I'm not sure how he came up with $110 million in losses the taxpayer has to cover.
The launch, part of SpaceX's CRS contract, is their cost. The contract says they have to deliver X number of supply runs. They lose a rocket, they still have to make X number of DELIVERIES. That means SpaceX has to eat the cost of a failed launch - part of the incentive to get it right.
What the government (and tax payers) are on the hook for is the lost contents of the flight. I'm just surprised there was $110 million worth of food, fuel, oxygen and experiments. Seems a bit high.
One would hope, in a perfect world, that NASA and the SLS team would certainly want to be held to the same standards that they require others to be help do.
This, however, is SLS - the low down dirty manipulative sneaky underhanded make works project that will not die, even though NASA and the Administration have tried.
NASA will write a waiver and SLS will fly with unrated engines - OR - they'll take even more money from the Commercial Crew program (because they haven't delayed it long enough yet) and do the tests - and fly regardless of the results.
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I'm not sure how he came up with $110 million in losses the taxpayer has to cover. The launch, part of SpaceX's CRS contract, is their cost. The contract says they have to deliver X number of supply runs. They lose a rocket, they still have to make X number of DELIVERIES. That means SpaceX has to eat the cost of a failed launch - part of the incentive to get it right. What the government (and tax payers) are on the hook for is the lost contents of the flight. I'm just surprised there was $110 million worth of food, fuel, oxygen and experiments. Seems a bit high.
One would hope, in a perfect world, that NASA and the SLS team would certainly want to be held to the same standards that they require others to be help do. This, however, is SLS - the low down dirty manipulative sneaky underhanded make works project that will not die, even though NASA and the Administration have tried. NASA will write a waiver and SLS will fly with unrated engines - OR - they'll take even more money from the Commercial Crew program (because they haven't delayed it long enough yet) and do the tests - and fly regardless of the results.
Unlike Reuters "fat finger" trader theory, the folks at NANEX (who provide the data feed for the exchanges) actually looked at the data.
Their original report is quite fascinating to read.
http://www.nanex.net/FlashCrash/FlashCrashAnalysis.html
Before you make snap judgements ... take a look at the root cause.