Astronauts Send Letter in Support of Commercial Crew

Isn't Bowersox employed by SpaceX?

I would not have a problem with the new direction for NASA except for one thing. It requires a strong and knowledgeable administrator and good manager to make it happen. Bolden has shown that he's none of these things. He simply is the wrong guy for the job.
And without the right guy at the helm, this plan becomes a disaster for NASA and the country. Bolden to me is simply another Biden. God help us.

Another carefully worded letter that wants to convey a message by implication and suggestion. It is in fact an attack on a straw man of their own creation.

Pretty much nobody that is opposed to Holdren/Garver clique's "Bold & ExcitingTM" plan for NASA, is opposed to private sector participation in space transportation to the ISS. What they are opposed to is the deliberate destruction of the Constellation so that the private sector has no competition from anything else. Bolden has actually said that: "Now you can argue with me all day long, I am not going to purposely promote something that is going to keep commercial entities from being competitive on the international market.". He was talking about Ares I but his comments were general enough.

Given that the private sector has not mastered the technology and art of sending even cargo to the ISS, it is ridiculous to deliberately cripple NASA's capability in the area of human transportation. This is a demonstration of the utter comtempt this administration has towards taxpayer money. The nine plus billion dollars and countless manhours spent is to be just flushed down the toilet just so that private industry can prosper (after a very generous infusion of taxpayer money and use of taxpayer funded facilities for which they pay a fraction of the actual cost) And after which we wait for the private industry to deliver on their unbelievable promises. What do we do when it becomes obvious that they can't deliver? Twiddle our thumbs and hope for the best?

This letter is very careful not to say that the Orion should not be developed in favor of commercial crew. In fact it says ...... nothing at all! Between the bromides of "Commercial space workers and managers care about safety" and "Under the new NASA program, no crewmember will ever fly on an unproven rocket" they actually say nothing of substance!! But to me it is quite clear (B Aldrin's name in the list) that they hope you'll take their verbiage as a clinching argument that Constellation should be squashed. Otherise, the letter has no purpose at all!

Yes, and here are the others as pulled from their Wiki's.
Bernard Harris –The Harris Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization to develop math/science education
Norm Thaggard – Professor
Ed Lu – Founder of the B612 Foundation (asteroid impact protection)
George Nelson – Professor
Albert Sacco – Professor
Millie Hughes-Fulford – Professor
Ken Bowersox - vice president of Astronaut Safety and Mission Assurance at SpaceX
Loren Acton – Professor
Roger Crouch - consultant for various aerospace firms ?
Mike Lounge - Director of Space Shuttle and Space Station Program Development for Boeing
Larry DeLucas – Professor
Owen Garriott – Professor
Kathryn Thornton – Professor, Director of UVA's Center for Science, Math, and Engineering Education
Rusty Schweickart - Chairman of the Board of the B612 Foundation (asteroid impact protection)
Jim Voss – Professor
William Pailes - instructor of AFJROTC Program
Samuel Durrance – Professor
Buzz Aldrin –
Terry Hart – Professor
Guy Gardner – College President
Jeff Hoffman – Professor
John Herrington – Part-time Professor and Public Speaker
Byron Lichtenberg - President of Zero Gravity Corporation
Jay Buckey - Professor

> What they are opposed to is the deliberate destruction of the Constellation so that the private sector has no competition from anything else.

I don't get it. What is going on? Why do you want the government to compete with companies?

Competition from CxP is not the point, and that's not why CxP should be dutifully ended. The reason for ending CxP is that it's a detour from and a burden against the future we should have. The development cost is too high and schedule too long, the cost per flight is unsustainably high, and the cost incentive is essentially absent; and by defining itself as a sole-source, it provides a single point failure mode of the whole US HSF program. It perpetually delays the transition from the Apollo model (our best is barely enough) to the Boeing/United Airlines model (our best will beat the market), and thus cuts off HSF from the tremendous power of competition-driven American engineering. How will we ever see an Intel/Microsoft-like dominance in HSF if only NASA ever does the system engineering?

Who is standing in the way of commercial?

Who doesn't support it?

I support them! I surely do. I wish them great success in the commericial world.

They are free to do as they wish. Freedom to succeed, freedom to fail. Freedom to offer their future services to the government even.

Or do they need injections of large amounts of taxpayers moneys to.... hmmmmm.

Is that really still commercial?

That is somethinge else isn't it?

If I fly on an airliner, do I pay large amounts of money to get the aircraft designed and off the ground? Or do I just buy a ticket?

