So the question is what did SNC do wrong to get no joy from the CCtCAP selection committee?
Quote from: DavisSTS on 09/17/2014 03:07 pmSo the question is what did SNC do wrong to get no joy from the CCtCAP selection committee?I'm disappointed too, yet in spite of our thinking it's political, there may well be technical considerations we aren't thinking of. We're not at the Gravity stage yet, but the day is coming when debris is the major obstacle to space flight. The ISS cupola already has 2 MMOD strikes. A fully exposed TPS covering the entire ship is far more vulnerable than a heat shield fully covered on both sides. There is more debris around ISS than anywhere else except perhaps the Chinese kill zone. In that ISS is the destination, perhaps they decided the exposed TPS was too risky.(Edit-yea, 1000th post-full member-yippee!)
As a taxpayer I see a government entity making another large purchase with much higher costs with money they didn't earn. If the Boeing costs were much closer to the SpaceX ones it wouldn't traumatize me as much.It's the same problem I have with the Air Force's block buy and every other branch of government easily spending money earned by others. I am not Libertarian but this constant poor judgment with money is driving me that way.
Exactly. At least this appears to be a rational decision made by a more or less rational process. If you take the requirement for independent access seriously (as I think it should be taken) then you will need to fund a non-lowest bidder, and confidence in the solution working will be a strong criterium. So I can appreciate this decision just as I can appreciate a Supreme Court decision, whether I agree with it or not. At least they took a solid look at all the available evidence, and then decided. Compared with deciding by legislative and politically driven fiat, that alone is a huge improvement.
I'd like to see the X-37B TPS after such long duration flights as a baseline....
And yes, I have trouble getting excited over reestablishing the routine access to LEO that I grew up with in the 1980's and 1990's, except with smaller craft and fewer people. That seems to be the extent of the ambition of the CST-100.
Quote from: Rocket Science on 09/17/2014 04:37 pmI'd like to see the X-37B TPS after such long duration flights as a baseline....Agreed, however it doesn't fly to ISS. The more craft that visit ISS, the more little junk there is in that orb. Having the exposed TPS would mean visual inspections including stills and video at each arrival and departure. DC had no Canada Arm and boom with which to inspect itself. Then you have the embarassing situation if you do find a strike causing them to return to ISS for safe harbor and the program is cancelled after that. Everyone would say, "After all the problems STS had with tiles, why did they go with that system again?" I loved DC, but maybe using a protected heat shield is just safer in this debris filled environment.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the inspection of the Shuttle's heat shield done because something could have hit it during launch? Dreamchaser would have been on top so no probs there.
Quote from: DavisSTS on 09/17/2014 03:07 pmSo the question is what did SNC do wrong to get no joy from the CCtCAP selection committee?IMO? Boeing's continued involvement was critical to stop Congress defunding the whole program for being 'without credibility'. Not funding SpaceX, a company actually already flying the vehicle to the ISS, would instantly fail the laugh test and not even SpaceX's most vituperative Congressional enemy would want to be associated with such a decision. Only two vehicles were going to be funded. The rest is just math.
