Disasters and double standards

Clark, you make some really good points here.
the problem here is the high profile nature of the business. Balloons go mainly un-noticed except when you have a 100' ribbon of fire trailing behind a wicker basket in a ball of fire caught on tape falling from the sky.
You could imagine just how much worse (from a PR stand point) the Scaled accident would have been if a video recording of the explosion was viewed on TV.
My guess is that for the most part the Scaled accident was not noticed by the public at large. The recent collapsing coal mine had a higher news profile.
Basically the story is relegated to an industrial accident like an oil refinery explosion might be.
Now had this been a launch accident with a spacecraft crashing in a ball of fire that would be a different story. The News goes crazy for that kind of drama.
Sad really.

Posted by Ed at 08/28/07 06:44:34

I would point out here that those who are making a point that this should kill the private spaceflight industry are those with a vested interest in seeing that such a group would not exist, or are opposed to spaceflight in any form at all.

I know it is hard for hard-core space enthusiasts to appreciate, but there are many motivations from individuals who don't want to see mankind go into space. This ranges from those who think it is just a waste of money, some individuals who simply hate mankind anyway and look upon people as a sort of cancer in the universe that needs to be killed, to those with religious viewpoints that don't want to see the "heavens" spoiled with debris from human activity. I could go on, but there are some strong motivations on the part of some individuals to make every attempt they can to stop spaceflight in any form and happening in any way.

There are also those individuals who have also made a tremendous amount of money from governmental contracts, and simply don't want to see the current gravy train end. I sympathize with them to a certain degree in the sense that it would be nice to see governments take interest in space exploration. But the era of letting the U.S. Congress decide who may or may not go into space (with a grudging acknowledgment that the Russian Duma may also on occasion act on their own) is nearly over.

In other words, those in this industry shouldn't take this personally but instead need to keep forging ahead. On this point I completely agree.

Posted by Robert Horning at 08/28/07 07:01:57

Robert try not to get offended here but the first half of your comments are more or less crap!
The second half is spot on correct!
The "gravy train" is a very good point.
This is the case and you can see how even competitors will band together in order to divvy up the spoils of government contracts ect. example ....rather than complete, we have the alliances so that privet sector companies that have been receiving government money for years don't have to compete with each other. These organizations even have lobbyists within government to steer policy in specific directions to benefit the established industries.
A good example of this would be the Canadian Space Agency that has pigeon holed Canada as a "space robotics only country". even having Canadian astronauts publicly state that Canada is not interested in domestic manned space launch capability. A certain large and famous Canadian space robotics company has been in bed with the agency since its inception.
There is a whole system in place so that government contracts get funnelled into specific existing Space agency connected companies. If dollars don't flow a certain direction, they don't flow.
This type of thing happens all over the place in the US and Canada....I would suspect that it happens else ware as well.
So Robert I would say that if government policy and decision making can be influenced by organizations. Who would stand to gain by trying to thwart new space business initiatives.
This should be obvious...as these organizations have been suckling of the Federal tit for years. No runt is going to barge in and steel some milk.
I would say that this battle is only just beginning...and the public needs to take a very careful look at the messages coming out of the various federal departments.
Remember that existing aerospace efforts have been working with the FAA for years.
The opposite scenario can happen as well...just look at RPK.
Basically the problem lies in cronyism and the ability to lobby government to make decisions that only benefit specific parties and not the Tax payer of the the industry itself.

end of my conspiracy rant!

Posted by Ed at 08/28/07 08:21:01

"Robert try not to get offended here but the first half of your comments are more or less crap!"

They weren't crap at all. Human spaceflight has many ideological enemies who opposed going into space for reasons other than the gravy train ended. Go talk to some radical environmentalists sometime and see what they think. Radicals like Al Gore who said himself that he doesn't support manned spaceflight.

Posted by GXF585 at 08/28/07 09:12:46

GXF585 - Are you on crack? Seriously. Being enviromentally aware and also being pro manned spaceflight is quite common.

Look at elon musk - he's founded 3 new company - an electric car company, a solar power company, and SpaceX - the first 2 are about helping the enviroment.

Or look at Branson - he's pushing for major developments in green technology, and yet we all know Virgin Galactic.

