Category Archives: Business

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

“Vladimir Obama”

12 Comments

They told me if I voted for John McCain, the special relationship with the Britain would deteriorate. Man, the Brits aren’t happy.

The vitriol has a xenophobic edge: witness the venomous references to “British Petroleum”, a name BP dropped in 1998 (just as well that it dispensed with the name Anglo-Iranian Oil Company even longer ago). Vilifying BP also gets in the way of identifying other culprits, one of which is the government. BP operates in one of the most regulated industries on earth with some of the most perverse rules, subsidies and incentives. Shoddy oversight clearly contributed to the spill, and an energy policy which reduced the demand for oil would do more to avert future environmental horrors than fierce retribution.

Mr Obama is not the socialist the right claims he is (see article). He went out of his way, meeting BP executives on June 16th, to insist that he has no interest in undermining the company’s financial stability. But his reaction is cementing business leaders’ impression that he is indifferent to their concerns. If he sees any impropriety in politicians ordering executives about, upstaging the courts and threatening confiscation, he has not said so. The collapse in BP’s share price suggests that he has convinced the markets that he is an American version of Vladimir Putin, willing to harry firms into doing his bidding.

Guess that relationship will have to be on hold until 2013.

[Updatea early afternoon]

Barack Obama, most unpopular man in Britain. Glad we have that “smart diplomacy.”

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Science And Society

The Democrat War On Science

5 Comments

Expect this to be a recurring theme. The latest incident:

Needless to say, there is something ugly and hypocritical about glorifying the absolute authority of scientists and sanctimoniously preening about your bravery in “restoring” that authority — and then ignoring the scientists when politically expedient.

But it is bordering on the grotesque to handpick scientists to give you an opinion and then lie about what they actually said and implement a policy they don’t endorse. (According to the Journal, the Interior Department has apologized to the scientists. But the administration refuses to publicly acknowledge it did anything wrong.)

Of course it does. Not just hypocrites, but incompetent ones, who are compounding the damage to the Gulf economy from the oil leak by wiping out the local oil industry. Oh, and speaking of incompetence, how about this?

Against Governor Jindal’s wishes the federal government blocked oil-sucking barges today because they needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board and were having trouble contacting the owners.

We don’t have elections often enough.

Business, Space

More SpaceX Presser Coverage

8 Comments

Alan Boyle has his story up now. I have to repeat how struck I was by how adamant and vehement Elon was about the goal of reusability. It was almost Churchillian — we shall fight for it on the shop floor, we shall fight for it at the launch pad, we will never, ever give up. It should be noted, as always, though, that he also insists that reusability is not necessary to meet his current price goals. What it will do is give him more cost margin, either for lower prices, or higher profits, or both.

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Telling It Like It Is

10 Comments

Bob Bigelow doesn’t suffer the fools who have been stupidly criticizing commercial space gladly:

We are becoming a member of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation at this time to join with like-minded organizations, who want to see America be able to compete again in the global space launch marketplace, and push back against the pernicious misconceptions that are being perpetuated to harm the Administration’s commercial crew initiative.”

“Specifically, I’m appalled by the condemnation of commercial crew as being somehow less safe than government programs, and the refrain that commercial companies need to prove they can deliver cargo before they deliver crew. In regard to the latter, a leading contender for commercial missions, the Atlas V, has had 21 consecutive successful launches. This rocket is arguably the most reliable domestic launch system in existence today. It strains the bounds of credulity to claim that any new rocket would be able to trump the safety of a system that has an extensive record of flawless operations.”

“Moreover,” Bigelow added, “we’re extremely pleased to be part of the Boeing team constructing the CST-100 capsule under the auspices of NASA’s own Commercial Crew Development program. Boeing’s unparalleled heritage and experience, combined with Bigelow Aerospace’s entrepreneurial spirit and desire to keep costs low, represents the best of both established and new space companies. The product of this relationship, the CST-100 capsule, will represent the safest, most reliable, and most cost-effective spacecraft ever to fly. Again, I don’t understand the critics who say ‘commercial’ entities can’t safely build a capsule. Why is it that Boeing, the company that constructed the ISS itself, can’t safely build a capsule that would go to their own space station? These are the sorts of questions and issues that we will be posing in Washington as a member of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.”

