SpaceX Evolution (Appendix C: Why SpaceX Not NASA)

A serialized version of this book for SubStack

Link to First Installment: https://chrisprophet.substack.com/p/spacex-evolution

There are some hard truths ahead for anyone who remembers NASA’s bright promise during the heady days of the sixties space race. However, that was then and this is now. Most systems tend to complexity as they mature, making them increasingly inefficient. A good analogy might be an oak tree, that begins life as a green shoot which quickly grows into a supple sapling, before transforming into a mighty oak. Arguably this was NASA’s position in the early seventies, so let’s wind the clock forward a few decades to see what happens. As the tree continues to mature it adds new growth rings on the outside, making the core less vital, which then begins to decompose – eventually making it hollow. This would seem a good analogue for NASA’s current position, which appears solid from the outside, but in reality their core capability to push space technology has greatly diminished. For example NASA’s mighty moon rocket, the Saturn V, is now a receding memory, while the replacement vehicle, called the SLS, provides a shadow of its capabilities. OK, let’s wind the clock even further forward to see what to expect for NASA’s future. When mighty oaks continue to spread new branches, the leaves added to the upper canopy deprive light from the older and heavier lower branches, causing them to weaken and fall from the trunk. This suggests we should expect the loss of some NASA branch offices (i.e. closed or transferred to Space Force) at some point in the future as commercial programs increasingly put them in the shade. Eventually too, some great wind will blow causing the ancient oak to fall, although its loss will provide ample living space and nourishment for new shoots to grow.

“In the long run, talent wins over experience and an entrepreneurial culture over heritage.”¹ ~ Eric Berger/Liftoff

In juxtaposition to NASA’s trajectory, SpaceX is currently surging towards new heights, making it more like a redwood as it continues to grow ever skywards. Its core capacity to develop new technology remains strong, because it is unbridled by bureaucracy and its carefully pruned branches complement one another, rather than competing for resources. By contrast when NASA fell out of favor with the establishment in the early seventies, its budget was drastically cut, leaving it with a vast infrastructure and network of offices but paucity of work, some might argue purpose. At this point NASA field offices began to compete with one another for some part of the less than adequate funding, in an organization originally designed to build moon rockets. Lacking sufficient funding, their primary role now is solely to survive; where once their purpose was to explore infinite space they instead create endless paperwork.

“[At SpaceX] we would make a decision in a single meeting, that would take years to reach the same decision point at NASA.”² ~ Garrett Reisman, former NASA astronaut and Senior Advisor at SpaceX

Red Dragon

Bureaucracy is directly opposed to innovation, because it seeks to limit and control creativity and free enterprise. NASA’s relationship with SpaceX was fair sailing at first, because their positive advances allowed more funding to flow into NASA (and feed the bureaucracy) while asking relatively little in return. However, as SpaceX becomes more ambitious the relationship has become quite strained, at least in some quarters of NASA. After SpaceX were awarded a contract to produce their Crew Dragon spacecraft they suggested it might also be used as a platform for a sample return mission from Mars. NASA Ames cooperated with them to develop this concept, which later became known as “Red Dragon.” However, NASA JPL was responsible for Mars landers and had a whole program planned for Mars sample return missions to ensure they had plenty of work through the 2020s. This would require a Mars rover to collect the samples, a Mars ascent vehicle to carry those samples to orbit and an Earth return vehicle, all of which would need a staggered series of launches. This three pronged approach would effectively keep funding flowing to JPL for over a decade and Ames partnership with SpaceX threatened to replace this plan entirely. The Red Dragon mission would only require a single Falcon Heavy launch in 2020, and, worse still, cost only a fraction of what JPL proposed. Somehow JPL had to find a way to stop Red Dragon in its tracks to ensure their future funding.

