A Big First Step for COTS-D Today

Finally! Something good comes from the Porkulus bill...

Not to be cynical here, but what real difference is $250 million USD going to make for the Constellation program?

Yes, more money is always good, however, in a multi-multi BILLION dollar program, $250 million is nothing huge.

In a smaller program such as SpaceX's Dragon/F9, or Orbital's COTS program, this amount of money may very get them that last mile.

Alas, accurate observation is often confused for cynicism by those who don't have it....

The OS article did actually hint at the fact $250 million would do very little to speed up Constellation. It would go a long way helping OSC/SpaceX.

I guess the fact SpaceX is currently the only "competitor" and the fact they didn't demonstrate that F9 works yet makes the powers that be a little too uneasy about cashing out more.

@ Splinter:

Unless I really misunderstood everything that has come out of NASA recently, nothing short of a total reorganisation of the agency can prevent a gap of more than five years. So, it is increasingly looking like COTS-D is going to be the only indigenous US manned launch game in town.

So... yes, every penny is going to be welcome.

However, and let's be honest with ourselves here. NASA is not going to go quietly into that dark night. If anyone believes that the agency is going to co-operate with a program that may make its own flagship program obsolete, then they are sniffing something and I hope they brought enough for everyone.

Oh, no active sabotage, but don't expect them to make the road smooth and easy. Certainly don't expect them to be happy about it. I expect every possible bureaucratic, budgetary and techno-gibberish obstacle possible to be put in COTS-D's way.

Ben, I agree with you pretty much down the line, and I could have been more specific with my comments. I guess what I was trying to say was that if the govt was serious, they would have committed more $ to CxP, and indeed NASA as a whole -- much more...say, as much as ONE single bank received for their failure to run a business correctly (but that's a whole other thread)-- OR, give the COTS $$ to the COMMERCIAL space companies vying for it. Afterall, COTS stands for Commercial Orbital Transportation Services....

Maybe the article was not exactly correct in terms of the COTS $$ going to NASA for CxP? Possibly that $250 mil is from a separate fund from the $1B stimulus pumped into NASA's budget. Regardless, I am still happy some $ will go to the commercial companies, and NASA (appears) to recognize the problems at hand.

Good talk!

"NASA is not going to go quietly into that dark night."

Remember how NASA helped kill Mir back in 2001?

"But behind the scenes top NASA officials pressured Energia to abandon Mir, threatening to cut Energia out of the ISS contract."

Mir's Heroic Death: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=4212

Throwing another $250 million at Constellation, on top of the billions of dollars already being spent on it, what a waste. When allotting the entire $400 million to COTS D, could very well produce American manned access to space and substantially reduce the gap.

I hope whoever Pres. Obama nominates for NASA administrator will fully support our American commercial space companies and say, "the most important thing for American space right now, is to delvelop FULL SUSTAINABLE AMERICAN COMMERCIAL ACCESS TO SPACE!"

Of course, a nomination like that, will probable be blocked. It's time for the powers that be, to do what is best for the country.

@R.Simko:

Change the political system and you'll get what you want. Do you really think that any politician will do anything like this? Think about it. Congressmen will have to tell their constituents that small companies of a few hundred people can do, not as well, but BETTER than those 1000s contractors and civil servants on Constellation in their states. What will then happen to those 1000s in our "free market" economy?

If anything, this big first step is probably coming from the WH. Not Congress and not NASA. How did they pull it off? I'd like to know.

@R.Simko:

It's time for the powers that be, to do what is best for the country.


Of course it is -- well past time, in fact. Are you holding your breath? I'm certainly not (I've never liked the "blue-in-the-face" look) ... ;-)

I think COTS-D is a great thing to support.

But, also think the SpaceX folks are going to be learning alot & the govt subsidized funding will eventually become a blackhole as well.

Whoever is their launch director doesn't seem to have a good feel for launch decisions (satellites & ashes lost plus the most recent 6 mos. delay prob)

There's a reason why NASA does what it does in manned space flight. Some folks want to challenge that the red tape is unnecessary & private companies can do it cheaper & easier.

Back in the 80's, Lockmart & some others were very much into trying to persuade NASA to backoff oversight of Shuttle & to just let the contractors run the show & they'll send NASA a status report & a tab for services rendered (i.e. a quasi-deregulation" of NASA or a NASA subsidized space program ala SpaceX).

We seen how minimal oversight & deregulation worked with the financial industry & contractor mismanagement running rampant in Iraq.

Aerospace & defense contractors left on their own with govt. subsidy no less, would be a bad bad thing imho. But they've got to at least try it with the COTS-D thing just to prove it one way or another, imho.

But the big issue with private contractors was NASA safety standards. Some folks wanted NASA to lower their standards ala FAA for commercial airliners. So getting the public conditioned to more accidents in the spacebiz was also included in that plan.......

