Will the 5 years between Shuttle and Orion allow...

[qso1]

llivinglarge:<br />the commercial space companies to show off and attempt to outdo NASA?<br /><br />Me:<br />Lets hope so...and not in a stupid and dangerous way, but outdo by showing the private sector really can do the job better than the government. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[JonClarke]

There are some things the private sector does better than the government. Like running profitable businesses There are other things the government does better, like basic research, which includes exploration.<br /><br />NASA is about developing the technologies that enable the private sector to build profitable space businesses and to carry out space exploration. Pribate industry has shown no interest in either, nor should we expect it to.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[qso1]

NASA has not been able to develop the SSTO technology that private industry would benefit from in the form of economic access to space.<br /><br />Some sectors of private industry are showing interest (Rutan, Bigelow, Branson) in at least a space tourism industry. An industry from which other activity can develop. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[spacester]

<font color="yellow">NASA is about developing the technologies that enable the private sector to build profitable space businesses and to carry out space exploration. Private industry has shown no interest in either, nor should we expect it to. </font><br /><br />Um, Jon, you seem to be making a lot of absolute statements on this and other threads. <br /><br />"Private industry has shown no interest in . . . . . . developing the technologies that enable . . . build(ing) profitable space businesses and to carry out space exploration" <br /><br />??? <br /><br />SpaceDev? SpaceX? XCOR? Armadillo? JP Aerospace? Blue Origin? Shall I continue the list? Hello?<br /><br />Perhaps you could clarify for us what you actually mean here? <br /><br />If they are not doing those things, what ARE they doing?<br /><br />My point was going to be about the revolutionary idea of "Public-Private partnerships", but I guess I need to take this step at a time. If your opinion as the usefulness of private industry in the big picture is that low, I don't suppose the concept of cooperation would appeal to you. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">NASA is about developing the technologies that enable the private sector to build profitable space businesses and to carry out space exploration.</font>/i><br /><br />If you look at comments by entrepreneurs more than three years ago, they often had scathing comments about NASA. In the last 1-2 years that tone has changed. I think Griffin has turned a lot of that around.<br /><br />There is another problem that is endemic to any large organization, especially large government organizations, when there is a fixed amount of money to go around -- no one in that large organization wants to go out of their way to help someone else take away their money.<br /><br />As a hypothetical example, if NASA (and I include primary contractors here) has a budget of $5 billion for manned spaceflight every year, they may not be too happy to help third party organizations get up and going so that they can take away $1 billion of that $5 billion.<br /><br />An organization will often use passive-agressive techniques to scuttle the third party. For example, they may appear to "embrace" the new competitor (e.g., when ordered by Congress), but then they will draw up onerous requirements that will make it difficult for that competitor to succeed.<br /><br />A good test will be to see how hard NASA works to render Orion/Ares I useless for anything other than the Lunar missions. If COTS is successful, there will be no rational reason to launch Orion/Ares I before 2018-2019 (other than for test flights). Will NASA work hard to get out of manned flights for 9 years?</i>

 

[JonClarke]

What am I on about?<br /><br />It's quite simple. The technology that SpaceDev, SpaceX, XCOR and the others have been using was developed with substantial input by NASA, its predecessor, and the agerncies of other governments, over the past 70 years or so. Should these companies build successful spacefaring businesses (yet to be demonstrated BTW), they will do so on the shoulders of NASA and other agencies. That has been the role of those agencies, in the case of NASA, its specified role. Those who complain that NASA has not developed commerical spaceflight don't really understand the role of NASA or of commerce either.<br /><br />As for exploration, anyone who thinks that private industry will explore space in the foreseeable future has no idea of what private industry needs, starting with a 20% annual return on investment. There have been plenty of talk about private missions to the Moon over the past decade or so, not one has got off the ground. If people want the US to explore the solar system with probes in their life time, and the broader universe with space-based telescopes, then NASA or something like it is the only type of organisation that can realistically do it.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[JonClarke]

The reason why NASA has not come up with SSTO is because it is by its very nature extremely difficult (perhaps even impossible). Trying to develop it will be extremely expensive, and have no certainty of success. That is why private industry has been working on SSTO for over 40 years and not come up with anything either.<br /><br />But we don't need SSTO now, we just a fractional reduction in present costs. If private industry cannot achieve this with the experience and data and funding that NASA and others have poured into it over the last 50 years then the fault is theirs.<br /><br />Alternatively are we are already at about the minimum cost. for spaceflight. In that case the only way space can become more affordable is for incomes (including organisational incomes) to go up, through long term economic growth.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[spacester]

