Elon Musk, founder, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of SpaceX, the entrepreneurial space transportation company, took on skeptics today, releasing details of how much the company has spent and how much it charges for its services. The information was provided in response to “a steady stream of misinformation and doubt expressed about SpaceX’s actual launch costs and prices,” according to his post on the SpaceX website.

He stated, for example, that the company has a firm fixed price contract with NASA for 12 cargo flights to the International Space Station (ISS) at an average price of $115 million each (or $133 million including inflation), including the Falcon 9 launch, Dragon spacecraft, all operations, maintenance, and overhead.

As for sending NASA crews to the ISS, Musk stated that his Dragon capsule can carry seven people “more than double the capacity of the Russian Soyuz, but at less than a third of the price per seat.” An often quoted figure for what NASA is currently paying Russia per seat is $51 million. The Soyuz can launch three people. It is not clear if Musk’s price per seat holds if there are fewer than seven passengers aboard.

Comparing the SpaceX and Russian prices is challenging since the services the two provide are different. NASA recently signed a new firm fixed price agreement with Russia covering 2014-2016, for example, for “crew transportation, rescue and related services” for $753 million. That covers “comprehensive Soyuz support, including all necessary training and preparation for launch, flight operations, landing and crew rescue of long-duration missions for 12 individual space station crew members.” If the $753 million were only for taking crews back and forth, it would be $63 million per astronaut, but the “crew rescue” service is separate from crew transportation. NASA did not differentiate the prices. Crew rescue is essentially a lifeboat function Russia provides by having sufficient Soyuz spacecraft always docked to the International Space Station (ISS) so all members of the crew can escape in an emergency. SpaceX does not appear to offer a comparable service and it also is not clear if SpaceX’s price includes training. Thus, an apples-to-apples comparison is difficult to make.

Musk provided other price details and said his company spent “less than $800 million” from when it was founded in 2002 through fiscal year 2010, including all the development costs for its two launch vehicles, Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, and the Dragon spacecraft. He also said the company has been profitable every year since 2007.

He wrapped his statement in a cloak of competition with China, stating that a Chinese official said last month that SpaceX currently has the best launch prices in the world and the Chinese official does not believe China can beat those prices. Musk then asserted that “China has the fastest growing economy in the world. But the American free enterprise system, which allows anyone with a better mouse-trap to compete, is what will ensure that the United States remains the world’s greatest superpower of innovation.”

SpaceX also recently announced that it would build a heavy lift launch vehicle (HLLV). Calling it “Falcon Heavy,” Musk proclaimed that it would be the largest launch vehicle in history other than NASA’s Saturn V, which was used to send the Apollo capsules to the Moon. He expects the vehicle to be ready for launch in 2013 or 2014, and capable of lifting 117,000 pounds to orbit, twice the capability of the Delta IV, currently the most capable U.S. expendable launch vehicle. (The reusable space shuttle is more capable, but is being terminated.) Musk said that his Falcon Heavy would cost about $1,000 per pound to orbit, which he claims is one-third the cost of a Delta IV based on figures in the Air Force’s FY2012 budget request.

The House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee will hold a hearing next Thursday, May 5, on the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation. George Nield, director of the office, will be one of the witnesses; others have not yet been announced.

Nield’s office is responsible for facilitating and regulating the commercial space launch industry, so is as much in the forefront of the debate over commercial crew as is NASA. Companies wanting to transport people either on suborbital or orbital flights need a license from this office both for launch and reentry.

The office was formally established in the 1984 Commercial Space Transportation Act. That Act and its amendments in 1988 and 2004, and the 1998 Commercial Space Act, set the legal framework for the commercial space launch business. (Link to those laws from our “Space Law” section.) Its activities are authorized by the House Science, Space and Technology Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

The office is somewhat unusual because of its legislated mandate to both facilitate and regulate the industry. Some see those as potentially contradictory responsibilities.

NASA will hold a media teleconference with the winners of the Commercial Crew Development round 2 (CCDev2) competition tomorrow, April 28, at 11:00 am EDT at Kennedy Space Center, FL. The event will be telecast live on NASA TV.

The four companies that won CCDev2 contracts and that will be represented at the briefing are: Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada, SpaceX, and The Boeing Company. For more details, see NASA’s press release.

NASA announced today four new Space Act Agreements with Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada, SpaceX and Boeing in the second round of its Commercial Crew Development (CCDev2) competition. The awards total $269.3 million.

The goal of the CCDev program is for the government to facilitate the commercial development of spacecraft and launch vehicles to take astronauts to and from low Earth orbit (LEO), including the International Space Station (ISS). Instead of NASA contracting for and overseeing these development efforts, it is providing some funding while the companies are expected to provide the rest of the funds themselves — so-called “skin in the game.” Eventually NASA would buy crew transportation services from any successful companies, who presumably would be offering crew space transportation to other customers as well.

The debate over whether NASA should rely on commercial companies for LEO crew transportation has been and remains a subject of intense debate in space policy circles.

NASA hopes at least two companies will succeed so it can benefit from pricing competition and also have a backup if one of the systems fails and is grounded for a lengthy period of time.

The awards today are as follows:

— Blue Origin, Kent, Wash., $22 million
— Sierra Nevada Corporation, Louisville, Colo., $80 million
— Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), Hawthorne, Calif., $75 million
— The Boeing Company, Houston, $92.3 million

Brett Alexander, who has led the Commercial Spaceflight Federation as the Obama Administration embraced commercial crew as the solution to transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station, is stepping down. He will be succeeded by Rear Admiral Craig Steidle (Ret.) as President of the Federation.

Alexander is a well known and respected member of the space policy community who, among other things, worked for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations. He was one of the key participants in shaping President Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration (VSE), announced by the President in January 2004.

