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Commercialization

Old Space / New Space: Its Just Name Calling

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 24, 2013
Filed under , ,

Which way to space?, Washington Post
“Old Space (and this is still the dreamers talking) is slow, bureaucratic, government-directed, completely top-down. Old Space is NASA, cautious and halting, supervising every project down to the last thousand-dollar widget. Old Space is Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman. Old Space coasts on the glory of the Apollo era and isn’t entirely sure what to do next.
New Space is the opposite of all that. It’s wild. It’s commercial, bootstrapping, imaginative, right up to the point of being (and this is no longer the dreamers talking) delusional.”

Keith’s note: Funny thing: this article’s top illustration shows “Old Space Delta IV Heavy” and “New Space Dream Chaser”. Guess what rocket the “New Space” Dream Chaser is shown on? Looks like an Atlas V to me. According to the article’s simplistic definition, that’s an “Old Space” rocket. Joel Achenbach has fallen for the same gimmick that is annoyingly common in the space business today wherein a company is one or the other but not both. And “Old” = bad and “New” = good (if you talk to a New Spacer, that is).
This “New Space” Vs “Old Space” designation is just a semantic ploy used by people who want NASA money for their company or pet idea that is currently being given to another company/project. You have to convince NASA that you are worthy of funding so you make the status quo look like dinosaurs. Market analysis, engineering excellence, and sound investment never seem to be important to the New Spacers. Being “new” and not “old” is, so it would seem. People who try and pigeon hole companies as being either “Old Space” or “New Space” into one category or another are missing what is really going on.

Northrop Grumman bought Scaled Composites – the same company that built SpaceShipOne – the poster child of “New Space”. Does that now make Northrop Grumman “New Space” or does it make Scaled Composites “Old Space”? SNC is using a design based on NASA research that is decades old. Is that “Old Space” or New Space”? OSC’s Antares uses Russian NK-33 engines that were built 40 years ago to launch cargo to the ISS. Is that “Old Space” or New Space”? SpaceX uses ladders bought in hardware stores to gain access to Dragon and rotates its Falcon 9 stages in a rig made out of standard truck tires. Their Florida launch site’s liquid Nitrogen tank is 50 year old government surplus from LC 37. The ladders and tires are not unlike their counterparts half a century ago. Not very high tech “New Space” to me. Both NASA MSFC and SpaceX are “printing” rocket engines. Is NASA “New Space”?
The distinction between “Old Space” and New Space” is blurred, at best. Rather, using the terms is lazy and amounts to ill-informed name calling.
Of course, new crop of aerospace companies are changing the way we think about space access and utilization. I do not suggest that the expensive way we currently do things in space is sustainable. Things need to change. And they are. Established companies are learning from start-ups and start-ups stand on the shoulders of NASA and the aerospace companies that came before them. Progress is always an ever-changing and dynamic amalgam of old and new. The sooner everyone involved in space exploration and utilization realizes that and stops the name calling the sooner we’ll all start making some progress beyond the stagnation we find ourselves in today.

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

28 responses to “Old Space / New Space: Its Just Name Calling”

  1. Anonymous says:
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    Well said, Keith.

  2. cynical_space says:
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    You got it right in one Keith! All this Old Space vs New Space nonsense is getting us exactly nowhere and feeding those hostile to the space program.

    The only sure thing is Old Space vs New Space = NO Space.

  3. Rocky J says:
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    The people involved in the “New Space” do not care less whether they are using new or old technology and those that have a chance of success know they are developing upon what has already passed.

