Typical. When somebody demonstrates the idiocy of a cult belief, instead of trying to understand their argument start hallucinating that they meant what the cultists’ dopamine rush dependency requires that they must mean.

Paper is cheap. Bits are even cheaper. How much money has actually changed hands between these two companies?

Of such agreements, and the mindless hyping of same, are bubbles made.

could you provide a link for the definition of a “natural market”?

“Because Falcon 9 has a natural market (satellite launch), analogous to the airline ticket analogy (many other people want rides on airplanes besides NASA).”

OK good. Although you started using the word “Dragon” when I think you meant “Falcon 9″ in the rest of the paragraph.

“The “market” for cargo to ISS is completely artificial, completely political, defined by NASA, Congress, to some extent the President (don’t drag me into that debate…), etc. — because the ISS was and is.”

Just so you know, the term “artificial market” is real, and it does not mean anything related to what you’re talking about.

Nonetheless, a market, whether there is only one customer or one hundred, is still a market. We have demand and supply, and the supply is competitive (two initially). Just so you know, that market competition could get bigger when the Commercial Crew providers start coming online. I have no doubt that Boeing and Sierra Nevada have their sights on offering cargo capability as well as crew.

And maybe you are unaware that SpaceX is marketing Dragon as DragonLab, and Bigelow has signed an agreement with SpaceX to use Dragon for crew transport. SpaceX clearly feels there is a market for a vehicle like Dragon, and getting it certified for carrying crew to the ISS will open up the possibility for other business. Having one customer pay for part of the development you can use for opening up a new market is not such a bad thing either.

In the case of Falcon 9, there’s a good case to be made that this distinction makes a difference. Because Falcon 9 has a natural market (satellite launch), analogous to the airline ticket analogy (many other people want rides on airplanes besides NASA). As long as you design Dragon to fit the form factor of the natural market payload, and not vice versa, and as long as e.g. safety concerns don’t lead to greater costs or reduced capabilities for the rocket, NASA can share the costs of the same rocket, analogously (even if not literally) like their employees share airline rides with non-NASA passengers. The market distortion is not too terrible.

In the case of Dragon, though, it’s a distinction that doesn’t make much of a difference. The “market” for cargo to ISS is completely artificial, completely political, defined by NASA, Congress, to some extent the President (don’t drag me into that debate…), etc. — because the ISS was and is. It can be a preposterous distortion of economic reality, and the “commercial” contracting model needn’t make any difference in this regard.

Since the alleged utility of ISS muddles the issue, think of something completely useless and hypothesize that NASA funds it — say, a probe that is designed to crash into the far side of the sun without anybody being able to watch it hit. Indeed, after this Sun Transportation System is operational we’re going to crash probes into the far side of the sun every six months for the next ten years and have the U.S. taxpayer pay for it. NASA can define this mission, Congress can fund it, and NASA can let out “Space Act”/”COTS” contracts that pay for development milestones and then operational deliveries: for various ground tests, first test launch by crashing into the moon, first test crash into the sun, and then pay for regular operational crashes into the sun, each with a fixed dollar amount, all per current “commercial” contract practice. Private investors could throw in their own money earlier on, recouping their investment during the operational phase.

This “commercial” contracting system could also be used to fund: building a tunnel from New Zealand to Antarctica, building a tourist bridge from San Fransisco to Alcatraz (no more pesky ferries), digging a colossal hole and filling it in again, or any other silly idea you care to come up with, no matter how silly — as long as you can convince the political system to fund it. Any pre-existing or potential market can be arbitrarily distorted, and indeed there doesn’t even need to be a pre-existing or even potential market. You’ve completely substituted the governments judgment about the viability of such “markets” for the private sectors’, even though under NewSpace rhetoric the whole operation can be called “commercial”.

Now perhaps the economic fantasies funded under COTS-like contracts might on average come in at less cost over this “commercial” contracting system. The COTS contractor can dig that big hole and fill it up for say half the cost of a cost-plus contractor. But they’re still just digging a hole and filling it back up again. It doesn’t change the basic problem of NASA funding absurd economic fantasies.

