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simonbp
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« Reply #75 on: 04/14/2012 11:04 PM » |
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Space Frontier Foundation, Ryan McLinko
3 step plan; developing product and demand, supply lines to space profits, settling in space. NewSpace Conference in July in Mountain View, CA.
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simonbp
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« Reply #76 on: 04/14/2012 11:55 PM » |
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Jim Muncy, PoliSpace
The lobbyist for New Space. PoliSpace is space politics consulting company. CCCP using Space Act agreements up to and including first human test flight. Budget cuts are coming, 7-8% for NASA, roughly equal to all of Space Technology and Commerical Crew combined. Extended FAA regulation exemption by three years (as long as they could). Jay Rockefeller is not a fan of third-party indemnification for all commercial spaceflight (including Atlas, Sea Launch, etc). Needs to be a better way to transition from FAA exemption without a hard shift to heavy regulation. Have FAA share safety information, but also have industry grow up and cooperate on safety. Got to find ways to share information and propose regulations, or FAA will do it in a vacuum and scare away the investors. Talk of a new Commercial Space Bill this year or next.
Some people will notice that in 2 years a vehicle that looks like Orion will fly on an Atlas V. And that a vehicle that shall remain name-SLS is very behind schedule. And then certain programs may be canceled.
There is a market for several commercial crew providers. Just because we only 6 seats per year now (limited by production rate of Soyuz), doesn't mean that we will if the seats were much cheaper. Could have lots of short-term scientists visiting ISS. Two to three teams competing to ensure safety.
About as many things went wrong with the rollout of the Obama space policy as could have. Commercial crew was simultaneous with canceling CxP, but not the cause (was Mike Griffin's idea originally).
Have to reframe commercial space as expanding America's economic sphere into space.
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simonbp
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« Reply #77 on: 04/15/2012 12:56 AM » |
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Tim Pickens with panel (Masten, Brockert, Breed, Goff, and Clive) "DIY Space Access: Modern Communications, the 'Maker' network, and the Space Community"
Pickens showing off his "rocket man cave". Asks panel what's changed since his amateur days.
Masten: Wasted a lot of time doing chemical engineering rather than rocket engineering. Linux kernel is the exception to the rule, most open source projects fail. 45th space wing has been frustrating to the point of idiocy, despite not actually using any of their services. They want more safety people than Masten employs.
Brockert: The difference between a company and amateur group is project management, forcing people to do the not-so-fun things. But, amateur groups can be much more creative. Amateur groups can also ask for help much, much easier.
Breed: Believes a group smaller than 10, maybe smaller than 5, can launch something into orbit. Hybrid professional-amateur groups usually don't work, especially if amateurs in critical path.
Goff: If you think a launch license cost is a driving force, you're going to have problems. Bringing adequate resources to the problem is crucial. Trial and error is expensive, so it's worth it to have the experience. Naiveté is a good thing, as it gets you to learn a lot.
Clive: There is a lot of duplication of effort, and amateur groups cannot afford this.
Breed: Armadillo was able to make the transition because it had a single funding source.
Clive: We now have a floor to stand on from suborbital rockets.
Masten: Engineering papers are really bad about producing reproducible results/plans. Print something physically and get an ISBN number to get around ITAR.
Clive: Makerspace are just space to do stuff, not a team or project.
Masten: Linus Torvolds figured out how to herd cats, most people can't do that.
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simonbp
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« Reply #78 on: 04/15/2012 01:12 AM » |
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Panel: Policy Issues For The Coming Year - Phil Chapman, Jim Muncy, Rand Simberg, Henry Vanderbilt
Chapman: Discussing intercepting ICBMs with Niven and Pournelle led to SDI, which helped to collapse the Soviet Union.
Simberg: Need a not-one-size-fits-all safety policy.
Muncy: We had got to fix ITAR. Needs to be on policy platform of both candidates. Rockets are dual-use, but spacecraft are not.
Vanderbilt: NASA need to take and accept much more risks.
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simonbp
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« Reply #79 on: 04/15/2012 01:20 AM » |
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And that's it, great conference!
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Silmfeanor
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« Reply #80 on: 04/15/2012 09:47 AM » |
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Muncy: We had got to fix ITAR. Needs to be on policy platform of both candidates. Rockets are dual-use, but spacecraft are not.
I don't understand this quote - what does "Dual-use" mean in this context? And thanks a lot for the coverage, it was interesting!
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Proponent
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« Reply #81 on: 04/15/2012 10:16 AM » |
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Military and civilian.
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kkattula
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« Reply #82 on: 04/15/2012 03:41 PM » |
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Muncy: We had got to fix ITAR. Needs to be on policy platform of both candidates. Rockets are dual-use, but spacecraft are not.
I don't understand this quote - what does "Dual-use" mean in this context?
...
Rockets can launch both spacecraft and warheads. Spacecraft, if designed to re-enter, either decelerate & land at slow speed, or burn up harmlessly. Warheads RV's are designed to maintain high speed through re-entry to defeat target defenses. MIRVs don't need ECLSS, on-orbit power, rendezvous & docking systems, etc. It's crazy to treat any of that stuff as ITAR. (Unless you're worried about NK or Iran boarding the ISS).
