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NASA Does a U-Turn, Opens To Private Industry
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon May 12, 2008 07:23 PM
from the facing-skyward-thumb-out dept.
from the facing-skyward-thumb-out dept.
mattnyc99 writes "Popular Mechanics is reporting that NASA — faced with the looming retirement of the space shuttle, and planning for longer missions like the one to Mars we've been discussing — is looking to free up its budget and depend a lot more on private space startups to carry key payloads into orbit in the next few years. For an agency so steeped in bureaucracy, it seems like everyone from NASA chief Mike Griffin to contracted officials to the key players in this in-depth podcast roundtable is finally acknowledging that commercial rocketeering (space tourists aside) is a more efficient means of getting back into space for NASA. Quoting: 'Because of a new focus for NASA's strategic investments — not to mention incentives like the Ansari X Prize, which spurred the space-tourism business, and the Google Lunar X Prize, which could do the same for payloads — private-sector spaceships could be ready for government service soon, says Sam Scimemi, who heads NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. "The industry has grown up," he tells PM. "It used to be that only NASA or the Air Force could do such things."'"
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People Seem To Be Unaware (Score:5, Insightful)
When NASA stops offering "cost plus" contracts to the usual suspects (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc) then you can have a big celebration, but until then its just business as usual.
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When NASA stops offering "cost plus" contracts to the usual suspects (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc) then you can have a big celebration, but until then its just business as usual.
When this kind of thing comes up, I always wonder what implications private outsourcing of critical work has on problem solving. I mean, if another shuttle explodes or some such thing, it's probably straightforward in getting all the commerical secrets out of the offending company, but couldn't it be argued that private outsourcing causes these kinds of accidents (because the private company doesn't want to reveal everything to NASA about their product)?
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Re:People Seem To Be Unaware (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
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Ahh...Popular Mechanics (Score:3, Interesting)
The most recent detail in that article dates back to three months ago when NASA re-awarded to Orbital Sciences the funds that Rocketplane Kistler forfeited when they failed to meet their milestones.
Also, it's not like NASA has been closed to private industry before. The true story of the Fisher space pen [snopes.com] is a small, but great example. NASA just doesn't typically provide open-ended opportunities like this, much less with discretionary development funding.
Give em a go (Score:3, Interesting)
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Oh No!! Not NASA!! (Score:2, Interesting)
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Although the individual contractors make more than they would if they were in the military, the contracts I am familiar with usually end up saving the military money. It usually takes significantly fewer contractors, (since contractors don't have as many b
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Do you think that some private soldier or ordinary seaman is going to have their heart into flipping burgers at the Burger King in the PX? What kind of accounting job do you think some 2nd Lieutenant fresh out of college is going to perform as opposed to a professional CPA with 30 years of experience that doesn't want to deal with the ordeals of a military officer
Popular Mechanics Sensasionalism (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't about public vs private - it is about NASA's desire to stop being dependant on a small number of large aerospace corporations. It is about their desire for space exploration grow in anyway possible. Everybody who works there wants to see SpaceX, t-Space, and the others succeed, as much as the folks here do.
Sounds Good To Me (Score:4, Insightful)
The contractors benefit by getting outside sources of funding for research projects that may not swiftly transform into mature, commercial aerospace opportunities.
The public benefits from the scientific gains, and the long-term economic benefits resulting from the original R&D stimulation.
But once an aerospace technology begins to mature, and profitable business models become apparent, the need for government-subsizied R&D passes away, and private industry willingly takes the next steps themselves, with their own funding. Witness, for example, Boeing's booming aerospace engineering and service business, founded on Apollo-era technology acquired from companies whose R&D was originally funded by NASA.
I, for one, wholeheartedly approve of NASA turning to the private sector for robust, proven, mature aerospace solutions. Once the technology has reached that stsge, NASA's work is done, and it should move on to other, more advanced goals.
private...bureaucracy...efficient..private sector (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, why is the private sector "efficient"? Instead of paying just labor costs and capital costs, you now have add the expenses for the profit that will be taken as well, so the only thing new about this is the majority shareholders, whom Federal Reserve studies show are multimillionaires and billionaires, will be getting a check as well. Plus the company will be lobbying the government regarding how this money is doled out. Look at the agricultural industry in the US for starters.
