Looking for info on long term private space corps.

[Fire Fly]

Someone has made the claim that private space companies can outcompete government when it comes to space.

Falcon 9 Heavy (which is already in development by SpaceX) has a proposed cargo capacity that greater than Ares I, and is already closer to launch than the Ares space vehicle is. The Augustine Commission estimates that best case the Ares I will not launch before 2017.

SpaceX has offered to develop a modern equivalent to the Saturn V rocket with equal lift capacity (that is, 150 metric tons) for a flat cost of $2.5 Billion. The Ares I (with a cargo capacity of about 25 metric tons) has already cost $40 Billion.

I believe Shep has been quite vocal about Falcon 9 not being able to even compete with Ares I, seeing as they're designed for different purposes. But I'm wondering if moving from government to private on space is progress or regress for the next few decades?

[Skgoa]

I think you are talking about two distinct topics:
1) should the US go with Falcon 9 instead of Ares I for their next heavy lift launch vehicle?
2) is it fundamentaly a good thing to "go private"?

My answer to 1) is:
Yes, if the Falcon 9 holds up to what has been promised. Unfortunately rocket science is one of those fields where unexpected problems can and do arise at any moment. Thus I won't state that the developpement of Falcon 9 will FOR SURE go as planned. But I think at this point in time its the strategicaly advantagious thing to do for the US space program.
But its not like NASA will withhould it's considerable experience and know-how from the people who build the machine that - by starting a huge more or less controlled explosion on its rear end - propells their scientists into space.

Answer for 2):
I think it is; and it is inevitable anyways. Its not like there have not been private companies who build all the parts of the "government" launch vehicles - or ever the whole rocket. Boeing, Lockheed, Rocketdyne, McDonnel Douglas, Northrop... are those government Agencies? No they aren't. Just because now the whole thing isn't under the supervision of the government anymore, they won't stop being the same excellent, intelligent and capable engineers they were five minutes earlier. So Shep's argument that it can only be done by NASA falls apart right there. (That he is conveniently forgeting that the US is not the only spacefaring nation is another story, that we don't have to get into right now.)
Which brings us to the question of whether or not the government should actually offer this service, when there are private providers who can do it just as good. I don't think so. And please note that I am probably one of the left most people on this forum. Why should the government transport satelites or tourists into orbit? Aren't the space agencies supposed to push boundaries and do science? Then they should fucking do that. NASA should on missions to near earth objects and ultimately Mars.
And as long as the right regulations (concerning safety, environmental impact etc.) are in place and enforced, I don't see how this developpement can lead to anything but higher competition and thus will drive innovation up and the price down.

[PeZook]

Someone has made the claim that private space companies can outcompete government when it comes to space.

Falcon 9 Heavy (which is already in development by SpaceX) has a proposed cargo capacity that greater than Ares I, and is already closer to launch than the Ares space vehicle is. The Augustine Commission estimates that best case the Ares I will not launch before 2017.

SpaceX has offered to develop a modern equivalent to the Saturn V rocket with equal lift capacity (that is, 150 metric tons) for a flat cost of $2.5 Billion. The Ares I (with a cargo capacity of about 25 metric tons) has already cost $40 Billion.

I believe Shep has been quite vocal about Falcon 9 not being able to even compete with Ares I, seeing as they're designed for different purposes. But I'm wondering if moving from government to private on space is progress or regress for the next few decades?

Jesus christ, of course the Falcon 9 can't compete with the Ares I. The Ares I would've been vastly more advanced (two engines vs. 18 (!!!!) ) and fucking man rated, which is something everyone keeps forgetting when comparing the development costs. Wait until they start trying to fly the Dragon capsule on it with people inside, and then the comparison will be meaningful, because man-rating a vehicle is quite expensive.

That's not to say the Falcon 9 won't find a niche for itself. There is a nice market for cargo launches to orbit, and if SpaceX can get into it and offer a better, cheaper service than the big players, good for them, but they should stop saying they are going to revolutionize spaceflight. It is at best an evolutionary step forward.

