For the past two-thirds of a century, we let space be run by governments, and all we got was what governments wanted. The dreams of the 1940s turned into the ideas of the 1950s, sometimes as seen on Disney, and they turned into the plans of the 1960s, in part as seen with NASA’s Apollo Applications Program. Then Congress and Nixon had their say, and the plans turned into the disappointed expectations of the 1980s, with the failure of the Space Shuttle program (not low cost, not high launch cadence, and it convinced NASA and Congress that reusability was not the future, leading to the non-reusable Constellation and SLS programs).

When We the People got involved in space, privatizing it, we made great things happen, things that government thought were impossible or not worth doing. Peter Diamandis’s X Prize emphasized low cost through reusability, and now one company is reusing a large portion of its launch vehicles and spacecraft, and others are working on reusabilty. We the People got serious about low cost and reusability where governments didn’t.

When we let government run space, all we got was what government wanted. Now that we are starting to run things, we are starting to get what we want, and a large number of space habitats in the coming decade, performing a number of services, is one of the things that we want.

Take seriously Robert’s essays on freedom. Falcon is not the only example of how freedom allows us to innovate and improve on things that seem impossible to improve upon. A favorite cautionary tale of how seemingly beneficial government guidance (interference) can be a terrible idea is:

The French once had a policy that prevented its vintners from modifying their processes, because France had the world’s best wines, and they didn’t want anything to change that standing. In 1976 France held a contest between French and California wines. California didn’t restrict its vintners — they were free to innovate — and California’s wines had become superior to France’s. What a difference policy makes!

The distinction between American governance and the governance of other parts of the world is subtle, but the difference in results is astounding. Some people who comment here have a hard time understanding this, thinking that their own systems are equal or even superior — or at the least not in need of improvement (‘I like it here’ is a paraphrase of one commenter).

Freedom to innovate, competition that drives innovation and efficiency, and profits that reward successful improvements in quality, availability, and price are why free market capitalist countries prosper so much more and so much faster than those that are not as free. With a small policy change to rely more on free market capitalist entrepreneurs rather than government directed suppliers, we are now seeing this rapid increase in prosperity in the space industry. What a difference policy makes!

Commercial space’s Falcon and Electron entries are beginning to beat the pants off the government-directed launchers. I expect that in the next half decade commercial manned spacecraft will beat out government manned spacecraft. I also expect that in the same time frame, commercial space habitats will become the majority customer for those commercial manned spacecraft.

I think that there will soon be many others in orbit very much independent of ISS, NASA, ESA, JAXA, and Roscosmos and the limitations imposed by them.

This is definitely where the long-term future is headed.

I’m going to add to this: “it also puzzles me that many people still think that the ISS is going to remain the major means of scientific research through this coming decade.”

I believe that commercial space habitats will very quickly become a major source of research over this coming decade. Not only is there limited amount of science that can be performed on the ISS, but NASA has restrictions that some companies and countries may find onerous.

For instance, data collected by an ISS experiment must be released to the public domain within five years. This is hardly conducive to getting a jump on the competition. It is possible for those performing experiments on commercial habitats to do so under conditions where they need not release their data. What an advantage that would provide.

ISS has produced very few manufactured items, and I do not recall any of them being commercially available. Commercial habitats could provide a manufacturing venue that allows for large amounts of products for Earth consumption, and with Starship taking material to low Earth orbit for somewhere around $2 million to $7 million per hundred tonnes ($9 to $33 per pound or $20 to $70 per kilogram), we could find ourselves with a new bonanza of medications and materials that have so far been unavailable.

Although Richard M is right, there may very likely be a commercial space habitat attached to the ISS in the near future, I think that there will soon be many others in orbit very much independent of ISS, NASA, ESA, JAXA, and Roscosmos and the limitations imposed by them. Just a single Bigelow B330 could double our manned presence in space, and two could triple it. Add to that some more habitats from a couple of the other companies with plans for their own habitats, and we could be assured a permanent continuous presence in space as well as astonishing advancements in science, manufacturing, and space tourism.

