CCDev to CCiCAP to CCtCAP Discussion Thread

[AJW]

We know that NASA is very risk averse especially regarding the life of crews.  I never saw much about the DC LAS except that it would use the hybrid engine, so swapping out the engine puts the entire LAS system at risk.  Spacecraft that depend on flight control surfaces surviving an abort scenario may have also been downgraded, and ocean landings with a lifting body would likely be far more dangerous than with a capsule.  You may be able to land at a number of airports, but there are plenty of places on this planet where runways are few and far between.  Add to that the inability to perform a go-around and you get another down-check.  We have also seen that any failure in the landing gear, while survivable, could be very dangerous for the crew, whether during a normal landing or in an abort.

When the selection committee report comes out, I suspect that these issues will be prominent.  Capsules may be boring, but KISS may win out.

[vt_hokie]

KISS makes sense for ending ISS Soyuz dependence.  I guess I had hoped commercial crew would lead to some new and innovative things, but of course that's not really what it was about.  We're lucky to be getting a vehicle as potentially groundbreaking as Dragon out of the deal, so at least it's not a total bust. 

What I really wish is that NASA had an ambitious RLV development program, but I guess that kind of thing tends to be done by DARPA these days.  It's always about weapons, or there's just no incentive to advance it seems...

[erioladastra]

I'm really surprised Boeing got 4.2 billion dollars while Spacex only got 2.6 billion.

I'm too cynical to be surprised.  If the goal was simply to get the lowest risk solution to supplementing Soyuz for the few remaining years of ISS life, then it makes sense.  But then we should have just awarded a cost-plus contract years ago, as that's a poor basis for trying to spur an innovative commercial spaceflight revolution.

Exactly what I keep saying, I feel like it was a "bait and switch"... So what's the ROI in SNC?

It was a rather slow and obvious switch.  Congress made it pretty clear that they were not interested.  CCiCAP and CCtCAP followed up and made it clear the chief requirement was quick and safe access to ISS, anything more was bonus but not the intent. 

[QuantumG]

quick, safe, cheap - choose two.

[ncb1397]

quick, safe, cheap - choose two.

Dragon V2 will be in orbit quicker and it will cost less. Invariably, this means that Dragon V2 has a higher LOC rate than CST-100?

[QuantumG]

quick, safe, cheap - choose two.

Dragon V2 will be in orbit quicker and it will cost less. Invariably, this means that Dragon V2 has a higher LOC rate than CST-100?

It's not an infinite resolution quip. All these vehicles will not have been developed "quick" by any sensible definition.. but they will meet all NASA's exacting standards of safety and they will do it on starvation budgets, as they have for years now. If they desperately wanted to fly astronauts to the station on a US vehicle, they'd use a cargo Dragon and be done with it - quick, cheap, but not very safe.

[bubbagret]

Now there has been reference on the thread here about the use of CST-100 or Dragon V2 as a lifeboat. Does anyone here think that this would be redundant crew return capacity? That is, park a spare capsule over and above the ones that brought passengers? If so would it make sense for that to be a capsule capable of returning the full complement of the station (ie a 7 seat Dragon V2 or CST-100) and maybe one designed to be tested regularly but have a useful shelf life of several years?

I suppose that's possible.

The USTV designation is designed to dock on N1 Nadir & N2 Nadir (after PMM relocation). Currently (L2 document) they have only 1-month docked stays shown. However, SpaceX, Orbital, and HTV all use those same two docking ports for cargo, and JAXA plans on providing an additional 2 modules in the future (yay). So it makes it very congested.

I do believe however that there are plans for an additional port? I can't remember 100% though.

edit to add: 'ISS' Pete is the authority on here to figure this stuff out. 

What additional JAXA modules are you referring to?

[ncb1397]

quick, safe, cheap - choose two.

Dragon V2 will be in orbit quicker and it will cost less. Invariably, this means that Dragon V2 has a higher LOC rate than CST-100?

It's not an infinite resolution quip. All these vehicles will not have been developed "quick" by any sensible definition.. but they will meet all NASA's exacting standards of safety and they will do it on starvation budgets, as they have for years now. If they desperately wanted to fly astronauts to the station on a US vehicle, they'd use a cargo Dragon and be done with it - quick, cheap, but not very safe.

A quip with a better resolution might be: quick, safe, cheap, easy - pick 3.

