I Agree.

After Shuttle was retired it’s funds were to be transferred to Constellation. Where did the funds go? The same with ISS the funds would disappear and NASA budget reduced. America would have no US Astronauts in space unless they ride with the Russia or China to ?.

This has happen before with Skylab when we had no access to it and we were developing “HL”, the Shuttle. We let it fall back to earth and it was over 30 years before we had a completed space station. This time we at least are developing LEO access in parallel with a HLV. I don’t think it’s the best HL and I don’t think we need something that large.

They assume that the demise of ISS would mean that money we spend to support it would automatically be diverted to big Apollo-esq projects…and there is no such guarantee, especially in these austere days.

No ISS would mean only no ISS.

(And a lot more whining of the sort that still follows Shuttle about how the US has lost its way, is on a downward spiral, etc…)

” If there were truly a “commercial” market in the offing, politics would have nothing to do with it. Your statement admits that without a USG involvement (i.e. funding), “commercial crew” is non-existent”

Hello Guess…goofy.

Go ask SWA how politics played large roles in their birth.

Commercial crew does not exist without a USG involvement because they are the “commercial crew” client. goofy RGO

“With the budget and economy problems we continue to face (and the Europeans face, and the Russians face, and the Japanese face…) ISS will quickly lose the remaining support it has.”

The big question for Congress is whether they are more interested in a jobs program (the SLS) or in exploring space (just about everything else in NASA’s budget). We’ll see which way they go, although I’ve always thought that the SLS won’t be killed off until after the Presidential election, so likely the budget negotiations in 2013.

However it continues to be amazing how people can vehemently dislike our only permanent presence in space. That living and working in space is the wrong way to achieve our goal of learning to live and work in space. Weird.

“…the glorious beast.”

Indeed, a monster which as devoured billions of dollars in scarce funding, produced nothing of value for the investment, yet was fully supported from inception as a government works project over any return to the moon program by Lori Garver from her NSS days. Garver was wrong in the 80s, 90s and wrong for NASA today.

No kidding. 12 years after our study of the commercialization potential of ISS, we remain vindicated. Another few years and that station will be older than MIR when we told the Russians to put it into the drink.

With the budget and economy problems we continue to face (and the Europeans face, and the Russians face, and the Japanese face…) ISS will quickly lose the remaining support it has. And then we can deorbit the glorious beast.

“Your statement admits that without a USG involvement (i.e. funding), “commercial crew” is non-existent.”

You are confused. There is already a functioning market for crew transportation to the ISS, but at the moment there is only one provider – Russia. NASA is buying transport at the 2016 price of $63M/seat, and the CCDev program is meant to allow U.S. suppliers to compete in the market.

“There is nothing that prevents private businesses from creating and executing a commercial manned spaceflight business, except a business case that closes.”

That is a false statement. Congress has given NASA authority over who can transport cargo and crew to the ISS from the U.S., so no, companies can’t just “show up” and demand to off-load passengers and cargo.

The CCDev program is what NASA is using to ensure that the aerospace industry is building crew systems that NASA is happy with, and it’s also the way the industry is extracting information out of NASA to build safe systems. That is why it’s called a public-private relationship, since both get something out of it.

Regarding a business case, Boeing, SNC and SpaceX have stated that they can close their business case with just the ISS business. What you believe is immaterial, since you don’t know what their true marketing plans are.

For instance Boeing has a partnership with Bigelow Aerospace, so they know how they can expand their customer base if the conditions arise. SpaceX is likely targeting Bigelow also, since Bigelow has stated they want at least two crew providers, and SpaceX can also leverage their existing (and fugure) CRS contract to keep their prices low.

SNC and Blue Origin have a tougher challenge marketwise, but since they haven’t revealed their internal marketing plans we’ll just have to wait and see if they pan out. That’s capitalism, and they are quite aware of how it works – are you?

Talk about an oxymoron. If there were truly a “commercial” market in the offing, politics would have nothing to do with it. Your statement admits that without a USG involvement (i.e. funding), “commercial crew” is non-existent. The USG has no business creating and subsidizing this market and in the process picking winners and losers. There is nothing that prevents private businesses from creating and executing a commercial manned spaceflight business, except a business case that closes.