7 ms·

SpaceX Vies With Boeing as NASA’s Taxi to Station

97 points by davelnewton 12y ago

jacquesm 12y ago
Where did the 'Mars' in the title come from? This is to get to the ISS and back, not to Mars. edit: thanks mods!
- dethstar 12y ago
  I guess from Musk quotes, “The reason I haven’t taken SpaceX public is the goals of SpaceX are very long-term, which is to establish a city on Mars,” Musk, 43, told reporters at a Sept. 8 briefing in Tokyo.
  - butwhy 12y ago
    That quote is irrelevant. I agree with the guy you are quoting. This article doesn't make any sense and I assume the author wasn't supposed to mention Mars.
  - patcon 12y ago
    Agree that this bit isn't relevant to the title, but MAN, I wish politicians had this sort of longterm vision in mind. But I suppose Musk, being the CEO, is politically like a benevolent dictator of SpaceX, so he can afford to plan longterm :)
    - mikeyouse 12y ago
      The political environment all but makes it impossible. Can you imagine a congressman or senator going out on a limb to fund a 10-15 year project that starts with three failed launches? God forbid one of their employees donated to that congressperson's campaign, Issa would have the CEO in front of a committee and in front of the cameras within the week..
    - hga 12y ago
      This is perhaps the major argument for monarchies, or republics that are less attuned to "the mob", i.e. the masses. If you want long term thinking, don't attach political power to a vote by "everyone" every 2-6 years.
      - jacquesm 12y ago
        Following that line of thought, it is actually a major argument for dictatorships. After all, they can command a whole country to operate towards some single unified goal. If fewer voters is better than 0 voters is optimal! A nice illustration is that most open source projects that are based on democracy are always torn apart by inner power plays but those that have a 'benevolent dictator' seem to flourish.
        hdevalence 12y ago
        Of course, removing accountability means that much more often than not, the single unified goal is 'the value of my Swiss bank account'...
        lotsofmangos 12y ago
        Is much harder to fork a country if the dictator goes nuts.
        hga 12y ago
        Of course, we shouldn't be surprised that the other extreme is also bad, if not worse. Especially since "dictatorship" as it's used excludes monarchical systems, in some cases fairly absolute, but that include formally passing on the reign to one's heirs, I'm quite uncertain how useful it is to observe systems like open source projects where the stakes are so very low compared to governing a polity. The extreme of dictatorship says nothing about the middle, such as a republic with a limited franchise (e.g. own land or pay a hefty poll tax), or adding other types of bodies to government. Such as the US Senate back when its members were picked by state legislatures, or a power sharing arrangement between a monarch and a legislative body or three, like the U.K. of long ago.
      - goodcanadian 12y ago
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  Unfortunately I don't expect bloomberg headline writers to care about the difference, there is a quote about mars in the article so they put mars in the title. Remember it is normally very hard for the press to tell the difference between the ISS and Mars either before or after several pints of lunch.
  - khc 12y ago
    Looks like the bloomberg title has been fixed, but the HN link title hasn't (URL though still says Mars).
- jeroen94704 12y ago
  It's changed now. At least on the bloomberg site.
jobu 12y ago
The most interesting part to me is that congressional support has increased for funding more than one venture in case one runs into technical difficulties (now that the Soyuz option is ending). “The Russians have done NASA a favor in terms of funding,” Caceres said.
- makomk 12y ago
  Unfortunately, one of the ventures - Boeing's one - is still currently somewhat dependent on Russia. They're doing their testing and integration work with the Atlas V which uses Russian-supplied RD-180 engines that Russia are probably no longer willing to sell. They have enough of a stockpile for a couple of years, but it'll take longer than that just to reach the point where the CST-100 can carry people. They were supposedly intending to support other launchers at a later stage in the project, but don't currently.
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  I think Putin's little war with the West is going to have massive gains for the US spaceflight. Whatever doubts we had about doing business with his regime have now been solidified. I don't think NASA will ever put itself in a position where it requires another nation's permission to get into space. This can only mean good things for the continued funding of the SLS. Also, other boneheaded moves like ULA standardizing on a Russian made engine will be strongly discouraged. Being self-sufficient is the only sane move as petty autocrats like Putin will take their ball and run home if they feel their ego isn't being stroked enough.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    > I think Putin's little war with the West is going to have massive gains for the US spacefligt Did I miss something or did everyone just forget that it's the United States that started that 'little war', wrt. space flight?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - 12y ago
redmaverick 12y ago
Offtopic: Conventional wisdom says he who chases two rabbits, captures none. How is Elon Musk able to succeed on more than one Company? Even Steve Jobs is famous for focus. He once said, "I'm as proud of what we don't do as I am of what we do."
- 31reasons 12y ago
  For that I think we have to study Elon's brain when he is free from his ventures. His trajectory looks like of a perfect brain/mind that never fails to delivery even in extreme pressures. By the way he also has photographic memory so that helps.