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A_M_Swallow
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« Reply #83 on: 04/15/2012 06:22 PM » |
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{snip}
MIRVs don't need ECLSS, on-orbit power, rendezvous & docking systems, etc. It's crazy to treat any of that stuff as ITAR. (Unless you're worried about NK or Iran boarding the ISS).
Unless you suspect someone is going to create a spacestation equipped with a weapon.
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baldusi
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« Reply #84 on: 04/15/2012 07:33 PM » |
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If I'm not mistaken, the CBM specs are ITAR'ed.
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jongoff
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« Reply #85 on: 04/16/2012 03:03 PM » |
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Storable compact RMS for Dragon, etc. This was just a possibility or something a bit more developed?
It's something we're doing some early design work on, and will continue to be doing some work on. Not just Dragon, but Orion as well. It turns out they have a need for backshell TPS inspection/repair, and the arm we're looking at would be ideal for that. Got MSR sticky boom to TRL5, then MSR killed. What's MSR? Does this means StickyBoom is dead?
We were getting paid by NASA through an SBIR Phase I contract to study a Sticky Boom for capturing the Mars Sample Return sample canister. We took it to TRL-5, but then when the MSR program got canned, we didn't end up winning the Phase II. Sticky Boom lives on, and we're still actively developing it. It's just that between that and several other simultaneous unfavorable policy tweaks at NASA (going to two-year funding for Phase IIs all at once halved the number of SBIR awards they gave out this year) and some bad luck, we had a really rough Q4/Q1. We're pulling out of it finally, but we had a few months there when I was worried we might have to shoot the puppy for lack of funds. The joys of starting a tractor beam company with 30 micro-Elons of personal net worth... ~Jon
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jongoff
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« Reply #86 on: 04/16/2012 03:05 PM » |
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Thanks for these notes Simon.
I really like the G-lab concept - using ISS resources (discarded vehicles) to do science that would otherwise have a detrimental effect on other ISS experiments. SSI should talk to the Russians, since they're interested in a man-tended free flyer too.
Also, I really like Jon Goff's D2S. 
I also like the concept, I just wish it was more specific.
We have more technical details than we're able to cram into a 20min company update presentation, but that's probably better-suited for the Altius Update Thread over in the Commercial Space part of the forum. Feel free to ask away--we are still digging into the details as time goes on, but if we've already got an answer, we'd be glad to share. ~Jon
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Lurker Steve
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« Reply #87 on: 04/16/2012 03:49 PM » |
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Tim Pickens with panel (Masten, Brockert, Breed, Goff, and Clive) "DIY Space Access: Modern Communications, the 'Maker' network, and the Space Community"
Pickens showing off his "rocket man cave". Asks panel what's changed since his amateur days.
Masten: Wasted a lot of time doing chemical engineering rather than rocket engineering. Linux kernel is the exception to the rule, most open source projects fail. 45th space wing has been frustrating to the point of idiocy, despite not actually using any of their services. They want more safety people than Masten employs.
Brockert: The difference between a company and amateur group is project management, forcing people to do the not-so-fun things. But, amateur groups can be much more creative. Amateur groups can also ask for help much, much easier.
Breed: Believes a group smaller than 10, maybe smaller than 5, can launch something into orbit. Hybrid professional-amateur groups usually don't work, especially if amateurs in critical path.
Goff: If you think a launch license cost is a driving force, you're going to have problems. Bringing adequate resources to the problem is crucial. Trial and error is expensive, so it's worth it to have the experience. Naiveté is a good thing, as it gets you to learn a lot.
Clive: There is a lot of duplication of effort, and amateur groups cannot afford this.
Breed: Armadillo was able to make the transition because it had a single funding source.
Clive: We now have a floor to stand on from suborbital rockets.
Masten: Engineering papers are really bad about producing reproducible results/plans. Print something physically and get an ISBN number to get around ITAR.
Clive: Makerspace are just space to do stuff, not a team or project.
Masten: Linus Torvolds figured out how to herd cats, most people can't do that.
Interesting that Masten believes Open Source projects are like hearding cats. He's probably right. The more people rowing the boat, the more difficult it is to get them all working in the same direction.
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Chris-A
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« Reply #88 on: 04/16/2012 04:15 PM » |
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Interesting that Masten believes Open Source projects are like hearding cats. He's probably right. The more people rowing the boat, the more difficult it is to get them all working in the same direction.
Another problem is the duplication of effort.
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baldusi
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« Reply #89 on: 04/16/2012 04:21 PM » |
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Interesting that Masten believes Open Source projects are like hearding cats. He's probably right. The more people rowing the boat, the more difficult it is to get them all working in the same direction.
Few Open Source projects succeed without the "Benevolent Dictator" management method. He has to have all three capacities of workaholic, extremely gifted mind and very professional working system. So yep, it's very difficult if you don't have a once in then thousands of a manager.
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