That original $1billion dollar contribution always felt.... disingenuous. Its like marking the price up to put it on sale. Since Blue was setting the prices for everything, it was simply playing with numbers to make it look like a discount was being given.
However, like I said before, contributions only goes so far.
..For Option A, Blue's proposal was for $6B and included a $1B contribution. Hopefully, they will offer a $3B contribution this time as they ended up proposing after the fact for Option A. This would reduce the price to $4B for Appendix P. ...
Quote from: yg1968 on 12/09/2022 01:48 pmHowever, like I said before, contributions only goes so far. Don’t disagree last round. That’s when there was a proposal that was significantly superior to the other two in terms of management experience, technical competence, and business planning.Unless there’s a big reveal coming, this round NASA seems to be left with the same two also-rans, both of which are led by orgs with no proven experience in space systems this size and complexity, both of which demonstrated technical incompetence last round, and neither of which has much business vision beyond NASA missions.Would love to be proven wrong by one of these teams getting its act together on the technical or business side. But absent that, they appear to be equally bad backups to Lunar Starship with the only major difference between them being Bezos’s deep pockets, which will make National Team’s bad backup the cheaper and lesser of two evils over Dynetics’ bad backup.Absent a reveal of something we don’t know yet or a demonstration of technical competence or business vision, that’s how I handicap this shaking out — Bezos’s billions will be the deciding factor between two otherwise equally bad options for NASA.
...Of course, we do not know yet exactly what each "partner" will be responsible for developing. Lockheed can at least claim Orion on its resume, and while there are serious criticisms to be made of Orion, it does at least seem to be *working* so far on this mission (so far). If indeed LockMart is still doing the primary work on the Ascent Module, a fair bit of its Orion work could reasonably transfer over, or at least inform the engineering for the AM. It'll be expensive, and behind schedule, but I think there is a residue of competency still left at LockMart.
But the real problem, as I think you were saying, is that it is Blue Origin that is the *prime* contractor, and they can't claim any experience of this sort, good or bad.
What is Boeing going to be doing? No one has said. Theoretically, Boeing can claim prime work on the US orbital segment of ISS, Starliner, and SLS's core stage on its c.v., but this only highlights why they're likely to be a detriment, if anything, for reasons which will be obvious to everyone here. Almost all of ISS's development work dates back to before the McDonnell merger, and it's ancient history anyway at this point; the less said about the other vehicles, the better. It is telling that Boeing's Appendix P proposal for HLS was so poor that it did not even make the first round cut.
Quote from: Athelstane on 12/09/2022 04:04 pm...Of course, we do not know yet exactly what each "partner" will be responsible for developing. Lockheed can at least claim Orion on its resume, and while there are serious criticisms to be made of Orion, it does at least seem to be *working* so far on this mission (so far). If indeed LockMart is still doing the primary work on the Ascent Module, a fair bit of its Orion work could reasonably transfer over, or at least inform the engineering for the AM. It'll be expensive, and behind schedule, but I think there is a residue of competency still left at LockMart.What matters most is whether any of the Orion team will be working on this, because it's not the technology transfer that is important, but the knowledge of how to use that technology that is most important. And that is the PEOPLE.
Quote from: Athelstane on 12/09/2022 04:04 pmWhat is Boeing going to be doing? No one has said. Theoretically, Boeing can claim prime work on the US orbital segment of ISS, Starliner, and SLS's core stage on its c.v., but this only highlights why they're likely to be a detriment, if anything, for reasons which will be obvious to everyone here. Almost all of ISS's development work dates back to before the McDonnell merger, and it's ancient history anyway at this point; the less said about the other vehicles, the better. It is telling that Boeing's Appendix P proposal for HLS was so poor that it did not even make the first round cut. Doesn't Boeing run the ISS? Their operational knowledge about running space missions could be quite useful.
What is Boeing going to be doing? No one has said.
I agree with all this, in the main; but it's reasonable to also think that Blue Origin's team will once again have a *modest* advantage on the technical quality of its proposal - the National Team did, after all, grade out as "Acceptable" to Dynetics' "Marginal" grade on this criterion.
Of course, we do not know yet exactly what each "partner" will be responsible for developing.
It would be a different discussion if, say, LockMart Space Sustems was lead.
Quote from: Athelstane on 12/09/2022 04:04 pmWhat is Boeing going to be doing? No one has said.Assuming there's no radical departure from the previous ILV design, Northrop was responsible for the transfer stage. I would assume Boeing will be building its replacement. Perhaps based around Centaur/DCSS/ICPS?
NG have shown they are willing to gamble on innovative space technology like MRV. So they might invest heavily in this lander especially if technology can be used elsewhere.
In addition to being expensive, the ILV was (and likely still is) tiny. With more prop available, it might stop being a toy.
Quote from: TheRadicalModerate on 12/10/2022 05:01 amIn addition to being expensive, the ILV was (and likely still is) tiny. With more prop available, it might stop being a toy.That’s what is so maddening about Appendix P, when you step back. A lot less capability for a lot more money, because competition and redundancy are suddenly a good thing.
Does the selection officer have the option of transforming Appendix P awards into essentially more Appendix N risk reduction work?
Quote from: sdsds on 12/11/2022 09:03 pmDoes the selection officer have the option of transforming Appendix P awards into essentially more Appendix N risk reduction work?The Appendix P has a lot of optional items (CLINs) which gives NASA a lot of flexibility if it doesn't receive enough funding from Congress or if a provider underperforms (see the link below). Option B is apparently very similar to Appendix P, so it probably also has optional items (CLINs). https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=56067.msg2432528#msg2432528