The numbers don’t lie—NASA’s move to commercial space has saved money

"Together, we have become stronger for this nation.”

Read the whole story

 

[peterford]

I recently encountered some apparent old space supporters on Twitter and this seemed to be the last line of defence:

Is cheap > reliability and precision when the payload is irreplaceable and the cost of an expendable launch vehicle doesn’t even put a dent in the overall price whatsoever?

And

It’s not like it’s more efficient to go expendable. Or that reusability has Litterally zero benefits other than cost saving. Nah nah. Not that at all

I'm not sure the evidence agrees with them there.

Until fairly recently almost all of the traditional aerospace companies were swearing up and down that reusability was impossible, by default, and that it could never work even in theory.

They were also implying that SpaceX was basically doing a con and that it would have been cheaper for them if they just went expendable and SpaceX was actually losing money.

EDIT: This post is incorrect as pointed out below. I'll leave it here as a monument to my ignorance.

I say this as a fan of SpaceX's achievements, however I'm also a fan of being honest.

So far as I know, SpaceX is a private company and we know very little about it's finances. If that's the case then there remains the possibility that Investors / Venture Capitalists are pouring money in to capture the market - see also Taxis / Uber, Deliveroo / Food, scooters / Bird whilst sucking up losses in the mean time. This would leave the possibility that Falcon 9 is not in fact profitable as is generally assumed.

Do i think this is happening? No. Is it a possibility? As far as I know.

 

[Cloudgazer]

I recently encountered some apparent old space supporters on Twitter and this seemed to be the last line of defence:

Is cheap > reliability and precision when the payload is irreplaceable and the cost of an expendable launch vehicle doesn’t even put a dent in the overall price whatsoever?

And

It’s not like it’s more efficient to go expendable. Or that reusability has Litterally zero benefits other than cost saving. Nah nah. Not that at all

I'm not sure the evidence agrees with them there.

Until fairly recently almost all of the traditional aerospace companies were swearing up and down that reusability was impossible, by default, and that it could never work even in theory.

They were also implying that SpaceX was basically doing a con and that it would have been cheaper for them if they just went expendable and SpaceX was actually losing money.

I say this as a fan of SpaceX's achievements, however I'm also a fan of being honest.

So far as I know, SpaceX is a private company and we know very little about it's finances. If that's the case then there remains the possibility that Investors / Venture Capitalists are pouring money in to capture the market - see also Taxis / Uber, Deliveroo / Food, scooters / Bird whilst sucking up losses in the mean time. This would leave the possibility that Falcon 9 is not in fact profitable as is generally assumed.

Do i think this is happening? No. Is it a possibility? As far as I know.

You're incorrect.

https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edga ... getcompany

Just because SpaceX is private doesn't mean they're completely opaque, sales of new private securities still get filed with the SEC.

Given that they're developing StarLink and Starship right now, the small amount of additional money they're raising from rights issuances can't possibly also be covering ongoing losses from the F9.

The F9 is profitable.

 

[peterford]

I recently encountered some apparent old space supporters on Twitter and this seemed to be the last line of defence:

Is cheap > reliability and precision when the payload is irreplaceable and the cost of an expendable launch vehicle doesn’t even put a dent in the overall price whatsoever?

And

It’s not like it’s more efficient to go expendable. Or that reusability has Litterally zero benefits other than cost saving. Nah nah. Not that at all

I'm not sure the evidence agrees with them there.

Until fairly recently almost all of the traditional aerospace companies were swearing up and down that reusability was impossible, by default, and that it could never work even in theory.

They were also implying that SpaceX was basically doing a con and that it would have been cheaper for them if they just went expendable and SpaceX was actually losing money.

I say this as a fan of SpaceX's achievements, however I'm also a fan of being honest.

So far as I know, SpaceX is a private company and we know very little about it's finances. If that's the case then there remains the possibility that Investors / Venture Capitalists are pouring money in to capture the market - see also Taxis / Uber, Deliveroo / Food, scooters / Bird whilst sucking up losses in the mean time. This would leave the possibility that Falcon 9 is not in fact profitable as is generally assumed.

Do i think this is happening? No. Is it a possibility? As far as I know.

You're incorrect.

https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edga ... getcompany

Just because SpaceX is private doesn't mean they're completely opaque, sales of new private securities still get filed with the SEC.

