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Comments: 133 +- Science: Can Commercial Space Tech Get Off the Ground? on Wednesday June 17 2009, @08:32AM
Posted
by
Soulskill
on Wednesday June 17 2009, @08:32AM
from the better-question-will-it-stay-off-the-ground dept.
from the better-question-will-it-stay-off-the-ground dept.
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coondoggie writes "While NASA's commercial partners such as SpaceX and Orbital have made steady progress in developing space cargo transportation technology, they have recently fallen behind their development schedules. Combine that with the fact that the most critical steps lie ahead, including successfully launching new vehicles and completing integration with the space station, and you have a hole that will be tough to climb out of. Those were the two main conclusions of a Government Accountability Office report (PDF) on the status of the commercial space world this week. The GAO went on to say that after the planned retirement of the space shuttle in 2010, NASA will face a cargo resupply shortfall for the International Space Station of approximately 40 metric tons between 2010 and 2015."
Speaking of SpaceX, reader Matt_dk sends along an update on the company's Falcon 9 flight efforts. "Six of the nine first stage flight engines have completed acceptance testing and all nine flight engines are on schedule to complete acceptance testing by mid-July."
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Answer: (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes.
Stupid space puns dumped here (Score:2, Funny)
Get all of your dumb space puns out of the way here
It depends. Can the Commercial Space Technology get enough momentum to support the project? Can the companies behind these projects meet the orbiting budgets required to fund such a task? One needs to fuel the explosive innovation of space travel. Setting up commercial space technology is exactly rocket science, you know. Only dedication and large amounts of money can get these projects off of the launch pad.
I think part of the limitation is the atmosphere
If you believe that... (Score:2)
If you believe that, I have an asteroid belt you may be interested in purchasing.
(Said entirely for comic effect... I actually think commercial space tech will do just fine. So. How about $70 trillion for that asteroid belt? It's hardly used and only a few billion years old.)
Definitions (Score:2)
No, it's a logically impeccable statement to say that commercial space tech. can get off the ground. If it doesn't then it must be something else entirely.
Re:Answer: ...for how long? (Score:2)
Ah, but for more than 37 seconds? And about that great ball of fire....
The problems... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Your quotes around security reasons are probably unwarranted. The research in question could probably also be used to create ICBMs. At least that's the only reason that would seem justified.
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Your quotes around security reasons are probably unwarranted. The research in question could probably also be used to create ICBMs. At least that's the only reason that would seem justified.
ICBMs, spy satellites, and anti-satellite weapons will all have similar launch systems, exactly what we use to get humans into space. Filtering down, the individual propulsion techniques could be used in nearly any missile or rocket, as well as adapted for general explosives. Not something we'd want falling into the hands of a rogue state, especially one with nuclear capabilities. Imagine if North Korea's missile launch hadn't been a failure; that's why we don't want this kind of information getting out.
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I disagree. Sure they have sheer manpower, but they aren't building the Great Wall. The US space program was built upon rocketry expertise from the US, German and other rocket scientists. North Korea I feel lacks the ability to attract quality outside talent. Granted they could throw gobs of money at some scientists but I still doubt they could assemble an equivalent knowledgable workforce as Space-X simply because anyone with rocket expertise could find a great job in many other countries, without havi
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So, what you're saying is private industry can't work without government assistance.
That's not what he said... I only saw him imply that we are entitled to the knowledge that NASA spends our money to acquire.
I'm not sure I agree with that, but that's all I get out of his comment.
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I think I agree with you, and that certain NASA assets should be treated exactly like their equivalent DOD assets. We buy security with taxpayer dollars as well as knowledge.
I just think you are barking up the wrong tree with the free market stuff in this particular thread... the parent wasn't even alluding to that.
Re:The problems... (Score:5, Insightful)
The main problems are that NASA because of "security reasons" can't give out a lot of the taxpayer funded research that would help these companies get off the ground. So, what took NASA many years to do doesn't have to be reinvented by a private company.
The bigger problem with "security reasons" that commercial companies like SpaceX has is with things like ITAR export restrictions; these are the same regulations older slashdotter might remember from the late 90s, where strong encryption was regarded as a munition as people were tattooing encryption code to themselves along with the text "this man is a munition." [treachery.net] A recent example is with SpaceX's delayed launch of Malaysia's RazakSat satellite [hobbyspace.com]:
Technicians discovered the satellite and the Falcon 1 upper stage rocket share a nearly identical vibrational mode, which could set up a damaging resonance. SpaceX is bound by ITAR restrictions from assisting with any technical problems on the foreign-owned payload, so the company delayed the launch to add some vibration isolation equipment between the rocketâ(TM)s upper stage and the payload adapter.
