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For the minority of /. readers who care about the details, I highly recommend downloading the COTS 2 Press Kit from SpaceX.
It provides tons of details and graphics describing the mission objectives, schedule, cargo manifest, vehicle specs, and much more...

http://www.spacex.com/downloads/COTS-2-Press-Kit-5-14-12.pdf

(I am not affiliated with SpaceX, but I like what they are doing)

You make good points. Yes 28.5 degrees North and launching eastward gives a substantial boost to any rockets launched and so Florida and/or Texas will likely stay in the picture as launching point. I'd be willing to bet that NASA gave SpaceX the equivalent of free rent at the launch facilities (which are probably maintained by other contractors on NASA's behalf). The SpaceX information on the Falcon Heavy all list an 'inclination' of 28.5 degrees so I am guessing the assumption is all launches will happen from Kennedy in FL.

I watched a video on Elon Musk which stated that raw materials come in to the factory in Hawthorne, CA and rocket parts come out the other side. I believe most of their 1500+ employees are in CA (awesome vid of them cheering the launch here). Hawthorne is about a mile from LAX and they can probably just take the parts over to LAX and put them on a big transport and fly them. I'd be willing to bet that transport costs are but a tiny tiny fraction of the human resource cost of the project. Los Angeles has tremendous assets for this sort of work -- there's a hi-tech corridor around Glendale/Burbank with all kinds of operations. There's an enormous talent pool of skilled workers, access to sea, air, and land shipping, etc. Boeing's a little different but most of their employees are on the West Coast. Lockheed also has a lot of facilities in Cailfornia. As does Raytheon. If you want to hire talented and experienced engineers and rocket scientists (and support staff), there are a ton of them around Los Angeles.

Read this page on the SpaceX site, especially this part:

As noted last month by a Chinese government official, SpaceX currently has the best launch prices in the world and they don’t believe they can beat them. This is a clear case of American innovation trumping lower overseas labor rates.

and this part:

If there are cost overruns, SpaceX will cover the difference. (This concept may be foreign to some traditional government space contractors that seem to believe that cost overruns should be the responsibility of the taxpayer.)

The business-as-usual approach where the government hands NASA gobs of money so that NASA can in turn pay Boeing all the money they ask for is affected by SpaceX. It is my hope (and Musk's stated goal) to maintain low fixed costs for launches. If SpaceX delivers on this promise, that will mean that we can still maintain a presence in space for less money. Another thing to note: SpaceX is in California. I'd be willing to bet that Florida and Texas republicans will still want their pork projects for all the aerospace companies working out of Texas and Florida. Also, there's always the sacred cow of defense spending. Remember the X37-B? I'd be willing to bet more money gets spent on that in the future.

So do you think the United States should divest itself of government-operated space launch capability? Should the lessons learned, capabilities gained, infrastructure created, and accomplishments of the last over-30 years be abandoned because the legislative, acquisition, and contracting landscape for government space operations isn't perfect? The "industry giants" in government space operations became "giants" for a reason.

SpaceX has shown that private enterprise has a place alongside government, but SpaceX isn't doesn't operate in a vacuum (pun intended!). Every launch on the SpaceX manifest through 2017 is happening via a US government launch complex, and for good reason. Just because existing space contractors benefit from SLS, it doesn't automatically follow that it's the "wrong way" to do things.

Space exploration is a key asset which serves to invigorate the national spirit, and government and private enterprise both have a significant place in the future of US space operations.

The rocket launch animation in the video does not show the Falcon 9 rocket+Dragon but the not yet fully developed Falcon 9 Heavy (SpaceX) which according to the SpaceX launch manifest will have a first test launch later this year (but I guess late 2013 seems more likely judging from SpaceX's previous track record of delays).

"Ah, the good old days when launching a rocket involved someone named "Hans" and a big red button."

Funny you should mention that ... Dr. Hans Koenigsmann at SpaceX. Also see their people page here: SpaceX People

Space launch has cost $10K/lb or so since 1960.
This isn't a law of physics.
NASA has systematically proved incapable of lowering launch cost - their primary contractors have no interest in doing this, and they are biased to 'clever' rather than 'workable' solutions. And then there is the problem that NASA has to spend money politically, not efficiently. It's largely a welfare organisation for aerospace - it's not a space organisation.