  - grkvlt 12y ago
    > trajectory looks like [...] perfect Those are the important words. Never underestimate how much luck and chance factor into success, being in the right place at the right time and so on. Musk has done well, but studies show that corporate success only very loosely correlated with CEO skills (30%) and mostly luck. So, no, he's not a super-man with a perfect brain, although I expect you'd still have a hard time persuading him to part with it for 'study' ;)
- icehawk219 12y ago
  Usually the key is being able to find people who share your vision and are able to execute it without you needing to micromanage or devote a huge chunk of your time to that one venture. I'd argue that if that's how he's done it then that's his greatest success, even more so than SpaceX or Tesla. Because it can be very difficult to find those people.
- erikpukinskis 12y ago
  I can't tell if you're trolling. Steve Jobs was CEO of two companies at once: Pixar and Apple.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    And before that, Pixar and NeXT.
FD3SA 12y ago
Does anyone know how Musk plans to address the lack of Mars' magnetosphere? [1] As much as I am rooting for him, I don't see how a long term colony is possible without addressing this problem. If we're going to live in underground, shielded habitats, why not just build space colonies and/or Moon colonies? Furthermore, I don't think we're going to get very far in space manufacturing without a high energy density power source (e.g. fusion). As such, shouldn't Elon be advocating for increased research funding for fusion? 1. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast31jan_1/ http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/as...
- idbentley 12y ago
  > Furthermore, I don't think we're going to get very far in space manufacturing without a high energy density power source (e.g. fusion). Care to elaborate on this point?
- seanflyon 12y ago
  The lack of a magnetosphere is a problem on geological time scales (thousands to millions of years) after terraforming. Mars is a great place for human life because it has soil, water, metals and gravity (though earth is far better).
- manicdee 12y ago
  We already have a gigantic fusion reactor at the centre of the Solar system. All you need to do to power manufacturing in space is find ways of harnessing that energy.
JanSolo 12y ago
If I were NASA, I'd pick SpaceX and Sierra Nevada and here's why: Boeing CST100 is the most conventional of all the 3 designs. It's probably the 'safest' bet but also the most expensive to operate. This is because it still requires an Atlas or Delta rocket to launch. Atlas is likely out because its russian-sourced motors are currently out of fashion. That leaves Delta; which is the most expensive of the currently available launchers. Also, CST100 uses a traditional 'SplashDown' recovery that requires a flotilla of helicopter-capable naval ships to be on standby for every mission. This is not cheap. That said, I'm sure it will work as-designed and will be fairly reliable. But all this comes at a cost; and IMO if NASA are smart, they can get more functionality for less money from the other providers. Lets see: SpaceX has the advantage of using their own launchers. These were already much cheaper than Atlas and Delta, but soon we're promised that they'll be reusable. This can slash the cost by a further factor of 10 again. Such possibilities are hard to ignore. Furthermore, the Dragon2 capsule does not require a naval recovery and can land on a simple slab of concrete anywhere you'd like. There are other fringe benefits too... Dragon2 is re-usable, you could potentially just refuel it, put it back on another rocket and launch it again within a few days. Also, Dragon2 uses a novel pusher-type launch-escape-system that's integrated into the capsule instead of being jettissoned on each launch. These things add up to considerable savings. NASA would be foolish not to choose SpaceX as one of their 2 choices... Price-wise, SpaceX is probably the cheapest of the 3, however the risks are fairly high; there's a lot of new tech that needs to be proven. But the potential rewards are so high and SpaceX's track-record of acheiving their promises is so stellar, that NASA surely must give them a shot. That leaves SierraNevada. They're kinda the wildcard in this competition. They have this wacky spaceplane that looks like it came from the 60s. If you ask any astronauts which one they'd pick, I bet they'd all say SierraNevada. Why? Astronauts are often test-pilots. Test pilots like to fly things. This is the only one that can be 'piloted' in the traditional sense of the word (with wings and surfaces). It has several advantages: Easy and fast recovery; just land on any runway. Reusability; no need to build a new one each time. Pusher-style LES. Also, it just looks plain cool. And it has one big disadvantage: It's designed to launch on the currently-unfashionable AtlasV rocket. If SierraNevada can convert this thing to launch on a Delta or a Falcon, I think they'll have a good enough price advantage over CST100 to make them the 2nd-choice after SpaceX. Having said all this... space hardware gets built on the whims of politicians. Even with the best planning, there's still a good chance that some politician will point at the pork-barrel and fuck it all up.
trhway 12y ago
NASA need to pay to both - to Boeing to keep it happy and avoid its destructive meddling with the real deal - SpaceX. Paying a racket fee to Boeing will be very wise thing in the long run.
hendler 12y ago
The companion piece is also on Netflix http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=80005608 http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=80005608
- amckenna 12y ago
  I watched it a few nights ago and it was pretty good. It was cool to see each of the vehicles/capsules, their insides, and the facilities that are building them. Definitely recommend watching.

