A call to arms from spacex

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SteveCNC

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I hate to say this but you seem awfully spiteful to Elon Musk and have blinded yourself to the fact that the bill (H.R.5781) is doomed to fail just like constellation did , it's a bad bill no matter how you slice it whether your pro-private space or not it should be voted out . I called washington and talked to the phone guy at my Rep's office there and asked him to pass on a "no" request . Even if I hated Elon I can see the bill as it is , is a piece of pork that can't possibly succeed .
 
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Valcan

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Re: SpaceX Updates

frodo1008":3n8u7sd1 said:
I do not quite understand. I thought that we already had a contract with the Russians for at least the next two years or so. Then why spend ANY more money on that effort, especially if spacex can make Dragon compatible not only with its own Heavy design, but even more importantly (as they are already launching) with the Delta IV and the Atlas V Heavies.

With the Constellation funding now essentially dead, I see absolutely no reason why this could not be done within two years with such funding.

So just why would Congress even consider spending five times as much on Russian flights beyond that time frame?

?????????????????????????? :? :? :? :? :?
Because congress has the morals of a *&^%$!!! Because for every vote they give they get votes.
 
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Crossover_Maniac

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Valcan":1kc0vo0t said:
Crossover_Maniac":1kc0vo0t said:
rcsplinters":1kc0vo0t said:

Thats it i give up.

Lets imagine something.

Ares I will be ready by 2016-probably wont happen. Its launch will cost 1 billion dollars per go.

SpaceX will have dragon ready by 2016- if given the nessesary funding, which wont be 8 billion dollars like it will with Ares. It will cost around 25 to 50 million per launch.
Now which is wiser cost wise?
Lets not even go into the needs of maintance and ground prep.
To me it appears many hear are just grasping at mist.

I didn't say it was right. I said this is how Congress thinks. If the private sector can make them look like fools, they're willing to waste tax payer money to keep that from happening. If Ares and Falcon-9 openly competed, then someone's going to ask NASA why it cost you $40 billion to do what Space-X did with $1 billion? I could be wrong but it's possible that Congress wouldn't want a Space-X around doing NASA's job for a fraction of the cost.
 
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SteveCNC

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I think one of the biggest problems with congress is they want to control what state gets how much money , that's what it's always come down to in the past , and that's why anything done by the government will cost at least 10 times what it should , well that and the cost+ way of doing business .
 
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frodo1008

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Re: SpaceX Updates

But Valcan, just how can giving more money to the Russians instead of American companies get more American votes?

Further, from what I am seeing on this site and the paper it is the Republicans that support this, and the Democrats that seem to be standing up for private American industry?

If that is so, then it is one of the greatest ironies of current politics.

I just wish there was some way of finding out the actual truth!! :? :?
 
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EarthlingX

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Collection of related links to articles :

www.universetoday.com : NASA Decision Afoot in Congress?
by Nancy Atkinson

Jul, 29th, 2010

The US House of Representatives are preparing to vote on H.R. 5781, their version of NASA's $19 billion budget authorization for fiscal year 2011, and several groups are calling for a "no" vote, or at the very least, a delay in the vote, currently scheduled for Friday, July 30. The House version would cut much of the proposed money for commercial space development and game-changing technology development, while putting more money towards a NASA-built rocket. There's a lot being written about this …
 
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mj1

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Re: SpaceX Updates

frodo1008":3ga8l8r8 said:
But Valcan, just how can giving more money to the Russians instead of American companies get more American votes?

Further, from what I am seeing on this site and the paper it is the Republicans that support this, and the Democrats that seem to be standing up for private American industry?

If that is so, then it is one of the greatest ironies of current politics.

