why do we fight 下载()it the earth
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When you look at the sky at night, the moon looks bigger than the stars. Actually, the moon is much smaller than the stars and the sun. It’s much smaller than the earth. But the moon is much closer to us than any star. That is why it looks so big. If you hold a coin close to your eye, it looks big. If you look at it across the moon, it looks small.The moon moves around the earth. It makes one trip in about four weeks. The moon looks flat to us. But it is a round ball, like the earth.People once thought the moon had fire on it. They thought the fire made it bright. Now we know the moon is like a mirror. It gets its light from the sun.Our sunlight comes from the sun, too. What is the sun? The sun is a star. The stars we can see have their own light. There are many big stars we cannot see. Their light had burned out. Others are still bright, but they are so far away that we cannot see them. The sun looks bigger and much brighter than other stars because it is the nearest of all stars. The sun and the other stars we see are very hot, but the air around us saves us from the heat of the sun.The sun gives us light and warmth. It makes plants grow and turns leaves green. It makes life possible on our earth. It is a life giving star.小题1: It takes _______ for the moon to go around the earth.A．more than a week
B．nearly a month
C．half a year
D．more than a year
小题2: The moon is bright because _______.A．there is some fire on it
B．it is near the sun, too
C．there is a big mirror on it
D．it can get light from the sun
小题3: The passage tells us _______.A．the sun is not the biggest star
B．the sun is bigger than any other star
C．only the sun can shine
D．the sun is one of the farthest stars to us
小题4: Why do we call the sun "a life giving star"? A．Because it gives us warmth.B．Because there are some living things on it.C．Because plants and animals can’t live without it.D．Because people have to live in the dark without it.
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When you look at the sky at night, the moon looks bigger than the stars. Actually, the moon is much smaller than the stars and the sun. It’s much smaller than the earth. But the moon is much closer to us than any star. That is why it looks so big. If you hold a coin close to your eye, it looks big. If you look at it across the moon, it looks small.The moon moves around the earth. It makes one trip in about four weeks. The moon looks flat to us. But it is a round ball, like the earth.People once thought the moon had fire on it. They thought the fire made it bright. Now we know the moon is like a mirror. It gets its light from the sun.Our sunlight comes from the sun, too. What is the sun? The sun is a star. The stars we can see have their own light. There are many big stars we cannot see. Their light had burned out. Others are still bright, but they are so far away that we cannot see them. The sun looks bigger and much brighter than other stars because it is the nearest of all stars. The sun and the other stars we see are very hot, but the air around us saves us from the heat of the sun.The sun gives us light and warmth. It makes plants grow and turns leaves green. It makes life possible on our earth. It is a life giving star.小题1: It takes _______ for the moon to go around the earth.A．more than a week
B．nearly a month
C．half a year
D．more than a year
小题2: The moon is bright because _______.A．there is some fire on it
B．it is near the sun, too
C．there is a big mirror on it
D．it can get light from the sun
小题3: The passage tells us _______.A．the sun is not the biggest star
B．the sun is bigger than any other star
C．only the sun can shine
D．the sun is one of the farthest stars to us
小题4: Why do we call the sun "a life giving star"? A．Because it gives us warmth.B．Because there are some living things on it.C．Because plants and animals can’t live without it.D．Because people have to live in the dark without it.
When you look at the sky at night, the moon looks bigger than the stars. Actually, the moon is much smaller than the stars and the sun. It’s much smaller than the earth. But the moon is much closer to us than any star. That is why it looks so big. If you hold a coin close to your eye, it looks big. If you look at it across the moon, it looks small.The moon moves around the earth. It makes one trip in about four weeks. The moon looks flat to us. But it is a round ball, like the earth.People once thought the moon had fire on it. They thought the fire made it bright. Now we know the moon is like a mirror. It gets its light from the sun.Our sunlight comes from the sun, too. What is the sun? The sun is a star. The stars we can see have their own light. There are many big stars we cannot see. Their light had burned out. Others are still bright, but they are so far away that we cannot see them. The sun looks bigger and much brighter than other stars because it is the nearest of all stars. The sun and the other stars we see are very hot, but the air around us saves us from the heat of the sun.The sun gives us light and warmth. It makes plants grow and turns leaves green. It makes life possible on our earth. It is a life giving star.小题1: It takes _______ for the moon to go around the earth.A．more than a week
B．nearly a month
C．half a year
D．more than a year
小题2: The moon is bright because _______.A．there is some fire on it
B．it is near the sun, too
C．there is a big mirror on it
D．it can get light from the sun
小题3: The passage tells us _______.A．the sun is not the biggest star
B．the sun is bigger than any other star
C．only the sun can shine
D．the sun is one of the farthest stars to us
小题4: Why do we call the sun "a life giving star"? A．Because it gives us warmth.B．Because there are some living things on it.C．Because plants and animals can’t live without it.D．Because people have to live in the dark without it.
科目:最佳答案见解析解析
小题1:B小题2:D小题3:A小题4:C 小题1:本文第二段前两句为The moon moves around the earth. It makes one trip in about four weeks.意思为月球绕地球要花费四周的时间，也就是几乎1个月的时间，故本题选B。小题2:本文第三段最后一句为It gets its light from the sun，意思为月亮从太阳那里得到光，所以月亮是明亮的，故本题选D。小题3:本文第四段有一句The sun looks bigger and much brighter than other stars because it is the nearest of all stars.所表示的含义为太阳不是最大的，故本题选A。小题4:本文最后一段的含义为太阳给我们提供了光和温度，没有它，动植物都无法生存，故本题选C。知识点:&&基础试题拔高试题热门知识点最新试题
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Unit Three:Why Do We Believe That the Earth Is Round
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TextCan you prove that the earth is round? Go ahead and try! Will you rely on your senses or will you have to draw on the opinions of experts?WHY DO WE BELIEVE THAT THE EARTH IS ROUND?George OrwellSomewhere or other ― I think it is in the preface to saint Joan ― Bernard Shaw remarks that we are more gullible and superstitious today than we were in the Middle Ages, and as an example of modern credulity he cites the widespread belief that the earth is round. The average man, says Shaw, can advance not a single reason for thinking that the earth is round. He merely swallows this theory because there is something about it that appeals to the twentieth-century mentality.Now, Shaw is exaggerating, but there is something in what he says, and the question is worth following up, for the sake of the light it throws on modern knowledge. Just why do we believe that the earth is round? I am not speaking of the few thousand astronomers, geographers and so forth who could give ocular proof, or have a theoretical knowledge of the proof, but of the ordinary newspaper-reading citizen, such as you or me.As for the Flat Earth theory, I believe I could refute it. If you stand by the seashore on a clear day, you can see the masts and funnels of invisible ships passing along the horizon. This phenomenon can only be explained by assuming that the earth's surface is curved. But it does not follow that the earth is spherical. Imagine another theory called the Oval Earth theory, which claims that the earth is shaped like an egg. What can I say against it?Against the Oval Earth man, the first card I can play is the analogy of the sun and moon. The Oval Earth man promptly answers that I don't know, by my own observation, that those bodies are spherical. I only know that they are round, and they may perfectly well be flat discs. I have no answer to that one. Besides, he goes on, what reason have I for thinking that the earth must be the same shape as the sun and moon? I can't answer that one either.My second card is the earth's shadow: When cast on the moon during eclipses, it appears to be the shadow of a round object. But how do I know, demands the Oval Earth man, that eclipses of the moon are caused by the shadow of the earth? The answer is that I don't know, but have taken this piece of information blindly from newspaper articles and science booklets.Defeated in the minor exchanges, I now play my queen of trumps: the opinion of the experts. The Astronomer Royal, who ought to know, tells me that the earth is round. The Oval Earth man covers the queen with his king. Have I tested the Astronomer Royal's statement, and would I even know a way of testing it? Here I bring out my ace. Yes, I do know one test. The astronomers can foretell eclipses, and this suggests that their opinions about the solar system are pretty sound. I am, to my delight, justified in accepting their say-so about the shape of the earth.If the Oval Earth man answers ― what I believe is true ― that the ancient Egyptians, who thought the sun goes round the earth, could also predict eclipses, then bang goes my ace. I have only one card left: navigation. People can sail ship round the world, and reach the places they aim at, by calculations which assume that the earth is spherical. I believe that finishes the Oval Earth man, though even then he may possibly have some kind of counter.It will be seen that my reasons for thinking that the earth is round are rather precarious ones. Yet this is an exceptionally elementary piece of information. On most other questions I should have to fall back on the expert much earlier, and would be less able to test his pronouncements. And much the greater part of our knowledge is at this level. It does not rest on reasoning or on experiment, but on authority. And how can it be otherwise, when the range of knowledge is so vast that the expert himself is an ignoramus as soon as he strays away from his own specialty? Most people, if asked to prove that the earth is round, would not even bother to produce the rather weak arguments I have outlined above. They would start off by saying that "everyone knows" the earth to be round, and if pressed further, would become angry. In a way Shaw is right. This is a credulous age, and the burden of knowledge which we now have to carry is partly responsible.New Wordsprefacen. an introduction to a book or speech 前言,序gulliblea. easily deceived or cheated esp. credulous 易受骗的;轻信的superstitiousa.
believing in superstitions 迷信的credulity n. a tendency to believe to readily 轻信citevt. m quote (a passage, book, etc.) 举出;引出widespreada. found or distributed over a large area 分布广的;普遍的advancevt.
