Two articles from the current issue have been put on line for non-subscribers. One is a piece by Jeff Foust, discussing the stakes for commercial spaceflight in the upcoming COTS demonstration flights, and the other is a longer essay by Marcia Smith (who I first met at a AAS conference in Boston about thirty years ago) on the past and future of space policy, including human spaceflight. It’s a good overview, but I don’t think she’s sufficiently critical of the damaging role that Congress has played, and the role that pork, rather than actual accomplishments in space, plays in the SLS mess. She is justly harsh on the administration, whose policy making with space has been just as inept as in all else, though at least it had a more sensible policy even if it is unable to coherently articulate it. I’ve spent the last two years trying to make up for it, defending the new direction with numerous essays in various venues, but it’s hard to break through the FUD, noise and parochialism, particularly given how unimportant space policy is, as she notes herself.
4 thoughts on “The Latest Space Quarterly”
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[[[The stakes are high. If either or both companies succeed, they will demonstrate that private firms are up to the challenge of supporting the ISS, giving the station a new lifeline, all the more critical after the August failure of a Soyuz rocket carrying a Progress cargo spacecraft. If they fail, though, it will raise new doubts that commercial firms can handle the bigger task of crew transportation, while putting the long-term future of the station in jeopardy.]]]
And its always so when you place your hopes and dreams on the government. The world hasn’t changed since explorers were begging Kings and Queens for funding. COTS is just the latest iteration. You have to have a PR win, or you will be dragged before the “crown” (now subpoenaed before Congress…) to explain in detail your failure and beg forgiveness.
This is one reason why TRUE commercial markets like computers and 3D printing advance so rapidly, they have the ability to take risks and adsorb failure and quickly move on instead of wasting time looking for a scapegoat to place the blame on. I sincerely hope that SpaceX will survive the attack on its reputation, and probable lost of its ISS cargo contract if there is a failure.
Thomas, your example of “TRUE commercial markets”, computers and 3D printing, is not relevant to large hardware projects like spacecraft. Computers and 3D printers have much shorter lifetimes, much higher volumes, and they can make changes without having to re-certify with customers & regulators. Also, your statement “ability to take risks and adsorb failure” is kind of nonsensical when talking about Commercial Crew, because all of the participating companies are taking risks and absorbing failures.
Commercial aircraft would be better examples, and there you would find slow evolution paths, plus long periods of time between true revolutionary designs. There is a reason we’re still flying 747’s and that Boeing decided to update their 737 instead of replace it – it takes a lot of time and money to build large complex systems, but they are commercial products nevertheless.
The distinction of whether something is commercial is if they are offering their own product/service, and whether there is competition. Both will be true for commercial crew, even if there is only one destination initially (the ISS). But even with one destination, commercial crew could offer transportation to more than one ISS partner, and the ability to get crew to the ISS for far less money, and more frequently, could encourage higher usage of the ISS. And, of course, Bigelow is waiting for two or more providers before he starts his space station service.
Coastal Ron,
Yes, the old refrain – Space IS Different. Aircraft used to have pretty fast develop cycles. In fact they still do in general aviation that to the Experimental Aircraft regulations.
I am not impressed that the B-747 is still in production be of its complexity. I collect N-Scale railroad models for a hobby and Atlas is still producing the same E-8 model they first offered in 1967. The reason – maturity of the industry. Electric model railroads made a lot of progress from the mid-1930’s to the mid-1960’s, then hit plateau as the industry matured. About the only advances since then has been spin-offs from the computer field – small cameras to put in engines and remote control systems. But the rest of the industry has advanced much since the 1960’s.
I would buy your argument IF space launch systems were a mature technology, but if they are then why do we need COTS/CCDev/CCCP/Whatever its call today?
My drive by comment…
I don’t think she’s sufficiently critical of … Congress
Is that even possible?