SpaceX Vies With Boeing as NASA’s Taxi to Station | Hacker News Reader

SpaceX Vies With Boeing as NASA’s Taxi to Station

bloomberg.com

97 pointsdavelnewton49 comments

The most interesting part to me is that congressional support has increased for funding more than one venture in case one runs into technical difficulties (now that the Soyuz option is ending).

“The Russians have done NASA a favor in terms of funding,” Caceres said.

Unfortunately, one of the ventures - Boeing's one - is still currently somewhat dependent on Russia. They're doing their testing and integration work with the Atlas V which uses Russian-supplied RD-180 engines that Russia are probably no longer willing to sell. They have enough of a stockpile for a couple of years, but it'll take longer than that just to reach the point where the CST-100 can carry people. They were supposedly intending to support other launchers at a later stage in the project, but don't currently.

I think Putin's little war with the West is going to have massive gains for the US spaceflight. Whatever doubts we had about doing business with his regime have now been solidified. I don't think NASA will ever put itself in a position where it requires another nation's permission to get into space. This can only mean good things for the continued funding of the SLS.

Also, other boneheaded moves like ULA standardizing on a Russian made engine will be strongly discouraged. Being self-sufficient is the only sane move as petty autocrats like Putin will take their ball and run home if they feel their ego isn't being stroked enough.

> I think Putin's little war with the West is going to have massive gains for the US spacefligt

Did I miss something or did everyone just forget that it's the United States that started that 'little war', wrt. space flight?

Could you elaborate on how the 'little war' was started? I would say it started when Crimea became a part of Russia, which was not an act of the United States.

Russia didn't invade Crimea out of the blue. From Russia's perspective the start this whole thing is closer to when the US helped overthrow Ukraine's government and was actually caught on tape micro-managing some of the government transition[1].

Imagine what the US would do if, for instance, Russia were to help overthrow Mexico's elected government and install parties friendly to its own interests in their place.

1. http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2014/...

I meant the politicizing of space aspect. After Putin annexed Crimea, it was NASA that basically said "hey, we don't like what you're doing with Ukraine, so from now on, we're not going to space together". It's only after that Russia decided not to sell rocket engines to US anymore.

Personally, I suspect that some politician pushed NASA to do this as a cheap popularity shot. But regardless, it's the US that escalated Ukraine into spaceflight business, so it's not fair to accuse Putin of politicizing space.

Heck, I learned about that NASA stunt here, on HN. People seem to have a really, really short memory.

EDIT: for a simple proof and a reminder, just HN-search for "NASA Russia" and "Russia engines".

- 5 months ago NASA suspends work with Russia over involvement in Ukraine (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7517679)

- 4 months ago Russia Bans Rocket Engine Sales to U.S. Military (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7740033)

Does anyone know how Musk plans to address the lack of Mars' magnetosphere? [1]

As much as I am rooting for him, I don't see how a long term colony is possible without addressing this problem. If we're going to live in underground, shielded habitats, why not just build space colonies and/or Moon colonies?

Furthermore, I don't think we're going to get very far in space manufacturing without a high energy density power source (e.g. fusion).

As such, shouldn't Elon be advocating for increased research funding for fusion?

1. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/as...

> Furthermore, I don't think we're going to get very far in space manufacturing without a high energy density power source (e.g. fusion).

Care to elaborate on this point?

The lack of a magnetosphere is a problem on geological time scales (thousands to millions of years) after terraforming. Mars is a great place for human life because it has soil, water, metals and gravity (though earth is far better).

We already have a gigantic fusion reactor at the centre of the Solar system. All you need to do to power manufacturing in space is find ways of harnessing that energy.

The companion piece is also on Netflix http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=80005608

I watched it a few nights ago and it was pretty good. It was cool to see each of the vehicles/capsules, their insides, and the facilities that are building them. Definitely recommend watching.

If I were NASA, I'd pick SpaceX and Sierra Nevada and here's why:

Boeing CST100 is the most conventional of all the 3 designs. It's probably the 'safest' bet but also the most expensive to operate. This is because it still requires an Atlas or Delta rocket to launch. Atlas is likely out because its russian-sourced motors are currently out of fashion. That leaves Delta; which is the most expensive of the currently available launchers. Also, CST100 uses a traditional 'SplashDown' recovery that requires a flotilla of helicopter-capable naval ships to be on standby for every mission. This is not cheap. That said, I'm sure it will work as-designed and will be fairly reliable. But all this comes at a cost; and IMO if NASA are smart, they can get more functionality for less money from the other providers.

Lets see: SpaceX has the advantage of using their own launchers. These were already much cheaper than Atlas and Delta, but soon we're promised that they'll be reusable. This can slash the cost by a further factor of 10 again. Such possibilities are hard to ignore. Furthermore, the Dragon2 capsule does not require a naval recovery and can land on a simple slab of concrete anywhere you'd like. There are other fringe benefits too... Dragon2 is re-usable, you could potentially just refuel it, put it back on another rocket and launch it again within a few days. Also, Dragon2 uses a novel pusher-type launch-escape-system that's integrated into the capsule instead of being jettissoned on each launch. These things add up to considerable savings. NASA would be foolish not to choose SpaceX as one of their 2 choices... Price-wise, SpaceX is probably the cheapest of the 3, however the risks are fairly high; there's a lot of new tech that needs to be proven. But the potential rewards are so high and SpaceX's track-record of acheiving their promises is so stellar, that NASA surely must give them a shot.

