White House: Commercial Rockets Are Actually Not Commercial
Q&A: Plotting U.S. Space Policy with White House Adviser Scott Pace, Scientific American
“Heavy-lift rockets are strategic national assets, like aircraft carriers. There are some people who have talked about buying heavy-lift as a service as opposed to owning and operating, in which case the government would, of course, have to continue to own the intellectual properties so it wasn’t hostage to any one contractor. One could imagine this but, in general, building a heavy-lift rocket is no more “commercial” than building an aircraft carrier with private contractors would be.”
Trump space adviser: Blue Origin and SpaceX rockets aren’t really commercial, Ars Technica
“With these comments, Pace seems to be equating NASA’s SLS rocket with Blue Origin’s New Glenn and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, saying one rocket is no more commercial than any other. However, under closer scrutiny, there is no comparison between the amount of funding that NASA has spent on its own rocket and the other boosters. The space agency has been working on the SLS rocket since 2011, and it annually spends in excess of $2 billion on development of the vehicle. Additionally, NASA spends $400 million or more per year on ground systems at Kennedy Space Center to support future SLS launches. These costs are likely to continue for nearly a decade until the SLS rocket reaches an operational cadence of approximately one mission per year.”
I wish they would quit using the term “commercial” with regards to human space flight. There is only one customer, the government. There is also only one destination, LEO/ISS. The only competition making it “commercial” by being “engaged in commerce” and “intended to make a profit” is in regards to those government contracts – so every company in the history of spaceflight has been, by definition, commercial. And yet, the only space commercialization, ever, that has made profit has to do with communications/information satellites. There is a reason for that.
Yep, and the reason is they set up a commercial entity, Comsat Corp. at the start instead of giving it to NASA.
Didn’t know that. About the reasoning, I mean.
That was because they saw NASA as a science agency and also they wanted it to focus on going to the Moon. So they only provided technical support and launch services to Comsat. BTW Comsat stock was the first pure space stock traded on the NY stock exchange. It kept their feet to the fire finanically, another factor in the successful commercialization of comsats.
That is why I keep advocating a similar duel strategy for a Lunar return. A public/private commercial firm focused on lunar industralization. NASA then focuses on Mars as its key goal.
What in your view is the overall shape of a proposed partnership? In the case of Comsat an income stream could be part of the equation (although admittedly dicey in those days). Where’s the income in lunar development?
For the Moon it would need to look and operate more like the Alaska Railroad when the U.S. government owned it (Alaska owns it now).
So, some sort of infrastructure would be developed, presumably to be used to exploit (unnamed) Lunar resources?
Still sounds a lot like “build it…”, no? Comsat’s sales were obvious. LunaCorp, not so much?
“I wish they would quit using the term “commercial” with regards to human space flight.”: It’s commercial in the sense that NASA is not designing and doesn’t own the hardware, the providers can use boosters designed for commercial launches, and sell flights to non-NASA customers, like SpaceX have already done. This is about as far from the history of spaceflight as possible.
“There is only one customer, the government”: That’s false, there has been 7 space tourists on 8 flights.
“There is also only one destination”: Also false given what we’ve known about the SpaceX lunar flight.
Regardless of the anchor client, commercial services are contracted on a commercial basis, and are available for non-govt customers. Commercial crew is potentially available for Bigelow or any commercial customer; for example the private manned round-the-moon stunt that SpaceX announced for next year (although since then it seems to have fizzled out.)
Such opportunity doesn’t apply to systems like SLS/Orion/JWST/HST/MSL/etc, where NASA explicitly controls the entire nature of the vehicle/instrument and owns the end result.
NASA owns SLS, it rents Falcon.
The importance of ISS as a ‘place to go’ for the budding private space industry must not be ignored. It’s broadly akin to the US Mail back when commercial aircraft were struggling.
Broader uses for aircraft were obvious from the start; the US Mail just give the industry a kick start. But space travel? Not so much. There’s no obvious market for rides to space (aside from satellites, which appears to have no upper bound).
What I hear most is something akin to ‘build it and they will come’. Maybe.
Declining access costs haven’t uncovered a huge market just waiting for a cheaper ride; the SX manifest has the usual suspects. How much lower do they need to go? And what is that market, anyway? (Not the low-volume research projects, please, Drs. Woodard and Crary; I’m talking about a real and voluminous HSF market).
