Sadly, we live on the Porkbarrel Planet.

“I do not want to hear we can’t!”

And people wonder if another Constellation-like fiscal disaster can happen again….

I think Carl is emblematic of the “see no financial overruns, hear no financial overruns, say NOTHING about financial overruns culture that has caused NASA to not hit any schedule or financial goals for any major programs.

“I like your Option C but how does this fit in with CCDev Rd2? Is it the outcome like CRS was for COTS?”

Good observation, and one would hope so, but so far Congress hasn’t freed up enough money to see it all the way through.

CCDev round 1 took us maybe 5-10% of the way there, and CCDev round 2 will take us another 5-10%, but the big money issues (LES and lots of flight tests) have not been funded.

I’m all for spreading the wealth for space technology innovations, but at some point Congress needs to provide enough funding so NASA can hold a competition to determine who will succeed Soyuz after their contract is up in 2016.

And as I’ve mentioned before, there should be at least two crew transportation winners. I think Boeing and SpaceX will win the first two spots with their capsules, but once the commercial crew market gets going I expect capsules to start be supplanted by horizontal landers within 10 years or so.

In the startup world the point we’re at is known as “crossing the chasm”, and once we can bridge this point (getting two or more crew providers going), the market should expand beyond the ISS needs of today. We have about two years for Congress to decide to follow their own law (commercial crew is primary support for ISS) before it will impact the ability of commercial providers to take over from Soyuz by the end of 2016. Interesting times.

NUFF SAID!!!

Carl, (Surfduke), Hewlett

“So what you are admitting to is that the current “commercial manned spaceflight” business is critically dependent upon transporting NASA crew to ISS and not space tourism, space manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, etc.”

I think you’re missing the forest for the trees.There are two related efforts here – 1.) NASA has a need for a crew system to support the ISS, and 2.) Some in the aerospace community have a desire to expand into providing crew transportation systems to LEO. Let’s look at these individually:

1.) For the life of the ISS, NASA has relied on the Russian Soyuz for crew transportation and lifeboat services, and without them we would only have been visiting the ISS for two week periods using the Shuttle. IF the U.S. would like to stop sending dollars overseas, then it is in the interests of the U.S. to develop a commercial crew transportation market. Congress has already put this statement into law, so the big question is how does this happen. Until then, we continue to send money (and astronauts) out of the country.

2.) The aerospace community has a desire to create crew transportation systems to LEO, but they don’t have an imperative to do it for their businesses. It’s a market extension, and maybe an exciting desire on the part of some of the aerospace leaders, but theirs is an overall goal, not a specific one. They see the ISS market (lasting through at least 2020) as the first customer, but not the only customer – remember they have marketing skills that NASA lacks, so just like Virgin Galactic has been able to attract customers for sub-orbital joyrides, LEO transportation systems plan to attract customers that want to create their own LEO destinations (like Bigelow), expanding the market beyond the ISS.

So for the ISS, here are the three scenarios:

A. Continue using the Russian Soyuz for ISS crew support (~$50M/seat)

B. Use the planned MPCV to replace Soyuz ($20B R&D + $1B/flight)

C. Hold an open competition, and if the overall costs are less than what using the MPCV would cost, then award contracts to the top two crew transportation provider winners.

I suspect “C” will win out, and once the two winners are operational, they will expand their flights beyond just supporting the ISS, and that will allow businesses and non-NASA agencies (as well as other governments) the opportunity to test out possible business models in LEO. They all won’t work, but that testing is what will support the non-NASA business for the two crew transportation providers, and possible spur more providers to enter the market. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s Capitalism 101.

My $0.02

You’re right, it won’t, a depot that’s sitting pretty doesn’t help very much, just as a technology demonstrator wouldn’t help much. That’s why I don’t care about the depots themselves, but about the spacecraft that would use them and the missions they would perform. And why I would not want to have dedicated depots initially. A refuelable spacecraft could serve as its own “depot”.

Once the driving need to be there is established and flight rates are high enough, cost and schedule efficiencies will dictate whether a depot is needed or not.

Exactly. It will also dictate what propellant would be needed, as well as what kinds of propulsion between the various nodes of the network. All that could be and should be left to and owned by the market.

And why ASAP?

Because the absence of cheap lift is the one and only obstacle that stands between us and both large scale government funded exploration and commercial development of space and because development of cheap lift will require a lot of time and a lot of money. As long as NASA is spending money on manned spaceflight at all, it should be spent in a way that removes the number one obstacle to large scale manned spaceflight. The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll have results. BTW I thought one of the main complaints of advocates of the status quo was that going beyond LEO was urgent. Going in circles in LEO and all that.

What you haven’t demonstrated is that manned spaceflight is crucial.

It isn’t. My argument is only conditional, to the degree that NASA spends money on spaceflight, manned or unmanned, at all.

So what you are admitting to is that the current “commercial manned spaceflight” business is critically dependent upon transporting NASA crew to ISS and not space tourism, space manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, etc.

I’m arguing (not ‘admitting’) that future commercial manned spaceflight in the other areas you mention would be enormously accelerated by fair, competitive and redundant procurement of launch services for both crew and propellant, especially the latter. And such procurement should be the norm anyway. In fact it is, although those who make the law are not above making exceptions for preferred constituencies.

Thus it is dependent upon a Govt. funded activity that has shown little return value to the US taxpayer although it consumes a fairly large number of taxpayer dollars. In other words, Govt. pork. How then are you any different than ATK?

It is the same in the sense that government spending on manned spaceflight probably cannot be justified. It is different in the fact that it would be done by fair, competitive and redundant procurement and in the fact that it has the potential to “seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space”. What justification could there be for awarding a contract to ATK in a way different from free and open competition?

I would agree with this 100%. HLV is a “keep NASA employees employed” program. Unfortunately, this statement applies to 90% of NASA as a whole.

“If NASA wants to do serious human spaceflight missions beyond LEO, anywhere beyond LEO, depots are on the critical path. HLVs are not.”

I would have to parse this a bit more to agree. Lunar missions don’t require depots. On-obit integration of multiple flight elements, yes. Can current launchers support this, yes. Similar arguments could be made for Mars missions. A fairly robust manned Mars transfer vehicle, with a parallel supply ship, could be constructed using existing launchers with on-obit integration of those elements. No refueling required, no depots required. If and when the flight rate becomes high enough that you need to separate the logistics supply from the crewed operations, and you have multiple vehicles operational at any given time, then a depot might make sense.

More important is the opening line to that statement:

“If NASA (and really that should be the U.S.) wants to do serious human spaceflight missions …”.

This sentiment doesn’t exist within the U.S. public arena and current/past administrations have not provided leadership/vision to change that sentiment.

It only appears to be that way to people who are paying no attention.