Fwd: John Kelly: Frequency, efficiency crucial to 39A choice

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: July 21, 2013 9:23:03 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: John Kelly: Frequency, efficiency crucial to 39A choice

 

 

 

     Jul. 20, 2013 11:35 PM

John Kelly: Frequency, efficiency crucial to 39A choice

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Private firms SpaceX and Blue Origin have expressed interest in KSC's Launch Pad 39A. / FLORIDA TODAY FILE

It's interesting how fast roles evolve.

SpaceX, once the upstart fighting to get inside the lucrative government space contracting business, is becoming part of the establishment.

And, it's new companies, like Blue Origin, that are playing the role of maverick in the ever-changing landscape of privatized space flight. Blue Origin is a Washington-based company backed by Amazon chief executive officer and founder Jeff Bezos.

As NASA looks for new uses of its facilities at the Kennedy Space Center, perhaps one of the most high profile is historic launch pad 39A, from which the United States launched missions to the moon and later space shuttles for three decades.

SpaceX is among the companies making a pitch to use the facility, for a super-sized, heavy-lift version of its Falcon 9 rocket and a people-carrying modified version of its Dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX, now more established than even a few years ago, is pursuing the pad for its use exclusively, something that's raising some hackles in Congress. One member of Congress is openly trying to block any exclusive deal. The rationale for SpaceX, one would suppose, is that the company needs to be able to know it has use of the facillities on KSC whenever it needs them. With the expected flight loads that SpaceX continues projecting, it seems as though capacity is an issue for the company and that is a good thing for the space launch business and the Space Coast.

Blue Origin, for its part, is proposing that Pad 39A become a versatile multi-use facility that could be the embarkation point for all kinds of rockets. That would include SpaceX's vehicles, those of the United Launch Alliance joint venture involving Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and, of course, Blue Origin's own missions. United Launch Alliance, which didn't vie for use of the pad, did write Blue Origin a letter of support for its multi-use concept. Blue Origin plans suborbital flights by 2015 and orbital flights by 2018 and already has a test launch site in Texas.

 

The debate could prove interesting. KSC is charged with making the maximum use of the facilities on the giant government installation and utilizing both pads A and B on the old shuttle complex is a necessity if the taxpayers are to also get maximum use out of other supporting assets like the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building and the Launch Control Center.

 

In the end, the spaceport is going to change from a government-only operation into something that involves shared use of facilities one way or another.  Whatever leads to the most launches and the most efficient use of the great facilities at KSC is the way to go.

 

We'll wait to see more details on each team's proposals as well as what NASA decides to do with them.

 

 

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