Adm. Steidle was the first NASA Associate Administrator for the “exploration” mandate following the VSE speech. Appointed by then-NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe immediately after the speech, Steidle had won kudos for his management of DOD’s Joint Strike Fighter program. His expertise in managing large, complex, technologically-challenging military government programs was cited as a particular strength. He left the agency soon after O’Keefe in mid 2005 and is currently a distinguished visiting professor at his alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy, and a consultant since then.

Steidle assumes the position of President of the Federation on May 15.

In a statement, Federation Chairman Eric Anderson praised Steidle as a “true visionary who knows that commercial spaceflight is the key to unlocking humanity’s future in space.”

NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program took another step forward today with the inauguration of a new facility at NASA’s Wallops Island, VA launch facility.

Orbital Sciences Corp., based in Dulles, VA, is one of the two companies vying to provide commercial services to NASA for taking cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the COTS program. While most media attention has been focused on Orbital’s COTS competitor SpaceX, Orbital has been moving along with development of its Taurus II launch vehicle which it plans to launch from Wallops.

Located off the southern portion of the so-called Delmarva (Delaware-Maryland-Virginia) Penisula along the Atlantic Ocean east of Washington, DC, Wallops has been the site of many suborbital and some orbital launches throughout its long history. A portion of the facility is now called the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden presided over a ribbon-cutting ceremony at its new Horizontal Integration Facility that will be used for the Taurus II.

Bolden referred to the “tough mission schedules” facing COTS as the space shuttle program comes to an end and NASA loses the shuttle’s significant cargo-carrying capacity. The first Taurus II launch is expected this fall.

Wallops is located in Virginia, but is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski (D), a strong NASA supporter, praised the effort for bringing “jobs, jobs and more jobs to the Lower Shore — jobs for today and jobs for tomorrow.”

ATK and Europe’s Astrium have announced that they will team to build a new commercial rocket to compete for the commercial crew launch business. Called “Liberty,” the rocket will build on the work ATK has been doing for NASA’s Ares I.

Ares I is part of NASA’s Constellation program that is on its way to being cancelled as soon as Congress passes an appropriations bill that lifts an existing congressional prohibition on terminating the program or beginning a new one. Liberty will use the solid rocket motors ATK was developing for Ares I paired with the first stage of Europe’s Ariane rocket, which is built by Astrium. The rocket would be able to lift 44,500 pounds to low Earth orbit with a first launch at the end of 2013, a second test flight in 2015, and operational status is 2015, according to the press release.

Kenneth Chang at the New York Times has an article today about commercial crew that focuses on Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser effort. It also mentions what Boeing, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences are doing, but the article is mostly about the origin of the Dream Chaser design and Michael Sirangelo’s optimism about what it will take to finish development — “less than $1 billion” that would lead to an orbital test flight in three years. Sirangelo is chairman of Sierra Nevada.

One interesting quote in the article is attributed to an unspecified Senate staffer who says “They’re not getting $6 billion over six years for commercial crew. That’s never going to happen.” The staffer reportedly estimates that they will get half that much. President Obama proposed $6 billion over five years in his FY2011 budget request. The 2010 NASA authorization act covers three of those years, FY2011-2013, and authorizes a total of approximately $1.3 billion. How much the President will request for FY2012 and FY2013 and how much Congress will appropriate for any of those years remains to be seen.

NASA Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) Associate Administrator Doug Cooke signed out the Commercial Crew Transportation Certification Requirements for NASA Low Earth Orbit Missions on December 9, as revealed by Keith Cowing on NASAWatch yesterday. According to the document, any commercial crew system used for NASA astronauts will be “approximately an order of magntiude safer than the Space Shuttle for ascent plus reentry.”

The document lays out NASA’s overall philosophy as follows:

1.1 Philosophy

Protecting the health and safety of humans is of paramount importance for those involved in or exposed to space activities. For NASA, safety is a core value, and NASA recognizes that there can be no successful missions without first ensuring the safety of all personnel including the public, crew, passengers, and ground personnel. A crew transport capability that meets the safety requirements in this document will be approximately an order of magnitude safer than the Space Shuttle for ascent plus entry. The overall mission risk requirement will depend on the specific Design Reference Mission (DRM.)

The choice of verb is significant. The document has a section that explains what NASA means by “shall,” “will,” and “should”:

1.3 Verb Application

Statements containing “shall” are used for binding requirements that must be verified and have an accompanying method of verification; “will” is used as a statement of fact, declaration of purpose, or expected occurrence; and “should” denotes a statement of best practice.

The requirement for new systems to be approximately an order of magnitude safer than the shuttle therefore is a “statement of fact, declaration of purpose, or expected occurrence” rather than a “binding requirement.” The degree of safety required can have a significant impact on a system’s cost, and one of the major aspects of the debate over commercial crew is whether commercial systems will be as safe as a government-developed system.

If one follows the links on NASAWatch/SpaceRef, the full document can be found on this NASA website.

The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO’s) latest report on the U.S. export control system congratulates agencies for changes already made in reducing the time needed to process licenses and coordinating across multiple agencies, but cautions that challenges remain.

The report makes no new recommendations, but assesses how agencies responded to previous GAO advice. Among the remaining challenges it identifies are developing metrics for determining the effectiveness of the arms export control system, reaching interagency agreement on which items need to be controlled, and obtaining congressional approval for implementing reforms.

One particularly interesting statistic GAO cites is that in September 2010, the State Department had an average processing time of 15 calendar days for export control licenses, down from 43 days in 2006. Also, the number of pending cases is down to 10,000 from 3,500 even though the number of applications has grown by 20 percent annually.