Northrop Grumman wins contract to build Lunar Gateway’s habitable module
Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday announced that it has awarded Northrop Grumman the construction contract for building HALO, (Habitation and Logistics Outpost), the module where astronauts will live and work on its Lunar Gateway space station.
Combined with earlier development contracts this contract, worth $935 million, brings the total fixed-price cost to about $1.1 billion.
[HALO], one of the first for the Gateway, will serve as a habitat for visiting astronauts and a command post for the lunar orbiting facility. It will have docking ports for Orion spacecraft, cargo vehicles like SpaceX’s Dragon XL and lunar landers, as well as for later modules to be added by international partners. HALO is based on the Cygnus spacecraft that Northrop Grumman uses to transport cargo to the International Space Station, but extensively modified with docking ports, enhanced life support and other new subsystems.
This module is not expected to launch before 2024. Moreover, it is supposed to work in conjunction with what NASA calls its Artemis 3 mission, the third launch of SLS and the first to dock with Gateway. SLS however is so far only funded through its first two flights, and has a schedule that is presently highly uncertain.
There is great irony here. HALO, based on the Cygnus cargo freighter, will be about that size. If the present schedule for SpaceX’s Starship continues as expected, it will be flying to the Moon at about the same time, and will have a cargo bay big enough to store several Cygnus freighters inside. And though no work has yet been done to make that cargo bay habitable, Starship’s cost per launch, about $2 million, is so far below the $1.1 billion cost for HALO that it will certainly cost much less than HALO to make it a habitable station. And it will be gigantic in comparison.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday announced that it has awarded Northrop Grumman the construction contract for building HALO, (Habitation and Logistics Outpost), the module where astronauts will live and work on its Lunar Gateway space station.
Combined with earlier development contracts this contract, worth $935 million, brings the total fixed-price cost to about $1.1 billion.
[HALO], one of the first for the Gateway, will serve as a habitat for visiting astronauts and a command post for the lunar orbiting facility. It will have docking ports for Orion spacecraft, cargo vehicles like SpaceX’s Dragon XL and lunar landers, as well as for later modules to be added by international partners. HALO is based on the Cygnus spacecraft that Northrop Grumman uses to transport cargo to the International Space Station, but extensively modified with docking ports, enhanced life support and other new subsystems.
This module is not expected to launch before 2024. Moreover, it is supposed to work in conjunction with what NASA calls its Artemis 3 mission, the third launch of SLS and the first to dock with Gateway. SLS however is so far only funded through its first two flights, and has a schedule that is presently highly uncertain.
There is great irony here. HALO, based on the Cygnus cargo freighter, will be about that size. If the present schedule for SpaceX’s Starship continues as expected, it will be flying to the Moon at about the same time, and will have a cargo bay big enough to store several Cygnus freighters inside. And though no work has yet been done to make that cargo bay habitable, Starship’s cost per launch, about $2 million, is so far below the $1.1 billion cost for HALO that it will certainly cost much less than HALO to make it a habitable station. And it will be gigantic in comparison.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
When NASA lands people on the moon again, I half expect Elon will be there waiting for them with hot towels and a drink.
NASA yesterday announced that it has awarded Northrop Grumman the construction contract for building HALO, (Habitation and Logistics Outpost), the module where astronauts will live and work on its Lunar Gateway space station.
This contract was announced two years ago. All that happened recently was the contract was finally definitized.
SLS however is so far only funded through its first two flights
SLS is under contract through eight or ten flights. I laid that out here in a comment months ago, but searching your site doesn’t seem to pick up comments.
Starship’s cost per launch, about $2 million, is so far below the $1.1 billion cost for HALO that it will certainly cost much less than HALO to make it a habitable station.
And where did you get this number from? You yourself have said that Elon is spending $6 billion to develop Starship. He’d have to build and launch 3,000 Starships for zero cost just to make back the development cost. That ain’t going to happen.
When NASA lands people on the moon again, I half expect Elon will be there waiting for them with hot towels and a drink.
Ahh, yes, more condescending snark from the SpaceX fanboys. Just like Falcon 1 will be launching in 2003; Falcon 9 will be launching EELV payloads in 2007; Falcon Heavy will be launching in 2012; unmanned Dragon will be launching in 2010; they’ll be performing orbital launches out of Boca Chica in, what? 2015; manned Dragon will be launching in 2017; SpaceX is building 40 Falcon 9 cores a year in 2017, 2018, and 2019; SpaceX will be launching unmanned Dragons to Mars in 2018 and manned Dragons to Mars in 2020; and SpaceX will have a city on Mars with 1 million people by 2030. Then there’s the claim of inter-galactic flight by 2050.
