"It comes up almost every time that I see him. Continuous human presence and no gap."
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Key Senate staffer is “begging” NASA to get on with commercial space stations
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SexHitler? As a handle? On a science site?? REALLY???
That's a handle that belongs on the site that used to be called Twitter (among other places).
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The problem is the government that you support. When you govern on whims instead of policy, it's hard to do things, because what your objectives are change all the time. And things like space stations need fixed requirements to be developed.
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Why? What's the commercial motivation for a manned presence in LEO, aside from soaking up government contract money? What are people going to do up there that is commercially viable? This is 100% an excuse to write checks to private companies out of the public coffers and nothing else.
Private launch makes more sense, since private companies have reasons to put satellites in orbit. It's commercially viable. But a manned station is fantastically more expensive and there's no business model for generating profit from it.
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If they were to extend the ISS, then they would still be giving government money to private coporations.
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Cruz should have lost all credibility as a space policy advocate with the shuttle relocation stunt. Not that credibility or lack thereof means much in his tribe...
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Speakertoanimals
Ars Praefectus
Companies such as Vast and Axiom are moving now (with limited resources). Blue Origin is looking at it and has money. A Starship would make a large station with 1 or 2 launches. The time to move is now. ISS is worn-out, expensive and ready to fail. Let's do it.
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Cruz does understand what "Commercial" means in the context of CLD, right? There's not a requirement that the ground controllers for the new stations must operate out of NASA-Johnson.
I suspect Crus is going to pressure NASA to score proposals based on how much legacy NASA infrastructure they can take advantage of. Basically, he wants "Commercial" to mean "NASA contractors" rather than what it's supposed to mean.
I suspect Crus is going to pressure NASA to score proposals based on how much legacy NASA infrastructure they can take advantage of. Basically, he wants "Commercial" to mean "NASA contractors" rather than what it's supposed to mean.
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I feel like uncertainty around the design envelope right now would be at least as offputting for any private investor though. This isn't the pre-2010s, the rocket launch industry is in a period of big time flux. The difference in space station design choices and capabilities/costs between if you're designing around F9 launch capabilities vs Starship or planning for NA etc is enormous. If someone designs around something that takes longer to be viable then expected, they might run out of runway and be toast. But if someone designs around something that promptly gets completely obsoleted within 5 years they're toast too, a space station isn't a disposable object.
I don't think government pressure or support can get around this for anything but a purely government station where gov chooses not to care, and even that is honestly kinda risky because the politics would be way more likely to go sour if the public can see something better side by side. Cruz might not like it but that's reality. Hopefully NASA can thread the needle reasonably well under the new leadership!
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This is entirely about him not wanting Johnson left without a mission and has no purpose beyond that. If there is no station, then there are no long-term crewed missions and short-term crewed missions are really hard to justify, which means that Johnson would be looking at a RIF for the astronauts and everyone that supports them.
Having said that, I agree that we should have something up there to replace the ISS before the ISS is deorbited; the only question is "what?" This is a discussion that should have started back in 2024, as soon as NASA announced that the ISS would be deorbited. Instead, Artemis has been sucking up all the money and planning time.
Having said that, I agree that we should have something up there to replace the ISS before the ISS is deorbited; the only question is "what?" This is a discussion that should have started back in 2024, as soon as NASA announced that the ISS would be deorbited. Instead, Artemis has been sucking up all the money and planning time.
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I'm pretty sure that is exactly what the problem is. Putting the ground controllers somewhere other than Johnson means that he has failed to bring the bacon back home (and gives further impetus to the push to move all crew operations over to Kennedy).
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SpaceX' current approach to just about anything is to create a new Starship variant to solve the problem. A Starshjip CLD would likely use elements of Starship HLS. New required elements include long-duration capabilities and multiple docking ports. They would also drop some HLS-specific stuff (legs, landing thrusters, garage) and possibly shorten the tanks in order to increase the habitable volume. SpaceX now has 30,000 employees, so presumably they could create a small team to design this variant in this timeframe without interfereing with their other Starship developments.
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A lot of humans want to go to space and are willing to pay a significant amount of money. If Starship can really get down to $25-75/kg to LEO, then even with double or triple mass margin for human launch to account for more safety systems that'd still put ticket prices <$50k, and possibly <$15k. And consumables would all be at whatever the lowest price is, no extra needed there. That's getting into territory where yeah, one can see a commercial case for it. If we're serious about getting to other planets and rest of the solar system, even if instead of colonizing land it's O'neill Cylinders or something like that, then developing in-orbit construction capability is probably going to be necessary. Much more efficient (and featureful) options for thrust and design would become available if launching from the surface of Earth is unnecessary. Fully automating that doesn't seem feasible just yet, so a manned starbase that can support construction could be worthwhile.
Naturally this is all speculative but that's ok?
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Some crew operations are currently in Hawthorne, right? CLD operations would likely be at the HQ of the CLD provider.
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Maybe. Or the CLD operations might be in a branch location nearer to the launch facilities which mostly means Kennedy.
