Replies

I know your type: Your enthusiasm for space technology is directly-proportional to the thickness of your rose-colored glasses. I bet you want us to go to Mars, too.

Go ahead and try to put words in my mouth, so-to-speak, as it shows more about you than I. You went straw man on me by shifting the argument to efficiency & competition. I never wrote one damned word about it. With that you conceded that your argument has no merit.

But I’ll bite: You want to talk efficiency? Alrighty then. Let’s talk about price per kilogram for cargo to ISS.

First, I would be the last one to dispute that NASA’s legacy manned spaceflight procurement model was grossly-inefficient for modern commercial launch needs - let alone that competition is a good thing - but the fact remains that Falcon 9 was not designed from the outset to be a reusable launcher and most of the technology was already developed before the Delta program’s cancellation.

You & I paid for the Falcon development - not Musk or his investors - an extension of the Delta program’s research & accomplishments. If this is truly to be a commercial venture, then you should certainly agree that it be financed with private $$, not public $$.

You lose.

Until SpaceX’s financials are public record, we will never know what sort of shell game Musk is playing and no one - certainly not you - is going to mute my critique of space programs, be they NASA, private or this new paradigm of public/private partnership.

From where I sit, much of the $$ spent on spaceflight fantasy & meeting commercial needs this century could be better spent. Had billions not been squandered upon renewable energy and subsidies, we might now have a next-gen battery, not this archaic chemical crap (lithium).

Furthermore, I believe that we could possibly see a breakthrough in physics in my lifetime...should $$ not continue to be squandered on frivolous programs (such as this spaceflight trifecta BS you refer to with “efficiency”, aka CSR2...a NASA move).

Insofar as your straw man “efficiency” the root numbers break down a contract for cost-per-kilogram of cargo under Commercial Resupply Services, the only way to equitably factor “efficiency”.

Here are the facts: The shuttle flew cargo for a per kg cost of just under $14k. The CRS contracts (CRS1) awarded in 2008 governed 93,800 kilograms of cargo to the ISS over 31 missions for a total cost of $5.93 billion; that’s over $63k/kg. CRS2 is worse: 87,900 kilograms to ISS on 21 missions for a projected cost of $6.31 billion, or almost $72k/kg. Even taking into consideration the reduced capacity of the shuttle’s Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, the cost/kg is still nearly 50% and NASA’s management of this program is driving up costs, not down.

You would be honest if you would just state that you’re a space tech junkie/cheerleader (and possibly a Musk megopolis shareholder), but perhaps now you’d like to elaborate on your cheap shot with facts in-hand.

Gaslighting is a favored tactic of the left, believing that they can have their cake & eat it too.

Eat it, buddy.