Despite none of these fantastic claims coming true, the fanboys just move on to the next one with no self consciousness whatsoever. Perhaps you’ll forgive us if we don’t cancel the entire space program while we wait for these fantasies to come true, but probably not.
Mr. Z .:
Can’t you do the math? Why do you believe Musk’s fairy tale? The Starship cost per launch of about $ 2 million, as stated by Musk, is illusory, even if Starship is really completely reused. 2 million may cover the cost of 4,600 tons of propellant per launch. However, there are costs for maintenance, launch support, depreciation on equipment and development, launch preparation costs, costs of loans and bonds etc. I’m assuming a more realistic $ 20 million. And, that would still be very cheap with a payload of 100 tons to LEO.
mkent asked: “And where did you get this number from?”
That number comes from SpaceX projections. The $2 million launch cost is SpaceX’s expected cost to for operating a Starship to orbit and back, but it does not include extended mission costs, amortization of the cost to build the launched Starship, amortization of development costs, or amortization of additional launch, landing, and other facilities. Many space operations may cost more, too. What SpaceX will charge for a launch is unknown, but my speculation is that they may charge somewhere around ten times that operational cost, or around $20 million. This price point (or even higher) would attract many customers, and it means that the development costs would be recovered after around 55 or so flights per billion dollars spent on development.
“Perhaps you’ll forgive us if we don’t cancel the entire space program while we wait for these fantasies to come true”
Why would you ever imagine that SpaceX “fanboys” would want SpaceX’s primary customer to be cancelled? Did SpaceX have “fanboys” back in 2003? Or even 2007? Until Dragon first berthed at the ISS, most people doubted that commercial space companies could make this happen. “Fanboys” did not come along until SpaceX showed how much it could do for less cost than had been done before. Many other companies and countries are now trying to reduce the costs of their own space programs to match what the U.S. commercial space industry has done.
Why are so many people against increasing the efficiency of getting to space? Shouldn’t we all celebrate a company that shows us how to reduce the cost of access to space and at the same time increase the capabilities of these launch vehicles? Satellite operators have been clamoring for these two characteristics for half a century, and had expected both to happen with the Space Shuttle. Instead, they had to wait about a third of a century for their dreams to finally come true, and here we find that there are cynical people who complain about it.
SpaceX’s rush to get Starship operational has left plenty of room for improved efficiencies. Why not show enthusiasm for the possibility for other companies to improve on SpaceX’s accomplishments? We should celebrate that Blue Origin is taking on that challenge, and dozens of companies are even now striving to find better efficiencies in the small satellite launch business. Many of these companies may one day be able to challenge SpaceX’s current domination in the launch business, and this, too, should be celebrated.
Improved efficiencies in the use of the world’s scarce resources is a major reason why competition is good, why we should celebrate SpaceX’s success in the launch competition, and other companies’ entry into the competition for launch efficiencies. Soon we will see competition for improved efficiencies in space operations, too, and we should celebrate that when it comes.
Ahh, yes, more condescending snark from the SpaceX fanboys.
The best way to stop the snark, is start flying the SLS in OPERATIONAL missions, and outdo SpaceX in performance and cost.
Fat chance with the Senate Launch System. The snark has been earned, because after a decade and well over twice the expenditure SpaceX has put into Starship (investor money, as opposed to tax money) SLS has yet to even leave the ground.
Yes Musk makes outlandish predictions … but he eventually delivers; SpaceX is test-flying Starship as well as operationally flying Falcons and Dragons – manned and unmanned – and doing so without the U. S. Government standing behind the effort beyond buying SpaceX services and allowing them to fly.
Many of us snark, not because we love Musk, but because we see results that we are not seeing from Big Space and its political strings attached. Example #12,345 of how the assumption that government can ALWAYS do it better is highly flawed.
Edward … Why are so many people against increasing the efficiency of getting to space?
