NASA Outsources ISS Resupply To SpaceX, Orbital

DynaSoar writes "NASA has signed two contracts with US commercial space ventures totaling $3.5 billion for resupply of the International Space Station. SpaceX will receive $1.6 billion for 12 flights of SpaceX's planned Dragon spacecraft and their Falcon 9 boosters. $1.9 billion goes to Orbital for eight flights of its Cygnus spacecraft riding its Taurus 2 boosters. Neither of the specified craft has ever flown. However, the proposed vehicles are under construction and based on proven technology, whereas NASA has often contracted with big aerospace companies for services using vehicles not yet even designed."

Comments

Problems

[Darkness404]

Things like this is exactly why people are questioning our space program, we just seem to do things just to say we can. What really needs to happen is that taxpayers fund government research which releases *all* findings/blueprints/formulas/source/etc to the public (minus *real* national security issues, such nuclear weapons). Private businesses (such as Virgin Galactic and SpaceX) then can take the information and adapt them to create things thereby reducing taxpayer load. Our current system of hiding anything and everything under the guise of "national security" is what is making our space program fail, and outsourcing things to private companies does nothing to benefit the public.

Re:Problems

[davolfman]

Anything made under government contract for its design should logically be considered "work for hire" and be public domain by default. That's the assertion I'm going to make.

Re:Problems

[hairyfeet]

What I don't get is how we are spending huge amounts of money to protect ourselves from ICBMs when thanks to MAD the odds of even the most crazed fundie launching one is less than winning the lotto while being struck by lightning. If some crazy jihadist wants to rack up maximum body count he would be nuts to launch a missile, which paints a giant "please kill us all" bullseye on his country when he can just sneak through our giant leaking sieve border and drive a Ryder or stolen FedEx truck right to the center of any major city and just push the switch.

So while I can understand them not wanting our advanced missile plans leaked out simply to keep the middle eastern countries from blowing each other up, the crazy amounts of money we are spending now on missile defense, especially when we can't pay for health care, higher education, or our giant leaky borders to be sealed, is to me the height of insanity.

The big deal here: launch costs getting cut in 1/2

[rmcclelland]

Supporting SpaceX/Orbital in this endeavour could be a game changer for the whole space industry. SpaceX is charging half of going rate for launches. Once they get flying regularly, NASA and commercial projects will be able to spend more on satellites and less on launching which means more spacecraft, science, and bandwidth.

Re:The big deal here: launch costs getting cut in

[YrWrstNtmr]

Boeing/Lockheed/Thiokol initially only charged 1/2 the final rate too. What will the actual bill from SpaceX be, once they can suck at the govt's teat?

Science

[copponex]

Please provide us with the most recent scientific breakthrough not carried out by a government funded lab or subsidized university.

Don't worry. We'll wait.

You see, no corporation does anything beyond what's sensible to make a profit. And often that thing is actually detrimental to society without proper regulation, dependent on your definition of progress, and no company could survive the lawsuits if they focused on pure R&D instead of R&D designed to deliver a product for sale. Imagine a company formed for fusion reactor research, promising little to no chance of return for billions of dollars of investment. It wouldn't get off the ground, and would be the laughingstock of wall street. In this case, they are refining rocket technology, not inventing it.

Good science only happens when you throw huge amounts of money into pure research. Engineering happens trying to solve problems, but not advances in science. The government doesn't force people to research anything, but it does give out wads of cash for things it wants, like the technology found in Predator drones. This is because problems are now extraordinarily complicated and require huge investments to be solved. That's not to say there aren't rare exceptions... and definitely not to say that agencies like NASA aren't in need of serious restructuring. But for the most part, it's government funded research that provides modern technology.

Also, you're totally wrong about homeland security. It's funded billions of dollars for advanced aerospace research, but to large corporations instead of backyard enthusiasts.

Re:Science

[QuantumG]

We were talking about engineering, but ok.

IBM does more basic science than any other company in the world.. outside Japan. They're also better financed and have institutional knowledge that exceeds most universities by light years. As for government labs, they're good for nuclear research and that's about it.

Re:Science

[hey!]

Bell Labs was an arm of a government granted monopoly that essentially taxed its users. You couldn't get phone service except through Bell at the price Bell charged. That price was regulated, and the incentive for a monopoly utility under that regime is to increase costs as far as humanly possible, because they were granted profit as a margin above its costs. Thus we have them doing justifiable but ... inefficient things like basic research.

After the monopoly was broken up, telephone calls became very, very cheap. But ... no more Bell Labs. Not like it used to be. In the free market, as part of the slow motion financial wreck that is Lucent, Bell Labs is a shadow of its former self. Just this year, Alcatel-Lucent announced it is pulling entirely out of basic research to focus on more product oriented research. This means that weaned of it quasi-public status, the labs will no longer produce fundamental advances in fields like solid state physics.

By the way it's a gross exaggeration to say that Bell's scientific work was "all coming from non-government dollars." Bell received huge amounts of government grant money. Much of its pioneering work in computing was funded by the US DoD.

Re:The big deal here: launch costs getting cut in

[FleaPlus]

Boeing/Lockheed/Thiokol initially only charged 1/2 the final rate too. What will the actual bill from SpaceX be, once they can suck at the govt's teat?

One big difference is that Boeing/Lockheed/Thiokol have cost-plus contracts, where if you increase the final bill you make more money. SpaceX and Orbital have fixed-price contracts, where if SpaceX or Orbital's cost estimates are too low, the companies eat the extra cost; on the other hand, if the companies figure out ways to do things more efficiently, they get more of a profit. Doing space launches under this sort of arrangement is almost unprecedented for NASA, and hopefully something we'll see much more of in the future.

Re:Hell of a deal

[FleaPlus]

Their intention is to get the Falcon9 and Dragon man-rated. The published development schedule appears to be fairly agressive. In some respects, I believe they are further along than the Ares 1 and Orion CEV programs are. Imagine a COTS program comprised of crew transport to and from the ISS or LEO.

Obama's space transition team seems to be imagining this as well:

http://www.space.com/news/081202-obama-space-spending.html

The transition team also wants information from NASA about accelerating plans for using the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to fund demonstrations of vehicles capable of carrying crews to the international space station, a proposal Obama supported during his campaign.