NASA and the Private Sector - Page 85
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iHirO
United Kingdom1381 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada15564 Posts
https://blogs.nasa.gov/newman/author/newman/ so much for the whining about budget cuts it just looks more like politicking and empire building... | ||
puerk
Germany855 Posts
The post is empty rethoric and name dropping. It is a feel good piece of doing something (listing things that go well), but lacks any quantitative analysis, context and relation an actual refutation would need. I do not even think she tried to refute it. Nothing in this post outlines milestones, funding, and an actual road to mars. I am not saying the NASA plan: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/journey-to-mars-next-steps-20151008_508.pdf is bad. I am saying nothing in this post confirms qualitatively that the funding and security of commitment is appropriate for the goals set. | ||
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41074 Posts
The U.S. Air Force on Wednesday awarded billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX an $83 million contract to launch a GPS satellite, breaking the monopoly that Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) and Boeing Co (BA.N) have held on military space launches for more than a decade. The Global Positioning System satellite will be launched in May 2018 from Florida, Air Force officials said. The fixed-price award is the military's first competitively sourced launch service contract in more than a decade. It ends the exclusive relationship between the military and United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. ULA did not compete for the GPS launch contract, citing accounting issues, implications of trade sanctions limiting imports of its rockets' Russian-made engines and, according to a former ULA vice president, SpaceX's cut-rate pricing. "This GPS III Launch Services contract award achieves a balance between mission success, meeting operational needs, lowering launch costs, and reintroducing competition for National Security Space missions," Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves, who heads the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, said in a statement. Between now and 2018, the Air Force plans to solicit bids for contracts covering eight more satellite launches. Source | ||
Incognoto
France10234 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41074 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + Wow, how odd that this all happened at exactly the same time. It is probably just a coincidence, right? With near-perfect simultaneity we learn that NASA has decided to cut funding for new technology needed to develop systems to land large payloads (you know, human-related stuff) on Mars. As this news was making the rounds, SpaceX announced that it is sending its own mission to the surface of Mars. If you read the opening section of the Space Act Agreement between NASA and SpaceX (signed 25/26 April, announced 27 April 2016) it is clear that NASA will be obtaining information from SpaceX while (maybe) providing some sort of unspecified assistance. To be certain, NASA has the world's pre-eminent expertise in landing things - big things - on Mars. But in the end, the bulk of the data flow is going to be from SpaceX to NASA - and SpaceX will be doing the vast bulk of the technology trailblazing - and all of the funding. Did NASA cut the funding for its own Mars entry research knowing that SpaceX was going to go off and do this research? I can't say. I get answers all over the spectrum when I ask around. I do know that there were a lot of people at NASA - all the way to the top - who did not like this. But others see this as a vindication of various policies that NASA has been pursuing. This would not be the first time that two announcements about a cancellation and a new project would happen simultaneously. Recall this episode from 2015: "NASA Cancels B612 Sentinel Agreement and Then Picks JPL NEOCam": "Isn't it a litte odd that the decision to cancel the Space Act Agreement with B612 for its "Sentinel" asteroid hunting mission suddenly came to light on the eve of Discovery mission finalists being announced -- and that JPL's asteroid hunting "NEOCam" mission is among those selected for further work?. These spacecraft even look a lot alike. JPL folks clearly saw Sentinel as competition - even if it was Sentinel team that first pushed the envelope on this whole idea. JPLers were pushing Lindley Johnson and others at NASA HQ to end the Sentinel agreement." NASA HQ staff would often try to end or avoid discussions about NEO searches from its planetary science community by Saying "B612's Sentinel will do that". And then they changed their mind. In the case of B612 there were some valid (but overblown) concerns by NASA as to whether the B612 Foundation had generated enough financial resources to do what was spelled out in their Space Act Agreement. Of course, NASA was getting the lion's share of the value from this project while B612 was going to do all of the heavy lifting. But NASA got cold feet and pulled the plug - only after B612 had shown that such a concept was credible and then surprise, surprise, NASA approved its own version of the B612 concept. In the case of SpaceX sending a mission to Mars, well, its markedly different. SpaceX has their own vertically integrated launch and spacecraft company that can produce absolutely everything needed to do this mission. And they have enough money to do missions on their own. More importantly they have a leader who is compelled to explore Mars and he owns the company. They