The Japanese lost a rocket and its payload of surveillance satellites yesterday. Once again, like the Chinese, their decision to play "follow the leader," instead of being a leader, has come back to bite them and their space program. Taking the lead from the government space agencies of the US, Russia and Europe, they continue to operate under the delusion that space launch can be made affordable and reliable by souping up expendable ballistic missiles, and launching them a few times a year. The reality is that neither goal can be achieved by that method.

No matter how vaunted your quality control, and technological prowess, it is simply not possible to reliably or affordably build vehicles for which each flight is a first flight and a last, particularly when you build so few.

This is why I don't fear international competition when it comes to space. The only people really making breakthroughs and demonstrating innovation right now are in the Anglosphere, and are for the most part American (though they have nothing to do with NASA). By the time the rest of the world realizes what's happening in Mojave and other places, they'll be too far behind to catch up.

And by the way, I should add, via Mark Whittington, that the Chinese have now set out their bold space goal--they'll put a man on the moon in 2020--sixteen years from now, and only half a century after we did it. I found this part particularly amusing:

...until Luan's comments, officials had denied having plans for a manned lunar landing. They insisted that, in contrast to the U.S.-Soviet space race of the 1960s, China was moving at its own careful, cost-effective pace.

Careful, perhaps, but hardly cost effective.

And Mark thinks that this will, or should, have the American public quaking in our collective boots?

At that rate, they'll be greeted on arrival by the concierge at Club Med Luna...

I am very impressed by the japanese RVT project . They want to build a followup vehicle that flies to 200km. If they get the money to do this it might be interesting. And if it works, the japanese might decide to put a few billion yen into building a full-scale SSTO space transport like the kankoh maru

They are also willing to use foreign technology like the excellent russian NK-33 engine in their more near-term plans:

Don't underestimate the japanese just because their current main launch vehicle sucks.

No matter how vaunted your quality control, and technological prowess, it is simply not possible to reliably or affordably build vehicles for which each flight is a first flight and a last, particularly when you build so few.

You need to think this over. There's a great deal of synergy in designing reusable vehicles and manned vehicles or vehicles intended to transport a high value project. But there will also be a market for bulk materials with low intrinsic value. Expendables are best for that market at this time IMHO.

Second, I suspect that near term reusables will require extensive refurbishing after reentry. Thus, in a very real sense you will always be launching components of the launch system that haven't been tested on a launch before.

I used to believe that expendables were best for low-value payloads, but I don't any more. They'll never be able to compete with a well-designed space transport, even for bulk cargo, and I disagree that a well-designed space transport based on modern technology will require anything between flights other than fluid changeout. But we'll find out when people actually start developing them, and there's no sign that it's going to happen at NASA.

Meanwhile, in another part of town, one agency is about to sign the bill of irrelevancy for many years to come:
http://www.spacetoday.net/Summary/2051
A proposed new "vision" for the US space program current being developed by the Bush administration will offer little change from current policy, the Orlando Sentinel reported Sunday.
>snip
The report said there are no plans for a bold new initiative, such as human missions to the Moon or Mars. Instead, the focus is on existing programs, including return the shuttle to flight, completing the International Space Station, and developing the Orbital Space Plane.

I actually believe its true.

Actually Mark thinks no such thing. I do however believe that the "great leap outward" by the Chinese is a long term concern that needs to be responded to, preferably sooner than later. Sticking one's head in the dirt and pretending it doesn't matter is not a response.

By the time the rest of the world realizes what's happening in Mojave and other places, they'll be too far behind to catch up.

Nitpick: in industry, nobody is ever "too far behind to catch up." They might be "too far behind to catch up today," but even then they are still in the process of catching up.

If you're the leader, you'd better be working hard to maintain your lead.

Jon Acheson

> Nitpick: in industry, nobody is ever "too far behind to catch up."

Nitpick - mostly irrelevant. Space technology is a means, not the end, and getting first to the various ends has a semi-permanent effect.

Example - when the French and Spanish got behind, the US got most of North America.

Whoever gets the moon gets a significant semi-permanent advantage.

Looks like the Orlando Sentinal scenario is-well-false, according to NASA Watch.

If all goes well, the Chinese, when they get there, may not arrive at "Club Moon" (a silly statement if ever there was one), but there may be Americans there to greet them.

Re : Disposable vs Re-useable.
It's a lot easier to get that last 5% of performance if you don't care that the system will wear out after a single use.

