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US Air Force Overstepped In SpaceX Certification
Rambo Tribble writes: An internal review commissioned by Air Force Secretary Deborah James has concluded that Air Force personnel tasked with evaluating SpaceX's certification treated it as a design review, going so far as to dictate organizational changes in the company. This was judged contrary to the intention of promoting a competitive environment. The report, prepared by former Air Force Chief of Staff General Larry Welch, concluded, "The result to date has been ... the worst of all worlds, pressing the Falcon 9 commercially oriented approach into a comfortable government mold that eliminates or significantly reduces the expected benefits to the government of the commercial approach. Both teams need to adjust."
The only difference between the new 'commercial space' guys and Boeing and LM, etc are the rules. How is it fair to the established space industry that was forced to play the government game to lose business because SpaceX doesn't have to.
Not true. The "New Space" companies self-fund long term research and experimentation with an eye toward making space flight less expensive. Even if Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, McDonald Douglas, et al, were "forced" to jump through government hoops, they were also exceedingly well payed to jump through those hoops. They could have used that money to fund their own research to stay competitive in the commercial market but they did not. They pocketed the money and completely gave up the commercial market to Russia and Europe.
McDonnell Douglas was working on a VTVL rocket (the DC-X) in 1991. As soon as the DoD and NASA stopped funding that research, they dropped it. SpaceX uses their profits to continue developing reusability, there is no reason that McDonnell Douglas could not have done that. The government did not prevent any of the "Old Space" companies could from developing reusable rockets. Nor did the government prevent them from investing their own money in improving production techniques to lower production costs. They choose not to do that work in any long term sustainable way unless the government directly payed for it.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
Yes, exactly. Also the established players were paid for all of their development effort; therefore, it is likely that the IP is owned by the government. This is in contrast to private development efforts. So essentially it is the difference between developing a custom solution (and paying for all development) or going to the store and buying something off the shelf.
Nope, that's not how it works for the EELV rockets. Boeing and Lockheed Martin owned the IP to the rockets and was free to do what ever they wanted as long as they conformed to ITAR (SpaceX also has to conform to ITAR.) They were free to provide commercial launches with their rockets but they lost the market to Europe and Russia and they made no effort to be competitive in those markets. Most US aerospace companies just gave up entirely and Boeing and Lockheed Martin formed the United Launch Alliance and convinced the US government to give them a billion dollars a year to ensure "US access to space." Not to do research, just to exist and maintain their facilities and production capability. That billion does not include providing any launch vehicles and services, that costs extra. A lot extra.
So I know it's popular to blame the government for everything, but US aerospace choose not to compete because they had a nice big cash cow.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.