ISS Captures, Berths the Dragon
Keith’s note: The International Space Station crewsuccessfully captured the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at 9:56 am EDT. It was berthed to the ISS exactly 3 two hours later.
– First Images of Dragon Captured by ISS
– Images: Berthing Dragon
Space Community Leaders on Historic Berthing of Dragon to the International Space Station, OSTP Blog
The Dragon Spacecraft has Berthed with the International Space Station: Statement by OSTP Director Holdren
“For the first time, a private American company has successfully launched a spacecraft into orbit and berthed it with the International Space Station–an achievement of historic scientific and technological significance and a key milepost in President Obama’s vision for America’s continued leadership in space.”
Watched it live. What a sight! Go SpaceX Rangers!
I’m looking at Nasa TV from Italy.
It’s 4.13 pm Italian Time, but Dragon looks as it isn’t already been grappled.
Is it a delayed tv recording ??
This is a good place to watch it: http://www.spaceflightnow.c…
I’m currently watching Nasa TV from Italy.
It’s 4.17 pm GMT +2, but it looks like Dragon isn’t already been grappled.
Am I watching a recording from Nasa ???
Cheers are erupting now in Control Room.
Half an hour later from announced time of Dragon capture ?
I can hear the gnashing of teeth as the anti commercial space foes fume at another SpaceX/NASA success.
foes fume at another Spacex/NACA success. Lol
One thing confuses me… what’s that base-ball bat on top of the console in the ISS control center?
Other than that, this is _way_ cool.
I’ve worked for NASA about 40 years. I’ve participated in a lot of flights. There is no doubt that NASA manned space can work quickly, expeditiously, and inexpensively and could achieve whatever it put its collective ability towards. But it is also true that there are a lot of people in NASA today who want power, glory, and in order to feel it they spend as much as they can, taking as long as they can, and hoping they’ll get some attention whether from media or others. Many engineers, in order to feel like they are doing a competent job, make it as difficult and time consuming as possible just in order to try and show they accomplished something. This, I think, is why Shuttle and ISS have been so expensive and taken so long. It is why Constellation could not survive, and why I think SLS and MPCV will soon go by the wayside. Its all about competent management that knows its mission and how to accomplish it, versus people who are in it for their own power, glory, to spend as much American taxpayer money as they can, and of course the contractors who want to make as much money as they can.
I get a kick out of the NASA initiatives in things like innovation and inclusion. These are bogus. These are great for a big organization that does not know what its mission is or how to get the job done. Focus on the job. Get the best people for the job. If you do that then innovation and inclusion come naturally. In NASA’s HSF organzation, in which personnel are selected for leadership long before the job is open or the individual has proven his or her mettle, it has been pretty eye opening to see incompetent people placed into leadership positions and destroy organizations, functions and other people. This, I believe, is why NASA HSF is in the sad state it is in today.
Space-X and Dragon today have demonstrated very clearly what can be accomplished at reasonable cost and on a reasonable schedule. Once you know how, spaceflight need not be any more expensive or difficult than air flight, or any other high tech field. It has nothing to do with the age of workers. Experience can make the job easier. It has little to do with anything except competent capable management.
Just think what could be accomplished if you had NASA’s budget going into work and performance like what Space-X has achieved.
NASA put a man in space just 4 years after its creation and put men on the Moon just 11 years after its creation. Space X has docked an unmanned vehicle to the ISS, 10 years after its creation but still no humans. So it will probably take Space X longer to get humans to the ISS than it took NASA to get to the Moon.
Marcel F. Williams
NASA was giving the entire resources and technical manpower of the most powerful nation on earth at the time to do this. SpaceX started out much smaller running off the funding of one man. Cut them some slack, they are both equally impressive. in their speed.
Space X has also gotten money from NASA. Space X is also in a country where private investors are currently sitting on $2 trillion worth of funds looking for profitable ventures in invest in.
And what Space X is doing would be impossible if it weren’t for the hundreds of billions of dollars invested by the tax payers in space technology over the past 60 years.
Marcel F. Williams
i can’t remember .. How big of check was NASA given to accomplish that?
How many NASA/contractor employees worked to accomplish that?
I forgot those two little facts, perhaps you could refresh my memory.
Then would you compare that to the amount of money SpaceX spent and how many employees did they have?
In today’s dollars, the Apollo program cost $129 billion. If you include the the Gemini program then it comes out to be $136 billion. This gave us Moon landings plus a huge space station (Skylab).
The ISS/Shuttle program, by comparison, has cost NASA over $210 billion dollars.
That info is from Obama’s Augustine Commission.
Marcel F. Williams
And you are saying, if SpaceX had a hundred BILLION they couldn’t achieve anything even similar?
To don below:
Again, my problem is not with Space X, its using $3 billion a year in tax payer money to utilize the ISS program as a hyper expensive work fare program for private companies.
Don,
Marcel wants to change long term policy, and hold commercial hostage until then.
The idea is if arsenal space can’t have budget, neither should commercial.
Pyrrhic.
What is that rule or saying, about the relationship between time, money and quality.
Didn’t NASA have a buck or two more to spend back then to speed up their schedule??? Lol
Seems Spacex is managing those threes factors pretty darn well to me???
NASA’s spending a buck or two handing tax payer money over to Elon (a few hundred million so far). I just find it amusing that people seem to think that Elon’s doing something superior to what NASA has done or what a private company like the ULA has done:-)
Marcel F. Williams
It’s not about being superior its about what the next step is. People really, really need to forget about superior. NASA does superior but that is not what is needed now.
If your vision is of (government paid) exploration then, yes this event makes no difference.
