One Giant Leap for Commercial Space
A lot (in fact, way too much) was riding on Space Exploration Technologies Corporation’s (SpaceX) first launch of its Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral on June 4. As a poster child for commercial space, they have unfairly taken the brunt of the criticism of the new Obama space policy, and some of those hoping for a return to the status quo of NASA’s expensive Ares I, which the administration canceled in February, were no doubt hoping for a failure. The company has been called “amateurs in a garage” and “hobbyists” with a “toy rocket” by people ranging from space (or rather, NASA — they’re not the same thing) enthusiasts to senior senators from Alabama. Many had pointed out that they “had only a forty percent success rate” with their smaller rocket, ignoring the fact that this consisted of five launches of a new vehicle. The first three failed (each with more success) as they wrung out the bugs, and the final two were perfect flights.
But it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect an orbital delivery of a payload on a new launcher on its first flight, considering the history of rocketry. SpaceX itself downplayed expectations, pointing out that there were a number of things to be proven out on this first test flight — clean liftoff, full first-stage burn, clean stage separation, successful second-stage ignition — of which achieving orbit was only the last, and even a subset of them would be a good day.
Well, it was a much better day than they dared hope. They delivered their payload (an engineering test article of their planned cargo/crew capsule) all the way to orbit on their first attempt, after some drama from iffy weather conditions, a boat that had to be escorted out of the safety zone, and an aborted launch attempt with only an hour and a half remaining in their window. The last was the most impressive thing about the launch. They went all the way in the count to ignition, and then shut down the engines before releasing the hold-down clamps, because there was an anomalous reading on one of the propulsion parameters. After an hour or so of analysis, they restarted the clock at T minus 15 minutes and had a beautiful launch with fifteen minutes to spare. No other company has a vehicle design that could recycle this quickly from a launch abort (Shuttle is a minimum of twenty-four hours). They had demonstrated this on the Falcon I, but it was quite amazing to see them do it again on the very first flight of the much larger vehicle.
I’m afraid I don’t share the ‘optimism’ that this is even ‘commercial’ space flight, rather than “federally” subsidized (eventually) contractor. Face it, NASA has out grown it’s own britches. It’s hugely expensive, leviathan-esque in every manor of it’s operations, cumbersome and narrowly focused. But shifting the burden under the guise of ‘commercial’ use especially in an administration that has stated emphatically it’s contempt for free markets and entrepreneurial enterprise, especially those in high carbon footprint and pollution sectors, seems a bit curious to me.
I agree with the previous poster that this is “a bit curious”. Nevertheless, I have been hoping that commercial launches would become the way we get stuff into orbit. I think this was an unintended consequence of the administration, which has the only goal of turning Nasa into a propaganda machine. We’ll see how this plays out, but if it’s true, this is a good thing!
Ruler4You:
SpaceX was started years before Obama’s election. Look at the history of air transport. NACA (the predecessor of NASA) was charged with R&D, not operations. The NASA / Apollo model is an artifact of the Cold War. While today NASA is the only paying customer, other private entities, such as Bigelow, are waiting in the wings.
According to the launch manifest…
http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php
…NASA ain’t their only customer.
NASA should have been phased out of the commercial spaceflight business years ago, and refocused on R&D and exploration, the things they actually did well.
We would be much further along in space exploration than we are now had commercial concerns been allowed from the very beginning to do the bulk of the LEO lifting allowing NASA to focus on things like the moon and Mars.
Unfortunately, this administration really cares not at all about space or real science. Which is unfortunate given the number of things essential to modern daily living which have come out of the space program.
Of course, to people who really do not understand either science or reality, you merely need to tell those silly engineers and scientists what you want done, they’ll make it work. Then of course when they can’t do it you call them liars, find someone who isn’t really qualified to say it could be done and then cut the budget.
Which is exactly what’s going to happen to NASA.
NASA plans to stay in control of the mission by insisting that
private enterprise meet NASA standards for manned flight safety.
If that does not work, say because teleoperated robots render
men in space unnecessary, the State will step in on grounds of
national security; Rockets are munitions, weapons of war.
Power is not given up, it must be taken from the State by
the private sector before space can be exploited for profit.
M. Report said:
“NASA plans to stay in control of the mission by insisting that private enterprise meet NASA standards for manned flight safety.”
Yes, and how is this different than airlines having to meet FAA standards? Would you fly an airline that did not meet federal standards for safety? One could argue that they will make the standards too strict, and that could happen. However Bolden does not seem to be going down that road.
“If that does not work, say because teleoperated robots render men in space unnecessary, the State will step in on grounds of national security; Rockets are munitions, weapons of war.”
I’d say the topic of tele-operated robots is unrelated to SpaceX – they are just providing commercial access to space. What you do when you get there is out of their purview.