do not need NASA to do this mission. A lot of the SpaceX haters (starting with Neil Tyson) whine about there being "no business case" for deep space exploration by the private sector. These people (e.g. Tyson) are usually not business people, and they are certainly not billionaires - yet they seem to be business experts. Elon Musk and SpaceX can do what they want with their own funds, yes? End of discussion. There does not really have to be a business case any more than there is for What Bill and Melinda Gates do with their billions in developing countries or Jeff Bezos does with Blue Origin. If the people who put up the money - their own money - think this is a great idea then that's the end of that. But wait: there is a business case here. Assume it is a given that NASA's #JourneyToMars, an effort that will take 2 decades to complete at some huge but utterly unknown cost using hardware that is over-priced and behind schedule - a mission that could be (and has been) hampered by simple congressional or presidential decisions. If SpaceX pulls this first mission off, would not critics of NASA's approach - who still want to send humans to Mars - take notice and ask why it would not be more prudent to pursue other (less expensive and faster) means to get to Mars? In other words, the investment of a hundred million or so in this 2018 mission could turn into billions in possible business for SpaceX. Not an unusual investment for a large business to make especially if you have something that a certain customer might really, really want. Just the other day Charlie Bolden was asked why NASA was developing SLS when SpaceX had a Falcon 9. Say what you will about Congress - some of its members do pay attention to things such as mounting costs and delayed schedules. SpaceX has put a lot of their own money into things. Musk risked everything he owned - and a lot of people's jobs - more than once. Yes, NASA gave SpaceX a lot of money (as they gave to other companies) but the hardware and capabilities that resulted, at GAO's own appraisal, cost a fraction of what it would have cost NASA to produce. And now SpaceX is off doing things (landing stages and reusing them) that NASA itself is not capable of doing. SpaceX has an ever-growing backlog of launches worth a lot of future income. Real businesses take risks with their assets and their futures. If they take the right risks they get rewarded by the market. If they fail, they suffer financially or disappear. Governments do not have to worry about things like this. They risk other people's money and share little if any risk (certainly no personal risk) if things do not work out. What you have seen this week is a paradigm shift hiding in plain sight. In September Elon Musk is going to reveal his plans for colonizing Mars. This announcement was just the opening note. A private sector company has committed to spend its own blood and treasure on a mission to another planet. They have not asked NASA for a penny for this mission and have offered to tell NASA what they have learned - for free. Meanwhile, NASA decided to cut its own research in an area of related technology that they deemed as being crucial for their own plans to send humans to Mars. In so doing they have taken a step back from Mars while SpaceX has taken a big step forward. NASA could have made a big stink about this and made things difficult for SpaceX. They didn't. SpaceX could have just gone off and done this without NASA. They didn't. They both made the right decision. The rules for exploring space have just changed folks. Source | ||
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41074 Posts
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oBlade
Korea (South)4616 Posts
The only weakness of robotic sample return is you don't get that much. People walking around on Mars for a year can return a lot bigger mass of samples as well as just do tons of science while they're there. Even people in Mars orbit make rovers incredibly more efficient because there's no radio delay. And the USSR did robotic lunar missions with sample return, then ended up never sending people. But Mars is different and it's not either/or - I'm sure we'll still go. | ||
JimmyJRaynor
Canada15564 Posts
On April 28 2016 11:37 puerk wrote: No it doesn't. The post is empty rethoric and name dropping. It is a feel good piece of doing something (listing things that go well), but lacks any quantitative analysis, context and relation an actual refutation would need. I do not even think she tried to refute it. Nothing in this post outlines milestones, funding, and an actual road to mars. I am not saying the NASA plan: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/journey-to-mars-next-steps-20151008_508.pdf is bad. I am saying nothing in this post confirms qualitatively that the funding and security of commitment is appropriate for the goals set. matching the empty rhetoric of the republican congressman. like i said .. its been 44 years.. what is a few more years. also, this is about a budget cut for 1 year not 20 years. | ||
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41074 Posts
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hypercube
Hungary2735 Posts
