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

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

If maintaining 2 commercial crew providers will cost NASA twice as much, i.e., $1B per year (even if it is combined with cargo), it would help me and others understand the reasoning behind the decision. 

It's been explained time and time again.  And just one is likely to cost about 1 billion per year. 

You just don't like the answer or the rationale. 

Sorry but your back of the envelope calculations aren't very convicing. I am not sure where you get a price of $1B per year either. Gerst made it clear that NASA intends to spend the same amount on commercial crew operations that it pays Russia for ISS transportation which is about $500 million (8 seats x $63M).

Possibly less. Around $300-$400M

[Jeff Bingham]

I still fail to see why we needed to "down-select" anything instead of simply having multiple providers like we do for everything else.

And how do you plan to pay for that?

By funding commercial crew at the President's requested level. As mentionned by Gerst at the House Hearing NASA intends to certify 2 commercial crew providers but should eventually have only one CTS provider. However, I suspect that there would be enough room for 2 CTS providers if NASA decided to combine crew (CTS) and cargo (CRS2).

Silly me...should've thought of that. Must be the environment I work in, where "the best laid plans" just don't always get implemented due to real world constraints.

I am not suggesting that you had thought of it. But there seems to be a difference of opinion between a number of Republicans (Representative Wolf and Senator Hutchison among others) and the Administration (and Senator Nelson) on the need to downselect early. I was kind of hoping that you would answer something more specific like "combining cargo and crew" wouldn't save NASA enough to fit within a budget of $500 million for commercial crew operations in 2017 (which is the predicted budget for commercial crew operations according to Gerst). Nobody has explained the logic of down selecting to only one CTS provider. If it is know for sure that maintaining 2 commercial crew providers would cost NASA twice as much, i.e., $1B per year (even if it is combined with cargo), this fact would help me and others understand the reasoning behind the decision to downselect to only one CTS provider. 

I gave my view of where Senator Hutchison was coming from regarding the down-select issue in the thread on the recent Senate hearing, so not going to repeat that here. As for a "decision" on a single provider for Commercial Crew, you'll have to get  information about whether and why that would be the case from NASA/Gerst/Mango.

With respect to ANY budget projections beyond FY 2012 at this point they are meaningless and a waste of time to make any calculations on, frankly, as the current situation is too fluid and outcomes over the next four months will likely completely change planning assumptions. It'd be more worthwhile for all the energy being spent to try to nip and tuck and mix and match within imagined funding scenarios be spent in educating the public about the ultimate value of a space program to them so that cutting or short-shrifting NASA would be a political death-knell. But that seems to be too big a stretch for most folks to see as a real possibility.

[yg1968]

[...]

51D Mascot,

Thanks for your answer. I don't disagree with you on the need to explain the value of NASA in order to avoid having to make these though fiscal decisions in the first place.

P.S. In my post above, I meant "I am not suggesting that you had not thought of it". I forgot the second "not" (which was kind of important...). I have edited my post accordingly.

[yg1968]

If maintaining 2 commercial crew providers will cost NASA twice as much, i.e., $1B per year (even if it is combined with cargo), it would help me and others understand the reasoning behind the decision. 

It's been explained time and time again.  And just one is likely to cost about 1 billion per year. 

You just don't like the answer or the rationale. 

Sorry but your back of the envelope calculations aren't very convicing. I am not sure where you get a price of $1B per year either. Gerst made it clear that NASA intends to spend the same amount on commercial crew operations that it pays Russia for ISS transportation which is about $500 million (8 seats x $63M).

Possibly less. Around $300-$400M

What makes you say that?

[Go4TLI]

If maintaining 2 commercial crew providers will cost NASA twice as much, i.e., $1B per year (even if it is combined with cargo), it would help me and others understand the reasoning behind the decision. 

It's been explained time and time again.  And just one is likely to cost about 1 billion per year. 

You just don't like the answer or the rationale. 

Sorry but your back of the envelope calculations aren't very convicing. I am not sure where you get a price of $1B per year either. Gerst made it clear that NASA intends to spend the same amount on commercial crew operations that it pays Russia for ISS transportation which is about $500 million (8 seats x $63M).

Possibly less. Around $300-$400M

Ok, sorry you are not convinced.  Doesn't really matter because my "back of the envolope calcs" are more than you have ever given or thought about being able to give. 

That said, let's go over a few things.  It is unrealistic to believe a new American capability is going to be equal to Soyuz from a cost perspective when:

1.  It is a new vehicle
2.  It is a more capable vehicle than Soyuz
3.  Russian rates are significantly less (and it has shown lately) than American rates.

