What would you say the odds are of commercial service per each contender?

[PeterAlt]

Here's my unscientific on a hunch listing of the odds of each CCDev contender actual making it into commercial flight service with actual launches over several years:

SpaceX - 100% (unless something unforeseeable goes wrong)

Boeing - 90% (my gut tells me Boeing would fast pull the plug if Congress drastically cuts the CCDev funding level)

Sierra Nevada - 30%

Blue Origin - 10%

How would you place those odds?

[manboy]

Don't mean to be rude but there's already a topic on this

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=25788.0

[PeterAlt]

Don't mean to be rude but there's already a topic on this

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=25788.0

No rudeness taken - input appreciated. Looking at that thread, it's related, but is not specifically about guessing the odds. I'm trying to wager the odds with numbers - unscientifically, like betting on horses. Of course everyone will have different numbers and reasons for it, which would be interesting to see. As time progresses, it will be interesting to see who was closest to reality.

[mmeijeri]

SpaceX - 80%
Boeing - 70% (not driven to open up space like Musk, more dependent on NASA funding)
Sierra Nevada - 30%
Blue Origin - 95% (Bezos has deeper pockets than Musk and is as driven)

[Jorge]

Cool, a thread where we can all pull numbers out of our butts.

[mmeijeri]

You say that as if it were a bad thing! 

[PeterAlt]

SpaceX - 80%
Boeing - 70% (not driven to open up space like Musk, more dependent on NASA funding)
Sierra Nevada - 30%
Blue Origin - 95% (Bezos has deeper pockets than Musk and is as driven)

I didn't know much of anything concerning Blue Origin, which is why I put its odds at 10%. Everything you said about them I did not know. One thing I did know is that Alan Stern, the former Deputy Administrator for the Science Directorate and the principle scientist of the New Frontiers flyby mission to Pluto, is now working for them. Stern is also a vocal critic of NASA management of HSF programs. President Obama at one point considered him for the NASA Administrator position, before deciding on Bolden, though he claims never wanting the job. I found it curious that he would take a job in the private sector for a HSF project, while also criticizing NASA for its management of HSF programs, like SLS. This tells me that Blue Origin has something up its sleeves that could impress NASA HSF critics (like Stern), or Stern wants to embarass NASA management by developing more with less faster. Either possibility give Blue Origin greater credibility, in my mind, and deepens the mystery of what they're up to.

[kch]

Cool, a thread where we can all pull numbers out of our butts.

Well, one more thread where we can do that, anyway ...

(the thing is, some numbers have points and corners -- they hurt!  That's why it's such a relief to get 'em out of there)

[Hauerg]

SpaceX - 90% (not flying only if company folds)
Boeing - 60% (not committed to go on their own)
Sierra Nevada - 20% (is there enough business for 3?)
Blue Origin - 50% (and years later than SpaceX and Boeing)

[PeterAlt]

Cool, a thread where we can all pull numbers out of our butts.

Well, one more thread where we can do that, anyway ...

(the thing is, some numbers have points and corners -- they hurt!  That's why it's such a relief to get 'em out of there)

And this isn't completely random guesses. These guesses are based on what we know about these companies, their proposals, progress thus far, the political environment, the economy, NASA's track record, the science and engineering of their designs, personal discriminations and/or favoritisms, competing ideologies, the weather, and the price of tea in China.

[vt_hokie]

The important thing is that none of 'em are 100% until they're flying, and we should not have retired the shuttle until that point.  The clock is ticking (and the ISS is aging)....I think a question we may well be faced with is what happens when delays cause the overlap between commercial crew service entry and ISS retirement to evaporate?

[PeterAlt]

The important thing is that none of 'em are 100% until they're flying, and we should not have retired the shuttle until that point.  The clock is ticking (and the ISS is aging)....I think a question we may well be faced with is what happens when delays cause the overlap between commercial crew service entry and ISS retirement to evaporate?

I just hope this isn't like the gap between Apollo and shuttle. At least we still have a manned spacecraft flying this time in the form of the ISS. You can counter that we were flying Skylab back then, but we didn't keep Skylab flying manned. Ironically, our last use of the Apollo capsule was the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project; the same Russian vehicle that will get our astronauts to the station this time around. If the political back then were better, I wonder if we would have asked the USSR to sell us rides on Soyuz in order for us to keep Skylab manned until shuttle was ready.

[aquanaut99]

The important thing is that none of 'em are 100% until they're flying, and we should not have retired the shuttle until that point.  The clock is ticking (and the ISS is aging)....I think a question we may well be faced with is what happens when delays cause the overlap between commercial crew service entry and ISS retirement to evaporate?

What happens if something breaks down on ISS in the near future and the station has to be evacuated? Considering the mess the USA and Europe are in right now, that would probably be a perfect opportunity to pull the plug for good.

Without ISS, no CCDev. Without CCDev, none of these will ever fly manned, IMO. And no more HSF, except in China (Russia will probably also fold if ISS goes).

[alexw]

At least we still have a manned spacecraft flying this time in the form of the ISS. You can counter that we were flying Skylab back then, but we didn't keep Skylab flying manned. Ironically, our last use of the Apollo capsule was the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project; the same Russian vehicle that will get our astronauts to the station this time around. If the political back then were better, I wonder if we would have asked the USSR to sell us rides on Soyuz in order for us to keep Skylab manned until shuttle was ready.

     It's been said around here, I think, that Soyuz could not have reached Skylab's higher orbit. Zenit wasn't ready yet. Zond might've been possible.
     -Alex

[AlexCam]

A reliable and sustainable commercial crew service? Not higher than 50-50 for any company.

And to say SpaceX is somehow more likely to accomplish reliable and sustainable crewed spaceflight than Boeing is really, really strange.

