CCDev-2 Awards PRE-Announcement Discussion - April 18

[yg1968]

B) A lot less work is required to man-rate Liberty than to man-rate Atlas V, since both Liberty's SRB and 2nd stage were designed with crew in mind.

Hmm. And what is going to be different with this SRB than the Ares-I wrt the thrust oscillation issue? All that TO was shown to be pretty much a crew-killer. I have no difficulty using it for cargo only, but not for crew. It would be dead-man-walking according to all the analysis documentation that has been collected.

That's not true and you know it. Chris has written a number of articles indicating that this would not be the case.

[Chris Bergin]

B) A lot less work is required to man-rate Liberty than to man-rate Atlas V, since both Liberty's SRB and 2nd stage were designed with crew in mind.

Hmm. And what is going to be different with this SRB than the Ares-I wrt the thrust oscillation issue? All that TO was shown to be pretty much a crew-killer. I have no difficulty using it for cargo only, but not for crew. It would be dead-man-walking according to all the analysis documentation that has been collected.

Sorry, but all of that is completely wrong Chuck. Even the old worse case documentation never showed it to be a crew killer, and it's pretty much been proven on the 5-seg static fires that it's even less than what was recalculated to be small vibrations for a few seconds late in first stage.

Add in the mitigation and TO is not even an issue at all.

[Namechange User]

I sincerely hope they select at most 3 so as to actually offer enough money to the winners to accomplish substantial development goals. We need to move on this.

Are we not far enough along in the development cycles of the competing systems for NASA to make an educated decision as to which of the executions is most likely to succeed, with the greatest speed to market, most economical to develop and maintain, factoring in capabilities?

I'd be interested in a non-partisan opinion / fact based analysis as to which of the systems truly qualifies to get funded at levels commiserate with their current development accomplishments and future lifecycle costs..

CCDev is more than, or at least it should be, technical analysis.  It's business.  For example, the ability to provide capital investment and the very important, but often overlooked, business case. 

[Ronsmytheiii]

Guys lets not turn this into a Liberty debate thread, there are other proposals that merit discussion as well.

AS to how many are awarded, I am pretty sure that we could see many contracts awarded if they are cheap enough.  For example, if after funding EDS detection on proposal x and the essential crew spacecraft are funded on y, and x+y < the sum total, the difference can be applied to smaller proposals like the suborbital New Sheppard or Paragon, and maybe even the SpaceX LAS if it is cheap enough (Dragon is so far along right now dont think it will be a primary winner)

[clongton]

Are we not far enough along in the development cycles of the competing systems for NASA to make an educated decision as to which of the executions is most likely to succeed, with the greatest speed to market, most economical to develop and maintain, factoring in capabilities?

I'd actually like to see SpaceX get enough to guarantee that they can finish up on their own after this so that in any future awards they can be cut out, keeping other less well funded but excellent companies alive.

Remember, these are commercial companies and at some point they need to be weaned if they are going to retain the title "commercial". Sure the USGov can purchase their product or service, but at some point they need to stand on their own 2 feet and fund their day to day operations out of their profit margin, not from the US Treasury. I hope to see that happen to *all* the winners.

[ChrisGebhardt]

The only prediction I'll make is this:

People will find a way to complain and gripe no matter what companies get funded instead of being happy that funding was actually provided for Commercial Crew contract proposals.

[Rifleman]

The only prediction I'll make is this:

People will find a way to complain and gripe no matter what companies get funded instead of being happy that funding was actually provided for Commercial Crew contract proposals.

I think you just hit the nail on the head with that one.

[Namechange User]

The only prediction I'll make is this:

People will find a way to complain and gripe no matter what companies get funded instead of being happy that funding was actually provided for Commercial Crew contract proposals.

I think you just hit the nail on the head with that one.

I disagree. 

[yg1968]

I sincerely hope they select at most 3 so as to actually offer enough money to the winners to accomplish substantial development goals. We need to move on this.

Are we not far enough along in the development cycles of the competing systems for NASA to make an educated decision as to which of the executions is most likely to succeed, with the greatest speed to market, most economical to develop and maintain, factoring in capabilities?

I'd be interested in a non-partisan opinion / fact based analysis as to which of the systems truly qualifies to get funded at levels commiserate with their current development accomplishments and future lifecycle costs..

CCDev is more than, or at least it should be, technical analysis.  It's business.  For example, the ability to provide capital investment and the very important, but often overlooked, business case. 

