It’s interesting how people downplay the importance of the sci-fi authors. In fact, when you look at the inventions that have come along, many of them have their initial ideas based solidly on those utilised in sci-fi books and short stories.
Recently there was a discussion around whether or not Star Trek had made space seem too easy. So clearly in some minds at least, sci-fi has relevance to today’s space industry. Oh tablets appear in Star-Trek well before any thoughts about them in industry. BTW, Steve Jobs was an avid Trekkie.
And there’s also a program currently showing on one of our free to air stations entitled ‘Prophets of Science Fiction’ which details the lives of well-known sci-fi authors e.g. Arthur C. Clarke, Issac Asimov, etc. and how they detailed scientific inventions in their books and short stories well before science could actually develop or had thought of them. LOL.

“Commercial Crew, even with a down-select to three companies, is still a bargain by comparison.”

Except it’s not, unless you believe pouring billions more into LEO operations is a steal. In fact, it is stealing the future away from BEO operations and condemning more generations of engineers and scietists to going in circles. Clarke wisely noted some time ago that LEO operations best be left to the private sector for ‘exploitation’ to devlop on their own dime w/government space exploration efforts focused on BEO operations. Every dollar diverted to LEO is pouring good money after bad, particularly toward ISS operations, as it’s a doomed space platform. Stop looking at the ISS as piece of space hardware and consider it for what it actually is- a fixture of Cold War policy planning- a quarter century long WPA aerospace works project from an era long over which has more in common w/Minuteman missile silos and the Berlin Wall than any space exploration plans- plans now shelved. W/o the ISS being ginned up by commercialists inside and outside NASA as a ‘faux market,’ CCplans for LEO operations would be DOA, unlerss manufacturers could pitch a viable private enterprised driven market to private capital investors. There’s simply no ROI worth the investment- so they go into oil exploration instead.

@E.P. Grondine wrote @ May 5th, 2012 at 9:17 pm

“Having watched EER engineers destroy their company with one Conestoga launch…. when they launched off nominal before a crowd after 3 previous cancellations…I’m pretty sure that Musk will launch no rocket until its time.”

This is less about ‘launching a rocket’ and more about the business of a firm habitually failing to meet its contractual obligations to deliver goods and services… and they’ve been cut plenty of breaks. There’s a mature system in place to service LEO space platforms- Progress. “I’m pretty sure that Musk will launch no rocket until its time.” Except viewers of ’60 Minutes’ are positive that he has. Per his own words, the first three Falcon 1 launches failed and as he told CBS’s Scott Pelley, ‘If that fourth launch hadn’t worked, that would have been it. We wouldn’t have had the resources to go on.” Not a confidence builder. One more failure would have folded his tent. Such is the nature of test flights and the gamblers instinct of the entrapreneur. But Space X has been contracted to deliver goods and services to the ISS, not have an ‘open-ended test program’ financed. “I wish it wasn’t so hard,” he says. Except it is. But apparently, not for Russia’s Progress, supplying LEO space platforms for over 34 years.

@Dark Blue Nine wrote @ May 5th, 2012 at 10:41 pm

LOL So Space X’s CEO says its NASA’s fault so it ‘has’ to be true- LOL Rubbish. Space X initiated the delays, not NASA. And NASA.s commercial cult has cut Space X plenty of breaks. Space X says a lot of things nobody believes, like launch dates and musings about retiring on Mars, or, as himself said on the PBS News Hour, sending tens of thousands -millions of people to Mars. Absurd- and disturbing as his immediate focus as ‘CEO and ‘Chief Designer’ should be to meet schedule, fulfill contractual obligations and get hauling cargo to the ISS. And, of course, last year he stated he would not ride his own rocket because he ‘has a family.’ while Branson has repeated stated he’s taking his family along on VG’s inaugural flight. Musk has an avoidance habit of retreating to the fictional fantasies and musing about what he’s ‘going to do’ when the harsh realities of the here and now close in, shining a light on what he’s failing to do- in this case, to simply meet a launch date. Space X which delayed. Not NASA. So stop being a flaming shillidiot, fella: “I wish it wasn’t so hard,” says Musk. Apparently not so hard for Progress since 1978. Srill, everybody want them to get cracking. So rest assured this writer will applaud their successful parody of what Progress has been doing for over 34 years, redundant as it will be. And it would be in Musk’s interest to stop with the pressers and start with meeting a schedule. And do a little less reading of Heinlein and a little more of Clarke, who had a prescient take on the pragmatics involved in developing LEO commercial exploitation on their own dime leaving government to pursue BEO exploration programs.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/003/120501delay/

@Vladislaw wrote @ May 5th, 2012 at 4:57 pm

“If Elon Musk was acting alone, sitting out in some plowed field, launching $100.00 estes rockets .. then I would grant you he is a hobbiest.”