The 2010s were exciting because innovation reduced costs of access to space and reduced costs and sizes of satellites, but the 2020s should be even more exciting because of the advancement of commercial space into even more areas and the resulting boon to innovation and entrepreneurship. The upward spiral between commerce, innovation, and entrepreneurs should result in far more prosperity than we have enjoyed from space so far.

Sippin_bourbon asked: “With reusables, why build a single stage to Mars vessel or a Lunar-cycler vessel? It does not make sense to me. Build and launch modular and assembled in orbit vessels. With the price dropping, why would this not be the cheaper and safer route.”

Modular and assembled Lunar-cyclers or Mars-cyclers may be the way to go in the future, but as we saw in the past, we can get exploration sooner by using more brute force methods. Efficiency comes later, as we learn more about what we need and how to do it. When the need arises, some entrepreneur will make it happen at a reasonable price.

I covered this when Robert first reported on this IG report. The gist of it is that the IG report is very misleading, because neither Dragons nor Starliners are sold by the seat, but by the flight.

If I recall correctly way back from contract award, each CCtCap contract has three CLINs: 1) development of the respective commercial crew system, which included an unmanned and a manned test flight 2) from two to six operational flights, and 3) special studies. The optional CLIN 2 flights (all since awarded for each contractor) were, I think, costed out by flight and fiscal year.

Fair point, but in the end, there is no getting around the fact that Boeing bid a higher charge for the operation flight CLIN -for a number of reasons, not least of which is that an Atlas V N22 costs more than double what a new Falcon 9 does. I think, however you calculate it, there is no question that Boeing costs NASA a good deal more than SpaceX does here (though it is possible that some methods might get you under the Soyuz cost).

Mind you, NASA has a good reason for the four-crew / three-cargo split: the USOS life support system can only support a crew of four long-term. However, it can support (I think) up to 13 for short handover periods, so NASA could use either vehicle to ferry a seven-man crew to the ISS for short-term science or maintenance tasks if it chose to do so. Again, not doing so is an operational decision by NASA, not a restriction on either vehicle.

Well…it’s not *impossible* that NASA might choose to take advantage of this particular capability in the future (it might be useful to provide coverage for extensive EVA series, not just research). But adding additional seats means less cargo, and we would need to know more about how highly NASA values that cargo capability.

It could also be, too, that as the ISS core modules ECLLS systems age, NASA might reasonably decide that they want to avoid unduly taxing them with unusually large handover period crew sizes.

I think, again, the best solution here is probably the addition of a large commercial module with its own ECLLS system to support additional (probably private) crew to the station.

Actually, it was designed for more than seven, but it was built with less capacity. As others have noted, even some of the designed science facilities were not built or launched. We saved a small percentage in terms of dollars, but we are missing out on a lot of science.

Even worse: It wasn’t just science modules that got whacked, but also the Habitation Module, which was supposed to have extensive life support facilities of its own. That right there reduced designed crew size. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitation_Module

And then, after that, the Transhab was killed, too (though unlike the Habitation Module, it was never even built).

I think what’s possible at this point, if it happens at all, would be a commercial (probably inflatable) module added on to the station in the coming years, which could support any additional private visitors in terms of intrinsic life support. Otherwise, 7 is going to be the max crew size, short handover periods notwithstanding.

Avoid unnecessary shocks on reusable spacecraft or hardware. The heat shield bumping against the landing pad may not matter to the heat shield, because it will be replaced, but the shock can degrade the structure and equipment of the rest of the spacecraft. Landing legs are intended to absorb such shocks and reduce the stresses on the rest of the spacecraft.

“I bet Space X still has the plans sitting around waiting for NASA to change its mind and say go ahead.”

I think that SpaceX’s plan A is to replace the Falcons and Dragons with its BFR series.

