Public-private Partnership Honeymoon Coming?

The Economist has sensible news coverage most of the time, but their "private is always better" dogma gets in the way. This article is a good example of that.

When they look at NASA, they just see "government bureaucracy."

When they look at Apollo, they see "victory over communism."

Boring!

The projects will probably be outsourced to China!

The Garver/Holdren plan gets better and better as details leak out. The new plan for space exploration is as follows - we subsidize private industry tycoons so that other tycoons can go joy riding. Nice - if you're worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

How much science or research did we get from the six private astronauts launched by Space Adventures? Nothing, zip, zilch, nada, bupkus. How much did the taxpayer give to subsidize these space station guests? Probably not zero.

The article talks about the cut rate $23 million dollar trips to space station. Sorry too rich for my blood and I fall into the category President Obama feels are "the richest 1% of Americans" and should have much higher tax rates. All this talk about giving the average person access to space is just a ploy to hijack NASA funding to line the pockets of a few wealthy investors who've found themselves in a lousy business case.

What's Mr. Bigelow's plan for recouping his $180M investment in space blimps? There obviously aren't as many customer who can pay this low, goal number of $23M per slot as there are users of Budget Suites of America. Maybe he needs a bailout. Talk to any astronaut who's been to the International Space Station. Ask them if there's a lack of volume in the station. You'll get the same answer - if you can't reach a wall, you're just drifting until you can get to a wall or a push from another drifting astronaut. Space Blimps are cheap and big but not very useful for scientific research in space. Maybe a nice budget suite for a billionaire, though.

You'll note the Economist doesn't get to the numbers. How many users would it take for these new ventures to break even, let alone make a profit? When will this turning point happen? Using NASA exploration budget to bail out these unwise investors is criminal. I'd rather just give it to AIG so they lower their lease rates on ILFC aircraft and we, the non-billionaire citizens of the US can explore the world. Let's face it, there is no plan where we can explore space.

"Now, though, the private sector is arguing that the new spending plan actually makes it more likely America will return to the moon."

Really! What the hell else are they going to say? Give us the money and nothing will change? Give me a break.

By the way, since some are saying that now we will be more likely to return to the moon, in the interest of intellectual honesty for debating purposes, what's the time frame? You know just to see if all the CxP naysayers were on target with their claims.

At this point the new policy has fractured into dozens of different interpretations championed by varies experts both for and against, each as likely as the next due it it's initial vagueness (a flexible approach?). The only thing for certain for the foreseeable future, is uncertainty.

The new plan for space exploration is as follows - we subsidize private industry tycoons so that other tycoons can go joy riding.

Whereas the old plan was to subsidize a select group of government employees so they can go joy riding. This brought in no private money at all.

You've got to start somewhere. Every wealthy tourist that goes up brings in some money for manned spaceflight. As flight rates go up, cost can come down and vice versa. Robert Bigelow is planning to set prices for tickets to his planned private stations at levels that are profitable but otherwise designed to grow the number of passengers as fast as possible.

Ask yourself: was the USA built on envy or was it built on entrepreneurial spirit?

> How much science or research did we get from the six private astronauts launched by Space Adventures? Nothing, zip, zilch, nada, bupkus.

This is a completely false statement. Here's the results I got from the first two private astronauts I googled:

http://www.richardinspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Mission_Activities.Science

http://www.africaninspace.com/scientists/index.shtml

Spot on.

"Engaging in another government-driven spending battle, this time with the Chinese, will do nothing more than show that America has missed the point."

The only way to end, once and for all, the arguments about the purposefulness of the space program is to privatize it and make it profitable.

This is the right way forward and I'm really happy to see the positive press this is getting. I'm not sure how that will weigh with Congress but they read the same papers we do. I'm pretty sure they read an Economist article now and then.

Well duh! billions to be handed out, who isn't going to "promise the moon"! LOL

Fool us once Obama. Never again.

Unfortunately, the Economist continues to perpetuate the myth that NASA has a titanic budget. NASA's budget during the Apollo development era was nearly twice as much as it is today relative to today's dollars.

NASA's budget is extremely tiny compared to the US military budget. In fact, NASA's budget is even smaller than the US military's annual space budget. So US tax payers actually spend more money on Star Wars than Star Trek!

