3 Congressmen Trying To Tie Up SpaceX

An anonymous reader writes: Phil Plait reports that a trio of U.S. Congressmen are asking NASA to investigate what they call "an epidemic of anomalies" at SpaceX. They sent a memo (PDF) demanding that SpaceX be held accountable to taxpayers for mission delays stemming from the development of new rockets. Plait notes, "[A]s a contractor, the rules are different for them than they would be if NASA themselves built the rockets, just as the rules are for Boeing or any other contractor. In fact, as reported by Space News, NASA didn't actually pay for the development of the Falcon 9; Elon Musk did." He adds, "Another reason this is silly is that every rocket ever made has undergone problems; they are fiendishly complex machines and no design has ever gotten from the drafting board to the launch pad without issues. Sure, SpaceX has experienced launch delays and other problems, but the critical thing to remember is that those problems are noted, assessed, and fixed sometimes within hours or minutes." Plait accuses the congressmen of trying to bury private spaceflight under red tape in order to protect established industries in their own states.

Comments

What?

[cheesybagel]

rules are different for them than they would be if NASA themselves built the rockets

NASA does not build a damned thing. ULA (Lockheed Martin, Boeing) builds the EELV rockets. SLS is being build by ATK while Orion is built by Lockheed Martin.

This is just ULA being afraid they will lose their iron rice bowl.

Re:What?

[TWX]

It's always amused me when people are hypocrites. It also always saddens me when these hypocrites are in a position to do something terrible because of their hypocrisy.

It also strikes me as specious, at best, that they're complaining about a project that's arguably the most timely and successful-out-the-gate in the history of the American space program, if not humanity's combined space programs.

But I guess that when one can afford to buy a senator, one makes that senator bark whatever line one wants regardless of its veracity or even sense.

Re:What?

[starless]

NASA does not build a damned thing.

NASA builds lots of things, including scientific instruments and spacecraft. (Even if spacecraft are typically outsourced).
Although indeed it doesn't build launch vehicles.

Re:What?

[smooth wombat]

This is just ULA being afraid they will lose their iron rice bowl.

Well duh! Wouldn't you do the same thing? I mean, it's not like the government creates jobs or anything.

For those not getting the sarcasm, one side of the political spectrum repeatedly trots out the mantra that the government does not create jobs, yet, using this situation, quite clearly the government does create jobs or these Congressman wouldn't be trying to prevent layoffs at these companies if they were to lose government business from the space program.

Re:What?

[rahvin112]

I thought ULA convincing the government to advance purchase 2 years of launches (2billion dollars) a month before SpaceX qualified their rockets was an accurate picture of how Lockheed and Boeing intend to compete which is they intend to use government to prevent SpaceX from competing.

Re:What?

[Talderas]

Well duh! Wouldn't you do the same thing? I mean, it's not like the government creates jobs or anything.

For those not getting the sarcasm, one side of the political spectrum repeatedly trots out the mantra that the government does not create jobs, yet, using this situation, quite clearly the government does create jobs or these Congressman wouldn't be trying to prevent layoffs at these companies if they were to lose government business from the space program.

The argument is that the government doesn't create wealth. While you can look at defense contractors as the government creating jobs it is at best intellectually dishonest. The government doesn't create wealth, it acquires from other parties and redistributes it to further parties. Those first parties, from which the taxes are collected, would have been otherwise able to use those tax monies which would have stimulated other businesses and created the need and opportunities for jobs. Now these specific jobs probably wouldn't exist and the jobs that would be here may not be as well paying but in a climate where we consider part time jobs replacing full time positions to be job creation, I hardly think that matters.

Re:What?

[ColdWetDog]

It's easier to innovate while standing on the shoulders of giants. Without the space program there wouldn't be any technology available for SpaceX to build upon. Get over your Libertarian delusions.

It's not like Boeing, Lockheed and the ULA don't have access to 'those giant's shoulders' is it?

Re:What?

[osu-neko]

Well, if you're going to go that route, the contractors don't build anything either, they just arrange/rearrange the materials they're given. By that standard, nothing's ever been built on Earth, we're just assembling stuff left over from the last local supernova.