Despite having had to swallow a lifetime of propaganda about how much more efficient it is to have something handled when a billionaire is getting a profit paycheck as opposed to a government project, I don't swallow it. Maybe in the US or UK, where government attempts to do so are sabotaged, but I have seen Scandinavian government "bureaucracies" that make the "efficiency" of the typical pointy headed bosses company in the US look laughable.
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Because it allows you to utilise the ideas, labour and capital of the entire population and not just the part supposed to be involved with government.
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No it doesn't. You hand your contract out to a company and you're locked into what that company can do. Hand it to a government department and you're locked in to what they can do. Sure you get to pick from a wider set of limitations but neither allows you to use the "ideas, labour and capital of the entire population". You can't hand a contract to Boeing and
Re:private...bureaucracy...efficient..private sect (Score:3, Informative)
Re:private...bureaucracy...efficient..private sect (Score:2)
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In an attempt to get this even vaguely back on topic: who put the first satellite into LEO? Who put the first man into LEO?
And while I'm at it: How many people did the Russian government put into LEO total? How many people did the US government put into LEO total? And how many people has the oh-so-efficient private industry put into LEO so far? Big zero, eh? Wonder how that is...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There's no profit in it.
Oh, there's profit in commercial satellites. We have thousands of them orbiting. But to actually put people in orbit is still a money-losing proposition. Although that might change in the medium term.
Ever heard of Bigelow Aerospace?
Governments may lead the way, but it's private citizens who really make changes. It's been like that for centuries, from Columbus, to Lewis and Clark, to Alan Shepherd. I
Annoying (Score:4, Interesting)
The Shuttle was a huge program when it was first considered. Congress mandated it's use to justify the expenditure. The Air Force levied horrible constraints against development, turning it into the mediocre performer it is today. The Congressional mandate effectively stopped any substantial commercial spaceflight development until pretty recently.
I've flown a payload on the Shuttle (STS-116.) Lemme say that the oversight for flying on a manned launch vehicle was enormous. That's a completely unnecessary burden for most launches. The single-use unmanned boosters are a much more effective method for putting everything but people into orbit.
The US space program is 20-30 years behind where it should be. I can't stand when folks think it's a wonderful thing that the bureaucrats are finally getting a clue. We should be completely furious that it's taken this long.
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What are your thoughts on the multi-platform Ares I/V designs, which effectively split the mission into manned and unmanned segments?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The Shuttle is an impressive piece of hardware, but it's payload capacity is a huge step backward from that of the Saturn series. The Saturn V (which happens to be man-rated as well,) could loft 118,000kg into LEO. You'll need four or five Shutt
"The industry has grown up," (Score:2)
Yeah, It's not like its rocket science or anything... Or has the challenges changed? Its still primarily a challenge of managing a crap load of propellant.
Its an 18 year old law (Score:3, Informative)
Tragically there was an obvious direction in place subsequent to the space race (remember the Apollo program?) that would have been followed through to space industrialization had the launch service industry enjoyed the same protection from government competition that the satellite industry enjoyed [presageinc.com]:
It wasn't until 1990, when a coalition of grassroots groups across the country [geocities.com] lobbied hard for 3 years, that similar legislation got passed for launch services.
The fact that the global economic paradigm didn't follow the Club of Rome model exactly doesn't change the reality of the Malthusian paradigm given a fundamentally limited biosphere undergoing its largest extinction event in 60 million years. The Club of Rome merely added academic fashion to the very real urgency of the Malthusian situation still facing the biosphere. The 1970s was the right time to start the drive for space industrialization based on a private launch service industry. It didn't happen, the pioneering culture that founded the US is being replaced by government policy with less pioneering cultures and now we're all facing some increasingly obvious difficulties -- not just pioneer American stock -- and not just humans.