Given that they're developing StarLink and Starship right now, the small amount of additional money they're raising from rights issuances can't possibly also be covering ongoing losses from the F9.

The F9 is profitable.

I stand corrected. Thank you.

 

[Scuffers]

I still don't like the private hospital system in America, mind you. It still weirds me out.

I would suggest your issue is not with the private hospitals per say, but with the insurance industry built to support it.

I like in the UK, we have the NHS. and put frankly, it's hopeless, yes, it has some really good hospitals, and staff, however, it's managed by morons trying to meet targets set by politicians, and is subject to levels of fraud and incompetence that are truly staggering - yet we are not allowed to even hint at criticizing it because they nurses and doctors "save lives".

I like the concept of the NHS, however, no government run bureaucracy ever works, the US private hospitals are simply way ahead, they have to compete for the work against real targets of people voting with their money, run a crap hospital, watch it go bust because nobody will use it.

the issue in the US is the industry setup to fund it, you have a mix of private insurance + state support + federal support + medicaid + etc etc.

this simply does not work, you either have it as a nationalised insurance system (that then is open to incompetence and corruption) or leave it to private insurance (with appropriate regulation), you can't mix them as you then end up with what the US has now.

I would vote for Private insurance with the government paying the premiums for the unemployed/retired/etc.

 

[blackhawk887]

I recently encountered some apparent old space supporters on Twitter and this seemed to be the last line of defence:

Is cheap > reliability and precision when the payload is irreplaceable and the cost of an expendable launch vehicle doesn’t even put a dent in the overall price whatsoever?

And

It’s not like it’s more efficient to go expendable. Or that reusability has Litterally zero benefits other than cost saving. Nah nah. Not that at all

I'm not sure the evidence agrees with them there.

Those are the kind of morons that have been holding back commercial spaceflight for decades.

 

[Scuffers]

Where Boeing really and truly screwed up was with letting this attitude spill over to the commercial aviation side where they have a competitor with an acceptable alternative at a similar price. Before Covid 19 the Boeing 737 MAX was heavily influencing future buying decisions in a manner that really benefited Airbus.

Boeing problems are far more deep rooted than the 737MAX, the first real public signes of the problem were the 787, and not just the battery system, Boeing used to be engineering lead, when happened after they merged/brought MD etc was it became a management consultant lead company, where they farmed out design and responsibility to all and sundry, got rid of in-house engineers, outsourced all they could without decent engineering oversight.

One disastrous area they have done this to is in software, the 787, the 737, Starliner, KC-46 all have real problems because of this alone.

 

[Scuffers]

...libertarian Twitter stupidity.

I don't often defend Musk's excesses, but I have to call this one out. Why do you call him libertarian? Is it because he is a wealthy guy who has public disagreements with the SEC?

Come on, the SEC are a f*** joke, look who it's made up of, it's there to defend wall street, not the public.

They hate Musk because he does not listen to them, he does exactly what he wants, not what wall street want.

If actual tesla shareholders don't like what he's doing, they can (via the board) make their displeasure known and acted upon, the SEC had no place in that.

 

[rkhalloran]

One of the added costs for the old-school programs was the implicit need to spread the production across as many politicians' districts as possible to make things 'Congress-proof'. The politico's got to bray about 'bringing jobs home' and the contractor could bill the gummint for the added costs of re-integrating everything in the last steps.

 

[peterford]

I still don't like the private hospital system in America, mind you. It still weirds me out.

I would suggest your issue is not with the private hospitals per say, but with the insurance industry built to support it.

I like in the UK, we have the NHS. and put frankly, it's hopeless, yes, it has some really good hospitals, and staff, however, it's managed by morons trying to meet targets set by politicians, and is subject to levels of fraud and incompetence that are truly staggering - yet we are not allowed to even hint at criticizing it because they nurses and doctors "save lives".

I like the concept of the NHS, however, no government run bureaucracy ever works, the US private hospitals are simply way ahead, they have to compete for the work against real targets of people voting with their money, run a crap hospital, watch it go bust because nobody will use it.

the issue in the US is the industry setup to fund it, you have a mix of private insurance + state support + federal support + medicaid + etc etc.

this simply does not work, you either have it as a nationalised insurance system (that then is open to incompetence and corruption) or leave it to private insurance (with appropriate regulation), you can't mix them as you then end up with what the US has now.

