NASA, in particular its human spaceflight program, “has become the focus of a brutal, potentially crippling and politically topsy-turvy battle for control that is likely to come to a head next week,” the Washington Post reports in Sunday’s edition. The article provides a review of the current situation the agency finds itself in on Capitol Hill, including “a series of unlikely alliances and negotiating positions” such as opposition by some conservatives to the commercial crew program in the administration’s budget proposal. Or, as SpaceX founder Elon Musk put it in the article, “You know there is something strange going on when Republicans, who ostensibly should be pro-privatization, are arguing as though they are from the Soviet Politburo. There’s something wrong with that picture.” (Regardless of the accuracy of such an assessment, it’s unlikely to win Musk and SpaceX new friends in the GOP.)
While most of the information in the article should be familiar to most readers, there are a couple of lesser-known items of interest in the article. In particular, it reports that the Senate bill’s partial funding for commercial crew development came “only after Boeing gave congressional staffers a detailed presentation about its own space plans”, thus defusing some of the arguments that such a program would rely on untried companies, according to unnamed participants in those discussions.
Meanwhile, in Florida, Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) said Friday she hopes that the House passes a bill like the Senate version of the NASA authorization bill. “We are in negotiations between the Senate and the House, very aggressively seeking resolution to overcome the differences,” she told Florida Today, referring to the “preconferencing” discussions about the legislation. “[O]ur efforts will be — as they have been in my attempts to amend the House bill — that we can move forward with an acceptable piece of legislation that wouldn’t require renegotiating.” Kosmas added that she hopes to have a “move-forward plan” for the bill by the middle of this coming week “and that we will be able to cast a vote on it.”
United Launch Alliance is one company hoping that something like the Senate bill makes it through Congress, but isn’t certain a bill will pass at all, the Decatur (Ala.) Daily reports Sunday. “So we don’t know if there’s going to be an authorization bill or, in the end, what it will look like, how prescriptive it will be,” ULA vice president of business development George Sowers told the paper. “For all we know there may never be an authorization bill, at least not this year.”
Makes me wonder, procedurally, if another member of the House could introduce NASA spending legislation entirely independent of HR 5781?
Or even the classic “pork appropriation”, hook a NASA funding bill onto another piece of appropriations legislation?
Then again, maybe bring HR 5781 to the House Floor for debate and let it be argued out live on C-SPAN?
It is a Mad Mad mad mad world…really the GOP has gone nuts
Robert G. Oler
A wise comment for the head of a company that gets well over 80% of its revenues from government rather than private customers, and the vast majority of that from NASA.
You tell ‘em Elon! When you’re not pretending to be a libertarian you might actually try some free market economics by, you know, actually making some sales to private customers? Just a thought.
BTW SpaceX is actually better than most NewSpace companies in this regard insofar as they have a product, the Falcon 9, that can actually be used for real space commerce, i.e. launching useful satellites. But instead Musk focuses on getting NASA money to support or launch useless government-funded astronauts and does so in the name of libertarian-sounding “commerce” and “markets”.
The good news in this is that Musk by accurately calling out the GOP’s s*c**l*sm when it comes to the space program may actually force his own company to move away from its own s*c**l*sm when the elephants cut him off. Without the NASA mainline Musk will have to trash the economic fantasies and focus on private customers who actually do useful things like sending communications around the globe. Who knows we may even get a competitive launcher out of this to challenge Arianespace and ILS. Our economy could certainly use more exports and fewer government-funded economic fantasies supported by people who style themselves as libertarians or conservatives.
You tell ‘em Elon! When you’re not pretending to be a libertarian you might actually try some free market economics by, you know, actually making some sales to private customers? Just a thought.
So how is your rocket coming along, cowboy. Sell any cattle lately?
or Progressives!
Robert G. Oler wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Robert, you might very well be proven right about the Delta IVH based HLV
Our economy could certainly use more exports and fewer government-funded economic fantasies supported by people who style themselves as libertarians or conservatives.
In case you were wondering, obviously in the non-space/non-defense areas it’s the liberals who have most of the economic fantasies they want funded by government since private sector customers aren’t biting. But in the space program the disease has struck primarily struck conservatives and libertarians.
I don’t understand the obsession with a Delta HLV, why not go for Atlas Phase 2 if you want an EELV-based HLV? Then again, I don’t understand the obsession with HLV in general, except when it comes from those who want it for pork reasons, but those are not the ones who would support EELV.
“You tell ‘em Elon! When you’re not pretending to be a libertarian you might actually try some free market economics by, you know, actually making some sales to private customers?”
SpaceX won the Iridium replenishment, the largest commercial launch contract in history, earlier this year. That comes on top of multiple launch contracts for other private sector customers ranging from Orbcomm to Bigelow.
It’s a gross mischaracterization to claim or imply that SpaceX hasn’t made “some sales to private customers”. The SpaceX manifest is actually dominated by commercial payloads.
FWIW…
Elon Musk’s legendary business skills seem to have deserted him once he stuck his hand out for government subsidies. It is not a good idea to insult the people from whom one is begging for money.
I also noticed in the WaPo article who is behind some of the activity on the Hill. None other than the Great Satan himself, Mike Griffin.
Way to go, Obama. What a lovely mess he has made.
Then again, I don’t understand the obsession with HLV in general, except when it comes from those who want it for pork reasons, but those are not the ones who would support EELV.
MM you hit the nail on the head. The only practical economic function of HLV is pork. A specialized HLV would provide thousands of jobs, at the expense of your children and mine, for NASA and NASA contractor “engineers” and “managers” who can’t get jobs in the private sector making actually useful things that people actually want to buy. NASA contractor shills who can’t get real jobs promote HLV and trash EELV in their incessantly squabbling quest for this pork. Space fan dupes of these shills then join in promoting HLV because they buy the economic fantasies and remain inspired by thoughts of Cold War cathedrals like landing preposterously expensive rest homes for astronauts on the moon.
As we continue to argue, Spacex is getting ready for an October 23rd launch. The first fully functional Dragon cargo capsule is ready to go and is already integrated with the Falcon 9 launcher. KEEP ARGUING PLEASE!
When you’re not pretending to be a libertarian you might actually try some free market economics by, you know, actually making some sales to private customers?
Why do you insist on flaunting your ignorance of SpaceX’s customer base and backlog?
I just love this! Spacex aquires the biggest launch contract in history and you guys are focusing on a narrow application such as human spaceflight. Spacex even recieved action on using Falcon1 for the European market 2 weeks ago but, who cares let’s focus on manned spaceflight. Spacex has said they only need 4 launches a year to be prioitable. They know what they are doing. You won’t stop commercial especially by arguing. The cat is out of the bag, headed out the door and is currently down the street. Even Boeing is start production of their CST-100 capsule.
Major Tom, the Iridium contract is quite vague at this point and doesn’t come close to matching the revenue Musk hopes to get from Commercial Crew. But I agree it’s a great step forward that could allow Musk to ween himself from the NASA mainline without lethal withdrawal symptoms. Like I said, Musk did have the good judgment to design Falcon 9 to launch real commercial payloads rather than making the whole thing hopelessly customized to suit only NASA-funded economic fantasies, as most other NewSpace projects are doing.
The ability to yank out the NASA feeding tube by winning real commerce like Iridium does not pertain to crewed Dragon which, given the GOP will likely take over in November, is soon going to mercifully belong on the vast mountain of scrap that is NASA history. Real commerce is even more distant for uebercrank Bob Bigelow who has thrown his tinfoil hat completely into orbital HSF thus depends on NASA as his only potential source of major revenue, if he chooses to partake of more of that mainline rather than fading away into the night with his alien friends.
“Elon Musk’s legendary business skills seem to have deserted him once he stuck his hand out for government subsidies.”
Payments to develop a capability and execute a service that the government has a legitimate need for are not “subsidies”. It’s this idiotic line of argument that the Europeans use to claim that all R&D and service contracts that the DOD and NASA have with aerospace contractors are subsidies.
marketwatch.com/story/wto-critical-of-nasa-payments-to-boeing-report-2010-09-16
Real commerce is even more distant for uebercrank Bob Bigelow who has thrown his tinfoil hat completely into orbital HSF thus depends on NASA as his only potential source of major revenue, if he chooses to partake of more of that mainline rather than fading away into the night with his alien friends.
Bigelow is an eccentric, but he knows more about being commercial than most people here. So far he’s been spending mostly his own money on a private dream. I have tons of respect for that.
“Major Tom, the Iridium contract is quite vague at this point…”
How do you know that the “Iridium contract is quite vague”? Are you privvy to Iridium’s negotiations with SpaceX?
We shouldn’t make claims about things we know nothing about.
“and doesn’t come close to matching the revenue Musk hopes to get from Commercial Crew.”
The value of the Iridium contract is more than three times what SpaceX is receiving from its COTS agreement. There is no final commercial crew budget or procurement on the street yet, so we (and Musk) have no idea what SpaceX could get from that program. And even if we did, Musk has stated pubicly that SpaceX may lose out to ULA and that he expects them to be picked first for commercial crew launch.
“Like I said, Musk did have the good judgment to design Falcon 9 to launch real commercial payloads rather than making the whole thing hopelessly customized to suit only NASA-funded economic fantasies, as most other NewSpace projects are doing.”
Which ones? Specifically.
“The ability to yank out the NASA feeding tube by winning real commerce like Iridium does not pertain to crewed Dragon…”
SpaceX has non-NASA-funded DragonLab flights in their manifest.
“Real commerce is even more distant for uebercrank Bob Bigelow who has thrown his tinfoil hat completely into orbital HSF thus depends on NASA as his only potential source of major revenue”
Bigelow has stated that they’re aiming at private research and sovereign spaceflight clients. We may not believe those markets, but to my knowledge, Bigelow has never mentioned NASA as a source of revenue, major or otherwise.
It’s fine if you are skeptical of newer entrants in the aerospace sector, but don’t waste the forum’s time with mischaracterizations based on false statements.
FWIW…
MartMartijn Meijering,
There is a very simple reason for the focus on Delta IV HLV – We already have at least the Delta IV Heavy, which can do 22,560 kg to LEO. The question is how much more do you need than that. There is a window where improving the current Delta IV heavy is cheaper than going to an Atlas V Phase 1 or Phase 2. It would involve utilizing the GEMs on a Delta IV Heavy, doing some cross-feed lines for the engines, and other things. None of this is necessarily that expensive (when you compare upgrading to Atlas V Phase 2). But that can only really get you to about 50,000 kg, if memory serves me correct.
