MSFC Director: Commercial Space should be serious about Huntsville

[Chris Bergin]

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/01/msfc-director-commercial-space-serious-huntsville/

Behave on this thread!

[Eric Hedman]

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/01/msfc-director-commercial-space-serious-huntsville/

Behave on this thread!

Chris, why possibly do you think people might misbehave on this topic?

[MATTBLAK]

Chances are...

[Longhorn John]

First two responses on here are pointless, so I'll add that I enjoyed that read. The new guy seems to be positive enough and he's right about what people think when they think NASA.

[sdsds]

Of course every center director must blow the horn of his center. But consider:

“To the public, NASA is mostly associated with putting people in space and the center that facilitates or enables that is the Marshall Space Flight Center.”

Doesn't KSC literally facilitate or enable putting people in space? Doesn't JSC? Why does Scheuermann think rhetoric that puts MSFC as "the" center doing this will go unchallenged? Has something happened to the party line of "ten healthy centers?"

[docmordrid]

Sounds almost a bit self-serving, as if they sense a loss of relevance & control.

[beancounter]

First two responses on here are pointless, so I'll add that I enjoyed that read. The new guy seems to be positive enough and he's right about what people think when they think NASA.

Could've sworn that the last bit of major publicity enjoyed by NASA concerned the Curiosity Rover, not HSF and therefore not this centre. 

[FinalFrontier]

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/01/msfc-director-commercial-space-serious-huntsville/

Behave on this thread!

Good article.

You would think it would surprise me, but......it doesn't.

MSFC are the way they are these days that's clearly never going to change. Its sad, but its true.

As for private industry I think most of them just don't care.

[mwfair]

I appreciated the reminder that MSFC is not planning on dealing with payloads consisting of large amounts of gold.  Reminded me of an earlier article on the subject:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/nasa-announces-plan-to-launch-700-million-into-spa,1950/

[ThereIWas3]

"SpaceX and Orbital Sciences are well on their way to providing that stop-gap"

I sorta don't think SpaceX thinks of themselves as being a stop-gap.

[yg1968]

Interestingly, SLS’ future does lack clarity past its first two missions, as NASA managers continue to suffer from what sources claim is political-level stalling, relating to the release of a definitive exploration roadmap.

Until sequester is resolved by Congress, I would expect more stalling by the adminsitration. Announcing a new exploration roadmap in the middle of the debate on sequester would make no sense. I would be surprised if anything is announced before the FY2014 budget.   

[Lars_J]

Shouldn't Huntsville/MSFC be more serious about commercial space instead?

[Peter NASA]

Marshall is a bit of a law unto itself, but the director is making the right noises.

[Chris Bergin]

Good article.

Thanks FF!

[Rocket Science]

I wish the new director luck in his new capacity. The private sector is aware of MSFC facilities and I’m curious if they will be interested or just take a pass...Time will tell...

[ThereIWas3]

Hasn't SpaceX actually hired people who used to work at MSFC?  They may be more interested in the people than the organization.

[Chris Bergin]

It's been less than a month since all four CCiCAP partners were in front of the cameras noting how much they are getting done at NASA facilities such as MSFC under reimbusable space act agreements.

[simonbp]

SpaceX had an SAA to do wind tunnel testing at MSFC. I'm not sure if it's still active.

But also, Huntsville's real advantage is the same as Boulder/Louisville, Colorado: it has a large pool of aerospace talent to hire or subcontract. MSFC really doesn't employ that many people (especially compared to the military half of Redstone), but between NASA, Army, and Missile Defense, they support a huge number of contractors and subcontractors. In a reduced funding future, MSFC can play off of this ('cause the Army ain't going away), while JSC and KSC really can't.

Stratolaunch is based in Huntsville for this reason, and their partner Dynetics is rapidly growing because of it. Also, there's Zero Point, which is doing much of the engineering work for Virgin Galactic's LauncherOne.

MSFC might not be on the firmest ground, but it's potentially a lot better off than either JSC or KSC...

[Warren Platts]

Huntsville's real advantage is the same as Boulder/Louisville, Colorado: it has a large pool of aerospace talent to hire or subcontract.

Only problem is that Huntsville is, well, Huntsville. Other things being equal, where would you rather live?

[Robotbeat]

I appreciated the reminder that MSFC is not planning on dealing with payloads consisting of large amounts of gold.

Actually, they could get up there and bring back 200 tonnes of gold per year and pay for the HSF program entirely....

that'd just be inflationary to the gold market. They could just fund NASA with producing fiat currency. They kind of do that already...

[zaitcev]

Only problem is that Huntsville is, well, Huntsville. Other things being equal, where would you rather live?

Huntsville, of course. Checked the prices of hangars at Centennial (KAPA) recently? And they say that economy is stagnating, hah.

P.S. I love FTG but it's far out in the boonies. It's like people in Bay Area who hangar at Tracy and Byron.

[mwfair]

I appreciated the reminder that MSFC is not planning on dealing with payloads consisting of large amounts of gold.

Actually, they could get up there and bring back 200 tonnes of gold per year and pay for the HSF program entirely....

First things first:
"This is an exciting opportunity to study the effect of a hard-vacuum, zero-gravity environment on $50 and $100 bills," said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin.   "This is just another step in our long-term goal to put $1 billion on Mars,"

[mduncan36]

Shouldn't Huntsville/MSFC be more serious about commercial space instead?

I think you've hit it on the head. Commercial space launch appears to be the most certain thing in a very uncertain field. Making references to Spacex et al as "stop gap" providers really jumped out at me.