[FPSPACE] Study backs COTS

Sun Feb 11 17:46:14 EST 2007

At 10:34 AM 03-02-07, DSFPortree at aol.com wrote:
>I think the point is that estimates of the kind we're discussing 
>aren't actually based on much. They serve to sell a program, but 
>then they are conveniently forgotten.
>
>CEV is at that stage now. Who knows what it will be like when (if) 
>it actually flies?

David,

Since I'm going to talk about my opinions and not just provide facts, 
let me take off my CSI hat, use my personal email address, and state 
up front that the following are my opinions alone and do not 
necessarily reflect CSI's corporate position.  But they are based on 
24+ years in the aerospace industry working on military, civil, and 
commercial projects, as well as 15+ years of personal support and 
advocacy for commercial space development.

I'm making no judgement about the accuracy of the projected CEV 
budget, or the viability of the program.  But you said there should 
be a backup plan to COTS ("Not that I think COTS is a bad idea, 
though of course we'd have to make sure we had a backup plan.").  My 
point is that COTS is itself the backup plan, as evidenced by NASA's 
budget and program announcements as compared to CEV's.  The "backup 
plan" for COTS should therefore simply be to fund more companies with 
a variety of technical approaches.

>US/Russian space cooperation involved politics, true, but then so 
>does everything. Integrating two different space programs ate up the savings.

The technical integration is not what ate up the "savings."  There 
have been many articles about what happened to some of the $, some 
even reported on this email list by Jim Oberg and others.

Additionally, it's interesting that one rarely hear's complaints 
about the costs of integrating the space programs of the other 14 or 
so counties that are the other ISS partners, e.g. the costs incurred 
for the RPOC Working Group in integrating ESA's ATV, JAXA's HTV, etc.

And somehow, the commercial airline manufacturing sector is able to 
successfully integrate programs across international lines, e.g. 
<http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA188848>

>  Working with private organizations through COTS, it seemed to me, 
> would be like creating another layer of bureaucracy and diffused 
> responsibility.

NASA purchases commercial launch services for its ELV missions right 
now, and quite successfully.  There does not seem to be "diffused 
responsibility" there.

>Myself, I'd rather NASA spent that $500 million on a robotic 
>exploration mission or two. COTS would have had little chance if the 
>ideological climate in DC hadn't been conducive to private 
>enterprise space projects whether they actually make sense or not.

The "the ideological climate" should have been in place at least 
since Launch Services Purchase Act of 1990, when NASA by law has had 
to start purchasing commercial launch services.

>  It could easily go away. We don't actually *need* COTS.

NASA has a future "need" for cargo to ISS, as evidenced by numerous 
ISS program presentations over the years.

The question is how should that need should be met.  The debate over 
the proper role of government has been going on since at least 
Plato's time, so I don't think it's going to get resolved in this email.

But the fact remains that NASA's interest in commercial services for 
providing this cargo have been evidenced in one way or another for 
over 6 years:

<http://www.crc.com/selvs.htm>
<http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=2467>
<http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=1543>
<http://www.fbodaily.com/cbd/archive/2000/10(October)/19-Oct-2000/asol003.htm>
<http://www.fbodaily.com/archive/2002/01-January/13-Jan-2002/FBO-00014074.htm>
<http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=564719&id=2&qs=Ntt%3Dalternate%252Baccess%252Bto%252Bstation%26Ntk%3Dall%26Ntx%3Dmode%2520matchall%26N%3D4294885443%26Ns%3DHarvestDate%257C0>
<http://www.fbodaily.com/archive/2004/09-September/17-Sep-2004/FBO-00674364.htm>
<http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=16030>

And more recently:

"But the Station is expensive to sustain, if we continue to rely upon 
a government-only approach to that effort. As I stated earlier this 
year, one strategy NASA will employ to meet our future needs is to 
utilize, to the fullest extent possible, commercially-developed cargo 
resupply and, ultimately, crew rotation capabilities for the 
International Space Station. Indeed, we will issue this fall a 
request for proposal for such capabilities, with the development to 
be done on a commercial basis, much like that in the commercial 
communications satellite market. This is a priority for NASA. 
Utilizing the market offered by the International Space station's 
requirements for cargo and crew will spur true competition in the 
private sector, will result in savings that can be applied elsewhere 
in the program, and will promote further commercial opportunities in 
the aerospace sector"
<http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1059>