"The easiest thing would actually be to make some adjustment to the satellite . . . but that's not allowed," Musk says.
Also, if anything, reinventing from the ground up is a big part of why SpaceX has been able to get costs as low as they have. Instead of designing their rockets to satisfy the politicians' fetish for spreading assembly over key congressional districts across the country and the engineers' fetish for maximizing performance at the cost of all else, SpaceX has been able to design their system from the get-go to minimize production costs, minimize the size of their ground crew (SpaceX Falcon I just needs something like 20 personnel at the launch site, instead of the 100 or so needed for EELVs), and maximize potential reusability.
Parent
I really hope so (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I really hope so (Score:5, Funny)
"You wanna know my vision? Dollar signs! Money! You think i want to go to the stars? I don't even like to fly!" - Zefram Cochrane
Parent
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Very true. The thing to keep in mind though, is that economic issues are more or less a proxy for where society needs resources and skills the most. There are a lot of people who would like to see private space flight succeed for no other reason than "because it's cool". But society doesn't really place much value on "because it's cool", at least not enough to send things like engineers who might otherwise have been working on projects like climate change or new energy sources to go work somewhere else.
T
Isn't space like really exspensive ? (Score:5, Informative)
You have to get to very high velocity - that implies a lot of fuel, and very exspensive craft that can survive the high velocity
It's hard to do repair, so you have to spend a lot for high reliability equipment
Space is a harsh environment - you have temperature extremes, radiation, vacumn welding
many people get the low gravity equivalent of car sickness
although it is not publicized by nasa, in low gravity, liquid containment - like when you go to the bathroom - is difficult;' as a result, there is a lot of intestinal illness in space (think about that !)
The take home is that space is, and always will be, very $ relative to ground; therefore there has to be some compelling reason to go to space.
Sadly, there are few compelling reasons.
I have been doing biotech high technology startups for 20+years, and aside from the .dom boom era, there is very little money or enthusiasm for gee wiz technology
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You have to get to very high velocity
Not for all purposes. You only need fuel for acceleration, plus some missions might not be particularly time critical. Robotic mineral mining for example.
Here we go again (Score:3, Insightful)
Geez, here we go again.
Yes, the bottom line is that getting to space is really, REAL
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Helium 3.
If it actually works well as a fuel for fusion then it would be valuable and light enough to be worth mining on the moon.
Un less the Polywell Fusor works then we will just use Boron.
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Helium 3.
If it actually works well as a fuel for fusion
So... *if* it can be used... in a mythical device that has yet to be invented (no one is doing He3 fusion), *then* space travel will be economically feasible.
Uhuh.
Let's just say I won't be holding my breath.
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"So... *if* it can be used... in a mythical device that has yet to be invented (no one is doing He3 fusion), *then* space travel will be economically feasible."
No mining will be. Many activities are all ready economically feasible. Remote sensing, communications and so on.
But yes there are a lot of ifs when it comes to He3 that is why I put them in.
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I really don't get the notion of He3 mining on the moon.
Let's just ignore for the moment that we have no practical way of burning it. Is it really useful to mine something from the freaking moon just to reduce a neutron flux? And if we can burn He3, we can probably scale all the way up to burn boron, which is a better fuel and readily available here on Earth. And even on the moon, He3 is rare -- tens of parts per billion, overwhelmed orders of magnitude over by regular helium. And, we can make He3 right
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If you'll pardon the pun, I wouldn't hold my breath. On earth, space for solar power means practically free desert land. In orbit, it means thousands of dollars per kilogram of launch costs, and correspondingly (pardon the pun again) astronomical installation and maintenance costs. I don't see how it'd be remotely possible to make up for that extreme difference simply because you get more sunlight. And this isn't even counting the transmission challenges and losses, micrometeorite/radiation damage (cell
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There are metals that are very rare in the Earth's crust, but are extremely useful, like Platinum and Palladium. Any realistic plan for a hydrogen economy is going to need a lot of at least one of those metals, and those two are useful as catalysts in a lot of other chemical reactions, too.
