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NASA Considers Privatizing Space Shuttles
panopticon was among the many who submitted a BBC story talking about NASA considering privatizing the space shuttles as a cost saving measure since those pesky shuttles cost $400M every time we throw one up into orbit. The article really doesn't say much beyond that.
If you don't wanna pay for it, find someone else who will. Hey, they did it with HMOs, and look how well that worked out...
Just like putting the UK and Dutch railways into private hands... now THAT was a good idea ;-)
For all non-europeans here (quite a bit) this lead to the most HORRIBLE service ever.
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
...Not this guy. Personally Im holding my wallet until the firesale on public buildings. The Statue of Liberty, Washington Monument and GoldenGate bridge... now thats a good investment. With the right re-naming, cross-marketing, and brand management strategy these are sure fire money makers!
"The SubtleNuance Statue Of Plutocracy"... A Monument to Capitalism and Entrepreneurial Spirit.®© Now thats a sure winner. God Bless America(TM)!
This is a good move in the right direction. As soon as someone works out a business plan that allows them to make a profit off of flying to the moon, Mars, etc., there will be all kinds of stuff in space. And this will of course drive costs down, just through volume and through increased R&D budgets. if this all goes according to plan, maybe one day there will be a permanent Lunar settlement with regular shuttles. This would be sweet...
Come on, give it up, that's
The problem is that you typically do not want your space project going to the "lowest bidder". I can see some advantages as long as things are executed properly (i.e. - real standards to comply to and perhaps a fed funded oversight team). Maybe they could hire Argenbright Security while they are at it.
In case you "could care less" about this, I would be quick to remind you that its your tax money (if you're indeed a US citizen) and this could potentially save quite a bit of it.
Danger Will Robinson
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
How did it ever get to the point where one of our greatest and proudest institutions needs to privitize one of their greatest resources in order to keep going? Americans everywhere should be ashamed at this rape of our space program, once the envy of the world.
No other country in the world comes close to the US in terms of economic might, and yet it is near-third-world nations like China that are now expanding their space programs as we are selling off ours. Hell, they're even talking about putting men on the moon, something we did once and then got bored with. As a nation we have the attention span of a four year-old child, and about as much forward-thinking. We'd much rather forget about the future (and everything else) and concentrate on our televisions and big honking SUVs, despite the fact that our initial lead in the space race could have been leveraged into an unassailable one.
No, this is just another symptom of the long, slow decline of the US into a narcissistic corporate paradise as the rest of the world forges on ahead of us into the future. It seems the only people here with any kind of enthusiasm are the ones that want to control your lives; everyone would rather let them get on with and have removed the intolerable burden of decision making.
Not only will privitization of shuttle launch and maintenance help reduce costs for NASA (and give them more money to devote to other projects and the completion of the ISS), but it will be one more step towards the commercialization of space. Now, any company will be able to purchase space on the shuttle for satellites or even human cargo :-).
/.ers) were critical of the government's desire to open the Internet to commerce; now, few would argue that we have all benefitted from that decision. The barrier to entry (or exit, in this case!) is so high, for space flight, that an independent company would never be able to develop the type of technology that NASA has developed for the shuttle; it simply would not be ecnomically feasible for them to pour so much money into R&D. By giving them the ability to resell NASA technology in exchange for lowering the cost of shuttle launches, the government will be entering an arrangement that is mutually beneficial and could help form an industry.
Remember how many people (including many
My only requirement for the company given the contract is that it have its headquarters in the U.S., because of security concerns and a respect for our national pride.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
Next you know we'll be seeing :
Kellog's US Navy
MSArmy
Verizon Air Force
Kotex US Marines
(And, no, I have nothing against any armed forces. Kotex Marines just sounded funnier than any other.)
If I remember correctly, NASA tried to find a buyer for the Shuttles in the 1980s....
The reason no one bought them then, and the reason no one will buy them now, is the horrid expense of launching & reusing them - for example, on return to Earth, the Space Shuttle Main Engines are pulled, shipped to California, rebuilt to spec, and tested for ~75% of their design lifetime - any deviation during this test period results in the engine being scrapped. The Shuttle is an old design, and it wasn't efficient when it was new. Or consider the Solid Rocket Boosters, which actually cost more to retrieve and reuse than disposable boosters would.
