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As NASA Seeks Next Mission, Russia Holds the Trump Card
Geoffrey.landis (926948) writes "After the space shuttle retired in 2011, Russia has hiked the price of a trip to the International Space Station, to $71 million per seat. Less well recognized is the disparity in station crews. Before the shuttle stopped flying, an equal number of American and Russian crew members lived on board. But afterwards the bear began squeezing. For every two NASA astronauts that have flown to the station, three Russians have gone. Eric Burger asks, how did it come to this?"
Maybe we can persuade The Donald to invest in space exploration.
Then no Russians would be needed.
Russia being Russia is the best thing that can happen to Space X if they have what it takes.
Nonsense! Dragon is beginnning its Man-Rating this year.
It should be qualified by the end of next year, unless NASA gets a big helping of "Not Invented Here" and decides to kill the man-rated Dragon in favour of its own design (which won't be ready this decade, if ever).
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Access to space has always been a pissing contest. You would even be in space if it wasn't.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
Only in your imagination maybe. NASA and NOAA have been doing global warming/climate change research long before Obama was even a senator. But don't let facts get in your way.
1. The ISS was a mistake in and of itself. The science its done wasn't worth the money. There were cheaper ways to attain the same knowledge. That money could have been better spent on other NASA projects.
2. Never trust the Russians. By all means do whatever in the name of diplomacy. But NEVER trust them. It goes back to the policy under Reagan... Trust but Verify... which really means we DO NOT trust them but we do business with them in a safe and sustainable way.
3. Allowing the US to lose its ability to go to space while the ISS remained active.
4. Not cultivating alternatives from spaceX etc that offered to fill the gap.
It goes without saying that the US is run badly these days. The politics being what they are about half the population will never admit it but such is the reality. As a people, we need to grow beyond our factionalism, find common ground, and hold our leaders to some reasonable standards. Otherwise, we'll just bounce between one faction's incompetents and the other's. Each side giving the profound incompetence of its own candidates a blind eye until they're out of political capital and then it shifts to the next guy. Back and forth.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Maybe the reason more Russians are going up than Americans is because it costs $71Million to send an American.
NASA's 2014 budget is ~$17.5B, and they do a lot of really good stuff, the ISS is kinda low on that totem pole, if you ask me. There's a lot more to space exploration than sitting in the ISS, babysitting experiments, chatting with school kids and waiting for your ride
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
regardless if it was the last 5 years or the last 14 years, its fairly obvious that they are a shadow of what they used to be.
I think this one's pretty friggin' obvious. We discontinued our man-rated means to low earth orbit before we had a working replacement. It's the exact same way we lost Skylab, except we were theoretically cooperating with Russia this time, while last time we weren't. Obviously our degree of cooperation was misunderstood, and they have chosen to exploit our weakness.
Mind you, our man-rated means to low earth orbit was ridiculously inefficient compared to what it was supposed to cost, and the turnaround on our pretty little space planes was orders of magnitude worse than the week-or-two expected between launches. It was so expensive that our politicians wouldn't push for a small, inexpensive (relatively speaking) method to reach space for when we didn't need a crew of ten and a payload of ten tons. Had we spent the money to either refine the Saturn-series to make them less expensive and more efficient or started on a new project after the Shuttle finally got going then we probably wouldn't be in this predicament now.
At least it'll be good for a relative up-and-comer in SpaceX and to a lesser extent to Orbital/ATK.
This hopefully will be a lesson for not discontinuing one's own abilities before being ready with a new program, but you'd think that Skylab falling from orbit and burning up would have taught us that lesson.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Dragon is already reusable, and Falcon 9R first stage looks like it's gonna be reusable soon. (reusable 2nd stage seems more doubtful considering the enormous reentry speeds involved)
If or when they start doing regular launches with the reusable Dragon and F9R, how low do you think they can get the price per seat down to? Russians are charging $71m per seat, can SpaceX get it down to $1m per seat?
Hmm, what part of the male anatomy does a rocket resemble? 'nuff said
Translation: I hare science that makes me feel bad.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Which has nothing to do with climate research. I can't think of organisations in a better position to do atmospheric research than NASA and NOAA.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Why do we need Russia if we now successfully can use Paypal?
Errr... I mean SpaceX.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
And that little fact is almost entirely due to Congress' inability to think past pork and the next re election cycle. Yes, NASA has some internal issues (as does every human endevour with more than one person involved) but yo-yo funding and put-it-here thinking have really trashed the agency.
