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NASA Holds Competition to Develop Space Vehicles
BlueCup writes to tell us that the US space agency is holding a competition to develop space vehicles NASA doesn't have the time or resources to develop. The winning companies will get $500 million and NASA will merely lease them as the need arises. From the article: "NASA hopes the private-sector vehicles can bridge an expected gap between when the space shuttle fleet is grounded in 2010 and the crew exploration vehicle is flying in 2014. A thriving commercial space transportation industry also can offer researchers, and others, opportunities to send payloads into space without relying on NASA's crowded space shuttle schedule or worrying 'that the government will decide next month or next year not to launch,' Griffin said."
500 million isn't enough to develop a long term, repeatable, economical vehicle for launches. 500 million gets you one vehicle that MAY launch successfully...once.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
are we seeing the forming of an equivilant of the Military-Industrial_Complex in the field of Space Exloration? Will the government contracts to private companies lead to massive spending in the field of space exloration like it did for the Millitary starting after WWII?
As opposed to lining the pockets of a corrupt domestic government?
How we know is more important than what we know.
A curious thought here: if a corporation could launch a fleet of ships to outer space, wouldn't that put them out of government reach? Sure, seize their ground control, they'll just land in another country. (If not drop a bomb of their own!) Obviously we would need a way to destroy such a threat! Let's contract out for a solution!
@HbFyo0$k8 tH!$
If civvies can get into space, then there's surely no further need for a federal space program and embarrasments like the shuttle can be put behind us.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Why not simply turn over access to "deep space" to private enterprise? Asteroid belt mining is a staple of SF - is there a real commercial incentive today or do we have to wait till ol' Mother Earth runs out of diggable dirt-based useful stuff first?
If there was a commercial incentive, it would be done. There is no "access" to deep space to turn over to free enterprise - they are free to launch stuff into deep space and mine the asteroids all they want if they choose to. Sure, a license is required, but licensing is essentially demonstrating to the government that you won't endanger the public or cause an international incident. Governments appear to have a monopoly on deep space launches only because there is currently no profit to be made, so they're the only ones doing it.
Worst...sig...ever!
I think its great giving free enterprise a shot at this. This kind of thing would be impossible in the Marxist societies I have been seeing advocated all weekend on Slashdot.
What NASA should be doing is developing a workable business model that will make itself self-sufficient.
NASA SHOULD BE OFFERING commercial services to American Civilians.
1. Suborbital Flights.
2. Cremation Services with Partial ashes launched into space.
3. For Fee Licensing of Patents resulting from NASA Research.
4. And any other compettiive services Comercial companies plan to offer.
And those who think government shouldn't be making money, you should be reminded of United States Postal Service. USPS is a self-sufficient government agency. They rarely ask for federal money.
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Almost. Privatization is best at "optimizing for profit", and only that. It just so happens that in a great majority of endeavors, that leads to increased productivity, freedom and quality-of-life.
However, some things do not benefit from privatization. These things tend to be public services, utilities, life-and-death services, very difficult/expensive endeavors with inadequate profit potential, and things that don't get done otherwise. In the case of NASA, we are stuck with "very difficult, expensive, and lack of sufficient profit motive".
That said, properly executed partnerships with private corporations (as is done with the shuttle, and I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't also the case with Apollo), can let the private sector do what it does best and large governmental organizations do what they do best. The biggest problem with just throwing it out there for the private sector (as it sounds is the case here), is that:
1. The private sector will only do it if they believe there's profit in it.
2. The private sector may fail to provide anything.
The drawback with #1 is that the private sector won't necessarily provide the best vehicle, but the most profitable vehicle. That's not to say that a government agency will necessarily do the best (after all, the Air Force's interests altered the shuttle into a substantially inferior craft). Still, removing the profit motive removes a major potential conflict of interest. Additionally, the profit will have to come from NASA anyway, so what's the difference for NASA to just design the craft and contract out construction anyway?
The potential drawback of #2 is even more severe. A hobbled craft is superior, at least in the short-term, to no craft at all (poorly executed, a hobbled craft could set the space program backwards (as some have claimed the shuttle has done), but at least we've got something to get us into space). What are NASA's plans if the private sector fails to deliver a product (note: the private sector has never delivered a complete orbital human-flight spacecraft, so what makes NASA think they will manage to do so so quickly?)? Do we just bow out of space for the interim? Do we hitchhike aboard Soyuz? Extend the shuttle program? (According to TFA, sadly, it appears that the answer is this is only to go to ISS, so, aside from missions there, we effectively will be bowing out of non-ISS-related human spaceflight for four years. F**K! Someone, please, prove me wrong!)