However, keep in mind that SpaceX, ULA, Orbital or anyone else that launches from U.S. soil does so under U.S. authorization, and if the government does not want a particular payload or person to leave their soil, the transportation operator won’t get permission to embark. It’s just like ships and airlines, so nothing is different. It’s just that it’s the Y axis instead of the X-Z.
Govt is not the only source of regulations.
Read up on the UL model.
FAA has the federal mandate for oversight of space flight safety. The only reason NASA is making noise about it is that they want to “protect” their investment, supposedly astronauts & hardware but more likely their cushy bureaucratic jobs.
Each shuttle launch cost $450 million. SpaceX developed two rockets and a capsule for that amount. Each Falcon 9 launch costs $50 million. The Shuttle did have five times the payload of the Falcon 9. I like cutting costs by 5/9ths, and the SpaceX development costs are stunningly low.
Yours,
Tom
Tom DeGisi, the Shuttle costs are way higher than you mention. The Shuttle Program Manager has stated that they burned $200M/month regardless if they launched. Add on top of that the shuttle stack costs (SRB’s and tank) and the processing, and it gets pretty high.
For SpaceX, they currently charge $51.5M to put 23,050 lbs into LEO. The Shuttle has the capacity to put 53,600 lbs into LEO, but it’s such a jack-of-all-trades but master-of-none vehicle that it’s hard to compare to any launcher. The Falcon 9 Heavy that SpaceX will eventually offer is three Falcon 9 cores, and they advertise that it will be able to lift 70,548 lbs to LEO.
My rough figures show that the Shuttle costs $17,000/lb to LEO, and that Falcon 9/-Heavy are below $3,000/lb. For comparison, Delta IV & Atlas V Heavies are about $6,000/lb to LEO.
Delta IV Heavy has already flown three times, so it’s proven. Atlas V has flown many times, but not the -Heavy version. Falcon 9 just flew it’s first flight, so it has a ways to go to prove it’s reliability. Overall, we have a three good choices to take over the cargo portion of the Shuttle program, and all of the responsibilities of Ares I.
This is how this company will be killed. The government demands unionization of all contractors. Then the likes of SEIU will contract away any long-term viable “commercial” aspect in short order. The green thugs will start demanding cleaner more enviro friendly everything. Consequently, there will be failures. Lawyers with full support of the government will force bankrupcy. At which point the government will step in. All management retirement account funds will be confiscated and used to capitalize union ownership of the company. From that point on, from the bottom up and top down, the program, formerly known as a comapany, will be a tax payer supported union jobs program.
Think GM.
Look folks,…I disagree with Obama’s Foreign Policy, his Financial Policy, his Medical Policy, his…..
None of that means that the alternatives presented in opposition to Obama’s present policy on Human Spaceflight are worth a tinker’s damn! Could I improve on the Administration’s HSF policy? I sure can! That does not mean I am willing to go back to calling the use of rocketry technology developed between 1965 and 1980 an innovative and competent use of NASA funding. That is what the congressional and NASA opponents of the current policies propose we return to!
What is not understood in the above comments is the extreme nature of the statism involved in the policies of Mike Griffin and his congressional allies. It is not only extreme, but utterly unsustainable as a viable program of Solar System exploration in the likely budgetary environment of the next 20 years.
People fear NASA will try to grind out a new safety regime for NASA-crewed human spaceflight that just happens to allow them to control all factors from Marshall Spaceflight Center, and keep government managers employed there. What is not perceived is that NASA-crewed human spaceflight is a distinct minority of the next 10 years market for launching humans into orbit. If NASA tries to laden ULA, OSC, SpaceX and others with the costs of keeping Senator Shelby’s political constituents employed, they can walk, and NASA will have dumped itself back into the arms of the Russians. This will become impossible to ignore at some point in time, hopefully *before* SpaceX and ULA and others opt out of their contracts by ignoring what Marshall managers say.
The key here is that it is NASA managers being employed to control human spaceflight that makes it expensive. This is *not* because these people are incompetent, but because they are tied to the coattails of people like Senator Shelby. Once NASA is broken to the rein, and admits that it and its congressional masters are *not* in total control of the direction its money gets sprayed in, they can stop promising that to politicians, and the Congress can then decide what money they will appropriate for human spaceflight, under those conditions.
NASA is not about transportation to LEO. NASA is about exploration, and most often exploration beyond LEO. Once that fundamental fact, ignored for 40 years, is accepted, then we can get on with the business of settling the Solar System, with some help from NASA tech development and exploration.
I find it curious that so many find Obama’s motives “a bit curious”. The federal government is strapped for cash and Nasa’s 18.69 billion dollar budget is needed elsewhere.
For political reasons the money can not be nabbed all at once. The first steps are always the hardest as the politicians and bureaucrats connected to the agency will fight to the death to keep the status quo in place.
A diversion is needed, and new space in general and space x in particular is it. If the diversion actually works-so much the better. If not, oh well techies were never really the intended target of Bary’s Hopey change message.