If your vision is of humanity leaving the Earth, then commercial is the only way and this is a red letter day. There is no alternative though – we have to make a living – even in space. (And don’t forget that Elon’s got a decent commercial order book).We also have to live and LEO would be a great place for working out if we can do that – grow food, make things, become self-sufficient. ISS doesn’t have to be a white elephant at all.
None of these developments are obstacles to lunar exploration so I don’t see what your beef is.
A buck or two ey? I suggest you check what it
cost to keep the civil servant portion of NASA going as they hand out those measly
bucks. What you really need is a good understanding of what SpaceX has accomplished
with the resources employed. Then compare
that to ULA, Constellation, and SLS programs. And don’t forget to go all the
way back to the ’60’s when you thoroughly investigate ULA components Boeing,
McDonald Douglas, General Dynamics, Martin Marietta, Lockheed, and so on. See
what expense of time, money, and effort was incurred to deliver these vehicles
and compare THAT to the SpaceX outcome. Obviously
you know nothing about the spaceflight industry or it technical and PM
challenges. But Jerry does – and he is
spot on. BTW, check out the vehicle Alan
Shepard jockeyed into space. I think we
are right back to square one and SpaceX might just get us going again.
The fact that Elon’s only required a couple hundred of million to accomplish do what NASA and ULA havn’t been able to do for 10’s of billions over the same time frame is evidence enough that his model is superior. Pointing to what NASA did 50 years ago is meaninless to what they’re doing today. NASA hasn’t successfully managed the development of a new vehicle in over 30 years.
What has ULA launched to the station for “a few hundred million or so”?
(In spite of knowing, better than anyone, that the shuttle program was ending.)
What SpaceX HAS Done that is superior to NASA is: Get the job done with as little $$ as possible.
They built a working, man-rated, heavy lift rocket, from scratch (and a command module/capsule) to put on it in about the same amount of time (AND not much more $$ than) NASA will spend getting the J2-X (50’s tech on steroids) to operational status.
Actually it’s $420 million from NASA alone, per the preflight news conference on Saturday. Of this amount, $405 million had already been paid out and only $15 million remained to be paid on this flight. In addition to that, Space-X also has an Air Force contract that is worth perhaps another couple hundred million though I don’t have those numbers.
Still an impresseive achievement, but also substantially subidized by the government.
@ Stuart J Gray. Easy there…nothing is man-rated yet! Let’s not get carried away. There is some forward work for that.
In very rough numbers, total NASA civil servant cost in human space flight today is about $1.5 billion. Total budget is something like $8 billion. Most of that goes to ISS contractors and Orion/SLS contractors. Total number of NASA civil servants working just the COTS program (Space-X, OSC, and others) is around 15, probably about $3 million/year.
Let’s see, for the past 50 years, NASA and its associated private vendors have sent humans to orbit and to the Moon. They’ve placed two space stations into orbit. They’ve built the first reusable space plane. They’ve sent robots to the surface of Mars and probes to asteroids and to or near all of the planets in the solar system while also helping to create a mutihundred billion dollar a year global satellite industry. And now NASA is helping private companies to develop their own manned spaceflight capability with many of the private concepts coming directly from NASA.
Sorry, but Space X doesn’t even come close to that!
Marcel F. Williams
“for the past 50 years, […]
Space X doesn’t even come close to that!”
So it seems a bit retarded to compare the activities of a company that’s spent a bit over half a billion dollars of taxpayer funds over the last half decade, to an agency that’s spent over half a trillion dollars over the last five decades.
So has SpaceX achieved more than 1/1000th as much as NASA’s other contractors (and in 1/10th the time)? I’d say easily yes.
I find it bizarre that critics of commercial space access seem to want companies like SpaceX to have an entire moon program on the few million they’ve been given, otherwise the whole concept must be mocked.
SpaceX has achieved a bang-per-buck that most programs could only dream. Why is that not worth shouting from the rooftops?
For Paul below:
NASA’s not a private company and shouldn’t be. So stop trying to replace it with profit driven companies with no loyalty to the American people except for their greed for tax payer money.
NASA has done a wonderful thing helping private spaceflight companies like Space X get off the ground so that they can do there own thing without being dependent on the American tax payers. But they’re not NASA. NASA is a pioneering organization not a for profit corporation– and they shouldn’t be.
Marcel F. Williams
“So stop trying to replace it with profit driven companies with no loyalty to the American people except for their greed for tax payer money.”
Then stop saying that you “support commercial space”. It’s a lie. You don’t.
Eg,
“I’m a strong advocate of giving NASA money to private companies to help them develop their own manned spaceflight capability for private ventures.”
No, you’re not.
How much did NASA spend? How many contractors and employees were involved in Apollo?
Now compare that to SpaceX’s funding steam and the amount of personal.
More than 20x on CxP alone. If you add up all the attempts at Shuttle replacement, normalize for inflation and the time use of money, more than 100x.
And for every dollar spent, at least 7 additional dollars was created for the general economy. Even China, one of the fastest growing economies on Earth, recognizes what a powerful economic engine Apollo was for the American economy!
Marcel F. Williams
“And for every dollar spent, at least 7 additional dollars was created for the general economy.”
That figure came from a study into the economic effect of government spending, any government spending, the so-called “multiplier effect”. It had nothing to do with specific Apollo or NASA or technology spending.
And the study is considered by most economists to be utter crap. Today, even Keynesians use multipliers of around 1.5-2x. No one uses 7.
Technology spending might have a higher multiplier effect, but no one knows how much.That 7-times is not any real estimate.
We tend to forget that NASA was the result of a reorganization of US space efforts which combined aspects of both our civil and military programs. NASA’s roots actually go far back into the late 1940s. To cite a single example, the F-1 was developed in response to a 1955 USAF requirement, 14 years before the moon landing, so the wheels were turning long before NACA became NASA. The agency had a running start on the day it was formed.
