As I wrote the other day, what a mess:
Even Nelson, who described Obama’s speech at KSC as “visionary,” has advocated continued Ares rocket testing because it could mean a few hundred jobs at the center, which is set to lose as many as 9,000 workers once the shuttle completes its final three missions.
Much of the gridlock over Obama’s plan can be traced back to one sentence inserted by Shelby into a spending bill last year that bars NASA from canceling Constellation programs this year without congressional approval. Not only has that sentence prevented NASA from quickly switching to Obama’s new plan, but it also has given Congress time to kill his proposal and save Constellation.
Indeed, the tactic has proven so effective that lawmakers loyal to Constellation are considering a similar move in upcoming spending bills. That possibility has bureaucrats on both sides of the issue combing through thick pages of appropriations measures to ensure that the other doesn’t gain ground.
With such scrutiny, the issue may not be decided until Congress ultimately approves its 2011 budget — which may not happen until the winter holiday season.
OK, someone explain to me why, if the government is operating on a continuing resolution into the winter, and the Republicans have taken over one or both houses, and will be in power in January, why they wouldn’t simply filibuster any “Mad Duck” attempt to ram through an appropriations bill in December, and then do a new one in February?
It’s a sad, confusing day when there’s even more chaos surrounding Obama’s least-horrible policy (NASA) than his actual, horrible policy (health care).
Well, there’s always the chance that after being clobbered in the polls, the Democrats try to reconcile with the Republicans in the few months left in power by asking Republicans to help participate in the budget process for fy2011 in return for a more likely chance Obama will sign the bill.
Oh, who am I kidding. Harry Reid, with nothing to lose, will destroy the Senate rules. And if he dares not to, Nancy Pelosi will remind him that she may no longer be Speaker, but she will still be a Congresswoman with enough power to make life difficult for a retired Senator.
I had not heard of the Mad Duck idea until I saw your post, Rand, but it echoes what I was telling my wife yesterday. I said that I feared what the Dems would do if they lost in Congress. WIth no scruples, and nothing left to lose, I could see them passing all sorts of monstrosities because they would have their bitter enders and President prevent the Republicans from repealing their handiwork. It would be like one last desperate Beserker charge against the Constitution.
Rand, your question on the filibuster is a good one, but it sadly has a one-word answer: Reconciliation.
The reconciliation rules, such as they are interpreted by the oh-so-impartial (sarc) Reid, allow simple-majority passage on budgetary issues. ALL budgetary issues.
It’s no stretch at all to consider the budget as budgetary.
So, this means they can pass whatever they want. A VAT? That’s budgetary. Immigration? Sure, just have an aspect of it that’s budgetary, or, more likely, tack it onto a budgetary bill, much like they rammed the nationalization of student loans into a healthcare bill and passed it by reconciliation.
Card Check? Same thing.
Carbon tax? It’s revenue, so it’s a fit for reconciliation.
Can the Senate Parliamentarian (A Dem appointee) overrule? Sure.. unless he’s himself overruled by the President of the Senate, Joe Biden.
The problem here is that the Dems are in a position of interpreting the rules. It’s not much of a streach at all to see them doing so in their own favor. It would also be Obama’s last chance to get his agenda passed, so of course he’d be pushing for this.
So, I hope I’m wrong, but I feel the danger of a “mad duck congress” is very real.
CJ
Rand,
An sad as it is to see the chaos looking at it from an academic perspective it may turn out to be a good learning experience to all involved.
First, its a reminder that a President may only propose space policy, Congress must agree with it and fund it. President Kennedy understood this well, which is why he proposed his new direction First to a joint session of Congress as just ONE part of a speech on urgent national needs. Too often space advocates have ignore the rest of the speech and just focused on the paragraph for Apollo. But the rest of the speech, and the fact that it took place before Congress set the foundation for its success.
President Obama needed to work with Congress, especially members from the districts most effected, before rolling this out with his PROPOSED 2011 budget for NASA. A large part of this mess is because he appears to have not do so.
Second, its a wake up call for the New Space Advocates that the views of NASA, Constellation, etc. they have developed by debating themselves on their blogs and conferences are not shared by many if not the majority of folks in the rest of the space industry. All they have done is just reinforced their own ‘group think” ignoring the real issues and worries about the change in direction in space policy among the rest of those involved. Perhaps this will wake up New Space advocates to the space world beyond the New Space paradigm and the need to consider factors beyond mere economic efficiency which is the foundation of their arguments for space policy. CATS is not a prerequisite to explore of the Moon or the Solar System beyond. What is needed is a linkage to national goals.
Again remember, President’s Kennedy speech was titled “SPECIAL MESSAGE TO THE CONGRESS ON URGENT NATIONAL NEEDS”. Space was only addressed in Part 9 of the speech and going to the Moon was only one spending need out of four listed for space.
