I agree with Clark Lindsey’s post title on the stunningly stupid news that the Deficit Commission has recommended axing Commercial Crew, except it will end up costing a lot more than ten billion. It’s pretty clear from the announcement that they don’t even understand the purpose, and that it would save NASA billions. In fact, they are unwittingly recommending ending NASA human spaceflight, and consigning us to continuing to be held hostage by the Russians for years. More thoughts later, here or elsewhere. All of the nonsense about this in the media over the past many months hasn’t helped, of course.
[Evening update on the Left Coast]
I have more extensive thoughts over at National Review On-Line.
You can’t really blame them Rand. Public discussion has almost universally swallowed the Big Lies that HLVs are necessary for exploration and that “NASA” has the most expertise for developing HLVs. You can’t expect them to go against the experts on the say so of a bunch of internet space libertarians. Damn it, even Jeff Greason is on the record as saying that >70mT launchers and 8.5m fairings are probably necessary. A strategic blunder of the first order if you ask me.
the Deficit Commission has recommended axing Commercial Crew
Not quite. At least, not yet. These are only “illustrative” cuts, not recommended, and it’s only a draft of a co-chairs’ proposal.
Mark Twittington may be dancing for joy right now, but this is far from final. Especially since, as you note, it’s obvious that they didn’t even understand the program. (They think that “commercial crew” means NASA will be training crews for commercial space vehicles. Amazingly enough, Mark is now taking his cues from people even less informed than he is!)
You can save one billion AND ten billion when you accept that gov’t funded manned spaceflight is an unnecessary luxury.
Ah, wisdom… on many occasions I’ve offered my ideas on the space program only to have someone say to the effect… “if you’re so smart, why don’t you do it?”
Who knows if I’m smart or wise or even potentially lucky to have an occasional good idea. I do know I’m among the poor. Forbes lists 937 billionaires some of which are backing private space ventures.
I think a private individual spending $2b to put a gas and go spaceship in earth orbit using existing components and launch capabilities would give us a HUGE push forward in space activities and would not only be profitable but create the potential of profits for other companies selling it fuel while it sold tickets to ride (thus reducing cost and risk for any other mission.)
$2b provides a certain capability (2000+ c.m. of internal volume; 7+ delta V) but you could also have lesser capable, lesser costing but still useful vehicles as well.
64 people, among the world billions, have $10b or more and could finance the thing themselves if they chose. Otherwise it would have to take a group of people. I’m not one of the 64 or it would be a done deal because I know I could make a profit selling tickets on that vehicle today. It would be the biggest driver of space activity tomorrow. Anybody got a few billion to loan me? Let’s talk terms.
Or an arbitrary amount in between if you believe the general welfare and security of the United States require that the USG should operate a manned spaceflight program (I don’t), but that an HLV, especially a dedicated, government operated one, is an unneeded luxury, and even worse than that, something that is actively harmful.
7+ km/s… oops.
This isn’t the worst thing that could happen.
Probably the worst thing that could happen is if NASA were required to back out of COTS.
Not to worry. This recommendation will be acted upon about the same time as Congress removes the home mortgage deduction.
“You can save one billion AND ten billion when you accept that gov’t funded manned spaceflight is an unnecessary luxury.”
And you can save several billion more by accepting that gov’t unmanned planetary science is an unnecessary luxury.
And, as we learned today, you can save several billion more just by eliminating the JWST.
Clark, were you listening to the conf call? Did you catch the “unpleasantness”? 🙂
Aside from the prankster, there was some serious squirming going on.
Anyway, I think Kirk has made the case before that there’s a lot more support out there for government funded science over .. umm.. whatever it is human spaceflight does. When it comes to science, human spaceflight *could* be doing some.. like investigating the variable gravity effects on human physiology.. but they don’t actually do any of that. All they do is taxi rides to the ISS and.. umm.. what *do* they do on the ISS again that requires humans? Oh yeah, nothing.