And yes, if private business can find more ways to profit from space, it is indeed progress. The problem is that private business won't go further than LEO without groundwork that only a government can finance - just like governments all over the world financed the development which now let relatively small startups take shots at going to LEO, and the big players do regular commercial satellite launches.

Also, I fucking laugh at SpaceX's bombastic offers for a heavy launch vehicle equal to the Saturn V (again, a man-rated heavy lifter) for such a piddly sum. They still haven't proven they can deliver on their last bombastic offer, that is vastly cheaper orbital launches, so I think they should slow down a bit with the PR stunts.

So Shep's argument that it can only be done by NASA falls apart right there. (That he is conveniently forgeting that the US is not the only spacefaring nation is another story, that we don't have to get into right now.)
Which brings us to the question of whether or not the government should actually offer this service, when there are private providers who can do it just as good.

I don't think Shep is arguing NASA designs rockets ; Just that NASA is the only organization which actually has an incentive and could have the resources to fund development of and operate heavy lifters right now.

There's no commercial purpose for a 150+ tonne heavy lifter now ; It will be necessary if we ever need to build actual infrastructure in orbit, at which point it will be vastly more efficient to already have a third or fourth generation design ready to go.

The only way SpaceX, for example, is going to develop such huge rockets is on a contract from NASA, since nobody else has any use for them whatsoever. Even NASA doesn't anymore, though, with the Constellation program murdered.

EDIT: BTW, SpaceX uses facilities on Cape Canaveral to launch and prepare its rockets, so it's not like it's a RAR BOOTSTRAP operation, seeing as it was the evil inefficient government which built all those facilities for piles of money.

[Skgoa]

I don't get what your argument is. Does NASA need a very heavy lift vehicle? Apparently not. Why then should NASA pay Boeing, Rocketdyne or whoever to develop one?
And what has that to do with the new heavy lift vehicle (i.e. Falcon 9) that they actively finance?

If you want to argue that NASA should conduct missions with higher payload and further distanced, I am all for that. (I am, for example, very peeved that ESA isn't developing Arian 6 right now.) But thats not part of the "private vs. governmental" question at all.

[PeZook]

I don't get what your argument is. Does NASA need a very heavy lift vehicle? Apparently not. Why then should NASA pay Boeing, Rocketdyne or whoever to develop one?

My argument is that no private enterprise will need a very heavy lift vehicle on the scale of the Saturn V now nor in the foreseeable future, unless that need arises thanks to fundamentally unprofitable exploration. In combination with high costs of developing and using such heavy launchers, it means the only organization that could develop one is a non-profit like NASA, which has access to government funds.

And what has that to do with the new heavy lift vehicle (i.e. Falcon 9) that they actively finance?

Nothing ; Just that comparing it to the Ares I financially is fundamentally misguided at this stage. Call me when SpaceX manages to man-rate the Falcon 9 and beat the projected launch costs for an Ares I + Orion combo.

Of course they may still end up using the Falcon 9 + Dragon anyway whatever the cost, since Obama oh so wisely axed Constellation and gutted the program without letting any sort of knowledge retention take place...

If you want to argue that NASA should conduct missions with higher payload and further distanced, I am all for that. (I am, for example, very peeved that ESA isn't developing Arian 6 right now.) But thats not part of the "private vs. governmental" question at all.

It is part of the question when a company boasts they can achieve stupendous cost savings on superheavy lifters. So far the Falcon 9 offers about 20% cost saving against similar vehicles, yet they claim to be able to reach an order of magnitude with a superheavy lifter

[Rabid]

I am, for example, very peeved that ESA isn't developing Arian 6 right now

We just don't need to build one at the moment. Ariane 5 is man rated and can already lift more than 20 metric tons into LEO. I fact, it was conceived from the very beginning so it can launch a "spaceplane" (like the X-37, but manned). And if we need more "punch", we could always resurrect the soviet Energia (can lift 88 metric tons into LEO, and I think it's also man rated as it was meant to be used in conjunction with the soviet Buran space shuttle).

