $1 billion per launch. The Delta IV Medium and Atlas V launch vehicles cost somewhere between $90-130 million to launch. A Falcon 9 costs $56 million to launch. So the operations cost works out the same as the development cost — monumentally cheaper for commercial crew than LEO Constellation.
Why you’re trying to charge the high cost of Orion against the commercial crew budget is a mystery to me. We’re going commercial crew to get rid of that high cost. I haven’t seen a dwell time for DreamChaser, but Dragon has an orbital lifetime of 270 days, and CST-100 can stay in orbit “months” per their latest press conference. There’s no reason for a lifeboat Orion. Commercial crew doesn’t need it.
Mike
DCSCA wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
– That, of course, will be news to the People’s Republic of China….
not really. The PRC is not going very fast on human spaceflight.
This actually surprises me a bit. When I was last in China (doing microgravity work there) the Reds seemed on the verge of attempting a coherent human spaceflight program that would leapfrog their military. Thats been a few years (well a decade) but I have kept close touch with people who have been to China, observed their space effort “with the Mark 1 eyeball” and folks whose business it is to track their space efforts…and the effort itself is not very impressive.
Not only in the actual vector of the effort but in the intensity of it.
Worse when compared to other modernization efforts that the PRC is doing their human space program is going along at a snails pace. The REds seem to be working harder on national high speed rail then they are human spaceflight.
A few people see “the Red Moon” (Mark Whittington, I guess you) but there is no evidence other then the fears you folks project that this is occurring.
Robert G. Oler
Michael Kent wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 12:14 am =yawn= Get this through your head, Musketeer: Commerical space ventures have flown nobody. SpaceX has flown nobody in orbit nor returned them safely to Earth. NASA and the Russians have been lofting people for half a century. Fly somebody a few times and earn some credibility.
Robert G. Oler wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 12:28 am
Yes, really.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/world/china/piloted-lunar-landing.htm
Perhaps the Politburo should have consulted with you first.
DCSCA wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 12:47 am ..
yeah really worried…as I said, it is not a very intense or coherent effort…
This effort (if it actually exist) is a great deal like the space station effort in the US. We started it in 1984 and 30 plus years later are staggering to completion and no one cares.
But you can be concerned…give us updates, but please not any faster then the rate at which the Reds are flying
are you not the one who constantly uses the phrase
“Stop talking. Start flying.”
Robert G. Oler
“and CST-100 can stay in orbit “months†per their latest press conference”
raelly?
I thought because of the fuel cells and not solars panels,,boeing capsule will stay like the shuttle in orbit,,
short stay..
If it can stay as long as soyuz or dragon,,then its good news,,,It will the lifeboat also..
It would appear that the only viable market for commercial manned space flight is NASA plus some European astronauts. The market for private at $20million a seat is very small, verrry small. Any claims to the contrary are rubbish.
It would be nice if Space X and other “going to be” companies were honest about this and stopped claiming God given rights to the new frontier and that they were the way to open up manned space travel. Let us see inventive at work and real solutions that are more than a small step from the 1960s. It may suit certain points of view (arguments) to support seven man dragons from lift off to splash down, but is this the best answer? Before the big cheques are written we should all be considering the alternatives.
People, with even commercial companies wanting 20 mil. per seat, or is it 20 mil per launch? If it is 20 mil a seat and you can cram 7 people into the module, you make 140 mil. How indeed is that a deal? Also even the 20 mil. is no deal! The only way these ventures will work, is if they bring the cost down to the price of an airline ticket. Dont see that happening. Not that many people have a loose 20 mil. to play with expecially for one short ride to orbit. I can see it now: Honey we can remorgage the house and that space vacation we have always wanted! Wow, what a crock! Oh yes and junior can wait a few more years for college. Have there been any estimates on how muchit would be to ride the space elevator?
I was just reading where some proponants for the space elevator have said that an early version could be ready by 2014! Perhaps the brain powers that be, should focus more in this direction. Certainly such a system would put a crimp in the idea of rockets taking people to LEO! The commercial side would certainly falter! Get on the elevator and push a button. Cooool idea.
In this morning’s Florida Today:
Our views: Boeing’s push for commercial crew launches good for Brevard
The premise of President Obama’s plan to use private companies to ferry astronauts into space is that it will spur competition, create jobs and close the gap between the shuttle’s end and the rockets that will replace it.
It’s a tall order, but a new development brings cautious optimism the approach is starting to take hold.
It came a few days ago when The Boeing Co. announced it’s getting into the game with an Apollo-like spacecraft it says will be ready to fly astronauts from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station by 2015.
The crews would be launched aboard proven Atlas 5 or Delta 4 rockets flown by the United Space Alliance consortium of which Boeing is part.
Another destination would be a commercial space station under development by Bigelow Aerospace in Nevada.
It would be half the size of the International Space Station, with a second outpost bigger than NASA’s orbiting platform and both constructed using interconnected inflatable modules.
Boeing now joins SpaceX in the commercial crew market, and the next few months will bring other steps that could help determine the viability of the concept.
Dennis Berube wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 5:57 am
Bearing in mind that the Space equivalent of the DC-3 to LEO isn’t off the ground yet…
“The cost of a ticket between Germany and Lakehurst was US$400 (about US$6,300 in 2010 dollars[39]), a considerable sum in the Depression era. Hindenburg passengers were generally affluent, including many public figures, entertainers, noted sportsmen, political figures, and leaders of industry.[40][41]”
Wikifact
In other words people with more money than sense.
That is the target market. Like Concorde only more so. Around $10,000/ transatlantic round trip is one figure I saw!
At the present a Space Elevator to GEO is still in the realm of Science Fiction. For a starters we would need to be able to move/acquire an asteroidally sized mass to act as a counterweight. Then there are the real problems: Materials; MMOD; Van Allen Radiation Belts;…
Dennis. Google is your friend…
Mass as a counterweight? why not use all that space junk that keeps being talked about, and how to get rid of it! I have googled the space elevator. That was where I got 2014, as a date. I was wondering what a cost to orbit transit would cost with that technology? I havent seen that posted before. The counterweight, has even been proposed as either utilizing a small asteroid, or lunar material! Mostly I was wondering how much a payload to orbit would cost.
The idea for the space elevator, is a line of thinking that is outside the standard box. Certainly it alone would provide for cheap access to space!
“For a starters we would need to be able to move/acquire an asteroidally sized mass to act as a counterweight. Then there are the real problems: ”
no…for start see the edwards niaac study http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/521Edwards.pdf..
with a seed first tehter and with strapping more with robots and leaving the robots at the end,,we can slowly build the space elevator..
the seed tether 5cm diameter will weight 20t..seed cable,like we build the bridges.
the maas at the end 200t..for 20t payload..
with 7 shuttle launches can become reality..electric powered spaceship ,,which slowly goes up to geo orbit and then to 100000km,,above..
but for better when we have a hlv,,like shuttle derived ,,with it we can build it..
the Hlv is the way for space elevator also..
@DSDCA
Hey, I never said I was backing Musk- I was just pointing out two empirical facts -1) you complain constantly (which you do), and 2) your poetry…could use a little work
Aggelos wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 8:43 am
Oh yes *that* one. Your link is broken btw.
http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/521Edwards.pdf
(No terminal full stop please.)
FROM THAT STUDY:
“Accepted estimates were that the space elevator could not be built for at least 300 years. Colleagues have stated that based on our effort an elevator could be operational in 30 to 50 years. Our estimate is that the space elevator could be operational in 15 years for $10B. In any case, our effort has enabled researchers and engineers to debate the possibility of a space elevator operating in 15 to 50 years rather than 300.”
More than 50 perhaps, less than 300 a distinct possibility. Still in the realms of SF. The 2003 report fails to consider Materials; MMOD; Van Allen Radiation Belts;…
Materials:
“The largest holdup to Edwards’ proposed design is the technological limit of the tether material. His calculations call for a fiber composed of epoxy-bonded carbon nanotubes with a minimal tensile strength of 130 GPa (19 million psi) (including a safety factor of 2); however, tests in 2000 of individual single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), which should be notably stronger than an epoxy-bonded rope, indicated the strongest measured as 52 GPa (7.5 million psi).[18] Multi-walled carbon nanotubes have been measured with tensile strengths up to 63 GPa (9 million psi).[19]”
also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator#Safety_issues_and_construction_challenges
The Materials for an Earth based Space Elevator don’t exist. The Van Allens and MMOD do. Sorry.
When the discussion turns to the ‘space elevator’ you know it is time for a new thread.
DCSCA wrote:
Fly somebody a few times and earn some credibility.
Oh, no. Not if Obama is willing to knight Elon Musk today and hand him the HSF budget.
Brian Paine wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 4:04 am
It would appear that the only viable market for commercial manned space flight is NASA plus some European astronauts. The market for private at $20million a seat is very small, verrry small. Any claims to the contrary are rubbish….
well you could be correct but I dont think so.
The real question (which is still somewhat fluid) is “what is the total price up/down” ie what is the total price for a person from coming to a launch provider and negotiating a “deal” to them walking away having flown?
Of course this is dependent on some extent about flight objectives…20 million might get one a ride up down on the Dragon but then what does it end up costing to stay on the space station (or someplace), do “whatever” and train for all of this.
Right now the “guest” that the Russians launch really just get a ride up to the station, a few days on it and then a ride down…and all the training associated with that. They dont do much of anything (its their time of course) on the station in terms of trying to be productive scientifically or engineeringly (A bit of Palin esque here)
If the cost of things on orbit can come down the same order of cost that some companies think that they can up/down people…then it is quite possible that the number of folks who “go” and do things can go up quite a lot and reach some vendors that are not presently inclined to use space and its assets.
No company or university in their right mind would work on a process that needed NASA “help”. The cost are high, the project takes far to long to be of any use, and you meet an amazing level of resistance day after day trying to do the effort.
If that changes, then I believe that the numbers get higher.
Robert G. Oler
Not if Obama is willing to knight Elon Musk today and hand him the HSF budget.
No one has proposed that Elon be handed the HSF budget, you moron.
Robert G Oler, thanks for the general run down on costs, purpose etc. Honestly I believe that the first company offering flights to LEO aboard a space plane at less than $1 million a ticket and preferably around $100,000 will not only make a bundle but would quickly consign the opposition to the bin. The development costs are the killer and that ether means government money or incredible salesmanship!
I remember the predicted market for Concorde…300 plus planes.
Boeing read it better and it all came down to the
cost per seat.
On A Lighter Note:
Scene 1: The year is 2020 at a spaceport in North Queensland, Australia.Â
In the early hours of a summers day some twenty passengers embark on a Virgin Galactica shuttle to the Bigalow Hotel “Orbit.” By some incredible twist of fate the passengers all had one thing in common. A decade earlier they had all been contributors to the “Space Politics” blog on the old format Internet.Â
In seat 1A sat a gentleman with greying hair. In those distant days he wrote under the pen name of Almighty Wind. As luck would have it in seat 1B sat a less obtuse fellow, a Mr. Robert G Oler. The unfortunate pairing of conflicting views amazingly repeated throughout the space plane cabbin. All of this would make for not only an interesting flight but an interesting seven days in hotel Orbit and promissed hours filled with weightless discussions…
The stewardess had finnished her safety instructions, which included a feature of a last goodbye super SMS, when the captains voice reverberated through the headphones.
“ladies and gentlemen this flight is special indeed. Today we have the author of the web book Uncommon Sense on board, Mr. Brian Paine, who is also about to become the oldest spacefarer to date!”
All heads turned to look at the grey haired elderly gentleman in the last row of seats. Sprightly for his age and still holding some of the good looks from his earlier days he smilled in acknowledgement at the other passengers. He also smilled to himself. It had taken some years of his time planning this reunioun and with more than a little subterfuge to get this dissparate group together, but it was going to be worth it. Special disscounts mysteriously offered had worked a miracle, and here they all were. By the end of the next seven days Brian reasoned the second miracle would be completed. They would all have experienced the beauty of their home planet, a jewelled orb afloat in space. More importantly however they would recognised deep within themselves the fragility of it’s biosphere and this fundamental truth would rid them of the insanity of their earlier and most argumentative days…their common humanity was about to triumph over all else…why “Windy” and Oler may even become friends…
On the very same day NASA was launching its first deep space voyage. The $100 billion dollar venture to nowhere (a consequence of the Obama days dithering) was mankinds next great leap forward into the cosmos…
The alarm spoke forth;
6am Wednesday the eleventh of August 2010.
… My God that was some dream …
Amightywind, why is talking about the space elevator time to change the thread? Does thinking outside the box scare you?
Brian Paine wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Good stuff, Brian. Here’s to your dream!
Amightywind, why is talking about the space elevator time to change the thread? Does thinking outside the box scare you?
No, mental masturbation in public scares me.
mental masturbation in public scares me.
Then stop doing it, and give us all a break.