Outside of those who feel the goring of the Big Space ox … and perhaps some Progressives who bitterly cling to the assumption that government can ALWAYS do it better and are embarrassed by the example of the iconoclast Musk … I don’t see that many people against the move from the Columbus paradigm to the Jamestown paradigm of expansion in space.
I used to roll my eyes at Musk, too … but he not only delivers results, he has a “do what works” attitude that is not bound by the conventional wisdom (example: selling Teslas by touting their performance as-much-or-moree than their green cred). I don’t think that I’m the only one that has been turned from skepticism to guarded admiration.
Come to think of it, those who complain that SpaceX does not always introduce their new products on their original schedule don’t ever seem to complain that other companies and governments also fail to make their own initial schedules. SpaceX seems to suffer a more stringent standard than everyone else.
In response to my questions, Jester Naybor suggested: “perhaps some Progressives who bitterly cling to the assumption that government can ALWAYS do it better and are embarrassed by the example of the iconoclast Musk”
That makes sense. Those who believe that government is the best or only solution would certainly be disappointed whenever anyone demonstrates that We the People can do better at problem solving.
Jester Naybor: This is the second time I have corrected your italics tag. You are doing it wrong.
If you want to italicize something, place “em” and “/em” at the start and end, and replace the quotes with the < and > symbols.
My apologies, Robert – I have now become more watchful with the tags. Accidentally leaving out the “/” on the endtag is the problem.
(“i” instead of “em” also works.)
Why would you ever imagine that SpaceX “fanboys” would want SpaceX’s primary customer to be cancelled? Did SpaceX have “fanboys” back in 2003? Or even 2007?
No less a fanboy than Elon Musk himself sued the government in 2006 and demanded — at a time when he had not even successfully launched a *Falcon 1* — that ULA be disallowed and the entire EELV launch contract be given to SpaceX, promising he would be launching EELV-class payloads on Falcon 9 by 2007. Fortunately the courts threw out the ridiculous lawsuit. Not only did SpaceX not launch Falcon 9 at all until 2010, it didn’t launch an EELV-class payload — with a payload fairing — until 2013. And even today, 15 years later, there are still EELV payloads that SpaceX can’t launch. Had we listened to Elon Musk in 2006 we would have had key military spacecraft stuck on the ground for 15 years during the middle of a shooting war.
Nowadays the cry from the fanboys is all over the internet. Cancel the SLS and Orion! Use Starship instead. Cancel Delta, Atlas, and Vulcan. Use Starship instead. Cancel Astra, Electron, LauncherOne, and Firefly. Starship can launch a single 1U cubesat on a mission alone cheaper than any of those launch vehicles. Fund only Starship for lunar landers. Cancel the Gateway and replace it with Starship!! Cancel the International Space Station and replace it with an on-orbit Starship. Cancel the James Webb Space Telescope. Just put some IR detectors on a Starship. Cancel Mars Sample Return. Just have Elon Musk pick up some rocks the next time he walks his dog. Cancel SpaceShipTwo and New Shepard! Starship will be cheaper. Even cancel the C-17, C-5, 747, 777, 787, A350, and A380! Starship!!!!
All for a vehicle that finally — after blowing up eight vehicles in the process — re-created the flight Delta Clipper did 25 years on the first try. Yet for some reason that’s enough to have the fanboys call for cancelling all the items I listed above.
Why are so many people against increasing the efficiency of getting to space?
You sound like a progressive conflating the goals of an organization with the organization itself. Like a teachers’ union stating “If you oppose us you must want children to remain illiterate.” No one in the space industry is against increasing the efficiency of getting to space, as that’s what we’ve been doing for 60 years now. We’ve been doing it since long before SpaceX — and Elon Musk for that matter — even existed.
Satellite operators have been clamoring for these two characteristics for half a century, and had expected both to happen with the Space Shuttle.
They *have* been happening for half a century. Delta II, Atlas II, and Titan IV were more capable and more efficient than classic Delta, classic Atlas, and the Space Shuttle. Delta IV and Atlas V are more efficient and more capable than Delta II, Atlas II, and Titan IV. Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Vulcan are more capable and more efficient than Delta IV and Atlas V. That you can only see SpaceX illustrates my point. For some people there’s only a SpaceX program, not a space program.
Yes Musk makes outlandish predictions … but he eventually delivers; SpaceX is test-flying Starship as well as operationally flying Falcons and Dragons – manned and unmanned – and doing so without the U. S. Government standing behind the effort beyond buying SpaceX services and allowing them to fly.