Given that SpaceX not only created a company but almost all of its hardware de novo, they have no reason to feel ashamed and a great deal to be proud of. And NASA itself computes that SpaceX did it for a small fraction of what the government would have spent.
Given that SpaceX not only created a company but almost all of its
hardware de novo, they have no reason to feel ashamed and a great deal
to be proud of. And NASA itself computes that SpaceX did it for a small
fraction of what the government would have spent.
I’ve been wondering if perhaps it’s time for a NASA skunkworks mindset. Create a small organization about the size of SpaceX within NASA, firewall it off from the rest of the organization, give it a specific next-generation design task and some relatively young minds, and then let them have at it. Of course that would never happen–but one can hope.
NASA has a trillion ideas that were never allowed to be fully funded. Some of these ideas are now being used by some of the private space companies like Bigelow and Sierra Nevada. But great ideas alone won’t get NASA back to the Moon or Mars if politicians like Obama and Romney won’t allow them to go!
Marcel F. Williams
I’m a strong advocate of giving NASA money to private companies to help them develop their own manned spaceflight capability for private ventures. But I’m strongly against spending $3 billion a year in tax payer money to use the ISS as a make work program for private spaceflight companies when NASA could seriously use those funds for manned beyond LEO missions.
I’m tired of this LEO on steroids program and honestly never liked the ISS idea when Ronald Reagan first proposed it because I knew it would trap NASA at LEO– and it did!
Marcel F. Williams
While there is nothing wrong with the idea of a space station as such, our utilization of the ISS has been badly administered.
Stations were once viewed as stepping stones to BEO missions, construction shacks, etc. None of that has happened yet.
My sense is that the next generation of stations, probably based on Bigelow inflatables, will be used more rigorously and will also be more cost effective than the ISS. On the other hand, now that we are restoring access (eventually human access) to the ISS, I would expect its best years to lie ahead of it.
Marcel,
There are too many differences to make this type of comparison. For example when NASA was formed in 1958 it was given as an immediate priority putting a man in space. They accomplished this in three years by developing the Mercury capsule which was placed on top of an existing military launcher. They placed an astronaut in orbit one year later by putting the Mercury capsule on top of a bigger existing military launcher.
SpaceX was formed in 2002 with the primary goal of improving the cost and reliability of access to space. Unlike NASA, SpaceX started first with launchers. In the ten years after its creation SpaceX has developed engines, launchers, and now they have progressed to the “pointy end” of the stack by developing a capsule which today delivered cargo to ISS. To deliver astronauts to ISS they just need to upgrade the existing capsule. Not that this is trivial and they still have a lot of work ahead of them to accomplish this, however I don’t see why you would try and estimate the time that it will take them to accomplish this by looking back nearly fifty years ago to a completely different era and situation.
We don’t need private industry going to an unnecessary $3 billion a year big government space station. We need private industry going to private space stations.
Marcel F. Williams
We don’t need the primes being doled out billions simply to feed special interests as a proxy for “space exploration” to keep weapons systems vendors happy.
We need to eliminate the double think, double talk of Congressionally apportioned, like a Soviet styled “5 year plan”, pseudo “space exploration” meant simply as an excuse to divvy up budget.
Like past economic expansions, govt spending must lead the way to eventual, fully private ventures.
Only an idiot (or someone disingenuous) would demand an immediate reliance on the existence of an stand alone market at the embryonic stage – how to abort an embryo.
Its like expecting an embryo to accept “personal responsibility” in the womb.
Responsibility for some is simply used as a way to hide mean spirited destruction – a form of irresponsible behavior cynically hidden.
Lets not allow this to destroy American ingenuity.
“We need private industry going to private space stations. “
The existence of which is predicated on more things than simply wishing for them, and stating as such.
NASA spaceflight should be conducted in a manner that builds up commercial growth, like arrangements approximating the COTS model. This is irrespective of what NASA spaceflight is actually doing or your support of those things. If NASA has a space station, it should be commercially supplied. If NASA has a moon or asteroid or mars program, it can and should be conducted by building up commercial capability through competitive development and procurement.
For the comments below:
There are much more efficient ways to provide an artificial market for commercial crew launches than the ISS.
A National and International Space Lotto would create a lot more manned launch opportunities. And even if NASA subsidized such a lotto with $1 billion a year, that would create more traffic into space to private space stations than the $3 billion a year ISS program.
Marcel F. Williams
LibsOn wrote post I totally agree with in other Spacex thread.
Thought I’d say again that settlement and exploration should NOT be two different things commercial Leo, NASA BEO
We need the strengths of both, working together to attack the challenges in Leo and BEO.
All the different groups need a plan where they all work together!!!!!
We at Inner Solar System railroad Inc. working together with Spacex and with important NASA R and D support, completely agree with your comment.
We must not let space exploration be hijacked by the old porky ways. But find a way to explore and settle simultaneously using this cots model so well demonstrated by by NASA and Spacex. Rather than all these sour grapes, we should all be celebrating. The new cheaper model and be trying to figure out how to do more in space not less. Spacex has proved that we can explore more in the future not less.
All we have to do is plan for it and persuade others, congress using this example.
Marcel, the two are simply not comparable. NASA was founded in the depths of the Cold War and given every penny that it could spend. SpaceX has assembled itself bit by bit, carefully constructing a company that is a self-sustaining commercial entity. It makes sense that it would take longer to pick up a head of steam (and available skills and equipment). SpaceX is picking up speed now and I can’t wait to see what comes next. My child now has a realistic prospect of someday living on Mars, should he so choose. He will grow up looking to the far horizon, imagining what is possible and looking beyond the petty bickering and me-firstism that now ties our country in knots. I am in Mr. Musk’s debt.
