And aren't happy to say the least.Is there a link to the white paper as the CSF don't provide one, which makes this reaction highly subjective.
* The white paper authors did not consult with industry in the course of their work, resulting in significant inaccuracies in the model inputs and assumptions. * The white paper primarily focuses on hypothetical spacecraft that are unlike those actually being developed. * The white paper assumes that commercial providers would sell seats to space tourists at a loss, but gives no explanation as to why a commercial business would sell its products or services at a loss. * The white paper ignores cases where sales of seats to other customers would actually decrease the per-seat cost to NASA.* The white paper assumes a large fixed cost of $400 million per year per company, but gives no basis for this number. * The large assumed fixed cost appears to include significant double counting. Launch vehicle fixed costs are distributed between all launch vehicle customers, including: DoD and intelligence community national security missions, NASA science missions, commercial satellite missions, NASA technology demo missions, and unmanned cargo missions. * The white paper ignores the possibility of reductions in cost due to reusability. * The white paper ignores the “sovereign client” market entirely. * The white paper likely underestimates the demand for orbital space tourism to a significant degree.* The white paper assumes a NASA demand of only 8 seats per year, which may significantly underestimate NASA’s demand over the long term. * The white paper ignores the potential for multiple winners to significantly keep development and operations costs low.* The white paper underestimates the rate of price increases by the Soyuz* The white paper refers to the EELV’s as “government developed systems”, yet these systems were in fact commercially developed under a program structured almost identically to COTS and Commercial Crew.
It is reasonable to expect that with a robust, cost-effective U.S. commercial crew capability with large seat capacities, the government may in the future seek to restore NASA’s astronaut flights to 2010 levels...
The funny thing is that many on here and others pointed to previous Aerospace studies when it suited them. Now that the shoe is on the other foot......The huge take-away here is that nothing about "commercial" is certain.
Good catch - that is a typo, and should have read "2009 levels".Although in fairness, if the Shuttle hadn't suffered delays and had flown on NASA's original planned flight schedule for 2010, as put in place earlier in the year, the number of seats it would have flown to space in 2010 would also have been around 40.-- John GedmarkExecutive DirectorCommercial Spaceflight Federation
Quote from: John Gedmark on 04/05/2011 12:36 amGood catch - that is a typo, and should have read "2009 levels".Although in fairness, if the Shuttle hadn't suffered delays and had flown on NASA's original planned flight schedule for 2010, as put in place earlier in the year, the number of seats it would have flown to space in 2010 would also have been around 40.-- John GedmarkExecutive DirectorCommercial Spaceflight FederationThe other point in manboy's post remains valid, though: with assembly complete, there is no justification for shuttle-type levels of crews to ISS.Aerospace was unreasonably conservative in selecting eight per year, though. That is sufficient to meet ISS USOS manning levels, but I suspect NASA would fully utilize any commercial flights it buys to ISS. At the very least, put new astronauts in the other three seats for short-term spaceflight training, as the Russians used to do with Mir taxi crews. That would raise the rate to 14 per year. Anything beyond that would require more flights, which I don't see happening.
The other take away is that, like all studies, they are just that: studies. And I don't know if I've ever seen (in my time) someone going back to have a study re-done at the firm's own expense for correcting innacuracies or flaws. Governments are great for that: "Ooo, let's do a study". Another document for the shelf.