I would vote for Private insurance with the government paying the premiums for the unemployed/retired/etc.

A country mile off topic, but in 2017 the NHS was ranked against 10 other countries on a variety of measures by the Commonwealth fund. Against those advanced countries it came off badly (10th) on outcomes, but ranked top or near on Care Process , Access , Administrative Efficiency and Equity. So whilst the NHS should not be seen as sacrosanct and could learn from the systems in some other countries, a lot of what you charge is simply incorrect. The main problems for the NHS are two fold. 1) lack of funding and 2) an almost disastrously underfunded social care sector.

 

[AHvivere]

I love reading about SpaceX, but man seeing all the revolving door and cost+ stuff associated with traditional government spending, and hostile people in policy making positions...

It just reiterates how much we need to start fresh somehow.

 

[Cloudgazer]

I still don't like the private hospital system in America, mind you. It still weirds me out.

I would suggest your issue is not with the private hospitals per say, but with the insurance industry built to support it.

I like in the UK, we have the NHS. and put frankly, it's hopeless, yes, it has some really good hospitals, and staff, however, it's managed by morons trying to meet targets set by politicians, and is subject to levels of fraud and incompetence that are truly staggering - yet we are not allowed to even hint at criticizing it because they nurses and doctors "save lives".

I like the concept of the NHS, however, no government run bureaucracy ever works, the US private hospitals are simply way ahead, they have to compete for the work against real targets of people voting with their money, run a crap hospital, watch it go bust because nobody will use it.

the issue in the US is the industry setup to fund it, you have a mix of private insurance + state support + federal support + medicaid + etc etc.

this simply does not work, you either have it as a nationalised insurance system (that then is open to incompetence and corruption) or leave it to private insurance (with appropriate regulation), you can't mix them as you then end up with what the US has now.

I would vote for Private insurance with the government paying the premiums for the unemployed/retired/etc.

A country mile off topic, but in 2017 the NHS was ranked against 10 other countries on a variety of measures by the Commonwealth fund. Against those advanced countries it came off badly (10th) on outcomes, but ranked top or near on Care Process , Access , Administrative Efficiency and Equity. So whilst the NHS should not be seen as sacrosanct and could learn from the systems in some other countries, a lot of what you charge is simply incorrect. The main problems for the NHS are two fold. 1) lack of funding and 2) an almost disastrously underfunded social care sector.

The funding issue is a fundamental problem with a state owned sector. In effect, spending on health becomes politicised and investment in facilities becomes the most politicised of all.

Hospitals are expensive and governments are very sensitive to headline numbers of debt on their balance sheet. The result was the PFI disaster that has engulfed the NHS.

See for instance ...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long ... 02661.html

 

[mhalpern]

One of the added costs for the old-school programs was the implicit need to spread the production across as many politicians' districts as possible to make things 'Congress-proof'. The politico's got to bray about 'bringing jobs home' and the contractor could bill the gummint for the added costs of re-integrating everything in the last steps.

That has been mentioned, but another factor is the relative cost of hardware and labor between the eras, in this case lets compare 70s-80s to today, it not really being fair to factor in the Apollo era because there was very limited choice between modeling and hardware tests, in the 70s and 80s when much of traditional aerospace grew up, it was less expensive to use wind tunnels and the limited computer modeling available than it was to do hardware tests, you would still do hardware tests for validation (unless you are STS and are politically restricted from doing an unmanned test flight), of course but you try to do as much of your prototyping and evaluation with models, today more hardware rich testing with mostly just basic modeling can be cheaper, I mean for crying out loud we saw an In Flight Abort test using the actual launcher, rather than a modified ICBM,

 

[mhalpern]

I love reading about SpaceX, but man seeing all the revolving door and cost+ stuff associated with traditional government spending, and hostile people in policy making positions...

It just reiterates how much we need to start fresh somehow.

Changing of the guard takes time, the success of COTS, CRS, and CCP, however can inform and reinforce the new guard.

 

[Jdunstan]

Great article, but I must quibble with the statement that the upcoming launch will be the first commercial launch of humans. Sorry, but that was performed in 2000 when MirCorp paid its partner RSC Energia to launch two cosmonauts to the Mir space station to check out its space-worthiness.

 

[AHvivere]

I love reading about SpaceX, but man seeing all the revolving door and cost+ stuff associated with traditional government spending, and hostile people in policy making positions...

