CSF and Human Spaceflight Misperceptions

A very well written article refuting claims against Commercial Spaceflight (CSP). I wish the US Senate would take the time to read what has been written here.

Crewed CSF is the next logical step in spaceflight. It is obvious that NASA is NOT going to be receiving a large budget increase. The only way we (America) have a chance to reach out beyond LEO in a sustainable way, is to lower costs. What we have been doing for the last 3 decades plus has NOT been working.

Crewed CSF can lower costs to LEO and allow NASA to concentrate on beyond LEO.

Massive kudos to the CSF for putting this together. I've seen these myths stated as if they were facts far too many times, and it'll be quite handy to have this source available to rebut them instead of having to dig for sources each time.

This is mostly a PR piece. For instance, the comment that it could take up to 10 years to develop this capability has been turned into it will take 10 years to develop.

As support for this being a myth, it is stated that Gemini only took 3 years. That was in the early to mid 1960’s, used ejection seats for launch abort capability, used military test pilots, had little automated capability, had limited docking capability, did not have to meet environmental, OSHA, and other governmental standards, occurred during a time of learning and had a higher tolerance of failures, had very little software and did not require much software development. Comparing this new commercial proposal to a 1960’s program is absurd.

It also says that because you have multiple companies providing this capability, that will prevent schedule delays. That might be valid if this were already a demonstrated capability, but none of these companies has developed a crew capsule on their own before. There are many unknowns and hurdles ahead that can easily cause delays to all of the companies involved. The more experience companies are likely to be able to accomplish the claims, but this is not a slam-dunk endeavor. For a less experienced company to claim considerably lower costs indicates a lack of understanding about what's involved.

Not addressed is the fact that none of these companies has provided a detailed schedule of how they will achieve this capability in any time frame. That could be partly excused since the government hasn’t provided any requirements for this, but it points out that any promises the companies put out are worthless and more PR to get government funding.

Myth: Turning over LEO activities to private industry will allow NASA to focus funds on manned space missions beyond LEO.

Fact: The administration is actually going to increase the ISS budget to $3 billion annually by 2014. The only way that private industry would be ready to service the ISS is if this government LEO program on steroids is extended beyond 2015 and not terminated as originally planned by NASA so that NASA could focus those funds for beyond LEO missions.

That means that $3 billion dollars a year ($30 billion over 10 years) that NASA could have used for beyond LEO missions would have to be spent on the ISS instead.

Private industry needs to focus on space tourism and launching Bigelow space stations-- not government space programs.

And the ISS program needs to be terminated after 2015 so that NASA can finally focus on beyond LEO missions and on much cheaper heavy lift launched National space stations that can be efficiently utilized for beyond LEO missions.

Marcel F. Williams

> any promises the companies put out are worthless and more PR to get government funding.

No. But you are conspicuously trying very hard to discredit it.

The law says NASA is to "seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space."

Do you know what that means? Do you think it matters if it takes 3 years or 10?

NASA legally must seek and encourage the fullest commercial use of space possible. Unless you're a communist making excuses. Have you checked? Maybe you've changed and the laws stayed the same?