This is false. Both unmanned and manned Dragon development was paid for by the U. S. Government. Not only that, but without NASA giving them a contract that by its record SpaceX had no business getting, SpaceX wouldn’t even exist. After the third straight Falcon 1 failure Elon was out of money and couldn’t even make the payroll due at the end of the week. He was actually talking to investors offering them a controlling interest in SpaceX just to make that payroll when he received word that they had won a contract to resupply the International Space Station.
That was way, way beyond what SpaceX could do at the time. SpaceX was years late, needed a lot of help from NASA and Boeing to be able to deliver, and it nearly cost NASA dearly. If NASA had not paid $1.6 billion / flight for several Space Shuttle flights to pre-load supplies on the ISS and also pay Russia to deliver NASA cargo on Progress flights, NASA could not have kept the USOS of the ISS running and would have had to abandon it.
It worked out in the end, but it was a close-run thing. Falcon 9 and Dragon are a definite advance on what came before, but they exist because NASA funded them. The “cancel everything and replace it with SpaceX crowd” doesn’t seem to get that.
Oh, one more thing. While the most likely outcome of Starship is that it fails to deliver anything close to what Elon Musk is promising, the truly terrifying outcome is that Starship appears to be successful enough that existing systems are cancelled but it can’t meet its cost targets so that those systems are not effectively replaced. In that case it would be like the Space Shuttle. Classic Delta, Atlas, Titan, Saturn, and Scout were all cancelled to make way for it, but it couldn’t fly often enough or cheap enough to effectively replace those systems.
If Starship is an economic failure instead of a technical failure, it could set the free world back decades.
Wow. That’s some serious obsessive anger. You shouldn’t let Internet posts get you that upset.
This is false. Both unmanned and manned Dragon development was paid for by the U. S. Government. Not only that, but without NASA giving them a contract that by its record SpaceX had no business getting, SpaceX wouldn’t even exist. After the third straight Falcon 1 failure Elon was out of money and couldn’t even make the payroll due at the end of the week. He was actually talking to investors offering them a controlling interest in SpaceX just to make that payroll when he received word that they had won a contract to resupply the International Space Station..
Did Musk buy the plans for the Dragons from the government? Or did the government pay for the development and cooperate with SpaceX to get the features they want, like any other bespoke purchase from bunks to bombers?
And if SpaceX was so shaky … why did they get the ISS contract? Perhaps the decision-makers at NASA realized that SpaceX was on the path to beating them at their own game, and if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em …
We “only see SpaceX” because SpaceX has flown 20 times so far this year. OTOH Northrop Grumman has launched three times … ULA has launched one Delta V Heavy, and one Atlas V, as I understand it. And SpaceX still has flown the ONLY manned orbital flights by an American entity, private or government, since the Shuttle retired.
As I said, the best way to stop the snark, is for the SLS to start flying operational flights and outdo SpaceX in performance and cost. Until then, we will snark in celebration of the paradigm shift from the Columbus model of support, to the Jamestown model.
Jester Naybor wrote, “we will snark in celebration of the paradigm shift from the Columbus model of support, to the Jamestown model.”
Though I agree with you, I think it would be far more correct to say a paradigm shift from the Columbus model to the PURITAN model”, which I lay out quite clearly in my new book, Conscious Choice.
Jamestown used the Columbus model of a centralized project run from the top-down. It thus eventually resulted in slavery.
Robert, guess I didn’t look past the obvious move, from exploration to economic utilization of the New World that I considered Jamestown to represent, to see the central planning that led to the expedience of slavery.
Jester Naybor: Though I know this sounds exceedingly self serving, you really do need to read Conscious Choice.
Mkent
Please stop comparing The Delta Clipper test flight to the first Successful launch of a payload to orbit and landing of the Falcon 9 booster.
The Delta Clipper didn’t go anyplace and NEVER flew a single passenger or even a simple cargo to orbit.
Plus its technology was never placed into orbital launch use bu NASA.
Falcon 9 was an operational space craft doing real work.
The first vertical launch and landing was actually done by the US Air Force and Navy years before. And with a pilot. I do believe the British were doing the same about the same time.
As for Space X pulling a profit.
Remember that they are their own first and best customer.
The Falcon 9 was developed to place the satellite constellation in orbit for preliminary testing and operations.