That isn’t to say there aren’t good reasons other than science for doing human spaceflight.. the question is whether those reasons are something the government should be paying for.
“the case before that there’s a lot more support out there for government funded science over…”
No, there is not a lot more public support for planetary science than for human spaceflight. There is no case that planetary science has produced any significant practical benefits that the average person in the street would hail as justifying its mult-billion dollar annual funding. The only reason the space science funding as a whole is as large as it is, is because it grew in the 60s along with the growth in the HSF budget. It has always tracked the HSF budget.
There is no fundamental reason that space science funding should be nearly as large as the budget for the entire National Science Foundation , which funds dozens of diverse fields. In Europe, space science funding is far smaller than in the US and is comparable to their high energy physics and plasma/fusion budgets. If US HSF went away, space science would soon wither down to HEP & fusion funding levels.
I fully support space science but it is for the same sort of intangible, unprovable reasons as for HSF. You can no more prove that tens of billions spent so far on Mars research has fundamentally made us better off than I can prove that establishing a beachhead in orbit for humanity has made us better off. I think both are true but there’s no neat, 100%, in your face, obvious arguments to prove either.
I don’t know if science from HSF will ever produce any great benefits. I don’t support HSF for its ability to do science better than robots. However, it would certainly be great if, say, the Astrogenetix salmonella/MRSA research (tinyurl.com/mqgkxj), which included ISS experiments, successfully results in vaccines. That alone would be a direct, easy-to-understand benefit to humanity that planetary science will most likely never achieve.
Clark, yes.. I’ve made that argument many times towards people who argue that HSF funding should be diverted to unmanned space exploration. It’s very difficult to make the argument that any space exploration should be funded better than, say, the National Institute of Health.
I can imagine some people have taken this argument why HSF funding cannot be diverted to robotic space exploration as a justification for why either should be so highly funded.. but it isn’t. Similarly, people regularly make the argument that *if* you’re going to have a national space program then it should at least serve some useful purpose.. and I’m sure others hear this as an argument for why there should be a national space program.
There is no case that planetary science has produced any significant practical benefits that the average person in the street would hail as justifying its mult-billion dollar annual funding.
Eh, I can think of one result that might eventually have considerable practical benefits down here on Earth (Hasegawa’s invention of the dipole fusion reactor concept based on the behavior of plasmas in Jupiter’s magnetosphere.)
I can see that silly season has descended here as well. Commercial space flight subsidies = the home mortgage deduction? Really?
I am, by the way, not dancing and not particularly joyful. However, I did give warning did I not?
We assume we want to get the best bang for the buck but the nature of things is you often don’t know what that might be.
The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program. – Larry Nevin
Isn’t quite right. If they had a space program but it was robotic they’d still be extinct. You can’t predict the future, but you can increase the probability that you’ll be a part of it. One way is to work backward. Imagine a future then look back at what it would take to get there.
We’ve imagined settling the stars of our own galaxy and perhaps beyond. Before that we must have settled our own solar system and near by stars. Before that we must have settlements in our habitable zone beyond earth.
…or we could just send robots and die off.
The other argument, that we’ll do all that, just not now is a never ending argument for those that would never participate. We could have time machines and antigravity and still it would not be time to start new settlements beyond the atmosphere.
It’s all choices.
This recommendation will be acted upon about the same time as Congress removes the home mortgage deduction.
With respect, I’m pretty sure that the home mortgage deduction is a hell of a lot more popular than commercial spaceflight for NASA…
No, there is not a lot more public support for planetary science than for human spaceflight.
Maybe, but planetary science has DEFINITELY shown far better bang for the buck over its lifetime than government-run HSF.
I am generally more supportive of more efficient endeavors ..
Guys, the point about mortgage deduction and the commercial space funding is, the Commission’s recommendations are – in toto – DOA on the Hill. This insertion was almost certainly posturing by some former Griffin crony who knew a Commission staffer and who wanted to embarrass commercial space advocates at NASA HQ. It was easy to insert and it will be easy to ignore.
