Companies Skeptical of Commercial Space Market 192
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that Boeing and Lockheed Martin will happily sell rockets to carry astronauts into space, but are leery about taking a leading role in President Obama's vision for a revamped NASA that relies on commercial companies to provide taxi transportation to the ISS. 'I don't think there is a business case for us,' says Lockheed Martin's John Karas about space taxis. Both Boeing and Lockheed were stung during the last burst of optimism for the commercial space business about a decade ago. They invested several billion dollars — Lockheed to develop its Atlas V, Boeing for the Delta IV — in the hopes that the huge market for commercial satellites would supplement their traditional business of launching American military spy satellites. The market did not materialize, and what business there was went to European and Russian rockets that were cheaper. The hoped-for commercial market for space taxis hinges on one small company, Bigelow Aerospace, which is developing inflatable space habitats that it hopes to market as research facilities to companies and foreign nations looking to establish a space program."
Re:riiiight (Score:5, Interesting)
Is sort of what I got from it, too.
I suspect that "there isn't a business case" really means "we liked it better when we had a guaranteed customer who would pay us whatever we and our one main competitor decided was the going rate for a launch vehicle. Please don't make us actually innovate and compete."
Re:Government is Clueless about Business (Score:2, Interesting)
If you were thoughtful, instead of a talking-point parrotting teabagger, you'd be happy that the government is getting out of the space business and telling the business businesses to figure it out.
Because we're tired of coming up with all this cool space shit just so they can adapt it to their launch systems and still lose money launching our satellites under cost-plus contracts.
Or maybe the point is that business no longer knows how to stay in business, and new businesses need to come along and take it from them, now that the government is no longer propping them up by paying for all of the technology investment and absorbing the risk of failure.
BTW, how many of anyone have you organized in your life? By your logic, that makes you incompetent to judge the skills of anyone who has. You'll still be free to toss your vote in the trash next time around.
Re:want NASA to foot the bill (Score:4, Interesting)
They also said that if you want to build a heavy lift Atlas or Delta to manned spaceflight spec it would cost between $1B and $2B. And they want NASA to pay all the cost, up front.
So they actually *know* that it will cost more like $10B, and will be able to squeeze the rest out of NASA as "cost overruns" on the initial contract bid.
Who's calling Tony Soprano a gangster?
"How much dat cost?"
"How much ya got?"
This is one of the "fine arts" or "black magic" of bidding on government tenders . . . finding out how much they really have to spend. Not just what they claim in public testimony.
Both Boeing and Lockheed Martin understand and know how to make money in this business.
They are not sure yet how they will make money in the commercial market. But if they figure it out, they will be back in it . . . real soon!
Re:Government is Clueless about Business (Score:4, Interesting)
Just curious, why does the Tea Party movement catch so much flak? It's interesting to see during my lifetime that people are showing their dissatisfaction with an ever-growing federal government. It's gratifying to see they are doing this in a "bottom-up" fashion instead of a "top-down" organization, as so many of those are just front groups for various monied interests. It's particularly nice that the majority of its members are more concerned about reform and have little or no concern about party affiliation, since I've always viewed the two-party duopoly as the biggest single part of the problem. Well, that and the massive rate of incumbency.
I can understand disagreeing with their politics. I can understand being opposed to their methods and goals. What I can't understand is the look-down-your-nose disdain that you and many others have shown. If they were an entrenched "establishment" type of political party like the Democrats and Republicans, would that impress you? Would you then feel a desire to back up your demeaning tone with substantive disagreement? Much of this, when I see it, looks like "I have decided I don't like them, and I'll get around to coming up with reasons for it later" rather than having a good reason before deciding not to like them. It looks that way and I'm wondering if it really is that way. I don't know the answer to that, but I would like to.
The way I see it, the federal government is far out of control. We have ACTA and other bad laws that we the people have absolutely no control over, in which we have no voice at all. Every new federal agency becomes a permanent fixture, never to be disbanded. Every entitlement and social program will never be repealed no matter how bankrupt. No law is too intrusive, nor any justification too flimsy. This is not remotely what our government was intended to be, not even close. If a new movement wants to oppose this, why wouldn't I welcome the sight? Should I quibble over my personal feelings towards them in the face of this?