The BBC quotes a figure of US$400 million, but the total development cost of the Shuttle program is *much* higher - some figures I've seen give a total cost per launch of over US$1.5 billion.
I think the solution to bringing down launch costs is to "open" the space program - let private companies build new launch vehicles, and have NASA test and certify them. This would allow NASA to perform more basic research, much like its predecessor the National Advisory Commitee for Aeronautics did from 1915 to 1958. This research, in turn, would lead to a new generation of launch vehicles.
I'm not a rabid NASA-hater like some out there, but I do think the agency has too much to do, with too many people, and too small of a budget.
---------------
Vpered na Mars!
Take a look at the 50+ generation. They had the moon in their grasp and they turned their back.
How many experimental craft have been 'scrapped' for 'budget cuts'- the government is a big, slow, uninteresting beast that plows over ideas. Whatever happeend to the dream of SSTO (single stage to orbit)?
Throw 'market share' and a chance for profit in, then you have some businesses interested. Contractors don't deliver on time? Dock them. Don't coddle them.
The moon was ours once... now every time I step outside at night and look up I see another example of failure.
Venimus, vidimus, fugimus
This is not really new. United Space Alliance, the LLC bastard child
of Boeing and Lockheed Martin has approached NASA before about buying
or leasing a shuttle. I believe USA was particularly interested in
Columbia because it has the lightest schedule during certain phases of
Space Station construction. Outgoing NASA agency head Dan Goldin was
reported to be all in favor of going forward, but the center director
at JSC, one George Abbey Sr., was opposed and blocked the deal.
The new emphasis on privatizing the program is a push by the new Bush
administration, and was a bit of a surprise to many at USA. "Out of
the blue" is how it was described to me. However, USA does not expect
much to come of the new push anytime soon because three key positions
at NASA are now vacant: Abbey has retired at JSC, Goldin is on his way
out, and NASA Office of Space Flight assistant administrator Joe
Rothenberg has announced his retirement. USA execs are NOT actively
pursuing privatization discussions with NASA, and cannot realistically
do so until these positions are filled.
In other words, don't look for a privately owned or operated shuttle
any time soon.
I wonder if there is anything to be concerned about with regard to national security. With the shuttle program in federal hands, I'm assuming there is close scrutiny of contractors involved in building and preparing military payloads that the shuttle delivers into space.
While the government has every right to keep sensitive information classified, they also have to keep the public informed (to a point) about what they're doing. If a private entity took over all the duties of deploying and maintaining the shuttles, would that entity be compelled to share as much information about what it's doing as the government currently does? How do intellectual property rights fit into this? Would a private entity at some point start claiming rights to knowledge derived from scientific activities that took place on one of its flights?
OTOH, a private entity that can't rely solely on federal dollars may have more incentive to find ways to drive down costs and streamline the whole process. But hopefully not at the expense of safety.
Anyone who read Richard Feynman's report on the Challenger explosion knows the Shuttle design process was flawed from the beginning. Exhaustive testing of material tolerances and other bottom-up procedures used in modern aircraft design were ignored in the Shuttle design process.
It costs so much for every flight because they basically have to rebuild the engine after every run. Parts that were not designed to wear fall apart or develop stress fractures in a single run.
I would support privatization 100% if they would give Boeing or Lockheed a contract to redesign the shuttle based on what we have learned from the current design and its flaws. NASA bureaucratic BS was responsible for allowing many of those flaws to exist. Feynman asked, "Do NASA managers even TALK to the engineers they're managing?" Privatization of maintaining the existing fleet wouldn't save nearly as much money as a new design would.
include $sig;
1;
Fair enough, privatise the birds - but do it in a manner which will allow competition to drive down costs.
Perhaps sell off each shuttle individually? Or perhaps more realistically split the inventory between two operators.
Guess you've never heard of Amtrak? :)
... and corporations don't really care about science. Engineering, yes, applied science, certainly - but pure science, the kind that NASA does? Not really. On the other hand, NASA has botched enough missions so that it seems *something* must be done. Is this a solution? Perhaps. Privatization, though, can have it's own share of worries and problems; HMOs are a good example.