Or, actually, you could look at the "radical" Al Gore, himself - his support of enviromentalism is obviously well known, but last year, he attended the X Prize Cup Executive Summit, and endorsed the private spaceflight industry.

Details of that can be found at http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.... , and if you scroll down, look at the update.

So, before you start going after the enviromentalists and trying to piss them off, it might be worth while to do a little looking at the evidence.

Posted by Ferris Valyn at 08/28/07 09:27:44

test!

Posted by Ed at 08/28/07 09:50:42

"Go talk to some radical environmentalists sometime and see what they think. Radicals like Al Gore who said himself that he doesn't support manned spaceflight."

I guess that I'm as "radical" an environmentalist as Gore, although I suspect your idea of "radical" would include accepting the scientific consensus on environmental threats, or actually doing anything.

I don't think Gore opposes spaceflight for green reasons, though. He's as big a proponent of space as Washington has seen in the last 30 years. If he opposes human spaceflight, perhaps it's because NASA has bungled it so badly. I don't support the shuttle program or ISS, but that's because those programs waste billions of dollars achieving nothing. Meanwhile, the unmanned programs like the Mars Rovers, Cassini, and Hubble have given us fantastic results. There are a load of potentially great projects like Terrestrial Planet Finder that are delayed or canceled because a huge portion of NASA's budget is spent sending astronauts on holiday - an activity for which the taxpayer receives essentially no return. As Ed pointed out, there is also the "scam" aspect, in which taxpayer dollars are funneled to the incumbent aerospace companies.

Remember that Al Gore was a friend of Carl Sagan, who was a big proponent of robotic missions, and opposed to ineffectual manned programs. From Gore's speeches, it's clear that Sagan's opinions influenced him a lot, but I've never heard either one decry spaceflight on environmental grounds.

Posted by Ashley at 08/28/07 09:51:29

Clark what is with your spam filtering?

Posted by Ed at 08/28/07 09:59:07

A certain word comes to mind naive
listen, sure you will find tree huggers, and human race haters complaining and trying to shove thier left wing ideology, but generally these people have had little or no influence to date on rocketry. Other than some claiming that there suborbital flight has less carbon output than a lawn mower and Al Gore yaking. Small carbon footprint..we save baby seals!
I suppose if the get their way they could try and ban rockets but I don't see happening any time soo.
"the gravy train ended"
Where do you come up with this stuff.
who do you work for MDA or ULA.

Posted by ED at 08/28/07 10:05:56

I figured out what the problem was
for some reason the word Social ist
sets of the spam fileter...whats with that?

Posted by ED at 08/28/07 10:07:37

Clark I would love to see the list of words you have collected as "spam"
Bizzar!

Posted by Ed at 08/28/07 10:08:56

As many of you know I worked at the L5 Society, as well as for NSS and High Frontier. From 1984 through 1996, I had a chance to read all the letters that came into those various organizations.
I'd say a good 1-2% were of the "humans are a virus and need to be destroyed" variety. I also answered the phone at those organizations, and was on the receiving end of some amazingly vituperative rants about the evils of space development. And then there were the reporters, both print and other media, who would ask for an interview on one topic and then ambush me about the evils of space flight. We've had it easy for the past few years, but that sort of reporting is starting to show up again, especially after Scaled's accident.
The anti-space flight people are a vocal and sometimes vicious subset of the groups who hate humans in general and Americans in particular. I still have a "loon file" of some of the more egregiously frothing letters.
Do not dismiss these people out of hand. That they haven't caused a noticeable problem yet is that the new space companies are still below (or above!) their radar. But I have already had one letter here at XCOR about how we're Bad People for not working harder to fix problems here on Earth before we waste money catering to the wealthy.
You cannot argue (in the Classical sense of the word) with these people, you can only guard against them.
So don't just dismiss me as "on crack" because no, I'm not: I have direct personal experience with the anti-space flight (and anti-you-name-the-technology) people.
They exist and they are a danger. How much of a danger remains to be seen

Posted by Aleta Jackson at 08/28/07 10:44:47

Ed,
My blacklist is actually quite short and includes only the usual spam terms related to drugs, porn, etc. The problem seems to be with the list that the spam filter plug-in is using. Since the separate Captcha plug-in seems to be working pretty well, I'll remove the spam filter and see how it goes: socialist test.
- C.

