Can Europe catch up after SpaceX and the emergence of a newly vibrant US commercial space sector? How?
It’s the mid-1990s, attendees lingering in the expansive lobby as the day’s conference presentations concluded, everyone glad to make new acquaintances and hand out business cards (remember those?) Among the introductions and salutations, there is a representative from Arianespace as we wander over to a corner and some overstuffed chairs to “talk shop.” We focused on work much too quickly after the pleasantries about Paris, flights, and a restaurant recommendation. Of course, proceeding cautiously on any topic of food, as any local suggestions could be akin to proposing Twinkies to a dessert chef. As for the wine, that’s definitely from California. It took only fifteen minutes to nearly cause an international incident. But it was about the Shuttle and Europe’s successful move toward commercial space – not the wine.
My presentation was roughly version 0.5 of a presentation I would hone and improve over the coming decades. We were slowly unearthing what the Space Shuttle cost in all its gory detail, though I had only started to understand the depth and never-ending nuances in each number. There were the numbers that lied, the ones with an important story, and the ones generating more questions than answers. Much more meaning would come, just not all at once. This is near the start of my story.
At the time, I may have appeared to be an up-and-coming critic of the Shuttle, where “critic” loses the sense of looking at things analytically, objectively, and “critically” to improve. The term critic too often conveys only opposition. I saw my critique as part of learning and finding solutions to do better next time, not the latter about merely pointing out problems. Many fulfilling years awaited me as part of a team preparing and launching Space Shuttles.
“Arianespace is an efficient organization, being commercial, while the Shuttle is another bureaucratic, inefficient, government-run enterprise.”
My Arianespace acquaintance was familiar with my topic and the Shuttle’s shortcomings regarding affordability. This may have been the first time I heard the phrase “commercial” operations – “Arianespace is an efficient organization, being commercial, while the Shuttle is another bureaucratic, inefficient, government-run enterprise.” More or less, as memories go.
At the time, Europe was leading the pack in our space sector. Whether they were the Space Shuttle or the Air Forces (today’s Space Force), US launchers were not competitive. By law, the Shuttle no longer flew commercial payloads since after the loss of Challenger. The Air Force’s stable of rockets was dated. The joke about Titan rockets being the Air Force only launched these once they rusted solid to the pad, or the weather turned to gray soup with no visibility, or both. The Delta II expendable launchers were workhorses, but the US Defense Department wanted bigger. And the Atlas rocket of the time came scared with a legacy fixation around reliability and mass to orbit, not competitiveness.
Europe, though, had gone commercial, with a highly competitive posture putting the first nail in the coffin of US commercial launch. The trend was there already. Soon, the nascent low Earth orbit constellations, like Iridium, which threw business the way of those US Delta’s and Atlas’s, would end in a dot.com bust. And a final nail, as Russia would be allowed to launch private-sector western satellites as “midnight basketball for Russian rocket scientists.” Let them launch some satellites for cold, hard, western currency – this should keep them from getting into trouble selling their know-how elsewhere.
Europe already had bragging rights at this point in the story.
So much has changed since. But here I was at that conference, and parts of this future are yet to be written.
Still, Europe already had bragging rights at this point in the story.
In response comes another development, the US recognition by the Defense Department that its rockets must, like Europe, also “go commercial.” The Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program emerged from this effort, leading to today’s rockets – the Atlas V and Delta IV. These were bigger and better but more expensive and less competitive. Ironically, the Defense move toward commercial rockets and competition led to a monopoly formed by both companies (after a scandal with Boeing stealing Lockheed documents.) It would not be off the mark to describe this as the fox chewing off three legs only to find it’s still in a trap. The monopoly did not end until a decade later, with some cajoling by SpaceX.
Yet this outcome, too, is years away that day in the hotel lobby. As someone intimately aware of the Space Shuttle’s flaws regarding affordability, or the lack thereof, it could have fallen to me to say “inefficient” – as only the start of a critique. Scouring for all manner of data, it also came from the Air Force about their rockets (and aircraft, too.) In the words of some of my new Air Force counterparts, “Compared to what’s going on over here, NASA is downright efficient by comparison.”
In short, Arianespace was pulling in business, while the US launch sector was not. The future of space launch appeared commercial and European.
Europe had created a lean, mean corporation with every incentive to be affordable. This was not only to serve the scientific payloads from the European Space Agency ESA but also for the additional private sector payloads they could attract. Everyone wins.
This all sounds familiar years later.
If you see the world through contracts, here is the moment NASA said enough is enough.
The US commercial launch breakthrough fell to NASA for reasons that remain obscured by the fog of war. Just what did NASA do? The NASA “COTS” program would pay to deliver cargo to the International Space Station as a service. The usual narratives describe parts of this elephant, depending on who grabbed what.