------
http://cooltech.org
If it ain't cool, it ain't coolt
For years, a private company called United Space Alliance has held the contract for space shuttle operations. USA is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, the contractors responsible for constructing most of the space shuttle hardware.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Weren't we talking about this the other day in the context of the ISS. Not exactly, maybe, but it all goes to the same end.
If you take this out of the hands of the government then you can reduce the amount of interference it gets. By all means we should support government interference (in the public interest, of course) during development, but when a technology is well established it should run OK. Leaving it in government hands lays it open to streams of politicians who just can't resist fiddling.
Let's face it - there already is competition in this market. That's why the Russian rockets and Arianes and so on are getting so much of the launch traffic. That's also why people are thinking of building new launch facilities commercially.
Maybe if there is a profit motive behind it for someone, the shuttle will realise its original objective of being a low-cost launch vehicle.
more on the original story here, BTW
I have nothing against the private sector per se, but I agree that in this case it might not be a good idea.
A lot of the R&D that happens on board the shuttle is quite subsidized, and I'm afraid that corporations are not going to be as friendly to researchers. What that means is that possibly some research projects won't be able to afford execution in space. We may somehow lose out on valuable basic research, which would be a shame.
Perhaps the government could continue subsidizing research done on corporate spacecraft, through some extension of the NSF, or so.
Ceci n'est pas une sig
The more important step is to keep NASA from screwing up the next generation of space launch vehicles. Remember, the Space Shuttle was supposed to be cheaper than conventional rockets, but thanks largely to NASA it wound up being more like an order of magnitude more expensive.
I believe it is crucial for the US to move our space launch development from a beaurocratic process to a market-based process. I feel it will lower the cost of launch, and provide impetus to try alternative approaches that have been ignored by NASA.
I'd treat space launch capability like a utility. Just as the government must buy the electricity that people generate back into the power grid, I'd mandate that the government must buy a certain number of flights from all qualified vendors within a certain time frame after they come on line.
Specifically:
Yes, if enough companies came forward and built working launch systems it might cost more than, for instance, the two billion NASA has spent on X-33. But we'd have many times more working launch systems! As X-33 so amply proved, we cannot expect a beaurocratic approach to give us even one working next-gen system for the same amount of cash.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Please follow this chain of logic carefully... I spent a lot of neurons trying to fit this into my brain.
1 NASA finds shuttles expensive to maintain.
2 They find it so expensive because shuttles expend $400M of non-recoverable fuel, components and morons per flight.
3 NASA might want invest in a project with higher construction costs but lower maintenance costs.
4 BUT NASA has canned the X-33 and X-34 programs.
5 This means NASA is NOT interested in a project with higher construction costs but lower mainenance costs.
Right. Incidentally, since NASA is not interested in space flight anymore (it seems), Bruce Willis is not going to save us when the big one hits. That means the Empire State Building will very soon be hit by a meteor. Poor NYC.
So far there appears to be the same chance for profit in space that there is in broadband and the web. In other words, nebulous and unproven, dependent on government supports and regulation, and a bunch of shirt-losing and money-destroying has already been done.
I don't credit US business with being sufficiently visionary to do anything with space. Space is a long-term thing, and a quarter-to-quarter focus just won't hack it. Space has 'worked' so far for business because the government has wanted stuff, and business will deliver it -- for a price.
I once read quite an analysis about why business would never develop a breakthrough launch technology on their own. It essentially works out to a combination of corporate and government business practices.
Maybe if we would allow someone to pull a 'Zephram Cochrane' and move their business off-planet to escape taxes and environmental reguations...
As for the Space Station, (and the Shuttle, for that matter) the thing that annoys me even more than the money waste by NASA is the government's response. "If you can't run this sprint, we're going to tie one leg and one arm behind your back, then expect you to run it faster." IMHO, the Space Station has been cut below viability. Unless we can get a re-entry vehicle and hab module up there, no science will get done because it takes the whole crew for maintenance.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
These days Lockheed handles most of the service & maintainance contracts on NASA facilities with NASA oversight. Turnaround time remains months and flights are steadily being reduced due to budget constraints. Low cost has also not been realized, certianly not within an order of magnitude of the original predictions.