By any reasonable definition, NASA builds a lot of stuff.

Re:What?

[MightyYar]

Republicans often DO make the argument that the "government doesn't create jobs".

While I don't agree with their claim, you are seriously misrepresenting their point. They aren't saying that the government doesn't hire people - that would be very stupid. They argue that the government has to take resources from someone else in order to pay that person. Those resources could be used otherwise in the economy, such that you are eliminating a job's worth of economic activity in order to create a job.

Boeing doesn't create wealth either.

They most certainly do! Every generation of plane that they have created is more efficient, safer, and easier to maintain than previous generations. The plane is a tool for other people to use to make money.

Where I part ways with the "government doesn't create jobs" people is that the view is too extreme. You can look hard and find instances of government creating wealth. They also completely ignore the fact that corporations are in fact granted a charter by the government and have very strong ties to the government. Their argument would better be stated as: in general, private enterprise is more efficient than government. That isn't as sexy, though. But don't completely dismiss their point, and if you do don't try to do it by playing games with language.

Re:What?

[rahvin112]

You don't honestly think that contract was totally preplanned for years and that the government always purchases rockets in blocks that large do you?

IMO that contract originated because ULA went to their government handlers and cajoled them into releasing the RFP before SpaceX could qualify. It is my understanding that the government does buy rockets in groups, but a 2 year 20 rocket group is unheard of and that this was the largest rocket purchase the government has ever made. ULA's salespeople will have personal relationships with all the contracting people in government. My bet is that ULA hoped by locking SpaceX out of the market for 2 years they would go bankrupt before they could go after another contract.

There should be a massive investigation going on for how that contract originated, why it's so large and what the relationships are between the ULA people and the government contracting officers.

Re:What?

[SillyHamster]

Yes. The argument is that if you call a large organization a government, it doesn't create wealth, whereas if you call it a corporation, it magically does... by acquiring money from some parties and redistributing it to further parties.

Yeah, the magic of labels.

That and the fact that the government collects that money by force, while the corporation has to give you enough value to make you voluntarily trade money for their product. Slightly different incentive structure there.

In the end, the same amount of money is in the economy, and the same amount is in the hands of other businesses, all that's changed is which specific businesses have it, what work is actually done, and who benefits from the work done.

It's all the same if you throw out all the differences.

Re:What?

[qeveren]

Remember, the instant the government spends money, it vanishes down a black hole, disappearing entirely without any positive effect on the economy. The government paying companies to make things for them in no way creates any value whatsoever, nope. Better to just cut taxes because, as everyone knows, demand follows supply and not the other way around!

Re:What?

[Teancum]

It would be amazing if Lockheed-Martin simply developed an advanced attack fighter and offered it up for sale to any government who wanted it. The problem with the F-35 program is that it has precisely a single customer, the U.S. government. This is really a monopsony situation where potentially many people could sell stuff to the government, but there is only one buyer.

If, on the other hand, every state's Air National Guard had the option of spending their portion of their military budget as they saw fit (to give an example), at least there would be multiple customers potentially for this airplane and be assured that they could sell at least a few of them. Or if the government of America wasn't so paranoid about potential future enemies of America getting advanced aircraft (like how Howard Hughes designed the Japanese Zeros that bombed Pearl Harbor), they might have other customers there as well.

Luckily for SpaceX, they have other customers for their launch services. So much so that over half of their manifest is for non-government contracts, not to mention about half of their launches to date have also been for non-government customers too. That is what makes the situation with SpaceX so different, and why ULA is having a hard time trying to compete with SpaceX to the point they are encouraging congressmen to write silly letters like the one mentioned in the original post. The European Space Agency, explicitly Arianespace (the manufacturer of the ESA's launch fleet), is definitely in a panic trying to figure out how to compete against SpaceX and win back the customers now lost to SpaceX. If they don't change, the ESA will be stuck launching only payloads for European governments alone... but that is precisely the situation that ULA sits in right now in terms of only flying payloads for the U.S. government.

Re:What?

[kpainter]

You ought to read this and the origins of ULA.
thespacereview.com
and this
seattle times

You don't say....