It just reiterates how much we need to start fresh somehow.

Changing of the guard takes time, the success of COTS, CRS, and CCP, however can inform and reinforce the new guard.

CRS and CCP?

 

[mhalpern]

I love reading about SpaceX, but man seeing all the revolving door and cost+ stuff associated with traditional government spending, and hostile people in policy making positions...

It just reiterates how much we need to start fresh somehow.

Changing of the guard takes time, the success of COTS, CRS, and CCP, however can inform and reinforce the new guard.

CRS and CCP?

Commercial Resupply Services, and Commercial Crew Program

 

[mhalpern]

Great article, but I must quibble with the statement that the upcoming launch will be the first commercial launch of humans. Sorry, but that was performed in 2000 when MirCorp paid its partner RSC Energia to launch two cosmonauts to the Mir space station to check out its space-worthiness.

Was the launch vehicle and spacecraft commercial? I find it hard to consider a state owned company like RCS Energia as being commercial.

 

[greybeardengineer]

Its amazing what a modest investment in space can achieve these days compared to the past. Safest U.S. launcher and spacecraft ever with full abort capability from pad to near orbit.

Interesting story at NSF about how the Dragon 2 is configured to steer an abort to different locations should it occur at different times in ascent to limit the possible recovery area footprint.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/05 ... locations/

More photos:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqpho ... 384169073/

 

[O/Siris]

SpaceX is a great example of what makes me so pro-capitalist.

It illustrates the best that capitalism can be, even as Musk sometimes reveals the warts of the system.

NASA says, "we need X" and a performance-based enterprise has (so far) delivered that need for far, far less than established experts believed possible.

If we had a legal system (both tort and criminal) that properly held capitalist leaders to account for their corrupt "ethics," I think we'd see far more of that.

EDIT: Typo correction

 

[Jeff2Space]

Ares would have never been rated for human flight. If the SRB failed is rained down burning fragments of solid rocket fuel over many square miles. This tended to destroy parachutes used in capsule escape systems.

True, except for one thing. NASA not only writes its own human rating rules, it also gets to write its own waivers for those rules. Ares I certainly could have flown with a NASA crew, with enough waivers.

 

[karolus]

Boeing problems are far more deep rooted than the 737MAX, the first real public signes of the problem were the 787, and not just the battery system, Boeing used to be engineering lead, when happened after they merged/brought MD etc was it became a management consultant lead company, where they farmed out design and responsibility to all and sundry, got rid of in-house engineers, outsourced all they could without decent engineering oversight.

One disastrous area they have done this to is in software, the 787, the 737, Starliner, KC-46 all have real problems because of this alone.

They also spun off a good amount of their in-house manufacturing in 2005 as Spirit AeroSystems. It was reminiscent of what the Big Three in the US auto industry was doing at the same time with their parts manufacturing. Part of the business "logic" at the time was that the parent company could then put a pricing squeeze on their spun-off suppliers, which made it their problem, not the parent's.

Having multiple suppliers can work well in instances where common usage exists (braking systems, instrumentation, propulsion), but much less so for customer-specific items such as major airframe/chassis structures. It will be interesting to see if any savings are realized in the long term pursuit this strategy.

It also may be worth noting that SpaceX often does the opposite—by keeping manufacturing in-house.

Edited for clarity.

 

[mhalpern]

Its amazing what a modest investment in space can achieve these days compared to the past. Safest U.S. launcher and spacecraft ever with full abort capability from pad to near orbit.

Interesting story at NSF about how the Dragon 2 is configured to steer an abort to different locations should it occur at different times in ascent to limit the possible recovery area footprint.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/05 ... locations/

More photos:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqpho ... 384169073/

So that's where they are keeping the FH side boosters...

Or are those just normal single stick f9s

 

[Wickwick]

Its amazing what a modest investment in space can achieve these days compared to the past. Safest U.S. launcher and spacecraft ever with full abort capability from pad to near orbit.

Interesting story at NSF about how the Dragon 2 is configured to steer an abort to different locations should it occur at different times in ascent to limit the possible recovery area footprint.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/05 ... locations/

More photos:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqpho ... 384169073/

So that's where they are keeping the FH side boosters...

Or are those just normal single stick f9s

Is there a difference?