Of course the STS fleet remains an experimental one. These are the first generation designs developed in the 1970's with only upgraded subsystems since then. The logical next step of a second generation applying the lessons learned isn't even being discussed much less implelemented leaving the the aging (though refurbished) four orbiters the US's only manned spaceflight capability.
Statistically more accidents must be anticipated reducing the program 25% each time. With R&D not even begun in an organized fashion a replacement generation is itself at least a decade off even if fast-tracked. I fear it is not a promise of a bright future the US sees but a slowly dwindling legacy.
Indeed NASA just released a report calling for reducing staffing & facilities on the ISS (angering it's internationial "partners" who weren't even given copies of the report in advance of the press conference in spite of their own considerable contributions to the project.)
Elsewhere the USSR is actively looking for any partners with which to continue it's own program, the ESA has it's own launcher and program along with involvement in the ISS, the Japanese projects slowly advance, and China is reportedly almost ready to launch it's first manned orbital mission and has published its goal of going to the moon.
Like so many other areas of endeavor the US seems to pioneer then not follow up on it's advances. With realistic possibilities of power generation and manufacturing now becoming a possibility it seems the US is content to allow its manned spaceflight programs slowly wind down.
-- Michael
ps Many could argue that outsourcing STS operations would free up NASA funds and personel for producing a follow-up program. Were this the plan this would all be a good thing but no such intentions have been announced nor does there appear any support for such.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
I think the plan is they sell it to the usual
suspect cost-plus contractors they work with already
like Boeing or LockMart and then buy back the shuttle
launches from them. This isn't going to save any
money, it's just an accounting trick.
It isn't even real privatization. It'll still
remain a government run and funded program after
it's done.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
Of these projects, only Kistler is still standing.
Meanwhile, the joint TRW / LMT / Alenia "AstroLink" project has quietly died. This project was to bring advanced broadband technologies into reality, building a constellation of communications satellites. The decision to terminate this project must be seen as an entirely rational one, in light of falling prices in global telecom capacity.
NASA's Space Shuttle, contrary to public opinion, is not the reason that access to space is expensive. In fact, the Shuttle is not even a market consideration because no commercial entity has the slightest bit of interest in launching payloads on Shuttle.
I'm not sure what will be accomplished by spinning Shuttle off to private enterprise. Here are some hypotheses:
It's probably the right economic decision. NASA cannot hope to make progress on affordable access to space until they can establish a firewall against that drain of money and talent. It is my hope that NASA's space research programs will turn away from operations (missions) and will start research on basic technologies such as materials, propulsion, rail launchers, etc for 'affordable' access to space. Just as NACA's airfoil research laid the foundation for a vibrant and competitive aircraft industry in the 1930's, NASA should develop the foundations of a vibrant and commercially competitive launch industry.
However, I fear for the Shuttle Astronauts. Although NASA's safety record has been good under Goldin, the Shuttle program is already stretched too thin on safety and maintenance. It's an amazing vehicle which requires a standing army to launch it safely.
What about Corporate sponsorship, though? How much would Pepsi pay to have their logo on the space shuttle wing? How much would Nike pay to be the Official Footware of the US Space Program?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
How about we paint the external fuel tank to look a big trojan condom? .. Or atleast a couple cans of coke..
Yeah, and they spent most of the prize money donations on promoting the thing, instead of keeping it as prize money like they promised.
Still, it could be a good use of NASA's money to fund the prize, then back off and see what happens.
The individuals who work for NASA and its contractors definitely do care about the Astronauts. The Apollo 1 Astronauts did not die because of lack of concern, but because the risks were high and the technology was immature.
Your 'New World' analogy seems to indicate that we should accept more risk to human life... doesn't that undercut your argument about the Apollo Astronauts?
I would say that the Challenger accident was more like the type of bureaucratic lack of concern you mention. Happily, that type of thing is behind us.