    The reporters on the web and those that graduate to the new age newspapers fill thousands of web pages every day. They are the ones that are clueless, half-baked research for a story. I grant them that the Washington Post Space Frontier articles sells advertising. Nice graphics and multimedia but I agree that they are missing the critical points. NASA is in stagnation and chaos and it is the reporters that have direct contact with the government and industry players. They ask softball questions. This Post article falls short. The Q&A (Keith’s first question, the exception) at the Newseum panel discussion last week was a missed opportunity. Science Friday – some pretty good stories. Ira Flatow asks some good lines of questions except this last Friday. Him and a Wired magazine writer (subj.: Nasa Budget Cuts), talked the old talk, chuckle, smile and miss the chance to educate the public with a real probing discussion. Twice, with credentials from a local newspaper, I called into NASA news conferences to ask good probing questions of scienctists and engineers. I couldn’t take it anymore, listening to the grade school questions and missed opportunities to reveal a story. The skill and probing of the fact finders and those that need to ask the hard questions, particularly of our government servants, is really lacking. One point I’ll grant is that the shear volume of writing on the Web makes the good reporting few and far between, lost in the noise.

  4. Derek Webber says:
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    This is a thoughtful and helpful piece.
    Derek Webber

  5. NewSpacePaleontologist says:
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    Bravo Keith. New Space vs. Old Space – take from the old and give to the new. The new is automatically better. Re-distribute.
    Both sides share the blame. The new for the deception and pushing the “entitlement” mentality, the old for ignoring the discussion a few years ago not wanting to dirty their hands and allowing the field to be set by others.
    The stagnation at NASA is in large part because of this Old vs. New battle. NASA cannot bring anything forward without it being hung up in the fight of whether it is targeted enough to New Space.
    Some would rather kill a program than let the superior engineering and program management prevail.

  6. Ferris Valyn says:
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    Keith,

    While I fully agree that the way the Post’s writers used ther terms OldSpace and NewSpace as name calling (I got rather vocal about that at our “friends” over at another blog that I am no longer allowed to frequent 😀 ), I think its a mistake to treat the terms as merely semantic ploys.

    Fundamentally, they are philosophic ways of doing business and exploring space, and who assumes the risk/reward part of space exploration. And they each make sense at different times for space exploration.

    For example, I don’t believe that there is a viable NewSpace way to do a probe to Pluto, or space telescopes looking at Dark Energy. By the same token, building a sustainable frequent and reliable transportation system to LEO is unlikely to be successful using the OldSpace model.

    But it is far to easy to assume that NewSpace is purely driven by age and new technology.

  7. Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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    The pseudo-savants who are somehow still drawing a paycheck at WaPo have not yet made the distinction in their own industry of ” Old Media , New Media ” either…

    • kcowing says:
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      It will be interesting to see what a “Old Media” outlet like WaPo becomes when owned by a “New Space” guy like Jeff Bezos … if only they could find a way to wrap my paper in plastic *properly* on rainy days and not throw it under our cars. And that stupid foldover tab they put on the paper – I just throw it away. And, of course, there’s all of that advertising crap wrapped in plastic. It must weigh 5 lbs. If I can opt out with WaPo as to whether or not I want the standalone TV supplement delivered, why can’t I opt out of receiving all that useless advertising crap delivered on weekends? It gets thrown out unopened. I can’t even recycle most of it.

      • hikingmike says:
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        I want to know where those come from, littering my yard, getting soggy, and I’ll collect all those I get for a year, and then dump them at the front door of wherever they are delivered from. Better yet, I’ll start an organization that collects them from annoyed local homeowners, and then dumps them all collectively at the source. They’ll have to spend as much time picking them up as we do and maybe it will be less attractive to them.

      • dogstar29 says:
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        heh heh heh ,it’s because the advertisers are paying more than the subscribers. Money talks, even in newspace.

    • Anonymous says:
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      New space in contrast to old space is actually very well defined, when considering new space as being a commercial partnering where incentives are aligned BOTH near and far between NASA and industry. Today, with old space, incentives are not aligned, as mostly the near term only gets real emphasis. What is commercial will be much more operable, affordable, and reliable, by definition, or otherwise it won’t have non-government customers. In addition, this improved alignment allows moving to firm fixed price contracting where NASA is one of many buyers, and doing so for more and more parts of any NASA portfolio, always leaving the parts that are less mature as next to emphasize, in more traditional contexts.

