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Is Privatizing ISS A Smart Thing To Do?

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
February 23, 2018
Filed under ,
Is Privatizing ISS A Smart Thing To Do?

Astronaut: Trump’s plan for the space station a huge mistake, op ed, Leroy Chiao, CNN
“What about privatizing the ISS? That idea is barely worth mentioning. The ISS was designed to operate with two big mission control centers, in Houston and Moscow. They each need standing armies of onsite engineers and technicians around the clock to monitor and send commands to the station. Estimates of the cost of launching spacecraft to the ISS vary, but they are certainly in the range of $100 million or more. Let’s not even consider maintenance costs. Tell me with a straight face how a commercial entity is going to make money operating ISS? The Trump administration’s thoughts to cancel ISS and send the savings to the moon is déjà vu. The actual savings will likely be again around 50% of the ISS program cost, and all we are likely to end up with is an inadequately funded moon program, as we have had for the last nine years. And no ISS, either. This path would likely leave us with nothing but a bare-bones spacecraft and rocket and no funding to go anywhere. Unless, of course, we decide to fly American astronauts on Chinese spacecraft to the coming Chinese space station. This would be a national travesty. What we need is a real commitment to maintain US leadership in human spaceflight.”

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

85 responses to “Is Privatizing ISS A Smart Thing To Do?”

  1. TheBrett says:
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    It’s even worse than that. By the time 2025 comes around, ISS will be getting old and will probably need a lot of expensive maintenance if they want to keep it going for years to come. Add that on top of the operations costs, and then compare it to the option comes might have just to launch stuff on automated private spacelabs or small space stations.

    I disagree with this bit from the piece, though-

    Unless, of course, we decide to fly American astronauts on Chinese spacecraft to the coming Chinese space station. This would be a national travesty.

    If the Chinese want to have American astronauts as guest crew on their station, that’s fantastic. Maybe it could be a step to collaboration on a joint station down the line (or a joint Moon or Mars base).

    • Leroy Chiao says:
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      I agree with you Brett, it would be great to have Chinese and American astronauts flying together. I’ve always advocated for working together. My point is that it would be a national travesty if our only space program was flying with China on their station.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        If the US ever sends astronauts to a Chinese space station, a US craft could be used (Dragon 2 or Starliner) as long as it has a compatible docking mechanism. The Chinese mechanism looks like this:

        https://gbtimes.com/tiangon

        According to this, admittedly old article, the Chinese docking mechanism uses APAS-89, which is what the space shuttle used to dock to ISS.

        http://www.spacesafetymagaz

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        What about Bigelow Aerospace? They announced that since transportation will soon be available (Dragon2 and Boeing CST100) they will be placing a pair of B330 in orbit to form a 12 person station? Why not just rent space on it for NASA astronauts?

        • Saturn1300 says:
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          If their year long study shows it is viable.

          • fcrary says:
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            Do you mean the two-year test on ISS, which started in late May of 2016? Three more months isn’t all that long, and the thing’s worked well enough that they are planning on leaving it attached until at least 2020. (The original plan was to detach and deorbit it after the two-year test.)

  2. Shaw_Bob says:
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    The only thing which could ‘save’ the ISS in the longer term is much cheaper access to space. The cost of getting there at all is currently the elephant in the room. Kindly step up, Messrs Musk and Bezos!

  3. rb1957 says:
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    Flying American astronauts on Chinese hardware is as much a national travesty as flying American astronauts on Soviet hardware. And falls prey to the same capitalist trap (you’re hostage to their charges).

    However, it is perhaps a global success; that different nations can collaborate.

    But it would indicate the end of US leadership in space which this special interest group would decry, but may have positive global outcomes … maybe a “truly” international space agency ?

    As for privatising the ISS … you can’t give the space away; well ok, just barely can you keep the crew busy. As you point out the costs to keep the thing running are enormous, like the cost to make it in the first place, but maybe by now those costs are written off. Probably the only people interested in buying it would be the Chinese govt.