One of the last attempts at lowering launch costs - X33 - had three separate untried technologies on it.

SpaceX is taking a rather different tack - using shiny stuff only when it has a major benefit.

Their next rocket is planned to come in at around $1K/lb.
And they're thinking of reusability, to lower the costs to well below this.
Fuel costs are around $5/lb.

http://www.spacex.com/multimedia/videos.php - this is a cool video on their reusable design.
And this is a picture of the hardware - the foldable landing legs for the first stage of the Falcon 9.
http://img.ly/i5JQ

The space program isn't pathetic because of the lack of money being spent on it.
If you take the funding from SLS, up to the first couple of launches, and use it to buy commercial launches on SpaceX - you get comfortably enough launch to lift the USS Iowa - closing on 200 times the mass of ISS.

And this assumes that SpaceX can't get reusability working.
If they can, then multiply these numbers by a _large_ number.

SpaceX: Falcon 9 Pricing information

Mod parent up. I found it really striking that SpaceX posts prices on their website. It remains to be seen how this plays out, but they are talking some serious shit over there at SpaceX. I'd love to see them back it up.

As for the need for a thousand dollar hammer, I call shenanigans. That hand tools in space link doesn't prove anything except carelessness.

I think SpaceX has that covered.
http://www.spacex.com/updates.php

Ekhm, ekhm, SpaceX would disagree with that.

They're talking about next year.

And in 2008, they talked about 2010. So in four years, they've halved their promised time-to-launch. Hmmm, is the curve linear or exponential? By 2016, will they be ready to launch, or will they have merely halved the prediction again to 6 months?

2008 SpaceX Brochure (pdf). They also scheduled COTS 2 for 2009, COTS 3 for 2010. DragonLab-1 for 2010, and Bigelow (and DL-2) for 2011.

(Hey, I'm a SpaceX fanboi. I just wish they set conservative deadlines and then beat them. This constant failure to make deadlines makes us look bad for supporting them. And makes them look as bad as a NASA program.)

Reading TFA, this resupply mission is hugely expensive compared to what SpaceX will deliver (if nothing goeas wrong in their next launch)

Now, being European and all gives me some pride that the ESA is doing this and all, but the whole thing just seems so wasteful. Especially if we consider that the Dragon capsule will be reusable.

Reading TFA, this resupply mission is hugely expensive compared to what SpaceX will deliver (if nothing goeas wrong in their next launch)

Now, being European and all gives me some pride that the ESA is doing this and all, but the whole thing just seems so wasteful. Especially if we consider that the Dragon capsule will be reusable.

There have been interior shots online for ages. There's even an interactive panorama shot of the cargo variant of the dragon.

Yes, there is a pilot console for the astronauts in this cabin, and even a separate "mission commander's" console that has been planned. If you want to see at least a simulation of what is envisioned, checkout this video:

http://www.spacex.com/multimedia/videos.php?id=6

It certainly has real pilots running the vehicle and doing some actual piloting. As a matter of fact, the "ground crew" for the Falcon 9 is considerably less than anything NASA has done for manned spaceflight even though there will be a "mission control" center monitoring the functions of the vehicle like you may have seen with other spacecraft.

You are not making a fair comparison. The dragon capsule is for delivering goods. For delivering "modules" you would use something else.

VEHICLE - PAYLOAD TO LEO
Falcon Heavy - 53,000 kg
Space Shuttle - 24,400 kg
Falcon 9 - 10,450 kg

http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php

In short, it's a more than adequate replacement. To use your car analogy, the Space Shuttle was an El Camino (with flames) kept long past its prime, and the SpaceX offerings are more like the rental flatbed trucks from the local U-Haul.

Its steps one and three. The SuperDracos are to eliminate step two. At least per the video they released a few months back.

SpaceX Reusability

Really? What magical method is going to achieve a $1/kg launch cost?