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It depends on what they are controlling. If there are NASA astronauts doing NASA science on a CLD station, then they'll be interacting with NASA staff, presumably at Johnson. The CLD provider will have their own ground facilities, and they'll be dealing with station maintenance issues.
It's the reverse of what happens in the Axiom flights - Axiom have their own control room that talk to the Axiom staff about the Axiom specific activities, but the control room in Houston is still dealing with ISS stuff.
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Commercial space stations will require either a large array of customers who aren't super worried about a return on investment (read: government space agencies) or a new industry which would provide enough value to provide fast and predictable returns on the cost.
The path to government space agencies around the world utilizing US commercial space stations is being trampled due to the domestic and foreign policies of the US government. I would not be surprised to see China getting serious about wooing international customers for their space industry in the next decade, especially once one or more of their companies achieves first stage reuse. All that plus accelerating European efforts is likely to put a real crimp in the amount of foreign interest in utilizing any US commercial space stations.
As for a compelling business investment case, it will--at best--be low-volume tourism or highly speculative venture capital research efforts. Even with a major reduction in transport costs from the current tens of millions per seat, the construction and operational costs of the stations will still need to be recouped. Those costs might come down if the demand were high enough to support much bigger stations than have currently been built or proposed, but there's a lot of hand-waved "Step x: ???" sitting between where we are now and a sustainable market for hundreds or thousands of humans living in space.
The path to government space agencies around the world utilizing US commercial space stations is being trampled due to the domestic and foreign policies of the US government. I would not be surprised to see China getting serious about wooing international customers for their space industry in the next decade, especially once one or more of their companies achieves first stage reuse. All that plus accelerating European efforts is likely to put a real crimp in the amount of foreign interest in utilizing any US commercial space stations.
As for a compelling business investment case, it will--at best--be low-volume tourism or highly speculative venture capital research efforts. Even with a major reduction in transport costs from the current tens of millions per seat, the construction and operational costs of the stations will still need to be recouped. Those costs might come down if the demand were high enough to support much bigger stations than have currently been built or proposed, but there's a lot of hand-waved "Step x: ???" sitting between where we are now and a sustainable market for hundreds or thousands of humans living in space.
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MAGAt shill amazed that other MAGAt moronic activities have real world consequences. Government small enough to drown in a bathtub is unlikely to have teat large enough to suckle all Space Techbro's fantasies. More at 11.00.
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NASA will still be sending astronauts. That is what should make it commercially viable.
And the rich billionaires who want to go to space can waste their money supporting something useful when they are tourists.
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Yes and no. You need fixed requirements to go to space, but if the goal is to create jobs in districts then changing goals can actually be better. Every time you rip up the work you've done, more jobs!
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With limited resources, realists triage stuff. Realistically, the only thing that might (operative word) produce some sort of acceptable ROI is to find something useful to do in low earth orbit that unmanned satellites cannot do. There are no such things I know of. (Purer pharmaceuticals from space? I am a pharmaceutical chemist. Don't make me laugh). For private industry the only conceivable current ROI is government money, and Artemis is doing a great job on that front. Presumably., Artemis' main problem is that not enough of it is being returned to bribe Cruz's electorate.
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"Commercial" means you can make money selling something to willing customers on the free market. A "commercial" station that is paid for by the gov via taxes collected by force is not actually commercial.
The crew dragon has done 7 commercial flights and 14 NASA flights, so it's arguably a commercial endeavor. What actual commerce will be done at this "commercial" station? If it's a visit by billionaires every couple years, that doesn't cut it.
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normally butters
Ars Praefectus
The "no gap" and "continuous human presence" objectives are two different things as I see it. The CLD program was never intended to provide a continuous human presence like NASA has had with the ISS. The intent was explicitly for NASA to be a major but part-time tenant of the CLD station(s), occupying them for the time they want and letting the commercial provider figure out how to monetize the remaining time that NASA doesn't want to utilize.
There was an intent to have one or more CLD stations operational before the ISS is decommissioned, satisfying the "no gap" objective between ISS and CLD, but NASA wasn't intending to maintain a continuous human presence after that. At least, that was the original RFP that the contractors were developing against. The recent CLD shakeup announced by Sean Duffy went further in that direction by dialing back requirements for mission duration.
Now, Sen. Cruz appears to be operating under the delusion that CLD is a continuation of the ISS program as we know it. But none of the CLD bids even include a second docking port in their initial operational configuration, which would be one of the minimum requirements for continuous occupancy. The contractors have been operating under the assumption, for the past 5 years, that these stations will be intermittently occupied, at least in the beginning. One (or more) of the CLD concepts is designed so that its initial operational configuration can be deployed with a single launch, and an expanded mission scope would surely jeopardize those plans.
NASA and Congress need to figure out what they really want out of CLD and get on the same page with each other. And they need to do that quickly if they don't want to have a prolonged "gap," let alone any gap at all.
There was an intent to have one or more CLD stations operational before the ISS is decommissioned, satisfying the "no gap" objective between ISS and CLD, but NASA wasn't intending to maintain a continuous human presence after that. At least, that was the original RFP that the contractors were developing against. The recent CLD shakeup announced by Sean Duffy went further in that direction by dialing back requirements for mission duration.