[Skgoa]

Ariane 5 is still "only" a heavy lift vehicle, I would like to see an ESA program to build a super heavy lift vehicle, just so that we have that capability in the future. I agree that its not a priority right now - especially seeing as we don't seem to have a coherent strategy to get to the Moon/NEOs/Mars, thus don't have the payloads and missions that would warrant such a program -, but it would be progress that the european space capability should make. Resting on one's laurels is exactly what lead to NASA not having a manned space capability for a couple of years, I just would like us to already have a rocket in development once the inevitable decision to leave orbit is made. Yes, that might be in more than a decade, but these project do take some time, too.
Also I would really really doubt that we will take Energia, ever.
And while we are at it: I know that ESA will have it's own manned capabilities in a couple of years and I have actually attended lectures by one of the people who know educate and train ESA's austronauts. Please don't talk to me as if I were a neophyte.

I don't get what your argument is. Does NASA need a very heavy lift vehicle? Apparently not. Why then should NASA pay Boeing, Rocketdyne or whoever to develop one?

My argument is that no private enterprise will need a very heavy lift vehicle on the scale of the Saturn V now nor in the foreseeable future, unless that need arises thanks to fundamentally unprofitable exploration. In combination with high costs of developing and using such heavy launchers, it means the only organization that could develop one is a non-profit like NASA, which has access to government funds.

Yes, I agree. And I actually see it as part of the governmental space programs to do exactly that. But I don't see how its such a big problem that they decided to award their contract to SpaceX instead of Boeing. NASA devises the missions and the payload, their launch vehicles have been build by private entities for a long time. If its cheaper to pay SpaceX instead of Boeing for the same service, why should they waste money?

And what has that to do with the new heavy lift vehicle (i.e. Falcon 9) that they actively finance?

Nothing ; Just that comparing it to the Ares I financially is fundamentally misguided at this stage. Call me when SpaceX manages to man-rate the Falcon 9 and beat the projected launch costs for an Ares I + Orion combo.

Of course they may still end up using the Falcon 9 + Dragon anyway whatever the cost, since Obama oh so wisely axed Constellation and gutted the program without letting any sort of knowledge retention take place...

If you want to argue that NASA should conduct missions with higher payload and further distanced, I am all for that. (I am, for example, very peeved that ESA isn't developing Arian 6 right now.) But thats not part of the "private vs. governmental" question at all.

It is part of the question when a company boasts they can achieve stupendous cost savings on superheavy lifters. So far the Falcon 9 offers about 20% cost saving against similar vehicles, yet they claim to be able to reach an order of magnitude with a superheavy lifter

Ares I would have cost $40bn, according to the latest official figures I have seen. SpaceX has been awarded contracts worth at most $3.5bn, for both the development of rocket + capsule and 12(!) succesful supply missions to the ISS. They have received aprox. $250mil, at a point in time where the development is almost finished (they are in the test launch phase and have had two successful launches) and the company even manages to make a slight profit. Please tell me how you come to your conclussions.

[PeZook]

Yes, I agree. And I actually see it as part of the governmental space programs to do exactly that. But I don't see how its such a big problem that they decided to award their contract to SpaceX instead of Boeing. NASA devises the missions and the payload, their launch vehicles have been build by private entities for a long time. If its cheaper to pay SpaceX instead of Boeing for the same service, why should they waste money?

It's not a problem. In the current situation, the Falcon 9 is NASA's best bet to quickly get manned launch capability after the Shuttle is retired, but it's not going to be some sort of incredible revolution in spaceflight.

Ares I would have cost $40bn, according to the latest official figures I have seen. SpaceX has been awarded contracts worth at most $3.5bn, for both the development of rocket + capsule and 12(!) succesful supply missions to the ISS. They have received aprox. $250mil, at a point in time where the development is almost finished (they are in the test launch phase and have had two successful launches) and the company even manages to make a slight profit. Please tell me how you come to your conclussions.

Again, vastly different vehicles. SpaceX didn't have to develop any new technologies from scratch, they do not have any radical new capability (like the Orion capsule), and their chosen vehicle processing scheme is cheap, but won't stay that way for long (about the time they start flying astronauts and thus require means to evacuate them while the vehicle is on the pad). Furthermore, we have no idea what the development actually cost, since SpaceX is not required to release detailed financial information.