offer 提出appealvi. please, attract or interest 投合所好;有感染力;有吸引力mentalityn. way of thinking, mental power or capacity 心理,思想;脑力exaggeratevt. think, speak or write of as great overstate 夸张;夸大saken. end, purpose 缘故geographer n. a specialist in geographyoculara. of, for, based on what has been seen 眼睛的;凭视觉的theoreticala. of or based on theorycitizenn. 公民;市民refutevt. prove (a statement) prove (a person) to be mistaken 驳斥mastn. a long upright pole of wood or metal for carrying flags or sails on a ship 桅杆funneln. a metal chimney for letting out smoke from a steam engine or steamship (蒸汽机,轮船等的)烟囱invisiblea. that can not be seen horizonn. the line where the sky seems to meet the earth or sea 地平线phenomenon (pl. phenomena)n. 现象curvevt. bend so as to form a line that has no straight part 使成曲线n. a continuously bending line without angles 曲线followvi. result or occur as a consequence, effect, or inference 结果产生;得出sphericala. shaped like a ball 球形的ovaln.& a. (anything which is) egg-shaped 卵形的(东西), 椭圆的(东西)cardn. 纸牌analogyn. comparison of things that hav similarity 类比; 相似promptlyad. quickly and willingly 敏捷地;迅速地prompt a.body n. =celestial body 天体discn. 圆盘castvt. cause (light or shadow) to appear (on) 扔,投; 投射eclipsen. the total or partial hiding of one celestial body by another (天文学)食bookletn. a small book, usu. with a paper cover 小册子exchangevt. give and receive (one thing in return for another) 交换trumpn. 王牌royala. for, belonging to, or connected with a king or queen 皇家的; 王室的statementn. a written or spoken declaration, esp. of a formal kind 陈述;声明acen. (纸牌中的)"A"牌,爱司foretellvt. predict 预言solara. of the sunthe solar systemthe sun and the planets which revolve round itjustifyvt. gi show to be just, right or reasonable 证明……是正当的；为…辩护say-son. an authori one's unsupported assertion 权威性声明；无证据的断言Egyptiann.,a. (native) of Egypt 埃及人；埃及的predictvt. announc forecast 预言bangad. with with a sudden impact 砰地navigationn. the act or process of navigating 航海calculationn. the act of adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing to find a result 计算calculate vt.calculator n. 计算器countern. sth. of a return attack, such as a blow in boxing 讨价还价的本钱；回击，反击precariousa. depending upon mere assumption 不安全的；根据不足的，靠不住的exceptionally ad. unusuallyauthorityn. power to give orders and make others obey 权威；权力ignoramusn. an ignorant person 无知的人stray vi. (of thoughts or conversation) move away from the subject 走离；离题specialtyn. a special field of work or study 专业outlinevt. indicate the main ideas or facts ofn. a systematic listing of the important points of a subject 提纲pressvt. demand or ask for continuously 催促，逼迫credulousa. tending to believe sth. on little evidence, arising from credulity 轻信的burdenn. sth. load 重负；负荷Phrases & Expressionsfollow uppursue or take further action after (sth.) 深入研究或调查；采取进一步行动for the sake of for the
for the purpose of 为了…的利益；为了throw/shed light on explain 使明白，使明朗；解释and so forthand so onas forwith regard to, concerning 至于may well (not)be very likely (not) to 完全（不）可能bring out
offer to the public 拿出；使显出；推出（新产品等）aim at have as one's target, objective, etc.fall back onturn to for support 求助于rest ondepend on, rely onstray away from move from 偏离start off departin a way somewhat 在某种程度上 Proper NamesSaint Joan 圣女贞德Bernard Shaw 萧伯纳
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爱思英语学习网是公益类学习网站，所有资料仅供学习者免费参考试用。By Jim Hillhouse
AmericaSpace Note: The following remarks were delivered by former NASA Administrator Dr. Mike Griffin on 6 September 2012 for the inaugural lecture of Georgia Tech’s Gebhardt Lecture. It is used with permission by Dr. Griffin.
Michael D. Griffin
Chairman & CEO
Schafer Corporation
6 September 2012
Good afternoon. I am truly honored to have been asked to deliver the inaugural Gebhardt Lecture. Georgia Tech is one of the world’s great institutions, a place at which I am always pleased to be.
Before I begin, I must in fairness note that the views I offer today are entirely my own. They do not represent my company, or the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, of which I have the honor to be the current president, nor any other committee or association of which I am a member. They are solely my personal views. I am again honored that you have asked me to share them with you.
The subject of my talk today is one that, once upon a time, I would never have imagined offering. I mean, why do we want to have a space program? Wasn’t that a “given”? I once thought so. For more than fifty years, the exploration and development of space by the United States could have been characterized, without much exaggeration, as “all government, all the time”.
There were exceptions, notably with regard to the commercial communications satellite industry, but they were just that – exceptions.
Despite the entreaties of many who argued for policies designed to encourage the development of commercial space enterprises, space development remained essentially a government preserve. Things have certainly changed. Now, at least where the most visible symbol of the American space program – human spaceflight – is concerned, today’s policy environment is almost diametrically opposed to this decades-old paradigm. U.S. crew transportation to low orbit has been set aside as a commercial preserve, when and as that capability may appear, and new private space enterprises are in vigorous pursuit of defense and intelligence community markets as well.
Today I would like to explore the ramifications of such policy shifts, and will try once again to say why I think we need a robust national space effort, even as much new space activity shifts toward commercial development. So, let’s recap a bit. Where were we, where are we now, and what are the implications of the shifts in space policy that we have seen over the last few years?
Let’s look back four years, to Fall 2008, just prior to the election. Back then, NASA was well along in its implementation of what was, in my view, the most sensible civil space policy that this nation had embraced since the time of Apollo. The policy rose from the ashes of the Columbia accident and the observation by Admiral Hal Gehman’s Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) that, for three decades, the human spaceflight space program had proceeded without a compelling national mandate. Responding to this and other observations by the CAIB concerning the lack of a coherent national strategy for the space program, President Bush articulated the Vision for Space Exploration in 2004, which was subsequently established as the law of the land in the NASA Authorization Act of 2005. Pursuant to these instruments of policy and law, the agency was directed to return the Space Shuttle to flight, to use it to complete the International Space Station (ISS) in accordance with our domestic and international commitments. Following completion of the ISS, the Shuttle would be retired from service, to be replaced by a new human space transportation system that would be capable of ferrying U.S. and international partner astronauts and their equipment to and from the ISS, while also providing the capability to return to the moon. We would then use the experience gained from ISS and lunar operations to move onward to Mars.
With a bit of effort, one could capture the essential features of this policy in a single sentence – in my view a key feature of any policy purporting to be “strategic”. When we talk about national policy, we are in fundamentally talking about “what we will do”. If that cannot be expressed plainly, likely it will not happen. Churchill understood this, as did Kennedy and Reagan.
In any case, this policy was approved by large margins in both House and Senate by a Republican Congress in 2005, and again by a Democratic Congress in 2008, each time with features that I regarded as improvements. By 2008, NASA was well along in implementing that policy through its Constellation program, which planned to restore U.S. human access to space by late 2014, and lunar return by about 2020, depending as always upon budgetary exigencies. Both candidates for president in that year had pledged support for that program, and both had promised to reduce “the gap” – that period of unseemly dependence by the United States on Russia for crew transportation to the ISS following Shuttle retirement and prior to deployment of the first elements of Constellation. While it would take a decade and more, we seemed well on the way to recovery from the Columbia accident, as well as from the thirty years of uncertain national space policy leadership which had preceded it.
Today the strategic coherence and generational scope of this plan is gone as if it had never existed, had never been approved, twice, as the law of the land. The one element of the plan that was respected was the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet in 2011, and with it all U.S. capability for human spaceflight. However, the next phase of the plan, the direction to NASA to develop a new human spaceflight system for access to low Earth orbit (LEO), has been set aside. In its place, rather than a NASA designed, directed, and managed development program, we have a plan by which two-and-one-half awards have been provided to three contractors to learn, or re-learn, what one of them has been paid by the U.S. government to do for over fifty years now. These recent awards, following on prior programs, provide well over a billion public dollars for capital investment in private companies, investment for which NASA cannot set requirements, cannot direct design features, cannot control management practices, cannot require financial audits, and receives no product other than the right to purchase a service at market price when and as it becomes available.
The near-term goal of a U.S. led, international return to the moon and the establishment of a lunar base, the logical follow-on to the now-complete ISS, has been set aside, replaced by a mission to an asteroid for which no clearly worthwhile candidate is presently available and which cannot possibly occur prior to the mid-2020s. The heavy-lift launcher being designed to re-enable lunar access has been set aside, to be replaced by the similar-appearing but less capable Space Launch System (SLS) designed to support this so-called “beyond LEO” exploration. But the program is substantially underfunded, and no knowledgeable observer believes that multiple Congresses and succeeding presidents will provide the resources necessary to complete the SLS, when the only announced goal is a mission so lacking in justification that its own proponents cannot even identify the destination.
These changes were, of course, justified by assertions that the prior program was an artifact of the Bush Administration, rather than of the two Congresses which codified the plan into law, that it was “unexecutable”, supposedly citing the findings of a committee chaired by the highly respected Norm Augustine, and that in any case the program was behind schedule and over budget. While it is clearly the prerogative of any new presidential administration to propose changes to Executive Branch policies and programs, for whatever reasons that administration finds appropriate, I must take this opportunity to set the record straight, as I see it, regarding the assertions made with respect to the Constellation Program and its cancellation.
First, I’ve read the Augustine Committee report carefully, and while it is possible that I have missed it, nowhere in the report can I find the assertion that Constellation was “unexecutable”. What I saw was the Committee’s assessment that, with the budget profile provided to that group as a ground rule for their study, lunar return would have been delayed until the late 2020s. With that I agree, and I agree that to pursue such a program plan is rather silly. But that does not make it “unexecutable”, a characterization conferred on the Committee’s report by others. And if it were, it then also calls for the question as to why an asteroid mission which cannot occur prior to 2025 is acceptable, whereas a return to the moon in the same timeframe is not.
Regarding mission schedules, which for the present are paced by budgetary rather than technical considerations, I think it is now generally understood that the budget provided to the Augustine Committee for its work was substantially lower than the last budget submitted by the Bush Administration, and also lower than the next budget submitted by the Obama Administration. Thus, the budget provided to the Augustine Committee to guide its work was entirely artificial, representative of no plan which either preceded or followed.