You reap what you sow. /grump
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
But afterwards the bear began squeezing.
Bull. Shit. During the Russia Ukrane conflict America had a few choices.
1. Not our monkeys, not our circus. Avoid international diplomatic and military actions that may exacerbate the situation.
2. Military intervention.
3. Diplomatic intervention.
we avoided 1 entirely because this hasnt been our style since 1910. We avoided 2 because we have a 25 year track record of failed wars and coups, not to mention king georges debacle in iraq. we also dont pick fights with countries that possess a nuclear fleet or long range bombers. Three works, and it works because we're beholden as members of NATO to protect our allies. because we rely on russia very little (as does russia us) we expect to get away with what basically amounts to a great deal of symbolism.
If russia were sending more than just a shot across the bow for America to stop with the sanctions and rhetoric, it could...
1. categorically deny access to Baikonur for american companies who rely on inexpensive satellite lift services
2. gift Iran with a host of technical engineers and troops to help complete a functional nuclear powerplant.
3. Re-value or cease export of oil to the united states...its just 5% of our total consumption, but they could offer incentives to Venezuela who provide 10% of american oil to refuse service as well. still, 5% would be enough to send our stockmarkets into a brisk panic.
I very sincerely doubt Russia wants any part of a sincere challenge, so dicking with astronaut counts and the cost of a space toilet seems reasonable.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Translation: I hare science that makes me feel bad.
You wascawy wabbit!
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
So much of the budget is off-limits (social security and medicare) that the only areas left vulnerable to cutting are things like NASA.
The USA has locked itself into forced spending in some areas and it's squeezing other areas.
| I very sincerely doubt Russia wants any part of a sincere challenge, so dicking with astronaut counts and the cost of a space toilet seems reasonable
The Russians are imposing sanctions on themselves, to pre-empt the embarrassment of US doing it to them first.
"Oh, so you are thinking of ordering Lockheed to stop buying our RD-180 engine for hard currency? Nyet! We'll ban it first!"
Simple... Americans are more interested in FPS than they are in SIMS
Hmm, what part of the male anatomy does a rocket resemble? 'nuff said
The nothing? Go look at your penis. Then go look at a rocket. If they look alike to you, please see a urologist / plastic surgeon.
You may as well claim all spheres look like breasts.
JFK: We choose to go to the Moon
Funding, not expertise. We spent so much on the shuttle, that "space" doesn't have good connotations anymore. It means waste and no results.
Learn to love Alaska
You may as well claim all spheres look like breasts.
They do if you squint hard enough.
Reusable and Man-Rating are different concepts here.
However reusable will cut the costs down dramatically. The Falcon 9 booster itself is less than 60m a launch. ISS resupply missions on Dragon are around 100m (I believe, I couldn't find the number.) Obviously a man-rated Dragon is going to cost quite a bit more. This means they could literally throw away the dragon capsule every time it flies and be cheaper than Soyuz.
Also, keep in mind that Dragon seats 7, Soyuz seats 3.
Also I would say that any cost savings from SpaceX have more to do wtih how efficient they are compared to how horrifically inefficient NASA contractors are.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Normally I would not even look at AC comments, but WTF? I know plenty of NASA people and no one is getting rich over there.
I dont think the issue is how much money it costs sending US astronauts on Russian rockets, the issue is that the Russian rockets are the only option right now.
Yes, as it should be. What those who bring up SS and Medicare never seem to want to say is that there is a specific tax collected to pay for those items, and until the recent collapse a few years ago, that tax brought in a SURPLUS every year. Even with a few years of no surplus from revenue (it's reserves are still growing, however), the fund will be in the black for the next 20+ years. Try blaming something that isn't affecting the budget with a negative.
Here's an idea, lets gt rid of the F-35 program, a plane we don't need, is behind schedule, is massively over budget, and still can barely get off the ground. The cost projection for that one useless pork program, if given straight to NASA, would double their budget for the next 80 years.... of course, that's ignoring any MORE cost overruns that the F-35 will have in the future. It's odd, i don't find the phrase "create and maintain a global military hegemony" anywhere in the Constitution.
The answer to the question put forth, though, is pretty simple: congress has been inundated with complete fucking idiots who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag even if they had instructions. The complete idiots who are anti-science, anti-education, anti-intelligence... these people who rail against progress, all the while using and abusing their positions for their own political power. That's why we're in this situation. Every time you see someone on these boards who complain NASA isn't needed, or hasn't done anything useful.... those people exemplify is the reason why we're at this point: pure, unadulterated, stupidity.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
It came to this because American politicians are short-sighted assholes who cut budgets.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Reusable and Man-Rating are different concepts here.