Thanks to NASA. Space X wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for NASA. Even Elons thanked them. And I’m extremely happy that NASA is helping private companies develop their own manned spaceflight capability for their own private pursuits.
But your child won’t be going to Mars anytime soon if NASA doesn’t have the funds to get to Mars so that private companies like Space X can follow in order to see if they can make a profit by going to Mars. Having NASA continue to spend $3 billion a year on an unnecessary big government space station doesn’t help NASA or anyone else get to Mars.
NASA needs to start using that money to fund rotating transhabs that produce artificial gravity that can get astronauts to Mars without serious deleterious effects to their vision and the rest of their body.
Marcel F. Williams
True, SpaceX woulnt be where it is without NASA, and as you say Elon has expressed his gratitude and thanks on numerous occasions. Just like NASA has repeatedly complimented SpaceX and Elon on their revolutionary and historic accomplishements.
You don’t help private American space station companies like Bigelow by using the ISS to compete against them for space tourist dollars as is being proposed by the Obama administration.
Marcel F. Williams
As Robert Bigelow as stated every single time he speaks publically, he is NOT after tourists.
He has not signed or attempted to sign any MOU’s with tourists.
Everything is focused on getting 2nd and 3rd tier countries a full up space program in LEO, repeat, long term customers who also rent space.
Bigelow Aerospace is a for profit company. And I guarantee you that Bigelow Aerospace will accept money from anyone, public or private, who wants to rent or even purchase one of their space stations. There are nearly 100,000 people on the planet with enough money to afford a $25 million flight to a space station. If even a tiny fraction of the number flew into space each year to a Bigelow space station ($2 million per a 10 day stay), it would make Bigelow billions of dollars annually.
No company is going to turn down billions of dollars!
Marcel F. Williams
NASA put men on the moon with hundreds of thousands of people and hundreds of billions of dollars in today’s money. Space-X designed, built and has successfully flown a man-able spacecraft with about 1000 people and less than a billion dollars.
And for every dollar spent during the Apollo program, at least 7 additional dollars was created for the general economy. In fact, America’s annual productivity was substantially higher during that time of major aerospace investment in Apollo than before and after that period.
Marcel F. Williams
Marcel,
Why worry about comparing NASA to SpaceX or Bigelow, or anyone to anyone? These companies are all at different stages in the space game, they all have different goals, they all have different resources to work with, and they all have different track records. But, except at the most simplified and generalized level, they are all doing different things, in space and on Earth. At this stage in the game that’s good.
We don’t need competition between entities just yet, as far as I’m concerned, since most of the technologies involved are still developing and evolving. I think what we need most, right now, is pretty much what we have — as many entities as possible doing as many different things as possible, growing the possibilities. Once we have enough possibilities developed to the point where they can be properly assessed, then we will see the preferred, more successful approaches to doing various things in space and select to go with the ones with the most promise. At that point we need to start seeing competition, as well as amalgamations and cooperations that get us what we need.
At this point in time, it’s really only LVs that are in a state to compete. Just about everything else is not there yet. We still have major differences of opinion in the approaches to take (in both the technical and advocacy communities, not to mention political) with just about every issue. Capsules vs. space planes; micro-g vs. rotating stations; Moon vs. Mars; Kero vs. LH2 vs. solid fuel; and those are just some of the major, obvious issues. We are not yet in a position to make INFORMED decisions about so many things, so the more different things that are being explored at this point the better. Even with LVs we are not at the point of final decisions.
When we consider all of this, then it would seem to me that comparing the accomplishments of the different players, to decide who’s best or has accomplished the most, is a waste of time; fan club cheering at best. I think our time and words would be better spent on considering how we can get all of the players contributing to the overall needs, cooperating not competing. The time for competition will come later, if and only if we can bring the overall progress to the point where competition makes sense. As I said, right now on LVs are a candidate for competition, because we need the lower launch costs — not so that we can set up a spacefaring world of the future right now, but because we still have so many research, learning and testing projects to do before we can make those absolutely necessary informed decisions. BEO HSF, bases, science, tourism, and all the rest are wonderful goals to aspire to, but we are simply not ready to do them successfully yet, and believing otherwise, by any of us, is simply wishful thinking to my mind. To actually get to these goals we need to get the most out of our combined contributors, not foster any contests between them and/or their supporters. But later, …
Steve
However the total amount spent by SpaceX in achieving human spaceflight and transporting its first 20 passengers to and from LEO will be less than 1% of the cost of the moon race. Human spaceflight has value, but that value is not infinite. If it is ever to be the domain of more than a lucky handful, the cost must be reduced.
Well said and completely accurate in my estimation Mr. Browner.
Remember, Shuttle was the most sophisticated and advanced machine ever built, perhaps a bit too much so, but remember it went from program start to flight in 8 years. And it was designed and built on budget. The mistake was that instead of continuing its development and improvement, people focused solely on flying the next mission took over instead of people focused on improvement, simplification, making the system more reliable and less expensive. In fact, as Browner said, these people were focused on spending more money every flight in order to enhance and grow their organization instead of on improving the system. ISS is making exactly the same mistake today and for the last several years. The hardware was built decades ago. The assembly was over years ago. But the organization gets bigger and yet they forgot to plan for utilization? How can that happen, except through management incompetence?
Unless I’m in some kind of time warp, its only been two hours between grappling and berthing…???
Happy Berthday, Dragon!
iiiiiiiii
|8888|
|8888|
tinker
Shouldn’t that be….