“Pernicious misconception” is actually kind of a nice phrase for it. I’d like to see more details on the “CST 100” capsule. I wonder what the TLA is? Crewed Space Transportation? And what happened to 1-99? 😉

Business, Space

SpaceX Press Conference

37 Comments

Elon — half a billion dollars, biggest commercial launch deal in history. Reinforces fact that Falcon 9 is vehicle of choice not just for NASA but also for commercial sector. Also a lot of international customers. Good thing for US in particular because vehicles are built 100% in the US. US hasn’t been cost competitive in launch market, but are now.

2015-2017 for launch. Expect a couple dozen launches before then.

Bobby Block: What does mean in terms of what you’ll be looking for from the government to accelerate both crew and cargo?

Elon: Won’t make much difference, but does validate the NASA’s approach. Over the long term the cost to NASA and the taxpayer will be less because fixed costs will be divided by larger number of launches. Dragon is currently long pole, and this deal doesn’t affect that.

Block: People talking about Shuttle extension and more flights. If Shuttle is extended will it affect COTS?

Elon: Doesn’t see it affecting things. Assume that everyone knows that extending/restarting not a viable option. An extra Shuttle flight will cost a lot of money, more than SpaceX is getting for the entire NASA constract.

Claire Moskowitz: When launching out of Vandenberg?

Elon: Two years from now, roughly. Using SLC-4, former Titan IV facility (just like at the Cape). So they have a good understanding of what it takes to convert, 12-18 months.

Moskowitz: How about Taiwan launch on Falcon 1e?

Elon: Been in discussion for a couple years. Planning to do a number of Falcon 1e launches. Over forty launches manifested by the end of the year.

Alan Boyle: How many launches is the contract? About ten? One more provider to receive lion’s share?

Elon: No insight into other provider. SpaceX is primary provider, so other will be a backup or secondary. Can’t comment on exact number of launches, depends on final satellite configuration.

Elon: Most of the money goes to satellite production, the half billion is just the launch piece. Part of the cost is dispenser development, so it’s not all launch costs.

MSNBC: When is next launch, and what is cash situation (talking about Pasztor’s billion-dollar number).

Elon: Pasztor’s article rife with errors. In good financial shape but may take on debt for working capital. May also take in strategic investor. Next launch toward end of summer. Falcon 9 carrying operational version of Dragon.

Todd Halvorson: What is total backlog of Falcon 1/9 launches?

Elon: Low thirties in terms of backlog. Will be over forty by the end of the year.

Halvorson: Assuming that Iridium are polar, will any be equatorial?

Elon: Some chance of equatorial, but all current plans high inclination.

Irene Klotz: Location of Falcon 1e with Taiwan satellite?

Elon: Kwaj.

Klotz: How much to convert SLC-4 for Falcon 9?

Elon: $40-$50M.

Klotz: Who was competition for Iridium?

Elon: Everyone. French satellite, so no restrictions on American content issue. Global competition.

Klotz: How is data analysis from flight going?

Elon: Not a lot to report. It went great. Slight roll anomaly isolated to probably the roll-control actuator, but still not positive, still seeking internal consensus. A little too concerned that it went too good. Will be looking for “near misses” to prepare for next flight.

Space News: Is contract for all seventy two birds, or just a piece of the Constellation?

Elon: Doesn’t want to discuss that, ask Iridium.

ALan Boyle: Any better sense of how long the Dragon test article will stay in orbit? Is there another client for the mission, perhaps classified? Can you say anything?

Elon: Laughs, can neither confirm or deny. Dragon will stay up for a year or two, and burn up on entry.

Halvorson: Comment on how SpaceX operates versus legacy companies in terms of costs?