Quote from: Jorge on 04/05/2011 12:46 amQuote from: John Gedmark on 04/05/2011 12:36 amGood catch - that is a typo, and should have read "2009 levels".Although in fairness, if the Shuttle hadn't suffered delays and had flown on NASA's original planned flight schedule for 2010, as put in place earlier in the year, the number of seats it would have flown to space in 2010 would also have been around 40.-- John GedmarkExecutive DirectorCommercial Spaceflight FederationThe other point in manboy's post remains valid, though: with assembly complete, there is no justification for shuttle-type levels of crews to ISS.Aerospace was unreasonably conservative in selecting eight per year, though. That is sufficient to meet ISS USOS manning levels, but I suspect NASA would fully utilize any commercial flights it buys to ISS. At the very least, put new astronauts in the other three seats for short-term spaceflight training, as the Russians used to do with Mir taxi crews. That would raise the rate to 14 per year. Anything beyond that would require more flights, which I don't see happening.I was expecting something more like 4 flights of 4 astronauts per year. The remaining 3 seats per flight could either be sold to spaceflight participants or to international partners (in a barter type exchange for other ISS needs). I believe that Bolden has said that he wanted at least 2 providers. The CCDev requirements state that the providers should be able to supply at least 2 flights per year.
Quote from: robertross on 04/05/2011 12:44 amThe other take away is that, like all studies, they are just that: studies. And I don't know if I've ever seen (in my time) someone going back to have a study re-done at the firm's own expense for correcting innacuracies or flaws. Governments are great for that: "Ooo, let's do a study". Another document for the shelf.I'm the lead author (though I shouldn't have been - some dope did it alphabetically) on a study like this (cost estimation and modeling) that has been praised for some things and criticized for especially one area that was modeled in pretty much the most simplistic way possible (a single constant not based on much industry data). We are at this very moment updating that model and study (at considerable expense) to enhance that particular portion with quite a bit more detail - around a hundred spread sheets worth of data, every bit of it based on real-world industry data from a highly-credible source (the largest member of that industry in the country). And we are a GOCO.So, sometimes it does happen.
Not that it really matters, but are you suggesting this 'update' is being done free of charge?
Quote from: robertross on 04/05/2011 01:40 amNot that it really matters, but are you suggesting this 'update' is being done free of charge?No, as I said we're paying for it, and the labor to integrate it into the study and model (my time, for example).
Quote from: Lee Jay on 04/05/2011 01:45 amQuote from: robertross on 04/05/2011 01:40 amNot that it really matters, but are you suggesting this 'update' is being done free of charge?No, as I said we're paying for it, and the labor to integrate it into the study and model (my time, for example).Well, I'm shocked.. (that's 1...lol)(and your statement saying it was being covered was ambiguous, so thanks for clarifying)
Quote from: robertross on 04/05/2011 01:50 amQuote from: Lee Jay on 04/05/2011 01:45 amQuote from: robertross on 04/05/2011 01:40 amNot that it really matters, but are you suggesting this 'update' is being done free of charge?No, as I said we're paying for it, and the labor to integrate it into the study and model (my time, for example).Well, I'm shocked.. (that's 1...lol)(and your statement saying it was being covered was ambiguous, so thanks for clarifying)Well it should probably be obvious that everything we do has to be paid for. No one works for free.My point is, we're spending the money and time to go back and work on a previously-completed study. Why didn't we do that in the first place, you might ask? Well, for a number of reasons, but the main one is that the information just wasn't really available at the time anywhere. A very good opportunity to get that data came up and we're seizing it to capture it into the model. No, that's not free, but at least we were able to get the funds to go do it!
That's always a problem when you base policy on the results of a study. By definition, a model is a reduced-complexity version of reality, and the more "reduced" it is, the less "reality" is actually in there. Plus, the studies are done by people and those people can both make mistakes and also apply their own personal bias to the results in subtle and often undetectable ways. It's really tough (*really* tough) to create an error-free unbiased model that has enough complexity to model reality well enough to be useful but is also simple enough to be usable. The real problem in my opinion is that people base too much decision making on model results and too little on real-world testing or data. Depending on the situation, that may be unavoidable (as it probably is in this case), but that doesn't keep it from being a big problem.People are too trusting of and not skeptical enough about studies (mine included).
Not bashing yours, or anyone's in particular, but that's why - I HATE STUDIES.Time for a computer to do it for us. HAHA
Quote from: robertross on 04/05/2011 02:18 amNot bashing yours, or anyone's in particular, but that's why - I HATE STUDIES.Time for a computer to do it for us. HAHAThat wont solve anything, as the computer relies on us for the inputs just like these studies.
