The CCiCAP Award (PRE- and Post-AWARD DISCUSSION) Thread

[QuantumG]

i understand fully....just trying to say that the public taxpayer won't understand this if framed wrongly.

You can say that about anything.

[neilh]

But in the real "commercial" world, R&D projects almost always have an up-front payment. This is not at all unusual.

As an example, here's the sort of pricing structure a random web design firm uses for their payment schedule:

http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/business/payment-timing-structure-tips/

I’ll set out our agency’s typical payment pattern, which you may want to use for your own business. Of course, every project is different, and we don’t always use this process, and I wouldn’t assume it would suit you either. You’ll want to tweak the tensions to find your own best practice.

30% on sign-up (secures studio time)
30% on sign-off of creative design
30% on sign-off of working site (preview)
10% balance due on go-live

[Jim]

Jon
i understand fully....just trying to say that the public taxpayer won't understand this if framed wrongly.   
 

There isn't anything to frame.  This is by far not the first time for this type of payment schedule.  Spacex & OSC have received 10's (maybe 100's) of millions of dollars for the cargo flights they have yet to fly under CRS. 

[OpsAnalyst]

I for one am growing exceedingly impatient with the notion that things like common contracting issues have to be explained to members of a "public" that won't be bothered to take a Finance 101 class and/or do a cursory search on the web in order to figure out the reasons why plunging a company into debt right off the bat and then wanting them to execute for you with maximum cost and performance efficiency ain't such a grand idea.  Especially when 'up front' payments don't generally keep pace with costs necessitating some internal funding and/or borrowing in order to progress anyway.

I would be alot happier if said members of "the public" would take it upon themselves learn something about business.  Or basic economics.  But I'm just a dreamer...

[Prober]

I would be alot happier if said members of "the public" would take it upon themselves learn something about business.  Or basic economics.  But I'm just a dreamer...

The problem is other govenment offices like the GSA and their parties...sorry "training meetings".

Perception is everything

edit: small change

[Jim]

I would be alot happier if said members of "the public" would take it upon themselves learn something about business.  Or basic economics.  But I'm just a dreamer...

The problem is other govenment offices like the GSA and their parties...opps training meetings.

Not even related to this

[joek]

I would be alot happier if said members of "the public" would take it upon themselves learn something about business.  Or basic economics.  But I'm just a dreamer...

The problem is other govenment offices like the GSA and their parties...opps training meetings.

Not even related to this

Second that... if you ask GSA, they'd probably yawn...

As others have stated, it is not uncommon to request/require front-loading on these types of contracts, whether commercial or government.  The front-loading on these is not egregious or out of line; you will see similar in other contracts, whether commercial-commercial or commercial-government.  Moreover, excluding the relatively modest front-load, if you look at the spending profile over time they are relatively linear.

In short, nothing to see there; move along...

[notsorandom]

It all makes sense in terms of financing. I'm just playing devils advocate and trying to figure out a source of this confusion. One argument in favor of commercial is if a company misses a milestone then the tax payers didn't have to pay for that miss. If a portion of the later and more difficult milestones are being paid for by the earlier milestones and they are not accomplished then in a way money has already been spent and lost on that milestone. Which doesn't jive with the simplistic idea that a company pays for everything up front then gets reimbursed if it all works out, like the X-Prize. Remember Kistler got quite a large pile of money before they went belly up and for that money the tax payer did not really get anything.

[neilh]

Remember Kistler got quite a large pile of money before they went belly up and for that money the tax payer did not really get anything.

For the record, it looks like RPK milestones were worth $208M. They only completed the first three milestones (program implementation plan review, financing round 1, and system requirements review), which were worth a total of $32M.

[joek]

I'm just playing devils advocate and trying to figure out a source of this confusion. ... Which doesn't jive with the simplistic idea that a company pays for everything up front then gets reimbursed if it all works out, like the X-Prize. ...

Methinks the devil's advocate is overstating the confusion.  No, it doesn't jive, nor need it or should it.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but "simplistic idea" rarely translates well into reality.  Thus we have all the guano reality entails in the form of COTS-CRS-CCDev-CCiCap-CTS-etc.  Moreover, any comparison to X-Prize is dubious in the extreme: X-Prize has no customer and no defined need, and the linkage is nil; that is not the case for CCiCap-etc.

