Why so many spacecraft america?

[xenomorph555]

Alright, I've noticed a slight problem for american private company's in the future. lets look at the spacecraft of 2025:

Russia-soyuz

China-shenzhou

India-(unnamed two person capsule)

UK/ESA-skylon

America-orion, dragon, dreamchaser, cst-100, blue origin craft.

So as you can see everyone has at least one craft, america has 5. Now I know what your thinking: competition is good, which is true but the space industry has a very small human demand at the moment. Also as for prices it's pretty obvious people are going to choose dragon and only dragon.

Still, what's your view on this.

[Nibb31]

Russia only goes to LEO.

China only goes to LEO.

They have limited mission requirements, so a single spacecraft is enough.

India has nothing yet.

UK/ESA have no plans at all. Skylon is a private initiative, not a funded project (and it's not manned either).

The US plans to have different spacecraft for different missions, which makes sense. Orion is for BEO/exploration. It's like a Humvee, it would be stupid to use it for grocery runs. Cygnus and Dragon are for cargo to LEO, and another one for crew to LEO.

In all probability, there will be a downselection to one or two suppliers. NASA is not going to use 4 different manned spacecraft for taxi services and the flight rate will be too low for 4 providers to stay on the market. Blue Origin is probably too late for the game. My bets are on CST-100 and Dreamchaser getting winning the manned contracts, while SpaceX and Orbital get the cargo service.

[xenomorph555]

Actually india are in early prototype/testing phase of the described craft. As for skylon while the basic design will be UM they could add a module to hold people. I believe your predictions will probably be correct apart from spacex not flying crew to iss and orion not being used in leo (lets be honest nasa can be pretty inefficient at some times).

[Vanamonde]

Are you suggesting this is bad for the US? If 5 of the 9 contenders are American, we have a 56% chance of winning the competition. (This is a gross simplification, of course, since the competition isn't simply a random selection. Still, you get the idea.)

[xenomorph555]

No I'm not saying it's bad, just could be destructive to the some of the company's if someone, such as spacex, gains a monopoly.

[SargeRho]

I think DragonRider will get the Astronaut contracts from NASA tbh. It's the only one, as far as I know, that will have the ability to abort all the way to orbit.

[Idobox]

Nobody will get a monopoly because there are limits on how many flights a company can provide per year.

The big difference between USA and the rest of the world, is that USA is going through the private route, and logically has several contestants, while others have national programs and logically invest in a single craft.

It is very likely that one or more of the American ventures will fail, and it's something investors are aware of.

Armadillo Aerospace, Excallibur Almaz and PlanetSpace have pretty much failed in reaching orbit. They are not dead yet, and might surprise people, but are pretty much out of the race for the near future.

[NASAFanboy]

No I'm not saying it's bad, just could be destructive to the some of the company's if someone, such as spacex, gains a monopoly.

SpaceX is far from an monopoly.

Right now, America will much more likely have the Dreamchaser, DragonRider, and CST-100 will end up flying with crew to LEO, while private American companies such as Virgin Galantic and most likely Blue Origin will go with the private suborbital tourist joyride industry, while NASA focuses the majority of their efforts on projects such as th Cislunar Gateway, Orion, DSH, and SLS on deep space missions.

In the olden times, it was like this. The government would explore te frontier intially, then private companies would move in. Good examples are the [iNSERT EUROPEAN NATION HERE] East India Companies, which competed in an government-private partnership after the explorers had moved on.

And with so many companies, SpaceX is as far from an monopoly as my town mayor is I winnig the Presidency. It's possible, but it's near impossible.

Right now, for CCDEV, if the company isn't already construct flight test articles and testin parts, then they're out of the race.

[Red Iron Crown]

Skylon is a private initiative, not a funded project (and it's not manned either).

It was my understanding that Skylon is planned to be uncrewed but passenger rated. Do you have different information?

[kiwiak]

Russia will also have progress, wont they?

And what about HTV, will Japanese stop making these, just like ESA with ATV?

[Kryten]

And what about HTV, will Japanese stop making these, just like ESA with ATV?

They already plan to. In fact, they plan to retire the rocket it's launching on along with it.

[euphrates95]

While it is true that SpaceX will probably never be able to fill all the spaceflight niches, what would be the problem if SpaceX actually gained a monopoly? If they manage to successfully conduct manned flights and cargo flights, while at the same time undercutting other companies' prices, then that sounds like a win-win for everyone.

[jwenting]

Russia will also have progress, wont they?

Russia has not seen any progress in space systems since they created Progress back in the 1970s... So much for the innovation power of centralised control.

And THAT was merely a Soyuz with the life support systems removed...

[Kryten]

Russia has not seen any progress in space systems since they created Progress back in the 1970s...

Yup, that whole Mir thing was just a collective hallucination.

[Nibb31]

Russia has not seen any progress in space systems since they created Progress back in the 1970s... So much for the innovation power of centralised control.

Neither has NASA by that measure.

Russia is working on PPTK, but it only makes sense if they get funding for a BEO program. Right now, it's mostly a Powerpoint spacecraft.

Skylon has all sorts of plans for all sorts of missions. The problem is that they all rely on Skylon's unproven technology working perfectly within its very optimistic margins, and finding an actual market for it, and finding an investor.

As for NASA's ISS taxis, I really don't see them having enough budget to pay for 3 providers, while working on whatever their BEO program turns out to be. The capitalistic view of "competition mechanically means cheaper" isn't always true. When a market contracts, private corporations tend to consolidate, which reduces competition and turns into an oligopoly, if not a monopoly.

