Commercial Space and Why Are We Doing It?

[rdale]

Poweproint : http://spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon/McAlister_11-7-12/McAlister_11-7-12.pdf

Audio recording : http://spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon/McAlister_11-7-12/McAlister.mp3

November 7, 2012
Philip McAlister
NASA HQ, HEOMD

[dcporter]

Thanks much. I didn't realize that the SpaceX "on-land" landing (parachutes + SDs at last second + legs) was an official goal! Exciting.

[mr. mark]

One thing I noticed was the 3rd slide about Early Space Age versus the Commercial Age. Did not know we had officially transitioned to a new "age".

[edkyle99]

One thing I noticed was the 3rd slide about Early Space Age versus the Commercial Age. Did not know we had officially transitioned to a new "age".

The Commercial Space Age began during the 1980s, when NASA stopped handling commercial satellite launches - at least on the launch side.  Non government-owned commercial satellites first flew during the 1960s.

 - Ed Kyle

[JohnFornaro]

To the OP: Why? In order to make a buck...

[yg1968]

Interesting presentation. Some key points mentionned by McAlister:

-McAlister mentionned that he didn't think that SAAs would be a good model for BLEO exploration given the level of technical difficulty of reaching BLEO and the fact that there is no market for BLEO.     
-He said that they hadn't yet decided if the final development work would be done as part of the CCiCap optional milestones period or as part of phase 2 of certification.
-He said that they wanted to keep competition going as long as possible. So they didn't yet know how downselection would be done. The downselection will also depend on what kind of budget they have.
-He said that they expected the non-NASA market to be small in the beginning but to grow with time.
-He mentionned that the skin in the game was smaller for commercial crew than COTS but that this was expected.
-He mentionned that if Musk developed a capability for BLEO with his own money, NASA would likely find a way to use that capability.

[A_M_Swallow]

Interesting presentation. Some key points mentionned by McAlister:

-McAlister mentionned that he didn't think that SAAs would be a good model for BLEO exploration given the level of technical difficulty of reaching BLEO and the fact that there is no market for BLEO.     
{snip}

Cost plus can use milestones every 2 or 3 months.  Problem areas self highlight because the milestone exceeds the time and cost estimates.  During the project extra milestones will be needed to pay for solving any problems discovered.  The resulting estimated total cost and time increases can be updated every 6 months.

No market.  If NASA sends 2 or 3 commercial supply missions to an EML-1/2 spacestation or Moon base then it has created a (small) market.

[yg1968]

He meant no market outside of NASA. But I agree with you. He also said that perhaps NASA will find new ways of using commercial companies once the ISS is deorbited. I think that he meant other LEO missions.

[A_M_Swallow]

We need some commercial lunar miners to buy items from the Earth.