97 points by davelnewton 12y ago

jacquesm 12y ago

Where did the 'Mars' in the title come from? This is to get to the ISS and back, not to Mars. edit: thanks mods!

dethstar 12y ago
I guess from Musk quotes, “The reason I haven’t taken SpaceX public is the goals of SpaceX are very long-term, which is to establish a city on Mars,” Musk, 43, told reporters at a Sept. 8 briefing in Tokyo.
- butwhy 12y ago
  That quote is irrelevant. I agree with the guy you are quoting. This article doesn't make any sense and I assume the author wasn't supposed to mention Mars.
- patcon 12y ago
  Agree that this bit isn't relevant to the title, but MAN, I wish politicians had this sort of longterm vision in mind. But I suppose Musk, being the CEO, is politically like a benevolent dictator of SpaceX, so he can afford to plan longterm :)
  - mikeyouse 12y ago
    The political environment all but makes it impossible. Can you imagine a congressman or senator going out on a limb to fund a 10-15 year project that starts with three failed launches? God forbid one of their employees donated to that congressperson's campaign, Issa would have the CEO in front of a committee and in front of the cameras within the week..
  - hga 12y ago
    This is perhaps the major argument for monarchies, or republics that are less attuned to "the mob", i.e. the masses. If you want long term thinking, don't attach political power to a vote by "everyone" every 2-6 years.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      Following that line of thought, it is actually a major argument for dictatorships. After all, they can command a whole country to operate towards some single unified goal. If fewer voters is better than 0 voters is optimal! A nice illustration is that most open source projects that are based on democracy are always torn apart by inner power plays but those that have a 'benevolent dictator' seem to flourish.
      - hdevalence 12y ago
        Of course, removing accountability means that much more often than not, the single unified goal is 'the value of my Swiss bank account'...
      - lotsofmangos 12y ago
        Is much harder to fork a country if the dictator goes nuts.
      - hga 12y ago
        Of course, we shouldn't be surprised that the other extreme is also bad, if not worse. Especially since "dictatorship" as it's used excludes monarchical systems, in some cases fairly absolute, but that include formally passing on the reign to one's heirs, I'm quite uncertain how useful it is to observe systems like open source projects where the stakes are so very low compared to governing a polity. The extreme of dictatorship says nothing about the middle, such as a republic with a limited franchise (e.g. own land or pay a hefty poll tax), or adding other types of bodies to government. Such as the US Senate back when its members were picked by state legislatures, or a power sharing arrangement between a monarch and a legislative body or three, like the U.K. of long ago.
    - goodcanadian 12y ago
lotsofmangos 12y ago
Unfortunately I don't expect bloomberg headline writers to care about the difference, there is a quote about mars in the article so they put mars in the title. Remember it is normally very hard for the press to tell the difference between the ISS and Mars either before or after several pints of lunch.
- khc 12y ago
  Looks like the bloomberg title has been fixed, but the HN link title hasn't (URL though still says Mars).
jeroen94704 12y ago
It's changed now. At least on the bloomberg site.

