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Bert22306
Did I ever ask myself that question? Not really. The reason is not that they ...
ChipBuilder
The problem is that the "yahoo fringe" are in charge of public education and ...
Commercial space race heats up in Dragon's wake
George Leopold
6/1/2012 2:08 PM EDT
WASHINGTON – The successful conclusion of the first commercial supply mission to the International Space Station this week also prompted a wave of announcements from a growing list of commercial space companies vying for NASA contracts and space tourist customers.
Most notably, the normally secretive Blue Origin startup launched by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos disclosed on Thursday (May 31), the same say a SpaceX spacecraft returned from a supply mission to the space station, that it had completed a NASA review of its proposed orbital spacecraft. Blue Origin (Kent, Wash.) and others are competing with SpaceX for a NASA commercial crew contract.
Rob Meyerson, Blue Origin’s president, said in a statement that the review means the company can moved ahead to complete is rocket and spacecraft designs. The company is proposing a reusable rocket and a “biconic” spacecraft that would be upright at launch but oriented horizontally for reentry. The horizontal orientation would give the spacecraft the same “lifting body” properties used for reentry by the winged space shuttle.
Blue Origin's rocket during an aborted flight test last year just before ground controllers destroyed it at about 45,000 feet after the vehicle encountered "flight instability."
Another competitor for the NASA contract, Sierra Nevada Corp. (Louisville, Colo.) said this week it had completed “captive carry” test of its Dream Chaser vehicle. A full scale version of the spacecraft was carried aloft to gauge flight characteristics as part of a NASA test program. The company said it expects to being autonomous approach and landing tests later this summer at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
Steve Lindsey, a former astronaut and chief of NASA’s astronaut office, heads Sierra Nevada flight test program.
XCOR Aerospace (Mojave, Calif.), which is developing a rocket-power aircraft that would take tourists to the edge of space, said last week that its proprietary liquid oxygen piston pump is ready to be used in the main engine of XCOR’s Lynx suborbital spacecraft. XCOR said completion of fuel pump testing is the last step before integrating the main propulsion system with the Lynx vehicle. The company said last fall that flight testing could begin as early as this fall.
XCOR was founded in 1999 by former Intel executive Jeff Greason.
This week’s series of commercial space announcements came after SpaceX successfully sent its Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station. The spacecraft carrying a return cargo splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday. The successful first test flight to the space station gives SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk, a big head start in the competition to fly cargo and crews to the station as part of NASA commercial crew program.
Another competitor, Orbital Sciences (Dulles, Va.) is scheduled to test its Antares rocket later this year from a new launch complex at Wallops Island, Va. A test flight with a cargo ship that will attempt to dock with the space station could come as early as 2013, the company said.
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Dr DSP
6/1/2012 3:24 PM EDT
Anyone know of a good analysis of the cost differences between these commercial rockets and the NASA versions? What accounts for the big difference in cost?
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Bert22306
6/1/2012 4:13 PM EDT
Quoting from the article: "Steve Lindsey, a former astronaut and chief of NASA’s astronaut office, heads Sierra Nevada flight test program."
In view of the alarmist anti-business rhetoric of the past few days, on this subject, this is how things can and should evolve, when a technology goes from expensive government funded R&D to more of a commercial nature.
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DanielRavenNest
6/1/2012 4:14 PM EDT
Several things:
* Lack of a huge number of unnecessary requirements imposed by NASA. On the commercial contracts NASA specifies what to deliver, but not how to do it.
* Doing 80% of the production in a single factory in the case of SpaceX, rather than many subcontractors spread across congressional districts, and using the latest CNC machines to do it with.
* In the case of the Falcon 9 vs Space Shuttle and SLS boosters, 13% higher fuel efficiency (Isp) by using LOX/Kerosine instead of solid fuel. Payload is highly leveraged on fuel efficiency.
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george.leopold
6/1/2012 5:40 PM EDT
These are just a few examples. The other, according to Andrew Chaikin, concerns a part SpaceX needed immediately, if not sooner. They approached a contractor who told them there was no way they could produce the part in the time and at the price SpaceX was willing to pay. So SpaceX simply built the part itself and saved the cost.
