CCDev-2 Awards PRE-Announcement Discussion - April 18

[vt_hokie]

I didn't realize the dollar amounts for this award were so low.  What does $80 million get you nowadays?  Preliminary design work?

[Ronsmytheiii]

Well this might be the death of Liberty (the rocket), lets see how ATK responds. Too pad to see Paragon snubbed as well, but still not sure what blue origin is up to.

[Chris Bergin]

Time to move to the new thread:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=24855.0

[rcoppola]

Looks like they got it about right. Nice..

[baldusi]

Or may be they are putting some pressure on ULA to move their lobbyist for some AJAX or such architecture.

[Antares]

What does $80 million get you nowadays?

About 200 people for a year.  Yes, American aerospace rates are way too high.

[Namechange User]

No USA 

Wasn't expected.  Too much politics and misconception out there mixed with a desire to rid the world of the "evil" space shuttle. 

[Robotbeat]

Nice. 3 roughly equal chunks to the three folks furthest along (that we can tell), plus another small chunk to Blue Origin (I hope we'll find out more about them as a result of this award). I'm a little surprised it wasn't spread out more, but otherwise looks good!

[hektor]

So the launcher activities are wrapped into the crew vehicles activities ?

[RocketEconomist327]

My Top 3 in order:

1) SpaceX

2) Boeing -CST & Atlas V

3) Dream Chaser

We get FOUR for the price of three!  Three orbital vehicles and two rockets. 

VR
TEA
RE327

I realize you talk a lot about economics and belittle many but perhaps I just don't understand the "economics" of how the Boeing's CST and ULA's Atlas are considered one entity. 

I pretty much nailed CCDev-2 dead on.

The train left the station.  Hope you are on bored.

Your comment pretty much lets everyone know who "belittles" who.

TEA
RE327

[RocketEconomist327]

I'm surprised very few are saying anything about Orbital.

There is no substantial documentation public or otherwise to suggest that Taurus II could be rated for humans.

Why waste the money?

Dream Chaser is further along too.  Bean counters in charge here.

VR
TEA
RE327

[Namechange User]

My Top 3 in order:

1) SpaceX

2) Boeing -CST & Atlas V

3) Dream Chaser

We get FOUR for the price of three!  Three orbital vehicles and two rockets. 

VR
TEA
RE327

I realize you talk a lot about economics and belittle many but perhaps I just don't understand the "economics" of how the Boeing's CST and ULA's Atlas are considered one entity. 

I pretty much nailed CCDev-2 dead on.

The train left the station.  Hope you are on bored.

Your comment pretty much lets everyone know who "belittles" who.

TEA
RE327

Well, yeah, look at the post of yours above that one to see the example of "belittling" as well as previous posts.  More to the point, my question about how Boeing and ULA are one entity is entirely accurate. 

Also I named those same "three" (if you don't count the fact that you tried to marry Boeing and ULA) as did a lot of people so I'm not sure if you are just looking out for some unfounded ego stroking or what. 

[RocketEconomist327]

I didn't realize the dollar amounts for this award were so low.  What does $80 million get you nowadays?  Preliminary design work?

80 million is only peanuts if you work for the government.  In an organization like SpaceX that is a TON of money.  Hell, that is like 15% of what SpaceX has spent to date.

That is a lot of money.

Again, changing the paradigm.  I don't need CxP money to get to space.  Just get the heck out of the way.

VR
TEA
RE327

[vt_hokie]

I'm surprised very few are saying anything about Orbital.

There is no substantial documentation public or otherwise to suggest that Taurus II could be rated for humans.

Why waste the money?

Dream Chaser is further along too.  Bean counters in charge here.

I was actually on the Orbital website the other day looking for a Prometheus page, and found that there wasn't one. 

I sort of figured that DreamChaser was more likely to take the funding, given its head start.

[RocketEconomist327]

No USA 

Wasn't expected.  Too much politics and misconception out there mixed with a desire to rid the world of the "evil" space shuttle. 

Not that you believe me, but I wanted USA in CCDev-2.

I really did.

Respectfully,
Andrew

[Namechange User]

I'm surprised very few are saying anything about Orbital.

There is no substantial documentation public or otherwise to suggest that Taurus II could be rated for humans.

Why waste the money?

Dream Chaser is further along too.  Bean counters in charge here.

VR
TEA
RE327

TII was not related to Prometheus.  DC and Prometheus are different vehicles.  By your logic you are suggesting that there is some sort of "agenda" at work here where lifting bodies are being unfairly biased against but capsules, then we can't ever have enough?  Strange....but guess that is what you get when only "bean counters" are in charge. 

[Robotbeat]

I'm surprised very few are saying anything about Orbital.

There is no substantial documentation public or otherwise to suggest that Taurus II could be rated for humans.

Why waste the money?

Dream Chaser is further along too.  Bean counters in charge here.

VR
TEA
RE327

Taurus II wasn't the proposed vehicle for Prometheus. Orbital proposed using Atlas V (some version with some number of solids strapped to it). Part of the reason Orbital wasn't selected was because they only had 4 crew (versus something like 7 for Dreamchaser) and the version of Atlas V required was bigger than that required for Dreamchaser, so there was less room for mass growth.

[RocketEconomist327]

I'm surprised very few are saying anything about Orbital.

There is no substantial documentation public or otherwise to suggest that Taurus II could be rated for humans.

Why waste the money?

Dream Chaser is further along too.  Bean counters in charge here.

VR
TEA
RE327

TII was not related to Prometheus.  DC and Prometheus are different vehicles.  By your logic you are suggesting that there is some sort of "agenda" at work here where lifting bodies are being unfairly biased against but capsules, then we can't ever have enough?  Strange....but guess that is what you get when only "bean counters" are in charge. 

There is no agenda.  Who is further along and who is more reliable in the eyes of those making the decisions?

I'm surprised very few are saying anything about Orbital.

There is no substantial documentation public or otherwise to suggest that Taurus II could be rated for humans.

Why waste the money?

Dream Chaser is further along too.  Bean counters in charge here.

VR
TEA
RE327

Taurus II wasn't the proposed vehicle for Prometheus. Orbital proposed using Atlas V (some version with some number of solids strapped to it). Part of the reason Orbital wasn't selected was because they only had 4 crew (versus something like 7 for Dreamchaser) and the version of Atlas V required was bigger than that required for Dreamchaser, so there was less room for mass growth.

I believe you.  I also believe DC is much further along than Prometheus.

VR
TEA
RE327

[Namechange User]

Well clearly Orbital and SNC were very close in the evaluations.  If there is no "agenda" and the evaluations prove my point, then why is "who is further along" relevent and not a consideration for capsule-based designs?

[Joris]

Why is "who is further along" relevant and not a consideration for capsule-based designs?

What makes you think it wasn't?

Spacex is obviously further along than the rest, and Boeing seems to be ahead of the other competitors too.