Thats why the focus on the Delta IV Heavy. Because we know 70,000 kg will be enough, but we only currently have 22,560 kg, and so don’t know how much will be needed. If its 50,000 or less, upgrading Delta IV Heavys makes much more cost sense. If you need more than 50,000, expect Atlas V Phase 2. Its very unlikely we’ll ever see any discussion about an Delta IV vehicle that can loft 60,000 kg
“You know there is something strange going on when Republicans, who ostensibly should be pro-privatization, are arguing as though they are from the Soviet Politburo. There’s something wrong with that picture.”- Elon Musk <– In other words, the adults in the room aren't buying into your 'we're gonna save human spaceflight' hype from a carnival barker who has not flown anybody in space, eh, Elon. An astonishingly immature, if not outright stupid comment by Emperor Musk, revealing yet another example of poor judgment fueled by childish frustrations.
Should have spent SpaceX cash on actually launching orbiting and returning a crew or two safely to Earth rather than whining about not getting results from greasing the palms of politicians. Sucker. Actions still speak louder than words, Emperor. Had you actually flown somebody this year rather than issuing endless press releases promising 'things to come,' support would have swelled, loan guarantees and subsidies materialized and opposition muted. But you didn't–most likely because you can't do it now. And Congress knows it. It's that simple. This isn't a movie you're hyping. Stop talking. Start flying. Get somebody up around and down safely. Oh, and, Elon, before chiding the GOP with comparisons to the 'Soviet Politburo' keep in mind that 'politburo' you mock started the Space Age and got people flying into space– and even through a second revolution, the Russians have kept it up for half a century. You haven't flown anybody, kiddo.
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/elon-musk.asp?cycle=08
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/elon-musk.asp?cycle=10
Mr. Mark wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 2:44 pm <– The 'Soviet politburo' Musk mocks started launching cargo flight over three decades ago. So even a success is meaningless. He has to start flying crewed vehicles. Getting someone up around and down safely would null out most opposition and quiet skeptics.
a service that the government has a legitimate need for
What legitimate need in terms of either rational economics or national security do we have for a completely government funded $100+ billion white elephant in a useless orbit?
“Subsidy” is certainly a quite accurate word to described the funding for ISS and its associated services. “Highly distorting subsidy” indeed amply applies, as nobody but utter cranks in the private sector would ever fund anything even vaguely resembling ISS. That some NASA contractor shills have managed to convince some space fan dupes otherwise does not alter economic reality.
There are subsidies, and there are distorting subsidies, and then there are extremely distorting subsidies. COTS/CRS I’m afraid lies quite deeply in that last category.
Musk did have the good judgment to design Falcon 9 to launch real commercial payloads rather than making the whole thing hopelessly customized to suit only NASA-funded economic fantasies, as most other NewSpace projects are doing.
Surely, if “most” of them are doing this, you could provide some examples? Or do you just make it up as you go?
If there’s to be a larger EELV, I’d like it to be EELV Phase 1. That’s actually a fairly sensible HLV, but not at all urgent. If it is true that developing Delta Phase 1 is cheaper, then that’s fine. I thought Oler was arguing for Phase 3 or something.
Because we know 70,000 kg will be enough, but we only currently have 22,560 kg, and so don’t know how much will be needed.
BTW, we do know how much will be needed, namely nothing at all. Current EELVs are enough. And we also know how much extra performance Delta will have with RS-68A which is just about done.
What legitimate need in terms of either rational economics or national security do we have for a completely government funded $100+ billion white elephant in a useless orbit?
There’s no legitimate need for ISS and no legitimate need for manned spaceflight. But it’s not in a useless orbit for exploration.
Major Tom, I’m waiting with baited breath for somebody to point out some “false statement” I have made. Meanwhile it’s pathetic to react to people who point out truths uncomfortable to you by calling them liars.
you could provide some examples?
Rand you might try actually reading what I wrote.
Setting my irony meter to logarithmic…
@Mark R. Whittington wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
“Elon Musk’s legendary business skills seem to have deserted him once he stuck his hand out for government subsidies. It is not a good idea to insult the people from whom one is begging for money. I also noticed in the WaPo article who is behind some of the activity on the Hill. None other than the Great Satan himself, Mike Griffin.” <– A Musk plus is having Griffin running around on the Hill, trying to save 'his' rocket– or more to the point, his 'reputation.' Chiding Garver as not being 'qualified' to pass judgment on his rocket some years ago says it all. He remains a forgetable administrator and a living example of the Peter Principle, where weak managment rises to fills a leadership vaccum. The space agency that hasn't had strong direction from the WH in decades and Ares is a lousy rocket. Best thing for the future of American spaceflight, regardless of your position, is for Griffin to just fade away.
That was in reply to Deftly BTW.
Well, if he actually had a point besides regurgitating the partly line it would be great, but his idea of improving the space program is crashing the ISS into the sea. That just doesn’t fly with me. Rockets fly. He doesn’t have one, but he has many. Flight by crashing. I guess you just can’t see the contradiction there. Improve and reform government by eliminating it. Sure.
you guys are focusing on a narrow application such as human spaceflight.
Mr. Mark, I couldn’t agree with you more. Unfortunately, these fora rarely discuss anything else except these Cold War economic fantasies.
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=space&id=news/asd/2010/09/16/09.xml&headline=Astronauts%20Prefer%20To%20Drive%20Their%20Own%20Ferries
This is an excellent article by Mark Carreau…what is tragic is that the genius at JSC and the astronaut office actually think that the stuff that they peddle should be listened to even when there is no sound analysis behind it…Lets look at a few quotes from Peggy Whitson, the Chief Astronaut.
‎”“No matter what, we will be accepting greater risk to fly these vehicles,â€
Whitson is talking about launch and space vehicles like Dragon and Falcon9. Her statement is goofy. First she represents the Astronaut office which stood silentl…y by in both the run up to the Columbia and Challenger accident which killed 14 astronauts because the agency flew vehicles with known malfunctions in a condition where the malfunctions could cause loss of the vehicle. The Astronaut office (and Whitson) said nothing after the foam struck Columbia, they sat silently with no major protest as the flight directors office shrugged off concern after concern about the foam hitting the vehicle…
Second there is no data to support that launch vehicles which have a LAS would be less safe (or more risky) then a vehicle which does not (the shuttle orbiter). “Risk” (as anyone who has had a modicum of safety training knows) is a function of flight time vrs accidents or near accidents…based on that the shuttle orbiter is one of the most risky vehicles to ever exist in human spaceflight.
One more quote (from the article) “NASA’s astronaut corps prefers a rental-car model rather than a taxi model, says Chief Astronaut Peggy Whitson. ”
Whitson has flown into space twice. Both times she was clearly a passenger as much as if she was in the back seat of a T-38 or the passenger seats of a SWA 737. Particularly when she flew on the Soyuz.
Not a single one of the orbiters NASA has lost has been in a mode where the crew could have done a single thing about it. In fact in both instances the crew was completely unaware that the O rings sealed worse as the weather got cold and they were launching in the coldest weather so far (Challenger) or even that the foam was of some concern (Columbia). In fact the decision on Columbia was to tell the crew (and they were told) that the foam hit was not of any consequence. There is no doubt as the end of Columbia’s mission came the crew knew something was wrong…the last minute or two must have been very clear to them that there were lots of “off nominal” activities going on. But they were simply passengers. The FBW system held the orbiter on track until the wing came off.
The irony of course in this entire conference is that it is being chaired by Eileen Collins. IN at least one of her missions as commander…the agency tried to “pound flat” as they say indications of a hydrogen leak. Failing to do so, they launched anyway (under some self imposed pressure with the First lady watching)…and the hydrogen leak was quite clear on the bell of the SSME as soon as it cleared the tower. The orbiter barely made it into orbit.
There are two groups used as examples in the US governments ISO 9000 safety school. The “most safe” organizations are Alcoa and the USNavy’s submarine force. The two safety “jokes” are NASA Human spaceflight and the Russian submarine force. For Whitson to imply that without NASA HSF help commercial launch providers will be unsafe…is a very bad example of the pot addressing the color of the kettle.
If Whitson is bored with the decreasing flight rate, she should concern herself with the software for Node 3.
Robert G. Oler
Googaw, what if you think robots are boring? Don’t we get to choose our own fantasies? Yes, yes and pay for them too. And what the heck do they have to do with the Cold War?
Mark R. Whittington wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Elon Musk’s legendary business skills seem to have deserted him once he stuck his hand out for government subsidies. It is not a good idea to insult the people from whom one is begging for money…
people whose “values” extend as far as their personal well being need insulting…values are things that one should hold no matter the personal cost.
When the GOP is “small government” right up until it affects their pork, then one knows that they really are just “bomb throwing” for the masses.
Robert G. Oler
“SpaceX has non-NASA-funded DragonLab flights in their manifest.” <- SpaceX has press releases. As of September 19, 2010, SpaceX has not launched any crewed Dragon/DragonLab spacecraft into space and returned both vehicle and crew safely to Earth.
Don’t we get to choose our own fantasies?
I’m all in favor of you pursuing whatever fantasy you want. As long as it’s coming out of your own pocket instead of my children’s future W-2 statements.
“I’m all in favor of you pursuing whatever fantasy you want. As long as it’s coming out of your own pocket instead of my children’s future W-2 statements.”
I can think of so many things wrong with this argument.
Sure.
And what the heck do [economic fantasies of HSF] have to do with the Cold War?
As I’m sure you’re at least vaguely aware, the Cold War gave birth to and provided vast amounts of funding for NASA and HSF. Projects like Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, etc. to prove that our rockets were bigger than the enemies’ rockets, while at the same time showing that we were more heroic and peaceful. Ergo, Astronauts and Big Rockets and Big Bases in Space are the future. Ergo, the preposterously distorted economic visions that gave rise to the Shuttle and ISS and still inspire NASA contractor dreams of government-funded HLVs and lunar bases and inspire cranks like Bigelow to think they can do the same kinds of fantasies privately but on the cheap. Those are the economic fantasies we grew up with, and like fish who were raised in water it’s often hard to imagine anything else. But the Cold War fish tank lies in a galaxy far, far away from economic reality.
“you could provide some examples?”
Rand you might try actually reading what I wrote.
I did read what you wrote. I can only interpret your response to be “no, I can’t provide any examples.”
Bigelow doesn’t want to do the same fantasies as NASA, no Big Rockets for example. And can there be any doubt that there will be commercial manned spaceflight eventually, most probably within a hundred years, quite possibly sooner? RLVs are believed to be possible with existing technology, they are just very expensive to develop. It seems to me that only the precise timing is in doubt. And I think there’s nothing wrong about being excited by that and doing your best to make it happen sooner.
Cutting NASA’s budget might actually help that, by flooding the market with unemployed aerospace engineers. Not all of them will be useful, but it will sure help depress aerospace wages and thus facilitate R&D.
Rand you continue to interpret things in your own special dreamland, otherwise you’d know that I gave Dragon and Bigelow as examples.
