The Role Of The Goverment

Recently I've been pondering the purpose of government spending on human spaceflight. My own politics typically preempt me from such thoughts as I honestly do believe that taxes should not be collected to fund non-essential services. However, I pride myself on being able to set aside my own ideology and think like others, in the hope of learning more about their motivations and possibly even understanding their actions.

With that disclaimer out of the way, what is the legitimate role of government in human spaceflight?

In general, the government should not compete with private industry. For example, if there is domestic production of cars, it is wrong for the government to set up their own car shops. Whatever goal the government is trying to achieve by doing such can almost certainly be better served through regulation or incentives. It's wrong because of the effect it would have on the industry. With the power of the treasury behind it, the government can sell cheaper or invest more in research to make a more attractive product, and while it's true that this would appear to be a public good at first, the resulting elimination in choice as the commercial providers go out of business will inevitably lead to stagnated innovation. Without the profit incentive, all providers fail to respond to consumer demands.

As such, the government should make the fullest use of existing private industry, and encourage the development of more industry that is in the public interest. For example, when launching payloads to orbit, it would be wrong for the government to build their own rocket - or contract someone else to build one for them - if there are already rockets on the market that can serve the purpose. Furthermore, the government should plan their payloads around the capacity that is available and offer incentives for industry to improve their capabilities in the future.

In order to avoid crony capitalism, the government should use competitive bidding and punish price collusion. The government should encourage providers to create products that have customers other than the government and not place unique demands on providers - or at least, such demands should be temporary. When it is in the public interest, the government should allow providers to fail and encourage the healthy functioning of the market.

Ultimately then, what is left for government to do but hand out money to private industry and ensure it is competitive and healthy? Assuming you believe the government should be spending tax dollars, is this just "stimulus" we're talking about?

I think a lot of people see a greater role for government funded human spaceflight than just stimulus. If you agree that government should be involved whenever something is in the public interest but not in the, often short sighted, commercial interest then stimulus is probably enough, but even I see a greater role for government than this.

I often hear claims that human spaceflight is about "research" or "science" that private industry is unable (or unwilling) to do because the return on investment is not immediately apparent. To me, these claims always ring hollow as so much space research is or could be done without humans. Of course, everything I've said thus far could also be applied to robotic spaceflight but it often is already. The situation with human spaceflight seems to be somewhat different.

To me, the goal of human spaceflight has always been obvious. This may surprise some people as I regularly solicit answers to "the why question" and I never seem terribly inspired by the answers I get. The purpose of human spaceflight is to open a new frontier. I have become aware that many people don't know what this means so I will put it more crudely: the purpose of human spaceflight is to find more lands to conquer so that we don't end up weeping like Alexander the Great.

Rather than being uninspiring, some people find this answer outright distasteful. I believe this is because they think of conquering people. So far as we know, the only people in space are the six expedition crew members of the ISS, and no-one is talking about conquering them. I submit that the very first lands which humans occupied, which never before had been occupied, were conquered. I don't know why we can talk about "conquering challenges" but we can't talk about conquering space. It's the same thing, breaking through our limits to increase our sphere of influence.

Space is an especially harsh environment to conquer. It is a grand challenge as JFK described it, but I disagree that this is a reason to do it. To me, that was just a cold war way to say stimulus. The public good created by human spaceflight is the opening of a new frontier. It is a gift of opportunity that we give to the next generation.

Final thought: there are other organizations that reject the commercial interest to act in the public interest. And then we have people like Elon Musk, Bob Bigelow, Jeff Bezos and others, who act both in the commercial interest and in the greater public interest. The frontier doesn't have to be opened by a government space program but, if you've got one, at least give it the right goal.

Page 113

I'm currently reading "Choice Not Fate" by James A. Vedda, Ph.D. It's a dry volume of 201 pages that rambles from historic interpretation to beltway praise for inane space policy and regularly promises the reader discussion on side points in later chapters that never come. On page 113 the author finally gets around to saying what I believe the entire book is actually about.

