G. Ryan Faith has a good overview of the differences between the original VSE and the new plan, and the problems it (and really, any) government space program will have in maintaining political momentum. Which is why it’s important to transition to a commercial program as soon as possible.
[Update a few minutes later]
I agree with Faith that the new plan is actually much closer to the original VSE (particularly as regards to the Aldridge recommendations) than it became with the misbegotten ESAS/Constellation. The only really significant difference is the lack of moon first as an explicit goal. But that goal had become meaningless anyway under Constellation, because all of the technologies that would have potentially made it useful to go to the moon had been defunded to feed Ares/Orion. As he notes, if we can keep this on track, there will be plenty of time to once again make the argument for lunar return, long before we go anywhere else. If we establish logistics nodes at the Lagrange points for departures and returns from deep space, the moon will look ever more compelling.
Which is why it’s important to transition to a commercial program as soon as possible.
I agree, of course.
Finding revenue streams not controlled by the US Congress should be Job #1 for NewSpace companies.
So basically, politics being what they are, we’re not going to do anything meaningful any more if it can’t be achieved within a four year term of office, maybe eight if we’re lucky and the guy gets re-elected. (And I use the term “lucky” advisedly, depending upon one’s own political views.)
We’ve seen the same thing in the defense industry.
How’re we ever going to do anything meaningful as a nation in such a climate? There must be some way to transcend the politics. I believe popular support is the key, but how do you get popular support behind a plan by making it more “flexible”? Joe Sixpack doesn’t have time to understand the complexities of a flexible approach (“we may go somewhere, sometime, if we feel like it, maybe”), he wants to know where we’re going, and when. That sparks his imagination. Without that, the whole program just relegates from the front page to the “Sci-Tech” section and becomes a political budget bucket. Meanwhile, we stay firmly anchored on our little blue marble indefinitely.
(Funny, isn’t it, how a popular mandate is not needed for an entitlement program like Health Care, but is the lifeblood of a technology program like Space? Even though there’s probably a much clearer constitutional basis for Space than there is for Health Care. It’s enough to make me yearn all the more for an escape from this little blue marble.)
I agree with Faith that the new plan is actually much closer to the original VSE (particularly as regards to the Aldridge recommendations) than it became with the misbegotten ESAS/Constellation
Yeah, like stated many times. Dusting off Steidle’s Spiral CEV proposals for Augustine commission to look at would have made this very clear.
While it was a good article I note that he mentions competition only to dismiss it. Competition is the greatest motivator of humanity leading to our greatest advances. Look at the technology advances that have happened historical as a result of war. Free enterprise is competition at it’s core.
We need to focus on increasing all aspects of competition. No, I’m not saying give war a chance… er… no, that’s not what I’m saying. We do need more competition and more competitors. What will give us that?
Fuel depots? Yes, that’s a good example. Anyone could compete to sell fuel to an orbital depot.
Property rights. Sure, as we develop the capability to exploit them.
Finders keepers? Yeah, let’s not let the lawyers get too involved too early. It would be hard to exploit resources if you’re drawn into court if you do.
Rich guys/gals with vision? Thank god for them.
Fundamental space science, research and development work and missions seem to get long term bipartisan support. This is something that NASA is actually good at and which the world needs. NASA could just be a research institute, but few seem willing to let them be so.
Nimitz class aircraft carriers are used for saber rattling, not exploration. It would be nice if people would stop demanding Apollo type missions from NASA, the cold war is over and space exploration requires a very different much lower cost approach – with large scale constructive government support.
@ Ken Anthony – this passage sure seems to validate the importance of competition:
It worth examining the broader psychology associated with political support for space exploration. We have seen, at least during the Cold War, that competition can generate stronger support for space programs than the programs would otherwise normally enjoy, primarily because the existence of a competing space program provides an external confirmation of the value and validity of one’s own national space exploration program. Without some sort of external validation of the value of a space program, it becomes easier for skeptics to regard space exploration as something on par with a national quest to have the world’s largest ball of twine: a rather expensive and quite pointless exercise in gaining dominance in a field in which there is neither demand nor interest. If one does not have the ability to generate intense competition to support a national space program, the natural counterpart to competition—cooperation—becomes the next best alternative.