Further, the recommendation is for **FY2015**. That may as well be saying FY3000…
The recommendation is stupid, yes, but we shouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Plenty of other things to worry about first, like the Mayan-zombie apocalypse.
ken, can you tie that back to government funding? Or are you of the belief that government should be funding all the grand futures one cares to imagine?
I don’t think govt. should spend any funds on space beyond required military objectives. However, since they aren’t listening to me, what they do spend should be done wisely.
If you don’t care about space, buying votes with a jobs program makes a certain amount of sense.
If you do care about space, then robotics are precursors to human flights.
If you really care about space, you don’t waste steps and you get free markets working for you.
Bigelow (habitat) and SpaceX (engine) have done the hard part including putting samples in orbit. A spaceship designed around those components could be investigating NEO next year. Govt. could offer to buy tickets as part of the normal science research budget. Bigelow could finance a $500m version by himself (although that’s not how I expect he would.) We should be able to build a SSTO lunar lander (1/6 g after all) with a medium lift dry weight and start building a base on the moon in 3 to 5 years. Find out if there’s water on Deimos and/or Phobos, build a lander for mars and we could start building a base there in ten years.
Or we could wait for the rock coming out of the sun that nobody planned for… yeah, that’s it. Let’s cancel NASA and go fishing. Personally, I think the private sector has passed the hump and will get there if only the govt. doesn’t interfere. What should I care? I’m in my second half century and will not live to see any of it anyway. We are the dinosaurs.
The public sees robotic exploration as actual exploration (you know, actually going new places) whereas human space flight is boring. Same shuttle, same LEO, same $B.
A space program isn’t going to save the human race if an asteroid hits. The earth is still the most hospitable body in the solar system. What will save the human race is early warning, tunneling equipment, long-lasting nuclear energy sources, and artificial lighting. Quit dreaming that a moonbase represents a “backup plan” for humanity. No way. They’d die too, just later.
“The public sees robotic exploration as actual exploration (you know, actually going new places) whereas human space flight is boring…”
Please point to a public poll which backs up that assertion? I’ve certainly never seen one in which a majority of the respondents say robotic exploration is more exciting than human spaceflight.
Sure, there is great interest in pictures from missions like the Mars rovers, though interest spikes initially and then falls to a base level of enthusiasts. OTOH there is zero awareness of non-picture producing science missions.
A few years ago, a UK panel, which included noted theoretical physicist Frank Close who along with the other members were originally skeptical of HSF, reported (tinyurl.com/bka6z) that the UK had made a big mistake in not funding HSF. This was because they became convinced “the direct involvement of humans in situ is essential” to effective exploration and also because the lack of a HSF program had suppressed interest in space exploration in general.
That is, having no HSF program had resulted in less funding for space science, not more. The same would be true in the US.
Regarding space settlement as a back up for earth, the point is not that early bases can be self-sustaining but that we get on a path towards such settlements. There is certainly no fundamental reason that large space settlements cannot be self-sustaining.
Its not surprising the commission doesn’t see commercial crew as commercial and instead simply views it as an industry subsidy.
In the business world outside of space policy speak commercial anything means private customers and private R&D investment, not government contracts and subsidies hiding behind false labels.
As a side note, as long as NASA is seen as scientific exploration and not economic development it will be a viewed as a luxury and not an investment. And when times are tough the luxuries go first which makes NASA an easy target.
Its not surprising the commission doesn’t see commercial crew as commercial and instead simply views it as an industry subsidy.
As is often the case, you completely miss the point. Its not about whether or not they see it as commercial (though they actually seem to — they just don’t think it should be “subsidized”). The point is that they are completely clueless about the purpose and nature of the program.
Tom’s right. Commercial crew and cargo is not really “commercial” in any true sense of the word. It’s just a less-direct government subsidy.
Clark, my poll is informal amongst “real people” and outside of the space community that breathes its own fumes. They all get way more excited about real exploration (which happens to be done by robots) than the crap coming out of the human space flight program. The only way people would care about HSF is if they got to go themselves. The moment the public stopped believing NASA would try to get them into space is the moment they stopped caring about HSF.