__i__
|8888|
|8888|
Paul:
Nine is for the candles they lit on the ground to get Dragon where it is today. 🙂
tinker
Ah, I was thinking Dragon’s first berth-day cake.
(On that: After hearing Don Pettit’s line after he successfully captured the capsule, “We’ve got a Dragon by the tail” (followed by the obligatory simulator gag), I was expecting something like “the berth of a new era” when the capsule reached Harmony.)
Unless I’m in some kind of time warp, there were only two hours between grappling and berthing (9:56am EDT, till about noon EDT). Isn’t this right?
That was fantastic!
Now we just need the following from SpaceX in the next few years then we should be back on track where Nasa failed.
COMPLETED:
Dragon Transport # for cargo transportation and return (no humans)
IN WORKS:
Dragon Spaceship # for human transport to iss, lunar, and mars
Dragon Lifepod # for emergency escape life craft
Dragon Depots # for fuel depots stations in LEO, MEO, GEO and HEO
Dragon Explorer # for deep space exploration
Dragon Labs # for automated robotic research labs
Dragon Lair # for lunar and mars bases
Has Spacex really talked about this list???
oh man that went well
Safety
Let’s say you added seats and breathing system too this cargo dragon
How safe is this dragon now compared to a normal shuttle flight???
Let’s say we say you fly it seven more times to have falcon do dogstars3s ten flight booster rule.
Isn’t this dragon saver already??
Neither has Launch escape system. Dragon 0 shuttle 0
Shuttle has dangerous solid rocket boosters dragon all liquid. Dragon 1 shuttle 0
Dragon can parachute land anywhere on the planet.
Shuttle has to find a runway. Dragon 1 shuttle 0
Shuttles wings could be damaged by falling ice dragon on top of stack MUCH safer dragon 1 shuttle 0
What about dragons 9 engines with engine out capability is that a plus or not?? Let’s call that many engines less safe than shuttles 3 main engineers shuttle 1 dragon 0
Seems to me that we could have astronauts on dragon next year and they would be saver than any of the shuttle astronauts ever were?
I’m not suggesting that we fly humans before Les or las. I just think it’s weird that old public space flew hundreds of people for years and years on a vehicle less safe than this cargo dragon which could carry humans as well as cheese. But now we must wait for many factors of safety greater. Before daring to fly humans again.
Any one out there with better info on safety comparisons?
Or comparison of dragon to the mighty SLS?
I consider the multi-engine approach to be a plus for Falcon 9, so we disagree a little on that 🙂
As to the rest of your points, I think it was obvious, given the almost glitch-free flight of Dragon that, with seats and life support, humans could have arrived safely at the ISS today, just as they could have orbited safely in December 2010.
If it were up to me, I would accelerate Dragon’s human-rating process. Large portions of the Falcon/Dragon system are already human-rated, and the primary requirement remaining is the escape system and work is underway on that already.
Given that Dragon seems surprisingly mature for a vehicle still in its test phase (according to both NASA and SpaceX), I’d really like to see crewed flights move to the left on the timeline.
Re engine count: is a two-engine airplane inherently safer than a four engine jet? You need to think about the difference between component reliability and system reliability.
I think you’re right that Dragon today should be considered safer than the shuttle at the time of its first flight, when it was crewed.
However, a track record counts for something. The shuttle track record was about 2% loss-of-crew. Give Dragon a few more successful flights, then it will be hard to argue it’s not at least as safe as the shuttle.
Agree with DTARS and the other posts. And if SpaceX creates a CBM adapter with a LIDS, make all of the ECLS and other crew equiptment modular, they would be able to quickly change between Dragon cargo and crew. While the crew does need a manual abort as with cargo, I don’t see why automated docking using similar equipment used by the cargo. So after say 8-10 successful Falcon 9 launches and maybe 4-6 Dragon cargo, I don’t see why NASA wouldn’t consider launching crew even without a launch abort system. As pointed out, the design of the Falcon 9/Dragon is inherently safer than the Space Shuttle already. And even though there are 9 Merlins vs 3 SSMEs, remember that the Merlins don’t operate at the extremes of the SSMEs.
dbooker,
If I’m reading you correctly, sorry to disagree, but you’re proposing a double standard. Regardless of how safe and reliable Dragon is felt to be, flying it crewed without an abort system is exactly what most of us ended up crucifying NASA for on the Shuttle, and rightly so. And I say that as a full-out SpaceX supporter. When it comes to space, do it right or don’t do it at all. How much time/money saved is a human life worth? and how many years will we lose on the next return to flight?
Steve
When Mr. Bigelow says that we have to have at least two separate companies. I see a problem with that. Don’t we need to have at least two companies that can economically compete dollar per dollar? Isn’t the reason that we are hearing all this talk about safety because at the moment there is no one even close to being able to compete with Spacex dollar per dollar with medium size human rated LVs
Seems Spacex is becoming the Ford of Space travel.
Who in the whole wide world will be the GM of Space travel?????
Mr. Bigelow is right. To have our possible Space future who will step up????.
That is a problem. How does a new private company attract (lots of) investment dollars to try to build a highly risky product in a market with an existing fairly low cost leader?
Can you charge significantly more? Probably not. Can you operate significantly cheaper? Doubtful.
That leaves the existing players. I hope Orbital Science is successful. I hope Boeing continues to pursue its CST-100. Maybe Blue Origin has something up its sleeve.