That leaves SierraNevada. They're kinda the wildcard in this competition. They have this wacky spaceplane that looks like it came from the 60s. If you ask any astronauts which one they'd pick, I bet they'd all say SierraNevada. Why? Astronauts are often test-pilots. Test pilots like to fly things. This is the only one that can be 'piloted' in the traditional sense of the word (with wings and surfaces). It has several advantages: Easy and fast recovery; just land on any runway. Reusability; no need to build a new one each time. Pusher-style LES. Also, it just looks plain cool. And it has one big disadvantage: It's designed to launch on the currently-unfashionable AtlasV rocket. If SierraNevada can convert this thing to launch on a Delta or a Falcon, I think they'll have a good enough price advantage over CST100 to make them the 2nd-choice after SpaceX.

Having said all this... space hardware gets built on the whims of politicians. Even with the best planning, there's still a good chance that some politician will point at the pork-barrel and fuck it all up.

> If SierraNevada can convert this thing to launch on a Delta or a Falcon

The Dragon is much lighter than the Dream Chaser. For arguably the same mission profile (land anywhere). The only advantage the Dream Chaser has over the Dragon 2 is that it does not need to use the launch abort rockets to land. Depending on how well their heat shields hold up, relaunching them can really be a simple operation.

If I were NASA, I would actually pick Boeing for exactly the reasons you would disqualify them. They have a fairly proven, safe solution that could get astronauts into orbit and back. It would be expensive per launch, but since it is all proven technology; it should be done on time and on schedule.

In addition to NASA, I would select SpaceX as they have promising technology to reduce the cost. By funding them, it would basically be buying an option on having a reduced cost solution to replace the Boeing solution if it actually pans out.

SNC is probably a bit to far out to take as seriously as SpaceX or Boeing.

You're right... NASA probably would value stability and reliability over cost-effectiveness every time.

But then again... I think they're hurting for money; SLS is proving much more expensive than planned. And they have a lot of project managers who remember the Shuttle Era when it cost upwards of 600million per mission to launch the thing. These guys are super keen to avoid a repeat of this situation again if at all possible. SLS is already going to cost around the same per mission due to its reduced launch rate. The commercial-crew program was supposed to provide 'cheap' access to LEO; If NASA is forced to buy Delta4 Heavies for each CST100 mission, the cost is gonna be almost as much as shuttle/SLS!

So if NASA were smart and daring, they'd choose SpaceX and SierraNevada and save mountains of cash... but NASA being NASA, they'll probably choose Boeing and be forced into paying through the nose for launches for another 30 years.

So stability and reliability do relate to cost-effectiveness. Every time a shuttle or other vehicle fails catastrophically, the program is delayed and costs increase.

Similarly, if SpaceX and SNC can't deliver, you end up with no capability.

A Falcon Heavy has as much lift as a Delta IV Heavy. I wonder how much the cost would be to modify the CST system for a Falcon Heavy.

The right answer is they should fund all three. That was the intention of the program from the beginning. This would likely look like two full awards and one "half" award that would be more of a technology development effort. The reasons are three-fold.

1) Cost savings. If you look at the joint strike fighter as an example, as long as Boeing and Lockheed were both in the game costs for the program were historically low. Both companies built and flew prototype aircraft for $750 million each. That's crazy cheap. It was only after down-selecting to a single aircraft that the costs of the program ballooned out of control, because that's how defense contractors play the game when they have no competition. NASA's Ares and Orion programs, by contrast, were contracted out to various single winners from the beginning, who quickly ran up the tab.

2) Backups. In case one runs into technical difficulties, NASA will simply order more of one of the other companies. If you have a single winner, any kind of incident with either the launcher or the spacecraft will mean a stand-down of US human access to space for months, not years.

3) Variety of capability. Multiple winners means a variety of designs, differing capabilities, and a larger variety of technologies developed that might be useful for future spacecraft. E.g. SNC's horizontal landing.

Source: I had a hand in the initial design of the program.

NASA need to pay to both - to Boeing to keep it happy and avoid its destructive meddling with the real deal - SpaceX. Paying a racket fee to Boeing will be very wise thing in the long run.

Where did the 'Mars' in the title come from? This is to get to the ISS and back, not to Mars.

edit: thanks mods!

I guess from Musk quotes, “The reason I haven’t taken SpaceX public is the goals of SpaceX are very long-term, which is to establish a city on Mars,” Musk, 43, told reporters at a Sept. 8 briefing in Tokyo.

That quote is irrelevant. I agree with the guy you are quoting. This article doesn't make any sense and I assume the author wasn't supposed to mention Mars.

