NASA Splits $1.1B For Three Commercial Spacecraft

coondoggie writes "NASA today continued its development of commercial space systems by splitting a little over $1.1 billion with Boeing, Space Exploration Technologies (Space X) and Sierra Nevada to develop and build advanced spaceships. 'Today's awards give a huge advantage to the three companies that got them, because competitors will need to fund their own development in its entirety. On the other hand, by partnering with the competitors, NASA has managed to seed the development of five different manned space vehicles for under $1B so far, a leap forward for the evolving space passenger market. They've paid for it on a reward-for-progress basis, handing out pre-agreed amounts of money for each specified milestone. SpaceX was well ahead of the other two competitors because of the unmanned Dragon, which has already berthed with the International Space Station. The company has borne the brunt of the development costs itself, putting in about $300 million of its own money in addition to about $75 million from NASA.'"

Comments

Bittersweet

[MyLongNickName]

On one hand, I am glad to see how much private sector interest there is in space exploration and tourism. Ultimately, it will be commericialization and profit opportunity that propels mankind to the stars.

OTOH, the reason we are seeing so much of it now is that the US has given up its leadership position in science. I'm not saying we aren't still on the top of the heap, but while Republicans and Democrats argue about whether we should drive ourselves into debt funding the military or social programs, science funding has suffered. When 50% of GDP growth since WW2 has come directly from science, this short-sighted non-funding view will cripple us.

Ultimately, there are projects where profits cannot be privatized. In these instances, government funding is the only way to go. But this doesn't get votes, so we are stuck.

Cynically Yours,
MyLongNickName

Re:Bittersweet

[Anonymous Coward]

The Republicans and Democrats aren't really caring about anything they say. They put on a good show to keep you suckers buying into their scams. It's like professional wrestling in a different costume to make you think it's really real.

Re:Bittersweet

[medcalf]

While space travel capability may be a public good, both space ships and actual travel are not, being both rivalrous and excludable. So COTS seems like an ideal answer to your objection: the capability/technology are subsidized, while the vehicles and transportation using them are at the whim of the market.

Re:Bittersweet

[taiwanjohn]

I like Jess Ventura's idea to have politicians wear "sponsor" patches on the suits, like NASCAR drivers.

Re:Bittersweet

[nedlohs]

Population growth.

Re:Bittersweet

[jimbolauski]

When 50% of GDP growth since WW2 has come directly from science, this short-sighted non-funding view will cripple us.

Ultimately, there are projects where profits cannot be privatized. In these instances, government funding is the only way to go. But this doesn't get votes, so we are stuck.

Cynically Yours, MyLongNickName

There is a ton of government funding going into science, composites got a huge boost from the R&D of building lighter planes. Darpa spends defense money and much of that research goes on to commercial applications, many colleges and universities receive federal grants to conduct research. The notion that the US does not spend money on research is foolish there are billions of dollars spend on just that, the only reason you think the amount of money spent on research is small is because the research facilities are scattered, the US doesn't have a ministry of Science to control all research. The US government spends about $140 billion per year, 75 Billion on defense R&D and 65 Billion is classified as non-defense. This does not include and private companies R&D which would easily put the number over 200 billion which is more then any other country.

Re:Bittersweet

[benjfowler]

Is _is_ private.

If you give them enough money for a private launch, I'm sure they'll be quite happy to fly your and your stuff.

Money buys anything these days -- look at those ridiculous $30m junkets rich people were buying to the ISS recently (facilities bought and paid for with taxpayer funds, no less), for instance.

Re:Bittersweet

[benjfowler]

That's bullshit, what's being "crowded out"?

I GUARANTEE you, moron, that most researchers will happily take private funding if it's on offer. Researchers on everything from nanotechnology, to psychology, to fusion energy, are screaming for resources. It just so happens that your fat cat banker and farmer friends have the ears of the politicians.

The only "crowding out" I see, is the scar tissue from all those idiotic Republican talking points crowding out the brain cells inside your head.

Re:Bittersweet

[Baloroth]

No. This is not commercial spaceflight, because the only customer is the government.

No true. SpaceX already has several private-sector contracts, to launch various communications satellites (for Iridium and SES, most notably).

Re:Bittersweet

[Nyeerrmm]

You're correct, 'commercial' is a bit of an a awkward term here. However, there are two reasons this is a big change from past contracting methods for developing spacecraft that the government uses:

1. There is competition. The reason (well regulated) markets are efficient is not profit motive, but competition. This is why Sen. Wolfe's proposal to select only one winner was so antithetical to the purpose of the program.