If you see the world through contracts, here is the moment NASA said enough is enough. These are rockets. This is a simple spacecraft, Apollo style. This is non-human cargo delivered to a point in space through an airlock. It’s supplies, lunch, water, and well-packed gadgets. There is no reason we can’t just sign on the dotted line for a firm fixed price, as all there is to do here was long ago known.
But the elephant is so much larger than its trunk.
NASA would pay out on those contracts for more tangible outcomes than usual. At milestones showing progress, a check would be cleared, a partial check. This shifted expectations away from activity and toward results. It was no longer enough to try and cut the grass or ask to be reimbursed for the hours spent cutting it. Or the hours planning to cut the grass or trying. When you are done with the north forty, give us a call for that partial check.
The partnership between the public and the private lies in the public paying and the private performing. Better yet, someone must have been on to the previous decades of flawed contracting with the best intentions. Here, selecting the “low bid” devolved into choosing the “best liar.” Now, to keep everyone straight, a couple more nuances were added even after a partner wins a contract. There would be two partners, at least. Better yet, NASA showed early on it would not be shy about ending its relationship with one partner and seeking another – the erstwhile Kistler switched out for Orbital (later Northrop.)
And more – while the government would commit to buying services once operational, it would not commit early to anyone, not even the first partners. Keeping options open made it clear – did we say results?
As we learned in the Shuttle program, in the worst way possible, the more signatures appear on a piece of paper, the less it’s worth.
For all this to succeed, other necessary ingredients followed. The government management office would be smaller. Not a smidgen fewer government personnel than usual overseeing the cooks in the kitchen. Not like ten percent less. Small as in tiny. Tiny by comparison to the usual way of doing business. In the Shuttle program, fifty or a hundred people would have been called “a small team” for a study, for a minor change to the Shuttle (that likely never got implemented anyway.) Eventually, when sending a crew to the ISS using the same commercial approach as for cargo, this would be the scale of the entire NASA team. As we learned in the Shuttle program, in the worst way possible, the more signatures appear on a piece of paper, the less it’s worth.
All this is about setting the stage until the arrival of SpaceX – leading the pack among partners, including Orbital (now Northrop) and Sierra. After all is readied, the show could close on the first night if the performers are dismal. Fortunately, this was not the case. Long before NASA took a risk with a new way of doing business, the space sector business environment was also changing. Know-how had spread, attitudes shifted, and new notions for developing and operating launchers and spacecraft now seemed credible, so worth the risk. Private sector investment saw an opportunity (not only in launch but in entirely new approaches to satellites too – like Planet.) For reasons Europe might also ponder on the success of Arianespace in the 1990s, the performers not only showed up, they wowed the audience.
But back in the lobby after that conference which now feels like a retelling of a curious story during the Ming dynasty, my brain would not tolerate someone else labeling the Space Shuttle as one more inefficient government-run enterprise.
I could do this.
Others in NASA with a shared goal of improvement were also free to speak frankly.
But at that moment, I switched gears to defend the Space Shuttle program – my program – vigorously. We could retrieve satellites and repair them. With teamwork and courage, our resourceful astronauts could grab satellites – with their hands. Jupiter, Venus, and probes and all we accomplished or were going to soon. I may have gone slightly overboard – to judge by the awkward silence that followed. Soon after, I felt I would get a call about the complaint lodged at the French Embassy. In retrospect, this conversation was tame compared to those to come.
The new model Ariane VI pricing is on target to compete well – against yesterday’s rockets, not SpaceX.
Pressing fast forward, today, the new model Ariane VI pricing is on target to compete well – against yesterday’s rockets, not SpaceX.
Report after report encourages Europe to do much as the Americans have – creating an environment for private sector investment in space, simplifying their “complex governance system” (we call that paperwork and meetings), and overall finding and risking capital, public and private. If the formula for success were known, probably there would not be yet another report. The challenge is also out there to offer a path forward for European space – that is legible rather than hundreds of pages of re-stating problems. Making issues less clear by page a hundred and twelve is always a fantastic accomplishment.
It’s easy to sit back and say what goes up must come down – in competitive industries or Earth’s orbit. Adversarial perspectives come straight along, and it’s win or lose and who’s on top. That was me, too, long ago in that lobby. More Zen-like, with time, we might resign ourselves to the swing of the pendulum, compelled but at peace tracking its course.
Or is there more?
Europe and others in the space sector will find their unique paths. There will be no lack of committees, reports, and recommendations. Does this end with an Airbus for every Boeing, or silos of capability, east and west? This seems quaint, linear, and limiting.
In a different ending, everyone is learning from risks, experience, and each other. We should look forward to everyone emulating but also adapting and improving on what others did before. It’s what this vast enterprise to expand human presence beyond Earth just might need to go over the top. Beyond competition, it’s everyone in a learning loop. The attitude over wine at the gathering is the more the merrier. Rather than looking to leave others behind, it’s everyone enjoying moving forward together.
Zapata Talks NASA 