Let me start by saying that the NASA-bashers among the NewSpace folks are not doing anyone any favors by not acknowledging that much of their work is on the shoulders of NASA.<br /><br />But I'm not sure that the vocal NASA-bashers are in any case the same individuals who are working on NASA-derived tech. Burt Rutan can bash away if I'm right: is there anything NASA-derived in SS1 or SS2 or White Knight or really any of his projects over the years? Any specific technology? The man has used his own aerodynamics software package for decades. <br /><br />Benson and Bigelow do not NASA-bash AFAIK. Show me one specific individual who NASA-bashes while making money off NASA tech.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Those who complain that NASA has not developed commercial spaceflight don't really understand the role of NASA or of commerce either. </font><br /><br />Agreed. But are you the expert on all things commerce?<br /><br /><font color="yellow">As for exploration, anyone who thinks that private industry will explore space in the foreseeable future has no idea of what private industry needs, starting with a 20% annual return on investment.</font><br /><br />Are all mafic formations basalt? <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> Does it further a geologists' understanding to ignore the possibility of felsic minerals because it makes the analysis easier? I doubt it.<br /><br />Does Branson require a 20% ROI? Does Musk? How about Carmack and Powell and even Bezos? Is Robert Bigelow a freak of nature in your book or a successful businessman? Do you imagine that they are getting 20% ROI? Do you not count their efforts as credible?<br /><br />Do existence proofs not work for you for some reason? Your broad brush statement of the needs of private industry for 20% ROI was proved incorrect years ago.<br /><br />It is the absolute statements you've been making that prompted my post, I don't want to argue. I see little hope of getting you to see the utter foolis <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vulture2]

>>Should these companies build successful spacefaring businesses (yet to be demonstrated BTW), they will do so on the shoulders of NASA and other agencies. That has been the role of those agencies, in the case of NASA, its specified role.<br /><br />I could not agree more. NASA supported the intial development of communications, earth resources, and weather satelites, and from its founding in 1917 (as NACA) its support of basic research to advance the technology of flight, to make it faster, safer and less expensive, helped the US aerospace industry lead the world. But today NASA support to aeronautics is moribund, although such work has benefitted far more people than spaceflight. Partly as a consequence much of the new technology for the Boeing 787 is coming from (and will stay) overseas. NASA funding cuts have also delayed and downgraded a new generation of weather satellites. <br /><br /> />>The reason why NASA has not come up with SSTO is because it is by its very nature extremely difficult (perhaps even impossible).<br /><br />Is this the agency that used to say:<br /><br />"The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer."? <br /><br />Whether true SSTO is feasible, any practical human spaceflight must utilize fully reusable systems. The Russians, with a fraction of our launch costs, can sell only a bare handful of tickets for ELV rides. For human spaceflight to be practical on any significant scale the cost must be greatly reduced, and there is no physial reason why this cannot be done. The fuel (i.e. the energy) for the Space Shuttle accounts for less than 2% of the launch cost. <br /><br />Yet the very NASA programs that would have begun to find out what technologies are really practical for reusable orbital launch vehicles, the X-33, X-34, DC-X, and X-37 were all canceled. In the case of the X-33, a precipitating factor was the failure of the prototype composite LH2 tank. The contractor, perhaps showing greater determination than NASA,

 

[rocketman5000]

It comes back to the difference in the scope of focus of the NACA and NASA. Just because NASA replaced the NACA doesn't mean it has all of the same goals. The NACA tried to never build or really design any of its craft. It never operated operational craft. It was an agency built on theroetics and advancing the limits of understanding of aeronautics. <br /><br /><br /><br />NASA operates spacecraft. Sometimes for long periods of time. (think Voyager) If we continue to have missions that last 20+ years it will be many years before the increase in the need for recurring budget costs level off. <br /><br />IMHO, some of the problems we commonly complain about with NASA are because it is tasked with trying to do too much. If Aerospace research was tasked to a seperate agency than NASA I feel it would be much more successful. Projects like the X-33 wouldn't have been cut if it was one of the banner programs of an Agency. When the X-33 was a program at NASA it was simply a line item that needed to be justified against its cost. Research should be seperated into two seperate categories. Technical research and exploration research<br /><br />Technical Research would consist of programs similar to what was preformed at the NACA. (Maybe someone could come up with a snazy acronym?)<br /><br />Exploration Research would consist of programs similiar to the Mars Rovers or MRO or the myriad of other probs sent into space. Exploration research would remain in the hands of NASA