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, about that F-35 fighterplane - will we have a working/function version before it becomes obsolete? And how many more trillions of dollars do you need to complete it?

Re:You don't say....

[torkus]

If the SpaceX rocket is obsolete(or too trouble-prone), all other rockets in the world are also. To make a space rocket which is not already obsolete (or too trouble-prone) requires trillions of dollars*. No one has come up with a way to build a practical space rocket which is not complicated and expensive.

*actually if you build the thing on your own instead of doing things the "right" way per the US gov't you can drop that by a few orders of magnitude.

Are they "small government" republicans ? he he

[gurps_npc]

All three are Republicans that claim to want "small government", yet they insist that private contractors abide by the same rules that government agencies do - even when the contractors are cheaper and safer than than the government agencies last attempt.

Does the (R) after name stand for "Reprobate"?

Re:Are they "small government" republicans ? he he

[gstoddart]

Amazing how often what they say contradicts what they actually do.

Republicans are as much about red tape and regulation as anybody else -- the only difference is what they think they should be free from regulation, and what they feel they should be able to impose on others through regulation.

They want to ensure business and (their) religion is protected, and everybody else is on their own.

Re:Are they "small government" republicans ? he he

[Bodhammer]

It stands for RINO - these clowns are being bought off by ULA (http://www.ulalaunch.com/) just like the bought and paid for dems (http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000057934) . SpaceX is threat for those that suckle at the big government teat...

Re:Are they "small government" republicans ? he he

[JackieBrown]

Which is why we have the Tea Party now. People were fed up with the Republicans... even other Republicans.

That said, the media have done a great job painting every extremist as the face of the Tea Party (even when that extremist isn't even part of the Tea Party.)

Re:Are they "small government" republicans ? he he

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I assure ypu, Democrats do not want to open the can of worms of "who grants the most rent-seeking" laws and red tape to protect interests.

That's why they seek power in both parties. To get in the way to benefit someone, or extort someone.

Re:Are they "small government" republicans ? he he

[ShanghaiBill]

There is nothing wrong with being an extremist. Most problems in America are caused by the centrists, not the extremists.
Extreme right: Cut spending to equal revenue.
Extreme left: Raise revenue to equal spending.
Center: Continue to give everyone whatever they want, and borrow money from China to pay for it.

Re:Are they "small government" republicans ? he he

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. I think that's the first time I've ever seen someone attempt to demonize the non-extremists.

Re:Are they "small government" republicans ? he he

[thaylin]

I am pretty sure the centralist argument is raise revenue and cut spending, not borrow money from china, that is pretty extreme.

Re:Are they "small government" republicans ? he he

[mi]

All three are Republicans that claim to want "small government"

At least, we know of their party-affiliation from the article. Had the gentlemen been Democrats, the affiliation would've been omitted.

insist that private contractors abide by the same rules that government agencies do

This is not, in itself outrageous or even stupid. Should an orbit-bound rocket lose control, for example, the results may well be far more disastrous than 9/11...

even when the contractors are cheaper and safer than than the government agencies last attempt.

Perhaps, they borrowed the illogic from the Labor Unions? You know, the guys, who insist, foreign manufacturing be following the same procedures and workers be paid the same as in here?

Re:Are they "small government" republicans ? he he

[mi]

There is nothing wrong with being an extremist.

There may well be in certain cases — but it is not (or should not be) a dirty word, I agree.

Yes, although one point of view may be better than another, a compromise is often worse than either of the "extremes"...

Re:Are they "small government" republicans ? he he

[ShanghaiBill]

I am pretty sure the centralist argument is raise revenue and cut spending, not borrow money from china, that is pretty extreme.

It doesn't matter what they "argue", it only matters what they do. Centrists don't argue for deficit spending, but they certainly vote for it.

Implausible.

[Sox2]

Plait accuses the congressmen of trying to bury private spaceflight under red tape in order to protect established industries in their own states

This seems highly unlikely - I can't think of a single example of congressmen doing something like this before.

Re:Implausible.

[torkus]

...especially not to another of Elon's companies.

Sometimes the best measure of success is how hard other people try to hold you back or stop you.