2. The government is buying rides, not buying vehicles. The companies that produce Dragon, CST-100, and DreamChaser are free to sell rides to anyone arms control treaties allow. There is some mile-stone based development money right now, but thats only because it is in NASA's interest to stimulate and accelerate this market rather than build competitive vehicles.

While this won't be truly commercial until a company can do well without a government customer, this is a step in the right direction, and nothing to sneeze at.

Re:Bittersweet

[EdgePenguin]

The 'failure' of social democracy? Notice how people in the UK live as long, and have similar health outcomes, as people in the US - despite spending 3 times less on their (state provided) healthcare?

Libertarians are hilariously ignorant, and hence why you have an absurd view of the 'new' space industry.

Re:Bittersweet

[NalosLayor]

The problem isn't that the manned program is not valuable, but that it's not funded or organized well enough to actually provide a return on investment. If you refused to give the planetary scientists anything bigger than a sounding rocket, the unmanned programs would look pretty worthless too. Understand that all the progress we've made since the 70's with mars probes could be done in one week with a manned mission -- and if it was done spacex style, it could be done on something close to the current budget. Hell, look at some of the alternative proposals that private industry came up with in the 70's for the shuttle, which were discarded in favor of the reference design shuttle.

Re:Bittersweet

[khallow]

We need better launch platforms, we also need more reaseach into better materials (super alloys, composites, syntactic metal foams, nanotube fibers, etc), better propulsion systems, and more versatile and autonomous robotics.

The key obstacle is economic. Simply put, any orbital launch system ever made would benefit significantly from even a slightly higher launch frequency. We are finally developing launch systems that will try to create and take advantage of this economy of scale. With a cheap launch vehicle and a burgeoning launch market, then one has both the resources and the motivation to develop better technologies without requiring NASA guidance or funding.

Re:Bittersweet

[CrimsonAvenger]

It wouldn't be too hard to argue that the population growth is a direct consequence of scientific progress. Medicine, food production, transportation etc.

Considering that population density in the USA is lower today than it was in, say, France in 1740, it's pretty hard to argue that population growth is a direct consequence of scientific progress.

Likewise, China had a population density by 1900 that was about 30% higher than the current US population density.

Certainly our standard of living has much to do with science (or, rather, technology, since while the two are related, they're not identical), but our population has much less bearing on science (or technology).

On the other hand, the size of our country is pretty much predicated on technology - without the telegraph and railroads, it's likely we would have split into two (or three countries) in the 19th century.

And for those about to bring up the Civil War, note that the telegraph and railroad were crucial to actually winning that war for the North.

Re:Bittersweet

[Darth Snowshoe]

You're the same guy from the other NASA thread. Don't you ever get tired of crabbing about the government?

What you're saying is beginning to sound more and more like some kind of objectivist viewpoint. That doesn't immediately discredit it, but I'd suggest (especially if you're going to talk about science, here, and make assertions as if you know something about it) you need to back up what you're saying with some (any) kind of citation or evidence.

"government funding has crowded out private for basic science" - what? Is there any evidence you can point to for this?

"researchers now focus on maintaining funding rather than doing science or delivering value" - again, what? Researchers get paid, and get better positions and more credibilty, by publishing in peer-reviewed journals, novel and substantial research. You can't tread water as a researcher. There's not enough money around for that to work for very long. But if you have some evidence or even anecdotal data to show, please do so.

"vaccines and antibiotics[...] an expensive testing situation where developing a valuable drug isn't sufficiently profitable even though it can save many lives" that's at least a swag at a particular example. It's a particularly bad one however, because people nearly universally demand and expect that new human vaccines and medicines to be thoroughly tested. The government is pretty clearly reflecting the will of the majority on this. And yes, it's expensive, but the work itself is big, and rigorous, and the liabilities for screwing it up are enormous. None of that has to do with commercial spaceflight however.

Re:Bittersweet

[progician]

I'm not sure how, after the disaster of 20th century communism, fascism and social democracy, somehow it is markets who are seen as having failed. It's takes phenomenal ignorance of history and economics to make that argument.