CadetOne,
One possibility for bringing in new companies without a ton of investment is the slow, cautious approach. Start out by becoming a supplier of specialized or always-used components for the current aerospace builders, like the way that Fisher makes trim parts for all of the North American auto manufacturers. Once you’re rolling, expand and diversify your product offerings to the aerospace companies. At some point along the way, you have enough of a revenue stream to start your own R&D department, working on more sophisticated components, both for sale and for in-house subsystem designs. As your product offerings continue to expand, you are eventually into making major subsystems and components, maybe even specifying industry standard interfaces for those subsystems and components. The more modular and standardized your offerings, the more likely they are to become industry standards, which let’s you increase (and better predict) sales, while reducing costs. And so on. If you have a number of new (to aerospace) companies doing this, then the prices (and the risks) are no longer entirely in the hands of the big few. In fact, if I was in the government’s position, I would offer incentives, or even grants and tax breaks for new companies to do this. As the market grows, control over the market and its products needs to be more stabilized instead of more monopolistic, or it becomes more vulnerable to rapid fluctuations.
This is certainly a long road to entering the space game in a major way, but much less risky than companies trying to start out at the level of the existing LV and spacecraft manufacturers, and you have plenty of time to acquire assets and contacts long the way. Of course, the SpaceX vertical integration system works against this, but I don’t think it likely that the other existing aerospace companies can switch over at this point, so lower prices through standardization might let you eventually crack SpaceX as well. If nothing else, your company would “be in the space business,” even if not at the top of the heap, as a partner instead of a competitor.
Steve
There is no business case to keep the ISS going because the ISS isn’t a business. Its a $3 billion a year Congressional pork program. The only way you save money from this program is by eliminating the program.
Besides the fix is probably already in for the traditional vendors of the ISS pork program: Boeing, Lockheed, and ATK since Republicans probably consider Elon an enemy because of his association with Obama.
Marcel F. Williams
So Spacex should suckle off ISS a few years while they can, keep building their BEO tool Box so they can turn back to NASA or congress and say you want to go to moon, Mars or not right? And about that time the Chinese turtle will have plodded along and congress will finally say Spacex your our only hope help us beat the Chinese to the moon or mars before they own it.
Space X and the other future commercial manned space launch companies should focus on space tourism to private space stations such as the Bigelow space station concepts– not unnecessary Congressional pork programs like the ISS.
Congress should help to increase the volume of private manned launches to private space stations by starting a National and International space lotto system so that average people (not just the super wealthy and the NASA elite) in America and around the world can risk a dollar or two to get a chance to travel into space aboard private American space craft to private American space stations.
Marcel F. Williams
But they can do BOTH. They are giving NASA value for the taxpayer and they can also service Bigelow stations.
That gives them a higher flight rate, high flight rate means lower costs and higher reliablity.
more savings for the taxpayer and commercial customers . sounds like a win win.
No they can’t. NASA already is short of funds for its beyond LEO architecture. There’s not enough money to build an extraterrestrial landing vehicle for possibly landing on the Moon and the moons of Mars, there’s not enough money to develop rotational transhabs for manned interplanetary missions. That’s because continuing the ISS at $3 billion a year at least until 2020, is going to cost NASA an additional $21 billion dollars, money that could alternately be used to establish outpost at the lunar poles and transhabs for manned missions to Mars.
Marcel F. Williams
I also think more business (needing more launches) is needed. A lot more. NASA’s budget isn’t going to grow, so it won’t buy a lot more launches going forward. I’m not sure satellite demand is going to pick up by any large amount either.
Any suggestions?
Yes: go check their launch manifest, and note all the non-NASA customers.
http://www.spacex.com/launc…
“Seems Spacex is becoming the Ford of Space travel.”
After only the 3rd flight of the Falcon 9 and the first of the complete Dragon cargo ship? Ford started the assembly line so I would wait on that claim until they are able to sustain a significant flight rate.
Yeah, lets keep buying Soyuz and Progress like a good red blooded … oops. Forget that.
All you are hearing is bitterness of “old space”. They can’t get theirs up, its too expensive, too slow – just wanna carp.
It was “you can’t trust Falcon”. Then “you can’t trust Dragon”. Next it’ll be “you can’t trust DragonRider”. They never give you anything solid, just badmouth.
Time’s run out guys. You’re gonna have to learn a new game to play – badmouthing Dragon doesn’t go as far, after today.
It’s called moving the goal posts. You know it will be extended.
“They haven’t orbited the moon yet”
“They haven’t landed on the moon yet”
“They haven’t orbited Mars yet”
It will be never ending.
Keep moving those goal posts and laying track behind as you go lololol
What did a model T cost? Divide that into cost of those Three Falcon 9 flights and a boilerplate dragon and this cargo dragon. That is the equivilant in cars ford put out.
In rocket terms, I would say it would be close to ford’s first year?
In the first 2 years or so, some 12,000 Model T’s were produced. As for cost, according to spaceflightnow SpaceX has spent $1.2B since 2006 and NASA $381M so the total cost is $1.5B. Some of that cost was for the Falcon 1, but since SpaceX is a private company, we don’t have access to their financial data.
It’s easier to make a few spacecraft and launch every year or so, but to sustain this as Ford did with the Model T will take some time. This cargo contact is for some 12 flights through 2015. If this isn’t changed since they ran behind a year or two to get to this point, this would be about 4 flights a year. Let’s see how they’re doing at the end of next year.
Yeah, like flying 2x a year 3-5 SSME’s plus 2 5 seg RSRMVB’s are ever going to be economic, given they are 100x more expensive each than the ten Merlins flown 6x a year. If SLS even makes it that far, Merlin will have accumulated 100’x the flight history.
Now, the Merlin’s heritage is from FASTRAC, not former munitions or “gold plated” arsenal systems astronomically enhanced costing. Stands the best chance of good economics, better than buying engines from Russia even.
I should add that work leading to the configuration of the Mercury spacecraft began as early as 1952. So NASA was already part way up the ladder when it came into existence.