The really sad thing is that this change in policy was not needed for the future New Space wants to come about. Under the old policy its very likely COTS-D would have followed COTS, but without the pressure firms like SpaceX and Orbital now must operate under. And which may well break them and the COTS program. As for Constellation, it would have continued. If it was impossible for it to be successful, as many believed it would have died a natural death when commercial access started, and with only commercial left, it would have not been replaced, which is the desired New Space outcome.
But now, in a possible stand of defiance of the new Congress to President Obama, the very opposite may happen with Commercial Crew killed by Congress and Constellation pushed as the only means of space access. Or commercial crew killed and an NASA owned Orion lite on EELV replacing it in a crash program to close the gap. In short, the very opposite of what New Space may have achieved without the change in policy.
Food for thought…
Only one reconciliation bill can be passed in a given year.
Indeed, the tactic has proven so effective that lawmakers loyal to Constellation are considering a similar move in upcoming spending bills. That possibility has bureaucrats on both sides of the issue combing through thick pages of appropriations measures to ensure that the other doesn’t gain ground.
You mean they’re going to read the bills? Why would they need to do that?
On a more serious note, for those who supported the huge, unread bills that have passed over the past year, this is why someone needs to read those bills (and part of the reason why the bills shouldn’t have passed in the first place). You never know when a Republican senator might have snuck in a single sentence that stalls a program you care about for a year.
the 1974 Budget Act specifies that the Budget itself cannot be fillibustered, and that spending bills in consort with the budget resolution cannot be fillibustered.
now when you hit the budget cap, then it is subject to a Point of Order
subject to a reconciliation act which brings it back in consort to the budget resolution.
in short policy bills can be fillibustered but spending bills can’t.
That’s senate policy, it’s how bush passed his tax cuts in 02 and 03.
It’s nice to see the Congress finally show some cajones with respect to the office of the President. It amazes me how many space buffs pine for the imperial presidency in order to further the space operas swimming through their heads. Don’t get me wrong, I sing space operas too. It’s just that I know the office of the president is not going to make them come true. I think the past 40 years how shown that the space policy of the office of the presidency is not to have a space policy. This can be useful, but it won’t open a frontier. I’d even go so far as to say that policy might be to not have a frontier. Be that as it may, Congress is still the primer branch of government as it makes the laws, has power of the purse, and it seems the probability that Bush’s space policy has become the policy of Congress may be nonzero.
I have to admit I’m torn here. I like the Obama space policy. However, as is obvious I’m no fan of the runaway presidency of the US. I guess I’m doomed to be both satisfied and demoralized by the outcome of this fight. However I think the best long term carrier of US space policy should be in the Congress and not the office of the Presidency.
“Rand, your question on the filibuster is a good one, but it sadly has a one-word answer: Reconciliation.”
Can only be used once a year and they already shot their wad for 10.
CATS is not a prerequisite to explore of the Moon or the Solar System beyond. What is needed is a linkage to national goals.
CATS is a prerequisite for any nontrivial, meaningful exploration of the Moon or Solar System. Sadly, that does not seem to be anything you are interested in.
For someone who says he “doesn’t care what NASA does,” you sure spend a lot of time and anger complaining about how NASA won’t do exactly what you and the Ghost of John Kennedy want it to do.
(“Part 9 for Outer Space”? Hilarious. 🙂 )
People “in the know” on the new NASA policy are banking on the Democrat Socialist Worker’s Party reconvening Congress after the November election to pass the budget. Then the policy becomes fait accompli.
That’s what they’re *counting on* to ensure the policy is enacted. It doesn’t seem like a very solid footing.
By the way, your “Mad Duck” link is “link purgatory.”
Rand said, “Only one reconciliation bill can be passed in a given year.”
I’ve tired to find a cite for that, and can’t, even after reading a slew of pages of the 1974 act that created this. That does not mean it’s not true, just that I can’t find it.
The Wikipedia article cites a NYT article, which is not footnoted, and let’s just say the NYT has a record of being factually challenged on occasion.
However, even if true, that means that it’s either once per fiscal year, or once per calendar year. (The Federal Fiscal Year starts Oct 1st)
In EITHER case, we will be in a new year (2011) before the new congress takes office in late January. That allows plenty of time for a reconciliation vote after the November election (though if the limit is per calendar year, it would need to take place after Jan 1st).
Also, who interprets Senate rules? The President of the Senate. So, IMHO, nasty shenanigans are quite possible.
I sure hope I’m wrong on this.
On the flip side, it strikes me that this “mad Duck Fear” might be a ploy; it works well for the Dems: it’s about the only reason they can believably come up with for limiting their losses in November. “Don’t cost us too many seats, or else!”
OK, someone explain to me why, if the government is operating on a continuing resolution into the winter, and the Republicans have taken over one or both houses, and will be in power in January, why they wouldn’t simply filibuster any “Mad Duck” attempt to ram through an appropriations bill in December, and then do a new one in February?
Anything’s possible, but I have a hard time imagining a filibuster over a NASA appropriations bill. Also, opposition to the new policy does not really run along party lines, so it isn’t obvious that a NASA appropriations bill put together by the Republicans would differ greatly from one put together by the Democrats.
