CCDev to CCiCAP to CCtCAP Discussion Thread

[Jim]

Bunch of nonsense and BS.  Not one bit of truth in this post

What about Lurio's tweets?

Who is that?  Was he on the selection board?

[yg1968]

I hear alot about our paying the Russians $71M per seat to fly to the ISS, but I can't find information on what the estimated cost will be per seat on the CST 100 and manned Dragon. Is this information published any where?

We don't know. A reporter asked that question yesterday but NASA declined to answer the question for now. NASA has indicated in the past that it should be competitive with Soyuz. My guess is that SpaceX will come out under but Boeing will come out slightly over that price. I am guessing $150M-$180M per flight for SpaceX versus $250M-$300M for Boeing.

[qralt]

A very coherent argument as to why Boeing got more:

http://www.spacenews.com/article/opinion/41897sn-blog-no-real-surprise-that-boeing%E2%80%99s-cctcap-award-is-bigger-than-spacex%E2%80%99s

[Dasun]

If the selection board was leaking - and it can be proved in court - then that will nullify the selection process and the whole thing will have to  be done all over again.  The process is designed to be as fair and unbiased as humanely possible.  You may not like the outcome but it is the result of a rigorous process.

Rumours are really an unreliable source of info - who knows, how or why they start.

[yg1968]

Bunch of nonsense and BS.  Not one bit of truth in this post

What about Lurio's tweets?

Who is that?  Was he on the selection board?

Charles Lurio is a journalist. He writes the Lurio report. The information that he received was similar to what Chris heard through his sources. It's possible that the sources are the same.

[Dasun]

Regarding the spacenews opinion piece: SpaceX got what they bid for, Boeing got what they bid for -as that is the amounts they submitted in their respective bids. 

The selection board did not - repeat did not -decide on project funding allocation.

[Lourens]

NASA must not be condemned for trying to secure safety first and only after that the better commercial terms. SpaceX and other competitors, once certified and holding reliable, well proven products and services will then be able to induce the desired change into the market.

Oh absolutely. I'm not saying that NASA should needlessly endanger human lives. I'm saying that if you don't accept any risk at all, there will be no progress (and I don't think that it will really reduce actual risk either). But it's not actually relevant to the CCtCap award, since all three vehicles would rightly be held to the same safety standards anyway.

[Poole Amateur]

I made the mistake yesterday of posting the thoughts of my heart before my brain (in mitigation,  I was suffering from a few Southampton Boatshow beers). Jim pulled me up in one of his few word posts and got me to thinking straight this morning. No matter how cynical we can all get, when people like Jim, who work so much more closely to matters probably than 99.9% of us, tells us to shut away conspiracy theories,  we should probably listen. Actually,  we should be celebrating as things are so much more exciting now than they have been in the last 40 years. Thank you Jim for keeping us on the straight and narrow, for being brutally frank and for telling us what we need to hear rather than want to hear.

[abaddon]

Who is that?  Was he on the selection board?

No, but neither were you.

Fine, it's a rumor, I get it.  Will be interesting to see if more rumors come up.  Also will be interesting to see what SNC does once they have the full report.

For the record, I predicted that SpaceX and Boeing would be the winners (see the poll thread), and I think there are good reasons Boeing was chosen.  I just find the idea that there might have been such a radical change in the selection result two weeks ago alarming.

[GalacticIntruder]

Given how poorly run and rushed the press conference was, it is not hard to suspect something fishy.

[matthewkantar]

One difference between Boeing and Spacex, I occasionally search Youtube for "Spacex". More times than not over this summer, a paid ad for CST-100 would come up above the results. I am pretty sure Spacex is not spending money on Youtube ads.

Enjoy

[Jim]

1.  No, but neither were you.

2.  Fine, it's a rumor, I get it.  Will be interesting to see if more rumors come up.  Also will be interesting to see what SNC does once they have the full report.

3.  For the record, I predicted that SpaceX and Boeing would be the winners (see the poll thread), and I think there are good reasons Boeing was chosen.  I just find the idea that there might have been such a radical change in the selection result two weeks ago alarming.

