“My point is that the market for “commercial” space might not be large enough (i.e., economically viable) to support human spaceflight without taxpayer dollars.”

To you “taxpayer dollars” is code for “subsidy”. It’s not. If that were true, then everything the government buys would be a subsidy, and that’s clearly not the case. Is the government subsidizing the airlines when their employees purchase a flight? No, they are paying for a service. Same with Commercial Crew.

The thing that trips up you and others is what the CCDev program is doing. That in my mind is NASA transferring it’s HSF knowledge to the commercial aerospace industry in anticipation of buying services from them.

NASA’s needs are too specific for the industry to go off and build it themselves – the risk of NASA saying “no, we don’t like how you did this, so we’re not going to use you” is too great. NASA doesn’t know what it doesn’t know for human-rating spacecraft, since they have never built one that will meet the requirements the Commercial Crew program will meet.

That statement may surprise you, but think about it. The Shuttle didn’t have a Launch Abort System, so it wouldn’t meet today’s Commercial Crew standards. And Apollo, Gemini and Mercury were not reusable and were more experimental than production vehicles. This is new ground for NASA, which means they need to fund the development. Pretty simple.

As to whether the market is large enough, that’s really for the companies to determine, isn’t it? And so far they are all saying ‘Yes’ by co-investing with NASA, so they stand to lose if it doesn’t work out as much as NASA.

But as Rand points out, Robert Bigelow is spending his own money in order to be a future customer, and seven nations have said they want to be future customers, so that sounds like a potential market. And it actually sounds stronger to me that Virgin Galactics business, so we’ll see how the both do.

“But Virgin Galactic’s sub-orbital hops to the edge of space will be many times less costly than orbital trips to the ISS. Which increases his potential customer base.”

That’s a nonsensical comparison.

Of course it’s less expensive to do a short sub-orbital flight compared to an orbital trip that involves docking with a space station.

But they’re not fungible activities. You can’t say to the ISS crewman that “oh, we can’t get you to your place of work on the ISS, but how about going for a short joy ride instead?” They aren’t the same.

The choice is very clear if you just choose to look:

1. $63M/seat on a Soyuz
2. $500M/seat on an MPCV/SLS
3. Around $63M/seat (or less) on an American CCDev participant.

Choose one.

The point is that NASA, and the country, are broke. The so-called commercial only is a way of doing business. Getting services for a fee. As opposed to cost-plus. It is not “new” space vs. “old” space (Boeing is part of CCDev). It is about trying to get the most of tax dollars. You want to call it subsidies be my guest. I don’t care. What I care of is that NASA can accomplish its mission. That the public gets something in return. And yes if we spend fewer dollars to do something then the public already gets something in return: More tax dollars for more services or put elsewhere it matters more such as Medicare or Social Security.

This term, subsidies, only is being used as an inflammatory tactic by those who want to see a big rocket for the sake of it. Most likely an ego thing. We do not need that, neither the rocket nor the senseless fight.

I wish people would understand that. Commercial space is risky? Yes. So what? Risks come in multiple flavors. Do you think that Elon, Sirangelo, Boeing and Bezos are taking risks? Putting their own cash in this? Yes even Boeing is putting its own cash.

Maybe a little more respect would go a long way but I won’t hold my breath.

Subsidies? Commercial? Again WHO CARES? For crying out loud. Do you, do we, want a space program or not? That is the real question. SLS is not that, nor is MPCV. And no they will never go BEO unless Congress provides the cash and they haven’t, they are not and most likely will never.

Bob Bigelow obviously disagrees, since he has invested over $200M to satisfy the market and need.

“Without taxpayer dollars, NASA couldn’t stand on its own financially, so I’m not sure what your point is.”

Nor could the Department of Defense. Or most other government agencies and departments. That’s why they’re “government” rather than “commercial” as is the case with most municipal mass transit systems which could not survive without taxpayer subsidies.

My point is that the market for “commercial” space might not be large enough (i.e., economically viable) to support human spaceflight without taxpayer dollars. Thus, I question the use of the term “commercial” to describe it. Perhaps “subsidized” space would be a more accurate term. In any case, without the ISS, there isn’t much of an existing market (or need) for human spaceflight.

Perhaps Sir Richard Branson will prove me wrong, and I hope he does. But Virgin Galactic’s sub-orbital hops to the edge of space will be many times less costly than orbital trips to the ISS. Which increases his potential customer base.

“But the NASA of today has no inherent knowledge that makes them anymore trustworthy or competent than the contractors they use to build their products”

That is too broad a statement. Contractors are using NASA capabilities and knowledge every day.

The mistake is to drive a wedge between NASA and the contractors. There is a mutual concurrent work being done at NASA with the contractors and it is overlooked and mostly ignored.

System Integration is much better handled by contractors than by NASA. But NASA has some great knowledge.

“The Commercial Sector will have to build that if they want to get business not just from NASA, but other space agencies…”

“The Commercial Sector” = everybody that NASA relies on to build NASA products, so I would say they have already have an established track record.

And if you’re thinking that Trust = Reputation for only HSF, then may I remind you that NASA has a history of accidents, yet people kept flying on vehicles that they knew had no escape systems. Commercial crew companies will have Launch Abort Systems that can save passengers at any point in the flight, so I would say they are more trustworthy from a design standpoint than what NASA has been using. There won’t be a shortage of customers.

And regarding Trust Before Orders, SpaceX has already developed that level of trust by logging $3B worth of customer orders, some of which are from Satellite Services (SES) arguably one of the toughest companies to get orders from. Might they have accidents along the way? Sure, that’s just the nature of life, and that’s why companies buy insurance. Nothing new.

But the NASA of today has no inherent knowledge that makes them anymore trustworthy or competent than the contractors they use to build their products, so all you’re doing is making up reasons to support the SLS.

The SLS will end up with the same fate as the Constellation program because NASA no longer has the ability to manage large programs without going horribly over budget and behind schedule, which in this budget environment is fatal.

Without taxpayer dollars, NASA couldn’t stand on its own financially, so I’m not sure what your point is. Our point is that NASA purchasing tickets from commercial firms instead of wasting billions developing and operating its own dedicated launch system will allow the taxpayer dollars to go a lot farther.

“The Commercial Sector will have to build that if they want to get business not just from NASA, but other space agencies, let alone private customers like research institutions (MIT, Johns Hopkins, for example), space tourism, etc. ”

I am not sure in what form you have authority to speak on behalf of all these people. Always over the top of your capability… Not new thought but I’d hope you work a little at it.

It seems to me some of those people you quote already have some trust… Or maybe it’s just another example of crony capitalism… Here is your best friend:

http://media.caltech.edu/press_releases/13358