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Michael Griffin spoke at JSC today, and is reported to have said that the Chinese are “five or six years closer to the Moon than we are”.

Interesting.

Posted on October 24th, 2005 under Chinese Space. Comments: 2

Reading the SpaceX lawsuit makes me wonder if Elon Musk isn’t more clever than people give him credit for.

Musk has often stated that he expected to invest $100M from his personal fortune into starting up SpaceX. Given that the company’s focus has now grown to include the concurrent development of three vehicles based on certain common elements, and that first launch has been delayed nearly two years (and counting), it is not unreasonable to expect the company to spend half again as much as originally intended to start up operations and bring all three product lines to market, say $150M. (I will in fact be surprised if it doesn’t end up being far more than that, but let’s give SpaceX the benefit of the doubt.)

The company’s recently-announced Falcon IX is intended to be an EELV-class launcher. In its largest configuration it will have a GTO payload of 9,650kg and sell for $78M per flight. This is comparable to the Delta IV Heavy EELV, which has a GTO payload of 10,843kg and a launch price of $254M per launch. Assuming these prices include the same costs and normalizing the figures to the Falcon IX payload capacity gives an identical-capability EELV a launch cost of $226,053,662, for a difference of a bit over $148M per launch.

The lawsuit argues that EELV manufacturers Boeing and Lockheed Martin colluded to prevent competition from entering the market for EELV payloads, and that collusion and other anticompetetive actions prevented SpaceX from obtaining EELV launch contracts. In the suit, SpaceX asks for real, exemplary, and treble damages, along with the legal costs associated with the suit.

A specific monetary damage figure is not stated. However, assuming that the suit goes to trial, a finding that SpaceX was denied even one EELV-class launch contract as a result of the alleged anticompetetive actions of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, could be very lucrative. If SpaceX’s Falcon IX could provide an EELV-class launch for $148M less than what the federal government is willing to pay the competition, even being awarded one full-price launch contract as compensation could pay off the development costs of Falcon I, Falcon IV, and Falcon IX.

So, SpaceX could turn a profit on the Falcon IX without ever having built it. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Posted on October 24th, 2005 under Space Commerce. Comments: 6

Between working on two projects and starting this program last week, I’m swamped for the next few days…just when there is a bunch of juicy space stuff to discuss.

In particular, Rand is liveblogging a great deal of interesting news from the Space Frontier Conference (go here and scroll up through following posts), while SpaceX is suing to stop the ULA joint venture (go on, wrap your brain around the absurd notion of a company that has never flown demanding compensation from a company that doesn’t exist).

Posted on October 23rd, 2005 under Meta. Comments: 2

Or else they need to more carefully fact-check stories they reprint from Xinhua — China’s spacecraft orbit ‘slips’:

Gravity has drawn Shenzhou VI too close to earth, the agency said.

Shenzhou VI, which has two astronauts on board, is in a low enough orbit to be affected by the Earth’s gravitational pull.

I should hope so, since I don’t think an escape trajectory was quite what the Chinese were planning for their second manned spaceflight.

Posted on October 13th, 2005 under Chinese Space. Comments Off

…being all daring and transgressive and clever-like just makes you look juvenile.

(Heard this on Randi Rhodes this afternoon. Not surprisingly.)

Posted on October 11th, 2005 under Miscellaneous. Comments Off

China has now launched
twice as many manned spacecraft in the past two and a half years as the US:

China’s second manned spacecraft blasted off from a remote northwestern launch site on Wednesday, just two years after the country joined an elite club of space powers.

Astronauts Fei Junlong, 40, and Nie Haisheng, 41, were handpicked from 14 fighter pilots and had been in the running for China’s first manned space launch in 2003. Their mission is due to last five days.

“There is nothing to worry about,” state television quoted the two as saying before the launch as a light snow fell. “We will accomplish the mission resolutely. See you in Beijing.”

They still have to come back, of course.

Here’s wishing them well in their efforts to build up a state-directed, centrally-planned space program.

Posted on October 11th, 2005 under Chinese Space. Comments Off

In case you didn’t know it, today is Leif Erikson Day.

The journey of Leif Erikson reflects the spirit that has made America strong, as the desire to explore and understand is part of our national character. Today, we continue to push the frontiers of knowledge in many areas and especially with our exploration of space, drawn to the heavens as we were once drawn to the open seas.

Posted on October 9th, 2005 under Miscellaneous. Comments Off

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been ten years since the publication (on September 19, 1995) of that famous distillation of luddite nuttery, the
Unabomber Manifesto.

As for the negative consequences of eliminating industrial society — well, you can’t eat your cake and have it too. To gain one thing you have to sacrifice another…

It would be hopeless for revolutionaries to try to attack the system without using SOME modern technology. If nothing else they must use the communications media to spread their message. But they should use modern technology for only ONE purpose: to attack the technological system…

With regard to revolutionary strategy, the only points on which we absolutely insist are that the single overriding goal must be the elimination of modern technology, and that no other goal can be allowed to compete with this one.

I think it’s safe to conclude that Mr. Kaczynski for one is against space settlement and development.

Posted on October 9th, 2005 under Luddism. Comments Off

…for another week or two, until Qwest finally (hallelujah!) gets DSL hooked up at my place.

Kinda hard to get motivated to spend hours digging around for something to opine on, knowing that the 24.0kbps connection I’ve been suffering under for the past year and a half is about to be replaced with a 3Mbps firehose.

Posted on October 8th, 2005 under Meta. Comments Off