Alabama

[OverlordQ]

Alabama, home of the Marshall Space Flight Center, which is NASAs rocketry and spacecraft research center. Nah, no way this is a political move to protect their investment.

Politicians - Ignorant, Stupid, or Conmen?

[meerling]

"...ranging from “multiple” helium leaks..."
It's not a balloon, it's a rocket. I'm not aware of them using Helium, though they are know to use huge quantities of Liquid Hydrogen.

"...release all anomalies and mishap information, un-redacted, so that Congress can gain a better understanding of what has occurred and ensure full transparency..."
Do you mean like you have all other PRIVATE CONTRACTORS do? Oh wait, you don't. Of course, as stated, no huge system is ever without issues. The real question is are they fixed, and in a timely manner. In the case of SpaceX, yes. And by the way, SpaceX hasn't had 3 different crews killed in accidents, unlike NASA.

"Again, because the vehicles in question were funded by American taxpayer dollars, there should be no issue in making this report publicly available,"
Wrong again douchebag, they were funded by Elon Musk, not the government.

As to the question I posed in the subject line, I don't actually know the answer, but I suspect it's "all of the above".

This gave me a chuckle

[tibit]

"an epidemic of anomalies" ha ha, good one. Falcon 9 had 11/11 primary mission successes on the first 11 flights. That sort of a track record is very, very rare. Space Shuttle did it. What other launcher had the same record? Never mind the overall cost of achieving it. If one adjusts for successes per dollar of development costs, Falcon 9 will have everyone beat for a long, long time, if they keep at it.

Re:This gave me a chuckle

[torkus]

I'm pretty sure at this rate the Falcon 9 beats every other space delivery system in cost by far (both development and recurring) and reliability (so far at least).

Granted they've had the entire history of space exploration as a guide towards their design...but then again any other company in the space game has access to at least the same information. I'm pretty sure the contractors and companies that built the shuttle and other rockets actually have significantly MORE information than is publicly available on top of it.

Yet who do we see actually DOING this? Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way. It amazes me that the 'leadership' in the US can't understand that basic axiom.

Outsource to Russia

[Major Byte]

Perhaps these representatives imagine American taxpayers prefer US space exploration remain outsourced to Russia? The reps in question are: Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.)

Follow the money

[director_mr]

I think you will find that those Republicans have industries that compete with Space X in their districts. This means Space X is doing so well they feel the industries in their own districts will lose money. Perhaps you could appeal to Republicans who don't have competing space industries in their district. But complaining about this as if its just republicans doing this is disingenuous. Politicians do this to give industries in their state and edge all the time.

Phil Plait:
"That’s why this whole thing looks to me to be a transparent attempt from members of our Congress to hinder a privately owned company that threatens their own interests. I’ll note that Boeing (the major SLS contractor) has a big plant in Alabama, Brooks’ (and Shelby’s) home state, and United Launch Alliance has its HQ in Colorado, home to Gardner and Coffman (it’s even in Coffman’s district). This sounds more like they’re trying to protect their own turf more than honestly wanting transparency from SpaceX."

You can read that here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad...

Re:Follow the money

[Xaedalus]

Those senators are doing exactly what they should be doing: protecting the interests of their constituents. If SpaceX continues to be effective and successful, then Boeing and ULA will start losing money, and that means they'll start cutting back on employment at those factories, which are in the jurisdiction of those senators. Which means unemployed voters, and large amounts of unemployed voters trump any economic benefit that cheaper spaceflight may bring. Especially when we're talking working class people who are unable to migrate to new jobs/locations. Before that happens, a lot of the potentially affected voters (and their employers) are hiring lobbyists to advocate on their behalf to stop SpaceX by any means necessary. This is exactly how democracy functions, and those senators are doing their jobs--as much as we may dislike it.

You keep using that word

[gman003]

In the letter, they keep going on about anomalies. They don't understand what those are.

Anomalies are not (necessarily) defects, or errors, or problems. Anomalies are deviations from the norm - something that isn't perfect.

I tried to find an example Space Shuttle mission that I could use to compare, but I can't even find a comprehensive list of "anomalies". I can find rollbacks, where the problem required bringing the vehicle back to the assembly building, but I can't find a list even of countdown stops.

