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Commercialization

Video: Comparing Freight Rail Infrastructure and Space Mission Costs

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
October 3, 2012
Filed under ,

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

12 responses to “Video: Comparing Freight Rail Infrastructure and Space Mission Costs”

  1. Anonymous says:
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    Well maybe that’s true now but railroads got their start with government help such as land grants and calvary troops for security. I’m sure there are lot of other costs even nowadays that are not direct.

    • DTARS says:
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      Mr. romney said tesla got help from gov and that was BADDD. Then he said Obama just got money for those that gave to his campaign. So I wonder if he plans to go after Spacex if he gets elected??? LOL well Elon at least got a mention in the debate. Thats better than NASA did.

  2. Mark S. Lyon says:
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    This add is an example of the something-for-nothing baloney common from big business in an election year.  While no NASA, the Federal Rail Administration and State governments spend significant amounts on freight rail track and safety improvments.  And passenger rail (Amtrak, Public Transit authorities) pay substantial amounts to freight rail for trackage rights and rail improvments on the Freight Rail right of way (which also benefits freight rail).  AND Freight rail is profitable now because it runs on right of way granted free or purchased at government subsidy.  In many states, railroads still have the government-granted power of eminent domain to condemn new right of way.  Give that kind of support to privte space industry for 100 years, and let’s what That industry generates.

  3. Anonymous says:
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    The Transcontinental Railroad model worked well then and can work again now. Would that an ad like this about space commerce appears in the not too distant future.

  4. Andrew Gasser says:
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    4 Mars Rovers x $2.4 Billion Each = 9.6 Billion

    10 GPS Satellites x 500 Million Each = $5 Billion
    20 Shuttle Launches x $650 Million Each = $13 Billion
    Total = $27.6 Billion

    Leave it to the Tea Party to blow up the numbers.  Bad commercial with bad data.

    Poster’s note:  The shuttle launch of $650 million per launch is quite generous.  The number per launch is somewhere between $1.1 and $1.4 billion a launch.

    Respectfully,
    Andrew Gasser
    TEA Party in Space

  5. npng says:
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    Without asking the Freight Rail Works folks directly, I assume they piled up the total costs for 4 Rovers, 10 GPS Sats and 20 Shuttles to get their point across to mr-joe-average-consumer that they spent some serious chunks of billions of dollars.   Beyond that the current analog or correlation of space to earth based rail transport is near zippo.

    And MSLyon, other than typical industry advertising to show how rail is an effective method of transportation, for some goods, it’s not even that much of an election year advertising play.  Aside the subsidy, rights, and domain stuff too, validity accepted, but so what?

    A point that comes from the ad is, the freight rail industry is a century-plus old very matured, commoditized business that geneates $265 Billion in U.S. economic activity (= U.S. GDP). Toss-In $23 Billion – Get-Out $265 Billion.   What idiot wouldn’t write the check for that 11-to-1 ?   Imagine to total value of goods that move on rail for $265B. 

    Now look at NASA.  Toss-In $18 Billion – Get-Out  $ ??? Billion.  Look at the entire aerospace industry.  Toss in $273 Billion – Get-Out $ ??? Billion.  What are the dollar values in the ??? locations?  The ???’s are for you guys to fill in.

    The Rail Industry, and U.S. transportation industry, has been functioning at TRL9+ for over 100 years.  What TRL level is NASA at?  Compound answer expected.  What TRL level is the aerospace industry at?  Again, compound answer.  For you pros, skip the TRL level and state what the BRL levels are for both.    

  6. Anonymous says:
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    To npng, 

    I suspect to complete your analogy, the aerospace industry already is a near $300B a year industry. So wouldn’t your analogy be toss in $23B rail, get out $265B, and toss in $1*b space (NASA’s yearly budget) and get out $300B?

    I think the analogy is actually worth getting into if done right, if you really kept the numbers apples to apples. For example, the rail investment in the ad appears to be about private investment. So you need the equivalent number for private space investment this year. Then the industry definition needs to be clear too. The aerospace industry figure will include equipment makers, GPS equipment makers for example. Does the rail-related industry figure include an analog to that?

    If anything the ad is somewhat counter-space. It’s trying to get across what $23B and that being a large number by comparing to things that are extremely expensive, space stuff, in people’s minds. Not helpful. I suspect that’s about as far as they wanted to take it in the ad.

    On another note-because we really love analogies-rail could grow even faster than in recent times, all behind the scenes, as oil gets more expensive (as demand outpaces easy supplies, and as we are seeing, and demand then goes more after difficult supplies). Coal, is a major item in rail traffic by tonnage, revenue and volume. Our export of it is growing and China can’t get enough of it.

    So it may be a stretch, but the ad folk actually created a vision of an energy future that is about coal, and not space, not space solar power for example.

    Even if the rail ad team did not see this…or did they? Umm.

    • npng says:
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      Nice to see your feedback numbers_guy.   Yes, to your first question.  Toss in $18B to space and get out $300B.   If NASA could demonstrate that, they’d get a call from the Hill at 3am, asking Charlie if he would like an extra $10 or $20B.  Why?  Because the value gain far exceeds the cost.  And yes, the analogy is worth getting in to too.

      Your industry definition point is good; one must parse out the matured, commodity level space industry that provides GPS, imaging and comms sats all which have well defined quantified cost/benefit business cases, apart from the exploration fraction of the overall space market-space.  Note that Freight Rail Works shows near zero investment activity in the exploratory realm of rail transportation (meaning none); it’s important to understand why they don’t.

      The angle of attack on the Freight Rail Works ad was tactically clever.  They grabbed expenditures of great visibility – shuttle, satellites, etc. that have glitz and out-of-this-world-sizzle light-years away from the mundanities of rail – contrasting it to the rail industry’s very grounded, earthy, 102 coal car thundering roll across America, a blatantly obvious and pragmatic necessity for earth dwelling humans.  Pretty smart.  The rail industry does productive stuff. 

      The rail industry creates-real-value. How does NASA create-real-value?

  7. hikingmike says:
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    Without looking into the ad at any depth, I actually like to see those Mars Rovers and Shuttles and such in there 🙂

  8. bobhudson54 says:
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    I suppose this is a statement on privatization but the railway system is government funded by the taxpayers.If they do generate this kind of funding,just think what the space industry can do with such funding.

  9. dogstar29 says:
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    The railroads were heavily subsidized during their development and have routes that were based on regulated monopolies.  But they are falling behind in R&D; most modern countries have high-speed passenger rail. In the US there is little passenger service at all except with government funding.

  10. Terri Sweeney says:
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    This simply isn’t true. 

    Taxpayers are putting significant money into CSX and Norfolk-Southern track improvements including money to add a third track in the Northern VA area and to expand the vertical clearance on tunnels and bridges to allow double stacking of containers.