Military conflict in space would seem unhelpful however global commercial competition would be a good thing.
To quote Shakespeare, “Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends”
txhsdad, since when has NASA’s HSF program ever done anything “meaningful”?
since when has NASA’s HSF program ever done anything “meaningful”?
Gemini-Agena was meaningful. There are couple of other examples.
reader, oh really.. what did it mean?
Finding revenue streams not controlled by the US Congress should be Job #1 for NewSpace companies.
Good luck with that when the mindset of most NewSpace seems to be attempts to “privatize” NASA’s economic fantasies, rather than actually assisting real commerce in developing space. The biggest problem with NASA is not that it costs too much, its biggest problem is that it is doing the wrong things. The “do what NASA is doing, only privately” strategy (e.g. “build space stations, only privately” or “launch people, only privately”) is doomed to miserable failure.
If NewSpace wants revenue streams outside government it will have to learn to assist actual existing space commerce, especially the biggest such, communications, regardless of how boring and depressing it may be for NewSpace HSF fans to do without the NASA- (and Soviet-) created economic fantasy of orbital HSF. Real space commerce is vastly different from the NASA fantasies that NewSpace has been vainly hoping to privatize. Given the radical change of mindset required to do real space commerce, most of of NewSpace will, alas, fail to clear their minds of the economic fantasies in which they’ve been inculcated since children and either (1) crash and burn or (2) become NASA contractor zombies.
President Obama has essentially reset President Bush’s VSE, using a similar technological development philosophy, operating on similar time tables, with the same end goal.
IOW, kicking the can down the road.
The more troubling question arising from the last several years is whether or not any implementation of a Presidential vision for space exploration will be able to survive similar political disinterest and budgetary constraints.
“The last several years”?(!) More like “the last several decades”, or since LBJ, the original political dynamo behind US civilian space exploration, was active in national politics.
Oh, jeez, Mr. Waddington — Are you one of those grim materialists who assume that something must yield useful scientific data to be “meaningful”? What about the meaning to be found in the human experience of exploration and achievement? Or have all those who attempt Everest and failed died “meaningless” deaths?
Perhaps you would prefer that I say “substantial” in lieu of “meaningful”? Surely you would admit that Apollo was a substantial achievement for America and humanity? Or was it also too unscientific for you?
Given the radical change of mindset required to do real space commerce, most of of NewSpace will, alas, fail…
I hope I didn’t misquote and change the context?
This is always true. Most startup businesses in any field fail. But some don’t fail. They create new possibilities. I am excited by the success and near success I’m seeing. For the first time in my lifetime we might actually get started on permanent life beyond Earth. I hope they pick up the pace. I’m getting old.
This is always true. Most startup businesses in any field fail. But some don’t fail.
Sigh, their seems to be a continual quest to misconstrue my posts. So let’s state it this way. Unless they radically change their direction towards real commerce, a much greater proportion of NewSpace companies will fail (or become government contractor zombies) than the already high normal proportion of failures among start-up businesses. So far the “success” you think you see has, except for Virgin Galactic, come from taking government contracts and luring in gullible investors with no experience in the space business. With the exception of Virgin Galactic private sector customers are still light-years away from buying from NewSpace because NewSpace has been pursuing NASA-generated economic fantasies rather than real commerce.
> Starless Says:
> April 27th, 2010 at 4:55 am
>> President Obama has essentially reset President Bush’s
>> VSE, using a similar technological development philosophy,
>> operating on similar time tables, with the same end goal.
> IOW, kicking the can down the road.
Worse.