NASAs only problem, besides being significantly underfunded, is the fact that the politicians refuse to use it as a tool for pioneering the New Frontier so that the privateers and colonist can follow-- as they always have in the history of our civilization.

Marcel F. Williams

"""How much science or research did we get from the six private astronauts launched by Space Adventures? """

Funny that you are using science as an argument against the Obama plan when the sciences get more money under the new plan.

I did like the line: "This money will be spent on 'man-rating' existing rockets, such as Boeing’s Atlas V"

The article was hardly the most convincing or most well researched, so I think this article does deserve some criticism...

But the people on this board who complain about canceling Cx seem to be a strange blend of socialists (only the government can do it right) and Obama haters (anything Obama does is wrong).

Here are some of my criticisms of this article:

> Mr Bigelow is preparing to build a space station that will offer cheap access to space to other governments—something he believes will generate a lot of interest.

A recent GAO report noted that half the science racks allotted for the US on ISS are not being used. Should this raise concern that there won't be enough demand for Bigelow's space station?

And once Bigelow's Sundancer is up and operational (should that come to be), how should the US charge for use of the ISS? In other words, will the US government, using tax payer money, compete with a commercial company?

> The budget proposes $6 billion over five years to spur the development of commercial crew and cargo services to the international space station.

How much matching funds is NASA requiring these companies to come up with? If the number is small, then isn't NASA simply substituting one set of prime contractors for another?

> The point of all this activity is to create healthy private-sector competition for transport to the space station—and in doing so to drive down the cost of getting into space.

One of the most important factors in lowering launch costs is increasing launch rates. While multiple companies may potentially lower costs through competition, won't that also risk increasing launch costs because it will lower the launch rate for each company?

Another argument for lowering costs is that the private industry will bring in more customers beyond just NASA, thus increasing flight rates. Are there good documents identifying the size of the possible addressable market for orbital launches (to ISS, Sundancer, Dragon Lab, etc.)?

Musk is a business man, a very smart and successful business man, a genius at making money. His SpaceX venture is no doubt another approach in his goal of making money. Nothing wrong with that, it’s how our economic system works. But I doubt he’s really a steely-eyed missile man in it for the long haul. Lots of risk in the space business and single events can lead to huge losses. Those who have been in the business for a while have experienced these events and have established requirements and processes to lower the probability of these events occurring. To those outside the establishment, these requirements and processes appear wasteful and bureaucratic, and no doubt some have grown that way in the extremely risk-averse and paranoid world of human spaceflight.

Seems the best way for Musk to make his money is similar to how he made money from PayPal. Get a credible idea started and then sell it. SpaceX is certainly making a credible effort with smart folks working their tails off. And with the right political support, which it appears they have, they certainly look competitive in the near term. But I really wonder about the vague business model of long-term operations. Let’s face it, the only realistic customer for quite some time is the government. The big commercial demand for EELV hasn’t shown up yet either. So what is likely to happen? SpaceX makes the established aerospace companies so nervous they decide to buy them out. (And they will be happy to sell and make the profit before the risk of failures and huge losses reach, from a business sense, an unacceptable level.) But perhaps there will be gain after all. The status quo is challenged to reevaluate and hopefully some efficiencies will be realized in how the aerospace industry operates human spaceflight.

I disagree.

> His SpaceX venture is no doubt another approach in his goal of making money.

No, I think Elon's genuinely interested in putting people on Mars. He has talked about wanting to "back up the biosphere."

> Lots of risk in the space business and single events can lead to huge losses.

They're aware of that, and so should everyone be. I suspect there will be enormous temptation to pin the entire future of US spaceflight on the first launch of Falcon 9, and I think that's a mistake. Other rocket programs have had plenty of failures on the way to success. It is entirely possible to imagine a successful future for SpaceX that goes like this: test flights, some failures, some successes, rockets get better and better until they reach their goal. And in fact that's exactly what Falcon 1 looks like. Reasonable to expect that Falcon 9 and beyond will be the same.

I think what scares the Constellation crowd most about this article is that the commercial guys just might reach the Moon faster than NASA would have been able to following Griffin's game plan. I personally know of one start-up working on a manned lunar lander that would require either fuel depots or two 25mT launches. Also, Project M promises to establish a base of telepresence robots far faster and with much greater efficiency than Constellation would have ever delivered. Human astronauts will arrive with a fully constructed Moon base and a staff of robots to aid them with lunar exploration.

