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Can Commercial Space Tech Get Off the Ground?
coondoggie writes "While NASA's commercial partners such as SpaceX and Orbital have made steady progress in developing space cargo transportation technology, they have recently fallen behind their development schedules. Combine that with the fact that the most critical steps lie ahead, including successfully launching new vehicles and completing integration with the space station, and you have a hole that will be tough to climb out of. Those were the two main conclusions of a Government Accountability Office report (PDF) on the status of the commercial space world this week. The GAO went on to say that after the planned retirement of the space shuttle in 2010, NASA will face a cargo resupply shortfall for the International Space Station of approximately 40 metric tons between 2010 and 2015."
Speaking of SpaceX, reader Matt_dk sends along an update on the company's Falcon 9 flight efforts. "Six of the nine first stage flight engines have completed acceptance testing and all nine flight engines are on schedule to complete acceptance testing by mid-July."
Yes.
The main problems are that NASA because of "security reasons" can't give out a lot of the taxpayer funded research that would help these companies get off the ground. So, what took NASA many years to do doesn't have to be reinvented by a private company. Really, the fact that any private craft could get into space would have been a remarkable feat just thirty or forty years ago.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Ultimately it's going to be commercial factors that help drive human space exploration. While a "Star Trek" universe where the sole mission is to go out and explore is a great idea, right now economic factors will need to be behind the wheel, and getting some commercial ventures off the ground will help drive up space flight.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
You have to get to very high velocity - that implies a lot of fuel, and very exspensive craft that can survive the high velocity
It's hard to do repair, so you have to spend a lot for high reliability equipment
Space is a harsh environment - you have temperature extremes, radiation, vacumn welding
many people get the low gravity equivalent of car sickness
although it is not publicized by nasa, in low gravity, liquid containment - like when you go to the bathroom - is difficult;' as a result, there is a lot of intestinal illness in space (think about that !)
The take home is that space is, and always will be, very $ relative to ground; therefore there has to be some compelling reason to go to space.
Sadly, there are few compelling reasons.
I have been doing biotech high technology startups for 20+years, and aside from the .dom boom era, there is very little money or enthusiasm for gee wiz technology
Get all of your dumb space puns out of the way here
It depends. Can the Commercial Space Technology get enough momentum to support the project? Can the companies behind these projects meet the orbiting budgets required to fund such a task? One needs to fuel the explosive innovation of space travel. Setting up commercial space technology is exactly rocket science, you know. Only dedication and large amounts of money can get these projects off of the launch pad.
I think part of the limitation is the atmosphere in high schools about space and space travel. In the 60's, children dreamed about space travel; warp to today: it's almost as if we've headed with an incredible velocity to escape assignments and discussion about the space program.
If the government sees the gravity of the situation, the industry might get a boost.
The problem is that the analysts make it sounds like industry is shooting for the moon, and that makes financiers look at the private industry folks like they're from Mars.
Heaven forbid that multiple governments are needed to fund a private endeavor. It could force the executives into shuttle diplomacy.
Geez, here we go again.
Yes, the bottom line is that getting to space is really, REALLY expensive. Which in turn means that exploiting resources up there is almost certainly not going to be economically feasible for the foreseeable future.
The take home is that space is, and always will be, very $ relative to ground; therefore there has to be some compelling reason to go to space.
Sadly, there are few compelling reasons.
I am compelled to disagree with this.
There are plenty of compelling reasons to go into space:
Growth of the species - Humanity is expanding in population very quickly. Eventually, assuming that holds, the planet will reach the point where sustaining that population is impossible, even with advances in technology. Your choices, then, are either to limit/reduce the population (sterilization, limitations on childbearing, war, disease, organized extermination, etc) or expand off the planet. The second option seems a little more friendly and ethical.
Survival of the species - There are several things which can cause the population to be essentially wiped out. Asteroid impacts, war, deadly pandemics, biowarfare (which I personally consider the greatest threat at the moment), and so on. It's possible that some may survive these things by digging deep underground, but I doubt enough infrastructure and population will survive to maintain society as we know it. The best long-term solution I can see is to expand off-planet and establish self-sustaining colonies. You don't keep all of your company's data and server hardware in one location, do you? The same should hold with humanity as a whole.
Additional resources - This fits with the first point. There is only so much stuff available to us on this planet. Whether we use it all up, or decide to preserve it, we will eventually reach the point where we can't use any more. What are we to do at that point? Well, I see a whole bunch of stuff sitting up in space just waiting to be used. Now before anyone starts, I am not promoting the "strip earth bare and trash it, then move on" approach. Instead, I'm promoting the "let's make use of all those barren rocks out there so we don't have to trash earth" approach.
Overall, unless we're going to take that self-ridiculing, defeatist position that humanity should draw down into a little ball and live the remainder of its existence shut in from the universe as a whole, like a pathetic and sick individual afraid to even get out of bed*, we will have to go into space eventually. It's just a matter of time. The only question is "when?"
Some will argue that it's too expensive, that we should wait until we have better technology. But how will we get that technology in the first place? It doesn't just fall into your lap one afternoon; you have to work for it. Imagine if we'd decided 100 years ago that trying to develop airplanes was stupid, that airplanes at the time were too dangerous and impractical, and that we should wait until we had technology like the 777 oir A380... I'll tell you right now, we probably wouldn't be to that point for a couple hundred more years. You don't learn how to build entirely new stuff or do new things by sitting around dreaming about it or making powerpoint charts... you learn by doing that stuff as best you can, learning from your mistakes, and doing it again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Yes, doing it is expensive. But it's worth it. The only reason it seems like it's not is that the payoff takes a little longer to come. Corporations don't undertake it because the shareholders probably won't see the benefit within their lifetimes. Governments don't do it because they don't think beyond the next election. Joe Public doesn't think about it because his attention span lasts for 20 seconds and all he's interested in is what keeps him entertained. The benefit is there, but it might be a few generations before it's realized.
Remember, too, that money spent on developing this stuff isn't just launched away into the sun or something. It stays on earth, paying the engineers and mechanics and managagers (spit) that work on it. It fosters a need for more engineers and mechanics, driving bet
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Just to clarify, if you RTFA you will find that SpaceX has completed all the milestones so far on time, and they are looking at a 2-4 month schedule slip on future milestones. Now, obviously we'd much rather not have the schedule slip, but in the world of NASA contracting that is like... totally nothing. I have to say that, as a confirmed space nut, SpaceX really impresses me. If they manage to deliver on a third of what they're talking about, they'll completely change the game--and they've done enough truly innovative stuff already that I think they might actually deliver on most of it in the long run.
Imagine a fully reusable launch vehicle, and a mostly reusable orbiter, making access to LEO or GTO cost in the hundreds of dollars per lb., instead of thousands... that's what Elon Musk is talking about in the long run, and I think he just might actually pull it off.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
In this TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/burt_rutan_sees_the_future_of_space.html , Burt Rutan makes a very compelling argument for the Commercialised space industry.
Participatory Governance : The only feasible option for a real democracy, where everyone really does have a say.