MM, the relationship between the government space station fantasy and the Bigelow fantasy is for me quite obvious, as real space commerce, i.e. the kind with actual private customers voluntarily forking over their own money, has long consisted of architectures radically different from space stations. But there’s no point belaboring it. We agree on the basic point that the NASA budget needs to be substantially cut and I suspect we agree that at the top of the list of cuts should be HLV.
Spacex’s Falcon 9 rocket has way more potential than just launching astronauts or paying customers. Falcon 9 has the potential to redefine the medium class launcher market by providing cheaper launch capabilities. That combined with first stage re use (we’ll see how that goes) makes the Falcon 9 a must look for companies with payloads in the medium class range. This alone could provide Spacex with enough profitability. They really do not need to launch astronauts. Cargo for awhile is going to be there main gig. This they seem to be developing in good fashion especially, if the first COTS – 1 test is successful.
We agree on the basic point that the NASA budget needs to be substantially cut and I suspect we agree that at the top of the list of cuts should be HLV.
We do, but I seriously believe commercial spaceflight is a realistic possibility, just one whose time has not come – yet.
DCSCA wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
As of September 19, 2010, SpaceX has not launched any crewed Dragon/DragonLab spacecraft into space and returned both vehicle and crew safely to Earth.
Neither have they killed any astronauts.
So… googaw’s space plan is – “cut everything”?
To make it clear, the last line in my previous post is mine, not DCSCA’s
A pretty good plan if you ask me.
Re.: EELV-heritage HLVs
There are two, the Atlas-V Phase 2 and the Super-Delta. Of the two, IMHO at least, Atlas-V Phase 2 in its orthodox form is closer as its core uses the existing 5.4m tooling for the Delta-IV core. This is not to understate the amount of work needed to design the RP1/LOX tanks and fuel system, which would have only minimal similarity to the Delta-IV plumbing, nor the thrust structure for the two RD-180 engines. However, that is still closer than building the entire 7m-diameter Delta-IV-heritage hydrolox core.
IIRC, the ACES Centaur-heritage upper stage is common between the two vehicles, so there is no real difference between the two in that area. More importantly, it can fly on both the existing EELVs, which means that NASA could have the advantage of a common payload interface across its ELV fleet.
What is the very lowest possible working level for BEO human exploration? For me, I suspect that you could get away with just Atlas-V-5H2 as a crew launcher, and the Delta-IVH+2 (with ACES upper stage) as a cargo launcher. As you could have two Delta-IV pads at CCAFS if LC-37A were completed, three-launch missions (propulsion module, mission vehicle and then crew vehicle) is feasable. What then is the advantage of HLV? An HLV-Medium-class launcher such as Atlas-V-P2 or the SLS would be able to launch a lunar spacecraft with a ‘dry’ EDS in one go. A HLV-Heavy-class launcher, such as Atlas-V-P3A or the heavier version of SLS, could launch an NEO encounter spacecraft in as little as two launches depending on the specific mission capabilities required, both of these being supported by commercial-launched propellent tankers.
A pretty good plan if you ask me.
I didn’t. If anything the space program deserves more funding, not cuts.
Rand you continue to interpret things in your own special dreamland, otherwise you’d know that I gave Dragon and Bigelow as examples.
Sigh…
OK, let’s try again. You wrote:
Musk did have the good judgment to design Falcon 9 to launch real commercial payloads rather than making the whole thing hopelessly customized to suit only NASA-funded economic fantasies, as most other NewSpace projects are doing.
In what way are Dragon and Bigelow “making the whole thing hopelessly customized to suit only NASA-funded economic fantasies”?
And again, please provide some examples to support your contention that “most other NewSpace projects” are doing this as well.
Ben – you are skipping a bunch of intermediates, that are worth noting. Specifically, the question is whether you need to jump from the 22 kg to the 70 kg, offered by the various growth options of either the Super Delat IV or Atlas V Phase 2. There is also the Delta IV Heavy Improved, and Atlas V Phase 1. Those get you to 50,000 kg. Super Delta IV & Atlas V Phase 2 get you to 70,000 kg
could launch an NEO encounter spacecraft in as little as two launches
Minimising the number of launch is irrelevant. What matters is reducing launch prices substantially. For that you need high flight rates, not low ones.
@ Ferris Valyn,
I’m aware of the Phase 1s.
One of the problems with the EELVs as human launch vehicles is the question as to whether their versions with SRMs would be considered crew-safe. I try be conservative and assume that they will not be accepted for one reason or another, so you have only the single, tri- and (in the case of Phase 2/3A) the quin-core all-liquid versions. That sometimes means you have to skip to the next larger all-liquid version for crew launch. Technically, I susupect that Orion could be launched on an Atlas-V-544, however, safety rules would meant that the 5H2 will be required (even if it were not quicker to deploy than an ACES-enhanced single-stick).
Another issue is in-space rendezvous. I favour minimising that as each rendezvous is a potential failure. With propellent you have some flexibility but you don’t have that with mission vehicle components. So an HLV’s lifting capability becomes more an issue of volume than mass. If you minimise the number of component launches, you reduce the probability of losing the mission before it starts, a critical issue espeically with NEOs where every launch window may be a one-off. I thus normally assume that a cargo launch will include at least a dry EDS rather than launch a seperate propulsion module, thus adding a potential LOM to the mission plan. That usually increases the lMLEO mass to over 30,000kg, even for lighter mission modules.
@ Martjin,
Yes, well you and I have agreed to disagree about whether the increased risk from a huge number of component launches is justified.
People, there may be alot of suprizes in store before this is oveer…
Ben Russell-Gough
Atlas V Phase 1 doesn’t use SRMs – it uses a wide-body Centuar, and the current Common Core Booster.
mr. mark wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
“Spacex’s Falcon 9 rocket has way more potential than just launching astronauts or paying customers.” <- Another 'press release' the promise of 'things to come.' The 'giant leap' in fulfilling the potential is self-evident: launch a few crewed commercial spacecraft- Dragons or whatever- into orbit and return them safely to Earth. Achieve this milestone and everything else will fall into place.
The best thing we can do for the next few decades of spaceflight is ensure we have a lot of options. Cheaper, lighter LVs with a high flight rate will significantly reduce costs, but it’s good to have the option of heavy lift for when you need it. The more options available to us the better – public and commercial, manned and unmanned, light and heavy lift.
Yes, well you and I have agreed to disagree about whether the increased risk from a huge number of component launches is justified.
I don’t recall such an agreement. In fact, I remember pointing out there is no increased risk. It’s the 1-(1-p)^n fallacy, n=1 for Apollo and n=2 for EOR. SDLV/HLV vs EELV doesn’t make any difference when it comes to risk.
it’s good to have the option of heavy lift for when you need it.
The option of HLV, yes. But building one now is much more than just providing an option. EELVs would preserve the option indefinitely. And we can be pretty sure we don’t need HLV, though perhaps we may want it eventually. On the other hand we can be sure that we would need cheap lift first.
Again Rand fails to read what I wrote and asks me to repeat it so that he can fail to read it again. This, folks, is why I have to post so much to the point where I have people calling me a spammer. I just extensively explained above how Bigelow is hopelessly following a NASA-inspired Cold war fantasy of an architecture that is radically different from the kinds of space architectures and services that private customers have actually been willing to cover the costs of. So unless he signs up his alien friends he can only hope to get revenue from large space agencies flying astronauts. Similar for Dragon, which is tied for 100% of its revenue to a preposterous all-government white elephant, with the exception of the oh-so-secret DragonLab which allows folks short of common sense to conclude that it is privately funded and thereby to hold on to their illusions that Dragon has something to do with commerce in this galaxy. The contrast between NASA-inspired economic fantasies like Dragon and Bigelow and practical projects like Iridium that satisfy or at least quite plausibly hope to satisfy the well-known needs of thousands or millions of paying customers could not be more stark.
That said, Iridium is hardly the most likely among the recent and continuing comsat investment spree to succeed, but at least they’re in the right ballpark, whereas Bigelow and Dragon aren’t even in the right galaxy.
My apologies to those of you with reading comprehension for the repetition.
Googaw, are you saying commercial manned spaceflight is impossible in principle?
Falcon 9 has the potential to redefine the medium class launcher market by providing cheaper launch capabilities.
Mr. Mark, I heartily agree. I look forward to SpaceX and the revived SeaLaunch making Arianespace and ILS sweat and lower their prices. The new launcher “glut” is going to mean lower prices and that means comsat designers will very soon be able to launch heavier and thus more powerful and otherwise more functional spacecraft. And with over $8 billion in recent comsat investments (the new improved Iridium is only a tiny part of that) there is plenty of work for the designers to do. Mobile direct broadcast TV — hundreds of channels anywhere on the planet to your iPad or laptop — I suspect is going to be one of the killer apps for more powerful comsats. The more Americans replace our Cold War economic fantasies with these export industries the more competitive and healthy and well-employed our economy will be.
As for COTS/CRS, it certainly helped them to get their Falcon R&D subsidized and they should faithfully keep their contractual commitments, but it’s a distracting dead-end. SpaceX should isolate it in a separate division so that the culture of NASA bureaucracy doesn’t start infecting their entrepreneurial real commercial business. And they should stop wasting their energies pursuing the even more distracting and pathological “Commercial” NASA astronaut transport program.
Bottom line… Spacex does not need to fly astronauts to be successful. They were just signed by NASA along with Orbital Sciences, ULA and Lockheed Martin to fly science payloads. They signed the Orbcomm deal for 18 launches, They just signed the European contract for Falcon 1e launches and they have signed the largest deal in history for $492 million with Iridium. Why do you think at this point they need to stress any emphasis on commercial crew? Spacex reps have said for some time that while commercial crew is desirable it is not a requirement for Spacex to be a success. Spacex has in it’s Dragon manifest cargo launches for the ISS. Some include “live” cargo meaning animals. They will be doing just about everything in the next few years except manned space. It’s not a high priority for their near future goals.
I just extensively explained above how Bigelow is hopelessly following a NASA-inspired Cold war fantasy of an architecture that is radically different from the kinds of space architectures and services that private customers have actually been willing to cover the costs of. So unless he signs up his alien friends he can only hope to get revenue from large space agencies flying astronauts.
You may have made such a claim, but it doesn’t constitute an “explanation.” and the fact that you think that non-NASA markets for DragonLab are “preposterous” doesn’t make them so.
And you remain unable to provide any examples to substantiate your silly claim that “most of NewSpace” is doing the same thing.
Googaw, are you saying commercial manned spaceflight is impossible in principle?
No, and my answer to your earlier question about whether it will be economical in 100 years is a resounding yes with very high probability. Heck, possibly even in 50. But certainly not now or in the next two decades.