In the future, NASA must be prepared to make judgments that will be interpreted as endorsements of particular companies or technical paths serving space markets, such as who receives government assistance and who doesn't. This places NASA in the position of making industrial policy decisions on who gets to develop space infrastructure and resources.

Jesus, really? Up until this point I took the author's constant negative references to partisanship as a distaste to politics and assumed he had no particular leaning, way to yank the veil back dude. Now I have to consider whether not I should finish reading this pinko trash.

Update: Well, I made it to page 139 and after telling us why eliminating aging and the invention of teleporters might have unexpected side-effects (gee, ya think?) Dr Vedda introduces the reader to the travesty of ITAR restrictions as they related to the space industry. He explains that these laws were extended from just guns and bombs to anything that may have a "duel-use" (sic). Ok, so it's just a typo right? If it is, it's one he makes multiple times. I guess the state department is afraid of a return to "satellites at 100 paces" :)

Update: I finished it. Overall I agree with the message of this book: the industrialization of space has and will continue to improve the lives of people on Earth. So if you know someone who has the same political leaning as the author, I'd recommend this book to them.

They All Laughed At Christopher Columbus

"I didn't expect to be ridiculed,
for trying our best to change the world."
- Gary Hudson

My review of this book has been picked up by
Moonandback, you can read it over there.

We Need Technology Development

It seems pretty obvious that we don't currently have the technology to become a spacefaring civilization. Certainly there is stuff in space we could be doing using existing technology, and with great expense, but to really begin the human utilization and colonization of space we need a large variety of technological innovations.

Jon Goff gave a great list of short term technologies that need to be developed before we can really consider society to be spacefaring.





This should be the start of the story.

Charlie Bolden, Worst NASA Administrator Ever?

Gah! He's telling you the answer and you still can't answer the question.

How COTS-D Was Killed

Lest we forget, under Mike Griffin NASA awarded to SpaceX an option in their Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract to develop a crew transport capability. The Space Act Agreement looked like this:

Milestone	Payment
Project Management Plan Review and Crew Demo 1 System Requirements Review	$27,420,000
Financing D1	$10,000,000
Crew Demo 1 System Preliminary Design Review	$22,420,000
Crew Demo 2 System Requirements Review	$25,420,000
Crew Demo 1 Critical Design Review	$20,420,000
Crew Demo 2 System Preliminary Design Review	$20,420,000
Crew Demo 1 Demonstration Readiness Review	$20,420,000
Crew Demo 3 System Requirements Review	$25,420,000
Financing 2D	$10,000,000
Crew Demo 2 Critical Design Review	$18,420,000
Crew Demo 3 System Preliminary Design Review	$20,420,000
Crew Demo 1 Mission	$15,420,000
Crew Demo 2 Demonstration Readiness Review	$18,420,000
Crew Demo 3 Critical Design Review	$18,420,000
Crew Demo 2 Mission	$8,420,000
Crew Demo 3 Demonstration Readiness Review	$18,420,000
Crew Demo 3 Mission	$8,420,000
Total	$308,300,000

As with all the COTS milestones, SpaceX would not have received these payments until the milestone was completed. The finance milestones were required to demonstrate that SpaceX could fund and complete all the milestones without using the payments from NASA as "seed money".

The COTS-D option was never activated. You may even hear some people at NASA say that it was never "funded", this is wrong. The final nail in the coffin of COTS-D came in the form of an intriguing exchange between Sen. Bill Nelson and then acting NASA Administrator Chris Scolese. Here's the relevant part of the long transcript.

Senator Nelson. In last year's authorization bill, there was guidance to NASA about COTS-D Space Act agreements to develop a U.S. commercial alternative to Soyuz. We authorized $150 million in funding for COTS-D. I noticed that you are
putting $150 million of stimulus funds toward the Commercial Crew and Cargo program, but not actually initiating COTS-D agreements. Why are you not initiating these Space Act agreements?