Nevertheless, Augustine’s recommendation was not, as many believe, that Constellation should be cancelled. Rather, the Committee’s primary recommendation was that the NASA budget should be increased by about $3 billion per year. To put this figure in perspective, it was no more than authorized (though not appropriated) by the Congress, and less in real-dollar terms than in FY92, the final Bush 41 budget. Thus, the Committee’s recommendation was hardly for some extravagant, budget-busting caricature of a rational program for civil space science and exploration. The Committee recommended an entirely affordable level of spending for a robust national space program.
Second, the Augustine Committee did not criticize the execution of the program. Quite the contrary. In the words of the late Sally Ride, a member of the Committee, “The program comes pretty close to performing as NASA advertised as it would. … NASA’s planning and development phase of Constellation was actually pretty good.” (Space News, 13 Aug 2009)
Further, I will quote from a portion of the 15 Sep 2009 Hearing before the House Science Committee, in which Mr. Augustine and Dr. Crawley respond to questioning by Chairman Gordon concerning the status of the program:
Chairman Gordon: Is it (Constellation) technically sound and effectively managed?
Mr. Augustine: … We did review the program and its management. We believe it to be soundly managed. Technically, the program has some significant problems — technical problems. And this is not to be unexpected in a program of this difficulty and this magnitude. We saw no problems that appear to be unsolvable, given the proper engineering talent, the attention and the funds to solve them. Having said that, I’d like to turn to my colleague, Dr. Crawley. …
Dr. Crawley: No, I — I think, Norm, you have summarized this quite well at the — at the highest level. There were on our committee a number of people who had actually built space flight hardware, and their general consensus on the assessment of the Constellation program technically is, as Norm says, that it had — it has problems — all real programs where you’re really building hardware encounter problems, developmental problems — but that we didn’t see any of them, including some of the famous — vibration problem in the Ares 1 or the vibro-acoustic environment, the noise environment around the Orion — that were not surmountable with proper engineering talent and skill, which we believe NASA can bring to bear.
Third, it is not true that, again as widely believed, the Obama Administration saved the ISS from planned cancellation by the Bush Administration after 2015. In point of fact, the 2008 NASA Authorization Act contained specific language to the effect that the Administration would take no action to preclude the continued operation of the ISS beyond 2015. Once signed into law by President Bush, as it was, extension of ISS operations into 2016 and beyond became the law of the land, as well as Administration policy.
It is true that Office of Management and Budget (OMB) financial projections did not at that time incorporate the funds needed for sustained ISS operations beyond 2015. That is irrelevant. Budget projections beyond the rolling five-year presidential budget request submitted to the Congress each February are at best a hopeful fiction, generally the product of career staff work rather than that of elected officials. The last budget which the Bush Administration could influence in any significant fashion was that for FY09; the last year for which they could even offer an opinion was FY13. Bush Administration officials always understood that the decision concerning whether to continue ISS operations beyond 2015 was beyond their purview.
The practical effect of the policy shift which I have summarized here has been to eviscerate the human space exploration program of the United States, understood to be that which is conceived and directed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in accordance with the provisions of the 1958 Space Act. The next vehicles which will carry U.S. astronauts into space are today being designed and built largely with public funds, yet NASA cannot direct the course of their development. Funding for NASA’s development work, SLS and the associated Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle (MPCV), is stretched thin, well below critical mass, supporting a mission which is far from compelling. Thus postured, NASA can only become irrelevant to the future of human spaceflight, and quickly so at that, other than as a pass-through agency for the transfer of funds.
If as a nation we continue with this plan, NASA can still conduct excellent science missions and can continue in its multi-decade role as the premier developer of space and aeronautics technology. But NASA’s raison d’etre, its core mission of leadership in the development of human spaceflight – that will be gone. This cannot be a surprise to the originators and proponents of the current policy. They know very well what they have done.
I mention all of this not to protest the cancellation of the Constellation Program, though I do believe such to have been ill-advised. However, it would have been far more straightforward and transparent for the administration to have said something like, “We understand that NASA is making good progress toward the goals set for it by the prior administration and Congress. However, we do not believe that these are the proper goals for the U.S. space program. We believe that the time has passed when the nation should pursue a human spaceflight program designed, developed and directed by NASA, and we propose an entirely different approach.”
While I and many others would still disagree, this is a proposition which could be debated, discussed, and resolved ultimately by the Congress. There are many reasons to be skeptical about the use of government as a tool with which society attacks a problem. Indeed, this is a core tenet of political conservatism as the term was once understood. But while conservatives are properly skeptical concerning the role of government in society, they do understand that there exist certain activities that are important to society and which at the same time do not favorably grace a corporate balance sheet. In my view, the space program is one of those activities.
The core argument of those who support the new approach is that NASA, rather than being a leader in the development of human spaceflight, but has become an impediment. The agency, it is said, has become old, slow, risk averse, and excessively bureaucratic. Looking at the example set by the information technology and consumer electronics industries, which are today driven almost completely by commercial competitive pressures, many assert and others wonder whether it might not be true that space development would benefit from being turned over, lock stock and barrel, to the market.
This is the essential claim of those who style themselves as “NewSpace”: they are more efficient than government. I must first say that, by itself, this is a rather sorry standard to be waving about. Any private entity that cannot perform its mission with greater efficiency than a government really should not be whining about unfair competition. I mean, if you cannot even beat the government, why should taxpayers buy your product? But with that said, I broadly agree with the claim. Private industry is more efficient than government. If “efficiency” were the only measure of merit, the sole coin of the realm, then the argument would be settled and we would be done.
So, why do we want to have a space program, understood to mean a societal enterprise, a national endeavor, a (cringe when you say it) “government space program”, that is worth more to us than the key benefit the market provides and the government does not – efficiency? Is there a role and a mission in a democratic society for a large and significant effort with goals reaching beyond private interest, or not? Can we embrace a venture which is an instrument of national policy, stature, eminence, and leadership that does not look good on a balance sheet? I think there is such a role. I think that we can embrace such a venture. I think that we must.
Corporate entities, no matter how successful, do not and inherently cannot represent, speak for, or embody the national interest. They exist to promote the interests of their owners, the shareholders, whether few or many. They can do many things, but they cannot form and lead international partnerships, they cannot take responsibility for expanding the human frontier, and they cannot project national power and will and presence onto that frontier. In the expansion of our western frontier now more than a century ago, wherever the U.S. Army went, that place became the United States. The ranchers and miners and shopkeepers followed, ultimately creating the economy that became the envy of the world. They made the expansion of our frontiers worth doing. But they did not lead it.
Next, for reasons including but hardly limited to the above thoughts, I consider “space” in all its aspects – human spaceflight, scientific discovery, power projection, missile defense, environmental monitoring, communications, geodesy, space situational awareness, position, navigation and timing, intelligence gathering, global military awareness – to be a strategic realm for human society generally and for the United States in particular. We would be a far less influential nation in the world and far poorer at home had Apollo and GPS and Corona and Early Bird and TIROS and their numerous successors not happened. I imagine that most of you would agree. Even our adversaries, while quite likely regretting it, would also agree that our early investment in “space” in all its aspects, and our continuing preeminence in that arena, has helped to make and keep the U.S. a true world superpower.
Finally, the United States in its superpower role has done, and must do, many things with which not all other nations agree. We do these things in the name of national, or even global, security. But in the longer run, real national security consists of finding common cause with others, of seeking and affirming partners and allies, of working together on things which are grander than any of us can do individually. Long term national security consists of doing, with others, things that all like to do. Nothing, absolutely nothing, that the United States does in concert with other nations fits this mold better than opening the space frontier. This is an endeavor that is exciting, fascinating, and challenging for all, one in which we can lead not just a coalition of the willing, but a coalition of the eager. I cannot more strongly emphasize what I believe to be the national security benefits of proactive U.S. efforts to establish and lead such enterprises.
But if “space” writ large is strategic for the United States, how can we then justify placing sole dependence for certain of its aspects in the hands of private entities? Companies can be bought and sold, can go out of business, can terminate product lines, can expand them or contract them according to management’s view as to what will be best for the company. Indeed, if management fails to respond to market forces in these and other ways, they can and should be replaced, and quite likely will be. But the best decisions to win in the marketplace are not always the best decisions for the long-term benefit of the nation. If an enterprise is strategically important to society, only the government of that society can guarantee the long term constancy of purpose that is needed.
But, it is said, the nation through its government can do these things, and do them best, by purchasing the necessary goods and services from commercial providers, letting the magic of the marketplace separate the good designs from the poor ones, the reliable providers from the inept. The government does not need to direct and control the design of such things, nor closely manage the providers who furnish them. And, indeed, this is exactly right – when there is such a marketplace. There is little need for government intervention in the design and development of jet engines or communications satellites and, where there is, that need is confined to highly specialized military requirements not germane to civil needs. For much of what is required in these and many other fields, government can do quite well by purchasing, to the maximum extent possible, commercial products and services.
However, much of what is needed in the space enterprise, and particularly in the development of human spaceflight, is simply not available in the civil marketplace. The right space program – establishing a lunar base, for example – could well foster the development of such markets. But in the fifty-year history of human spaceflight there simply has been no such market. There is thus not a multiplicity of competitors to allow the emergence of winners and losers, and no market pressures to create them are immediately apparent. Human spaceflight in particular is, for the present and near future, one of numerous “products” not furnished by the marketplace, one of those things which, if we desire it, can only exist if government pays to build what is desired. For now, public expenditures are required if human spaceflight is to be developed.
Where market forces exist, they act to compel good behavior and to eliminate those competitors who perform poorly. We t for example, there are no bad restaurants in New York City. When competitive market pressures are absent, as for public enterprises, the oversight of public expenditures by public employees is necessary to ensure that the government actually obtains that for which it has bargained.
