Don’t apologize Joe. Dr. Spudis allows you to keep stating the facts so why be sorry? He even allows me to opine on nuclear propulsion. What matters is exactly what you so precisely specified; erroneous assertions.

Science allows anyone to assert an opinion and anyone else to assert that opinion as error-ridden as long as there are numbers to go along with the argument. For the most part hindsight of various programs like the shuttle have shown that rocket equations are more trustworthy than think tanks.

The “advertising as argument” technique of Space X is snake oil and quackery. The list of false witness statements much of the public takes as fact because of Space X is now long and growing tiresome. My first experience with this when I first started commenting on space blogs several years ago was the constant hyping of kerosene as somehow being superior to hydrogen as a propellent. Questioning this private space dogma was blasphemy as was criticism of the use of so many low thrust engines. Re-branding obsolete technology from the 60’s and recreating the original major difficulty of low thrust, Space X has somehow convinced many of the existence of an alternate reality where the problems of the past are the advantages of the present.

The beauty of the New Space fantasy is that any problem can be miraculously solved with locating fuel depots everywhere. Just like having gas stations for your spaceship. The ugly truth is that LEO is a dead end.

The Moon is the next stop. The Moon is where they will launch that first atomic spaceship.

First I will apologize to regular readers of this site as you have heard these facts many times. However since these erroneous assertions as to how efficient SpaceX is keep being made, here we go again.

The only measure of cost effectiveness we have to compare SpaceX with the more traditional methods is the CRS contract: SpaceX CRS contract is to deliver 20 Metric Tons to the ISS for $1.6 Billion ($80,000/kg)

Until that contract was signed, I was told that the Space Shuttle rate of $71,000/kg was “unsustainable”. Additionally the Shuttle could carry seven crew (round trip) and provided EVA services to assist in ISS maintenance, the Dragon vehicle can do neither

Moreover both SpaceX is so far behind in their launch schedule for CRS that NASA has had to extend the contract time frame by two years to allow SpaceX to appear to be meeting the terms of the contract

http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/40059nasa-says-it-will-extend-private-iss-cargo-delivery-contracts-through-2017

Also NASA has had to extend the length of the commercial crew contract for SpaceX because they cannot meet their original schedules (Note that “bad” old fashioned space company – Boeing – did not require a contract extension).

http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/41043commercial-crew-partners-get-extension

With all due respect to Mr. Cantrell, his attempted preemptive “There can be little argument” statement is counterfactual. Based on the actual facts to date there can be a very vigorous (and successful) argument against SpaceX supposed efficiency.

Perhaps someday Musk’s claims that he will be flying Falcon 9 first stages 1,000 times each with only a one day turnaround between each flight will become true. Perhaps, but the empirical evidence to date does not support such a conclusion; in fact it supports the opposite conclusion.

Thank you for your comment. The point of my piece was that regardless of the efficacy of government technology programs, we are compelled to pursue them because we still have critical national needs in space, needs for which no commercial market nor capability yet exists but whose timely pursuit requires immediate action.

I do not concede that SpaceX is more “efficient” than Lockheed. The two companies are pursuing totally different objectives — one is developing routine Earth to LEO capabilities while the other is working on partly undefined trans-LEO missions. Moreover, I contend that it does matter “where the [$1 billion] came from” in that whatever SpaceX has accomplished to date (and I believe it to be much less than most apparently do), it would not have been possible without the contribution of substantial government funding. That hardly makes the case for the superiority of “private” sector spaceflight.

My intention was to make a distinction between someone making an honest mistake (in my opinion) NASP and someone (in my opinion) SpaceX making intentionally misleading assertions. Both can be damaging, but there is a moral/ethical difference.

1.7 billion dollars of optimism.
I wonder if I added up all the cancelled projects how much it would come to? The trick is to choose which technology will succeed. Big corporations leave it to the military to see if they can make some of these toys work because they would never intentionally spend money on such high risk projects. That’s how you go out of business.

The first commercial jet had rather squarish windows and when they started falling out of the sky it was discovered the pressurized fuselage was cracking at the corners of the windows and the plane popping almost like a balloon at high altitude. But that did not stop the airline industry. However the technical problems that can sink a good idea sometimes cannot be solved. I am always amazed at the private space crowd taking it for granted that cryogenic propellents can be stored and transferred in space. SSTO is another holy grail that people never seem to lose faith in despite the numbers.

If I recall, the most powerful device ever created by humankind, the nuclear weapon, was not originally being pursued by the United States because somebodies science adviser said it would not work. It took a letter from Einstein, who never would have wrote it if two other scientists had not been humiliated when they talked to military intelligence about the danger of a Nazi atom bomb. They appealed to the most famous scientist on Earth. Meanwhile, a fortune was being spent on the Norden bombsight and it never worked as advertised. Most people would bet on the bombsight instead of some fantastic superbomb but that is not what changed history.

If I had to gamble I would go big and put all the chips on the HLV and nuclear propulsion. Solid rocket technology and liquid hydrogen technology are mature enough to build very large launchers. Nuclear propulsion when used in a lunar venue and moon water for shielding is the narrow path that leads to the opening up of the solar system IMO.

Unfortunately sales pitches overstating the performance of a product is not limited to any one industry. The specific problem here is that SpaceX has taken that questionable practice, exaggerated it to the point of parody and a number of people (at least on the internet) still take their grandiose claims seriously.

I will make a distinction between this kind of thing and the NASP. As far as I know, no one there was being intentionally misleading. Some theoretical types got carried away and made some overly optimistic assumptions. The DoD is still working (with mixed success) on Scram Jet technology. It may succeed someday and NASP type vehicles might still become a reality (obviously a good thing – if it happens), just not at the cost and within the time frame the NASP program predicted.

Thanks for that Joe. I am very interested in the way things work. False advertising seems to be rampant when it comes to the aerospace industry. I remember the NASP. What a dream-come-true that was!

However, this maxim becomes confusing if the space station is built separate from the engine and when joined they become a “spaceship.”

Dr. Spudis advocates a cislunar infrastructure and what better replacement for our current existing system of geostationary telecommunications satellites than manned platforms, fully shielded and with artificial gravity? By sending HLV wet workshops to lunar orbit to be assembled these compartments form a ring or torus that can be spun for artificial gravity as well as interior cells filled with water. Once the ship is assembled it can be landed and the radiation shields filled with water. Upon leaving the Moon with a full radiation shield they can be inserted into Earth geostationary orbit to act as telecommunications stations.

So the geostationary platforms might not be “a waste of resources.” The spinning shielded crew torus, though very large, becomes comparatively light when the shield is drained before landing on low gravity icy moons. This means the torus can again be separated from the engine and left on the moon to be used as part of a base. On low gravity icy moons the torus can be lowered into a circular trench and then roofed over. With the dry torus shielded by the ice roof it can be spun in the low gravity to provide Earth gravity.

We cannot just add an engine on the ISS and turn it into a spaceship. In fact, this speculation on using a water shielded spinning torus as a geostationary manned platform might may prove to be impossible in reality due to the only way to move the torus being a nuclear propulsion system that is not allowed to operate in the Earth’s magnetosphere. Perhaps there may be a way to insert and leave a polar orbit with a minimum of nuclear contamination but I do not know if you can avoid it with a geostationary “burn.”

NTR’s are being investigated again and it may be the necessary next step even though I think there are more promising propulsion options.

http://gizmodo.com/5992441/how-nasas-nuclear-rockets-will-take-us-way-beyond-mars