Obama’s narrative effectively talks about extending the Griffin (not Bush) vision of space as moving to fewer and fewer space spectaculars, with no routine utilization. Space stunts, not development. Such stunts are very appealing to folks who love space, but they utterly bore tax payers who want to see some results beyond foot notes in history books, so they are politically doomed. However he also talks about them in vague ways in eras well beyond any current effort.
Obama’s actions involve gutting out US space capacity and any space program. Major cuts to government programs adn commercial industry. Yes hes adding a couple billion to NASA budget – but little of its going to space. The big budget cuts relating to shuttle and constellation are going through. Direct staff layoffs are estimated to approach 10,000 between shuttle and Constellation cut backs. These firms will get a little of that back (perhaps 2,500) on the commercial crew contracts – but those will be some time away – if ever. So most of the hard won skills and capacities the US developed giving them abilities toward space will be dismantled. So at best this will be a far bigger loss then the post Apollo lay-offs.
Kicking the can down the road – leave a can someone else can pick up adn run with later. Obama doesn’t.
> googaw Says:
>
> April 26th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
> == Given the radical change of mindset required to do
> real space commerce, most of of NewSpace will, alas, fail ==
> == and either (1) crash and burn or (2) become NASA
> contractor zombies.
Sadly I think your being to optimistic.
🙁
NewSpace isn’t in a good position to benifit from much growth in commercial space. If the commercial side actually develops the big aero firms have the skill base and resources to develop what ever is needed quickly, and a reputation that would reassure investors.
If gov space grows somewhere, they have over a half century of experence at playing the gov’s games.
Sadly if new space makes any money in a new market, they will mainly prove to old spaces investors that its worth taking away from them.
NewSpace isn’t in a good position to benifit from much growth in commercial space. If the commercial side actually develops the big aero firms have the skill base and resources to develop what ever is needed quickly, and a reputation that would reassure investors.
The reason this is true, however, has nothing to do with their size. Big size is a negative, it makes them slow to change as technology progresses. And it has little to do with their general space experience. If long experience mattered so much there would be no such thing as the Silicon Valley startup industry and we’d all still be using IBMs. Big size and ingrained culture is in technology businesses usually a big negative which prevents seizing new opportunities.
The real reason NewSpace is poorly positioned to benefit from real commerce is that with the exception of some of the suborbital companies they aren’t doing real commerce. They are usually doing things that are extremely far from real commerce and that will make transitioning to private sector customers often difficult or impossible. It is divisions of some “OldSpace” companies (Boeing, Loral, etc.) that are doing the real space commerce, especially the large communications satellite industry with its rapidly growing subscriber base.
Meanwhile NewSpace is focusing on NASA-generated economic fantasies and, surprise surprise, ends up generating only NASA contracts. The real progress in space development in coming years will not come from the astronaut fans but from the people who have the ideas and gumption to satisfy the needs of of communications and other real space customers better than Boeing and Loral do, to deliver the benefits of mobile and wide-broadcast communications to many more people for many more of our communications needs, just as back in the day Microsoft and Apple had the gumption to take on IBM and deliver computing to many more people and in a much more user-friendly way. One of them initially working with IBM, the other going rogue from the start.
Such stunts are very appealing to folks who love space, but they utterly bore tax payers who want to see some results beyond foot notes in history books, so they are politically doomed.
I don’t know if I agree with that.
There’s always a lot of talk from politicians, journalists, and space nerds about what “taxpayers want” and “interest from the public”, usually about HSF and usually as an excuse or reason for why HSF hasn’t gone beyond LEO for nearly forty years.