But if government is to direct the development and acquisition of a product not freely available in the market, it must be done well, from a position of knowledge, experience, and expertise. Government managers must be responsible and accountable for the efficacy with which the public funds entrusted to them are spent. To be accountable, they must have both insight and oversight concerning the actions taken by those who are paid to perform on the public behalf. They must be empowered to direct what is being done with the funds for which they are responsible.
How best to do this, and how to do it over the long term in highly specialized niches, has proven to be a very difficult problem. Not many people today believe that we are doing it as well as it could be done. Indeed, I believe that the primary reason for the recent surge in the popularity of what is being called “commercial space”, is simply the distaste of all parties for the acquisition system processes we have allowed to grow up over the decades since World War 2. To say that they are cumbersome, slow, and costly would be an understatement. We can do better. But if so, then that is the problem to be fixed. We cannot solve it by abdicating responsibility for the acquisition of public goods to private entities.
This takes me to my primary concern with so-called “commercial space” as it has been put into practice.
I think most of us would agree that the common use of the term “commercial” means that a product or service is conceived by an entrepreneur, who then raises the investment capital necessary to bring it to market, charging whatever price the market will bear. The investors collectively own the product, reaping whatever gains are to be had, or suffering whatever losses may occur.
The current use of word “commercial” when linked with “space” is harder to understand. There is still no significant market other than the government, and the majority of investment capital has come from public funds. For example, prior to the CCICap (Commercial Crew Integrated Capability) awards, SpaceX had received about $800 million from NASA (Source: /civil/120525-spacex-boosts-commercial-credibility.html), whereas its founder and other investors had put in about $200 million. (Source: bc.com/id//Elon_Musk_on_Why_SpaceX_Has_the_Right_Stuff_to_Win_the_Space_Race) So, the U.S. government is the 80% majority investor in SpaceX – and this is prior to the $400+ million CCICap award. But, the government does not own the design or the product it does not own even 80% of it. What NASA “owns” is the right to buy a seat at market price. The only real change from the classic “prime contract” seems to be that a largely different set of contractors is performing the work, which is done primarily with public funds but without government supervision. The working definition of “commercial” seems to be “not built by an established contractor working to government specifications”. I have only one question: can I get that deal?
Of course, the new “commercial space” companies quite naturally expect to get government business for their finished products. This is entirely reasonable. They also want to develop their products according to their own design concepts and engineering standards, which is also to be expected in the normal course of free enterprise endeavors. The free market sorts out those whose concepts and standards meet with consumer approval, and those which do not. The winners win. Government sets (for example) certification standards for airplanes, but does not tell airplane companies what airplane to design or how to do it. If a company designs appealing and useful airplanes, they sell, and if not, then not. This is what we expect of the workings of the free market.
However, while the government buys, rents, or books passage for crew or cargo on lots of airplanes, it does not provide front money for commercial airplane companies to perform product development, and, if it does not like a product that is offered, does not have to buy it.
The twist with “commercial space” as it has taken shape is that the companies involved are saying that they must have government money in advance of performance to develop their product, while yet maintaining their right to conduct that product development according to their own concepts and standards. Nonetheless, the government must buy their product when it is available, and – oh by the way – is not allowed to develop its own product, because it will compete unfairly with “commercial” offerings.
It is this posture that I find so offensive. If I pay you to do something for me, I want you to do what I want done, not what you want to do. I further want you to do it in the manner in which I want it done, not as you may happen to want it done. That is what I expect for the money I provide – just as I would if, say, I engage your company to build a custom home for me. If you do not choose to do what I ask, as I ask it to be done, that is okay. In that circumstance, however, I am not required to buy your product. I can seek another provider who will agree to do as I ask.
But this quid pro quo, which would apply exactly in the case of a commercial contract for a custom home, apparently does not apply to a commercial contract for a custom spacecraft. NASA is forced to provide development money for a product whose design it cannot influence, and then to buy the product when it is finished, regardless of what responsible agency engineers might deem to be appropriate. The only outcome of such behavior that can possibly occur is that a technical, operational, or business failure will occur – and NASA will be held accountable for the failure, because public money was expended.
To this latter point concerning accountability for failure (no one ever worries about accountability for success), a few questions come to mind.
What does happen after the first failure? Who will bear the liability for damages? If not the company, then how will losses due to accidents or other non-performance be indemnified? If the government indemnifies such losses, why is that acceptable for “space” and not for other transportation sectors, or indeed a whole range of other products?
Where is the market that will sustain these enterprises, if they successfully develop their products? The ISS crew and cargo market is clearly not big enough. If we are investing public funds in new corporate endeavors, how can we know that the new entities can and will remain in business? How can the government be assured of continued access to space for crew and cargo, the very service it is expecting to receive in exchange for its upfront support?
Who will answer to the Congressional investigations that will and must take place when failures have occurred on public funds, costing the lives of public employees? Are such investigations not to be expected? If not, then why exactly is it that the next recovery from a human spaceflight accident will not be like the first three, again given that public employees and public funding are involved?
From the policy perspective, why does anyone think that the government in general or NASA in particular has any role in or responsibility for promoting “commercial space”? Why is “commercial space” anything more than a procurement strategy, from the perspective of a government customer? In keeping with its responsibility to execute its tasks efficiently, NASA should certainly purchase commercial products and services when and as they are available and applicable to the task at hand. Commercial providers should likewise expect NASA to be a customer, and should expect to provide products and services that meet NASA’s standards. Beyond that, what exactly is the policy justification for linking “commercial space” to NASA?
More broadly, it may be noted that no one in government is actually in a position to block a “commercial space” effort, irrespective of what their wishes might be. In our society, anyone can found a commercial space company and pursue the investment capital which is necessary to bring a product to market. Why is it the fault of NASA, or of government generally, that such efforts have not, to this point, shown notable success? And again from a policy perspective, why is it a responsibility of government to invest in areas where private financiers have declined to do so? If a commercial market does not yet exist, why is it a government responsibility to create it?
These are difficult questions. I will offer the prediction that, eventually, we will have to grapple with them, and that real answers will have to be provided. When that is done, we will understand once again how slippery is the slope of providing large public subsidies in advance of performance, in an attempt to create a market where none presently exists. In the meantime, we are holding one of our national crown jewels, our space program, hostage to the hope that this approach can work in space, when it has never worked anywhere else.
I will close by saying that no one more strongly supports government policies designed to promote the effective development of viable private space enterprises than do I. I once worked for such a company, its ultimate fate as grim as that of most in this still-nascent arena. But I continue to believe that such companies and enterprises will be founded, that some will succeed, and that the human expansion into the space frontier will benefit enormously thereby.
However, there is a fundamental difference for society between a publicly funded and directed enterprise chartered to define, explore, settle, and exploit a new frontier, and an enterprise founded and directed for the purpose of creating wealth, of providing returns on shareholder investments. The distinction in motivations between these two things is one that, in this case, does have a difference. My hope is that, in our space program, we Americans can still recognize that difference, celebrate it, and use each where it is best applied. We are not there at present.
Thank you.
I will focus my remarks on SpaceX since it is that company about which you commented.
SpaceX has certainly accomplished more than any “commercial” space company. I write “commercial” because, as Griffin pointed out, the gov’t has put in over $800M to Elon’s and other investor’s $200M, making SpaceX in effect a gov’t owned subsidiary. Except that the gov’t doesn’t own any part of SpaceX; the $800M came with no ownership interest.
When looking at a company, I find it useful to focus on the managements’ track-record. In looking at the history of SpaceX management’s track-record, I’ll start with TacSat-1. The Naval Research Lab (NRL) signed an agreement with SpaceX on 7 May 2003 to launch TacSat-1 in Jan. 2004. In August 2007, 20 months after its planned launch, the NRL cancelled TacSat-1. During the multi-year launch delay due to Falcon 1 development problems, Orbital Sciences had already launched TacSat-2, largely completing TacSat-1’s program objectives. Falcon 1 did not successfully launch until 28 Sept. 2008, 4 years 9 months later than planned.
In 2005, SpaceX approached NASA requesting $260,000 in funding and promising that it would launch Falcon 9 by Q2 2009. Falcon 9 did not launch until 12 months later, at which time its development costs, which had been assumed under COTS, totaled about $240M.
When SpaceX won its COTS contract valued at $ 277.8M, first flight of Falcon 9/Dragon was scheduled for June 2009 but did not occur until 8 Dec. 2010 (GAO-09-6118). In May 2011, NASA quietly gave both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences an extra $118M in funding for COTS “risk reduction” (GAO-11-692T). Because SpaceX was running far behind schedule, it’s COTS Demo missions 2 (Nov. 2009) & 3 (March 2010) were combined. Even with the added funding and schedule flexibility, the combined Demo 2-3 Mission, and first ISS rendezvous, did not occur until 22 May
months behind schedule.
The pattern from TacSat-1 and COTS seems pretty clear–SpaceX is habitually a year or two behind meeting its schedule commitments and exceeds its funding by about 1/3.
Since SpaceX was just recently approved to start working under the CRS contract with a first flight scheduled for next month, there are not as yet any proven “cost savings” in ISS resupply. I’m not sure that the terms of the CRS contract, with a payload cost of $ 36,287/lbs ($ 1.6B/44,092 lbs or $ 1.6B for 20 mT), are representative of a “cost savings” when one recalls that payload cost for Shuttle to ISS were $ 12,500/lbs ($ 450M/36,000 lbs for 51.6 ISS). And given SpaceX management’s track record in keeping to a schedule, the jury remains out as to whether the company will be able to meet the launch schedule necessary to keep ISS fully crewed. If it cannot, what then?
So, here’s where we are:
SpaceX has exceeded its “commercial” competitors with $800M in NASA funding.
SpaceX completed its COTS agreement two years late and $ 118M over the original estimate of $ 277.8M.