Errr... Fail. All of those you mention was directly or indirectly a response to the growing capitalist fears of the organized working class, the real sufferer of that beloved free market ideology. The "markets" somehow piss themselves and run immediately to the authoritarian solutions, when communism (which has nothing to do with the Eastern European radical social democratic political structures. I'm coming from one of these countries, so I have some ideas about the topic.) appears.

This whole free market bullshit is just an other dream, an other idealistic cry of the small capital owners. The big ones have already rigged the game for themselves around 100-150 years ago, so it is time for these libertarians to wake up really, and realize that what they want is a simple anachronism, or even just a misplaced nostalgia. With corporations, with an income of entire government budgets, there's no free market, there is an overlapping corporate and government interest, with ever bitter struggles, within the corporate and government structures. Funny thing is, that what this free market crowd wants, only a strong government organization can provide, enforcing the dismantling these large capital concentrations. Free market and its individualistic utopia brought us here, in to the middle of individualistic but highly accumulated power structures.

Re:Bittersweet

[MyLongNickName]

I verified numbers and found the following

In 1920, our GDP was 88 billion not 100 billion as your post indicates. Rounding isn't appropriate when it would lead to a 14% difference in numbers
In 2010, our GDP was 14,527 billion. In terms of 1920 dollars, we must divide by 10.9 to get 1,332.66 billion not 400 billion as your post indicates.

In real terms, our economy has grown by a factor of 15, or almost four doublings in 90 years. That is incredible, and to my knowledge unprecedented in the istory of the world to have that type of growth.

Re:Bittersweet

[ColdWetDog]

Do large distances or time frames suddenly change human nature?

Most certainly. Much of how humans have organized their societies is directly reflected in our typical lifespans and commercial return-on-investment considerations. If humans lived for 1000 years it would dramatically change how societies have been structured.

If we ever get faster than light travel, this too will change 'human nature' (ie, base assumptions of human behavior).

Re:Bittersweet

[drinkypoo]

It's not like it's his idea, but I'll get behind anyone who has a chance to make it happen. Which of course ain't him. Or probably anyone.

On the other hand, it seems like it would be relatively easy to come up with a website (or something) that does this semi-automatically. You could have a few generic models to represent the politicians, it's not like their faces are significant, and then you could put them in a racing suit with the colors of their biggest sponsor, and slap the logos of their other major sponsors onto it.

Re:Bittersweet

[ColdWetDog]

Understand that all the progress we've made since the 70's with mars probes could be done in one week with a manned mission.

If you can get the meat Popsicles to Mars alive. Yes, with a huge increase in funding, we may be able to work through the technology to do that. However, what your argument misses is the concept that both manned and unmanned space flight have been woefully underfunded. If you gave Mars researchers the kind of budget needed to get a manned expedition to Mars but instead used it for unmanned flight, we could have thousands of rovers wandering about the planet, doing more than some random astronaut kicking pebbles.

Re:Bittersweet

[dpilot]

His guarantee and his opinion is worth just as much as yours. They're both opinions.

Look at the historical side of it. Through most of history, science has been a matter of hobby or patronage on the part of rich people - either they dabbled in it themselves, or they sponsored scientists. (Though in the patronage days they weren't so much scientists as natural artists, since that's what evolved to become what we call scientists today.)

Modern science is more recent, only a few centuries old. While "practical science" has been funded privately, I strongly suspect that the "pure science' has always been dominated by government and universities. Things like Bell Labs and Watson Research are very new - less than a century old.

Finally, reflexive "Government can't do squat right," is about as thinking, insightful, and accurate as "A government program can solve about any problem."

Re:Bittersweet

[Truth is life]

DARPA is by no means the only defense-related scientific funding agency. Off the top of my head, there's the Naval Research Laboratory and the Air Force Research Laboratory, and I'm pretty sure there's an Army lab too. That's leaving aside funding agencies which aren't in defense but are funding defense-related research, like the Department of Energy, the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and so on and so forth. DARPA is a small piece of a much larger puzzle.

Re:Bittersweet

[Hatta]

The problem is that government funded science hasn't really done that much for us.

That's a flat out lie.

Most of US science is and always was privately funded.

And most science in the US isn't basic science. It's product development.

IMHO researchers now focus on maintaining funding rather than doing science or delivering value.

Doing science is how one maintains funding. And "delivering value" is exactly what we don't want our researchers doing. We want them asking interesting questions, not questions that immediately lead to a salable product. The greatest discoveries always come from "hm, that's funny", not "I wonder if I could sell this".