Most employees of NASA and its contractors also want desperately to engage in a vigorous exploration program, but Shuttle/Station is the only game in town (at least for manned exploration). Even a bad game is better than no game. If NASA's goals were set by a democratic vote among NASA and contractor employees, we would likely have a very different space program. Unfortunately, Congressional pork barrel politics determine policy. Hence, instead of exploring the vast reaches of our Solar System, our space program is designed to occupy the vast reaches of Congressional districts.
It doesn't cost $400m to launch a shuttle. The incremental per-launch cost is $150 million US. Other numbers that attempt to amortize the total cost of the program and non-shuttle-specific support facilities come up with higher numbers but they are suspect. Another false estimate comes from taking the total shuttle budget for a given fiscal year and dividing it by the number of launches. Of course NASA is a political agency so depending on what their policy goal is you'll hear different numbers from, but in this article there is no source stated for the cost figure.
See SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION COSTS in the sci.space FAQ controversy section.
>Was ARPANet somehow better?
Yes. Infinitely. I was there.
:Michael (feeling wistful...)
What about all of the infrastructure that goes into a shuttle launch. Not only do you have the launch facility itself, but the backup landing site, maintenance hangers, control rooms, etc. Would a private company be "buying" these facilities as well? Would they lease them? What about the NASA transport planes for the shuttle, and the booster retrieval which I believe is done by the Navy. Would we be giving these service to a private company free? Buying a shuttle is one thing, launching it is even feasible, but to put the whole thing together, you need a massive amount of infrastructure.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Second, how many non-government entites out there could run the shuttle fleet if they wanted to? Boeing, Lockheed, and GE are the ones that come to mind that have the size to handle it -- assuming that it would be a US-based company to take them over.
Nice idea in theory, but it probably won't happen to the current fleet. Hence, since there is no replacement under development, it probably won't happen at all.
> Houston: Unknown craft, you are clear to land. Welcome to earth!
> Ellison: Fuck that, I'm a billionaire!! I'm landing first!!
> Houston: Ellison, watch your flight path! NOOOO!!! KABOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!
Radio Transmission received years later: We got rid of Larry Ellison for you, what more did you want, unicorns?
You would rather stand in line for toilet paper?
What a crock. Last time I went to the store to buy toilet paper (and the rest of my groceries), I stood in line for 15 minutes at least. And then I had to pay for the stuff on top of that!
And how about an even more egregious example as long as we're using anecdotal evidence to back up the pseudoscience of economics: I called my local telephone company a few nights ago-- a small company called Qwest-- to have some services I was no longer going to be using turned off, I had to speak with four different service persons and spend 27 minutes on the call. God bless that good old fashioned capitalism. Obviously questioning it means I'd rather stand in line, unlike now where I stand in lots of lines.
I do not have a signature
I think most of you are over-reacting to this. They're talking about privatizing the manned space fleet, but that doesn't mean they have plans to deck the shuttle fleet out with ads as if they intended to participate in the Daytona 500.
The USPS has been semi-independant from the federal government since 1971. The Postmaster General is no longer a cabinet position, so they don't have to directly deal with whatever political party is in power in Congress. They're now self-sufficient, supported only by the income they make on the fees they charge and not by federal tax dollars. And yet I have yet to see any corporate logo on any mail trucks, nor have they been bought out by UPS.
So what's the problem if we set up the shuttle fleet the same way?
Precisely NASA's problem. The damn thing was obsolete by the time it was built.
If I were the private owner of a space shuttle, I'd sell it for $5B to NASA.
I'd then use $1B to fire off 10 Discovery-class missions for the hell of it, and the remaining $4B in cash to develop a reusable launch vehicle that would show the world just how obsolete the space shuttle was. Result -- world has $1000/lb (or lower) cost of lifting things to orbit. Space hotels in 10 years. Lunar or Martian colonies in 20. And exciting jobs for the talented folks trapped in NASA.
Unfortunately, that's not on the table. What's on the table is NASA finding a sux0r to buy a $5B white elephant, and NASA spending the resulting $5B on shuttle launches to ISS. Result -- world has the same $10000/lb (or higher) cost of lifting things to orbit as it always did. But if it doesn't fall from the sky in 10 years, we have ISS, a $100B white elephant, to look at. And a bunch of frustrated, talented geeks, still trapped like flies in NASA's bureaucratic amber.
