CCDev to CCiCAP to CCtCAP Discussion Thread

[sghill]

Even at the full $108 million/seat, since this is money that's being spent in America, it's probably a better deal for American government than spending $80 million in Russia, just by counting the consequent immediate increase in tax revenue (income and sales taxes, as people take their salaries and profits home to spend, giving other people salaries and profits to spend, etc.).

Don't forget that NASA is paying for redundant access, so you also need to include the price for CST-100 as well. This means that if NASA only flies six missions at four crew per mission from 2017 to 2019 (using a normal six month rotation), that works out to ($2600+$4200)/(6x4) = $283M per seat, which is 3.5 times the cost of using Soyuz.

You can't include the system development costs in that calculation. We don't know what the per flight costs are going to come in at because we don't know what the development costs are going to be.

[clongton]

Don't forget that NASA is paying for redundant access, so you also need to include the price for CST-100 as well. This means that if NASA only flies six missions at four crew per mission from 2017 to 2019 (using a normal six month rotation), that works out to ($2600+$4200)/(6x4) = $283M per seat, which is 3.5 times the cost of using Soyuz.

Steve you can't do it that way because the price per seat does not include the spacecraft development cost. The contract that SpaceX and Boeing both got was to continue development thru to certification; THEN provide crew rotation to the ISS. By the time the first 4-crew flight to the ISS is made the vast majority of that contract money will already have been spent to achieve certification. So to figure the price per seat you will need to divide what's left of the contract monies by the 6 scheduled flights. I'll bet you a pint of XXXX Gold that the per-seat price will end up being significantly less than the Soyuz.

[Nindalf]

Don't forget that NASA is paying for redundant access, so you also need to include the price for CST-100 as well. This means that if NASA only flies six missions at four crew per mission from 2017 to 2019 (using a normal six month rotation), that works out to ($2600+$4200)/(6x4) = $283M per seat, which is 3.5 times the cost of using Soyuz.

Steve you can't do it that way because the price per seat does not include the spacecraft development cost.

Well, you can, and you should, if either:
a) your main concern is the short term, or
b) you're considering the case that these are the only flights the vehicles will perform.

You're comparing the option of developing new vehicles and then using them, to simply continuing to use a mature system.  The development cost is something you have to spend to use the new vehicles.  It definitely counts against them.  The big question is how many flights you should amortize it over.

However, I will point out that $6.8 billion is the maximum value of the contract, if every option is exercised.  Which means 12 crew launches.

I don't think the development cost is the majority of the contract.  Since this contract is for new vehicles (I actually suspect one of the key issues with Dream Chaser was that they bid based on reuse, whereas CST-100 and Dragon V2 both bid based on new capsules)

Musk has said that they needed about another $400-500 million to finish the Dragon V2, and they've said a passenger launch would be priced at $140 million.  So after finishing development and 8 such launches, I think there must be about $1 billion in special services: the parachute landings will be expensive because of the special landing area needed and the need to replace the parachute, but the surprise big cost item could be the lifeboat service.  That's up to 200 days of space-soak rent on a potentially reusable vehicle, with ground crew on continuous standby so it can come home with maximum safety at any time, and all the mission planning and software for this lifeboat duty, with all the implied contingencies about having to land it in alternate locations because of time pressure combined with weather.  That could end up costing twice as much as a shuttle-style short-visit crew rotation.

I don't believe that CST-100 itself will actually cost much more than Dragon V2 to develop, or to operate on a new-vehicle basis.  As others have pointed out, the difference in budgets can be explained largely by the additional cost of using the Atlas V as the launch vehicle.

There may be under $1 billion of non-mission-specific, non-launch-vehicle development for both vehicles in this $6.8 billion contract.

[abaddon]

The other factor that should be considered is the increase in ISS crew size from 6 to 7.  That would not be possible with Soyuz alone.  It is difficult to put a price on that extra crew member, but one could argue that getting more out of your $100 billion space station could be worth a lot.

[simonbp]

The other factor that should be considered is the increase in ISS crew size from 6 to 7.  That would not be possible with Soyuz alone.  It is difficult to put a price on that extra crew member, but one could argue that getting more out of your $100 billion space station could be worth a lot.

Plus plus, the option to have 1-3 short-term visitors in place of cargo, allowing investigators to perform their own experiments on station, without having to train the station crew or overengineer the experiment to be push-button. For complex, short term experiments (the kind of thing that Shuttle used to be perfect for), this could really increase the productivity of ISS.

Of course, the carrot of getting to fly to ISS will dramatically increase the proposal pressure on CASIS, which is exactly what they want (they are getting way fewer proposals than they would like).

[ncb1397]

Don't forget that NASA is paying for redundant access, so you also need to include the price for CST-100 as well. This means that if NASA only flies six missions at four crew per mission from 2017 to 2019 (using a normal six month rotation), that works out to ($2600+$4200)/(6x4) = $283M per seat, which is 3.5 times the cost of using Soyuz.

Steve you can't do it that way because the price per seat does not include the spacecraft development cost.