“In the business world outside of space policy speak commercial anything means private customers and private R&D investment, not government contracts and subsidies hiding behind false labels.”
That’s simply not true. There are innumerable commercial businesses for whom the government is either the only or the dominant customer. Under your definition, Ross Perot has never run a commercial business starting from the day his new data processing company EDS finally found a client, which happened to be Medicare. There is no fundamental difference whatsoever between what a commercial company like EDS did with government data processing services and what a commercial company like SpaceX would do for government launch services.
In the business world outside of space policy speak commercial anything means private customers and private R&D investment, not government contracts and subsidies hiding behind false labels.
In the business world, “commercial” means “for profit”. Maybe it should mean those things you claim, but it doesn’t. As Clark notes, there’s a bunch of companies outside of space that are considered commercial ventures despite either government funded R&D or government customers.
Clark,
Ross Perot’s EDS started as a government contractor, then expanded into commercial markets. Claiming the U.S. government is a commercial market is a gross misuse of the word and reflects a misunderstanding of their business model. Also EDS never got any money for R&D before they started providing their services to the government like commercial crew is getting.
FYI here is the Merriam-Webster definition of commercial.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/commercial
Now if you still wish to cling to the definition that its any business providing services or products to the government for-profit then you will need to admit Project Apollo was commercial spaceflight since the firms that provided the Saturn V and serviced it for launch (North American, Grumman, Chrysler, etc.) were ALL private firms making a profit on their government contracts.
Which brings up the key point. The only thing different about commercial crew is the structure of the government contracts. Which is why it should be called alt-access, or alt-spaceflight instead of the misleading commercial crew. Basically something that reflected its simply an alternative model of government contracting.
Perhaps if space policy advocates were more “accurate” in their use of language they would be better understood by groups like this commission.
my poll is informal amongst “real people” and outside of the space community that breathes its own fumes. They all get way more excited about real exploration (which happens to be done by robots) than the crap coming out of the human space flight program.
So, you only talk to “real people” who agree with you, and it turns out they all happen to agree with you. Statisticians call that “selection bias.”
Watching pictures of robots on television isn’t “real exploration” any more than “cybersex” is “real sex.” It’s just vegging out. Exploration means “travel for purposes of discovery.” Real exploration requires you to leave your room.
Sure, there are plenty of people today who would agree that actual physical exploration is “boring” and want to spend their lives in “cyberspace” or “virtual reality.” Couch potatoes have been around since the beginning of television. That doesn’t mean everyone wants to live in a basement with a nuclear reactor. The other day, at the state park, I saw a lot of people out hiking, horseback riding, even a few bicycles — and that was on a weekday. They were engaged in real exploration, not playing a Wii or an X-Box.
Claiming the U.S. government is a commercial market is a gross misuse of the word and reflects a misunderstanding of their business model.
LOL.
Yet, you want the US government to spend hundreds of billions on your “International Lunar Development Corporation” and have the chutzpah to claim that is “commercial.”
Sounds like a misunderstanding of your own business model, Tom. 🙂
SpaceX has customers for Falcon 9 and potential customers for Dragon who are not the U.S. Government. ULA has customers who are not the U.S. Government. Who where the non-government customers for Apollo?
A space program isn’t going to save the human race if an asteroid hits.
Well Kirk, it could if the asteroid is that big and we have genetic diversity thriving elsewhere: however, asteroid hit is just a placeholder for the entire variety of killer scenarios (some of which require us to be at the opposite end of a galaxy when they happen.)
I don’t think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet…”
— Stephen Hawking
“Clark, my poll is informal…”
An informal poll among your friends hardly constitutes a basis on which to make grand generalizations about everyone. I said a public poll which means one that neither inhales the space community’s fumes nor yours.