“The early NASA programs had a great deal going in their favor…”

The STG was key– and vital.

“The idea that private sector involvement in space is something novel is pure horsepucky.”

Yep. As O’Brien reiterated last week on PBS in his report.

“The 1960s space race was, one could with perfectly good English say, a government bubble.”

Only from the American persepective, really. U.S. civil space efforts have always been chiefly reactive, not pro-active, subject to fits and starts, and HSF ops never incorporated as part of the ‘national character’ as it is in Russian society- the chief protagonist of that era. Their people celebrate it and maintained it through some wretchingly harsh political and economic upheavals.

“… but given there was a six month delay in the recent Falcon 9/Dragon test flight due to the fact that the Space X flight control software did not work and had to be redone (with extensive help from NASA and other non-Space X personnel) that additional work should certainly be accounted for by Space X.”

Yep.

@Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 4th, 2012 at 7:03 pm

“goofy…”

Except it’s not.

But as a you’re a Purveyor of the Magnified Imporatance of Diminished Vision it’s an easy call. Let us know when you figured out why Romney spoke of miltary matters w/aviator ‘Crash’ McCain by his aide in San Diego. =eyeroll= Amusing, indeed.

““late” startups are not unusual.”

Except it’s not a start up.

Space X was founded in 2002- a decade ago.

“But it is essentially a business story…. start up airlines routinely go late. ” Except Space X is not an airline. It has been in business for a decade and has entred into a business contract w/NASA, a government organization operating for nearly 54 years, to deliver goods and services on time– which its management has failed to do so far. =eyeroll=

@Robert G. Oler wrote @ June 4th, 2012 at 11:33 pm

“Today is the anniversary of Falcon9′s first flight RGO”

Of much more historical significance, of course, is that June 3-7 is the 47th anniversary of Gemini IV, McDivitt & White’s U.S. manned spaceflight. Imagery from White’s famed spacewalk- still and film- remains vivid and often go-to ‘stock’ used today by various media outlets– the Falcon launch, not so much. Ever the Everett Dasher Breed, and endlessly amusing.

Thanks for the detailed response. I share your reservations regarding major health issues. I do however reckon that a first flags and footprints return mission is something that may happen in the 2020s if Elon Musk gets his way. I find the prospect exciting to contemplate.

Gary Hudson already tried that, so I don’t think that qualifies as innovation.

You clearly do not know what you are talking about and therefore responding to you is useless.

Sure I do, it’s call reusability. As opposed to the insanity of tossing a 75 ton core stage with four irreplaceable SSMEs into the ocean, after nearly achieving orbital velocity with two vastly overpowered five segment SRBs.

I would think a Merlin 1D and four super Dracos could adequately hover and land the thing. Nothing innovative there, considering Grasshopper and all the little RLVs that preceded it. Anything else would be pure folly now.

But continue on, I’ve got better things to do than design spruce gooses.

Again I find your post (and this one in specific) entertaining…but in the case of this post I dont agree with “much” of what you say…OK we can quibble on the affect/effect WW2 had on the space effort…but the above is well your word is “horsepucky” and I’ll be kinder and call it “Naive”.

(plus your comment about Dragon is wrong)

The Apollo effort should be looked at the same way one looked at the development of the atomic bomb…the programs are almost lockstep in comparison (the products are different)…

There is a difference and it is not subtle in government using private industry as a reservoir of experts to develop a product which it more or less defines completely and then operates…and private industry developing and operating a product that the federal government (or any government group) then utilizes to achieve some sort of mission.

A major difference is that the “cost” of operation falls completely out of the equation.

This has become even more apparent as the process of government doing the former has boiled down to an “early selection” of the company that is going to be the “expert pool” and the goals of the project become essentially “elastic”.

SLS is an excellent example of this. Compare SLS development with Saturn. The Saturn V development with the 15 vehicles built cost in 2011 dollars about 51 billion…that is starting from scratch designing the engines etc…and then building the vehicles…51 billion. SLS would if it were to fly never get there ie total development cost with 15 flights…and it is purely a derivative.

Understand that and you will understand why most of what you are talking about concerning WW2 is not valid. RGO