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NASA ESTABLISHES COMMERCIAL CREW/CARGO PROJECT OFFICE
November 7, 2005
Michael Braukus/J.D. Harrington Headquarters, Washington (Phone 202/358-1979/5241) James Hartsfield Johnson Space Center, Houston (Phone 281/483-5111) RELEASE: 05-356 NASA ESTABLISHES COMMERCIAL CREW/CARGO PROJECT OFFICE NASA has formed the Commercial Crew/Cargo Project Office to spur private industry to provide cost-effective access to low-Earth orbit and the international space station in support of the Vision for Space Exploration. Part of the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, the office is located at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston. NASA named Alan J. Lindenmoyer project manager. The office will manage orbital transportation capability demonstration projects that may lead to the procurement of commercial cargo and crew transportation services to resupply the space station. The commercial sector will soon get an opportunity to provide these services. In testimony before a Congressional committee last week, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said, "Later this month NASA will issue a draft solicitation requesting commercial service demonstrations for space station crew and cargo delivery and return. Where commercial providers have demonstrated the ability to meet NASA's needs and safety requirements, commercial services will be purchased instead of using government assets and operations." "There are many in the private sector that are eager to develop commercially viable space transportation systems," said Scott Horowitz, associate administrator, NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. "In the future, the commercial sector will provide cost effective access to space for both crew and cargo. While NASA must develop its own capabilities for space exploration, the commercial sector will eventually provide these services when it becomes cost effective. I am very excited to have Alan leading this effort. His skill, enthusiasm and dedication to developing commercial space will be key to enabling this fledgling industry." Lindenmoyer joined NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., in 1982 as a cooperative education student. He worked there as a flight structures engineer until moving to NASA Headquarters in 1987. At Headquarters, he served as a structural dynamics engineer for the space station Freedom program. He moved to Johnson in 1990. He held progressively more responsible positions in the international space station program, most recently including technical integration manager and contracting officer's technical representative. Lindenmoyer received a bachelor's degree in engineering and a commercial/instrument pilot certificate from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona beach, Fla. He received a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, Md. For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/home -end- -- -------------- Jacques :-) www.spacepatches.info |
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NASA ESTABLISHES COMMERCIAL CREW/CARGO PROJECT OFFICE
at the moment, a lot of manufacturing is done in China, and the admin and
programming in India, result, less work in the west as we cost too much... China and India both have launchers. Not clear whether they are cheaper or not. Neither one has attracted a large number of payloads other than from the country itself. Russian launchers definitely are cheaper. In fact, the US has not allowed Russia to offer them too cheaply (there is some kind of agreement, I think what Russia gets out of it is letting US payloads get exported or somethiing - I forget those details). So, the cheapest commercial spacecraft could conceivable be made and launched in either of these two countries, but would the Us or other governments allow this to occur? Certainly some people have argued that the US would be better off if US payloads launch on cheap foreign launchers. But for the most part, export control restrictions have gotten rather tight, making it hard to do this even for private payloads. And government-funded US missions don't generally want to send that much money outside the country. European payloads are another matter. A lot of them seem to go on Russian launchers (or maybe it would more accurate to say launchers run by Russian-European joint ventures). Mostly recently Venus Express, which was launched yesterday. http://spaceflightnow.com/venusexpre...109launch.html |
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NASA ESTABLISHES COMMERCIAL CREW/CARGO PROJECT OFFICE
Launched today, I thought, but anyway, I just wonder this, If there are
trade embargos, it will just move everything abroad instead. Still, I don't know.... Brian -- Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email. graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them Email: __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________ "Jim Kingdon" wrote in message news at the moment, a lot of manufacturing is done in China, and the admin and programming in India, result, less work in the west as we cost too much... China and India both have launchers. Not clear whether they are cheaper or not. Neither one has attracted a large number of payloads other than from the country itself. Russian launchers definitely are cheaper. In fact, the US has not allowed Russia to offer them too cheaply (there is some kind of agreement, I think what Russia gets out of it is letting US payloads get exported or somethiing - I forget those details). So, the cheapest commercial spacecraft could conceivable be made and launched in either of these two countries, but would the Us or other governments allow this to occur? Certainly some people have argued that the US would be better off if US payloads launch on cheap foreign launchers. But for the most part, export control restrictions have gotten rather tight, making it hard to do this even for private payloads. And government-funded US missions don't generally want to send that much money outside the country. European payloads are another matter. A lot of them seem to go on Russian launchers (or maybe it would more accurate to say launchers run by Russian-European joint ventures). Mostly recently Venus Express, which was launched yesterday. http://spaceflightnow.com/venusexpre...109launch.html |
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NASA ESTABLISHES COMMERCIAL CREW/CARGO PROJECT OFFICE
Brian Gaff wrote:
Just thinking about this last night. at the moment, a lot of manufacturing is done in China, and the admin and programming in India, result, less work in the west as we cost too much... So, the cheapest commercial spacecraft could conceivable be made and launched in either of these two countries, but would the Us or other governments allow this to occur? I don't think so. At least not under existing circumstances. China's commercial space launch efforts, which began in 1990, ended up involved in controversy in the U.S. after the 1996 Intelsat 708 launch failure. That was when a CZ-3B turned sideways after it cleared the tower and headed for a nearby village. PLA soldiers cleared the site for hours before any Loral satellite people were allowed in. Loral's people never found the satellite encryption devices they were looking for. Then Loral's people got into trouble with the U.S. State Department when they assisted in China's failure investigation without proper State Dept. authorization. The result of this mess was that the U.S. Government clamped down on technology transfer to such a great extent that U.S. satellite manufacturers lost market share big time. But China lost market share too - its share of the commercial launch business - after sat insurers pulled the plug on Long March. After a few Iridium launches, several years passed without a Western launch until Europe's Alcatel sent Apstar 6, which was launched earlier this year. But now China is beginning to make inroads into the commercial satellite business. In recent months, China's Academy of Satellite Technology has won work to build a comsat for Nigeria and another for Venezuala, based on China's own DFH-4 bus. China also helped Iran build its recent micro-spysat. So while I don't see China quickly selling bigsats to the major U.S. and European satcom companies, I think it is likely that China will gradually win more and more "third-world" type comsat work, which will take some business away from U.S., European, and Russian companies. Someday this could very well transition into selling sats to the West, but not for the forseeable future. As for human launch vehicles, the U.S. will never buy hardware from China because human launch is done for reasons of interational prestige. - Ed Kyle |
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