The Falcon 9 + Dragon is a bit like US Soyuz: it sacrifices capability for reliability and cost. Even then, SpaceX claims the current launch cost per Falcon 9 flight is about 60 million (without the capsule), and it should be able to carry 10 tonnes to LEO, compared to the Delta IV and the Ariane V (which both do about 15 tonnes) that's not an order of magnitude saving on launch costs.

And of course a manned Dragon flight won't have a chance to cost a mere 60 million per flight. Hell, the contract they got from NASA is 1.6 billion just for the 12 cargo flights to the ISS, according the SpaceX itself, or 133 million per flight. Whoops! Turns out it's about the same as a Delta IV launch?

I actually like the Falcon 9, because of it's Soyuz-like qualities, but one can't stress just how much non-revolutionary it is. It's not even a significant step up from the goddamned sixties, like the Ares I would be: it's just a slightly better Soyuz launcher, which the Russians have pretty much mastered by now (and the Semyorka uses less engines to boot...)

[Sky Captain]

Ultimately I think the cost of Falcon+Dragon launch will depend of how often it flies. If it's few times a year then the cost probably will be comparable to Soyuz. To get the costs down a high flight rate is needed likely several flights per months (if SpaceX infrastructure allows that). Only way how such high flight rate could be achiewed is if orbital hotels become reality or some sort of massive government space program which is unlikely in near future.

The same thing is with heavy launchers, an order of magnitude cost reduction might be possible but only if the flight rate is high with rocket assambly lines and personal kept busy all the time which again recquire large scale space program.

[Skylon]

[
I actually like the Falcon 9, because of it's Soyuz-like qualities, but one can't stress just how much non-revolutionary it is. It's not even a significant step up from the goddamned sixties, like the Ares I would be: it's just a slightly better Soyuz launcher, which the Russians have pretty much mastered by now (and the Semyorka uses less engines to boot...)

I think we're on a similar page. I like the idea of SpaceX's Falcon 9/Dragon taking over ISS crew rotation and logistics for the U.S. But travel beyond LEO is something SpaceX isn't near yet.

For that, I like Lockheed Martin's proposal of using an Orion spacecraft in conjunction with the Delta IV Heavy for an unmanned lunar flyby test. I'm just not sure where the money for that will come from. It however shows that Lockheed does not want to give up on Orion.

In the end though, NASA needs something of the Saturn V class. As stated, private companies have little incentive to develop that independently. They'll build the thing when it comes down to awarding contracts, but they only will when someone is ready to show them the money.

[Cykeisme]

From a layman's viewpoint, what are the sort of features and requirements that are needed to qualify a design as man-rated?
Is it things like peak Gs during launch and payload mass/capacity, or is it things like reliability?

Sorry, stupid layman question!

[Skgoa]

All of that and more. Its all kinds of stuff that a spacecraft needs to make it usefull and safe for manned missions. The whole NASA regulation can be found here: http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayDir. ... _8705_002B_

[bobalot]

Someone has made the claim that private space companies can outcompete government when it comes to space.

SpaceX enjoys a large subsidy from NASA. So whoever said that and used SpaceX as an example doesn't know what they are talking about.

[PeZook]

And as Skgoa pointed out, NASA only runs the launch sites and distributes the monies, all the hardware is made by contractors anyway...

[Fire Fly]

I think what I was trying to ask initially and not doing a very good job (I was multitasking at the time) was:

1. In the foreseeable future, will private space enterprises be able to outcompete and government? Lately, I hear a lot of statements such as:

Re: Ares and Orion

NASA can't even do this yet! The Ares program is already billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. Best estimate is that the Ares program will cost as much as $40 Billion dollars by 2015, with no guarantee of a single launch by that time. Meanwhile, you have SpaceX which has had two successful launches already of the cargo version of the rocket, with an expectation of a manned version of the rocket within three years and at a cost of less than half a billion dollars.

Re: man rating

SpaceX has already indicated that they are planning to have Falcon 9 man-rated within the next three years for a cost of only a few hundred million dollars, which would bring it almost on par with the still-unready Ares I. If you factor in their plans for the Falcon 9 Heavy variant of the rocket, they will have a rocket with a greater cargo capacity than the Ares I.