I just wish there was some way of finding out the actual truth!! :? :?
You are right Frodo. The Republicans are supporting giving more money to the Russians. It's all political though. It's about them not wanting to agree with ANYTHING President Obama proposes. If Obama had proposed giving more money to the Russians, the Republicans would be on our side of the argument. Maybe he should use the Jedi mind trick on them. As far as space exploration goes, I'm an apolitical dude. I just want to see them do what works and what makes the most sense to increase space exploration as much as possible. If not for us then for our children. Musk is correct in that if we want to have ANY opportunity of seeing men and material going into space on a regular basis in our lifetimes, we have GOT to have American commercial players in the game in order to make it cheaper and provide more access. This is a critical time in where space exploration is going. What comes out of this will go into the history books as a major turning point. It's a shame that something this big history-wise in in the hands of such small minds. We as enthusiasts of space exploration need to make sure that the US has skin in this game. Yes, NASA has a big role to play too, but a commercial element is key also.
 
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mj1

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SteveCNC":12h5cxrm said:
I think one of the biggest problems with congress is they want to control what state gets how much money , that's what it's always come down to in the past , and that's why anything done by the government will cost at least 10 times what it should , well that and the cost+ way of doing business .
Sorry, got to jump in here:

Dude, the point we are missing is that those Congressman and Senators are bought and paid for by their corporate masters. They are not interested in doing what is best, or cheapest, or even which state gets funds, though they may say so. Their interest is in the money to get re-elected and the fatcat lobbyist jobs they get once they are done. Making a common sense argument to them is a waste of time, though it does make for good discussion here. If Musk is smart, his best bet would be to buy some congressman. An "investment" of a few hundred grand will net him billions in contract money. That's how it really works.
 
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mj1

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Crossover_Maniac":1d9mbhro said:
rcsplinters":1d9mbhro said:
I thought this was the guy that needed no US pork to offer a product. The US is NOT funding Russian development. We're paying them for a product. When the poor little rich boy has a product, we'll probably buy that as well. I guess that divorce must have cost more than he planned.

I say zero public money for his product development. When he has something to sell, we consider his widget along with the other widgets on the market and take the ride which is the best fit for the money.

There may be another reason for the "poor little rich boy's" call to arms: competition (or lack there of). If Congress gets Orion and Ares 1 flying, then he can't sell his Dragon capsule to them. Congress, to justify the billions spent on Ares and Orion, won't allow NASA to even consider another alternative.
Space X already had a boatload of customers on their manifest. What we are going to end up doing is to have SpaceX become the launch providers for other countries (who may be our competitors, by the way) for a fraction of the exorbitant costs that we will be paying, while NASA is bogged down with being a space taxi service instead of the long term deep space mission planning that they should be doing.
 
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Valcan

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Re: SpaceX Updates

frodo1008":1pgbsjbl said:

Holy crap. We will be giving money to the russians for the next 6 yrs atleast because of this same crap years ago!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We invest in AMERICAN COMPANIES NOW.
Ya'll got that part???? GOOD! We invest in american companies and american jobs. With the private industry-yes spaceX and friends as well as traditional companies. These companies give us TWO things.
1) Cargo vessels and manned spacecraft to LEO and the ISS.
2) A reliable cheap launcher to get to LEO.
This would free up more money in the long run for other projects---wait if your not getting where this saves money any Ares type rocket will cost hundreds and hundreds of millions to launch like the space shuttles billion record. So hey look money saved. Thats not to mention the BILLIONS not wasted on a rocket that wont have a mission because they wont fund one.
BTW Elon musk has risked more of his own fortune, named and life in persuit of a dream than any of those congressmen probably have.
Some people here are against this bill because they like obama some because they see a needed change and can embrace the reality of the current situation. Some hate obama so are for this bill because they see it as a win for there side against his. I KNOW MANY OF THESE PEOPLE. As ive said. I vote generaly conservative and dislike our current administration highly. However i can look beyond that to the fact that the old bills and budget that were presented by the white house were the best idea for Nasa in along time.
Look many would like to return to the moon but it just isnt in the cards now. Why its to expensive. So you invest in technologies and reduce that cost. Bottom line we wont return to the moon or mars without the needed technologies. This bill destroyes the chances for those technologies and instead saddles us with a unnessary launcher for nothing more than political favoritism and votes. Not only that but it guts our existing mission plans to explore the gallaxy.
 