One of the problems I see with using large Starships to ferry men and materiel to space stations and space habitats is the large mass of the Starship. It is much easier to perform station keeping and attitude control maneuvers with small spacecraft, such as Dragon, Starliner, Progress, etc., because with the smaller spacecraft docked to these outposts, there is less stress on the docking port and the mass moment of inertia is less affected. This isn’t a show stopper for Starship, just something else that everyone has to think about as they design their hardware, software, and methods.

Propulsive land and just tilt to the side a bit, Big deal. Nothing says the engines have to shut off 10 feet above the ground.

And their is a way to have the legs extend out from the side without going through the heat shield.

And didn’t the shuttle have the same problem with its heat tiles around the landing gear? Never any trouble with that part of the heat shield.

NASA was just making excuses and I bet Space X still has the plans sitting around waiting for NASA to change its mind and say go ahead.

Well said, and I agree. I root for all of them. Competition!

As for why no one is mentioning Blue Origin, I would only assume because they are still a sub orbital system currently. That is due to change of course.

And thanks for that link on Bigelow.

I don’t know about hating Boeing or ULA, but as Robert pointed out: “SpaceX of course is the quintessential example of how to lower costs,” and cost is very important in the space business. Boeing and ULA have not yet announced dramatic reductions in costs, but Blue Origin has. I really do not see why Blue Origin is so often left out of these discussions. Many of us excited about space are excited about both of these companies, and a few more, as they promise low costs for getting to or operating in space, which will lead to far more money being made in space by providing services or goods to we earthlings. The more expensive companies risk being left out of this future bonanza.

I do not understand why those of us who favor efficiency and effectiveness end up being thought of as SpaceX or Musk fanboys or cult members. We root for a number of companies that promise these two qualities, and we are disappointed when some of them leave the business, such as Vector or XCOR.

Leland Jackson wrote: “Regarding the 4 person crew capacity… ISS was designed to have a 7 crew compliment.”

Actually, it was designed for more than seven, but it was built with less capacity. As others have noted, even some of the designed science facilities were not built or launched. We saved a small percentage in terms of dollars, but we are missing out on a lot of science. The result of amortizing the science is that it costs around twice as much as it could have cost. Penny wise but pound foolish.

sippin_bourbon asked: “So several people have mentioned Bigelow. But as I understand it, there is currently no date or actual plan to create an orbital habitat yet, correct? ”

Correct on the launch date, but Bigelow has plans and designs to launch an independent orbital habitat. From March 4th, 2019:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2019/03/04/spacexs-crew-dragon-launch-could-make-space-hotels-a-reality/#e19a14ea0dc0
“Last year, the company said it planned to build on this demonstration [BEAM at ISS], and launch the first components of a space hotel in 2021. It is developing a habitat known as the B330, which will have 330 cubic meters of interior space – a third that of the ISS. In 2021, it hopes to launch two of these habitats into space on Atlas V rockets from the United Launch Alliance (ULA). … The B330 is designed to function as a space hotel of sorts, alongside scientific research that will take place on board.”

Atlas V is necessary, because Falcon 9 does not have a fairing that is large enough for the B330. Keep in mind that at least three other companies are planning on their own space Habitats: Axiom Space, Ixion, and Sierra Nevada. Northrup Grumman’s Cygnus cargo ship could become a manned habitat.

sippin_bourbon: You do know that Bigelow has also successfully flown, at its own cost, two stand-alone modules in orbit?

That is a little different than a stand alone habitat or “space hotel”.
Most of the public does not know its been up there, which is why I think they will still have to work to overcome these concerns.

sippin_bourbon: Do a search on Behind the Black for “Bigelow” and “beam.” You will learn that Bigelow has already very successfully demonstrated, in space, the safety of its inflatable habitat design.

And they will have a hard time overcoming the “space balloon” image. They will have to work to build an image of safety.

The 1+6 formula is technically true, and I think it would make sense for transporting 6 tourists up to a Bigelow, or other commercial, habitat for a week-to-month stay. But it seems a little cramped for the 20 orbits scenario. After all, what do people want to do in orbit in their free time? 1-stay at the windows and gaze at the beautiful Earth, and 2-float and tumble around and experience microgravity.

