Of the three bidders Boeing “has the best management approach, with very comprehensive and integrated program management, and an effective organizational structure, further ensuring they will be able to accomplish the technical work in a manner that meets NASA’s standards.”
brovane mentioned this quote from the leaked source selection document:QuoteOf the three bidders Boeing “has the best management approach, with very comprehensive and integrated program management, and an effective organizational structure, further ensuring they will be able to accomplish the technical work in a manner that meets NASA’s standards.”This is ultimately the fundamental justification for selecting Boeing. The Boeing program management culture will mean NASA can do its job vis-a-vis CST more easily than it can for the other offerers.
Essentially why the upstart newcomers barely had a chance, and we might as well have avoided the time wasting charade and awarded Boeing a cost-plus contract years ago. The whole "commercial crew" thing was largely a farce.
Discussing costs, Gerstenmaier says that “although SNC’s price is lower than Boeing’s price, its technical and management approaches and its past performance are not as high and I see considerably more schedule risk with its proposal. Both SNC and SpaceX had high past performance, and very good technical and management approaches, but SNC’s price is significantly higher than SpaceX’s price.”
NASA has to get something ready by 2017 which means they cannot take a chance and select two upstarts and have them both fail. Now if SpaceX falls on it's face Boeing is their as old reliable. Not saying that SpaceX but it has to be in the back of some people's mind at NASA. So with the contest down to Boeing and whoever else SNC coulnd't beat SpaceX so they lost.
Commenting on the two winning capsule concepts, Gerstenmaier clearly singles out the Boeing design for most praise, being “the strongest of all three proposals in both mission suitability and past performance. Boeing’s system offers the most useful inherent capabilities for operational flexibility in trading cargo and crew for individual missions. It is also based on a spacecraft design that is fairly mature in design.” He also points to Boeing’s “well-defined plan for addressing the specific issues from Phase 1,” and says of the three bidders Boeing “has the best management approach, with very comprehensive and integrated program management, and an effective organizational structure, further ensuring they will be able to accomplish the technical work in a manner that meets NASA’s standards.” Phase 1, the Certification Products Contract (CPC), covered hazard reports, plans for verification, validation and certification.
If this is their actual reasoning, then we can expect SNC to win their case.This is simply not what the solicitation described, and they're required to maintain consistency between the selection criteria given in the solicitation and the selection criteria actually applied.
“I consider Boeing’s superior proposal, with regard to both its technical and management approach and its past performance, to be worth the additional price in comparison to the SNC proposal.”
Quote from: brovane on 10/13/2014 04:41 pmQuote from: AncientU on 10/13/2014 04:34 pmIsn't/wasn't 2016 the target date for NASA/LM/Boeing to deliver IOC for SLS/Orion?Maybe SpaceX picking up human space flight responsibilities isn't needed, then...Orion first crew flight isn't scheduled until around 2021. Orion isn't a backup to the Commercial crew contract. It was supposed to be. That's how badly NASA completely screwed it up - royally.
Quote from: AncientU on 10/13/2014 04:34 pmIsn't/wasn't 2016 the target date for NASA/LM/Boeing to deliver IOC for SLS/Orion?Maybe SpaceX picking up human space flight responsibilities isn't needed, then...Orion first crew flight isn't scheduled until around 2021. Orion isn't a backup to the Commercial crew contract.
Isn't/wasn't 2016 the target date for NASA/LM/Boeing to deliver IOC for SLS/Orion?Maybe SpaceX picking up human space flight responsibilities isn't needed, then...
Quote from: clongton on 10/13/2014 04:45 pmQuote from: brovane on 10/13/2014 04:41 pmQuote from: AncientU on 10/13/2014 04:34 pmIsn't/wasn't 2016 the target date for NASA/LM/Boeing to deliver IOC for SLS/Orion?Maybe SpaceX picking up human space flight responsibilities isn't needed, then...Orion first crew flight isn't scheduled until around 2021. Orion isn't a backup to the Commercial crew contract. It was supposed to be. That's how badly NASA completely screwed it up - royally.Nope - can't blame NASA really for that - I think that is pretty squarely on congress.
It seems to me that if NASA cannot tolerate additional technical and schedule risk, the entire commercial crew program was completely unjustified.
Could we not have arrived at the obvious "safe" solution years ago by awarding Boeing a traditional cost-plus contract? I don't even see this as having put any cost pressure on Boeing, given the disparity between its award and the award that went to SpaceX. Again, the whole thing seems like a time and money wasting charade to me, and I feel like we're throwing away most of the long-term potential that investing in the upstarts provided.
Again, the whole thing seems like a time and money wasting charade to me, and I feel like we're throwing away most of the long-term potential that investing in the upstarts provided in order to meet a short-term mission requirement.
What says SNC has long-term potential?
Quote from: vt_hokie on 10/13/2014 11:42 pmIt seems to me that if NASA cannot tolerate additional technical and schedule risk, the entire commercial crew program was completely unjustified. How are you drawing that conclusion? The entire commercial crew program has stimulated a lot of new development. If you just look at the Commercial Orbit Transportation Services program for the investment of $800 Million in money the US has two new launch vehicles and to cargo spacecraft. Quote from: vt_hokie on 10/13/2014 11:42 pmCould we not have arrived at the obvious "safe" solution years ago by awarding Boeing a traditional cost-plus contract? I don't even see this as having put any cost pressure on Boeing, given the disparity between its award and the award that went to SpaceX. Again, the whole thing seems like a time and money wasting charade to me, and I feel like we're throwing away most of the long-term potential that investing in the upstarts provided. We could have arrived at a obvious "safe" solution years ago if Congress was willing to fund the development of both Orion Capsule and a Earth Orbit capsule at the same time. How are we throwing away the long term potential in the investment in the upstarts? SpaceX has had remarkable success and is bringing commercial launch services back to US shores.
Or is there a real possibility that this will get cut in half too.
TBH I was shocked at the high amounts awarded to both Boeing and SpaceX,
Quote from: Roy_H on 10/14/2014 12:53 amOr is there a real possibility that this will get cut in half too.It's an almost certainty.