It’s about time you people understood that there is no market in human spaceflight, goverment or private. There is no reason to send humans into space. Certainly not for exploration, which robots do much better and cheaper. The only reason human spaceflight has continued these past 50 years is national pride and inertia. Very similar to nuclear weapons (with which spaceflight was originally closely associated). Costs a lot of money, is dangerous and useless.
If the current economic crisis will finally bring people to their senses and give up the waste that is human spaceflight (and nukes), it will be a good day. Explore space, yes, but this is not a priority, and no need to risk human lives for science. Robots do it better and cheaper.
It’s about time you people understood that there is no market in human spaceflight, goverment or private.
Really? The seven people who have paid millions to go, and the hundreds who have put down deposits, will be very surprised to hear that.
Explore space, yes, but this is not a priority, and no need to risk human lives for science.
It’s stupid to think that human spaceflight has much to do with science.
@ what Robuttnik wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Funny how no matter what the topic is of Jeff’s blog post is, there’s always someone that wants to blurt out their overall opinion on human spaceflight.
I’d write more but I have a chili dog waitin’ for me, so alls I gotta say is we will agree to disagree.
Robotnik wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 1:58 pm:
Explore space, yes, but this is not a priority, and no need to risk human lives for science. Robots do it better and cheaper.
I think you confuse the demands of your statist, Marxist ideology, with the invisible hand of economics. Ask Richard Branson if is space is a priority. It is to him. He is set to make millions lofting joyriders would would otherwise be lighting cigars with $100 bills. To the oppressive nanny state that exists to redistribute income (and take a cut), not so much.
Or perhaps you are an eco-ascetic who would see us devolve to ride bicycles and live in huts.
@almightywind: What do you know about my ideology? Where did I state I was a Marxist? Don’t talk about things you don’t know anything about.
A few billionaires do not constitute a market. Plus, they fly into space for the thrill of it, much as we go to Disneyland. And you don’t visit Disneyland every day, do you? Once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it and you move on to something else. Billionaires do the same.
So where is your market now? If you believe that space tourism has even the slightest chance of ever being profitable, then you have no notion of economics at all.
A few billionaires do not constitute a market.
Apparently they do.
Plus, they fly into space for the thrill of it, much as we go to Disneyland.
So Disneyland isn’t a market?
Do you ever read the stupid things you write before you hit “Submit”?
Once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it and you move on to something else. Billionaires do the same.
I guess that explains why Charles Simonyi did it twice.
If you believe that space tourism has even the slightest chance of ever being profitable, then you have no notion of economics at all.
And if you don’t understand that it is already profitable, you are completely ignorant of what is going on in the real world.
Brian Paine wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Nice writing, I enjoyed reading it, having written a few space stories myself particularly on the old Compuserve space forum board.
I think it is going to take a little longer then 2020 and my guess is that the vehicle going to orbit is going to be “more full” (a Palinesque phrase if I might) of people who are going “up” to do a job in space more then folks who are flying for leisure but there will be a mix.
Sadly for those of us who bemoan the billions more or less wasted in this country on HSF since the 1980’s the effort over the next ten years will not move as fast toward the goal of routine access to space (RAS) but it should move much faster then it has since the 1980’s.
If the Obama administrations economic policies fail, we are entering a period that I think will go world wide of serious economic and probably social change. That period is in my view going to be the end of HSF as it has been practiced since Mercury and is going to concentrate on low cost incremental moves to try and make a buck, but more importantly to solidify the foundation of a new US aerospace industry. This is going to be not only in spaceflight but in the entire US aerospace industry; which for the most part is overpriced and really no longer “works” like it use to.
Aviation and the American aviation industry made good strides in the Depression as they marked out a mature foothold that allowed it to do things like help win WW2. I think we are going to enter another such period.
Nice story…Robert G. Oler
Robert G. Oler wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 1:14 am –
Uh, China has flown a crew, Waldo. Musk has not. Guess you missed that bit of news that crossed on the wireless.
“yeah really worried…as I said, it is not a very intense or coherent effort… ”
Read it again– this time with your goggles off and your glasses on.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/world/china/piloted-lunar-landing.htm
The Politburo awaits your input on mission planning.
@Simberg”It’s stupid to think that human spaceflight has much to do with science….”
“There was a ‘stupid’ fella;
With a reactionary guile;
Who squawked a ‘stupid’ theory;
Laced dismissively in style….”
Stupid, indeed.
spacermase wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 9:06 am <- your personal opinions are not 'emperical facts.' but then, you know that.
Rand Simberg wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
“It’s about time you people understood that there is no market in human spaceflight, goverment or private.” “Really? The seven people who have paid millions to go, and the hundreds who have put down deposits, will be very surprised to hear that.” …. And overjoyed to see their minions pushing to get government funds to subsidize their joy rides when the private capital markets have mostly passed on it in this era.
Unless you are very old, you will most likely live to see the last human spaceflight. This era is ending, whether you wish it or not, and sooner than you may think. Economic necessity will dictate it.
A few billionaires do not constitute a market. Even if one has flown twice. Disneyland would not exist anymore if the entry cost $20 million (or even just a few thousand).
I challenge you to prove me wrong. Show me one single “commercial space company” that has provided tourist access to space (without goverment help) and has made a profit.
Humans in space is a relic of the Cold War. It offers no solutions to today’s problems and is quite simply not worth it. The Chinese understand that better than anyone else. And Globalsecurity is not a reliable source, btw.
And besides, humans are not needed in space. Anything humans can do, robots can (already today) do better and cheaper. In the future this will be even more true.
DCSCA wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
as you say “stop talking and start flying”.
The Chinese are not flying all that much and what they are doing is not all that impressive.
Robert G. Oler
If the Obama administrations economic policies fail, we are entering a period that I think will go world wide of serious economic and probably social change.
If? The extravagant spending has passed to no effect. Business is traumatized. The housing market is in ruins. Obama, being a leftist ideologue, refuses to do the two things that will stimulate growth: cut spending, cut taxes. Odd, because they are basically the only degrees of freedom the system has left. Even Europe knows this. So he will lose congress in 2010 and the Presidency in 2012 to someone who will (Lord hope it is Sarah Palin). Yes, there will be great economic dislocation. But (grin) the most affected will be the great villains of the Great Recession, public unions, government employees, bloated pensions, and Obama’s crony capitalists.
@almightywind: Good. A republican president is much more likely to see human spaceflight for the waste that it is and cancel it. And private enterprise will (if intelligent) not touch it or will (if not intelligent) try it and go bankrupt.
“There is no reason to send humans into space.”
yes ,as there was no reason to send people onto the oceans to explore with ships..
who needs the discovery of america?
ask americans about that..
amightywind wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
and the Falcon 9 second stage is spinning out of control.
You look at things with far to much rhetoric.
Obama’s economic failure, ie does it make the economy rebound wont be known for a couple of years. He inherited a very bad situation that was declining at an alarming rate; with substantial failures built into the system after eight years of one shock after another to the foundations of American life.
But we will know in a year or less if his economic policies have failed politically. In 1934 and 36 FDR did not find the American economy in much better shape then when he picked it up; but things had stablized in fact and in perception. He had staved off the extremist of both parties and Americans while not content were certainly not “tear the house down mad”…
and he had set the foundation for the economic growth of a superpower.
FDR got it right both politically and economically.
Where Obama seems to be floundering (at least in my view) is politically. People who are reasonable (and that does not include sadly most of the folks with the political views you have) are starting to wonder if he can make things work…they are seeing one sweetheart deal after another (oddly mostly pandering to the same groups Bush did) and things are not getting better.
Leadership is a tenuous thing and Obama’s grip on it is coming off faster then Bush’s did in 2006.
Frankly in my view almost nothing short of doing everything correct could have slowed down or stopped an economic meltdown after the Bush years. His administration turded on everything it tried…and when things are going downhill that fast well even the pull up can break the plane.
As for Palin….lol. SAdly if one tracks back on the McCain blog I was mentioning her for VP almost as soon as McCain won in Fl primary. Well we all make mistakes. She has a knowledge depth that is so thin, it makes Cheney look brilliant.
Robert G. Oler
@Aggelos: bad analogy. A few years after Columbus’ voyage, shiploads full of gold and silver came back to Spain and made her the mightiest and richest country in Europe. Rich, fertile new lands allowed major European powers to export excess population and escape (for a time) the limits to growth. All this happened just a few decades after that first voyage.
What has human spaceflight brought to America (or Russia or China for that matter)? Other than a few pretty photographs and a mountain of debt? And what has it brought to Mr. Average Joe on the street? And please, don’t come with that boring old argument about spin-offs. Velcro was already invented in the 1930s and all the other stuff which has practical applications on Earth would have been invented anyway.
With the exception of Apollos 15 to 17, all the major scientific discoveries in space were carried out by robots. That alone says it all.
Astronauts are obsolete, robonauts are the future. Human spaceflight will end. Hopefully, soon.
Well, I guess we have a new pseudonymous troll.
Aggelos wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
“who needs the discovery of america?”
I think asking the American Indians about the ‘discovery’ would be more informative
“Aviation and the American aviation industry made good strides in the Depression as they marked out a mature foothold that allowed it to do things like help win WW2.”
With government funding, direction and management. The difference is, of course, that unlike the 20’s and 30’s, today there is a solid, historied aerospace industry infrastructure and active government funded and operated civilian and DoD space programs. No real government operations of any consequencial comparison existed in the era you embrace, unless you’re attempting to equate the evolutionary move of the human species off this planet and out into the cosmos through space exploration with the Post Office Department developing airmail service between Dayton, Ohio and Keokuk, Iowa. There was no vast USAF; a minimal AAC and naval aviation assets and infrastructure to speak of in America and virtually no government funded rocket research in the United States. ‘Goddard received little public support for his research during his lifetime. Though his work in the field was revolutionary, he was sometimes ridiculed in the press for his theories concerning spaceflight.’ Before his fall from grace in that era, Lindbergh had begun to wonder what would become of aviation in the distant future, and had settled on rocket flight as a probable next step.’ What commercial space advocates crave is the transfer of the current space infrastructure from government operations to the private sector, where the profit motives first victim is usually basic, fundamental research, which seldom delivers any ROI in a quarterly fashion. Musk and his make-a-buck-brethern are not Goddards– and certainly not Von Brauns. Juan Trippe, perhaps, laced with the extravagances of a Hughes seasoned with some PT Barnum and WC Fields. Musk sets himself up as the savior visionary who believes commercial space will lead the way in space exploration to the planets (Mars, no less) and beyond. He is self-serving– and he is wrong, as the 80-plus years of rocket technology development has demonstratively shown. A quarterly driven, for profit, private enterprised venture will not lead the way out into the solar system to explore space at this point in human history. That’s why governments do it– and for 50 years of valued, histored progress, have done it fairly well given the extremes of the operational environment and the very unforgiving nature of human error toward manned and unmanned operations in spaceflight.
DCSCA wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
â€
With government funding, direction and management. The difference is, of course, that unlike the 20′s and 30′s, today there is a solid, historied aerospace industry infrastructure and active government funded and operated civilian and DoD space programs. No real government operations of any consequencial comparison existed in the era you embrace, ….
that is historical nonsense, babble almost.
In the pre war era the US military (Army and Navy) worked out the foundation of things as diverse as Long range bombing and Naval Aviation. the later included not just the airplanes but the notion of ship design to support the activity. How well that transition from Langley to Lex/Sara to the Yorky class was done…was that Essex really is a “jumped up” (derivative) Yorky class and was well in design/build before Pearl Harbor.
Same for the airplanes and tactics. Grumman “knew” what a hellcat (derivative Wildcat) would look like based heavily on pre war Wildcat experience and was simply waiting on the money to build the plane.
The same is valid for long range bombing and other aerospace/aviation assets.
In the 30’s the commercial world built the DC series of planes which change the future, the government put together the ATC system which more or less still exist today…
your attempt to trivilize those efforts just paints you as a historical Sarah Palin.
As for Post War.
The Aerospace industry has not been a straight line. Things were relativly “in hand” (with some exceptions the F-111) until the tenure of Bush the first where under his Sec Def (Dead Ender Dick) things got completely out of control.
The F-14 and F-15 were procured on acquisition cost cycles that were perfectly acceptable. When Dick Cheney took over things, well weapon system development has been nuts since.
I realize there are a lot of people who fall for simple rhetoric, but I dont mind rhetorically face slapping people like you…its kind of entertainment as I am taking care of Baby and filling out the tedious forms for my next assignment.
Robert G. Oler
Robert G. Oler wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 4:37 pm “The Chinese are not flying all that much and what they are doing is not all that impressive.” <- =yawn= It should be given their history, which you seem to have missed. Rather than chattering, they let their actions speak for them– they've orbited and returned crew safely. Musk hasn't. To a musketeer, it should impress– and embarrass. Stop talking, start flying, indeed. tick-tock, tick-tock.