    • Bill Housley says:
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      The barrier to China participation is not just human rights abuses and military rivalry putting them on the do-not-share list. There is also corporate technology patent piracy. That makes for a larger barrier in a more privatized space environment.
      Something will need to be done about that or they will stay at least mostly on the outside. No one will want to share anything with the Chinese that they don’t want to see later on Alibaba.

      • fcrary says:
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        In a sense, I don’t think the Chinese (or at least their government) see it that way. They don’t see themselves on the outside. Culturally and historically, China has considered itself, almost by definition, the inside. So their view towards patent law is probably more about how they want to interact with outsiders, not whether they want to “stay… on the outside.”

        • Bill Housley says:
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          I totally believe that.
          BTW Did you see what someone in their news media said about the Falcon Heavy Launch?

          “To put it more bluntly, this time the Americans showed us Chinese with pure power that why they are still the strongest country in the world and how wide the gap really is between us and them …”

          That sounds like a potential customer. In the paragraph above that it estimated that gap at about 10 years.

          • Jeff2Space says:
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            I doubt the Chinese will be buying launches on Falcons. It just means that they’re going to do their best to copy what SpaceX has done. Considering that their boosters now crash land on their own territory (sometimes causing damage to buildings), reusable boosters would be a good thing for them to develop. They don’t even need barges to land on, just a few well placed landing pads downrange.

          • Bill Housley says:
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            I’m not talking about Earth orbit. I’m talking about interplanetary probes. Tell me that China won’t try and put some kind of payload on that FH that you and I both know Musk will be seeking customers for for 2020.

          • fcrary says:
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            The CZ-5 is on par with a Delta IV heavy. That’s about eight tonnes to a lunar transfer orbit. They are planning on using it for their lunar sample return mission, Chang’e 5, to be launched next year. Admittedly, the CZ-5 has a one-for-two success record, but I suspect CNSA will stick to their own launch vehicles.

          • Bill Housley says:
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            You know better than I do about the gulf of difference between lift capacity and actual ability when it comes to hitting Mars…gently. 😉

          • fcrary says:
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            They are building a new launch complex near Wenchang, on an island off the southeastern coast of the mainland. The latitude is low (19 deg.), they can ship in the CZ-5 first stage (which is too big for rail transport) and no matter what sort of government a country has, accidentally crashing a rocket into a village is bad press.

        • Bill Housley says:
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          Of course it is, and that’s my whole point. My understanding is that they don’t sign agreements with others.
          They want to play the game but…

          They don’t want to be on a team.
          They don’t want to play by any rules.
          They don’t even bring the ball.

  4. ThomasLMatula says:
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    The big question is what do the other partners, especially Russia, want to do with it? It’s not going to be a unilateral decision by the U.S. unless we are willing to spend billions buying them out, especially Russia. Until that is settled any talk of commercialization is just premature.

    The best hope for ISS would be to place it in a higher orbit as a museum piece, but it will be difficult to do so without frying its electronics. That is why we should just plan on dropping it in the ocean when the ISS partners are finished with it.

    Really, rather than crying that it lasted10 years longer than planned, mostly because the Obama Administration didn’t want to go to the Moon, we should be grafeful and just make plans to move beyond it.

    • Saturn1300 says:
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      Yes, Dragon Lab can do what we need to do. Russia has already said they would take their parts and make their on space station. Or they would join the Moon ISS. Japan said they are joining the Lunar Space Station and I don’t see them supporting both. Going to Luna ISS will be something new and interesting. Don’t remember anything from Canada or ESA. Tending experiments in DRagon Lab lab will be just as exciting for Crew as tending and repairs on ISS. A Luna ISS will be more exciting for everyone else though.

      • Bill Housley says:
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        That’s a good point. We’re probably not just talking about NASA participation being replaced but that of multiple international partners as well. Still, I should think that all of them (and then some) would still contract and fly researchers as needed for specific experiments where an LEO laboratory is “best”.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        DragonLab is merely a version of the cargo Dragon with some micro-gravity experiments aboard. It is not intended for any one to tend the experiment except remotely from Earth. But it appears Elon Musk has lost all interest in it with his focus on the BFR. It looks like he decided it time to stop fooling around and just completely rewrite the rules in space access.