Posted by TopSpacer at 08/28/07 10:53:19

The issue is not what may happen down the road in the future but what is happening now and the near future.
and at this point in time the biggest threat to the industry is the lawyers and the established aerospace industry.

Posted by Ed at 08/28/07 10:56:53

Thanks Clark.
It just seemed real wierd.
and it took me forever to figure out which work was causing the problem.
Hey maybe the programers for the plugin used an old word list Joseph McCarthy

:)

Posted by Ed at 08/28/07 11:01:18

> I don't think Gore opposes spaceflight for green
> reasons, though. He's as big a proponent of space as
> Washington has seen in the last 30 years. If he opposes
> human spaceflight, perhaps it's because NASA has bungled
> it so badly.

That's strange, because Mr. Gore spent eight years as vice-president of the United States: a position that would have given him the power to change how NASA did human spaceflight, if he ever chose to.

He never chose to. He did not oppose the Shuttle or ISS, which you cite as "bad" human spaceflight. Instead, his Administration opposed development of the DC-X, even going to the length of impounded funds Congress appropriated for it.

Contrary to the claims of Mr. Valyn, Gore did nothing to endorse the private spaceflight industry at the XPrize Cup or afterward. His visit was not to promise support from environmentalists for spaceflight but to convince the XPrize to support environmenalists by diverting their efforts from space prizes to "green" prizes. He did not offer or deliver anything in return.

If you believe otherwise, please show the evidence. Can you name one major donation Mr. Gore has made to a space advocacy group, one major policy speech on human spaceflight, one Live Space concert he has sponsored, or one investment he's made in a space company?

> Remember that Al Gore was a friend of Carl Sagan, who was a big
> proponent of robotic missions, and opposed to ineffectual
> manned programs.

In fact, Dr. Sagan was a great fan of ineffectual manned programs. He wrote a number of articles supportive of a manned Mars mission, as long as it was done the traditional NASA way with expensive throwaway rockets and preferably as a joint venture with the Soviet Union. What Sagan never supported was effective manned programs with reusable vehicles, commercialization, and space settlement. Sagan's Planetary Society continues the same policies to this day. It was members of the Planetary Society, including Mike Griffin, who designed Apollo on Steroids.

Posted by Not Gore at 08/28/07 17:40:25

Before you start claiming purity on the conservative side, Mr Not Gore, I could easily remind you of people on the Republican side, who didn't do anything. Perhaps, though, the best example of this isn't from a vice president, but rather from the current president, who did absolutely nothing for a large chunk of the first part of his administration, and frankly, ESAS is lacking as well, and is hardly "revolutionary" when it comes to the advancement of space colonization.

Furthermore, I would point out they did make a major attempt with the X-33 and VentureStar, as well as the alternative access program. And, its quite arguable, that without the Alternative Access program, we wouldn't have COTS, of which we are so excited about today.

As for what happened at XPC's Executive Summit, well, I admit I can't speak from personal experince, but I consider the Alan's reporting, as well as Charles Miller's commets about what he said - quoting from Alan Boyle's article
"Charles Miller, chief executive officer of Constellation Services International, noted the Popular Science report as well as a reference to Gore's remarks by Space.com's Leonard David at LiveScience:

"Unfortunately, neither one of them published the part that I was most interested in ... which is Gore's statement that space right now is in the exact same position that the Internet was in the 1970s ... and that space needs to be commercialized in order to achieve its full potential ... just like the Internet only achieved its full potential by being commercialized.

"This is a critically important statement by Gore on the commercial space industry that needs to get out ... particularly to the Dems who are likely to take over the House and possibly the Senate."
"
That, to me, sounds like an endorsement. Can you offer any counter examples? Hell, can you even identify yourself?

As for your arguements about Dr. Sagan, can you back any of that up? I'd be very surprized if he didn't support the Space Shuttle and Space Station. Of course, I admit those programs have had plenty of problems, but at the time, everyone thought they would work just fine, and we'd have routine access to space. The current model of engaging a privatised system wasn't around for consideration until fairly recently. The big momment for private spaceflight wasn't until 2004, with SS1's flight, which was 4 years after Gore was out of office, and 8 years after Sagan's death.