      The figure NASA keeps here says more or less the same visually-

      http://www.nasa.gov/offices

      It’s absolutely disastrous how such a simple idea as “commercial” has failed to be clarified, communicated, or contrasted effectively against “traditional” approaches to shaping the NASA portfolio, defining space exploration plans, or clarifying the relationship to industry in steps along the way.

  8. Kelly Starks says:
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    Big agree. Its more vanity of fantasy (or whistling past a graveyard) then reality.

    >..Old Space is slow, bureaucratic, government-directed, completely top-down.<

    I always find this hysterical/frustrating. I’m reminded of the DC-X project which McDonnell Douglas got flying in 18 months after contract go ahead, were confident they could field full FAA certified production SSTO derivatives of in 3 years – and Blue Origin has spent 13 years trying to replicate.

    The big older companies have resources in material, personnel, and training the “NewSpace” companies can only dream of, so they can move very rapidly to develop extremely advanced craft. On the other hand they are owned by stockholders (read pension funds) that have no confidence that there is a potential space market to go after. So they wait, with stunningly advanced designs on the shelf.

    Its a real pity that the current set of dot.com billionars wanting to open the space frounteer, didn’t just pool their resources and issue a RFP to the top aerospace groups around. Dreamchaser could have saved a lot of money, and got a far better craft, if they just ordered a modified X-37 from Boeing. A DC-Y(3), or Black horse, mini Star Raker, etc.

    Perhaps the same ego (Musk was once asked why given he so loves the Soyuz, he didn’t just by said Russian company for a couple hundred million, and he sneered and said he founds companies he doesn’t buy and refurbish them.) that pushed the NewSpace folks to all start by building companies from the group up, rather then just buying one from a established firm like Branson did? And further to embrace the “NewSpace” title, the former Alt.Space members came up with?

    • Martin Edwards says:
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      Hi Keith
      Great commentary and great site, as ever. Keep it up!
      The distinction between New & Old Space is rhetoric, as you point out. I had no idea about Scaled Composites being bought by NG!
      Best wishes from a rainy UK.

    • hikingmike says:
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      I agree with the labels being a bit ridiculous, and the resources of the established companies for sure. They are more risk averse though with shareholders and big government contracts to worry about.

      Scaled Composites was bought by Northrop Grumman, not Richard Branson/Virgin – or do you mean Branson is just buying their spacecraft? Some would include Scaled Composites in “New Space” as well since they are a seemingly small and nimble company. I would say that the others wanted to do something a bit different, that’s why they didn’t buy something else. Being vertically integrated like SpaceX is certainly different. I don’t remember the Musk/Soyuz story, but I remember reading that he contemplated buying Russian Dnepr rockets before he decided to go whole hog with SpaceX. What would it have cost Sierra Nevada to buy a modified X-37? I understand the X-37C that’s proposed for crew is double the size of the current one. Would they need to drop test it first? Rework the software? Would it still be in a fairing? Abort system? Sounds like the two maybe aren’t that far apart in development needed.

      • Kelly Starks says:
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        >..established companies.. are more risk averse
        > though with shareholders and big government
        > contracts to worry about.

        I don’t think its that as much as being owned now a days by pension fund managers, since they pretty much rule Wallstreet. I mean McDonnell Douglas REALLY wanted to field a Full up DC-X derived shuttle. Folks who reviewed their work said they were so far along that had the catalog part numbers of everything — then literally had enough detail to fill out the order forms. But if they took a couple billion dollar leap of faith without customers lined up – Wallstreet would have torn the company apart.

        Also obviously even far more advanced projects simply arn’t as big a risk for them.

        >..Scaled Composites was bought by Northrop
        > Grumman, …

        N/G long owned just under half of Scaled, adn when Rutan retired he sold out his share to them – giving them majority share.

        >…not Richard Branson/Virgin – or do you mean
        > Branson is just buying their spacecraft?

        Right. Branson didn’t start out and decided he wants to build rockets – he looked for a vendor.

        > Some would include Scaled Composites in “New
        > Space” as well since they are a seemingly small
        > and nimble company…

        Some do – on the other hand most of the NewSpace companies were furious with Rutan for working “oldspace”. Rutan didn’t cut corners, wanted full certification rules applied to all the craft, not the NewSpace mantra that they were to new to regulate, etc.