We’ve have one empirical case – the UK – that shows that the absence of a HSF program doesn’t result in more enthusiasm or funding for space science. The space science community, which emits plenty of fumes of its own, may believe that HSF funding would revert to them if NASA’s HSF program was canceled but there is zero evidence for that.
I should emphasize, though, that I make a distinction between HSF and NASA’s HSF program. The latter has maintained a base level of interest among the public (as shown by many polls) but I obviously agree that it will never attract broad and deep enthusiasm until people see spaceflight as something they can either participate in or can at least imagine themselves participating in.
The commercial crew program is a way for NASA to both lower its own costs and accelerate creation of an industry that can provide the capabilities that will make spaceflight finally become something real and practical that the public (or at least a significant plurality) will appreciate and identify with.
Thomas,
EDS would have failed and never produced Perot’s billions if it had not been for government contracts, especially the early ones when he could find no non-govt. customers. Govt has always been a major part of his customer base. Sure he got non-govt contracts later but so will SpaceX, Boeing, etc when they start taking passengers to Bigelow habitats and other destinations.
The Commercial cargo and crew program is accurately described as commercial because the companies are selling a service to the govt exactly as they would to a commercial entity. Whether delivering people to a BA station or to the ISS, they will use the same rockets and the same capsules. The contracts with the govt and Bigelow will be on the same competitive, fixed-price basis. I see zero resemblance between that situation and NASA building the Saturn V with sub-contractors.
Bigelow is advancing money to Boeing to help with development of the CST-100. That sort of arrangement is common in the commercial world. A big car company that has contracted with a parts supplier, might advance them money to upgrade their tooling for a new model. You can call that a subsidy but the money is not a gift but is simply a share of the cost of getting those parts.
COTS and CCDev contracts constitute a similar arrangement. NASA will save enormous amounts of money with commercial crew and cargo. It is to the agency’s benefit to see these services provided, so it is advancing money to companies that have won, or will win, competitive, fixed-price contracts to provide those services. You can call this money a subsidy but that misleadingly implies that it is a gift. It is a pre-payment for a service the agency’s absolutely needs.
In any other situation, services provided to the government like these would be referred to as commercial. Only in this battle with those who want to maintain in-house vehicle development at NASA does this become non-commercial.
“The public sees robotic exploration as actual exploration (you know, actually going new places) whereas human space flight is boring. Same shuttle, same LEO, same $B.”
Where did the Hubble Space Telescope actually go, compared to the support it gets? The public most easily and readily identifies with projects, manned or not, that produce cool visible-light images and video, whether it’s done from here, or up close and personal. (not the results of a formal poll, just my decades-long impression)
That there are probes that have physically ‘gone’ beyond Pluto, still looking for the Heliopause, for example, is rather more abstract and lost on many…
And in any case, after two or three manned Mars missions, ‘boredom’ will set in then, too, as it did for Apollo (with the exception of Apollo 13, but a close call and survival drama is not the kind of excitement we really want, outside of the movies.) Attention spans are, if anything, shorter than in 1969, and continuing ‘excitement’ and ‘inspiration’ can no more be counted on to carry a government-funded program today, than back then. It *will* rapidly also become ‘same Moon, same Mars.’
And merely ‘leapfrogging’ across the solar system, valuing only the newness of each location, ‘where have you taken us lately?,’ optimizing programs to that end (again as with Apollo) and leaving no infrastructure and continuing presence behind, isn’t true spacefaring, and is barely even exploration. (the planetary science people have no qualms about re-visiting ‘been there, done that’ worlds with new questions and technologies, HSF should not either, particularly as they’ll often be doing more/other than basic science)
Technologies that lower operating costs in space (even for robots), are of prime importance, for government space programs to stay under the funding radar for the long term (When did anyone last question what it costs to maintain Antarctic research bases? It’s relative pocket change, as they’re enabled and logistically supported by mature technologies that have other applications.), and to enable non-government entities to play an increasing role.
I love how when you tell space advocates that there’s no point to human spaceflight that they train all their hate on robotic spaceflight. It’s tantamount to an admission that HSF is worthless and so they should go “scorched earth” on a space activity that does have value.
