Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3

[joek]

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I personally hope that NASA remains firm and that Boeing bails out. As painful as that would be for everyone, I think it is less painful than the alternatives.

Please define "firm".

[DanClemmensen]

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I personally hope that NASA remains firm and that Boeing bails out. As painful as that would be for everyone, I think it is less painful than the alternatives.

Please define "firm".

"Firm" means aht NASA must require Boeing to meet the CFT criteria. I feel that CFT did not meet the basic criteria for certification and that when Boeing implements corrections, it will not be possible for NASA to evaluate them without an additional CFT mission.  This is clearly just my personal opinion. For me, Boeing's engineering competence can no longer be assumed.

[Asteroza]

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I personally hope that NASA remains firm and that Boeing bails out. As painful as that would be for everyone, I think it is less painful than the alternatives.

Please define "firm".

"Firm" means that NASA must require Boeing to meet the CFT criteria. I feel that CFT did not meet the basic criteria for certification and that when Boeing implements corrections, it will not be possible for NASA to evaluate them without an additional CFT mission.  This is clearly just my personal opinion. For me, Boeing's engineering competence can no longer be assumed.

Accepting that competence assumption in the first place is more of an issue, as that reflects on both bidder evaluation criteria and contract oversight in general. Actual manned capsule development is few and far between, and thus the lack of experienced people by definition is problematic.

The "nobody got fired for choosing IBM" mentality implicitly says the safe choice is safe by means of a backbench of both knowledge and people.

[Paul451]

How do you reconcile that with Bill Nelson's claim that Boeing's CEO told him he remained committed to the program?

What else would either of them say?

Nelson is a politician. He knows that "remaining committed" or someone "having my full support" is not only meaningless, it's often a sign that the opposite is true. Congressional committees are notorious for dragging agency admins in to demand they offer fealty to a faction's favourite pork program. It's generally a sign that the admin has been shopping around for support to kill the program and the members are putting them back in their place.

[JayWee]

From the Bergers's article on Axiom financial issues referencing Forbes story:

The publication reveals that Axiom is due to pay $670 million to SpaceX for four Crew Dragon missions, each of which includes a launch and ride for four astronauts to and from the station encompassing a one- to two-week period. This equates to $167.5 million per launch, or $41.9 million per seat.

[Asteroza]

From the Bergers's article on Axiom financial issues referencing Forbes story:

The publication reveals that Axiom is due to pay $670 million to SpaceX for four Crew Dragon missions, each of which includes a launch and ride for four astronauts to and from the station encompassing a one- to two-week period. This equates to $167.5 million per launch, or $41.9 million per seat.

Do people think it might be time to have an update thread for tracking upcoming commercial crew missions (not just NASA CCrew, but generally?)

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/nasaoig/status/1840771670165913662

We will examine NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which partners with American private industry to safely transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

This will be interesting, at a critical point in the commercial crew program (the future of Starliner).

[JGSAeroSpaceN]

How bad could this be for Boeing? And why don't they just give up on Starliner? I think we're past the point of having two providers because of redundancy. SpaceX has a fleet of spacecraft, rockets and now operates manned flights from two platforms. The redundancy in this case is SpaceX providing to NASA/Boeing.

[DanClemmensen]

How bad could this be for Boeing? And why don't they just give up on Starliner? I think we're past the point of having two providers because of redundancy. SpaceX has a fleet of spacecraft, rockets and now operates manned flights from two platforms. The redundancy in this case is SpaceX providing to NASA/Boeing.

If by chance NASA finds a way to certify the CFT, then Boeing might stay in, because they would could get paid for each successful operational flight, and they might still make a profit on each of them. Not on the Starliner program as a whole, but sunk costs are sunk.

[ugordan]

I think we're past the point of having two providers because of redundancy. SpaceX has a fleet of spacecraft, rockets and now operates manned flights from two platforms. The redundancy in this case is SpaceX providing to NASA/Boeing.

3 separate F9 anomalies just this year could be a counterpoint to your argument.

[woods170]

I think we're past the point of having two providers because of redundancy. SpaceX has a fleet of spacecraft, rockets and now operates manned flights from two platforms. The redundancy in this case is SpaceX providing to NASA/Boeing.

3 separate F9 anomalies just this year could be a counterpoint to your argument.

Not really IMO. The first two of those anomalies grounded F9 no longer than a few weeks, as opposed to other LV anomalies grounding those other vehicles for many months, if not years. In fact, the first grounding (about two weeks) was substantially shorter than the interval between two launches of SpaceX's biggest competitor. Atlas V for example is incapable of flying twice within two weeks.

Things would be different if an F9 anomaly would ground that LV for, say, 6 months or more. THEN you would absolutely need a backup. But groundings of less than a month don't change the equation at all. It's not even a bump in the road.

[JGSAeroSpaceN]

I think we're past the point of having two providers because of redundancy. SpaceX has a fleet of spacecraft, rockets and now operates manned flights from two platforms. The redundancy in this case is SpaceX providing to NASA/Boeing.

3 separate F9 anomalies just this year could be a counterpoint to your argument.