        Really Scaled Composites is like Lockheed/Martins Skunkworks, rather then like the “NewSpace” companies.

        The assumption that their newspace because only NewSpace operates “small and nimble” is really just vanity on the NewSpace folks side.

        >.. I would say that the others wanted to do
        > something a bit different,
        that’s why they didn’t
        > buy something else. ..

        Different?

        >.. Being vertically integrated
        like SpaceX is certainly
        > different…

        Very high overhead, risk, expense.

        >.. What would it
        have cost Sierra Nevada to buy
        > a modified X-37?

        Not sure — Given the ships are already worked out, maybe a couple hundred million. maybe less depending how different you wanted it.

        >… I understand the X-37C
        that’s proposed
        > for crew is double the size of the current one. .

        Not that much biger, but yeah the 6 passenger version is longer and fatter.

        > Would
        they need to drop test it first?

        Boeing, yeah.

        > Rework the software?

        Some, especially if you want the crew to be able to command it directly, do dockings, etc.

        > Would it still be
        in a fairing?

        No.

        > Abort system?

        I wouldn’t think so.

        > Sounds like the two maybe aren’t that far
        apart in
        > development needed.

        Well the X-37 has years of flight time under its belt, and was fully reviewed and certified. So other then the mods to add a crew its way ahead, and more advanced.
        I love how it autolands on a runway and waits for the pick-up truck to come out adn pull it into a hanger.

  9. Michael Mahar says:
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    I think that there is a real difference between old-space and new-space. That difference stems from the method in which new innovations are initiated. In old-space, the government determines the need and specifies all of the requirements. It then pays for everything on an hourly basis. If it takes longer to do than originally expected, than the government picks up the tab. All off the money comes from the government.
    In new-space, there may not be any government requirements at all other than regulations or there may be a lot of government requirements. It all depends. New-space has a lot of flexibility in all of the details of their design and implementation. The contracts that they get may be more of a service contract. NASA has to assure themselves that Dragon won’t damage the ISS and specify how the ISS will grapple and attach the capsule. Everything else is pretty much left up to SpaceX.
    Just because new-space is using designs and equipment that were developed in old-space doesn’t mean that there really isn’t a difference. The key if flexibility. If you find a surplus LOX tank that you can get cheaply, get it. In some ways, that’s the point. Requiring everything to be re-invented would be silly. It’s more of an old-space thing to design a new kind of wrench for every bolt.

    However, new-space would not exist without old-space and old-space is still the only way to get stuff that no commercial builder would make. The return on investment on a probe to study the moons of Saturn would be too low for any private enterprise to even consider. The instruments on board would be too specialized to be reused on other missions, etc.
    We have several private companies developing human rated spacecraft capable of reaching orbit. None of these would exists if there wasn’t an ISS for them to go to. Without the old-space ISS, these companies would have no business case for what they are doing. Many consider the ISS to be a boondoggle that has no useful scientific purpose. I contend that the purpose of the ISS project was for humankind to learn how to make and operate a space station. That’s more in keeping with NASA original charter than running a ferry service. Once NASA does the original research, it’s time for private industry to take the good ideas and then run with them.

    • Gary Warburton says:
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      There is a bit of dreaming and creativity involved in new space something that is missing in old space. The main drivers behind old space are money and the least amount of change possible so they don`t upset their share holders and increase costs. New Space`s, drivers are different. For example, Elon Musk from the very beginning sought new ideas and new ways to do things that would bring down costs with the idea from the beginning to reuse his space craft but he still lived within his buget.. He was close to failure but he persisted.Jeff Bezos has followed a similar path except he hired people to do the creating where Elon created his own innovations.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      I have a sense that over the longer term, the investment in the ISS will be seen as providing an initial boost to commercial space endeavors which will mature while providing government services and well worth the price.

      It’s impossible not to compare early aviation and government mail contracts, which allowed both airlines and airplane manufacturers to create a new industry.

