Quote from: A_M_Swallow on 08/07/2015 03:40 pmQuote from: Rocket Science on 08/07/2015 01:04 pmCongress still hasn't given up on Orion at ISS no matter what the cost or wasteful overkill...In which case NASA should give Congress what it wants, propose EFT-2 a manned test flight to the ISS to test the Orion's Docking port and docking navigation aids in 2022. This repeat of the Commercial Crew test flights will verify that Orion can dock with the docking port on the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM) spacecraft.I mostly agree, except that if such a notional EFT-2 goes up on D-IVH, it will have to be unmanned. As impressive as it is, D-IVH is not a human-rated launcher.NASA should definitely give Congress what it wants, Orion at ISS, in order to rebuild trust with Congress. The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 is still the law of record, and it mandates this capability. NASA's defiance on this issue is not winning it any friends on either the Authorization or Appropriations committees.Mark S.
Quote from: Rocket Science on 08/07/2015 01:04 pmCongress still hasn't given up on Orion at ISS no matter what the cost or wasteful overkill...In which case NASA should give Congress what it wants, propose EFT-2 a manned test flight to the ISS to test the Orion's Docking port and docking navigation aids in 2022. This repeat of the Commercial Crew test flights will verify that Orion can dock with the docking port on the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM) spacecraft.
Congress still hasn't given up on Orion at ISS no matter what the cost or wasteful overkill...
If a down select occurred on commercial crew to one provider and NASA wanted to mitigate some risk. Would it be possible for NASA to mandate that the provider would have to show the ability to fly on the other bidder's launch vehicle? IE if Boeing was selected they would have to design the CST-100 to have the ability to mate and fly on the Atlas-V and the Falcon 9, vice versa if SpaceX was selected. Since it seems that a large part of risk in a crewed vehicle is during launch. This removes the dependency on a single launch vehicle for Commercial crew while not having to pay to develop two capsules.
Quote from: brovane on 08/10/2015 02:53 pmIf a down select occurred on commercial crew to one provider and NASA wanted to mitigate some risk. Would it be possible for NASA to mandate that the provider would have to show the ability to fly on the other bidder's launch vehicle? IE if Boeing was selected they would have to design the CST-100 to have the ability to mate and fly on the Atlas-V and the Falcon 9, vice versa if SpaceX was selected. Since it seems that a large part of risk in a crewed vehicle is during launch. This removes the dependency on a single launch vehicle for Commercial crew while not having to pay to develop two capsules. Possibly but NASA will also want capsule redundancy.
Quote from: A_M_Swallow on 08/10/2015 04:34 pmQuote from: brovane on 08/10/2015 02:53 pmIf a down select occurred on commercial crew to one provider and NASA wanted to mitigate some risk. Would it be possible for NASA to mandate that the provider would have to show the ability to fly on the other bidder's launch vehicle? IE if Boeing was selected they would have to design the CST-100 to have the ability to mate and fly on the Atlas-V and the Falcon 9, vice versa if SpaceX was selected. Since it seems that a large part of risk in a crewed vehicle is during launch. This removes the dependency on a single launch vehicle for Commercial crew while not having to pay to develop two capsules. Possibly but NASA will also want capsule redundancy.Sometimes you have to compromise.
Quote from: brovane on 08/10/2015 04:50 pmQuote from: A_M_Swallow on 08/10/2015 04:34 pmQuote from: brovane on 08/10/2015 02:53 pmIf a down select occurred on commercial crew to one provider and NASA wanted to mitigate some risk. Would it be possible for NASA to mandate that the provider would have to show the ability to fly on the other bidder's launch vehicle? IE if Boeing was selected they would have to design the CST-100 to have the ability to mate and fly on the Atlas-V and the Falcon 9, vice versa if SpaceX was selected. Since it seems that a large part of risk in a crewed vehicle is during launch. This removes the dependency on a single launch vehicle for Commercial crew while not having to pay to develop two capsules. Possibly but NASA will also want capsule redundancy.Sometimes you have to compromise.Another comprimise is to stick to two providers and continue using Soyuz for a longer period of time. It is also the most likely scenario given that CCtCap contracts have already been awarded.
Why do we need to buy seats for 2018 Soyuz seats at all? With an additional $490 available, it should not be too difficult for CCP to start rotating crews sometime in 2018. NASA is required to have a continuous presence on the ISS. Perhaps NASA could close the gap through long endurance missions.If I'm not mistaken, NASA/ESA/JAXA/CSA has selected crews and backup crews through the Soyuz launch scheduled for May 2017. Prior to this contract extension, NASA agreed to buy seats through the end of 2017. That leaves one astronaut going up in September 2017 and two in November according to the planned pattern of launches in 2016 as I understand it.We currently have a cosmonaut and an astronaut on a year-long mission and several cosmonauts have pulled it off on the Mir, including Valeri Polyakov who spent 14 months up there. So perhaps they could select three astronauts that can handle a long endurance mission, just in case, as they selected Scott Kelly. Could Congress simply chose not to pay for the 2018 Soyuz contract? Would there be some kind of legal contract cancellation fee?
The text of the CJS bill can be found here (NASA starts on page 39 of the PDF or 26 of the document):http://docs.house.gov/meetings/RU/RU00/20151216/104298/HMTG-114-RU00-20151216-SD003.pdfDivision B:https://rules.house.gov/bill/114/hr-2029-sa
Commercial crew is fully funded at $1.2438B!