Also, if the total number of NASA flights is not high enough to support 2 or 3 companies, then the ISS taxi contracts might not be profitable. This could either be fatal to a company like SpaceX (less so for ULA of course), or could force NASA to artificially increase their taxi spending to keep the commercial companies afloat.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Nibb31

[Mitchz95]

It was my understanding that Skylon is planned to be uncrewed but passenger rated. Do you have different information?

I doubt they'd put passengers on it unless there was a human pilot who can improvise in the event of an emergency (and won't go offline if, say, a solar flare disables communications). They'll probably make some manned Skylons designed purely for transporting people.

[Skyrunner27]

While it is true that SpaceX will probably never be able to fill all the spaceflight niches, what would be the problem if SpaceX actually gained a monopoly? If they manage to successfully conduct manned flights and cargo flights, while at the same time undercutting other companies' prices, then that sounds like a win-win for everyone.

This is what monopolies do. They cut out the competition with cost cutting methods then push the price sky high. Look at the Oil, steel, and railroad industry of the early 1900s. Anyway in terms of competitors the more the merrier. Also in a response to an earlier post all vehicles have a ability to abort. Boeing may be developing a launch tower. Dreamchaser and Dragon will just use their engines. Blue Origin has a launch tower IIRC

[vger]

While it is true that SpaceX will probably never be able to fill all the spaceflight niches, what would be the problem if SpaceX actually gained a monopoly? If they manage to successfully conduct manned flights and cargo flights, while at the same time undercutting other companies' prices, then that sounds like a win-win for everyone.

I very highly doubt that any modern monopoly will ever treat its customers well. If SpaceX stayed private, then maybe. Otherwise, the moment the competitors are all dead, prices will skyrocket (no pun intended) and suck customers for every cent they're worth. We will never see another 'Ma Bell' as long as shareholders get to dictate how a company is run.

[einsteiner]

The Indian craft, Shenzou, and Orion are being developed by government entities. The rest are all private ventures. America has a larger number of spacecraft in development because we have a large number of companies competing in the field. This is the whole point of NASA's commercial crew development program.

[Nibb31]

The NASA commercial crew development programs are government funded, not private ventures.

[Tommygun]

I think part of the reason why we currently have a lot of different spacecraft right now is what happened to a number of NASA programs.

NASA spent a number of years and a lot of money developing different designs, only to cancel them and start over completely new.

After several failed attempts and running out of time, NASA and Congress didn't want to back just one program and have that fail as well, so they helped fund several programs at once.

There was some talk a while back from Congress that they wanted NASA to concentrate on fewer companies, but I don't know what came of it.

[Winter Man]

I think eventually Virgin Galactic will have proper orbital ambitions too, they've already looked into firing 2nd stage rockets from under White Knight II, so you can add that to Britain's list.

France are due to test the IXV this year too, which is pretty much the X-37 but worse looking; the thinking being they'll develop it into an ESA-run Dream Chaser competitor.

Oh, and there's Copenhagen Suborbitals. I'm sure they'll get to orbit. Some day, at least.

[Nibb31]

I think eventually Virgin Galactic will have proper orbital ambitions too, they've already looked into firing 2nd stage rockets from under White Knight II, so you can add that to Britain's list.

What has Virgin Galactic got to do with Britain? It's a US-based company, using US vehicles, operating out of a US spaceport. Ok, Branson is a brit, but I bet he spends more time jet-setting in the Bahamas than in London.

To go orbital, they would have to scrap the SS2/WK2 air-launch system, which simply isn't scalable and go with a proper rocket. They would probably purchase flights from SpaceX or SierraNevada.

France are due to test the IXV this year too, which is pretty much the X-37 but worse looking; the thinking being they'll develop it into an ESA-run Dream Chaser competitor.

The IXV isn't French and is not comparable to the X-37. It's an ESA project, but it's Italian if anything. It's not reusable, and it will fly only once on Vega (which is also mostly Italian). IXV is a general study on re-entry techniques and materials, more similar to the 1998 ARD or the old Soviet BOR flights.

ESA doesn't have any projects for manned or reusable spacecraft at this point, nor are they in competition with DreamChaser. Actually, they are even investing in DreamChaser themselves, which means that they might, in the future, either purchase DreamChaser flights from Sierra Nevada. There is even the possibility that they might launch their own DreamChaser vehicle on Ariane...

Oh, and there's Copenhagen Suborbitals. I'm sure they'll get to orbit. Some day, at least.

I wouldn't count on it, although their enthusiasm is great!

[SargeRho]

While Virgin Galactic likely won't do any manned orbital flights any time soon, they are working on "LauncherOne", a rocket similar to Pegasus, that would be launched from White Knight. The NewtonTwo engine has had a few short duration burns, and NewtonOne a full duration burn test, which are respectively the first and second stage engines burning RP1 and LOX. It'll have a payload capacity of 230kg.

Edited March 20, 2014 by SargeRho

[Nibb31]

While Virgin Galactic likely won't do any manned orbital flights any time soon, they are working on "Launcher One", a rocket similar to Pegasus, that would be launched from White Knight. I don't know how far they are with that, or if they are still working on it at all though.

Yes, but it has a tiny payload, even compared to Pegasus, a couple of cubesats at best. It's not scalable to put a person inside.