Because Elon Musk, who sort of has a vested interest in making space commercially viable, has suggested that he believes he can drive launch costs for LEO down to $500/pound (that's $1100 / kg) over time. (source).

Where's the remaining $1099 going in your $1/kg scenario?

And pray tell, how much will it cost to launch even the most bare-minimum mining equipment, smelting equipment, foundry & metalworking equipment, and basically one of every other type of industrial machine we'll ever need up into space, set them up, and control them for the years they'd need to operate? And where, exactly, are they going to mine? Not a lot of planets or asteroids in Low Earth Orbit last time I checked.

No crew module?

You're aware of the Dragon capsule?

http://www.spacex.com/updates.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_(spacecraft)

Yes, they're still testing it because they have to, but I am certain there are some folks out there that thought we'd be able to use Soyuz missions for crew rotation for a while until a replacement for the shuttle's capabilities is found.

Soyuz can handle crew rotations, Progress can handle food and cargo missions. With the long history of the Soyuz and Progress programs, no one likely factored in their thinking that an undiscovered problem would ground the program for weeks/months.

Eventually SpaceX will have crew and cargo capabilities and other launch alliance partners might have viable vehicles as well.

This is no bigger a setback to manned space than the Challenger or Columbia. Since many of the major ISS compunents are in orbit, I would say it is a much better time to have a gap in spaceflight capabilities.

2011 is passing and SpaceX hasn't launched jack. I thought these jokers were supposed to be fast. Definitely the 'spirit of Solyndra'.

Uh, dude: http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php

I believe SpaceX have been waiting for NASA to give them the go-ahead to fly the first Dragon flight to ISS, so complaining that SpaceX are slow is amusing.

I agree with you to a point. SpaceX has been able to prove they can get stuff "up there" in one piece, and that they can nail orbital parameters that they set out to achieve.

This next year (2012) is going to be the big year for SpaceX to put up or shut up. Either they are going to have several successful launches or they are going to have several spectacular failures including their collapse as a company. Assuming they get the NASA COTS demos completed, they will certainly have a proven track record including to paying customers.

There are several commercial customers that are taking a "wait and see" attitude toward SpaceX, and presuming these flights are successful there are more flights that will go onto their backlog of flights. It is also worth telling that SpaceX has already sold more flights this past year to new customers than all other spaceflight companies in the world, including the Chinese, Russians, Indians, and ESA combined. That should say something which should be worthy of notice, and also tell a sad tale of the incredibly small market that there currently is for commercial spaceflight. It isn't a completely dead market, but it is still incredibly small... and I'm talking about people willing to pay for telecom satellites and other proven commercial markets for spaceflight.

On the other hand, intelligent people are betting lots of their own money that you are wrong:

Why the U.S. Can Beat China: The Facts About SpaceX Costs, Elon Musk

if you have a space program that relies on private entities then the space program is doomed.

SpaceX. Discuss.

Right now, in reality, the private sector is not doing it at all, out side of some sub-orbital test flights. Whine about government all you want to, but they got to the moon in 10 years of trying, and so far a private company hasn't even orbited around the planet one time...

No, there's no company that's completely privately developed three new rocket engines and launched two new classes of launch vehicles into orbit with a third, even larger, on the way...

You're clearly right, private sector is not doing it at all. Oh wait, no, you're an ignorant clod.

Space X is developing the falcon heavy, ( The link. ) Why not use that instead. It lifts 53 metric tons for only $80-125 million a pop. Sure, the payload is a lot less, but the cost is 1/10 of what Nasa is thinking about. And those are hard numbers, not NASA will go over-budget numbers. I suppose the one drawback is in scenarios where you want to send a vehicle up there all in one piece.

Or the Atlas V family which has launched 27 times, is NASA's workhorse for space probes, is configurable with all kinds of different booster setups, launches up to 29K lbs. to LEO, 13K lbs. to geostationary. Already been chosen as the proposed booster for the private Dream Chaser spaceplane and CST capsule. Already has a contract with NASA signed just 2 months ago for human-rating specs so both of those private craft can be in the mix for space station trips. Costs $90M per launch for the configuration they're human-rating. And offers ample pork opportunities to Lockheed Martin and Boeing (under the United Space Alliance joint venture), who developed it, and the red states where it's manufactured. Same companies that did the Shuttle, because they bought up all the original contractors.