One key technology required for Red Dragon to proceed was propulsive landing, which would allow the craft to accurately land near the sample collection site on Mars. At the time, this propulsive landing capability was being developed as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, because they intended to land SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft at the Cape. This would allow ground support teams to assist astronauts to disembark at the end of each mission, overall a much safer way to operate than the more cumbersome procedures required for parachute landings in the ocean. However, as SpaceX proceeded to test this capability with their DragonFly vehicle, NASA requirements for certification became increasingly stringent. Their requirement to prove propulsive landing was safe morphed from helicopter drops with a test vehicle, into multiple return flights from orbit with a final version spacecraft. This promised to be prohibitively expensive for SpaceX, far more than they had budgeted, for what had been perceived as a relatively modest milestone, considering their expertise with propulsive landing. Somewhat bemused yet happy to comply, they offered to test propulsive landing using their cargo version of the Dragon spacecraft, as it returned from regular supply runs to the ISS. NASA refused, effectively forcing SpaceX to revert to the more cumbersome parachute landings for Crew Dragon – and killing Red Dragon in the cradle. As a result, JPL and NASA achieved a continuation of funding, at the cost of delaying Mars sample return by decades.

Ironically the current NASA administration appears to have changed tack entirely and now intend to use the European Space Agency to supply the sample retrieval rover and Earth return vehicle, ostensibly to improve international cooperation. However, one main benefit of such a move is it largely secures funding for sample return, because congress would have great difficulty canceling the program, considering that would involve breaking an international agreement.

“Consider the Mars Sample Return mission. NASA plans to partner with an important ally in space, the European Space Agency, to launch a sample retrieval rover (developed in Europe) and an ascent vehicle, built for NASA by Northrop Grumman. This mission, launching no earlier than 2026, could perhaps fly on United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket. Then, a European-built return orbiter would launch on an European Ariane 6 rocket to bring the small cache of samples back to Earth.”³ ~ Eric Berger/Ars Technica

Mars Colonial Transporter

In October 2012, after SpaceX commenced supply runs to the ISS on Falcon 9, they announced plans for their next rocket, the Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT) as it was called then, which later became the Starship launch vehicle. Elon had always intended to engineer Mars landings, since founding SpaceX in 2002, and now felt the company was in a position to build the Super Heavy Lift (SHL) vehicle needed for Mars colonization. Rather optimistically he hoped NASA would pounce on this opportunity, considering Mars is their horizon goal and MCT was custom built for Mars by their best performing contractor. However, NASA already had plans for their own SHL rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS), which they wanted to use for manned landings on the moon first before moving onto Mars, with the Block 2 version. The SLS rocket used existing technology, hence not technically challenging, and would bring billions into NASA coffers over a long-term basis. The huge sums allocated by congress each year for SLS would be roughly split between legacy aerospace contractors and NASA to pay for their oversight bureaucracy. Nearly 10 years later the cost associated with this program has effectively doubled, estimated at over $20bn, with only one SLS launch so far, to send an Orion capsule around the moon. Effectively If NASA had picked-up MCT in 2012 and provided adequate funding, they could now be preparing for the first Mars landings. As it stands, NASA’s planned mission to Mars on SLS has been pushed back to 2033, and it only intends to orbit the red planet briefly instead of landing.⁴

No blame for this appalling outcome accrues to SpaceX. They repeated pitched the design to NASA, at the International Astronautical Congress in 2016, and again in 2017 where they offered a more conservative and economic architecture, all to no avail. The conclusion can only be that through its actions, and inactions, NASA is effectively blocking space development. It seems this inveterate bureaucracy is now better suited to handling paper projects, which handout regular payments to old friends i.e. legacy aerospace companies, after taking their cut for management.