For the orbits-only package, might I suggest pilot plus 3 paying passengers?

(not having the funds, what do I know anyway?)

Also, I stand corrected. It looks like the first manned Dragon Launch is now set for April. Starliner to follow in June. ( as currently planned).

Also, I forgot Dragons full capacity is 7. So a pilot and 6 passengers for a tourist flight? How much would they be willing to pay to launch, take 10 or 20 (or more) laps and then come down in a re-use capsule. Compare that to Virgin Galactic and Blue Origins sub orbitals. I

Something else I wonder about. With reusables, why build a single stage to Mars vessel or a Lunar-cycler vessel? It does not make sense to me. Build and launch modular and assembled in orbit vessels. With the price dropping, why would this not be the cheaper and safer route.

Sippin_bourbon: To answer your last question, NASA cannot stop SpaceX from flying a private manned flight on Dragon, nor apparently does it want to.

Applauding the SpaceX accomplishments does not equate to being in a cult. I read the essay as addressing private/commercial systems as the new way to go, as opposed to “of the Gov, by the Gov, for the Gov.” Competition and free market access is the future.

You also said SpaceX does not seem to care about Commercial Crew.. But they may be the first to actually do it in March, passing the last hurdle two days ago. Confused. And, Is that really that bad?

I think you confuse public concerns about Boeing in general with “hatin” on them. They have some problems. They just asking for a 10Billion dollar loan to cover the 737 problem (on CNBC this morning). They fired a CEO, they may face additional lawsuits. And on the Starliner test flight, they made a simple error. One that should have been caught. These are legit concerns. I doubt anyone here wants to see the Starliner program collapse, however.

To anyone who may know:

How much is Boeing/ULA open to outside users or are they only going to fly NASA?

NASA does not want to re-use a dunked Dragon. Can they stop them from putting up a pilot and three tourists in a re-used Dragon for an orbital tourist flight? Or for a non-NASA science flight?

mkent: I find your comments educational and helpful. However, you misread my essay when you wrote that I limited the future to SpaceX. I only was noting that SpaceX has a very big advantage at the moment, one that should encourage others to step up to the plate to compete.

Some of the possibilities the commercial crew vehicles open up are these:

1) Tourist or international partner flights, of course.

2) Flying additional crew during the direct handover flights for high-priority science or maintenance tasks.

3) I’d like to see NASA investigate having Boeing take over direct maintenance of the USOS portion of the ISS, which would necessitate Boeing astronauts flying a certain percentage of the seats for that task and leaving the NASA seats as science-only. If structured properly, Boeing would have an incentive to maximize the uptime of station systems and their availability for science. Military logistics contracts are often structured this way (e.g. the C-17 Performance-Based Logistics contract, where Boeing gets paid based on the mission readiness rate).

4) NanoRacks was recently overheard at a space conference as saying they’re in negotiations to have a NanoRacks astronaut on the station from time to time to perform commercial experiments. NanoRacks has purchased astronaut time from NASA, but apparently they have more man-tended experiments than they have astronaut time to tend to them.

With opportunities like these, Commercial Crew could be the bridge program between government manned spaceflight and commercial manned spaceflight. Which I think was Robert’s original point, though he limits it to SpaceX while I don’t.

Boeing Starliner crew flights are now estimated by NASA’s OIG as costing $90 million per seat – which is not only more than the $55 million estimated for SpaceX, but even the $80 million presently being paid by NASA for Soyuz seats.

I covered this when Robert first reported on this IG report. The gist of it is that the IG report is very misleading, because neither Dragons nor Starliners are sold by the seat, but by the flight.

If I recall correctly way back from contract award, each CCtCap contract has three CLINs: 1) development of the respective commercial crew system, which included an unmanned and a manned test flight 2) from two to six operational flights, and 3) special studies. The optional CLIN 2 flights (all since awarded for each contractor) were, I think, costed out by flight and fiscal year.

