Commercial Space and Why Are We Doing It?

[саша]

Короче, в этой "парадигме":

Valerij цитирует:
 Мы должны, в качестве промежуточной цели, установить возвращение на поверхность Луны в течении десятилетия, в партнерстве с коммерческими фирмами, и должны сделать это для того, чтобы использовать лунные ресурсы для дальнейшего освоения Солнечной Системы.

"Кузнечик" это блок "Д" который не сбрасывается перед посадкой а садится вместе ЛК на поверхность Луны, дозаправляется кислородом и Выводит ЛК на орбиту и далее

[Valerij]

саша пишет:
Короче, в этой "парадигме":
"Кузнечик" это блок "Д" который не сбрасывается перед посадкой а садится вместе ЛК на поверхность Луны, дозаправляется кислородом и Выводит ЛК на орбиту и далее

.  
Во первых' "парадигма" понятие, намного более широкое, во вторых, если вспомнить, что топливная пара метан и кислород, и посчитать, то выяснится, что заправлять нужно не только кислородом. Да и установка по добыче кислорода в достаточном количестве агрегат не маленький, и капризный.
   
Я не знаю планов Маска по Луне, возможно, что их просто нет. Тема про "Золотой Колос", задумавший вернуться на Луну за десять лет находится в разделе "Пилотируемые полеты".

[саша]

Valerij пишет:
Во первых' "парадигма" понятие, намного более широкое

Забыл уточнить что это только третий пункт из большой статьи с историческим экскурсом вплоть до работы над ошибками программы шаттл восьмидесятых годов, в которой(статье) отсутствует второй, провальный, этап этой работы и исправление новых ошибок. По результатам исправления их и дан старт нынешнему этапу с участием Маска в том числе. 
Выкинув всё плохое и сохранив всё хорошее, удачно, по их мнению, пристегнув военных, авторы составили план действий который Вы выложили на предыдущей странице.

Valerij пишет:
 во вторых, если вспомнить, что топливная пара метан и кислород,

К сожалению(есть причины?) Маск молчит как партизан не называя даже размерность движка,  а "кузнечик" хотя бы подпрыгивает

[Valerij]

саша пишет:

Valerij пишет:
Во первых' "парадигма" понятие, намного более широкое

Забыл уточнить что это только третий пункт из большой статьи с историческим экскурсом вплоть до работы над ошибками программы шаттл восьмидесятых годов, в которой(статье) отсутствует второй, провальный, этап этой работы и исправление новых ошибок. По результатам исправления их и дан старт нынешнему этапу с участием Маска в том числе.

Вы бы хоть ссылку дали на эту "большую статью". Но вообще мы здесь совсем другой вопрос пытаемся обсуждать, поэтому экономические ошибки программы Шаттл лучше обсудить в другой теме. Вы путаете философский вопрос ("Почему мы делаем это) и технику.
   

саша пишет:
Выкинув всё плохое и сохранив всё хорошее, удачно, по их мнению, пристегнув военных, авторы составили план действий который Вы выложили на предыдущей странице.

Военные здесь одни из заказчиков, причем далеко не самые главные. Здесь вообще речь идет о том, что появляется интерес у частников.
   

саша пишет:

Valerij пишет:
 во вторых, если вспомнить, что топливная пара метан и кислород,

К сожалению(есть причины?) Маск молчит как партизан не называя даже размерность движка, а "кузнечик" хотя бы подпрыгивает

И новый прыжок от темы. Маск имеет право молчать, вам он точно ничего не должен. А молчит просто потому, что планы еще даже в голове не созрели. Причем многое в этих планах может меняться и после того, как они будут озвучены.

[Valerij]

Подборка постов с сайта "Грань" (http://www.theverge.com/) на тему "непрофессиональной"  (любительской ее уже назвать язык не поворачивается) космонавтики.
   
http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/31/3929342/the-stars-on-a-shoestring-amateurs-ignite-grassroots-space-race
   
Это примерно как "Пулкон" - маленькие "новые частники", амбициозные и иногда успешные. Как раз на тему "Почему мы делаем это".

[Valerij]

Это небольшой отрывок из большого интервью с Маском. В этом отрывке Маск рассказывает, как пытался в начале нулевых отправить к Марсу небольшую автоматическую оранжерею, как ездил в Россию, и как понял, что мы не летим на Марс только потому, что считаем это слишком дорогим удовольствием.
   