Yup, at NACA Ames Aeronautical Laboratory.
I wish Robert Heinlein was around to see this. I think he would have appreciated it.
Great day – America is back in HSF!
Anything less smells of bitterness.
Simple, safe, and soonest – what back with the OSP program was supposed to happen.
Orion wasn’t soonest – Dragon is. Likely also to be simplest.
Safest, unlike what ATK will tell you, is the hardest thing to prove/quantify.
Now, how to make it cost effective too.
Congrats to SpaceX on a successful flight, but “back in HSF” is a bit of a stretch.
Its space flight. Human designed vehicle. Human spaceflight.
Sources:
Dragon Labs and Red Dragon:
Currently universities working with spacex to send robotic experiments.
“DragonLab missions listed on the SpaceX launch manifest: one in 2014 and another in 2015.”
http://www.spacex.com/downl…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
Dragon Explorer:
In the following statement he said “aiming for deep-space exploration”
“Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of boosting commercial access to space and, ultimately, aiming for deep-space exploration, including missions to Mars.”
http://www.space.com/15805-…
Dragon Transport:
The ship in the front most likely used to send resupplies.
http://weirdthings.com/wp-c…
Dragon Spaceship:
The spaceship in the background with huge engines, most likely in design phase.
http://weirdthings.com/wp-c…
Dragon Habitat or Lair:
The habitat on the right, most likely in design phase.
http://weirdthings.com/wp-c…
Dragon Lifepod or Lifeboat (replacing Soyuz spacecraft)
“For typical missions DragonRider would remain docked to the ISS for a
period of 180 days; it is required to be able do so for 210 days”,
“provision for crew escape all the way to orbit”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
“SpaceX is also studying, at NASA’s request, using a Dragon as a ‘life boat'”
Listen, I’m a SpaceX fan, but Red Dragon is nothing more than science fiction. All electric power for Dragon comes from the solar panels on the trunk. The Dragon capsule does have batteries but this is very limited. So what happens when the batteries run out on Mars? It could never take off again. Not very practical.
This is a major Win-Win-Win for NASA, SpaceX, and the USA. I’m just point this obvious fact because a lot of what I am reading here is not acknowledging that fact…
NA:
There are forces out there that feel that if they can’t beat their opponents, they’ll try to squash them like bugs… if they can. The outright hero worship Elon’s employees showed for him after the capture/berthing must have really spooked his opponents badly. It would be such a totally alien experience for them ;).
It’s an uphill battle for Spacex even if they master the rocket thing. They don’t want to spend the tens of millions of dollars on lobbying when it could be spent on development instead. Their opponents will though… and ram their inferior products down your representatives throats whether you like it or not.
So, what does Spacex have to counter this? Us! Some of us, anyway. Free thinking volunteers seeing the writing on the wall and speaking our piece on what’s ‘right’ or not. We do have a power if we choose to use it.
tinker
You do not try to go through them, you go around NASA and with companies like Bigelow, SpaceX it will be achievable.
Chris Kraft, the inventor of modern space operations and former director of the JSC, once said when asked whether they could have done Apollo faster or better, perhaps if they had more people, he responded if we had had any more people we never could have done it at all. This is the problem with human space flight today, too many people in too many organizations and they all get in each others’ way.
Very happy for their accomplishment, but someone should do a Total Cost assessment of all the civil servant hours that went in to help SpaceX succeed. Check out the Space Act agreements with NASA and investment of time by Government workers along with the funding SpaceX received. Also, check their original planned schedule vs. what occurred today then you can get a much clearer picture of their true cost and schedule performance. Many contractors would very much enjoy having Space Act agreements, not opening their books to the Government, and not allowing oversight (and limited insight) from the Government. Wish them continued success along with others who are trying to change NASA paradigms. But, proper perspective should be provided, which should influence future acquisitions of hardware and services.
“Many contractors would very much enjoy having Space Act agreements, not
opening their books to the Government, and not allowing oversight (and
limited insight) from the Government.”
SpaceX got that only because in return it was only paid for meeting milestones, and at fixed, pre-set prices. SpaceX bore all the risk of failure, schedule overruns, and cost overruns.
I doubt very many contractors would prefer that kind of risk over the guaranteed profits of cost-plus contracts. The F-35 would have bankrupted Lockheed-Martin if it had been done with the kind of contract SpaceX has with NASA for COTS (or, more likely, Lockheed-Martin would have given more realistic cost and schedule estimates to begin with, or kept the program from spiraling out of control).
SpaceX was unhappy when informed they would have to abide by the FAR like all of the other space contractors for the next phase. I think that NASA has found a way to not use the FAR, but part of the point is that the legacy space contractors are required to use the FAR for their contracts and this adds significant cost to their contract.
FAR is necessary when you’re defining a component in a larger NASA-designed system, like SLS. There’s no point buying, say, SRBs for SLS if they don’t attach to the first stage.
OTOH, for buying services, you just want the outcome. You don’t need to pedantically define the size and position of every bolt-hole.
I think a HLV could be better done as a COTS/CCDev style set of SAA-contracted competitors, but SLS as designed by NASA couldn’t.
And it’d be nice if something between SAA and FAR were created by Congress (not just for NASA), for items where there’s a strategic interest in maintaining multiple competing suppliers, or where FAR is overly burdensome.
“SpaceX got that only because in return it was
only paid for meeting milestones, and at fixed, pre-set prices. SpaceX
bore all the risk of failure, schedule overruns, and cost overruns.”