    • fcrary says:
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      A 700 km orbit ought to last over half a century and it’s still below the radiation belts. If someone wants to turn ISS into a museum, that would do. Propulsively, it’s harder to get ISS to such a graveyard orbit than do a controlled reentry, but reentering ISS has problems of its own. Are they going to take it apart and send the pieces down one by one? If they don’t pieces are going to come off as it reenters and you’d get a very, very long and unpredictable debris field.

    • BigTedd says:
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      The Ocean you mean outback Australia ! Thats where you dropped the last one !!

      • fcrary says:
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        That wasn’t intentional. The Skylab reentry was uncontrolled. For a controlled reentry, missing major land masses isn’t too hard. But I do wonder about the size of the debris field. ISS is large and structurally complex. If it all went in together, I’d expect parts like the solar arrays to come off early and hit down range from most of the station. Denser, more mechanically sturdy parts would impact much farther up range. I haven’t seen any estimates, but the debris field could be a few thousand kilometers long. Keeping all of that over the ocean could be quite a task.

  5. Michael Spencer says:
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    Commercialization of space must come at some point; but the hell of it is this: we have no idea how to do it. Policies and procedures must be invented, implemented, rejected, modified. Use of ISS as perhaps the first test case is regrettable, owing to certain ISS characteristics, but it’s what we have; the danger is in generalizing what we learn from ISS into a wider policy.

    And with respect to the admirable Dr. Chiao: as I read his piece the phrase ‘old space’ battled for a place in front of my thinking. Descriptions of the legions employed in the care and feeding of ISS draw obvious comparisons to the SX/NASA delta on rocket development and launching.

    Surely ISS is a relic? Have we not learned that there’s a better, dare I say ‘new’ model for design and maintenance of space stations?

    (Oh. And a note to my NASA-worshipping, 1995 self: I’m not selling out! It really IS possible for private enterprise to out-NASA NASA!)

    • Bill Housley says:
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      I remember hearing some folks complain about ISS’ orbit. I’m sure as the tech and focus of space exploration evolves, so will the preferred orbits of Earth-orbiting habs. They might flatten out (for example) to a more equatorial inclination, or even an ecliptic synchronized orbit for efficient construction and support of interplanetary spacecraft. Then folks will decide if some combination of moving/operating/upgrading the ISS gets more done or simply deorbiting it and moving on.

      • Donald Barker says:
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        An equatorial orbit would be easier for some things but would get extremely boring for Earth observations, either research or tourists.

        • ThomasLMatula says:
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          It is also not good for departures as you would need to fly through the inner Van Allen Belts.

          • fcrary says:
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            The inner Van Allen belt doesn’t really start until about 1000 km altitude at the equator, and it’s farthest from the Earth at the equator. So that wouldn’t be a problem.

            Launches would be a problem: It’s very inefficient to launch to an inclination less than the latitude of the launch site. So anything under 25 deg. isn’t viable for launches from the continental United States (maybe 19 deg. if you built a launch complex in Hawaii, but the east coasts tend to be the windward side, so that might not be ideal.)

        • Bill Housley says:
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          That’s what I mean. If it looks mostly toward Earth, then it is in a good orbit now. If it evolves a serious purpose in interplanetary mission support/refueling/construction, then moving it to equatorial might save it.

          • Donald Barker says:
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            Oh I see. But practically speaking, it would be nearly impossible to move ISS to any other inclination due to fuel costs and time.

          • fcrary says:
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            Since I did a quick check when Dr. Matula mentioned raising the orbit to make ISS a museum piece, I might as well mention the numbers.

            I got about 50 m/s to do a controlled deorbit. Of course, there is quite a bit of slop in that estimate, since it depends on exactly how you do it and how controlled you want it to be.

            To raise the orbit to 700 km, which should be good for a 50 to 100-year lifetime against atmospheric decay, I got 150 m/s.