It seems more likely that lame-duck Democrats would let the appropriations bill die via continuing resolution. That would spare them the embarassment of further damaging their own President further by voting against his policies. They could let Shelby do it, then point to it as an example of Republican hypocrisy when it comes to private enterprise and fiscal responsibility. That’s the sort of trap the Stupid Party is loves to fall into. Of course, there’s also a wildcard — there might be a number of Tea Party candidates elected this fall who aren’t traditional Republicans and really believe in fiscal responsibility. They could tip the balance back the other way.
Regarding my prior comments; I was replying solely to the filibuster question. I earnestly hope that the cancellation of Constellation passes.
CJ
How well does this map to the Democrats and Republicans? You have a bipartisan block of representatives with either NASA centers or major contractors that like the PoR.
Outside that group, shouldn’t a pro-commercial, less statist space program be more attractive to Republicans who win seats by advocating smaller government?
Or am I being insufficiently cynical? Should I assume that Republicans will reflexively oppose good ideas just because Obama likes them too?
Anything’s possible, but I have a hard time imagining a filibuster over a NASA appropriations bill.
There’s no such thing as a NASA appropriations bill, Edward. It’s an appropriations bill of lots of things, only one small one of which is NASA.
Should I assume that Republicans will reflexively oppose good ideas just because Obama likes them too?
Based on their behavior so far, that’s a perfectly reasonable assumption, unfortunately.
This demonstrates better than ever how character matters in elected officials. Too bad the majority really doesn’t care about character. They’d rather listen to the media tell them that someone has ‘no fire in their belly’ or that others are ‘moderate.’
This also demonstrates the limits of rules. The evil party seems to understand how this works better than the stupid party.
Karl H,
you said here, what I said BEFORE it was passed.
It would have been a great tactic, if for no other reason, to prove that no one was reading the damned bills. Nor had time to read them before they got passed, even though we were promised by P-BO that we’d have time to do so.
Instead of an actual block of the bill being
‘hidden’ in the bill, which would have been a brilliant move, I thought some smart Republican(s) should have included a line about extra USDA money for research of Unicorn slaughtering rules, to insure our health, or some such foolishness. Or a rule about Dragon Ranches being moved away from school zones.
Just something nonsensical to drive home the point.
But evidently our elected officials aren’t as smart as Karl or me. No offense meant to Karl, but not being smarter than me, and helping to run the country, is disturbing! To me anyway.
Edward,
Reductions of cost and improvements in transportation systems are driven by demand pull. CATS goes against this basic rule.
Columbus didn’t spend 10 years designing a better ship to cross the Atlantic, he used available technology. Then, and only then, did the Spanish develop their famous Galleons in responds to the pull demand of the resources of the new world.
You are not going to open the Solar System to economic development by constantly designing and redesigning launch systems in the hope of a miracle breakthrough in technology which is how the last 30 years have been in space advocacy has been wasted.
Correction: how the last 30 years of New Space advocacy has been wasted.
@Thomas
I keep asking folks here, “where is this demand going to come from?”, but all I hear is crickets… Apparently somebody’s suddenly going to spend billions buying launches to LEO to build a fleet of colonizing spaceships “because they can”, or something…
O_o
…or more accurately, the demand, I’m told, will be generated by the potential for “profit”, though I have yet to hear anybody give a plausible explanation as to what is supposed to generate these profits. The raw materials are worth less than it costs to bring them home. The tourists aren’t likely to want to travel beyond the Moon, and even at that it will be a market open only to the world’s wealthiest three or four people for decades to come. And it’s not like anybody’s going to be able to sell real estate on planets that don’t belong to us to begin with. Honestly, it would be like those scam companies that sell naming rights to the stars…
txhsdad,
You must understand, its a matter of faith, “Build it and they will come…”
Unfortunately most of New Space policy is based on lay beliefs on how markets work, how industries emerge and an economic perspective of how the wild west developed that bears little resemblance to how it actually did. That is why its very unlikely the new space policy will produce the results they expect and why their decades long focus on CATS has failed to bear fruit.
I keep asking folks here, “where is this demand going to come from?”, but all I hear is crickets… Apparently somebody’s suddenly going to spend billions buying launches to LEO to build a fleet of colonizing spaceships “because they can”, or something…
txhsdad, the demand is already here and around us. The really big obstacle is cost. Even if we consider one of your crazier suggestions, a fleet of colonizing spaceships, I’m sure we can find a relatively wealthy cult to give it a go.
…or more accurately, the demand, I’m told, will be generated by the potential for “profit”, though I have yet to hear anybody give a plausible explanation as to what is supposed to generate these profits. The raw materials are worth less than it costs to bring them home. The tourists aren’t likely to want to travel beyond the Moon, and even at that it will be a market open only to the world’s wealthiest three or four people for decades to come. And it’s not like anybody’s going to be able to sell real estate on planets that don’t belong to us to begin with. Honestly, it would be like those scam companies that sell naming rights to the stars…
You’re basically saying that you don’t think anyone would want gold from an asteroid, to live on Mars, or visit the moons of Jupiter. Nor do they want power beamed from space, even if these things were provided for free (well you do imply that they’d want materials from space, if they were cheaper). You might want to rethink that claim or at least your choice of words.