Musk: So I started with a crazy idea to spur the national will. I called it the Mars Oasis missions. The idea was to send a small greenhouse to the surface of Mars, packed with dehydrated nutrient gel that could be hydrated on landing. You'd wind up with this great photograph of green plants and red background—the first life on Mars, as far as we know, and the farthest that life's ever traveled. It would be a great money shot, plus you'd get a lot of engineering data about what it takes to maintain a little greenhouse and keep plants alive on Mars. If I could afford it, I figured it would be a worthy expenditure of money, with no expectation of financial return.

Anderson: You were going to buy a ride to Mars, in a sense.

Musk: Right. So I started to price it out. The spacecraft, the communications, the greenhouse experiment: I figured out how to do all that for relatively little. But then came the rocket—the actual propulsion from Earth to Mars. The cheapest US rocket that could do it would have cost $65 million, and I figured I would need at least two.

Anderson: So, $130 million.

Musk: Yeah, plus the cost of everything else, which would have meant I'd spend everything I made from PayPal—and if there were any cost growth I wouldn't be able to cover it. So next I went to Russia three times, in late 2001 and 2002, to see if I could negotiate the purchase of two ICBMs. Without the nukes, obviously.

Anderson: Obviously.

Musk: They would have cost me $15 million to $20 million each. That was certainly a big improvement. But as I thought about it, I realized that the only reason the ICBMs were that cheap was because they'd already been made. They were just sitting around unused. You couldn't make new ones for sale at that price. I suddenly understood that my whole premise behind the Mars Oasis idea was flawed. The real reason we weren't going to Mars wasn't a lack of national will; it was that we didn't have cheap enough rocket technology to get there on a reasonable budget. It was the perception among the American people—correct, given current technology—that it didn't make financial sense to go.
   
Anderson: Instead of buying rockets for a philanthropic mission, you realized that you needed to start a business to make them more efficiently.

Musk: We needed to set rocket technology on a path of rapid improvement. In the course of trying to put together Mars Oasis, I had talked to a number of people in the space industry and got a sense of who was technically astute and who wasn't. So I put together a team, and over a series of Saturdays I had them do a feasibility study about building rockets more efficiently. It became clear that there wasn't anything to prevent us from doing it. Rocket technology had not materially improved since the '60s—arguably it had gone backward! We decided to reverse that trend.

Anderson: And you have reversed it.

Musk: Six years after we started the company, we launched our first rocket, Falcon 1, into orbit in 2008. And the price—not the cost, mind you, but the total price to customers per launch—was roughly $7 million.
     

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/10/ff-elon-musk-qa/all/

[testest]

Во-первых, он не про нас говорит, а про американцев: "The real reason we weren't going to Mars wasn't a lack of national will; it was that we didn't have cheap enough rocket technology to get there on a reasonable budget."
Во-вторых, он что, хотел отправить на Марс лабораторию на Днепре?

P.S. Да и вообще, он причиной называет отсутствие государственной воли. Мол, государство жадничает, потому что ракеты слишком дорогие, и поэтому Маск скромно берет на себя тяжкую ношу по снижению стоимости кг пн.

[Valerij]

ykpoi пишет:
Во-первых, он не про нас говорит, а про американцев: "The real reason we weren't going to Mars wasn't a lack of national will; it was that we didn't have cheap enough rocket technology to get there on a reasonable budget."

Во первых, я считаю, что говоря про Марс уже поздно обсуждать ту или иную страну. Он напрямую говорит о Марсе, но вообще он говорит обо всем мире.
   

ykpoi пишет:
Во-вторых, он что, хотел отправить на Марс лабораторию на Днепре?

Как я понял - многопуском. Тогда он был зелен и "желал странного", важно, что выросло из этого побега.....
   

ykpoi пишет:
P.S. Да и вообще, он причиной называет отсутствие государственной воли.....

Но называет такую "жадность" адекватной при нынешних ценах. Кроме того, он совершенно прав, говоря, что снижение цены на доставку на орбиту вызовет взрыв частного спроса - это мы уже видим на примерах возникающих "Марса Один", "Золотого Колоса" и прочих. А мы знаем. что в нормальных странах денег в карманах у частников намного больше, чем у государства. Например, для проекта Дениса Тито вполне хватит годовой подписки на кабельное телевидение миллиона квартир....
   
кстати, это вполне достаточное доказательство, что "Золотой Колос" может быть финансово выгодным проектом. Достаточно подключиться к этому проекту мощному медиа синдикату и начать производить видеоматериалы и продавать права на их показ.....

