This is stupid, particularly given SpaceX’s accomplishments to date, on trivial amounts of money relative to what it would have cost NASA. What it reinforces the view of is that Musk is serious about opening up space to humanity, and that the Congress, and Chairman Hall, are not.

“Musk doesn’t have the support on The Hill.”

Boy you sure have an obsession about Elon Musk, don’t you?

Musk doesn’t need support on The Hill, all he needs is fair competition, which is what he’s been calling for. Support for individual companies is called “Earmarks”, which is what the Senate is doing with the SLS. We don’t need more backroom deals, we need fair and open competition to lower costs and increase innovation.

“What Musk needs to do is let his launches do the talking”

As he has been doing. Everyone is so impatient – he’s making far faster progress than everyone else, but you ignore their failings but concentrate on SpaceX. Selective, aren’t we?

But if you think Musk shouldn’t be providing his “vision”, then the same should be said for ATK, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital Sciences, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and every other company that seeks business from the government. You can’t be selective.

“And keep the “retiring on Mars” crap out of it-all that does is reinforce the view that Musk is just a “rocket boy” just having fun.”

Only idiots think that. Intelligent people see that he has turned $200M in investment into a company with $3B in customer backorders. Only serious business people can do that, regardless what childish names you call them.

As it was I believe President Truman who said “the buck stops here” that is the case with the VSE. O’Keefe and Stridel (?) where going to do a pay as you go spiral development which at the time also included a COTS-D element. The VSE was pretty specific that NASA wasn’t going to be building any new launchers and the CEV was going to use EELV’s. It was only after the ESAS that COTS-D was shelved to save money for the rockets to nowhere and gone was the idea of using existing launchers, Dr. Griffin simply ordered a bigger capsule shutting them out. When Griffin came in, for whatever reason President Bush caved or actively supported and signed off on Constellation.

What Musk needs to do is let his launches do the talking, and when he does go to the Hill-as Chairman Hall wants to have such a hearing with Musk as a witness-then he’d be in a much better position to put forth his arguments. And keep the “retiring on Mars” crap out of it-all that does is reinforce the view that Musk is just a “rocket boy” just having fun.

Sometime you are fun to read but other times…

“No, what you “said” was that that Constellation was conceived under a GOP Government. The “GOP Government” did not conceive Constellation, it proposed VSE to Congress as part of the 2005 budget request.”

Hmm funny I thought the NASA Admin was hired by the WH. So Griffin did what he did all on his own I assume. Yeah.

“Subsequent to that budget being passed, NASA began to execute the VSE by implementing Constellation.”

This is not true. I believe Constellation came to be with Griffin. The work under O’Keefe was not named Constellation if memory serves. VSE was first implemented under O’Keefe. Not Griffin.

“That implementation was endorsed by both parties in subsequent budget appropriations. This is a Space Politics forum, you called out the GOP while remaining silent on the Dem support for VSE and Constellation. That implies the GOP is solely responsible for where NASA ultimately took the VSE and the mess that Constellation became. That is naive at best and disingenuous at worse. I called you out on that point.”

As I said sometime you’re fun but here you are not. Read again and again until it makes it through.

“My comprehension is just fine thank you very much. The following definitions of cancelled and retired (with respect to the Shuttle Program) are appropriate (source MW Dictionary):

cancelled: to decide or announce that a planned event or activity will not take place;

retired: to remove from active service or the usual field of activity;”

Wow a great difference indeed. In both cases Shuttle would not fly now would it? In both cases we terminate all ongoing contracts with vendors don’t we? In both cases we lay off people don’t we? Very, very subtle difference indeed.

“There is a difference. Again, you called out the GOP for “cancelling” a program (and thus “sabotaging NASA space flight” ) while remaining silent on the Dem involvement/agreement on the path to retire the shuttles and use that budget to accelerate the implementation of the VSE. Again, that is naive at best and disingenuous at worse.”

Again the decision to terminate Shuttle was made by the Bush WH. It was made after the Columbia accident. If you wish to believe that the Dems were part of it great! What can I say? You are playing with words and not contributing anything.

