SpaceX: More NASA Launches, Less Money

December 29, 2008

I attempt to cover the news without bias, but privately I cheered NASA’s selection of startup SpaceX and innovative Orbital Sciences over The Big Three collaborative (not automakers, aerospace contractors) bidding on $3.5 billion of government work to deliver stuff to the International Space Station.

I thought it was a little weird that SpaceX’s share, totaling $1.6 B to start, covered 12 missions, while Orbital, which got an additional $300 million, was responsible for eight. In a conference call with reporters to announce the award, NASA’s spaceflight chief Bill Gerstenmaier said the agency didn’t see anything out of line with Orbital’s bid.

I was curious what SpaceX founder Elon Musk thought about the split and caught up with him Sunday afternoon via cell phone. He was in a car -- not the Tesla (I asked) -- going someplace that required GPS guidance. In the background, I could hear the incessant voice of Grown-Up Barbie, gushing with helpfulness. As one of my sisters once put it “Technological innovation is what will annoy us in 10 years.”

NASA may have a really good reason for splitting the contract the way it did, such as doubting that SpaceX will be able to deliver the goods as advertised. The company, after all, has had exactly one perfect mission to date. Orbital, if nothing else, has a longer track record.

I’ve asked, and will update this column if I get a response. (So far, I’ve gotten automated “I’m out of the office” email replies from two NASA press officers each referring further inquiry to the other person.)

Musk said he plans to ask as well. Here’s a partial transcript of our chat. The full interview will be posted soon at space.discovery.com

Congratulations, first of all. I’m sure you all were very delighted to get the news last week about the NASA contract.

Yeah, absolutely.

I was a little struck by the number of launches that SpaceX is offering to do compared what Orbital is going to do and was wondering if that caught your eye as well.

Hah-ha (laughing). Well … of course. The difference is bigger than even the number of launches because our Dragon spacecraft has 50 percent more payload capability than Orbital. It’s actually, if you were to multiple it out, it’s as if we were doing 18 launches and they were doing eight launches.

Do you consider Orbital a competitor for the whole contract? Do you think that you should have gotten the whole thing?

I want to be careful what I say here because I don’t what to look a gift horse in the mouth. We’re super excited that we got a $1.6 billion contract. I do think it’s a bit of question mark -- and I don’t know the answer to this because we’ve not had a chance to debrief with NASA -- but it is a little confusing why even though we’re cheaper and we’re further along than Orbital … it is a little confusing that we’re delivering two-thirds of the cargo and getting slightly less than 50 percent of the money -- or more than two thirds of the cargo. We’re doing 12 of the 20 launches and then on a per launch basis, we do 50 percent more than Orbital.

I don’t want to be quoted as saying anything negative about NASA because we’re incredibly grateful for the $1.6-billion contract, I mean who wouldn’t be? But I do think that the question should be asked. We’ll ask the question privately and it may make sense for you to ask the question of NASA, why is it that Orbital, who’ll cost more than twice per kilogram as SpaceX, why did they win a slight majority of the money? It’s worth raising the question publicly.

I can understand from a NASA standpoint that because they’re dealing with a critical issue with resupplying the space station that they want to have two suppliers. I can completely understand that. But it just seems strange to give the supplier that gave the better bid and got higher marks on a technical basis and has the lowest cost-per-kilogram by far, why wouldn’t they get at least the majority of the funds? It’s all a little confusing.

(Photo credit: Brian Solis/BrianSolis.com)

Falcon Flies, Next Stop Space Station?

September 28, 2008

Heard the big news? No, not the Great Government Bailout of 2008. A real-live capitalist, using his own money and moxie, racked up the first successful flight of a rocket he's been developing to change the game in space.

The dude is Elon Musk, of Pay-Pal fame and fortune, who has been picking away at the not insubstantial barriers to entry into the commercial space arena.

"That was freakin' awesome," Musk said after the launch Sunday night.

The Falcon 1 booster lifted off from Omelek Island at Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean.

It was Musk's fourth attempt to reach orbit.

The battle is far from over. With a successful launch on the books, Musk told me in an interview last week that he's going to make a bid for ferrying astronauts to and from the space station after the shuttle is retired. Technical know-how, Musk has now demonstrated. As for the political battles to come, the challenges may just be beginning.

Check back at space.discovery.com on Monday for an exclusive Q&A with Musk.

Here's a really good account of the launch on SpaceflightNow.com.

And here's a Discovery News story about what this launch might mean for NASA and the U.S. space program

Falcon Flubs

August 03, 2008

Not to sound tarty -- and first to acknowledge Elon Musk for even trying these days, on his own dime, and not asking the government to bail him out if/when times get hard -- but this weekend’s launch of Space
Exploration Technology’s Falcon 1 rocket, which carried a payload for its first paying customers, the U.S. government, didn’t go exactly right for the third flight in a row.

Though Musk once said he might stick by baseballs’ three-strikes-yer-out rule, he’s out in front, as a good leader should, talking up flights four, five, six and beyond. In other words, he will not stop.

“I will never give up and I mean never,” Musk wrote in an email to employees Saturday night.

Earlier in the day, the company fired off a Falcon 1 rocket from the firm’s central Pacific launch site on Omelek Island in the Kwajalein Atoll, located about 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii.

SpaceX is a privately-owned rocket development and launch services firm founded and funded by Musk, an internet entrepreneur credited as a (the?) key member of the PayPal financial services firm, now owned by eBay.

As Stephen Clark of SpaceFlightNow.com puts it, “Disaster struck about two-and-a-half minutes after a seemingly picture-perfect blastoff at 11:34 p.m. EDT Saturday (0334 GMT Sunday).”

At a press conference later that day, Musk said some problem prevented the first and second stages from separating properly (apparently this is a problem shared by even very experienced space-farers, like the Russian government.)

Writes Clark, “Stage separation was slated to occur two minutes and 39 seconds after liftoff as pyrotechnic bolts fired to sever the physical connections between the stages. The bolts are all redundantly initiated and have never failed aboard other launch vehicles, according to SpaceX.”

Lost in the accident were the U.S. military’s Trailblazer satellite and two small NASA payloads, including an innovative solar sail. The payload also included a cache of cremated remains, including ashes from astronaut Gordon Cooper and Star Trek actor James Doohan, notes Clark.

Live long and prosper, Elon.

Caption: Falcon 1, Take 3. Before shot. Courtesy: SpaceX