Claim: Commercial Crew is going to be a train-wreck in slow motion...

[Gregori]

I've a fear that despite all the optimism and amazing peoplem about commercial crew solving all the US problems in space, its wishful thinking and really going to be a repeat of the EELVs... ie. the commercial market fails to materialize and the government is left paying just to have the capability. 

Crews are rotated on the ISS roughly every six months. That means two commercial crew missions per year. This is far too low. There is no guarantee that there will be other customers whatsoever.

That low amount can barely support one provider never mind two or three! This will not result in a competitive market and will likely end up having one provider for the capability. This combination of few missions and few providers will make it very expensive per flight, possibly as high as shuttle. Commercial Cargo under COTS was not cheap, so I doubt human spaceflight is going to be significantly cheaper, esp since the vehicles are far more complex than the cargo ships like Dragon and Cygnus.

I hope this doesn't happen...

[Tony Ostinato]

go back and watch the ares-1 and falcon test flight videos side by side and tell me what other choice did we have?

i have no doubt ares-1 would have killed at least 1 crew due to its flawed design, a design so flawed even many within nasa wanted to bail on it.

even in the worst case scenario commercial is going to be safer and cheaper and more reliable than ares in its best case scenario.

i wish that werent true, i was a big fan of nasa but nothing government can function now with this polarization. its like trying to drive straight when one person is yelling RIGHT RIGHT and the other is yelling LEFT LEFT.

nasa needs someone like von braun whos a clear leader and visionary and those guys have gone to the private sector because theyre tired of the yelling.

i just wish people could figure out how to turn quantize off.

[Jason1701]

That low amount can barely support one provider never mind two or three! This will not result in a competitive market and will likely end up having one provider for the capability. This combination of few missions and few providers will make it very expensive per flight, possibly as high as shuttle. Commercial Cargo under COTS was not cheap, so I doubt human spaceflight is going to be significantly cheaper, esp since the vehicles are far more complex than the cargo ships like Dragon and Cygnus.

Extreme pessimism. NASA pays SpaceX $133M for each CRS flight, including a new Falcon 9 and new Dragon even if parts are available for reuse. The same basic system, modified for crew transportation, will cost far less than ten times that (which would put it on par with Shuttle). I've only used SpaceX for an example because their prices are the best known. If one crew provider experiences ballooning cost, NASA isn't stuck with them - they get dropped, and others get the business.

NASA could have more than two CC flights per year if they had some short surge missions as Soyuz used to.

Crew vehicles are not "far more complex" than cargo. They have certain additional systems is all, and require more testing.

Frankly, the business case for CC is for the companies to worry about, not NASA. Boeing and the others have surely done their business analyses well.

Edit: Wayne Hale said the same thing as the OP, but for a totally different reason.

[Namechange User]

Frankly, the business case for CC is for the companies to worry about, not NASA. Boeing and the others have surely done their business analyses well.

And this statement, right here in a nutshell, is the embodiment of what so many are missing. 

[Jason1701]

Frankly, the business case for CC is for the companies to worry about, not NASA. Boeing and the others have surely done their business analyses well.

And this statement, right here in a nutshell, is the embodiment of what so many are missing. 

I must be too new to the space community to understand what I'm missing. Please tell me.

[Jorge]

Frankly, the business case for CC is for the companies to worry about, not NASA. Boeing and the others have surely done their business analyses well.

And this statement, right here in a nutshell, is the embodiment of what so many are missing. 

I must be too new to the space community to understand what I'm missing. Please tell me.

Simple logic chain:

1) One of the primary purposes of CC is to assure US access to ISS.
2) In order for CC as a whole to succeed, at least one (preferably two) CC companies must succeed.
3) Companies with bad business plans generally do not succeed.
4) Therefore, the business plans of the CC companies is very much something that NASA must worry about.

[Gregori]

Extreme pessimism. NASA pays SpaceX $133M for each CRS flight, including a new Falcon 9 and new Dragon even if parts are available for reuse. The same basic system, modified for crew transportation, will cost far less than ten times that (which would put it on par with Shuttle). I've only used SpaceX for an example because their prices are the best known. If one crew provider experiences ballooning cost, NASA isn't stuck with them - they get dropped, and others get the business.