 

[nimelennar]

Its amazing what a modest investment in space can achieve these days compared to the past. Safest U.S. launcher and spacecraft ever with full abort capability from pad to near orbit.

Interesting story at NSF about how the Dragon 2 is configured to steer an abort to different locations should it occur at different times in ascent to limit the possible recovery area footprint.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/05 ... locations/

More photos:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqpho ... 384169073/

So that's where they are keeping the FH side boosters...

Or are those just normal single stick f9s

According to the SpaceX subreddit, the boosters pictured are (from left to right) B1051, B1059, B1058, and B1060.

The FH side boosters were B1052 and B1053, so these aren't the side boosters.

 

[mhalpern]

Its amazing what a modest investment in space can achieve these days compared to the past. Safest U.S. launcher and spacecraft ever with full abort capability from pad to near orbit.

Interesting story at NSF about how the Dragon 2 is configured to steer an abort to different locations should it occur at different times in ascent to limit the possible recovery area footprint.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/05 ... locations/

More photos:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqpho ... 384169073/

So that's where they are keeping the FH side boosters...

Or are those just normal single stick f9s

Is there a difference?

Cone, and connect hardware i was wrong though, these aren't them

 

[Wickwick]

Its amazing what a modest investment in space can achieve these days compared to the past. Safest U.S. launcher and spacecraft ever with full abort capability from pad to near orbit.

Interesting story at NSF about how the Dragon 2 is configured to steer an abort to different locations should it occur at different times in ascent to limit the possible recovery area footprint.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/05 ... locations/

More photos:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqpho ... 384169073/

So that's where they are keeping the FH side boosters...

Or are those just normal single stick f9s

Is there a difference?

Cone, and connect hardware i was wrong though, these aren't them

My point was that they've used previously flow F9 cores as side boosters I believe. The middle core on a FH is bespoke. The side cores are just F9 boosters with new hats.

 

[greybeardengineer]

LOL, PR is a major part of the astronaut job description. I wonder how many were inspired by Kirk and friends.

https://twitter.com/AstroBehnken/status ... 6439728135

 

[trav1sporter]

I am as big a fan of SpaceX as anyone else, but I wonder, is there an alternate universe where NASA has a launch division that sourced its own components and built a "SpaceX" with rapid iteration. No cost-plus, congressional micromanagement.

As I'm typing this, I'm realizing it's impossible haha

 

[mhalpern]

Its amazing what a modest investment in space can achieve these days compared to the past. Safest U.S. launcher and spacecraft ever with full abort capability from pad to near orbit.

Interesting story at NSF about how the Dragon 2 is configured to steer an abort to different locations should it occur at different times in ascent to limit the possible recovery area footprint.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/05 ... locations/

More photos:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqpho ... 384169073/

So that's where they are keeping the FH side boosters...

Or are those just normal single stick f9s

Is there a difference?

Cone, and connect hardware i was wrong though, these aren't them

My point was that they've used previously flow F9 cores as side boosters I believe. The middle core on a FH is bespoke. The side cores are just F9 boosters with new hats.

They have only done that with the demo FH, while yes all the hardware differences are bolt on and they are designed to be converted from one to the other, it seems to be a procedure they prefer not to do.

 

[MoonRock72]

Shame how some ex astronauts tarnished their legacy by becoming lying corporate whores.

A shame, indeed. My observation is that most of the ex-Shuttle astronauts who entered the revolving-door dance with the aerospace industry were STS commanders / pilots who also had some useful military connections that bolstered their bankability in government-dependent industry. By comparison, many ex-mission specialists (without military-industrial connections) went into academia, civilian government service or even started their own sci-tech companies. Many former astronauts are still doing good things. Thank goodness that not everyone is cut out to become a lobbyist.

 

[Statistical]

I am as big a fan of SpaceX as anyone else, but I wonder, is there an alternate universe where NASA has a launch division that sourced its own components and built a "SpaceX" with rapid iteration. No cost-plus, congressional micromanagement.

As I'm typing this, I'm realizing it's impossible haha

Even if they could it would be a bad use of resources. The time, money, and resources NASA spends on (now) pedestrian stuff like rockets to orbit is time money and resources it can't spend on the crazy new cool unexplored stuff IN space.

