SpaceX Spends 320 Times Less on Building the Dragon Than NASA Does on the Orion

SpaceX’s Dragon capsule was in the news once again when NASA announced that it passed a design review for a manned launch. NASA is expecting Dragon — and at least one other of the three capsules it selected for its commercial crew development program (CCDev2) — to be ready for its first mission in 2017. In the meantime, the U.S. is depending on Russian spacecraft to get our astronauts into orbit. At $60 million-a-seat, the aging Russian Soyuz program will hopefully soon be eclipsed by the $20 million-a-seat Dragon.

The news about Dragon came only a couple weeks after NASA had news of its own with the unveiling of the Orion capsule in its early stages. Built primarily by Lockheed Martin (but to NASA specifications, in contrast to the Dragon capsule which is fully developed by the private sector), the olive drab hull was shown off at the Kennedy Center surrounded by NASA employees and congressmen. The capsule is scheduled to make its first unmanned flight in 2014, with the Space Launch System (the rocket for taking Orion to the moon or beyond) scheduled to test launch in 2017.

It is good to see NASA on track for some big spaceflight milestones once again. But despite the progress, something stands out as a problem: The total NASA funding for the CCDev2 program was around $270 million. That’s $270 million for the development of four different vehicles to bring people into orbit. NASA will then have to pay per flight once the vehicles are functional, but it’s still not bad.

Especially when compared to the Orion capsule.

Compared to the SpaceX CCDev2 program, the Space Launch System that Orion is a part of is expected to cost $38 billion. Between $17 to $22 billion is needed just for development. That is 80 times the cost of the development of four manned crew vehicles by the private sector, i.e. 320 times more per vehicle.

Now, I understand that creating a system to go to the moon is much more complicated and expensive than going to orbit. But 320 times more? I think not.

Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, has said he could do it for a grand total of $3 billion, not all of which would have to be footed by the government. That would be less than one quarter of the $13 billion NASA spent on the defunct Constellation moon program that never even produced a flyable rocket. I think it might be wise for NASA to consider refocusing its budget (side note: a survey showed that most Americans thought NASA got 25% of the federal budget while it actually gets less than half of 1%).

Looking at the state of the aerospace industry, it is hard to be surprised by the inefficiency. The aerospace industry is one of the most concentrated in the country, fed by consistent government contracts. Programs are always going over time and over budget, which is unsurprising when “cost plus” contracts pay the contractors more the longer they take, and there are only a couple of companies to choose from.

It may seem bizarre that I am bashing one system of contracting in favor or another, but CCDev-style programs are fundamentally different than the normal system. CCDev contracts for the service of transporting people and goods to space, as opposed to the current system of contracting for the construction of a NASA product. Private companies are then free to accomplish the task as they see fit, instead of merely building a capsule to NASA specs.

Commercial space companies are very new and have yet to prove themselves entirely capable of human spaceflight. While I do think NASA has serious spending problems, I would not advocate immediately overthrowing the current system in favor of an industry that only took its first baby step a couple months ago. Hopefully by the end of this decade, or maybe even within five years, we will have seen multiple private launches of astronauts to orbit. Until then, NASA should continue its work, but focus more on enhancing the development of the private sector.

NASA’s vital role in this country has and always will be to spur technological progress beyond what the general private sector will accomplish on its own. It has been wildly successful in doing so thus far, but the advent of cost efficient private space companies will allow NASA’s dollar to go much further towards technological advancement. It would be better for everyone if they pursued that path.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/11354/spacex-spends-320-times-less-on-building-the-dragon-than-nasa-does-on-the-orion

Tough crowd :-))

I get the feeling someone is going to say the best place for that mining rig would be on the dark side of the Moon.. Oh wait! I just did.

Air conditioner? I would guess sticking the rig outside the station would give you enough err... cold space.

As long they are using the free market and all the capitalist tools at their disposal to make lots of money... 

http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/10/iss-linux/

For reasons involving reliability — which is semi-kinda important in low-Earth orbit, apparently — our fellow nerds living aboard the International Space Station have made the switch from Windows to Linux for astronauts’ laptops.
The space nerds will get training from the Linux Foundation for the upgrade to Debian 6. The foundation has actually customized two courses specifically for NASA astronauts’ needs, including a basic Linux user course and more advanced coursework on how to develop applications for Linux.
Previously, the laptops aboard the ISS had been running Windows XP.
The United Space Alliance manages the NASA/ISS computers. A United Space Alliance spokesperson told press the switch was made because ISS astronauts and cosmonauts needed an operating system “that was stable and reliable.”

Ouch!

The foundation also says the first humanoid space robot will also get a fresh Linux install. Called Robonaut (R2), the bot was created to “take over some of the astronaut’s responsibilities. … Running on Linux, the robot can be manipulated by onboard astronauts with ground controllers commanding it into position and performing operations. The Linux training from the Linux Foundation will help NASA developers ensure that R2 can be a productive addition to the ISS. Still in the fine-tuning phase, R2 will eventually carry out tasks too dangerous or mundane for astronauts in microgravity.”