            150 m/s would give you a 1.2 degree change in the inclination of an object in low Earth orbit. Plane change maneuvers really hurt.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            That doesn’t sound like that much, especially as it could be done in multiple steps over a period of time. At this point it be well to recall it’s orbital height was basically limited by the Space Shuttle ability to reach it. The Soyuz, Dragon2 and Boeing CST100 should be able to still service it in that higher orbit.

            This raises the question. Why not decide now to keep it at least as a museum piece instead of risking a re-entry? If that decision is made it’s orbit could start being raised now by simply extending the burns that are required to keep it in its present orbit. I wonder what the sum of those burns will be over the next 7 years?

            Not only would raising the orbit eliminate the dangers of a controlled re-entry, but also those of an uncontrolled one if there is a malfunction. Even if it had to be abandoned on short notice a 700 km orbit would give the partners many years to work the problem. I wonder what the downside would be of starting to place it now in a higher orbit.

          • fcrary says:
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            Raising the orbit should be possible. 150 m/s isn’t all that much, but ISS is big. It would take about 20 tonnes of propellent. That’s about the same as three years worth of orbital maintenance.

            Doing it now would reduce payload from Soyuz, Progress, Dragon, CST-100 and Cygnus, but I doubt it would be prohibitive. But, realistically, you might want to start now. Given the size and mass of the station, raising the orbit would take time. The best way would probably be for every Progress flight to give it a small kick. The whole exercise might take a few years. Oh, and you’d need to start negotiating with all the international partners, since (1) legally you have to and (2) the Russians are the ones who own the rockets. So add a few more years for the negotiations.

            What concerns me is the lack (or apparent lack) of solid plans for some sort of end of mission disposal. A uncontrolled reenter would be a disaster (not necessarily in terms of anyone actually getting hit, but the publicity would be horrible.) A controlled reentry or a boost to a graveyard orbit isn’t trivial.

            I know, technically, a controlled reentry is a crash program. But I don’t think it’s something we’d want to do on the fly. Maybe in a month and a half, Tiangong-1 will cause enough embarrassment to get NASA to start work on ISS disposal.

    • Donald Barker says:
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      “must come at some point” – the reason this has not happened is that the only space biz that has had any pay off in a true commercial sense is satellite communications. And since no one has come up with a proven business plan for any other activity in space, we come to the point were we are now, the venue of governments and toys. Selling E-ticket rides in space to rich people is not a sustainable business plan. We are suck in a massive chicken-egg quandary.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        Funny how the only really successful Space Commerce segment was treated as commercial from the start and placed under a corporation, not an agency, especially not NASA. I suspect there is a lesson in that for both commercialization of near Earth space and the Moon.

        • JadedObs says:
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          It was considered commercial from the start both because one of the first applications for satellites, by Arthur C Clarke, was geosynchronous satellites and also because available terrestrial alternatives (pre-optical fiber) were so sub optimal. The same is true for Earth observation. But there is no lunar or asteroid mining that is more cost effective or unique that can’t be done better on Earth; there simply are no known new uses of space yet that justify the cost.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          That’s happenstance, not forethought. Barker is quite right that other opportunities are not clear.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Nope, it was based on an understanding of the limitations of NASA by the very members in Congress who had created NASA only four years before.

        • fcrary says:
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          It took a bit longer, but space-based imagery is a successful form of space commerce. Land use and resource management are profitable fields, and Google Earth isn’t run as a charity. But that sort of work was originally a government function (and one with military and espionage/surveillance applications.)