BTW, contrary to all the doom-and-gloomers who treat HSF as magic ritual that we will lose forever if we stop it today, it will be very easy to pick HSF back up when the time is right, and we will have much cheaper and otherwise much more sophisticated space technology. And a big enough space industry that there might even be some use to HSF beyond tourism. But it will still look radically different from the Cold War fantasies of SF or knockoffs of it like Bigelow. For one thing, there will probably be copious robot mines by then the products of which for propellant, life support, shielding, etc. will be one of the things that makes HSF and much more economical that is very uneconomical now. But thinking about 50-100 years from now is mere daydreaming, quite entertaining for us SF fans, but not any sort of rational basis for current action.
Martijn Meijering wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Googaw, are you saying commercial manned spaceflight is impossible in principle? <- Of course it's possible. The problem is getting investors to absorb initial losses over many, many, many quarters while attempting to establish market share and, of course, the market itself has to be accepted as profitable beyond a limited level of demand. Here's a small example. Back in the early 1980's, Japan's Matsushita Corporation decided it wanted to break into the U.S. battery market. At that time, its consumer and aftermarket share of battery sales led the world– except in the U.S. markets– ( among the challenges, unlike U.S. manufactured batteries, Matsushita batteries are date stamped for when they were made, not when they expire.) What Matsushita proposed to do was test market in three key cities across the U.S. market using various existing avenues of distribution with at or below cost batteries to gain market share then, over time, once market share was established, slowly raise prices, become profitable and expand distribution across the country. This was not a case of 'product dumping' but a planned marketing strategy over half a decade or more but key to it was the mind set of Japanese business culture and Matsushita managment. They were willing to absorb many quarters of loss as the cost to build this market share once they were convinced the market was viable and profitable. Had it failed in those three cities, the company would have cut its losses and ceased U.S. distribution. But it worked. Panasonic Batteries remain competitively priced w/U.S. competitors and are today distributed across the country. Obviously, space services aren't batteries, but a multi-divisional company like, for instance, Boeing, is on a corporate scale with Matsushita, not SpaceX. But similar elemental problems — not the least of which is the largess of the initial costs necessary for figuratively and literally getting off the ground– face commerical space operations which by the nature of the market and state of the technologies at this point in time, work against long-term marketing strategies and keep investors hungry for quick ROI wary- and at bay. All the more reason for some commerical space company to get credibility by getting a crew and spacecraft up, around and down safely.
mr. mark wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
“Bottom line… Spacex does not need to fly astronauts to be successful.”
Bottom line- Yes, it does. You might want to let Musk know you feel otherwise as it’s an excuse for falling short. Especially if SpaceX is to be at all relevant in general and particularly as Musk keeps pitching himself as the ‘savior of human spaceflight,’ boasting of retiring on Mars. At this point, anything less that a successful manned flight is a failure to live up to his own hype. And he knows it.
I look forward to SpaceX and the revived SeaLaunch making Arianespace and ILS sweat and lower their prices. The new launcher “glut†is going to mean lower prices and that means comsat designers will very soon be able to launch heavier and thus more powerful and otherwise more functional spacecraft.
Googaw is correct that Sea Launch and SpaceX may create a glut that lowers launch prices, but it does not follow that satellite operators will respond with larger satellites. Industry will typically only procure satellites big enough to be launched on at least two different vehicles: that works out to about 6.5 tonnes for GEO satellites given the recent Proton upgrades, as the Ariane 5 ECA can already launch up to 10. (Zenit-3SL can do no more than about 6 tonnes, and the current Falcon 9 even less.) You can take on some of those mobile applications with spacecraft in the 6-tonne class already, but lowering launch prices won’t do much to stimulate demand since launch is a small fraction of overall system development costs.
I suggest that Googaw and others check out a recent study by the Tauri Group that shows that despite the complaints of satellite operators, launch prices have gone down, and significantly, in the last decade. It’s done little to stimulate demand.
[Sorry for going off-topic, but that seems to be the nature of comment threads here.]
mr. mark wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
“They signed the Orbcomm deal for 18 launches…”
Just wanted to correct this – it’s 18 satellites with 3ea being launched on each Falcon 1e launch, or 6 launches total for the $46.6M contract (avg $7.8M/flight).
“Spacex does not need to fly astronauts to be successful.”
This is true for a number of reasons, and I don’t think everyone understands the economics that SpaceX brings to bear.
The Falcon 9 provides a good basis of work for SpaceX, and with it’s current $59M LEO launch price (and now listed on NASA’s NLS II contract), they have a lot of work for both government and commercial work (15 commercial F9 on the manifest).
Add to the above the 15 COTS/CRS F9 launches, and their factory is humming along pretty good, which allows them to keep prices low, and more orders coming in. Just from a work standpoint, they are in good shape through 2015.
Now lets talk about commercial crew. SpaceX has stated that Dragon was designed for crew and is reusable, and they retain ownership of all 15 Dragons used for the COTS/CRS program. What that means is that SpaceX can combine the lowest launcher prices with the 15 capsules that have already been tested and paid for, and offer crew to LEO for a small incremental effort (Dragon refurb + new service modules).
Musk has said that they hope to offer LEO services at $20M/seat, which if you figure two crew & 5 passengers, that leaves $41M to cover the crew part of the service. Refurbished Dragons from the COTS/CRS program allow them to offer crew services without taking a large commitment of company resources, even for a small ISS crew contract.
It all boils down to the decision SpaceX made to build their Dragon capsule. Without it they would not have won the COTS/CRS contract, which would have meant substantially lower upfront revenue, and nothing to distinguish them from most other launch companies. That turned out to be a good decision.
>>(15 commercial F9 on the manifest)
Not that i disagree with any of it but .. how about getting some of them launches on. They have launched what, one paying customer payload so far, and all the hype is ongoing around their government work.
Would be really good if they could point to a long series of commercial successes already under the belt, not just in the books for 2015 ..
kert wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Ignoring of course, that the second F9 launch is scheduled for 10/23 and that SpaceX’s manifest is full between now and 2015.
Wait for it, it’s not a long wait. Besides, what other LV is about to make history?
“So unless he signs up his alien friends he can only hope to get revenue from large space agencies flying astronauts.”
Bigelow stated in an interview he would lease a BA 330 for 88 million a year and half of one for 54 mil a year. He said it would cost 3 mil a month for an astronaut to stay there.
If musk follows through at the 20 million rate a VERY small country could have a year round space program sending two astronauts per year for 40 mil for the ride, 30 mil for the fee to bigelow for supplies and 54 mil for a half a BA 330 or 120 mil a year total. Versus 2 plus billion nasa spends per year on the ISS.
That number of 120 mil a year is VERY doable for many nations and if two nations like india and brazil did a joint venture they could have it for 60 mil each per year and each have an astronaut in space for 6months per year.
kert wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
“Not that i disagree with any of it but .. how about getting some of them launches on.”
As impatient as I am to see more stuff get launched into space, you have to keep in mind that space hardware is not like consumer goods – if anything it’s more like aircraft manufacturing. For example, look how long it took for the A380 to start service, or the 1st 787 to finally get delivered (not yet – still in test).
If things go as planned, by this time next year Dragon will be certified by NASA for ISS operations, and they can start their CRS deliveries.
We don’t talk about Orbital Sciences much, but they have been making steady progress too, but I think they are about 1 year behind what SpaceX is doing. That’s not bad, but where SpaceX already had a launcher and delivery vehicle in the pipeline when they won the COTS/CRS contract, OSC did not. I wish them continued good luck, because competition is good for every market, and the lack of competition is what slows down innovation and raises prices – and we already have too much of that.
Freddo wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
“Googaw is correct that Sea Launch and SpaceX may create a glut that lowers launch prices, but it does not follow that satellite operators will respond with larger satellites. Industry will typically only procure satellites big enough to be launched on at least two different vehicles: that works out to about 6.5 tonnes for GEO satellites given the recent Proton upgrades, as the Ariane 5 ECA can already launch up to 10.”
A couple of points:
The maximum size of GEO satellites has been pushing upwards over the past ten years. No one built 6.5 MT satellites ten years ago and no one could launch them. This points to a continuing co-evolution between commercial satellites and launch vehicles towards larger satellites.
Even without continued evolution in the maximum size of satellites, it is possible that a glut of capacity in the 4 to 5 MT class may raise the average satellite mass by making it possible for operators at the low end to upgrade, for example from a 2 MT StarBus to 4 MT FS1300
“lowering launch prices won’t do much to stimulate demand since launch is a small fraction of overall system development costs.”
That depends. It is true launch costs are a small fraction of overall system development at the high end of the market ,as is the case for those mobile applications that need 6.5 MT satellites. However, most GEO satellites are relatively simple C / Ku band used for fixed satellite and broadcasting services. The launch costs for these satellites are more comparable to the satellite cost so launch costs do represent a large fraction of the overall system cost. Lowering launch costs will stimulate the GEO satellite market but not evenly across the market.
Finally, it will take some time for the effects of lower launch costs to be visible. The simplest GEO satellites take at least three years or so to go from concept, through contract and manufacturing to launch. Most take longer. Complex systems have taken five or six years. Taking full advantage of lower costs and pursuing new markets will take even longer. Even a dramatic reduction in launch costs today would not start affecting the number of and size of satellites launched for three or four years and probably wouldn’t be fully factored into the market for ten years.
kert wrote @ September 19th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
“>>(15 commercial F9 on the manifest)
Not that i disagree with any of it but .. how about getting some of them launches on.”
Neither Orbcomm nor Iridium have their satellites ready to launch yet. Got to have a payload first…
A ton of fallacies in Ferro’s post. Rhyolite debunked some of them. But the biggest whopper is the “launch costs are too low a fraction of the comsat cost” argument. It can be believed only by somebody unfamiliar with the economics of transportation. The ratio of payload value to transport costs is actually much higher for most other forms of transportation (ocean shipping, air cargo, trucking, railroads, etc.) than it is for even the high-end comsats. That doesn’t prevent people from shipping more things to more places over longer distances when costs go down. Similarly, in the comsat business there are clear advantages to having more satellites and heavier satellites in just about every kind of communications constellation, once the constellation designer reasonably comes to expect lower launch costs. This means that launch orders will increase over the long term as launch costs fall. To cite bogus “studies” done by the launch industry about the lack of instantaneous elasticity (which is due to the lack of standardization and competition in the launch industry, it’s hardly the fault of the satellite builders) in no way rebuts the obvious elasticity of the launch business as with other transportation businesses over the several year timeframes within which constellation designers can respond.
The benefits of lower launch costs do take that long as Rhyolite described to reach the final consumer but comsat designers have foresight and can take advantage of expected lower costs almost immediately in the designs they are working on, and the resulting launch orders also usually occur over a shorter timeframe. Companies have even been known to negotiate their launch contracts first and then optimize the design of their constellation to fit those clarified costs.
Ferro
That should be Freddo, sorry.
BTW, I put “glut” in quotes, because that’s how the incumbents Arianespace and ILS describe the situation. That’s not how SeaLaunch or SpaceX or comsat companies describe it. For most people competition that drives down prices is a good thing.