I believe what the IG did was take each contractor’s respective CLIN 2 cost and divide by 24 (six flights of four astronauts each) to arrive at the “per seat” cost. However, each commercial crew vehicle can carry seven seats. NASA instead prefers to ferry only four astronauts at a time to the ISS and fill the remaining three seats with cargo, presumably because they value the additional cargo more than the additional crew. That’s an operational decision by NASA, not a restriction on either commercial crew vehicle.

Mind you, NASA has a good reason for the four-crew / three-cargo split: the USOS life support system can only support a crew of four long-term. However, it can support (I think) up to 13 for short handover periods, so NASA could use either vehicle to ferry a seven-man crew to the ISS for short-term science or maintenance tasks if it chose to do so. Again, not doing so is an operational decision by NASA, not a restriction on either vehicle.

Think of an air cargo analogy. The 747 can be ordered either in an all-passenger, all-cargo, or a “combi” version split between cargo and passengers. It would be unfair to say the 747 Combi has twice the per-seat cost of the 747 passenger variant since the flight cost is the same, but it has only half as many seats.

Anyway, one of the reasons Boeing’s fifth-seat proposal interests me is to see how NASA handles this. Who is going to be allowed to fill it? How will costs be allocated? Presumably Boeing will have to provide something extra in order to “buy” the seat back. How will that work? It’s those kind of transactions that can look messy from the outside but are pretty routine in the commercial world.

Hopefully despite all this, we can agree that with the USOS crew going down to one in April and zero in September, getting both Dragon and Starliner operational quickly is in the nation’s interest.

By design, ISS has so much need for maintenance and science. Fewer crew didn’t mean less maintenance, but less science. With Dragon and Starliner, NASA will now be operating ISS to its design. It has only taken nearly a generation.

Exactly so.

And I think NASA is right to prioritize getting ISS crew size up to 7. Science is what it’s built for (however inadequately after the cancellation of valuable modules like the Centrifuge), so we should be getting max value out of the vast tax dollars this thing cost to build and operate. Commercial capabilities have to come after that – but they should come, just the same.

In any event, I don’t think ISS life support could easily handle more than 7 people for long periods of time anyway, so I really do think what is going to have to happen is the addition of a large commercial module (by Bigelow, Axiom, Sierra Nevada or whoever) for space manufacture/research/tourism to the station, with its own life support facilities and docking port, and then you would see Boeing and/or SpaceX doing separate commercial flights up to it. It will surely be a few years at least before that happens, and that means it will be creeping up on end-of-station-life; but that could still be a valuable bridge to commercial LEO stations, possibly using that same commercial module as a detached free flight facility.

Re: Reuse of Crew Dragons for CRS-2 cargo missions

I don’t think that’s true any more. From a previous NASA press conference, I seem to recall that the CRS-2 cargo variant is too different from the CCtCap crew variant to allow that to happen.

There’s little out there on this, but yes, it looks like back in July, SpaceX (via Jessica Jansen) indicated that CRS-2 cargo missions would be using special built cargo versons of Dragon 2, which would lack (among other things) Super Dracos, control panel, and life support. They will no longer be modified Dragon 2 capsules previously flown on crew flights. Instead, it will be the cargo versions which will be reused, each one to be certified for five flights. So I stand corrected. SpaceX has been changing plans more rapidly than I could keep up with.

What will be done with the crew version Dragon 2 after their flights is unclear, but I have heard that some systems might be reused on new Dragon 2’s built for future cargo or possibly even crew flights. I don’t have details on that, however.

So let me concede that at least with regard to crew capsules (as opposed to rockets), Boeing has something of a leg up on SpaceX, albeit “refurbishable” is probably the better word, since they have replace the heat shield, backshell, air bags, and (of course) the service module, which includes thrusters, tankage power systems, etc..

