Thursday, September 24, 2009
X-PRIZES - FREEDOM OF INFORMATION QUERY ON WHETHER THE GOVERNMENT HAVE EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT IT - go on, guess
I blogged previously about how the British national Space Centre, by putting almost all their budget into ESA rather than X-Prizes were breaching their own charter which mandates their duty as to "..help industry maximise profitable space based business opportunities".
Following that I put in a Freedom of Information query on what steps they taken to evaluate X-Prizes against donating to ESA for maximising assistance to industry.
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The 12th Special Report to the commons on space states that a major part of the legal duty of the British National Space Centre is to "help industry maximise profitable space based business opportunities". I note that the BNSC has decided to give almost all of its money (£268 million a year) to ESA.
I wish to make an FoI enquiry to see what investigation was made to see if putting up an X-Prize for a British commercial shuttle would be unlikely to do as much to "maximise profitable space based opportunities" per £ invested as putting the same into ESA.
According to Dr Jerry Pournelle
"I am rapidly reaching a conclusion, confirmed by a number of those in the rocket entrepreneurial community, and also several Pentagon people: if we stay outside NASA, the technology exists to build a reusable orbiter for under a billion dollars; probably far less than a billion.
This could be done by prizes, and at the moment there are two prize schemes to consider: a single prize of $1 billion, or a first and second prize of $500,000,000 for first and $250,000,000 for second. The notion of a second prize is intriguing but harder to sell. A second insures that more than one firm can raise capital to compete."
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2008/Q3/view532.html#Tuesday
Thus for £470 (amortised as £160 million a year over 3 years) any developed nation could have a commercial reusable shuttle that would "operate as airlines do" & cost "about what big commercial airlines cost."
If it didn't the prize money would not be won which would obviously negate any argument that this option wasn't providing value for money. I note that Parliament has been told that such maximisation is one of BNSC's formal duties & assume this is a legal part of your remit. That means that you must, as a legal duty, have long since fully investigated this method of carrying out that duty.
I am extremely surprised that you have decided that better value for money will be achieved by Britain funding ESA, which implies that, purely because of the British contribution, ESA will in under 3 years, be providing a business opportunity of having commercial daily flights to orbit or equivalent. Personally I doubt if ESA will achieve that in 3 years, or 6 or 9 or longer, let alone that British money will provide the tipping bonus, but I certainly hope I am proven wrong.
. Hence I would like to read the report deciding this.
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Disappointingly but unsurprisingly the answer was no investigation whatsoever:
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The link provided gives a 10 question form for suggestions to BSNC. All but the first 2 are designed to ask how any pro[posed change would do exactly the same as the current programme & together fit, like a jigsaw around the policy of funding ESA so that any alternative has to fit into the same jigsaw shaped hole. Nonetheless X-Prizes are so much better than blowing £268 million annually on an ESA that does nothing that it is still clearly better & I am making a submission which I will also put on the blog.
This is the pdf of the government's consultation document.
There is also this detailing UK Civil Space Strategy 2008-2012 which has lots of pretty pictures of Earth from orbit.
Following that I put in a Freedom of Information query on what steps they taken to evaluate X-Prizes against donating to ESA for maximising assistance to industry.
##############################
The 12th Special Report to the commons on space states that a major part of the legal duty of the British National Space Centre is to "help industry maximise profitable space based business opportunities". I note that the BNSC has decided to give almost all of its money (£268 million a year) to ESA.
I wish to make an FoI enquiry to see what investigation was made to see if putting up an X-Prize for a British commercial shuttle would be unlikely to do as much to "maximise profitable space based opportunities" per £ invested as putting the same into ESA.
According to Dr Jerry Pournelle
"I am rapidly reaching a conclusion, confirmed by a number of those in the rocket entrepreneurial community, and also several Pentagon people: if we stay outside NASA, the technology exists to build a reusable orbiter for under a billion dollars; probably far less than a billion.
This could be done by prizes, and at the moment there are two prize schemes to consider: a single prize of $1 billion, or a first and second prize of $500,000,000 for first and $250,000,000 for second. The notion of a second prize is intriguing but harder to sell. A second insures that more than one firm can raise capital to compete."
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2008/Q3/view532.html#Tuesday
Thus for £470 (amortised as £160 million a year over 3 years) any developed nation could have a commercial reusable shuttle that would "operate as airlines do" & cost "about what big commercial airlines cost."
If it didn't the prize money would not be won which would obviously negate any argument that this option wasn't providing value for money. I note that Parliament has been told that such maximisation is one of BNSC's formal duties & assume this is a legal part of your remit. That means that you must, as a legal duty, have long since fully investigated this method of carrying out that duty.
I am extremely surprised that you have decided that better value for money will be achieved by Britain funding ESA, which implies that, purely because of the British contribution, ESA will in under 3 years, be providing a business opportunity of having commercial daily flights to orbit or equivalent. Personally I doubt if ESA will achieve that in 3 years, or 6 or 9 or longer, let alone that British money will provide the tipping bonus, but I certainly hope I am proven wrong.
. Hence I would like to read the report deciding this.
################################
Disappointingly but unsurprisingly the answer was no investigation whatsoever:
Following a search of the Department's records and files, I can confirm that to this date no such "investigation to see if putting up an X-Prize for a British commercial shuttle would be unlikely to do as much to "maximise profitable space based opportunities" per £ invested as putting the same into ESA" has been undertaken. Nor have we conducted any study that considers similar issues, consequently the Department does not hold the information you seek.
...BNSC are currently conducting a consultation into the funding and management of United Kingdom civil space activities. If you would like to input your views please go to http://www.bnsc.gov.uk/consultations/main.aspx?id=1.
#################################
The link provided gives a 10 question form for suggestions to BSNC. All but the first 2 are designed to ask how any pro[posed change would do exactly the same as the current programme & together fit, like a jigsaw around the policy of funding ESA so that any alternative has to fit into the same jigsaw shaped hole. Nonetheless X-Prizes are so much better than blowing £268 million annually on an ESA that does nothing that it is still clearly better & I am making a submission which I will also put on the blog.
This is the pdf of the government's consultation document.
There is also this detailing UK Civil Space Strategy 2008-2012 which has lots of pretty pictures of Earth from orbit.