Or, hey, what about the Delta IV? NASA was considering that one too for the CEV before it went full-Frankenstein with the Ares. Delta family's been in use for 50 years and is the military's main payload launcher. 17 launches, only 1 partial failure on the latest generation. SAME EXACT CONTRACTORS as the Atlas and Shuttle. And twice as expensive per launch than Atlas, if we're feeling extra generous about lathering the pork.

Why are we even bothering to develop a much more expensive untested rocket out of Shuttle leftovers when the U.S. has got two active workhorse rockets to try for human-rating with good chance of achieving it. I get the idea behind Ares...we were going way beyond LEO with that family. But why the hell spend a whole decade reinventing the wheel with old parts when there's something relatively more state-of-the-art and more flexible already launching several times a year, has never had a catastrophic failure and whose only glitches resulted in lower-than-planned payload orbits, and which will probably achieve full human-rating by the 2015 deadline that was originally planned for Ares. No...let's do this bundle of half-assed compromises instead and not even get a mockup built before decade's end. With the SAME EXACT CONTRACTORS, no less.

Space X is developing the falcon heavy, ( The link. ) Why not use that instead. It lifts 53 metric tons for only $80-125 million a pop. Sure, the payload is a lot less, but the cost is 1/10 of what Nasa is thinking about. And those are hard numbers, not NASA will go over-budget numbers. I suppose the one drawback is in scenarios where you want to send a vehicle up there all in one piece.

Electric Cars, are so 1900's, silly Elon, trusting the green jobs hoopla. SpaceX (Another company Elon owns) put a capsule in orbit and brought it back on target. Has any other company achieved that?

Space Exploration Technology SpaceX

SpaceX Update

This goes more into what's been going on running up to the launch, and has some great pictures of the rocket/capsule/facility in hawthorne (I took one of them :P)

From the article:

Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas) is the former ranking member for the House Science Committee, Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee. He represents the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

NASA has their own congressman? This is pure pork.

Space-X is more likely to produce a launch system than NASA. A few months ago, they sent a capsule to orbit and recovered it safely. Their first cargo delivery to the ISS is scheduled for later this year. They're working on an abort system so that their working Falcon-9 rocket can be man rated. And in 2012, they plan to launch the Falcon Heavy, with twice the payload of the Space Shuttle.

All this is being done at costs not only far below NASA's, but below China's. We just have to keep NASA from interfering with them.

NASA, on the other hand, hasn't designed and successfully flown a completely new launch system since the 1960s.

Well I don't know what reality you are living in, but here in the real world we have this little bird that was just tested on orbit last Spring. It's scheduled for another couple of test flights later this year. I hear that the development of its emergency abort system (something the shuttle didn't have) is being developed expediantly. Once that item is checked off, we should be able to put people back into orbit in no time. But don't let my factually backed optimism rain on your pity party.

So are these NASA plans or SpaceX plans? Oh hang on look at what it says in the article you provided:

Initiated internally by SpaceX in 2005, the Dragon spacecraft

So it's not actually a NASA program which is good because it can't be canceled by the government, oh wait the program is only funded to 2015. Your comment has no bearing on the fact that NASA programs such as Orion, constellation, the still born DIRECT etc, plans to return to the moon and so on are all canceled.

But don't let my pragmatic assessment of the facts and reality interrupt you from your wanking.

Well I don't know what reality you are living in, but here in the real world we have this little bird that was just tested on orbit last Spring. It's scheduled for another couple of test flights later this year. I hear that the development of its emergency abort system (something the shuttle didn't have) is being developed expediantly. Once that item is checked off, we should be able to put people back into orbit in no time.

But don't let my factually backed optimism rain on your pity party.

I understand all that, but if the goal is to build an orbital space craft, wouldn't NASA be better off investing that billion in a company that has already done that? In 1961 there were no spacecraft manufacturers. Today the aerospace corporate landscape is different.