I’m a member of the so-called public and, not as a space geek but as a citizen of the US, what torqued me off about the ObamaSpace announcement was that they told us they wasted $9 billion on a project that was never going to work then turned around and told us they were going to spend even more money while utilizing only a fraction of the work they did while using up that $9 billion. And I don’t want to hear about Augustine or how Ares-1X wasn’t a valid test or any of that other stuff. As a citizen, I just heard that 9 billion bucks got pissed down a rat hole and we will never, ever, ever see anything beyond a tiny, expensive lifeboat out of that whole deal. That, to me is not acceptable and it’s particularly unacceptable to tell me that now the big-brained president has a plan and we’re all supposed to get behind it because…I don’t know why…because it’s worked out so well before?
The public doesn’t want spectaculars? I don’t know about that. I think “the public” wants greatness. They want to know that money is being spent wisely but they also want greatness and they’re willing to take risks, even the risk of failure, in order to get it. I think that since the dawn of the space age, the so-called public has always been interested, not space nerd interested but interested, and that all of the declarations of “waning public interest in the manned space program” is pure and simple politicking.
As a citizen, I just heard that 9 billion bucks got pissed down a rat hole and we will never, ever, ever see anything beyond a tiny, expensive lifeboat out of that whole deal. That, to me is not acceptable and it’s particularly unacceptable to tell me that now the big-brained president has a plan and we’re all supposed to get behind it because…I don’t know why…because it’s worked out so well before?
Starless, I hate to break it to you, but this is how NASA has been operating for decades. And $9 billion is chump change as far as NASA squandering the taxpayer’s money is concerned. If you want to really be pissed, consider the $100 billion that has been slathered on the International Space Station, which has produced none of the originally promised commercial or scientific breakthroughs. Such a white elephant is the ISS that NASA was until recently planning on dumping it into the Pacific Ocean in 2016. Now that it has been built they wanted to move the pork make-work jobs to another gigabridge to nowhere, i.e. Constellation.
Of course under the new policy we are supposed to forget about all that. The ISS is once again our heavenly shrine that will, really it will this time if we throw many more billions into it, miraculously give rise to a grand future of science and commerce. It just has to, look at all those astronauts on the NASA Channel, they look so busy.
Starless, I hate to break it to you, but this is how NASA has been operating for decades.
Don’t patronize me. I’m well aware of the gory details of the politics surrounding NASA.
If you want to really be pissed, consider the $100 billion that has been slathered on the International Space Station, which has produced none of the originally promised commercial or scientific breakthroughs.
Believe me, I’m far, far more pissed about ISS and have been for some time.
Now that it has been built they wanted to move the pork make-work jobs to another gigabridge to nowhere, i.e. Constellation.
See, as a citizen what I want, if there were problems with the program, is to either see the program fixed or I want to see that something useful comes out of its remains. I don’t want to hear excuses — I don’t want to hear about how that’s 9 billion bucks gone and oh, well, that’s how things work at NASA, anyway, so don’t be surprised. I don’t want to hear about how it’s cheaper to kill the project. When I hear things like that, I don’t believe them anymore and I’m not going to take anything I hear coming from them seriously.
(And yeah, for the record, there are times of frustration when the space geek in me thinks, “Better to just deorbit the f*cker and be done with it,” when I consider the hash that’s been made of the American space station effort.)
Make up your mind. Are you talking “not as a space geek but as a citizen of the US,” or as someone who, extremely uncharacteristically for a normal U.S. citizen, is “well aware of the gory details of the politics surrounding NASA”? If the latter, don’t pretend to be speaking for the former. If the former, which based on your original post I took you to be, don’t surprised about being “patronized”, i.e. informed about how NASA really works. You came on here pretending that you were speaking as an ordinary U.S. citizen, who is generally not aware of how NASA really works. Now it turns out you are some sort of angry expert. Really, I would stop paying attention to NASA if I was you, it is going to make you die of an early heart attack.
The ordinary U.S. citizen who has some common sense, BTW, if they consider the issue at all, which is unlikely, will not think backwards about it: they won’t obsess over not wasting $9 billion that has already been wasted by urging us to throw good money after bad. They will urge us to stop wasting money already. It’s something called common sense, which is in short supply among the pork mongers who will throw out any idiotic argument in order to justify wasting still more billions of the taxpayer’s money.