Now, Sen. Cruz appears to be operating under the delusion that CLD is a continuation of the ISS program as we know it. But none of the CLD bids even include a second docking port in their initial operational configuration, which would be one of the minimum requirements for continuous occupancy. The contractors have been operating under the assumption, for the past 5 years, that these stations will be intermittently occupied, at least in the beginning. One (or more) of the CLD concepts is designed so that its initial operational configuration can be deployed with a single launch, and an expanded mission scope would surely jeopardize those plans.
NASA and Congress need to figure out what they really want out of CLD and get on the same page with each other. And they need to do that quickly if they don't want to have a prolonged "gap," let alone any gap at all.
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As usual the elephant in the room is Starship. NASA is already paying SpaceX to develop HLS: a Starship variant with the ability to support long duration crewed operations. If you leave the HLS in LEO instead of sending it to the moon then you have an IIS replacement.
SpaceX is likely to have HLS done in 2028 well before the IIS is retired. If we have a gap in manned LEO operations then it's due to policy choice not lack of options.
Now we should be striving for something a lot bigger and more capable than the ISS. A Starship is fine as an ISS replacement but what we really need is a modular station where each module is comparable in volume to the ISS. The next gen station should be ten times the size of the ISS and completely modular so new modules can easily be added and old ones decommissioned without throwing away the entire station. Basically what Vast Space is aiming to have in orbit by 2032.
SpaceX is likely to have HLS done in 2028 well before the IIS is retired. If we have a gap in manned LEO operations then it's due to policy choice not lack of options.
Now we should be striving for something a lot bigger and more capable than the ISS. A Starship is fine as an ISS replacement but what we really need is a modular station where each module is comparable in volume to the ISS. The next gen station should be ten times the size of the ISS and completely modular so new modules can easily be added and old ones decommissioned without throwing away the entire station. Basically what Vast Space is aiming to have in orbit by 2032.
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He's not claiming that, but I am. Boeing last developed a clean sheet commercial plane in 2009 (first flight of 787). Ever since, it has subsisted off legacy products and gov contracts. It has no plans to design anything new for any customer other than the US gov. It is, in effect, an arm of the gov. It's basically the Roscosmos of the USA.
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The primary commercial motivation is the same as the CRS - providing services to NASA, rather than building hardware. This is intrinsically the direction that NASA has been going for the last 10 - 15 years; starting off roughly after the retirement of the Space Shuttle, and accelerating when it became obvious that they wouldn't be able to do so with something like Constellation/Artemis (the cadence is unreachable).
I imagine that, once a commercial space station is up, NASA will rent the bulk of the space, and continue in the same vein as is currently the case with ISS (except it shouldn't need as many man-hours for maintenance at this point, since its not a ~30 year aging accumulation of obsolete technology).
And since access to space is already a lot cheaper, it may start to increase the presence of other private companies intent on seeing what, exactly, can be done in microgravity.
I just had a weird (and wild, and probably totally ridiculous) idea: atomic fusion - in space.
Seriously, I'm wondering what it would do to the plasmic flow/eddy profile inside a Tokamak style reactor if you could simultaneously eliminate the downward normal acceleration vector and introduce a cheaply maintained rotational vector (which could double as a gyroscope...). I mean, the largest fusion reactor in the solar system is the Sun, and it spins, right?
As I'm typing this, I'm realizing that the major flaw in this scenario is heat - the age-old (Space Age, anyway) problem of shedding heat when your only avenue is radiative.
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All of this is way into fantasyland though when SpaceX doesn't even have the concepts of a plan for a cheaper ride to space than Crew Dragon. And that one costs $50+ million per seat, I don't know any commerical operation who can provide that kind of ROI from one person's work even if they get to stay some months on a space station.
If you look at the flight roster for the non-NASA flights it's an incredibly incestous relationship, almost everyone is involved in the space industry or from a foreign space agency with a small handful of billionaires. If there was really a long line of people yearning to go then SpaceX would have set up their own "rideshare" missions like they do for satellites.
I fear NASA has been too ambitious in their commercial plans and should have ordered just a shell of a station from SpaceX using all they've learned over the last decades. It still would have been an incredibly much cheaper station than the ISS, instead I fear a situation like with the space shuttle. The ISS will critically malfunction and be abandoned leaving a huge unfilled gap.
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When they say “Commercial” the politicians/NASA mean “We buy services from companies on a firm fixed priced basis”
Vs
“We get companies to build things for us, that we own and operate, on a cost plus basis”
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If intermittent occupancy is the goal, then a Starship that can launch and land with crew and that has a long (six-month) loiter is a much better solution, mostly because re-provisioning and maintenance is so much cheaper on Earth. Use these in conjunction with a permanent station that can house any really long term or permanent experiments or facilities, but the crew would stay in their Ships except when servicing these very long term facilities. You can still have "continuous presence" if the Ship missions overlap.
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