1.  And I have the same amount of information as anybody that wasn't on the selection board.  That is my point. 
I have been on selection boards, I know the process
2.  it doesn't matter, they are still rumors.
3.  What radical change?  Rumors don't count

[Jim]

Given how poorly run and rushed the press conference was, it is not hard to suspect something fishy.

Seeing something where there is nothing.

How many of these have you watched?

[Avron]

One difference between Boeing and Spacex, I occasionally search Youtube for "Spacex". More times than not over this summer, a paid ad for CST-100 would come up above the results. I am pretty sure Spacex is not spending money on Youtube ads.

Enjoy

I don't think Musk's companies, apart from Solar city pay for any Advertising

[WindyCity]

Been lurking here for a few years but new to posting. I know very little about the relative technical merits of the various commercial crew options, but am personally disappointed that SNC was left out. I was a big fan of Shuttle, because even though it was strictly a LEO ride it had so much more versatility than a capsule. Not saying that Dream Chaser would have had anywhere near those capabilities, but I would have liked for a lifting body spacecraft to carry forward the Shuttle legacy in some form. Now it appears that we'll have capsules and only capsules for the foreseeable future.

CST-100 will probably get the job done, but on the inspiration scale I think it's down there with Soyuz. I know that there is a lot more love for SpaceX and Dragon around here, but I'm not sure the general public will be inspired by that either. Does the inspiration factor of the general public matter? Maybe not, but IMO the best hope for any substantial budget increase that would allow SLS to get proper funding, missions and launch rate is for the general public to get engaged/inspired about space again. It was interesting how a lot of folks (again talking general public here) seemed to only realize what they were losing with Shuttle when it was already retired and orbiters were being ferried to museum sites.

Would SNC/Dream Chaser have been any more inspirational? Seems unlikely at this point that we will ever know.

When people see Dv2 land propulsively at the base it launched from, that will be inspiring.

[Dasun]

Stop reading the tea leaves and listening to rumours. 

Take off the tin-foil hats

Stop trying to see spots where there are none

Jim - as usual - is spot on.

The decision made was based on a rigorous process, the funding allocated was what they bid for.

Like it or lump-it that is where we are....and by 2020 3 US manned vehicles will be flying and that is a good thing.

[Chris Bergin]

Bunch of nonsense and BS.  Not one bit of truth in this post

What about Lurio's tweets?

Who is that?  Was he on the selection board?

Charles Lurio is a journalist. He writes the Lurio report. The information that he received was similar to what Chris heard through his sources. It's possible that the sources are the same.

No. The sources are not the same. It's just *so many* people knew about it.

[Brovane]

What would make F9 v1.1 a proven vehicle?  Would it be 10 flight 20 flights 30 flights? 

There's no threshold that makes a vehicle "proven". I simply stated A-V is better-proven than F9 on account of its significantly bigger flight history.

The more successful flights, the better. The fewer anomalies on any given flight, the better. Constant He leaks and other last-minute, unspecified anomalies and delays are not a sign of a mature vehicle.

Both vehicle's have proven through repeated launches that they can get the job done.   

[Brovane]

A very coherent argument as to why Boeing got more:

http://www.spacenews.com/article/opinion/41897sn-blog-no-real-surprise-that-boeing%E2%80%99s-cctcap-award-is-bigger-than-spacex%E2%80%99s

To me the argument leaves out the fact that the Boeing Capsule is planning to use the Atlas-V and the SpaceX uses the Falcon 9v1.1 which is 1/3 the cost of the Atlas-V.  IMHO that has to play into the price difference in bidding.

[adrianwyard]

Stepping back a little, does the $6.8 billion price tag for this phase in CC tell us anything about how successful this public/private-commercial experiment is going?

Total CC bill seems to be getting high to me, but I've never built a spacecraft before... At some point it would have cost fewer tax dollars if NASA had gone to Boeing or LM in 2010 and said "please build us a spaceship, you know the drill: cost-plus".

In theory freeing up companies to design to specs, coupled with competition should have kept prices low. Is there evidence this has happened? To amateur eyes the disparity in what Boeing is charging for the same work as SpaceX suggests they have not been phased by the presence of SNC and SpaceX in the competition. But others may know differently.