Not really IMO. The first two of those anomalies grounded F9 no longer than a few weeks, as opposed to other LV anomalies grounding those other vehicles for many months, if not years. In fact, the first grounding (about two weeks) was substantially shorter than the interval between two launches of SpaceX's biggest competitor. Atlas V for example is incapable of flying twice within two weeks.

Things would be different if an F9 anomaly would ground that LV for, say, 6 months or more. THEN you would absolutely need a backup. But groundings of less than a month don't change the equation at all. It's not even a bump in the road.

Exactly. The longest SpaceX has been idle so far this year was 15 days due to a second-stage failure and 2 days due to a booster landing failure. To me, this does not pose a risk to the ISS crew rotation. However, the risks posed by Boeing range from the spacecraft itself to its launch vehicle, the Atlas V, which has already been retired.

[DanClemmensen]

I think we're past the point of having two providers because of redundancy. SpaceX has a fleet of spacecraft, rockets and now operates manned flights from two platforms. The redundancy in this case is SpaceX providing to NASA/Boeing.

3 separate F9 anomalies just this year could be a counterpoint to your argument.

Ironically, the continued effort to certify Starliner in the name of dissimilar redundancy has been far more disruptive than the three F9 anomalies. NASA should have terminated Starliner no later than 2022.

Dissimilar redundancy has proven spectacularly successful at the program level. If NASA had funded only one CCP vendor, it almost certainly would have been Boeing. But after Crew Dragon flew its fourth operational mission, the cost for continuing Starliner was too high and the benefit was too low.

[sstli2]

Redundancy covers multiple fronts. You are all focusing on technological, operational, and geographical redundancy. There's also organizational redundancy. Entity risk. Roscosmos was a reliable, dependable partner to NASA until non-technological considerations changed that. Private companies are no different; they may make decisions inconsistent with NASA's goals for human spaceflight.

[DanClemmensen]

Redundancy covers multiple fronts. You are all focusing on technological, operational, and geographical redundancy. There's also organizational redundancy. Entity risk. Roscosmos was a reliable, dependable partner to NASA until non-technological considerations changed that. Private companies are no different; they may make decisions inconsistent with NASA's goals for human spaceflight.

Boeing is a prime example, and we have no assurance that something won't happen to SpaceX or any other company.

[JGSAeroSpaceN]

The point is that there is nothing in the short to medium term that indicates that SpaceX could become a threat or cause a problem for the Commercial Crew Program. Currently, many former NASA employees work at SpaceX, and this can represent a safety net for the Agency itself. In any case, I might be talking nonsense, but I believe I'm right in thinking that the Starliner is no longer necessary for redundancy.

[DanClemmensen]

The point is that there is nothing in the short to medium term that indicates that SpaceX could become a threat or cause a problem for the Commercial Crew Program. Currently, many former NASA employees work at SpaceX, and this can represent a safety net for the Agency itself. In any case, I might be talking nonsense, but I believe I'm right in thinking that the Starliner is no longer necessary for redundancy.

The majority of SpaceX's shares are controlled by a single individual who is also the company's chief technology officer and chief visionary. This represents a single point of failure.  This is an objective fact and is independent of whether you love him, hate him, or are somewhere in between. Like any other single point of failure in your supply chain, you should evaluate backup strategies.

No, Starliner is not  a viable backup strategy for CCP. NASA is stuck with Crew Dragon on F9 for the foreseeable future. 

[meekGee]

Redundancy covers multiple fronts. You are all focusing on technological, operational, and geographical redundancy. There's also organizational redundancy. Entity risk. Roscosmos was a reliable, dependable partner to NASA until non-technological considerations changed that. Private companies are no different; they may make decisions inconsistent with NASA's goals for human spaceflight.

There's no end to this.  What if NASA itself turns evil? Shall we have two space agencies? What if the president decides to play into the hands of the Ruskies?

You can't eliminate risk, but you can certainly guarantee failure by trying too hard to eliminate it.

[sstli2]

Redundancy covers multiple fronts. You are all focusing on technological, operational, and geographical redundancy. There's also organizational redundancy. Entity risk. Roscosmos was a reliable, dependable partner to NASA until non-technological considerations changed that. Private companies are no different; they may make decisions inconsistent with NASA's goals for human spaceflight.

There's no end to this.  What if NASA itself turns evil? Shall we have two space agencies? What if the president decides to play into the hands of the Ruskies?

You can't eliminate risk, but you can certainly guarantee failure by trying too hard to eliminate it.

I'm going to ignore the irrelevant hyperbolic rhetoricals.

You cannot eliminate risk. You can eliminate your concentration of risk.

See https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/diversification.asp

[sdsds]

[...] The longest SpaceX has been idle so far this year was 15 days due to a second-stage failure and 2 days due to a booster landing failure. To me, this does not pose a risk to the ISS crew rotation.

Because there has been no loss-of-mission or loss-of-crew event in the past, there will be no LOM or LOC event in the future. That approach didn't work so well for STS, which might help explain NASA's hesitancy to apply it to  F9/Dragon.