CCDev to CCiCAP to CCtCAP Discussion Thread

[newpylong]

Since it will be the world's biggest rocket the SLS it will also be the world's most expensive rocket.

In a couple of years Falcon Heavy will be the world's biggest rocket without being the world's most expensive rocket.  SLS is expensive not just because it's big.

Why take one sentence someone said 5 pages back just to split hairs? Being uniquely large is a big component of SLS' cost and unsuitability per economics for ISS delivery.

[Lurker Steve]

Since it will be the world's biggest rocket the SLS it will also be the world's most expensive rocket.

In a couple of years Falcon Heavy will be the world's biggest rocket without being the world's most expensive rocket.  SLS is expensive not just because it's big.

Why take one sentence someone said 5 pages back just to split hairs? Being uniquely large is a big component of SLS' cost and unsuitability per economics for ISS delivery.

Will Falcon Heavy really be the world's biggest rocket ?

Each core on a Delta is 5 meters where the Falcon is only 3.6 meters in diameter. And Wikipedia says that Delta can be 72 meters tall, also eclipsing Falcon (68.4) by several meters.

Sorry, FH failed the tale of the tape.

[Go4TLI]

All other things equal, a contender a with lower price for certification (e.g., due to being further ahead in DDT&E) will have a correspondingly stronger possibility of winning the award.

Not necessarily.  While I suspect DDT&E will play a factor, there are certainly other things to consider.  A couple that immediately come to mind...  One is what capabilities will be offered and provided with said vehicle?  The other of course is what is the cost once the integrated vehicle comes online and is certified?

You will see fairly negligible differences between flying once a year and twice a year because the real cost is keeping the integrated vehicle sustained and viable.   

[jg]

Since it will be the world's biggest rocket the SLS it will also be the world's most expensive rocket.

In a couple of years Falcon Heavy will be the world's biggest rocket without being the world's most expensive rocket.  SLS is expensive not just because it's big.

Why take one sentence someone said 5 pages back just to split hairs? Being uniquely large is a big component of SLS' cost and unsuitability per economics for ISS delivery.

Will Falcon Heavy really be the world's biggest rocket ?

Each core on a Delta is 5 meters where the Falcon is only 3.6 meters in diameter. And Wikipedia says that Delta can be 72 meters tall, also eclipsing Falcon (68.4) by several meters.

Sorry, FH failed the tale of the tape.

Biggest by thrust/LEO payload.  KeroLox is much denser than LH2LOX.  The "big" thing about LH2 is it's density is so low (about 1/10 of kerosene).

[Lurker Steve]

Biggest by thrust/LEO payload.  KeroLox is much denser than LH2LOX.  The "big" thing about LH2 is it's density is so low (about 1/10 of kerosene).

This is off-topic, but he just said "Biggest".
And neither FH or DIV-H will be carrying humans during CCiCap or CCtCap.

[R.Simko]

Is the criteria for CCTCaP public knowledge?  If it is, could you, or someone else, list the basic criteria and how much each item is weighted?

For example:
1.  Cost 40%
2.  Date ready 20%

Thanks.

See Section M of the attached document (pages 158 to 168). The table of contents summarizes the criteria that will be used and are as follows:

SECTION M. EVALUATION FACTORS FOR AWARD ........................................................ 158
M.1 SOURCE SELECTION AND EVALUATION FACTORS—GENERAL............................... 158
M.2 MISSION SUITABILITY FACTOR........................................................................................ 159
I. Technical, Crew Safety and Mission Assurance Subfactor.....................................................................160
II. Management Approach Subfactor ...163
III. Small Business Utilization Subfactor .................................................................................................165
M.3 PRICE FACTOR ... 166
M.4 PAST PERFORMANCE FACTOR.......................................................................................... 167

See also this thread:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32412.msg1121659#msg1121659

Thanks YG for your assistance.

[joek]

All other things equal, a contender a with lower price for certification (e.g., due to being further ahead in DDT&E) will have a correspondingly stronger possibility of winning the award.

Not necessarily.  While I suspect DDT&E will play a factor, there are certainly other things to consider.  A couple that immediately come to mind...  One is what capabilities will be offered and provided with said vehicle?  The other of course is what is the cost once the integrated vehicle comes online and is certified?

You will see fairly negligible differences between flying once a year and twice a year because the real cost is keeping the integrated vehicle sustained and viable.   

Agree, and as mentioned, "all other things equal".  All other things equal, and assuming NASA thinks they are relevant, the system with greater inherent capabilities wins.*  (Inherent being part of the package and included in the price, not potential.)  All other things equal, the lowest price wins. 

The price evaluation includes DDT&E/certification, special studies, and representative post-certification mission pricing for one mission each each year for three years); those prices become binding on CCtCap contract award.  Although not included in the price evaluation, there is also a price sheet for quantity 1-4 missions per year for up to five years.  While some of that information appears to be optional (?), those prices also become binding on contract award.

Relative importance of evaluation factors:

Mission Suitability and Past Performance, when combined, are approximately equal to Price. The Price factor is more important than Mission Suitability, which is more important than Past Performance.