Musk and Bigelow have both personally committed nine digit sums of their own money to make their visions of open access to space a reality. They do this because they feel they can make money, of course, but also because their dream is not the flags and stunts of NASA past but the eventual colonization of space. It's something Constellation could never deliver, and I for one am glad and proud of Obama and Bolden in that they had the courage to break from the stale mindset of the past and set America on this promising new path to our future in space.

Commercial space is our only chance of succeeding in human space flight for America. NASA no longer has that capability due to incompetence. Constellation was proving that point on a daily basis. When the Shuttle retires, it's over. Constellation was not going to get us anywhere but in the poorhouse, wouldn't even have made it back to LEO. If you think commercial space can't do it, then the US can't do it, because NASA can't.

"If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run - and often in the short one - the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative."
Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space, 1951

I think this is a nuff said for/to both sides of the commercial vrs. public, (LOL), option.

Carl (Surfduke) Hewlett

Cheer up people, you guys sound like the Government scale back is the death kneel for the age of space exploration. I don't believe it is. If we really want to make a go at exploring and colonizing our solar system, the private sector is going to be the best way. We are Americans, doing the hard thing is what we do best. Have we not invented just about everything? In just over 200 years, Americans have done more for this planet than all other nations have on Earth. It is time to stop letting the government straggle along at a snails pace, and show the world what Americans are made of.

I just don't understand the support for the Constellation program and the disdain for SpaceX that I see in many of the posts on on this article and others on Nasawatch. Boeing, Lockheed, (and the monopolies that they created USA and ULA) Northrup/Grumman, all had the opportunity to compete in the commercial resupply contracts and LOST! Get over it! We have spent 9 billion on Constellation with not much to show. What, they launched a leftover, certification expired 4 segment booster and called it Ares 1x. Versus a couple hundred million paid in milestones achieved to SpaceX with a REAL booster sitting on the pad and under test.

Boeing could have finished the X33 on their own if they wanted to. The launch facility was already built. The craft was I believe 85% built. BUT the minute the government money dried up they bailed. Shame on them.

Let's see if the "old space" continue with the Orion development and actually produce something or follow their usual course and take the money and run.

Even many CxP backers seem to realize that this is an historic opportunity for commercial space. A need and destination for commercial crew, cargo, national redundancy, potentially a need for fuel depot resupply, billionaire investors in the wings, multiple LVs, the synergy with interest in sub-orbital tourism, etc.

This is the best shot commercial will get in our lifetimes. Hopefully they hit the target.

A recent GAO report noted that half the science racks allotted for the US on ISS are not being used. Should this raise concern that there won't be enough demand for Bigelow's space station?

Well, it all comes down to a simple question - are we willing to fund the research projects that would use the rack space? I ask this because the reason we have empty racks isn't necessarily that we don't have interesting experiments that could provide good science - its because we've gutted the budget for microgravity research. So, to answer your question - it should, only if you assume we have to keep funding Constellation. If we can Constellation, we can actually use that rack space for science.

And once Bigelow's Sundancer is up and operational (should that come to be), how should the US charge for use of the ISS? In other words, will the US government, using tax payer money, compete with a commercial company?

Honestly, long term, I think that we need to push to figure out how to utilize ISS, and move it towards a private entity status, over the next decade. Or alternatively, a public private partnership. There are a number of possibilities.

How much matching funds is NASA requiring these companies to come up with? If the number is small, then isn't NASA simply substituting one set of prime contractors for another?

In the case of COTS, the number was high enough that one company couldn't meet it. So I think that, assuming we build the Commercial Crew contracts like COTS/CRS, we can avoid this problem.

One of the most important factors in lowering launch costs is increasing launch rates. While multiple companies may potentially lower costs through competition, won't that also risk increasing launch costs because it will lower the launch rate for each company?

This goes back to the issue of station utilization, both for ISS & for Bigelow habitats. But we've discussed that above.

Another argument for lowering costs is that the private industry will bring in more customers beyond just NASA, thus increasing flight rates. Are there good documents identifying the size of the possible addressable market for orbital launches (to ISS, Sundancer, Dragon Lab, etc.)?

Augustine came to the conclusion that, even if there is only 1 additional flight per year, using a Commercial Crew system, that will have a significant cost savings for NASA.