See also this video they produced:

http://spacex.com/multimedia/videos.php?id=58

SpaceX Dragon page: "6,000 kg (13,228 lbs) payload up-mass to LEO; 3,000 kg (6,614 lbs) payload down-mass ". Less than that to the Martian surface, I'd expect.

Also interesting is that even being launched on the Falcon 9 rather than the Falcon Heavy, it could have gone a lot higher,: "After separation of the Dragon spacecraft, the second stage Merlin engine restarted, carrying the second stage to an altitude of 11,000 km (6,800 mi)."(SpaceX Updates Dec. 15, 2010) Of course the only payload of the first Dragon launch was a top-secret wheel of cheese. Still, the Falcon 9 could just about get the Dragon plus an astronaut or two to geosynchronous transfer orbit (maybe not back again, though.) The Falcon Heavy can lift over five times as much.

SpaceX Dragon page: "6,000 kg (13,228 lbs) payload up-mass to LEO; 3,000 kg (6,614 lbs) payload down-mass ". Less than that to the Martian surface, I'd expect.

Also interesting is that even being launched on the Falcon 9 rather than the Falcon Heavy, it could have gone a lot higher,: "After separation of the Dragon spacecraft, the second stage Merlin engine restarted, carrying the second stage to an altitude of 11,000 km (6,800 mi)."(SpaceX Updates Dec. 15, 2010) Of course the only payload of the first Dragon launch was a top-secret wheel of cheese. Still, the Falcon 9 could just about get the Dragon plus an astronaut or two to geosynchronous transfer orbit (maybe not back again, though.) The Falcon Heavy can lift over five times as much.

SpaceX Dragon page: "6,000 kg (13,228 lbs) payload up-mass to LEO; 3,000 kg (6,614 lbs) payload down-mass ". Less than that to the Martian surface, I'd expect.

Also interesting is that even being launched on the Falcon 9 rather than the Falcon Heavy, it could have gone a lot higher,: "After separation of the Dragon spacecraft, the second stage Merlin engine restarted, carrying the second stage to an altitude of 11,000 km (6,800 mi)."(SpaceX Updates Dec. 15, 2010) Of course the only payload of the first Dragon launch was a top-secret wheel of cheese. Still, the Falcon 9 could just about get the Dragon plus an astronaut or two to geosynchronous transfer orbit (maybe not back again, though.) The Falcon Heavy can lift over five times as much.

Actually not true, whats missing is the nations vision to past low earth orbit, as for the private sector the reason Elon Musk started SPACEX was to make money selling freight hauls to orbit , the iss or any where some one will pay the freight to, all so he can develop the technology to get to Mars himself. To be fair he's already launched the Dragon which cost him $300,000,000.00 to design and fly (Dec 8th 2010) its an interesting story all by itself, read it yourself; http://www.spacex.com/

It makes it harder to let go without a new, better, faster, inspiring vehicle to latch on to.

Then join me in latching on to the SpaceX Falcon 9 and Dragon capsule. They are the next big thing in human spaceflight, and probably the only new manned craft that will come online by the end of the decade. Yes, it is only designed for LEO, but with a ferry that cheap we'll be able to afford something bigger to go farther out.

http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20110405

Falcon 9 heavy will be $1k per pound in 2013 ( ok, $2.2k per kg )

http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php

That isn't just government contracts, and those are people who have signed, put money down, and have formally become a "customer" for SpaceX. They've sold quite a few contracts, and the list on this particular web page seems to keep getting longer and longer as I watch it.

SpaceX is already turning a profit, so I'd dare say that they can certainly remain profitable for the next five years, if not much longer. About the only thing that would stink and change this is if LA became ground zero in a nuclear war, but the future of SpaceX would hardly be a pressing issue at that point.

Perhaps, and I'll leave this as an open question, SpaceX might have a series of failures where the quality of their rockets will go downhill, and thus lose customers and have nobody else signing up. That isn't a lack of customers, however, that is the problem.

http://www.spacex.com/

The space pen thing is an urban legend, but the launch tower comparison is real:

http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20100607

The NASA COTS program has demonstrated the power of what can be accomplished when you combine private sector responsiveness and ingenuity with the guidance, support and insight of the US government. For less than the cost of the Ares I mobile service tower, SpaceX has developed all the flight hardware for the Falcon 9 orbital rocket, Dragon spacecraft, as well as three launch sites.