Wow, the CSF pretty thoroughly eviscerated the Aerospace study. The 13 errors they point out are pretty huge. I would've expected quite a bit more diligence from Aerospace.For readability's sake, here's the 13 points from the CSF letter with the explanatory text removed:Quote1. The white paper authors did not consult with industry in the course of their work, resulting in significant inaccuracies in the model inputs and assumptions. 2. The white paper primarily focuses on hypothetical spacecraft that are unlike those actually being developed. 3. The white paper assumes that commercial providers would sell seats to space tourists at a loss, but gives no explanation as to why a commercial business would sell its products or services at a loss. 4. The white paper ignores cases where sales of seats to other customers would actually decrease the per-seat cost to NASA.5. The white paper assumes a large fixed cost of $400 million per year per company, but gives no basis for this number. 6. The large assumed fixed cost appears to include significant double counting. Launch vehicle fixed costs are distributed between all launch vehicle customers, including: DoD and intelligence community national security missions, NASA science missions, commercial satellite missions, NASA technology demo missions, and unmanned cargo missions. 7. The white paper ignores the possibility of reductions in cost due to reusability. 8. The white paper ignores the “sovereign client” market entirely. 9. The white paper likely underestimates the demand for orbital space tourism to a significant degree.10. The white paper assumes a NASA demand of only 8 seats per year, which may significantly underestimate NASA’s demand over the long term. 11. The white paper ignores the potential for multiple winners to significantly keep development and operations costs low.12. The white paper underestimates the rate of price increases by the Soyuz13. The white paper refers to the EELV’s as “government developed systems”, yet these systems were in fact commercially developed under a program structured almost identically to COTS and Commercial Crew.
1. The white paper authors did not consult with industry in the course of their work, resulting in significant inaccuracies in the model inputs and assumptions. 2. The white paper primarily focuses on hypothetical spacecraft that are unlike those actually being developed. 3. The white paper assumes that commercial providers would sell seats to space tourists at a loss, but gives no explanation as to why a commercial business would sell its products or services at a loss. 4. The white paper ignores cases where sales of seats to other customers would actually decrease the per-seat cost to NASA.5. The white paper assumes a large fixed cost of $400 million per year per company, but gives no basis for this number. 6. The large assumed fixed cost appears to include significant double counting. Launch vehicle fixed costs are distributed between all launch vehicle customers, including: DoD and intelligence community national security missions, NASA science missions, commercial satellite missions, NASA technology demo missions, and unmanned cargo missions. 7. The white paper ignores the possibility of reductions in cost due to reusability. 8. The white paper ignores the “sovereign client” market entirely. 9. The white paper likely underestimates the demand for orbital space tourism to a significant degree.10. The white paper assumes a NASA demand of only 8 seats per year, which may significantly underestimate NASA’s demand over the long term. 11. The white paper ignores the potential for multiple winners to significantly keep development and operations costs low.12. The white paper underestimates the rate of price increases by the Soyuz13. The white paper refers to the EELV’s as “government developed systems”, yet these systems were in fact commercially developed under a program structured almost identically to COTS and Commercial Crew.
Maybe this will be the first nail in the coffin of Aerospace. For space people, they are alarmingly Luddite, unenthusiastic, stuck in their ways, and, worst, inaccurate. Make them get real jobs.
Aerospace was unreasonably conservative in selecting eight per year, though. That is sufficient to meet ISS USOS manning levels, but I suspect NASA would fully utilize any commercial flights it buys to ISS. At the very least, put new astronauts in the other three seats for short-term spaceflight training, as the Russians used to do with Mir taxi crews. That would raise the rate to 14 per year.
4. Why would NASA purchase only 4 seats? NASA is likely to purchase the entire spacecraft and ask for it configured as their needs require.
If the "soverign client" market is so well established, why does NASA need to invest at all? If the market is really as good as they suggest, why have these companies not been scrambling to capture it before now?