Who the hell is Googaw, and why isn’t he banned from the site? He gleefully distributes falsehoods (which, interesting, result in a pro-Lockmart/ULA slant), spreads wing-nut talking points, and gives libertarianism a bad name. If his mother was going to drop him on his head as a baby, she should have done it from a greater height. I wonder if his real name is Griffin. Just a thought.
Way to go, Musk. You just made sure that more members of the GOP may not vote your way, especially if they get control of one (or both) houses on The Hill come November. Boeing, L-M, ULA, all of ‘em just stepped to the front of the line for commercial crew. All you did was open your mouth, and with one statement comparing the GOP to the old Soviet Politburo, and that guarantees their opposition. It’s easy to make friends in D.C: it’s easier still to make enemies. And Musk did just that.
Griffin: the best thing he can do is go back to academia.
It’s easy to make friends in D.C: it’s easier still to make enemies. And Musk did just that.
Yep. Telling the truth about politics is a dangerous thing to do if you want a NASA contract. Musk pointed out the bizarre exception that establishment Republicans make to favoring market economics when it comes to space, and the professional haters in D.C. won’t forget.
I’ve actually changed my mind a bit from my original reaction to his statement. Obviously it is a bit hypocritical as well as dumb for Musk to bite the hand that is feeding him, but I am impressed with Musk for going beyond the normal greedy falsehood-laden scramble for NASA contracts to tell it like it is here. The euphemisms and sci-fi fraud and economic illiteracy that dominate this business make truth and reality a commodity in rather short supply. So Musk’s honest statement is a nice breeze of fresh air. It does seem to have something to do with the Iridium contract giving him better options and directions for his company to go than to be confined to just begging at NASA.
BTW, I love how RaumAdvokat believes that even I must a shill for some NASA contractor.
Matt Wiser wrote @ September 20th, 2010 at 1:16 am
“You [Musk] just made sure that more members of the GOP may not vote your way, especially if they get control of one (or both) houses on The Hill come November.”
1. None of the legislation before the House or Senate details any money specifically for SpaceX, so their votes would not specifically help/punish SpaceX. Besides, the few that the comments were directed at have never cared about SpaceX, and the vast majority that the comments were not directed at are savvy enough to not care.
2. If Congress wants to base their space policy decisions on the good or bad comments of those in the space industry, then we should all give up any hope of useful NASA legislation. But there is enough rancor in Congress that the pointed comments of a small aerospace contractor will not much difference.
Rand: I think trying to keep posters like googaw and DCSCA honest is generally pointless. When they obfuscate a simple issue with various falsehoods, a look back at the big picture helps to keep perspective.
And what is the issue? The obfuscating comments seem to be focused on SpaceX. So lets look at the SpaceX situation, and see if we see any issue worth being concerned about.
Possible issue: Is it bad the govt. has contracted with SpaceX and provided them with development funds?
So far, they’ve met all of their milestones and are not over budget. No problems there.
They will provide a service to the govt. at a not unreasonable price, that seems ok.
Total outlay so far to SpaceX is around $0.2B, and their new rocket has already flown to orbit on the first try. Bang for buck: excellent.
Is it unprecedented or unfair for the govt. to fund LV development? No, Delta IV and Atlas V development was funded at perhaps 10x the SpaceX level.
Would it have been more cost effective for NASA to develop the capability in-house? No: NASA’s recent efforts to develop a new launch vehicle cost about $10B so far and are years and billions more from operation. Total cost would have been 100 times what it took SpaceX to achieve their first successful flight.
Can the US afford the money spent on SpaceX? $0.1B/yr is 0.003% of annual federal spending.
Are they likely to fail technically, or go bankrupt? No.
So, as far as the debate about the future direction of NASA goes, SpaceX is doing a great job of performing and meeting contractual milestones, and succeeding technically.
To hope for more exciting thing happen in space exploration, cheaper launch services will allow NASA to fly a greater number of future missions. The govt. would do well if it could fund five more SpaceX equivalents and have a highly competitive and low cost stable of launch providers. At $0.2B each, this would not be expensive.
Meanwhile on t’other side of the Pond the British are coming!
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2010/09/18/skylon-project-set-design-review-week/#more-16889
And the ToryGraph? WT… I mean “goodness gracious”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8008178/Skylon-commercial-space-aircraft-available-in-Britain-within-10-years.html
The Revolution has just started…
I return you to your normal bickering.
In this morning’s Florida Today:
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100920/NEWS02/9200306/Lawmakers+scramble+for+NASA+policy++funds
[Florida Senator Bill] Nelson said he met for two hours Wednesday with the House science committee’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Bart Gordon of Tennessee, but they weren’t able to reach a compromise.
A significant dispute focuses on a Senate proposal for a heavy-lift rocket by 2015, which has support from key senators. The House rejected that option because of the projected cost — $11.5 billion over five years.
“He doesn’t think we can do a heavy-lift rocket for $11.5 billion,” Nelson said of Gordon. “If we can’t do a rocket for $11.5 billion, we ought to close up shop.”
Rep Gordon might be right. However, you can bet that he wants to spend that $11B on Ares-I. That won’t be enough either.
It’s beginning to look like commercial space will win by default. The polticians will keep bickering until NASA’s HSF division crashes and burns. Eventually, they’ll start to put it together again and the only launch vehicles available will be commercial ones. The commercial sector might even have crewed spacecraft by that point too!
Not much news here. No budget agreement, and not likely to be one. NASA will be funded by continuing resolution until a GOP congress can fix Obama’s mess and restart Constellation. But it is a good opportunity for the SpaceX fanbois to celebrate F9’s successful fueling test. Did they expect it to blow up?
NASA will be funded by continuing resolution until a GOP congress can fix Obama’s mess and restart Constellation.
Sure it will Windy. And the Pony Express will outrun that nasty ol’ telegraph and train too! LOL!
Ben Russell-Gough wrote:
It’s beginning to look like commercial space will win by default. The polticians will keep bickering until NASA’s HSF division crashes and burns.
Yep, that’s been my conclusion for months now.
Without significant Congressional funding, commercial’s rate of development will slow, but it won’t stop. The only reason the CCDev money was there in the first place was to accelerate development of a domestic alternative for sending U.S. astronauts to the ISS. If Congress wants to dawdle, NASA will keep paying the Russians to fly Soyuz while the private sector will focus on commercial cargo and Bigelow’s inflatable station. As others have outlined upstream, SpaceX is doing quite a nice commercial cargo business and will survive just fine without commercial HSF.
Well googaw, maybe we’ll get those cuts after all… They will happen eventually anyway, but maybe sooner than we thought. Of course, we still have to wait for the fat lady.
AGN wrote @ September 20th, 2010 at 4:39 am
and spelt out the facts on SpaceX.
I think of few facts on Bigelow might be in order just to put googaw right out of his misery.
Bigelow licenced the Transhab technology from NASA as NASA wasn’t using it.
Bigelow improved on it.
Built Galaxy 1.
Launched it.
Built Galaxy 11.
Launched it.
Both are still on orbit.
Both were built paid for and launched by Bigelow.
NASA had nothing to do with it.
Bigelow is happy he’s pretty well proved out the technology. Now all he needs is crew access. But he needs 2 suppliers of crewed access. After all it’s OK for NASA to stand down for 12 months or so if they blow up a shuttle, but Bigelow can’t have his clients stranded on orbit for that long.
So he needs two suppliers. One is obviously SpaceX as they are planning on doing crewed Dragon anyway. The other company Bigelow has managed to get interested in providing commercial crew is Boeing with their CST-100.
Again NASA doesn’t have anything to do with it.
Though, to be fair Boeing does see Commercial Crew for NASA as a way of mitigating some of the risk in case Bigelow fails.
But that’s Boeing, not Bigelow.
Crew accress is the big hold up for Bigelow.
Even at the most optimistic commercial crew flights won’t be available till about 2015.
If NASA want’s to get crew to their ISS and is prepared to kick in a bit of money then it might happen a bit sooner.
But none of that money goes to Bigelow. His interest is in hiring out his space stations to whoever wants ‘em.
Which makes me wonder what on earth googaw is talking about. Bigelow is not a “government-funded economic fantas(y)” to quote googaw. You may not buy into Bigelow’s business plan, but he clearly has one and he may just know more about what he’s doing than you do.
And anyway it’s his money he’s putting up.
Not NASA’s.
Not yours.
Musk keeps pitching himself as the ‘savior of human spaceflight,’
This is a lie. He has never done that, let alone continually doing it, and you have no evidence that he has.
boasting of retiring on Mars.
Only an abject moron would confuse an aspiration with a “boast.”
I think my favorite bogus argument from the SpaceX haters is the ‘You haven’t flown any people yet’.
First off, I don’t think anyone expects SpaceX to have put people up already. Even by their early estimates of a Dragon flight in ’08 added to the 3 years of stated (repeatedly) development time for manned capability, that puts us as a very earliest date of 2011. I don’t check my calendar frequently, but last I checked we were still in 2010.
But that’s not the point of the argument is it? The point is to say ‘put your money where your mouth is’. So who out there has done that? Orion, while I actually like and support it, is about as far along as Dragon both in testing and development. And crewed Dragon is set to be done at the same time or slightly before Orion anyway. CST-100 has a similar date for its out of the gate first flight, as does DreamChaser.
But what about the launcher? There has yet to be a complete Ares 1 test, and judging by the last schedule I’ve seen, we won’t see one until 2014. In the mean time Falcon 9 has flown once and is slotted to fly again in less that a month. And the ULA rockets? There’s some adjustments to be made for manned flight, but most are relatively minor. Manned capability aside, they already have over a decade of flight behind them. Ares 1? Nothin.
‘Oh, but we can’t trust the company. They haven’t proven they can fly people’ This one has seen several permutations. First they said they’ve never flown a rocket. When Falcon 1 flew, they said SpaceX would never fly a medium class rocket and that Dragon equally was a pipe-dream. No that Falcon 9 has flown and a mock-up of Dragon went with it and we’re slated to see a full version next month, the tune has yet again changed to ‘they haven’t flown people’. But here’s the funny thing. Neither has Lockheed. The closest LockMart ever got was the External Tank for STS. Aside from being one of the biggest sources of risk to the STS system, a big gas tank is not a capsule, and it’s not a manned launch system. It’s no minor feat, with the cryogenics, the weight considerations, and the safety concerns being as close as it is to the shuttle. But that’s not what we’re asking. The only player in this race that has actual experience putting people in orbit is Boeing with the CST-100. If you’re demanding actual human space flight experience within the company, that would be your spacecraft of choice.
In short, the problem is not that critics aren’t right to take a seeing is believing approach to SpaceX, et al. In spaceflight, healthy criticism is necessary to prevent accidents. The problem is that their alternative doesn’t meet their own criteria.