However reusable will cut the costs down dramatically.
Quite true. Reusable, for non-manned launches, can set a lower threshold for system failure resulting in mission failure; or in plain language reusing a part and blowing up a rocket and it's non-human payload is more acceptable than killing a crew.
Of course, risking destroying an expensive satellite because to save a few bucks on launch costs may be unacceptable a swell. Personally, I wouldn't base my launch cost model on reusability but view any cost savings from reuse a bonus.
However reusable will cut the costs down dramatically. The Falcon 9 booster itself is less than 60m a launch. ISS resupply missions on Dragon are around 100m (I believe, I couldn't find the number.) Obviously a man-rated Dragon is going to cost quite a bit more. This means they could literally throw away the dragon capsule every time it flies and be cheaper than Soyuz.
Also, keep in mind that Dragon seats 7, Soyuz seats 3.
Right now, your choice is Soyuz or don't go. Supply and demand dictates Russia can set prices as high as the market will bear, not on what it really costs.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Because for the second time in my life the US has retired a working manned system long before the replacement was ready.
Can you imagine the Have retiring all the nuclear subs in service before the next generation was in service? We did it with Apollo and we did it with STS.
It just shows that manned space flight and space flight in general are not priorities which IMHO SUCKS!!!!!!!
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
NASA's Earth Observing System produces a lot of data. NASA's landsat program began in the early 1970s, so the notion of launching satellites to observe the earth's surface is not especially new.
In my last 37 years of experience in the space industry, "reusable" means "costs more per launch" in every single example. I haven't worked man-rated programs directly, but the goals are often similar between the two, but the Design Assurance Level for man-rated prevents re-use of components.
I would put it past them. "Elon Musk" is a monocle and a white cat away from being a Ian Flemming villain. Youse guys really ought to hire a better quality script writer for your reality down there.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Does the definition of the word "resemble" escape you?
And since female breasts are sometimes referred to as "melons", "mosquito bites", "scoops of vanilla ice cream", and so on, the literal comparison between a penis and a rocket is quite stupid.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
More likely that its construction wasn't spread across enough (or the right) Congressional districts.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
that tax brought in a SURPLUS every year.
Only by a very limited definition of surplus, used by what is called pay-as-you-go accounting. Under accrual accounting ("generally accepted accounting principles"), which the government does not have to follow, SS and Medicare did not run surpluses. The difference is this: under pay as you go, as long as the cash that you pay to beneficiaries during the year is less than the cash taken in by the taxes taken in during the year, you are balanced. However, under accrual accounting, the things that must be balanced are not the cash flows, but rather, the promised benefits and the promised taxes.
As an example, If you get a $1000 paycheck at the end of the week, and you spend $900, then you have $100 at the end of the week, and under any definition you had a surplus. But if you get a $1000 paycheck, and you spend $1050, you did not run a surplus (and probably depleted some of your bank account). Lastly, if you get a $1000 paycheck, then you spend $1050, and you borrow $150 from a friend, you have $100 cash left over at the end of the week. But because you have promised $150 to your friend, which is more than the $100 cash you have left over, you have not run a surplus. That is the situation SS and Medicare have found themselves in - sound from a pay as you go basis, but not promising to tax enough/promising too many benefits to be sound on an accrual basis
So much of the budget is off-limits (social security and medicare) that the only areas left vulnerable to cutting are things like NASA.
The USA has locked itself into forced spending in some areas and it's squeezing other areas.
We could double NASA's budget and pay for it with a 3% cut to the military.
I worked as a NASA contractor for a while, and there was not any getting rich on the green badge side of things I can assure you.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Scientific journals frown on fraud. Of course, manned missions tend to produce less important data than unmanned ones
Russians are charging $71m per seat, can SpaceX get it down to $1m per seat?
Why would they do that? They will charge $69,999,999.95 and throw in a few airmiles. Seriously, do you really think price is determined by cost + margin, or "what the market will stand"?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
We did it in the 60s. We landed on the moon. ...unless we didn't do those things [emphasis added].
You get a punch in the face from Buzz Aldrin!
They increased the price to $71 million.
From what?
If it was previously $70 million, so what. Sure that's a lot of money to use, but maybe it was justified.