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(I am a Windows 8 user, but this is too funny and GREAT for the linux OS)

I found this link with at least part of the questions asked to the targeted groups. Some of them pretty much impossible to comply (or remember).

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/10/10-crazy-things-the-irs-asked-tea-party-groups/

Of course, this was not politically motivated and only a low level employee did this. OK maybe 200 were involved but that was it.

"...& absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Welcome to the new normal.

https://twitter.com/BrettLoGiurato/status/332909283421323264

Nothing will happen to them.

https://twitter.com/AaronBlakeWP/status/332903200204128256

Of course back then the NYT found nothing wrong about this. Not doubt they will update that page anytime now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/opinion/the-irs-does-its-job.html?_r=0

"Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice. She did not say when they found out."

Always those damn low level workers... Of course, no names.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/irs-apologizes-targeting-conservative-groups


UPDATE: (May 18, 2013)

The woman whose question prompted a top Internal Revenue Service official to admit the agency was inappropriately targeting conservative groups says she was contacted prior to the event that elicited the admission and was directed to ask the question.
Celia Roady, a prominent tax lawyer in the firm of Morgan Lewis, said she was called personally by Lois Lerner, the IRS head of the tax exempt division, on May 9.

"I received a call from Lois Lerner, who told me that she wanted to address an issue after her prepared remarks at the [American Bar Association] Tax Section's Exempt Organizations Committee Meeting, and asked if I would pose a question to her after her remarks," Roady said in a statement to U.S. News and World Report. "I agreed to do so, and she then gave me the question that I asked at the meeting the next day. We had no discussion thereafter on the topic of the question, nor had we spoken about any of this before I received her call. She did not tell me, and I did not know, how she would answer the question."

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/05/17/exclusive-woman-who-asked-irss-lois-lerner-scandal-breaking-question-details-plant

UPDATE: (May 21, 2013)

Top IRS official will invoke the Fifth Amendment in congressional hearing about tea party targeting program

The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday afternoon that Lois Lerner, who heads up the Internal Revenue Service's tax-exempt division, plans to invoke the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in a hearing Wednesday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Affairs.
The Fifth Amendment provides that U.S. citizens may not be compelled to offer testimony if telling the truth would incriminate them.
Lerner's defense lawyer, William W. Taylor III, wrote to the committee on Tuesday that his client would refuse to answer questions related to what she knew about the extra levels of scrutiny appled to conservative nonprofit organizations that applied for tax-exempt status beginning in 2010.
She also will decline to say why she didn’t disclose what she knew to Congress, according to the LA Times.
Lerner 'has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation,' Taylor's letter read, 'but under the circumstances she has no choice but to take this course.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2328696/Top-IRS-official-invoke-Fifth-Amendment-congressional-hearing-tea-party-targeting-program.html

When I grew up I wanted to be an outlaw, just like in all those movies, fighting the man. Somehow it was always some dude with a faded Che T's looking for brighter tomorrow telling me how evil The Man is.

Now I realized they all were liars with the envy of replacing and becoming The Man. Now with full views of the world they are all defending corruption because the "other Man did it", defending war because "the other Man did it". And now they will fight to feed their Man with taxes because they need'll to keep all the other Men at bay. So of course they will NEVER stop loving taxes.

I will have respect to anyone even to the most evil racists, as long as he believes in his own delusional sad views of the world until his death. But there is one type of people I can't stand: hypocrites.

Sorry if I hijacked the thread.

Today this thread became reality.

The 2nd amendment is not about killing the person you don't like, rich or poor. You can simply use a shank made from a spoon like in any prison for that.

Cody wilson just made a lot laws irrelevant with his plastic gun while the governement is running guns to mexico and through Benghazi.

I will say this again and again: it is amazing how the bitcoin concept opens people's mind for thinking out of the box, beyond political agendas. I am sure i am fighting one you guys/gals on another website because we would have nothing in common, but here it's almost like an oasis (that is, if your stay away from the bitcointalk political section hahaha!)

I am not a doctor, but if you want to help on the long term, as in 2140 like long term invest your bitcoin in tech. The next big thing could be Quantum Biology. http://worldsciencefestival.com/webcasts/quantum_biology

Sure I would love to cure cancer now.  But like nuclear fusion quantum biology could be the answer for a lots of ills, on the long term. Right now the model is to target a group of people with a prescription. If you belong to the group of people with an allergy, you are out of luck with that medication.

Bitcoin is about being your own bank. Why not have a healthcare system based on a very individual model, unique to you and no one else. No more side effects as the prescription would be developed for one unique patient, and not a group of patients. No more waste with 1000s of pills unused because of your pharmacy with more and more refills. No more healthcare black hole. The deficit would be greatly reduced.

Human genome + quantum biology = the future of healthcare bitcoin?

Everything we do now is obsolete. We need to think big, out of the box big for the next 50 years and help those big brains with our bitcoins, and not government beggers like GE with exclusive contracts on healthcare.