Take a look at Fighter plane engines in WW2 : in order to get the required performance, their lives were measured in tens of hours before needing a rebuild, and major parts replacement. After a few hundred hours, they were only good for scrap.

In Drag racing today, engines are completely rebuilt after each run. 20 seconds running and 1 hour to rebuild - rather like the Shuttle.

What we want is a system as reliable as an old VW, but with performance exceeding that of a Formula 1 racer. I don't think the two are doable simultaneously with today's materials science. That means that boosters will be more like drag racers than Fords until we can make much lighter, stronger and above all more durable materials, and/or have fuels with better specific impulses. The former's doable, the latter, probably not.

The latter is quite doable if we would jus say screw the enviroweenies and go to nuclear powered boosters.

Rand,

What is your position on nuclear powered SSTO?

My position on nuclear launchers is that they're not necessary, and they're never going to happen.

"It's a lot easier to get that last 5% of performance "

Whats wrong with the first 95% ?

Why are the choices limited to dragracers and VWs. There are lot of different kinds of vehicles in the middle, with a lot of different kind of engines.

Part of the problem is that there is also a "one size fits all, and it's the size I'm making" attitude out there, too.

Anyone think space elevators might factor into the cheap "ssto" equation?

Rand Simberg wrote:

I used to believe that expendables were best for low-value payloads, but I don't any more. They'll never be able to compete with a well-designed space transport, even for bulk cargo, and I disagree that a well-designed space transport based on modern technology will require anything between flights other than fluid changeout. But we'll find out when people actually start developing them, and there's no sign that it's going to happen at NASA.

Good points, Rand. We'll see what works best.

A mysterious guest wrote:

Whats wrong with the first 95% ?

As Rand points out, nothing is wrong with the first 95%. However, that 5% boost in performance might make quite a difference in cargo to orbit particularly in a marginal situation where the craft can barely carry cargo and achieve the desired orbit. A situation that certainly wouldn't apply with Rand's "well-designed" reusable.

Another(?) mysterious guest wrote:

Anyone think space elevators might factor into the cheap "ssto" equation?

Don't know. The physics looks barely doable with carbon fiber. They claim a factor of two excess strength, but that seems pretty marginal given the extraordinary engineering challenge. I find the current plans dubious since they don't seem to discuss potentially profitable intermediate stages that could boost LEO (low earth orbit) payloads to geo-stationary and are easily within the capabilities of today's materials. We could even create a space elevator on the Moon with today's materials (say running through the Lagrange one point lying between the Earth and Moon where the gravitational force of the two bodies exactly oppose each other.

>By the time the rest of the world realizes >what's happening in Mojave and other places, >they'll be too far behind to catch up.

I'm a huge fan of Burt Rutan's, and I think he's the odds-on favorite to win the X-prize, but let's keep this in perspective - what's going on in the Mojave today is small potatoes. A suborbital plane dropped from the belly of a mothership - the U.S. did that 40 years ago with the X-15.

There is a huge gap between the ability to shoot a capsule 330,000 feet into the air, and the ability to attain orbit and return. My hope is that if Rutan wins the X-prize, the publicity and proven ability will translate into some big funding that allows him to go after an orbital vehicle. But a program to do that is going to be at least fifty times as big as his current X-prize development team, and that brings its own set of challenges.

Karl, that's what staging is for. Particularly if the stage for the last five percent is based on orbit.

And Dan, I wasn't actually referring to Burt. SpaceShipOne is kind of neat, but it's also a stunt. I don't see it evolving into an commercial system, for a number of reasons, but there are other people in Mojave (and other places) who are serious.

Anyone ever see a drag racer blow its engine 10' from the starting line? When a space vehicle does that, people often die and certainly the valuable cargo is lost. We don't need hot race cars, we need Mack trucks & station wagons. Systems that only need to be pushed to 90% to get the job done.

There might be more prestige in greeting the 1st chinese lunar exporsers at Club Moon, but having an Amoco, a 7-eleven and a laundri-mat there would more advantage than we would ever need.

Anybody know how long it took and how much it cost to build the 1st transcontinental railroad and how much it paid back in developing the country? How much of the work was done by the government?

Joel,

I haven't read his book, but Stephen Ambrose wrote an overview of the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, published in 2000 and entitled Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad. According to this review, government indeed played a major role in the construction of the railroad, primarily through land grants and performance-based loans.

There was also the Great Northern, which was totally privately funded.