Space tourism is mentioned frequently. Certainly the guys at Scaled found lots of thrill -seekers; the depth of that market isn’t known. And anyway: a number of people will want an up-and-down ride. Then what?
Mr. Bigelow has one answer for sure: a destination resort. Maybe.
But if there’s any other reason for HSF to trickle down to the rest of us, I’ve not heard about it.
Is this a bleak view? It sure is.
EDIT: I know that our future is in space. I know that there are quadrillions of dollars to be made utilizing the natural resources just floating around out there (so to speak). What I don’t know is this: how do we get over the hump?
AIUI, Bigelow doesn’t want his habitats used as a “space hotel”, but more like a business park. He wants researchers, not “tourists” per se. Hence he expects to lease facilities to second tier nations, rather than individual tickets to rich tourists.
Yes, and hopefully the research will lead to products produced in orbit which will generate more demand for habitats and launch vehicles.
Isn’t that what we said about ISS? Remember ‘crystals’ (ok, below the belt, but still)?
I recognize the importance of basic research for sure. It’s just that LEO doesn’t seem so attractive (very broadly speaking).
Yes, but NASA is the one running ISS, and so it’s difficult for the commercial firms, that work in industries with research cycles measured in weeks to work with an agency whose research cycles are measured in years.
Also it’s a full time job for 5 astronauts to keep ISS running leaving only one astronaut with time to do research, unless he is needed as well. By contrast the Bigelow Aerospace Habitats are designed to only require 1-2 Bigelow astronauts to run, leaving the 3-4 paying researchers 100% of their time to do research.
The question then is “to do what” — what kind of economically viable work/research? No one has addressed the sustainability of that paradox.
>Certainly the guys at Scaled found lots of thrill -seekers
So far there’s not much action at Spaceport America
>Mr. Bigelow has one answer for sure
So far no hardware in space, we’re told it will be soon but been waiting for years.
>But if there’s any other reason for HSF to trickle down
>to the rest of us, I’ve not heard about it.
Maybe HSF doesn’t scale up like subsonic airline transports. It seems there is no compelling reason to put people into space. There was 50 years ago and plenty of resources were devoted to that. Right now it seems so difficult to put someone into space and schedules keep pushing back (Orion, Dragon2, Dreamchaser, etc.). Meanwhile robotic spacecraft has made ***huge*** advancements over the past 50 years.
Speaking of 50 years, Soyuz, the only thing that can put people into space “routinely” made its first flight half century ago though it was a fatal flight.
Back on topic, about time someone in authority say what it really is: no such thing as a commercial rocket.
Human migration into space is one of the biggest “start-ups” ever done and is extremely expensive and risky. We have not done more than we have in human spaceflight because no one wants to address either of those end pint sufficiently and with unwavering dedicaiton.
It’s been over a decade since Bigelow Aerospace launched Genesis I and Genesis II. I guess some folks have forgotten they are up there.
I haven’t and take your point. Mr. Bigelow is one of the few really long-term thinkers in the space arena. And he puts his money where his mouth is.
The tech is proven— ok, being proven; the extension of the Bigelow module on ISS is a good thing though not unexpected.
No such thing as a commercial taxi I guess too. The public built the roads.
>Back on topic, about time someone in authority
>say what it really is: no such thing as a
>commercial rocket.
Actually, the quote from Dr. Pace was:
“…in general, building a heavy-lift rocket is no more “commercial” than building an aircraft carrier with private contractors would be.”
That’s very specifically about heavy lift, not launch vehicles in general. And, in context, he said it wouldn’t make sense, not that it was impossible.
OK guys, so I missed a few things. Perhaps I should have asked does all this (Bigelow modules, reusable launch vehicles) scale up? There was a time when helicopters were becoming popular (early 50s with the Bell 47) and now they are much more capable and safer. However, they haven’t scaled up like fixed wing subsonic. We have commercial aircraft (and taxis) but commercial rockets? Or if they do become commercial (operate “routinely” with a non-govt customer) will they become like business jets where only very wealthy use, rest of us are just spectators (and the same 20 or so people that post on sites like this)?
Do your shopping at Amazon and buy a Tesla. That will help Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk break the log jam 🙂
Did it. The Tesla, I mean. It’s a helluva car.
Funny story: the car has many cis-autopilot features, all called ‘Autopilot’. One of these features lets you take your hands off the wheel while the car stays in lane and keeps a given distance from the car in front of you. The benefits of this feature cannot be over-estimated.