Reading glasses are inexpensive these days– and made in China. Try again:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/world/china/piloted-lunar-landing.htm
Robert G. Oler wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 5:48 pm <– =yawn= It's history, Waldo, but you go on believing it isn't. It is amusing to more readers than you realize. The Politburo awaits your mission planning, too.
your attempt to trivilize those efforts just paints you as a historical Sarah Palin
Why do you continue to fantasize that off-topic, gratuitous and nonsensical bashing of the former governor of Alaska contributes anything useful to the discussion here?
@TheGreatWaldoOler: Golly, Waldo, there was television in the 1930’s too. Good Lord, take off the scarf and goggles and join the 21st century. What existed 80 years ago was laughable compared to the infrastructure in place today. For all intents and purposes no real government operations of any consequencial comparison existed in the era you embrace, Waldo. Get those Chinese reading glasses. Try WalMart.
Rand Simberg wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 5:58 pm <- Agreed. Palin's idea of 'spacecraft' is the art of reorganizing a closet.
DCSCA wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
another Sarah Palinish post…goofy. but keep believing in that fantasy world. We need people who are historically challenged, it keeps the rest of us laughing.
Robert G. Oler
Rand Simberg wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
it is like calling something “Rube “….it illustrates the goofiness of the statement.
Look long before most of the people who like her now, knew she existed I am on record as supporting her for McCain’s VP….sometimes betrayal is the harshest emotion!
smile
Robert G. oler
Robotnik wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
“What has human spaceflight brought to America (or Russia or China for that matter)?”
Well I would like to think that it averted the worst excess of a Cold War. In that instead of sabre rattling on Earth they did it in space.
Every Rouble/Dollar spent on: Mercury; Vostok; Gemini; Voskhod; Apollo and Soyuz was one less Dollar/Rouble spent on MAD. Eventually the ASTP showed the way out of that madness and ultimately led to Shuttle/Mir and the ISS. If there is one thing that recent HSF has shown us: it is that we can live and work *together* in space. And if that leads us to living and working together on the Earth then so much the better.
Also a Robot could never have come up with the words “Magnificent Desolation”. For that you need a poet!
However what I really take exception to is the term “Robot”. They are not robots. At best they are ROVs with very limited autonomy. One quote should suffice:
“Another day, another several extra meters due to new drive-extension trick. Woulda been ~ 35m (no PANCAMs), got about 7m extra.” @marsroverdriver
(In other words Oppy as a Robot was able to drive about 7 metres autonomously before ‘getting into trouble.’) Which is why Steve Squyres is such a fan of human geologists in situ!
Robotnik: Peasants in the Czech Republic (at the time a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) who revolted against rich landowners in the late 1800’s were called “robotniks,” derived from the Czech word for “servitude” and an older Slavic term for “slave.”
Ahh the wonders of Wikipedia!
David Gordon Lermit in the interests of full disclosure
I challenge you to prove me wrong. Show me one single “commercial space company†that has provided tourist access to space (without goverment help) and has made a profit.
How is this relevant?
it is like calling something “Rube “….it illustrates the goofiness of the statement.
It only illustrates that to morons who think that she’s a rube. To intelligent people, it makes you look like a partisan hack who wants to stir the pot instead of discuss space policy. And I’d say exactly the same thing if you substituted “Howard Dean” for “Sarah Palin.” You can discuss space policy intelligently, or you can spout off-topic partisan political nonsense about Rumsfeld, WMD, Palin, Cheney, etc. You can’t do both.
How is this relevant?
I think that he’s one of those idiots who thinks that nothing can ever be done for the first time.
@TheGreatWaldoOler: Waldo, you’re the source of endless amusement. Among other gems framed on the wall of my den is a front page from the St. Louis Republic. It’s next to the ‘Lindbergh lands in Paris’ Herald Trib front Page from ’27. The headline: “CURTISS MAKES ALBANY-NEW YORK FLIGHT OF 150 MILES, WINNING $10,000. Sails High Over Poughkeepsie Bridge, Dipping At Times Within Fifty Feet Of Hudson’s Surface; Soars Over Palisades, Jockeying Like A Monster Falcon.” It’s dated May 30, 1910. Front page news from a penny paper a century ago. Quaint stuff. Would be nice to add a front page from the start of this century with headline: “MUSK ORBITS EARTH THREE TIMES; LANDS SAFELY; Dragon Capsule Recovered Off Hawaii; First Commerical Manned Space Flight Hailed A Success.” But newspapers are dying and may be gone by the time that happens. The era of aviation you embrace is nostalgic– and long over. Put the scarf and goggles down, Waldo, and join us in this century. And while you’re at WalMart for those reading glasses, grab some Pampers for Baby.
Robert G. Oler wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 6:19 pm <- Your obsession with Palin is akin w/Rich Lowry's. A little disturbing– and off topic.
I think that he’s one of those idiots who thinks that nothing can ever be done for the first time.
“Just do it.” — Nike Corporation.
We need people who are historically challenged<- Yes, Waldo, we do, and enjoy correcting you on every point. You are a source of endless entertainment.
Rand Simberg wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Everyone gets to have their own viewpoints.
Sarah Palin is no Howard Dean…there are Democratic comparisons to Palin…Sheila Jackson Lee “will the Rovers photograph the flag left by the Apollo astronauts” or something like that is about a comparable level of “goofy” non statements.
Look I dont particularly think that Newt Gingrich should be President, but on the other hand while there is some self serving rhetoric that comes out of his mouth (he is a politician after all) his thoughts have a coherence that command attention. Palin and her goofy comments just command laughter. See her latest on preserving free speech with military power! seesh
Robert G. Oler
Aggelos wrote:
“and CST-100 can stay in orbit “months†per their latest press conferenceâ€
raelly?
I thought because of the fuel cells and not solars panels,,boeing capsule will stay like the shuttle in orbit,,
short stay..
If it can stay as long as soyuz or dragon,,then its good news,,,It will the lifeboat also..
According to the Florida Today:
Its reusable spacecraft would also carry up to seven astronauts and could stay in orbit seven months.
Mike
Sarah Palin is no Howard Dean
You’re right. She’s a lot more sane. I haven’t seen her scream lately, or ever.
Thanks for proving my point.
And neither of them have any relevance whatsoever to space policy, but we know, because you’re a political juvenile, that you’ll continue to drag her, and Bush, and Cheney, and Rumsfeld, and WMD, and “right wingers,” and “thunderheads” into the discussion, and continue to plummet the S/N ration of the discussion.
Rand Simberg wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 9:49 pm Off topic, but Dean completed his term as governor. Palin did not.
@TheGreatWaldoOler: “[Gingrich]…his thoughts have a coherence that command attention.” Only to the ill-informed or devotees of Old Grand Dad. Sober up, Waldo.
DCSCA wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
“Only to the ill-informed or devotees of Old Grand Dad. Sober up, Waldo.”
Hey Rand, point to you.
DCSCA’s comments would be annoying if they weren’t symptomatic of his confusion and despair. As such, they are merely pitiful.
He does make one wonder what happened to the moderation standards of this blog, though.
Jeff has never moderated the blog, other than to shut down threads that get out of control. The problem is that the new policy has brought a lot of new trolls out of the woodwork (or to avoid mixing the metaphor, from under the bridge) in the last few months.
@ Rand Simberg wrote @ August 12th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
“Jeff has never moderated the blog, other than to shut down threads that get out of control. The problem is that the new policy has brought a lot of new trolls out of the woodwork (or to avoid mixing the metaphor, from under the bridge) in the last few months.”
Yeah. Pretty annoying. I also see a lot of posters are going away, people who actually brought in good comments/info/news. Not sure how to fix this without going through registration and the like.
I’ve found banning people to be pretty effective. And trolls can register, too…
But you’d have to ban them based on what? IP address? If they post from a home computer they probably don’t have same IP every time. Name? They can change the names. Other ways? I am not IT so I don’t know.
Actually, I think that most home net connections are static IP these days.
Paul D. wrote @ August 12th, 2010 at 7:44 am <- More whines from a musketeer. Get somebody flying and you might just earn some converts –and some respect.
DCSCA wrote @ August 12th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
As for respect, you have none and therefore your posts are meaningless.
I guess another measure which could succeed with trolls is to simply ignore them and not respond at all. Know that’s difficult but probably the only effective measure in the long run. Would be worth it. My 2 cents worth.
Byeman wrote @ August 12th, 2010 at 10:13 pm- In other words, you cannot defend your position so you attack the poster.
> Paul D. wrote @ August 10th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
> That governments around the world are backing away from
> manned spaceflight just shows what a dubious value proposition it is.
I’d tend to agree – but how many smart folks to you know running governments for the long term best interest?
> Michael Kent wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 12:28 am
>> Kelly Starks wrote:
>> Just a nit but Commercial crew and associated stuff under Obama was
>> going to cost far more then $6B.
> I was comparing the $6 billion development cost of three commercial
> crew systems to the $45 billion development cost of Ares I / Orion.
> That’s a fair and proper comparison.
Eh… kind of a apples and oranges thing. Ares-1/Orion are the worst peaces of crap ever designed for space – far below the quality of previous systems – but if Commercial crew +orion lifeboat + what ever else will be defined as needed to be developed for commercial crew (KSC mods, custom capsules, etc) were expected to be needed to “replace†Ares/Orion, and Orions is assumed to have lunar capacity – or at least is a stepping stone for it.. I expect A/O would still cost 2-3 times more, but they are so dissimilar – and theres so much fluidity in what it will be – it real hard to make comparisons.
At best Commercial crew program will cost more then shuttle per flight, but less then Ares-Orion..
> True, I did not include the operations cost of commercial crew, but
> I didn’t include the operations cost of LEO Ares I / Orion either. Let’s do that.
> Ares I is slated to cost $1 billion per launch. ==
Actually the GAO numbers were a couple times that.
> The Delta IV Medium and Atlas V launch vehicles cost somewhere
> between $90-130 million to launch. A Falcon 9 costs $56 million to launch.==
Not with a capsule. They are both quoting costs maybe 2-3 times as much, and your overlooking the costs of NASA’s part of the program, facilities costs and other crap they’ll load on (or actually need with) the commercial crew operations program.
>==
> Why you’re trying to charge the high cost of Orion against the commercial
> crew budget is a mystery to me. ==
It was part of Obamas proposal to fill in parts of Ares/Orions mission that commercial crew “wasn’t expected to be able to fillâ€.
Naturally that claims a bit dubious or at least ill defined,
> Robert G. Oler wrote @ August 11th, 2010 at 12:28 am
>== I have kept close touch with people who have been to China, observed
> their space effort “with the Mark 1 eyeball†and folks whose business it
> is to track their space efforts…and the effort itself is not very impressive.
>
> Not only in the actual vector of the effort but in the intensity of it. ==
I’ve heard that from several sources as well – most obvious is that the rate of launches and activities rather then accelerating – seems to have stalled?
Its almost like once they got into history books as the third nation to launch people into space, and had no other interest in it?
Kelly Starks wrote @ August 13th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
“> The Delta IV Medium and Atlas V launch vehicles cost somewhere between $90-130 million to launch. A Falcon 9 costs $56 million to launch.==
Not with a capsule. They are both quoting costs maybe 2-3 times as much, and your overlooking the costs of NASA’s part of the program, facilities costs and other crap they’ll load on (or actually need with) the commercial crew operations program.”
You keep saying this, but you never back up your claims, whereas there are many facts that support what Michael Kent has said.
First of all, the NASA proposal for the $6B listed it’s planned use as:
NASA will allocate these funds through competitive solicitations that support a range of higher- and lower-programmatic risk systems and system components, such as human-rating of existing launch vehicles and development of new spacecraft that can ride on multiple launch vehicles.
How much, and for what, has not been determined, but let’s say everyone got what they have lobbied for publicly – what would that be, and what would it cost?
SpaceX – $300M to build and test an LAS, add crew capabilities to their launch platform, and “man-rate” whatever else is needed. After that, they plan to offer a fixed price of $20M/seat to LEO. Most likely the passengers will have to pay for some sort of passenger training (like a pilot type-rating), but I have no doubt that SpaceX will doing their best to get their pricing on the GSA Schedule so ANY U.S. Government agency can book travel – just like travel with any other transportation company.
ULA – To man-rate Delta IV Heavy, ULA has asked for $1.3B, which will cover the launcher and the infrastructure, and will allow them to put any human-rated payload up to 49,000 lbs into LEO. To man-rate Atlas V, they have asked for $400M, which will also cover the launcher and infrastructure, and allow them to launch any commercial capsule (like CST-100 or Dragon).
So far this costs NASA $2B in payments to two contractors, and NASA ends up with three man-rated launchers, and one man-rated capsule. But wait, even though we have three independent launchers, we should really have at least two different capsules.
Boeing – Starting to build their CST-100 with $18M in CCDev funds. I have not seen an estimate for how much it would cost, but if we assume that they try to keep costs down, let’s say the total NRE development costs $1B, which is still more than what SpaceX will have spent for a man-rated capsule. Or, just to make sure it gets done, let’s double that amount and say $2B.