 

[barf9]

That split will work out as killing all manned exploration projects. Why, because we don't really have any in progress right now, and there has always been a call for more probes. Your new NASA will go with more of the same and cut every crewed project in the pipeline because the "techincal research" required is "outside the scope of the new Charter..." I don't particularly care for the direction of manned space flight but sometimes you have to take what you can get.

 

[rocketman5000]

I don't believe that justification. The airforce could still build and operate planes when the NACA existed. In fact the airforce was a "customer" of the NACA. When the airforce needed more performance for a plane or jet engine they often turned to the NACA for help. They were the "Can Do" crew. That carried on into Apollo.<br /><br />for a great narration of what the NACA did in its early years link

 

[barf9]

I agree that old NACA was a model of cooperation and very effective program management, but I don't think you will ever see the funding necessary to recreate that as a seperate government agency. Splitting NASA means Splitting NASA's funding, I would rather not see NASA's buget reduced any more than it already has been. Even if the new agencies didn't lose any of the total NASA funding (meaning their bugets added up to the current NASA total) would you still get as much of it to the actual exploration and research programs, or would it be lost in new layers of management?

 

[llivinglarge]

I wouldn't be surprised if private investments and private research yielded a warpcore faster than NASA... </half sarcasm>

 

[vulture2]

The technolgy of the VSE is already as old as the Wright Flyer would have been during World War Two! If the NACA of the 1930s had been so timid they would have gone back to balloons. <br /><br />What happened the to agency that used to say "The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer."? And it's not just the agency that has lost its vision. What happened to the space enthusiasts who wanted us all to have the chance to fly in space, not just a lucky handful? If this is ever to be the case, we need the technolgy for human spaceflight at a practical cost.<br /><br />It's time to return to NASA's original mission; not the one that was abandoned when the moon race ended, but the one that was abandoned when the moon race began. We can fly to the moon, or we can open the sky. We cannot do both.

 

[qso1]

Its called the cost barrier. At least thats what I call it. Americans are ready to do the impossible, unless it costs too much money. The space enthusiasts are still here and as bold as ever. But by and large, they don't have a significantly large effect on the direction space exploration should take unless they are in a highly influential political or professional position. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[rocketman5000]

One of my main goals would be if I was spliting NASA into two agencies would be to remove those layers of management. There is no reason why project managers shouldn't report directly to the head of the agency. you would have two layers of management. the Head of the Agency and the project head over the researchers. It should be a mean lean agency that is horzontially integrated rather than vertically like beaurocracies, but then again this is thinking like a business and we know that goverments can't operate like that.<br /><br />A research agency should be able to quickly start and stop projects based on the validity of the research. Sometimes you have to try something to know it won't work. Total research dollars shouldn't be punished just because a test or two failed. In research failure is often. I think Edison had something to say about that with the lightbulb.

 

[no_way]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Does Branson require a 20% ROI? Does Musk? How about Carmack and Powell and even Bezos? <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />mr. Carmack just detailed his ROI expectaions over at SpaceFellowShip Q&A thread<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I don't really expect suborbital tourism to be a multi-hundred-million-dollar a year market, but I think our share of it will be big enough to pay off all my investment and fund a manned orbital program. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Other interesting bits:<br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>We will probably use a second generation, nine module system for commercial tourism applications. The raw consumables for a fully loaded nine module flight would be about $5000. If we move to self-pressurized lox/methane and took bulk deliveries, the costs could drop to $1000. <br />...<br />I honestly think that the operating cost can get down under $10k / flight. Since we want to perform 100+ demonstration flights before taking random paying customers, this is important. If there is sufficient market demand to keep a vehicle flying continuously, building larger vehicles that carry more people each flight can probably get the actual ticket PRICE down to $10k. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">mr. Carmack just detailed his ROI expectaions over at SpaceFellowShip Q&A thread </font>/i><br /><br />One thing I really like about Armadillo is how frequently they test their systems. It gives me confidence that they understand the issues more than most.</i>