SpaceX was awarded on 23 Dec. 2010 a CRS contract of $ 1.6B to deliver 20 mT (44,092 lbs) to ISS representing a per pound payload cost of $ 36,287/lbs (Shuttle would have done this at nearly 1/3 of that cost).
It remains to be seen if SpaceX can in fact make a business out of supplying ISS even under the generous terms of CRS.
Given the above, I think everyone who has yet to drink the NewSpace Kool-Aid must acknowledge that any “cost savings” associated with the use of “commercial” launch companies appear very small to elusive for now. As to whether this remains is yet to be seen. The track record above is not encouraging.
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B．nearly a month
C．half a year
D．more than a year
小题2: The moon is bright because _______.A．there is some fire on it
B．it is near the sun, too
C．there is a big mirror on it
D．it can get light from the sun
小题3: The passage tells us _______.A．the sun is not the biggest star
B．the sun is bigger than any other star
C．only the sun can shine
D．the sun is one of the farthest stars to us
小题4: Why do we call the sun "a life giving star"? A．Because it gives us warmth.B．Because there are some living things on it.C．Because plants and animals can’t live without it.D．Because people have to live in the dark without it.
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When you look at the sky at night, the moon looks bigger than the stars. Actually, the moon is much smaller than the stars and the sun. It’s much smaller than the earth. But the moon is much closer to us than any star. That is why it looks so big. If you hold a coin close to your eye, it looks big. If you look at it across the moon, it looks small.The moon moves around the earth. It makes one trip in about four weeks. The moon looks flat to us. But it is a round ball, like the earth.People once thought the moon had fire on it. They thought the fire made it bright. Now we know the moon is like a mirror. It gets its light from the sun.Our sunlight comes from the sun, too. What is the sun? The sun is a star. The stars we can see have their own light. There are many big stars we cannot see. Their light had burned out. Others are still bright, but they are so far away that we cannot see them. The sun looks bigger and much brighter than other stars because it is the nearest of all stars. The sun and the other stars we see are very hot, but the air around us saves us from the heat of the sun.The sun gives us light and warmth. It makes plants grow and turns leaves green. It makes life possible on our earth. It is a life giving star.小题1: It takes _______ for the moon to go around the earth.A．more than a week
B．nearly a month
C．half a year
D．more than a year
小题2: The moon is bright because _______.A．there is some fire on it
B．it is near the sun, too
C．there is a big mirror on it
D．it can get light from the sun
小题3: The passage tells us _______.A．the sun is not the biggest star
B．the sun is bigger than any other star
C．only the sun can shine
D．the sun is one of the farthest stars to us
小题4: Why do we call the sun "a life giving star"? A．Because it gives us warmth.B．Because there are some living things on it.C．Because plants and animals can’t live without it.D．Because people have to live in the dark without it.
When you look at the sky at night, the moon looks bigger than the stars. Actually, the moon is much smaller than the stars and the sun. It’s much smaller than the earth. But the moon is much closer to us than any star. That is why it looks so big. If you hold a coin close to your eye, it looks big. If you look at it across the moon, it looks small.The moon moves around the earth. It makes one trip in about four weeks. The moon looks flat to us. But it is a round ball, like the earth.People once thought the moon had fire on it. They thought the fire made it bright. Now we know the moon is like a mirror. It gets its light from the sun.Our sunlight comes from the sun, too. What is the sun? The sun is a star. The stars we can see have their own light. There are many big stars we cannot see. Their light had burned out. Others are still bright, but they are so far away that we cannot see them. The sun looks bigger and much brighter than other stars because it is the nearest of all stars. The sun and the other stars we see are very hot, but the air around us saves us from the heat of the sun.The sun gives us light and warmth. It makes plants grow and turns leaves green. It makes life possible on our earth. It is a life giving star.小题1: It takes _______ for the moon to go around the earth.A．more than a week
B．nearly a month
C．half a year
D．more than a year
小题2: The moon is bright because _______.A．there is some fire on it
B．it is near the sun, too
C．there is a big mirror on it
D．it can get light from the sun
小题3: The passage tells us _______.A．the sun is not the biggest star
B．the sun is bigger than any other star
C．only the sun can shine
D．the sun is one of the farthest stars to us
小题4: Why do we call the sun "a life giving star"? A．Because it gives us warmth.B．Because there are some living things on it.C．Because plants and animals can’t live without it.D．Because people have to live in the dark without it.
科目:最佳答案见解析解析
小题1:B小题2:D小题3:A小题4:C 小题1:本文第二段前两句为The moon moves around the earth. It makes one trip in about four weeks.意思为月球绕地球要花费四周的时间，也就是几乎1个月的时间，故本题选B。小题2:本文第三段最后一句为It gets its light from the sun，意思为月亮从太阳那里得到光，所以月亮是明亮的，故本题选D。小题3:本文第四段有一句The sun looks bigger and much brighter than other stars because it is the nearest of all stars.所表示的含义为太阳不是最大的，故本题选A。小题4:本文最后一段的含义为太阳给我们提供了光和温度，没有它，动植物都无法生存，故本题选C。知识点:&&基础试题拔高试题热门知识点最新试题
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TextCan you prove that the earth is round? Go ahead and try! Will you rely on your senses or will you have to draw on the opinions of experts?WHY DO WE BELIEVE THAT THE EARTH IS ROUND?George OrwellSomewhere or other ― I think it is in the preface to saint Joan ― Bernard Shaw remarks that we are more gullible and superstitious today than we were in the Middle Ages, and as an example of modern credulity he cites the widespread belief that the earth is round. The average man, says Shaw, can advance not a single reason for thinking that the earth is round. He merely swallows this theory because there is something about it that appeals to the twentieth-century mentality.Now, Shaw is exaggerating, but there is something in what he says, and the question is worth following up, for the sake of the light it throws on modern knowledge. Just why do we believe that the earth is round? I am not speaking of the few thousand astronomers, geographers and so forth who could give ocular proof, or have a theoretical knowledge of the proof, but of the ordinary newspaper-reading citizen, such as you or me.As for the Flat Earth theory, I believe I could refute it. If you stand by the seashore on a clear day, you can see the masts and funnels of invisible ships passing along the horizon. This phenomenon can only be explained by assuming that the earth's surface is curved. But it does not follow that the earth is spherical. Imagine another theory called the Oval Earth theory, which claims that the earth is shaped like an egg. What can I say against it?Against the Oval Earth man, the first card I can play is the analogy of the sun and moon. The Oval Earth man promptly answers that I don't know, by my own observation, that those bodies are spherical. I only know that they are round, and they may perfectly well be flat discs. I have no answer to that one. Besides, he goes on, what reason have I for thinking that the earth must be the same shape as the sun and moon? I can't answer that one either.My second card is the earth's shadow: When cast on the moon during eclipses, it appears to be the shadow of a round object. But how do I know, demands the Oval Earth man, that eclipses of the moon are caused by the shadow of the earth? The answer is that I don't know, but have taken this piece of information blindly from newspaper articles and science booklets.Defeated in the minor exchanges, I now play my queen of trumps: the opinion of the experts. The Astronomer Royal, who ought to know, tells me that the earth is round. The Oval Earth man covers the queen with his king. Have I tested the Astronomer Royal's statement, and would I even know a way of testing it? Here I bring out my ace. Yes, I do know one test. The astronomers can foretell eclipses, and this suggests that their opinions about the solar system are pretty sound. I am, to my delight, justified in accepting their say-so about the shape of the earth.If the Oval Earth man answers ― what I believe is true ― that the ancient Egyptians, who thought the sun goes round the earth, could also predict eclipses, then bang goes my ace. I have only one card left: navigation. People can sail ship round the world, and reach the places they aim at, by calculations which assume that the earth is spherical. I believe that finishes the Oval Earth man, though even then he may possibly have some kind of counter.It will be seen that my reasons for thinking that the earth is round are rather precarious ones. Yet this is an exceptionally elementary piece of information. On most other questions I should have to fall back on the expert much earlier, and would be less able to test his pronouncements. And much the greater part of our knowledge is at this level. It does not rest on reasoning or on experiment, but on authority. And how can it be otherwise, when the range of knowledge is so vast that the expert himself is an ignoramus as soon as he strays away from his own specialty? Most people, if asked to prove that the earth is round, would not even bother to produce the rather weak arguments I have outlined above. They would start off by saying that "everyone knows" the earth to be round, and if pressed further, would become angry. In a way Shaw is right. This is a credulous age, and the burden of knowledge which we now have to carry is partly responsible.New Wordsprefacen. an introduction to a book or speech 前言,序gulliblea. easily deceived or cheated esp. credulous 易受骗的;轻信的superstitiousa.
believing in superstitions 迷信的credulity n. a tendency to believe to readily 轻信citevt. m quote (a passage, book, etc.) 举出;引出widespreada. found or distributed over a large area 分布广的;普遍的advancevt.