[Back-stabber]

Valerij пишет:

ykpoi пишет:
Во-вторых, он что, хотел отправить на Марс лабораторию на Днепре?

Как я понял - многопуском. Тогда он был зелен и "желал странного", важно, что выросло из этого побега.....

Жопа какая... Я считал его просто романтиком... А он в то время ещё да-же книжки не читал видать, но шило уже того... вошло в соприкосновение с его филе...

[Back-stabber]

Valerij пишет:
кстати, это вполне достаточное доказательство, что "Золотой Колос" может быть финансово выгодным проектом. Достаточно подключиться к этому проекту мощному медиа синдикату и начать производить видеоматериалы и продавать права на их показ.....

Падзадолбали со своими медиа-магнатами.. У Вас кабельное-то есть хоть? Али так, проволочина в попу телику и норм?

[Valerij]

Hale: Approach to Funding Commercial Crew is Penny Wise, Pound Foolish
Posted by Doug Messier on May 19, 2013, at 2:13 pm in News
 
In prepared testimony last week before the Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space, former space shuttle program manager Wayne Hale urged lawmakers to boost spending for the commercial crew program:
 

 

Poised on the cusp of these new systems, we run the risk of being penny wise and pound foolish as we make the same mistake that doomed the space shuttle to much higher cost operations: starving a spacecraft development program in the name of saving a few pennies for today's budget bottom line resulting in the compromised systems that, if they fly at all, will not be cheap enough to enable business in space....

Currently, the commercial space effort stands uncomfortably close to the brink of financial starvation. Deep space transportation development is being stretched out by similar restrictions. Business is looking to see if the government is serious about providing the critical support or whether this effort will be wasted as so many earlier government programs which withered away on the very cusp of success: National Launch System, Orbital Space Plane, and others.

Hale's full testimony is reproduced after the break.
 
Testimony of N. Wayne Hale, Jr.
before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
May 16, 2013
 

Спойлер

I thank the committee for inviting me to testify concerning the growth of the space industry including the private sector space transportation.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am hardly a disinterested party in this topic. I am and have always been a passionate believer that space exploration and the industries that may derive fr om it will benefit humanity in ways beyond our imagining. I have spent most of my professional life working in the large government space programs of the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. During those years I have seen NASA at its very best and at its worst. The hard working dedication of my colleagues at NASA personnel is nothing short of phenomenal, and their talent and creativity is second to none. However, their endeavors have frequently been stymied due to the inherent bureaucratic inefficiencies of government work and the frequent shifts in priorities and funding that whipsaw most space initiatives. This has led me to believe there must be a better way to develop and operate space systems.

In my last assignment before retirement fr om government service, I worked with Frank Bauer, the Chief Engineer of the Exploration Systems Directorate, to define the management philosophy, protocols, and processes for the then new Commercial Crew Program within NASA. After my retirement, my work has continued as a consultant. My company, Special Aerospace Services,and I are paid advisors to a number of entities involved in the commercial crew and commercial space cargo enterprises. And I have volunteered my time to work with the Commercial Spaceflight Federation to establish safety, management, and engineering standards for all the members of this fledgling industry. So the committee can see that I am hardly a disinterested party and should weigh my testimony as such.

Establishing good, effective safety, engineering, and management standards in a voluntary industry association is the hallmark of any reputable and mature industry. I am pleased to report that the CSF is making good progress in setting up voluntary processes which will ensure public safety and promote general success in this difficult business. Industry group standards can alleviate the need for government regulations by allowing the members of a trade association to tailor best practices specifically for their industry. Evolution of these industry standards inevitably proceeds more rapidly than the development of government regulations and can therefore take rapid advantage of best practices as they emerge.

The most singularly vexing problem with space flight is the high cost of getting to low earth orbit. As the noted science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once observed, 'when you are in earth orbit you are half way to anywhere in the universe' which accurately reflects the physics of the
situation.

The lack of low cost transportation to that point located just above the earth's atmosphere and moving at 17,500 mph forward velocity has prevented potential space entrepreneurs more than any other factor. Hundreds of potential business opportunities in the limitless resources of the solar system have floundered on the high cost of transportation to low earth orbit. Asteroid mining, energy production, zero gravity manufacturing are all within our grasp technologically but will not be profitable until reliable and reasonably affordable transportation systems are in place.

New systems for transportation to low earth orbit have enormously high development costs. Private investors, with a few exceptions, are loath to provide the capital needed to develop low earth orbit transportation without clear and immediate business ready to purchase tickets.

