Jeff Bell has excreted yet another fiskworthy essay on space commerce.

But while it's worthy of a fisking, I don't find myself especially motivated to do one -- neither, apparently, does anyone else. Perhaps we're all just bored with him.

However, I will note a couple of noteworthy bits. First, he makes the regrettably common mistake of assuming that the way NASA (or ESA, or JAXA) does something is the only way it can be done. Since RpK and Spacex aren't burning dollars by the bushel like NASA and the Usual Suspects would, that alone means their efforts are unserious and doomed to failure.

Second, he doesn't seem to have thought through the implications when he sneers:

This program is built on the alt.space community's shared fantasy that they can somehow magically reduce the cost of developing complex space hardware by using smaller teams and simpler management structures. Somehow they manage to ignore the 30-year history of abject failure by many firms using this model.

Correlation is not causation. Did the "abject failure by many firms using this model" happen because they used this model, or for some other reason? Is using large teams and complex management structures the only way to develop space hardware? Will big teams and complex management reduce the cost of developing space hardware? Is complex space hardware what is required, or will something simpler do?

Third, there's this:

Nobody in their right mind will put money into a private ISS supply system at the same time that NASA is pumping billions into Ares I and Orion Block 1 to perform the same mission in-house.

It's actually "Block 1b", but that aside, the pressurized cargo variant of CEV/Orion has always been somewhat iffy, and will probably be the first part of the program sacrificed when the inevitable budget crunch comes.

Fourthly, he no sooner finishes railing against the choice of RpK and Spacex for their lack of experience and flight hardware, than he suggests that the "really blue-sky proposals" like that from similarly-situated t/space would have been a wiser selection for COTS. He justifies the selection of t/space in particular on the grounds that its "heartthrobs" Hudson and Gump would have generated more enthusiasm from alt.spacers, but even that is laughable -- from what I have seen, alt.spacers are more interested in Spacex than t/space, because (for all their flaws) Spacex is actually close to accomplishing something significant.

Fifthly, he... Oh, the hell with it. I'm thoroughly bored with this silly essay.

Posted by T.L. James on January 19, 2007 10:03 PM | TrackBack