“But it is a good opportunity for the SpaceX fanbois to celebrate F9′s successful fueling test.”
Why not? NASA celebrated it’s latest test of the SRB’s and those things have flown a few hundred times. NASA pats itself on the back every time a shuttle component moves. When the ET leaves port, when it arrives, when the shuttle arrives, when the components are mated, when the shuttle rolls out, when it rolls back due to weather, when it rolls out again, when they delay a launch, when they reschedule a launch, when they name a crew, when they change a crew, when they finally launch, when they inspect it, when they test the systems in flight, etc, etc. It goes on and on until the shuttle lands and often even after that, especially if it has to land at Edwards. I’m glad they do. It’s good to know. But let’s not pretend SpaceX has a monopoly on Narcissistic navel-gazing. I think NASA has cornered that market.
Once again from a business standpoint Spacex does not need to launch astronauts into space to be successful. Elon Musk himself has even said this as well as Ken Bowersox. Saying otherwise is a lie and is pointless. While astronaut services are preferrable for the company, from a strictly business point of view, the basis for Spacex’s existence as a company is to LOWER COSTS TO ORBIT AND BEYOND LEO, not to launch astronauts. If launching adtronauts was all Spacex cared about they would not have secured the record $492 million dollar Iridium deal as well as the Orbcomm and NASA science payload deals. Spacex has said repeatedly that they only need four launches per year to be successful and remain in profit.
From a business standpoint Spacex does not need to launch astronauts into space to be successful. Elon Musk himself has even said this as well as Ken Bowersox. Saying otherwise is a lie and is pointless. While astronaut services are preferrable for the company, from a strictly business point of view, the basis for Spacex’s existence as a company is to LOWER COSTS TO ORBIT AND BEYOND LEO, not to launch astronauts. If launching adtronauts was all Spacex cared about they would not have secured the record $492 million dollar Iridium deal as well as the Orbcomm and NASA science payload deals. Spacex has said repeatedly that they only need four launches per year to be successful and remain in profit.
Just a thought here for all you space engineers. If the CST-100 gets completed, and it certainly looks that way. How hard will it be in the future to beef it up for deep space, like out to the Moon, etc.????? Maybe that is Boeings angle! Create a near Orion spin off, able to be upgraded for BEO missions if the demand appears! Now that might be a good move.
The CST-100 isn’t being prepared for this, but if it ever becomes operational I imagine Boeing and SpaceX would have an enormous edge on companies without an operational capsule.
Dennis Berube wrote @ September 20th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
“How hard will it be in the future to beef it up for deep space, like out to the Moon, etc.?”
How hard would it be for you to spend a month in a minivan with 6 other colleagues?
The primary mission of capsules is to get people to & from LEO. Occupying them for anything beyond that is stupid.
If you want to carry a lifeboat capsule with you on deep space missions, that may be a prudent thing, but you’re not going to live in it anymore than the ISS astronauts live in their Soyuz lifeboats.
Orion, IMHO, is the last of the “launch everything on one rocket” spacecraft designs that envision astronauts living in the same vehicle they use to travel to/from a gravity well. Once travel to LEO becomes more dependable (i.e. commercial crew), then spacecraft designers will be free to design space-only vehicles that are more likely to keep their occupants in good shape on long journeys, unlike muscle-atrophy inducing capsules.
Actually, if you pay close attention to Garver’s comments when the ‘lifeboat Orion’ was announced (which even I don’t support), she mentions developing it in some capacity to preserve a BEO capability. SpaceX has also made side comment about Dragon going BEO and even quoted prices once or twice. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if CST-100 has the capacity to be converted to a BEO model. As to whether or not either SpaceX or Boeing have concrete plans beyond off-handed comments at presentations is another matter. I suspect SpaceX is more likely to have something concrete behind the curtain than Boeing as SpaceX tends to err on the side of the next step and Boeing tends to err more toward the fiscally secure.
The primary mission of capsules is to get people to & from LEO. Occupying them for anything beyond that is stupid.
Return from lunar or interplanetary velocities isn’t stupid. Long endurance is also important. You would still want some kind of a hab of course.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if CST-100 has the capacity to be converted to a BEO model.
I asked Keith Reiley and John Elbon that question at a press conference a couple months ago. They said it is a LEO-only vehicle, and they are not scarring it for anything beyond.
Return from lunar or interplanetary velocities isn’t stupid.
Please allow me to put my own American perspective of NASA into a more credible view for you international NASA enthusiasts. If you are one of millions upon millions of Americans who think sending Americans into deep space on ‘eploration’ missions is a wasteful use of American tax revenue and American intellectual resources, then I guess yeah, it does appear to be pretty ‘stupid;.
Thanks, Rand. It’s essentially what I expected re: CST-100.
Spacex’s Dragon is equiped with an existing heat shield that can hold up to Lunar and Martian return velocities. That is from a Spacex quote. Of course, Dragon would have to be fitted for beyond LEO flight and this is being planned by Spacex as a long term possibility. Once again though, Spacex’s near term goals are reducing launch costs, delivering cargo to the ISS and launching satelittes for current customers. At this time Spacex has made no official announcement as to it’s intentions of starting a manned space program. It is only a stated desire by Spacex’s founder/ CEO Elon Musk. It is not company policy. There is a difference especially in the business world. Funding would have to be secured from a variety of sources before any decision could be made as to Spacex’s manned spaceflight future.
Martijn Meijering wrote @ September 20th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
“Return from lunar or interplanetary velocities isn’t stupid. Long endurance is also important. You would still want some kind of a hab of course.”
And that’s my point, is that capsules are the taxi’s for leaving & returning to Earth, but you’re not going to live in them. Any functions above and beyond the basic needs of transportation adds weight and complexity.
Orion can carry six people at most, and requires a Delta IV Heavy class launcher. CST-100 and Dragon both carry seven people, and can be launched from smaller Atlas V or Falcon 9 launchers. All three get you to LEO, and Dragon can taxi you back from as far away as the Moon.
We already know that astronauts in zero-g environments needs lots of physical activity to slow down the inevitable loss of muscle mass, so the quicker you move your crew to adequate sized space habitats, the longer they can survive. The sooner we accept this reality, the sooner we can move on to building true space-only exploration vehicles that carry capsules as lifeboats & CRV’s (like the ISS), but otherwise don’t need them for their exploration mission.
Plan for the future. Don’t stay stuck in the past.
Sure, I was just pointing out that to and from LEO is not enough, a CST-100 would need modifications for use as an escape pod/return vehicle.
Responses to a couple of comments (again, mostly offtopic, sorry):
The maximum size of GEO satellites has been pushing upwards over the past ten years. No one built 6.5 MT satellites ten years ago and no one could launch them. This points to a continuing co-evolution between commercial satellites and launch vehicles towards larger satellites.
Agreed the max GEO sat mass has been increasing, but then, it has been since Syncom. Not exactly a new development. I’m not sure it will increase much over the next decade, though. Khrunichev has probably squeezed as much performance as it can out of the Proton, and who knows when Angara will show up? Energia might be able to get a little more out of Zenit-3SL, but certainly nothing major. And the “Ariane 6″ is well in the future. Average satellite mass may increase over this time, but that trend is going to be independent of launch costs.
Finally, it will take some time for the effects of lower launch costs to be visible.
Yes, there are lags in the supply chain, but remember when GEO commercial launch prices plummeted in the early 2000s there was no corresponding surge in demand. The market just isn’t very elastic.
Similarly, in the comsat business there are clear advantages to having more satellites and heavier satellites in just about every kind of communications constellation, once the constellation designer reasonably comes to expect lower launch costs. This means that launch orders will increase over the long term as launch costs fall.
As I said earlier, launch costs are a small fraction of overall system costs. If you drastically lower launch prices you’re not going to close the business case for that many additional GEO commercial satellites. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is. (I am curious why Googaw is so dismissive of the Tauri study: I’m assuming he/she read it, but that might be asking for too much.)
If you want to keep those lower launch prices sustainable, and avoid another bust, you need to stimulate other markets beyond GEO communications satellites. Maybe it’s commercial cargo/crew. Maybe not. (There. I tried to bring this back on topic.)
Martijn Meijering wrote @ September 20th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
“Sure, I was just pointing out that to and from LEO is not enough, a CST-100 would need modifications for use as an escape pod/return vehicle.”
It will be interesting to see how this evolves, since the same philosophy works for the Moon too, and the closest mid-point between Earth-Moon is L1. I know a lot of people have already proposed using L1 as some sort of transit station, and I think that’s a good idea too.
With that as the case, you need Earth-return vehicles that can drop from L1 and make it to the Earth’s surface without crisping your passengers. Capsules are the early choice, but sooner or later we’ll want to land civilized again like the Shuttle, so something like a bigger Dream Chaser will have to be pursued.
This type of future infrastructure imagining is what I expect out of NASA, and I hope someone gives NASA a charter one day to pull the U.S. and international aerospace groups together and work out a roadmap of our initial occupation of the Earth-Moon system, with connections to destinations beyond.
I’m strongly in favour of using both LEO and L1/L2 as waypoints, with reusable spacecraft returning propulsively to L1/L2. Much easier than returning to LEO.
This type of future infrastructure imagining is what I expect out of NASA, and I hope someone gives NASA a charter one day to pull the U.S. and international aerospace groups together and work out a roadmap of our initial occupation of the Earth-Moon system, with connections to destinations beyond.
All they need to do is to dust off Steidle’s plans…
Freddo:
As I said earlier, launch costs are a small fraction of overall system costs…
Did you learn how to read at the same school as Rand Simberg? I just explained why this argument is complete nonsense, and instead of trying to rebut my argument you just repeated your argument again nearly verbatim as if I’d never said anything at all. You’re not engaging in discussion, you’re just reciting an idiotic religious creed.
Apologies to those who have reading comprehension, but to summarize the argument: the typical ratio of payload value to transport costs is much higher in most other transport industries, such as ocean shipping and trucking, than it is for comsats. That doesn’t keep the demand for the transporation from being elastic — in the short term when transport is standardized, as with container cargo, in the long term in any case. When costs fall volume in most transport businesses rises by an even greater amount, raising overall revenue, because cheaper transport costs allow you to transport more things of the same value, and heavier or bulkier things which can contain more value, and new heavy or bulky things which you couldn’t afford to transport before. There are also obvious benefits having more and heavier comsats, so the same is obviously true for the launch industry — obvious that is if you have some knowledge of communications and transportation economics or at least enough common sense to think about things rather than reciting dogmas.
But by all means, continue to recite your creeds like a computer spitting out a million copies of the same printout without trying to get a clue as to why people who think about it think it’s wrong.