"But the people on this board who complain about canceling Cx seem to be a strange blend of socialists (only the government can do it right) and Obama haters (anything Obama does is wrong)."

You ignore those that are against canceling Cx AND Orion without any plan, just some ideas. Some of us feel that it isn't good to cancel US HSF capability without data and plans to back it up.

The Obama statements seem to be based on deciding something first and then generate some facts to back up the decision. Statements from the commercial world are nice, but most have no history to back up those commitments.

Cadet--

"But the people on this board who complain about canceling Cx seem to be a strange blend of socialists (only the government can do it right)..."

That is not a correct use of the word socialist. The government does not own Boeing, ATK, or Lockheed Martin.

If you take your argument to the DOD side, the entire US Military is socialist.

I'm sorry but your naivete' is only exceeded by your apparent ignorance of the huge challenges of HSF by "commercial" space entrepreneurs! I'm not a defender of Constellation, either, but I have been in the HSF business probbaly longer than you've been alive and can tell you there's NO WAY a company like Space-X or (especially) Bigelow can succeed with a reliable and safe human space presence in LEO, much less on the Moon, in less than 7-10 years! And I'm willing to bet on it! The reasons? Well, call it bureaucratic government interference if you will, but those companies, if they wish to launch from US territory, must certify (man-rate)their systems through a daunting combination of NASA, FAA and probably the State Department and the attendant Human Factors and safety requirements--not to mention abort and Range Safety certification by the DoD (AF). That's in addition to the obvious technical systems challenges of launch, on orbit and ENTRY AND LANDING (the elephant in the room that none of them ever seems to consider!). Commercial cargo (although, like HSF, there's virtually no real market in sight!) is a MUCH easier challenge--maybe can get there in 5 years? Still, the effort is certainly worth a courageous try but get real----NASA is basically going to have to "subsidize" these "commercial" efforts by essentially "giving" the companies the critical services such as training, operations (mission control, communications networks, recovery), suits, etc., etc.
Believe it or not, I DO believe this IS the way to go (as opposed to the Constellation POR) but it ain't gonna be easy or quick!

@dbooker

'I just don't understand the support for the Constellation program and the disdain for SpaceX that I see in many of the posts on on this article and others on Nasawatch.'

The support from Constellation is, I expect, coming from people who i) understand how hard passenger-safe rockets really are, and ii) how much Constellation really accomplished - things you don't seem to understand exist, because you seem to have a very simplistic understanding of what's involved in building any successful large rocket, let alone a passenger-safe one.

And I don't know about other people, but most Constellation defenders (including me) seem to wish the best for SpaceX, and would like to see them succeed - they just don't want to see a SpaceX achieve a minimal level of success (which is my prediction) which costs us US HSF in the process - which is what's happening now, IMO.

Ironically, it's SpaceX fans who are probably the most dangerous for SpaceX - because you all seem to think it's just a 'small matter of engineering' for SpaceX to be zooming all over the place - and when SpaceX doesn't meet those unrealistic expectations, SpaceX's real enemies will use those over-blown, un-met, expectations against it.

'Boeing could have finished the X33 on their own if they wanted to. The launch facility was already built. The craft was I believe 85% built. BUT the minute the government money dried up they bailed.'

You seem to be short of a few facts. First, the X-33 was Lockheed, not Boeing. Second, Lockheed has continued to put money into the program, and has continued to test smaller (albeit less capable) flight units of similar concept to the NASA-funded flight unit (the most recent such flight was last fall).

Also, during the period of work on the NASA-funded flight unit, Lockheed had spent almost twice as much (more than $300 million) of their own money) on that flight unit as they had planned to. So, why didn't they push forward with the larger NASA-funded flight unit, if it was so close to being done, and they'd put so much of their own money into it? I can only assume they know something we don't.

> which costs us US HSF in the process

What cost you US HSF is government incompetence to produce a STS replacement.

Possum;

I wholeheartedly agree. If anyone took the time to look at the resumes of those we have selected as leaders in project management, IT management, and Financial Management we would see how embedded cronyism has become in the NASA culture. Despite the fact that we have a growing workforce of qualified individuals whose positions will soon disappear, we continue to select and promote the unqualified buddies. The idea that anyone is being promoted in this very uncertain time without the proper scrutiny to ensure these individuals are the best qualified is just disheartening. I don’t think NASA has yet learned that the same people plus the same processes will equal the same outcome.