How did one of (glowing flattery removed about a gubmint boondoggle organization that blows money and still can't get a mission right)our institutions need to privitize one of their greatest resources in order to keep going?
Funny. The poster has the answer to his question in the next paragraph:
No other country in the world comes close to the US in terms of economic might
Bingo. Ever consider the reason for us being the greatest economic might could just be that we permit corporations to exist with only a moderate amount of governmental tyranny and confiscation?
Yet the poster gets lost in the next sentence - so close, yet...
and yet it is near-third-world nations like China that are now expanding their space programs
And you'd expect a totalitarian government to do otherwise?
Hell, they're even talking about putting men on the moon, something we did once and then got bored with.
Uh... you wouldn't have happened to notice that we've got:
1. a war going on that has been estimated to cost at least a billion bucks a month
2. a recession that is killing major sectors of business, leaving less companies for the government to tax/loot.
3. citizens overwhelmingly opposing new taxes, preventing the non-corporate tax base from being looted
4. a ton of baby boomers drooling about being non-producers and getting that retirement/social security.
And you want another moon project? And we keep wondering why liberals have such disasterous personal lives?
As a nation we have the attention span of a four year-old child, and about as much forward-thinking.
I'd say your dreams are about as pragmatic as a four-year-old. What's money anyways?
We'd much rather forget about the future (and everything else) and concentrate on our televisions and big honking SUVs
Ah, an ELF/ALF liberal. We call you a "target" in my parts of the country.
So what is the real, deep-rooted motivation of this poster and his kin?
It seems the only people here with any kind of enthusiasm are the ones that want to control your lives
He does seem so enthusiastic, doesn't he?
*scoove*
The fact that the private sector invariably gives rise to the worst possible situation for the consumer
Sharkticon simply makes no sense.
Absent a private sector, there are no consumers.
Remember the SAT test?
Q: Subject is to Government, as Consumer is to:
(a) Happy meal
(b) Automobile
(c) Business
(d) Jogging
Hmm... it's a hard one, I'll say! BTW, per gubmint bending over to corporate masters, you must be filing a different tax form than I am or must live in a different country. Please do tell, I'd love to move there.
*scoove*
Debillitatus writes:
/do/ need company...
Was ARPANet somehow better?
Interesting/excellent example. In 1991, I did a feasibility study for bringing Internet to a rural community in our parts. Everything looked good - Sun was going to donate servers, we had an expensive but tolerable loop cost for a fractional T1 (I worked for a carrier that helped discount the cost substantially), and the community was fully behind the project.
Then I got the Internet DS0/56 Kbps dedicated quote from our regional - MIDNET. They didn't have any model except for a dues basis, which their member universities paid annually. They calculated dues on the number of students you had and figured our town's population would be a great unit to use in the calculation.
The total cost for a 56 Kbps connection? $85,000/year, payable in advance. (Quick everybody: how much does your cable modem connection cost each month? Or perhaps a better comparison would be a single ISDN B channel).
Even then, I could have ordered a DS3 local loop for less (and if I paid in advance, I'd be certain to get a discount). What were they thinking?
I looked at MIDNET's organization and cost structure, trying to comprehend what I must have been missing. They had:
- free offices paid for by the universities
- employee benefits paid by the universities
- data centers paid for by the universities
- operations employees and network engineers that were on university payroll
- backbone links that were billed to the universities, that they put their own commercial traffic over (against NSFNET AUP)
and numerous other abuses. Oh, and they had 35+ PhDs working for them that required outrageous dues (cost divided by number of institutions served = dues, we later found out).
What did I do? Created the first ISP in the region and stole away most of their non-educational business. Drove the bastards into unemployment. I was proud to be one of numerous CIX members who drove that filthy, corrupt, good-old-boy NSFNET "Oh We'll Give the Internet to Baby Bells and ANS" scam out of business.
You should have read your Economics textbook more closely.
Debillitatus, I don't think they offer high school econ until at least 11th grade, so it's not fair to criticize him yet.