So we are in a 'chicken or the egg' paradox. Space business needs low cost transportation to become profitable, while potential private transportation
services need established business to justify the cost of construction. This is not the first time that America has been in this situation. Both the early railroads and fledgling air transportation industries found themselves becalmed in similar straits. In both these cases, and others, the federal taxpayers stepped in to provide critical resources to help new industries develop. Those investments have been paid back myriad-fold in tax revenues when the new industries caught fire and provided transportation systems that were the envy of the world.

NASA and its predecessor agency the NACA provided needed aeronautical research to make air transportation as inexpensive and safe as we find it today. The federal investment in aeronautics development has paid off handsomely in the development of a multi-billion dollar industry. Indeed, one of the largest sectors of net exports in the American economy is aerospace with billion dollar sales a common occurrence.

The history of space flight – after the first early steps to demonstrate that space flight was even possible – has been marked with the goal of decreasing the cost of transportation to low earth orbit. In my home I have an entire shelf of books populated by volumes of studies and proposals from a multitude of thinkers spread over decades on that subject: how to provide reliable safe space transportation on the cheap.

The space system that consumed much of my professional career, the space shuttle, was established to achieve just such a low cost goal. But the technologies of the 1970s, harnessed to a risk adverse government apparatus resulted in a system that was only slightly less expensive than those which went before.

In the last decade, the United States embarked on a bold new experiment to turn over the creative reins of spacecraft development to entrepreneurial, nimble, flexible, creative private commercial teams. Bolstered with a modicum of taxpayer resources, these businesses have leveraged private investment to create the critical mass to develop new, much cheaper transportation systems. We see the first fruits of success today with cargo carrying craft: the SpaceX Falcon and Dragon, and the Orbital Antares and Cygnus. These cargo carrying privately developed vehicles are starting to supply our government outpost, the International Space Station. In future years others, the Boeing CST-100 and the Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser will be added to the fleet to carry human beings as well as cargo.

Poised on the cusp of these new systems, we run the risk of being penny wise and pound foolish as we make the same mistake that doomed the space shuttle to much higher cost operations: starving a spacecraft development program in the name of saving a few pennies for today's budget bottom line resulting in the compromised systems that, if they fly at all, will not be cheap enough to enable business in space.

This is not to devalue the development of truly deep space exploration systems by the government. Those high risk, high cost systems payback over such are long term that they would never be funded by private investment. But, like the expenses incurred by Lewis and Clark, Captain Zebulon Pike, and a host of other government expeditions in our history, the payback from exploration will be enormous for both the country and for all of humanity. Just at a more distant point in the future than business spreadsheets normally run. The SLS and the MPCV should be developed in conjunction with the commercial low earth orbit transportation systems. Flying to cis-lunar space to inspect a captured asteroid is an engineering and operations test worthy of a first deep space mission. But that mission can only be a first step. More should follow.

The commercial systems will enable the deep space exploration initiative in substantial ways. First of all because the ISS is our space test laboratory for the technologies and systems that deep space exploration will need. Operation in space, aboard the ISS, is the most effective means to wring out life support, communications, propulsion, and other technologies. Commercial transportation of cargo and crews to the ISS directly support deep space systems development. As deep space exploration proceeds, commercial cargo and crew vehicles will likely be called upon to aid with assembly and fuel delivery to low earth orbit wh ere we will finalize preparations to head into the vast deep. Cost effective commercial transportation to low earth orbit can make a vital difference in equipping the deep space fleet.

So the two efforts go hand in hand. Funding equity between the two programs is necessary to ensure the timely success of both. Currently, the commercial space effort stands uncomfortably close to the brink of financial starvation. Deep space transportation development is being stretched out by similar restrictions. Business is looking to see if the government is serious about providing the critical support or whether this effort will be wasted as so many earlier government programs which withered away on the very cusp of success: National Launch System, Orbital Space Plane, and others.

I urge the Congress to fully fund these vital activities, both the commercial crew program and the exploration systems. They will allow America and American industry to lead in the exploration and development of human activity in our solar system. When the historians of the future look back on our era, they will recognize the movement of humanity from planet earth into the solar system as the pivotal event of our times. There is no project that is so important for the long term success of humankind. I would hope that those historians record that at this crossroad of history that a creative, enterprising, farsighted nation called America led the way.

The prizes both economic and historic are too great to bypass. If America does not lead in these enterprises, somebody else will. And the leader will reap the greatest rewards both in the near term and in the longer term.