  6. Michael Genest says:
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    The underlying premise of the type of discussion here is that we – the USA – will never spend more on space exploration than we do now. How do we push back on that? NASA is not the metaphorical equivalent of a down on your luck family deciding whether to buy food or pay the rent. At least it shouldn’t be. A couple facts to consider: Total US federal expenditures for 2018 are projected at over $4 Trillion. Just last week alone, the US Treasury auctioned off (i.e. borrowed) over $250 Billion in bonds. In one week! Of course the US has a lot of expenses too, but does anyone believe that there isn’t an extra measly $4Billion or so among them that wouldn’t or couldn’t be more productively allocated to helping push the human race out into the Universe? Spaceflight is one of the most important, interesting, productive, and uplifting things the human race does. Upon reflection, you may realize that most of the rest of the human race’s efforts (apart mainly from the Arts) amount to just ‘damage control’. No, we can afford to do a lot more in space. We just need to get the right people to make the damn decision. If only we knew the magic formula for that!

    • Brian_M2525 says:
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      As shown by Musk, Space-X and even Boeing’s CST or SNC’s Dream Chaser, the US can build and operate advanced systems and do so on a budget. I guess what you are saying is that because of bureaucratic inefficiency, the American taxpayer should expect to pay more? Why?

      In every industry, and particularly in transportation and aviation, commercial success came when capital investment in private industry lowered costs, increased capacity and safety.

      NASA might have a role; prior to the space age it was in R&D. Governments, and NASA, do not operate routinely, effectively. NASA has certainly shown it is not doing so to date. It did not operate Shuttle efficiently. It does not operate ISS efficiently. And it has not been designing and developing old-technology Orion or SLS efficiently. NASA gets more money that all of the other world’s space agencies combined. Yet they do not seem to use it very wisely. And you want them to spend even more? Do you think we would get more out of them if we gave them more cash?

      • rktsci says:
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        While development of Orion has cost more than expected, in large part due to schedule slips for the launch vehicle, it is far from “old-technology”. The solar panels, for example, are state of the art.

        • fcrary says:
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          I think I’d call the solar panels “modern” rather than “state of the art.” If memory serves, the first two service modules are based on European Automated Transfer Vehicle, and use what was the state of the art in the early 2000s. After the two service modules the Europeans are building, it isn’t clear what the Orion service module will be like or who will build it.

        • Brian_M2525 says:
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          Sorry to disagree. Orion is Apollo b (on steroids). Mybe some systems are upgraded. But other than size, electronics, maybe simpler solar array rather than hi tech fuel cells, Orion is not a technologically sophisticated vehicle by comparison wit Apollo, and particularly not if you consider state of the art in spaceflight. Quite simply Orion is a throwback; it is not as hi tech as Apollo was in its era.

          • fcrary says:
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            Aside from the cost, the lack of reusability, limited reentry velocities (from a trans-lunar orbit but not an interplanetary one) and the uncertainties with the service module production, I don’t really have any problems with Orion. There is a lot to be said for old, proven and reliable techniques. For example, trains and ships are extremely efficient forms of surface transportation. The former is almost two centuries old technology and the later goes back before written history. But the basic idea works, and works well. I think the same is true of a capsule for passenger transport to and from orbit. Orion is just a poor implementation of that basic idea.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      Again, they is another path beyond the old model of government space. Berkshire-Hathaway for example has $116 billion in cash (T-Bills, Securities) and nowhere to invest the funds. There are other investment firms like it. When SpaceX, Bigelow Aerospace, Blue Origin show there’s money in space the capital will flow in, flow in amounts that will make NASA look like a nickel and dime organization. The great thing about this National Space Council is they understand that, which is they are focused on creating the right regulatory environment instead of wasting time on NASA.

      • Bob Mahoney says:
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        How, precisely, will SpaceX, Bigelow, and Blue Origin show that there is ‘money in space’?

        • ThomasLMatula says:
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          The old fashion way, by allowing firms to produce goods and services that make money 🙂

          You see the difference between government space and free enterprise space is that in free enterprise space multiple parties try out different business models to actually see what works.

          I remember the Internet in the old NSF days and folks only saw it as a way for researchers to exchange data sets and quick messages (email, IRC). No one saw any value in it for the average person. Then in 1993 it was opened up for unrestrictive commercial use and the rest as they say is history. Of course now everyone claims they knew it would make money. Space is approaching that same tipping point.