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frodo1008

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Valcan, thanks for the clarifications, your earlier posts were not as clear on just where you stood, similar in a way to those evil politicians who also lack clarity. I sometimes wonder if this is why such items as contracts (governmental or otherwise) are written by lawyers in legalese, which the normal person finds totally confusing at best.

And I think the rest of us here (certainly myself) do totally agree with you.

I have become so disenchanted with this kind of thing, that I now place most of my hopes for getting mankind truly out into the solar system at reasonable costs on Burt Rutan, Virgin Galactic, and Bigelow Aerospace.

I believe that within the next decade literally thousands of space tourists and researchers will be flying craft build by Scaled composites (with possible help from such large aerospace manufacturers as Boeing) to LEO at costs that are well below $500 per pound instead of the very high $10,000+ that it now takes.

And all of this, without any direct governmental help at all!

That would be truly pure for profit private enterprise! :cool:
 
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SteveCNC

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Well it looks like it is tabled till they come back from break so we have another 7 weeks or so to stew on it but I say flood them with emails and phone calls to vote no .
 
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docm

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The House, as usual, will have its desires strongly 'restrained' by what will get through the Senate because that is the legislative choke-point - and the home of the largest egos in DC. Thank God for the filibuster.
 
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menellom

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With every incumbent member of the House up for reelection, you can bet that this month will be nothing but Representatives going out and glad-handing constituents. All the races are expected to be close, which means they need every advantage they can get their hands on. If space exploration supporters want to make a real grass roots effort to get a better NASA bill we couldn't ask for a better political climate. We can't let Congress gut funding to develop an American space industry or to continue The 'Going Nowhere' Constellation program. I encourage everyone to write their congressman recommending better alternatives, find out when and where they're making public appearances in your district over the next month, and encourage others who are passionate about space to do the same.
 
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frodo1008

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Docm, I do not think that a filibuster will be needed in the Senate, as the Democrat majority in the Senate has already approved the full funding of such private efforts, and it IS the Republicans (that even for political opposition to anything Obama, I find such a position to be greatly incorrect at best, and reprehensible at worst) that are the problem in the House. If a bill that truly parallels the Senate version were to pass then evidently Elon Musk and spacex would have no problems with it!

It is indeed with a certain amount of regret for myself that I do not have to communicate with my congress persons on this issue, as the are all Democrats that will be supporting having NASA move on while actually paying such as spacex for the more mundane duties of getting materials and eventually people to and from the ISS. However, I will contact my local Congresspersons office just to make sure he knows that this issue has my full support. However, not only is he a Democrat in support of this, his district also includes such a rocket giant as Rocketdyne, and so I can not imagine tha this vote would be a problem (at least if he wants to retain his seat in Congress).

However, if yours are Republicans that might vote for these cuts, then please contact them with your displeasure on this particular point! Hopefully, at least some Republicans have enough integrity that they are not so election minded that they would oppose Obama on everything, just for the sake of possibly taking back the power in Congress. To me at least that is like throwing out the baby with the bath water.

While I know that we do oppose each other at times on the more political issues here, you have always been a good supporter of the space program and getting humanity out into the greater universe. So, not only do I thank you for that position, you will never experience opposition from me on that particular issue!!

In fact, I would like to see the total space budget for not only NASA brought up to at least 1.0 % of the federal budget, but more money also given over to all private space efforts to truly stimulate the economy into hiring more scientists, engineers, machinists, inspectors, and all other Americans in good paying jobs with reasonable benefits, to truly place the US in the position as total leader in the world for this area. Especially as it IS the LAST such area the we are still the best in the world at!

Now, that would be a REAL stimulus package!! :cool: :cool:
 
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frodo1008

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Hey Job1207, I really do not give a damn if they wish to continue Constellation! What will ultimately determine the actual launch costs of such a program is NOT known at this time, so stating that it is going to cost $1.5 billion per launch at this time is just plain bull. I say this, and you know that I am not a really good supporter of the Ares I and Ares V in their current configurations.