“Spacex does not need to fly astronauts to be successful.†<- Yes, it does. And its own corporate mission statements as well as repeated press releases indicates manned spaceflight is central to Musk's motivcations. To infer it is not is to make excuses for SpaceX falling short of its own hype.
mr. mark wrote @ September 20th, 2010 at 2:34 pm “It is only a stated desire by Spacex’s founder/ CEO Elon Musk. It is not company policy.” <- Inaccurate. Review SpaceX's mission statement and you'll see repeated references to the construction of manned Dragon spacecraft. If it is not part of SpaceX's plan to fly crewed vehicles, per their own CEO, Musk, then why are they wasting valuable resouces constructing manned spacecraft unless they mean to fly people or are just wasting money. Besides, as late as August, 2010, Musk posted a 'save human spaceflight' plea to rally his Musketeers. Yes, manned spaceflight is an integral part of SpaceX operational plans and to try to spin otherwise is making excuses for SpaceX falling short of its own hype. For shame.
googaw wrote @ September 20th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
…and all those words obviously add up to what, exactly?
You must have a point, or you wouldn’t have spent all that time typing out insults, but for the life of me I can’t figure out if you’re saying that WE don’t understand “reality” or that the folks who design, build, and launch satellites don’t understand their own business.
Care to try again?
So now I have to repeat myself a third time? What sentence of plain English and Economics 101 specifically are you having a hard time understanding?
And BTW, where did you get the idea that my ire on this issue is directed at either other members of this forum (assuming that’s who you mean by “WE”?), much less at the satellite industry? Or do you just like to pretend that people whose opinions you apparently don’t like are saying things radically different than what they actually said? My ire is directed quite specifically at Freddo for posting his economically illiterate rubbish twice without having understood what I had written in response. I am confident that the businessfolk at satellite builders and operators understand the economics of transporation well. As for the members of this forum, I certainly expect and hope that Bennett and Freddo are not representative.
googaw wrote @ September 20th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
All you have to do now is to start referring to yourself as “this writer”.
“Review SpaceX’s mission statement and you’ll see repeated references to the construction of manned Dragon spacecraft.”
While I’m personally confidant that SpaceX will launch a manned craft, I’ll point out that mission statements don’t define corporate success. They are goals, to be sure, and missing those goals is failure by some measure. But the ultimate measure of success in business is solvency, regardless of mission statements. And Musk, like any good entrepreneur, knows full well the probability of failure for any new product. After all, he’s on the short list of successes out of thousands of silicon valley entrepreneurs that weren’t so fortunate.
Folks: let’s ratchet down the rhetoric a notch or two. We can disagree without making personal attacks on one another. (And if you can’t disagree without making such attacks, please go elsewhere.)
Thanks,
The Management
DCSCA wrote @ September 20th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
“Spacex does not need to fly astronauts to be successful.†<- Yes, it does. And its own corporate mission statements as well as repeated press releases indicates manned spaceflight is central to Musk's motivcations. To infer it is not is to make excuses for SpaceX falling short of its own hype.'
You know plenty of companies are successful and don't fulfil their mission statements. If fact, I'd go so far as to say that most don't considering the lack of specificity in most mission statements.
That said, I agree that SpaceX is after an HSF market. They wouldn't have designed Dragon the way they did if they weren't. Doesn't mean they'll achieve that but if Dragon Cargo is successful then there's an excellent chance that Dragon Crew will be as well. The only unknown is the timing.
Cheers
Jeff Foust wrote @ September 21st, 2010 at 12:25 am <- Agreed. And it's a little sad, because all of us want a vibrant, active space program and it has many opponents, growing in strength, out of fear– or ignorance-opposed to it on financial, political and of late, even spiritual grounds.
nce Clark wrote @ September 21st, 2010 at 12:10 am <- SpaceX specifically mentions manufacturing manned spacecraft for flight use so to infer non use of these spacecraft is not necessary to define 'success'– when your CEO has been touting it as a primary motivation of his firm, calls into question the rationale for even considering subsidies and loan guarantees for a company that is wasting initial capital investments on constructing manned spacecraft spinners now say are 'not necessary' for its' success.' That's questionable managment to say the least. In addition, Musk's own August 2010 message references lobbying for human spaceflight, not to mention his mission statements pitching the firm as builders of manned space vehicles. That's what this is all about. No, it's a cop-out to try to spin it any other way. Musketeers know it. And so does Musk.
Terence Clark wrote @ September 21st, 2010 at 12:10 am “And Musk, like any good entrepreneur, knows full well the probability of failure for any new product.” Keep in mind, “the reliability of a rocket-propelled system was not much better than 60%,” in 1961, per Chris Kraft, when the United States decided the risk was worth the gain when they launched Alan Shepard. And the Mercury Seven, as test pilots, were aware of the probabilities and risks just as the engineers and managers were who launched them. If the fear of failure outweighs the value of success private enterprise will never fly anyone any time soon. That’s why governments continue to do it– and in the case of Gagarin, the Soviets felt the risk was worth the reward. So did Kraft, NASA… and Shepard. The largess of government-backed programs can absorb a failure, as history has demonstrated, and press on. Private corporations less so. The loss of PanAm 103 began the airlines on a spiral down to oblivion. Until private corporations and the markets they serve are prepared to accept these risks, government will continue to carry the burden of flying people into space.
mr. mark wrote @ September 20th, 2010 at 11:30 am
“Once again from a business standpoint Spacex does not need to launch astronauts into space to be successful.” Yes, they do, and if their management is backing off that goal then it conflicts with theor own corporate mission statements and the vision as well as repeated statements by their own CEO, Elon Musk. Frankly, they’d garner more respect if they just admitted they’re not capable of doing it yet in this time frame than to let minions spin tales that it was never their intention to do it in the first place. Won’t wash, especially with skeptics in Congress and the aerospace industry. Brings to mind the Soviets saying for years publicly they had no reall desire to go to the moon, meanwhile they were tinkering with their N-1 and have recently revealed their lunar landing craft from 1968 to historians.
Freddo wrote @ September 20th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
“Yes, there are lags in the supply chain, but remember when GEO commercial launch prices plummeted in the early 2000s”
The Tauri Group report you reference indicates that there was a 34% drop in price per kg for GEO launches between 1999 and 2008. Most of this came from increasing launch vehicle capability rather than decreasing cost per flight. That is a significant drop but plummeting might be going a little far.
“there was no corresponding surge in demand.”
Actually, there was a significant surge in demand. For the five year period from 1995 to 1999, the average cumulative mass launched to GEO was 64,000 kg per year. For the five year period from 2005 to 2009, the average cumulative mass launched to GEO was 87,000 kg per year – an increase of 36%.
“The market just isn’t very elastic.”
Launch cost per kg to GTO dropped by 34% between 1999 and 2008 and launch consumers bought 36% more kg to GTO over roughly the same period. That looks like an elasticity of approximately 1.
SpaceX has the potential to lower cost per flight in addition to just cost per kg. Economically, one would expect that this will lead to more flights in the future rather than just more kg.
“As I said earlier, launch costs are a small fraction of overall system costs.”
The satellite manufacturing industry has average $11.1B/year in revenue between 2005 and 2009 while the commercial launch industry has averaged $3.5B/year. On average then, the ratio of satellite costs are 3.2:1 times launch costs.
Launch costs are still significant even when they are a third of the satellite cost. However, 3.2:1 ratio is an average. For example, for every 7:1 ratio satellite, where launch costs would be 12.5% of the total cost, there will have to be two 1:1 ratio satellites, where the satellite is 50% of the total cost. Launch costs will be significant for more satellites than not for any distribution that conforms to the observed averages. This is probably the case for the run-of-the-mill C/Ku satellite bought by Intelsat or Telesat, where the satellite and launch basically constitute the entire system (the marginal ground segment cost is small and the user equipment is bought by the customer) so decreased launch costs will affect a lot of satellite business cases.
For reference, I am using numbers from the 2010 COMSTAC Launch Forecast, which contains historical data, and the 2010 Satellite Industry Association State of the Satellite Industry Report.
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/reports_studies/forecasts/
http://www.sia.org/news_events/pressreleases/2010StateofSatelliteIndustryReport(Final).pdf
Jeff Foust wrote @ September 21st, 2010 at 12:25 am
Folks: let’s ratchet down the rhetoric a notch or two. ..
wow and I have only been lurking! learning a new airplane
Robert
Rhyolite wrote @ September 21st, 2010 at 2:04 am
“SpaceX has the potential to lower cost per flight in addition to just cost per kg. Economically, one would expect that this will lead to more flights in the future rather than just more kg.”
Agreed. There’s not one right answer, because the business case for each satellite can vary depending on it’s use.
For satellites or payloads that are built on specific budgets for non-commercial use, the lower launch costs could be applied to increasing the functionality or life of the product. It could go towards decreasing the overall budget costs, but why waste an allocated budget when you don’t have to…
For satellites that produce revenue on a commercial basis (content distribution, telecommunication services, etc.), the launch costs may not make as big a percentage difference over the long term for established services, but could be important for closing the business case for new service startups.
In any case, saving $20-50M per launch is money that can be taken to the bottom line, and once these companies gain confidence in the lower cost services, it won’t take too long for those prices to be the new budget assumptions for any new satellite project. Competition is good.
DCSCA, you might understand hype but, you sure as heck don’t understand business. Elon Musk is not a business manager in the strictest sense. He’s a visionary similar in style to people such as Richard Branson, Burt Rutan,Howard Hughes, Werner Von Braun ect. All these people are dreamers and they dream big but, in no way are all their visions able to be translated into reality. They’ll say many things that sound simply unobtainable yet be the CEO’s of companies that run successful tight operations. Spacex is a small company that has done great things in their first 8 years of business. They are the first private business without government funding to launch a liquid fuel rocket carrying a satelitte into orbit for Maylasia. They have launched a medium class launcher, Falcon 9 and have built a recoverable cargo capsule called Dragon which is about to be launched on it’s maiden flight. All things that should be celebrated especially coming from a small company. They have secured the largest launch contract in aerospace history with the 492 million dollar Iridium deal and just secured a NASA deal to launch satelittes to LEO and BEO. They also have the Orbcomm deal as well, all fantastic deals that will keep their company on track at least until 2015. Of course, Spacex also has the COTS cargo deal to deliver cargo to the ISS. Spacex has enough work to keep them busy and profitable beyond the near future and has been in profit now for many years as has been stated by company officials. In business that is the true nature of success, Can you make a profit and keep or exceed that profit in the future while keeping or decreasing production and employment costs. Spacex has done this by keeping employment in check while increasing their launch manifest. What Elon Musk spins in his dream factory in his head is one thing just as Werner Von Braun originally dreamed of a direct descent to the lunar surface vehicle that never took place. Yet no one is calling NASA a failure because they came up with the Apollo plan instead. Just as pastor Rick Warren’s original goal was to be a missionary in Japan. Instead he went on to be a mega church pastor selling the biggest book in history next to the Bible. His church has 20,000 christian believers on it’s campus every weekend! Was he a failure because his dream of becoming a missionary in Japan was not realized? We all dream and some of us dream out loud. That should not be such a bad thing. So when Elon Musk says he would like to build an electric airplane or build a colony on Mars remember, it’s his job to dream. It’s his companies Job in the real business world to take a few of those dreams and make them real and profitable. Spacex has done that several times over.Spacex will continue to make their business case as their company should and Elon Musk will continue to dream.