          • Donald Barker says:
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            And how many Earth based businesses and plans fail every year, and much less costly, dangerous, or sustainable? What happens when the “space company” fails?

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Then vulture capitalists pick over its bones in bankruptcy court as happened with Iridium. It’s call survival of the fittest and is why free markets are so efficient at creating economic progress and wealth.

          • BigTedd says:
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            And yet Iridium is not Bankrupt ??

          • fcrary says:
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            The original Iridium company did go bankrupt. When they did, others bought their assets, at a bargain price, did a much better job of sales and marketing, and now have a profitable company.

          • Donald Barker says:
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            Sure, right up to the point that all resources run out or ego has inflicted irreparable damage.

          • fcrary says:
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            Well, I wouldn’t have said “creating” myself. But this survival of the fittest approach does a very good job of adapting to a changing environment. It responds to changes in resources or other damage to the system in a way that a government “Ten Year Plan” simply can’t. That’s not too hard to understand, since “survival of the fittest” is fundamentally a Darwinian concept, and evolution is all about changing to adapt to a changing environment.

        • BigTedd says:
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          Blue Origin never will , but SpaceX is already making money from Satellite Launchs and various other ventures. Im sure when they announce a moon base and flights in the low 100K to get there you will have every Khardasian going for holidays !!

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            Blue already has a few customers, the Glenn is a reasonable design and can go head to head with the F9 and Vulcan which is where the commercial market is.

        • Vladislaw says:
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          By reinvesting profits and growing…

    • Richard Malcolm says:
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      The underlying premise of the type of discussion here is that we – the USA – will never spend more on space exploration than we do now.

      We have over four decades of essentially flat funding of NASA (in real dollars) as a reasonably sound foundation for that premise, unfortunately.

      I’m all for increasing funding of NASA. But any realistic HSF program has to work from the assumption that this is not going to happen.

    • Bill Housley says:
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      When you factor in the reduced cost of Commercial Partnerships (and from where I’m standing it looks like SLS is the only part of this equation that doesn’t use them) there seems to be room within that flat budget to build and operate DSG and DST while still maintaining permanent habs in LEO…to whatever degree they still serve a purpose.

      • BigTedd says:
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        SLS most likely will never fly , in all honesty NASA could buy 6 or 7 Falcon Heavys for one SLS , its a large white elephant !

        • Bill Housley says:
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          Bolden seemed to have sacrificed a lot of credibility setting it up so that Congress would have a mission for their bird. EM1 is too close to cancel. EM2 and EM3 have a mission that seems solid. After that…who knows.
          I used to say that it depended on FH, and it kind of still does in a way. BFR will need to fly and establish itself before it totally kills SLS and it might do that right after EM3. I don’t think anyone believes the first orbital flight of BFR will occur in 2020. 2022 and it might kill EM2 and/or EM3.

    • Donald Barker says:
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      Chicken-egg problem as I mentioned above OR we have a full blown ego race even greater than we had after World War 2. Unfortunately the second is just another indicator of the “Worse’r Angles” of human nature. Sorry, I need my own language.

  7. Brian_M2525 says:
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    The US segment of ISS is so modular, at every level, from modules, to racks, to laptop computers, that its hardware is easily upgraded. The biggest issue is that the modules and racks were optimized to be carried by a Shuttle, so they need a launcher that can effectively replace the Shuttle. The real issue on the US side is their operational philosophy. The US specifically designed the ISS to be operated manually, through the computer system. Most of the manual operations are carried out by ground controllers. Astronauts are in a critical position whenever a safety critical operation requires someone to have their eyes on, like during a rendezvous and docking or berthing.

    Notably a lot of this is not true on the Russian side of ISS. All of the Russian systems were designed for automated operation, including such critical functions as docking or berthing. Remember, that was why the Russians were so valuable at the start of the program; their spacecraft provided the guidance, navigation, propulsion and control. And they did this without intervention by astronauts and only required ground controllers in case of anomalies. Fifty years ago in the pre-computer age this was difficult to do and yet the Russians accomplished it, but now in the age of embedded processors in virtually every piece of hardware, it has become much easier to do.