So, the next time you make claims, Mr "Not Gore", you had better back them up.

Posted by Ferris Valyn at 08/28/07 19:37:43

Al Gore also claims he invented the internet.

Posted by Ed at 08/29/07 06:54:44

No, Ed, he never did. That was a little story cooked up by the right wing media, to smear him. He actually siad, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." And that is entirely true. Details about how he did help to create the Internet (through passing funding) can be found at http://www.perkel.com/polit...

Posted by Ferris Valyn at 08/29/07 07:08:10

Ah! Ferrit you take yourself to seriously. So even if Al Gore claims he invented the internet or co-invented the internet...you need to cite better internet references.
That page was a joke.
I am not sure how this whole topic turned into a republican vs. democrat conversation but the original post had to do with our risk adverse society and the threat to the new space industry.
If Gore wants credit for inventing the internet so be it.

And I don't care what the other internet forms call you Ferris...you are still a good sport and I hope your rash clears up.

Posted by Ed at 08/29/07 07:23:09

I think TopSpacer has it right and don't have anything much to add to that but some other things need to be pointed out.

Ed:
The MDA corporation has bought two SpaceX launches already, one Falcon 1 and one Falcon 9.

Feris Valyn wrote:
"Perhaps, though, the best example of this isn't from a vice president, but rather from the current president, who did absolutely nothing for a large chunk of the first part of his administration, and frankly, ESAS is lacking as well, and is hardly "revolutionary" when it comes to the advancement of space colonization."

First off please stop confusing ESAS and the VSE, those are two different things. ESAS is only NASAs currently chosen implementation for reaching (or not as the case seems to be) the aims of the VSE.

The VSE was created by the very administration you criticize for doing "absolutely nothing". At the very least Bush was supportive of it as otherwise it would never have seen the light of day. Looking at his father's failed attempt to get NASA on a more rewarding track would indicate there's more to it than simple support and in more ways than one.

Feris Valyn quoting Al Gore:
""During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.""

Al Gore became a congressman in 1976. ARPA started the technological path that became ARPANET and later on the Internet during the sixties. That's right; for any sensible technical definition of the Internet it started a good amount of time (close to a decade) before Mr. Gore even held congressional office. His impact on the technology itself was non-existent. The later political support likely helped (although it has to be pointed out that he wasn't anything like a lonely supportive voice in Congress) but his self-aggrandizing blooper doesn't make him look good. If he wanted to be a bit more truthful he could have said:
"I took the initiative in supporting an accellerated expansion of the Internet."
although even that is stretching it somewhat.

Al Gore was invited on account of him being an advocate for the "information superhighway" to the 1994 25th anniversary celebration for the first ARPANET node installation but as far as I know he didn't attend (likely rightfully too ashamed to, at least I would have been if I was him).

Posted by Habitat Hermit at 08/29/07 09:11:40

Please, people, let's keep the level of discourse here a bit more mature. Rhetorical use of Ad hominem and insulting wordplay on people's names are NOT useful.

Back to Clark's original point: Yes, high energy and high power systems can be dangerous. There was a ghastly hot air balloon accident with two fatalities just last week, but that sport will continue without major impact.

A crucial difference here is that space flight is not merely a joyride; as with aviation, it will become a means of travel to destinations.

Arthur Clarke said: "If man survives for as long as the least successful of the dinosaurs—those creatures whom we often deride as nature's failures—then we may be certain of this: For all but a vanishingly brief instant near the dawn of history, the word 'ship' will mean—'spaceship.'"

There's a certain historical inevitability to this. I knew one of the guys killed in that explosion, and I witnessed it from a distance of a few hundred meters while at our rocket test site. I am undeterred, and so are our customers and investors.

Posted by Doug Jones at 08/29/07 09:22:56

Since it's unlikely people know I guess I should point out that the 25th anniversay celebration was a huge thing gathering over 500 of those involved with ARPANET/Internet including most of the early and core developers (no, Gore is not in that group, his invitation was likely more of a snide comment just like the similarily rejected invitation sent to Bill Gates).