On the other hand, if it was from something like $22 million, then some big flags should have been raised in the fraud dept.
Actually in 2006 is was $22 million, but if the article is going to use the new prices as a point, it needs to mention what the previous price was, otherwise it's just an unqualified statement. Speaking of which, why didn't anyone start yelling when they more than tripled the price?
Hmm, Dragon seats seven in manned-mode. $133M per launch (which is what NASA is paying SpaceX now for flights to ISS. Double that for no other reason than that we can...
Hmm, $40M per person sound reasonable.
Of course, if Dragon and Falcon 9R are each good for, say, five flights, we can reduce the cost per flight by half easily (F9R first stage is 70% of the cost of the Falcon all by itself). Which could leave you at $20M per seat.
By and by, Falcon 9R's second stage will also be reusable. If they can get five launches out of that, we're talking an 80% reduction in cost of a Falcon/Dragon combo, which might let you put a man up for $4M per seat....
And that's assuming five launches per bird. Ten reduces cost by half again.
Yes, prices above (except for the base $133M that NASA is paying SpaceX now) are highly speculative. Point is that SpaceX can probably boost men for considerably less than Russia charges without even finishing up the "Reusable" part of Falcon-9, much less after they get Falcon 9R fully reusable.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/AqycnaOCIAEuM9l.jpg
Monocoles are overrated.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
And yet they're charging considerably less than their nearest competitor for unmanned launches. It's not really all that hard to find out how much SpaceX and Orbital Sciences are charging for CRS missions.
Hint: Orbital Sciences is being paid rather more for eight launches ($1.9B) than SpaceX is for twelve launches ($1.6B).
Even though a Dragon can loft ~50% more payload than a Cygnus can.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I would also include the politicians changing the direction that NASA is supposed to take every two to four years. They just get started on their priorities and their masters in Washington change bringing new orders that makes all of their previous work obsolete. It also doesn't help when NASA is also trying to be used as a jobs program so politicians try to create/keep positions in their ridings.
When it is not Stationary?
Oh, for a mod point.
Rogozin stated:
"The Russian segment can exist independently from the American one,” Rogozin said. “The U.S. one cannot."
The Russian boosted segments-- Zarya, Zvezda, Poisk Pirs total about 45,000 kg
The US boosted segments--mostly trusses, laboratories, docking modules, etc total 240,000 kg...
Now, the US paid for Zarya (the very module that enables Rogozin to claim operational independence) and the Europeans and the Japanese and the Canadians paid for various components that were lifted by NASA's shuttles. , but I'm thinking that the Russian ISS will be very much a Rump ISS.
And return cargo. I don't believe any other system currently flying can do that.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Nothing else can return cargo in volume. Technically Soyuz can bring stuff back, but only a few hundred pounds.
NASA's Earth Observing System produces a lot of data. NASA's landsat program began in the early 1970s, so the notion of launching satellites to observe the earth's surface is not especially new.
Nope, what's new is ignoring all the observations to further a political agenda.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
NASA's bureaucracy has had a long history driven into the ditch by Congress. No system can survive to function in any meaningful way when someone is constantly turning the steering wheel every which way while simultaneously and randomly jabbing the clutch, the brake, the accelerator, flipping switches and levers back and forth in the manner of a spastic three year old whom just finished downing the entire sugar bowl and six cans of Red Bull.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
so not reusable is a price of approximately 100 million for a man rated mission. divided by 7, that is 14 million a seat. with a reusable first stage booster that is used for say 5 missions, you can get the mission down to 45 million. this puts per seat down to 6 million.
for the cost of a single seat on a crap can soyuz, spacex could launch seven astronauts, with much of the charge to launch another 7 banked up. The russians can suck it. Hell, NASA could build a whole new station launched on spaceX launchers for cheaper then maintaining that clusterfuck, and sell the other parts to the russians so they can fuck around with that weird orbit. Invite the canadians, euros, canadians, and everybody not russian and chinese into the fold.
And they probably should not be priorities. Manned space flight is pointless except for raising ant farm colonies in space or whatever other "science" the ISS folks are doing to justify the cost of life support in an environment better suited to remote operations and robots. We have zero need for the ISS. Deorbit the albatross, send robots out to explore other planets, and let real science move on.
what i don't get is .. if these congress critters are so stupid and incompetent, how are they fucking up the country so quickly and effectively? Savant-ism? :(
You may have been modded flamebait, but I think insightfully funny would be more apropos.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Because politicians oversold the Shuttle as cheap and reusable, and NASA didn't prepare a suitable replacement before its retirement.
