Evolution of NASA’s views on commercial space

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Nothing succeeds like success?

https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/1624152460288745482

A tale of four administrators: Mike Griffin, Charlie Bolden, Jim Bridenstine and BILL FREAKING NELSON.

COMMERCIAL SPACE IS REALLY JUST A NAME FOR A DIFFERENT GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT METHOD

THE FALCON 9 HEAVY MAY SOME DAY COME ABOUT ITS ON THE DRAWING BOARD
RIGHT NOW. SLS IS REAL

NASA EXPECTS THE SAME LEVEL OF ENTHUSIASM FOCUSED ON THE INVESTMENTS OF THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER. IT’S TIME TO DELIVER

SPACEX’S SUCCESS IS NASA’S SUCCESS IS THE WORLD'S SUCCESS

twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/1624153357202911238

Griffin is the one that confounds me. He invented cargo and crew and then turned on it with prejudice.

https://twitter.com/jeffgreason/status/1624163554650644486

The obvious explanation: he wanted to kill ISS and political forces opposed that.  So by making it dependent on a commercial supplier with impossible conditions like "you have to make a new rocket", it would surely fail, and ISS with it.  Except ...

twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/1624165178551017472

That’s wild. Thank you.

https://twitter.com/jeffgreason/status/1624165847420882945

Ask yourself "how easy would it have been to do something like Cygnus but on Atlas V?"   And there were companies lining up to do just that.  But then the rules specified "Oh, you have to build a whole new rocket to apply...."

[Eagandale4114]

Assuming Griffin had killed ISS what was his plan?

[JayWee]

Assuming Griffin had killed ISS what was his plan?

Spend it all on Consternation.

[JohnFornaro]

Assuming Griffin had killed ISS what was his plan?

Spend it all on Consternation.

Consternation.  Points awarded.

[Jimmy Murdok]

I´m a bit annoyed at the little info we are lately receiving on the commercial NASA civilian programs: HLS landers, DragonXL... those programs are being developed mostly with public funding and several of them do not have clients beyond NASA. I think the public should have the right to access certain ammount of information of the program beyond a single render and not even an architecture roadmap

Disclaimer:
I´m a European paying my taxes in Europe, that said, we complained when the images from Rosetta main camera OSIRIS were kidnapped and not release to the public. We payed for that camera, and missions scientists had priority to a certain extent, but all the headlines of the mission were done based on the navcam inferior images. By the time we had access to the proper OSIRIS images, the public main public had already moved on eg: https://danielmarin.naukas.com/2015/12/13/mas-vale-tarde-que-nunca/

Core:
I´m a fan of the NASA commercial initiative since the early COTS to the ISS that enabled SpaceX to flourish and provided the notable Cygnus and Antares for a very competitive price. At that time, we had good information of the project, there were infographics, dimensions, technical documentation capabilities videos... We would see articles describing the features of one option against the other one, discuss which one has a better chance of succeeding. They were private projects so there was less information but as public funded projects, the public stayed engaged and could follow the objectives and development and understand where the money was spent.

With the commercial crewed program we still had some decent info. The CST100, Dreamchaser and Dragon 2 competition was fierce, Elon presented on a big mockup, the CST renders were there and the Dreamchaser was being dropped from helicopters. That said, today we don´t have official numbers about the weight of the crewed Dragon and there is a bunch of non critical missing information that would not hurt to have available for the public. And I´m not asking about information that would enable other countries to copy key tech.

I feel that lately we know very little of core and expensive NASA commercial projects. Kids used to grow with books about the Apolo program, the Space Shuttle... including graphics, technical data... 3d infographic posters hanging from teenager rooms were common. In general the public that was paying for those programs (and all humankind) had the chance of following and rooting for their favourite programs be it the Hubble, the STS, the ISS or the Venture Star.

Right now Blue Origin (+ National Team V2) has won the HLS 2nd option program which will land humans on the Moon!!! One of the most important feats of astronautics, aiming to land on the south pole... and I don´t even know the diameter of the hab module, we don´t have any basic information on the architecture like how many launches they will need to do a mission. Size, volume, amount of crew, pictures of the exterior and the interiors from few angles, a CONOPS video, some technical data...

It´s been similar for the SpaceX HLS, we have a couple of renders and few stolen pictures of the elevator. Twitter screamed few days ago, because someone from NASA took a picture near the Starship HLS simulator and there was a crappy reflection on a screen where we ohhh lucky "aficionados" could see some little details of the UI. People cropped, modifed and enhanced to try to get some basic details because there was basically no info...

The DragonXL program provided one single render and barebones information. And the new space suites were also released with barebones info though at least you could se a guy in them.

I don´t know if I should root for the new HLS decision or I still preferred the Dynetics one; because with such level of lack of information I don´t even have an opinion to know if what yesterday got presented is something that I like or not.

If NASA awards 3.4 billion to a company to do a national (humankind) decade civil key feat. Where taxpayers are paying big part of the project and basically NASA is the only customer for it. Shouldn´t they enforce some good public information and a proper media release? Show the progress that is being made so the public stays engaged on those public science programs?

