Where does he come up with this stuff?
Rohrabacher suggests that “several hundred million dollars” could be transferred from the SLS program to commercial crew. There are several problems with his proposal.
First, commercial crew space craft such as the SpaceX Dragon are not due to start carrying human passengers until 2015 at the earliest.
What does this mean? Where does he come up with that date, and why would they not be “due” to do it sooner? I am aware of no reason that Dragon couldn’t be flying people in a couple years, given sufficient investment. It could fly even sooner if one were willing to forgo an abort system.
The cargo version, depending on some test flights being flow successfully, would start flying next year. There is little evidence that a transfer of “several hundred million dollars” would advance the start dates of either version by as much as a day.
This is ridiculous. The request for Commercial Crew for 2012 (which starts in about a month) was $850M. The House reduced it to about $300M. Does Mark really imagine that this reduction will not impact the schedule? And that increasing it won’t accelerate it? On what basis?
On the other hand, siphoning off money from the underfunded SLS would pretty much cripple that project and add to the arguments of those who want it scrapped entirely. That may be the entire point of Rohrabacher’s proposal. However the proposal is so transparent that it is not likely to be met favorably by other members of Congress. Rohrabacher is in the strange position of being a man who has advocated free market capitalism demanding more government subsidies for a space craft whose sole purpose, at least thus far, is to service the government.
Other members of Congress don’t really give a damn, except the ones whose states and districts are affected. He continues to not understand the meaning of the word “subsidy,” and continues to turn a blind eye to the real subsidy — multi-billion cost-plus contracts for vehicles that will likely never fly.
[Update a few minutes later]
Michael Belfiore discusses the implications:
If all goes according to plan, another unmanned Dragon, also riding a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, will dock with the International Space Station this December. A strong commitment from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and independent funding from the company’s satellite launch business puts Dragon on the fast track to manned flight within three years.
“Within three years” means 2014 by my math. And as I said, the long pole in the tent is the abort system, not life support. If there were an emergency, they could fly without the abort system much sooner (Ken Bowersox has said that someone could have flown last December with a beanbag chair and scuba tank). Of course, that would only happen if space were important.
[Friday evening update]
OK, I know I shouldn’t link his stupid blog (just as an aside, it’s hilarious that after all these years, the permalinks on his blog still have double tags), but as usual he doubles down on the stupidity and reading incomprehension:
Rand Simberg reacts. He doesn’t offer any evidence to refute the position that adding just a few hundred million is not going to advance the schedule of the commercial space vehicles becoming operation, besides throwing out words like “nonsense.”
Really? I’ll repeat again (it’s right up above), though he’ll ignore it again, rather than responding to it, because he has no response:
The request for Commercial Crew for 2012 (which starts in about a month) was $850M. The House reduced it to about $300M. Does Mark really imagine that this reduction will not impact the schedule? And that increasing it won’t accelerate it? On what basis?
He goes on:
Of course, one might concede the point that if one were to pour billions of dollars into the commercial crew program, which I think Rand is implying, one might get something flying in “a couple of years.”
Note that I wrote nothing about “pouring billions of dollars into the commercial crew program.” He may be inferring it, but as almost always, what he insanely infers is not what others imply.
Also, I think Rand has also admitted, though he will likely deny it, that funding projects like the Space Launch System more than currently contemplated would advance the advent of that launch system as well.
Again, I “admitted” nothing of the kind, though I would in fact concede that if we actually do “pour billions” (that is, tens of billions) into the SLS, it’s possible that its schedule might be moved up a year or so, perhaps only two or three years past the current date after which there is no guarantee that the ISS will even be flying. How he thinks this helps his case Jehovah only knows.
Developing a launch escape system is very expensive due to the testing required. It’s easy to simulate a pad abort but simulating a Max-Q inflight abort is more difficult and expensive. A couple weeks ago, Boeing announced they were going to use the Atlas-V EELV for the early CST-100 tests. One of those rockets will be used for the in-flight abort test. An Atlas V (even with a dummy upper stage) will cost tens of millions of dollars and it’ll essentially be thrown away to conduct this test. If for any reason the test is deemed unsuccessful, they’ll probably have to repeat it.
It’s interesting that most of the new crew designs use pusher LES systems.
I have always leaned toward giving Whittington the benefit of the doubt on a lot of his ideas, but his support of SLS and utter disdain shown toward SpaceX is just beyond comprehension coming from someone who claims to be an informed space exploration advocate. NASA has dropped the ball on every attempt to produce any sort of spacecraft / launch vehicle in the past 30 years and how anyone could believe that there is any evidence that would make one believe their track record could be expected to change is beyond comprehension.
On the other hand SpaceX has created practically from scratch (save me the “standing on the shoulders of” argument, I know I know) for less than $1 billion what would have cost NASA 10’s of billions to duplicate; of that there is no doubt and anyone arguing otherwise is either an idiot or simple hasn’t been paying attention. And the latter would by definition eliminate anyone who claims to be a space advocate.
Just for the record I do not have disdain for SpaceX. I wish that company well. I do have disdain for the policy that smacks of crony capitalism that does violence to the free market by pouring billions of dollars into “commercial” space efforts to build “commercial” space ships that are designed to service a government market
As for SLS, I am certainly open to alternatives. Doing fuel depots from the get go is not one of them. If one does not have an alternative, then one had best admit that one is not in favor of doing space exploration at all.