Musk has said that they needed about another $400-500 million to finish the Dragon V2, and they've said a passenger launch would be priced at $140 million.

I am almost positive that Musk said the 140 million/flight and 20 million/seat cost was contingent on 6 dragon v2 flights per year. 3 cargo flights and 1 crew rotation flight is only 4. All these soyuz/CRS comparisons are also valuing the cargo that is taking up the space of the extra 3 seats, the unpressurized trunk cargo, and extra downmass as worthless.

[yg1968]

Don't forget that NASA is paying for redundant access, so you also need to include the price for CST-100 as well. This means that if NASA only flies six missions at four crew per mission from 2017 to 2019 (using a normal six month rotation), that works out to ($2600+$4200)/(6x4) = $283M per seat, which is 3.5 times the cost of using Soyuz.

Steve you can't do it that way because the price per seat does not include the spacecraft development cost.

Musk has said that they needed about another $400-500 million to finish the Dragon V2, and they've said a passenger launch would be priced at $140 million.

I am almost positive that Musk said the 140 million/flight and 20 million/seat cost was contingent on 6 dragon v2 flights per year. 3 cargo flights and 1 crew rotation flight is only 4. All these soyuz/CRS comparisons are also valuing the cargo that is taking up the space of the extra 3 seats, the unpressurized trunk cargo, and extra downmass as worthless.

Musk said it would cost $140M for 4 flights per year with 7 seats on each of them.

[Coastal Ron]

Don't forget that NASA is paying for redundant access, so you also need to include the price for CST-100 as well. This means that if NASA only flies six missions at four crew per mission from 2017 to 2019 (using a normal six month rotation), that works out to ($2600+$4200)/(6x4) = $283M per seat, which is 3.5 times the cost of using Soyuz.

Steve you can't do it that way because the price per seat does not include the spacecraft development cost...

Yes, this is one of those interesting pricing situations.

For the SLS, which is not meant for commercial service, the total cost of development and operation needs to be taken into account when determining "value", which could be cost per flight or $/kg.  Ignoring the development cost ignores the alternatives that could have been used instead.

For Commercial Crew, as far as NASA is concerned it's cost would include all money spent in development (i.e. CCDev, CCDev2, CCiCap and CCtCap), plus the operational costs.  And while cost has been cited as one of the factors for Commercial Crew, quite a few flights have to be flown before the overall cost would be driven down close to what Russia charges for the Soyuz, so the real value of Commercial Crew is that NASA is in control of it's own transportation and not dependent on potentially shaky partners (I'm looking at YOU Putin).

However for commercial users, they get to leverage the governments investment and just pay the commercial rate, which would be operational costs + profit.  That's where the $140M/flight figure comes into play for SpaceX, as well as the prices that Bigelow has been quoting for Boeing and SpaceX.

An apt analogy might be where the government paid for the transcontinental railroad to be built, but passenger prices did not have to amortize the construction costs - and that was certainly a factor in opening up the West to development, which is what we're all hoping can be a possible outcome for space too.

[clongton]

Don't forget that NASA is paying for redundant access, so you also need to include the price for CST-100 as well. This means that if NASA only flies six missions at four crew per mission from 2017 to 2019 (using a normal six month rotation), that works out to ($2600+$4200)/(6x4) = $283M per seat, which is 3.5 times the cost of using Soyuz.

Steve you can't do it that way because the price per seat does not include the spacecraft development cost.

Well, you can, and you should, if either:
a) your main concern is the short term, or
b) you're considering the case that these are the only flights the vehicles will perform.

For the sake of argument suppose that SpaceX uses $1.75 of its $2.6 billion award to get the vehicle to certification before the 1st ISS crew flight. That leaves $.85 billion remaining to perform the crew flights. Let's assume SpaceX gets 6 paid flights. That's 24 seats. $.85b/24=$35.4 million per seat - half the Soyuz cost, not 3.5 times.

You'll have to plug in the real numbers, which we won't know for some time, but that's how you figure the per-seat cost for the performance portion of the contract.

[rayleighscatter]

You'll have to plug in the real numbers, which we won't know for some time, but that's how you figure the per-seat cost for the performance portion of the contract.

We won't ever know that part of the contract. Neither SpaceX or Boeing will make their pricing that transparent. Those payments will be obfuscated with other hard to measure metrics.

[Giovanni DS]

We won't ever know that part of the contract. Neither SpaceX or Boeing will make their pricing that transparent. Those payments will be obfuscated with other hard to measure metrics.

That tactic is only convenient if you have higher costs and try to mud waters. Those with lower costs what would have to gain from it?

[clongton]

For the sake of argument suppose that SpaceX uses $1.75 of its $2.6 billion award to get the vehicle to certification before the 1st ISS crew flight. That leaves $.85 billion remaining to perform the crew flights. Let's assume SpaceX gets 6 paid flights. That's 24 seats. $.85b/24=$35.4 million per seat - half the Soyuz cost, not 3.5 times.