If you think you can do it cheaper USA, go for it. Otherwise don't complain about how much another country charges you.
It is much easier to destroy than to build.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
They will run them until a replacement is ready. They have already started on the design for the replacement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And they will not retire the first Ohio until the replacement is in service
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Curse you! The mere suggestion brings a tear to my remaining eye.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
It's not fraud, it's capitalism. Even if seats went from $22 to $71 million, it's up to us to decide how much we're willing to pay before we say it's too expensive. The cost of the launches to the Russians is irrelevant. They should be looking to price their launches as high as possible, up to the maximum we are willing to pay. Any less and they have lost potential profits. Any more and they would lose the sale. If we spend less using the Russians than we would have using the shuttles than it's a win win situation. If not, well, then we choose poorly.
horseshit. There was the X-33 which died because of costs and projected technical issues.
Then there was the Constellation Program which was proposed by Dubya after the Columbia disaster and proposed to re-use technologies learned from Apollo and the Shuttle. It was actually going quite well but budget concerns crept in and it was de-funded in the 2011 Federal Budget and with that we now have the situation where the Shuttles were retired, we have no manned capability and we were expected to spend $6Billion on ferrying astronauts using Russian rockets. Of course real American heroes (Armsrtrong, Lovell, Cernan that have been to the Moon argued against killing Constellation but we now have Bolden who couldn't find his ass in broad daylight with both hands and now we are where we are with just continuing the Orion capsule development and choosing a heavy lift engine by 2015..
It wasn't NASA not preparing for a replacement after the shuttle, it's more or less the large behemoth that is NASA for not getting something in place quicker.
In order to make significant investments like this for Space exploration, it takes substantial amounts of money and the political will to accomplish that if you're going after federal dollars. Unfortunately with continual trillion dollar plus deficits I fear we're going to have to get away from the NASA side of the equation and push to more private enterprise to get back to the moon or mars for that matter. Or we'll just watch the Chinese and Russians do it and say "woulda, shoulda, coulda"
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
When you're trying to move into a new market, you set your prices as low as possible, even running at below profitable. Once you get the market sown up, you raise prices to whatever the market will bear, being careful not to raise them enough to motivate competition entering the market.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Will SpaceX reuse manned launchers? At least in the immediate future. The worst that could happen to SpaceX is a disastrous failure on one of its early manned flights and they'd be smart to spend money to avoid that. Of course they could reuse for unmanned launches and still save money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
[...] send robots out to explore other planets, and let real science move on.
What's sad is that you figure that the robots are doing "real science."
Remember that "real science" is pretty boring to most people. The conclusions are interesting but the actual study, hypotheses, testing--y'know, that whole "scientific method" stuff--is pretty damn dull unless it's something you're specifically interested and knowledgeable about. There is plenty of "real science" happening on ISS but since most of us don't understand it, we poo-poo it. Heck, just look at the information returned on the last Dragon capsule. Boring shit, right?
The robots, as you imply, are doing exploration, which is a bit more exciting. "What's over the next hill?" is a far more exciting question than "Why is that hill there?" The first one is exploration. The second one is "real science."
Russia is enjoying all the benefits of a Capitalist Free Market and America is crying about it.
Swallow a teaspoon of cement and HARDEN UP people!
You VERY SUCCESSFULLY engineered yourself into a situation where you have NO OTHER OPTION and you ONLY NOW wonder why it's so freakin expensive?
THE WORLD IS FULL OF IDIOTS, POLITICIANS DON'T UNDERSTAND CONSEQUENCES BEYOND THE NEXT ELECTION, TANSTAAFL, YMMV, Murphy Rules.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Yes, however because government can alter both revenue and expenditures every year, the point is moot. The difference in accounting needs to be applied to all things if you're going to apply it to one, and we can see the ridiculousness of the accrual method for a government by looking at the USPS. USPS is making a profit each year, until you factor in the pre-paid payments they've been forced to make for pensions for 75 years in advance. They are paying right now for the retirement of workers who will not be born for another 20-40 years.
And lets be sure to make people perfectly aware of the situation. Your statement "Under accrual accounting ("generally accepted accounting principles"), which the government does not have to follow, SS and Medicare did not run surpluses" tries to insinuate that somehow government has exempted themselves from using proper accounting methods. They have not. Both accounting methods are equally valid, and both are generally accepted. Because you would prefer them to use something other than what they use does not diminish the validity of what they are using.