I've got no problem with their point of view. Comercial crew is a good ideas whose time may come, and come soon. I do have a problem with gutting NASA and any BEO exploration for a generation so private intrest can get rich off of government contracts, product liability protections, and the inside track on the IPO. It cannot be the only game in town. A country, a real country needs a space program, not a collection of vendors. What's next...the Electric Boat Division leasing us our submarines? As they say in Texas...your plan is all hat and no cattle. There is no money for exploration systems in this fantasy for years, but there is plenty of moola to rip HSF to pieces. Come on fellas snap out of it. Even a steer knows when he's getting near the stockyard.

@Les, @cessnadriver, @bolt_catcher

Relying entirely commercial crew is obviously a gamble and personally, I think that organisations should more open about risks.

But the Apollo/Constellation way takes money which is in short supply, and in the circumstances, this is a bold move. Obama and Bolden are going for the big prize by the fastest route and yes, it may fail.

But it's not such a crazy gamble. Private companies exist for two reasons 1. to make money and 2. to do whatever it is they were set up to do.

All of the companies involved want to fly in space. It's an immensely powerful motive. It may be obvious that Ken Bowersox represents SpaceX' commercial interest, but his personal interest in space flight is even more obvious. He was (is?) an astronaut, after all!

The companies themselves are taking a proportionally bigger gamble - that a market for their services will emerge. But again, they have serious motive because their money is at stake, and SpaceX has customers as well as NASA.

If no market develops in the timeframe, the US will likely still have a crew launch capability. It will just be that SpaceX etc. will become the new Boeing etc.

I don't want the government to compete with private companies ....if.... the private companies are actually capable of competing!! And that is a big "if".

The simple truth is that private companies are not capable of competing AT THE PRESENT TIME AND FOR THE NEXT DECADE OR SO . I am not willing to deliberately destroy what has been developed at taxpayer cost so that private companies, when they are ready, will have no competition. That nine billion dollars and all the sweat equity that's been put into the Orion and other parts of Constellation will just be another taxpayer subsidy for the private companies. Think about this carefully please! That is what this amounts to, not to forget all the upheavel, joblessness, destruction of communities etc. that this subsidy of private industry is going to cause!! All this is very carefully kept out of the discussion!

The private companies are already being subsidised by direct infusion of taxpayer money and use of taxpayer funded facilities for which they pay a fraction of the actual cost. As CessnaDriver points out, that really stretches the definition of commercial. Still, that is fine by me to some extent - that is the price the country has to pay so that private enterprise can flourish - and that will be a good thing. I agree on that point as do so many others who are simultaneously opposed to the destruction of Constellation.

As I have stated many times before, I'm all for commercial space industry development. I wish them *tremendous* success, and I believe that - eventually - they will succeed. But my wish comes with one caveat: not at the expense of NASA, or the weakening of NASA's capabilities.

I have enough experience to know that the technologies that currently exist, and are reasonably likely to exist in the next decade, will *not* enable the kind of cost savings that these upstart commercial firms are promoting. That is also why you don't see the "old guard" commercial companies (Boeing, LM, etc.) exposing the same mantra; they know it can't be done in the near term either. The business plan exposed by SpaceX, et al, will fall apart ... and then what will we be left with? NOTHING.

I'm fine with a nominal amount of "seed" money (~ $500M/yr) being used to promote commercial space interests, but the Obama plan to essentially dismantle NASA HSF and put all of our eggs into the upstart basket is a monumental mistake.

Obama wants to susidize these nascent companys, force the taxpayer into being unwilling *investors* in a risky financial endeavor that is only for LEO abilities!

That is NOT what to base the needs of this nation's space future on!

Let private investors do that, that is what commercial is. They produce a product that govenrment needs. Great. They need some "seed" money. Sure I get it. If they need massive government moneys to do something NASA did 40 years ago and that is to be our HSF program?

No! That isn't right.

I would not comment on your views about use of US taxpayer's money since it's none of my business, except to say I can perfectly understand your position.

But I do suggest that commercial is more important to the "the nation's space future" than NASA and BEO at this point in history.

NASA can get a small and steady stream of people off planet, and hopefully can explore deep into the solar system, but for big numbers, for real change, commercial is the only game in town.

NASA and BEO are still the exciting bits - the bits we all want to live to see. But commercial is the only way we or our children are ever going to get a seat for themselves.

Which is why I think supporting commercial spaceflight needs supporting as an end in itself and not just a means to NASA HSF.