“1. Again you are focusing on ISS for a crewed flight… What do you know about contract opportunity otherwise?”

We know NASA has a need for crew services after the current Soyuz contract runs out in mid-2016, so that is a known requirement that Boeing and SpaceX can go after.

Bigelow is the only other credible customer for commercial crew as of today, but they have said they won’t launch until there is more than one crew transportation provider. I think other customers will follow once the transportation situation is clear, but I don’t think that will happen until after NASA selects who will be replacing Soyuz.

I would love for the market to move faster, but I just don’t see that happening ahead of the ISS crew needs. I could be wrong, but I just don’t see it.

“We’ll see.”

Agreed.

1. Again you are focusing on ISS for a crewed flight… What do you know about contract opportunity otherwise?

2. I agree Congress is not funding MPCV for the right reasons. However those in Congress who want an MPCV will have a lot fewer reasons to justify it once Dragon flies with a crew. The other Congress parasites will make sure they take their cash away…

3. I am not saying they don’t have a business case. Dragon is not their largest expenditure… Falcon is. And yes they will compete for the NASA contract. Still they may fly…

We’ll see.

“1. You seem to think that their only crew customer is NASA.”

I am trying to be as clear headed and business-like as possible. As of today there isn’t even a contract opportunity for commercial crew to the ISS, much less anyone else, so though I think it will happen, it’s not there as of today.

“2. Launching a crewed Dragon would finally terminate Orion even though I believe it has already happened when Dragon came back intact.”

Congress is funding the MPCV because of reasons not connected to commercial crew to LEO, so I don’t see a crewed Dragon flight as changing anything. The need for the MPCV depends on the needs of exploration programs that aren’t even defined or funded, so if Congress realizes that, it could end the MPCV for non-Dragon related reasons.

“3. Don’t underestimate Elon’s desire to fly a crew vehicle. Just don’t…”

And don’t over-estimate the need to fly crew before NASA (or anyone else) awards them a contract. So far their big expenditures have had a clear business need, so unless there is a clear business need to fly crew on their own, without a paying customer, I don’t think they will. If someone pays them, sure. Otherwise I think they will compete for the NASA commercial crew contract, and likely win a contract, then proceed to fly while getting paid.

My $0.02

A few things:

1. You seem to think that their only crew customer is NASA.

2. Launching a crewed Dragon would finally terminate Orion even though I believe it has already happened when Dragon came back intact.

3. Don’t underestimate Elon’s desire to fly a crew vehicle. Just don’t…

We’ll see.

“TLDR: we don’t have to wait for 2017, we could start launching storable propellant or water long before that.”

I agree that we can, and I think it’s only a matter of how it all gets started. Nice detail you laid out.

common sense wrote @ April 2nd, 2011 at 5:32 pm

“Dragon is pressurized”

I have no doubt that Dragon will ultimately succeed in becoming the first commercial CRS supplier to make deliveries to the ISS, and I also think that Cygnus will eventually make it too.

This is more a question of how quickly all this stuff can/will happen, not (as Martin points out) a case of if we have the technology. This is not like MPCV or SLS, where completely new systems need to be developed.

“Bottom line is whether SpaceX would feel ready to fly a crew with no escape system. A politically bold move that may scare the people who don’t know better”

This gets back to a case of whether they want to take the risk and accelerate their crew system before NASA needs it for the ISS, or if they wait and see if NASA will provide some of the funding (like Boeing says it needs for CST-100).

SpaceX will have to perceive a market need for a crew system before mid-2016 in order for them to push ahead, and so far I haven’t heard that from Elon Musk. In fact, he has been saying that they plan to use the CRS missions to gain extensive reliability data for Falcon 9/Dragon.

Regarding the LAS, I think they will use the pusher system they have been talking about, since that seems to be an elegant solution for their desire to do powered landings. And unless they have some market need to fly without an LAS, I don’t think they will – what would it prove that isn’t already being proven by the CRS cargo flights? They are way ahead of Boeing, and they could add a crew demo mission fairly quickly using one of their many used Dragons, so no one is going to beat them if they don’t want to be beat.

