Author Topic: SpaceX less is more.  (Read 43904 times)

Offline ugordan

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #20 on: 04/24/2011 10:01 pm »
A private firm doing NASA's job atm is counterproductive for a stable NASA.

What job is that?

You opened up this thread saying how hype made you change your opinion on SpaceX. Fair enough.

What does NASA all of a sudden have to do with all of this or what Musk says informally in an interview?

Offline RocketEconomist327

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #21 on: 04/24/2011 10:17 pm »
If I understand your message, you are suggesting that claims of plans for Mars, etc, made by Mr. Musk endanger NASA funding?

Here's how I view things.  NASA funding is already endangered, Musk or not.  Both U.S. political parties agree that big budget cuts are required, trillions of dollars worth, so they are coming.  Social programs will be cut, and so will defense and science and payouts to farmers for not farming, etc.  It all has to be cut, and we'll all have to pay more taxes too. 

NASA won't weather this storm unscathed.  The current lack of firm future planning makes it a giant target for cuts. 

SpaceX, in my view, isn't going to Mars or even Earth orbit by itself.  It is currently existing largely on NASA funding.  The company's plans for Falcon Heavy show that it wants big DoD money too.  So the coming budget cuts aren't going to be good for NASA or any contractor, including SpaceX. 

But the cuts have nothing to do with Mr. Musk's vision of the future.  They are a result of decades of the U.S. living beyond its means while not defending its manufacturing base and its middle class.

 - Ed Kyle

Just one mans opinion, but I think NASA has a bright future.  They will re-align and do magnificent things.  If they do not...

...someone else will.

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You can talk about all the great things you can do, or want to do, in space; but unless the rocket scientists get a sound understanding of economics (and quickly), the US space program will never achieve the greatness it should.

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Offline MP99

Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #22 on: 04/25/2011 12:16 pm »
There are over 1000 Billionaires in the world right now, and the vast majority of them will not be remembered by history.  How best to immortalize yourself than to be the 1st to do something like a Mars Flyby or Venus Flyby.

...or, if they try it before the technology is matured (long-term life support, radiation protection, etc), have their dead body perform the flyby.

cheers, Martin

Offline dunderwood

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #23 on: 04/25/2011 06:46 pm »

...or, if they try it before the technology is matured (long-term life support, radiation protection, etc), have their dead body perform the flyby.

cheers, Martin

You could market that as the Magellan plan.

Offline vt_hokie

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #24 on: 04/25/2011 06:54 pm »
We'll be lucky to have a glorified "Gemini on steroids" program with capsules ferrying people to/from LEO in 10 years.  Humans on Mars?  A laughable claim at this point.

Offline Tony Ostinato

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #25 on: 04/25/2011 10:58 pm »
you guys are so smart you forget what its like to be stupid.

most people think that obama killed the bush plan to go back to the moon.

whatever thats supposed to mean, ares-1 sure wasnt goin to the moon and nothing else was really funded was it?

so now theres the countering that spacex is goin to mars and the moon and sooner.

none of it is accurate at all but it sounds good on the playground.

the average guy can name 30 football players and 1 astronaut. thats your audience.


Offline Drkskywxlt

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #26 on: 04/26/2011 02:01 pm »
I think it's very possible that SpaceX and Lockheed might be in a mini-space race in about 5 years to be the first company to orbit or loop around the Moon since Apollo.  Both Orion and Dragon are designed to be capable enough for that, but both need an upper stage (with Lockheed saying they need SLS for this).  Maybe they pool their efforts and try it with Orion on top of a Falcon Heavy? 

Mars just takes so much more infrastructure/mass/money/time...but I'm rooting for them!

Offline gospacex

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #27 on: 04/26/2011 02:55 pm »
We are in the very same or worse times as when Apollo was phased out.   The president said we’ve been to the moon, why go there again?   Let’s do an asteroid landing. Please.
Need I go on where this kind of thinking goes?     

If I understand your message, you are suggesting that claims of plans for Mars, etc, made by Mr. Musk endanger NASA funding?

Here's how I view things.  NASA funding is already endangered, Musk or not.  Both U.S. political parties agree that big budget cuts are required, trillions of dollars worth, so they are coming.  Social programs will be cut, and so will defense and science and payouts to farmers for not farming, etc.  It all has to be cut, and we'll all have to pay more taxes too. 

