CEV to be made commercially available

"Tom Cuddihy" wrote in message
ups.com...

But you have to start somewhere. ESAS is what you
call a 'baseline.' It's the fallback. If all the other
budding space projects fall through completely, if
SpaceX stalls after launching one or two Falcon 1s, if
all of AirLaunch's test engines blow up and Blue
Origin kills a family of 5 on their first suborbital joy
ride, at least the ESAS will still be in progress,
keeping the public interested in man's outward
destiny, keeping at least a cadre of personnel
knowledgeable in the issues of manned space launch,
hopefully beyond LEO.

Which do you think has the greater chance of success - one $100 billion
ESAS approach, or one thousand $100 million SpaceX/Airlaunch/Origin
efforts?

Which "baseline" would you prefer?

Pete.

Pete Lynn wrote:
"Tom Cuddihy" wrote in message
ups.com...

But you have to start somewhere. ESAS is what you
call a 'baseline.' It's the fallback. If all the other
budding space projects fall through completely, if
SpaceX stalls after launching one or two Falcon 1s, if
all of AirLaunch's test engines blow up and Blue
Origin kills a family of 5 on their first suborbital joy
ride, at least the ESAS will still be in progress,
keeping the public interested in man's outward
destiny, keeping at least a cadre of personnel
knowledgeable in the issues of manned space launch,
hopefully beyond LEO.

Which do you think has the greater chance of success - one $100 billion
ESAS approach, or one thousand $100 million SpaceX/Airlaunch/Origin
efforts?

That's easy to sco

$100 billion at $15 bil a year for NASA -- 7 years to reach full
funding based on slightly less than current NASA funding. Odds are
pretty good.

1000x 100 million = $100 billion in private financing required. At
current SpaceX (~$80 mil a year in investment from Musk's dwindling
private stash--generous) + all other FALCON expenditures (AirLaunch,
Microcosm) programs (~$30 mil a year, again, generous) + Blue Origin (~
complete guess, but let's say a really generous $100 mil a year).
==total $210 mil a year, 500 years to reach full funding.

hmm. That's easy. Oh I know, that's no fair. I should be funding SpaceX
/ AirLaunch / Origin at the same rate as NASA. But that's completely
unrealistic for many reasons, one of which is that injecting that much
money into new private efforts would completely distort their
development. When that much money is involved, requirements, end
states, and 'level of success guarantees' have to be clearly defined,
which means these 'amazingly efficient, new wave' efforts look ever
more like current NASA / Big Aerospace efforts, focused less on overall
bottom line than on meeting the single big contract, until it's just a
new name on the same contracts NASA currently uses. What's the point of
that?

I don't see any reason to believe that if NASA just handed out bundles
of cash to people like Gary Hudson and Mitchell Burnside Clapp they
would magically do it successfully more efficiently than the big,
legacy players. People outside the loop find it easy to assume and
handwave away large problems that people who do the real work face when
it gets down to it.

Look at Kistler. When they did the paper design, they bought the
engines for cheap, then figured $600 mil would be more than sufficient
for 3 vehicles plus launch facilities. $800 mil and "90% complete" of
one vehicle later, they found that gravity and friction applied to them
too. It's easy to pick apart specifics of how they structured their
contracts or whatever, but the fact remains that every nouveau rocket
startup has faced the same exact issues.


Which "baseline" would you prefer?

Pete.

I always prefer a baseline to a fantasy line.

Tom

"Tom Cuddihy" wrote in message
oups.com...

Pete Lynn wrote:

Which do you think has the greater chance of
success - one $100 billion ESAS approach, or one
thousand $100 million SpaceX/Airlaunch/Origin
efforts?

That's easy to sco

Apparently not.

$100 billion at $15 bil a year for NASA -- 7 years
to reach full funding based on slightly less than current
NASA funding. Odds are pretty good.

In not first addressing the problems of CATS the odds of ESAS
accomplishing the commercialisation of space are negligible.

1000x 100 million = $100 billion in private financing
required. At current SpaceX (~$80 mil a year in
investment from Musk's dwindling private stash--
generous) + all other FALCON expenditures
(AirLaunch, Microcosm) programs (~$30 mil a year,
again, generous) + Blue Origin (~ complete guess, but
let's say a really generous $100 mil a year).
==total $210 mil a year, 500 years to reach full
funding.

hmm. That's easy. Oh I know, that's no fair. I should
be funding SpaceX / AirLaunch / Origin at the same
rate as NASA. But that's completely unrealistic for
many reasons, one of which is that injecting that much
money into new private efforts would completely
distort their development.

Indeed, which is why one would for this hypothetical comparison assume a
similar time frame for both scenarios. A five billion annual budget
would infer $100 million each to fifty start ups per year. Methods of
holding such funding accountable have been discussed elsewhere.

Solving the CATS problem will require open competition, that probably
means five plus groups intensively competing to get costs down. After
that the best approaches for getting to the Moon and Mars might be
re-evaluated. Sure there will be one off exploration missions, but I
expect a degree of on going open competition will be an essential
element of such a program.

Pete.