Periodically, while in Autopilot, the car provides a gentle ‘halo’ around the dashboard, reminding the driver to touch the steering wheel. This is sensible, in my view. Dismissal requires a gentle ‘shaking’ of the steering wheel, after which the driver can return to texting or making out or whatever.
Pity the poor driver who fails to heed the warning! The car will henceforth and immediately refuse to engage the autopilot, having determined that the driver is irresponsible! A loud beep accompanies every attempt to engage autopilot! The Tesla acts like an ordinary $30,000 sedan! It’s infuriating! 🙂
And the car will do the same thing if you drive otherwise recklessly, as in exceeding the posted speed limit frequently and excessively (+100 in a 65 will do it).
Resetting requires stopping the car, turning it off, and getting out.
Tesla does forgive. But it’s tough love.
You are assuming that this grand experiment humans are conducting on themselves will work out. Given the upcoming confluence of 10 billion (by 2050) humans and what ever incremental state of technology and social being has evolved to might just use up all the resources we have just to keep us alive here on Earth. Leaving anything regarding humans in space out of the equation. Think about it. And yes, this is very bleak – think 1984 meets Fahrenheit 451 meets Thx1138 with a little Soylent Green or Terminator thrown in for good measure.
I wonder about that as well, although I note that wit prosperity comes a dramatically reduced birth rate. Low birth rates are problematic for economies depending on growth, although there has been a fair amount of thinking about steady-state economies (A science fiction dream, perhaps).
The larger issue, though, remains distribution of wealth; this is a natural-seeming by-product of capitalism. And as capitalism is about the only system we’ve attempted that both creates wealth and accounts for laziness, the solution isn’t obvious.
As a whole, humanity is hugely, stunningly, massively wealthy. I hope that at some point we will find a way to value ourselves in ways other than acquisition or dollars. This of the untapped human potential around the world, Einsteins and Platos or whatever, all trapped in a cycle of staggering poverty.
We are robbing ourselves of our future.
I’ve said before that actual colonization doesn’t have to be economically motivated. Massachusetts wasn’t originally settled by people who liked the economic opportunities more than those available in England or Holland. The same could be said for the early settlers in Utah. I seem to remember a quote about US expansion into the west, to the effect that it was as much about people with their backs towards to the east as their
faces towards the west.
There are people who would want to live on Mars (or the Moon, or an asteroid) simply because they want to, or just don’t like something about living on Earth (government, religion, whatever.) If they have a job that they can work at, in an extreme form of telecommuting, and can make enough money to support themselves, that’s all it takes. Of course, that might mean getting the cost of living in space down to perhaps $500,000 per person per year, and even that would be tough for a very spartan lifestyle.
But, let’s see… A high paying job where you can telecommute and a field with a sizable number of people with odd political or religious views. I can actually think of quite a few people like that in the software industry. And they’re already willing to pay the cost of living in places like San Francisco and San Jose.
Other than that, I’m not sure if there are any economic activities in space which require human presence. Science is one thing, since you’re usually looking for things you didn’t expect. But mining, refueling, and most sorts of maintenance or repairing, I think those could be (mostly) automated. There might be a role for a supervisor/trouble-shooter or two, but not a whole community.
Point taken…restated more broadly: there are reasons to settle space other than making money, a point I should have realized since I rail against capitalism so much.
On your last point about economic activities: IF we could ever get a minimum population, in situ manufacturing would start to make more sense- the raw materials are certainly there. Isn’t this the history of human settlement? The guy making sandals in Ur cant make sandals if he’s busy farming.
The colonial examples are neat, makes sense about the backs toward the east part being just as important. But I think there is less reason for any of those now compared to the 1800s. There is less religious persecution and you can live more anonymously if you want. Those software people you describe in San Francisco might decide to move to Mars, but do they gain a lot by doing it? Some would want to I guess, probably some that are well-off and with a pioneering spirit. But I don’t know if religious or political (or economic) reasons would be enough.
That’s the only reason I can think of why a colony would get started and last. Vastly cheaper human spaceflight works against colonization as well as for it, since now you can rotate people to whatever few places they might be needed in space before bringing them back to Earth.
Without an economic base, though, I’m not sure the colony would survive the second or third generation. Certainly the Plymouth Colony wouldn’t have, nor the Massachusetts one.
International partners is fine but with friends, not frien-emies again thinking it will warm relations or solve some unrelated issue.