and

"Government agencies do not generate profits, and should not, since 
we should never compete with private industry. When technology 
reaches a point that an activity can become profitable, as 
communication satellites did or as many functions once performed 
exclusively by the U.S. Postal Service have, the activity should be 
performed by private industry. ... Most of the nation's economy is 
driven by commercial rather than government interests, and I believe 
that most of us are thankful for that. In that context, NASA's 
announcement that its preferred approach to meeting ISS logistics 
requirements would be through commercial purchases can hardly be 
considered "non- traditional". The vast majority of our economy is 
fueled by such commercial transactions ... A measure of NASA's 
success in carrying out the exploration of space is the extent to 
which we architect the program to help create a viable commercial 
space industry, which we can then leverage to obtain increased 
efficiency in achieving our own goals."
<http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=23012>

Does NASA "need" COTS to deliver that cargo?  Maybe not.  Maybe 
NASA-badged employees could design, build, and operate every single 
piece of space equipment to deliver cargo to ISS, and for CEV, and 
for every single science mission NASA launches, too.  With apologies 
for the list readers in other countries for being U.S.-centic here, I 
wonder would that be what ***the U.S.***, with an economy that the 
NASA Administrator acknowledges is driven primarily by private 
enterprise, really "needs"?

This is a question the U.S. has struggled with since the dawn of the 
Space Age.  But my thoughts on this can best be summarized by what 
Ralph J. Cordiner, Chairman of the Board of the General Electric 
Company said in his lecture "Competitive Private Enterprise in Space" 
at UCLA on 4 May 1960:

"Will the drive for space push mankind into a steel trap of 
regimentation, or will it open up new vistas of creativity and 
freedom?  Will the new, larger world of the future, with its 
boundaries moving out to the other planets and beyond, be a free 
world or a regimented world?  The answer to this question, the 
heritage we leave our children, will be determined to a large degree 
by how the United States -- the world's leading industrial nation -- 
goes about the exploration and development of space.  If we go at it 
by the route of regimentation and government enterprise, if we allow 
the communist powers to establish our course, patterns will be set 
that will be almost impossible to break.  On the other hand, if we 
use the strength of competitive private enterprise, we will not only 
develop faster, but will help to assure that the world of our 
children will be a free world, honoring the dignity and creativity of man."

I think history unfortunately shows that the U.S. took the wrong path 
in human spaceflight.  Compare the current status of commercial 
communications satellites -- where NASA was forbidden by law from 
playing a dominating role -- that are so ubiquitous that viewers 
around the world don't know or care that satellites are involved in 
their ability to watch the big game (be it the Super Bowl, World Cup, 
etc. as one tiny example) vs. the relative handful of people that 
have been to space themselves, the overwhelming majority of them 
being government employees.  I haven't looked that the actual 
statistics, but I'd guess that, ironically, more private citizens 
from Russia -- employees of RSC Energia -- have probably been to 
space than from the U.S.

At 10:31 AM 04-02-07, DSFPortree at aol.com wrote:
>NASA should spend its limited funding on projects that don't offer 
>immediate commercial return - exploration and development of 
>advanced technologies. These are likely to yield commercial return 
>in the future, though that's not guaranteed, which is why government 
>should assume the risk of doing them.

I agree that NASA should push the envelope where private enterprise 
can not or will not (and part of that problem could be cured by 
non-technical solutions like tax policy).

But the key issue in delivery of cargo to ISS is not "development of 
advanced technologies", it is NASA's actual purchase of those services.

>Re: insurance, it's more complex than you've made out. How are you 
>going to cover an accident that kills NASA astronauts and destroys 
>NASA equipment to the tune of billions? It becomes NASA's 
>responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen, which means 
>oversight, which means more organizational complexity and cost. All 
>so our tax dollars can subsidize a service we don't need.

Certainly the issue of insurance is more complex that I can lay out 
in a short email.  But ultimately NASA faces these very risks 
themselves when their own vehicles, or their partners, go to ISS.  A 
solution for "less complexity" would be to eliminate *all* vehicles 
going to ISS, but some how I don't think that would help the ISS program.

Ben

"Space Is A Place, Not A Program"
<http://www.space-frontier.org/OtherVoices/19580608spaceisaplace.html>  