20 Billion needed elsewhere…. now that IS funny. In a four trillion dollar budget such a measly amount is an accounting error. Not only will it not pay off the SEIU for obama, likely it will not even cover the expenses of all the parties he throws.
Wagu beef or the moon? Galen knows which Galen would choose.
There are many corporative clients that would be interested in commercial space flights, Google has its own sats in orbit just to mention one. Commercial space flights requires always commercial vision which is completely out of the realm of Nasa and, probably out of our own vision except the vision of the investors who se potential gain we don’t. Otherwise they wouldn’t invest. Nasa doesn’t need to dissapear (though it will need to reform and focus on research orther things).
What I -as a capistalist defender- would require, is that the Government keep away of becoming the competition of private citizens.
I was thinking that just 149 years ago we fought the civil war where men walked up their opponants with raised muskets and shot point blank at each other in the face. Now here we are 149 short years later pretending that Space X is not just another private company looking for government contracts to make billions of dollars and be rewarded for supporting a presidential candidate who won an election.
I know this is the way of the world, but I just wish we could be more honest about it instead of pretending it wasn’t welcome to the new, same as the old. I’ll admit, I’m a little angry it will mean the loss of thousands of jobs and devastation to communities in the United States while still sending money and jobs overseas.
Welcome to the Obama Space Center.
I remeber seeing the movie 2001 when it first came out and hoping to see the day when there would be colonies on the moon and maybe mars. Instead I watched NASA waste $100 of billions on dead ends. We need to shrink NASA and use the money to promote space colonies with X-prizes for developing heavy boosters and lunar landers. Spacex has shown that cost effective technology can be done well for a lot less money than we have been shoveling into NASA over the years. For all the PHDs on NASA welfare, its time to get a real job.
In his post, #1, Ruler4You speaks a heap of truth to NASA. But fails to mention that like every other feral gummint Bureaucracy, NASA is but the wading pool of the thousands of “Democratic” potty-activist parasites that warm its seats and shuffle its papers and allocate its funds to the systemically corrupt “contractors” and “suppliers” who actually do anything thereabouts. And who have so enriched the hundreds of Russian space folks who’ve siphoned off Scores of Millions of Dollars NASA has squandered on the Russian “contractors” and “suppliers” to the “international” space junk … um … I mean … “station.”
NASA purchases launch services from the PRIVATE sector past, present and future. United Space Alliance is a group of PRIVATE businesses who are under the USA umbrella. SpaceX is another private company getting a government contract for space services, so far 3.6 billion and very likely to go up.
The commercial companies contract with NASA, the Air Force and also contract with other commercial businesses to send for example, commercially owned satellites into orbit.
SpaceX is the SAME. A company seeded by private money but relying on the GOVERNMENT for growth.
You can be glad for the competition against giants like Lockheed Martin, Boeing etc., but don’t kid yourself into thinking that SpaceX is not another wanna be Lockheed Martin, Boeing etc. If they would become successful as those two companies it would be something to be proud of since both have employed many people over the years providing their employees with a decent living and their employees have and will provide excellent service to both governmental and private contracts.
SpaceX has grown and profited from reaching into the government coffers. It’s the same box different wrapping. To pretend otherwise is insulting to our intelligence.
I think Obama has managed to twist people’s minds with his twisted words.
Let me repeat. NASA purchases launch services from PRIVATE COMPANIES. Obama hasn’t invented anything new.
SpaceX’s first successful launch was to orbit a Malaysian satellite (RazakSAT). So please explain to me again how is it that SpaceX is solely relying on the US government. They also have not got 3.6 billion from NASA. Those contracts are dependent on flights performed. NASA merely gave them a couple of hundred million dollars so they could get the infrastructure tailored to their standards. The money NASA gave SpaceX so far wouldn’t even pay for a single Shuttle flight.
SpaceX also manufactures nearly all of their components in house, while Lockheed Martin buys engines from Russia. Boeing has been on an outsourcing binge for their 787 airplane lately, one reason for its massive delays, so I doubt they will keep their space sector manufacturing solely in the US if they had a chance to do otherwise.
SpaceX is bidding and has won contracts with NASA worth billions of dollars. Would you expect NASA to hand them the money Carte Blanche without the condition of showing they can successfully deliver on their promises? SpaceX is in the business of aquiring government contracts now and in the future. They are in the business of bidding governemtn contracts and protesting bids that are won by other businesses. It is not hard to get this information.
Cooperation between companies in the United States and foreign entities is nothing new. It’s called politics in business and please don’t tell me you don’t think it goes on. Many retired military personnel also find a comfortable home in the businesses that contract with NASA. Again ist’s called politics.
I repeat. Obama has not invented anything new. SCORES of PRIVATE COMPANIES contract with NASA to build and deliver space related services. These same PRIVATE COMPANIES also fulfill contracts to other Commercial businesses. Many of them also provide services to the military.
Geez.