And if they pay their fair share, not just a token one. Really how much has NASA subsidized its partners on the ISS?
This kind of thinking is a little short-sighted, in my view; there being a tendency to measure efficacy entirely with dollars. There are lots of ways to measure the success or failure of an endeavor, dollars being but one.
And there are lots of reasons to cooperate in space beyond cost-sharing (which admittedly can be crucial).
One point of view would consider the cost delta something of an investment in the future, a bit like foreign aid. Or, if you like, a way to keep friends close and enemies closer.
In that case then some of the ISS funding should come out of the State Department’s foreign aid budget since those goals serve their interest, not the interests of the American space industry which was why NASA, and before it, NACA, were created to serve.
A good example is NASA paying for rides on Soyuz to reach the ISS. If NASA did not have that fall back option they would have push through on the OSP and X-38, which means the CST-100 and Dream Chaser would have been flying a decade ago instead of just approaching flight status.
Both designs along with the X-37B have their roots in OSP along with using the Atlas V as their launch vehicle. So one may argue having the Soyuz option did set the American space industry back at least a decade in that regard.
Actually, NASA was not created to serve the interest of the American Space Industry. While the NAS Act of 1958 references “US as a leader” nowhere does it talk about “industry” or “commercial”. On the other hand “cooperation .. with other nations and groups of nations” *is* mentioned in the act.
I agree with you that NASA used and abused Soyuz as a crutch. However, I’m not sure we would be flying CST-100 or Dream Chasers (or X33s, 34s, 38s, etc) by now. Until 2003 NASA was hesitant to admit that shuttle was going away. And after that, even without Soyuz, I think they would have been unable to get their act in gear to push a new crew alternative any faster. No Soyuz may have saved 3-4 years development; or it may have resulted in an extended time period without a Space Station crew.
Yes, cooperation is mentioned, but also industry leadership. From the 1958 NASA Act, Section, Title 1, Section 102, (5).
https://history.nasa.gov/sp…
“The preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere.”
>Soyuz option did set the American space
>industry back at least a decade in that regard.
Sounds like what happened to the Black Arrow, British’s own rocket. Though plagued with developmental problems like everyone else, US offered dirt cheap launch services with the Scout. Black Arrow program was cancelled, Scout prices went way up.
It seems difficult at key points of what option to choose. Do it yourself (difficult and expensive but will be educated and have full ownership) or buy off the shelf (cheap, easy, but at mercy of the seller).
I think the National Space Council is going to direct NASA to go to the moon, specifically to build a lunar base at the south pole that will try to develop ISRU – In-Situ Resource Utilization. It will take a while. But with NASA using competitive bids to supply services and transport to the lunar base using the commercial sector (ie SpaceX and Blue Origin, and others if they arise) then the US can once again find a purpose. International partners are great, as long as they are not on the critical path, as they were in 1998 with the ISS. I think NASA has learned that lesson.
I agree. They are doing it slowly, planning it out it would appear. I’ve seen signs of background discussions and changes. Seems a better approach than that taken 8 years ago.
Any kind of planning that includes heavy dependence on splashing equipment is a waste of time.
And a waste of tens of billions of dollars.
First, no one knows exactly where “proven” resource reserves exist anywhere on the Moon. Meaning, no mining company or oil company would touch it with a 10 foot pole; without massive amounts of prospecting work done before hand. So, making a base anywhere with this as the goal is putting the cart way before the horse.
Weird comment.
Firstly, DJE51’s comment doesn’t use the word “proven”, in spite of your quotes. And he doesn’t mention mining or oil companies at all.
Did you accidentally reply to the wrong comment? Or the wrong thread?
Mining and oil companies actually do pay, on their own, for massive amounts of prospecting work. There is at least one communications satellite operator (or a major shareholder in one) who is interested in extraterrestrial water as a fuel for a reusable LEO-GEO tug. So the idea of commercial involvement isn’t too far fetched. Of course, I wouldn’t expect commercial funding for a manned base until the prospecting is done, and not if they can automate the whole process.
I disagree completely with the assertion that, for HLV, “government would, of course, have to continue to own the intellectual properties so it wasn’t hostage to any one contractor”. The government doesn’t own the intellectual properties of commercial Boeing cargo aircraft which the US military regularly uses for cargo transport when cargo isn’t going into a “war zone”.
Since HLV isn’t going into a “war zone” there are zero requirements for government HLV that would be different than HLV bought and paid for by a non-government entity (e.g. very large communication satellite launch).