That's always a problem when you base policy on the results of a study. By definition, a model is a reduced-complexity version of reality, and the more "reduced" it is, the less "reality" is actually in there. Plus, the studies are done by people and those people can both make mistakes and also apply their own personal bias to the results in subtle and often undetectable ways. It's really tough (*really* tough) to create an error-free unbiased model that has enough complexity to model reality well enough to be useful but is also simple enough to be usable.
The real problem in my opinion is that people base too much decision making on model results and too little on real-world testing or data.
3. They probably have a point here in that a company would not sell seats at a loss. However, depending on the specific conditions of such a hypothetical sale, they could sell those seats at a reduced rate as a kind of "introductory offer". Given these companies will have to produce a profit, the only other place is to then increase the cost to other customers, i.e NASA.
Quote If the "soverign client" market is so well established, why does NASA need to invest at all? If the market is really as good as they suggest, why have these companies not been scrambling to capture it before now?Reminds me of that old story about the economist who believed in the efficient market hypothesis and his friend. They're strolling down the sidewalk when his friend notices a fifty dollar bill on the pavement and point it out. The economist shoots his buddy a patronizing smile and says, "Don't be silly, if there really were a bill there someone would have picked it up already."So let me answer your question with another question - why has Virgin Galactic/The Spaceship Company only pursued suborbital tourism after the X-Prize? Surely if the market already existed companies would have been scrambling to capture it before the Ansari X-Prize was announced? So why was it only after it was announced did people build vehicles, and after a good bit into it that people tried to commercialize suborbital space?
Quote from: Diagoras on 04/05/2011 07:36 amQuote If the "soverign client" market is so well established, why does NASA need to invest at all? If the market is really as good as they suggest, why have these companies not been scrambling to capture it before now?Reminds me of that old story about the economist who believed in the efficient market hypothesis and his friend. They're strolling down the sidewalk when his friend notices a fifty dollar bill on the pavement and point it out. The economist shoots his buddy a patronizing smile and says, "Don't be silly, if there really were a bill there someone would have picked it up already."So let me answer your question with another question - why has Virgin Galactic/The Spaceship Company only pursued suborbital tourism after the X-Prize? Surely if the market already existed companies would have been scrambling to capture it before the Ansari X-Prize was announced? So why was it only after it was announced did people build vehicles, and after a good bit into it that people tried to commercialize suborbital space?Ahh, I see you can't really answer the question either but instead just offer bad analogies in order to distract from the original question.How much government money has Scaled and Virgin received? Where's the X-prize for orbital flight?
Quote from: Lee Jay on 04/05/2011 02:14 amThat's always a problem when you base policy on the results of a study. By definition, a model is a reduced-complexity version of reality, and the more "reduced" it is, the less "reality" is actually in there. Plus, the studies are done by people and those people can both make mistakes and also apply their own personal bias to the results in subtle and often undetectable ways. It's really tough (*really* tough) to create an error-free unbiased model that has enough complexity to model reality well enough to be useful but is also simple enough to be usable.Surely it is incumbent on the report that it make clear the limits of applicability (or limitations) of that report.
QuoteThe real problem in my opinion is that people base too much decision making on model results and too little on real-world testing or data.To what extent are studies commissioned in expectation that the experts will gather exactly that data?cheers, Martin
1. Why would these companies share their proprietary data with Aerospace for this study? Why would the CSF have it? In this white paper, they even call it "proprietary" so how do they know it "leads to conclusions that are incorrect and inaccurate".
If you have additional questions or would like clarification, feel free to ask. However, I ask that your response remain polite or else I won't feel inclined to respond.
Shuttle is retired, commercial crew will be an opportunity for them to fly astronauts in exchange for them spending on other things for space (which could be ISS related or BLEO related).