Massachusetts Democratic congressman Ed Markey was invited and accepted the invitation but then again he didn't make ridiculous statements on the topic like Gore, nor did he fail to recognize the importance of the Internet like Gates did at the time.

Posted by Habitat Hermit at 08/29/07 09:29:27

"The MDA corporation has bought two SpaceX launches already, one Falcon 1 and one Falcon 9."

if you mean this as a signal of the support for privet launch services...than
than this is true...for a foreign company to Canada. You won't ever see the same purchase order made to a Canadian launch company as long as the structure stays the same.

Undermining domestic industry has happened for years within Canada.
Canadian Space agency has a circle of friend they deal with and that is all.
It is mutually beneficial. The agency maintains its status as the exclusive space entity in Canada ensuring tax dollars will continue to flow without private competition. And in conjunction a signifigant portion of those funds then continue to move to their established privet partners. Definitely not fertile ground for the private sector. And as a result Canadians are relegated to be the "hitch-hikers" in a growing list of international space endeavours.
This also happens in the US. But admittedly it has become increasing difficult in recent years, since now there are a greater number of space based technology manufactures in the US.

Remember Beal Aerospace.

Posted by Ed at 08/29/07 10:24:53

Please, people, let's keep the level of discourse here a bit more mature. Rhetorical use of Ad hominem and insulting wordplay on people's names are NOT useful.

woops! typo: "Ferrit" I mean "Ferris"
my bad :)

Posted by Ed at 08/29/07 10:27:55

Habitat - I am not confusing them. First, you'll notice I never mentioned VSE.

Part of the reason I don't mention it is because I just don't give out point for flowery ideas and speeches, which is all that VSE is. ESAS is where the rubber meets the pavement, and thus its the important point.

Now, if you want, yes, you could argue that ESAS is the brainchild of Griffin, but who appointed Griffin? It wasn't Al Gore.

Secondly, VSE (and ESAS by extention) wouldn't have come about without Columbia, which doesn't speak to Bush being greatly involved, and really caring about Nasa. Had Bush announced the retirement of the Shuttle prior to the Columbia accident, I'd give him a little more of a break, but not this way.

Foresight doesn't come about after 7 people die.

With regard to Gore and the Internet, your right that he wasn't in Congress during the creation of the Arpanet, but the Arpanet is not the internet. The former was a network connecting various specific institutions, but was not accessible by the average person. This obviously isn't the internet, since anyone can easily access the internet.

One of the key points was the passage of a bill called High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 (also refered to as the Gore Bill, named after its sponser - I'll let you take a guess as to who it was). Multiple Internet pioneers have credited this piece of legislation as being a pivotal point at which you saw a vast expansion, into what is today the internet (and I would consider the internet more than just packet switches).

Gore did more as VP as well, but I think that provides pretty good evidence. The details of all of this (both the Gore bill, as well as his work during as VP, and various comments from people who developed the software for both the Arpanet, and the internet) is covered at http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
BTW, its worth noting that he recieved a Lifetime achievement award from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, for his contribution to the Internet.

Doug Jones - I don't really have much to add to the original point, and I wish I did. Aleta I think made the best point, about people who hate technology, or who hate humanity. They are out there, and we can't ignore them, since they have a vested idealogical reason to fight against manned spaceflight, and they can be quite loud. But we don't do ourselves any favors when we make broad generalizations, and say things like what GXF585 said, about "radical enviromentalists like Al Gore hating spaceflight"

We'd do much better trying to find people everywhere, whatever their philosophical leanings, and try and cultivate good relations, as opposed to the broad idiotic comments that have been made above.

Posted by Ferris Valyn at 08/29/07 10:29:20

Doug, you just said "I witnessed it from a distance of a few hundred meters while at our rocket test site"

can you shed any light as to what you saw?

Posted by Ed at 08/29/07 10:31:54

Ed, no, I can't. I don't want to fuel the rumor mill

Posted by Doug Jones at 08/29/07 11:00:54

fair enough Doug.

Just out of curiosity, you mentioned you were working on your rocket test site. what organization or group are you with?