offer 提出appealvi. please, attract or interest 投合所好;有感染力;有吸引力mentalityn. way of thinking, mental power or capacity 心理,思想;脑力exaggeratevt. think, speak or write of as great overstate 夸张;夸大saken. end, purpose 缘故geographer n. a specialist in geographyoculara. of, for, based on what has been seen 眼睛的;凭视觉的theoreticala. of or based on theorycitizenn. 公民;市民refutevt. prove (a statement) prove (a person) to be mistaken 驳斥mastn. a long upright pole of wood or metal for carrying flags or sails on a ship 桅杆funneln. a metal chimney for letting out smoke from a steam engine or steamship (蒸汽机,轮船等的)烟囱invisiblea. that can not be seen horizonn. the line where the sky seems to meet the earth or sea 地平线phenomenon (pl. phenomena)n. 现象curvevt. bend so as to form a line that has no straight part 使成曲线n. a continuously bending line without angles 曲线followvi. result or occur as a consequence, effect, or inference 结果产生;得出sphericala. shaped like a ball 球形的ovaln.& a. (anything which is) egg-shaped 卵形的(东西), 椭圆的(东西)cardn. 纸牌analogyn. comparison of things that hav similarity 类比; 相似promptlyad. quickly and willingly 敏捷地;迅速地prompt a.body n. =celestial body 天体discn. 圆盘castvt. cause (light or shadow) to appear (on) 扔,投; 投射eclipsen. the total or partial hiding of one celestial body by another (天文学)食bookletn. a small book, usu. with a paper cover 小册子exchangevt. give and receive (one thing in return for another) 交换trumpn. 王牌royala. for, belonging to, or connected with a king or queen 皇家的; 王室的statementn. a written or spoken declaration, esp. of a formal kind 陈述;声明acen. (纸牌中的)"A"牌,爱司foretellvt. predict 预言solara. of the sunthe solar systemthe sun and the planets which revolve round itjustifyvt. gi show to be just, right or reasonable 证明……是正当的；为…辩护say-son. an authori one's unsupported assertion 权威性声明；无证据的断言Egyptiann.,a. (native) of Egypt 埃及人；埃及的predictvt. announc forecast 预言bangad. with with a sudden impact 砰地navigationn. the act or process of navigating 航海calculationn. the act of adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing to find a result 计算calculate vt.calculator n. 计算器countern. sth. of a return attack, such as a blow in boxing 讨价还价的本钱；回击，反击precariousa. depending upon mere assumption 不安全的；根据不足的，靠不住的exceptionally ad. unusuallyauthorityn. power to give orders and make others obey 权威；权力ignoramusn. an ignorant person 无知的人stray vi. (of thoughts or conversation) move away from the subject 走离；离题specialtyn. a special field of work or study 专业outlinevt. indicate the main ideas or facts ofn. a systematic listing of the important points of a subject 提纲pressvt. demand or ask for continuously 催促，逼迫credulousa. tending to believe sth. on little evidence, arising from credulity 轻信的burdenn. sth. load 重负；负荷Phrases & Expressionsfollow uppursue or take further action after (sth.) 深入研究或调查；采取进一步行动for the sake of for the
for the purpose of 为了…的利益；为了throw/shed light on explain 使明白，使明朗；解释and so forthand so onas forwith regard to, concerning 至于may well (not)be very likely (not) to 完全（不）可能bring out
offer to the public 拿出；使显出；推出（新产品等）aim at have as one's target, objective, etc.fall back onturn to for support 求助于rest ondepend on, rely onstray away from move from 偏离start off departin a way somewhat 在某种程度上 Proper NamesSaint Joan 圣女贞德Bernard Shaw 萧伯纳
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爱思英语学习网是公益类学习网站，所有资料仅供学习者免费参考试用。By Jim Hillhouse
AmericaSpace Note: The following remarks were delivered by former NASA Administrator Dr. Mike Griffin on 6 September 2012 for the inaugural lecture of Georgia Tech’s Gebhardt Lecture. It is used with permission by Dr. Griffin.
Michael D. Griffin
Chairman & CEO
Schafer Corporation
6 September 2012
Good afternoon. I am truly honored to have been asked to deliver the inaugural Gebhardt Lecture. Georgia Tech is one of the world’s great institutions, a place at which I am always pleased to be.
Before I begin, I must in fairness note that the views I offer today are entirely my own. They do not represent my company, or the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, of which I have the honor to be the current president, nor any other committee or association of which I am a member. They are solely my personal views. I am again honored that you have asked me to share them with you.
The subject of my talk today is one that, once upon a time, I would never have imagined offering. I mean, why do we want to have a space program? Wasn’t that a “given”? I once thought so. For more than fifty years, the exploration and development of space by the United States could have been characterized, without much exaggeration, as “all government, all the time”.
There were exceptions, notably with regard to the commercial communications satellite industry, but they were just that – exceptions.
Despite the entreaties of many who argued for policies designed to encourage the development of commercial space enterprises, space development remained essentially a government preserve. Things have certainly changed. Now, at least where the most visible symbol of the American space program – human spaceflight – is concerned, today’s policy environment is almost diametrically opposed to this decades-old paradigm. U.S. crew transportation to low orbit has been set aside as a commercial preserve, when and as that capability may appear, and new private space enterprises are in vigorous pursuit of defense and intelligence community markets as well.
Today I would like to explore the ramifications of such policy shifts, and will try once again to say why I think we need a robust national space effort, even as much new space activity shifts toward commercial development. So, let’s recap a bit. Where were we, where are we now, and what are the implications of the shifts in space policy that we have seen over the last few years?
Let’s look back four years, to Fall 2008, just prior to the election. Back then, NASA was well along in its implementation of what was, in my view, the most sensible civil space policy that this nation had embraced since the time of Apollo. The policy rose from the ashes of the Columbia accident and the observation by Admiral Hal Gehman’s Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) that, for three decades, the human spaceflight space program had proceeded without a compelling national mandate. Responding to this and other observations by the CAIB concerning the lack of a coherent national strategy for the space program, President Bush articulated the Vision for Space Exploration in 2004, which was subsequently established as the law of the land in the NASA Authorization Act of 2005. Pursuant to these instruments of policy and law, the agency was directed to return the Space Shuttle to flight, to use it to complete the International Space Station (ISS) in accordance with our domestic and international commitments. Following completion of the ISS, the Shuttle would be retired from service, to be replaced by a new human space transportation system that would be capable of ferrying U.S. and international partner astronauts and their equipment to and from the ISS, while also providing the capability to return to the moon. We would then use the experience gained from ISS and lunar operations to move onward to Mars.
With a bit of effort, one could capture the essential features of this policy in a single sentence – in my view a key feature of any policy purporting to be “strategic”. When we talk about national policy, we are in fundamentally talking about “what we will do”. If that cannot be expressed plainly, likely it will not happen. Churchill understood this, as did Kennedy and Reagan.
In any case, this policy was approved by large margins in both House and Senate by a Republican Congress in 2005, and again by a Democratic Congress in 2008, each time with features that I regarded as improvements. By 2008, NASA was well along in implementing that policy through its Constellation program, which planned to restore U.S. human access to space by late 2014, and lunar return by about 2020, depending as always upon budgetary exigencies. Both candidates for president in that year had pledged support for that program, and both had promised to reduce “the gap” – that period of unseemly dependence by the United States on Russia for crew transportation to the ISS following Shuttle retirement and prior to deployment of the first elements of Constellation. While it would take a decade and more, we seemed well on the way to recovery from the Columbia accident, as well as from the thirty years of uncertain national space policy leadership which had preceded it.
Today the strategic coherence and generational scope of this plan is gone as if it had never existed, had never been approved, twice, as the law of the land. The one element of the plan that was respected was the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet in 2011, and with it all U.S. capability for human spaceflight. However, the next phase of the plan, the direction to NASA to develop a new human spaceflight system for access to low Earth orbit (LEO), has been set aside. In its place, rather than a NASA designed, directed, and managed development program, we have a plan by which two-and-one-half awards have been provided to three contractors to learn, or re-learn, what one of them has been paid by the U.S. government to do for over fifty years now. These recent awards, following on prior programs, provide well over a billion public dollars for capital investment in private companies, investment for which NASA cannot set requirements, cannot direct design features, cannot control management practices, cannot require financial audits, and receives no product other than the right to purchase a service at market price when and as it becomes available.
The near-term goal of a U.S. led, international return to the moon and the establishment of a lunar base, the logical follow-on to the now-complete ISS, has been set aside, replaced by a mission to an asteroid for which no clearly worthwhile candidate is presently available and which cannot possibly occur prior to the mid-2020s. The heavy-lift launcher being designed to re-enable lunar access has been set aside, to be replaced by the similar-appearing but less capable Space Launch System (SLS) designed to support this so-called “beyond LEO” exploration. But the program is substantially underfunded, and no knowledgeable observer believes that multiple Congresses and succeeding presidents will provide the resources necessary to complete the SLS, when the only announced goal is a mission so lacking in justification that its own proponents cannot even identify the destination.
These changes were, of course, justified by assertions that the prior program was an artifact of the Bush Administration, rather than of the two Congresses which codified the plan into law, that it was “unexecutable”, supposedly citing the findings of a committee chaired by the highly respected Norm Augustine, and that in any case the program was behind schedule and over budget. While it is clearly the prerogative of any new presidential administration to propose changes to Executive Branch policies and programs, for whatever reasons that administration finds appropriate, I must take this opportunity to set the record straight, as I see it, regarding the assertions made with respect to the Constellation Program and its cancellation.
First, I’ve read the Augustine Committee report carefully, and while it is possible that I have missed it, nowhere in the report can I find the assertion that Constellation was “unexecutable”. What I saw was the Committee’s assessment that, with the budget profile provided to that group as a ground rule for their study, lunar return would have been delayed until the late 2020s. With that I agree, and I agree that to pursue such a program plan is rather silly. But that does not make it “unexecutable”, a characterization conferred on the Committee’s report by others. And if it were, it then also calls for the question as to why an asteroid mission which cannot occur prior to 2025 is acceptable, whereas a return to the moon in the same timeframe is not.
Regarding mission schedules, which for the present are paced by budgetary rather than technical considerations, I think it is now generally understood that the budget provided to the Augustine Committee for its work was substantially lower than the last budget submitted by the Bush Administration, and also lower than the next budget submitted by the Obama Administration. Thus, the budget provided to the Augustine Committee to guide its work was entirely artificial, representative of no plan which either preceded or followed.
Nevertheless, Augustine’s recommendation was not, as many believe, that Constellation should be cancelled. Rather, the Committee’s primary recommendation was that the NASA budget should be increased by about $3 billion per year. To put this figure in perspective, it was no more than authorized (though not appropriated) by the Congress, and less in real-dollar terms than in FY92, the final Bush 41 budget. Thus, the Committee’s recommendation was hardly for some extravagant, budget-busting caricature of a rational program for civil space science and exploration. The Committee recommended an entirely affordable level of spending for a robust national space program.