Dr. Pace’s comments are curious.
He’s a very smart fellow, well-versed in the space industry. His dissertation (1989) looked at space access modalities going forward (Wikipedia make me smart!).
So,you have to wonder if he’s just being dull (unlikely), or if these comments are an initial salvo in a mis-direction campaign, or, if a commenter over at “Ars” pointed out, he’s “a dinosaur screaming in the tar pit”. None of these alternatives are very respectful, but I’m out of ideas. I can’t explain his comments.
For instance, comparing rockets to aircraft carriers— a comparison that took my breath away, initially, for its apparent aptness. Then I started to think.
Carriers aren’t scuttled after a mission. Carriers are built by private interests.
But wait, there’s more!
Dr. Pace wonders if exploration-class rockets have any sort of non-government, or non-exploration, use. Again, mis-direction. Anybody with any interest in space knows what is going on in Hawthorne (and in other places, to be fair, just using SX to represent the nascent and soon to be gigantic private heavy lift biz). Anybody with any interest knows about FH- certainly exploration class. And they would know about MCT (RIP, I guess), and they would know about BFR. You can’t get this knowledge in the NYTimes, true, but a week or so reading popular websites will fill in the big parts.
Here’s the thing with Elon: his biz strategy to get to Mars is very, very simple: sell rides to space on very profitable boosters, then use the profits to get to Mars.
Profits. From reusable, exploration-class rockets.
So you have to wonder who Dr. Pace thinks is his audience. Which is pretty funny, considering the interview is with “Scientific American”! You’d think the SA audience would be savvy, wouldn’t ya? But no.
Another piece of mis-direction.
Scientific American says it in regard to the audience – basically scientists and their fans who don’t want space contimated by crass for-profit commercial firms like SpaceX and Blue Origins.
These sorts would cut off their nose to spite their face.
Minor aside:
MCT/ITS/BFR are all the same thing. Musk hasn’t put a specific name on them (in-house they’ve apparently always used the BFR, BFS, “booster” and “ship” tags). It’s just that he’s occasionally thrown a description out there, like “Mars colonial transport” and later “Interplanetary transport system”, that fanbois latched onto like limpets. He’s apparently never liked those as names.
But it’s all the same thing. BFR is ITS is MCT. The size and capability flubbers around as they play with the design, but to Musk and SpaceX it’s always been the same thing, “The launcher for the ship what with which SpaceX wants to carry people to Mars”. But that doesn’t have a catchy acronym.
OK. I see there is a design iteration going on. If Elon would just call me, I’d advise him to never ever show clients the progressive sketches. It confuses them.
Back on point: SX shows fancy videos that at least imply different internal architectures. One iteration shows a big rocket with no strongback, for instance, implying that fueling is from the bottom up. Others are different.
[Aside: could the same pumps feeding fuel to the engines in flight be used to lift fuel from the ground and into the tanks while refueling? I guess this sort of arrangement would make on-orbit refueling much simpler].
Hard to see, given the way they work. You’d need a way of connecting an external drive system to each engine’s power-head (the engine’s own drive is a combustion-chamber/turbine combination for each pump), and extra valves and plumbing to allow you to reverse the flow back into the tanks without creating a hundred extra failure modes during flight.
And all you are saving is a pair of external pumps?
Indeed. Airliners use pumps mounted on the fuel trucks.
Yeah, I think no matter what it would add failure modes and really just complicate things. I don’t see anyone touching that with a 100 ft pole.
I think that there is some confusion about the term HLV. The SLS Block 2 would be twice as capable (to LEO) than the FH and three times more capable than the Vulcan or New Glenn. So, when Pace and commenters lump the HLVs all together, it gets confusing. What we need to do is develop space policy around using the lower-end HLVs for a cost-effective lunar development program that can be transitioned eventually to truly commercial / market support and then look towards the upper-end HLVs (i.e. SLS B2 & BFR) for the mission that really needs it which is humans to Mars. Without this disctinction, we’re sort of arguing and confusing semantics.
We’ll, Pace, you just keep telling yourself that.
SLS will launch humans into orbit AFTER SpaceX and Boeing, and neither a moon base nor a crewed Mars mission will ever get off the drawing boards on just the SLS lunch cost and availability. It will always be too expensive.
In fact, on current timelines, I’d put FH flying humans to orbit, to the moon, and maybe even onto the moon surface before any human boards Orion/SLS.