They are usually doing things that are extremely far from real commerce and that will make transitioning to private sector customers…
You’re defining terms. Can the government not be a real customer involving real commerce?
I agree with most of the rest and do understand the persnickety relationship a govt. customer represents.
I think public interest in HSF would be much higher if they’d do something interesting for a change, instead of just taking long vacations in LEO. The public can only get so excited about seeing six people in gym shorts float through a tube and talk to school kids via HAM radio.
Do something cool for a change, and we’re there!
No Ken, you can’t take a “market” that is over 99% government contracts and think that it is basically the same thing as a real market that is dominated by private rather than political demand. They are radically different things and require different terminology, and I’ll thank you to please stop your Orwellian attempts to erase this distinction by trying to even further coopt terminology that makes this crucial difference.
Guess this is late but:
>> Kelly
>> NewSpace isn’t in a good position to benifit from much
>> growth in commercial space. If the commercial side actually
>> develops the big aero firms have the skill base and resources
>> to develop what ever is needed quickly, and a reputation that
>> would reassure investors.
1. > googaw Says:
> April 27th, 2010 at 10:41 am
>
> The reason this is true, however, has nothing to do with their size.
> Big size is a negative, it makes them slow to change as technology
> progresses. ==
I dispute this. In this case the old aero companies have by far been the most technologically innovative.
> == And it has little to do with their general space experience. If long
> experience mattered so much there would be no such thing as the
> Silicon Valley startup industry and we’d all still be using IBMs. ==
People forget that the PC revolution was built using pretty much old off the shelf systems that are still made by the old manufacturers. The PC’s and Macs and others developed new products with the old off the shelf tech. So its not really a great analogy to use for space launchers or something. Which is where the bulk of the “new space” folks are trying to build from.
>==
> The real reason NewSpace is poorly positioned to benefit from
> real commerce is that with the exception of some of the suborbital
> companies they aren’t doing real commerce. They are usually
> doing things that are extremely far from real commerce and that will
> make transitioning to private sector customers often difficult or
> impossible. It is divisions of some “OldSpace” companies (Boeing,
> Loral, etc.) that are doing the real space commerce, especially the
> large communications satellite industry with its rapidly growing
> subscriber base.
Even with suborbitals “New Space” is a questionable term. I mean does Virgin contracting with Scaled Composits – a division of Northrup/Grumman – to develop their new tourist craft, really count as not part of old established aerospace industry?
>== Meanwhile NewSpace is focusing on NASA-generated economic
> fantasies and, surprise surprise, ends up generating only NASA contracts. ==
Yeah – especially with the current inexplicable enthusiasm to applaud the shutdown of the bulk of NASA current and planed manned space activity – and see commercials fighting over a tiny fraction of the current commercial / NASA pie a big plus?
1. Starless Says:
April 27th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
> == As a citizen, I just heard that 9 billion bucks got pissed
> down a rat hole and we will never, ever, ever see anything
> beyond a tiny, expensive lifeboat out of that whole deal. That,
> to me is not acceptable and it’s particularly unacceptable to tell
> me that now the big-brained president has a plan and we’re all
> supposed to get behind it because…I don’t know why…because
> it’s worked out so well before? ==
😉
Yeah, effectively the $9B and the new billions are pork, and the public and congress are expected to support it for the money it will send to their districts. Sadly – it works. Congress is still supporting Constellation, even if the programs never going to fly, since it sends money to them the new proposals won’t. Nelsons objections to the new proposal ended when Obama sweetened the deal with another $6 billion in busy work in his district.
>== I think “the public” wants greatness. They want to know that
> money is being spent wisely but they also want greatness and they’re
> willing to take risks, even the risk of failure, in order to get it. ==
I’d love that to be true, but nobly the pork seems to generate any public and/or political interest.