The other part of the equation is the space shuttle, a great flying machine, was extraordinarily expensive to operate. NASA's resources need to be used on deep space rocket development, not low-earth orbit aboard the shuttle.
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EREBUS
6/1/2012 4:44 PM EDT
As for all of the compitition claims, they need to prove they have a capability by sending a similar vehicle to the space station.
Otherwise their claims are just worth a bucket of spit.
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ChipBuilder
6/2/2012 1:37 PM EDT
There are very few things that the govt can do better than private industry. I would exclude challenges that are on a massive scale, like Apollo was and our military. But, the current misguided push on solar is an example where large scale govt stupidty is on parade. I am very impressed with SpaceX, what a great achievement.
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tb1
6/2/2012 10:12 PM EDT
"There are very few things that the govt can do better than private industry." That is an oft-repeated, overly broad generalization. But, heck, it's a great sound bite.
Along with its successes, private industry has had a number of amazing disasters. 60% of companies fail after 4 years.
In any case, this is a remarkable achievement.
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ChipBuilder
6/3/2012 2:44 AM EDT
The small box lends itself to generalizations as opposed to dissertations. I consider "industry" to be the collective efforts of the free enterprise system, where the market determines winners and the 60 pct of the losers, where the govt just spends and spends until it becomes so ridiculously obvious that its not going to work and then they stop.
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Bert22306
6/3/2012 5:59 PM EDT
No, it's the other way around. If 60 percent of new companies fail, that's because they weren't fit to survive. So that's a success story right there.
If government programs that weren't fit to survive would be allowed to fail, then we might not be submerged in debt as we are.
There are definitely legitimate jobs that the government can and should do. Like national defense, public education, and I would argue also to help fund basic research. Because everyone benefits from these endeavors, and it's difficult to make a case that these could be funded by private donations alone.
The problem is when politicians want to reward their campaign contributors with my tax dollars, for whatever hair-brained ideas they might have, the validity of which the politicians and their staffers are completely incompetent to evaluate.
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GPBobby
6/4/2012 8:10 PM EDT
...and Edison claimed to know of hundreds of lamp filament configurations that didn't work. Perfect. That's exactly how the free market is supposed to work. And be glad. I assume none of the failures were financed by you. But Solindra was.
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GPBobby
6/4/2012 8:23 PM EDT
@bert22306: Be careful about what you include on your government activities list. The Constitution is pretty clear on that.
A guideline I learned in Economics class was that the government should "do for the people that which they cannot do for themselves." National defense, city parks, water and sewer, and for the natural monopolies where redundancies make no sense, like land-line phone and electricity, they regulate. Education falls into none of those catagories, and the government monopoly on it has directly resulted in the fact that after two hundred years of trying, children are still not able to learn math by high school that was known in the 1600s. Any wonder charter schools are such a success?
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selinz
6/5/2012 4:34 PM EDT
While I like GPBobby's definition, there is something to be said for educating the very poor which I have to assume would be difficult if education were completely privatized..
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Bert22306
6/5/2012 4:46 PM EDT
This is going far afield of the original topic.
Public education is also needed to create some sort of cohesive society, though. Or at least, guidelines or basic courses that all schools should cover. Something akin to what is done now for home schooling.
Otherwise, you can end up with balkanization, where every yahoo fringe groups gets to indoctrinate their young with whatever radical weirdness they can dream up.
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ChipBuilder
6/6/2012 12:45 AM EDT
The problem is that the "yahoo fringe" are in charge of public education and charter schools are providing solid education. Ever ask yourself why politicians send their kids to private schools?
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Bert22306
6/6/2012 3:06 PM EDT
Did I ever ask myself that question? Not really. The reason is not that they want to indoctrinate their kids in radical cultish views, but rather they HOPE to have their kids taught in a more disciplined educational environment, hopefully far away from the influence of other kids who think it's "cool to be stupid." An attitude that unfortunately prevails in many public schools.
They figure that the children of parents who pay dearly to send kids to school will be more likely to have ingrained in their thinking that education matters.
That's the hope. Whether it works is another matter.
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