“So what is it going to be? I know what I would do…”

Well of course I’d like to see them do a crew demo mission this year, but I also want them to get their CRS missions going, develop a full-up crew version of Dragon, and get Falcon Heavy going. But SpaceX isn’t that big of an organization, and Elon knows about the dangers of over-extending yourself without enough failure tolerance, so I don’t know if they have the bandwidth to do everything we’d all like them to be doing. And certainly not without a clear market need.

I’m content with them developing commercial crew in time for replacing Soyuz in 2016, and that means they have plenty of time to validate Falcon 9 and Dragon for cargo, which will put them in a solid position for winning one of the slots in a (hopefully) NASA competitive crew competition.

“We’re there for payload launches (i.e. things you stick on top of launchers), but Orbital and SpaceX are not there yet for cargo (i.e. delivered to your door in a pressurized vessel),”

Well. Dragon is pressurized, what it did not do, so far, is dock with ISS.

“and it’s unclear when commercial crew will (hopefully) emerge, or how many players there will be.”

Here again it really depends whether SpaceX since they are the furthest along want to, or not, fly with an escape system. There certainly is no requirement to do so. Further an escape system is not as simple as what many think. The development is expensive and does not ensure crew survival. Even though it seems natural it is not so. It may actually increase the risks of an incident/accident on ascent.

“Close, but I’m thinking 2017 will be the point we can make your statement, and that’s when space exploration will really start ramping up”

So. Bottom line is whether SpaceX would feel ready to fly a crew with no escape system. A politically bold move that may scare the people who don’t know better: Shuttle has been flying without an escape system for the past 30 years and only once (1 time) it may have saved the day, not even sure. It may also upset NASA if they fly without an escape system…

To me the rapid route would consist in another one or two Dragon flights uncrewed. If they work out fine (i.e. no unpredicted malfunction, all flight data match predicted data) then SpaceX may fly as early as next year with no escape system.

The development of a simple escape system (tower) may take 1 to 2 years provided no show stopper but may have black zones where it cannot be used, e.g. transonic escape. Using the Orion escape system if applicable may shorten this time by a year or more. The development of a pusher system may be at least 2 years since there is no other data (wind tunnel, flight data) to build your work with (unlike a tower i.e. Apollo). An escape/vertical landing system would most likely take several years and probably more than 3 to demonstrate it is safe for a crew.

So what is it going to be? I know what I would do…

Heh, what a coincidence! And I didn’t know you were a serial entrepreneur…

We’re there for payload launches (i.e. things you stick on top of launchers), but Orbital and SpaceX are not there yet for cargo (i.e. delivered to your door in a pressurized vessel), and it’s unclear when commercial crew will (hopefully) emerge, or how many players there will be.

True enough, but we are far enough along to know that no new technology development will be necessary and that we can do it in the same way as COTS/CRS.

But what I’m thinking of is starting large-scale competitive propellant launches as soon as possible. For the past thirty years NASA has been spending ~$3.5B/yr on launches. Unfortunately, that money was all spent on a single launch vehicle, the Shuttle. I would like them to continue to spend that much money on launches, but this time competitively.

The special interests in Congress want the money to continue to flow to the existing workforce and contractors and it is starting to look as if there may not be enough money to do that in a way that keeps all of them happy and doesn’t waste money in a blatant enough way to get the rest of Congress to kill it. Maybe a compromise will now be possible.

PWR no longer cares what rocket is built, as long as it uses PWR engines. ATK might settle for being able to revive Athena 2. Boeing and Lockheed Martin would still make money through ULA and the ISS-side of USA.

But $3.5B/yr worth of launch services requires a large tonnage of payloads, even at today’s launch prices. That tonnage cannot consist of spacecraft, since that would be far too expensive. Commodities like propellant for exploration or water for radiation shielding are ideal, since they are both cheap and needed in large quantities for exploration.

If this is to happen quickly enough to satisfy the porkmeisters, then it will have to be done with storable propellant or water. This might lift everybody’s boat and help open up space for mankind in the process.