The companies already do get very good conditions: NASA pays for big part of the development and mission and instead of request exclusive services, they root for commercialization, which is fantastic. And several cases, the billionaires behind it get their massive doses of public attention about their feats which are partially public funded. They will have their chances of presenting the spacecrafts and throw some thunders about how amazing their companies are. But NASA should be able to present those public programs in good conditions.
 
NASA is an amazing communication agency. Far better than ESA and any other space agency, I understand that the rules for commercial space are different. And I love how much is being accomplished under this public/private partnerships. But I lately find that from a communication perspective, commercial programs are lately treated too much like pure private space program instead of acknowledging the public funded space programs that they are. NASA is paying to land several astronauts on the moon in this decade and we are missing basic history and information behind this fantastic endeavour.

[Robotbeat]

Blame the overzealous/underzealous legal department of NASA (and Congress). Everything is basically ITAR until proven innocent, and if it’s not ITAR it’s considered proprietary and NASA will never release anything considered by a company to be proprietary without asking them first, and many of the people doing this have little incentive to actually go through that whole process.

I actually agree how annoying it is. And it’s not just commercial crew and such but SLS/Orion/etc, although at least there, NASA has more incentive to brag about it.

I hate it. I hate the lack of transparency and the infinite barriers to releasing any details. These contracts should be written such that bid details are by default published when submitted to NASA and that architectural review stuff is published by default and paid milestones have large volumes published instead of kept proprietary or whatever.

[RedLineTrain]

I´m a bit annoyed at the little info we are lately receiving on the commercial NASA civilian programs: HLS landers, DragonXL... those programs are being developed mostly with public funding and several of them do not have clients beyond NASA. I think the public should have the right to access certain ammount of information of the program beyond a single render and not even an architecture roadmap.

To the contrary, I understand that those items are being developed with a majority of private funding rather than public funding.

[joek]

I´m a bit annoyed at the little info we are lately receiving on the commercial NASA civilian programs: HLS landers, DragonXL... those programs are being developed mostly with public funding and several of them do not have clients beyond NASA. I think the public should have the right to access certain ammount of information of the program beyond a single render and not even an architecture roadmap.

I understand that those items are being developed with a majority of private funding rather than public funding.

Some are; some are not. Where private funding is concerned, there are a number of stipulations we (the public) do not have insight into. Should we have visibility into milestone-based payments by the government-taxpayers? Yes. Should we have visibility into what happens below that level? Questionable. That is the tradeoff... pick your poison.

[RedLineTrain]

I´m a bit annoyed at the little info we are lately receiving on the commercial NASA civilian programs: HLS landers, DragonXL... those programs are being developed mostly with public funding and several of them do not have clients beyond NASA. I think the public should have the right to access certain ammount of information of the program beyond a single render and not even an architecture roadmap.

I understand that those items are being developed with a majority of private funding rather than public funding.

Some are; some are not. Where private funding is concerned, there are a number of stipulations we (the public) do not have insight into. Should we have visibility into milestone-based payments by the government-taxpayers? Yes. Should we have visibility into what happens below that level? Questionable. That is the tradeoff... pick your poison.

Let's be realistic here.  The largest of these examples is HLS Starship, for which a minority of costs are being borne by the taxpayer and you can at any moment of the day log on to Youtube to see multiple livestreams of what is happening.

Is there a real problem here?

[Jimmy Murdok]

I understand that those items are being developed with a majority of private funding rather than public funding.

Some are; some are not. Where private funding is concerned, there are a number of stipulations we (the public) do not have insight into. Should we have visibility into milestone-based payments by the government-taxpayers? Yes. Should we have visibility into what happens below that level? Questionable. That is the tradeoff... pick your poison.

Let's be realistic here.  The largest of these examples is HLS Starship, for which a minority of costs are being borne by the taxpayer and you can at any moment of the day log on to Youtube to see multiple livestreams of what is happening.

Is there a real problem here?

When the government is putting millions into a NASA public project there should be some public access of information about what are the project objectives, milestones, plans and basic specifications. Communication, education and engagement is part of NASA mandate.

SpaceX is being quite open in BocaChica, but this an experiment being runned by a motivated public with certain permission from SpaceX. Officially, there is very little information about the HLS program, it´s basic specifications and architecture have been extracted mostly by motivated fans and some tweets. Same with Blue, the new space suits  or the DragonXL.
I love the developments of those companies and in general the new commercial space.
But if the government announces an investment of 3.4billion for a selected lunar lander, I would expect as a minimum a basic official datasheet of the product that is being publicly financed and a proper CONOPS.
But hey, is not my government, so I’ll leave it here.

[RedLineTrain]

I understand that those items are being developed with a majority of private funding rather than public funding.

Some are; some are not. Where private funding is concerned, there are a number of stipulations we (the public) do not have insight into. Should we have visibility into milestone-based payments by the government-taxpayers? Yes. Should we have visibility into what happens below that level? Questionable. That is the tradeoff... pick your poison.