Quote from: OV-106 on 04/05/2011 03:10 am1. Why would these companies share their proprietary data with Aerospace for this study? Why would the CSF have it? In this white paper, they even call it "proprietary" so how do they know it "leads to conclusions that are incorrect and inaccurate".It very common for proprietary firms to share very sensitive information with well respected analysts. More in particular if it can make the analysis show a better prospect of their business. I've done it for the health industry, the energy industry and the internet industry. It's very common, but they have to trust you. In particular, it's usually very simple if you go through their trade body. What they don't want to do, is to be the only one to share that info.Quote3. They probably have a point here in that a company would not sell seats at a loss. However, depending on the specific conditions of such a hypothetical sale, they could sell those seats at a reduced rate as a kind of "introductory offer". Given these companies will have to produce a profit, the only other place is to then increase the cost to other customers, i.e NASA.There's a difference between average cost and marginal cost. On a 7 passenger vehicle (I'm assuming robotic return, since else it would be a 6 passenger), if NASA buys 4 seats, and assuming the vehicle has fixed performance (i.e. no dial a rocket). Then, there's the point of what happened to the extra weight. The company has three extra seats, or 300kg extra (I'm saying, possibly more). Let's propose that NASA pays 5000USD/kg. That's 1.5M. Then as long as they are charging above 500k/seat they are selling it at a profit, on the margin. But I'm sure they would offer the NASA the option of paying a bit more for the payload. How much? As much as there are (tourist) passengers willing to pay. That's Economics 101.You could of course combine the sovereign market, and have NASA sell a 1 week visit to the ISS for other nations (like Brazil, Norway, etc.) at a price that's higher than the average. That way you'd have other nations subsidizing NASA.
Quote from: yg1968 on 04/05/2011 01:56 pmShuttle is retired, commercial crew will be an opportunity for them to fly astronauts in exchange for them spending on other things for space (which could be ISS related or BLEO related). Per the ISS barter agreement, the United States is already on the hook for flying Japanese, European and Canadian astronauts. NASA will pay for it already regardless if it is on a Soyuz or a commercial vehicle. If they fly additional crew beyond what is in the barter agreement, then that will be on their dime for said crew service.
Quote from: OV-106 on 04/05/2011 02:04 pmQuote from: yg1968 on 04/05/2011 01:56 pmShuttle is retired, commercial crew will be an opportunity for them to fly astronauts in exchange for them spending on other things for space (which could be ISS related or BLEO related). Per the ISS barter agreement, the United States is already on the hook for flying Japanese, European and Canadian astronauts. NASA will pay for it already regardless if it is on a Soyuz or a commercial vehicle. If they fly additional crew beyond what is in the barter agreement, then that will be on their dime for said crew service. Yes I know. But you could increase the number of flights for international partners. Let's take Canada as an example. Canada has only one flight on a Soyuz in December 2012 for Chris Hadfield for a 6 months mission. There is no other flight for Canadian astronauts for the foreseable future. Shuttle flew many Canadian astronauts back and to the ISS on short term trips. But once Shuttle is retired, short term trips wil no longer be done. But short term trips could be done under commercial crew in a barter type exchange in order to allow for more Canadian astronauts to go to space. The biggest problem for Canada is that the Canada arm has now been paid for and NASA does not owe them that much in the future. Canada is not willing to pay $60 milion in cash for ferrying an astronauts. It prefers to barter as this type of exchange creates jobs in Canada. They may be willing to build a moon rover or a new Canadian arm that would be used in BLEO in exchange for NASA ferrying its astronauts to and from the ISS.
If Canada is unwilling to pay $60 million in cash for a fifth Soyuz, I don't see why they would be willing to pay commercial crew companies $60 million. Canada's space budget is $300 million. The $60 million would have to provide jobs in Canada for the Canadian government to justify spending one fifth of it's space budget on a short term flight to the ISS. I am giving Canada as an example but the same could probably be said of ESA. (Japan wasn't really interested in short term flights even for Shuttle. So I don't think that they would be interested for short term flights under commercial crew.)