For all our lim itations, America is a very rich country. There are many things which America needs to do for the present moment: provide for a strong military to protect us in a dangerous world, educate our children, care for our elderly and infirm, revitalize our transportation infrastructure of roads, bridges, airports, and more. All of these activities are of vital importance today. Space exploration is about the future. Space exploration is possibly the only line item in the federal budget that is all about the future. Currently we spend one half of one percent of our nation's treasure on the future. Isn't the future worth that investment?
 

[свернуть]

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2013/05/19/hale-approach-to-funding-commercial-crew-is-penny-wise-pound-foolish/
 
Здесь приведен полный текст показаний в сенатском подкомитете по науке и иследованию космического пространства комитета по торговле, науке и транспорту, которые дал 16 мая 2013 года Н. Уэйн Хейл младший (N. Wayne Hale, Jr.), бывший менеджер программы космического челнока. В этих "показаниях" Уэйн Хейл призвал увеличить финансирование коммерческой программы доставки экипажа на МКС. Очень интересныйдокумент, где приведено много фактов, вполне достойный того. что бы прочитать его не торопясь и хорошо подумать.

[Старый]

Valerij пишет: В этих "показаниях" Уэйн Хейл призвал увеличить финансирование коммерческой программы доставки экипажа на МКС. 

Ато чтото волшебной силы фикс-прайс контрактов недостаточно...

[Valerij]

Это один из комментариев на предыдущее сообщение:
 

Robert Clark (to) cosmic • 4 days ago −
 
The key fact that has hindered making spaceflight routine is the huge upfront development costs it was thought necessary to produce an orbital rocket, regarded as being in the range of several billions of dollars.
What's key is that NASA has proven by its commercial spaceflight program that it can be 1/10th of that, or a few hundreds of millions of dollars. This has been proven now both with SpaceX with the Falcon 9, and Orbital Sciences with the Antares.

What's notable about the Falcon 9 is that with fully private funding it was able to be done for ca. $300 million for a 10 metric ton (mT) launcher. What's notable about the Antares is the $472 million development cost covered both the 5 mT launcher and a pressurized capsule. And what's extremely important here is that the government only had to fund $288 million of that for a 5 mT capable launcher.
With development costs this low, only a few hundred million dollars for fully private development or for the portion that has to be funded by a government, any industrialized country in the world can have its own, independent spaceflight program, no consortiums such as the ESA required.
That was the point I was making in my blog post. Then the success of NASA's commercial spaceflight program should be trumpeted by them, not spoken of in hushed tones. It is the means by which we will finally achieved routine spaceflight.

Bob Clark http://exoscientist.blogspot.ru/
 

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2013/05/19/hale-approach-to-funding-commercial-crew-is-penny-wise-pound-foolish/
 
А это полный перевод этого комментария Гуглом:
 

Роберт Кларк космических • 4 дней назад -
Ключевой факт, что мешало делать космический полет процедура авансом огромные затраты на разработку было признано необходимым для производства орбитальных ракет, рассматриваются как находящиеся в диапазоне от нескольких миллиардов долларов.
Что Главное то, что NASA доказало его коммерческих космических полетов программа, которая может быть 1/10th этого, или несколько сотен миллионов долларов. Это было доказано теперь оба с SpaceX с Falcon 9 и Orbital Sciences с Antares.

Что примечательно, о Falcon 9 является то, что с полностью частным финансированием он был в состоянии сделать для CA. 300 миллионов долларов на 10 метрических тонн (MT) пусковой установки. Что примечательно, о Антарес $ 472 млн стоимости разработки охватывают как пусковая 5 мТл и герметической кабине. И что крайне важно здесь то, что правительство только должны были выделить $ 288 млн из этого заняли 5 м способна пусковой установки.
Разработки, затраты по этой низкой, всего лишь несколько сотен миллионов долларов на развитие частного полностью или часть, которую должен финансироваться правительством, любой промышленно развитой страны в мире может иметь свой собственный, независимый космический полет программы, ни консорциумов, таких как ЕКА требуется.
Это был момент, который я делал в моем блоге. Тогда весь успех коммерческой программы космических полетов НАСА следует котором они трубят, не говорили вполголоса. Это средство, с помощью которого мы будем, наконец, достигнуто рутинных полетов.

Боб Кларк

Есть более полный комментарий Боба Кларка http://exoscientist.blogspot.ru/2013/05/on-lasting-importance-of-spacex.html

[Valerij]

Старый пишет:

Valerij пишет: В этих "показаниях" Уэйн Хейл призвал увеличить финансирование коммерческой программы доставки экипажа на МКС.