On April 29 2016 11:57 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: It's hit the fan either NASA is screwed or NASA are great poker players: NASA is loose collection of interests. There are people within NASA whose main loyalty lies with science and space exploration, NASA as a bureaucratic organization, their own political career outside space policy or even particular commercial entities like Boeing or Lockheed. Cutting funding to LDSD was just a pragmatic choice. It's an internal NASA project that was always going to take a lot of time to fly on an actual mission. It was an interesting solution concept for Mars Entry, Descent and Landing, but if propulsive landing works it will be obsolete before it can fly. Propulsive landing is the optimal way to do EDL. It has the highest accuracy, potentially better mass/payload fraction than current solutions, works with humans, works with a wider payload mass interval, works at higher altitudes, works on different planetary bodies, with or without atmospheres etc. If SpaceX can demonstrate that they can land Dragon on Mars, Mars EDL as a science and engineering discipline is over. There will be no more skycrane contraptions or rovers wrapped into bouncing balls. IMO, NASA cutting funding for speculative EDL projects shows that they have confidence in SpaceX. And since LDSD doesn't have the kind of political backing SLS does, they are free to do so without interference from Congress. | ||
iHirO
United Kingdom1381 Posts
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Yurie
11531 Posts
On May 01 2016 00:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: https://twitter.com/pbdes/status/726390929825865728 Didn't they just charge 83 million for a security satellite? Thus lowered their prices after that negotiation that was 40% below expectations? | ||
hypercube
Hungary2735 Posts
On May 01 2016 14:50 Yurie wrote: Didn't they just charge 83 million for a security satellite? Thus lowered their prices after that negotiation that was 40% below expectations? The 83 million is for more than the launch itself. The new contract is a firm-fixed price contract for $82.7 million to cover launch vehicle production, mission integration, and launch operations and spaceflight certification, the Pentagon’s announcement said. http://spacenews.com/spacex-wins-82-million-contract-for-2018-falcon-9-launch-of-gps-3-satellite/ Government launches tend to cost more because certification adds extra work. The price of a commercial launch on a Falcon 9 is essentially unchanged. It used to be $61.2 million for a few years and it's $62 million now, with higher capability. | ||
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41074 Posts
YURI MILNER, a Russian internet billionaire, wants to answer the great existential question: “Are we alone in the universe?” He has already launched a project to listen for signals from outer space, using two of the world’s biggest radio telescopes. This month he also unveiled plans to send an armada of tiny spaceships, powered by laser beams and equipped with all sorts of sensors, to Alpha Centauri, 40 trillion kilometres away. Sir Richard Branson, the boss of the Virgin Group, and Elon Musk, the entrepreneur running Tesla, a car company, have both founded space ventures, Virgin Galactic and SpaceX. Sir Richard wants to turn space tourism into an industry; Mr Musk lists his ultimate goal as “enabling people to live on other planets”. Once upon a time the space race was driven by the competition between capitalism and communism. Now it is driven by the competition between individual capitalists. Space is not the only frontier that billionaires want to conquer. Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, hopes to give meat a makeover by growing it from stem cells. Mr Musk desires to “reinvent” railways by shooting passengers down hermetically sealed tubes. Tycoons are particularly keen on schemes to cheat the grim reaper. Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, proclaims that “The great unfinished task of the modern world is to turn death from a fact of life to a problem to be solved.” Larry Ellison, the chairman of Oracle, has said: “Death never made any sense to me. How can a person be there and then just vanish?” Both men have invested money in various ventures designed to come up with ways of reversing ageing. Dmitry Itskov, one of the pioneers of the Russian internet, says that his goal is to live to 10,000. Source | ||
iHirO
United Kingdom1381 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41074 Posts
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iHirO
United Kingdom1381 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41074 Posts
In the era of constrained budgets, NASA has become the federal government’s poster child for reducing costs and improving results via public-private partnerships. Photos of the International Space Station (ISS) today illustrate good government infrastructure supporting real commercial projects. A Bigelow inflatable module expands from the station’s side, a NanoRacks CubeSat deployer shoots Planet Labs satellites into orbit and competing commercial spacecraft are parked side by side at station airlocks. The retirement of shuttle left America without a domestic resupply or crew transport vehicle. SpaceX’s Dragon and Orbital ATK’s Cygnus capsules were developed using milestone-based payments under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, a competitive solution to this challenge, in place of traditional “cost-plus” contracting that studies show would have cost $billions more. These commercial spacecraft contrast with Russia’s Soyuz capsule, which provides an expensive and politically challenging ride for America’s astronauts. NASA is addressing this transportation problem via the Commercial Crew Program (CCP). Source | ||
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41074 Posts
Also the ExoMars rover has been delayed by two years. Meaning SpaceX is the only group planning a Mars visit in the next 2 years as NASA and Russia/ESA face aim for 2020. | ||
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