I received a press release from my old drinking buddy Rick Tumlinson at the Space Frontier Foundation last night. NASA has announced the winners for the ‘Commercial Off The Shelf’ (COTS) space launch program:
Los Angeles, CA – August 18, 2006 The Space Frontier Foundation
congratulated SpaceX and Rocketplane – Kistler, the two winners of
NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation (COTS) program announced today
at NASA headquarters. The winners, selected out of a field that began
with at least 20 teams, will split a total of approximately $500 million
in funding to help them develop transportation systems that can be used
to support the International Space Station (ISS).
Many of us in the space field applaud this. Whether we like government involvement or not, it is there. This puts more money into the pot at just the right time and pretty much guarantees success of the SpaceX Falcon. A commercial manned orbital capability might now arrive in time to save NASA’s bacon: the sell-by date on the Space Shuttle fleet is rapidly approaching and their ‘CEV’ (Yesterday’s Space Program Today!) does not seem to have progressed past the view graph thus far.
The next SpaceX launch test from Kwajelein is due in the November-December time frame.
Shame on you Dale.
You welcome $500 million bucks stolen from citizens to fund your special interest.
Special Interest, Paul?
First, NASA’s budget is on the order of $15 Billion a year. That is out of the federal budget of $2 Trillion. I like to use my trusted order-of-magnitude meter to target my complaints about government.
I think that long-term research is something that government could successfully fund. Another thing government might be able to do well is long-term payoff capital investments.
The interstate highway system is a good example.
Considering every human on the planet could die from any of a dozen extinction level events* sometime soon, a program to commercialize space flight is probably the best way to spend money.
Add to this the fact that Dale does not control NASA’s budget. Each shuttle launch costs over a billion dollars. I for one also hate the shuttle and CEV and welcome news like this.
The only other $500M+ check I would be happy to see NASA write is to a Space Elevator.
*large asteroids, comets, large solar flare, reversal of earth’s magnetic polarity, accidental virus, engineered virus, nuclear annihilation, malevolent super-AI, etc.
Quite right. NASA spends $1.5 billion per year on manned space flight via the shuttle program, and is planning on spending a similar amount on the ESAS program.
The COTS program promises to develop private manned and logistics launchers for a tiny fraction of the cost of the absurdly expensive ESAS launchers, which are really just a subsidy to the ICBM industry. ESAS, btw, will not involve any of its launch missions in resupply, repair, or reequipping the ISS, so outside of Soyuz/Progress, and the upcoming ESA and Japanese logistics vehicles, the US will have no means of maintaining its share of the ISS.
By developing COTS launchers, private launch companies will help expose the absurd amounts of waste, fraud, and abuse that goes on in the normal NASA contracting process.
Given how Bigelow is moving up its schedule for deployment of its full scale station, I am pleasantly surprised that COTS managers were able to stave off moves to gut the program in order to transfer its funds to the ESAS or shuttle programs. It still might happen (just ask the people at the SHARP project how good NASA is at delivering dollars awarded).
But if NASA can spend a little money to wean itself off of the ATK Thiokol political bully, and wind up with launchers that cost fewer tax dollars, then that is a positive libertarian outcome, even if it isn’t a perfect absolutist anarchist outcome.
Paul, what marks a libertarian out is that we say that our special interests are no more important than any other’s special interests and that government should not be funding either.
That doesn’t mean we can’t feel happy when our own special interests are doing well. We are only human after all. It’s just all about how we support those special interests.
There is a world of difference between “I want” and “I want, gimme”
Rich
There is also a world of difference in dealing with the world that exists and trying to nudge it in a direction that is more rather than less free market.
Any move that helps shift us away from the old socialist model central bureau state space program to one in which commerical interests are paramount is a move in the right directtion.
Unfortunately, private endeavours funded with public money are not really private endeavours. Far better that this money was not removed from Taxpayers in the first place. Still, as you say, Dale, “the world that exists”…
Rich
At $500 million, COTS is underfunded for the intended goals. Granted, private companies ought to be able to accomplish more with less money than government, but COTS needs more than $500 million to really succeed as an alternative space transportation system. Also, why did the off-again/on-again Kistler Aerospace get part of the contract?
I did note, however, that SpaceX and Kistler will likely seek additional private-sector funding to supplement to boost their chances of being able to complete the contract. Keep your fingers crossed.
It’s worth noting that according to my source in NASA, they are explicitly planning scenarios in which the private sector takes on a lot of the logistical support flights (eg. cargo ships with water and fuel), and are allocating budgets accordingly.