The Bush WH decided to retire the Shuttle. They implemented Constellation. Yes the Dems agreed. Wow now we can all say it was the Dems.

Happy?

“All it does is reinforce the skeptics on The Hill that he’s just a “rocket boy” who’s playing around. He needs to zip his mouth and let his rocket do the talking for now.”

Oooh … so people like Shelby, Nelson, KBH will give up their pork train if ONLY Musk doesn’t open his mouth?

That’s a hoot!

It doesn’t matter to them what the facts are, if it is cheaper and cuts the jobs in their district and the contributions they recieve from the usual suspects they are against it. It has not and will never matter what Musks says, it is the price and small company size and the smaller contributions that matter.

No, what you “said” was that that Constellation was conceived under a GOP Government. The “GOP Government” did not conceive Constellation, it proposed VSE to Congress as part of the 2005 budget request. Subsequent to that budget being passed, NASA began to execute the VSE by implementing Constellation. That implementation was endorsed by both parties in subsequent budget appropriations. This is a Space Politics forum, you called out the GOP while remaining silent on the Dem support for VSE and Constellation. That implies the GOP is solely responsible for where NASA ultimately took the VSE and the mess that Constellation became. That is naive at best and disingenuous at worse. I called you out on that point.

“A rough day for comprehension today? Retired not cancelled? Hmm So what is the main difference if you don’t mind? ”

My comprehension is just fine thank you very much. The following definitions of cancelled and retired (with respect to the Shuttle Program) are appropriate (source MW Dictionary):

cancelled: to decide or announce that a planned event or activity will not take place;

retired: to remove from active service or the usual field of activity;

There is a difference. Again, you called out the GOP for “cancelling” a program (and thus “sabotaging NASA space flight” ) while remaining silent on the Dem involvement/agreement on the path to retire the shuttles and use that budget to accelerate the implementation of the VSE. Again, that is naive at best and disingenuous at worse.

The cost difference more than likely lies in the fact that the NASA models are historically based. NASA’s never managed to do anything in a commercial-equivalent manner so to compare their estimates with a purely commercial estimate or actual development cost is really chalk and cheese.
I’ve had direct experience in cost estimate modelling both for government and commercial.
Guess what? I used different models for each. Often the major input for the government model when something like this: estimated or expected government budget for the project modified for known competition bidding. Commercial was usually direct cost plus overhead plus margin again modified for known competition bidding practices.
Pretty simplistic but I’m sure you knew anyway.

“He needs to zip his mouth and let his rocket do the talking for now.”

Matt, you’ve been promoting this “sit down and shut up” strategy for Elon Musk for quite a while now. I think you’re afraid that SpaceX is winning over converts.

Oh, and in case you haven’t noticed, he does let his rockets do the talking. But what has been missing from the large NASA contractors is a vision that doesn’t need massive amounts of U.S. Taxpayer dollars. What Musk talks about is how we can do a lot of space exploration for FAR LESS than what anyone has proposed, and that scares the entrenched contractor base and their political supporters. Tough luck.

“When Space X has flown people and cargo to ISS and back, then he’d be in a much better position to spout stuff like that. Not before.”

The same can be said about NASA, Lockheed Martin, ATK and others. When will NASA launch a Shuttle on-time and without tile damage? Or Lockheed Martin step forward and build the MPCV for less than $1B? Or ATK actually find someone that will pay money to use their proposed Liberty launcher? Or NASA build something, anything, on time and under budget?

Skepticism is fine, but blind skepticism is not.

Why I like SpaceX is that they build and launch, and build and launch, and build and launch. Not everything goes right, and I wouldn’t be surprised if something goes BANG in the future, but just like Boeing and others learn from their mistakes, SpaceX has shown the same ability. They have conservative designs that are simple to build and launch, and that is a concept that is foreign to many people. But coming from a manufacturing background I see where they can succeed where others struggle, so I do support them.

Oh, and I hope that Musk keeps on talking publicly, because our politicians need to hear what can be done for far less money than they have been led to believe. And since NASA has validated the cost numbers, why pay more?

We aren’t