Adding the corresponding numbers for Boeing at the same ratios I used for SpaceX.

Boeing award = $4.2 billion
$2.8 billion expended to reach certification, leaving $1.4 billion to perform the crew flights.
Assuming Boeing gets 6 flights of 4 seats = 24 seats.
$1.4 billion / 24 seats = $58.3 million per seat - still less than Soyuz.

=============

The contract is in 2 parts; (1) develop to certification and (2) ISS flight performance.
They are separate activities. Combining the costs of both (1) and (2) and then dividing them by (2) only - provides a completely inaccurate figure for the cost of (2).

In any case, once the CCtCap contract has run to its completion I expect we will see different pricing than these because these depended on an award amount designed to certify the vehicle. The after-contract price per seat should be based on recurring costs instead and will likely be less. SpaceX's price will be a FFP while Boeing's cost will likely fluctuate year to year because ULA will have to include a portion of the $1 billion launch facility subsidy it gets from the Air Force for its price for the Atlas. That piece of the cost will vary annually depending on the number of Atlas and Delta launches that occur each year. But certification will have been fully amortized and would no longer be figured into the cost per seat.

[Garrett]

Suggestion to mods: this thread is 143 pages long and has had 247480 views. Maybe time to lock it and start a dedicated CCtCap thread?

[tesla]

Suggestion to mods: this thread is 143 pages long and has had 247480 views. Maybe time to lock it and start a dedicated CCtCap thread?

would make sense 

[Darkseraph]

Any program can be made look cheap if you count the recurring per unit costs separate from the development costs. Everything from the F35 Fighter Jet to the SLS is spun that way. With the total award Boeing recieved, they could have paid for the seats of every NASA+ESA expedition member all the way up to 2028, the probable longest date they will stretch the station out to before its deorbited. They could have paid for that and still paid SpaceX's award for DragonV2. Of course, these things are not really driven by economics, even if you call it 'commercial'. It's local politics and national politics, and in the case of Russia, geopolitics.

I hope the spin off technologies of these two craft pay off enough to recoup and exceed the ~7 Billion for the taxpayers..prayers are an awful strategy though!

[Chris Bergin]

Suggestion to mods: this thread is 143 pages long and has had 247480 views. Maybe time to lock it and start a dedicated CCtCap thread?

Yeah, I'll get on that later today.

PS A suggestion to mods is something you tell the mods, not post it and hope someone eventually sees it! Thankfully someone did just that on your behalf.

[baldusi]

Any program can be made look cheap if you count the recurring per unit costs separate from the development costs. Everything from the F35 Fighter Jet to the SLS is spun that way. With the total award Boeing recieved, they could have paid for the seats of every NASA+ESA expedition member all the way up to 2028, the probable longest date they will stretch the station out to before its deorbited. They could have paid for that and still paid SpaceX's award for DragonV2. Of course, these things are not really driven by economics, even if you call it 'commercial'. It's local politics and national politics, and in the case of Russia, geopolitics.

I hope the spin off technologies of these two craft pay off enough to recoup and exceed the ~7 Billion for the taxpayers..prayers are an awful strategy though!

Look at the ISS Risk Matrix. The Nr. 1 Risk is lack of crew access redundancy. That's on a 110B investment of taxpayers money. And that was before the Russian issues. Wouldn't you pay a 5% insurance to protect your most expensive asset?
That's also the explanation of Boeing's award. SpaceX might do it faster and cheaper... or might fail. If there's one company in the US that you can depend on for crew access, it is Boeing. If they say they'll IOC by 2017, they will IOC by 2017 with a 99.5% probability (conditional to getting the requested funding, of course).

[Lars-J]

That's also the explanation of Boeing's award. SpaceX might do it faster and cheaper... or might fail. If there's one company in the US that you can depend on for crew access, it is Boeing. If they say they'll IOC by 2017, they will IOC by 2017 with a 99.5% probability (conditional to getting the requested funding, of course).

Yeah, Boeing is *never* late, are they.  You might want to update your view on Boeing.

[ncb1397]

I hope the spin off technologies of these two craft pay off enough to recoup and exceed the ~7 Billion for the taxpayers..prayers are an awful strategy though!

Space programs are as much about national prestige as economic pay off. In this respect, being the object of Russian trampoline jokes is counter-productive. This program won't add 7 billion to the long term debt because part of the 7 billion comes back as tax reciepts(not so when Russia is fulfilling the contract) and the government pays unemployment benefits for aerospace workers(in which case you can pay them to work or pay them to sit on the couch).

As far as Boeing never being late. Boeing was late on the 787 and is late on the next-gen reconnaissance satellites. I'm sure if we dig a little deeper, we could find a host of other examples. SpaceX already has a dragon v1 in operation and a dragon v2 prototype ready for testing. They are the safe bet for IOC of 2017. Of course, paraphrasing a movie I once saw: why buy 1 when you can get 2 for 3 times as much?

[Jim]

SpaceX already has a dragon v1 in operation

It was also late and CRS is behind