Back in my physics days I enjoyed attending the weekly colloquia in which speakers, usually from outside the school or lab, would come to talk about exciting science and engineering projects. (The free doughnuts at the receptions prior to the talks had absolutely nothing to do with my showing up...) A presentation would usually include lots of illuminating Q&A. It was not so uncommon, though, that mid-way, or perhaps even five minutes into the talk, someone in the audience would vehemently poise a question in a way that implied that there was, in fact, a profound mistake in the whole enterprise. The questioner was sure that he or she had spotted a fatal flaw even when perhaps hundreds of people had worked on the project for years. Typically, the presenter would patiently respond in one of two ways: (1) yes, the questioner had raised an important issue but the team was well aware of it and had developed several ways to handle it; (2) no, it was a misunderstanding on the questioner's part and the presenter would explain why.

I thought about this when reading Asking the tough questions by Eric R. Hedman in today's Space Review. He raises many interesting questions for SpaceDev and other alt.space rocket companies. If I visited such a company, it would certainly be great fun to do a Q&A with them and learn a lot about what they are doing. However, it would be preposterous for me to think that I could sit back and come up with a bunch of questions that they had never thought of and would reveal fatal flaws in their projects.

Here are a few thoughts on the credibility of the entrepreneurial space transport companies and on the proposition that they can carry out major projects at a substantial discount to what NASA and its major contractors can offer:

* I recently spoke with the head of an "alt.space" company who told me that his project had just passed a critical design review. This followed a preliminary design review that took place about a year prior. These reviews involve a panel of several outside experts who come in and spend a day or two grilling the team over every aspect of the system. They don't just ask tough questions, they ask excruciating questions, and if they don't get satisfactory answers, they don't sign off on the design. The company had spent the time between the PDR and CDR fixing all the problems highlighted by the PDR. This was a serious process carried out by engineers who are meticulous about their work.

* The day when an entrepreneurial space company necessarily involves a handful of hobbyists, a few wild-eyed schemers, and a gullible investor or two are long gone. The leading startups hire first rate, highly experienced engineers who typically have worked at the big mainstream aerospace companies and/or at NASA. The companies want to maintain small but very highly productive teams. To do that, they hire the best people they can find. Six figure salaries for such people are not unusual.

* Recently, the startup company AirLaunch LLC won a large phase two grant in a major DARPA program that included Lockheed-Martin as a competitor. (SpaceX also won a grant in the same program.) I dare say that DARPA's proposal review committee ask many, many tough questions and at the end of the day, the startup had the best answers. Other startups have won other competitive grants.

* It would be interesting to hear former NASA Comptroller Peterson explain why projects like the Lunar Prospector and DC-X successfully achieved their goals while costing 5 to 10 times less than similar projects that were carried out in the standard management/procurement style of NASA and the aerospace industry. I would like to hear him refute the common belief that the SpaceShipOne project would have cost at least 10 to 20 times more if it had been carried out by NASA or via a contract with a major aerospace company.

* I don't know about SpaceDev's plan for the Dream Chaser (which, by the way, was created in cooperation with NASA) but t/Space has never asked that it get one big $500M cost-plus contract and then go out and build its CEV system. Rather, they propose to be paid on a fixed price contract basis and only as they accomplish each goal in a series of explicit milestones.

Finally, I should emphasize that no matter how good are the engineers or the management in these companies, or how they structure their proposals, we will still see alt.space companies fail. There are always a million things that can go wrong. However, the credibility and capabilities of the alt.space companies are growing and we will see them make progress. If they can't get COTS or CEV contracts, then they will just do their thing via private capital. At least in that case they only have to answer the tough questions coming from their investors.