Ever watch old kung-fu movies? I find it fascinating the way mortal enemies still have a genuine respect for one another. Each sees that his opponent is skillful and formidable and honors this. There is none of this catty, petty personal hatred, disdain and "degrade or insult at every opportunity" mentality. Some armed conflicts in real life have been this way; I believe WWI was the last. There used to be the notion that if you lose your honor by engaging in those low-road practices, then the conflict has cost you quite a bit more than even the casualties sustained. What's happened to us?
I should add I am not a member of the Tea Party movement. I have not been to their events or participated in their campaigns. It's just that one thing is consistent whether it's politics or philosophy or even IT: anytime someone acts like a raw nerve has been struck and wants to denigrate what he disagrees with for no apparent reason, that raw nerve deserved to be struck. Watching this only lends credibility to the side that does not do it.
Re:riiiight (Score:3, Interesting)
What happened to SpaceX (Score:5, Interesting)
I read that article this morning and was baffled to hear SpaceX mentioned nowhere in it, considering they have a Progress/ATV-type unmanned cargo vessel on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral and plans to build a man-rated capsule in the next 2-3 years. Have they imploded recently or something?
Re:want NASA to foot the bill (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Still not sure what the business case for space (Score:2, Interesting)
What's the big point of the Space Future, again? If we had warp drive or canals on Mars it would be different, but in our universe....?
Um. To ensure the continued survival of the human race by ensuring we have a fallback for when Mother Earth become unsuitable for life/eaten by the sun/hit be a meteorite/Mormon
Of course, if you aren't interested in the future of the human race, I'd love to understand the basis of your morality, while I murder your children.
Re:riiiight (Score:5, Interesting)
For instance, as a side benefit, in space recycling is mandatory. On Earth we may never put the resources to fully recycle, because there is no free market business case for it. It's always cheaper to litter your environment full of trash and forget about it than have to take care of it right now. Being in space would force us to immediately come up with full recycling techs, and improve them to the point where recycling almost make business sense down on Earth. Who's gonna put the resources into it down here?
The only way space can make business sense is how Formula 1 makes business sense - as a show. But space is boring. It has to be boring to be professional. Formula 1 is boring to a lot of people. But it does get quite a bit of audience, to the point where it's profitable. Unfortunately the cost of a space show dwarfs the cost of Formula 1 in comparison. It's just simply too expensive to make business sense. Like the military, if it had to be free market supported, how much would you personally donate each month from your salary to support our troops? Or what would you pay for? The labor day air show?
Re:riiiight (Score:5, Interesting)
Soyuz - which is the current Soviet manned space booster - hasn't had a fatal accident now in decades. It's old but very reliable. My guess is the big US aerospace firms can't really compete with it, at least not without sinking many billions into development costs and potentially having their own string of catastrophic failures to learn from (the way the Soviets did). They're probably also worried about demand for manned boosters going forward, and possible competition from the Russians, Europeans and - eventually - Chinese. Even if the US aerospace firms were successful in developing a manned booster, it might be difficult for them to ever recoup their development costs due to competition alone. They may feel there are better ways to spend their money, probably on defense-related programs where the margins are much higher and the competition less intense.
I know this is very anti-postmodern, but just because you don't see or don't know about something, doesn't mean it's not real.
Re:"Skeptical of Commercial Space Market " (Score:3, Interesting)
Here on slashdot I am in a small minority that typically gets modded down into oblivion very quickly. I am surprised my post lasted long enough to receive your attention.
Re:Government is Clueless about Business (Score:1, Interesting)
This use to be true of the Tea Party movement back when it had its roots during the Ron Paul campaign: limit the government's involvement in private life, lower the size of the government, non-interventionist foreign policy (including withdrawing from overseas bases, and lowering taxes. After Obama was elected, the movement was take over by extreme neo-conservatives who only want limited government when it comes to government policies they disagree with. At their large events, some of their guest speakers include inflammatory people such as Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Michele Bachmann, just to name a few. The movement has been sponsoring candidates to compete with moderate Republicans who have expressed views such as: supporting Israel militarily so the Second Coming will occur sooner, having the federal government adopt evangelical Christianity as a state religion, draconian invasions of privacy to find and kick out illegal immigrants.
