Space Access ’11: Gary Hudson Channels Admiral Ackbar
Gary Hudson
t/space
“It’s a trap” Monosony and NewSpace
What monopsony is:
- too many sellers with only one buyer (government!)
What it is not:
- Monopoly the Game
- Sony the company
- The kissing disease
The Back Story
- t/space proposed COTS to NASA as Alt Access — proposed a demo flight in 2004
- specifically wanted to avoid needing to go to ISS, competing with Constellation — it’s a trap
- Should have focused on crew capability first — once you have that, cargo is easy
- Mike Griffin mutated the program
- NASA went with cargo first and then went to crew
- NASA has ended up as the primary market — not a good development
The Result
- COTS has created ULA-lite companies — smaller, but not significantly so
- Only factor of 2 reduction in costs — not a factor of 10 as hoped
- Barriers to entry for new providers
- Would not be where we are without all the work NASA did — also wouldn’t have the barriers to entrepreneurship that have developed over last 50 years
- NASA adding money to COTS contractors for milestones is not fixed-price contracting — it’s the capture of contractors by NASA
- CCDev tied to job creation
- CCDev tied to funding for the Space Launch System (HLV)
- Drives costs up
Is There Any Hope?
- Sadly, no 🙁
Q&A
If SpaceX gets to $1,000 per pound to orbit, then Land Launch will be at that price as well
SpaceX will be charging NASA about $130 million for COTS flights on Falcon 9 while satellite companies will pay about $50 million — government paying about 2.5 times more
