Slashdot Mirror
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."
They have a reliable and well tested system, why doesn't NASA use that?
The latest Slashdot meme.
If private industry can come up with a spacecraft that can meet the needs from 2010 to 2014, why shouldn't it meet the needs from 2014 forward?
Isn't this ust a reiteration of the X-Prize?
(by a different entity)
Purple, because ice cream has no bones.
And Nasa launched the last of its deep space probes...
... helium? Something like that...
Sadly, I worry that might well be true.
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?
And wasn't there a story about the moon being made not of cheese but of some kind of minable
(wanders off to google for a bit)
I am a leaf on the wind
Oooh! I have a design I've been working on in the weekends, not that I'm an engineer or anything. If anyone had a link to where we can submit our designs...I'm sure I would win. Umm, they're not asking for a working prototype are they? So, when can I expect my 500 million?
Before you die, you see DoubleRing...
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.
Frickin' finally. This is possibly the best possibly future for the public space agencies - fund research and development through a combination of grants and prizes, and not actually work on the problems themselves. They've done good work in the past, but they've simply become too large and inefficient, and that's exactly what privitisation is best at combating. This is very good news for people looking towards the future of space exploration, exploitation and colonisation
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?
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!$
"When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks." ;)
- Fight Club
It's bad enough now with the Telco's thinking they own the internet. So NASA will lease them for some of the time, what about the rest of the time...? Does the company get to use it's own gear to put up satellites and what not?
To be objective, I guess someone's got to pay for it. But space travel and the means to do so should not be patented away, preventing anyone else the means to get to space should they wish to build their own machine and get off this rock; perhaps assurances against something like this will be needed?
(Toungue-in-cheek throughout.)
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.
Finally...
The only part of the government that should be in the business of building and flying space vehicles is the military.
Deleted
Too right. If NASA + contractors can't build something that works reliably aand cost effectively then why should they be protected? Let market forces dominate and offshore the whole lot!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The X-prize has been won. SpaceShipOne achieved its most spectacular flight yet, climbing to an altitude of 377591 feet (71 1/2 miles) to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize back in Oct 2005. This is a MUCH bigger and much tougher contest, however knowing NASA they'll drag this thing out 2-3-5 years and then all these companies will either be gone or have commercialized the systems on thier own and won't need the NASA $$$. Or NASA could split the prize money 2 or 3 ways and none of the winners would get adequate funding. NASA should give the money to a private foundation (like maybe Ansara???) who then makes the awards.
wouldn't this make a fantastic project for science departments in universities? It seems like it would be a great connection for some venture capitalist and NASA to create several design centers that would share all information and create a plan that would have as its goal to be inexpensive, creative, and efficient. It's probably a pipe-dream, but it would be an incredible way to invigorate science work in this country at all levels, to engage funding in educational institutions, and likely earn an incredible profit down the road.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
NASA already has an extremely well-tested and effective vehicle. The Space Shuttle is a weak and complex design that replaced a great and simple design.
For less than $500 million NASA could replace the Apollo program 1960's computers (on board and ground control) and develop a new hatch to allow the Apollo command module to connect to the Space Station. Beyond that, just mass produce Saturn 5's and Command/Lander modules.
This new competition is a Feel Good(TM) program that hands out money to the contractors, when NASA has already done the job.
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.
Name it. The Buran? Nope, not well-tested and uses 70s technology. Soyuz? Yes, it's undergone upgrades throughout the years but might an original design in the 21st century be better? The Soyuz is as conventional as any other rocket system. Yes, it works, but it is hardly the best. It's good current technology; NASA wants something that pushes towards the future. Note that all of the finalist companies are start-ups.
And I can't believe a post got modded +3 without listing a single specific. Oh well, who needs evidence to be "insightful"? Evidently, not the mods.
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.
\
The sad thing is that for 20 mill a pop, you can contract Energia to fly soyuz/progress. Much cheaper, safer and reliable. But politics just get in the way of good science. If I were NASA I would buy the design and rights to manufacture it, but they never would because it aint made in the US.
I started to laugh so hard after I read the title. The first thing that came me was some weird looking space mobile with spinners, hydraulics and the aliens from mars keep on yelling turn down the bass bro!
What's NASA? Some kind of lottery agency? Prizes for this. Prizes for that. Are they based in Vegas?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Right on, Mr. Griffin.
Seastead this.
If you're interested in what John Carmack is doing these days, he's made a bunch of interesting posts on the aRocket list, specifically about developing an OTRAG modular rocket engine vehicle. He recently made this post (he has specifically given premission to reprint his words in the past, BTW). Exciting stuff. Carmack is the only one who I have any confidence in that will be able to go to orbit cheaply.
---------------------
Peter Fairbrother wrote:
> >> First, $100 million isn't enough, several people have tried
> >> and failed at $100 million projects.
> >
> > Failure has not been limited to $100 million projects. I suspect the
> > failures you speak of are where people tried to build $1 billion
> > vehicles for $100 million price tags.
>
>Yes - and a reasonable LEO launch system needs a half-billion-dollar
>vehicle. You can't really do it more cheaply. Reread the minimum mass to
>orbit thread, and then remember we need a decent payload as well.