Quit breathing your own fumes guys. America doesn’t. They gave up on HSF years ago. Don’t believe me? Ask a random person to name an astronaut. Ask someone to tell you how many people are on the ISS. Ask someone to tell you the last time someone landed on the Moon.
The last thing the public knows about HSF is the Columbia disaster. Before that it was Glenn’s shuttle flight (an astronaut who’s name they remember). Before that it was Challenger.
Ken, Hawking’s wrong.
The human race has been around for many, many thousands of years on this planet. It will survive another one, and probably another after that, whether or not we go into space.
We need something new. Something exciting. A new golden age. Evolving into a space fairing civilization would help kill any lingering malaise concern of lack of resources. Assuming there is a lack of resources right now (isn’t it just inflation from all the QE and bank bailouts?)
Every time I watch the news today, I feel like this economic system is broken and someone needs to shutdown. debug. fix. Then boot up the system again. economy 2.0. we need that. 🙂
Ken, Hawking’s wrong.
He could be. I’m not really impressed by geniuses. I technically am one and is anybody impressed? Not likely.
One thing about the past is it can provide clues to the future, but can’t really predict it. Things change. Some of those things could prove fatal in ways never possible before… or things that happen on geological or cosmological time don’t provide enough history to prepare for them.
The thing about surprises is… they surprise ya.
Anybody able to make regular accurate predictions aught to be a gazillionaire, don’t ya think?
The thing is, there’s uncertainty that we need to be prepared for. Putting all your eggs in one basket and guarding the basket is not always going to work. Staying in just one solar system isn’t going to work. Staying in one star cluster isn’t going to work.
Unless of course you’re religious and believe the earth will abide forever. The meek having inherited it.
“I love how when you tell space advocates that there’s no point to human spaceflight that they train all their hate on robotic spaceflight.”
I certainly don’t hate robotic spaceflight and I don’t think Frank does either. I’m a great supporter of it. Robots are absolutely essential to making human habitation in space viable and practical.
I just find silly these arguments that there is great support for unmanned spaceflight and none for manned. If any belief is self-fumed, that is. For 50 years every poll has shown support for the space program in general at the 50-70% level. Yes, in more detailed polls they may put 18 or 19 other priorities higher in a list of 20 than NASA but the general interest is consistently there. And that interest doesn’t make any big distinction between unmanned and manned.
“Ask a random person to name an astronaut.”
Yes, and then ask that person to name a robotic spacecraft? Or ask them to name a space scientist. Or, for that matter, ask them to name a top engineer. A top medical researcher, Etc, Etc. Does the fact that he or she will most likely not be able to name any spacecraft or person in those categories mean they don’t support robotic missions, space science, engineering, biomedical research, etc, etc.? Of course not. People will express general support for all of those things.
HSF that is falling in cost and sending more and more people to space will result in more than enough public excitement to maintain and expand it indefinitely. There is really only a need for a few per cent of the population, i.e. several million people, who are strongly interested and engaged in HSF activities to support this.
“Ken, Hawking’s wrong.”
I can just as emphatically declare, “Ken, Hawking is correct”. And it will be just a pointless as your declaration. Neither are provable.
What Hawking proves is that a highly intelligent person can make, and be convinced by, a rational argument that there is a finite chance for global catastrophe and that space settlement offers a way for humanity to avoid the extinction that this would cause.
Not every Tom, Dick and Kirk has to be convinced by that argument but it doesn’t matter. Don’t need everyone’s permission to make space settlement happen. Just need some sizable minority who are convinced by that and other arguments.
Clark,
[[[EDS would have failed and never produced Perot’s billions if it had not been for government contracts,]]]
Exactly, they got their start as a government contractor. So what is the problem with space advocates calling a spade a spade? Why do space advocates have such a problem admitting that SpaceX is a government contractor? And coming up with twisted arguments to “prove” its not? Yes, SpaceX is also doing private launches. There is nothing that precluded a government contractor from also serving commercial markets. But the government is NOT a commercial market, it’s a government market, with different rules and procedures of procurement then commercial markets.