Quote from: yg1968 on 04/05/2011 02:38 pmIf Canada is unwilling to pay $60 million in cash for a fifth Soyuz, I don't see why they would be willing to pay commercial crew companies $60 million. Canada's space budget is $300 million. The $60 million would have to provide jobs in Canada for the Canadian government to justify spending one fifth of it's space budget on a short term flight to the ISS. I am giving Canada as an example but the same could probably be said of ESA. (Japan wasn't really interested in short term flights even for Shuttle. So I don't think that they would be interested for short term flights under commercial crew.) Ok, so by this logic Canada is unwilling to fly their crew anywhere on their own dime because it is too expensive. However, if we pay for it then they may be willing to pay even more to create jobs?However, they may not be willing to pay more, so the US gets stuck with a higher cost again to send the Canadians somewhere and maybe we get something of less value.Do I have that correct?
On your first point, I am suspicious that these companies shared their proprietary cost data with the CSF. All of them just openly gave this information to what is essentially a lobby giving the CSF some sort of exclusive insight into every single member company. These companies gave so much information that CSF is able to very boldly declare that the model inputs and assumptions were "significantly inaccurate".
On your second point, I honestly didn't follow everything you were saying. However, why would NASA be a middle man and "sell" anything to a third party for commercial vehicles? While there would have to be certain NASA approvals relative to any ISS ops, the transportation there and back will likely be independent of NASA.
Quote from: Antares on 04/05/2011 01:52 amMaybe this will be the first nail in the coffin of Aerospace. For space people, they are alarmingly Luddite, unenthusiastic, stuck in their ways, and, worst, inaccurate. Make them get real jobs.I assume you were posting this same thing when they were armwaving over shuttle safety? Just wondering.
Quote from: OV-106 on 04/05/2011 02:47 pmQuote from: yg1968 on 04/05/2011 02:38 pmIf Canada is unwilling to pay $60 million in cash for a fifth Soyuz, I don't see why they would be willing to pay commercial crew companies $60 million. Canada's space budget is $300 million. The $60 million would have to provide jobs in Canada for the Canadian government to justify spending one fifth of it's space budget on a short term flight to the ISS. I am giving Canada as an example but the same could probably be said of ESA. (Japan wasn't really interested in short term flights even for Shuttle. So I don't think that they would be interested for short term flights under commercial crew.) Ok, so by this logic Canada is unwilling to fly their crew anywhere on their own dime because it is too expensive. However, if we pay for it then they may be willing to pay even more to create jobs?However, they may not be willing to pay more, so the US gets stuck with a higher cost again to send the Canadians somewhere and maybe we get something of less value.Do I have that correct?Space is a jobs program in Canada also. They don't mind paying $60 million but only if it creates jobs in Canada. That's why barter is used for ISS arrangements.
And the truth is, the market is still out if some of the business models are really viable in the long term. So it's trying to do market forecasting here as if "commercial" is a single business model is an oversimplification, to say the least. In fact, at this stage you can only propose which approach seams more workable.
Do you understand the concept of marginal cost? Basically is cost of opportunity. What do you do with your excess payload capacity? The report assumed that the commercial companies would sell the extra seats at a loss. That would mean that those 100kg of an extra passanger, would get less money than what NASA is willing to pay for 100kg of equipment or supplies. Then, obviously they wouldn't sell it at a loss. What might happen, is that if NASA isn't willing to pay as much for payload as for passangers weight, then the commercial might sell the seat at a lower price than to NASA. That isn't a loss since the company would still earning more money than the other option (NASA's supplies).
The funny thing is that many on here and others pointed to previous Aerospace studies when it suited them. Now that the shoe is on the other foot......
