Trump plugs private space at cabinet meeting
At the beginning of a cabinet meeting yesterday Trump spent some time talking about the recent successes in commercial space.
Three quotes of interest:
- “Rich guys, they love rocket ships. And that’s good. Better than us paying for them.”
- “I notice the prices of the last one they sent. It cost $80 million. If the government did it the same thing would have cost probably 40-50 times that amount of money. I mean literally. … I’m so used to hearing different numbers from NASA.”
- We’re really at the forefront, nobody is doing what we’re doing. I don’t know if you saw, with Elon, the [Falcon Heavy] rocket boosters where they’re coming back down. To me that was more amazing than watching the rocket go up. ‘Cause I’ve never seen that before. Nobody has seen that before…. They landed so beautifully.
Not unusually, Trump gets some details wrong but understands the essentials, much to the terror of the big space contractors of SLS (Boeing) and Orion (Lockheed Martin). SpaceX will charge $90 million for the launch of a reused Falcon Heavy (using three reused first stages). Estimates for the cost of a single SLS launch are difficult to estimate. In Capitalism in Space I had estimated the project’s overall cost, based on Congressional appropriations, to be about $25 billion come its first manned flight, but that cost is likely going up because the first flight will be delayed. Trump’s numbers estimate a cost of about $4 billion for a single launch, which is a reasonable number considering SLS is not expected to launch more than once a year, and SLS’s annual appropriations, about $3 billion, which will not change once it is operational.
In other words, SLS is an overpriced rip-off, especially now that we have a cost-effective alternative.
Yesterday there were two op-eds warning everyone of the dangers of giving government money to SpaceX.
- Space competition is more important than ‘Starman’
- Gingrich Is So Over The Moon With SpaceX That He Forgot To Answer This Important Question
The first worries that Musk is a “master manipulator” and the king of “crony capitalism” and that we shouldn’t be blinded by this single Falcon Heavy success. Others, like ULA, are better companies to depend on. The second warns that the government mustn’t become so blinded by SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch that it decides to invest money in the company.
Both op-eds are laughable. Compared to the crony capitalism of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which have sucked almost $50 billion from the taxpayers for SLS/Orion while producing no flights, Elon Musk is a piker. And no one has ever suggested investing in SpaceX, like a venture capitalist. The Trump administration has merely proposed buying its rockets to launch future deep space missions, in order to save the taxpayers a lot of money.
There is real fear and terror in the bowels of big space and in the swamp in Washington. Elon Musk and the Falcon Heavy have put it there. Increasingly, it is becoming plainly obvious that SLS is a big over-priced boondoggle that we cannot afford, and Trump’s comments yesterday indicate that this fact is finally beginning to be politically acceptable.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
At the beginning of a cabinet meeting yesterday Trump spent some time talking about the recent successes in commercial space.
Three quotes of interest:
- “Rich guys, they love rocket ships. And that’s good. Better than us paying for them.”
- “I notice the prices of the last one they sent. It cost $80 million. If the government did it the same thing would have cost probably 40-50 times that amount of money. I mean literally. … I’m so used to hearing different numbers from NASA.”
- We’re really at the forefront, nobody is doing what we’re doing. I don’t know if you saw, with Elon, the [Falcon Heavy] rocket boosters where they’re coming back down. To me that was more amazing than watching the rocket go up. ‘Cause I’ve never seen that before. Nobody has seen that before…. They landed so beautifully.
Not unusually, Trump gets some details wrong but understands the essentials, much to the terror of the big space contractors of SLS (Boeing) and Orion (Lockheed Martin). SpaceX will charge $90 million for the launch of a reused Falcon Heavy (using three reused first stages). Estimates for the cost of a single SLS launch are difficult to estimate. In Capitalism in Space I had estimated the project’s overall cost, based on Congressional appropriations, to be about $25 billion come its first manned flight, but that cost is likely going up because the first flight will be delayed. Trump’s numbers estimate a cost of about $4 billion for a single launch, which is a reasonable number considering SLS is not expected to launch more than once a year, and SLS’s annual appropriations, about $3 billion, which will not change once it is operational.
In other words, SLS is an overpriced rip-off, especially now that we have a cost-effective alternative.
Yesterday there were two op-eds warning everyone of the dangers of giving government money to SpaceX.
- Space competition is more important than ‘Starman’
- Gingrich Is So Over The Moon With SpaceX That He Forgot To Answer This Important Question
The first worries that Musk is a “master manipulator” and the king of “crony capitalism” and that we shouldn’t be blinded by this single Falcon Heavy success. Others, like ULA, are better companies to depend on. The second warns that the government mustn’t become so blinded by SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch that it decides to invest money in the company.
Both op-eds are laughable. Compared to the crony capitalism of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which have sucked almost $50 billion from the taxpayers for SLS/Orion while producing no flights, Elon Musk is a piker. And no one has ever suggested investing in SpaceX, like a venture capitalist. The Trump administration has merely proposed buying its rockets to launch future deep space missions, in order to save the taxpayers a lot of money.
There is real fear and terror in the bowels of big space and in the swamp in Washington. Elon Musk and the Falcon Heavy have put it there. Increasingly, it is becoming plainly obvious that SLS is a big over-priced boondoggle that we cannot afford, and Trump’s comments yesterday indicate that this fact is finally beginning to be politically acceptable.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“And no one has ever suggested investing in SpaceX, like a venture capitalist.”
Well, in fairness to Hogberg, you *could* read that into what New Gingrich said last month, if you squint hard enough:
“The Space Council should aggressively develop systems for public-private partnerships with innovative companies such as SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and others, where the government takes on the role of an investor – an investor that would be paid back.”
But Gingrich never spells out what he really means by “invest.” Does he just mean contracting them to deliver services, or does he really mean acting as a venture capitalist?
It goes without saying that if it’s the latter, DoD has been doing just that for years with ULA, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin.
P.S. The Bob Barr op-ed truly was astoundingly wrong-headed. The worst yet of all the SLS apologetic pieces that THE HILL has run of late, which is saying something.
NASA should really drop SLS and do the hard stuff. No bolted together stuff from the shuttle parts bin. The hard stuff would be the cancelled X-33, a single stage to orbit space plane with an aerospike engine.
“The hard stuff would be the cancelled X-33, a single stage to orbit space plane with an aerospike engine.”
Tech research on aerospike engines? I’m all for that.
But actually developing and operating a launch vehicle? Time to leave that to the commercial firms.
RE: “There is real fear and terror in the bowels of big space ”
Thats some fine wordsmithing there Mr Z , put a smile on my face, tx!!!!
President Trump at least appears to understand the concept of private property. Clinton would have looked at Falcon Heavy and wondered how many votes she could have bought with the money.
Ex congressman Barr proves himself to be a current member in good standing of “the swamp”.
How ironic – Barr accusing Musk/Space X of crony capitalism.
Does anyone think Barr wasn’t paid to write that piece?
Of course he got paid. And whoever paid him isn’t even the most odious of his clients. He also flacks for deposed Haitian dictator “Baby Doc” Duvalier.
Dick Eagleson: From Robert Bolt’s masterpiece, A Man for All Seasons: “For Wales? Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . But for Wales?”