With one million customers at 100 dollars each world wide Musk is making 100 million dollars a month.
Every launch he does for an outside customer is pure profit.
Starship is just the next best way to finish launching his satellite network.
In 5 years how many internet customers will he have? 5 million is a nice goal. That gives him a 6 billion yearly income to cover any losses in any space endeavors he has.
Musk is using the whole of the Musk empire as the supplier, manufacturer and customer.
Never ceases to amaze me how often the Delta Clipper comparison gets dragged out.
mkent,
I had asked: “Why would you ever imagine that SpaceX “fanboys” would want SpaceX’s primary customer to be cancelled,” but your answer only explained that there are people who think that SpaceX is more efficient than its competition, not that “fanboys” want the primary customer cancelled.
“All for a vehicle that finally — after blowing up eight vehicles in the process — re-created the flight Delta Clipper did 25 years on the first try.”
Actually, SpaceX’s first try with Star Hopper recreated the first Delta Clipper flight, without exploding any vehicles before it. After that, the test program became much more stringent than Delta Clipper and far surpassed its accomplishments. You also include several test-to-destruction experiments in your critique of SpaceX, making your comparison unfair.
“No one in the space industry is against increasing the efficiency of getting to space, as that’s what we’ve been doing for 60 years now.”
That is 60 years of iterative improvement, where the cost and frequency of launches has not much changed. SpaceX has created a revolutionary, not evolutionary, increase in efficiency — and continues doing so. With SpaceX, the future looks bright. Before SpaceX, the future looked like a blight. We all hope that Blue Origin adds to that bright future, as well as Axiom, Made In Space, Rocket Lab, and several other companies.
“They *have* been happening for half a century.”
For a while there, I thought that you knew something about the space industry, but this sentence shows that you do not. What the industry has been clamoring for has not been supplied by the heritage companies. This is why SpaceX and Rocket Lab have been so successful, and why so many other new companies are entering the competition. We are finally starting to provide the space community customers with what they have longed to have. It is why so many are so eager for Blue Origin to finally start launching its own reusable boosters.
The Deltas, Atlases, Titans and even the Space Shuttle were still almost as expensive as the early models, which does not look much more efficient to the customers. They wanted and needed lower cost access to space. Now that we are getting it, we are seeing far more satellites being launched than ever before. The customer base is finally becoming much larger, because more can afford to do business in space.
“That you can only see SpaceX illustrates my point.”
That you feel as though I only see SpaceX shows that you have not paid attention to my comments, over the years. No wonder you know so little about the space industry. You don’t pay attention, having a myopic view of things. It is telling that you refuse to acknowledge that SpaceX has done wonderful things for space access, that you refuse to recognize that the space industry is happy that access has improved so dramatically, and that you refuse to acknowledge that SpaceX has done what Blue Origin would have done had it been first with reusable boosters for orbital launches.
The space industry is dramatically different than it was a decade ago.
“NASA giving them a contract that by its record SpaceX had no business getting,”
That was a silly thing to say. None of the other competitors had a record for doing that kind of operations, either, because NASA had locked out all competition for such operations. Congress had set by law a requirement that all U.S. launches take place using the Space Shuttle, almost destroying the U.S. launch industry. That is one reason why COTS was such a big deal. It was a dramatic change away from the inefficiencies of the past space operations to find creative ways to do it better. Mission success on that.
“SpaceX wouldn’t even exist.”
Because it would have gone the way of all of NASA’s other competition. Another reason why COTS was a big deal. Even with COTS, Kistler went out of business. That is how hard it was to compete with NASA, even with NASA’s blessing to compete.
mkent, you are looking at history with 20/20 hindsight. Orbital Sciences and SpaceX did what was thought impossible, back then. My suspicion is that it took Scaled Composites to win the Ansari X-Prize to show the world that it was possible for commercial companies to do what only national space programs had ever done before. It is one of the reasons why Peter Diamandis is a hero, in by book.
“If NASA had not paid $1.6 billion / flight for several Space Shuttle flights to pre-load supplies on the ISS and also pay Russia to deliver NASA cargo on Progress flights, NASA could not have kept the USOS of the ISS running and would have had to abandon it.”
Wouldn’t this also have been the case without SpaceX?
“If Starship is an economic failure instead of a technical failure, it could set the free world back decades.”