Quote from: yg1968 on 04/05/2011 03:23 pmQuote from: OV-106 on 04/05/2011 02:47 pmQuote from: yg1968 on 04/05/2011 02:38 pmIf Canada is unwilling to pay $60 million in cash for a fifth Soyuz, I don't see why they would be willing to pay commercial crew companies $60 million. Canada's space budget is $300 million. The $60 million would have to provide jobs in Canada for the Canadian government to justify spending one fifth of it's space budget on a short term flight to the ISS. I am giving Canada as an example but the same could probably be said of ESA. (Japan wasn't really interested in short term flights even for Shuttle. So I don't think that they would be interested for short term flights under commercial crew.) Ok, so by this logic Canada is unwilling to fly their crew anywhere on their own dime because it is too expensive. However, if we pay for it then they may be willing to pay even more to create jobs?However, they may not be willing to pay more, so the US gets stuck with a higher cost again to send the Canadians somewhere and maybe we get something of less value.Do I have that correct?Space is a jobs program in Canada also. They don't mind paying $60 million but only if it creates jobs in Canada. That's why barter is used for ISS arrangements. I see. So isn't that a problem for commercial? When CSF advocates that we can sell this to other governments, and what you say is true about space only being a "jobs program", then that places another potential hole in their response. Which is true?
They will prefer paying commercial companies through barter. That's just the way it is.
Quote from: yg1968 on 04/05/2011 04:32 pmThey will prefer paying commercial companies through barter. That's just the way it is. I see. And in order to help keep commercial providers viable, NASA will pay these providers whatever the cost may be, even if NASA is getting something of less value from these other governments?Does that make strategic sense from a government spending perspective and with ISS complete and us discarding everything and everyone else that is remotely conncected to the recent past? Heck, if we need widget X, why don't we just build it here and apply your jobs arguement to American citizens.
Quote from: Diagoras on 04/05/2011 12:58 pmIf you have additional questions or would like clarification, feel free to ask. However, I ask that your response remain polite or else I won't feel inclined to respond.What? You first gave an analogy, one that I happened to think was bad. Then you supposedly "answered my question with another question". I responded and obviously you are easily offended even though there was no offense intended, direct, but no offense. Your latest response still doesn't answer anything. CSF claims the market is "well established". What does that mean exactly? They just state it and essentially move on. If that is the case, then that better assures a business case. The better the business case, the lower the need for NASA money, yet CSF wants an increase. Why? I believe a person can want a commercial spaceflight industry but ask logical questions and not just buy into spin.
Ahh, I see you can't really answer the question either but instead just offer bad analogies in order to distract from the original question.
If that is the case, then that better assures a business case. The better the business case, the lower the need for NASA money, yet CSF wants an increase. Why?
I believe a person can want a commercial spaceflight industry but ask logical questions and not just buy into spin.
Los Angeles-based Aerospace Corp., in an undated explanation of the study and its methodology, said the analysis was merely intended to develop a modeling tool that could be applied to a variety of data.“The results shown to NASA and Congress recently were not intended to represent any specific real world scenario,” the company said in a memo obtained by Space News. “We modeled a scenario utilizing data from as long as 10 months ago in order to demonstrate the tool’s viability, not the viability of any specific commercial crew transportation system.”Aerospace Corp. said it initiated the work on its own in late 2009. Some time later Hawes’ office asked for, and funded, an expanded and refined analysis of the initial work, which relied on historical data to develop its business-case model.“The results were not expected to reflect what the commercial community has been developing,” the Aerospace memo says, adding that different assumptions could be used “to produce significantly different results.”
I agree Magoo, the house of cards of the FY2011 scandal is falling down around Obama's knees.
"SENSITIVE INFORMATION / APPROVED FOR RELEASE TO US GOV'T ONLY", implies this contains real data, not "We modeled a scenario utilizing data from as long as 10 months ago".
CSF claims the market is "well established". What does that mean exactly?
Well, that doesn't stack up with the presentation slides. ...
