Clark Lindsey has some follow-up thoughts on my PJM piece today on the fifth anniversary of the VSE.
4 thoughts on “It’s The Transportation Costs, Stupid”
Comments are closed.
Clark Lindsey has some follow-up thoughts on my PJM piece today on the fifth anniversary of the VSE.
Comments are closed.
I believe Dennis Wingo makes a good point, here:
With all due respect Elon [Musk] is wrong. Launch from the Earth is only the first step. We have been going around in circles here on the Earth for so long with this mantra of cheap access to space and what has it gotten the advocacy community? Absolutely nothing but broken dreams and bankrupt investors. Even Elon admitted this past year at ISDC that all he was going to do is to reduce costs around the margins.
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We have to get beyond this mindset that requires super low cost access to space before you do anything. A reusable cislunar human and cargo transport, coupled with a reusable single stage to orbit (Lunar) transit vehicle, and we have the critical elements needed.
Posted by: Dennis Wingo at January 10, 2009 9:05 PM
at NASA Watch
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2009/01/why_space_why_n.html
None of those who currently have access to manned orbital spaceflight are doing it and don’t seem supportive of the ideas, nor will they likely change in my opinion.
Thus it comes back to access for others (who might support such approaches –Bigelow comes to mind) and we’re back at the price issue aren’t we?
I guess it depends a lot on how likely one finds it that NASA can change.
I believe Dennis Wingo makes a good point, here:
Sigh. What makes Dennis’s point good, Bill, other than the fact that you agree with it?
With all due respect Elon [Musk] is wrong. Launch from the Earth is only the first step. We have been going around in circles here on the Earth for so long with this mantra of cheap access to space and what has it gotten the advocacy community?
First of all, Bill, Dennis doesn’t understand what Elon is trying to do. (I’m not sure why he doesn’t understand it now, because I know he did in the past.)
At a base level, Elon doesn’t care about reducing the the cost of access to LEO any more than you and Dennis do. He’s fixated on Mars the same way you and Dennis are fixated on the Moon.
The difference is that Elon understands that to get to Mars, one has to go *through* LEO, and if no one can afford to get the LEO, no one can afford to get beyond LEO, either.
You and Dennis keep ignoring that reality. Your argument is like saying it doesn’t matter if transportation to the seaport costs $100 million, because ocean transportation will be the key. The fallacy there should be obvious. I don’t understand why bright guys like you and Dennis can’t see it.
A reusable cislunar human and cargo transport, coupled with a reusable single stage to orbit (Lunar) transit vehicle, and we have the critical elements needed.
What good are a reusable cislunar human and cargo transport and reusable lunar transit vehicle if no one can afford to launch humans or cargoes from Earth? Or even spare parts for your reusable transit vehicles? Which will break down and require spare parts and maintenance, no matter what you and Dennis imagine.
Dennis has created a strawman world in which the entire world has pursued low-cost access to space for 50 years and his cost-be-damned Von Braunian approach has never even been tried. In the real world, the opposite is true. NASA has spent a huge amount of money trying to send astronauts to the Moon, Mars, and Beyond without doing anything to reduce the cost of space transportation. What do we have to show for it?
None of the predictions Dennis made in “Moon Rush” have came to pass. It’s not for lack of government support. When Mike Griffin came into office, he had no greater fan than Dennis Wingo. If the outcome of VSE is not to his liking, he can’t blame the evil “cheap access to space advocacy community” because we had no voice in the Bush Administration.
It’s sad that you and Dennis view cheap access to space as an enemy that must be crushed so you can get funding for the things you want. If you stopped to think about it, you would realize that cheap access to space will enable you to do the things you want for *less* money, which will make it *easier* for you to get funding and enable you to do the things you want *sooner*.