2. Is SpaceX's low cost model real or just fantasy?

This blog post suggests otherwise. True or false?

[PeZook]

And once again, anybody comparing the Ares I + Orion stack (a genuinely new system with advanced capabilities not seen anywhere else) and the Falcon 9 + Dragon (a low-cost American reinvention of the Soyuz) is a fool.

You always pay a premium on new technology, like man-rated solid rocket launchers and four-man high endurance capsules with the ability to orbit autonomously for two weeks, even if all of SpaceX's claims were completely 100% and they'll never run into unforeseen problems again. I think there was another thread where people wondered why the US spends so much more for their military gear, and the reason is the same: when you push technology ahead, you pay through the nose for it.

BTW, the Ares I did do one test flight which was a success.

[Skylon]

BTW, the Ares I did do one test flight which was a success.

Albeit in an incomplete configuration (dummy upper stage among other things). But it did succeed, in spite of some voices that said it wouldn't.

Other than budgetary problems, the main issue I noted with Ares I was that on paper, it wasn't quite looking as good as promised. Orion launched on Ares I started to lose capability. Its crew size shrank and there was talk that to save weight, NASA would have it land on water only, not land.

[Sky Captain]

Ares I was meant only to place Orion in LEO it is not needed to go beyond LEO. 3 core version of AtlasV or DeltaIV Heavy could do it just as well. Man rating an existing rocket should be cheaper than designing a new one from scratch. In addition using an existing rocket for normal satelite launches and also to launch Orion would help to bring cost down because the same rocket would be flown more. Canceling AresI was nothing too bad, it duplicated existing capabilities anyway. The essential piece needed for serious exploreration is heavy lift rocket to launch Earth departure stage or large modules to assamble true deep space ship. Constellation could go without Ares1, without AresV - not so much.

[Skgoa]

I think what I was trying to ask initially and not doing a very good job (I was multitasking at the time) was:

1. In the foreseeable future, will private space enterprises be able to outcompete and government?

Where are they even competing?

Lately, I hear a lot of statements such as:

Re: Ares and Orion

NASA can't even do this yet! The Ares program is already billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. Best estimate is that the Ares program will cost as much as $40 Billion dollars by 2015, with no guarantee of a single launch by that time. Meanwhile, you have SpaceX which has had two successful launches already of the cargo version of the rocket, with an expectation of a manned version of the rocket within three years and at a cost of less than half a billion dollars.

Re: man rating

SpaceX has already indicated that they are planning to have Falcon 9 man-rated within the next three years for a cost of only a few hundred million dollars, which would bring it almost on par with the still-unready Ares I. If you factor in their plans for the Falcon 9 Heavy variant of the rocket, they will have a rocket with a greater cargo capacity than the Ares I.

Even if it costs them a billion dollars to develop Falcon 9 heavy and man rate it, they will be an order of magnitude below what Ares-I would have cost. But thats not a good comparison to make, as PeZook has been pointing out: SpaceX is just using proven technology, the whole Constellation program was supposed to be an r&d effort to get all the technology that NASA needs to get to Mars.

2. Is SpaceX's low cost model real or just fantasy?

This blog post suggests otherwise. True or false?

The author of that is doing alot of "because I say so!" NASA is giving SpaceX 1.5bn for development and 12 launches, so the cost per launch is $133m, so they will never ever be able to launch at a $50m price point... because he says so. What he neglects to mention is that if we conflagrate the development cost into the total cost of each launch, ever launch after the 12th is MUCH MUCH CHEAPER. Then he brings out numbers that show that SpaceX IS cheaper... but because he made us think $133m is the inevitable cost of a Falcon 9 launch, he makes it look like both Atlas and Soyuz are cheaper. Because he says so.
The next two paragraphs don't contain real arguments at all, they just make it seem as if he had something relevant to say. And of course, the points he aludes to somehow mean that Falcon 9 will have a much higher price, because he says so. And then he goes of on a really stupid tangent about Falcon 1 and concludes that private industry doesn't want to go into space - even though that has been happening for decades -, because he says so.