We want lots of things that you apparently think we don’t want. We just don’t have infinite resources to sate our wants. This is why I say the obstacle is not that we don’t want these things, but that these things cost too much. That distinction matters because it changes our approach to how we make such things happen. If someone doesn’t want something, then it’s a problem of marketing to get them to want it. Make a bunch of sexy movies about people colonizing other worlds and you’ve fixed the problems you claim above. That sort of thing. Remember that businesses have figured out how to get billions of people to want brown, carbonated, sugar water. If it really is a matter of wanting, that’s already a solved problem.
If the problem is cost though, then you have to figure out how to lower costs. In the case of space activities, I think costs need to be lowered one or more orders of magnitude (depending on the application). I imagine this sounds impossible to you, but it’s worth noting that high frequency launch from Earth probably can lower costs to put things in space from Earth by an order of magnitude, without any significant technology development other than a viable reusable vehicle. The oft discussed “in situ resource utilization” (ISRU) or making stuff with local ingredients, has the potential to lower cost by many orders of magnitude.
I think it’s obvious to say that lowering cost is a harder problem than increasing demand since it requires actual technology and infrastructure development.
Without CATS, any noncommercial space program is ultimately unsustainable, unless it is a “money is no object” type of program. Unfortunately, current economic trends do not seem amenable to those types of programs. Most Americans seem to want a “space program” of some sort, but there are no compelling (to most people) reasons to pursue it regardless of costs. Also unfortunate is the fact that the traditional government aerospace programs of all types are becoming increasingly unsustainable and unaffordable (see the latest rumors of F-35 cancellation due to massive budget and schedule overruns). Current launch systems can support the commercial comsat industry, all right, because that industry can still make money even with high transportation costs. But beyond that, there are currently no other commercial markets of significance.
Lower cost, reliable space transportation is a necessary prerequisite for any new markets and demand to arise. Columbus didn’t need to spend 10 years developing new ship technology because he already had an affordable way to cross the Atlantic. Based on the resources that were subsequently discovered, demand for better and cheaper transatlantic transportation grew. The galleons came along later, after that demand developed – not in response to any pre-Columbian “demand.”
And we don’t need to spend 10 years developing new technology, either. Somebody has to get off the dime and build a cheaper, more reliable launch vehicle – with existing technology. We don’t need any “miracle breakthrough technology” to do that. Douglas built the DC-1 with existing aircraft technology; they merely used clever engineering and insight into what would work to come up with what became the famous DC-3. What is needed in space transportation is the same kind of creative thinking – and the funding, of course…
To clarify – yes, I agree with Thomas’ assessment that the galleons were developed in response to the new demand for transportation to the New World. The important point is that Columbus already had affordable transportation – if not the most efficient – with existing technology, which made his and follow-on voyages feasible in the first place. We can do the same with space transportation. We don’t need new technology, we just need to make better use of what’s available.
> Thomas Matula Says:
> May 6th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
>==But now, in a possible stand of defiance of the new
> Congress to President Obama, the very opposite may
> happen with Commercial Crew killed by Congress and
> Constellation pushed as the only means of space access.
> Or commercial crew killed and an NASA owned Orion lite
> on EELV replacing it in a crash program to close the gap.
> In short, the very opposite of what New Space may
> have achieved without the change in policy. ==
Also, if COTS-d had gone forth as a alternate, newspace companies might get seriouisly considered. But Commercial crew Tranport will be concidered “THE” transportation methoud — so that can’t possibly consider new untried newspace companies. It will have to go to teh big established traditional firms. Also not what new space folks hope for.
> Thomas Matula Says:
> May 7th, 2010 at 5:33 am
> Reductions of cost and improvements in transportation
> systems are driven by demand pull. CATS goes against
> this basic rule. ==
True. The common space advocate fantasy is that technology or engineering issues drive costs. So if they can just get their nano-fiber reinforced unobtanium…whatever, costs will plunge.
The cold truth is you can design a rugged servicable RLV that would be provide cheap access to space IN A HIGH DEMAND MARKET. But a airliner program that flew as infrequently as current demand permits, would also generate frieght cost per pound numbers of tens of thousands a pound.
> txhsdad Says:
> May 7th, 2010 at 7:26 am
> I keep asking folks here, “where is this demand going
> to come from?”, but all I hear is crickets…
Welcome to the ultimate chicken and egg question of space.
Theres lots of things you could profitably do in space if your launch costs get low, and we have the technology needed for that, but you can’t get low launch costs until after the economies of scale of a large market develop. Since theres virtually no current launch market at all, current costs are stagering, and theres virtually nothing you can profitably do in space with such transoprtation costs. So no market is developing.