The reason for this is rather simple, we have no idea exactly how many times this system (or any other for that matter) is going to be used to launch Americans towards the moon, or perhaps even Mars, now do we? And that factor IS the over all determining factor in any such efforts over all costs. To get a true per launch cost this number of launches should be divided into the over all cost of the program, and that isn't even Economics 101, it is just simple mathematics!

I do however, wish to see enough funding in this bill to make sure that Americans can and will get up to the ISS at a reasonable cost before the next presidential elections. If we somehow get someone such as Sarah Palin (God help us) as president, I personally think that our relationship(s) with the entire rest of the world might just go south, let alone those with the more sensitive Russians. And then what will we do to get up to the space station that the American taxpayers have paid some 90% of? The Russians just might not be in a mood to allow us to use their equipment at ANY price, I wonder if the rah, rah, and wave the flag, Republicans have even considered that factor?

So enough funding should be placed in any NASA funding bill to allow such as spacex to have a fully crewed Dragon capsule capable of being used on all of the heavy lift American launch systems (Delta IV Heavy, Atlas V Heavy, and the Falcon 9 Heavy) to at the very least get our people both up to and down from the ISS. My own feelings is that would take just about $2 billion per year between now and then, even with the lower costs and much faster non cost plus work of spacex.

And it could all be very easily paid for by just ending our stupid and useless engagements in the Middle East, bringing the troops back home to guard OUR borders (which at the very least would immensely decrease logistical costs for our military) , and then increasing NASA's budget by a small amount of the some $200 billion per year that would allow us to take out of our incredibly bloated military budget!

Think of it, just one tenth of that $200 billion would DOUBLE NASA's entire budget. Thus allowing our taxpayers to pay for good American jobs, instead of helping people that are always going to hate us anyway!

It was an earlier war that destroyed our first space program NOT NASA!! Are we now to allow this unutterable tragedy to happen again? :x :x :x :x
 
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Gravity_Ray

Guest
As far as I know Dragon is "man rated". It is to deliver cargo to the ISS. Once there it will dock to the ISS and astronauts will go in it to retrieve cargo. If its not man rated those astronauts will die. So obviously its man rated.

What it’s missing to "launch" humans into LEO right now is the LES (launch escape system). That is what is being developed right now. Developing that system (or just buying it) and integrating it and testing will take about 3 years.

Musk can and will turn Dragon into a system that can take humans to LEO with or without NASA. The issue is if we want to see that within 3 years or 6-8 years. Because there are private companies that will pay SpaceX for that rocket, companies like Bigelow. Also other countries will be happy to pay SpaceX for getting their astronauts to LEO. So either SpaceX will be an American company or it will be a foreign nation company. I rather see it be an American company with jobs here.

Also I read several posts that say that the government shouldn’t support SpaceX!. Why? The government has supported private industry to build large infrastructure several times in the past. It did it with the rail system, and later the Post office did it for the airlines. It’s worked before and it can work this time as well.

Without SpaceX and companies like it the Soyuz seats will only get more expensive each year because there is nobody to compete with them (Russians are very good capitalists and I wouldn’t be surprised if they are currently bank rolling several house members). And to everybody else, forget Ares I it’s gone and its not coming back and good riddance.
 
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job1207

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As head of Lockheed, Augustine was many pay grades above you frodo. It was his commission that came up with that number. It seems to be correct to me.
 
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Valcan

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frodo1008":34v82rsi said:

No afraid that wont happen frodo.
First i've noticed a annoying tendency of people to believe that if america just sat in america nothing bad could ever happen.
Every time we do that we seem to get rather large world wars. So i'm fine with policing the world.
WE HAVE TO. Our economy is a globalized economy. A war disrupting trade in one region can cause a financial hit in our market worth hundreds of billions. This destabilization would spread then to other parts.
Also your not putting the fact that to most arab and most cultures etc running away or quiting would imphasise weakness and thereby just encourage the insanity and lawlessness futher. To arab mentality Weakness means move in for the kill. So dont be weak.
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Also as has been stated before the russians cant just decide the station is theirs. Part of it is owned by the US and other nation so....
So no as much as so many here would like to say "WELL IF THOSE DANG JESUS FREAK REPUBLICANS!!!!!" or "IF THOSE DANG SOCIALIST DEMOCRATS!!!!!
Nope sorry children its YOUR faults. All of our faults like all the other problems. YOU have the power to vote you have had the power all along.
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Plus all along Musk has stated he could speed up production and research its all about how much funding he has to work with.
 
