“In particular, investments in launching astronauts have tended and will tend to raise costs, whereas genuinely commercial (a competitive market with private sector customers as well as private sector suppliers) investment in unmanned launch will tend to lower them, to the extent they can be lowered with the at-hand state of the art.”

You haven’t tried answering my last question, so let’s see how you do on this one.

Why will “investments in launching astronauts” tend to raise in cost? If we want to compare the cost of getting crew to the ISS, we will be seeing a dramatic reduction in cost in going from the Shuttle to any of the Commercial Crew alternatives. And if we compare the costs of flying on Soyuz versus the crew version of Dragon, it looks like it will be dropping dramatically there too ($195M for three crew on Soyuz vs $140M for up to seven on Dragon).

Provide examples to support your assertions.

Martijn, why do you feel the need to rephrase things I said as things I didn’t say? I said what I said, and what I didn’t say I didn’t say.

I this case, not all such investments are equal. Not even close. In particular, investments in launching astronauts have tended and will tend to raise costs, whereas genuinely commercial (a competitive market with private sector customers as well as private sector suppliers) investment in unmanned launch will tend to lower them, to the extent they can be lowered with the at-hand state of the art. For the two obvious reasons I stated above, at least one of which (the much greater costs involved in safety) even Costal Ron seems to agree with.

Indeed, both reasons are straightforward common sense. But then common sense and the obvious are not the astronaut cult’s strong points. As the donors and supporters of Newt Gingrich most recently discovered to their chagrin.

“A decision to pick between ISS and some BEO human program seems pretty likely.”

In other words stop figuring out how we can do long-term BEO (one of the key objectives of the ISS), and resort to forever doing Orion/MPCV 20 day-max missions (not even true BEO).

Or to put it in more quantitative numbers, going from about 800 days of space activity per year (min. U.S. ISS staffing) to 80 (1 MPCV mission/year w/4 crew).

How inspiring.

“My pessimism about ISS going beyond 2020 is based on cost to continue and lack of value/relevance of the program. By 2020, ISS will have been operating for 20 years, and nearly 10 years since assembly complete. Given the $3B+ annual price tag to just keep it going and the high likelihood of unimpressive scientific accomplishments, I think a decision will be made to declare victory and de-orbit it to free up money for other things or pay down the debt.”

Yep. Smitty’s only pitching woo for the ISS as a ‘faux market’ for his beloved commercial LEO firms, like Space X. Without it as a destination, they’re going no place fast, as space exploitation is not space exploration. But the ISS is nothing more than a relic of Cold War planning from an era long past, morphed over the years into an aerospace WPA project;

“I think you’ll find that satellite insurers are far more relaxed and rational than NASA HSF inspectors…”

Hunks of hardware versus human life? Ya think?

With all your hand waving though, you have not provided any indication of what the huge cost drivers are that you think will happen between now and when commercial providers are ready to start ferrying people to space.

NASA will demand a triple backup pressure valve? More heat-resistant paint? An extra carbon filter for the ECLSS? Sure NASA can take their time in validating designs, processes and procedures, but that doesn’t add $Millions to the cost of a flight.

Especially in the case of SpaceX, which has already gone through the majority of the gauntlet with the cargo version of Dragon, what could NASA do that would result in the huge additional costs for commercial crew that you are afraid of?

In other words by investment in lowering launch prices.

I think you’ll find that satellite insurers are far more relaxed and rational than NASA HSF inspectors (keeping to the comparison I’ve been making of NASA HSF vs. the real commerce of unmanned satellite launch — the latter being the far better path to lower launch costs).

“We’ve only begun to see the beginnings of the cost and schedule overruns as Space-X vainly tries to satisfy the limitless safety paranoia that is thoroughly entrenched in our astronaut program.”

Cost overruns on a milestone schedule? I think you’ve been hyperventilating too much.

I don’t disagree that “Safety is Job #1″ around NASA, and Congress is certainly posturing using “safety” as a political bludgeon. But to assume that those building commercial spacecraft aren’t thinking of safety too is pretty ignorant.

“And I don’t need to tell you about the stupendous cost premiums inherent in Shuttle, Ares, and now SLS compared to commercial satellite launch.”

Those cost premiums were designed in, regardless if they knew it ahead of time or not. Once you’re locked into a costly design, it’s kinda late to start worrying about how you’re supposed to lower costs. The Shuttle, no matter what they wanted to do, was always going to require an army of people to refurbish it after each flight, even if it only flew once a year. The VAB, the crawler, the marginal design that kept engineers up at night trying to figure out how to decrease the likelihood that it will kill someone – all built in overhead costs that couldn’t be eliminated.

The commercial crew spacecraft start out by being far more simple than the Shuttle. The Atlas V rocket doesn’t need much hardware change to carry crew, and the Falcon 9 was originally designed to eventually carry humans. These will be far less expensive systems to operate than anything NASA has done or plans to do.

So could NASA or congressional pressure commercial crew providers to add an extra person or two? Sure, but that’s not going to increase their costs by $Millions per launch.

If you disagree, please provide specific details.

Government spending tends to have the opposite effect on costs from what we desire. In that incentive structure, more money available to spend on an objective generally gives rise to more spending in pursuit of that objective: i.e. greater costs. This is particularly likely to be true when safety concerns dominate the politics, as they do in government-funded HSF. The unlimited value of the life of an astronaut is what has been delaying the Dragon launch to ISS, for example. We’ve only begun to see the beginnings of the cost and schedule overruns as Space-X vainly tries to satisfy the limitless safety paranoia that is thoroughly entrenched in our astronaut program. And I don’t need to tell you about the stupendous cost premiums inherent in Shuttle, Ares, and now SLS compared to commercial satellite launch.

To lower the costs of launching people 50 years from now, or even to be preposterously optimistic 20, the best way to invest money towards that goal is to invest in lowering the costs of launching satellites in this decade. More government-funded HSF, even when the contracts are called “commercial”, takes us in the opposite direction.

Even more importantly, growing the satellite business in the upcoming decades will give the astronauts of 50 years from now something useful to do, and will provide greater markets for ISRU.

RGO: I agree with the importance of dual use tech. Both the Falcon and Atlas could provide commercial launch services, although I don’t expect Atlas to attract much in the way of non-government customers.,,.

To me that is one of the great unknowns and the great benefit of this.

If something that flies on an Atlas makes the cut of commercial crew (and I suspect it will) and something that flies on a Falcon9 does as well…we will get to see how well ULA does. ie can they keep up with demand, at a certain cost, and how will they do that.

At least in rhetoric Musk’s entire theory is “mass produce” so one can assume he thinks at least that he can make a full launch calender at Florida, Vandy and maybe something down near Cameron Tx….so he has designed a mass produced rocket…see if that works for Atlas.

this is the genius of both competition and private enterprise…to me at least RGO