[A_M_Swallow]

I'm just playing devils advocate and trying to figure out a source of this confusion. ... Which doesn't jive with the simplistic idea that a company pays for everything up front then gets reimbursed if it all works out, like the X-Prize. ...

Methinks the devil's advocate is overstating the confusion.  No, it doesn't jive, nor need it or should it.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but "simplistic idea" rarely translates well into reality.  Thus we have all the guano reality entails in the form of COTS-CRS-CCDev-CCiCap-CTS-etc.  Moreover, any comparison to X-Prize is dubious in the extreme: X-Prize has no customer and no defined need, and the linkage is nil; that is not the case for CCiCap-etc.

The Project Morpheus lander came from the Centennial Challenge X-Prize for a lander.  There is more than one route.

[QuantumG]

The Project Morpheus lander came from the Centennial Challenge X-Prize for a lander.  There is more than one route.

Huh? Pixel predates the Centennial Challenge.. and Armadillo Aerospace abandoned the quad tank design to win second place.

[jongoff]

The Project Morpheus lander came from the Centennial Challenge X-Prize for a lander.  There is more than one route.

Huh? Pixel predates the Centennial Challenge.. and Armadillo Aerospace abandoned the quad tank design to win second place.

And John Carmack actively tried to talk NASA out of the Quad design because they didn't like it.

Calling Morpheus an offshoot of the NGLLC is a real stretch. Not a total stretch, but a real stretch.

~Jon

[A_M_Swallow]

The Project Morpheus lander came from the Centennial Challenge X-Prize for a lander.  There is more than one route.

Huh? Pixel predates the Centennial Challenge.. and Armadillo Aerospace abandoned the quad tank design to win second place.

And John Carmack actively tried to talk NASA out of the Quad design because they didn't like it.

Calling Morpheus an offshoot of the NGLLC is a real stretch. Not a total stretch, but a real stretch.

~Jon

Pixel took part in the  2006 Wirefly X Prize Cup, this was the first year of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. 
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10284

Pixel also competed in 2008.  The quad fell over during launch on the second day.  (MOD won the Level 1 prize)
http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/News?news_id=362
http://space.xprize.org/lunar-lander-challenge/2008

Now when Armadillo had changed from Pixel to MOD why Project M decided to make NASA's lander from Pixel parts I do not know.

[vulture4]

I heard there was some kind of breakup between JSC and Armadillo but do not know the details. Maybe they disagreed on design, maybe JSC just wanted to go it alone. That said, anyone who has balanced a baseball bat on their finger knows that it is easier with the heavy end at the top and a longer distance between the point of support and the CG. Of course if one is using outboard thrusters for attitude control rather than TVC this isn't such a problem.

[QuantumG]

Pixel took part in the  2006 Wirefly X Prize Cup, this was the first year of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. 
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10284

Yep, the great thing about the X-Prize Cup was that it took what people were already doing and built a prize around it. Armadillo Aerospace even tried to compete in the original Ansari X-Prize, but they were unable to field a vehicle.

[dcporter]

Backpedal alert.

i understand fully....just trying to say that the public taxpayer won't understand this if framed wrongly.

No you weren't, you were actively, loudly, obscenely misunderstanding it yourself.

top milesone for each just adds how ............ this program is.

Or maybe we misunderstood what you censored out there?  C'mon man.

[joek]

Any thoughts or news on when we can expect the selection statement?  It's been four weeks since the CCiCap awards, yet still nothing from the usual suspects, or on the Commercial Crew site.  IIRC, NASA promised the selection statement would be available soon--"within a couple weeks" or some such at the time of the awards 03-Aug.  (I had my money on Fri 31-Aug, but obviously no such luck.)

[Jeff Bingham]

Any thoughts or news on when we can expect the selection statement?  It's been four weeks since the CCiCap awards, yet still nothing from the usual suspects, or on the Commercial Crew site.  IIRC, NASA promised the selection statement would be available soon--"within a couple weeks" or some such at the time of the awards 03-Aug.  (I had my money on Fri 31-Aug, but obviously no such luck.)

This was released publicly on Friday

[Lee Jay]

Any thoughts or news on when we can expect the selection statement?  It's been four weeks since the CCiCap awards, yet still nothing from the usual suspects, or on the Commercial Crew site.  IIRC, NASA promised the selection statement would be available soon--"within a couple weeks" or some such at the time of the awards 03-Aug.  (I had my money on Fri 31-Aug, but obviously no such luck.)

This was released publicly on Friday

Thank you!!!