Quote from: sdsds on 01/14/2024 03:47 pmIn moon race with China, U.S. setbacks test role of private firmsBy Joey Roulette, Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Ryan WooJanuary 12, 2024, 8:46 AM PSThttps://www.reuters.com/science/moon-race-with-china-us-setbacks-test-role-private-firms-2024-01-12/QuoteWASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Two U.S. setbacks this week in the race to the moon with China illustrate the risks of NASA's plans to bet on a new strategy of relying heavily on private companies.Wrong take (in the Reuters article). CLPS and HLS are very different. CLPS is purposely high risks (shots on goals) but HLS isn't as it has to be safe for the astronauts. Besides the issues with Orion would have delayed Artemis III anyways.
In moon race with China, U.S. setbacks test role of private firmsBy Joey Roulette, Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Ryan WooJanuary 12, 2024, 8:46 AM PSThttps://www.reuters.com/science/moon-race-with-china-us-setbacks-test-role-private-firms-2024-01-12/QuoteWASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Two U.S. setbacks this week in the race to the moon with China illustrate the risks of NASA's plans to bet on a new strategy of relying heavily on private companies.
WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Two U.S. setbacks this week in the race to the moon with China illustrate the risks of NASA's plans to bet on a new strategy of relying heavily on private companies.
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 01/15/2024 04:25 pmQuote from: yg1968 on 01/14/2024 05:04 pmAs it stands now, NASA has plans to use a cargo variant of HLS called HDL to deliver the pressurized rover and habitats to the Moon. It's not clear if NASA has plans for other cargo missions but perhaps that they should be looking at it if they want to stay on the lunar surface for periods that exceed 30 days.NASA always has grand plans, but few of them ever get funded. The harsh reality is that NASA will be lucky to land two humans back on the Moon this decade and not leave anything behind except for some science equipment, so the visions of lunar bases is more in the realm of fantasy for NASA than reality at this point.Also, the term "permanent" implies full-time occupation, like the permanent occupation of the ISS. Part-time outposts that are visited once per year for no more than 30 days don't really rise to the level of "permanent" outposts. If I have a cabin in the mountains that I visit a few weeks out of the year, but otherwise I'm living somewhere else, then I'm not living permanently in my cabin in the mountains, right? Same thing here.I think that Musk was implying that enough cargo was delivered to the Moon, the lunar surface mission could last a lot more than 30 days and perhaps even the entire year.
Quote from: yg1968 on 01/14/2024 05:04 pmAs it stands now, NASA has plans to use a cargo variant of HLS called HDL to deliver the pressurized rover and habitats to the Moon. It's not clear if NASA has plans for other cargo missions but perhaps that they should be looking at it if they want to stay on the lunar surface for periods that exceed 30 days.NASA always has grand plans, but few of them ever get funded. The harsh reality is that NASA will be lucky to land two humans back on the Moon this decade and not leave anything behind except for some science equipment, so the visions of lunar bases is more in the realm of fantasy for NASA than reality at this point.Also, the term "permanent" implies full-time occupation, like the permanent occupation of the ISS. Part-time outposts that are visited once per year for no more than 30 days don't really rise to the level of "permanent" outposts. If I have a cabin in the mountains that I visit a few weeks out of the year, but otherwise I'm living somewhere else, then I'm not living permanently in my cabin in the mountains, right? Same thing here.
As it stands now, NASA has plans to use a cargo variant of HLS called HDL to deliver the pressurized rover and habitats to the Moon. It's not clear if NASA has plans for other cargo missions but perhaps that they should be looking at it if they want to stay on the lunar surface for periods that exceed 30 days.
I admit that I don't know if that is realistic from a budgetary point of view or from a technical point of view.
...But perhaps that the cargo version of HLS-Starship changes all of that (I don't know).
We're 1/26th of the way through 2024 already, do we really think that for a 2026 Moon landing, that there will be a Starship carrying crew from NHRO to the surface and back? That's 2-3 years from now carrying NASA astronauts.I have difficulty seeing it. I hope Artemis can pull a crewed lunar landing by 2030. This all makes what the Apollo program accomplished with a single Saturn-V launcher seem all the more impressive. Artemis is limited by it's ability to get crew to and from Gateway/HLS with an sort of robust cadence.
We're 1/26th of the way through 2024 already, do we really think that for a 2026 Moon landing, that there will be a Starship carrying crew from NHRO to the surface and back? That's 2-3 years from now carrying NASA astronauts.
The alternative (shown in the picture) is pretty much Constellation but with SLS. Quite depressing compared to what Artemis is doing right now.
An interesting aspect of today's House hearing on Artemis was that one witness, former administrator Mike Griffin, said Artemis is the wrong way to return humans to the Moon and, in his prepared testimony, offered details on an alternative.No one asked him any questions on it.
honestly the biggest mistake was throwing all their eggs into the space X basket. they knew going in that SS was unprecedented in scope and scale. SS is reliant to technology and procedures that have not been even invented yet which made the sole source award even more astounding. they budgeted for 2 landers so they shouldve awarded 2 landers at the same tender. i have a feeling that they awarded the b contract to BO partly because they realised that they screwed up putting all their money to a concept that was pure paper at the time of award.