Elon: Doesn’t like to give sound bites — oversimplifies. Needs to write a paper on it. Like asking why Southwest is cheaper. Not just because they use 737s. SpaceX operates on a Silicon Valley OS and DNA. Sort of like an Intel or Apple or Google of space transport. Vertical integration helps also, once problems are solved. Too much outsourcing in traditional aerospace. They cut out middlemen. Using legacy components means inheriting legacy cost structure. Tightly integrated team, with factory on the same floor as engineering. Everyone in a cube, including him. Also, very simple, with same propellants in both stages. Upper stage simply a short version of first stage. Same engine on both stages, so lots of economies of scale from Merlin.

Klotz: Launch escape in house, or contract?

Elon: Building liquid escape engines into sidewall of Dragon, which will be safety improvement over solid. Won’t have to eject a tower. Having something that you have to eject every flight seems like a crazy idea. Will have escape capability all the way to orbit.

International Business: Is this part of the two and a half billion in contracts?

Elon: Yes, it’s about $2.7B, including this, through 2017, but bulk over the next five years.

Are Chinese competition?

Yes, when international customer.

How much financial margin? Can you avoid the Sea Launch problem?

Elon: Cash flow not significantly affected even in stand down. Sea Launch suffered from single-point failure of launch platform. Tough to recover from. SpaceX has site flexibility of Vandenberg, Cape and Kwaj.

Space News: Might want to check out if Chinese were eligible to bid for Iridium work.

Elon: Not sure they were, just thought they were because of French satellite. You may know more than me, but didn’t think there was an ITAR issue.

Conference over.

[Update a few minutes later]

The one question that I didn’t capture was mine. I asked him if they knew yet why the first stage didn’t survive entry, or if they would have to wait for another flight to get better data (because they didn’t get the microwave imaging data they wanted). He said that they still didn’t know, and might not figure it out until they try again. I followed up, asking if he could conceive of a time that they might just give up on it, and pull the recovery systems out to give them more payload. I was surprised at the vehemence of his answer (paraphrasing): “We will never give up! Never! Reusability is one of the most important goals. If we become the biggest launch company in the world, making money hand over fist, but we’re still not reusable, I will consider us to have failed.” I told him that I was very gratified to hear that, because I like reusability.

[Early afternoon update]

Here’s Bobby Block’s report on the presser.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Sorry, It’s Not The Manhattan Project

32 Comments

…or Apollo. I suffered through the president’s speech so you don’t have to.

The most egregious part of it was when he compared energy independence to Apollo. Here’s my response from the campaign:

He’s never met a problem that, in his mind, the “full power of the government” can’t solve.

It’s an understandable appeal, but it betrays a certain lack of understanding of the problem to think that we will solve it with a crash federal program, at least if it’s one modelled on Apollo.

Putting a man on the moon was a remarkable achievement, but it was a straightforward well-defined engineering challenge, and a problem susceptible to having huge bales of money thrown at it, which is exactly how it was done. At its height, the Apollo program consumed four percent of the federal budget (NASA is currently much less than one percent, and has been for many years). Considering how much larger the federal budget is today, with the addition and growth of many federal programs over the past forty years makes the amount of money spent on the endeavor even more remarkable.

But most of the other problems for which people have pled for a solution, using Apollo as an example, were, and are, less amenable to being solved by a massive public expenditure. We may in fact cure cancer, and have made great strides over the past four decades in doing so, but it’s a different kind of problem, involving science and research on the most complex machine ever built — the human body. It isn’t a problem for which one can simply set a goal and time table and put the engineers to work on it, as Apollo was. Similarly, ending world hunger and achieving world peace are socio-political problems, not technological ones (though technology has made great strides in improving food production, which makes the problem easier to solve for governments that are competent and not corrupt). So most of the uses of the phrase never really made much sense, often being non sequiturs.

It’s important to understand that landing a man on the moon (or developing atomic weaponry as in the Manhattan Project — another example used by proponents of a new federal energy program) was a technological achievement. Achieving “energy independence,” or ending the use of fossil fuels, are economic ones. And the former is not necessarily even a desirable goal, if by that one means only getting energy from domestic sources. Energy is, and should remain, part of the global economy and trade system if we want to continue to keep prices as low as possible and continue to provide economic growth.

Nothing has changed. My commentary remains true today.

[Wednesday morning update]

If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we stop the leak, Mr. President? That’s a much better Apollo analogy.