Category Archives: Space

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

SpaceX (Et Al) Update

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An update on the ISS situation from the Space Access Society. Singing my long-time tune:

NASA should develop contingency plans to accelerate readiness of at least one Commercial Crew vehicle in a Soyuz availability emergency. At a House Appropriations hearing last March, Administrator Bolden stated NASA policy in the event of a cutoff of Soyuz access would simply be to evacuate Station (news story, video of testimony).

The statement was made in the context of a political rather than mission-failure Soyuz cutoff, but given the spate of other launch failures and an apparent recent general deterioration in Russian space vehicle reliability, we think it’s becoming obvious that NASA urgently needs a backup plan should Soyuz go down for an extended period.

If the US Commercial Crew contractors haven’t already been asked by NASA to lay out how much each could accelerate its first crewed Station flight in an emergency, what resources it would need to do so, and what increased risks might be involved, they should be, immediately. (Regarding the question of risk, there is nothing sacred about NASA’s current protracted Commercial Crew safety certification process. Some parts of it no doubt do provide cost-effective safety improvements – others, perhaps not so much. Given what would be at stake with a Soyuz failure, a hard look at which is which is warranted.)

Yes.

[Wednesday-morning update]

Here’s a detailed story on Elon’s remarks in Boston yesterday.

Meanwhile, ESA has learned their lesson, and isn’t letting the incident make them complacent:

Gaele Winters, who is expected to ask ESA’s check-writing body on July 16 to approve a nearly $3 billion contract with Airbus Safran Launchers to develop Ariane 6, said the June 28 Falcon 9 failure in no way changes ESA’s assessment of SpaceX.

“We have seen the outstanding success of Falcon 9,” Winters said. “Despite the issue of about a week ago, it is a fantastic track record for this launcher.”

Yup.

[Bumped]

Administrative, Space

Forecast: Light And Scattered Blogging

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We’re heading out to Colorado tomorrow for a business vacation, including meetings about the project in the Denver area. We’ll be staying in Vegas tomorrow night, where rumor has it they’ll have fireworks (as they probably will in more abundance on Saturday, the actual 4th). The plan is to be back in LA by the twelfth.

It’s actually the first driving vacation we’ll have been on in the west (not counting California only) in years. I’ll take a laptop, and I’ll probably be checking in, but we’ll be spending a lot of time in the car, so blogging will be sporadic.

Business, Media Criticism, Space, Technology and Society

Why SpaceX Will Be Flying Again Quickly

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Some thoughts from Iain Thomson:

SpaceX doesn’t have those issues; it’s a single company that conceived, designed, built, and flies the Falcon rockets. Finding fault is going to be a lot easier under such circumstances because there’s a single data set and everyone knows everyone else.

The company is packed with highly motivated individuals and has a very flat management structure. Mistakes made are owned up to, and when the issue that caused the loss of the Falcon is identified, you can bet it will be dealt with quickly.

The current SpaceX resupply missions are on hold while this process is worked through. But you’re not going to see the kind of dithering that left the Space Shuttles grounded for 32 long months. If I were a betting man I’d guess the next Falcon will fly in 32 weeks, and maybe sooner.

Very likely sooner, I think. In fact, I think they’ll either figure it out quickly, or not at all. If they can’t figure it out at all, they have a huge dilemma, as I told Leonard David yesterday (he’s working on a piece with quotes from me and others).

[Update a while later]

Some thoughts (and links) from Bob Zimmerman on the media negativity about space.

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

My Initial Project Status

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For those not backers, but interested in what’s happening, I did a project update this morning:

I’m starting to spool up on the project (I expect to actually be funded this week — there’s a two-week delay after the close). Leonard David has a report today that the “Affordable Mars Strategy” report has been published and is available for free download [note: I haven’t actually been able to find the download — all I could find at Leonard’s link was Scott Hubbard’s op-ed — but I think I have the report]. I’ve also been in communication with the authors (specifically, John Baker and Nathan Strange at JPL), and received a lot of material from them last week (some of which may be redundant with the report). I’m planning a trip to Denver next week to (among other things) talk to folks at ULA about integrated vehicle fluids and propellant depots.

The JPL work will provide a foundation for my own analysis, and I’ll probably be discussing it with them. While I think they have a good solution for what they perceive to be their problem, I have fundamentally different top-level requirements.

I would characterize their approach as “Apollo to Mars”: A destination, a date, civil-servant boots on the ground, with a giant government-owned-and-operated rocket, except (unlike Apollo) it is budget constrained. I don’t think that will be any more economically and politically sustainable than Apollo was. I also think, bluntly, as a taxpayer and space enthusiast, that it would not be worth the money.

My approach is to get NASA completely out of the earth-to-orbit business, and to take the savings to develop the technology needed to build a scalable in-space reusable, resilient, affordable transportation architecture, that will enable not simply NASA, but anyone else who wants to, to go to the Red Planet.

And not just to Mars.