[darkenfast]

DreamChaser's touted advantages were the ability to land at any airport and the low-g re-entry.  The reality is that there were probably only going to be a few airports that would be configured to having to clear airspace and deal with a spacecraft making a dead-stick landing.  The low-g advantage only makes sense if you are on your back.  The two positions in front (pilot and co-pilot, or whatever you want to call them), would either be sitting up for the re-entry, or would have to change positions during the brief period between re-entry and approach.  This might have implications after a six-month mission.  The other reason some favor DreamChaser seems to be emotional: it looks like an airplane and swoops down to land on a runway.  For the life of me, I can't see what makes that an inherently superior approach for a spacecraft in THIS size and with THIS mission.  Is it stronger?  More survivable in a crash?  Do the aerodynamic surfaces, lifting body-shape and other details to make it fly have a weight advantage over the capsule's heat-shield, parachutes and possibly rockets?  Maybe they do, I don't know.  But answer those questions before assuming that DreamChaser was a superior design. 

On the other hand and in my opinion, the fact that SNC did not release the full video of the landing mishap to the public has no bearing on the selection, as has been claimed above.  I think it's a fair bet that the people who made the decisions saw the whole video.  If there's anything on that video that shows a design defect of the spacecraft (and I don't think there is), NASA knows about it.  I look forward to seeing the eventual release of the selection report, which hopefully will make some of this more clear.

[vt_hokie]

All good questions, and I'm too tired at the moment to contemplate them in depth.  But there's something to be said for an underdog with a story as unique as this, pushing an idea whose time surely has to come someday!  Human spaceflight is partly about the excitement and inspiration of doing new and different things, right?

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/09/the-long-complicated-voyage-of-the-dream-chaser-may-yet-end-in-space/

[Nibb31]

Sierra's proposal had a lot more risk associated:

- Engine uncertainties: It was uncertain whether the hybrid engine could be properly developed with the specified performance and safety in the given timeframe. Switching to a liquid engine at this point was a fundamental change that would have changed the dynamics of the vehicle and negated any of the milestones that SNC had already met.

- Abort uncertainties: A lifting body needs a certain speed to glide back to a landing. DreamChaser's abort scenarios weren't very convincing, and looked a lot like the tricky aborts of the Shuttle that nobody ever dared to test. It is not certain that the vehicle or crew could survive an ocean ditching or a landing on unprepared terrain.

- MMOD risk: DreamChaser has its TPS exposed during launch and throughout its loiter period on orbit. After the experience with the Shuttle, that is an extra risk.

- Reliability: A vehicle with control surfaces and landing gear simply, including hydraulics and many moving parts, is more complex and has mathematically more failure points than a simpler capsule with parachutes. Even if those designs are well understood, a more complex vehicle requires more maintenance and inspection, especially when you are reusing the vehicle.

- Reusability risk: In addition to the base vehicle certification, DreamChaser required development of refurbishing and recertification procedures. This means not only technical work, but also paperwork, money, and again extra risk.

We don't know the price of their bid, but remember that DreamChaser was supposed to have a fleet of two vehicles built by Lockheed Martin. These vehicles being much more complex than a capsule, I doubt that they would have been much cheaper than a fleet of 6 CST-100s built by Boeing.

So unless they were much cheaper than SpaceX, the cost/risk ratio was simply not at their advantage and the decision to go with the other two competitors was a no brainer.

[MP99]

For the life of me, I can't see what makes that an inherently superior approach for a spacecraft in THIS size and with THIS mission.  Is it stronger?  More survivable in a crash?

Of course, SNC have already performed a test on this, and the result seems to be that DC can tumble down the runway and be quite survivable for any occupants.

If DC is in control, its velocity vector is mostly forward, and it gets the chance to scrub off speed in an extended crash.

A failed parachute landing comes in at high speed with an extremely short deceleration zone. (Yes, I know, SuperDracos, etc.)

Cheers, Martin

[ChrisWilson68]

For the life of me, I can't see what makes that an inherently superior approach for a spacecraft in THIS size and with THIS mission.  Is it stronger?  More survivable in a crash?

Of course, SNC have already performed a test on this, and the result seems to be that DC can tumble down the runway and be quite survivable for any occupants.

If DC is in control, its velocity vector is mostly forward, and it gets the chance to scrub off speed in an extended crash.

A failed parachute landing comes in at high speed with an extremely short deceleration zone. (Yes, I know, SuperDracos, etc.)

Yeah, a failed parachute landing (or failure of both the parachutes and the SuperDracos in the case of Dragon) leads to high speed and an extremely short deceleration zone.  But Dream Chaser has failure modes that lead to the same thing, such as control surfaces stuck in certain positions.  I don't think it's fair to compare a parachute failure to a Dream Chaser landing gear failure.  That would be more comparable to failure of a leg on Dragon or airbags on CST-100.

[ChrisWilson68]

Kind of defeats the purpose of "commercial crew" though to eliminate one of the innovators and then give the least innovative proposal a significantly higher amount of funding.  But really, I'd rather see CST-100 replace Orion which is the real waste of money (along with the white elephant SLS), and the two "newspace" innovators allowed to proceed on commercial crew.

Mindlessly rewarding something because it's different is no better than mindlessly rewarding something because it's the same as what was done before.