For CCDev-1, It was interesting to see that Boeing ended spending as much of its own money as it received from NASA. One of the main reason that they had to use their own money was that they were forced to fund the CST-100 since CCDev-1 expired (in December 31, 2010 for most companies). They decided not to lay off the employees that they hired for CCDev-1 because they expected to win an award for CCDev-2. This is probably the situation of other CCDev-1 companies.

[rcoppola]

Are we not far enough along in the development cycles of the competing systems for NASA to make an educated decision as to which of the executions is most likely to succeed, with the greatest speed to market, most economical to develop and maintain, factoring in capabilities?

I'd actually like to see SpaceX get enough to guarantee that they can finish up on their own after this so that in any future awards they can be cut out, keeping other less well funded but excellent companies alive.

Remember, these are commercial companies and at some point they need to be weaned if they are going to retain the title "commercial". Sure the USGov can purchase their product or service, but at some point they need to stand on their own 2 feet and fund their day to day operations out of their profit margin, not from the US Treasury. I hope to see that happen to *all* the winners.

I understand and agree to a point. And yes there are some exciting possibilities with less funded entities, however, I'm just not of the mind that we should belabor this point. The ultimate goal is to get a working commercial space man-rated transportation system in place as quickly and as economically as possible. The more we dilute what little funds we have, to companies so far from achieving an operational system, the longer we will have no domestic HSF, LEO capability.

[Space Pete]

I think there are a few things NASA need to look at when picking the winners:

1) Does the proposal have a viable business model outside of NASA? As has been said previously, one day these commercial folks need to be able to stand on their own two feet, outside of government money. How much money does the company itself possess to spend on the proposal?

2) What is the likelihood of success/chances of failure? Is the proposal mostly based on unproven hardware, or existing hardware? How much supporting infrastructure already exists? Are their schedule estimates accurate? What about the safety of the systems themselves?
^That's why I think SpaceX/Dragon will win one - they're a safe bet.

3) What capabilities do the proposals actually bring to the table? Are there two proposals that bring largely the same capabilities? If so, which one is best? What capabilities are actually needed right now? What capabilities might be needed in the future?

But, here's what we don't want to happen: The losers to get all upset and go call their congressman/congresswoman, who introduces new legislation to ensure that they win (like what's happening with the Shuttle retirement homes). Whoever NASA announces, we just need to get behind them and get on with it.

[clongton]

… and it's pretty much been proven on the 5-seg static fires that it's even less than what was recalculated to be small vibrations for a few seconds late in first stage.

Add in the mitigation and TO is not even an issue at all.

Chris I don't want to go off topic here but please allow me this response and then I'll get off it. I believe one of the data points returned by the Ares-IX flight was that in free-flight configuration the TO's were different than the ground-based static fire of the same configuration. It was believed the difference is caused by the constraints of being fastened to a test stand but that was never definitively determined, leaving the issue unresolved from a safety pov. If that issue has been satisfactorily resolved then I am unaware of it and will gladly retract my previous statement.

[Downix]

But I don't think you are alone in having a favorable opinion of Liberty. I would be interested in your reasoning.

In a nutshell, the reason that I prefer Liberty over Atlas V is because:

A) Liberty is a "simple" rocket, which does exactly what it says on the tin (launch to LEO, nothing else). One of my favourite sayings: "The simpler a plan is, the less things can go wrong".

B) A lot less work is required to man-rate Liberty than to man-rate Atlas V, since both Liberty's SRB and 2nd stage were designed with crew in mind.

C) The support for Liberty is mostly already in place. For example, a new gantry would need to be constructed for Atlas V in order to allow for crew access, whereas Liberty would use the Ares I ML.

All of the above would likely make Liberty ready to fly crew before Atlas V.

However, having said all that, by my own admittance I'm not a religious follower of new/commercial space, so I'm sure there are some things that I have overlooked.

None of these three are correct. 

a) Liberty is more complex than Atlas.

b) Atlas is already man-rated, Liberty is not, with an upper stage which doesn't exist yet. (the existing Ariane cannot work as an upper stage, which means design work needs to occur)

c) Not true here either.  There is no crew access currently on the Ares I MLP.  It would have to be added to either launcher.  But Ares I MLP is missing all of the rest of the plumbing as well, while Atlas V has everything *but* the crew access already there, and a plan to add crew access on an as-needed basis.