It’s relative. He’s a multi-billionaire and S100 million isn’t that much in those circles- it’s about what Mitt Romney set up as a trust for each of his kids. Besides, the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.

I would not have argued for a cost number…If someone asked I would have argued for “we can do it for what we are spending on HSF now”.

The reality is that the 20 foot giant that the GOP is unwilling to talk about is that it is not that the federal government spends to much money; it is that most of what it spends on non social safety net issues…is spent very very badly.

First little of it actually affects the economy. SLS is a wealth transfer program.

ALl it does is take taxpayer dollars and filter it out to government employees and a few employers who filter it down to their employees and then its done. NOTHING at SLS multiplies in the economy.

Build HWY 646 in Santa Fe and the dollar multipliers are endless. But as soon as the SLS dollars dispurse through normal spending there is no product that continues to get used or increase community worth.

This is true of almost all the good old GOP projects. Defense spending is horrific at multipliers…it gets far worse when the money has to start for actual “fighting”. Whatever we spent in Iraq is simply gone wasted as if we had burned it.

2. Contractors love this spending. There really is NOT a date by which SLS has to even pretend to get ready to fly. Every year as the schedule slip the old tired arguments come out “Wow if we cancel now all the money is wasted” and “If we dont keep spending it we are in decline as a superpower”. So the bucks keep flowing because the Congress people (mostly GOP) Like that kind of pork. Pete Olsen beats up on planned parenthood all he can as “wasteful” but he was for several times a year more then that spending for 10 years on the F-35 second engine…remember “STrong America”.

3. The GOP loves this spending. Most of them dont have a clue about defense policy, tactics, or theory; much less the notions of how these things are evolving…coupled of course with being clueless on the currents of history…but this spending “shows we are ready for the bad guys”.

Newt needed to come out against “spending without purpose” but the problem is that the “low information voters” Of the GOP base…of course think an F-35 that is so far behind schedule that it might not be operational “this decade” is a poster plane for strength.

Newt needed to run Romney into a “spend box” but sadly Newt is (or was) in that same box. Muncy can weigh in on this if he wants but I dont think Newt has ever argued for the cancellation of a single over 1 billion dollar a year defense program in his entire public office career.

He (Newt) is a fraud…as is most of the GOP folks in the arena this year. RGO

“What Doug Lassiter wrote at 1:33 pm…We could call them pioneers, in that they are trying to go where commercialism hasn’t yet gone, but I suppose that isn’t a derogatory enough term. Excellent. If DCSCA was human, his head would have exploded after that paragraph.”

Hmmm. Speak for yourself. Try and follow along: ““I just find “hobbyist” to be a curious term to apply to SpaceX.” [DCSCA->] Agreed. ‘Amateurs’ is a more appropriate term. But the implied reference is a ‘polite’ framing- a euphemism Musk himself only reinforced in his own interview w/Scott Pelley. He’d do better to stop meeting w/t press and start meeting launch schedules. In line with that, Bob Truax was an ‘amateur’ as well. So, too, were the rocketeer clubs associated w/Oberth, Von Braun and Korelev. A fair term for the Musketeers is ‘entrepreneurial.’” Certainly not ‘pioneers.’

We could call them pioneers, in that they are trying to go where commercialism hasn’t yet gone, but I suppose that isn’t a derogatory enough term.

Excellent. If DCSCA was human, his head would have exploded after that paragraph.