You would still need a spacecraft or transfer stage to consume the propellant or to contain the water. Fortunately a large pork spacecraft is being built as we speak, namely Orion/MCPV. If we were to take its service module and avionics and give it bigger fuel tanks we could build a hypergolic transfer stage out of it. It could be a 21st century beyond-LEO Agena.

A later incarnation could serve as a propulsion module for a Nautilus spacecraft and remain useful for high Mars orbit insertion, trans-Earth injection and insertion into high Earth orbit, probably L1/L2 even until long after we had cryogenic depots.

Removing NASA from the crew launch and return business would have another desirable side-effect, it would remove a dangerous threat to commercial crew. The crew module part of Orion could still be turned into a commercial crew taxi (with no special privileges over the others), thus potentially building on past investments and satisfying some of our friends in Congress. This would only happen if LM so decided and if it won a contract. There would be nothing wrong with such an Orion Light or Agile Orion and it could be used for commercial purposes too.

The hypergolic Orion-derived transfer stage doesn’t completely solve the spacecraft problem, since you probably want to move an unmanned science payload on it. Where would we get the money for such a spacecraft? I think NASA’s SMD could be the answer.

Until NASA HSF itself has an immediate purpose for the propellant launched using its budget, it could sell the propellant to the highest bidder, perhaps both in LEO and at L1/L2, but probably only the latter. If Discovery and New Frontiers class missions were to be provided with hypergolic transfer stages as government furnished equipment this would facilitate their role as a propellant buyer. This would establish competition both on the launch services side and on the science mission side and maximise the additional science return on top of the strategic value of investing in cheap lift.

This should have a major impact on the cost of science missions. In addition to getting a free transfer stage from L1/L2 and very cheap, highly subsidised propellant at L1/L2, even the launch costs for the spacecraft itself would drop significantly as EELV launch prices would automatically come down because fixed costs would now be divided over more launches.

In addition the projects could focus their time, money and energy on their science missions instead of innovation in propulsion / aerobraking etc by using brute force solutions with cheap subsidised propellant. The innovative role could be left to the market which would want similar (but not identical) innovations for RLVs and would be able to afford them.

In order to generate enough missions soon (hypergolics don’t boil off but politicians might like to see results they can sell to the public), NEOs and main belt asteroids may provide interesting targets. There are many of them, they are of intrinsic scientific interest and in the long run they could be interesting for their resources.

Maybe you could get economies of scale on the spacecraft side too, either by longer production runs or even propulsive return of the spacecraft (say for sample return to L1/L2) or by having a common ground segment.

TLDR: we don’t have to wait for 2017, we could start launching storable propellant or water long before that. We could have done it 30 years ago and we probably would have had commercial RLVs by now if we had and that would have opened up space for mankind. Let’s just go out and do it.

I agree with you overall, and I appreciate the advantages of your “lens”. The technical co-founder of one of my companies was a local Agile leader, and I was just at a conference last night on lean startups. NASA and the big aerospace companies have the advantages of size, but not necessarily innovation, and it’s great to see companies like XCOR and SpaceX shaking the trees.

My only quibble would be with this:
“We’re currently at the point where we can simply procure the necessary services commercially, without needing government R&D.”

We’re there for payload launches (i.e. things you stick on top of launchers), but Orbital and SpaceX are not there yet for cargo (i.e. delivered to your door in a pressurized vessel), and it’s unclear when commercial crew will (hopefully) emerge, or how many players there will be. Close, but I’m thinking 2017 will be the point we can make your statement, and that’s when space exploration will really start ramping up – both through lower costs and shorter leadtimes for NASA, and private efforts like the Google Lunar X Prize.

We agree that non-reusable and one-off type missions are a waste of time and money and that we need to move to reusable spacecraft and launch vehicles as soon as possible. Where we differ is on whether this requires development of new infrastructure up front.

I’m looking at this through the lens of my own field, agile software development, but the ideas are related to lean manufacturing, something I believe you are far more familiar with than I am. Investing in infrastructure represents work in process and that is inefficient. I contend we need to minimise this and I also contend this is what New Space is doing in its own endeavours.