Ато чтото волшебной силы фикс-прайс контрактов недостаточно...

В показаниях Хейла есть ссылки на предшествующие случаи, когда федеральные инвестиции многократно (это в данном случае очень мягко - миллионами, возможно миллиардами раз) вернулись в бюджет в виде налогов. Вообще Конгресс как раз призван развивать экономику. То есть Хейл младший просто призвал Конгресс заняться делом.
   
Впрочем. спорить со Старым Ламером, который давно составил свое мнение и теперь лишь прикрепляет его к аннотации контрпродуктивно. Это сообщение только для читателей форума.

[Старый]

Valerij пишет:
В показаниях Хейла есть ссылки на предшествующие случаи, когда федеральные инвестиции многократно (это в данном случае очень мягко - миллионами, возможно миллиардами раз) вернулись в бюджет в виде налогов.

 Неслабая у них там норма прибыли...

[Valerij]

Private Firm Sets Sights on First Moon Base
MAY 24, 2013 11:52 AM ET // BY IRENE KLOTZ
   

Robert Bigelow discusses a model of a Bigelow Aerospace lunar outpost.
   
NASA may not be going to the moon anytime soon, but private companies plan to do so, a study by space habitat developer Bigelow Aerospace shows.
   

Спойлер

The study, commissioned by NASA, is intended as a supplemental roadmap for the U.S. government as it charts human space initiatives beyond the International Space Station, a permanently staffed research complex that orbits about 250 miles above Earth.
   
"Instead of being the typical approach where we put together all the plans and we ask for participation, we wanted to look at it the other way and see what's available," NASA's head of space operations, Bill Gerstenmaier, told reporters during a press conference on Thursday.
   
"This is a holistic kind of effort," added Robert Bigelow, president and founder of the Nevada-based firm that bears his name. "It's intended to encompass as much (information) as possible and it's intended to evolve and to grow."
   
The first part of the study surveyed about two dozen companies and research organizations about their ideas, plans, capabilities, schedules and costs for upcoming space initiatives. A draft report was submitted to NASA on Thursday -- 40 days ahead of schedule -- and has not yet been publicly released.
   
NASA intends to use the information to figure out where it can collaborate with private space initiatives and where it might, for example, entirely skip an expensive research and development program and just buy services or hardware commercially.
   
For example, after the International Space Station is removed from orbit, NASA could be a tenant aboard a Bigelow Aerospace-owned habitat for any microgravity research or technology development it wants to do.
   
"We think station can fly to 2028," Gerstenmaier said.
   
After that, "we won't be in the business of maintaining and operating a facility in low-Earth orbit. We believe that there will be a service available for us and the private sector," he said.
   
NASA plans to follow the space station program with human missions to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars about a decade later. The most recent version of its exploration blueprint calls for a robotic mission to retrieve a small asteroid and relocate it into orbit around the moon. Astronauts then would launch for a scientific sortie.
   
By that time, NASA may find it has neighbors on the lunar surface.
   
"The brass ring for us is having a lunar base," Bigelow said. "That is a desire we've had for a long, long time."
   
"I think that's perfectly acceptable," added Gerstenmaier. "NASA and the government focus on maybe deep space, we focus on asteroids. The private sector picks up the lunar activity and then we'll combine and share with them to see what makes sense."
     
"This gives us a chance to step back and do a bigger view of our planning and not doing it in our own little stovepipes. We're actually reaching out and starting to look right at the beginning as we start to formulate our thinking," he added.
   
NASA expects to release the first part of Bigelow's study within a few weeks. The second section is expected to be finished this fall.
   

[свернуть]

http://news.discovery.com/space/private-spaceflight/bigelow-aerospace-moon-habitat-130524.htm
   
NASA получило в четверг (23.05?), на сорок дней раньше срока, первую часть заказанного у Бигелоу исследования о возможностях сотрудничества с частными американскими фирмами. Пока этот материал в полном виде для публики недоступен, но уже известно, что в нем рассмотрены "приблизительно две дюжины компаний и исследовательских организаций". NASA намеревается использовать информацию, чтобы выяснить, где оно может сотрудничать с инициативами частных компаний и где могло бы, например, полностью пропустить дорогую научно-исследовательскую программу и просто купить услуги или аппаратные средства коммерческих фирм. NASA планирует опубликовать первую часть исследования Бигелоу в течение нескольких ближайших недель. Вторая часть, как ожидается, будет закончена этой осенью.