“Here’s a thought. Ford, Chrysler, Nissan, Toyota, Hundai, GM, VW, etc. etc., have spent years trying to replicate an existing operational capability.” Except those manufacturers produce products to meet a demand with a worldwide market base, Doug, – benefiting the many over and over, not a select few. And ‘new’ models denied a market disappear or are quickly terminated from production. And, of course, GM was subsidized/saved by the U.S. government less for the products it produced but the jobs it saved. And Chrysler, ironically a player in early rocket and DoD hardware development, is now tied to Fiat. Revisit any mass market publication from the early 20th century and you’ll discover a huge number of automobile manufacturer start-ups now long gone, or absorbed by the post-war manufacturers, which ironically benefited from big War Dept contracting as well- benefiting the many in a global war effort, not a select few. (Ironically, you’ll discover that there were more electric trucks in NYC in the early 20th century than horse drawn delivery wagons. It’s future neutered by the ICE and cheap fuel.) Early AW&ST, Flying & Popular Science are peppered w/similar advertisements. Spaceflight is not a ‘product’ subject to mass marketing hardware. There won’t be a Jetson’s style space car in your garage any time soon. It can offer services– and investments in same which benefit the many have done well- weather observations, communications and such, and governments have made such investments for various geopolitcal reasons. Some private firms as well for land management (as noted in anothrt thread.) HSF is a different matter and private enterprised, commercial investment benefits a select few, not the many, particularly if they seek government subsidies denied by the private capital markets. There’s simply no ‘demand’ for it- aside from the ‘entertainment’ element Branson is pursuing, and his sub-rbitla jaunts may turn out to be the right path forward. The market will decide. Back in the day, one in four jobs in the United States was directly or indirectly associated w/t automotive industry. “What’s good for GM is good for America’ was the famed slogan. Spaceflight, not so much. Civil space manufacturing- Apollo comes to mind- did not come any place close to contributing that kind of productivity to the national economy- at peak, roughly 400K-500K were employed. DoD-related space operations is an opague, kettle of fish, but if you’re advocating Space X bid and secure DoD contracts for satellite launches, fine, great, and as they perform to DoD standards and earn the confidence of same, all the better. But they’ve failed to demonstrate that to the public and the commercial investror class in meeting their obligations w/NASA.

“No one else was building airplanes THAT WORKED…” Again, revisit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation

You’ll discover ‘aeroplanes’ that ‘worked’ were being tinkered with as early as 1874. W&O are credited w/controlled powered flight- and bear in mind, their wing warping and ‘push’ designs were moved on from just a few years later and by the WW1-era more practical aeroplanes surfaced in Europe, for governments waging war. Change came fast.

“I just find “hobbyist” to be a curious term to apply to SpaceX.” Agreed. ‘Amateurs’ is a more appropriate term. But the implied reference is a ‘polite’ framing- a euphemism Musk himself only reinforced in his own interview w/Scott Pelley. He’d do better to stop meeting w/t press and start meeting launch schedules. In line with that, Bob Truax was an ‘amateur’ as well. So, too, were the rocketeer clubs associated w/Oberth, Von Braun and Korelev. A fair term for the Musketeers is ‘entrepreneurial.’ So the question becomes, does the U.S. want to subsidize tinkering ‘entrepreneurs’ in the Age of Austerity to develop a redundant service to a doomed LEO international platform, a Cold War relic, ‘operational’ for 11 years already, housing just six people at optimum times, under the guise of a ‘faux market’ already costing $100 billion-plus to taxpayers- when there’s a practical, proven, reliable, operational servicing system already – Progress for supplies and Soyuz for crews. No. It’s a ‘faux’ market for commercialists. It’s a waste. And space exploitation is not space exploration.

@Dark Blue Nine wrote @ May 5th, 2012 at 10:41 pm

“… the ongoing delays are due to NASA technicians needing more time to understand the flight hardware, not SpaceX.”

Now Space X shills are blaming NASA for their own failure to perform — a space agency that’s cut them plenty of breaks no less: “Space X successfully lobbied NASA to combine a second and third into a single mission that would include the first Dragon berthing with the station. Launch originally was targeted for early February, but the flight has been repeatedly pushed back to give Space X additional time to validate its trajectory analysis and command software… Sources said the latest slip came in the wake of recent software modifications by SpaceX that required additional verification.” – Bill Harwood, CBS News. It was Space X which asked for the delays. Not NASA. Golly gee, maybe they could ask the Russian for help- their ‘software’ has been guiding their ‘hardware’ aka Progress supply spacecraft- to LEO space platforms for over 34 YEARS. It is just desperation by Space X shills to spin otherwise– they’ve been cut every break, as Harwood notes; even granted permission to modify existing contracts and consolidate test flights. They’ve had facilities renovated at taxpayer expense as well. Space X is simply failing to perform as advertised which is habitually more the rule than the exception. It’s disturbing. And its indicative of poor management. This has ceased to be about the challenging complexities of orbital spaceflight- something mastered by Russian Progress supply spacecraft for decades– and has become a simple matter of the failure of a supplier to meet its obligations. It’s time for Congress to hold hearings and investigste why Space X continues to slip schedules and fail to meet its contractual obligations w/t government w/o lobbying for modifications, etc., and apply the appropriate penalties.