Because we're talking about the US government, the big reasons a PAYG basis is not looked on favorably for businesses are moot. Cash flow changes are mostly immaterial, and the lack of security is moot; the worlds financial reserves are in dollars.... that alone is a form of security no other entity can hope to achieve. As for tax considerations, well, that's entirely moot to this specific discussion. So you're left with a valid accepted accounting practice.
So until the US government switches to an accrual basis, which will be never, what you've said is moot. In addition to that, it's not entirely a PAYG basis, as it does accumulate funds and is not limited in payouts purely on the revenues of a given year. The Social Security fund is in the black for 20+ years.
But lets go back to that F-35 program. Under your accrual method, that would be 1.4 trillion dollars taken out of the functioning budget of the US, and more every year as they reevaluate the cost of the program... and that program has ballooned in cost incredibly fast.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Not anymore; now we can do both at the same time! According to myth, the Earth was created in six days. Now, watch out! Here comes Genesis! We'll do it for you in six minutes! -- Bones
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Re-usability drives UP costs, not down. You have to take the whole thing apart and rebuild everything, and you have to make everything stronger to take repeated use. Both of those drive UP the cost of the equipment. It's like a reusable bottle costs more to make than a disposable one.
Competition drives down prices. If they underbid the Russians then they will also drop prices to regain the market. The only other option is SpaceX making a deal with the Russians to split the launches.
Your math doesn't include the cost of refurbishing the rocket after each flight. Expect that to be around 90% or more of the cost of building the thing in the first place.
In my last 37 years of experience in the space industry, "reusable" means "costs more per launch" in every single example. I haven't worked man-rated programs directly, but the goals are often similar between the two, but the Design Assurance Level for man-rated prevents re-use of components.
The question is how that reusability is being performed. I would at least suggest to look at the Grasshopper & Falcon 9R program to respond so far as what reusability will bring in the context that SpaceX is proposing.
If there had to be a difference, it is because SpaceX is depending on the resue of the Falcon 9 to cut its operating costs.... either to increase profits or to increase its market share (and SpaceX has been doing plenty of both at the moment). They have a clear incentive for getting the launch costs down, something that is not as important with a cost-plus contract procured under base-line budgeting where any cost savings in a government program results in a lower budget the following year. There is a definite disincentive on the part of program managers to reduce actual costs in most government run programs.
That is also true for almost any other endeavor that the government is working in, but spaceflight only makes it much more pronounced.
The reason why SpaceX was founded in the first place is because the Russians at first agreed to sell an ICBM to Elon Musk, then later renigged on the agreement saying that he was just a stupid idiot who didn't really want to get into space in the first place and to leave that to people smarter than himself.
Yeah, this is very personal for Elon Musk, where undercutting the Russians so horribly that they are stuck only with Russian national security launches is sort of a personal goal.
In the near future will SpaceX reuse their launchers? Not likely, but it really doesn't matter. Even treating the Falcon 9 as a purely expendable vehicle is still cheaper than what any of their competition can do for sending people and cargo into space.
The only thing that is really biting SpaceX hard in the behind at the moment is simply their lack of clearing their manifest and crazy mishaps like the Helium leaks and problems they are facing right now to get their next launch into the sky. It should have happened about a week ago but apparently was a larger problem than anybody expected.... discovered during a "static fire" test where the whole rocket was tested at KSC in a dress rehearsal prior to launch.
At this point, I think a "disasterous failure" would be an "abort to orbit" scenerio where multiple engines fail just before orbital insertion. Critics would call it a failure but the SpaceX PR team would call it a success and everybody would be bitching about it for years.
Unfortunately with rocket development you deal with hard realities due to physics and the rocket equation. Those are things that Congress routinely tries to ignore and unfortunately don't really result in a usable rocket if they are ignored for other political considerations.
Khrushchev at least recognized he needed to give Sergei Korolev the money needed to put stuff into space, but then again even the Soviet Union fell to political games, hence at least one of the reasons why the N1 program (aka the "moon rocket" that should have put Russian cosmonauts on the Moon) fell apart and killed so many people. That disaster is still counted as one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in human history.
At least NASA and especially Werner Von Braun never had to deal with that kind of disaster.