  10. Joe Cooper says:
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    Whenever I’m asked I just say they’re trying to rejigger their procurement scheme to cut costs and stave off congressional micromanagement. It sounds boring but for some reason whenever you mention “congress” people automatically “get it”, a phenomena often accompanied by a groan and pantomimed bullet to the head. Bang!

  11. Russel aka 'Rusty' Shackleford says:
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    What’s the matter with the spaceship i’m flyin’?
    “Can’t you tell that it’s out of
    style?”
    Should I get a set of white wall boosters?
    “Are you gonna thrust the
    miracle mile?
    Nowadays you can’t be too sentimental
    Your best bet’s a true
    baby blue Delta Heavy.”
    Hot funk, cool punk, even if it’s old junk
    It’s
    still rock and roll to me

  12. Mark_Flagler says:
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    IMHO, the distinction is more about contracting methods and business models. SAAs versus FARs, etc.
    I see no reason why LockMart, for example, couldn’t spin out a “new-space” subsidiary with a business and administrative structure patterned after SpaceX’s lean, integrated approach. So “old space” could, at least in theory, do “new space.”
    Personally, I associate “old space” less with particular companies than with FARs, bureaucracy, outsourcing, risk aversion, and high costs.
    “New space,” for me, is associated with SAAs, lean manufacturing and management, in-house procurement, a certain entrepreneurialism, and lower costs.
    Your mileage may differ, and probably does.

    • Skinny_Lu says:
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      Strongly agree. Contracting methods and incentives is the key. Cost plus award fee contracts are a ridiculous way for the govt to spend our money. Fixed price for a service is much more efficient. Also, NASA will have to relinquish even more oversight to the contractor’s activities. Such oversight, drives up the cost of doing business for the small value added.

  13. dogstar29 says:
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    I agree the distinction is arbitrary and based on business model rather than corporate identity, but it illustrates a point. When a company tries to reduce costs through innovation to build a sustainable commercial market with real customers, it is acting like newspace. When it establishes monopoly control, then raises prices to boost profits, it is acting like oldspace. A single company can do both. Boeing, for example, has roles in both SLS/Orion and commercial crew. But SpaceX has provided the most dramatic demonstration of the newspace model.

    The newspace model has at least a chance of developing sustainable unmanned and potentially manned commerce in spaceflight, while the oldspace model can never achieve a sustainable market in human spaceflight and even resulted in the US totally abandoning its once dominate role in commercial satellite launch services, a situation which SpaceX hopes to reverse.

    The policy problem is that at present NASA has chosen to give oldspace the lion’s share of its resources, which is greatly slowing potential progress toward sustainable human spaceflight.

    • Kelly Starks says:
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      >..When a company tries to reduce costs through innovation
      > to build a
      sustainable commercial market with real customers,
      > it is acting like
      newspace.
      > When it establishes monopoly control, then raises prices
      > to
      boost profits, it is acting like oldspace.

      The later certainly isn’t how the big firms act, the former isn’t always Newspace. Certainly it isn’t SpaceX.

      Really the big difference is the established firms have the expertise to rapidly do more advanced and innovative designs then NewSpace firms can do. On the other hand the NewSpace ones don’t have a big stack of stockholders who won’t let you move until you can show a buyer, and – your not going to do a cheap sloppy job and risk your reputation.

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        Something that vulture4’s comment suggests to me (that he didn’t actually say), which I agree with, is that it’s not an overall, total anything that is the defining difference, but rather selected events. Some things are handled differently, like contracts that are SAAs, while other things are the same, like progress payments for accomplishing contract-defined milestones, but each contract is still negotiated on a case-by-case basis.
        Every company has to pay their bills monthly and their people weekly (or whatever), and face similar consequences for letting their cash flow situation become a problem.
        I suspect that more significant that “new” vs. “old” is company size. Those companies we tend to think of as “old space” are much larger and have proportionally higher overhead rates and commitments to shareholders. New (small) space companies live by the program, whereas old (large) space companies live by their quarterly earnings. I think these things are the only differences that matter.