@Malmesbury wrote @ May 6th, 2012 at 8:27 am

“So they [Space X] are late.” So that’s no excuse, particularly from a profit motivated, business enterprise that wants more business in the future on the taxpayer’s dime. So they’re in business and contracted to provide goods and services on time- a redundancy no less to a highly successful and operational system in place for decades- the Russian Progress. So they’re not being financed to run an ‘open-ended test program.’ So repeated schedule slippages and excuse-driven management are poor characteristics of a commercial firm vying for more business. So terminate the contracts. So other competitors know when they’re contracted to perform, performance, not procrastination, is expected.

@Vladislaw wrote @ May 6th, 2012 at 12:02 pm

“And the very LAST thing our Nation needs is redundant transportation systems.”

The ISS is not exclusively American. It’s an international platform doomed to a Pacific splash. No, ‘we’ don’t need a redundant system, particularly when you do any cost-benefit analysis. That’s why shuttles are headed to museums– you’re talking about wasting billions to supplement an existing, reliable system that services a platform housing just six people at optimum periods who spend vast amounts of time performing simple maintenance, not ‘research’…, and after 11 years on orbit, has yet to return anything close to justifying the $100 plus billion expense. The ISS is less a piece of space hardware, integral to an expanding government space exploration program now shelved, and more a one-off policy decision from Cold War policy planning– an era long over. It has more in common w/Minuteman missile silos and the Berlin Wall than space exploration. View it for what it is- a Cold War relic- a WPA project for aerospace contractors- as Deke Slayton rightly labeled it. Far from being a ‘national asset’ it is, in fact, an ‘international liability’ which limits space operations to LEO, a ticket to no placwe, and diverts dwindling assets from BEO planning and development.

“So referencing Newt…what could he have said that would have at least been a point of discussion instead of a laughing point? I put some of it in my reply to Muncy (who I have the greatest respect for) but its worth bullet pointing some of it.”

And if I may add a couple to yours:

A) Numbers

B) more numbers

C) even more numbers

I thought a big fail was not providing anything even resembling a baseline of costs.

If he would have illustrated how much the federal government would actually be funding in space prizes, direct contracts and SAA’s relative to how much past baselines have been.

Could have used the 500 billion SEI or FLO etc. If what he was proposing was going to be a lot less expensive it could have at least been forced as the start of the conversation. The actual numbers.

the entire meme of “hobbyest” which is a term that some folks here have picked up from the ATK lobby effort is an attempt to do what some political forces do, which is to engage on a term that is derogatory to the particular effort and turns the entire debate toward that term…not to what is actually being done.

One of Karl Rove’s clients…is ATK RGO

DCSCA wrote @ May 5th, 2012 at 7:10 pm
“That’s inaccurate. Others were- or were certainly trying.”

Fair point. No one else was building airplanes THAT WORKED.

“Goddard was not trying to replicate an existing operational system.”

Neither is SpaceX (thank goodness!) They’re trying to replicate an existing operational capability. Big difference.

Here’s a thought. Ford, Chrysler, Nissan, Toyota, Hundai, GM, VW, etc. etc., have spent years trying to replicate an existing operational capability. They’ve done that exceedingly well. They have NOT been trying to replicate an existing operational system. In doing this replication, they were trying to achieve value to the consumer, in different ways. That’s what SpaceX is doing.

“So you think hobbyists don’t pursue a passion to make money- then you’ve never known any numismatists, philatelists or finr art dealers.”

Oh, I know many. And few of them do these activities to support themselves. “Making money” is one thing. Supporting ones self is another. I can get on Craigslist and “make money”. SpaceX is doing what they do to support themselves and their workers. True, Musk himself need not do this to support himself, but he’s got a boatload of people working for him that do.

I just find “hobbyist” to be a curious term to apply to SpaceX. It connotes an effort that is not primary to those doing it. That would come as a surprise to the thousand or so employees of the company. I would have thought that “amateur” would be slightly more appropriate. It’s equally derogatory, though of course SpaceX is composed of professional staff whose experience can hardly be credibly described in that way.

We could call them pioneers, in that they are trying to go where commercialism hasn’t yet gone, but I suppose that isn’t a derogatory enough term.