Space Access ’11: Charles Miller on Fuel Depots and Railroads

Charles Miller
NASA

• These remarks are his own only, they are not pre-approved and do not represent official NASA policy
• “We are winning, although it may not be as fast as those in this room would like”
• In the middle of a paradigm shift – very exciting time
• Last year, read a book about the transcontinental railroad – Asa Whitney, brother of Eli – developed the idea of a private/public partnership to build a railroad across the country
• When he proposed it in 1844, was laughed out of Congress by skeptics
• Asa Whitney never got to build the railroad or see the golden spike driven into the ground in Utah, but he was right
• Many people see the commercial space dream as similarly crazy — they’re wrong

• In the midst of a paradigm shift
• “The Apollo style model cannot be sustained.”
• Railroads were built with public/private partnership – government granted land and low-interest loans – companies had to make investment (skin in the game)  — competition built in with two railroads being built
• Railroads had a terrible effect on the Native Americans – we are not in that situation with space because Solar System is uninhabited
• The future of space belongs to smart partnerships between business and government – they have worked in the past
• Cold War forced a change in the business/government partnership model – Apollo was about proving Cold War superiority, not about space exploration
• Has taken decades to rebalance the business/government partnership model in space exploration – effort begun under President Ronald Reagan in early 1980s
• Three previous attempts to achieve cheap access to space involved centrally planned government picks the winner – FAIL
• Industry could close the business case for a commercial RLV with the use of propellant depots, a sufficiently high flight rate, and NASA introducing a COTS-style effort
• NASA currently looking for international partners for beyond Earth orbit exploration – been a struggle to figure out exactly who does what – having them contribute to propellant depots could help solve that problem
• Most of the technology you need for propellant depots is in hand – probably want to do a tech demo on cryo storage and transfer and then move forward to building a depot
• Depots should be commercial operated and NASA would be a customer