It's the size (Score:2, Interesting)
The larger governments get, the more inefficient and corrupt they get. It just happens. I just looked, Finland population = 5.4 million. US=300 million. Finland has a 200 member parliament, the US has 435 Reps and 100 senators (2 per state). the average citizen in the US is FAR from power, just do the math. See a problem yet with working coherently? The US government is huge already, millions of employees, and they are already so far in debt that even if we went to a 100% tax rate it would take years to break even and start over. We need to borrow trillions a year from some place foreign just to maintain what we have already. And borrowing means it has to be paid back, with interest. do the math again.
It's a big freaking mess. It's a debt bubble/bomb that is around two years from total implosion.
The tea party movement at its very basic core is just wanting to reduce the size of government down to a more manageable and affordable level, and get a handle on budgets and taxes, including simplifying the tax code, etc. They were against the bailouts, both the casino banks and the dinosaur car companies. They are against so called health care reform because they recognize it for what it is, a bailout for dinosaur insurance companies, it's a conjob that will just cost more.
People here are not all that adverse to helping, or caring for our poorest,, etc, just our past track record is rather dismal, and stuff always seems to cost many times more than what they initially claim it will cost, with only half the results, or less.
So even though you are talking about two countries/nations, there's no real comparison in what can be done, not at this time anyway, until we can come up with some way to afford what we are committed to already, yet alone any more welfare things. We are bleeding jobs the last two decades, bad, and need near two million jobs a year created just to maintain. And it isn't happening. There's just *pitiful* job creation going on.
In short, we can't afford it, "it" being everything they spend on now, wars, entitlements, whatever, the money just isn't there and they are existing on credit and wishful thinking and passing the buck to the future where it will magically get taken care of.
So don't blame the tea party folks for pointing out the realities of the situation. The entrenched D and R parties have had..forever to fix things, and they haven't. I've been active in politics since the early 60s and it's the same crap, election cycle after election cycle. It is NEVER going to get fixed as long as the D and R parties keep our government hijacked and run as a crony jobs and bribery program. Which is all it is at this point.
Something new is needed, and it is at least an attempt, I'll give them that. Other folks can try what they want to as well, but sure as heck just doing the same thing we have been doing over and over again will lead to the US being the fastest decaying super power empire ever at this rate. Once the rest of the world panics and starts really dumping the dollar (which I think has great odds of happening), and we lose global "reserve currency" status, that's it, the party is over, there won't be anything like you see now, let alone any full cradle to grave welfare society. The money just isn't there, it's already spent, years/decades ago. Broke, busted, bankrupt, flat..see?
You have to make wealth before you spend it, whatever you spend it on. They are trying to do that just by running the dollar printing press...and that won't work forever, just like that stupid house flipping bubble ponzi scheme didn't work forever either.
Re:riiiight (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's the size (Score:3, Interesting)
The European Union has a population larger than the United States and yet it manages just fine.
Which more or less is in agreement with what the Tea Partiers are saying... you don't need such a large Federal government. The EU model does seem to work, with obvious problems (Greece, ahem), but it works on balance. But the EU model is to have VERY strong state governments with an extremely loose central government. So loose that some would argue that it isn't even a real government.
So don't be too hard on the Tea Partiers... ask yourself how you'd like your healthcare to be run from Brussels. The party seems to attract a lot of nuts, but they do have a point.
Re:It's the size (Score:3, Interesting)
Even though there is no public option the issue with this "universal" health-care plan, the government will force insurance companies to take up 30 some-odd-million people they can't really afford to take up, most likely putting a lot of these insurance companies out of business, thus leaving government an opportunity to move in and provide the public option after all.
And no I speak as a Libertarian not a tea party supporter, and as a Canadian.
As friends and I half jokingly say, "Now where will we go for excellent health-care?"