The benefits of innovation (and I'm a huge fan of innovation, working at a start-up in Silicon Valley) only come when you have the discipline to kill off the innovations that don't actually turn out to do a better job.

Most Silicon Valley start-ups fail.  That's the way it should be.  Most change turns out not to be all that great.  That doesn't mean it wasn't worth trying.  You have to try nine innovations that fail to find the one that succeeds and changes the world.

In Silicon Valley, the discipline comes from the market.  In commercial crew, the discipline has to come from the body making the selection.  They have to rate the proposals based on how well they solve the practical problem, not how innovative they are.  That's what the selection criteria were set up to do for CCtCap, and there's no indication I can see that the selection committee failed to follow the criteria objectively.

Well done, Sierra Nevada, on a noble failure.  Now move on to your next innovative idea.  Don't get bogged down in something you worked hard on that didn't work out.

[llanitedave]

quick, safe, cheap - choose two.

You made that up.  It's not a truism.

It could just as easily have been quick, innovative, and cheap.

Or innovative, capable, and safe.

Too many of the opinionated people on this forum have far more confidence than knowledge.

Or wisdom.

[R7]

quick, safe, cheap - choose two.

You made that up.  It's not a truism.

It could just as easily have been quick, innovative, and cheap.

Or innovative, capable, and safe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_triangle

Btw why should "innovative" as such be desirable option. People innovating for just innovativeness sake does not necessary produce faster, cheaper or better results, sometimes the opposite.

[vt_hokie]

On the innovation question, I think the ultimate goal is what matters. I still believe in the vision of NASP of routine civilian access to space, even if that was never really that program's goal and even if I won't realistically live to see it:



While SpaceX is keeping the dream alive, albeit with a pragmatic and measured evolutionary approach, this is the type of thing NASA should be about.  Unfortunately, we have become too timid and too risk averse to push the boundaries or invest in ambitious R&D, at least in the civilian world.  What goes on at places like Groom Lake we may never know, but what good does it do for humanity if we only invest in advancing weaponry?

Maybe Dream Chaser seemed like it was keeping some vestige of that dream and spirit alive, even if in reality it was no revolutionary vehicle. I was always a fan of the HL-20. Want to make NASA's human spaceflight program seem relevant to people? Give them a vision of opening up the frontier, and building the capability and infrastructure to change the way we all live, not just a few career overachievers who get to explore the frontier. (Though we'll always want those professional astronauts to be doing the true groundbreaking stuff of course, hopefully well beyond low Earth orbit when us average citizens are buying tickets on the commercial space clipper )

[kevinof]

true but if you don't at least try and innovate then you never advance. It's only by pushing designs in different directions that you figure out what makes sense and what is a dead end. Sitting on your hands doing the same old thing will keep you doing just that - the same old thing.

quick, safe, cheap - choose two.

You made that up.  It's not a truism.

It could just as easily have been quick, innovative, and cheap.

Or innovative, capable, and safe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_triangle

Btw why should "innovative" as such be desirable option. People innovating for just innovativeness sake does not necessary produce faster, cheaper or better results, sometimes the opposite.

[dror]

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?

It's apparently up to over $80 million now, by the way http://www.cbsnews.com/news/boeing-spacex-to-team-with-nasa-on-space-taxi/.  Although I have to say I am a little dubious about that claim, I had a hard time trying to find it amid lots of reports that it is over $70.

We don't have an estimated price per seat if you are excluding development costs.  I don't know that anyone has done an estimated price per seat including CCiCAP and CCtCAP but it would obviously be far  higher than anything the Russians have charged us.

So, What's the price per seat?
My seconed attempt:

Going from SpaceX's Total contract of $2.6B for RnD plus six flights of 1 Ton cargo and 4 crew we get:

(1)Excluding development (as 60%), including 6 flight of 7 seats:
~$25M per seat to ISS
That's the price for a comercial client after this contract ends.

(2)Excluding development (as 60%),  excluding the price of 1T of cargo each flight at crs1 rate $80M, including 6 flight of 4 seats and 1 Ton of cargo:
~$23M per seat to ISS
That's nasa's net prices per seat by this contract after certification ends.
That's SpaceX's price for follow on contracts.

(3)Including development cost, excluding the price of 1T of cargo each flight at crs1 rate $80M, including 6 flights of 4 seats and cargo:
~$88M per seat
That's full price, relevant for this contract only.

.For Boeing its about 60% up (assuming same ratio for RnD:flights 6:4)
.These numbers don't count for ccdev and ccicap costs.

What do you say?
 

[ChrisWilson68]

(1)Excluding development (as 60%), including 6 flight of 7 seats:
~$25M per seat to ISS
That's the price for a comercial client after this contract ends.

Where does the 60% number come from?