Most manned spaceflight workforce folks are not into lowering safety standards. Although, improving FAA commercial airliners up to NASA standards might be a thought!

Great News for the NASA/FAA/DOD

Now NASA/FAA/DOD can work together on NexGen and have operational traffic with Commercial Spacecraft and Aircraft.

This is great news!

The shame of it is, I do not feel that it should be a competition between NASA and America's commercial companies. NASA should be utilizing those companies to the fullest extent possible, not only for the good of the country, but for the good of NASA also.

Think of the billions that NASA could save by using commercial transport to LEO and eventually beyond. NASA could then use those billions of saved dollars for advanced research into next generation rockets, engines and habitats. NASA could be the guilding strength, monitoring and running programs like COTS A-D, COTS Lunar, COTS Mars and COTS deep space.

You can here the concern of posters on the web. "What if Constellation is cancelled, will that mean the end of American manned space? Will we be relegated to LEO for another 4 decades?"

Instead of hearing criticism of "why are we building another LEO launcher, when we already have launchers that can do the job, or why is Ares going sideway?" We could be making real progress on sustainable launch systems that can be built upon.

I feel that if we start making real progress in space, not only will we again capture our nations attention, but increased funding and jobs will follow success. How many jobs will be lost in the long run, if we continue along the road of Constellation as it is currently designed and it goes belly up?

Best news I've heard in ages, but I'll believe it when I see it.I can't help feeling there's something going on here, this was way too easy considering that NASA and the goverment is involved

@R.Simko:

I am with you 100% or close. Think as well of the public suddenly aware that an independent company, not NASA, can hire astronauts and/or send said public to space... This would probably generate a tremendous interest. Look at what happened with Virgin Galactic! NASA might be saved from itself.

So as I said several times before let's hope!

I don't see why NASA would need to bother treating SpaceX like competition.

If you're going to the Moon, Mars and Beyond, there's far, far more than enough work for everyone at NASA to do even if they aren't building a medium launcher or even a capsule anymore.

I'm not sure that they actually _are_ either. Didn't they come up with this whole COTS thing, pay out prize money, and award contracts?

@Frapster:

Constellation at NASA treats COTS as competition. You don't see why?!?!?!

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2009/04/cots-d-nasa-says-youre-all-wro.html

This article on hyperbola says that the $150 million "is to enable earlier Commercial Resupply Services cargo missions."

I hope NASA gives additional clarification.

@common sense re:"@Frapster:
Constellation at NASA treats COTS as competition. You don't see why?!?!?!"

Why in the world would Constellation see COTS as competition? COTS isn't going anywhere other than LEO for a long, long time. ISS or a Bigelow hotel isn't the design mission for Constellation. Dragon may really happen with up to six close friends snuggling together for 2.5 days to get to station, but it is not a lunar or deep-space can. Of course, if we really aren't going back to the Moon or deep-space, if LEO is all there is, then I grant your thesis.

@ former CA resident

If the people in charge of Constellation really wanted to go back to the Moon and Mars they would put the big money into things the commercial sector does not do like the Earth Departure Stage, Altair and Moon buggies. They are not. The money is going on Earth to LEO rockets.

Andrew Swallow

It is obvious that there is great resistance to funding COTS D. How many times have we heard "space is hard, space IS rocket science, space is expensive." Then the people who say these things point at all the space programs that are billions over budget and way behind schedual and say, "SEE we told you space is hard and expensive."

It will be very hard for the people who use these justifications, to continue running billions over budget, if a small upstart of a company can safely launch people to space for a fraction of the cost.

Think of it this way. Say you manufacture tractor trailer trucks for a million dollars each and a new upstart comes along and says they can build econo trucks for a hundred thousand each. It would suddenly become very hard for you to justify your Million dollar price tag.

@former CA resident:

LEO is ALL there is. Or it really starts looking like it, does it not? You saw this below right? ;-) http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2009/04/a_shift_in_poli.html
Constellation put itself alone in this mess, unfortunately. They should have kept the O'Keefe approach. Too bad.

I will not make a case, sorry, and I stand by my words.

@common sense:

yeah, that was behind my comment; however, for the future of this dear enterprise that I think we both love, I sincerely hope that you are the one that gets to eat his words in 10 years. Sadly, with the new Administration's projected flat NASA budgets as far as the eye can see, I fear it will be me munching away... (keep smiling...)

@former CA resident:

Frankly, I don't think a McCain WH or any WH would have done any better with Constellation regardless of the economic situation.