Falcon Heavy will be able to put kilos into orbit. The entire space station is listed at 419,455 k. So this thing could throw the entire space station up in just 8 launches. (including mass only, ignoring physical size limitations) AND Falcon Heavy will be the cheapest $/lbs rate of all time, at less than $1000/pound as compared to the shuttle's over $8000 per pound. It might have been able to do it for less than it cost to do a single shuttle mission.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I guess it depends on how many times you reuse it. At some point the reusable bottle is cheaper when compared to 10 disposable ones. But with the stress these things are going through, I wonder how many times any single part will be able to be reused.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Ob. Cyanide and Happiness
http://explosm.net/comics/3557...
"It's like a reusable bottle costs more to make than a disposable one." However, SpaceX's reusable launcher is their expendable launcher. It's the same hardware. Essentially, they are just looking at how many times they can reuse their "disposable bottle".
The Shuttle has poisoned the idea of reusability, but the Shuttle was never really suited to be reusable. Every system pushed the state-of-the-art to its limit - engines, heat-shield, tank, boosters - rather than taking what was then known (Saturn II, Saturn V, etc) and saying, "Can we save money by recovering/reusing a first-stage/capsule?" and then spending a decade gradually working outwards from that.
"You have to take the whole thing apart and rebuild everything". The system has been designed for the engines to be quickly removed and swapped out. (For example, they've removed engines, fixed valves, restored everything and re-prepped for launch within a day. IIRC, they've swapped out an engine on a vehicle at the Cape in 5 hours.)
Once they regularly recover stages, the recovered engines will all go into an engine-pool, where they will be tested individually; nine working engines will be fitted to a first stage and test fired together. Then the full rocket is assembled, raised onto the launch-pad and test fired again the day before launch. But the thing is...
"and you have to make everything stronger to take repeated use." But the thing is... they do the same thing with new engines anyway! Every engine is test fired at least three times between manufacture and launch. It's how they are designed. So it's not an extra "reusability" procedure, an extra cost, it's what they already do; and, according to Musk, it's not only a small part of SpaceX's launch cost, it's one of the reasons their costs are so low. So if you have already designed them for multiple-uses, it's pretty unlikely they'll work exactly four times and then suddenly stop. (Apparently they've test fired the engines dozens of times. So the only issue is whether there's additional wear/damage during actual flight that shortens the life. And recovering a few first stages would be a great way to have a look, yes?)
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
What on Earth (or in space) are you on about? Progress has a payload of less than 2.5 tonnes, and has no reentry vehicle. The Soyuz capsule has a cargo down-mass of 100kg in addition to the three crew. There's no pure cargo version of the Soyuz re-entry capsule, but the total down-mass looks like around 400kg including crew. The Soyuz (R7-based) launcher can lift over 7 tonnes to LEO. Is that what you are getting confused with?
By comparison, Dragon cargo capsule has a carrying capacity of 4.2 tonnes (3.3 tonnes to ISS), and can return 2.5 tonnes to Earth. F9 launcher can lift around 13 tonnes to LEO.
Cygnus can carry about 2 tonnes, but has no return vehicle. (Though, like Progress (and the Dragon trunk) it can burn up waste.) The Antares launcher can lift around 5 tonnes to LEO.
The ATV can carry about 7 tonnes to ISS. But also has no return vehicle. It also has systems to automatically transfer fuel, water, oxygen to the ISS storage tanks; and fully automated docking systems. The Ariane 5 launcher can put 21 tonnes into LEO.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
In the near future will SpaceX reuse their launchers? Not likely,
Their current plan is apparently to recover (on land) a first stage before the end of the year, and attempt to re-fly some time next year. There's been speculation that they might initially mix recovered engines with new engines to reduce risk. But who knows.
(All ISS missions are contractually required to use new stages and new capsules. That will leave SpaceX with a bunch of left over used stages and capsules... and eventually someone will agree to pay, say, $10m in order to launch their experiment, or themselves.)
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
So, your argument is that a fully reusable Falcon will reduce costs to launch by ~8%?
I'm curious, do you have any basis for this belief?
Obviously, SpaceX doesn't believe this to be true, or they wouldn't bother doing it - massive amounts of work for an 8% savings aren't worth the bother (it's not like their prices aren't already the lowest in the world).
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It's easier to destroy then create. We march onward to Idiocracy.
I think it should count as a surplus in this case when revenue exceeds expenses. After all, the government really has nowhere to put the extra $100 if it takes in $1000 in taxes and only pays out $900 in benefits. They buy treasury bills perhaps, but that's just another way of spending the extra $100, since money you loan the government is spent.
