NASA was very lucky to not lose the crew in Apollo 13.

With all this development, is commercial crew also engineering space suits for their customers?

Space suits are not required to deliver people to and from the ISS.

“The idea that somehow being an astronaut eliminates risk will only set yourself up for disappointment. Astronauts will die in the future. You might as well accept that as a given.”

Yes but the goal is to minimize that risk with ‘fail-safe’ engineering. Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, after the fire, were pretty good at that. Shuttle is/was deficient in that area– an area NewSpace needs to work on.

Don’t forget that commercial crew won’t open the door for the public to reach space — only something like Virgin Galactic will. Commercial crew, if it succeeds, still services the government.

Thats fundamentally not true. CST-100 is linked with Space Adventures, to sell seats to the private market – Virgin Galactic is linking with SNC’s Dreamchaser.

Now, admittedly its a limited private market, because of price – but it is opening the door to the public at large

We are smart little monkeys but we still haven’t managed to eliminate the risk of walking down a stairs or getting out of bathtub. People die in all activities. The idea that somehow being an astronaut eliminates risk will only set yourself up for disappointment. Astronauts will die in the future. You might as well accept that as a given.

I do not believe commercial will pursue a policy of killing off their customers by taking longshot risks, it’s bad for business. But accidents will happen in space, like it does on land sea and air. We do our best and move forward.

What is this know how that the government has? Commercial companies build all the spacecraft. NASA has designed how many rockets/spacecraft for human spaceflight, that have made it to orbit, in the last 10 years? 20 years? 30 years?

“Don’t forget that commercial crew won’t open the door for the public to reach space — only something like Virgin Galactic will. Commercial crew, if it succeeds, still services the government.”

Now you’re a marketing expert for the commercial companies? My opinion has been that space tourism will be an outgrowth of commercial crew, not a driver, but with seven seats, I think there is a lot of potential for people to fly on crew rotation flights, and that opens up the market for lots of possibilities.

But what I think you don’t recognize is the market potential that gets opened up by having commercial crew, and not having access to space controlled by NASA.

Bigelow Aerospace has signed MOU’s from seven sovereign nations, and if you think space is a national prestige issue for the U.S., then you can imagine those in other countries that realize they can lease their own space station for far less than the cost of one Shuttle flight.

That won’t happen with the NASA SLS/MPCV, and that’s part of the reason why I support commercial crew – I want lots of activity in space, not just the little bit that Congress allows NASA to do.

“And how do we really know that commercial crew won’t be canceled like so many of NASA’s previous launch vehicle/crewed spacecraft development efforts?”

By changing space from a “program” to a place of commerce.

High-minded? No. It’s the same thing we’ve done with every frontier, and space will just be the next.

It is true that commercial crew needs the ISS support contract to get going. SpaceX and Boeing could fund their own solutions, but without the guaranteed revenue of an ISS contract, it would take a far larger/longer commitment. But luckily the ISS will need crew services, so this is not an issue.

Once two or more providers get established, then we’ll see if Bigelow can start up his habitat-for-hire service. If that happens, then commercial crew should be able to survive without the ISS after 2020, but I think the ISS will continue through next decade.

But what if we depended on government-funded NASA? Who says it might not get shut down at some point too, and where would you be?

“One of my concerns is that some of the newspace newbies don’t have the knowhow or real capability that the government does and that the astronauts will pay with their lives aboard commercial crew spacecraft developed by newcomers.”

Don’t forget those that have given their lives flying with NASA. I’d feel far safer flying on Dragon to/from orbit than Shuttle, since Dragon has an LAS and a protected heat shield. Falcon 9 also has a much less dangerous failure mode than the SRB powered Shuttle. Which would you feel safer on, and why?

“I’ve already accepted that commercial crew development will be around for a short while–until a company is successful or the program is canceled or lives are lost.”

I’ll save you the suspense – lives will be lost, no matter who builds the vehicles. That’s life, and if you’re too timid to climb aboard, then don’t worry, there is a long line of people to replace you. If you didn’t realize this after Challenger and Columbia, then you’re not very observant. And the commercial companies realize the risks too, so don’t think that you’re being omniscient or something.

