De-orbit ISS contract to the lowest bidder. What could possibly go wrong?
It could land on Iran, oopsie
If they really want competition they need to exclude Boeing.
Competition for what?
Launch is a tough one and competitors are falling on their face, at the moment.
Services like de-orbiting the ISS or shuttling supplies around the solar system might require waiting for starship to become operational and then inviting companies that build experience using starship to compete on NASA contracts. Industry needs to take a step forward, and then can take a few steps back to service NASA.
Offer more money with no strings. Stop thinking they (NASA) know how to do it. They don’t.
“How does NASA get more competition against SpaceX?”
How about with cooperation with international space agencies, … they build, Sea Dragons
“The Sea Dragon was a 1962 conceptualized design study for a two-stage sea-launched orbital super heavy-lift launch vehicle. The project was led by Robert Truax while working at Aerojet, one of a number of designs he created that were to be launched by floating the rocket in the ocean. Although there was some interest at both NASA and Todd Shipyards, the project was not implemented. ” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket)
So, with South Korea, Japan, and India, mostly.
As I saw the low-cost launch market collapse around me with the demise of IRIDIUM, I was asked to write an article for an encyclopedia on commercial space. The thing none of us technical geeks could do in the 1990s was attract the kind of money that was being poured into the internet (Gary Hudson was the first, IIRC, to say “if only we had a .com in our name, we’d be swimming in money”). But not only could we not attract money, we couldn’t attract the kind of people who can raise money to do it for us. The closest I came was Dennis Tito, who expressed interest in financing our X PRIZE entry.
For the encyclopedia article, I thought about the whole problem, and then wrote up my conclusion, which was: if commercial space launch was ever going to happen, it would require a new Howard Hughes. Someone with technical knowledge and ability, a passion for space launch matching Hughes’ passion for aviation, and a huge personal fortune that he had demonstrated the ability to maintain and even grow.
Elon Musk became the new Howard Hughes, with a fortune he made (ironically?) on dot coms. Bezos and Branson have the money, but not the other qualities, at least not in sufficient quantity.
Elon broke down the barrier between investors and launch companies, but despite the hundreds of millions invested in other companies, only Rocket Labs has really succeeded. None of the traditional aerospace companies will ever get into the business (I tried at TRW), because they won’t spend a penny of their own on it: they want the government to pay for it all.
NASA is stuck with Elon, but at least they have Elon!
NASA continual failure to explore the Moon, has been a problem in terms commerce US launch companies.
And it seems without commercial global satellite market, NASA would cease to exist. Or US commercial satellite business has indirectly been keeping funding NASA thru out the decades, despite NASA doing things which have damaged this industry.
Or without US military Space, we would have US launch provider- and without them, NASA could not continue to play with it’ robotic missions.
There are only quite partial comparability fits between any of the major figures of early aviation and Elon Musk. The closest one can probably get would be Glenn Curtiss, not Howard Hughes. Even anent Curtiss, there is still a considerable amount of daylight showing if one compares his “silhouette” in early aviation to that of Musk in rocketry. And Musk, of course, is consequential in multiple industries, not just one. He is, in a word, singular. Across the history to-date of American technology innovation and industrialism the only figure who is even roughly comparable to Musk is Thomas Edison.
Can some non-Musk enterprise emerge capable of giving SpaceX genuine competition in rocketry? One has to acknowledge the possibility – especially over a sufficiently long timeframe – while also being realistic anent the next two or three decades.
Where’s our rocket version of George Westinghouse? BTW loved the movie.
Glenn Curtis was a major, if not the major contributor to early American aviation as such (though a large part of his contribution was participation in three major, unsuccessful lawsuits against the Wright brother). I’m talking about aviation on a large scale, not just the technology. In particular, commercial aviation.
Howard Hughes’ impact on aviation technology was enormous, from pioneering low-wing monoplanes, all-metal construction, and the use of flush rivets, to name a few things. He piloted aircraft he had built to world records. He also popularized aviation with his movie business, with the 1930 epic film Hell’s Angels, which had the most spectacular (and real) flying scenes of any movie until the Top Gun franchise. More importantly, Hughes made major contributions to the routine nature of today’s commercial passenger aviation industry. From flying as a Captain for Pan American Airways (there’s an iconic photograph of Hughes, then one of the wealthiest men in the world, in Pan Am uniform, loading passenger baggage into his airplane) to commissioning the development of what would become the world’s first pressurized cabin airliner, the Lockheed Constellation for Transcontinental and Western Airlines (TWA, later Trans World Airlines, later out of business airline. The Constellation was the first airplane I ever flew in, from St. Louis to New York and back.) Hughes was one of the major figures driving the financing of commercial airlines to becoming the stupendous worldwide business it is today. All of it sprang from his fortune from the Hughes Tool Company, and his father’s patents for the oil drill bit that made the petroleum business what it is. He had money, vision, and considerable engineering skill – certainly on a par with Elon. He had his hand in many more industries, including space. In fact, Hughes earned the eternal ire of NASA by winning a patent rights suit over station keeping of geosynchronous satellites. (I know that because I employed the attorney who won that suit in my company, Kelly Space & Technology. He helped us prevail over NASA’s attempting to claim rights to my tow-launch invention after the success of the Eclipse Project.)
The parallels between Musk and Hughes are directionally much better than those between Musk and anyone else.