* Added in the final RFP.

[manboy]

Adding the capability to return more than three people to Earth would open the possibility of a seven-man ISS rotation, which would nearly double the possible crew time dedicated to experiments.

It's not going to happen. The Russians wouldn't abandon Soyuz/PPTS (which is baselined for four crew members).

As I've stated multiple time, CC has to transport at least four people because it is specified to take a whole crew to the USOS (four). Since there's a base level of maintenance, that extra crew might mean as much as an extra 50% utilization, it can change our benefit significantly.

There's a good chart on slide 10 of this presentation regarding that.

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/20131210_ISS_NAC_FINAL_TAGGED.pdf

[joek]

There's a good chart on slide 10 of this presentation regarding that.
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/20131210_ISS_NAC_FINAL_TAGGED.pdf

Thanks manboy.  A note of caution about that chart (I think?) ... AFAICT, the numbers and graph represents an increase in crew time for HRP (NASA's Human Research Program), not crew time available for other, e.g., CASIS research.

Eyeballing the chart suggests that HRP time increases linearly with crew size.  I would hope and expect the time available for other research would increase non-linearly with crew size.  E.g., O&M activities remain relatively constant, so additional crew members would allow a correspondingly greater fraction of their time to other research.

[yg1968]

Relative importance of evaluation factors:

Mission Suitability and Past Performance, when combined, are approximately equal to Price. The Price factor is more important than Mission Suitability, which is more important than Past Performance.

* Added in the final RFP.

Good find. Here is what ASAP had to say about this addition (on page 15 of their annual report):

Many within the community of interest worry that NASA is being perceived as sending a message that cost outranks safety in the CCP RFP. The RFP’s Relative Order of Importance of Evaluation Factors in Section M conveys: “Mission Suitability and Past Performance, when combined, are approximately equal to Price. The Price factor is more important than Mission Suitability, which is more important than Past Performance.”

http://oiir.hq.nasa.gov/asap/documents/2013_ASAP_Annual_Report.pdf

My personal view is that this criticism is non-sense. In order to be certified, your spacecraft and LV must be safe in the first place. So all of the proposals should be safe once they are completed. Safety has often been used as an excuse to favour traditional space contractors on the basis that they that have more history (e.g., it was the justification for maintining Ares I and not funding commercial crew prior to the Augustine report). But if safety and prior history was the overridding criteria, no new entrants would ever be allowed to compete. NASA got it right this time. Safety should not be used as an excuse to maintain existing relationships with traditional NASA contractors.

[Robotbeat]

Cost is an important safety consideration. Safety is strongly related to flight rate and flight history, both of which are ultimately inversely related to price.

For the same overall budget, the cheaper option is often safer, since you can afford more and earlier flight tests.

[TrevorMonty]

There seems to be lots quotes regarding seat prices but not cost of flight.
Does NASA buy seats or lease/pay for the whole capsule on CC flights?.

[joek]

There seems to be lots quotes regarding seat prices but not cost of flight.
Does NASA buy seats or lease/pay for the whole capsule on CC flights?.

Presumably the latter as the CCtCap RFP pricing is based on per mission not per seat.

[clongton]

There seems to be lots quotes regarding seat prices but not cost of flight.
Does NASA buy seats or lease/pay for the whole capsule on CC flights?.

Presumably the latter as the CCtCap RFP pricing is based on per mission not per seat.

At least for now the commercial company retains ownership of the spacecraft.

[joek]

Exactly! Cost-benefit has to include all the extra value (and all hidden costs).

I have posted on this before and have been revisiting my earlier attempts at a rough cost-benefit analysis.  One of the big unkowns was the increase in usable crew time for research with a fourth USOS crew member.  NASA's Efforts to Maximize Research on the International Space Station, NASA IG, July 2013, states "According to the ISS Program Office, a seventh crew member could potentially add about 33 hours per week to the current amount of crew time devoted to research – a 94 percent increase."  Using what I think are conservative assumptions, a crude estimate of CCP/CTS cost-benefit is shown below.  Many details missing; suggestions welcome.

                                  Soyuz          CTS
Crew size (USOS)                      3            4
Crew usable hr/wk                    42 [1]       75
Crew transport $/seat              $70M [2]     $80M
Crew consumables $/kg              $60K         $60K
Crew consumables kg/crew/day        4.7          4.7
Crew variable cost $/yr          $0.73B       $1.05B
ISS fixed cost $/yr [3]          $2.50B       $2.50B
Total cost $/yr                  $3.23B       $3.55B
----------------------------------------------------
Net cost $/yr                                 $0.32B
Net benefit $/yr                              $1.24B

[1] Latest projections, not the IG report baseline of 35hr/wk.
[2] Souyz 2016-2017 average price.
[3] Some estimates put it closer to $3B/yr; I tried to factor variable costs out of that.

edit: clarify USOS crew size.