[Not]

Valerij пишет:
В показаниях Хейла есть ссылки на предшествующие случаи, когда федеральные инвестиции многократно (это в данном случае очень мягко - миллионами, возможно миллиардами раз)

Миллиардами раз или миллиардами долларов?

[Valerij]

Not пишет:

Valerij пишет:
В показаниях Хейла есть ссылки на предшествующие случаи, когда федеральные инвестиции многократно (это в данном случае очень мягко - миллионами, возможно миллиардами раз)

Миллиардами раз или миллиардами долларов?  

Простите, например, в какую сумму вылилась государственная поддержка строительства Трансконтинентальной Магистрали? А какую сумму налогов собрали (и еще много-много лет будут собирать) с предприятий, которые работают благодаря этой Магистрали или пользуются ее услугами? А сколько налогов собирают в свой бюджет города и селения, выросшие благодаря этой Дороге?
   
Так что эффективность этих вложений точному подсчету не поддается, но наверняка измеряется никак не менее, чем миллионами раз. Вполне возможно, что и миллиардами.

[Valerij]

Salo пишет:
 http://www.spacenews.com/article/launch-report/38365startup-generation-orbit-launch-service-bets-big-on-%E2%80%98small-space%E2%80%99

Startup Generation Orbit Launch Service Bets Big on 'Small Space'
By Dan Leone | Nov. 26, 2013
 
Generation Orbit's GOLauncher system would use a small business jet to carry a two-stage rocket to altitude for launch. Credit: Generation Orbit artist's concept
     

   
WASHINGTON — With fresh votes of confidence — and money — fr om NASA, Generation Orbit Launch Services of Atlanta is working on an air-launch system capable of sending about 40 kilograms of payload to orbit in single shot.
The company's GOLauncher system would use a small business jet to carry a two-stage rocket, with a solid core and a liquid upper stage, to altitude for launch. Its first mission, a 2016 launch for NASA, is slated to take off from GOLauncher's home base at the Cecil Field Spaceport, part of Cecil Airport in Jacksonville, Fla.
 Скрытый текст In the long term, Generation Orbit is betting on the emergence of a commercial market for tiny satellites. But in the here-and-now, the company is relying on NASA to get flying. On Nov. 12, Generation Orbit netted a $100,000 grand prize in the NASA-sponsored NewSpace Business Plan Competition, which follows a $2.1 million contract it got from the agency in September. To staff up to 10 full-timers and compete for the NASA funding, the company had to spend about $800,000, Chairman and Chief Executive John Olds estimates.
The prize money "is a great boost for our fundraising efforts," Olds wrote in a Nov. 12 email. However, it is small fry compared with the NASA Launch Services Enabling eXploration & Technology (NEXT) contract the company received to launch a 15-kilogram payload to an orbit of at least 425 kilometers in 2016.
NEXT is part of NASA's plan to reduce a backlog of more than 50 cubesats — small spacecraft assembled from standardized units weighing about 1 kilogram each and measuring 10 centimeters on a side — the agency has built up through its Cubesat Launch Initiative flight-brokerage program.
Although there are ample rideshare opportunities — such as the Nov. 18 Minotaur 1 launch from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Va., that carried the U.S. Air Force's STPSat-3 spacecraft and 28 smaller satellites — tiny satellites could get to space faster and more regularly with a dedicated launcher, NASA officials say.
Generation Orbit plans to provide that launcher, and it plans to do so without building things like airplanes, rocket engines or runways.
"Instead of starting from scratch, we see ourselves much more as systems architects or designers, integrators and operators," Anthony Piplica, the company's chief operating officer, told SpaceNews in September. "It's kind of a lot closer to the original Orbital Sciences model, versus a vertically integrated SpaceX [Space Exploration Technologies Corp.] model."
Piplica believes the space launch technologies the U.S. government has been investing in over the years are becoming mature enough for a company like Generation Orbit to cherry pick a few subsystems and integrate them into a low-cost launcher — for very small payloads, anyway.
"At this point in time, the government has made these types of investments in technologies that haven't been applied yet," Piplica said. "They've been developed, their [technology readiness levels] are high, and we see it as our opportunities to apply those to a commercial business."
A sampling of the technologies Generation Orbit plans to combine to test suborbital versions of its GOLauncher system includes:
n A Gulfstream T3 business jet modified for under-fuselage payload carriage by Calspan Corp. of Buffalo, N.Y.
n A kerosene-fueled rocket motor provided by Ventions of San Francisco — a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contractor contributing to the agency's Airborne Launch Assist Space Access program, which is aimed at launching small payloads with 24 hours notice for less than $1 million a launch. GOLauncher would use the Ventions engine as a second stage. Its first stage would use a solid motor built by a U.S. solid rocket producer he declined to identify. "[W]e are not acquiring the solid rocket from this company's sort of standard space production solid rocket line," Olds said. "In fact, it's derived from a missile application that they have and is built on a missile assembly and production line and is in production and is available already.".
n Avionics and payload integration systems from Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems of Irvine, Calif.
Calspan, Ventions and Tyvak are all under contract with Generation Orbit, Olds said.
Meanwhile, in February or March, the company plans to fly a captive-carry test, in which the GOLauncher aircraft will take to the skies with a dummy rocket strapped to its underbelly, Olds said. Manufacturing on this rocket-shaped mass-simulator began in October.
Despite the NASA patronage the company is depending on to make its first flight, Generation Orbit's ultimate aspiration is to position itself for a commercial small-satellite boom that one of its executives believes is lurking just over the horizon.
"In the last 18 months, there has been an interesting trend: Suddenly you have all these companies, whether it's Planetary Resources, Planet Labs, GeoOptics, NovaWurks, Skybox, Deep Space Industries, they all have raised funding, many of them on the open capital markets, of more than $100 million between them for business plans predicated upon not two or three but dozens of spacecraft," Max Vozoff, Generation Orbit's senior business strategist, told SpaceNews in September.
Vozoff, who joined Generation Orbit in May, is the former senior mission manager and director of civil business development at SpaceX, wh ere he learned something about the intersection of space entrepreneurship and the U.S. government's aerospace traditions — namely, that big-government funding can open doors for space companies looking to squeeze into truly commercial markets.
This time, Vozoff said, he sees NASA's experiment to field a small-sat launcher as a means of positioning Generation Orbit to capitalize on the small-satellite launch boom he expects to arrive sometime around 2014 or 2015.
Around then, "there are six, eight, 10 or more companies, each of which plan to launch dozens of ... short-lived spacecraft ... that go one or two years on orbit and need replenishment," Vozoff said.
"It is a unique moment in time," he added. "We are seeing the emergence of real demand in the small satellite industry."
 