But here is the part that gets me: even with such extensive use of reuse, Boeing Starliner crew flights are now estimated by NASA’s OIG as costing $90 million per seat – which is not only more than the $55 million estimated for SpaceX, but even the $80 million presently being paid by NASA for Soyuz seats. If that’s the case, I’d sure hate to see what Boeing would cost if they weren’t reusing *anything*. Link: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/nasa-report-finds-boeing-seat-prices-are-60-higher-than-spacex/

[Don’t get me wrong: I’d rather pay Boeing $90 million a pop to launch astronauts to and from ISS than pay $80 million to Dmitri Rogozin and friends. We need to be launching from U.S. soil with U.S. vehicles. But we have to be clear that this isn’t saving NASA money, either. Because it clearly is not.]

But I wonder if Space X can try a propulsive landing on a garbage return trip? Or on any private trip. I would try it at least once. We know they can hit a barge.

NASA wants a brand new passenger capsule for every trip because they do not think a once dunked capsule will be safe enough for passengers. But they are willing to reuse them for cargo. Which requires them to be pressure safe. Hold atmosphere.
Let a re-used cargo capsule work 5 or 6 times safely and NASA will change its mind. But in the mean time they will have wasted hundreds millions of dollars they could have saved.

More accurate to say that the testing needed for NASA to certify it was going to take SpaceX too long and cost it too much, and so SpaceX abandoned it for a parachute landing system. It sounds like NASA was theoretically open to it, but wanted a heavy load of testing before they’d risk trying it.

They were testing their hover capability.
No need for landing legs just replace the heat shield like they do on every flight anyways.

NASA wanted water landings because thats all they trust.

It is SpaceX that appears to be uninterested in commercial Crew Dragon flights — instead focusing on Starship — while Boeing is actively pursuing commercial Starliner seats.

Are they? Because I’ve heard just the opposite. Do you have any links? It would be great to see it happen, if so.

One of the downsides of keeping up with so many space sites every day is after a while you forget where you read things. I’ll keep my eye out.

But the gist of it is that as of about a year ago, Boeing’s NASA configuration had five seats, while SpaceX’s had only four, and Boeing had permission to market the fifth seat to non-NASA customers. This is much more recent than the contracts Boeing signed with Space Adventures and Bigelow early in the Commercial Crew program. I haven’t heard of any takers, so maybe nothing comes of it, but they are marketing it.

As for Crew Dragon, you are correct that SpaceX does not plan to reuse these for crew flights to ISS. However, it does plan to reuse them for cargo flights under the CRS-2 contract, at last check. There is reusability (or at least, refurbishability) in play here, it’s just for the cargo flights instead of the crew flights.

I don’t think that’s true any more. From a previous NASA press conference, I seem to recall that the CRS-2 cargo variant is too different from the CCtCap crew variant to allow that to happen.

Starliner has been designed to be compatible with Vulcan from the outset (or at least, since Vulcan development began in earnest), and Boeing and ULA have both been talking about switching over to Vulcan for the past four years.

Starliner is designed at a high level to be launch vehicle agnostic. However, detailed analysis and wind tunnel testing is required for each launch vehicle, and the results of that testing can affect the Starliner design. (For example, the aeroshell and perforated disk required for the Atlas V may not be required for other launch vehicles.) This isn’t unusual. Many NRO payloads have similar issues and require three years of analysis before launch on a new launch vehicle. This analysis can run up to eight or nine figures, which is one reason why the NRO doesn’t always chase the lowest launch cost.

Your article, while interesting, is almost five years old. Since then, the analysis and testing I mentioned above has been done, and the Starliner design has been modified with the perforated disk, aeroshell, and probably other things which tie Starliner to Atlas V until the analysis and testing can be done for a new launch vehicle. The expense of that will dictate that it probably will not occur for only one or two launches. I predict Boeing will want a block buy of several additional launches before abandoning the Atlas V.

This is just another case where marketing idealism deviates from the realities of the aerospace industry. SpaceX had a similar issue with propulsive landing. NASA didn’t — couldn’t — nix it. They could only dictate SpaceX not test it on their flights. But there isn’t a big enough market outside of NASA for SpaceX to pay for the testing it would require.

Getting back to Starliner re-usability, Boeing is only building two vehicles to fly their eight contracted flights, so that part of it is a done deal.