Not necessarily.Those are just some companiies being called back to talk to NASA.Others may be awarded without a callback. e.g. Who was doing the ECLSS work in CCDEV-1? Have they applied again? If so would they need a call-back?
Not necessarily.Those are just some companies being called back to talk to NASA.Others may be awarded without a callback.
I was thinking, that game theory says that SpaceX will most probably use some of CRS money to pay for the Crew Dragon. CCDev 2 money would help them, but they will do it anyways. So may be they won't get anything because they have the big other contract and ar good at doing a lot with very little.
Quote from: baldusi on 02/25/2011 12:27 pmI was thinking, that game theory says that SpaceX will most probably use some of CRS money to pay for the Crew Dragon. CCDev 2 money would help them, but they will do it anyways. So may be they won't get anything because they have the big other contract and ar good at doing a lot with very little.You know what, though? They haven't reached the production stage. When they're launching a Falcon 9 consistently once every 3 or 4 months, then we can talk about SpaceX having so much money and time available that they can develop commercial crew on their own dime. But have you looked at their launch manifest? They have 5 Falcon 9 launches and 2 Falcon 1e launches listed with a "target date" of 2011. They are very busy, and have another 5 Falcon 9 flights with target dates of 2012. They have a back-up of launches. If they were so ahead of the game, they would be launching right now. They may lose some of those customers if their schedule slips much more (which I'm sure it will, considering they have 7 launches with a target date of 2011 and they still haven't launched anything this year).That's why I don't think they'll have a lot of free time to just do commercial crew for free.
IMO this whole process is suboptimal. If this is 2005, maybe NASA has the luxury of seeding a bunch of companies to foster an industry and competition in general. The fact is NASA needs access to ISS sooner rather than later. Wouldn't the fastest way to do that be to simply put out an RFP with the intent of awarding business to the best say, two providers of crew services, and express the process to be completed as quickly as possible? The fact is, if we take the one or two front runner proposals (e.g., Dragon, CST-100) and fund them in a serious manner starting ASAP, we will get manned access to LEO much faster than the current process, which is like some kind of slow-motion hell, with multiple funding awards, milestones, etc. Currently it just seems like a mess, because we are seemingly focusing on fostering a currently non-existant industry at the expense of fielding the much needed ISS taxi as soon as possible. Pick the top two bids and fund them as much as the Commercial budget money will allow, and see how fast we solve the manned spaceflight gap.
I am one of those people who think there is no market without NASA, i.e., NASA is the market. NASA needs certain definable services for the life of ISS, probably around 10-15 years, relatively easy to quantify and put contract requirements around. Other than that, to my eyes, it's all just fantasy. Hotels in space / tourism? I just don't see it happening. What are all these companies going to do when they don't get the final contracts years from now? They're going to shut down their operations and call it a day. This is just a waste of time, and time is something we shouldn't be wasting right now.
Quote from: EE Scott on 02/27/2011 09:12 pmI am one of those people who think there is no market without NASA, i.e., NASA is the market. NASA needs certain definable services for the life of ISS, probably around 10-15 years, relatively easy to quantify and put contract requirements around. Other than that, to my eyes, it's all just fantasy. Hotels in space / tourism? I just don't see it happening. What are all these companies going to do when they don't get the final contracts years from now? They're going to shut down their operations and call it a day. This is just a waste of time, and time is something we shouldn't be wasting right now.None of the companies are going to be 100% supported by NASA. They might close that particular operation but Space X can survive without Dragon, Orbital without Prometheus, Boeing without CST100. However in the short run they could compete for the ISS Cargo contract as that will be up in 2015.By giving a bunch of small contracts you get to see how well they perform so that you don't lock yourself in a big contract with a badly performing contractor.As for without NASA space X wants to fly people NASA or no NASA. Dream chaser was planned to do sub orbital space hops. CST100 would not likely be built but trust me Boeing wouldn’t go bankrupt.
Remember the OSP program? The two major Aerospace players were going to engage in a fly-off of their proposals to see which is best. That would have been interesting, to put it mildly.
Quote from: EE Scott on 02/27/2011 10:21 pmRemember the OSP program? The two major Aerospace players were going to engage in a fly-off of their proposals to see which is best. That would have been interesting, to put it mildly.Yeap but then that idea got squashed and we went to CXP.
Quote from: EE Scott on 02/27/2011 09:12 pmI am one of those people who think there is no market without NASA, i.e., NASA is the market. NASA needs certain definable services for the life of ISS, probably around 10-15 years, relatively easy to quantify and put contract requirements around. Other than that, to my eyes, it's all just fantasy. Hotels in space / tourism? I just don't see it happening. What are all these companies going to do when they don't get the final contracts years from now? They're going to shut down their operations and call it a day. This is just a waste of time, and time is something we shouldn't be wasting right now.Orion and Ares I are the vehicles that were meant to be the other way of doing it.
