Impact of CRS-7 Loss
Another major rocket failure for a space industry out to prove itself, Washington Post
“SpaceX and Dulles-based Orbital ATK won contracts to carry cargo to the station. Then last year, NASA awarded contracts to SpaceX and Boeing to develop capsules that can carry astronauts to the space station, with the first such mission scheduled for December 2017. Politics may confound that. Congress recently slashed more than $300 million from the administration’s budget request for the commercial crew program. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said the cuts would delay the mission by two years. And that was before Sunday’s SpaceX failure.”
I wish I could believe that this incident would encourage Congress to bring commercial crew funding up to at least the requested amount, but I suspect that the SpaceX launch failure will instead encourage opponents to slash funding further. There’s blood in the water, and the House (Anti)science Committee will be in touch with its inner shark.
If funding it or not funding it is up to Congress, then by definition it is NOT a commercial activity, no matter how much some want to call it so. Regardless of how one feels about the program overall, it is long past time to end the sham of calling this ‘commercial’ crew. It is a government contract for providing crew rotation capability to ISS, end of story. Calling it ‘commercial’ is just newspeak and brings unnecessary negative baggage to the program.
He is more of threat to them
SpaceX does not receive subsidies. SpaceX is held to a higher standard, not by Republicans or Democrats, but by those who are heavily lobbied by Boeing and Lockmart. You need to look no further than Representatives and Senators from Texas and Alabama…
There is “blood in the water” and some will be moved to try and cut funding. There is at least one outrageous person who would like to end the commercial initiative and just push forward with SLS.
SpaceX is not viewed as favorably as some think… which is unfortunate.
SpaceX does get subsidies.
No – no they do not. They do not get ANYTHING like Boeing, Lockheed, or ULA. However, there is this mythology being pushed around. And its sad.
Some of us want to do things while others want to push paper.
LA Times (and other media outlets) reported recently that SpaceX has received approximately $5B in government payments. Not all are “subsidies” I’m sure, but they are most definitely a government contractor just like ULA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc.
http://www.latimes.com/busi…
NASA pays SpaceX no subsidies. They pay SpaceX for development milestones accomplished in creating first cargo and now crew vehicles. Once developed, NASA also pays SpaceX for operational flights of said vehicles. Strictly fees for services rendered.
The $4.9 billion number cited in that article was arrived at by adding up all the tax advantages SpaceX and (mostly) Tesla might get over a 20 or 30 year period. The vast majority are Tesla-related, like the $7500-per-car subsidy payable to purchasers of zero-emission vehicles (which is slated to go away soon). There are also zero-emission vehicle credits Tesla can sell to other carmakers that don’t make “enough” (as determined by the U.S. government) such vehicles themselves. These work kind of like carbon credits.
If you don’t like the phoney “markets” of the new tree-hugger economy, I don’t either. But Tesla didn’t invent any of this, it just happens to be one of the very few firms that actually managed to build real zero-emission cars.
There are also future property tax credits that the State of Nevada has agreed to as part of Tesla’s deal to build the first of their battery factories there. Credits against future taxes aren’t payments and aren’t even expenses to the states that grant them if not granting them would cause the facilities at issue to be built elsewhere. A factory or other facility that’s never built in your state won’t generate any future revenue anyway.
It’s not even clear that the state and county “subsidies” for the Brownsville spaceport are actual payments either. From what I’ve read, these sums seem to be what these jurisdictions are willing to spend on infrastructure improvements, like new access roads and an upgraded water supply system plus maybe some future tax relief ala Tesla/Nevada.
In short, it’s not like Uncle Sam, or any other jurisdiction, singly or in combination, has written Elon a check for $4.9 billion. A lot of people seem to be under the mistaken impression that such a check exists; mostly people who read the misleading L.A. Times headline, but not the story.
“SpaceX received $20 million in economic development subsidies from Texas to build a launch facility in the state. Local governments contributed an additional $5 million to woo the company. Included in the local subsidies is a 15-year property tax break from a local school district worth $3.1 million.”
I recall something like $20M for the Texas spaceport, but otherwise only capability+service contract payments. Do they get any special/unusual tax breaks or something?
Probably, I’m not really familiar with that aspect of the business, though just the one subsidy is enough to disprove the previous claim.
You mean Senator Shelby he doesn’t like SpaceX or Commercial Crew. It Perfect opportunity cut Commercial Crew funding and try to target SpaceX by cutting them out of Commercial crew contracts and give to Boeing.
You know, as rocket explosions go this one wasn’t so bad. It was like “poof” it was gone in a puff of smoke.
I’m sure SpaceX will fix the problems and move on.
Looked like it went through a worm hole.
It reminded me of the Star Trek: First Contact time vortex/wormhole. 😉
Maybe it will reemerge a few centuries later.