As i mentioned above Elon Musk and Howard Hughes are cut from a similar cloth. Here are some of the notable things that Hughes Research Laboratories has done…
The first working model of the laser was created at Hughes Research Laboratories in 1960 by Theodore Maiman (1927–2007).
HRL began research on atomic clocks in 1959. In the late 1970s they produced experimental maser oscillators for NRL, which eventually led to space-based GPS atomic clocks.
HRL began research on ion propulsion in 1961. This research led to the Hughes developed xenon ion propulsion system (XIPSTM). XIPS was used as the primary propulsion system on NASA’s Deep Space 1 (launched in 1998). It is a standard option for primary stationkeeping on the Hughes/Boeing 601HP (first use: PAS-5, 1997) and the 702 (first use: Galaxy-XI, 1999) geostationary satellite families.
HRL claims to have developed the liquid crystal watch in 1975.
It all started from the mind of a dreamer. We need more dreamers and if Spacex’s initial output is any indicaion, there should be many great things coming from this company.
mr. mark wrote @ September 21st, 2010 at 1:56 pm
As i mentioned above Elon Musk and Howard Hughes are cut from a similar cloth. <- That's an insult to Hughes. You'd do well to review Hughes' history- particularly with resprct to his aviation records and proven successes. He actually flew aircraft as well. Musk has indicated a reluctance to ride his own rocket.
mr. mark wrote @ September 21st, 2010 at 12:45 pm
The person you are responding to is either ignorant of their facts, or is making up stuff so they can have an argument.
On the SpaceX website, you can find the following:
Q: What is the SpaceX mission?
A: SpaceX develops rockets and spacecraft for missions to Earth orbit and beyond. We are committed to becoming the world’s premiere space services company by substantially improving both the reliability and cost efficiency of space transportation, ultimately by a factor of ten. SpaceX was founded with the long-term goal of enabling humanity to become a space-faring civilization.
I don’t see dates assigned to any of that, nor do I see where they say that they even have to send astronauts to space. All they say is “enabling humanity to become a space-faring civilization“, and that could an outgrowth of their only specified goal, which is “substantially improving both the reliability and cost efficiency of space transportation, ultimately by a factor of ten.” Boeing using Falcon 9 for their CST-100 would qualify under that description.
So far SpaceX has more than $2.4B in customer backlog, and none of that is for HSF. However, Falcon 9 and Dragon were built to accommodate HSF, so it’s an easy growth opportunity for them – that’s called good product planning, in that you design your product to have a upgrade path that leverages your existing assets. If NASA (or someone) wants to foot the bill for adding HSF to F9/Dragon ($300M), then SpaceX will be happy. But they have a solid business through 2015 as-is without HSF, and once Falcon 9 become operational, I think their order backlog is going to grow substantially – all without HSF.
mr. mark wrote @ September 21st, 2010 at 12:45 pm <- Wrong, and you're in need of a strong education in life experience as well as an education in the basic parameters of capitalism. Good Lord… Elon Musk is no Wernher Von Braun. This writer has met Von Braun. For starters, he was a lot taller than Musk and wasn't afraid to experience multiple failure along with successes in developing modern rocketry. Good grief.
mr. mark wrote @ September 21st, 2010 at 12:45 pm “Musk says he would like to build an electric airplane or build a colony on Mars remember, it’s his job to dream.” No, his ‘job’ as CEO of SpaceX, is to deliver on contracted services and ensure his company turns a profit for his investors. He can ‘dream’ on his own time.
@ Rand Simberg wrote @ September 20th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if CST-100 has the capacity to be converted to a BEO model.
I asked Keith Reiley and John Elbon that question at a press conference a couple months ago. They said it is a LEO-only vehicle, and they are not scarring it for anything beyond.”
Boeing most certainly has all the technical knowledge and resources to turn CST-100 into a BEO vehicle. It is a LEO only vehicle BECAUSE NASA is asking for a LEO only vehicle. Boeing is a corporation answering their shareholders and Boeing’s customers include NASA. Boeing will not create a BEO vehicle just in case there is a chance a minor customer wants to buy tickets to the Moon. NASA wants LEO they will provide LEO. If NASA were to want BEO then of course CST-100 would change into a BEO vehicle. And if their design is modular enough it might even be done without too much of a redesign.
Oh well…
The latest update from Florida Today suggests no budget decision until after the election:
http://space.flatoday.net/2010/09/congress-unlikely-to-tackle-nasa.html
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has been negotiating a new blueprint for NASA with Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., who is chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee. But the House and Senate remain divided on issues such as how much to devote to commercial rockets and when to go ahead with a heavy-lift rocket.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the chamber could still debate a NASA policy bill next week if Gordon and Nelson reach a compromise. But that’s looking increasinly unlikely.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat who heads the Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, said action on the space agency’s spending bill must wait until Congress returns after the election for what is called a lame-duck session.
Heaven forbid they actually make a responsible decision in full presence of the electorate … oink oink oink …
Like I said by the time this gets out of committee for a compromise resolution sometime next year, Spacex will have already docked to the ISS and cargo will have started. Aftee their October 23rd 2010 flight, they will only have have to wait another 8 months if everything falls into place for the first docking attempt. That puts things about June 2011. Look for NASA to combine COTS 2 and 3 as one mission if COTS 1 is successful.
LockMart are still talking about having Orion operational and “flying” by 2013. I’m not sure what they think it will be flying on, although I do remember that they also said it would take 36 months to crew-rate the Atlas-VH. I wonder if they’ve seen Space Adventures’ plans for trans-Lunar pleasure flights and that is what the Plymouth Rock configuration is really all about…
Just shooting in the dark but I do get the impression that the various commercial providers, both extant and potential, are increasingly working on the assumption that NASA is going to drive itself or be driven by politicians onto a sand-bank. ULA and its parents see no profit in helping the agency that, under Griffin, was barely this side of openly hostile to them. Instead, they’re going to stand back and wait to swoop in to “save” US-indigenous HSF.
Ben Russell-Gough wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 11:06 am
“I’m not sure what they think it will be flying on, although I do remember that they also said it would take 36 months to crew-rate the Atlas-VH.”
According to the Atlas V users guide, the -Heavy was developed up to (or just short of) it’s CDR. I haven’t heard anything about Atlas V Heavy, so it would be interesting to know what your source is (if public).
Delta IV Heavy, which is operational, would take 4.5 years to “man-rate” (ULA Augustine testimony slides) and $1.3B.
Definitely a disconnect there, since you would think that an operational vehicle could be “man-rated” quicker than one that isn’t, but maybe there are extenuating circumstances that are not apparent.
Still your point is a valid one – what would Orion fly on? And more importantly, where is the budget item to support the launcher?
Just to point out another option, SpaceX is advertising their Falcon 9 Heavy for $95M/flight, and you would think that most of the “man-rating” for the Falcon 9 launcher (not including Dragon) could be applied to the -Heavy. It could be ready quicker, and it would be far less expensive.
@ Coastal Ron,
IIRC, the 3 years for Atlas-VH comes from the Augustine Commission too. Either ULA’s presentation or their alternate lunar archetecture paper that came out after the Commission reported. It would have to be from ULA because I remember that Atlas wasn’t considered by Aerospace Corp for some reason. Additionally, again IIRC, it was 3 years for Atlas-V and 3.5 years for Delta-IV.
In terms of budget, crew-rating for Atlas-V is happening through CCDev. Remember that the Atlas-VH’s outriggers are basically extra Atlas CCBs. I’m sure that a lot of flight dynamic testing and development would be needed but, because of the Boeing-Bigelow CST-100, Orion on Atlas-V is measurably quicker than Orion on Delta-IV.
However, I suspect that the real plan is to let NASA’s in-house efforts completely crash-and-burn and then present themselves as the only reasonable alternative (using the ‘untried’ argument to marginalise SpaceX). As Atlas-V has already been earmarked for CST-100 and Dreamchaser, it should be a moderately easy sell as the US default CLV. As Delta-IV could be scaled up to around 35,000kg IMLEO even before introducing a new upper stage by adding solids to the heavy configuration, that is also a fairly easy sell as a cargo lifter. You then present the ACES-41 as a ‘simple, cheap evolution to gain BEO capabilities’. A ‘Plymouth Rock’ Orion-like mission module and ACES-heritage vacuum lander might also be on the agenda.
I freely admit to being something of a conspiracy theorist. However, I genuinely suspect that the EELV ends of Boeing and LockMart have been keeping out of the fight, waiting for the various SDLV factions to annihlate each other and then swoop in ‘to save the day’.
Ben Russell-Gough wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 4:55 pm
“I freely admit to being something of a conspiracy theorist.”
And unfortunately there are too many real conspiracies for you to choose from…
The ULA Augustine testimony of Michael Gass can be Googled, and their slide deck shows 4.5 years for Delta IV Heavy, and 4 years for Atlas V (not the -Heavy). I think those are pretty conservative estimates, so I’m sure they could move up given the right “incentive” (sandbagging is a proven contracting technique). But no mention of the Atlas V Heavy, and it still needs to finish development and test, so I think that would not be a choice for Orion near-term. But Orion shouldn’t even need Atlas V Heavy, as Delta IV Heavy has 20% margins and no blackout zones.
Regarding fallback plans in case NASA crash & burns, your’s could be valid, but the problem with the Boeing CST-100 is that they want NASA to fork over R&D money to launch it, and ULA needs $400M to man-rate Atlas V, which will still cost $130M/flight vs $59M for Falcon 9.
SpaceX is putting a lot of pricing pressure on the payload and crew launchers, and if they demonstrate COTS/CRS competently, then it would be hard for NASA to survive a GAO award challenge review if SpaceX is not picked as one of the winners.
If there could only be one winner, the choice would boil down to A.) Working hardware, NASA certification for ISS operations, and lowest prices (SpaceX) versus B.) Hardware in work, historic but not current NASA certification, and far higher prices (Boeing). I don’t want NASA to award one commercial crew contract (which I think would be SpaceX), because I want a competitive crew industry, so let’s hope this doesn’t become an issue.
Regarding the other stuff, I promote ACES whenever I can, and I think NASA should pursue that concept as soon as possible. But the Orion Plymouth Rock idea, to me, is an example of “Apollo on steroids” type thinking – unimaginative to the max. We should be working on true space-only spacecraft to send crew BEO, not spam-in-a-can vehicles that we know will be extremely detrimental to astronauts both physically and mentally. Let’s do it right the first time.