In my opinion, I'd prefer Congress just fund NASA enough to do what they need to do, so long as it can be done within reason. After all, as I point out above, if the private sector does come up with a solution, NASA will still have to foot the bill anyway. If NASA really thinks this will work, it sounds like excessive faith in the free market. If NASA really knows the high improbability that this will succeed, it sounds more like an attempt to use the private sector as a scapegoat ("no one anticipated[*] the private sector would fail to provide a solution").
[*] Three magical words which seem able to absolve the speaker from any personal responsibility or blame for any disaster or failure.
why should they be protected? Let market forces dominate and offshore the whole lot!
Why?
Well, because you don't want the whole lot offshored... because then it's someone else's space program, and you're ancient history.
Damn, I can't belive I'm defending the military-industrial complex! I feel dirty.
You can't take the sky from me...
I don't think anyone (even NASA) still has the full blueprints for the Saturn V rockets anymore. As I recall, Apollo 17 went up and then the rockets for 18 and 19 were still in the launch pipeline when the moon program was canceled.
Now, over 3 decades later, you are looking at military contractors which have gone bankrupt or merged or been acquired or who-knows-what-else. Beyond that, the "people knowledge" of those who designed and built the Saturn 5's is long gone by now, and I'm willing to bet that in something as complex as a Saturn V, there is at least one piece of now-undocumented design information, waiting to spoil someone's day...
In short: the two remaining Saturn V's that are still around (Johnson and Kennedy Space Flight centers, serial numbers SA-514 and SA-515) are the only two to exist for the foreseeable future. When we, as a nation, decide to go to the moon again, we'll have to build a new rocket from scratch.
Count on NASA to screw this project up, too.
In the late 90's Lockheed Martin wanted to build a single-state-to-orbit (SSTO) replacement for the space shuttle. They were so confident in their design, all they asked for to build it was $100M. They would fund the rest themselves, and recoup their expenses selling the ship commercially.
NASA killed it in stages. The first stage was to take over program management of the project, which they did simply by funding it to $500M, rather than the $100M Lockheed asked for. Then, they spread development of various pieces of VentureStar to several companies, some of whom have a proven track record of failure. Finally, as various companies failed to develop their piece, they turned on the project, claiming it could never work and was a bad idea in the first place. The end result was much additional funding from Congress to continue backing NASA's stupid shuttle program.
The legacy of VentureStar was quite interesting, and seems to go back to secret SkunkWorks projects. A previous SkunkWorks director, Ben Rich, who presided over the development of the stealth fighter, wrote a book called SkunkWorks. In it, he denied that the hyper-sonic plane (referred to on the net as Aurora) exists, and further claimed that it could not be built. The skin would get too hot, and the hydrogen/oxygen engines were impractical. Not three years after publishing this book, however, Lockheed was asking for a mere $100M to build VentureStar, using technologies never publicly seen before - linear spiking hydrogen/oxygen engines, and a special metallic skin that could take the heat of reentry. Hmm....
So, Lockheed is still sitting on it's VentureStar plans. Boeing has finally built the linear spiking engines, and just to show how NASA was trying to kill the project, Lockheed's VentureStar crew built a successful fuel tank for free (NASA killed the project after another company failed in this portion of the effort).
Another cool project NASA killed was the DC-X, as well as other related SSTO vertical takeoff and landing craft. The cool thing about this rocket was how cheap it was to fly. They demonstrated on their reduced-scale prototype that they could land on gravel, run out a fuel truck, and launch again. Even though the prototype was clearly successful, NASA killed this project after the prototype fell over due to a simple hydraulic malfunction on one of it's three legs and exploded. One of the reasons stated by NASA for killing the DC-X was to focus funds on the higher performance VentureStar project!
A multi-pronged approach may have been better than NASA's single-minded shuttle focus. A DC-X technology based rocket could cheaply lift satellites and building materials for the ISS to LEO (or even lower). Focusing on low-cost, rather than reliability would greatly reduce the cost per-pound of getting stuff in orbit, but would not be suitable for human flight. Space-tugs, using ion-drive (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_propulsion) could be used to haul the loads from low orbits to higher orbit, and part of the load would be additional fuel for the ion-drive. It would take weeks to months for such a space-tug trip, but that's not long for space borne projects. A separate project like VentureStar or any of the other advanced next-generation designs could be used for human flight.
Oh, well... NASA has a long history of funding and then killing good space concepts. I think this will be no different. It's probably $500M wasted. In the mean-time, thank God for the Russian rockets!
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.