Sell raffle tickets for a trip to space?
De-orbit ISS contract to the lowest bidder. What could possibly go wrong?
It could land on Iran, oopsie
If they really want competition they need to exclude Boeing.
Competition for what?
Launch is a tough one and competitors are falling on their face, at the moment.
Services like de-orbiting the ISS or shuttling supplies around the solar system might require waiting for starship to become operational and then inviting companies that build experience using starship to compete on NASA contracts. Industry needs to take a step forward, and then can take a few steps back to service NASA.
Offer more money with no strings. Stop thinking they (NASA) know how to do it. They don’t.
“How does NASA get more competition against SpaceX?”
How about with cooperation with international space agencies, … they build, Sea Dragons
“The Sea Dragon was a 1962 conceptualized design study for a two-stage sea-launched orbital super heavy-lift launch vehicle. The project was led by Robert Truax while working at Aerojet, one of a number of designs he created that were to be launched by floating the rocket in the ocean. Although there was some interest at both NASA and Todd Shipyards, the project was not implemented. ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket)
So, with South Korea, Japan, and India, mostly.
As I saw the low-cost launch market collapse around me with the demise of IRIDIUM, I was asked to write an article for an encyclopedia on commercial space. The thing none of us technical geeks could do in the 1990s was attract the kind of money that was being poured into the internet (Gary Hudson was the first, IIRC, to say “if only we had a .com in our name, we’d be swimming in money”). But not only could we not attract money, we couldn’t attract the kind of people who can raise money to do it for us. The closest I came was Dennis Tito, who expressed interest in financing our X PRIZE entry.
For the encyclopedia article, I thought about the whole problem, and then wrote up my conclusion, which was: if commercial space launch was ever going to happen, it would require a new Howard Hughes. Someone with technical knowledge and ability, a passion for space launch matching Hughes’ passion for aviation, and a huge personal fortune that he had demonstrated the ability to maintain and even grow.
Elon Musk became the new Howard Hughes, with a fortune he made (ironically?) on dot coms. Bezos and Branson have the money, but not the other qualities, at least not in sufficient quantity.
Elon broke down the barrier between investors and launch companies, but despite the hundreds of millions invested in other companies, only Rocket Labs has really succeeded. None of the traditional aerospace companies will ever get into the business (I tried at TRW), because they won’t spend a penny of their own on it: they want the government to pay for it all.
NASA is stuck with Elon, but at least they have Elon!
NASA continual failure to explore the Moon, has been a problem in terms commerce US launch companies.
And it seems without commercial global satellite market, NASA would cease to exist. Or US commercial satellite business has indirectly been keeping funding NASA thru out the decades, despite NASA doing things which have damaged this industry.
Or without US military Space, we would have US launch provider- and without them, NASA could not continue to play with it’ robotic missions.
There are only quite partial comparability fits between any of the major figures of early aviation and Elon Musk. The closest one can probably get would be Glenn Curtiss, not Howard Hughes. Even anent Curtiss, there is still a considerable amount of daylight showing if one compares his “silhouette” in early aviation to that of Musk in rocketry. And Musk, of course, is consequential in multiple industries, not just one. He is, in a word, singular. Across the history to-date of American technology innovation and industrialism the only figure who is even roughly comparable to Musk is Thomas Edison.
Can some non-Musk enterprise emerge capable of giving SpaceX genuine competition in rocketry? One has to acknowledge the possibility – especially over a sufficiently long timeframe – while also being realistic anent the next two or three decades.
Where’s our rocket version of George Westinghouse? BTW loved the movie.
Glenn Curtis was a major, if not the major contributor to early American aviation as such (though a large part of his contribution was participation in three major, unsuccessful lawsuits against the Wright brother). I’m talking about aviation on a large scale, not just the technology. In particular, commercial aviation.
Howard Hughes’ impact on aviation technology was enormous, from pioneering low-wing monoplanes, all-metal construction, and the use of flush rivets, to name a few things. He piloted aircraft he had built to world records. He also popularized aviation with his movie business, with the 1930 epic film Hell’s Angels, which had the most spectacular (and real) flying scenes of any movie until the Top Gun franchise. More importantly, Hughes made major contributions to the routine nature of today’s commercial passenger aviation industry. From flying as a Captain for Pan American Airways (there’s an iconic photograph of Hughes, then one of the wealthiest men in the world, in Pan Am uniform, loading passenger baggage into his airplane) to commissioning the development of what would become the world’s first pressurized cabin airliner, the Lockheed Constellation for Transcontinental and Western Airlines (TWA, later Trans World Airlines, later out of business airline. The Constellation was the first airplane I ever flew in, from St. Louis to New York and back.) Hughes was one of the major figures driving the financing of commercial airlines to becoming the stupendous worldwide business it is today. All of it sprang from his fortune from the Hughes Tool Company, and his father’s patents for the oil drill bit that made the petroleum business what it is. He had money, vision, and considerable engineering skill – certainly on a par with Elon. He had his hand in many more industries, including space. In fact, Hughes earned the eternal ire of NASA by winning a patent rights suit over station keeping of geosynchronous satellites. (I know that because I employed the attorney who won that suit in my company, Kelly Space & Technology. He helped us prevail over NASA’s attempting to claim rights to my tow-launch invention after the success of the Eclipse Project.)
The parallels between Musk and Hughes are directionally much better than those between Musk and anyone else.