Rockets are expensive. When you see a potential problem, you fix it even if there's a 90% chance of it being fine anyways. You don't take risks. For SpaceX, their caution has paid off in a near-100% success rate (one secondary payload was lost after an engine failed on CRS-1. NASA forbade the second burn to insert the secondary payload because the engine failure had reduced the odds of success to 95%).

Further, these are civilian launch vehicles, not missiles. A missile, you expect to be high-reliability, low-maintenance and weather-tolerant. You can't cancel a battle just because a hurricane is coming and you're not sure it can stand up to the wind. But these are civilian rockets - the increased payload and decreased cost you get from not having to battle-harden everything is worth the cost of having to delay the launch if something looks a bit iffy and they want to make sure it's not going to break and wreck your multi-million-dollar payload.

Oh, and then they somehow argue that having several billion dollars worth of flights sold is a bad thing. They frame it as "SpaceX is too slow to keep up with demand", when really it's "the demand is too high for SpaceX to keep up". They have missions sold out to 2019, and on many of them the payload isn't even ready yet. Replace SpaceX with even a perfect ideal, with an infinite supply of ready-to-launch rockets, and those seven Iridium-NEXT launches won't be happening until the actual payloads are done, the next five ISS resupply missions won't happen until the ISS needs the supplies, and the Falcon 9 Heavy test launch won't happen until that rocket is ready.

Re:Not So Fast...

[tibit]

I keep hearing this nonsense, and I can't help but imagine that it's coming straight from the ULA puppets. Nobody is given any free passes. They are contracted to deliver stuff to orbit, not to build rockets for the government. The safety and reliability standards are of not much use if you're being paid (or not) for service. The only ones hurting if a Falcon blows up are SpaceX and cargo insurers: the former won't get paid, the latter will have to pay up. That's all there's to it.

So far, Falcon 9 hasn't blown up once. You're just repeating the stupid ULA nonsense. Stop it.

Follow the funding

[pr0t0]

Thanks to the awesome new browser plug-in called Greenhouse (how has this not been on slashdot?), here's a little context.

Congressman Mo Brooks gets his biggest financial contributions from the aerospace industry. Among his top-10 contributors are Lockheed Martin (1), Northrup Grumman (2), Boeing (6), and Raytheon(10).

Both congressmen Coffman and Gardner have Koch Industries in their top-10 at 7 and 5 respectively. At first, this didn't mean much to me, but I found the coincidence intriguing so I dug deeper. Koch Industries purchased Molex, Inc. in December for $7.2 billion. Among other things, Molex makes wiring and connectors for defense and aerospace. Is that enough to push a couple of congress critters to voice concerns about Space X? I don't know, but following the money is usually a good first step in determining motive.

11 out of 11

[gman003]

Let's see...
Ariane 1 - second and fifth launches failed
Ariane 2 - only 6 launches, first failed
Ariane 3 - fifth launch failed
Ariane 4 - eighth launch failed
Ariane 5 - first launch failed, two partial failures in first 11
Atlas A - only 8 launches, 5 failed
Atlas B - only 10 launches, 3 failed
Atlas C - only 6 launches, 2 failed
Delta - first launch failed
Delta II - first eleven successful
Falcon 1 - only five launches, first three failed
Falcon 9 - first eleven launches successful, although a secondary payload on the fourth launch was aborted as a precaution
Long March 1 - only 2 launches, both successful
Long March 2 - first launch failed
Long March 3 - no complete failures in first 11, but 1 and 8 were partial failures
N-1 - only four launches, all failed horribly
Proton - third launch failed
Proton-K - second, third, fourth and sixth launches failed
Proton-M - eleventh launch failed
Saturn I - only ten launches, all successful
Saturn IB - only nine launches, all successful (unless you count Apollo 1 - it didn't launch but still killed three astronauts)
Saturn V - second launch (Apollo 6) failed, Apollo 13 doesn't count because it was a payload, not launcher, failure
Soyuz - third launch failed, with fatalities
Soyuz-U - seventh launch failed
Soyuz-FG - first eleven launches successful
Space Shuttle - first eleven successful (19th was first partial failure (ATO), 25th was first full failure)
Titan I - fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth and tenth launches failed
Titan II - ninth and eleventh launches failed
Titan III - first and sixth launches failed
Titan IV - seventh launch failed
Zenit-2 - first and second launches failed

Yep, getting zero failures in your first eleven launches is pretty damn rare.