Dave,
[[[(see the latest rumors of F-35 cancellation due to massive budget and schedule overruns)]]]
Hmmm, last year President Obama got Congress to cut the number of F-22’s for USAF on the promise the F-35 will be able to do its mission. Now that the deed is done they may not build the F-35 afterall – surprise, surprise, surprise…
And now in his space policy President Obama is asking the Congress to dump Constellation on the promise of funding commercial crew…
Do you see a pattern folks?
> Dave Hoerr Says:
> May 7th, 2010 at 10:17 am
>== we don’t need to spend 10 years developing new
> technology, either. == Douglas built the DC-1 with
> existing aircraft technology; they merely used clever
> engineering and insight into what would work to come
> up with what became the famous DC-3. What is needed
> in space transportation is the same kind of creative
> thinking – and the funding, of course…
You should read up on the DC-X program in the mid ’90’s. McDonnel Douglas thuoght they had a coustomer and did what you suggest. They fully expected the production version would be as revolutionary as the DC-3 was — hence why they were going to name it the DC-3. They said they were $3 billion and 3 years away from FAA certified production craft rolling off a assembly line — then the customer lost interest when their need evaporated and McDonnel Douglas couldn’t find anyone else interested.
I often remember that factoid when the discusion turns to Griffens $100 billion Constellation program….
> Thomas Matula Says:
> May 7th, 2010 at 10:58 am
> Hmmm, last year President Obama got Congress to cut
> the number of F-22’s for USAF on the promise the F-35
> will be able to do its mission. Now that the deed is done
> they may not build the F-35 afterall – surprise, surprise, surprise…
> And now in his space policy President Obama is asking
> the Congress to dump Constellation on the promise of
> funding commercial crew…
> Do you see a pattern folks?
Cynic. Surely you realize with Obamas charm everyone will become our friend and we wont need a military anymore, and your inconveinent logic suspecting that he might not keep his “promise” to space advocates, just because he broke all the other promises to everyone else, just proves your a racist.
??
….What were the side effects of this alergy medicine again…?
Reductions of cost and improvements in transportation systems are driven by demand pull. CATS goes against this basic rule.
There’s an old saying, Tom. “Beware the man who had read one book.” In nearly every post, you insult other people. You like to claim you’re the only person who has studying economics and everyone else is ignorant. Sorry, Tom, but you need to read more than one book.
There was no demand for air travel, before airplanes were developed. No demand for microcomputers, before the Altair was built. No demand to tablets, before the iPad. In every case, there were short-sighted critics making the same argument you do, and predicting failure.
Business works on Say’s Law, which says “Supply proceeds demand.” You constantly mistate that as “Build it and they will come.” I humbly suggest that you spend less time watching Kevin Costner and more time reading economists like Say.
The ultimate example of your “demand pull” economics is the Stimulus Bill. How is that working out for you, Tom? Is the economy roaring because of “demand pull”?
Columbus didn’t spend 10 years designing a better ship to cross the Atlantic, he used available technology. Then, and only then, did the Spanish develop their famous Galleons in responds to the pull demand of the resources of the new world.
You say that without a trace of irony, when you refuse to use available rockets and want the government to spend tens of billions of dollars developing new “ships” for your Moon trips? But unlike the Spanish galleons, which reduced the cost of sea transportation, your “ships” would only increase the cost of space transportation.
Those voyages to the New World were not justified on the basis of hand-waving analogies to ancient history, Tom. They were justified by hard-headed men who sat down and ran the numbers. You haven’t done that. In fact, you actually boast that you dropped out of engineering school and became a business professor because you didn’t like math.
Sorry, Tom, but whether you like it or not, in the real world, you have to do the math if you want to succeed. Apollo failed because Von Braun did the engineering math but didn’t do the financial math. The BVSE failed for the same reason.
(And the so-called “riches” of the New World actually wrecked the Spanish economy, caused inflation, and contributed in the failure of the Spanish Armada because inflation prevented the Crown from buying as many ships and water barrels as were needed. Again, you should read more than one history book.)
You are not going to open the Solar System to economic development by constantly designing and redesigning launch systems in the hope of a miracle breakthrough in technology which is how the last 30 years have been in space advocacy has been wasted.
Do you believe that repeating a fib often enough makes it the truth? We haven’t spent 30 years working on CATS. That’s a myth that Moonies and Marsies concocted to avoid having to explain the embarassing fact that Apollo was a dead end.
NASA wasted the last 30 years pining for Apollo, mourning for Apollo, and trying to revive Apollo. Altogether, the United States has spent over 50 years and half a trillion dollars VOn Braun and Kennedy You have very little to show for it. As Jerry Pournelle says, with the amount of money you’ve spent, you should be halfway to Alpha Centauri by now.
Cheap access to space does not require “miracle breakthrough in technology.” Again, you need to read more than one book. The US could have done it with the technology that was available decades ago. The military X-planes of the 1960’s were heading in that direction. They were part of the military manned space program, which you claim to support, on days when you aren’t bashing the military. They were sacrificed to the great god Apollo and “Part 9 for Outer Space.”