Mr. Scolese. Well, we are working the commercial program as you defined. There was cargo on it. We have those two contracts with SpaceX and Orbital to do cargo. We had one for COTS-D. I cannot recall a specific--$150 million to go on to COTS-D. We did this year in the stimulus identify $150 million to stimulate a commercial activity, and it is broken into two pieces: $70 million to go off and develop capabilities that any visiting vehicle would need, including commercial vehicles, and that includes developing the human space flight rating requirements, the requirements that you need to be certified for human space flight. As you well know, we build human spacecraft and design them so infrequently that we have to write those requirements down. So part of this is to make those available to everybody, make them understandable to everybody, and that will help not only the commercial providers broadly, but all of us. And then $80 million to stimulate activity for a commercial crew.

[recess for a vote]

Senator Nelson. I want to go back to the question that I had asked you earlier. You described the breakdown of how you intend to program $150 million for Commercial Crew and Cargo. Instead of putting the dollars into the various component pieces that would enable crew capability, would it not make more sense just to invest that in a milestone-based demonstration flight?

Mr. Scolese. We discussed that, and we believe that we need to take a measured approach to developing commercial crew. As you know, again it is a very difficult prospect to develop a crewed vehicle to carry crews safely to and from space, let alone rendezvous and dock with the Space Station. So we are working a measured development where we work progressively from developing the capability to get into space, to conduct the rendezvous and docking with the Space Station, to crew rescue, which can be done without having to worry about crew escape,
all the way up to carrying crew. That is the philosophy that we are working to achieve. To do that, we needed to do some things that broadly help the community that wants to do this, as I mentioned earlier, about developing clear and concise specs and standards so that we can safely put our crew on those vehicles. And further, I think you have seen the annual report of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel that had some questions about the detail of our human rating requirements. So that is all part of what we are trying to accomplish, and we believe that will get us a commercial crew capability quicker and safer than if we were to just go off and suggest that we fund a capability.

Senator Nelson. But that was not what the legislation said. The legislation said that $150 million was funding for COTS-D. In this case, you would not even have to pay until the COTS-D partner was able to successfully demonstrate that capability. Is that not right?

Mr. Scolese. It would be dependent upon how we structured it. Of course, we wanted to maximize competition for the vehicle. As you know, there is only one COTS-D provider.

Senator Nelson. Well, when I say "you," I am referring to NASA, and you were not the Acting Administrator at the time. This is an example of where NASA has not followed the legislation. Now, let me ask you this. Would $150 million be enough to demonstrate that capability?

Mr. Scolese. We would have to look at it, but I do not think so, sir.

Senator Nelson. Well, what do you think it would be?

Mr. Scolese. I would have to get back to you on that, but it would be several times that, I would expect, because recall, we have to develop not only the crew portion of it. We have to develop the life support systems, the launch escape systems, the recovery systems. All of those have to be developed and demonstrated, and $150 million does not seem enough to do that.

Senator Nelson. We had a unique opportunity, if NASA had listened and followed the law, we had a unique opportunity this year between the 2009 operating plan and the additional funds provided by the stimulus bill and the development of the 2010 budget to craft a COTS-D plan that would have funded the program at the level that the folks needed. That path was not pursued. NASA did not obey the law. Again, I am not saying it to you because you are the Acting Administrator since January 20, but I want to point this out that sometimes NASA does not want itself to be helped. We have got to get our act together.

And that was the last opportunity for COTS-D. Had NASA obeyed the law and provided the $150M that was allocated in the FY09 budget, SpaceX could have started COTS-D and completed the first seven milestones. When the $150M in stimulus money came in SpaceX would have been on much better footing to claim part of it. Instead, Sen Shelby was able to divert $100M to the development of Ares I, a vehicle that was later scheduled to be cancelled prompting him to insert language into law prohibiting NASA from doing that. Of the remaining $50M, SpaceX received none.

The official position of NASA seems to be that the CCDev program has replaced COTS-D. SpaceX has put in a bid for the new round, which NASA has been prohibited from starting due to the failure of Congress to pass a budget for FY11. Should SpaceX be successful, they intend to start work on the launch abort system which will also allow the Dragon spacecraft to land vertically on land. While I have been assured that the CCDev program will be "milestone based" like COTS, I still have my doubts that it will capture the simplicity of the COTS-D option.

New Space Music Video

An idea that has been bouncing around in my head for a few years..



Great to finally get it out.