Let's be realistic here.  The largest of these examples is HLS Starship, for which a minority of costs are being borne by the taxpayer and you can at any moment of the day log on to Youtube to see multiple livestreams of what is happening.

Is there a real problem here?

When the government is putting millions into a NASA public project there should be some public access of information about what are the project objectives, milestones, plans and basic specifications. Communication, education and engagement is part of NASA mandate.

SpaceX is being quite open in BocaChica, but this an experiment being runned by a motivated public with certain permission from SpaceX. Officially, there is very little information about the HLS program, it´s basic specifications and architecture have been extracted mostly by motivated fans and some tweets. Same with Blue, the new space suits  or the DragonXL.
I love the developments of those companies and in general the new commercial space.
But if the government announces an investment of 3.4billion for a selected lunar lander, I would expect as a minimum a basic official datasheet of the product that is being publicly financed and a proper CONOPS.
But hey, is not my government, so I’ll leave it here.

HLS Starship's basic specifications and architecture seem extraordinarily well known.  Why is it important that you receive the information translated to bureaucratese?

HLS Blue was just awarded, so it seems premature to complain about the lack of information there.

I don't think government money has started flowing on DragonXL, so again it seems premature to complain.

[DanClemmensen]

I´m a bit annoyed at the little info we are lately receiving on the commercial NASA civilian programs: HLS landers, DragonXL... those programs are being developed mostly with public funding and several of them do not have clients beyond NASA. I think the public should have the right to access certain ammount of information of the program beyond a single render and not even an architecture roadmap

NASA has chosen to contract for services, not for hardware. The provider needs to assure NASA that the service can be provided. There is no particular incentive to provide this information to the public since the public is not buying the hardware.

As a space enthusiast, I also would like to see more details.

[Jim]

I hate it. I hate the lack of transparency and the infinite barriers to releasing any details. These contracts should be written such that bid details are by default published when submitted to NASA and that architectural review stuff is published by default and paid milestones have large volumes published instead of kept proprietary or whatever.

no and no.  NASA is not buying hardware and has no rights to it.  NASA is only buying a service.
There is no middle ground.  Can't have it both ways.
It is either the old way and NASA buys and owns the hardware or it is commercial and NASA is just buying a service and it is up to the company to talk about their hardware.

[Jim]

When the government is putting millions into a NASA public project there should be some public access of information about what are the project objectives, milestones, plans and basic specifications. Communication, education and engagement is part of NASA mandate.

no
A.  NASA is the government.
B. They are not public projects.

[Jim]

Blame the overzealous/underzealous legal department of NASA (and Congress). Everything is basically ITAR until proven innocent, and if it’s not ITAR it’s considered proprietary and NASA will never release anything considered by a company to be proprietary without asking them first, and many of the people doing this have little incentive to actually go through that whole process.

wrong and wrong

Most of it is propriety and up to the contractor to release.
It is not the "overzealous/underzealous legal department of NASA".  NASA is doing what the law says.  Most of the shuttle documents should have never been released to the public.

[Jimmy Murdok]

I hate it. I hate the lack of transparency and the infinite barriers to releasing any details. These contracts should be written such that bid details are by default published when submitted to NASA and that architectural review stuff is published by default and paid milestones have large volumes published instead of kept proprietary or whatever.

no and no.  NASA is not buying hardware and has no rights to it.  NASA is only buying a service.
There is no middle ground.  Can't have it both ways.
It is either the old way and NASA buys and owns the hardware or it is commercial and NASA is just buying a service and it is up to the company to talk about their hardware.

Thansks for the input Jim. FMPOV NASA is opening bids for transportation services where companies can apply. Therefore they are not directly purchasing an existing service but defining the conditions for companies to apply and propose novel solutions. NASA can include other items and requirements, those being that for public engagement and educational reasons, some information will be available and presented to the public.
I think that NASA should keep a thunder for themselves in the shape of an amazing public event where they present the winner and show to the world what they are going to do together. This is so american kids and families stay engaged on how their tax money is spent for space activities and how relevant those programs and the agency are.
Of course this would need to be specified in the bid and agreed beforehand and companies could choose not to apply due to those reasons or to negotiate those points if they happen to be a dealbreaker.

I think that there is a balance to be found between being too open (this is why ITAR exists) and ensuring that NASA remain as relevant as possible for the wide public.
This is not just about landing before China, its also about walking the path together with the society, provide a wide positive impact and influence about how science and technology matter for the country.

I think that Bezos and the rest of the new NT would have accepted conditions that include a public shared presentation with a mockup, some basic specs and a video explaining what going to the moon with them is going to look like and what NASA is using the taxpayers money for.

A kid (representing society) engaged on this program since the presentation until landing on the moon has more value for NASA than a kid just paying 5 minutes of attention for the landing and moving on. It might sound cheesy, and I understand that Lockheed Martin do not care much, but this is part of NASA mandate.
It is an important investment for the country of tomorrow, and might end up being the difference between a kid following conspirations or deciding to study and work in engineering and science fields.

Edit:typo