We must learn from history and not make the same mistakes again. Once again, the Moonies and the Marsies are their own worst enemies. By attacking commercial space and General Bolden’s Vision for Space Exploration, you’re attacking your best chance getting what you want.
Which is more important to you, Tom, seeing human beings get to the Moon and Mars, or attacking anyone who would do it in a manner you consider to be Politically Incorrect?
> Edward Wright Says:
> May 7th, 2010 at 11:13 am
> There was no demand for air travel, before airplanes were developed. No demand for microcomputers, before the Altair was built. No demand to tablets, before the iPad.
Actually your wrong here Ed, and its a HUGE mistake. Ever transportation system developed supported a PREEXISTING transportation market. Horses and animal drawn carts carried things and folks that had walked and carried the stuff on their backs. Trains/cars took over cart traffic. Planes took market away from trains/cars/ships.
Now AFTER they ate a big chunk of those old markets they could then expand and develop whole new markets – but first they weer backrolled by investors looking for a cut of the existnig market.
Except for space travel theres no market now for someone to justify investment to get.
> Cheap access to space does not require “miracle breakthrough
> in technology.” ==The US could have done it with the technology
> that was available decades ago. The military X-planes of the
> 1960’s were heading in that direction. ==
Agree here. Hell the SR-71’s were most of the way to a RLV.
Hell the SR-71’s were most of the way to a RLV.
Not really. But even if they were, they wouldn’t be an operable one.
> Rand Simberg Says:
> May 7th, 2010 at 11:30 am
>> Hell the SR-71’s were most of the way to a RLV.
> Not really. But even if they were, they wouldn’t be an operable one.
How do you mean?
I mean what I mean. The Blackbird was a very finicky, fragile vehicle. In order to handle the heat of cruise and thermal expansion of the tanks, it had to leak fuel and oil sitting on the ground (the old saying with it was that if you didn’t see puddles underneath it, don’t try to fly it, because it’s out of gas). It was a cruise vehicle, not launcher, and it was on the bleeding edge of technology. Even it had the kind of performance necessary to be a launcher, it would have been an operability and cost nightmare.
But it was reusable, had skins that could take reentry temps (leading edges might be a very different mater), had a high fuel ot dry mass ratio, and functioned in a very near vacum.
Thats most of the way there.
[hell rockets are always boilnig off fuel to.
😉 ]
“Apollo failed because Von Braun did the engineering math but didn’t do the financial math.”
I’d like to disagree a little here. The Von Braun of the late 1940’s and 50’s seemed to understand what it might take to provide a long term human presence in space (yes, I am an infrastructure cultist). The Von Braun of the 1960’s was asked to solve a very specific technical question, and he did. It is not his fault he was asked the wrong question.
Edward,
Your use of Say’s law “Supply proceeds demand” is flat out incorrect. Jean Baptiste Say was referring to the problem of agricultural surplus when he proposed that relationship in 1803 and the correct statement of Say’s Law is “Supply creates its own Demand”.
What that means economically is simply that a glut in a free market will be corrected by price falling until the it matches supply. But if the price is less then the cost of production guess what happens? The producer goes out of business, the supply drops and the price rises to a point where the cost of producing the good matches the price for it.
In simple language applied to New Space, if you offer sub-orbital seats for $20,000 each people will buy them, but if the cost to produce those seats is $40,000 you will go out of business. Only if there is sufficient demand at your production cost of $40,000 a seat will you be able to stay into business. Now if you produce enough flights at $40,000 you may find ways by forcing the experience/knowledge curve to reach $20,000, but first you need to find a sufficiently large latent market at $40,000 seats to do so.
Your misstatement of Say’s Law is a classic example the problem I indicated with New Space policy which it how it ignores basic principles of economics and twists basic models of how industries are created to advocate its objectives with the mystical belief that “if you build it they will come…” being the prime example. Sure they will come eventually, but in the interim you will make enough to stay in business? Probably not.
Of course with New Space the answer is now simple, government subsidies in the form of Commercial Crew until a commercial market emerges, the current version of “build it and they will come…” 🙂
Edward,
[[[In fact, you actually boast that you dropped out of engineering school and became a business professor because you didn’t like math.]]]
Hmmm, you have never taken an graduate level courses in statistics or mathematical economics have you? If so you will would know how funny that is.
No, the reason I switched is that I didn’t like the idea of being a migrant worker drifting from one job to another in an occupation dominated by boom and bust cycles like engineering is. In my sophomore year I saw the oil firms hiring as many new petroleum and geological engineers for $40,000 a year as they could find, then in my junior year watched as not a single member of the graduating class in petroleum and geological engineering got an offer from the oil firms while the ones they hired the year before were back, lining up to get into graduate school. That is when I decided to go into a more stable occupation.
And yes, the current bust in aerospace engineering is sending the same message to the current generation of students in the aerospace field. I wonder how many aerospace engineering programs will close as collateral damage of the President’s new policy.