NASA won't weather this storm unscathed.  The current lack of firm future planning makes it a giant target for cuts. 

SpaceX, in my view, isn't going to Mars or even Earth orbit by itself.  It is currently existing largely on NASA funding.  The company's plans for Falcon Heavy show that it wants big DoD money too.  So the coming budget cuts aren't going to be good for NASA or any contractor, including SpaceX. 

But the cuts have nothing to do with Mr. Musk's vision of the future.  They are a result of decades of the U.S. living beyond its means while not defending its manufacturing base and its middle class.

 - Ed Kyle

Excellent post!

Offline QuantumG

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #28 on: 04/27/2011 11:14 am »
you guys are so smart you forget what its like to be stupid.
[..]
none of it is accurate at all but it sounds good on the playground.

the average guy can name 30 football players and 1 astronaut. thats your audience.

Which is unfortunate but I'd hate to think anyone would suggest Elon censor himself lest someone in the audience form a low opinion of NASA.
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #29 on: 04/27/2011 11:18 am »

Which is unfortunate but I'd hate to think anyone would suggest Elon censor himself lest someone in the audience form a low opinion of NASA.


Again, what does NASA have to do with this?

Offline QuantumG

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #30 on: 04/27/2011 11:22 am »
Again, what does NASA have to do with this?

Nothing, but if you look at what was being said, the claim is that the audience doesn't know the difference.  So saying "I'll do it in 10 years" makes NASA look bad when they say anything longer.  I'm simply saying that even if that's true it's still not a good reason to silence Musk's ambition.
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline MATTBLAK

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #31 on: 04/27/2011 11:35 am »
We'll be lucky to have a glorified "Gemini on steroids" program with capsules ferrying people to/from LEO in 10 years.  Humans on Mars?  A laughable claim at this point.

In 10 to 12 years, the best we could hope for would be an Orion visit to a Near Earth Asteroid. And maybe 5 to 7 years after that, a crew of 3 or 4 Astronauts orbiting Deimos and snagging a couple capsules of regolith from Mars Sample Probes in Martian space. And even these are best-case scenarios if we consider we wont know what the heck the U.S. and other countries' economies will be like a decade from now.

I think we'll see Chinese Astronauts collecting lunar regolith and Apollo equipment as Souvenirs, sometime after 2020. And; we are already in the 'Gemini on Steroids' era - China and Russia fly capsules based on an old design. The U.S. wants to field a pair of capsules -- one reminiscent of Apollo and the other - Dragon - much like the old Corona spysat re-entry shape. And 'Dreamchaser': pretty much an 'HL-10 on steroids'.

But it doesn't bother me about the shape of the space jalopies, old and new. It's their MISSIONS that either inspire or bore me. No bucks; no Buck Rogers. At least the Space Shuttle was conceived in an era of BOLDNESS and the desire to try something (almost) completely new! Was Shuttle 'Dyna-Soar on steroids?' Maybe. But it built a massive Space Station and inspired kids to become Astronauts, Scientists and Engineers.

If the capsules and their (notional) attached propulsion stages, habitats and planetary landers make actual LANDFALL on the Moon, NEOs, Martian moons and Mars itself; what will THEY inspire?

People didn't CARE much about the shape of Vostok, Apollo, Shuttle and Soyuz. In their eras, it was their Missions that inspired people. That, and the folk who rode in them...
« Last Edit: 04/29/2011 07:09 am by MATTBLAK »
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Offline Cherokee43v6

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #32 on: 04/27/2011 05:08 pm »
Sorry this is way over the top for me.  I would prefer in the future less hype, and more concrete technical advancements.  It’s uncomforting your firm receiving millions of US taxpayer funds for crew designs, then to have this hype put out there.    Just remember SpaceX, you taking taxpayer funds for the R&D  of the crew module.   We the US tax payers own it! 

So in the future less is more….


As others have said, with its contracts with SpaceX, NASA is not buying 'ships', it is buying 'capabilities' or 'access' if you prefer.  Dragon is not a NASA craft, it is SpaceX's property, which it has the right to sell, rent, lease or exploit in any way it sees fit within the bounds of U.S. operational (FAA) and export (ITAR) laws.

Interestingly... a very quick and dirty back of the napkin calculation seems to indicate that SpaceX has about a 33% growth on its schedule projections... Taken in that light, SpaceX will be flying people in ~4 years and Mars missions in ~20-~25 years.