But just to be clear, the infrastructure that I’m talking about is transportation oriented.

OK, so am I. I would consider launch vehicles, transfer stages (chemical, electrical, nuclear thermal etc), depots etc infrastructure, but not spacecraft. Well, I would probably consider a tug infrastructure too. We’re currently at the point where we can simply procure the necessary services commercially, without needing government R&D. Individual systems may need to be developed, but that is reasonably straightforward.

Until we create a fuel depot system we will continue to be limited in how much we can build in space and where we can push it to.

That depends on the precise definition of a depot. A refuelable spacecraft can serve as its own makeshift depot and we can do that today and could have done so at any point in the past 30 years. To me, that seems like the crucial missing system we need to develop and it’s not something I’d count as infrastructure.

I say it’s the crucial missing system because it would allow us to make money that is needed for exploration (specifically for launching propellant) do double duty as a subsidy for development of commercial RLVs. And these in turn are what will open up space for mankind. The sooner we start doing that, the sooner we’ll see results.

And we’ve already wasted so much time. Many space enthusiasts who might have seen the beginnings of this are no longer with us. Every day we lose people who might have shared in this great adventure of our species, and for no good reason.

It’s high time we stopped obsessing over details of the systems we may need in the future or simply would like to see, over what fancy new hardware and technologies we might want on an ideal vehicle and high time to finally just go out and do it and depend on demand-pull and market forces to sort out development of infrastructure and new technologies. Lots of companies in both Old and New Space would be ready to take up the challenge.

Dennis Berube and I agree on hardly anything but I agree completely that what we need is a spacecraft, an exploration spacecraft. I’d like to start with an unmanned one because that could happen more quickly (and Dennis will probably disagree), but at least we can agree that we’d like to see a refuelable spacecraft capable of exploration.

I wouldn’t count that as infrastructure because it is capable of achieving missions, not merely supporting them. We would need no new technology development for such a spacecraft, and given the urgency of establishing a large and fiercely competitive commercial launch market if we want to see anything worthwhile happening in the field of manned spaceflight in our lifetimes, I argue we should keep technology development as far away from this spacecraft as possible.

You could say that what I’m advocating is actually also a form of investing in infrastructure and technologies (RLVs, depots, SEP stages, aerobraking, innovative TPS etc), but the crucial differences in my mind are that the investment is channelled through the market through demand pull, not direct investment, and also that exploration is not delayed by waiting for new infrastructure, since that is something that will happen in parallel without direct involvement by NASA. In fact, exploration would not merely not be delayed, it would be accelerated by judiciously choosing targets of opportunity along the way.

TLDR: we don’t need new infrastructure, we need a refuelable spacecraft and the budget to do exploration missions with it.

“We already have all the infrastructure we need for government funded manned exploration of the Earth-moon system.”

Sure we can do exploration as a bunch of non-reusable and one-off type missions, but that is not sustainable.

But just to be clear, the infrastructure that I’m talking about is transportation oriented.

As of today, if you want to ship cargo up to LEO, you have to do it through one of three national cargo systems (Progress, ATV & HTV). With Orbital and SpaceX coming online soon for the CRS program, you could contract with them to ship your cargo commercially. No national space agencies need to be involved.

For crew we’re even further behind, since we don’t have commercial crew carriers far enough along to depend on them (except Soyuz), but we’re all hoping that NASA gets enough budget to get this going for the ISS, and that will allow other entities to use the same systems.

Probably the last piece is fuel. Until we create a fuel depot system we will continue to be limited in how much we can build in space and where we can push it to.

Put these three pieces in place, with a minimum of two providers for each, and that gives us the ability to travel locally without massive budgets and long lead times. Without it, every time NASA wants to go somewhere they will need to create a “program”, and feel the need to build a new rocket (like the SLS today).

So while a lack of infrastructure doesn’t stop us, it does make it far easier and less expensive if we have it. I guess I’m projecting what I see is necessary for the quickest way for us to expand into space. NASA on it’s own won’t be able to do it.