Agree that this bit isn't relevant to the title, but MAN, I wish politicians had this sort of longterm vision in mind. But I suppose Musk, being the CEO, is politically like a benevolent dictator of SpaceX, so he can afford to plan longterm :)

The political environment all but makes it impossible. Can you imagine a congressman or senator going out on a limb to fund a 10-15 year project that starts with three failed launches? God forbid one of their employees donated to that congressperson's campaign, Issa would have the CEO in front of a committee and in front of the cameras within the week..

This is perhaps the major argument for monarchies, or republics that are less attuned to "the mob", i.e. the masses. If you want long term thinking, don't attach political power to a vote by "everyone" every 2-6 years.

Following that line of thought, it is actually a major argument for dictatorships. After all, they can command a whole country to operate towards some single unified goal.

If fewer voters is better than 0 voters is optimal!

A nice illustration is that most open source projects that are based on democracy are always torn apart by inner power plays but those that have a 'benevolent dictator' seem to flourish.

Of course, removing accountability means that much more often than not, the single unified goal is 'the value of my Swiss bank account'...

Is much harder to fork a country if the dictator goes nuts.

Of course, we shouldn't be surprised that the other extreme is also bad, if not worse. Especially since "dictatorship" as it's used excludes monarchical systems, in some cases fairly absolute, but that include formally passing on the reign to one's heirs,

I'm quite uncertain how useful it is to observe systems like open source projects where the stakes are so very low compared to governing a polity.

The extreme of dictatorship says nothing about the middle, such as a republic with a limited franchise (e.g. own land or pay a hefty poll tax), or adding other types of bodies to government. Such as the US Senate back when its members were picked by state legislatures, or a power sharing arrangement between a monarch and a legislative body or three, like the U.K. of long ago.

I have always thought that a benevolent dictatorship would be the best form of government. The trouble is that word, "benevolent," and how to deal with it when (not if) the dictator goes off his rocker.

Or simply dies. Then you get a power vacuum and the replacement dictator is rarely as benevolent as the one preceding.

See Singapore for the best exponent of this argument (with all its pros and cons).

Hmmm, Singapore is another example of a "middle", although rather far in the direction of "dictatorship". Not sure if we've seen much of it before the 20th Century, then again they're a modern form of oligarchy.

It's definitely not the best exponent of what I was trying to get across, but I didn't say all that much initially. At least when they're not fighting wars, or are degenerate cases like the Saudi royal "family" (15,000 members, 2,000 with wealth and power per Wikipedia), there tend to be limits to their rapaciousness. Much less so with traditional oligarchies.

Unfortunately I don't expect bloomberg headline writers to care about the difference, there is a quote about mars in the article so they put mars in the title. Remember it is normally very hard for the press to tell the difference between the ISS and Mars either before or after several pints of lunch.

Looks like the bloomberg title has been fixed, but the HN link title hasn't (URL though still says Mars).

It's changed now. At least on the bloomberg site.

Offtopic: Conventional wisdom says he who chases two rabbits, captures none.

How is Elon Musk able to succeed on more than one Company?

Even Steve Jobs is famous for focus. He once said, "I'm as proud of what we don't do as I am of what we do."

For that I think we have to study Elon's brain when he is free from his ventures. His trajectory looks like of a perfect brain/mind that never fails to delivery even in extreme pressures. By the way he also has photographic memory so that helps.

> trajectory looks like [...] perfect

Those are the important words. Never underestimate how much luck and chance factor into success, being in the right place at the right time and so on. Musk has done well, but studies show that corporate success only very loosely correlated with CEO skills (30%) and mostly luck.

So, no, he's not a super-man with a perfect brain, although I expect you'd still have a hard time persuading him to part with it for 'study' ;)

Usually the key is being able to find people who share your vision and are able to execute it without you needing to micromanage or devote a huge chunk of your time to that one venture. I'd argue that if that's how he's done it then that's his greatest success, even more so than SpaceX or Tesla. Because it can be very difficult to find those people.

I can't tell if you're trolling. Steve Jobs was CEO of two companies at once: Pixar and Apple.

And before that, Pixar and NeXT.

Steve Jobs was not heavily involved with Pixar like Elon was with his other companies.

Pixar Myth No. 5: Steve Jobs Ran Pixar

http://alvyray.com/pixar/PixarMyth5.htm

Conventional wisdom is simply wrong in certain cases.

He has lots of carrots and a big net.

Other than chalking it up to Elon being an absurdly talented superhuman, I'd venture a guess that these industries move at a slower pace. The ground shifts every day on the web, which means day to day leadership is crucial. I'd imagine during the longer development cycles of these companies that he can tune out for extended periods of time without development going astray - especially in areas where his input isn't crucial.

Just some conjecture..

it isn't 2 rabbits. It is one rabbit of advancing our civilization. Musk stated his pretty coherent vision something like 20+ years ago.

Lot of CEOs run only "one company" which encompass a wider variety of activities and products than SpaceX + Tesla.

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