[yg1968]

A few comments on your calculations:

1) You would also have to factor in cargo. Commercial crew spacecrafts will use the empty seats to bring extra cargo to and from the ISS. Soyuz brings very little cargo. You could use the price of CRS to figure out how nuch that extra cargo is worth.

2) How do you get $80M per seat for CTS?

3) You have to factor in the development cost of commercial crew.

[joek]

A few comments on your calculations:

1) You would also have to factor in cargo. Commercial crew spacecrafts will use the empty seats to bring extra cargo to and from the ISS. Soyuz bring very little cargo. You could use the price of CRS to figure out how nuch that extra cargo is worth.

2) How do you get $80 for CTS?

3) You have to factor in the development cost of commercial crew.

Thanks; good comments and suggestions.

1) Yes, but the problem is coming up with a credible estimate.  Cargo is generally going to fall into three buckets: (1) basic crew variable; (2) ISS operations and maintenance (O&M); and (3) research.  I've tried to account for (1); (2) is largely an unknown and I've lumped that into ISS fixed costs; (3) costs will presumably scale up with greater resarch, but I have not found a credible source as to how to relate those costs to increased research activity.  If you have ideas on how to divvy up those costs and relate them, I'll be happy to incorporate them.

2) $80M/seat is a figure Gerst mentioned in Congressional testimony a few years ago in response to a question as to how much they were budgeting.  I can't find a cite at the moment (I only remember Holy Cow! That sounds high!), but figured it was reasonably conservative for this exercise.  If you have a better number in mind, I can easily update the figures.

3) Agree, but that bears primarily on the payoff period and to answer the question: Is the investment in CC worth it before ISS splashes?  I would love to have some credible numbers on what it will take to finish beyond the ~$1.5B for CCDev+CCiCap.  As I've opined before (based on more optimistic cost-benefit), assuming it takes an additional $1.5-2.5B to finish, the payoff is 2-3 years.  However, that was at best a guess.  If you have a number in mind, I can easily plug it in to determine the payoff period.

Beyond those, there are a whole host of other factors that might be considered; for example:
a) Additional benefits of retaining spending within the US.
b) Additional benefits of not sending NASA crew to Russia.
c) Additional costs for crew such as ground support and training.
d) Additional costs for ISS O&M as it ages.
e) Additional costs due to increased research activity.
f) ...

[WmThomas]

Thanks, Jim.

[yg1968]

A few comments on your calculations:

1) You would also have to factor in cargo. Commercial crew spacecrafts will use the empty seats to bring extra cargo to and from the ISS. Soyuz bring very little cargo. You could use the price of CRS to figure out how nuch that extra cargo is worth.

2) How do you get $80 for CTS?

3) You have to factor in the development cost of commercial crew.

Thanks; good comments and suggestions.

1) Yes, but the problem is coming up with a credible estimate.  Cargo is generally going to fall into three buckets: (1) basic crew variable; (2) ISS operations and maintenance (O&M); and (3) research.  I've tried to account for (1); (2) is largely an unknown and I've lumped that into ISS fixed costs; (3) costs will presumably scale up with greater resarch, but I have not found a credible source as to how to relate those costs to increased research activity.  If you have ideas on how to divvy up those costs and relate them, I'll be happy to incorporate them.

2) $80M/seat is a figure Gerst mentioned in Congressional testimony a few years ago in response to a question as to how much they were budgeting.  I can't find a cite at the moment (I only remember Holy Cow! That sounds high!), but figured it was reasonably conservative for this exercise.  If you have a better number in mind, I can easily update the figures.

3) Agree, but that bears primarily on the payoff period and to answer the question: Is the investment in CC worth it before ISS splashes?  I would love to have some credible numbers on what it will take to finish beyond the ~$1.5B for CCDev+CCiCap.  As I've opined before (based on more optimistic cost-benefit), assuming it takes an additional $1.5-2.5B to finish, the payoff is 2-3 years.  However, that was at best a guess.  If you have a number in mind, I can easily plug it in to determine the payoff period.

Beyond those, there are a whole host of other factors that might be considered; for example:
a) Additional benefits of retaining spending within the US.
b) Additional benefits of not sending NASA crew to Russia.
c) Additional costs for crew such as ground support and training.
d) Additional costs for ISS O&M as it ages.
e) Additional costs due to increased research activity.
f) ...

I have to admit I haven't dugged into your estimates. So I don't understand them fully. For price per seat, I would use Bigelow's number for SpaceX $26.5M x 6 = $160M for a Dragonrider. If you want it per seat, you would then get $40M (160M divided by 4 seats). But it's actually less than that because part of the spacecraft will be used for cargo. For cargo, I would assume that each spacecraft carries 3 (empty seats) x 100 kg and use the CRS price to determine how much that is worth. Incidentally, I think that Gerst said that they had budgeted about $480M (8 seats x $60 M) by using the Soyuz prices per seat at that time.

[TrevorMonty]

If NASA are buying seats in Dragon do they buy 2 seats for passengers or 4 ie crew + passengers. If they are leasing whole why not use all 7 seats,  transport is biggest cost of placing somebody in ISS.