Now, with all of this said, I hope ATK does get the contract, and LC36 to use to launch the Liberty from.  Doing so eliminates the requirement for SRB's from the SLS.  And keep that thing as far away from LC-39 as possible.  Stack it in place, with a rollaway service building, and it would be great.

[Ronsmytheiii]

But, here's what we don't want to happen: The losers to get all upset and go call their congressman/congresswoman, who introduces new legislation to ensure that they win (like what's happening with the Shuttle retirement homes). Whoever NASA announces, we just need to get behind them and get on with it.

I would not worry about that too much, I dont think the commercial proposals have the huge political bullwhip that we are seeing with the shuttles, and I believe that CCDEv-2 will only be an intermediate step towards the final Commercial crew program.  Not to say there wont be opposition, but less likely hood.

But there should be plenty of awards, remember CCDEV-1 was only $50 Million, while CCDEV-2 is six times as large at $300 million, and look how much was done with CCDev-1.

[clongton]

The more we dilute what little funds we have, to companies so far from achieving an operational system, the longer we will have no domestic HSF, LEO capability.

Which is exactly the point I was making wrt SpaceX. I really like that company and all they have so far accomplished. But it is reasonably well funded and as long as we don't wean them too soon, they will make it on their own, freeing up that funding to go to other promising companies who would otherwise fall just over the cutoff line.

[yg1968]

The more we dilute what little funds we have, to companies so far from achieving an operational system, the longer we will have no domestic HSF, LEO capability.

Which is exactly the point I was making wrt SpaceX. I really like that company and all they have so far accomplished. But it is reasonably well funded and as long as we don't wean them too soon, they will make it on their own, freeing up that funding to go to other promising companies who would otherwise fall just over the cutoff line.

That would be a reason to give them less money but not to give them no money at all. In any event, SpaceX said that they would not fund the LAS with their own funds. As far as being profitable, SpaceX hasn't made much profits so far. SpaceX is still very much dependant on NASA at this point. 

[rcoppola]

The more we dilute what little funds we have, to companies so far from achieving an operational system, the longer we will have no domestic HSF, LEO capability.

Which is exactly the point I was making wrt SpaceX. I really like that company and all they have so far accomplished. But it is reasonably well funded and as long as we don't wean them too soon, they will make it on their own, freeing up that funding to go to other promising companies who would otherwise fall just over the cutoff line.

Agreed.
Ok, so just curious. SpaceX gets enough to begin in earnest their LAS, which results in another benefit of also allowing them to have propulsive landing capability down the road. Of the remaining participants, which 2 would you say should receive the remaining funds...?

[Namechange User]

Are we not far enough along in the development cycles of the competing systems for NASA to make an educated decision as to which of the executions is most likely to succeed, with the greatest speed to market, most economical to develop and maintain, factoring in capabilities?

I'd actually like to see SpaceX get enough to guarantee that they can finish up on their own after this so that in any future awards they can be cut out, keeping other less well funded but excellent companies alive.

Remember, these are commercial companies and at some point they need to be weaned if they are going to retain the title "commercial". Sure the USGov can purchase their product or service, but at some point they need to stand on their own 2 feet and fund their day to day operations out of their profit margin, not from the US Treasury. I hope to see that happen to *all* the winners.

I understand and agree to a point. And yes there are some exciting possibilities with less funded entities, however, I'm just not of the mind that we should belabor this point. The ultimate goal is to get a working commercial space man-rated transportation system in place as quickly and as economically as possible. The more we dilute what little funds we have, to companies so far from achieving an operational system, the longer we will have no domestic HSF, LEO capability.

I'm sorry but the irony of this statement still bewilders me.  We need a "commercial" space system and therefore need as much government funding (which come with government requirements and the more funding the more oversight) as possible. 

CCDev-2 is not and was not ever intended for full-up DDT&E of the vehicles.  Even only if a hand-full of bidders get the majority of the pie, we're still talking close to each recipiant getting nearly what was given out for all of CCDev-1. 

If the business case is like what the CSF preaches, then CCDev-2 should show some flexibility, intent and will for capital investment.  Government can't and shouldn't do it alone.  Isn't that the main thrust of pro-commercial space extremists?  Or is that just talk to get as much money from the government as possible?

[yg1968]

Isn't that the main thrust of pro-commercial space extremists?  Or is that just talk to get as much money from the government as possible?

Pro-commercial space extremists? Who are they? Do they hide in caves?

[Namechange User]

Pro-commercial space extremists? Who are they? Do they hide in caves?

Yeah, we are on the same site right?