There may very will be only one provider and NASA will be stuck with them because it would be more expensive and disruptive to develop a totally new vehicle from another provider. Its not like other services were there is a real commercial market and switching providers is that simple. It could take 5 years to get a new vehicle on stream. NASA is not going to allow another 5 year gap, and would rather just pay the extra money.

Whoever wins these contracts will have such a huge advantage over their competitors that it will put those who are not chosen by NASA out of the human launch business pretty much for good.

NASA could have more than two CC flights per year if they had some short surge missions as Soyuz used to.

I really hope so but I am not counting on it. The currently planned vehicles are actually overly capable. With Soyuz, NASA will only need to rotate 3 crew members, not 7.

Crew vehicles are not "far more complex" than cargo. They have certain additional systems is all, and require more testing.

And the additional systems cost about a $1 Billion to make them suitable for crew. That's almost 3 times what it cost to develop Dragon, Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 all together, which should give a good idea of how complicated it is. A cargo flight crashing is not the end of the world, another rocket can be flown to meet the demand. People are not replaceable like cargo.

Frankly, the business case for CC is for the companies to worry about, not NASA. Boeing and the others have surely done their business analyses well.

NASA should be worried about it more than the companies. The companies are not going to lose from this situation. NASA is paying to develop the vehicles, and when there is no alternative, NASA will be locked into paying whatever these companies charge for the service.

[Namechange User]

Frankly, the business case for CC is for the companies to worry about, not NASA. Boeing and the others have surely done their business analyses well.

And this statement, right here in a nutshell, is the embodiment of what so many are missing. 

I must be too new to the space community to understand what I'm missing. Please tell me.

It's what I have been saying for so long in more posts than I can possibly count (you know what led you to accuse me of hoping commercial fails).

So NASA wants "commercial crew".  NASA wants redundant access.  But if NASA is the only customer, then these companies are not going to just lose money for the hell of it.  They are going to pass all their costs on to NASA plus a modest profit. 

If NASA requires or desires redundant access, and there is no other business base, then these minimum of two companies pass all their costs to NASA and there is no "competition" and there is no "incentive" because there is no market and they have a lock due to redundancy.  It is likely no one else will develop a vehicle to replace whoever is chosen because there is no market and hence no incentive for companies to invest the rather large sums required for development.  This utterly fails to be called "commercial" anything.  It becomes another government-funded project, pure and simple. 

If these companies fly only once a year (because there is no other business and the one other flight NASA requires goes to the other player) then costs will be quite high.  Maintaining product lines, sustaining engineering, certifications, etc. 

Now perhaps you begin to see why utilization of ISS is so important.  If utilization succeeds, then the National Lab section could draw more customers, driving more demand to use ISS.  More flights, allows competition, drives prices down allowing more business cases to close for applications beyond NASA.  Yet instead, we are standing down our capability with no operational cargo vehicle (and not really sure when that is going to happen) absolutely hurting the chance for utilization and hence the chance for commercial crew, and the current and future business case for them.

So accuse me if you want of rooting for commercail to fail but now, if you understand this, then perhaps you can see that everything I have said in the past is to give commercial the best chance at success. 

[Hodapp]

I disagree, private industry is always more efficient & cost-effective.  The gov't is good at starting new major technological hurdles, like the moon missions, & ISS, but once gov't has paved the way...then private industry is great at opening a once domain of the "few" to the near many!  So I'm positive about these initiatives, we will be the only country with several private man-rated orbital vehicles (Dragon & CST-100), plus MPCV (Orion) for deep space missions, then we have Bigelow with their inflatable habitats...great stuff going on!  Already we have a new spaceport in New Mexico with Virgin Galactic, who else is even close!  Everyone frets about Russia and China, but their not even close to the private initiatives going on.  The only negative to NASA's new initiative is not having an immediate replacement vehicle;  (No one remembers this but this is exactly what happened after apollo/skylab, we were 6 years before the shuttle flew - and its not as bad cause we still astronauts flying on soyuz now!) and Obama's stupid idea of nixing going back to the moon, and going first to an asteroid...please!!!!   
The moon is the objective!  We need to learn how to build spacecraft in space, as well as space stations around the moon, and moonbases.  We need to build an Earth/Moon transportation system, and use the moon resources.  Then we move forward to mars!  Private industry needs to develop space hotels, and make space accessible...when that happens the sky is the limit...because you now have the public and globe sold!

Oh well my two cents worth.
Go Atlantis...finish the shuttle era with grace & beauty!
Godspeed Atlantis & NASA & ESA & RSA & JAXA

[edkyle99]

go back and watch the ares-1 and falcon test flight videos side by side and tell me what other choice did we have?

i have no doubt ares-1 would have killed at least 1 crew due to its flawed design, a design so flawed even many within nasa wanted to bail on it.

Please tell me where I can watch this "Ares I" test flight video.  If it exists, please tell me which part of the film shows how astronauts would have been killed, or which part shows a "flawed" design.

 - Ed Kyle

[Gregori]

I disagree, private industry is always more efficient & cost-effective.  The gov't is good at starting new major technological hurdles, like the moon missions, & ISS, but once gov't has paved the way...then private industry is great at opening a once domain of the "few" to the near many!  So I'm positive about these initiatives, we will be the only country with several private man-rated orbital vehicles (Dragon & CST-100), plus MPCV (Orion) for deep space missions, then we have Bigelow with their inflatable habitats...great stuff going on!  Already we have a new spaceport in New Mexico with Virgin Galactic, who else is even close!  Everyone frets about Russia and China, but their not even close to the private initiatives going on.  The only negative to NASA's new initiative is not having an immediate replacement vehicle;  (No one remembers this but this is exactly what happened after apollo/skylab, we were 6 years before the shuttle flew - and its not as bad cause we still astronauts flying on soyuz now!) and Obama's stupid idea of nixing going back to the moon, and going first to an asteroid...please!!!!   
The moon is the objective!  We need to learn how to build spacecraft in space, as well as space stations around the moon, and moonbases.  We need to build an Earth/Moon transportation system, and use the moon resources.  Then we move forward to mars!  Private industry needs to develop space hotels, and make space accessible...when that happens the sky is the limit...because you now have the public and globe sold!

Oh well my two cents worth.
Go Atlantis...finish the shuttle era with grace & beauty!
Godspeed Atlantis & NASA & ESA & RSA & JAXA

Private industry is there to make a profit first and foremost. They're not on a moral crusade to be more efficient and cost effective unless it means more profit. They would really prefer a monopoly if they could get away with it. That's the point of competition.

Governments don't have to make a profit in spaceflight and civil servants can't really line their pockets with government money directly. They can possibly steer contracts towards companies that will later hire them after they retire, but that highlights some of the problems of the public-private mix.

Lacking both a commercial market larger than ISS and real competition, the incentive to be "cost effective" for the tax payer is going to take the back seat to what companies really care about : themselves!!!

I was SUPER optimistic up to a month ago about all this commercial crew until I actually stopped assuming the best outcome I wished for would happen and thought about it for a while and read some history. There are few outcomes to this that are actually far more likely than the best possible outcome. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

Even Robert Bigelow thinks ISS alone is not enough to sustain competitive commercial crew transport.

[Hodapp]

I understand...
Trying to be optimistic, in an all too pesimistic world! 

[Robert Thompson]

OV-106, I can follow your argument. I've been disappointed with the continued lack of impressive testing of human limits on the ISS. E.g., the plans for a centrifuge are on hold, but we are supposed to feel the inexorable momentum of progress now that they have a cupola.

So, while the ISS has a certain sunk cost baseline utility, what do you think of interactions between ISS on its present orbit and an equatorial LEO _Test_ depot? (A polar orbit LEO ULA depot might work if it kept its nose to the terminus - should be same thermal load as LEO equatorial north ecliptic).

I suppose that any launches now just point along the path of the ISS, rather than in the direction of earth's rotation, and perform rendezvous without this free assist. And there may be times when something does take full advantage of the launch assist and then executes a change of trajectory. Now I'm pretty sure the earth rotation launch assist is very small. Is it so small that a depot's assistance in this respect would be negligible?

Now for a more radical idea: The ISS's present orbit is a function of overflying every participant. If an LEO depot provided the necessary propellant, would there be any advantage to the ISS and its to putting the ISS into an equatorial orbit? Any advantage at all that is in favor or your above arguments?

Another question: Do you have a list of "Good science that really still ought to be done on the ISS?"

Just looking for Aragorn, not Denethor.

[go4mars]

Even Robert Bigelow thinks ISS alone is not enough to sustain competitive commercial crew transport.

Though Mr. Big has good reason to believe that ISS won't be alone in sustaining commercial crew transport.   

[Diagoras]

I've a fear that despite all the optimism and amazing peoplem about commercial crew solving all the US problems in space

Opening any argument with a fallacy is usually a bad sign. Unless you can point me to people who have claimed that commercial crew would solve "all the US problems in space" I'm going to take the rest of your post with a grain of salt.

Crews are rotated on the ISS roughly every six months. That means two commercial crew missions per year. This is far too low. There is no guarantee that there will be other customers whatsoever.

Robert Bigelow, Elon Musk, and others have sunk *quite* a bit of their own wealth assuming that there will in fact be a multitude of other customers, along with crew and cargo to ISS supporting their business case a good deal. You might want to check out the NASA study on markets for crew and cargo which deals with much of this.

Commercial Cargo under COTS was not cheap, so I doubt human spaceflight is going to be signifigantly cheaper, esp since the vehicles are far more complex than the cargo ships like Dragon and Cygnus.

I'd be quite interested in seeing the evidence for your claim that commercial cargo is "not cheap", as all the data I've seen has it providing upmass at prices far lower than almost any other competitor. If you're referring to a certain document issued during a Congressional hearing, jongoff posted a nice rebuttal of its numbers, which appear to be couched in fantasy more than anything else.

Anyway, anyone participating in this thread should certain read this report in order to understand what current market assessments indicate. Otherwise we're just working off supposition.

[Jim]

1.  That low amount can barely support one provider never mind two or three! This will not result in a competitive market and will likely end up having one provider for the capability.

2.   This combination of few missions and few providers will make it very expensive per flight, possibly as high as shuttle.

3.   Commercial Cargo under COTS was not cheap, so I doubt human spaceflight is going to be significantly cheaper, esp since the vehicles are far more complex than the cargo ships like Dragon and Cygnus.

1.  So what?

2.  No, it won't be "very" expensive or even close to the shuttle

3.  How is it "not cheap"?

[Jim]

NASA will be locked into paying whatever these companies charge for the service.

Again, so what?  It will be cheaper than a NASA managed system

[mmeijeri]

NASA is paying to develop the vehicles, and when there is no alternative, NASA will be locked into paying whatever these companies charge for the service.

Having multiple suppliers means there are alternatives. That's precisely why advocates of commercial crew want multiple competing suppliers. And if there is only one, how is that worse than what we have today? NASA paid for development of the Shuttle and now has a single supplier (the United Space Alliance) that operates it.

[Tony Ostinato]

many videos on youtube of course.

i can't be the first or the only to mention ares-1's design problems.....low frequency super intense oscillation etc.

[KelvinZero]

Im still hazy about the exact advantages of the commercial model. What seems the clearer advantage is just that we are talking about something small that also will be used for unmanned flights and that we are going to keep building. Large flight numbers, the ability to test upgrades on unmanned flights, and never ever again facing the current situation of having to start the safety record from scratch seem excellent features for manned flight.There will be fixed costs but we have to pay them anyway, eg for Delta and Atlas.

Im nervous about the number of providers, which is why I am nervous about the HLV. Each 130 ton HLV launch removes the market for about 5 cargoes using existing vehicles, surely. Even if they can't share the same missions, in the end they both have to come out of the same finite NASA budget and it isn't like we will run out of worthwhile things to do with 25-30 ton launches any time soon. Note however that if we do end up with only one monopoly provider it does not remove the advantages listed in the previous paragraph.

Where we simply have to lift something larger than this range, it seems best to do it on a vehicle that does not have to be man-rated, since it will never have a comparable flight-rate.

Im not sure that many small launches can be competitive with fewer, larger ones. However it seems both far more safe in a world of uncertain budgets, and also far more likely to encourage real paradigm changing breakthroughs such as fuel depots, reusable boosters, space tourism and so on.