Re: Death Sentence for the Hubble?

From: Fred J. McCall (fmccall_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 03/27/05 

Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2005 18:25:45 GMT

"Jeff Findley" <jeff.findley@ugs.nojunk.com> wrote:

:The best thing the US government did for telecommunications was to
:deregulate the phone industry and allow it to operate as a capitolistic
:endeavour rather than a socialistic, government regulated monopoly. Now we
:have dozens of different companies in the long distance business, local
:phone systems owned by companies other than "ma bell", cell phones, and
:voice over IP (to say nothing of beepers, text messaging, and the Internet).
:We couldn't have gotten that variety of telecommunications service without
:letting go of the strict government control over the Bell telephone
:monopoly.

Well, this is an interesting view of events, to say the least. Not
quite the way things happened, but interesting nonetheless.

:NASA must let go of their control over the US manned spaceflight industry in
:order for that industry to evolve into more than what it is today.

What is NASA doing that prevents private players (or anyone else who
wants to) from entering this business?

:It wasn't that way in the beginning. In the early days of aviation, the
:government was a much bigger player. In order to stimulate private industry
:and innovation, they started paying for delivery of air mail. They could
:have mandated government sponsored aircraft designs for this (just as they
:do with military aircraft), but that wouldn't have had the same simulating
:effect on the industry. Instead, they paid to have mail delivered on just
:about any aircraft capable of the task and left it up to the industry to
:come up with better designs on their own.

Another view of events that is somewhat at odds with what really
happened.

:Why should we not follow the same model for spaceflight?

We are. However, the 'market' for manned flight hasn't reached the
point that the airmail market reached that allowed the Post Office to
discontinue its own pilots and aircraft and contract the service.

:Why should NASA
:maintain such tight control over US manned spaceflight?

They aren't. If you can find a market, feel free to open your own
spaceport with your own vehicle.

:Why should it
:mandate designs that fly out of its government owned facilities?

Because they are government owned facilities?

:Why can't
:it just buy crew and cargo space on privately owned and operated vehicles
:that fly to ISS?

Because there are no privately owned and operated vehicles to
contract. I thought you wanted to do it the way airmail developed?

:Guarentee that the US will pay for so many flights per
:year and see what kind of vehicles private industry comes up with.

Again, you carp about it not being done like airmail was and then
immediately want it done differently. Private companies with suitable
vehicles already existed before the Post Office started contracting
out airmail.

:Preliminary designs for reusable vehicles (capable of carrying both cargo
:and people) that would be able to visit ISS have been done by small
:companies before (locations of PDF's have been posted to these groups
:before). They just need NASA to promise to buy their services in order to
:get private investors to feel comfortable enough to put money into the
:designs.

That's not how airmail was done. First you had to prove you could do
the job. Then you might be able to contract for a route. Where's the
company and vehicle that can demonstrate they can do the job in the
case of manned space flight to ISS?

:Again, the investment money won't come unless NASA is forced to get out of
:the business of developing it's own "next generation manned space vehicle".
:Force NASA to buy rides on private vehicles instead of waiting for those
:vehicles to materialize as NASA continues flying their own vehicles.

In other words, kill all manned space flight.

:> That is because NO ONE knows best how to build a commercial spacecraft due
:> to the fact that there is no real commercial need for them like airplanes.
:
:I see. You're one of those people who believes that space is "hard" and
:that LEO is a "hostile" environment and that only the large government
:contractors are capable of producing vehicles that can tackle that
:environment.

So where are all these private vehicles? If it was 'easy', surely
someone could put together a business plan that would get them
developed vehicles without needing the government to pledge money to
buy a pig in a poke.

:Sorry, but space isn't really that hard. Vacuum is only 1 atm of pressure
:difference from sea level. Submarines deal with pressures orders of
:magnitude higher.
:
:Re-entry is only "hard" because we've always done it with very dense
:re-entry vehicles. An RLV will be mostly empty tankage, so the heating
:during reentry will be far less severe than what any other US reentry
:vehicle has encounterd in the past.

If it's that easy, where are all these private vehicles that should
have been springing up?

:> I know that they do. And they can get employees that they like hired as
:> well. Again, NASA being the only large customer of the US space industry
:> isn't NASA fault as you imply. It is simply where we are in the industry.
:> Remvong them isn't necessarily going to make the industry better. In
:> fact, it may kill what we have of it now.
:
:It won't kill the military launches, or the GEO comsat industry. The only
:thing it will stop, at least temporarily, is manned spaceflight. At this
:point, that may not be such a bad thing. NASA is spending far too much on
:shuttle/ISS for little gain. Maybe it's time for another long break in US
:manned spaceflight. Maybe it's time to stop going round and round in LEO
:until we have cheaper access to space (again, I'm looking for at least two
:orders of magnitude cheaper $ per lb to LEO).

In other words, kill manned space flight.

:The problem is that no one has tried to make a reasonable reusable luanch
:vehicle.

And why not, if it's so easy?

:They used goverment launch vehicles because they existed, not because they
:were the optimal solution to the problem. Costs have remained high and
:launch failures have remained frequent enough to cause insurance premiums to
:remain high. ELV's can't improve cost and reliability at the same time.
:They've found their optimal design which is dictated by the cost/reliability
:tradeoff inherent in being expendable.

Again, if an RLV is so easy, why hasn't anyone built one?

:"Not cheaply" is the single most important issue. Cheaper access to space
:changes the entire paradigm. You can start throwing mass at problems
:instead of expensive engineering, testing, and the like.

So where is the competing vehicle?

:> : Sending people and supplies to ISS is something the US is committed to do
:> : *anyway*, so why not use that money to pay startups for their services
:> : rather than awarding the money as cost plus contracts to the usual suspects?
:>
:> I would agree with that. I guess getting a payload to ISS would guarantee
:> another paid-for launch and extra based upon the payload.
:
:And we can do it without a NASA mandated design. If Russia, ESA, and Japan
:are (or will be) doing it, why not private industry in the US? Isn't
:private industry in the US up to the task?

Where are the vehicles? You don't just buy a pig in a poke, you know.
That's not how airmail was developed. 

-- 
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
 territory."
                                      --G. Behn

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