Follow Dan on Twitter: @Leone_SN

http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/forum/messages/forum13/topic7149/message1162310/#message1162310
 

Valerij пишет:

G.K. пишет:

Дмитрий В. пишет:
бизнес-джет меньше, поэтому дешевле в эксплуатации.

Его надо переделывать для пуска, как под него вообще подвесить ракету? У них не ахти высокое шасси ( которых я видел) и просто как у орбитала повесить не получится. А на картинке там даже бомболюка нет, что бы выдвигать РКН из самолёта перед пуском. Консоль жёсткая...
А из транспортника- выкинул и всё. По принципу воздушного пуска МБР, который был на испытаниях в США.

Похоже у них вообще нет собственного самолета и для запусков они арендуют его у другой компании:
     

   
Calspan has responded to the growing need for large scale testing of avionics systems by developing a testbed based on a Gulfstream G-III aircraft. This system is specifically designed to handle large Fire Control Radars, EO/IR sensors and heavy external stores. With more than 65 years of experience in airborne Research, Development, Test & Evaluation (RDT&E), Calspan has specifically modified and configured the airframe to support cost-effective flight testing of new airborne sensors and/or systems for manned and unmanned aircraft alike. Calspan's staff of experienced test pilots, engineers, technicians, and mechanics are ready to assist customers with the safe and efficient design, installation, and flight test of prototype airborne installations in the latest addition to the Calspan fleet of test aircraft.

http://www.calspan.com/aerospace/flight-test-aircraft-operations
     

   

Valerij пишет:

Александр Ч. пишет:
Забавно, только только Пегаса удушили...

Как не смешно, но это классический пример эффективного менеджмента. Небольшая компания реализует противоположную СпейсИкс концепцию системного интегратора, заказывающего или покупающего большую часть комплектующих на стороне.

[Valerij]

Это пример "эффективных новых частников" на противоположном полюсе - небольшие компания, реализующая интеграционные проекты, в отличии от растущего, как на дрожжах, SpaceX.
    
В тексте есть ссылка на еще одну компанию, http://ventions.com/ которая делает ЖРД для этой малой ракеты: