Via NASAWatch comes news that the private company SpaceX has released a review of their last test flight. This flight, launched on March 20th 2007, was nearly a perfect success. The one problem — and it was a big one, unfortunately — was that the second stage didn’t fire correctly so the payload didn’t get to orbit. Still, achieving orbit was a secondary objective, and one of the few the rocket didn’t make.
But it reminds me of what happened that day. I was on travel, and very busy, but I really wanted to see the launch on the web. We delayed going out to dinner so I could watch. The countdown got all the way to T-1 second, and then stopped. It turns out a pressure sensor had reported a low pressure in a fuel tank, and they had to abort. Depressed, I said we could all go to dinner. Obviously it would take some time to get that straightened out.
At dinner, my phone rang. It was my sooper sekrit contact at SpaceX, asking if I saw the launch! Confused, I said it had aborted. Nope, my mole said, the launch was only delayed by 70 minutes. They partially drained the tank, refilled it, and launched!
I had to laugh ruefully. Over all these years, NASA has trained me to think that any launch attempt that is scrubbed means days or weeks or months of delays. It took this event to shake me out of that, and to remind me: without all the bureaucratic nonsense, private launch companies can roll with the punches, analyze and solve problems on the fly, and get the work done.
I am not saying that NASA is fossilized beyond repair, and in fact when they launch something worth hundreds of millions of dollars, there is a lot to be said about careful, time-consuming thought processes. And it’s difficult to compare launching a rocket into orbit versus building a complex space station, but… the latest fiasco aboard the ISS does bring this all into stark contrast.
Right now, NASA is all we have to get into space. But that will change, and soon. Our culture, our very thought processes about access to space will have to change as well. What else will change?
June 17th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
I was super-duper impressed at the rapid recycle, and I have to admit that I was awaiting for a complete failure on the pad during the second attempt. I kept thinking that someone must have forgotten to reset SOMETHING.
The test flight was cool. The seventy-minute almost-complete reset was REALLY cool.
June 17th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Well, hopefully the cost of access to space will plummet, and the whole paradigm will shift toward something more like commercial air travel.
In time.
Meanwhile, people will have to reach a new accommodation with risk. NASA has a tendency to layer on new procedures every time there’s an accident or malfunction (regardless of whether loss of life is involved). This may help in some sense, but the result is a tangled mess of bureaucracy — all of which costs serious money, but only some of which is actually useful.
The acid test is how commercial space outfits (and congress) react when the first fatality occurs on a private launch.
June 17th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
>>> I am not saying that NASA is fossilized beyond repair,
OK, I’ll say it. NASA is fossilized beyond repair.
They pull off some righteously wicked stuff sometimes (Mars rovers for example), but, well, they are, overall, fossilizzed beyond repair. They need a revamp.
Vote for me and I’ll fix it all.
June 17th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
>>> The acid test is how commercial space outfits
>>> (and congress) react when the first fatality occurs
>>> on a private launch.
How did people react to the first commercial aircraft crash? That might be interesting to Google.
June 17th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
I was up late, watching the SpaceX launch with a friend - even though the webcast was horribly lagged and kept buffering (doubtless due to my own connection, but I’ve never had this with the NASA webcasts). One of the many cutouts was right at the moment of the initial launch attempt and abort - first I realised of it was my friend (giving running commentary over IRC) typing “ABORT” at me
I felt much the same as you did - that it must be all over for the night and I should go to bed - but I stayed to find out what had caused the abort and soon learned they were about to give it another attempt. I’ve been watching SpaceX for a long time but it was this that finally convinced me that Elon Musk is made of the right stuff. He’s a man after my own heart. May he have every possible success.
June 18th, 2007 at 12:59 am
“I had to laugh ruefully. Over all these years, NASA has trained me to think that any launch attempt that is scrubbed means days or weeks or months of delays.”
Well.. that’s the definition of a scrub. Stop the launch attempt and try again at the next opportunity when conditions are better, or a problem is fixed. And I might be mistaken, but I think the first Falcon launch was delayed for months too.
An abort is just that.. stopping the countdown, and either continue on later or recycle to an earlier point. Of course the launch window can severely limit the amount of time available to do a recycle. I would imagine a test launch like this gives SpaceX quite a bit more leeway in delaying launch and recycling the countdown. It’s not like they had to match orbits with a limited amount of fuel.
To suggest that NASA doesn’t have the capability to quickly analyze and solve problems on the fly is disingenious to say the least, and it suggests to me that you haven’t closely followed many countdowns for NASA launches recently. SpaceX had a lucky break in the sense that the sensor problem was not a showstopper, where NASA was unlucky to have two sensors fail on an earlier Shuttle launch (had it been only one they would have launched).
If anything, NASA has that capability at too high a price.
“and in fact when they launch something worth hundreds of millions of dollars, there is a lot to be said about careful, time-consuming thought processes.”
Something like, people? With all due respect to SpaceX for doing a great job, this was just a test launch where even the eventual catastrophic loss of the vehicle didn’t make it a failure, in fact the launch was a huge success. We’ll have to wait and see if they will respond to similar countdown aborts the same way when there are one or more people riding the rocket.
“the latest fiasco aboard the ISS does bring this all into stark contrast.”
Why? What does an oversensitive powersurge protector in a (German/Russian) computer in a Russian designed part of the ISS have to do with how NASA resolves (launch) issues? I don’t see how it would follow that stuff like this wouldn’t happen when companies match up hardware with other companies’ hardware in space. Nor do I expect companies to able to build hardware without flaws, and without any single points of failure (even in important hardware).
Really BA, I fully agree that commercial space exploitation is the way to go, and that they are able to do many things cheaper and faster than NASA can, especially without political baggage. But the arguments and comparisons you make to support that conclusion sometimes make me wonder.
A vehicle test launch can’t be compared to the launch of astronauts. And blaming NASA for assuming that an abort equals a scrub… To me this all seems more like taking cheap (and wrong) shots than making a well founded argument.
Troubleshooting on launch isn’t the point where companies will beat government agencies. IMHO, it will be in funding without needing to appease voters, designing without having to deal with international complexities, and the ability to stick with a plan without a government changing it all the time.
June 18th, 2007 at 2:30 am
I f Dr. Bussard is correct about his Polywell fusion reactor design, then the logical progression for commercial space companies will likely be 1) efficient use of chemical rockets. 2) fast turn around and relaunch. 3) eventual fusion powered rockets and REAL comercial success.
I’m anticipating this with baited breath,,,
GAry 7
June 18th, 2007 at 2:41 am
Also remember: Space X has yet to put ANYTHING in orbit, despite its claims to the government that it can do so when it bids for government contracts. I’ll be more impressed when Space X actually has a rocket program and not a bunch of cheap theatrics.
June 18th, 2007 at 3:10 am
Keep in mind that available launch windows and launch constraints are not at all the same in both cases, BA. Since achieving orbit was a secondary objective for this rocket, the difference between success and failure is much different than it was for, say, Atlantis on this last launch (where the available window only lasts about five minutes and where achieving orbit is an absolute necessity).
I, too, hope that private space access upsets (and by that, I mean “simplifies”) our notions about what’s involved in getting off the planet. But let’s compare apples to apples, not alligators to apostrophes.
June 18th, 2007 at 4:32 am
One of the major differences is that SpaceX is unlikely to ever be interested in funding science. Yes, I can certainly see the day when it launches university satellites, on a commercial basis, but nothing like the Great Observatories program is ever going to come out of a private company.
June 18th, 2007 at 5:47 am
“…nearly a perfect success”??? Could you please explain your definition of “perfect”? Almost every paragraph of the report mentions the anomalies. (From an engineer’s perspective, this is a good thing. The anomalies are what are important anyway, especially in a test. The achieved objectives are less interesting, because they are a conformation of expectations, rather than a source of new information and knowledge. Program Managers probably see things differently!)
I have an analogy: This is like a football team being down by 5 points and getting the ball 80 yards from the goal with two minutes left. They drive down the field and get inside the 5 yard line, but fail to score. But it is a pre-season scrimmage, so the coach is happy because his players got great experience, and it will help them when the real season rolls around.
June 18th, 2007 at 6:43 am
One has to remember that space business must be profitable. If that doesn’t happen, there won’t be private spaceflight.
Major scientific missions like Cassini can never be profitable. Launching a multi-billion dollar probe to an another planet will never be economically profitable. Still, they must be sent if we want to learn about the our neighbors and the universe. Governmental agencies like NASA are indispensable what comes to science.
Of course, I have absolutely nothing against that if some bright guy figures out how to built cheap simple probes that can be sold to smaller organizations like universities. *wink wink*
June 18th, 2007 at 7:22 am
It will be interesting to see if a successful private company will be able to compete for payloads with the governmentally-supported, larger and better-funded space programs. Will the public money for these governmental programs begin to shrink when private space agencies prove to be better, faster, cheaper? Will big governments restrict competition via regulation of the airspace (would China and Russia allow serious private competition within their borders?). Will “rogue states” allow private companies to operate within their boundaries when such airspace restrictions are imposed by other governments? Will private companies ignore the airspace above other nations and orbit competing satellites which broadcast restricted material? Will “rogue states” develop and orbit weaponry, either for protection (or for offense)? Who will try to stake the first claim on mineral rights on the moon or other satellites or planets - a government or a private company? And how would the claim be enforced? And will government efforts, scrambling to keep one step ahead of the private companies’ attempts to subvert these governmental restrictions, become so time-consuming (like in the current pirating of music and movies by Chinese entrepreneurs, for example) that no real progress will occur?
Governments now are competing - and cooperating - in the efforts to put science and people into space. Will they be the only entities large enough to fund an extensive space program of exploration, in the long run? Will a “federation of governments” ultimately control the destiny of Earth’s space exploration? I wonder…
June 18th, 2007 at 7:29 am
I kind of relate to this posting because of where I work. For the last 25 years of so, I have worked on a military base supporting a military contract. Just this last year, one of the parking lots needed to be repaved. It took the contractor 3.5 months to finish the job and we had to put up with dirt, gravel, and mud the whole time. If that had been the parking lot of a mall or grocery store, it would have been completed in 3 days. And it probably would have been done 3 times cheaper. Anytime the government is involved, the price and complexity of the task seems to go astronomically higher. (no pun intended) I have never been able to pinpoint the cause of this other than to say that it doesnt seem to be any one factoer you can point your finger at, like “politics”. There always seems to be reasons even if they dont make sense.
June 18th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Keep in mind that within the next two weeks, Bigelow Aerospace’s Genesis II is set to launch….. Could be a big milestone as well as its one thing to get one pressurized module in space… to get two will give them a lot of legitimacy.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:03 am
Hmmmm… I wasn’t thinking of launch windows, and that’s a good point. There are many times when a delay/hold means losing the window, and you have to wait anyway.
Slang, as I pointed out in that entry, that comparing an orbital launch of SpaceX to a NASA launch is difficult, but that it provides an interesting contrast. And whether or not engineers at NASA can determine what a problem is immediately (and many times they do, of course — NASA engineers are in general excellent), it can still be a long time to launch due to the bureaucracy.
I am making the point that a small company with only a few folks in charge of a launch can be more flexible than NASA. You bring up the point of launching people into space– with that, I agree. But I have also seen many delays of launches of unmanned satellites as well.
The whole point here is not to dwell too much on details, but to think of the general picture: how is access to space going to change over the next, say, ten years? I think we are approaching a watershed moment, and I’ll be very interested to see how this works out.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:30 am
As I see it much of the problem is one of persepctive. NASA is, or is perceived by many people to be, a government agency funded by tax dollars. So when they have a problem, the public perception is one of tax money being wasted, and NASA has to answer to the whole country.
SpaceX only has to answer to investors, and it’s probably considered a fair answer to say “well, that didn’t work but we learned soemthing, so let’s have another go and not repeat the same mistake.”
If NASA says that, there are calls for heads on sticks, mass floggings, etc.
That tends to make NASA a bit more cautious… Not that I’m saying SpaceX is cavalier - far from it, but their perspective as a private enterprise is simply different, and teh difference makes them more flexible.
June 18th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Quiet Desperation - Interesting question on first commercial crash. Probably hard to determine since the first paying commercial customers likely just flew along in a mail plane. Of course, the media coverage of such an event in the past wouldn’t have been as ‘in your face’. The British Comet aircraft, the first commercially-available jet transport, had some very public crashes before they realized that metal fatigue was bringing the planes down, and the industry moved on, though the producer of the Comet lost market share to Boeing.
Rob- SpaceX is not interested in funding science directly, though Elon has mentioned some pie in the sky ideas of settling Mars. Plenty of science could get done on the way.
Evolving Squid - There’s only one investor in SpaceX right now…Elon. We’ll see how things go on their COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) contracts with NASA.
June 18th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Well, BA, on that generalized statement I think we can all agree. Small companies generally can react quicker to changing environment than huge government agencies, although I still doubt that it applies to transient moments like launch countdowns.
It’s a good point, and one worth repeating. But to present it on flawed arguments doesn’t help the ’cause’, if I’m allowed a little hyperbole
But I’ve already spoken on those, no need to repeat. (My main objection to how you phrased your objections was that it seemed to me pretty insulting to the teams of NASA/contractors engineers that routinely do what you seemed to suggest them being incapable of.)
My thoughts on commercializing spaceflights are that it will give us cheaper, general issue type, flexible, launch capability. Companies can focus on their business plan, and execute it, without too much outside interference. They can react quicker to technology improvements, and competition will drive that.
With respect to more transient issues I fear that they might be *less* able to quickly respond, simply by being unable to retain a lot of “just in case” engineers. (Employees being the most costly asset of any company, I think an old Jewish curse is: I wish you many employees..) I can’t think of a better way to describe what I mean here… Being on commercial competitive budgets will require cuts with respect to how NASA operates. I fear that there won’t be much money for “might be useful” personnel.
Moving the task of “mundane” launching (opposed to cutting edge, commercially uninteresting launching) away from NASA may help to focus it more on science. It may be easier to get funding for cutting edge science when the launch part of the budget gets cheaper.
As others have mentioned, there will still be a need for entities like NASA, just to make sure that science will still be done, to invest in things that might only get returns generations later, to do things that are too risky for companies whose principle guidance will always be: survival of the business, and making money.
I think we will see evolving SpaceShipOne-type craft developing orbital capabilities. Once the momentum gets going, mass production will lower prices. If the momentum *really* gets going, then deaths will be accepted as a risk of the trade. Not in the sense that businesses won’t try to prevent accidents (of course they won’t, it would be bad PR), but in the sense that a fatal accident won’t stop the industry from progressing. Like deaths in cars and airplanes don’t stop those particular industries (but do lead to more safety, generally).
Still, the real break we need first is a dramatic improvement in the dollars/weight ratio for launching into orbit. My personal thoughts on that (not that I’m even remotely qualified to say anything sane about it :)) are that it might require a new discovery in physics. Who knows, maybe research into dark energy (which seems to oppose or counteract gravity) might give us Star Trek.
I think I’ve stuck my neck out far enough on this one, have at it!
Thanks for responding, Phil.
June 18th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
I can see how what I wrote might sound insulting to NASA engineers — but I tried to make it clear by using the phrase “bureaucratic nonsense”. I didn’t mean it that way; I certainly meant nothing about the engineers themselves! Just the paperwork, the endless meetings, the news traveling up and down the chain of command…
June 18th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
FYI,
The launch window for the shuttle (to the ISS) is approximately 10 minutes long.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
I would like to see something like the DC-X revived. My understanding is that the effort itself was very successful, but that NASA wouldn’t touch it because it didn’t employ anywhere near enough people either in development or operations, and the USAF wouldn’t touch it because it didn’t have wings. Have matters gone beyond that yet?
August 3rd, 2007 at 9:44 am
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