Please, pick up an introductory textbook in marketing, or even business, and look at the definition of government markets and commercial markets.
North American, Lockheed, Boeing, and dozens of other private firms sold services and products to NASA for Project Apollo. Just as SpaceX is doing now. If SpaceX is providing “commercial” services to NASA they were as well. If North American etc. were government contractors then so is SpaceX. But if you are going to misuse the word commercial by applying it to COTS and Commercial Crew be consistent about it. It will give you more creditability outside the small space advocate community and make it easier to tell your story to those in the real world of business.
[[[That sort of arrangement is common in the commercial world. A big car company that has contracted with a parts supplier, might advance them money to upgrade their tooling for a new model. You can call that a subsidy but the money is not a gift but is simply a share of the cost of getting those parts.]]]
Yes such advance payments are made in the commercial world and in return the auto firm expects a discount on the product they are buying from the vendor over competitors. Are the Commercial Crew firms going to charge NASA less to fly an astronaut then it will fly private astronauts since NASA is providing billions up front? Or will they charge NASA more then private customers? My guess is that as government contractors they will charge more and use it to difference subsidize their private customers. Which makes the advance payments a subsidy by any definition.
As a side note, as part of the financing of the Transcontinental Railroad the U.S. government received a discount on the transportation of troops and military material on the Transcontinental Railroad. This discount stayed in place until after World War II. So there would be nothing wrong or unprecedented by NASA demanding a discount on the price of astronaut seats over other users in portion to the amount of money they are advancing the firms. That is IF commercial crew is supposed to mimic commercial practices and now be just a disguised government subsidy.
[[[Only in this battle with those who want to maintain in-house vehicle development at NASA does this become non-commercial.]]]
Yes, if I don’t agree with you I am against you. Sorry, I have NO vested interested in NASA building its own rocket. I am just trying to keep space advocates honest in their use of business terminology instead of twisting definitions and inventing new ones. It really undermines their creditability.
Rand, You system is eating comments again…
Frank,
Its well to note that the largest segment of space spending, many times larger then NASA, are the “robotic” communication satellites that toil out of the public’s glare generating tens of billions in revenue each year.
REAL space commerce is independent of NASA budgets or public opinion because it makes money. And it doesn’t need any space advocates, as a good ROI is more persuasive than ANY advocate. And more powerful then any Congressional committee.
Clark,
[[[Don’t need everyone’s permission to make space settlement happen. Just need some sizable minority who are convinced by that and other arguments.]]]
No you don’t even need that, you just need a creditable revenue stream and ROI. Government programs and government subsidies will not settle space. It will be commercial firms seeking profits who are smart enough to avoid the NASA tar baby.
Clark, in the real world HSF costs aren’t falling and NASA is angsting for weeks over cracks in foam. NASA has NOTHING to offer pro-HSFers with regards to hope for sustainability or falling costs.
Clark, in the real world HSF costs aren’t falling and NASA is angsting for weeks over cracks in foam. NASA has NOTHING to offer pro-HSFers with regards to hope for sustainability or falling costs.
Kirk, in the real world, launch costs have been dropping for decades, hence, HSF costs have been dropping for decades. It’s slow, but it’s been going on for a while.
As to whether NASA should exist, much less be involved in HSF, I really don’t know. There probably ought to be something to counter subsidies from other space-capable entities (Russia, China, and the EU), but I’ve been pretty unimpressed by direct subsidies. Tax-free activity in space seems more useful as a government contribution, but that doesn’t require NASA to exist.
The relatively useful role that NASA does ok with is space science. It seems to me that they’re just populating a few space/Earth science niches with token programs, but at least they’re doing something concrete there.
Also, NASA still seems to have a useful role in technology demonstration and retiring one-time risks. If they ever bothered to work on that seriously, that would be an immense contribution to all sorts of activity in space.