So, for $4B in non-recurring payments to three contractors, NASA ends up with three man-rated launchers, and two man-rated capsules that can be launched on any of the three launchers. The recurring costs are the ticket prices, which could be as low as $20M/seat for SpaceX, and around $25-30M/seat for Boeing (according to Bigelow).
If you think it’s significant, add in whatever amount you want for NASA program management, but since they are not actually building anything, I doubt it runs into anything over $250M, and most likely far less. The contractors use their own facilities, and any recurring costs for government services are already included in their prices – remember we’re talking fixed-price, not cost-plus contracting.
Commercial is not only less expensive than Ares I and Shuttle, but also less expensive and more capable as an ISS taxis than Soyuz.
Commercial is not only less expensive than Ares I and Shuttle, but also less expensive and more capable as an ISS taxis than Soyuz.
And even if costs were similar free and open competition would still have to be preferred over favouritism as a matter of justice. The heirs of 1776 seem to have lost much of their idealism.
> Coastal Ron wrote @ August 14th, 2010 at 2:15 am
>>Kelly Starks wrote @ August 13th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
>>> The Delta IV Medium and Atlas V launch vehicles cost somewhere
>>> between $90-130 million to launch. A Falcon 9 costs $56 million
>>> to launch.==
>> Not with a capsule. They are both quoting costs maybe 2-3
>> times as much, and your overlooking the costs of NASA’s part
>> of the program, facilities costs and other crap they’ll load on
>> (or actually need with) the commercial crew operations program.â€
> You keep saying this, but you never back up your claims, whereas
> there are many facts that support what Michael Kent has said.
Such as?
At the least given the Delta IV Medium and Atlas V $90-130 million, and Falcon 9 costs $56 million perlaunch costs – did not include a capsule.
SpaceX (your fave) lists that the Dragons COTS cargo flights to ISS were $133M a flight.
http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php
“The $1.6 billion contract represents a minimum of 12 flights”
Presumably a crew carry Falcon/Dragon that requires more development, adn get more NASA involvement, would cost more.
> First of all, the NASA proposal for the $6B listed it’s planned use as:
>> NASA will allocate these funds through competitive solicitations
>> that support a range of higher- and lower-programmatic risk
>> systems and system components, such as human-rating of
>> existing launch vehicles and development of new spacecraft that
>> can ride on multiple launch vehicles.
All to support 10 commercial crew flights. $6B/10 = $600M. Then you add the actual cost of the flights.
As to the basic question of spending $6B on whats advertized as off the shelf commercial?? Kind of inalidates theclaim iftaken at face value.
As to what you could do with $6B — Thats more then the cost projected to ifeld FAA certified DC-X shuttles! Not exactly the best use of the funds.
> SpaceX – plan to offer a fixed price of $20M/seat to LEO. ==
Do they? They say the COTs Dragons cost $130M a flight retail. Unless the passenger carrying ones cost nothing much more – they may need to boost the $20M a seat. Given KSC would need to add facilities, NASA would need to add program overhead for the crews (I.E. the non-shuttle related costs in the shuttle program), these costs will be added to the per flight costs of the program.
>== I have no doubt that SpaceX will doing their best to get their
> pricing on the GSA Schedule so ANY U.S. Government agency can
> book travel – just like travel with any other transportation company.
Not really applicable to NASA Commercial crew program — adn given there are no other agencies interested in buying crew carry –why would SpaceX work to get it on the GSA schedule?
> ULA – To man-rate Delta IV Heavy, ULA has asked for $1.3B, ==
>To man-rate Atlas V, they have asked for $400M, which will also
> cover the launcher and infrastructure, and allow them to launch
> any commercial capsule (like CST-100 or Dragon).
> So far this costs NASA $2B in payments to two contractors, and
> NASA ends up with three man-rated launchers, ===
>==So, for $4B in non-recurring payments to three contractors,
> NASA ends up with three man-rated launchers, ===The recurring
> costs are the ticket prices, which could be as low as $20M/seat for
> SpaceX, and around $25-30M/seat for Boeing (according to Bigelow).
> If you think it’s significant, add in whatever amount you want for
> NASA program management, but since they are not actually building
> anything, I doubt it runs into anything over $250M, and most likely
> far less.===
It used to run several times that much PER YEAR on shuttle just for training etc..
>== The contractors use their own facilities, and any recurring
> costs for government services are already included in their
> prices ==
They’ll need to use KSC, and facilities need to be built –and you have to carry KSC.
> Commercial is not only less expensive than Ares I and Shuttle, but
> also less expensive and more capable as an ISS taxis than Soyuz.
Your numbers above don’t show that.
$600m perflight for the initial dev program
$140-$200M direct per launch costs
Hundreds of millions of still to be defined program costs added on, and faclities costs etc.
Say $750M to $1.3B per flight.
Soyuz direct costs were what $50M a seat that I remember – $150M a fight if they rent a complet soyuz.
Other cost involved in all this are several billion for “lifeboat Orion”.
But again – commercial crew and Obama space is pretty much gone.
> Martijn Meijering wrote @ August 14th, 2010 at 10:07 am
>> Commercial is not only less expensive than Ares I and Shuttle,
>> but also less expensive and more capable as an ISS taxis than Soyuz.
> And even if costs were similar free and open competition would still
> have to be preferred over favouritism as a matter of justice. ==
Justice?
How is a open competition among the 2-3 commercials to build and suply 1 system for the 10 flights, less just then competing to build 2 or 3 systems to deliver 3 systems at higher cost, or for them to still operate shuttle they (and a greater number of now lost competitors) competed to build decades ago?
An open competition for one spacecraft would not be unjust, merely less preferable. Not competing, but imposing Ares I / Orion instead would be unjust.
Kelly Starks wrote @ August 15th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Kelly, if you want to talk about commercial and government costs, please go educate yourself about accounting – at least nonrecurring & recurring, and fixed-price versus cost-plus. Your ignorance is truly embarrassing.
Through a couple of posts, let’s go through some of your false assumptions:
Part 1
“Dragons COTS cargo flights to ISS were $133M a flight… Presumably a crew carry Falcon/Dragon that requires more development, adn get more NASA involvement, would cost more.”
First of all, COTS relates to the development of the vehicles, CRS to the actual deliveries. In this case, COTS would be non-recurring costs, essentially doing all the NASA work to certify that the contractors can proceed with the CRS part of the contract. CRS would be recurring costs – payments for actual deliveries. Considering that the contract was competed back in 2006, and none of the competitors had flying hardware at that point, the contractors all bid prices that they knew they could live with, and NASA was certainly fine with the prices. You forgot to mention that Orbital Sciences will be paid $1.9B for eight deliveries, or $238M/delivery, versus the SpaceX price of $133M/delivery. Also keep in mind that the pricing is for a 1st generation cargo capability, and that the technology and abilities will be operational when follow-on contracts are bid (i.e. prices should go down significantly).
SpaceX bid their Falcon 9/Dragon system, which they had been designing from the start for carrying crew. The COTS/CRS program allowed them to parallel develop the vast amount of a crew system while they were satisfying the cargo requirements. The difference between a cargo and crew version of Dragon is very small (seats, displays & human controls, etc.), and only the Launch Escape System (LES) requires significant development. SpaceX has stated that they can add the missing crew capabilities for $300M, and in less than 3 years. That $300M would be non-recurring, and SpaceX is hoping that NASA will pay for it (just as ULA hopes NASA will pay for their launcher upgrades, and ATK gets for their upgrades).
The last part of this is the Dragon capsule itself. NASA requires new capsules for each CRS delivery, but SpaceX retains ownership of the capsules. Because of this, SpaceX will have at least 14 Dragon reusable capsules that have only been used once. For crew, NASA should have enough reliability data with Dragon by then to allow them to reuse them (just like they planned to do with Orion). Because of this, the SpaceX price of $20M/seat is now easy to understand, since the launch costs are 5 passenger seats divided by the $56M/Falcon 9 ($11.2M/seat), and the balance is for the Dragon refit costs and the Dragon SM+LES new build.
To summarize, SpaceX is able to get a majority of their non-recurring development costs taken care of by the COTS/CRS program, and other than crew related non-recurring, their recurring costs (launcher, capsule, etc.) are fairly low.
Once the cargo and crew systems are certified for ISS operations, NASA is not involved in the day-to-day operations of SpaceX. Launch coordination and “traffic control” for the ISS is about all they’ll need to do for hands-on stuff, and I would imagine their program office won’t need to be that big. Remember, we’re talking about just another transportation company, and NASA does not intimately involved with American Airlines or FedEx when they are using them.
Kelly Starks wrote @ August 15th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Kelly, if you want to talk about commercial and government costs, please go educate yourself about accounting – at least nonrecurring & recurring, and fixed-price versus cost-plus. Your ignorance is truly embarrassing.
Through a couple of posts, let’s go through some of your false assumptions:
Part 2
“All to support 10 commercial crew flights. $6B/10 = $600M. Then you add the actual cost of the flights.”
You’re confusing non-recurring with recurring costs again, and you’re also averaging the entire proposed program costs against only some of the deliverables. I find this especially funny when you refuse to consider the $200M/month recurring costs for the Shuttle program, and you only want to focus on the “margin cost” as you so inaccurately call them.
“As to what you could do with $6B — Thats more then the cost projected to ifeld FAA certified DC-X shuttles! Not exactly the best use of the funds.”
There you go again – treating off-the-cuff estimates for a fictional vehicle as gospel. DC-X was a demonstration program, and had no room for crew, much less fuel to get it into orbit. The physics of SSTO have not proved to be viable yet, and certainly no country or government has ever demonstrated it’s supposed abilities to reach orbit.
The proposed NASA budget, on the other hand, was to fund existing vehicles that had already flown repeatedly, and the proposed expenditures were for adding incremental improvements so that crew could be carried with more confidence than cargo needed. Try telling an astronaut that the funds were not for the right priorities…
“They say the COTs Dragons cost $130M a flight retail.”
Here you clearly show your confusion between the commercial world and the government world. SpaceX has a contract with NASA, and it even appears that they were the lowest bidder of the two winners. Their bid does not represent what they would charge on the open market, it just represents what they felt it was worth to them to get the contract. This is government contracting, and not retail pricing.
Out in the commercial world, where they have to compete with Energia, ESA, ULA and everyone else, they advertise their Falcon 9 for $56M/launch, and they have stated that they will offer crew services starting at $20M/seat. That price has stipulations, such as being based on a full load of passengers, and I’m sure that training will have to be paid for separately, but the people that are interested will know all of this, and they will understand that the complete price will still be well under what Soyuz costs (and likely Boeing too).
Kelly Starks wrote @ August 15th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Kelly, if you want to talk about commercial and government costs, please go educate yourself about accounting – at least nonrecurring & recurring, and fixed-price versus cost-plus. Your ignorance is truly embarrassing.
Through a couple of posts, let’s go through some of your false assumptions:
Part 3
Regarding SpaceX eventually listing their crew prices on a GSA Schedule, you said:
“Not really applicable to NASA Commercial crew program — adn given there are no other agencies interested in buying crew carry –why would SpaceX work to get it on the GSA schedule?”
What you keep failing to understand (along with many other people too), is that the commercial crew program is the first step to creating a crew transportation industry that can be used by anyone. Need to travel between Munich and Vienna, and you’ll probably buy a train ticket. Travel between New York and Tokyo and you’ll probably buy a ticket on an airline. Need to get to a destination in LEO, and eventually you’ll purchase travel from one of the many providers, whether it be Soyuz, SpaceX, Boeing or someone we don’t even know yet. Why people want to go to LEO will no longer matter so much as they can if they can afford it – and governments and companies will likely be the biggest users.
At some point, LEO will no longer be a “program”, it will be yet another destination that can be traveled to for work or play. You have to start thinking about the future, instead of focusing on the past.
“They’ll need to use KSC, and facilities need to be built –and you have to carry KSC.”
NASA needs to carry KSC and all of it’s facilities in it’s budget, and the commercial users of the center will have to pay a fair amount for their use, but you and I have a difference of opinion about how much commercial services will be charged.
All of the launch companies already know how much it costs to operate out of KSC, so they have already incorporated those costs into their prices for cargo launches. For crew, what services are you thinking NASA will charge for that isn’t already known? The ISS program will coordinate ISS traffic, and to a certain degree launch operations will be no different for manned or unmanned launches. What specifically are you thinking will be a significant cost to the crew operators? Not mumbo-jumbo “bureaucracy”, but specifically, what?
“Your numbers above don’t show that.
$600m perflight for the initial dev program
$140-$200M direct per launch costs
Hundreds of millions of still to be defined program costs added on, and faclities costs etc.
Say $750M to $1.3B per flight.”
Again, you are confusing non-recurring with recurring costs. You are also assuming that the entire $6B amount would be for crew deliveries, and that they would stop forever after the $6B is spent.
In reality, as I’ve already pointed out, the bulk of the money would likely go for non-recurring costs, after which NASA would have three man-rated launchers (Delta IV Heavy, Atlas V and Falcon 9) and two man-rated capsules (Dragon and CST-100). The recurring costs, the costs to actually build the hardware and fly it, would be much lower. As I’ve already pointed out, SpaceX has stated $20M/seat, and Bigelow has floated the price of $25M/seat that I use for the $25-30M/seat estimate for the Boeing capsule. These are significant cost reductions from the $50M+ price of the Soyuz, and because there is more supply (i.e. more seats), the market demand is more likely to go up. Econ 101.
“But again – commercial crew and Obama space is pretty much gone.”
Some closing points:
1. Commercial crew is in both the House and Senate bills, but the funding varies wildly. However, they both have it.
2. There is a known demand starting in 2016 that has to be met (ISS crew rotation), and everyone in the U.S. wants it to be an American company that does it. NASA does not plan to operate an ISS taxi service, or at least not as the primary supplier, so someone will get the contract.
3. The market is building for commercial crew, and it has more going for it right now than anytime in history. That is no guarantee of anything, but I think it’s just a matter of when, not if, and I think we’ll see at least two commercial crew services companies in operation by the end of the decade.
4. The whole point of using commercial crew is for NASA to save money, and use the saved money to do what they do best – cutting edge R&D and exploration. I don’t see how anyone that loves NASA can be against helping NASA lower it’s costs to do routine things. Weird.
NASA needs to carry KSC and all of it’s facilities in it’s budget, and the commercial users of the center will have to pay a fair amount for their use, but you and I have a difference of opinion about how much commercial services will be charged.
Huh? Why would the commercial providers need KSC? I think that’s just a myth to burden everybody with the high fixed costs of LC-39 when it’s only SDLV which needs it – which should be enough reason to forget about SDLV in a sane world.
> Martijn Meijering wrote @ August 15th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
>== Why would the commercial providers need KSC? ==
Because NASA needs KSC used and supported. Commercial crew, commercial anything, even shuttle had no use for much of it – but that doesn’t mater.
>Martijn Meijering wrote @ August 15th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
>== imposing Ares I / Orion instead would be unjust.
??
Or a customers prerogative
> Coastal Ron wrote @ August 15th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
>> Kelly Starks wrote @ August 15th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
>> Dragons COTS cargo flights to ISS were $133M a flight…
>> Presumably a crew carry Falcon/Dragon that requires more
>> development, adn get more NASA involvement, would cost more.â€
> First of all, COTS relates to the development of the vehicles, ==
Actually not, since NASA had agreed to not get involved in the design, but just contract for lift – nor is the $133M all fees paid to SpaceX as far as I know.
>== Also keep in mind that the pricing is for a 1st
> generation cargo capability, and that the technology and
> abilities will be operational when follow-on contracts are
> bid (i.e. prices should go down significantly).==
That would of course depend on SpaceX finding a bigger market other then NASA, or NASA contracting in a COTS like manor in the future —- Or spaceX not going out of business for that manor.
SpaceX prices have not been dropping in the way they once forecast due to lower market interest then they anticipated.
> SpaceX bid their Falcon 9/Dragon system, which they had
> been designing from the start for carrying crew. The
> COTS/CRS program allowed them to parallel develop the
> vast amount of a crew system while they were satisfying
> the cargo requirements.==
No, the Dragon was designed for dual use before COTS/CRS was even considered in DC. So its capability is not a result of COTS/CRS.
>== For crew, NASA should have enough reliability data
> with Dragon by then to allow them to reuse them (just
> like they planned to do with Orion). ==
The data is irrelevant to NASA decisions – and they haven’t planed on reusing Orions for a couple years now.
>== Once the cargo and crew systems are certified for
> ISS operations, NASA is not involved in the day-to-day operations
> of SpaceX. Launch coordination and “traffic control†for the
> ISS is about all they’ll need to do for hands-on stuff, and I
> would imagine their program office won’t need to be that big.
> Remember, we’re talking about just another transportation
> company, and NASA does not intimately involved with
> American Airlines or FedEx when they are using them.
American Airliners and fedEx are well established firms with years of experience covering millions of passengers and cargo packets. SpaceX will never be in business that long. Nor is NASA going to sit back and just have astronauts get on these and ride them to orbit with no training or Mission control oversight. That would make no sense – and be political suicide.
>> Kelly Starks wrote @ August 15th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
>> All to support 10 commercial crew flights.
>> $6B/10 = $600M. Then you add the actual cost of the flights.â€
> You’re confusing non-recurring with recurring costs again, ==
As you normally do with NASA programs like shuttle.
The difference is academic since they both get counted together by GAO, congress, press, etc.
>== you’re also averaging the entire proposed program
> costs against only some of the deliverables. =
Some of the deliverables?
>> As to what you could do with $6B — Thats more
>> then the cost projected to ifeld FAA certified DC-X
>> shuttles! Not exactly the best use of the funds.â€
> There you go again – treating off-the-cuff estimates
> for a fictional vehicle as gospel. ==
N those were the costs projected by MDC when they were trying to get commercial/gov interest. Just like those quoted for a airliner etc.
>== The physics of SSTO have not proved to be viable yet, ==
Irrelivent to MDCs ability to operate a DC-X derived RlV to and from orbit.
>== the proposed NASA budget, on the other hand, was to
> fund existing vehicles that had already flown repeatedly,
> and the proposed expenditures were for adding incremental ==
No, this was not a proposed NASA budget, the proposal explicitly stated it as a comercial program – a similar program done under NASA would cost a couple times as much.
>>They say the COTs Dragons cost $130M a flight retail.â€
> Here you clearly show your confusion between the
> commercial world and the government world. ==
> Out in the commercial world, ==they have stated that they
> will offer crew services starting at $20M/seat. That price
> has stipulations, such as being based on a full load of passengers, =
I.E $140M a flight, versus $130m for NASA.
>Coastal Ron wrote @ August 15th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Regarding SpaceX eventually listing their crew prices on a GSA Schedule, you said:
>> Kelly Starks wrote @ August 15th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
>>Not really applicable to NASA Commercial crew program —
>> and given there are no other agencies interested in buying
>> crew carry –why would SpaceX work to get it on the GSA schedule?â€
> What you keep failing to understand (along with many
> other people too), is that the commercial crew program
> is the first step to creating a crew transportation industry
> that can be used by anyone. ==
That is your and others assumption, not a definite fact.
Currently no gov agency has intentions for their personnel to hop a capsule to orbit. Hence no reason to put it no a GSA schedule.
Nor is Musk projecting safty adn regularity levels that could in any way sujjest flying no Falco/Dragons could be considered routine. Yes, someday someone will field a craft that like the PanAm shuttle in 2001, can be operated like a commercial airliner – but no ones even trying to get there yet.
>> “They’ll need to use KSC, and facilities need to be
>> built –and you have to carry KSC.â€
> NASA needs to carry KSC and all of it’s facilities in it’s
> budget, and the commercial users of the center will
> have to pay a fair amount for their use, but you and
> I have a difference of opinion about how much
> commercial services will be charged.
I assume they will have to carry as much as the other programs did – which is a lot!
>>“Your numbers above don’t show that.
>>$600m perflight for the initial dev program
>> $140-$200M direct per launch costs
>> Hundreds of millions of still to be defined program
>>costs added on, and faclities costs etc.
>>
>> Say $750M to $1.3B per flight.â€
> Again, you are confusing non-recurring with recurring
> costs. You are also assuming that the entire $6B amount
> would be for crew deliveries, and that they would stop
> forever after the $6B is spent.
No I’m assuming, as stated, the $6B obamas was proposing to spend between now and 2015 in the Commercial Crew program, will be counted against the cost of the 10 flights.
Yes its a crude to mixed fixed and recurring costs – tough, its how its done when gov programs are handeled — and lets face it, it is a cost, for those 10 flights – assuming NASA even contracted the full 10 to commercial crew (the program reserved the right to contract some to Soyuz)..
>=
> 1. Commercial crew is in both the House and Senate
> bills, but the funding varies wildly. However, they both have it.
Only a shadow to research the concept – not to imlpement it ni any significant way. Neither lists ever carrying astrounauts with it.
> 2. There is a known demand starting in 2016 that
> has to be met (ISS crew rotation), and everyone in
> the U.S. wants it to be an American company that does
> it. NASA does not plan to operate an ISS taxi service,
> or at least not as the primary supplier, so someone will get the contract.
Not a valid assumption. Some in the US do want it just given to Soyuz, others want HLV/Orion to do it, some Ares-I/Orion. The idea of a commercial taxi service getting the job is political dynamite – and congress don’t want to step in that bear trap!
Further, it raises big issues of why retain NASA at all if its not doing anything. I.E. following Obama/Bolden/Garver sound bytes. If NASA isn’t to fly folks into space, and the US shouldn’t fly folks beyond Earth orbit again (other then in some international joint program) – why keep NASA going at all?
Not a argument congress wants to make with the public. Nor does congress agree with Obama/Bolden/Garver. Congress supported a return to the moon program. They didn’t support the insanely gold plated costs – but they support canceling it less.
> 3. The market is building for commercial crew, ==
But so far, there are still no companies buying.
> 4. The whole point of using commercial crew is for NASA
> to save money, and use the saved money to do what they
> do best – cutting edge R&D and exploration. ==
No that was never part of the proposal. It would really be great if it was – but it wasn’t. The proposal ended BEO HSF work and development, didn’t really lower crew to ISS costs, adn spent tons no pork research programs of types historically have never been productive when NASA did them.
Or a customers prerogative
With someone else’s money? Is that what you consider just? Or good stewardship of taxpayers’ money?
Kelly Starks wrote @ August 16th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
I’ll just summarize my comments by saying that you’re a political conspiracy nut with no experience in government accounting or government contracting.
Your “inside view” of government contracting was as an employee who traded rumors with other ignorant folks at the water cooler – and I use the word “ignorant” here in it’s true dictionary sense (i.e. lacking knowledge or awareness in something in particular).
Based on the lack of people that chime in to agree with you, it seems that I’m not alone in my assessment.
Oh well, I tried…
> Martijn Meijering wrote @ August 16th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
>> Or a customers prerogative
> With someone else’s money? Is that what you consider
> just? Or good stewardship of taxpayers’ money?
If it supports tax payers demands and interests. Tax payers are far more supportive of NASA derived pork then anything NASA proposing to do. So don’t get shocked when Congress gives the voters what they want.
> Coastal Ron wrote @ August 16th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
You really have a problem dealing with facts contradicting your dogma – or in not resorting to apples and oranges comparisons.
Kelly Starks wrote @ August 17th, 2010 at 9:44 am
“You really have a problem dealing with facts contradicting your dogma – or in not resorting to apples and oranges comparisons.”
Facts I don’t mind debating, and I enjoy learning from them. I even cite them when I’m posting so people can both verify and understand the context of what I’m saying. If I post it, then I’ll defend it, and if I’m wrong (which has happened), then I’ll correct it in public.
You on the other hand are never able to supply your supporting facts. You say stuff like “this guy at NASA once said”, or “someone at a conference told me”, or “the rule of thumb was…”. As Reagan was found of saying “trust, but verify” – and you usually fail this test.
As far as dogma, mine is pretty simple. I want to lower the cost to access space, and let NASA use commercial companies to do the routine tasks so they can focus on the tough jobs only they can handle. If a company like ULA, Orbital Sciences, SpaceX, Boeing, Bigelow, or SpaceDev fits that definition, or has a good chance of doing it, then I support them. I don’t support duplicable waste like the Ares I effort, and I have always advocated for NASA to get more money for doing actual R&D and exploration.
I don’t know what your dogma is, but I do know that you have no financial or contracting knowledge or experience. You make up for that by, quite literally, making stuff up, and you can never support the dollar figures you give.
It’s too bad, especially since you have some interest and experience in space programs. However, knowledge does not equal wisdom, and even your knowledge is faulty…
> Coastal Ron wrote @ August 17th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
To be specific about things you state as facts that arn’t
“COTS “
>== Orbital Sciences will be paid == $238M/delivery, =
> SpaceX price of $133M/delivery. Also keep in mind that the pricing
> is for a 1st generation cargo capability, and that the technology
> and abilities will be operational when follow-on contracts are
> bid (i.e. prices should go down significantly).
The prices arn’t that likely to go down considering the small market. A flight or two a year wouldn’t lower their
The last part of this is the Dragon capsule itself. NASA requires new capsules for each CRS delivery, but SpaceX retains ownership of the capsules. Because of this, SpaceX will have at least 14 Dragon reusable capsules that have only been used once. For crew,
>= NASA should have enough reliability data with Dragon
> by then to allow them to reuse them (just like they planned to do with Orion). =
If NASA was worried about reusing them – the fact the Dragons still arnt being reused (unless SpaceX can find some other user) means NASA still isn’t how they last over several flights.
> Because of this, the SpaceX price of $20M/seat is now easy to
> understand, since the launch costs are 5 passenger seats divided
> by the $56M/Falcon 9 ($11.2M/seat), and the balance is for the
> Dragon refit costs and the Dragon SM+LES new build.
Given Dragons a 7 person craft, I never did get your math here.
>= To summarize, SpaceX is able to get a majority of their
> non-recurring development costs taken care of by the
> COTS/CRS program,==
SpaceXs quotes their R&D costs to date being about a billion. Where are you seeing a billion in profit in what your talking about?
>=
> Once the cargo and crew systems are certified for ISS operations,
> NASA is not involved in the day-to-day operations of SpaceX. ==
Assumption #1 If they buy from you, they want to see everything you do. How much for the COTS or CC – who knows.
> Launch coordination and “traffic control†for the ISS is about
> all they’ll need to do for hands-on stuff, and I would imagine
> their program office won’t need to be that big.=
Doesn’t functionally need to be that big for shuttle either – no reason to assume they will go lite for commercial crew.
>== Remember, we’re talking about just another transportation
> company, and NASA does not intimately involved with American
> Airlines or FedEx when they are using them.
Laughably off assumption.
>>“All to support 10 commercial crew flights. $6B/10 = $600M. Then you add the actual cost of the flights.â€
> You’re confusing non-recurring with recurring costs again, =
Doesn’t mater, but you make a big issue of this all the time
>> As to what you could do with $6B — Thats more then the cost
>> projected to ifeld FAA certified DC-X shuttles! Not exactly
>> the best use of the funds.â€
>There you go again – treating off-the-cuff estimates for a
> fictional vehicle as gospel. ==
False assumption.
> DC-X was a demonstration program, and had no room for crew,
> much less fuel to get it into orbit. The physics of SSTO have not
> proved to be viable yet, and certainly no country or government
> has ever demonstrated it’s supposed abilities to reach orbit.
The physics has obviously been proven, ther rest is irrelevant to my statement
> The proposed NASA budget, on the other hand, was to fund
> existing vehicles that had already flown repeatedly, and the
> proposed expenditures were for adding incremental improvements
> so that crew could be carried with more confidence than
> cargo needed. Try telling an astronaut that the funds were not for the right priorities…
If your talking about DC-X this is wrong, if your talking Commercial Crew, its assumption since the $6B wasn’t defined.
> SpaceX eventually listing their crew prices on a GSA Schedule, =
This is a fantasy. Were no where near having human space flight offered no a fixed standard cost for gov programs –
>= What you keep failing to understand (along with many
> other people too), is that the commercial crew program is
> the first step to creating a crew transportation industry that
> can be used by anyone.==
Assumption – certainly nothing in the contract would advance this.
Again – NASA is cutting the commercial market for launch services DRAMATICALLY. Market shrinking to the point of shutting down the bulk of the industry, is not opening a market for everyone. NASA has a strong stated reason to not want to open up space for everyone. This isn’t crafted to open up space.
Your taking political (or space advocate) PR spin as fact or goals.
>==
>==
> All of the launch companies already know how much it costs
> to operate out of KSC, so they have already incorporated those
> costs into their prices for cargo launches. ==
Your assuming NASA charges them the same for the same services under the new contract. That’s not in NASA interest, and given they have few flights to charge the overhead costs of KSC to – they likely will pass on the costs
>== You are also assuming that the entire $6B amount would
> be for crew deliveries, and that they would stop forever after the $6B is spent.
No I assume its part of the commercial crew program as stated, so the total program costs of commercial crew flights will include this and all other program costs.
> There is a known demand starting in 2016 that has to be met
> (ISS crew rotation), and everyone in the U.S. wants it to be an
> American company that does it.=
False assumption
>=NASA does not plan to operate an ISS taxi service, =
NASA is divided, and is more then willing – and congress seems to prefer it to..
> 3. The market is building for commercial crew, ==
What market? No nose bought any yet.
> 4. The whole point of using commercial crew is for NASA to
> save money, ==
False assumption
>== and use the saved money to do what they do best –
> cutting edge R&D and exploration.
False assumption
===
>> Kelly Starks wrote @ August 17th, 2010 at 9:44 am
>>You really have a problem dealing with facts contradicting your
>> dogma – or in not resorting to apples and oranges comparisons.â€
> Coastal Ron wrote @ August 17th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
> You on the other hand are never able to supply your supporting
> facts. ==
Incorrect, or at least I suply refs about as nifrequently as everynoe else
>== As far as dogma, mine is pretty simple. I want to lower
> the cost to access space,===
We all do, but you play games with numbers to get commercial crew to look much cheaper. Ignoring most of the program costs as unrelated (the $6B “facilitation costsâ€, facilities costs, training and the JSC stuff, etc) for something like commercial crew – but adamantly include it in something like shuttle. Ignore that fact that massive downscales of markets don’t generally drive costs down long term. Then assume something like commercial crew is like calling United for a ticket flight, or a air taxi service for a charter.
>== and let NASA use commercial companies to do the routine
> tasks so they can focus on the tough jobs only they can handle.==
But they are not going to be doing that!
>== I don’t support duplicable waste like the Ares I effort, ==
Ares and Orion are utter crap, but they are part of a BEO HSF program, which is all to be canceled under Obamaspace according to Bolden’s statements in his Al Jezzera interview.
>==and I have always advocated for NASA to get more
> money for doing actual R&D and exploration.
But they are not getting money for real research or xelporation.
>= I do know that you have no financial or contracting knowledge
> or experience.==
False assumption
>== You make up for that by, quite literally, making stuff up, ==
Another false assumption.
I.E., if you don’t like the questions/facts/statement – you brish it off with assumptions or put downs
and let NASA use commercial companies to do the routine tasks so they can focus on the tough jobs only they can handle.
Were you being diplomatic or do you think there are actually things only NASA can handle?
Kelly Starks wrote @ August 17th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Well that hit a nerve, but the results were the same. You continue to brush off things as wrong, but you offer no reasons as to why or what they should be. Also, you’re spelling is horrendous, and sometimes it’s difficult guessing what they hell you’re talking about. If you’re not using a browser that can spell check for you, maybe you should write your stuff on a word processor, and copy it over.
Let’s go over some details:
“The prices arn’t that likely to go down considering the small market. A flight or two a year wouldn’t lower their” – the sentence cut off at the end, but I think I see where you’re going.
My background is in manufacturing, both for military products and commercial. The most expensive product you normally produce is the first one, because that one takes all your investment in infrastructure and labor. Subsequent units fall in price as you amortize your infrastructure, and you improve your processes and yields.
So it goes with services, and as it will go with the CRS program. Since the COTS contract award in 2006, and the CRS program award in 2008, SpaceX has been able to validate and improve their cost estimates. Their launcher prices only recently went up, but the amount was only about 10%, meaning that they are still close to their cost targets. Taking their crew pricing into account ($20M/seat), cargo prices for follow-on ISS resupply could go down if there is competition (with competition, prices don’t need to fall).
“Given Dragons a 7 person craft, I never did get your math here.”
I assume a crew of two, leaving room for 5 passengers. This is a worst-case from a revenue standpoint ($100M revenue/flight), and it helps me understand their potential. Over time I would imagine that they could boost that up, but I think that will take some flight history for everyone to get comfortable (SpaceX and their customers).
“>To summarize, SpaceX is able to get a majority of their
> non-recurring development costs taken care of by the
> COTS/CRS program,
SpaceXs quotes their R&D costs to date being about a billion. Where are you seeing a billion in profit in what your talking about?”
There you go again. The public facts don’t agree with you. Fairly quickly, I found this statement that was made after the Falcon 9 flight – “Musk told AP that he estimates that $350 million to $400 million has been spent so far developing the Falcon rockets.”
Let’s do a double-check of this too. Musk started the company with $100M, and $20M was added by the Founders Fund. The COTS contract has added $248M, with $30M left for demo flights. The balance of revenue is likely from launch deposits, but well below getting them to $1B. I don’t know where you’re getting the “about a billion” figure.
Also, there is a difference between revenue and profit. Look it up.
“Assumption #1 If they buy from you, they want to see everything you do. How much for the COTS or CC – who knows.”
There you go with ignorant comments again. The COTS program is very well defined, and the deliverables are clear. If you had read the June 2009 GAO report on COTS, you would have seen that NASA does not have a lot of overhead on this program, even though they have oversight. You should really learn more before you write.
Regarding DC-X, you stated “The physics has obviously been proven, ther rest is irrelevant to my statement”
The physics for SSTO have been proven? When, and by what vehicle? You’re making stuff up again!
In regards to my statement about a potential commercial crew program, you said “Assumption – certainly nothing in the contract would advance this.”
What contract? Can you show us the contract you’re referencing? You’re making stuff up again…
“NASA is cutting the commercial market for launch services DRAMATICALLY. Market shrinking to the point of shutting down the bulk of the industry, is not opening a market for everyone.”
Other than Shuttle and ISS, NASA doesn’t control any other launch services, so what are you talking about. I know you’re not talking about the commercial satellite market, because two different market studies came out last year saying that the number of launches per year are not going down, and in fact they are strengthening.
For the ISS, the number of launches is pretty much staying flat with the current funding levels, so that is not a decline for either crew or cargo.
What are you talking about, and where is you backup? This is getting old…
“NASA has a strong stated reason to not want to open up space for everyone.”
You keep saying this, but you never prove it – where is the proof?
Bolden certainly has stated otherwise, and the Obama budget proposal clearly wanted to open up space to the commercial market. Where is your proof?
“but you play games with numbers to get commercial crew to look much cheaper. Ignoring most of the program costs as unrelated (the $6B “facilitation costsâ€, facilities costs, training and the JSC stuff, etc) for something like commercial crew – but adamantly include it in something like shuttle. ”
I use generally accepted accounting principles – I don’t know what you use. Part of the reason you’re confused is that you don’t understand the difference between non-recurring and recurring costs.
The Shuttle program spent most of it’s non-recurring when it originally built the STS – things like the orbiters, SRB casings, infrastructure, etc. Once that was in place, the costs to run the program have been mainly recurring costs, which is the $200M/month that the Shuttle Program Manager talks about.
For commercial crew, the administration proposed a $6B budget that would include non-recurring funding for setting up a number of different crew delivery systems. Once those were established, NASA and everyone else would only have to pay recurring costs to use those systems (some of it paid for by the $6B).
If you don’t understand how this works, then I suggest you take a finance class.
“Ares and Orion are utter crap, but they are part of a BEO HSF program, which is all to be canceled under Obamaspace according to Bolden’s statements in his Al Jezzera interview.”
See, it’s this type of statement that’s really revealing. The Obama budget made no bones about canceling Constellation, but yet you have to reference an interview Bolden made months later to an Arab news channel to make it sound sinister. Were you completely unaware of this fact until the Bolden statement? Is this why you reference the Al Jezzera interview? What a laugh!
I could go on, but it’s so easy to refute you with facts, that it’s getting tiresome. Please, do research before you post, and go get an education in finance so you can understand the issues better.
Martijn Meijering wrote @ August 17th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
“Were you being diplomatic or do you think there are actually things only NASA can handle?”
No, I was being honest.
My view of NASA is that they should be the organization that focuses on doing what has never been done before – the hard stuff. Now, they wouldn’t be doing it without lots of help from the private sector, but they would be the organization leading the task. As they prove out the methods and technologies, they should be handing those off to the private sector (if applicable).
No, I was being honest.
Nothing wrong with a bit of diplomacy every once in a while.
My view of NASA is that they should be the organization that focuses on doing what has never been done before – the hard stuff.
Agreed, but that’s not quite the same thing is it? It’s not so much that others couldn’t do it, but rather that NASA shouldn’t do something others are already doing. But if indulging the NASA mystique is what gets them out of the way of commercial space I’m all for it.
Martijn Meijering wrote @ August 17th, 2010 at 6:00 pm
“ It’s not so much that others couldn’t do it, but rather that NASA shouldn’t do something others are already doing.”
I’m not sure if I’m following your point, but I look at it from a traditional government role in the economy. There are lots of examples of where the government spends money to do things that individual companies could not, but that would also benefit the citizens as a whole. Construction projects are the most visible, but DARPA, NSF and even NASA are examples of where research is done without clear monetary benefits to society – pure research.
For space related stuff, this is how I see NASA, as the group that focuses on space related exploration, and handing off the fruits of the exploration so that the citizens (i.e. private sector) can utilize them.
From a purely budgetary standpoint, Congress pretty much has NASA on a fixed budget, so the best way to utilize that budget is to hand off the routine stuff to the private sector as soon as it makes economic sense. I think we’re there with commercial crew to LEO, and we’ve been there with cargo for a long time except that the Shuttle skewed the market. Unfortunately Congress likes to use large programs as methods to reward their favorite constituents, so we have NASA being forces to use products and methods that don’t make the best economic sense. Such is life in a representative democracy…
That would be ‘representative democracy’ plus lobbyists – yes!
There are lots of examples of where the government spends money to do things that individual companies could not, but that would also benefit the citizens as a whole.
I agree there are things NASA can do that commercial entities cannot – simply because NASA has taxpayer funding. Funding things that have a societal benefit but cannot be run commercially is traditionally seen as a legitimate task for government. As I get older I’m getting less and less convinced that there are actually very many causes that deserve government funding (certainly not manned spaceflight!), but I understand the principle.
That does not necessarily mean that NASA should spend that money in-house or through a single contractor. It could also use its funding to procure services commercially and competitively, in which case the availability of specific infrastructure, products and services would help commercial manned spaceflight too, at no additional cost. This is what O’Keefe and Steidle apparently wanted to do and, as I understand it, the way ESA (but not the national space agencies) is run.
Among the general public there is a sentiment that NASA has very special knowledge and abilities to do difficult things in space that is not available in the private sector. I doubt there is actually much of that, if any while there certainly is a lot of special expertise in the commercial sector that NASA does not have, say expertise in launch vehicle design. When you talked about letting NASA concentrate on the hard stuff that only it could do, I wondered if you were thinking of funding or of technical ability.
Now, while I would prefer to see NASA spend most of its budget by awarding competitive contracts instead of maintaing existing workforces at existing field centers. This is both because I believe it is the right thing to do and because it would be more effective. The two are of course related, but not identical. But even though in principle I would like to see NASA’s budget spent as commercially as possible, not all activities are equally important when it comes to furthering the cause of commercial manned spaceflight and commercial development of space.
When it comes to the importance of commercial procurement, launch vehicles are more important than capsules and capsules are probably more important than habs, while habs are more important than landers. Technology development is also less important than operations. Of all these things only commercial, competitive procurement of launch services is crucial, though all the other would be useful. Amazingly, it would probably also be sufficient since high launch prices appear to be the only obstacle that stands in the way of commercial development of space. Fix that and everything else can be financed with private capital.
Unfortunately, in addition to be the only thing that is necessary, and the only thing that is sufficient it is also the thing that is most threatened by the Shuttle mafia. If we have to buy these rascals off, could we please, please do it by giving them a lander, or even capsules and habs to play with while getting them out of the launch business? That’s what I meant when I said indulging the NASA mystique (“only NASA has the skills to do this!”) could be good enough, even if it isn’t true, as long as they got out of the launch business. In the very short term they will of course get out of the launch business fater the Shuttle is retired, but unfortunately there’s a great risk they’ll be back.
Martijn Meijering wrote @ August 18th, 2010 at 6:29 am
I think in general I agree with you, and FYI, I typically also agree with your other posts/responses too. You also have some interesting perspectives that I hadn’t quite explored before that I also agree with. For instance:
“When you talked about letting NASA concentrate on the hard stuff that only it could do, I wondered if you were thinking of funding or of technical ability.”
Good points leading up to this question, and from my perspective I think government agencies like NASA have the ability to bring together disparate groups to focus on a unique (and funded) projects. In these cases there may be a mix of talent both in & outside of NASA that is used to complete a project, or NASA acts as the lead on a program. So to your point, it’s not because they have the best people, but because they have the funding, and they can attract the best people (NASA + contractors).
“Amazingly, it would probably also be sufficient since high launch prices appear to be the only obstacle that stands in the way of commercial development of space.”
I think there is still a demand/market that needs to develop, but launchers are a gating factor, and one that needs to be solved before the rest can become clear.
“If we have to buy these rascals off, could we please, please do it by giving them a lander, or even capsules and habs to play with while getting them out of the launch business?”
Yep, that’s the crux the of the problem. Once commercial crew is established, and assuming it truly is less expensive than a government alternative, then I don’t see how there would be any turning back. But that is the specific problem right now, in that commercial crew is still a concept, and not a reality. I don’t doubt that commercial companies can do it as good or better than NASA, but those that don’t like it (for various political reasons) can push the specter of doubt to those that are undecided or not in the know.
Hence we get the spectacle of Sen. Shelby rapping himself in the flag of the U.S. saying that “government is the answer”, when his national party platform is the exact opposite. Truly, all politics are local.
I think in general I agree with you, and FYI, I typically also agree with your other posts/responses too.
I agree with most of your posts too. Are you a space professional or just an enthusiast like me?
Martijn Meijering wrote @ August 18th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
I’m an enthusiast, but I started out to get a degree in aerospace. Unfortunately I’m horrible at calculus, and I ran out of money for college.
Then I got into manufacturing for DOD and commercial products (mainly DOD), and spent most of my time in management and operations project management.
I don’t know spit about ISP’s and orbital mechanics, but I think I have a good insight into operations, logistics and costs.
How about you?
> My view of NASA is that they should be the organization that focuses
> on doing what has never been done before – the hard stuff.
Big agree. One of my big problems with the Obama proposed “research” programs is they are generally the opposite.
Kelly Starks wrote @ August 18th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
“One of my big problems with the Obama proposed “research†programs is they are generally the opposite.”
Any “generally the opposite” ones that you’d like to identify from the list below? And maybe share your reasons?
Flagship demonstration program – Demonstrates critical technologies such as in-orbit propellant transfer and storage, inflatable modules, automated/autonomous rendezvous and docking, closed-loop life support systems, and other next-generation capabilities.
Enabling technology development program – Demonstrates a broad range of key technologies, including in-situ resource utilization and advanced in-space propulsion.
Robotic precursor missions to the Moon, Mars and its moons, Lagrange points, and nearby asteroids to scout targets for future human activities, and identify the hazards and resources that will determine the future course of the expansion of human civilization into space. Projects will generally support missions that are less than $800 million in life-cycle cost.
Full Utilization of the ISS
Commercial Crew and Cargo
21st Century Launch Complex – Makes a significant investment to modernize the Kennedy Space Center to increase the operational efficiency and reduce the launch costs not only for NASA, but for other users.
Space Technology – Focuses on key areas, such as communications, sensors, robotics, materials, and propulsion.
Earth and Climate Science
and finally
Planetary Science
– Increases by $16M/yr for identification and cataloging of Near Earth Objects;
– Restarts Plutonium-238 production w/ DOE to support future missions;
– Continues to operate 11 planetary missions and launches Juno and Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL);
– Completes launch preparations for Mars Science Laboratory launch in fall of 2011;
– Continues work toward LADEE and MAVEN launch in 2013;
– Moves Mars 2016 mission into formulation;
– Continues funding Europa Jupiter System Mission (EJSM) concept development; and
– Begins flight development of the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG) for 2014/15 Launch Readiness Date.
I don’t know spit about ISP’s and orbital mechanics, but I think I have a good insight into operations, logistics and costs.
I studied maths and computer science and one year of physics. I came close to finishing both, but never did. In the crazy days of the dot-com boom I did find myself teaching CS at university, for a commercial course we did, still intending to graduate. Then an opportunity presented itself to start a small firm with a very good friend, with a good contract from the university to get us started. I did try to finish my maths MSc thesis with the gracious help of my former maths professor, but it has long been “halfway done”. My CS professor urged me to write up a thesis on the contract we did for him (“It’ll only take you three weeks!”) and urged me to enter the PhD program, but I had a well-paid contract offer elsewhere. I have no regrets doing this, but I do regret that I never did graduate.
In the past year I’ve tried to teach myself the basic of orbital mechanics from books and websites and managed to write a simple Lambert solver. I can just about derive it from first principles, but there is so much more to learn before I can do the stuff I really want to do, such as analysing efficient three body trajectories to and from libration points.
>> NASA is cutting the commercial market for launch services
>> DRAMATICALLY. Market shrinking to the point of shutting
>>down the bulk of the industry, is not opening a market for everyone.â€
> Other than Shuttle and ISS, NASA doesn’t control any other launch
> services, so what are you talking about. ==
That is what I’m talking about. Shuttle alone has done the bulk of the work of the space age in lifting cargo and crew. Also it employs a huge chunk of the commercial folks supporting space flight. Just the shuttle phase down is expected to lay off close to 30,000 nationally. And ISS construction and stuff is down. More layoffs likely from constellation shutdown, rescope, whatever they decide to do.
I know you’re not talking about the commercial satellite market, because two different market studies came out last year saying that the number of launches per year are not going down, and in fact they are strengthening.
This has been all over the news and thise web site for months?
> For the ISS, the number of launches is pretty much staying flat with
> the current funding levels, so that is not a decline for either crew or cargo.
Your forgetting the tonnage lifts are down – and shuttles phasing out.
>> “NASA has a strong stated reason to not want to open up space for everyone.â€
> You keep saying this, but you never prove it – where is the proof?
Oh please! Griffen’s statements that they need space to become rare spectacles not routine? NASA public supports from their prestige, and pork. There’s no prestige is everyone’s flying to space. Its one of the reasons NASA was hostile to CATS or developing anything from the X-33 program (hell they spent a extra billion to stop that.
More basically –
>= Bolden certainly has stated otherwise, ==
Where?
>==and the Obama budget proposal clearly wanted to open up space
> to the commercial market. =
Ah- no.
>>but you play games with numbers to get commercial crew to look
>> much cheaper. Ignoring most of the program costs as unrelated
>>(the $6B “facilitation costsâ€, facilities costs, training and the JSC
>> stuff, etc) for something like commercial crew – but adamantly
>> include it in something like shuttle. â€
> I use generally accepted accounting principles ==
Inconsistently!
Besides, the gov doesn’t follow standard – or even LEHAL! – accounting methods.
>== Part of the reason you’re confused is that you don’t understand
> the difference between non-recurring and recurring costs.
I understand them fine. The issue in you include non-recurring and support costs on one, and just talk about recurring directs in the other.
> ==
> For commercial crew, the administration proposed a $6B budget that
> would include non-recurring funding for setting up a number of different
> crew delivery systems. Once those were established, NASA and everyone
> else would only have to pay recurring costs to use those systems (some
> of it paid for by the $6B).
>
> If you don’t understand how this works, then I suggest you take a finance class.
Again you jump to the insults. And you assume those fixed set up cost as going to be spread over undefined other flights. NASA has no other flights in line. No commercial has been defined. You can’t even be sure NASA will allow them to be used, or will retain them.
Also again – this is the gov. The program is 10 flights. Ergo the $6B must be carried by the 10 flights.
Also while were on it – what facilities were you expecting to be included in that $6B?
>==
>> Ares and Orion are utter crap, but they are part of a BEO HSF
>> program, which is all to be canceled under Obamaspace according
>> to Bolden’s statements in his Al Jezzera interview.â€
> See, it’s this type of statement that’s really revealing. The Obama budget
> made no bones about canceling Constellation, but yet you have to
> reference an interview Bolden made months later to an Arab news
> channel to make it sound sinister. ==
Different point. Obama made no bones about canceling Constellation, but he Bolden and Garver were not specific about future BEO. Bolden and Garver were talking 25-40 years for “some†manned return to Moon and perhaps Mars – they hoped. Obama talked visions of missions to asteroids etc – but no real statements It wasn’t until Al Jeezera that Bolden said the US would never go BEO again on their own again. That was a big surprise to everyone – and directly contradicts the assumption that the point of commercial crew was it would allow NASA to focus on sending folks out beyond LEO.
>== Please, do research before you post, and go get an education in finance==
Please read what I say, and don’t use cheap shots instead of logic or facts as a counter argument. so you can understand the issues better.
Interesting. The full post did post last night, and the frount half didn’t now?
> Coastal Ron wrote @ August 17th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
>> Kelly Starks wrote @ August 17th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
>> “The prices arn’t that likely to go down considering the small
>> market. A flight or two a year wouldn’t lower theirâ€
> – the sentence cut off at the end, but I think I see where you’re going.
?? Oh well
>== The most expensive product you normally produce is the first
> one, because that one takes all your investment in infrastructure
> and labor. Subsequent units fall in price as you amortize your
> infrastructure, and you improve your processes and yields.
Certainly true, but when your only “selling†ones or twos a year, just the fixed costs of keeping your team and infrastructure going per a year, can dwarf the cost of the units. One of the reasons ELVs aren’t completely cost uncompetitive – is the overhead costs dwarf the costs of flights or even replacement ships most of the time.
Think of SpaceX. Total investment to get The falcons and Dragon out the door is about a billion according to Musk. Boeing and or L/M probably a lot more. But they were all talking hundreds of millions per launch. 2 flights a year for 5 years total for commercial crew. So if you have 2 vendors – neither of you are exactly burning through amortizing your fixed or upfrount costs.
>= =
>>“Given Dragons a 7 person craft, I never did get your math here.â€
> I assume a crew of two, leaving room for 5 passengers. ==
Ah. I was assuming for a flight to ISS, NASA could supply its own crew. They were going to do this with Soyuz flights.
>>>To summarize, SpaceX is able to get a majority of their
>>> non-recurring development costs taken care of by the
>>> COTS/CRS program,
>> SpaceXs quotes their R&D costs to date being about a billion. Where are
>> you seeing a billion in profit in what your talking about?â€
> There you go again. The public facts don’t agree with you. Fairly quickly, I
> found this statement that was made after the Falcon 9 flight – “Musk told AP
> that he estimates that $350 million to $400 million has been spent so far
> developing the Falcon rockets.â€
That’s just the rockets.
http://www.astronautix [dot] com/craft/dragon.htm
listed about $300M
Musk said it would take $300M to do just the dragon escape system.
