Sign the LunarCOTS petition.
Do you think the commercial space program led by SpaceX is the fastest and cheapest way for the U.S. to get humans back into low Earth orbit? Then why not do it for missions beyond Earth orbit?
The LunarCOTS petition is a campaign to have NASA subsidize private companies to design and build the United States’ future interplanetary missions rather than have NASA do it in big government programs like SLS. Makes sense to me, and so I signed the petition immediately.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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.
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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.
Do you think the commercial space program led by SpaceX is the fastest and cheapest way for the U.S. to get humans back into low Earth orbit? Then why not do it for missions beyond Earth orbit?
The LunarCOTS petition is a campaign to have NASA subsidize private companies to design and build the United States’ future interplanetary missions rather than have NASA do it in big government programs like SLS. Makes sense to me, and so I signed the petition immediately.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. 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.
An advantage to doing it this way is that would be parallel development of technologies for less money than it would take NASA to do it. For whatever reasons, NASA has been developing technologies in a series.
SLS suporters should get behind this because it would mean there could be something to go on the AresV (heh) other than Orion without having to wait another 10-15 years after SLS is finished. Of course if they took the SLS funding and pumped it into this new program and took advantage of existing launchers and in orbit conatruction, we could do something even sooner.
Interesting. Why is it okay for NASA to fund one company for a “lunar COTS” operation, but not fund another company to develop SLS? Both will be designed and built by private companies, so what’s the difference? Is it because one claims to be “NewSpace”, and the other one doesn’t? Who cares, as long as it gets done?
1. The problem with SLS isn’t that it awards to the wrong companies, it’s that there was never a fair competition for a heavy lift vehicle provider in the first place, and that SLS itself is a bad way to do space exploration.
The Senators who wrote the legislation that forced NASA to build the SLS made it a tens of billions of dollars hand out to their favored companies and excluded viable competitors who could have competed for the job. That type of special preference is wrong.
The SLS locks us into a recurring high cost model that will lead to the extent of space exploration being rare and gimmicky, like the current plan of spending 30 billion dollars and a decade and getting a flyby of the moon out of it. It is a white elephant that puts limits on space exploration rather than leads to a more expansive evolving road that benefits us all.
2. Part of the COTS program model is a fair competition for the system being developed where any company can compete for the job and isn’t excluded from consideration. If desired it can be structured so that more than one system is developed for the job, like how there are two cargo providers and three companies now developing crew vehicles. Competition allows us to get better knowledge of what is possible under the scope of the funds available and who offers more cost effective solutions so that better choices can be made with our budget for space exploration and get more out of it.
COTS doesn’t exclude certain vendors from competing. The same company that was handed a SLS contract, Boeing, also won funds to develop a crew launch vehicle under the commercial crew program, but it had to compete for that contract.
This isn’t about “new space” vs “old space”. Old space firms and new space firms are welcomed alike under the COTS model, but they have to play by the same rules, and face competition to win work.
A significant different between a COTS/CCDEV and traditional NASA contracting is that the traditional way is cost plus and COTS/CCDEV is a set cost that is only awarded as milestones are reached.
The most persuasive arguement against SLS is the opportunity cost of what we could do right now with the same funding. SLS isn’t only high cost in terms of development and operation but in time. $3b a year could buy a lot of F9 launches and payloads to go on them and those launches could take place as fast as NASA could procure payloads. We don’t need to wait for a SHLV.