Category Archives: Space

Business, Space

Gwynne Shotwell At ISPCS

14 Comments

Aim of her talk is to embolden those who want to enter the space industry, and encourage those doing it. Lows and highs in the industry, but right now lots of highs.

Company formed in March, 2002, she was seventh employee to bring in business, ended year with fourteen. 2006 Falcon 1 first flight, lot of people never involved in industry before. Couldn’t fly from Vandenberg because of safety concerns, had to go out of Kwajalein. Learned a lot on first failure — SpaceX became a very different company that day. 2006 also year they won COTS agreement, historical public-private partnership. Created Falcon 9 and Dragon, and made US competitive in space launch again.

Moved into new cavernous facility in Hawthorne in 2008 (now running out of space). Also year of first successful Falcon 1 flight. Also won Cargo Resupply Contract. 618 employees at end of that year.

2010, successfully flew Falcon 9 twice, and successfully recovered Dragon capsule. Signed largest commercial contract ever with Iridium (half a billion dollars), ended year with 1200 employees.

Didn’t fly in 2011, because getting Dragon ready to fly. Flew successfully to ISS in 2012, developed new version of Falcon 9, 2000 employees.

Showing Falcon 9R launch video.

What’s next?

Into regular operations. First flight for SES out of the Cape in less than a month, with another commercial launch, and four flights to ISS. Developing suits, seats, life support and escape systems for Dragon to carry people. First flight in about three years, don’t know if it will be NASA or SpaceX astronauts, first flight just to orbit and return.

Falcon Heavy still in work, expecting $1100/lb. 53 metric tons. Grasshopper more in the media than Elon this days, a rock star. Showing latest Grasshopper video. “This is not fake.” 25 people working Grasshopper program, about 3000 who want to. Moving to Spaceport America for Falcon-9R test vehicle. Showing photo of first stage three meters above the ocean fully intact (didn’t survive impact). “Really close to full and rapid reuse of stages.” First time photo has been shown. Not high resolution, but clearly a full vertical stage. First flight in New Mexico hopefully in December.

We want to go to Mars, think it’s the right place to go. Describing similarity of Mars to earth in terms of geographical features — grand canyons, volcanoes, rocks. Showing Mars landscape, with similarity to American southwest.

Economics, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

SLS Is Not “Viable” Or “Sustainable”

12 Comments

Former Shuttle manager Wayne Hale speaks truth to people who don’t want to hear it:

“The current plan is fragile in the political and financial maelstrom that is Washington,” Hale said. “Planning to fly large rockets once every three or four years does not make a viable program. It is not sustainable.

“Continuing to develop programs in the same old ways, from my observations, will certainly lead to cancellation as government budgets are stretched thin. It is time to try new strategies.”

I’m sure a lot of folks in Madison County weren’t happy.

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

Gerry Griffin

3 Comments

…proposes a giant leap for all mankind:

Mr. Griffin reminds us that space is a dangerous business. One of his biggest jobs at NASA was to manage the risk in a reasonable way. Risk can never be taken to zero; that would mean humans do nothing. Astronauts have died in space, but to put this in context, people in the aerospace community have also been killed on the highway on their way to work. Transportation, in any form, does not currently have zero risk. Safety is important. An early failure, such as the Apollo Launch pad fire, would be a problem for commercial viability. Design will require a reasonable middle ground with some redundancy, but not to the point of adding massive weight or prohibitive costs. Technology is so much better today and designers have fifty years of operating history to guide them. The physical demands of working in space are so intense that a momentary distraction could prove fatal. However, more is known about human error factors and training could better manage those.

Gee, someone should write a book about that. Yes, I know, Real Soon Now. Had a last-minute glitch, but it’s happening this month.