Let's put a farm on Mars. Let's design an ISRU plant. Let's build some propellant depots. Let's perfect ultra high bandwidth deep space optical communication. Let's explore a space elevator on the moon. Let's perfect off planet nuclear power. Let's build some massive deep space probes. 200 kg or 1t? How about a 40t monster. Let's improve solar electric propulsion. Lets figure out how to exploit resources in the asteroid belt. Let's build a space station with artificial gravity to run long term research at different gravity levels. Let's explore and work through the problems in smelting and material fabrication in microgravity.

There is a massive list of potential future tech NASA could be exploring and when they explore all those there will always be new horizons.

Building rockets to get to orbit when the commercial sector already does that? Small and lacking vision compared to what NASA could be doing. It would be like NASA wasting money designing their own passenger jets to shuttle astronauts around the country.

 

[DanNeely]

I am as big a fan of SpaceX as anyone else, but I wonder, is there an alternate universe where NASA has a launch division that sourced its own components and built a "SpaceX" with rapid iteration. No cost-plus, congressional micromanagement.

As I'm typing this, I'm realizing it's impossible haha

If we're visiting alternate timelines, I want to be on one where we don't need an Elon Musk in the 21st century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Retur ... m_Proxmire

 

[blackhawk887]

Great article, but I must quibble with the statement that the upcoming launch will be the first commercial launch of humans. Sorry, but that was performed in 2000 when MirCorp paid its partner RSC Energia to launch two cosmonauts to the Mir space station to check out its space-worthiness.

Companies buying a ride on a government owned and operated launch vehicle happened before that with the Shuttle. But those companies were not doing the launching.

 

[terrydactyl]

LOL, PR is a major part of the astronaut job description. I wonder how many were inspired by Kirk and friends.

Spoiler

Our Canadian friends may get a kick out of "Launch America" with a Canadian actor.

 

[Jeff2Space]

Shame how some ex astronauts tarnished their legacy by becoming lying corporate whores.

A shame, indeed. My observation is that most of the ex-Shuttle astronauts who entered the revolving-door dance with the aerospace industry were STS commanders / pilots who also had some useful military connections that bolstered their bankability in government-dependent industry. By comparison, many ex-mission specialists (without military-industrial connections) went into academia, civilian government service or even started their own sci-tech companies. Many former astronauts are still doing good things. Thank goodness that not everyone is cut out to become a lobbyist.

We won't be needing many ex-military pilots for upcoming NASA crewed programs. The era of selecting for the hottest stick and rudder men (literally) is hopefully coming to an end. With the advent of modern digital control systems, we simply don't need that type of person for every single slot, especially for long duration missions.

Makes me wonder about personality types as well. We don't need to stack the entire crew with the personality type that's ultra-competitive and wants to be the absolute best at everything. When you're stuck on ISS for six months (or even longer for a Mars trip), that's the last type of personality I'd want to be around. Give me a crew with a servant leader and a bunch of team players.

 

[wagnerrp]

Let's put a farm on Mars. Let's design an ISRU plant. Let's build some propellant depots. Let's perfect ultra high bandwidth deep space optical communication. Let's explore a space elevator on the moon. Let's perfect off planet nuclear power. Let's build some massive deep space probes. 200 kg or 1t? How about a 40t monster. Let's improve solar electric propulsion. Lets figure out how to exploit resources in the asteroid belt. Let's build a space station with artificial gravity to run long term research at different gravity levels. Let's explore and work through the problems in smelting and material fabrication in microgravity.

There is a massive list of potential future tech NASA could be exploring and when they explore all those there will always be new horizons.

It almost sounds like you want NASA to be doing the job for which they were originally created, to perform advanced research in support of commercial industry.

 

[Tom Billings]

We can privatize everything else, including prisons, but not spacecraft? Who are these people?

They are LBJians.

Their focus is on duplicating the political profit Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) got from his control, as VP and President, of the early space program investments in places like Texas, Alabama, Florida, and elsewhere. Their Party affiliation is a relative convenience, compared to the life and breath of their political power from control over space program funding. In 1995, the long-time Democrat, Richard Shelby became a Republican, in a deal to make sure he kept his Chair of the Senate sub-committee that funds NASA. Today, he is Chair of the full Senate Appropriations Committee, and the major reason that SLS, along with its Orion payload, consumes the vast majority of NASA's Human Spaceflight funding, whether it ever flies or not. Party is convenience, ... power is life and breath.