Say the hydrogen economy is a pipe dream and we should be making better Lithium batteries instead? Well, you've only just moved the problem around. Lithium production is unlikely to meet future demands for electric vehicl [meridian-int-res.com]
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Say the hydrogen economy is a pipe dream and we should be making better Lithium batteries instead? Well, you've only just moved the problem around. Lithium production is unlikely to meet future demands for electric vehicles, even though it has an atomic number of 3 and is therefore fairly abundant in the universe at large.
Nonsense [gas2.org].
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
What can we get more easily?
Let me count the ways:
Hafnium, gallium, indium, dysprosium, neodymium, terbium... shall I go on? All the things that are running out *fast* (try 10 year supply left) which we need for things like cell phones, LCD monitors, and semiconductors.
Many rare earth metals are contained in Near Earth Orbit asteroids. At least one of objects has been visited and was not terribly hard to land on.
Robotic mining might not be *easy*, but we've landed and controlled a number of craft on Mars. I
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Just getting into low orbit requires ~24kmph, which (for me, anyway) seems very fast.
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Love kilomiles, by the way :)
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Getting into orbit requires a lot more speed than 24 km/h. That's the speed of your average cyclist. To get into orbit you need to be getting into the 27,000 km/h range.
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I believe the parent was using the delightful unit kilo-miles per hour :)
In my experience, kilometers per hour is usually expressed as kph.
Personally, I think it's bad form that he didn't say 8klph. That's 8 kilo-leagues per hour.
Re:Isn't space like really exspensive ? (Score:4, Interesting)
The take home is that space is, and always will be, very $ relative to ground; therefore there has to be some compelling reason to go to space. Sadly, there are few compelling reasons.
Next time you want to get a weather report, try doing it without relying on a source that bases it on satellite imagery. Next time you watch TV, do it on a channel that doesn't link to a satellite somewhere along the way. At least as far as unmanned space projects go, the economic debate was over a long time ago.
Manned space flight is a different matter. Manned space flight is about the advancement of the species rather than any strictly economic viewpoint.
Parent
Yeah, but it's worth it. (Score:5, Insightful)
The take home is that space is, and always will be, very $ relative to ground; therefore there has to be some compelling reason to go to space.
Sadly, there are few compelling reasons.
I am compelled to disagree with this.
There are plenty of compelling reasons to go into space:
Growth of the species - Humanity is expanding in population very quickly. Eventually, assuming that holds, the planet will reach the point where sustaining that population is impossible, even with advances in technology. Your choices, then, are either to limit/reduce the population (sterilization, limitations on childbearing, war, disease, organized extermination, etc) or expand off the planet. The second option seems a little more friendly and ethical.
Survival of the species - There are several things which can cause the population to be essentially wiped out. Asteroid impacts, war, deadly pandemics, biowarfare (which I personally consider the greatest threat at the moment), and so on. It's possible that some may survive these things by digging deep underground, but I doubt enough infrastructure and population will survive to maintain society as we know it. The best long-term solution I can see is to expand off-planet and establish self-sustaining colonies. You don't keep all of your company's data and server hardware in one location, do you? The same should hold with humanity as a whole.
Additional resources - This fits with the first point. There is only so much stuff available to us on this planet. Whether we use it all up, or decide to preserve it, we will eventually reach the point where we can't use any more. What are we to do at that point? Well, I see a whole bunch of stuff sitting up in space just waiting to be used. Now before anyone starts, I am not promoting the "strip earth bare and trash it, then move on" approach. Instead, I'm promoting the "let's make use of all those barren rocks out there so we don't have to trash earth" approach.
Overall, unless we're going to take that self-ridiculing, defeatist position that humanity should draw down into a little ball and live the remainder of its existence shut in from the universe as a whole, like a pathetic and sick individual afraid to even get out of bed*, we will have to go into space eventually. It's just a matter of time. The only question is "when?"
Some will argue that it's too expensive, that we should wait until we have better technology. But how will we get that technology in the first place? It doesn't just fall into your lap one afternoon; you have to work for it. Imagine if we'd decided 100 years ago that trying to develop airplanes was stupid, that airplanes at the time were too dangerous and impractical, and that we should wait until we had technology like the 777 oir A380... I'll tell you right now, we probably wouldn't be to that point for a couple hundred more years. You don't learn how to build entirely new stuff or do new things by sitting around dreaming about it or making powerpoint charts... you learn by doing that stuff as best you can, learning from your mistakes, and doing it again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Yes, doing it is expensive. But it's worth it. The only reason it seems like it's not is that the payoff takes a little longer to come. Corporations don't undertake it because the shareholders probably won't see the benefit within their lifetimes. Governments don't do it because they don't think beyond the next election. Joe Public doesn't think about it because his attention span lasts for 20 seconds and all he's interested in is what keeps him entertained. The benefit is there, but it might be a few generations before it's realized.