At the same time, he needs a stern warning that unless he opens his eyes and loses the angst-filled hate-focused upper middle class attitude, he's going to be another unemployed loser eventually bunking with a big furry guy named Bruno.
Then again, the Bruno's of the world
*scoove*
That's just stupid. First of all, I don't care who you are if you spend $5 billion on a piece of equipment you are going to secure it properly. Contrary to popular belief corporations that risk billion dollar assets do not last long. I guarantee you that the space shuttle is not going to be guarded by $5 rent-a-cops anytime soon.
Secondly, if terrorists did get on board the space shuttle what makes you think that they will have any idea how to lauch or fly that bad boy. It's not like the space shuttle is equipped with a "crash into New York" auto-pilot button.
Um. No.
Apollo 11 had nothing whatsoever to do with science. It was a purely political move to thumb the American nose at the Ruskies.
Basically they have been living on the political goodwill and pork barrel politics ever since.
Privatisation would do one thing- it would allow space to grow. There are fairly good reasons to think that a ticket to space could reach as low as $10,000 per person in the long run. NASA can't do that as they are limited by their budget, and constitutionally are not allow to turn a profit at all.
Last year space was a more than $100 billion industry IRC. NASA cost maybe $20 billion.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Yeah ~$10000/kg, and the estimated real cost (what it should cost anyway) is nearer $10/kg or atleast $100/kg. Nobody is anywhere near that of course right now although some are at $2600/kg or so.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"If you're interested in NASA, NASAwatch should by your first port of call. They tend to get all the leaks etc. way before the rest of them.
This one was noted on it back in September:
Word has it that Ron Dittemore, Space Shuttle Program Manager at JSC, will be holding an all-hands meeting today to discuss "shuttle commercialization".
According to NASA sources, Dittemore will be discussing an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) concept that has been developed that would operate the Space Shuttle program. This concept has been under development for the last 9 months. Dittemore will reportedly pitch this concept as being seamless as far as civil servants are concerned with equivalent benefits, significant sign-up bonuses, and guaranteed job security. Dittemore has reportedly expressed personal interest in heading this new organization.
Behind the scenes there is little interest among Dittemore's crowd in actually saving the government money. Rather, this is simply seen as a way to lower the number of federal employees involved in America's civil space program.
Update: Note from someone@jsc.nasa.gov:
"Mr. Dittemore spoke about a "concept" where a private company would run the Space Shuttle Program. It was not commercialization, but "privatization". It has nothing to do with saving money. It will probably cost the government more money. He said it was in the interest of safety.
Since NASA cannot hire new people and grow them to be managers/engineers, there is no one to run the program safely in the future. That is true since most of the shuttle program folks came from MOD which is mostly all contractors now. This "concept" will work only if all the right people
with the right job skills needed to run the program safely, accept the offer to move over. Highly unlikely. We are talking about mission operations, flight design, flight directors, astronauts, program/project managers, ground operations, aircraft operations, launch operations, etc. Only the civil servants in the Engineering Directorates appear to be spared from this excercise in futility. He said it would happen in 2 years. That's unbelievable, the way the government works!"
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HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
> from a tightly-controlled economy to a completely unregulated free
> economy is dangerous.
This still misses the central problem with his argument. Russia does *not* have a free market under any useful definision, nor is it capitalistic at the moment.
A free market allows trade to occur, uhh, freely. Capitalism pays the output from resources (capital, labor, land, etc.) to the owner of that resource. While the two terms are often used interchangably, they're not.
The U.S., in general, both is capitalistic and has a free market. Russia has neither, and might better be described as industrial feudalism. Shareholders are unable to control the directors of business, who answer only to themselves. Successful business are still taken away by governments, other business, or the mob (and the lines between these aren't clear). Russia would benefit massively from free markets and capitalism, but it doesn't seem to be in their future.
hawk
I think privatizing significant parts of NASA doesn't make sense at all at this point. But if people are going to attempt that, they'll have to come up with a better proposition than this. The time to privatize is before the design begins, and you have to make sure that the private entity actually bears the launch costs: only then will rational self-interest result in cost-effective designs.
First of all, the *747* is a 30 year-old technology, the DeHavilland Comet is 50 years old. 747s still get sold today and make a profit for their owners.