This is really no
different than a government contractor receiving a “contract financing
payment” under a fixed price contract prior to acceptance of supplies or
services by the Government. Such performance-based payments
are made on the basis of
accomplishing defined events. Also, since this was a SAA, the Government likely
did not have the possibility of a recouping their expenses because of
non-performance if the agreement would have ended prior to meeting this
goal. (Such re-procurement costs would have been applied if this was a
contract, and it was terminated). Further, SpaceX had a funded agreement
with NASA and it included both
reimbursable and non-reimbursable agreements. Under a
“fixed-price” contract, a contractor usually does not receive
additional support (in-kind or reimbursable) from the Government. They
get paid for their delivery of products or services. Lastly, SpaceX also
likely had their ability to walk away from the agreement if they chose (as did
the Government). In the end, SpaceX has been successful, albeit somewhat
later than they and others expected. They also had much help from the
Government, and they bore risk as well. Proper perspective on their
agreement should be evaluated for its merits, and hopefully there will be other
less costly and innovative binding agreements which can be developed in the
future.
spaceflight wrote:
“Many contractors would very much enjoy having Space Act agreements, not opening their books to the Government, and not allowing oversight (and limited insight) from the Government.”
Why the hell would Boeing care how much oversight there is? The government could lay on such a burden Boeing would have to hire an extra 1000 people to handle it. Big deal, it is cost plus, all that means is a bigger amount to lay on their fixed profits. At absolutely no risk, they are not even mandated milestones in many cases, they are paid for headcount and hours, results do matter at all.
All that will happen is the program canceled, renamed and it starts all over.
You think those big cost plus, fixed fee contracts are killing Lockheed Martin? Boeing?
Its good to see some positive events happenin Space.
This is hopefully the beginning of success for manyother commercial space vendors.
Its time to throw out the old guard and bring in the new lean companies with new ideas.
The main difference between SpaceX and ULA relates to the visions that guide the respective companies. ULA seeks to maximize shareholder potential — and so they launch (admittedly great) rockets when asked, all the while sucking as much money as possible out of the system. SpaceX’s (Musk’s) vision revolves around the long-term goal of settling Mars, all while recognizing that the company must remain financially viable if that goal is ever to be met.
ULA wants to maximize profit, and the provision of launch services is the means to that end. SpaceX wants to launch rockets and do great things in a financially sustainable way. The distinction here is subtle, but important.
ULA’s board is beholden to the company’s shareholders. SpaceX is beholden to Musk and his long-term vision. Given these very basic realities, it’s no surprise that people generally would see the two companies very differently.
ULA’s board is beholden to the company’s shareholders. SpaceX is beholden to Musk and his long-term vision.
For now. If and when SpaceX goes public, the dynamic inside SpaceX will, and must, invariably shift. To maintain control of the company he would have to own at least 51% of all shares.
Musk has stated that when SpaceX has a monthly launch rate (thus a sustainable cash flow) he will consider going public. The question is, can Musk’s longterm vision ultimately be profitable for shareholders? And how will reporting to a board shift goals for the company?
From Space Quarterly Magazine September, 2011 issue – SpaceX – Vision Versus the Market: “One way to go public and keep voting control, thus controlling the direction of the company, is if SpaceX offers dual-class shares. With dual-class shares there is one class for anyone who wants to buy shares and another with super voting rights”
Interesting. I’ve never heard of dual-class shares until now. A quick internet search produced this nice summary: http://www.investopedia.com…. It just might work.
Yes, Musk has let it be known that he intends to retain effective control of the company through precisely this sort of mechanism.
However, any public corporation still has a legislated duty to even its non-voting shareholders. And they can (and do) sue the management if they think the company is not being run to maximise the value/dividend of those shares.
I wouldn’t expect Musk to float the company until after he’s got the reusable version of Falcon flying. (He might chase some private investment if he needs to expand quickly, but not publicly listed shares.) Even then, I’d expect him to limit SpaceX-proper to just the launcher side, spinning off any further work into its own (wholly-owned) company. Then float SpaceX as a commercial HSF/cargo launcher, use the money to fund the new beyond-SpaceX company.
Similar to what he’s done with his previous companies. Start them up, get them stable, float them, use the money to move on to the next thing.
Wouldn’t it be cool if they added three seats to cargo dragon and took people up as cargo. The seats could be pop out to unload lots of cargo.
Lol I see pictures of humans in the dragon. Does that make it a dragon rider?
Deleted
an IPO exchanges some or all ownership for a block of capital, but you can only do it once. Musk already has quite a bit of capital and its questionable whether the amount he could raise by an IPO would be worth the potential loss of control. Look at what happened to Jobs at Apple; the board wanted quick profits and kicked Jobs out when he wanted to take a longer view. Eventually they discovered he was right.
Wow, 115 comments in two days! Impressive SpaceX demonstrated actual means to get stuff to ISS from USA soil. Looking forward to them demo bringing stuff back. I’m also impressed SpaceX did this for such low cost relatively speaking. However, I really wonder why NASA and/or Boeing/Lockmart didn’t do this years ago.
Another great milestone. Now if they can re-enter and recover Dragon, intact, with all cargo safely returned to Earth I see that as successful proof of concept. Next stage should be to repeat that profile mission two or three times, just to silence the critics. Then, let’s fly people on Dragon. I think projections for a crewed flight of Dragon to the ISS by 2015 are certainly achievable, and really, they can’t look back at that point – that is the equivalent of driving the golden spike in the railroad.What follows should be routine Earth to LEO flights – both crewed and cargo – and at the same time, evolving the Dragon vehicle for other missions, including beyond Earth orbit. Together with Falcon XX, and with the panoply of other commercial vehicles likely to fly, I think we are about to enter ‘phase 2’ of humanity’s space age!
Malcolm Davis
Gold Coast, Australia