    The real issue for NASA is that their operations community is living 50 years in the past and they require the large flight control teams that Leroy Chiao talks about because they have not upgraded their thinking to the modern age-modern meaning something out of the last 35 years. NASA is more politically driven than technically driven.

    ISS is a complete functional space station. NASA should have learned enough top be able to simplify and upgrade a lot of things, of course if they stick with their outmoded thinking they will never upgrade anything. Remember their support contractor, in this case Boeing, loves this, because it makes NASA fully dependent on large expenditures for supporting engineering. It ios why ISS never seems to get any cheaper to operate.

    The same outmoded way of thinking meant that Shuttle never got any cheaper and never got any safer. NASA stuck to its early 1970s systems right to the bitter end and when they were told they needed to reinvent some inadequate systems, like ice deflection, or thermal shielding, instead of making even one iota of effort, NASA threw it all away.

    As far as someone else coming in with a new space station concept; for instance, Mr. Bigelow does not have a fully functional space station, and what he does have has yet to be shown to be modular, upgradeable and logistically supportable. It might be, but after all the expenditures on ISS tooling all around the world, why would someone want to go in a new direction?

    The real failure in all of his is that NASA and in particular the ISS Program threw away their engineering base and their systems architecture. That was how the ISS was originally designed, but selfish political stupidity trashed the expertise, no now you would want to up
    grade the architecture and in virtually every case there is inadequate systems level expertise to manage the process.

    A new, smaller, more efficient organization could certainly re-establish the ISS operations processes but it will require a new way of thinking. So far this is something NASA has most definitely shown it is incapable of managing.

    • rktsci says:
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      I’m pretty sure that Dragon can carry racks up to the ISS. That’s one reason why it berths rather than docks – you can’t get racks through the APAS or Russian docking mechanism. (Hence the development of the MPLM.)

    • Donald Barker says:
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      You keep talking $$$$$$$$ that have not been allocated to NASA to address this “outmoded way of thinking” or to take additional risk on the public dime. They don’t have the option of coming back from an accident quickly as history shows. The only job of a company making spacecraft/habitats is to make the gap between starting operations and killing someone as big as possible, because you will kill someone someday. I dont think any of the “private” companies truly understand this until it happens to them.

      • Brian_M2525 says:
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        In the past NASA came up with the ideas for what it wanted and needed to do and how to go about doing them. If you are waiting for Congress or the President to decide what needs to be done, we will all have a long wait. NASA used to be the expert on this stuff.

  8. Not Invented Here says:
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    To quote the qz article “The White House expects to stop spending on the International Space Station within seven years, and plans to create a new $150 million program to prepare private companies to take over operations on the ISS, or to replace it with their own space habitats.”

    So, no, “privatizing” is not the only option here, pretending it is doesn’t help things. ISS is getting old, there’s no way around this, I think it’s healthy to start discussing what comes after ISS.

  9. Bill Housley says:
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    I’m reminded of what a friend of mine told his teenage son when the boy wondered aloud when he might be old enough to “take” his father. The father replied, “By the time you are, you won’t want to.” When the time came around, it ended up being true.
    I think we’ve learned a lot about building and maintaining space stations since Mir (which is the tech level of the ISS right?). Bigelow is launching in 2021 and Commercial Space might be too busy with that and what comes after to even care about ISS. By the time Commercial interests CAN take over the ISS, they won’t want it, and I think this prediction will come true about as fast as my friend’s prediction to his son did.

  10. swing_a_deadcat says:
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    In the 90’s we talked about privatizing the Space Shuttle. Cost and liability just couldn’t work to make it viable for private enterprise. But the conversation did lead to consolidation of multiple Shuttle contracts under SFOC with United Space Alliance hands-on managing the Program with NASA more in a contract management mode. And I would venture to say that this arrangement was successful and reduced overall costs. Perhaps this talk of privatizing ISS will result in some positive changes with respect to how we manage and contract for ISS support.