The reason a DC-8/747/777 got developed is because there was a huge *profitable* market for intercontinental flight. There is no corresponding market for space flight. There is a market; that is, people are willing to pay money to go into space. Unfortunately, it is not a profitable one. Not enough people are willing to pay enough to support the capital necessary to create the infrastructure.
There is a profitable market for satellite launches. By unmanned rockets, not by expensive Shuttle launchers.
The point is that you have to convince people with billions of dollars (for something on the order of a 777) to lend it to you so that you can design and manufacture the thing, with the idea that PROFITS from selling it will be enough to make it worth their while.
If there were an argument to be made for this, then it would likely have been made already, and you would be worried about spaceport security these days. The fact that manned spaceflight is still not a commercial reality probably means it isn't going to be any time soon.
Why spend billions of dollars to make a unprofitable activity slightly less unprofitable?
...why not go with the obvious, more, er, sensical solution? Namely, use russian launchers instead of the shuttle. I would have said "use unmaned rockets like the Titan or Delta IV" (I can't remember the exact designations, sorry), which can only be cheaper than the shuttle, but I remembered that russian launchers are even cheaper than american launchers.
Or, if you don't want to use russian launchers, why not try the Ariane 5 (the biggest, current one, IIRC)?
What I am trying to say is that:
(a) you don't need to privatize the quasi-30 years old (ack!) shuttle to save money to put ISS components in space;
(b) unmaned launchers are cheaper than the shuttle;
(c) russian launchers are cheaper than american launchers (I remember an order of less than half the cost, if I heard correctly).
If you push this kind of logic a bit further:
(d) why not pay for a 2nd Soyouz (??) to be used as additionnal "emergency return space" instead of developping the costly X-3whatever?
(e) and why not use a modified Leonardo/Donatello cargo module as living quarters? I'm sure the ESA could finance one or two such modules -- no?
(f) etc.
The ISS cannot provide any ROI if you stunt its development. Some significant R&D could be achieved, even some *industrial manufacturing* could be provided (zero-g must be a God-send for something, I'm sure of it) if all the facilities are sent up there. You could even do satellite repair if there were enough facilities *AND* personnel (how much does a satellite cost and how much does it cost to put it in orbit?).
So we need the additional lab space as well as additional personnel: right now, the current crew is more busy keeping the place going than performing any "real" experiments.
As long as no short-sighted so-called cost-cutting measures are acted upon, the ISS could become a very valuable asset for everyone. You only need some common-sense in management of this project, which starts with finding a cheaper way to send all the necessary bits and parts in orbit.
Think about it: not only the US would save money, but the russians could use the additional revenue to finish their part of the ISS. Two birds with one stone!
They started it all back in 1999 with the plastering of a logo on a Russian rocket...
The plain, hard truth is that nationalism is the only justification for the shuttle program.
Commercial applications? The killer app is communications satellites. Nope, there are not people aboard them.
Science? The ISS's science program has been scaled back to essentially zero. Probes do lots of good science, without having humans aboard. The shuttle program is scientifically useless. There's a reason why NASA's science programs are never expected to go head-to-head with other science programs in a peer-reviewed competition for funding: it's because an honest scientific peer review would never fund what NASA does.
Military applications? Satellites without people on board do a good job of surveillance. If the military needs to send up a satellite, the space shuttle isn't their cheapest option.
Space tourism? Cool application! Note that NASA acts allergic when anyone tries to talk to them about this, which is currently the only valid reason humans should be going into space.
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Not in the case of commerical carriers, but if the payload was developed by NASA (i.e. Chandra or Hubble), then it does.
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Vpered na Mars!
It spurs people on to try harder, and keeps the beaurocrats under control. Also, because it tends to make people try different approaches to see what works. With a monolithic development path, you get wedded to the One True Path, and can't get off that track until its failure is undeniable. It takes generations to get anywhere that way, which is why we haven't seen much progress since the Apollo missions.
Also, when you have multiple teams competing, people have no ability to hide their own failures by saying "well that was clearly just not possible," because chances are, the other team is doing it and getting it to work.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.