[grr]

Here's my unscientific on a hunch listing of the odds of each CCDev contender actual making it into commercial flight service with actual launches over several years:

SpaceX - 100% (unless something unforeseeable goes wrong)

Boeing - 90% (my gut tells me Boeing would fast pull the plug if Congress drastically cuts the CCDev funding level)

Sierra Nevada - 30%

Blue Origin - 10%

How would you place those odds?

SpaceX will depend on CONgress and Bigelow. Assuming that CONgress does not pass a law that says that NASA can not use new private space OR that Bigelow  gets his private space station off the ground AND that SpaceX does not have a failure, then SpaceX is 100%.
The fact is, that once COTS is done, then SpaceX is flying a capsule that is nearly ready to handle humans. In fact, I would imagine that if our partnership with Russia fell apart, we would simply add the seats and life support and simply launch without the ABAS.

Boeing is hard. They are not committed to private funding.  I suspect that if Boeing were to lose funding from NASA, they would in fact quit unless they were near the end. But I will go with better than 95%. The reason is that NASA NEEDS multiple systems and on different launch vehicles.

SNC is the fun one. ISS does not have enough to support 3 launchers/vehicles.  However, as long as ISS does private space AND Bigelow happens with at least one space station, then it can in fact support 3 vehicles. And I suspect that with SNC being supposedly ready in early 2014 and being a lifting body, they will have missions.
If BA really does the 2100 around 2015-2016 to build another station, then no doubt there will be plenty of work.

Better than 75% for at least 2 years (though longer may be a real issue unless BA expands beyond 1 station ).

Blue Origin is the interesting one. As others have mentioned, Bezo has DEEP pockets and a CONTINUAL source of deep funding.  Interestingly, his VTVL sub-orbital will not only generate money for them, but I suspect that the tech is designed for the moon. IOW, he is trying to build the whole gamet for going to the moon. 
I will say that IFF we multiple private space station vendors, we can easily support 4 different human launchers. Keep in mind that IDC is looking at an inflatable system as well, though I notice that they do not talk much about it.

Considering how much is dependent out there and how little info they give, I would say that Blue Origin can not even be intelligently SWAGGED.


What is really interesting is that the above is going to lead to a unique situation. We finally have REAL competition coming (barring CONgress getting in the way), and I think that prices WILL drop.  I also think that Bigelow and these LVs will push to go to the moon ASAP. They know that if a small base is built there, that all of the nations lining up for BA's leo stations, will likely pay big bucks to be in the first 10 nations on the moon.
I also note that if CONgress messes with things the way that they want to, then NASA pulling back from private space or BA not getting off the ground, then it will be a disaster. I could see CONgress being dump enough to say that ONLY Boeing can launch.

[PeterAlt]

A reliable and sustainable commercial crew service? Not higher than 50-50 for any company.

And to say SpaceX is somehow more likely to accomplish reliable and sustainable crewed spaceflight than Boeing is really, really strange.

If you look at the manifest, you'd see that the SpaceX is planning on using the scheduled COTS Dragon launches as an opportunity to launch commercial satellites with a single launch opportunity, increasing the economics of the Falcon 9-Dragon system.

NASA is just one customer. Other customers could be commercial satellites, as I mentioned above. Eventually other customers will join NASA for Dragon's unique cargo and HSF features. Seeing it this way, makes the economics of it a bit more sane.

[peter-b]

And to say SpaceX is somehow more likely to accomplish reliable and sustainable crewed spaceflight than Boeing is really, really strange.

It is, isn't it? But that's my gut feeling as well. 

It's hard to figure out why (hence the thread I started).

I think for me it's the fact that SpaceX, as a company, has "reliable and sustainable and inexpensive crewed spaceflight" as it's corporate mission.  It's the reason the company exists, it's totally focussed on that goal, and the structure and operation of the company reflects that. I think it's fair to say that that doesn't apply to Boeing. Maybe that's colouring my opinion.

(TBH I think NASA should have "reliable and sustainable crewed spaceflight" as a stated goal, but that's off topic).

CONgress

Do you write it with that capitalization in order to contrast with PROgress? :-P

[AlexCam]

A reliable and sustainable commercial crew service? Not higher than 50-50 for any company.

And to say SpaceX is somehow more likely to accomplish reliable and sustainable crewed spaceflight than Boeing is really, really strange.

If you look at the manifest, you'd see that the SpaceX is planning on using the scheduled COTS Dragon launches as an opportunity to launch commercial satellites with a single launch opportunity, increasing the economics of the Falcon 9-Dragon system.

NASA is just one customer. Other customers could be commercial satellites, as I mentioned above. Eventually other customers will join NASA for Dragon's unique cargo and HSF features. Seeing it this way, makes the economics of it a bit more sane.

Plans and execution are different things. Boeing has for decades proven that it is able to achieve success in complicated programs. SpaceX has unfortunately proven (once again in the history of modern aerospace) that for a smaller company it is extremely difficult to solve complicated tasks in a reliable and sustainable fashion.

I am not diminishing SpaceX's successes until now, I am merely pointing out that they have extreme cost overruns and schedule delays. Boeing on the other hand might be an old-space company, but they have a record of delivering within budgets (if those are realistic) and within schedule.

Having said that, any speculation which company will ultimately succeed in crewed spaceflight is just that - speculation. However, to give SpaceX a higher chance in succeeding than Boeing ignores everything that has happened in spaceflight in the US until now.

[mmeijeri]

I am not diminishing SpaceX's successes until now, I am merely pointing out that they have extreme cost overruns and schedule delays.

Huh? Delays yes, like everybody else, but cost overruns?

Boeing on the other hand might be an old-space company, but they have a record of delivering within budgets (if those are realistic) and within schedule.

What about Dreamliner? What about KC-46? I think you are pulling this "information" from your nether regions.