So do something

[whistlingtony]

Don't complain about it here. Don't argue about Republicans vs. Democrats on a forum. That's useless. Reach out. Make yourself heard. If you're a constituent of these guys, ruin their names a little bit.... Talk to your neighbors about them, and then TELL THEM YOU'RE DOING IT. Representative democracy only works if you make the representatives listen to you.

Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) : http://coffman.house.gov/ Phone: 202.225.7882

Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) : http://brooks.house.gov/ Phone: 202.225.4801 Snicker. That's the War on Whites guy. :D

Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) : http://gardner.house.gov/ Phone: (202) 225-4676

I listed the DC phone numbers, but you can go to the bottom of their web pages and call their home offices too. Ask them why they're trying to bury one of America's leading space companies in red tape. Ask them why they appear to be using big government against a private company. Ask them how they justify that as Republicans. Ask them if they were paid to do so by large companies. :D

This is a prelude to SpaceX's winning.

[WindBourne]

Right now, there is a major contest going on with NASA. Basically, SpaceX, Boeing, and SNC are battling to win a contract to provide human launches for NASA. Interestingly, this was to go to all 3 companies, but it was the GOP that insisted that it be narrowed down to 1 company. Now, they are nervous that the obvious winner is SpaceX and are going to great lengths to block this.
Hopefully, SpaceX will win this contest, because I have no doubt that the house GOP will change their minds and suddenly fund all 3 companies.
Sadly, the corruption and treason runs very deep in the GOP.

It's about PorkBarrel

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to RTFA to know that this is just about Pork Barrel spending.

The guy behind this is Sen. Richard Shelby from Alabama. Where does ULA have it's factory? That's right, Alabama.

So now, we have the Alabama congressman Mo Brooks jumping on the bandwagon. Where to those two Colorado guys come from? Oh, yeah they represent me, in Centennial Colorado, where ULA happens to have its headquarters.

Fuck these guys. They're holding the whole country back for corporate welfare. Of course, when poor folks need a hand...

Watch out for ULA Propaganda

[catchblue22]

I have posted before that there is evidence that ULA has initiated a propaganda campaign against Space X. From what I have read, Shockey Scofield Solutions, which is a PR firm hired by ULA is tightly linked with congressional lobbyist culture...they know how to pull particular strings in Washington. This seems to have their fingerprints all over it.

We should really be aware of the reason why ULA was formed in the first place. A few years ago the government decided to bring competition into launch procurement, by creating a bidding process. The dominant/only American players, Boeing and Lockheed responded by merging their launch products into the United Launch Alliance so that in almost all cases there would be only one bidder for American launches. This resulted in an increase in launch costs.

Enter SpaceX, which looks to be a real competitor. ULA can't absorb Space X, so they seem to be doing everything they can to sabotage them instead. From proposing financial rules on bidding companies that are biased against smaller players, to focussing on trivial "anomolies" that put uncertainty in the (simple) minds of Congressional lawmakers, to floating fanciful speculative stories about future vaporware "Space Planes" that will leapfrog SpaceX's cheaper launch platforms, to calling Elon Musk a corporate welfare bum (as if ULA wasn't the queen of queens of welfare queens).

The simple fact is that Space X has taken older proven technology and molded it into what promises to be a robust and reliable launch platform. ULA knows this, and the only thing they know how to do is to make this a gutter fight. They are despicable.

Re:Your "facts" are wrong

[Teancum]

I would note that all of the other countries buying the F-35 (a stupid proposition in my book BTW) all do so contingent upon the U.S. government buying them. I'll also point out that Lockheed-Martin is not funding the design and construction of this airplane. It is simply the U.S. taxpayers alone. If anything, it is the U.S. government who is in effect offering its design to other countries... as a means to offset the development cost.