SLS is designed as an economic failure. Doesn’t that set back the free world by decades, too?
pzatchok wrote: “The first vertical launch and landing was actually done by the US Air Force and Navy years before.”
This was a jet aircraft, rather than a rocket, and the jet was able to land on its tail. The X-13 Vertijet, a very interesting experiment. The Delta Clipper was the first rocket to land on its tail on Earth. Another interesting experiment. I wish it had gone farther, because it was one of the 1990s experiments attempting to do reusable single stage to orbit in order to find a revolutionary increase in efficiency, meaning reduced cost to orbit.
“Starship is just the next best way to finish launching his satellite network.”
Starship’s goal is not so much to take payloads to orbit but to populate Mars. Payloads would be a side business, to help pay the bills, similar to Starlink.
Richard M noted: “Never ceases to amaze me how often the Delta Clipper comparison gets dragged out.”
I know, right? It was a really good idea, but the execution failed. Delta Clipper and the X-33 were far too dependent upon NASA for their success, and NASA was not ready to retire the Shuttle fleet, back then. It took a greater independence for We the People to be able to compete with our government.
mkent,
The fascination over SpaceX comes from not only its success but our ability to so closely watch the development of a giant rocket. Sixty years ago, we were fascinated by similar developments of rockets and spacecraft in the U.S. space program. Instead of having the close look that we get with Starship, we had to wait for various magazines to tell us the latest thinking coming from NASA and its contractors.
These days, the internet allows individuals and small groups to publish every day what is happening at SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility, which they are now calling Starbase. It is like looking into the cleanroom of a rocket factory, except that SpaceX isn’t building its rockets inside a cleanroom. This is completely contrary to everything we space engineers have learned as being right and good.
One of the most important aspects to SpaceX is its insistence on rapid development. A single company is making a Saturn class rocket in about the same amount of time as a superpower country took to develop Saturn. In addition, SpaceX is also making it a reusable rocket and spacecraft, with the return from orbit being different than any other reentry vehicle has ever done. Developing new products and services has long been an important concept in industry, and this concept has returned to importance in the space industry. Yet another reason why it is important for We the People to develop these things rather than the government to do so.
Rapid development is why so many people now expect the first Starship near-orbit launch will precede the SLS launch. It is also why we expect Starship to take people to Mars before NASA does. SpaceX is doing more than anyone else, and they are doing it faster. No wonder so many people are entranced. Rocket Lab has generated similar enthusiasm and for similar reasons. Rocket Lab isn’t as far advanced, yet, but it is working in that direction.
The creativity, innovation, and vision of SpaceX fascinate people. People are enthralled that one small company is beating the pants off the superpower NASA. Would you, mkent, be complaining about Blue Origin fanboys if Bezos’s company were doing this well and SpaceX was struggling?
You may not have noticed, but the people that you seem to feel are SpaceX fanboys are also excited and happy that SpaceShipOne has begun operations and that New Shepard is a week away from being operational, too.
The exciting times that we have expected from this decade have begun, and it is several companies that are successfully creating that excitement, not just the one you don’t like.
On a sadder note, the loss of Bigelow seems to have set us back half a dozen years from having a commercial space station independent of ISS. How different and more exciting this decade would have been had Congress not slow-walked the Commercial Crew Program, allowing Bigelow to put a space station in orbit last year as originally planned. Government has been a hinderance in space exploration, not a benefit.
@mkent
At least in the early stages, SpaceX seems to have been spared the political pressure others had upon them – see senator Shelby’s threat of cancelling ULA’s funding when he found out about ULA’s internal studies on orbital refueling (I’m guessing old Democrat habits die hard).
NASA, being the political animal that it is, has become a tool for distributing govt welfare in the form of well-paid jobs, subcontractors and so on. Just take a look at how Marshall brags about it:
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/economic_impact_mobile_508_2017.pdf
I’m guessing all that welfare brings in votes.
SpaceX seems to follow a different – more agile if you like – development style than other companies. Being a newcomer with a more streamlined structure also helps.
I’m perfectly aware of Musk’s publicly displayed shortcomings. I’m also aware of some shenanigans with Solar City, Tesla making tons of revenue from subsidies and so on. However, here we are would-be pundits making comments and there he is amassing a fortune. And somehow despite his overly optimistic predictions he – his companies – did manage to deliver stuff others did not.