We have been discussing the modular OTRAG designs for a reason --
they offer an incremental, scaleable, low cost development path to
inexpensive access to LEO.
I'm completely confident that "per-tube" costs can be under $10k, and
they might get below $5k. You should be able to get 10 - 20 pounds
of payload to LEO per-tube, depending on final Isp and mass ratios.
The size, scope, and complexity of the individual modules is lower
than the work we are currently doing at Armadillo, so development and
tooling expenses are modest. Module design and production can be
improved incrementally to decrease costs, like any mass produced item.
A few screw ups on the way to orbit are probably inevitable, so you
might need to produce several hundred tubes before entering revenue
service, but it still looks like it could be done in the low tens of
millions of dollars, even being rather pessimistic. You could even
buy a few pacific islands for yourself if you really needed to. That
is a long way from half a billion, let alone ten billion.
A system like this won't get to $100 / lb to LEO, but it will
outperform a conventional expendable upper stage on a hypersonic
booster, even disregarding development costs, plus it scales to a
wider range of payloads.
The real point though, is that billion dollar reusable space booster
developments are just fantasy projects at this point. You might as
well posit that you will develop anti-gravity in your garage. If you
were to say something like "The next generation of space vehicles
will prove out an elastic market for space launch, at which point my
ten billion dollar project will look like a sure thing to the smart
money investors" it might be a little more credible, and only have
more standard business and technical arguments against it, instead of
being just nuts.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Instead of being an administration, by administrators, for administrators, with political goals, perhaps it would be better if NASA was replaced by an organisation run by scientists for scientists, with scientific goals. If the scientists saw the money as research funds they'd probably treat it with more respect and make sure they (1) attacked scientific goals and (2) got their money's worth.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
> There's no private market for space telescopes.
... you want space telescopes, & think other people should be made to pay for them?
Which means
that is why space shuttles are always having problems, they are design flaws. I wonder what it would have been like if they went for the best quality instead of the lowest price?
All I can think of was a Sci Fi TV show called "Salvage 1" where some Junkyard turned junk into a space ship and went to the Moon to salvage the equipment that NASA left there. That is when I think of NASA asking anyone to build a space ship.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
The need for competition is best exemplified by the American automobile industry. The Ford Mustang of 2006 (after nearly 26 years of intense competition with Japanese automobiles like the Honda Prelude) is vastly superior in quality to the Ford Mustang of 1980.
Based on the 26 years of quality improvements in American automobiles due to Japanese competition, we can surmise that opening the NASA contracts to non-American Western companies will likely accelerate space-vehicle development to such an extent that, by 2032 (i.e., 26 years later), the Western allies will launch the first intersellar starship, powered by warp drive and armed with phase cannons. From 2032, the Western alliance has 31 years before first contact in 2063 -- with the Vulcans.
In general the idea of competition and prizes is good, however, as the number of 'challenges', 'races', and 'prizes' increase, I don't see a similar increase in traditional funding of basic research.
As a person working in research at a university, who will be paying my expenses for material and labor (=graduate student and tuition fees, I'm not counting my summer). There are two ways for me:
1) I take the full risk and hope to win the prize or
2) I screw a funding agency and use some of their grant money to compete here as well.
Clearly 2) is the way to go. Moreover, I even have to rip them off even more, since I won't win the prize each time I seriously compete and have to compensate these losses.
Again, don't get me wrong. Competition is good, prizes and challenges are good, however, not at the expense of traditionally funded basic research. Unfortunately, that's what's happening, since it moves the risk from the sponsor to the researcher and that just looks good in the public.
I totally agree SS1 is mainly a modern X-15. But that in itself is something. SS1 is a lot simpler and a lot cheaper, both to develop and to run.
It's a step. But there is still a long way to go. SS1's shuttlecock system of landing won't work at LEO reentry speeds.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Probably the latter. Chairmen who have to answer to shareholders will choose short-term small profits over long-term huge profits everytime.
The problem isn't long term over short term profits, people everywhere make 30-year investments all the time. Its called buying property, and no one is saying thats a bad idea (unless you're in a bubble area). In fact with decent initial investments, everyone can make a good living while the space mining program gets off the ground (nyuck nyuck). The big problem is reliability of that investment. No one can say for sure if all that money isn't going to go spiralling down the drain, and the reason for that is cost to orbit. It doesn't matter how much value you are returning, when the cost to get up there reduces that value below current prices. Remove cost to orbit issues, and space is wide open.
But the wealth is up there, insane treasures beyond the dreams of Midas. Lets take for example the relatively close Amun Asteroid, about $20 trillion dollars worth of useable materials. I recall one geologist said it was something like three times the total amount of metals mined in the history of the human race. And that is just one SINGLE asteroid. How many million or billion more are there, in our system alone? The first to economically tap into that reservoir will revloutionise human existence, to the extent that our current economic issues would become moot. What price can you put on a car or a computer if they are manufactured in orbit for pennies by robots?
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
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.
Just have it featured on Monster Garage and we'll be back in space in no time... ..with chrome headers, multi-pipes, and air scoops that serve no purpose in orbit.
The science may not be the deepest, but hey - we'd have the most bitchin' ride this side of
the solar system.
Now where's my fuzzy dice...