You will have to explain to me what this this. A social libertarian, that I would understand. But a libertarian Karl Marx? Well I want to learn...

MakerBot.com makes it impossible to even ban the 3D printer itself as it is open source. It is a "crude" machine as of now but...

Obama To Grads: Reject Voices That Warn About Government Tyranny:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/05/05/obama_to_ohio_state_grads_reject_voices_that_warn_about_government_tyranny.html



U.S. Is Weighing Wide Overhaul of Wiretap Laws:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.

The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau’s ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is “going dark” as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation.

While the F.B.I.’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department’s attention.

Still, the plan is likely to set off a debate over the future of the Internet if the White House submits it to Congress, according to lawyers for technology companies and advocates of Internet privacy and freedom.

“I think the F.B.I.’s proposal would render Internet communications less secure and more vulnerable to hackers and identity thieves,” said Gregory T. Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “It would also mean that innovators who want to avoid new and expensive mandates will take their innovations abroad and develop them there, where there aren’t the same mandates.”

Andrew Weissmann, the general counsel of the F.B.I., said in a statement that the proposal was aimed only at preserving law enforcement officials’ longstanding ability to investigate suspected criminals, spies and terrorists subject to a court’s permission.

“This doesn’t create any new legal surveillance authority,” he said. “This always requires a court order. None of the ‘going dark’ solutions would do anything except update the law given means of modern communications.”

A central element of the F.B.I.’s 2010 proposal was to expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act — a 1994 law that already requires phone and network carriers to build interception capabilities into their systems — so that it would also cover Internet-based services that allow people to converse. But the bureau has now largely moved away from that one-size-fits-all mandate.

Instead, the new proposal focuses on strengthening wiretap orders issued by judges. Currently, such orders instruct recipients to provide technical assistance to law enforcement agencies, leaving wiggle room for companies to say they tried but could not make the technology work. Under the new proposal, providers could be ordered to comply, and judges could impose fines if they did not. The shift in thinking toward the judicial fines was first reported by The Washington Post, and additional details were described to The New York Times by several officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Under the proposal, officials said, for a company to be eligible for the strictest deadlines and fines — starting at $25,000 a day — it must first have been put on notice that it needed surveillance capabilities, triggering a 30-day period to consult with the government on any technical problems.

Such notice could be the receipt of its first wiretap order or a warning from the attorney general that it might receive a surveillance request in the future, officials said, arguing that most small start-ups would never receive either.

Michael Sussmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who advises communications providers, said that aspect of the plan appeared to be modeled on a British law, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000.

Foreign-based communications services that do business in the United States would be subject to the same procedures, and would be required to have a point of contact on domestic soil who could be served with a wiretap order, officials said.

Albert Gidari Jr., who represents technology companies on law enforcement matters, criticized that proposed procedure. He argued that if the United States started imposing fines on foreign Internet firms, it would encourage other countries, some of which may be looking for political dissidents, to penalize American companies if they refused to turn over users’ information.

“We’ll look a lot more like China than America after this,” Mr. Gidari said.

The expanded fines would also apply to phone and network carriers, like Verizon and AT&T, which are separately subject to the 1994 wiretapping capacity law. The FBI has argued that such companies sometimes roll out system upgrades without making sure that their wiretap capabilities will keep working.

The 1994 law would be expanded to cover peer-to-peer voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP — calls between computers that do not connect to the regular phone network. Such services typically do not route data packets through any central hub, making them difficult to intercept.

The F.B.I. has abandoned a component of its original proposal that would have required companies that facilitate the encryption of users’ messages to always have a key to unscramble them if presented with a court order. Critics had charged that such a law would create back doors for hackers. The current proposal would allow services that fully encrypt messages between users to keep operating, officials said.

In November 2010, Mr. Mueller toured Silicon Valley and briefed executives on the proposal as it then existed, urging them not to lobby against it, but the firms have adopted a cautious stance. In February 2011, the F.B.I.’s top lawyer at the time testified about the “going dark” problem at a House hearing, emphasizing that there was no administration proposal yet. Still, several top lawmakers at the hearing expressed skepticism, raising fears about innovation and security.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/07/schumer-its-time-to-go-after-the-3-d-printable-guns/


The senator also proposed updating the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 — which bans guns that can defeat airport security metal detectors — to include printable gun magazines. Defense Distributed has a federal firearms manufacturers license, which Wilson sought after being questioned by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in 2012. That was shortly after a 3-D printer Wilson had rented was seized by its manufacturer over worries he’d violate the Undetectable Firearms Act. The law, which is set to expire this year, exempts licensed manufacturers to produce plastic guns for use as a models and prototypes.

“There’s no reason for a rifle receiver or a magazine to be, quote unquote, detectable,” Wilson says. “And to make this even worse, they’ll say: well it’s okay for manufacturers to make an undetectable receiver, but it’s just not okay for you to make it. It’s an attempt to regulate some gun parts under the guise of security.”