I do have disdain for the policy that smacks of crony capitalism that does violence to the free market by pouring billions of dollars into “commercial” space efforts to build “commercial” space ships that are designed to service a government market
One more time, please, can you at least attempt to explain why paying a few hundred millions for fixed-price deliverable milestones to multiple competitive providers is “crony capitalism” but handing over billions of taxpayer dollars to a single sole-source no-bid contractor for time and materials, regardless of results, is not? You just continue to make yourself look like a fool.
As for SLS, I am certainly open to alternatives. Doing fuel depots from the get go is not one of them.
It’s that sort of blinkered attitude that will keep us trapped in LEO forever. Fortunately, wiser heads will prevail.
Shorter Whittington: My way or the highway.
Defining SpaceX business model as “crony capitalism” is hyperbole at best, ignorance maybe more apt. Regardless “billions” have not been poured into commercial space; SpaceX is the /one of the biggest commercial space companies and it has yet to consume even one billion dollars total in all that it has accomplished and the vast majority of that money did not come from government coffers. Providing a product to service a market regardless of who creates the market is capitalism. And SpaceX’ products also service non-government related segments of the space exploitation market, pigeon holing them as an entity solely dependent on government money is again hyperbole at best.
Your call for “SLS alternatives” presupposes that a mission exists for SLS and that therefore alternatives for accomplishing that mission might be needed, but there is no mission for SLS. That is unless you count the mission to perpetuate the flow of dollars to certain congressional districts, it does fulfill that mission marvelously. SLS is the launch vehicle equivalent of the bridge to nowhere.
“Defining SpaceX business model as “crony capitalism” is hyperbole at best, ignorance maybe more apt.”
Ignorance comes from lack of information. Once you have the information and continue then it becomes stupidity.
Mark is a patholical liar, as he has been informed to many times to count.
Not only does he continue the lies but he piles on fear mongering as well.
All he needs is a bottle of patent medicine and his true colors as a snake oil salesman would be complete.
As for SLS, I am certainly open to alternatives. Doing fuel depots from the get go is not one of them.
Mark, can you produce a copy of your study that shows this?
As the “senior space analyst for the Clear Lake Group,” you’ve surely done one.
I would very much like to see your math.
You’re not just making this stuff up, are you?
Edward, the Augustine Committee rejected fuel depots, but stated that it merited further study, an assessment I agree with.
The subsidies for commercial crew are in the billions, not hundreds of millions, and perhaps more if an unexpected event (such as a launch failure) threaten to delay the program.
Edward, the Augustine Committee rejected fuel depots
Really? You must have access to some version of the Augustine report no one else has seen.
Can you produce a copy of this mysterious report? Is it available from your consulting firm? Or are you just making stuff up?
The subsidies for commercial crew are in the billions, not hundreds of millions
There are no subsidies for commercial crew. I see you’re unable to answer my question.
G’day,
Mark, how do you get billions from a $850 million request? Especially when they only received $300M?
I understand you believe NASA should make the Moon is immediate goal. That’s reasonable , but the quickest and cheapest way to do that is not bother with SLS but follow up Commercial Crew with Commercial Moon. I’ll bet that using EELVs , Falcons, Dragons, Inflatables etc an outpost could be put on the Moon 3-5 years after the go ahead and for a fraction it would cost NASA using traditional methods.
ta
Ralph
You’re arguing over one year? Seriously? The CCP office doesn’t expect flights until 2018, and intends to deliberately slow the partners to that schedule.
As for SLS, I am certainly open to alternatives. Doing fuel depots from the get go is not one of them.
You don’t have to do depots from the get go to avoid the “need” for an HLV, let alone an SDLV. A refuelable storable propellant spacecraft would be good enough.
I don’t believe you are really open to alternatives, I think you merely like to pretend you are.
Sometime next year, and on their own dime, SpaceX intends to have the FH in service. That would put two BA330 in orbit in one launch. SLS is nonsense.
Two BA330 to orbit for $300m. That give you the crew module for two spaceships. Add an engine (one just happens to be in the same place because it got them all there) and you have one and a half spaceships.
Since the engine has to go up to supply it anyway, that means your spaceship cost about $200m.
That’s a pretty cheap start for a fuel market. With that, SLS becomes such an obvious white elephant, nobody could promote it with a straight face (politicians always an exception.)
Putting that spaceship in orbit would be the fastest way to save $40b because once in orbit it can show what it’s capable of. Dragon doesn’t need a LES to return people to the earth. It can do that job now (and without any special life support system, you just bring what you need and worry about recycle and efficiency later.)
Whittington erroneously accused Jeff Foust of leaving out the original recommendation for Shuttle sites in his Space Politics post and insinuated that the report shows Bolden changed the criterion for the purpose of excluding Houston, despite there being no such evidence. He’s been called out on his “crony capitalism” catch phrase at multiple fora and he pointedly ignores any criticism of it. I say we just debunk the falsehoods, for the sake of anyone who doesn’t know any better, and ignore the rest.
expensive due to the testing required
Ya know what? I bet Elon has some surprises for us here too. He might do some testing as part of a regular satellite launch. The LES can work at any time including after the capsule is in orbit. First launch the paid for satellite, then do testing for essentially free.
Yes, he’d still have to do a full up test, but a lot can be confirmed before then.
His LES could even be used to put heavier packages into orbit.