I think, by the way that both democrats and republicans miscount these issues in their own ways. Democrats always want to point to the Social Security trust fund, for example, but that is silly. That money was loaned to the government, and it will require a reduction in spending elsewhere or a raise in taxes elsewhere to pay the money back.
So, while I would count it as surplus when revenue exceed expense (for one year) I would also count it as deficit when expense exceeds income. According to the SSA, that started happening in 2010, "Social Security’s total expenditures have exceeded non-interest income of its combined trust funds since 2010, and the Trustees estimate that Social Security cost will exceed non-interest income throughout the 75-year projection period."
On Social Security statements, they tell you what your benefit will be at your retirement age. They also predict what percentage of benefits will be covered by receipts on that date, based on population dynamics. For my retirement age, that's about 70%. Social Security taxes will only be able to pay a bit more than 2/3 of the benefits promised when I retire.
That's the amount I use for retirement planning, by the way. I don't think Social Security will "go away" but it's inevitable that the amount awarded can't indefinitely exceed the receipts, and I don't think it is sensible to plan for the full amount.
The USPS is a bad comparison to make. The USPS pension fund is a public pension fund, whereas social security (OASDI) and Medicare are social insurance programs. There are good reasons why the accounting for these should be different. In fact, the issue that you point out with the USPS pension fund arose when they forced a public pension plan (the USPS) to check for actuarial balance similar to a social insurance program (the 75 year long-term actuarial balance), instead of the simple employer accounting basis under GASB 68 (which is similar to the FAS 87/88 standard for private firms)
I am not arguing that PAYG is the *worst* accounting for social insurance programs, and in fact I don't think that. There are many good reasons why PAYG with some sort of short term/long term checks of actuarial balance *can* be appropriate measures for the health of a social insurance plan. However, OP said OASDI and Medicare are in SURPLUS, full stop, and I think that greatly oversimplifies the issues involved.
Disclaimer: I am an actuary, but no longer in active practice.
It depends on your definition of important data. A thousand pages of unmanned data aren't worth one trip when we are truly trying to gauge how humans react in space.
The ultimate goal is trying to get humans in space for long term travel and colonization.
Maybe the OWNER of said contracting company is, but the worker bees on site surely are not.
The reflight of their 1st stage will simply not happen before the end of the year. Period. They are struggling far too much to simply get the current manifest going at the moment. Besides, SpaceX has an aggressive program with their Falcon 9R test project in New Mexico to perform well before they get a 1st stage ready for full reflight after landing a couple stages and then tearing them apart for engineering studies if they are even successful at landing those stages.
SpaceX doesn't even have clearance from the FAA-AST to land the 1st stage on land, nor is there any location at KSC for them to put the stage down. SpaceX is trying to find a spot and the Cape Canaveral Air Station staff is performing an assessment as to where they could put a landing pad for SpaceX to use, but let's see that built first before any further speculation as to a time table for when it might be used. The bureaucratic paper mill to get that landing pad will take more than a year alone, and that doesn't even include construction and FAA-AST certification for a process that simply lack regulations of any kind (yet more of a delay for just that).
Don't get me wrong, SpaceX will get that going with the progress they've been making, and I'm not trying to suggest SpaceX will fail with their landing attempts, just that it is going to take a whole lot more time to get all of that accomplished. Three to five years from now will we see the 1st stages reused? That is something I could see. Ten years from now that they could routinely be used for crewed flights perhaps as well. I wouldn't expect anything like that done earlier.
The N1 was a giant fiasco and it was doomed due to the same budgetary issues that plagued the US program. Unlike the US however if Von Braun and his team had failed, he probably wouldn't have been sent to Siberia to mine peat.
Also let's never associate members of congress with knowing anything about science or math or anything actually requiring much thought. That way we will never be disappointed when they cavalierly cut programs and focus on retarded issues that have no strategic bearing for the nation. As they say, "Bread and Circuses" right?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Well, if there ever was a better time to plug Niel De Grass Tyson's "Penny 4 NASA" campaign, I can't think of one. http://www.penny4nasa.org/
They had nine launches in 4 years. Of those the first 5 took 39 months. The next 4 took 8 months.
At that rate of acceleration, they should easily be down to 1 per month by the end of the year.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
It would be nice if such acceleration actually applied to human endeavors and logistics. I think the 4 launches per 8 months is likely the best you are going to see from SpaceX for awhile until they get pad 39A finished and/or the Brownsville site.