jobu 12y ago

The most interesting part to me is that congressional support has increased for funding more than one venture in case one runs into technical difficulties (now that the Soyuz option is ending). “The Russians have done NASA a favor in terms of funding,” Caceres said.

makomk 12y ago
Unfortunately, one of the ventures - Boeing's one - is still currently somewhat dependent on Russia. They're doing their testing and integration work with the Atlas V which uses Russian-supplied RD-180 engines that Russia are probably no longer willing to sell. They have enough of a stockpile for a couple of years, but it'll take longer than that just to reach the point where the CST-100 can carry people. They were supposedly intending to support other launchers at a later stage in the project, but don't currently.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
I think Putin's little war with the West is going to have massive gains for the US spaceflight. Whatever doubts we had about doing business with his regime have now been solidified. I don't think NASA will ever put itself in a position where it requires another nation's permission to get into space. This can only mean good things for the continued funding of the SLS. Also, other boneheaded moves like ULA standardizing on a Russian made engine will be strongly discouraged. Being self-sufficient is the only sane move as petty autocrats like Putin will take their ball and run home if they feel their ego isn't being stroked enough.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > I think Putin's little war with the West is going to have massive gains for the US spacefligt Did I miss something or did everyone just forget that it's the United States that started that 'little war', wrt. space flight?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - 12y ago

redmaverick 12y ago

Offtopic: Conventional wisdom says he who chases two rabbits, captures none. How is Elon Musk able to succeed on more than one Company? Even Steve Jobs is famous for focus. He once said, "I'm as proud of what we don't do as I am of what we do."

31reasons 12y ago
For that I think we have to study Elon's brain when he is free from his ventures. His trajectory looks like of a perfect brain/mind that never fails to delivery even in extreme pressures. By the way he also has photographic memory so that helps.
- grkvlt 12y ago
  > trajectory looks like [...] perfect Those are the important words. Never underestimate how much luck and chance factor into success, being in the right place at the right time and so on. Musk has done well, but studies show that corporate success only very loosely correlated with CEO skills (30%) and mostly luck. So, no, he's not a super-man with a perfect brain, although I expect you'd still have a hard time persuading him to part with it for 'study' ;)
icehawk219 12y ago
Usually the key is being able to find people who share your vision and are able to execute it without you needing to micromanage or devote a huge chunk of your time to that one venture. I'd argue that if that's how he's done it then that's his greatest success, even more so than SpaceX or Tesla. Because it can be very difficult to find those people.
erikpukinskis 12y ago
I can't tell if you're trolling. Steve Jobs was CEO of two companies at once: Pixar and Apple.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  And before that, Pixar and NeXT.