What you're looking for is not a capability of the Falcon Heavy, but their Dragon spacecraft which launches on the Falcon 9. They recovered it from orbit in December, so I'll let them show it to you: Specs, Mission update. Short version is that it's your basic capsule design with water landing, they're hoping to have the next version be a rocket landing on ground, using the abort motors.

What you're looking for is not a capability of the Falcon Heavy, but their Dragon spacecraft which launches on the Falcon 9. They recovered it from orbit in December, so I'll let them show it to you: Specs, Mission update. Short version is that it's your basic capsule design with water landing, they're hoping to have the next version be a rocket landing on ground, using the abort motors.

The Fox article is a little sparse on info, so for the curious, there was some pretty good liveblogging (live-foruming?) of the press conference here. You can see official details (and a neat video) on SpaceX's site here.

Looking through the forum and the website, here's a summary of all the most interesting stuff:

• Falcon 9 (F9) able to lift much more than estimated with engine upgrades, Falcon Heavy (FH) estimates upgraded
• FH: 3 nine-engine cores attached to each other
  paying development costs internally, strong commercial + gov customer interest
• FH will arrive at Vandenberg pad in 2012, launch in early 2013
• testing upgraded engines now at McGregor facility
• estimating 117K lbs (53mt) to orbit for FH, possibly >120K lbs
• double payload of Shuttle and Delta IV Heavy
• launching from Vandenberg and Cape Canaveral
• once in full operation expecting ~10 F9 flights a year, ~10 FH flights a year
• increasing rate of engine production to 400 each year (currently 50/year)
• FH price sets new world record at $1000/lb
• first rocket in history to feature propellant crossfeed, allowing for earlier separation of emptied side boosters (== much more efficiency)
• multi-engine-out capability for more reliability
• meets published NASA human rating standards, not sure yet about "unpublished" standards
• lower cost than current EELVs could save DOD alone $1.7B-$2.2B each year
• could do Mars sample return mission in a single flight
• payload to Mars 1/4 LEO payload, so 30K lbs to Mars
• could go to Moon or NEO with only 2 launches
• could do lunar flyby with a single launch of Dragon capsule
• in response to Q&A, mentioned follow-up design capable of >150mt (Saturn V was 119mt)

As an aside, it'll be quite fascinating to see what impact this has on the heavy-lift debate currently going on in Congress. For those unfamiliar with it, Congress is currently trying to pressure NASA to spend several billion dollars of its funding over several years into building a 70mt rocket from shuttle-legacy components/infrastructure. It's now looking like SpaceX will build a rocket with nearly the same capability using its own funding, which will be ready to launch several years before the Congress-mandated rocket. Hmm.

Yes, see spacex.com. I don't know how you missed the launch last year. It was big news.

First, If there's anything "going on" that shows any promise of significantly reducing costs to get to Mars, I'm not aware of it.

Here and here.

Ok, so your argument is that ROBOTS need this really elaborate landing system, but for humans, any old thing will do.

Well, humans don't need $1 million per kg water, air, or food.

The point being that, yeah, landing squishy bags of water and bone on another planet is going to require pretty ridiculous optimization too.

Heat shield and retrorockets. It's a simpler system. And we're already developing the tools for that as well (landers from Armadillo Aerospace and Masten Space Systems).

but by the time anyone gets around to doing this, they'll have the costs under control and a means to get most of the mass they need from the Martian environment rather than being dragged from Earth.

Well, I can agree with this much. It's just that I think that it's going to be a long, long time (maybe never) before we get to that point.

It's not all that unlikely that you are right. We could wipe ourselves out in the next few decades or develop a stagnant global society that precludes progress. But with continued technology development over decades, I don't see any outcome other than eventual success.

The shuttle is a fundamentally compromised design stuffed with 40-year-old technology.

Any sane private company would use something completely different..

Look at what United Launch Aliance and SpaceX propose to do.