Second, the Augustine Committee did not criticize the execution of the program. Quite the contrary. In the words of the late Sally Ride, a member of the Committee, “The program comes pretty close to performing as NASA advertised as it would. … NASA’s planning and development phase of Constellation was actually pretty good.” (Space News, 13 Aug 2009)
Further, I will quote from a portion of the 15 Sep 2009 Hearing before the House Science Committee, in which Mr. Augustine and Dr. Crawley respond to questioning by Chairman Gordon concerning the status of the program:
Chairman Gordon: Is it (Constellation) technically sound and effectively managed?
Mr. Augustine: … We did review the program and its management. We believe it to be soundly managed. Technically, the program has some significant problems — technical problems. And this is not to be unexpected in a program of this difficulty and this magnitude. We saw no problems that appear to be unsolvable, given the proper engineering talent, the attention and the funds to solve them. Having said that, I’d like to turn to my colleague, Dr. Crawley. …
Dr. Crawley: No, I — I think, Norm, you have summarized this quite well at the — at the highest level. There were on our committee a number of people who had actually built space flight hardware, and their general consensus on the assessment of the Constellation program technically is, as Norm says, that it had — it has problems — all real programs where you’re really building hardware encounter problems, developmental problems — but that we didn’t see any of them, including some of the famous — vibration problem in the Ares 1 or the vibro-acoustic environment, the noise environment around the Orion — that were not surmountable with proper engineering talent and skill, which we believe NASA can bring to bear.
Third, it is not true that, again as widely believed, the Obama Administration saved the ISS from planned cancellation by the Bush Administration after 2015. In point of fact, the 2008 NASA Authorization Act contained specific language to the effect that the Administration would take no action to preclude the continued operation of the ISS beyond 2015. Once signed into law by President Bush, as it was, extension of ISS operations into 2016 and beyond became the law of the land, as well as Administration policy.
It is true that Office of Management and Budget (OMB) financial projections did not at that time incorporate the funds needed for sustained ISS operations beyond 2015. That is irrelevant. Budget projections beyond the rolling five-year presidential budget request submitted to the Congress each February are at best a hopeful fiction, generally the product of career staff work rather than that of elected officials. The last budget which the Bush Administration could influence in any significant fashion was that for FY09; the last year for which they could even offer an opinion was FY13. Bush Administration officials always understood that the decision concerning whether to continue ISS operations beyond 2015 was beyond their purview.
The practical effect of the policy shift which I have summarized here has been to eviscerate the human space exploration program of the United States, understood to be that which is conceived and directed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in accordance with the provisions of the 1958 Space Act. The next vehicles which will carry U.S. astronauts into space are today being designed and built largely with public funds, yet NASA cannot direct the course of their development. Funding for NASA’s development work, SLS and the associated Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle (MPCV), is stretched thin, well below critical mass, supporting a mission which is far from compelling. Thus postured, NASA can only become irrelevant to the future of human spaceflight, and quickly so at that, other than as a pass-through agency for the transfer of funds.
If as a nation we continue with this plan, NASA can still conduct excellent science missions and can continue in its multi-decade role as the premier developer of space and aeronautics technology. But NASA’s raison d’etre, its core mission of leadership in the development of human spaceflight – that will be gone. This cannot be a surprise to the originators and proponents of the current policy. They know very well what they have done.
I mention all of this not to protest the cancellation of the Constellation Program, though I do believe such to have been ill-advised. However, it would have been far more straightforward and transparent for the administration to have said something like, “We understand that NASA is making good progress toward the goals set for it by the prior administration and Congress. However, we do not believe that these are the proper goals for the U.S. space program. We believe that the time has passed when the nation should pursue a human spaceflight program designed, developed and directed by NASA, and we propose an entirely different approach.”
While I and many others would still disagree, this is a proposition which could be debated, discussed, and resolved ultimately by the Congress. There are many reasons to be skeptical about the use of government as a tool with which society attacks a problem. Indeed, this is a core tenet of political conservatism as the term was once understood. But while conservatives are properly skeptical concerning the role of government in society, they do understand that there exist certain activities that are important to society and which at the same time do not favorably grace a corporate balance sheet. In my view, the space program is one of those activities.
The core argument of those who support the new approach is that NASA, rather than being a leader in the development of human spaceflight, but has become an impediment. The agency, it is said, has become old, slow, risk averse, and excessively bureaucratic. Looking at the example set by the information technology and consumer electronics industries, which are today driven almost completely by commercial competitive pressures, many assert and others wonder whether it might not be true that space development would benefit from being turned over, lock stock and barrel, to the market.
This is the essential claim of those who style themselves as “NewSpace”: they are more efficient than government. I must first say that, by itself, this is a rather sorry standard to be waving about. Any private entity that cannot perform its mission with greater efficiency than a government really should not be whining about unfair competition. I mean, if you cannot even beat the government, why should taxpayers buy your product? But with that said, I broadly agree with the claim. Private industry is more efficient than government. If “efficiency” were the only measure of merit, the sole coin of the realm, then the argument would be settled and we would be done.
So, why do we want to have a space program, understood to mean a societal enterprise, a national endeavor, a (cringe when you say it) “government space program”, that is worth more to us than the key benefit the market provides and the government does not – efficiency? Is there a role and a mission in a democratic society for a large and significant effort with goals reaching beyond private interest, or not? Can we embrace a venture which is an instrument of national policy, stature, eminence, and leadership that does not look good on a balance sheet? I think there is such a role. I think that we can embrace such a venture. I think that we must.
Corporate entities, no matter how successful, do not and inherently cannot represent, speak for, or embody the national interest. They exist to promote the interests of their owners, the shareholders, whether few or many. They can do many things, but they cannot form and lead international partnerships, they cannot take responsibility for expanding the human frontier, and they cannot project national power and will and presence onto that frontier. In the expansion of our western frontier now more than a century ago, wherever the U.S. Army went, that place became the United States. The ranchers and miners and shopkeepers followed, ultimately creating the economy that became the envy of the world. They made the expansion of our frontiers worth doing. But they did not lead it.
Next, for reasons including but hardly limited to the above thoughts, I consider “space” in all its aspects – human spaceflight, scientific discovery, power projection, missile defense, environmental monitoring, communications, geodesy, space situational awareness, position, navigation and timing, intelligence gathering, global military awareness – to be a strategic realm for human society generally and for the United States in particular. We would be a far less influential nation in the world and far poorer at home had Apollo and GPS and Corona and Early Bird and TIROS and their numerous successors not happened. I imagine that most of you would agree. Even our adversaries, while quite likely regretting it, would also agree that our early investment in “space” in all its aspects, and our continuing preeminence in that arena, has helped to make and keep the U.S. a true world superpower.
Finally, the United States in its superpower role has done, and must do, many things with which not all other nations agree. We do these things in the name of national, or even global, security. But in the longer run, real national security consists of finding common cause with others, of seeking and affirming partners and allies, of working together on things which are grander than any of us can do individually. Long term national security consists of doing, with others, things that all like to do. Nothing, absolutely nothing, that the United States does in concert with other nations fits this mold better than opening the space frontier. This is an endeavor that is exciting, fascinating, and challenging for all, one in which we can lead not just a coalition of the willing, but a coalition of the eager. I cannot more strongly emphasize what I believe to be the national security benefits of proactive U.S. efforts to establish and lead such enterprises.
But if “space” writ large is strategic for the United States, how can we then justify placing sole dependence for certain of its aspects in the hands of private entities? Companies can be bought and sold, can go out of business, can terminate product lines, can expand them or contract them according to management’s view as to what will be best for the company. Indeed, if management fails to respond to market forces in these and other ways, they can and should be replaced, and quite likely will be. But the best decisions to win in the marketplace are not always the best decisions for the long-term benefit of the nation. If an enterprise is strategically important to society, only the government of that society can guarantee the long term constancy of purpose that is needed.
But, it is said, the nation through its government can do these things, and do them best, by purchasing the necessary goods and services from commercial providers, letting the magic of the marketplace separate the good designs from the poor ones, the reliable providers from the inept. The government does not need to direct and control the design of such things, nor closely manage the providers who furnish them. And, indeed, this is exactly right – when there is such a marketplace. There is little need for government intervention in the design and development of jet engines or communications satellites and, where there is, that need is confined to highly specialized military requirements not germane to civil needs. For much of what is required in these and many other fields, government can do quite well by purchasing, to the maximum extent possible, commercial products and services.
However, much of what is needed in the space enterprise, and particularly in the development of human spaceflight, is simply not available in the civil marketplace. The right space program – establishing a lunar base, for example – could well foster the development of such markets. But in the fifty-year history of human spaceflight there simply has been no such market. There is thus not a multiplicity of competitors to allow the emergence of winners and losers, and no market pressures to create them are immediately apparent. Human spaceflight in particular is, for the present and near future, one of numerous “products” not furnished by the marketplace, one of those things which, if we desire it, can only exist if government pays to build what is desired. For now, public expenditures are required if human spaceflight is to be developed.
Where market forces exist, they act to compel good behavior and to eliminate those competitors who perform poorly. We t for example, there are no bad restaurants in New York City. When competitive market pressures are absent, as for public enterprises, the oversight of public expenditures by public employees is necessary to ensure that the government actually obtains that for which it has bargained.
But if government is to direct the development and acquisition of a product not freely available in the market, it must be done well, from a position of knowledge, experience, and expertise. Government managers must be responsible and accountable for the efficacy with which the public funds entrusted to them are spent. To be accountable, they must have both insight and oversight concerning the actions taken by those who are paid to perform on the public behalf. They must be empowered to direct what is being done with the funds for which they are responsible.