Remember, too, that money spent on developing this stuff isn't just launched away into the sun or something. It stays on earth, paying the engineers and mechanics and managagers (spit) that work on it. It fosters a need for more engineers and mechanics, driving bet
Parent
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The other two are better, of course.
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It's probably irrelevent, anyway. Developed nations are having trouble keeping their birthrates above the replacement rate. This is probably a good thing in the long run, but there are problems with this in the short run, such as caring for an ageing population.
The harsh reality of undeveloped nations is that if they can't keep their birthrates under control, then they'll see a population explosion, followed by a crash due to starvation, disease, and wars over limited resources.
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You have to get to very high velocity - that implies a lot of fuel, and very exspensive craft that can survive the high velocity
Although most people believe (somewhat reasonably) that the price of fuel is a big part of the cost of spaceflight, but in actuality it's just about 1% of the total cost. The cost of the hardware itself also tends to be minor compared to the cost of paying all the personnel on the ground to put together and maintain the spacecraft.
Only with government help (Score:3, Funny)
If the government sees the gravity of the situation, the industry might get a boost.
The problem is that the analysts make it sounds like industry is shooting for the moon, and that makes financiers look at the private industry folks like they're from Mars.
Heaven forbid that multiple governments are needed to fund a private endeavor. It could force the executives into shuttle diplomacy.
The subject is unnecessarily alarmist (Score:5, Informative)
Just to clarify, if you RTFA you will find that SpaceX has completed all the milestones so far on time, and they are looking at a 2-4 month schedule slip on future milestones. Now, obviously we'd much rather not have the schedule slip, but in the world of NASA contracting that is like... totally nothing. I have to say that, as a confirmed space nut, SpaceX really impresses me. If they manage to deliver on a third of what they're talking about, they'll completely change the game--and they've done enough truly innovative stuff already that I think they might actually deliver on most of it in the long run.
Imagine a fully reusable launch vehicle, and a mostly reusable orbiter, making access to LEO or GTO cost in the hundreds of dollars per lb., instead of thousands... that's what Elon Musk is talking about in the long run, and I think he just might actually pull it off.
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Actually, if you study the history of their programs, they are years behind where they originally planned to be.
Space fans in general have *very* selective memories. Jam yesterday, and jam tommorow - but the lack of jam today goes unnoticed.
No offense, but after decades of watching the space 'nut' community, many are i
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Why? It's not like the engineering is different for government vs. privately funded. The only difference is who pays the bills (and taxpayers have footed a non trivial amount of SpaceX's bills).
No, SpaceX is not actually 'doing it', they've done it - *once*. You can't draw a curve through a single point. The long road to space is already littered
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They haven't even delivered on their simplest of vehicles.
Wrong. The contract called for a successful flight. There was a successful flight. The contract delivery occurred. It's pretty simple.
Their flight record is abysmal...
Wrong. One partially successful flight and one completely successful flight in three launches of a brand new vehicle is completely normal, historically. Looking at actual flight statistics for inexperienced manufacturers reveals 70% experienced a failure in the first two flights. Even an experienced manufacturer that has built rockets before has a 20% failure rate in t
11 countries have orbital launch capability (Score:2)
Scaled Composites (Score:3, Interesting)
Misleading caption (Score:2)
The article subject line is misleading. One thing is certain, the commercial space business will not go back to where it came from, the blossoming has passed the point of no return. Given time, it will get off the ground. Given time, pigs will fly too, and birds will breathe nitrogen.
Private enterprise not in it for the long haul (Score:2)
It's rare to see people in business with a passion for doing something -- something other than making obscene piles of cash, that is. In this environment, it's all about the fast buck and fuck the rest. Complain all you want about government inefficiency and waste, they seem to be the only ones with pockets deep enough and time-frames long enough to contemplate truly big projects. Something like the Panama Canal, it needed a government to make it happen; it also needed a government's military resources to k