Musks numbers bounce around a lot. I remember reading spaceX has burned through I think $800M – can’y find it though.
Did find this one mentioning SpaceX looking at devreloping a lifeboat capable Dragon Jan ’09.
flightglobal [dot]com/blogs/hyperbola/2009/01/the-new-x-38-spacexs-dragon.html
>>== Assumption #1 If they buy from you, they want to see everything you
>> do. How much for the COTS or CC – who knows.â€
> There you go with ignorant comments again. The COTS program is
> very well defined, and the deliverables are clear. ==
We wern’t talking about COTS. They don’t have the political risk if they just lose a supply flight.
>> Regarding DC-X, you stated
>> “The physics has obviously been proven, there rest is irrelevant to my statementâ€
> The physics for SSTO have been proven? When, and by what vehicle?==
The physics isn’t related to a vehicle. Though we have built operational stages with more of a mass fraction then needed for SSTO.
You missed the point about DC-X (well y or 3 really) not being dependant on its abilty to SSTO to orbit.
>== You’re making stuff up again!
Another faulty assumption.
> In regards to my statement about a potential commercial crew program, you said
>>“Assumption – certainly nothing in the contract would advance this.â€
Cant remember what you were referring to.
>== You’re making stuff up again…
Another faulty assumption.
> Coastal Ron wrote @ August 19th, 2010 at 12:33 am
>> Kelly Starks wrote @ August 18th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
>> One of my big problems with the Obama proposed “researchâ€
>> programs is they are generally the opposite.â€
>Any “generally the opposite†ones that you’d like to identify from the
> list below? And maybe share your reasons?
Excelent examples of what I’m talking about
> Flagship demonstration program – Demonstrates critical
> technologies such as in-orbit propellant transfer and storage, ==
used operationally for 30-40 years, currently used on the ISS
>==inflatable modules, ==
Current commercial product, 2 demonstration prototypes have been ni orbit for years
>==automated/autonomous rendezvous and docking, ==
Also used operationally for years including the automated refueling tankers currently refueling the ISS.
>== closed-loop life support systems, and other next-generation capabilities.
NASA been working and demonstrating these since the ‘70’s, they are one of the big examples of NASA never delivering anything in open ended research programs without hard delivery dates.
>== in-situ resource utilization and advanced in-space propulsion.
ISRU has been researched adn demoed for years. and whats the mission it needs to support? Without having a mission – you can’t do much more then has been done.
The only inspace propulsion system I hear discussed is VASMIR, which has been in research since .. ‘80’s? and has failed to even attract commercial users compared to other ion or plasma engines with better performance.
VASMIR’s main limit for future major missions is you need a major reactor to power them. Which is not being developed.
Also Obama specifically mentioned a new research program to develop a RP/LOx rocket in the RD-180 size range. Hardly research given we’ve made such engines for half a century. Mainly it seems a way to not have to see Cyrillic letters on the tail of a Atlas-V.
> Robotic precursor missions to the Moon, Mars and its moons,
> Lagrange points, and nearby asteroids to scout targets for
> future human activities, ==
We’ve been sending robots to most of these for generations, and given flying humans beyond LEO is off the table according to Bolden, whats the point?
>== Full Utilization of the ISS
Doing what? The station was designed just to be a showpeace of international cooperation. Full utilization generally just means operating it.
> Commercial Crew and Cargo
Obviously not research
>== modernize the Kennedy Space Center to increase the
> operational efficiency ==
Really KSC has been falling apart. In the VAB they hang nets under the roof to stop bits falling off and hitting someone. So doing some repairs and modernization isn’t a bad idea – but its not research, and whose new rocket is it built to support?
==
> Earth and Climate Science
NOAA does that, and NASA got in a lot of trouble with Gore when their sat data showed global warming wasn’t happening, and Gore was nasty enough about it that some in HQ thought that was why the big head cut for NASA under Clinton. So I expect NASA nervous about this one.
Kelly Starks wrote @ August 19th, 2010 at 9:04 am
“>Any “generally the opposite†ones that you’d like to identify from the
> list below? And maybe share your reasons?
Excelent examples of what I’m talking about”
I didn’t see you cite any example of opposite. Just examples of where were just continuing what we’ve been doing. Weird.
Kelly Starks wrote @ August 19th, 2010 at 7:59 am
I have a project I have to finish, so I’ll just address one of the most obvious:
“> There you go again. The public facts don’t agree with you. Fairly quickly, I
> found this statement that was made after the Falcon 9 flight – “Musk told AP
> that he estimates that $350 million to $400 million has been spent so far
> developing the Falcon rockets.â€
That’s just the rockets.
http://www.astronautix [dot] com/craft/dragon.htm
listed about $300M
Musk said it would take $300M to do just the dragon escape system.”
You are confusing sunk costs (the $350-400M Musk stated) with potential future costs ($300M for an LES). They have not incurred the LES costs yet. Focus on the question.
So getting back to your original statement of “SpaceXs quotes their R&D costs to date being about a billion.”, you are not able to back that up, whereas I have been able to cite public sources for mine. Typical Kelly.
Kelly Starks wrote @ August 19th, 2010 at 7:56 am
“Your forgetting the tonnage lifts are down – and shuttles phasing out.”
Well duh, for NASA, since the ISS is almost finished, and the Shuttle program is coming to an end. What’s your point?
Outside of Shuttle, however, the lift market is still going strong. Just Google the “2010 Commercial Space Transportation Forecasts”, and you’ll see the launch market is strong, and will continue. This provides a basis of work for ULA and SpaceX so that crew prices will not be affected by infrequent launches (as you stated in another post).
This is why commercial providers can drive down their ISS cargo costs once established, and this is also why commercial crew can be so much more less expensive than any government system. ULA launches an average of one rocket per month, and they have lots of capacity to ramp up.
Commercial companies can spread their cost basis across cargo, satellites or crew, since they always have something flying. The Shuttle, and any government launcher, can never match those kind of launch rates, and so their cost basis is spread across far fewer flights, and are inevitably far more expensive per launch, per seat, and per pound.
Econ 101. You really need to take that class.
>>> Coastal Ron wrote @ August 19th, 2010 at 11:54 am
>>>Any “generally the opposite†ones that you’d like to identify from the
>>> list below? And maybe share your reasons?
>>Excelent examples of what I’m talking aboutâ€
> I didn’t see you cite any example of opposite
Did you read the post?
All of the ones you listed were the opposites. No research, nothing cutting edge – just rehash of old work, me-to studies, pork.
> Coastal Ron wrote @ August 19th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Ok, you’re again redefining things to make your point. The numbers came up to most of a billion, Musk was saying it. Case closed.
Not going to bother going into details when you just play games when the facts don’t go your way.
Kelly Starks wrote @ August 19th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
“All of the ones you listed were the opposites. No research, nothing cutting edge – just rehash of old work, me-to studies, pork.”
Wikipedia defines “research” as”
Research can be defined as the search for knowledge or as any systematic investigation to establish facts. The primary purpose for applied research (as opposed to basic research) is discovering, interpreting, and the development of methods and systems for the advancement of human knowledge on a wide variety of scientific matters of our world and the universe.
You can look up other standard definitions too if you want, but they are all similar.
Now Kelly, you may have your own definition of what research is, but what NASA is doing fits these definitions. And many of these programs have been going on since before Obama/Bolden arrived, so you must also have a beef with Bush/Griffin and everyone else before them.
If you don’t like any of this proposed stuff, what do YOU think they should be spending $19B/year on?
How could what you propose be considered non-pork, taking into account our method of government?
> Coastal Ron wrote @ August 20th, 2010 at 1:16 am
>> Kelly Starks wrote @ August 19th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
>> All of the ones you listed were the opposites. No research, nothing
>> cutting edge – just rehash of old work, me-to studies, pork.â€
> Wikipedia defines “research†asâ€
>
> Research can be defined as the search for knowledge or as any systematic
> investigation to establish facts. The primary purpose for applied research
> (as opposed to basic research) is discovering, interpreting, and the
> development of methods and systems for the advancement of human
> knowledge on a wide variety of scientific matters of our world and the universe.
And how is researching old and long established/mature technologies research ni this definition?
More importantly, this is NASA. If a agency such as NASA is given billions for “research†– theres a reasonable expectation that they are going to do more then assist in industrial development of productin commercial or other use for several decades.
>==
> If you don’t like any of this proposed stuff, what do YOU think
> they should be spending $19B/year on?
Research and development of new or cutting edge systems, and exploration, and facilitating public/private use of space.
Say take the $250 billion penciled in for return to the moon over the next 25? years. Issue a RFP for commercial firms to bid on cargo and personnel transport to LEO and Lunar surface from 2020-2040; and construction and operation on the lunar surface of a base capable of permanently manned operation of say 20 people, plus expansion capabilities for expanded science, private or commercial utilization negotiated by the bidding team. Such alternate clients must not unreasonably interfere or inhibit the services contracted for in this RFP. All transport craft and facilities must be adaptable for commercial or private usage, and built to the highest practical aviation safety and reliability standards.
The RFP is assumed to cover development, extensive testing and FAA (or negotiated other credible certification service) certification of all craft adn systems.
US government VIA NASA will provide launch facilities if required, at KSC.
Certified vehicles and facilities, will be available for commercial contracting by the bidding teams – though the depreciated value of the “base fleet†or facilities used to support those commercial activities must be reimbursed.
Should the winning teams require expaned launch facilities for a expanded commercial fleet adn associated operations, this will also be provided by NASA at KCS.
The above should be about 1/3rd the cost of the constellation based systems developed under NASA (given commercial estimaets adn history of related dev programs), and you get a much bigger base, and CRATS launchers and Earth / Moon transport, and the fleets and facilities open up real private/commercial development of space at a tiny fraction of current costs.
As for research – given the above peels a big chunk off the budget:
I’ld throw $500M at the polywell and focus fusion reactor development companies. They aren’t sure yet if the reactors can produce much more power then they consume, but since your paying for full up prototypes to test this and there adaptability for propulsion systems. If they only make 3/4ths as much power as they consumed – NASA gets a plasma or other propulsion system that gives 4 times more thrust then the power you supply it.
REstart with the DOD the BlackSwift tech demonstrator. It was to demonstrate a craft with combined cycle turboramjets, advanced avionics, and advanced TPS that could take off from a runway independently, accelerate to Mach 6+, cruse, and return to land on the runway. It was to be under a $1B program, so perhaps split it with DARPA?
Such techs very close to a runway HROL SSTO. So NASA should look into it.
A tech demonstrator of a Rocket/ramjet combined cycle craft with orbital capacities (if possible). NASA estimates such engines could double the ave ISP from ground to orbit. Lower ISP then craft based on the BlackSwift systems, but lighter. Possibly little heaver then the weight of tanks they replace.
The above would be significantly cheaper, greatly expand commercial (even public) access to space, and have a wow factor to avoid the public seeing it just as pork.
NASA would be decimated of course – but the bulk of their staffs are commercial personnel – and their companies could do so much more they’d be hiring not laying off tens of thousands.
Then assign NASA to study adapting and utilizing the above for advanced (beyond CRATS) launchers, advanced aerospace tech development, and deep space projects.
I expect with to orbit cost down 2(?) orders of mag. compaetd to shuttle, they cuold sp[ec out a very good Mars ship. If the fussion sysetms look promising (the program groups figure they would take a couple years to get to commercial dev – so NASA for propusion shouldn’t take much longer) you could far farther then Mars in months not years. (Bussard did some good papers on this.)
That would be research worth billions to NASA, as opposed to just “researching” P&W buildnig a US competitor to the RD-180’s.
Kelly Starks wrote @ August 20th, 2010 at 11:06 am
Great list, and other than when things should be done, I don’t really have much to debate about. There are other things you did not mention that I would probably put on my list too (and that NASA is already doing), but that wasn’t the subject.
In addition to the large Moon program, I see that you also would focus significant amounts on propulsion and power type stuff, and that would also help future exploration and transportation. Good hard R&D, all in all very much along the lines of doing something, versus studying.
Thanks for taking the time to provide such a detailed answer.
> Coastal Ron wrote @ August 20th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
> Great list, and other than when things should be done, I don’t really
> have much to debate about. There are other things you did not mention
> that I would probably put on my list too (and that NASA is already doing),
> but that wasn’t the subject.
Thanks. But I’m curious what you’ld add – or thought was at the wrong time?
> In addition to the large Moon program, I see that you also would
> focus significant amounts on propulsion and power type stuff,
> and that would also help future exploration and transportation. ==
Yes high leverage activities. And with a big program driving the transportation system to economical scales of operation (given the high fixed costs of flight systems, bigger scale ops doesn’t up the total costs much – but makes it look much better on a cost per total pound rate.
Also acting as a anchor tenant eats the capital costs, to stat up the fleet.
>== Good hard R&D, all in all very much along the lines of
> doing something, versus studying.
>
>Thanks for taking the time to provide such a detailed answer.
Thanks- glad you liked it.