New presser from CSF on this.CSF Welcomes Aerospace Corporation's Clarification on Commercial Crew White PaperApril 7, 2010, http://www.commercialspaceflight.org/?p=1489The Commercial Spaceflight Federation welcomes the Aerospace Corporation of El Segundo, California for its decision to release a clarification document yesterday regarding its white paper on the business case for NASA's Commercial Crew program. The clarification document, titled "Aerospace Commercial Crew Modeling Tool Update," is available on the Aerospace Corporation homepage at www.aero.org.The document states, "The intent of this report was not to pass judgement on the economic feasibility of a commercial crew transportation provider, but rather to illustrate the ability of the tool to conduct parametric sensitivity studies." The document continues, "The results shown to NASA and Congress recently were not intended to represent any specific real world scenario. We modeled a scenario utilizing data from as long as 10 months ago in order to demonstrate the tool's viability, not the viability of any specific commercial crew transportation system."The document also confirmed that "Aerospace did not survey NASA or industry for input data. ... The results were not intended to reflect what the commercial community has been developing," and that "Aerospace can model many other possible cases and assumption sets to produce significantly different results."
Quote from: Jason Sole on 04/07/2011 04:12 amI agree Magoo, the house of cards of the FY2011 scandal is falling down around Obama's knees.What scandal? The only scandal, if there is one, was Bush ending the shuttle before a replacement for servicing the ISS was ready.There is nothing remotely close to a scandal in the FY2011 budget proposal
So basically, they caved.
The white paper authors did not consult with industry in the course of their work, resulting in significant inaccuracies in the model inputs and assumptions.
So it turns out that the first CSF observation that Neil mentioned in his very handily written summary:Quote from: neilh on 04/04/2011 11:27 pmThe white paper authors did not consult with industry in the course of their work, resulting in significant inaccuracies in the model inputs and assumptions....is the salient premise that if a model is constructed inaccurately, and fed incomplete information, then the results of that model will have "significant inaccuracies". The idea presented above, questioning "Why would these companies share their proprietary data with Aerospace for this study?" seems to have confused proprietary data with a general survey of "NASA or industry for input data". Not all data is proprietary. I would think, of the several companies involved in developing commercial spaceflight, all of them would have been happy to cosult with Aerospace on properly developing the basic parametrics for what could have been a very useful model. Hopefully, Aerospace will take this opportunity to correct their model.Kudos to CSF, I'd say.
My take on this Aerospace paper was, why bother publishing something with such a poorly justified basis? I flat out don't get it.
Quote * The white paper authors did not consult with industry in the course of their work, resulting in significant inaccuracies in the model inputs and assumptions. * The white paper primarily focuses on hypothetical spacecraft that are unlike those actually being developed. * The white paper assumes that commercial providers would sell seats to space tourists at a loss, but gives no explanation as to why a commercial business would sell its products or services at a loss. * The white paper ignores cases where sales of seats to other customers would actually decrease the per-seat cost to NASA. * The white paper assumes a large fixed cost of $400 million per year per company, but gives no basis for this number. * The large assumed fixed cost appears to include significant double counting. Launch vehicle fixed costs are distributed between all launch vehicle customers, including: DoD and intelligence community national security missions, NASA science missions, commercial satellite missions, NASA technology demo missions, and unmanned cargo missions. * The white paper ignores the possibility of reductions in cost due to reusability. * The white paper ignores the “sovereign client” market entirely. * The white paper likely underestimates the demand for orbital space tourism to a significant degree. * The white paper assumes a NASA demand of only 8 seats per year, which may significantly underestimate NASA’s demand over the long term. * The white paper ignores the potential for multiple winners to significantly keep development and operations costs low. * The white paper underestimates the rate of price increases by the Soyuz * The white paper refers to the EELV’s as “government developed systems”, yet these systems were in fact commercially developed under a program structured almost identically to COTS and Commercial Crew.
SO, IMHO commercial is going to have to be more than just "space tourism" and other such "fluff" items... Industrialization?? Perhaps... but then again, we've heard that refrain before-- "build it and they will come" was the mantra for research on shuttle, for a space station, for man-tended automated orbital platforms for production of alloys and pharmaceuticals, and now for ISS... and the demand has never materialized... what makes this time different??