Socialize the losses, privatize the gain works in science funding just like it does elsewhere in public funding.

The gains due to basic research are socialized throughout society. When research is published publically, everyone in the world gets the benefit of that knowledge.

That's generally because there's no gain to be had either because it never existed and never will, or because society has created obstacles which render the project valueless to anyone who tries to pursue it.

This is an absolutely baseless assertion.

For example, someone was claiming research into new vaccines and antibiotics were solely the domain of public funded research, ignoring that the rules on new drug testing throughout the developed world created an expensive testing situation where developing a valuable drug isn't sufficiently profitable even though it can save many lives.

And? Are you going to take a drug that hasn't been thoroughly tested for safety? I guess as long as the eeeevil government doesn't have anything to do with it, it's perfectly ok, right?

Re:Bittersweet

[edremy]

You're using the Skunkworks as an example? Seriously?

Hint: The Skunkworks built airplanes for the US government, under US government contracts. Here's the list of planes they built- see anything civilian on that list? A number of your other examples are dubious at best- a huge amount of GE's R&D is government funded through the military. Bell Labs existed only because Bell had a monopoly on phone service- it's no accident that as soon as that monopoly was gone and they had to compete in a free market Bell Labs was gone as well.

As for your thesis that government research crowds out civilian, I'd counter that long term R&D simply isn't something most companies these days can budget for. That's not because the government is competing with them, it's because the stock market demands that they produce higher quarterly profits every single period. Pure R&D is expensive and almost always results in nothing more than a bunch of research papers without any revenue. It's the first thing to go when the CEO needs to trim costs.

Re:Bittersweet

[thrich81]

I don't think Bell Labs is a good example of private industry research. When Bell Labs existed, AT&T had a monopoly on telephone communications and could milk the market for whatever it would bear. Thus they were not subject to competitive pressures to cut costs to the bone and the corporate officers felt they could afford a research arm like Bell Labs without a short term payoff in every effort. They could trade short term profit for long term gains, kind of like the government can do with its sponsored research. Thus Bell Labs operated more like government lab. Those days are gone.

Re:WTF?

[medcalf]

You are correct: you do not understand. Try fixing that.

Re:WTF?

[Altanar]

Yep, you've completely misunderstood what this is. Feel free to RTFA. At least this one: http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial/crew/ccicap-announcement.html

Re:"Lemme seed you, c'mere!"

[MickyTheIdiot]

Anyone that thinks we are living in a socialist era isn't worthy of paying attention to... and they need to be bought a dictionary and a history book.

Only $375 Million?

[Piata]

If Space X has only spent $375 million to get where it is today, imagine what NASA could do if it wasn't plagued by pork and had actual funding. Movies have bugets of $300 million: http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/records/budgets.php

As a human race, we have some pretty mixed priorities.

Re:Only $375 Million?

[taiwanjohn]

I saw this on reddit today. Sorta takes your thought to its logical conclusion.

Re:I can already see a crash coming...

[Gravatron]

So basically, you have no evidence besides what you think stereotypically happens?

And another thing

[Darth Snowshoe]

"The problem is that government funded science hasn't really done that much for us." This is just utter BS. Its hard for me to imagine a more fallacous statement. If you include that science that was done under the aegis of fighting wars, its hard to think of a facet of life or a field of endeavor that hasn't been affected by public investment.

Just for starters, a lot of the early development of computers was done by governments during and after the war, and private actors that participated (for instance the IAS - read TURING'S CATHEDRAL) accepted public money for their work.

Lots of the work at sequencing the human (and other) genome was funded by NIH, and the private actors that later contributed all received money and their training through NIH.

Most medicines, vaccines, new treatments in the medical world are to some degree the result of public investment.

I'm just going to type a little list - you are welcome to look these up and check for accuracy
Radar
GPS
the internet
drones
supercomputers
satellites
vitamin-fortified foods
sonar
velcro and tang

Re:This is huge

[pavon]

None of Orbital's rockets come close to the capacity of the Falcon 9, which is why their CCDev entry was to be launched from an Atlas V, rather than one of their own. On top of that 3 out of the last 4 Taurus launches have failed. I've worked with Orbital before, and they are a great company (the polar opposite of Lockheed). I'll happily work them any time in the future, and wish them the best luck with Antares. But the fact is that SpaceX is getting more attention than Orbital now because they earned it by delivering better results.