Yes I love first NASA, more than Constellation, for what it was able to accomplish (Moon, Shuttle, ISS, Hubble, Mars's JPL, etc) but I am very disappointed at what NASA did for the past 5 years. They were given a vision that made sense and they did not try a measured rational approach and rather tried to get it way too quickly off the pad, making very questionable short cuts. I see a NASA rolled in dough by politicians who are doing their best to extend a Shuttle that makes no sense to preserve jobs in their States. Unless they have a plan for the post Shuttle era that I have seen nowhere. If their attempts are successful they will essentially kill Constellation in my view. And eventually Shuttle will retire, at the next accident, and NASA will be left with nothing.

So again, let's hope COTS goes to LEO successfully. Private ventures are the real future of space. NASA should never have embraced the Moon. They should have taken the REAL risky path toward Mars and beyond. Helping the private sector to make it to LEO and the Moon while trailblazing new technologies where we need federal funds.

Anyway. Blahblahblah. We'll see.

@common sense:
I agree with much of that; first, for the record I would be grumbling just as loudly about flat budgets (before inflation-adjustment, which of course is a real cut) no matter who proposed them - this was not an O vs McC slam. However, I am very worried it is a significant "tea leaf" about the current Administration's interest in manned space, which is vital to maintaining a "critical funding-mass" at NASA that makes everything else possible (the incredible infrastructure at some of the centers, the incredible science-oriented infractructure (JPL, etc), and so on - otherwise it's just NOAA or DOE with an occasional aerospace contract.

There is virtually no significant aspect of our economy (or governmental agency) that has gotten so little of the recent "stimulus"/FY10-proposed budget largesse (relative to routine budget) than NASA except maybe the IRS :--) - that is very worrisome. Money has been the main issue (ain't it always) in the process; consider the major elements of the mission the past 5 years: maintain an operating, but fairly expensive, LEO access (shuttle), finish and operate at full capacity an off-planet outpost (ISS), and then, on top of it, re-do-Apollo-better from the ground up (heck, when von Braun, Webb, et al did it originally they didn't have all that other stuff to do (AND they got the equivalent of an AVERAGE of 28 BILLION A YEAR in 2007 dollars from 1963 through 1969) to do only that one part of the job. (By the way that peaked at 5% of the Federal budget in FY65 and 66 - to be very clear I'm not recommending that [note: the current equivalent figured that way would be 150 BILLION in one year!). Bottom line: with a measly TOTAL of roughly 18 gigabucks a year (I won't quibble, plus or minus 1 or 2 over the past 5 years), to do everything, is it any wonder that we are just getting to the initial rocket PDR and there are problems to solve. Of course not!

What do we do about this funding mess? I honestly do not know, and that is the seed of my basic worry. The arguments for realistic return to the economy on NASA space dollars spent (for BOTH manned space and science programs) are convincing, but they are very technical - you can see the typical Congress-critter's eyes glazing over almost immediately.

As to Elon and the new kids: I think you yourself have pointed out that one of the main reasons they are coming in cheaper so far is that they don't have the same payscales as they Big Guys. Now, they're betting they can get operational (and have customers) before their enthusiastic youngsters wake up (or grow older) and demand more. I hope it works out, but as Coppinger mentioned in a recent musing on Hyperbola, if LEO is all there is, then what is there going to be after 2020 or 2025 when ISS is getting long in the tooth?

There have been a number of good postings recently on the utility of a Moon base for study of long-term human habitation and adaptation in space. We all know about zero-gee issues for the bones, etc; the big question is how much gee do we really need; will 1/6 be enough? Of course we need to study centripetal acceleration solutions (and the ISS centrifuge would have been a step down that path - sigh, more money), but that solution is a lot easier and more practical if you only need to generate 1/6 as opposed to 1 gee. On a much more sophisticated plane, Wingo is extremely compelling about the benefits of lunar habitation furthering sustainable presence in space.

Sorry, I have gone on - this is probably just blathering... (and it isn't even late night)

@former CA resident:

I think that we seem to agree, at least in essence let's say.

To me we need to focus on WHY we need a space program first, make a strong case once and for all. As I once said DoD has such a case underwritten by FEAR. Look at their budget and how many futile pursuits they are in. This is not allowed to NASA... The space community cannot get its act together because of the me-me-me-first attitude. If I were the WH I would probably say hell-with-them-spacefans.We only hear loud background noise and NOBODY is willing to compromise. Status quo is much easier as they have just a few "more" important things to do. Remember that there is essentially no scientific/technological/education culture left in this country that plays any significant role in our society, not even NASA. Note that this is a bipartisan issue that nobody cares to address SERIOUSLY so long they have a job. Floridians or Alabamans should loudly voice their concerns about the future when them senators will have retired... Anyway.

As to the members of COTS I would argue that wages are not necessarily the culprit. Overhead cost most likely is. Energetic cost to space is the same for everyone and essentially incompressible... So what's left to make it cheaper?...

So what do we do now? And I mean WE people with different political opinions that can still sit at a table without the inflammatory rhetoric. WHAT?????