First operational SpaceX Dragon capsule after successful orbital test flight on December 8, 2010.
The full impact of the successful launch of the SpaceX Dragon space capsule last month in an unmanned orbital test flight has yet to be fully felt. But what is clear is that America’s next orbital spaceship will be a space capsule, rather than a winged design. To be sure designs for winged manned ships are on the drawing board. However, none is even close to launch.
Dragon is first out of the gate, but two other capsules are in the running for taking over the Space Shuttle’s role as America’s spaceship. Will one emerge as the dominent vehicle, or will our national space program, for the first time, end up flying more than one orbital manned vehicle at once?
Let’s take a look at the options and see.
NASA/Lockheed Martin Orion
Orion was intended as part of NASA’s Constellation manned space exploration program. As such its intended vehicle has been the Ares 1, a solid booster rocket design derived from the Shuttle program. Combined development costs have totaled about $10 billion ($4.8 billion for Orion, the rest for Ares 1, all of it public money) and the system has yet to fly. With the cancellation of Constellation, Orion has been orphaned, without a launch vehicle. Orion is expected to carry 4 to 6 astronauts and has been called by former NASA administrator Mike Griffin “Apollo on steroids.” It may also be the last of the old breed of US government developed, owned, and operated spaceships. It’s not looking good for the success of this vehicle.
SpaceX Dragon
Dragon was designed from the beginning to be the cargo and crew carrier for the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which has successfully made two orbital flights. SpaceX says the capsule will eventually carry up to 7 astronauts and will be able to touch down to pinpoint landings on land with the aid of built-in booster rockets, a first for a capsule, if successful (the Russian Soyuz has braking rockets that fire just before touchdown but it has no steering ability). Combined development costs for Dragon/Falcon 9 have reached about $800 million, most of it private money. NASA has SpaceX under contract for cargo flights to the International Space Station but it has not yet committed to crew flights. SpaceX plans to build that capability anyway, and once it does, it will seem like a no-brainer for NASA to buy crew flights as well.
Bigelow/Boeing CST-100
CST-100 is a bit of a gamble by Boeing to have some chips in game, no matter how NASA’s human space flight program shakes out. CST-100 is a joint program with Bigelow Aerospace (to service BA’s planned commercial space stations) and NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program. It is expected to carry up to 7 seven astronauts. This ship has the least development and funding invested in it, working with about $18 million from NASA . That could change quickly because both Boeing and Bigelow Aerospace have the resources to ramp up development at any time. NASA won’t put significant money in as the whole point of the CCDev program is to foster independent commercial owner/operators rather than to build or finance development by itself. The CST-100 is being designed to fly on just about any launch vehicle large enough and powerful enough, including the Falcon 9 and Boeing’s Delta-IV.
My money is on Dragon carrying astronauts to orbit before Orion even gets off the ground. At that point it will seem even more silly for NASA to keep investing in Orion, or to continuing its practice of buying rides on Soyuz capsules in the absence of the Shuttle (which retires this year). Not that Dragon’s success will stop the politicians responsible for NASA’s funding from continuing to insist on silliness. Regardless, barring any unforseeables, Dragon will become, de facto, America’s national spaceship, probably by 2015.
With Dragon flying regularly on NASA-chartered flights, thus demonstrating a viable market, Boeing will get more fully behind the CST-100, ramping up development and production. By then Bigelow space stations should be operational, expanding the market for orbital ships further, and sparking more investment from other players. Bigelow is the biggest wildcard here. Will Robert Bigelow wait and see what happens with Dragon before committing more resources to CST-100, or is he, even now, pushing Boeing to move ahead to ensure reliable transportation to his space stations?
My bets is that NASA will fund Boeing, SpaceX and maybe 2 other companies. I think this year there was over $200 million to be allocated–I think Spacex and boeing will get over 60 percent of the total. The rest will go as backups–maybe Sierra and possibly T/Space.
I’d love to see t/Space get back into operation. They really were the genesis of NASA’s current commercial direction for routine low Earth orbit operations. Unfortunately, the company principals had to go their separate ways due to lack of funding, though they did remain involved in innovative space projects.
Michael – I am curious about why you think the Dream chaser is unlikely? SNC (and Spacedev before them) have been pushing that for a while.
Ferris, I think SpaceDev/Sierra’s bid to build the winged Dream Chaser orbital vehicle can be viable, but only if it receives more funding than NASA will be willing to put in. That might happen with Virgin Galactic now in the mix, partnering with both Sierra and also-winged competitor Orbital Sciences. Even so, SpaceX has a significant lead, and Virgin’s true commitment is not yet clear. My guess is that Virgin has all it wants to handle in getting SpaceShipTwo off the ground, and it’s just dipping its toes in the orbital waters with the Sierra/Orbital partnerships. Most likely it will wait and see what NASA’s commitment to Sierra and Orbital will be (and it won’t be enough). Orbital has the wherewithal to self-fund its planned winged vehicle, but it won’t do it. Sierra probably has the will, but not the means by itself. That leaves only SpaceX with the magic combination of will, means, and demonstrated progress.
Even though Orion is/was designed for Ares, there is talk of a test flight on Delta IV Heavy in 2013. I think the idea of flying on an EELV was after Dr. Griffin left NASA.
Since if Orion can fly on an EELV why do you need Ares I? Why do you think that no proposals for COTS cargo was picked that included an EELV??? Talking with T/Space that initially planned to use an EELV. It is pretty sad since before the Doctor became NASA Admin he was all for EELV’s. Afterwards–did not want anything to do with them for COTS and human space flight.
Well, those EELVs already exist, hence not very interesting to those with a stake in keeping all those massive contracts for new launch vehicles going.
Exactly. I’ve been hunting around a bit since I heard Jerry Pournelle talk about it last year and mention that Apollo took around 20K people to fly … and hey look, the STS-Shuttle employed around the same number.
One of the things that stands out is that now you’ve got Congress scrambling madly since Aries I/V (which would take about the same number) got canceled. Which leads to the very strong impression that Congress looks at NASA as a high paying Jobs Program with contracts spread out across certain States. So looking at something that wouldn’t employee that ‘standing army’ to operate….
It was actually a good idea at the time, a great way to get the moon program done, and keep it flying until it succeeded: spread out the political risk across as many states and constituencies as possible, so that it would be really hard to cancel the thing. But now we’re stuck with the legacy of an enormous, budget-eating bureaucracy that seems all but impossible to dismantle, and without a clear mission to boot.