Oil and Water

Some might argue a more balanced approach might be the best way to improve the prospects for space exploration. In other words NASA should become equal partners with SpaceX to harness its enormous potential. However, SpaceX have been designed from the ground up to be lean, agile and fast moving, which is the exact opposite of NASA. A good way to illustrate this dichotomy would be the Commercial Crew Program. In 2011 NASA lost the ability to launch astronauts to the International Space Station, following the forced retirement of Space Shuttle, due to its excessive cost and poor safety record. Without the ability to send crew to space, could they even be regarded as a space agency? Certainly some people believed NASA had closed after Space Shuttle flights ended, which was a PR disaster. They needed something fast to replace Shuttle capabilities, so paid SpaceX and Boeing to make two new spacecraft systems, called Crew Dragon and Starliner respectively, under the Commercial Crew Program (CCP). Instead of the usual cost-plus profit contracts, which incentivize delays and additional costs, payments were fixed at the time of award and made on a milestone basis. However, during the early years of CCP there was strong internal and external pressure to cut SpaceX from the program. It was argued Boeing was a safe pair of hands because they had previously merged with Rockwell International, the company who originally manufactured the Space Shuttle Orbiter. Unfortunately, cutting SpaceX would have undermined the principle of CCP, which was to develop two redundant systems to ensure space access for NASA, in the cheapest and fastest way possible i.e. through commercial competition. If NASA had downselected to a single provider i.e. Boeing, that would have effectively turned CCP into a cost-plus program, because Boeing could conceivably ask for anything to complete Starliner, without any real competition. Fortunately this terrible outcome was narrowly avoided, mainly due to factional support for SpaceX, both outside and inside NASA. However, SpaceX were far from out of the woods. For example, at the start of the CCP program NASA heralded they only gave contractors broad requirements, i.e. build a spacecraft to safely transport astronauts to the ISS, as opposed to NASA’s normal practise of specifying everything. In theory this would allow contractors the freedom to innovate and build their spacecraft in the most cost-effective way possible. In practise, NASA felt they knew best so applied extraordinary oversight to these companies’ efforts. For example, NASA asked design engineers to imagine how their part of the system might fail and formulate design changes to mitigate this risk, then submit them for approval. These so-called safety reviews were supposed to be processed in 8 weeks but in some cases NASA took 6 months to approve any changes.⁵ This implies the work to build these systems was slowed or even halted until NASA managed to return the paperwork, overall not the best way to run a fast development program. SpaceX, which had been built to allow engineers the freedom to proceed at the maximum pace possible, effectively had NASA’s bureaucracy bolted onto their operation. Needless to say SpaceX managed to field their Crew Dragon spacecraft after many years of delay and any prospect for Boeing’s Starliner entering service soon would appear optimistic (see CHAPTER 13: How X.com Achieves Commercial Supremacy, The Competition is Coming). It seems despite urgent need for a replacement crew transport capability, NASA couldn’t help but sabotage their own program through excessive oversight.

Conclusion

Whenever NASA use SpaceX they gain practical capabilities like crew flights to the ISS, which makes it seem like NASA are still doing something worthwhile, while in reality they are ignoring their responsibility to push the space frontier with all necessary vigor. Lucky for humanity’s sake, SpaceX decided to pay for Starship out of their own pocket and so far achieved remarkable progress with minimal outside assistance. Frankly if left to NASA, Mars colonization would be halfhearted at best and maybe take a century or more – which could be a century too late. Humanity faces many existential threats in the future (see Appendix F: Fermi Paradox), made worse because we have all our eggs in one basket, i.e. planet Earth. Hence SpaceX would appear our last best hope for survival – which makes Elon Musk a literal godsend.

Succinctly: NASA past its prime, SpaceX ready to step up.

Link to next installment: https://chrisprophet.substack.com/p/spacex-evolution-appendix-d-dark

1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Liftoff-Desperate-Early-Launched-SpaceX/dp/0008445621

2 https://www.inverse.com/innovation/spacex-nasa-culture-clash

3 https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/12/planetary-scientists-are-starting-to-get-stirred-up-by-starships-potential/

4 https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/for-the-first-time-nasa-has-begun-detailing-its-deep-space-exploration-plans/

5 https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/nasa-inspector-commercial-crew-likely-wont-fly-until-late-2018/