Posted by Ed at 08/29/07 12:08:43

Doug and I are with XCOR Aerospace.

See the latest "Air&Space" for more info. :->

Posted by Aleta at 08/29/07 14:13:36

I'd like to see a reality TV show like “Rocketry Garage”, or “Kern County Rocketeers”! Seems the private space companies like to play their cards to close to their chest to allow this kind of internal publicity to take place. I just wish one would open up and go for it. It would be a great source of income and paid for advertisement. Show it like it is with all the fiery failures, test, conflict, innovation, competition and exciting successes. Get the public involved, interested, and talking about private space exploration. Strap Al Gore in one of them and launch him off and out into space!

Posted by Doug Gard at 08/29/07 17:56:25

Nice idea, DG, but if we launched Al Gore our insurance company would insist upon us bringing him back :P

Posted by Doug Jones at 08/29/07 18:03:44

Mr Gard (too many Dougs)

Michael Belfiore is working on a possible Rocketeers TV, similiar to what you suggested. Read about it at http://michaelbelfiore.com/...

Personally, I think we'd do better with a drama television show that follows a fictional company - then you can also push the human element - and still have explosions

Posted by Ferris Valyn at 08/29/07 19:48:59

> Before you start claiming purity on the conservative side, Mr Not Gore,
> I could easily remind you of people on the Republican side, who didn't do
> anything.

I never claimed that some unnamed "people on the Republican side" had "done anything."

I'm not obligated to prove people said or did things I never claimed they said you or did.

> Perhaps, though, the best example of this isn't from a vice president, but rather
> from the current president, who did absolutely nothing for a large chunk of the
> first part of his administration, and frankly, ESAS is lacking as well, and is hardly
> "revolutionary" when it comes to the advancement of space colonization.

Bush is not a conservative, except to Democratic spin doctors.

ESAS is just a repeat of Kennedy's Apollo. Bush is a liberal Republican following a space policy created by a liberal Democrat.

All your statements prove is that you hate Bush. How does that prove Al Gore is a commercial space supporter?

>Furthermore, I would point out they did make a major attempt with the X-33
> and VentureStar, as well as the alternative access program.

I don't think Al Gore was responsible for the misbegotten X-33/VentureStar or for the alternative access program that lied to commercial space companies about their chances of getting NASA contracts.

Even if he was, I don't consider those good things. They certainly are not my idea of commercial space.

> And, its quite arguable, that without the Alternative Access program,
> we wouldn't have COTS, of which we are so excited about today.

You may be excited about COTS. It takes more than a couple hundred million dollars for one company to excite me.

> "Charles Miller, chief executive officer of Constellation Services
> International, noted the Popular Science report as well as a reference to
> Gore's remarks by Space.com's Leonard David at LiveScience:

Charles Miller is a liberal Democrat. He's also hoping to get NASA contracts to save his company. He told Space News he wants to use CEV to resupply ISS.

If that's what you mean when you say Gore supports "commercialization," okay, but that's not my idea of commercial space.

> As for your arguements about Dr. Sagan, can you back any of that up? I'd be very
> surprized if he didn't support the Space Shuttle and Space Station.

I don't care whether you're surprised or not. I was surprised when Sinclair turned out to be Valyn. :-)

I can't "prove" that Sagan never supported the Shuttle or the space station. It's impossible to prove that sort of negative. I can prove that he condemned both of them, frequently, and manned spaceflight in general.

I have never seen any of his writings that supported manned spaceflight apart from a dash to Mars for a few scientists, which he embraced late in life.

Since you claim otherwise, can you back that up?

> Of course, I admit those programs have had plenty of problems, but at
> the time, everyone thought they would work just fine, and we'd have routine
> access to space.

No, not "everyone" though that. No more than "everyone" thought Apollo would lead to cities on the Moon. You aren't even trying to show that Sagan supported any real effectual human spaceflight.

> The current model of engaging a privatised system wasn't around for
> consideration until fairly recently.

It most certainly was. Ronald Reagan had meetings with privatization advocates in the 1980's.

I'm still waiting for your evidence that Al Gore is a commercial space supporter.

Posted by Not Gore at 09/02/07 20:00:10

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