I see NASA as having been taken over by its supply chain with complicity from influential members of Congress. That swamp will need to be drained before NASA will have any serious impact on US-based space exploration. If that can’t be done, then I don’t see the point of using NASA as the sole government source for HSF.
Thomas,
“Exactly, they got their start as a government contractor. So what is the problem with space advocates calling a spade a spade? Why do space advocates have such a problem admitting that SpaceX is a government contractor?”
Yes, SpaceX will be contracting with the government to provide launch services. Exactly as SpaceX would be contracting with Bigelow to provide launch services. SpaceX is therefore a government contractor just as it is a Bigelow contractor and it is also an Iridium contractor, a Loral contractor, etc. In all these cases the contract would come after wining a competition among other launch service providers, each offering their services at a fixed price.
All of this is why NASA’s budget, and not just space advocates, correctly refers to this manner of obtaining access to space as “commercial” crew and cargo. NASA is contracting for launches in a normal commercial manner just as it would contract for any other service.
NASA’s charter says that it should
“encourage and provide for Federal Government use of commercially provided space services and hardware, consistent with the requirements of the Federal Government.”
Note the word “commercially”. A space service does not become non-commercial the moment it is provided to the government via a government contract. I don’t believe any textbook would contradict that.
A number of space advocates, a few of whom I believe had some role in getting that directive inserted into the charter, have been fighting for many years to get NASA to obey this when it comes to its launch needs. The point being that buying commercial launch services offers significant advantages over the use of a single in-house designed system that was built under NASA’s direction by a plethora of sub-system contractors. The competition and the fixed price format lead to lower costs. The use of multiple approaches to launch encourages innovation and also provides NASA with redundant access. Etc. etc.
“Yes, if I don’t agree with you I am against you.”
Sorry, I should have made clear that I was referring to this year’s battle in Congress over commercial CC and not to the discussion here with you and Kirk. When someone like Doc Horowitz claims publicly that commercial C&C is not commercial it is to undermine the program in favor of ATK’s subcontracting for NASA’s in-house launchers projects.
“Clark, in the real world HSF costs aren’t falling and NASA is angsting for weeks over cracks in foam. NASA has NOTHING to offer pro-HSFers with regards to hope for sustainability or falling costs.”
Well, I was actually referring to HSF costs falling in the future as the result of developments like NASA’s commercial crew program, Bigelow stations, suborbital RLVs, etc.
But for argument’s sake, I’ll note that at least for private citizens the price of getting to orbit fell from infinitely high in the 1960s-1980s era down to a few tens of millions when Russia began to offer Soyuz rides. Similarly, getting to suborbital space has fallen from infinite to $100k-200k.
WRT NASA, the agency in fact has plenty to offer those who want to see HSF costs drop further. The lack of reusability and low launch rates are the two primary obstacles to lowering prices. NASA’s commercial crew program helps with launch rates by greatly expanding the market for HSF. Contracting with commercial launch providers to fill fuel depots would expand launch rates further for those who use the same rockets for both HSF and unmanned payloads. Paying suborbital RLV services for research flights boosts those companies and encourages their development of orbital RLVs.
Clark,
[[[I don’t believe any textbook would contradict that.]]]
Actually marketing textbooks are very clear on the different types of markets and their characteristics. Government markets are covered separately from commercial markets which are further sub-divided into business to business markets, non-profit markets and consumer markets.
Falcon 9 is currently serving both government markets and commercial “business to business” markets.
Virgin Galactic by contrast is focused on serving commercial consumer markets although they are looking at serving government and commercial business to business markets.
Also in the government language, “commercially provided” simply means from privately owned suppliers. Remember the military had a fairly extensive arsenal system at one time where they used to build their own weapons systems.
ATK is a commercial supplier by the government definition and supplies solid rocket motors to both government markets (NASA, DOD) and commercial B2B markets (ULA). The only thing different from SpaceX is is the structure of the NASA contract it supplies products under. Sloppy use of terms and language leads to exactly that type of confusion and misunderstanding.