How best to do this, and how to do it over the long term in highly specialized niches, has proven to be a very difficult problem. Not many people today believe that we are doing it as well as it could be done. Indeed, I believe that the primary reason for the recent surge in the popularity of what is being called “commercial space”, is simply the distaste of all parties for the acquisition system processes we have allowed to grow up over the decades since World War 2. To say that they are cumbersome, slow, and costly would be an understatement. We can do better. But if so, then that is the problem to be fixed. We cannot solve it by abdicating responsibility for the acquisition of public goods to private entities.
This takes me to my primary concern with so-called “commercial space” as it has been put into practice.
I think most of us would agree that the common use of the term “commercial” means that a product or service is conceived by an entrepreneur, who then raises the investment capital necessary to bring it to market, charging whatever price the market will bear. The investors collectively own the product, reaping whatever gains are to be had, or suffering whatever losses may occur.
The current use of word “commercial” when linked with “space” is harder to understand. There is still no significant market other than the government, and the majority of investment capital has come from public funds. For example, prior to the CCICap (Commercial Crew Integrated Capability) awards, SpaceX had received about $800 million from NASA (Source: /civil/120525-spacex-boosts-commercial-credibility.html), whereas its founder and other investors had put in about $200 million. (Source: bc.com/id//Elon_Musk_on_Why_SpaceX_Has_the_Right_Stuff_to_Win_the_Space_Race) So, the U.S. government is the 80% majority investor in SpaceX – and this is prior to the $400+ million CCICap award. But, the government does not own the design or the product it does not own even 80% of it. What NASA “owns” is the right to buy a seat at market price. The only real change from the classic “prime contract” seems to be that a largely different set of contractors is performing the work, which is done primarily with public funds but without government supervision. The working definition of “commercial” seems to be “not built by an established contractor working to government specifications”. I have only one question: can I get that deal?
Of course, the new “commercial space” companies quite naturally expect to get government business for their finished products. This is entirely reasonable. They also want to develop their products according to their own design concepts and engineering standards, which is also to be expected in the normal course of free enterprise endeavors. The free market sorts out those whose concepts and standards meet with consumer approval, and those which do not. The winners win. Government sets (for example) certification standards for airplanes, but does not tell airplane companies what airplane to design or how to do it. If a company designs appealing and useful airplanes, they sell, and if not, then not. This is what we expect of the workings of the free market.
However, while the government buys, rents, or books passage for crew or cargo on lots of airplanes, it does not provide front money for commercial airplane companies to perform product development, and, if it does not like a product that is offered, does not have to buy it.
The twist with “commercial space” as it has taken shape is that the companies involved are saying that they must have government money in advance of performance to develop their product, while yet maintaining their right to conduct that product development according to their own concepts and standards. Nonetheless, the government must buy their product when it is available, and – oh by the way – is not allowed to develop its own product, because it will compete unfairly with “commercial” offerings.
It is this posture that I find so offensive. If I pay you to do something for me, I want you to do what I want done, not what you want to do. I further want you to do it in the manner in which I want it done, not as you may happen to want it done. That is what I expect for the money I provide – just as I would if, say, I engage your company to build a custom home for me. If you do not choose to do what I ask, as I ask it to be done, that is okay. In that circumstance, however, I am not required to buy your product. I can seek another provider who will agree to do as I ask.
But this quid pro quo, which would apply exactly in the case of a commercial contract for a custom home, apparently does not apply to a commercial contract for a custom spacecraft. NASA is forced to provide development money for a product whose design it cannot influence, and then to buy the product when it is finished, regardless of what responsible agency engineers might deem to be appropriate. The only outcome of such behavior that can possibly occur is that a technical, operational, or business failure will occur – and NASA will be held accountable for the failure, because public money was expended.
To this latter point concerning accountability for failure (no one ever worries about accountability for success), a few questions come to mind.
What does happen after the first failure? Who will bear the liability for damages? If not the company, then how will losses due to accidents or other non-performance be indemnified? If the government indemnifies such losses, why is that acceptable for “space” and not for other transportation sectors, or indeed a whole range of other products?
Where is the market that will sustain these enterprises, if they successfully develop their products? The ISS crew and cargo market is clearly not big enough. If we are investing public funds in new corporate endeavors, how can we know that the new entities can and will remain in business? How can the government be assured of continued access to space for crew and cargo, the very service it is expecting to receive in exchange for its upfront support?
Who will answer to the Congressional investigations that will and must take place when failures have occurred on public funds, costing the lives of public employees? Are such investigations not to be expected? If not, then why exactly is it that the next recovery from a human spaceflight accident will not be like the first three, again given that public employees and public funding are involved?
From the policy perspective, why does anyone think that the government in general or NASA in particular has any role in or responsibility for promoting “commercial space”? Why is “commercial space” anything more than a procurement strategy, from the perspective of a government customer? In keeping with its responsibility to execute its tasks efficiently, NASA should certainly purchase commercial products and services when and as they are available and applicable to the task at hand. Commercial providers should likewise expect NASA to be a customer, and should expect to provide products and services that meet NASA’s standards. Beyond that, what exactly is the policy justification for linking “commercial space” to NASA?
More broadly, it may be noted that no one in government is actually in a position to block a “commercial space” effort, irrespective of what their wishes might be. In our society, anyone can found a commercial space company and pursue the investment capital which is necessary to bring a product to market. Why is it the fault of NASA, or of government generally, that such efforts have not, to this point, shown notable success? And again from a policy perspective, why is it a responsibility of government to invest in areas where private financiers have declined to do so? If a commercial market does not yet exist, why is it a government responsibility to create it?
These are difficult questions. I will offer the prediction that, eventually, we will have to grapple with them, and that real answers will have to be provided. When that is done, we will understand once again how slippery is the slope of providing large public subsidies in advance of performance, in an attempt to create a market where none presently exists. In the meantime, we are holding one of our national crown jewels, our space program, hostage to the hope that this approach can work in space, when it has never worked anywhere else.
I will close by saying that no one more strongly supports government policies designed to promote the effective development of viable private space enterprises than do I. I once worked for such a company, its ultimate fate as grim as that of most in this still-nascent arena. But I continue to believe that such companies and enterprises will be founded, that some will succeed, and that the human expansion into the space frontier will benefit enormously thereby.
However, there is a fundamental difference for society between a publicly funded and directed enterprise chartered to define, explore, settle, and exploit a new frontier, and an enterprise founded and directed for the purpose of creating wealth, of providing returns on shareholder investments. The distinction in motivations between these two things is one that, in this case, does have a difference. My hope is that, in our space program, we Americans can still recognize that difference, celebrate it, and use each where it is best applied. We are not there at present.
Thank you.
I will focus my remarks on SpaceX since it is that company about which you commented.
SpaceX has certainly accomplished more than any “commercial” space company. I write “commercial” because, as Griffin pointed out, the gov’t has put in over $800M to Elon’s and other investor’s $200M, making SpaceX in effect a gov’t owned subsidiary. Except that the gov’t doesn’t own any part of SpaceX; the $800M came with no ownership interest.
When looking at a company, I find it useful to focus on the managements’ track-record. In looking at the history of SpaceX management’s track-record, I’ll start with TacSat-1. The Naval Research Lab (NRL) signed an agreement with SpaceX on 7 May 2003 to launch TacSat-1 in Jan. 2004. In August 2007, 20 months after its planned launch, the NRL cancelled TacSat-1. During the multi-year launch delay due to Falcon 1 development problems, Orbital Sciences had already launched TacSat-2, largely completing TacSat-1’s program objectives. Falcon 1 did not successfully launch until 28 Sept. 2008, 4 years 9 months later than planned.
In 2005, SpaceX approached NASA requesting $260,000 in funding and promising that it would launch Falcon 9 by Q2 2009. Falcon 9 did not launch until 12 months later, at which time its development costs, which had been assumed under COTS, totaled about $240M.
When SpaceX won its COTS contract valued at $ 277.8M, first flight of Falcon 9/Dragon was scheduled for June 2009 but did not occur until 8 Dec. 2010 (GAO-09-6118). In May 2011, NASA quietly gave both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences an extra $118M in funding for COTS “risk reduction” (GAO-11-692T). Because SpaceX was running far behind schedule, it’s COTS Demo missions 2 (Nov. 2009) & 3 (March 2010) were combined. Even with the added funding and schedule flexibility, the combined Demo 2-3 Mission, and first ISS rendezvous, did not occur until 22 May
months behind schedule.
The pattern from TacSat-1 and COTS seems pretty clear–SpaceX is habitually a year or two behind meeting its schedule commitments and exceeds its funding by about 1/3.
Since SpaceX was just recently approved to start working under the CRS contract with a first flight scheduled for next month, there are not as yet any proven “cost savings” in ISS resupply. I’m not sure that the terms of the CRS contract, with a payload cost of $ 36,287/lbs ($ 1.6B/44,092 lbs or $ 1.6B for 20 mT), are representative of a “cost savings” when one recalls that payload cost for Shuttle to ISS were $ 12,500/lbs ($ 450M/36,000 lbs for 51.6 ISS). And given SpaceX management’s track record in keeping to a schedule, the jury remains out as to whether the company will be able to meet the launch schedule necessary to keep ISS fully crewed. If it cannot, what then?
So, here’s where we are:
SpaceX has exceeded its “commercial” competitors with $800M in NASA funding.
SpaceX completed its COTS agreement two years late and $ 118M over the original estimate of $ 277.8M.
SpaceX was awarded on 23 Dec. 2010 a CRS contract of $ 1.6B to deliver 20 mT (44,092 lbs) to ISS representing a per pound payload cost of $ 36,287/lbs (Shuttle would have done this at nearly 1/3 of that cost).
It remains to be seen if SpaceX can in fact make a business out of supplying ISS even under the generous terms of CRS.
Given the above, I think everyone who has yet to drink the NewSpace Kool-Aid must acknowledge that any “cost savings” associated with the use of “commercial” launch companies appear very small to elusive for now. As to whether this remains is yet to be seen. The track record above is not encouraging.
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