And maybe you haven’t noticed, but SpaceX has the best spiral development plan for crew development. They are flying the same capsules and same rockets for the CRS program that they will use for crew, so they will have more experience with their systems before the first person flies than NASA, Boeing or anyone. Not bad for a newbie…

“In their case, their interest is bringing pork to their districts to tell voters they protected jobs — again, it’s not about any particular enthusiasm for space exploration”

Well, all I can say is that’s politics and that’s not going to change. So HSF has to work within that reality. Congressmen and women speak for their constituencies–that’s the point of representation.

Of course I don’t want a program that’s only about jobs that will be canceled in the next couple of years only to be replaced by the next jobs program. And how do we really know that commercial crew won’t be canceled like so many of NASA’s previous launch vehicle/crewed spacecraft development efforts?

One of my concerns is that some of the newspace newbies don’t have the knowhow or real capability that the government does and that the astronauts will pay with their lives aboard commercial crew spacecraft developed by newcomers.

For beyond LEO exploration, governments need to lead the way as they have the resources and infrastructure. I’ve already accepted that commercial crew development will be around for a short while–until a company is successful or the program is canceled or lives are lost. In the mean time, we can’t let NASA flounder around going nowhere. So whatever political support NASA can get for beyond LEO exploration, the better. NASA can be structured in a way that allows and prepares for really awesome and inspiring human spaceflight missions. And it’s just a reality that government has to play a role in that, just as they did in discovering the Americas. Commercial will follow once the gov’t has cleared the way — unless commercial crew really does plan to take us beyond LEO–but I really hope they’re not just looking simply for contracts to taxi gov’t astronauts and the super rich to the ISS, and then that’s it.

And we do need destinations and timetables–just as is done in the robotic space mission world. Technology is developed and matured FOR missions that go TO destinations within defined timeframes. The technology must be applied in a real scenario if it ever is to see the light of day. I see no reason why human spaceflight should be any different. We need real HSF missions away from LEO to inspire, innovate and make history, as it’s important in my opinion for the US to remain a leader in HSF.

“We’ve already spend 30 years in LEO since Apollo ended–it’s time we stop being timid politically and reach back out beyond LEO.”

We have no shortage of political bravado – don’t you listen to the politicians?

What we lack is a real reason and the money to do it. I’m not talking about a nice-to-have reason, like going back to the Moon and doing all the neat things you outlined. I’d like to do that someday too, but if Constellation taught us anything, is that Moon programs are very expensive. NASA survives on %0.05% of the total budget, whereas Apollo had 3-4%. Until we address the cost issue, we’ll never make it back.

The ISS at least is an analogy that is easy to understand for the public (an outpost & international laboratory in space), and far easier to support than a similar one 1,000 times further away (i.e. the Moon). Considering that we have lots to learn about living and working in space, why not learn that as close to home as possible? And the same infrastructure we’re creating to support the ISS can be used for beyond LEO support too. Win win.

“But funding companies that have little experience building and designing capsules and launch vehicles to me is suicide for human spaceflight.”

So only companies that have built spacecraft can build spacecraft? And companies that have never done something can never acquire the skills to do something? Kind of like the hiring dilemma – to get a job you need skills, but you need skills to get a job.

Comments like this tell me that you’re very much an old-school type person. That’s OK, but most of the innovation doesn’t come from old-school companies.

Until SpaceX launched Falcon 9, no one thought a brand new commercial company could build and launch a mid-heavy-class rocket successfully. Until SpaceX launched and recovered their Dragon capsule, no commercial company had ever done that. Boeing and Lockheed Martin could have built and launched their own capsules, so why didn’t they?

Regarding the “little experience” comment, that’s the beauty about companies vs people – you hire what you need.

Considering that no one in life is perfect, including NASA and Boeing, I think most people expect that failures will occur in the future, and the only way to mitigate that is to create vehicles WITH abort system (unlike Shuttle), and to create more than one system (to avoid Shuttle-type shutdowns).

Your solution (NASA products built by old-guard companies) is risk adverse, whereas I think we should invite innovation and spread the risk more.

The first launch of the Falcon Heavy is supposed to be 2012, I highly doubt the Orion will be ready then.