There’s a good analysis in comments over at Space Politics about the COTS-D situation (comment by “TANSTAAFL” at 9:32 this morning):
SpaceX clearly over-reached with their lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill in the last year. I believe that Elon’s large ego is getting in the way — going up on the Hill and (in effect) saying “Just give me the money and I will eliminate the gap” was not an effective message strategy.
Not even the advocates of COTS-D want to just hand Elon the market. He gave the opponents ammunition, and lost many of his allies. It was an ill-advised strategy.
If Elon had lobbied, instead, for a COTS-D initiative that would fund many competitors, it probably would have had a different result.
In reality, there are multiple “real” competitors. Boeing bid COTS-D in the last competition. SpaceDev (now owned by Sierra Nevada) has a COTS-D concept. There is at least one serious, credible (and well funded) COTS-D competitor that is not publicly known. Under the right circumstances, even tSpace and Rocketplane Kistler could re-emerge if NASA seriously funded COTS-D.
IMO, if this nation is serious about substantially reducing “The Gap”, we could (and should) have a COTS-D competition with 4-5 winners. This nation should adopt a portfolio investment approach to diversify risk, and to increase competition and innovation.
If the Ares 1 costs $44 Billion, why can’t we take $2-3 Billion of the savings, and apply that to COTS-D? That amount of money would get us 4-5 well-funded competitors. That would be an exciting competition.
It sure would.
If the Ares 1 costs $44 Billion, why can’t we take $2-3 Billion of the savings, and apply that to COTS-D? That amount of money would get us 4-5 well-funded competitors. That would be an exciting competition.
A) True; but
B) Where is the follow on market? The ISS simply does not need all that many launches to support it.
C) On the other hand, a non-NASA space station that rotated tourists frequently would absorb everything 4 or 5 new well funded launch services players could send to LEO.
Rather than merely wrestle with the Obama Administration over COTS-D money (clearly worth doing) perhaps also seek approval for a MirCorp II, this time on steroids, and lobby the Obama Administration to grant those State Department permissions and support, the absence of which sunk MirCorp I.
COTS-D is a great program, but it isn’t paradigm shattering. If NASA is the end customer (and source of funding), it isn’t NewSpace, its merely smarter procurement.
There is at least one serious, credible (and well funded) COTS-D competitor that is not publicly known.
Blue Origin, or somebody double-sooper-sekrit?
I believe the Obama Administration would be open to re-visiting the political decisions that sank MirCorp. And since many of those decisions would be processed through the State Department maybe someone should ask Lori Garver to give a copy of the “Orphans of Apollo” DVD to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Combine that with an immediate and concerted effort to deploy a Bigelow based facility for human occupation which would allow tourists to arrive via Soyuz, Shenzou, Dragon, Dreamchaser, an Atlas V “Gemini” re-make and anything else that can get there.
Robert Bigelow doesn’t need to own the hotel, he merely needs to sell equipment to someone else willing to take the risks involved in trying. And if Bigelow won’t sell one, ask Thales Alenia to build an inflatable habitat.
All done as parallel multi-tasking with pursuing NASA reform.
Bill,
The follow-on market is private human spaceflight.
Lots of private citizens going to orbit, paying for it out of their own pockets, on privately-provided space transportation services is paradigm shattering.
NASA can be play the “air mail” role with COTS-D and by purchasing its needs for humans-to-orbit services from commercial providers. (This should not be news.)
The COTS model (funded Space Act Agreements, or “other transactions authority” agreements) might be applied to many other segments beyond COTS-D.
Your suggestion is one possibility.
FWIW,
– TANSTAAFL
I had a thought this morning. All the talk about lots of people willing to fly into space flies a bit in the face of Charles Simonyi taking his second flight into space instead of someone else taking their first. Does anyone know how many others were interested in taking that seat?
I know there’s lots of overhead with flying on Soyuz that theoretically wouldn’t be there in a commercial effort, but it seems to me that someone would have been clamoring to go. Am I missing something?
I don’t know the numbers, but my understanding is that Space Adventures has more customers than seats.
TANSTAAFL –
The private sector needs to watch NASA like a hawk AND be ready to step forward with follow on markets to absorb capacity created by a COTS-D competition.
COTS-D can indeed provide a “starter motor” to turn the engine over but only a private sector source of demand for Earth-to-LEO lift can keep the engine running once it catches. Driving a car down the road by using the starter motor but with an empty tank of gas won’t be very helpful.
The rumors that Michael Griffin castigated Lockheed for even talking to Bigelow about a private sector Atlas V based crew taxi annoy me almost as much as Ares 1 does.
SpaceX had a plan for profit without government money and it was working. With government money they expanded their production capacity and significantly increased their burn rate. I’m a bit worried that they’ve put themselves at great risk taking government money, which can be turned off in a moment (never trust a government contract.)
Government spending has entered the twilight zone… (that’s where our country begins to fade off into the twilight.) I’d rather they didn’t, but if they do spend it, grants to space companies wouldn’t be the worst place for it to go.
Government is the problem. It is not the solution.
Individuals pursuing their visions (pursuit of happiness) is the solution.
@Rand-
I’ve heard that too, but the fact that they went with someone who’d flown before counters that. It seems to me the better solution would have been flying someone new. (wondering aloud)Was there something about a short timeline for this recent flight, so they needed someone who’d flown before?
I’ve heard that too, but the fact that they went with someone who’d flown before counters that.
Why?
It seems to me the better solution would have been flying someone new.
Why?
The best solution, from a business standpoint, is to fly whoever is ready and willing to pay the most.
And he didn’t have to learn Russian or the Soyuz again……..
Agreed that the best plan was to go with who was willing and would pay the most. The ‘pay the most’ may be the answer, but I’ve not heard anything along those lines. As I said, this just occurred to me this morning and I was wondering if anyone had any information.
I don’t know if SA had someone else who could have taken the flight but Simonyi did pay an extra $5M to belong to the “Orbital Mission Explorers Circle”, which gave him the option of jumping line over non-members. See
http://www.space.com/news/081006-spacetourist-simonyi.html
In general, I would expect that with the requirement of several months of training in Russia on top of the ticket price that there would be situations where even with 5 or 6 people in the queue, a given flight date might not be compatible with the schedule of only one or none of them.
Regardless of the queue size for the Soyuz, the very fact there was a non-zero market at such huge prices and long training requirements in Russia is a great sign that market elasticity would result in a strongly positive response if prices dropped to, say, single digit millions, much less training time, and launches closer to home.
Good point Clark, thanks. I remember reading that now. We’ll see how the new rotation schedule allows for future flights.
One of the possible fixes to reform government space program is to .. establish another government space agency ( call it National Aeronautics and Space Second Administration if you will ), fund it at “minuscule” levels, say a billion a year, and mandate it with something simple, say increasing the number of americans flown to space per year.
In front of congress, both agencies would be fighting for the same federal dollars.
Funding COTS-D through such a new agency would be a no-brainer.