Oh, and GoSpaceX's comment about 'Billionaire Firsts' finally gave me a solid business case for some of these manned missions.  Advertising! 

"Falcon Rockets.  We send people around the Moon, where do you want your satellite?"

"Bigelow Sundancer.  It's been to Eros.  What might your company do with one?"

Race on Sunday, Sell on Monday!

In this kind of context Musk's mention of his plans and his track record so far of achieving what he talks about makes such statements seem within the realm of believability.
"I didn't open the can of worms...
        ...I just pointed at it and laughed a little too loudly."

Offline mr. mark

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #33 on: 04/27/2011 05:19 pm »
We are now about to enter the age of practical application. NASA over the many years has been the driving force for establishing new frontiers. Some of those frontiers such as LEO are now about to be exploited. For some of us it's hard to imagine space hotels and suborbital space tourism. It seems to cheapen our dreams of seeing spaceflight as a noble mission. But, maybe NASA was never a space program at all. Maybe, it was a space investment. An investment for a future of open space commerce and research.   
« Last Edit: 04/27/2011 05:23 pm by mr. mark »

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #34 on: 04/28/2011 02:02 pm »
That was a pretty positive statement.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline Danderman

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #35 on: 04/28/2011 02:26 pm »
One thing to consider: what if there were more than one SpaceX? What if 5 American companies arose, all like SpaceX, all aimed at developing space?

The reason that our national space effort has been going around in circles since the post-Apollo era, is precisely because we don't have those companies working at breakneck speed to compete with one another. What we need is at least one other company like SpaceX, and to make sure that the government doesn't compete with them.

Offline Downix

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #36 on: 04/28/2011 02:35 pm »
One thing to consider: what if there were more than one SpaceX? What if 5 American companies arose, all like SpaceX, all aimed at developing space?

The reason that our national space effort has been going around in circles since the post-Apollo era, is precisely because we don't have those companies working at breakneck speed to compete with one another. What we need is at least one other company like SpaceX, and to make sure that the government doesn't compete with them.
We did:
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Offline Cherokee43v6

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #37 on: 04/28/2011 07:18 pm »
One thing to consider: what if there were more than one SpaceX? What if 5 American companies arose, all like SpaceX, all aimed at developing space?

The reason that our national space effort has been going around in circles since the post-Apollo era, is precisely because we don't have those companies working at breakneck speed to compete with one another. What we need is at least one other company like SpaceX, and to make sure that the government doesn't compete with them.

Interestingly enough, I've been pondering a way to broach this subject.

There's lots of chatter on her by some folks about a 'CCDev Downselect', as if this were a traditional contract with only one 'winner'.

Everything official that I have read is 180 degrees out of phase with that idea.  The point isn't to create one winner, it is to enable a new industry.  As was said during the CCDev 2 press conference, the CCDev 1 and CCDev 2 awards were given to companies that best displayed viable concepts for the particular CCDev level's goals.  SpaceX got no money in CCDev 1, not because they weren't qualified, but because their current level of performance and internal capability was already at or beyond that particular level's demands.  Therefore the money was spread to companies that didn't already have SpaceX's level of advancement.

Think of NASCAR, it takes 43 cars to race at Daytona.  Due to various factors some have a better chance to win the race than others, but that is finally decided in competition.  However, NASCAR is responsible for making sure that the teams are all able and ready to make the field on raceday.

NASA is taking that role here, trying to ensure that not only will there be a commercial provider for Human LEO services, but that there will be competition in that market.  NASA won't 'downselect', teams will fail to achieve their goals and thus remove themselves from the field.
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Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #38 on: 04/28/2011 07:26 pm »
There will be a downselect.  NASA isn't going to fund 4 flight demonstrations or have contracts with 4 companies for crew to ISS.

Offline Prober

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Re: SpaceX less is more.
« Reply #39 on: 04/28/2011 08:14 pm »
There will be a downselect.  NASA isn't going to fund 4 flight demonstrations or have contracts with 4 companies for crew to ISS.

I've done alot more reading and reseach since i first posted this.

1) NASA should adopt the term "grant"

2) Many of the companies in my view were going for self funding for the tourist trade.  The downturn blew away many plans and to keep going many of these firms have turned to NASA for funds.

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