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frodo1008

Guest
Sorry Job1207, but according to this article in Wikipedia, you do not even have the correct cost per flight according to the Augustine committee. The recurring cost per flight according to the Augustine Commission would be somewhat under $1 billion for only one flight per year!

A little work with Google. and you get this:

"Originally scheduled for first test flights in 2011, the independent analysis by the Augustine Commission found in late 2009 that due to technical and financial problems Ares I was not likely to have its first crewed launch until 2017-2019 under the current budget, or late 2016 with an unconstrained budget.[37] The Augustine Commission also stated that Ares I and Orion would have an estimated recurring cost of almost $1 billion per flight.[38] However, recent financial analysis has shown that the Ares I would cost $1 billion or more to operate per flight if the Ares I is flown just once a year. If the Ares I system is flown multiple times a year the marginal costs could fall to as low as $138 million per launch.[39] The Ares I marginal cost is a fraction of the Shuttle's marginal costs even when it was flown multiple times per year. By comparison, the cost of launching three astronauts on a manned Russian Soyuz is $153 million.[40]"

Flying ANY system to the moon only once per year, is kind of like saying that you are going to take a shower once per year, whether you need it or not! :lol: :lol:

The $138 million per flight figure is probably for about 8 flights per year. Which would be far closer (and even conservative in itself) if you are going to support any kind of permanent base on the moon at all.

If you wish to study the entire article, here is the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ares_I

You would be on far stronger grounds for arguing against Ares I on the grounds of a somewhat ridiculous schedule than cost alone! Having the system completed in the 2017-2019 time frame is just unacceptable!
 
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frodo1008

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Valcan, I think we are both getting off subject. So before the MODS interrupt us, perhaps we should just stop. If you support what spacex and Elon Musk want, then by all means contact your Congressperson(s). Especially if your Congresspeople are going the wrong way on this issue, mine are going the right way, so I have done all that I need to do anyway.

FYI: I sometimes capitalize individual words for emphasis, but capitalizing entire sentences is considered internet shouting, and is bad form. So please refrain from doing this. Thank you.
 
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job1207

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And how many times are they planning to fly Ares 1? They re-supply the ISS twice a year. If the recent numbers are correct then we are still looking at a very expensive spacecraft.

Again, this WAS cancelled because of cost. I do not think that even the Senate is thinking of resurrecting Ares 1.

This is the original summary report. http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cac ... je0sDLBKjA
 
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mj1

Guest
Here's a novel thought:

Instead of NASA spend billions and billions on a waste of an LEO rocket booster, just get the hell out of that business and begin a project to build and launch a REAL manned deep space probe or probes that would be completely built in and launched from space. Say, from a Lagrange point or something. The commercials could be the taxi service, ferrying men and material back and forth, all of it supervised by NASA, with international help where needed. Of course, a project like this would take decades to complete and it would be our children piloting the ship(s), but it would be a project that would be worthy of America. A hell of a legacy to leave our kids and a great stepping stone to real exploration of space. I would be completely stoked for the future if our leaders were to have a vision such as this. Just imagine....
 
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Valcan

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frodo1008":2jqmw7iv said:
Valcan, I think we are both getting off subject. So before the MODS interrupt us, perhaps we should just stop. If you support what spacex and Elon Musk want, then by all means contact your Congressperson(s). Especially if your Congresspeople are going the wrong way on this issue, mine are going the right way, so I have done all that I need to do anyway.

FYI: I sometimes capitalize individual words for emphasis, but capitalizing entire sentences is considered internet shouting, and is bad form. So please refrain from doing this. Thank you.

I empasized the words to show how people tend to shout that is was someone elses fault whenever there is a problem when usually its a issue that is brought on my many people.

I have called mine i cany control bart gordon though so unfortunatly :evil:
 
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