Besides the challenge of developing space is not the engineering, but the economics. Create the right economic environment and the engineers will have the resources to solve the technical problems. What is keeping us from a TSTO is not the engineering problems, but the economic justification for one. That is the core reason the SSTO failed, lack of demand for it at the price level needed to supply it.
Which is why as a New Space advocate I would be very worried about VG slashing its prices years before their first customer has even flown.
CATS is a great slogan but won’t happen until sufficiently large markets exist to justify it. Then you won’t need a government subsidy, private capital will finance it. But it won’t be new space firms building it, it will be Boeing, Lockheed-Martin and Northrup-Grumman, just as will be the case with Commercial Crew when the RFP finally comes out now that its in the critical path.
Edward,
[[[They were part of the military manned space program, which you claim to support, on days when you aren’t bashing the military.]]]
Please stop spreading lies. I have never bashed the military. That is only in your delusions.
Kelly,
Rand is correct, the SR-71 was not suitable as a launcher. They tried it with the D-21 and lost the aircraft, which is why the D-21 was switched to launching from B-52’s.
It was also very difficult to fly and to support which is why the never developed the interceptor version of it.
Karl Hallowell Says:
txhsdad, the demand is already here and around us.
Oh, really? Where? Wither these clamoring masses yearning for cheap access to Martian regolith? Don’t get me wrong, I want to see us go there, but I don’t think there’s any significant commercial opportunity in space (beyond LEO and maybe the Moon) for millenia to come. The reason to go to say, Mars, anytime soon is for national prestige, and maybe a little bit for science. But mostly the prestige. And I’m all for it, by the way.
The really big obstacle is cost. Even if we consider one of your crazier suggestions, a fleet of colonizing spaceships, I’m sure we can find a relatively wealthy cult to give it a go.
The crazy suggestion (and it is crazy) isn’t mine, it’s from a New Space proponent in another thread. As far as I could tell, he was in earnest in his suggestion that someone with a “wild hair” (those words were mine) really would up and build such a fleet just because he could, once access to LEO got a little bit cheaper. Wish I had that kind of money to blow! Guess have to I’ll stick to reading Kim Stanley Robinson, listening to ZIA and watching SG-1 reruns. 🙂
You’re basically saying that you don’t think anyone would want gold from an asteroid, to live on Mars, or visit the moons of Jupiter.
…
We want lots of things that you apparently think we don’t want.
The short answer is that I think some of y’all are wildly optimistic about what space — at least, within the realm of our solar system, achieveable in the next 500 years — has to offer. I want lots of things to be in space that simply aren’t in space. Maybe it’s a product of growing up in the Star Trek era? Regardless, it’s not that you (we) don’t want them, it’s that they aren’t there the way you seem to think they are. Space is really a whole lot of nothing, with a bad attitude. So long answer, there simply ain’t enough there there to justify any commercial enterprise beyond launch to LEO. If someone’s gonna go (and again, I think we should) it’s gonna have to be for different reasons — national prestige being prominent among them. Science being a distant second. (But I don’t know any rich scientists, which is why significant scientific works are always underwritten by governments with deep pockets.) Hence, a government program, not a commercial enterprise.
Listen: the scant gold on any asteroid would be worth far less than the effort required to retrieve it, even if costs were reduced by any reasonable amount. And even if sizeable quantities of some valuable material were available, retrieval would only serve to lower its value because the supply would suddenly not be finite as it is now.
As for living on Mars (your example) — as much as I’d love to chuck it all and go (some days), you’ll notice that historically the people who had decent lives where they already were weren’t the ones who crossed the void for the promise of a New World. Colonization of other planets is not the same as moving to western Canada, where there’s still air and water and habitable temperatures (mostly) and one need only be capable of hunting, planting, and build a shelter to make a new life. The inhospitability of space means life there is going to be incomprehensively expensive for a long, long time to come, New Space or not. Too expensive to draw the kind of people who colonize new worlds. If you want to build a legitimate colony on Mars, you’re a lot farther away than just cheaper access to LEO. For the reasons I’ve mentioned above, you’re going to have to make Mars habitable first, and you’re going to have to make safe, prosperous life there cheap enough to attract the people who aren’t already comfortable here on Earth. That is, optimistically, still the stuff of sci fi for centuries to come, I’m afraid.
Add to that the political problem of ownership. Frankly, I don’t foresee permanent extra-terrestrial land grants as being any more feasible than building condos in Antarctica. Off-world territory is never going to be for private sale, IMO.
Remember that businesses have figured out how to get billions of people to want brown, carbonated, sugar water. If it really is a matter of wanting, that’s already a solved problem.
But I don’t have to train for years as an astronaut, don a pressure suit, live in a ten foot wide tube and leave everything I know and love millions of miles away at the peril of my life to drink a Coke. That’s what life on the Moon and Mars is going to be like for the next couple hundred years, at least. Which is why I think colonization as a commercial opportunity is a dead end.
