SpaceX Vs #JourneyToMars – Fighting The Status Quo
Elon Musk’s dream of going to Mars is SpaceX’s biggest strength, and its biggest distraction, Quartz
“Scott Pace, a former NASA official, said that any company attempting to do as much as SpaceX needed to carefully assess whether it was pushing its workers too hard. “It would be ambitious for any company to do a schedule like that,” Pace says. “When you look at changes in launch schedule that are increasing over historical norms, you should be worried whether or not schedule pressure is putting unacceptable strains on the workforce.” SpaceX rejects out of hand the idea that it is pushing its workers too hard.”
Between a rocket and a hard place: Elon Musk to give the speech of his life, Ars Technica
“It also seems likely that NASA won’t offer substantial support, either. The space agency is building its own heavy lift rocket, the Space Launch System, and has its own #JourneyToMars. NASA’s administrator, Charles Bolden, has wholeheartedly supported SpaceX and commercial space activities in low-Earth orbit, but has been far less effusive about private businesses venturing into deep space on their own. Earlier this month Bolden flatly stated he was not a “big fan” of private companies building heavy-lift rockets. With its Falcon Heavy and BFR, that is exactly what SpaceX is doing.”
– Why SpaceX May Get Humans to Mars – First, earlier post
– Yet Another NASA Mars “Plan” Without A Plan – or a Budget, earlier post
– NASA’s SpaceX Mars Mission Briefing That NASA Is Not Telling You About, earlier post
– Update on NASA’s #JourneyToNowhere, earlier post
– NASA Is Still Kicking The Can Down The Road on the #JourneyToMars, earlier post
At some point within the next four years SLS becomes unbearable. NASA can try to retard the progress of SpaceX and Blue Origin but the truth is our youngsters coming out of college would much rather go to ULA, BO, or SpaceX.
What is even better is that these kids doing this stuff have all the professionalism and desire that NASA does. BO, ULA, and SpaceX are doing things while NASA continues to grind it out in Congress (Thanks Nelson and Shelby).
The king has no clothes.
I read this (below) and has me thinking similar to many other ventures waving the private company flag but in the background much of the costs were at government expense. Nothing wrong with companies building hardware that NASA will use (there is no US Govt Rocket Factory) but at least be honest about it.
From the Ars Technica article:
…he may be about to effectively tell NASA that they’ve —- for a long time about how to go to Mars, that this is how we’re going to do it, and you’re going to pay. I don’t know how well that is going to be received.”
The comparisons between whatever SpaceX proposes or actually does and what NASA is doing is inevitable, as well as comparisons with other companies – not forgetting Blue Origin, and who knows who else along the way.
What is striking is the sort of double standard at play in most of these comparisons.
A sole source cost-plus contract to Boeing for an SLS upper stage? That’s NASA paying for what it wants. A fixed price contract for a fraction as much to SpaceX, to provide a service NASA wants? That’s a subsidy.
A senate saying the pork has to go where it has always gone, to who it went to with the Shuttle? That’s NASA building a big rocket because that’s the way to do this. We’ll need this to have astronauts on Mars one day. A company investing in a similar capability themselves, taking great risk, creating a competing way to get to Mars, with ideas toward being more affordable and sustainable, with an idea that space travel is more democratic, not just for a few Mars astronauts every decade? We’ll say that company is asking for a government handout.
A workforce during Apollo that knew very long hours, divorces, work, work, and more work, and then being tossed aside once the geo-political objective of a man on the Moon had been achieved? We call that dedication. A national achievement. A shining moment for everyone on Earth. A workforce at SpaceX working hard as well, with similarly ambitious goals, if not more so, toward sustainable Mars settlement, backing up the human race? We’ll call that reckless.
I’ve been all over. MAF. Crawling inside SRMs (the loaded motor kind). Crawling inside ET’s. Inside wonderfully beautiful Orbiters that are now one step before the gift shop. I’ve seen the sun rise at LC39 after a long nights work. I’ve seen the view from the very top of the beany cap, looking down on a stacked Shuttle.
And then, in recent years, I’ve had a chance to see Boeing’s redo of the old OPF. A Starliner test article and all. I’ve seen Lockheeds Orion and it’s bay from teardown to sparkling white to Orion hardware on the flor. And I’ve had a chance to see SpaceX at Hawthorne. And never, ever, in my many years have I seen such an enthusiasm, energy, and sense of purpose, as I have seen at SpaceX, in those faces on the floor and the people I met – excepting the most busy years in the Shuttle program, the late 90’s, if you were walking into the Orbiter processing facility back then.
Perspective. It’s important. Facts, not things we get to choose. What my gut is telling me? Well, time will tell how this plays out, but right now our choices are not all available. We can wish we had another Apollo moment, or call some wishful thinking and a dose of denial about the future a plan, as NASA leadership is doing. We can say “get off my grass”, or we can see the positive in what’s happening. It’s all your choice.