The results of that LBJian attitude toward spaceflight funding were predicted in 1883, when looking at the difference between industrial productivity and pre-industrial productivity:

“When a society moves from allocating resources by custom and tradition (moderns read here, by politics) to allocating resources by markets, they may be said to have undergone an industrial revolution” Arnold Toynbee-1884

 

[Statistical]

Shame how some ex astronauts tarnished their legacy by becoming lying corporate whores.

A shame, indeed. My observation is that most of the ex-Shuttle astronauts who entered the revolving-door dance with the aerospace industry were STS commanders / pilots who also had some useful military connections that bolstered their bankability in government-dependent industry. By comparison, many ex-mission specialists (without military-industrial connections) went into academia, civilian government service or even started their own sci-tech companies. Many former astronauts are still doing good things. Thank goodness that not everyone is cut out to become a lobbyist.

We won't be needing many ex-military pilots for upcoming NASA crewed programs. The era of selecting for the hottest stick and rudder men (literally) is hopefully coming to an end. With the advent of modern digital control systems, we simply don't need that type of person for every single slot, especially for long duration missions.

Makes me wonder about personality types as well. We don't need to stack the entire crew with the personality type that's ultra-competitive and wants to be the absolute best at everything. When you're stuck on ISS for six months (or even longer for a Mars trip), that's the last type of personality I'd want to be around. Give me a crew with a servant leader and a bunch of team players.

Mars will be even more interesting. If SpaceX wants to explore and extract water and build massive solar farms having some people with hand on construction, welding, metalshop, improvisation workshop experience would be useful.

 

[mhalpern]

Let's put a farm on Mars. Let's design an ISRU plant. Let's build some propellant depots. Let's perfect ultra high bandwidth deep space optical communication. Let's explore a space elevator on the moon. Let's perfect off planet nuclear power. Let's build some massive deep space probes. 200 kg or 1t? How about a 40t monster. Let's improve solar electric propulsion. Lets figure out how to exploit resources in the asteroid belt. Let's build a space station with artificial gravity to run long term research at different gravity levels. Let's explore and work through the problems in smelting and material fabrication in microgravity.

There is a massive list of potential future tech NASA could be exploring and when they explore all those there will always be new horizons.

It almost sounds like you want NASA to be doing the job for which they were originally created, to perform advanced research in support of commercial industry.

Or as certain Congress Critters would consider it "heresy"

 

[Tom Billings]

I am as big a fan of SpaceX as anyone else, but I wonder, is there an alternate universe where NASA has a launch division that sourced its own components and built a "SpaceX" with rapid iteration. No cost-plus, congressional micromanagement.

As I'm typing this, I'm realizing it's impossible haha

Even if they could it would be a bad use of resources. The time, money, and resources NASA spends on (now) pedestrian stuff like rockets to orbit is time money and resources it can't spend on the crazy new cool unexplored stuff IN space.

Let's put a farm on Mars. Let's design an ISRU plant. Let's build some propellant depots. Let's perfect ultra high bandwidth deep space optical communication. Let's explore a space elevator on the moon. Let's perfect off planet nuclear power. Let's build some massive deep space probes. 200 kg or 1t? How about a 40t monster. Let's improve solar electric propulsion. Lets figure out how to exploit resources in the asteroid belt. Let's build a space station with artificial gravity to run long term research at different gravity levels. Let's explore and work through the problems in smelting and material fabrication in microgravity.

There is a massive list of potential future tech NASA could be exploring and when they explore all those there will always be new horizons.

Building rockets to get to orbit when the commercial sector already does that? Small and lacking vision compared to what NASA could be doing. It would be like NASA wasting money designing their own passenger jets to shuttle astronauts around the country.

Vision, controlled by others, is deadly to a political hierarch's power.

I agree with you completely on what needs to be done. I simply see no political profit for it, and that makes it catch-as-catch-can, as to whether any Congress-funded program will do it, beyond the level of money where people actually start to pay attention. As long as LBJ's concept of why we have a politically funded Space Program at all is the dominant one in Congress, these things will be funded just below the level where they get noticed, and then they will join the NASA-funded successors to the Space Shuttle and the other large projects in oblivion.

At that point, they must be picked up by a privately funded group, or die back into the archives to wait. Getting a structure inside NASA that recruits private development of NASA-explored technologies, and doing it without being accused of "picking winners", is going to be quite an interesting trick.