>Thomas Matula Says:
> May 7th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
> Kelly,
>
> Rand is correct, the SR-71 was not suitable as a launcher. They tried it
> with the D-21 and lost the aircraft, ==
I was refering to it more as nearly a orbiter. Specificaly that it had the bulk of the tech systems for a RLV upperstage orbiter.
> It was also very difficult to fly and to support which is why the never
> developed the interceptor version of it.
Actually thats not why, it was internal politics in the DOD. McNamara wanted to consolodate all fighter/bomber/interceptor functioning to the F-111. He had the SR=71 jigs adn tooling scraped before they even finished building the SR-71s he ordered to preempt Congress choosing to build the YF-12a interceptor – or a SR-71 derived bomber.
> Chris L. Says:
> May 7th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
>=The Von Braun of the late 1940’s and 50’s seemed to understand what it
> might take to provide a long term human presence in space==
Very true and a good point.
>== (yes, I am an infrastructure cultist).
😉
> txhsdad Says:
> May 7th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
>> I’m sure we can find a relatively wealthy cult to give it a go.
> The crazy suggestion (and it is crazy) isn’t mine, it’s from a New Space
> proponent in another thread. As far as I could tell, he was in earnest in
> his suggestion that someone with a “wild hair” (those words were mine)
> really would up and build such a fleet just because he could, once access
> to LEO got a little bit cheaper. Wish I had that kind of money to blow! ==
80
Yeah, thats nuts.
To befair Musks nearly that nuts. He thinks theres a viable market for rich Billionars wanting to cash it all in (asnd give it to Musk) to live out therelives pioneering Mars after a one way trip.
/generally its hard to get that rich being that stupid.
>== Guess have to I’ll stick to reading Kim Stanley Robinson, listening
> to ZIA and watching SG-1 reruns. 🙂
Don’t know Zia, but I’m up for the other 2.
😉
>==
> The short answer is that I think some of y’all are wildly optimistic about
> what space — at least, within the realm of our solar system, achieveable
> in the next 500 years — has to offer.===
NEVER make blanket staments about 500 years. thats not just dozens of generations of technology –its several generation of physics! Its like your a few years after Columbus trying to foresee steam engines much less space shuttles and nuclear power.
Remember. Compared to space Earth never had any resources, no ore, oil, freash water, etc. Just because its not profitable now to use it for industry doesn mean in 50 years (yes 50 not 500) it would have a desisive edge over Earth reseources in cost effectivness to the markets of Earth.
(Would Columbus have beleaved the great lakes of the US would become the industrial heartland of the world under 500 years later?)
>== Listen: the scant gold on any asteroid would be worth far less than
> the effort required to retrieve it, even if costs were reduced by any
> reasonable amount. ==
Worse. The quantities sited on individual asteroids are orders of magnitude greater then all the gold or platinum ever mined on Earth. If you brought it all back – Platinum would be cheep enough to use for sandwitch wrap.
>==
> .. historically the people who had decent lives where they already were
> weren’t the ones who crossed the void for the promise of a New World. —
Yup. And anywhere on Earth is better then anywhere in space to live.
Look, txhsdad, you claimed that there wasn’t demand for many of these things. I demonstrate that is false and the real problem is cost.
Second, you grossly exaggerate the emptiness of space. For example, where’s 99% of the mass of the Solar System? It’s not on Earth, but in the Sun. Where’s 90% of the remaining mass? It’s not on Earth but in Jupiter. Past that there are several gas giants, each many times more massive than Earth, and numerous planets and moons of significant size. Then you have the asteroids and the objects of the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud. In comparison, the Earth is insignificant in comparison.
Even if you look at stuff we can access with similar overburden constraints as on Earth, you still end up with a lot of material that can be accessed. For example, the pressure at the center of Ceres is comparable to being 5-6 miles deep on Earth (which is about as deep as commercial drilling gets currently, traditional mines go down to about 2.5 miles). That means we can mine the entire asteroid with the same sort of structures that one would use to mine 5-6 miles down on Earth.
Then we get to issues of known valuables in space. For example, we know that there are considerable quantities of platinum group metals (PGMs) in metallic asteroids because pieces of those asteroids reach Earth and were analyzed. We know where to find other potentially valuable things like helium 3 (which is present in trace amounts in the regolith of the Moon and in significant quantities and concentrations on all of the gas giants). There is a vast amount of energy coming from the Sun. The Earth only intercepts a minuscule portion of that.
Even for the unknowns, we can say some things. For example, some of the biggest PGM deposits on Earth are asteroid/volcanic related. The Moon and Mars both have similar volcanic and asteroid impact activity. It’s not a stretch to look there for similar massive deposits of PGMs.
That is, optimistically, still the stuff of sci fi for centuries to come, I’m afraid.
You keep saying things like that. You aren’t in a position to know. How soon we do start colonizing space is going to depend on the development of technologies and economic strategies that haven’t been tried. When we’ve tried high launch frequency launch, ISRU, etc, and those things turn out to be harder than we thought, then maybe you’ll have a point.