Quote from: Hog on 01/17/2024 01:50 amWe're 1/26th of the way through 2024 already, do we really think that for a 2026 Moon landing, that there will be a Starship carrying crew from NHRO to the surface and back? That's 2-3 years from now carrying NASA astronauts.I have difficulty seeing it. I hope Artemis can pull a crewed lunar landing by 2030. This all makes what the Apollo program accomplished with a single Saturn-V launcher seem all the more impressive. Artemis is limited by it's ability to get crew to and from Gateway/HLS with an sort of robust cadence.Emphasis mine.Well, I sure as h*ll don't think so. IMO SpaceX and NASA can consider themselves lucky if they manage to pull off the uncrewed demo in 2027. IMO the crewed mission ain't happening until 2028, at the very earliest.But I would love to be proven wrong. Trouble is that my trusted SpaceX sources (who correctly predicted FH maiden flight happening in early 2018, CCP Demo-2 flying in 2020, and made a bunch of other correct predictions) also predict "NET 2028" for the crewed demo.So, by the time 2026 came and went I won't be disappointed if HLS Option A Crewed Demo didn't fly that year.
honestly the biggest mistake was throwing all their eggs into the space X basket. they knew going in that SS was unprecedented in scope and scale.
Quote from: Hog on 01/17/2024 01:50 amWe're 1/26th of the way through 2024 already, do we really think that for a 2026 Moon landing, that there will be a Starship carrying crew from NHRO to the surface and back? That's 2-3 years from now carrying NASA astronauts.Good question. There's a poll for that.
Quote from: cplchanb on 01/17/2024 04:40 pmhonestly the biggest mistake was throwing all their eggs into the space X basket. they knew going in that SS was unprecedented in scope and scale. SS is reliant to technology and procedures that have not been even invented yet which made the sole source award even more astounding. they budgeted for 2 landers so they shouldve awarded 2 landers at the same tender. i have a feeling that they awarded the b contract to BO partly because they realised that they screwed up putting all their money to a concept that was pure paper at the time of award.My bold. If you remember back to the award of the lander, the government didn't budget for two systems. The budget was far too small, And that very miserliness seemed to be one key reason SpaceX was selected, as their fixed price quote was so (shockingly) low, and they (SX) had their own development program that was self funded. There was no money for a second contract. Secondly detailed analysis of each bid concluded that although having many new technologies, SpaceX had a greater probability of success.Of course after Blue Origin's legal challenge (and government input) an on-ramp was created "for them (BO)". So there ARE two contractors. I doubt BO could have accelerated their lander to be ready for the then required 2024 landing! Do you think otherwise?Who and what and at what cost are you suggesting as a second contractor, to match SpaceX, who you so denigrate?
Quote from: catdlr on 01/17/2024 03:55 pm{video removed}This issue keeps coming up but Catherine Koerner (at 48m of the video) made an interesting point on what happens if a provider like SpaceX doesn't meet its milestones. She said that NASA has reworked the contracts to incentivize the contractors to meet their deadlines.
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At 1h29m, she said that for certain milestones for certain types of contracts, there will sometimes be penalties for not meeting milestones. Sometimes a contractor will provide additional work in exchange for being late or not completely achieving a milestone. In other words, the milestones dates in the contract aren't notional.
I'll note that this is standard contract language for pretty much EVERY U.S. Government contract, so nothing special, and she made no mention about any specific contractor.However, since you are bringing up the topic, please explain the penalties that Boeing received for not making any of their dates on the SLS, including the "end of 2016" Congressional requirement for having the SLS "operational".Also, since NASA has stated that the Orion is the pacing item for the Artemis III mission slip, please explain what penalties Lockheed Martin has had to pay.Because unless those contractors have been penalized for their schedule failures, what makes you think that NASA Administrator Nelson will authorize penalties against SpaceX?
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 01/18/2024 05:06 amI'll note that this is standard contract language for pretty much EVERY U.S. Government contract, so nothing special, and she made no mention about any specific contractor.However, since you are bringing up the topic, please explain the penalties that Boeing received for not making any of their dates on the SLS, including the "end of 2016" Congressional requirement for having the SLS "operational".Also, since NASA has stated that the Orion is the pacing item for the Artemis III mission slip, please explain what penalties Lockheed Martin has had to pay.Because unless those contractors have been penalized for their schedule failures, what makes you think that NASA Administrator Nelson will authorize penalties against SpaceX?I doubt that the Administrator gets involved in that.
But like I said before, it is interesting to note that the uncrewed HLS-Starship will now test ascent from the lunar surface. That wasn't the case before. Was that compensation for SpaceX being late? I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.
One thing that I was wondering about is whether the incentives are on top of the $3B that SpaceX receives. Although the HLS contract is actually available, it is heavily redacted and the milestones are entirely redacted. So I don't know the answers to your questions. We only knew what NASA discloses publicly (for HLS and SLS and Orion).