  11. Zen Puck says:
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    Commercializing the ISS is a soft way of killing it.
    By the way..when the commercialization attempt fails, what is the de orbit plan ? OR is there one?

  12. Joe From Houston says:
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    Since so much money, jobs, national prestige, international cooperation, and global economy leadership is entwined in the continued existence and operation of the orbiting lab, the words expressed by leadership shall be microscopically analyzed to later convey new meanings from the basic text; i.e., a reinterpretation of what “private” really means. All I can see is that “private” means “private NASA astronauts” which is really “NASA astronauts” launched from Russia or the US, whichever provides the lowest cost and highest safety margin. Business as usual, if you know what I mean.

  13. Donald Barker says:
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    We are heading down a well trodden path, again. One we are on right now from the cancellation of the Space Shuttle. And we should all know how this one is going. And on the “privatization” front, besides maintenance of an aging structure, how would they plan on operating it and who will they pay to operate it? I foresee big cuts in quality and safety in this process. And how would this “company” – international governments interaction work? Its not just like handing the keys of you Toyota Corolla over to your friend to take for a spin. It seems people without understanding are making decisions that have an increasing likelihood of killing some people in the not to distant future.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      17 astronauts were killed by NASA because it’s managers lacked an understanding of the issues, so private space will have a ways to go to catch up. Then again, given they have a financially liablity if there is an accident, unlike NASA, they may have the incentive to understand how to minimize risks.

    • fcrary says:
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      Not to sound uncaring, but 5190 people died in industrial accidents in the United States in 2016. Did you see any of them on the front page of a newspaper? (If I did, I don’t remember it.) I also don’t recall any companies going out of business as a result.

      I think part of the problem with spaceflight is that we tend to put anything space-related on a pedestal. I’m guilty of that myself. There isn’t (to my knowledge) an OSHA Watch website. If there were, I probably wouldn’t follow it, let alone comment on it.

      That leads to all sorts of unrealistic views about astronaut safety, with all the resulting costs and long stand-downs when something bad happens. You don’t see that in other fields. We didn’t, for example, stand down the entire fleet of Boeing 777s when MH370 disappeared over the Indian Ocean.

  14. Eric says:
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    “The ISS was designed to operate with two big mission control
    centers, in Houston and Moscow. They each need standing armies of onsite engineers and technicians around the clock to monitor and send commands to the station.” This is the reason it is time for a commercial replacement. If Axiom, Bigelow or anyone else can offer a cheaper more modern alternative, it is time to replace and splash the ISS. Hopefully a new station won’t need standing armies to provide daily support.

  15. MountainHighAstro says:
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    The ISS is not like an old car that is simple and cheap to maintain. If a private company or well motivated public agency designed a new station from scratch, it would most likely be cheaper in the long term. There is a reason that Bigelow is making inflatable stations rather than asking NASA if they can take over the ISS

  16. Erik says:
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    …quickly becoming the Astrodome of space…

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      or Superdome. I was in graduate school when the Superdome was under construction in New Orleans; they discovered that the pilings had to be re-designed as friction piles. Kinda late and really expensive.

  17. mfwright says:
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    My 2 cents on this is privatizing is code word for govt activity contracted to a private company at govt expense. ISS operating costs (not including upgrades) is simply too expensive for a private business.

  18. Daniel Woodard says:
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    If NASA were able to select a capable organization similar to USA, JPL or maybe even SpaceX to take over ISS mission management under NASA contract it could probably operated at a somewhat lower cost, but if NASA ISS funding is actually to be terminated it is hard to see any path to sustaining the program. China is committed to operating a new station, and the IPs might decide to work with them instead.

  19. fcrary says:
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    That’s news to me. Do you have a reference? Along similar lines, SpaceX has said they were planning to discontinue Falcon development and production, to focus on BFR. But they also said they planned to have enough Falcon cores to keep flying them for as long as they had customers. Since the Dragon is also reusable (or referbishable), I wouldn’t be shocked if they had a similar plan for Dragon 1 cargo vehicles.