FD3SA 12y ago

Does anyone know how Musk plans to address the lack of Mars' magnetosphere? [1] As much as I am rooting for him, I don't see how a long term colony is possible without addressing this problem. If we're going to live in underground, shielded habitats, why not just build space colonies and/or Moon colonies? Furthermore, I don't think we're going to get very far in space manufacturing without a high energy density power source (e.g. fusion). As such, shouldn't Elon be advocating for increased research funding for fusion? 1. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast31jan_1/ http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/as...

idbentley 12y ago
> Furthermore, I don't think we're going to get very far in space manufacturing without a high energy density power source (e.g. fusion). Care to elaborate on this point?
seanflyon 12y ago
The lack of a magnetosphere is a problem on geological time scales (thousands to millions of years) after terraforming. Mars is a great place for human life because it has soil, water, metals and gravity (though earth is far better).
manicdee 12y ago
We already have a gigantic fusion reactor at the centre of the Solar system. All you need to do to power manufacturing in space is find ways of harnessing that energy.

JanSolo 12y ago

If I were NASA, I'd pick SpaceX and Sierra Nevada and here's why: Boeing CST100 is the most conventional of all the 3 designs. It's probably the 'safest' bet but also the most expensive to operate. This is because it still requires an Atlas or Delta rocket to launch. Atlas is likely out because its russian-sourced motors are currently out of fashion. That leaves Delta; which is the most expensive of the currently available launchers. Also, CST100 uses a traditional 'SplashDown' recovery that requires a flotilla of helicopter-capable naval ships to be on standby for every mission. This is not cheap. That said, I'm sure it will work as-designed and will be fairly reliable. But all this comes at a cost; and IMO if NASA are smart, they can get more functionality for less money from the other providers. Lets see: SpaceX has the advantage of using their own launchers. These were already much cheaper than Atlas and Delta, but soon we're promised that they'll be reusable. This can slash the cost by a further factor of 10 again. Such possibilities are hard to ignore. Furthermore, the Dragon2 capsule does not require a naval recovery and can land on a simple slab of concrete anywhere you'd like. There are other fringe benefits too... Dragon2 is re-usable, you could potentially just refuel it, put it back on another rocket and launch it again within a few days. Also, Dragon2 uses a novel pusher-type launch-escape-system that's integrated into the capsule instead of being jettissoned on each launch. These things add up to considerable savings. NASA would be foolish not to choose SpaceX as one of their 2 choices... Price-wise, SpaceX is probably the cheapest of the 3, however the risks are fairly high; there's a lot of new tech that needs to be proven. But the potential rewards are so high and SpaceX's track-record of acheiving their promises is so stellar, that NASA surely must give them a shot. That leaves SierraNevada. They're kinda the wildcard in this competition. They have this wacky spaceplane that looks like it came from the 60s. If you ask any astronauts which one they'd pick, I bet they'd all say SierraNevada. Why? Astronauts are often test-pilots. Test pilots like to fly things. This is the only one that can be 'piloted' in the traditional sense of the word (with wings and surfaces). It has several advantages: Easy and fast recovery; just land on any runway. Reusability; no need to build a new one each time. Pusher-style LES. Also, it just looks plain cool. And it has one big disadvantage: It's designed to launch on the currently-unfashionable AtlasV rocket. If SierraNevada can convert this thing to launch on a Delta or a Falcon, I think they'll have a good enough price advantage over CST100 to make them the 2nd-choice after SpaceX. Having said all this... space hardware gets built on the whims of politicians. Even with the best planning, there's still a good chance that some politician will point at the pork-barrel and fuck it all up.

trhway 12y ago

NASA need to pay to both - to Boeing to keep it happy and avoid its destructive meddling with the real deal - SpaceX. Paying a racket fee to Boeing will be very wise thing in the long run.

hendler 12y ago

The companion piece is also on Netflix http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=80005608 http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=80005608

amckenna 12y ago
I watched it a few nights ago and it was pretty good. It was cool to see each of the vehicles/capsules, their insides, and the facilities that are building them. Definitely recommend watching.