A couple of thoughts from someone that has been on the contractor side of government contracts:1. NASA is already paying exorbitant prices for their hardware, so your logic doesn't hold up.
Don't pat yourself on the back too quickly, because you don't know what the incentive schedule was for the fixed cost plus incentives option.
Unlike a cost-plus contract, [under a cost-plus-incentive fee contract] the cost in excess of the target cost is only partially paid according to a Buyer/Seller ratio, so the seller's profit decreases when exceeding the target cost. Similarly, the seller's profit increases when actual costs are below the target cost defined in the contract.
Quote from: VSECOTSPE on 05/25/2023 08:35 pmPast time to can Free and Jackson…And while you're at it, please show Nelson the door as well. He's in large part responsible for starting the bottomless pit that is SLS.
Past time to can Free and Jackson…
...In any event, from what I have read, the incentives under a cost plus incentive fee contract are incentives to reduce cost, so it is better than a regular cost plus contract. ...
Quote from: yg1968 on 05/26/2023 01:24 amWhy? Most of this pre-dates them.Free became Exploration AA in 9/21. Before Free, BPOC was $199M. Two months after Free, it was $3.2B. And the contract still had undefinitized terms, which remain undefinitized to this day! RS-25 Restart and Production tripled to $3.6B by 6/22. There was another $102M of cost growth and 17 months of schedule slip thru 10/22. IG testified 3/22 that each Orion/SLS thru Artemis IV would be $4.1B. Now barely a year later it’s $144M more just from SLS increases alone. Free’s budget profligacy is a long-standing issue.
Why? Most of this pre-dates them.
It's hard for Free to look good with SLS and Orion as it relates to costs.
But Free's interventions have not all been...
has also been involved with Appendix P
(he was the selecting officer)
and the upcoming LTV
(both services contract).
He also insisted that NASA have more than one base camp which is an improvement.
However, there is room for improvement in determining the contributions of each international partner. It's taking longer than expected to finalize the agreements.
The contract type doesn’t matter if leadership doesn’t have basic development program management chops. Free does not. If he sticks around for years to come, Blue Moon and LTV will augur in, too.
Last I knew, Free stated that they were looking at some camper model — not that he was insisting on one strategy over another.
I disagree, I think that the procurement method makes the results predictable.
I don't think that SLS and Orion will be successes regardless who is the AA because they are not.
Perhaps, Free is to blame for SLS costing $200m more than before but it was already $4.1B before this new IG report came out.
The camper model seems to be out. Free is now saying that the Italian Space Agency will likely be providing 3 separate habitats at different locations in order to have multiple landing locations which helps because of the lighting conditions on the south pole.
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 05/26/2023 05:17 amA couple of thoughts from someone that has been on the contractor side of government contracts:1. NASA is already paying exorbitant prices for their hardware, so your logic doesn't hold up.... For fixed cost to work properly, you need to have competition. If you don't, the sole-source company can ask whatever price that they want (fixed price or not). That is why I said that the whole procurement is flawed. A services procurement with competition would be better.
Quote from: yg1968 on 05/27/2023 01:32 pmI disagree, I think that the procurement method makes the results predictable. Not really. See Starliner.Fixed cost mainly limits the govt’s downside. But bad management at the contractor or agency level will still result in long delays, costly overruns that someone has to eat, and junky hardware.
Quote from: VSECOTSPE on 05/27/2023 01:55 pmQuote from: yg1968 on 05/27/2023 01:32 pmI disagree, I think that the procurement method makes the results predictable. Not really. See Starliner.Fixed cost mainly limits the govt’s downside. But bad management at the contractor or agency level will still result in long delays, costly overruns that someone has to eat, and junky hardware.Despite its problems, Starliner is still a lot better than SLS and Orion. Having said that the Starliner problems does show the importance of having more than one award.
This is why it is hard to have any enthusiasm for the Artemis program as currently structured. No amount of praise for the non-SLS hardware can overcome the shear amount of waste the SLS program is, and will continue to be.
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 05/27/2023 03:51 pmThis is why it is hard to have any enthusiasm for the Artemis program as currently structured. No amount of praise for the non-SLS hardware can overcome the shear amount of waste the SLS program is, and will continue to be. I disagree. I think that the HLS program will do the same to the Moon as commercial crew is doing for LEO.
Create an economy for these destinations by encouraging private non-NASA missions.
The Appendix P award is another step in the right direction in that respect.
You are just repeating NASA PR with the "economy" word. The only economy NASA will ever create with the Artemis program is here on Earth, by feeding money into NASA contractors. You can't create an economy in space until there is an exchange of currency IN SPACE that stays IN SPACE. NASA is not doing that with the Artemis program.
I’m not sure HLS does anything for SX and Starship that SX and Starship weren’t going to do eventually. HLS certainly accelerated Lunar Starship by some years, but I don’t think NASA funding is enabling for Lunar Starship like NASA funding enabled F9/Dragon at a much earlier point in SX history.
Blue is not the dynamic, risk-taking company that SX is, so I think an argument can be made that HLS funding is enabling for Blue Moon. But unlike Starship, Blue Moon is not an end-to-end human transport system. Unless Blue is also funded to develop a crew transport element to lunar orbit (which is probably dependent on Orion/SLS being drawn down), NASA’s investment in Blue Moon doesn’t open up the Moon, even if it is enabling for that lander.
Yeah, I can imagine a crew coming up on a Dreamchaser, transferring to a Blue Lagoon station, and then to a fueled Blue Moon landing stack and vice versa for a round trip to the lunar surface, a la 2001: A Space Odyssey. But that’s just me projecting desires, not reality. Until there’s a plan to do something like that with Blue Moon and that plan is funded, I’d stay skeptical.
Quote from: woods170 on 05/26/2023 08:37 amAnd while you're at it, please show Nelson the door as well. He's in large part responsible for starting the bottomless pit that is SLS.I wish. Senator Administrator Monster Rocket has been an adequate caretaker of what was essentially the Bridenstine plan at exit, i.e., onboard a second lander contractor. But besides publicly grouching about ML-2, he’s done little to improve the survivability of the Artemis Program going forward. And by letting the cancer of Orion/SLS cost growth spread unabated, he’s arguably leaving Artemis in a worse position than when he started. His deputy’s effort on Artemis “goals” (and I use that term loosely) have also not positioned the program well for coming budget battles.
And while you're at it, please show Nelson the door as well. He's in large part responsible for starting the bottomless pit that is SLS.
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 05/28/2023 03:06 amYou are just repeating NASA PR with the "economy" word. The only economy NASA will ever create with the Artemis program is here on Earth, by feeding money into NASA contractors. You can't create an economy in space until there is an exchange of currency IN SPACE that stays IN SPACE. NASA is not doing that with the Artemis program.An economy isn't defined by where money is exchanged......https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy
As to the RS-25 and SRMs, and the very clear evidence that the contractors are milking the U.S. Taxpayer, does anyone think Congress will care? That this will be a "straw", to be added to the many that could eventually lead to a "last straw" for the SLS?