But, if you want something more you can think about this.  Let's assume a fully-burdened rate of 100/hr.  That means that an Equivalent Person (EP) costs $208,000 per year. 

If you say the entire cost of the program is only 300 million per year, this buys you approximately 1400 people working full-time on the project.  These 1400 EP would be responsible for:

1.  Vehicle Engineering
2.  Ground Assembly and Operations
3.  Flight Operations (including mission design and integration)
4.  Crew Training
5.  Logistics and Suppliers.  Note this number also must include all the various vendors that build build, test, evaluate and deliver components and system-level items.  It would also include the people that build, test, evaluate and deliver the launch vehicle. 

These few people doing all this, plus some other things I did not mention, for a FAR-based contract.  It is important to note that none of the above includes material dollars in order to have a spacecraft and launch vehicle to launch, facilities, etc.  Now true that 1400 people won't always have to work on the project, but there will be peaks and valleys based on the operational temp, so this is an average.  And some of the folks I listed above will be full time, all the time, plus the others that I did not mention.

And it does not account for it being done more than once a year.  So there you go. 

[yg1968]

If maintaining 2 commercial crew providers will cost NASA twice as much, i.e., $1B per year (even if it is combined with cargo), it would help me and others understand the reasoning behind the decision. 

It's been explained time and time again.  And just one is likely to cost about 1 billion per year. 

You just don't like the answer or the rationale. 

Sorry but your back of the envelope calculations aren't very convicing. I am not sure where you get a price of $1B per year either. Gerst made it clear that NASA intends to spend the same amount on commercial crew operations that it pays Russia for ISS transportation which is about $500 million (8 seats x $63M).

Possibly less. Around $300-$400M

What makes you say that?

NASA only buys 6 seats per year from Russia, not 8.

OK but Gerst said in previous hearings that the expected budget for commercial crew operations would be about $480 million per year (8 seats x $60 million). The $60 million price tag per seat is based on what NASA pays the Russians per seat.

[Robotbeat]

I still fail to see why we needed to "down-select" anything instead of simply having multiple providers like we do for everything else.

And how do you plan to pay for that?

And it'd be so much cheaper the other way? It's penny wise, pound foolish to down select to a single provider.

Believe me, I'd personally love to see two U.S. providers, including one with horizontal landing capability for enhanced down-mass purposes. It's just not about what makes the most sense or is the most desirable when dealing with the present fiscal circumstances.

And why not? How is that sort of situation justifiable? (I know you're not happy about it, but I just don't think you should also accept it as inevitable.)

I actually think that, if cargo is also included, that you could have two qualified crew carriers. In order to keep them both exercised, you'd want to switch off who gets which duty. I mean, there's already apparently enough traffic for two cargo providers with several (three?) launches per year each. And we already would need another two crew launches per year. So, if we combined crew and cargo, that'd be seven or eight launches per year, which if split between two providers (who use their launch vehicles for mostly other payloads anyways), should provide plenty of launches to keep both gainfully employed. Do you disagree?

4 launches per year of a spacecraft should be plenty, IMHO, for it to be viable... /provided/ you're using the launch vehicle for other stuff in the meantime (launch vehicles--expendable or not--really need to launch with a long-term average of at least 8-10 flights per year to be reasonably economically efficient... partially reusable might want a little (but not much) more, and fully reusable wants 40 flights per year or more).

And remember, that's not even counting any Bigelow or tourism or "Dragonlab" or BLEO-exploration-supporting flights.

[Go4TLI]

I actually think that, if cargo is also included, that you could have two qualified crew carriers.

The crewed vehicle will carry some cargo. 

But what you are suggesting is to just screw Orbital before they are even out of the gate.....

[A_M_Swallow]

If Orbital Sciences Corporation wishes to be one of the 2 combined crew and cargo transporters it will need either its own capsule or a launch vehicle able to carry the Dream Chaser.

[baldusi]

I actually think that, if cargo is also included, that you could have two qualified crew carriers.

The crewed vehicle will carry some cargo. 

But what you are suggesting is to just screw Orbital before they are even out of the gate.....

Orbital contract runs to 2017, and by 2015 a replacement of the ATV capacity will be needed. Even if the ISS is ditched in 2020 (which is not expected), those three years will need cargo and crew.
Cargo will have to be re competed after the current contract runs out. Nothing prevents Orbital from competing, but if they will have Cargo Dragon and Cygnus running, Crew Dragon and CST-100 certified and DreamChacer close to PDR. They could obviously ask for upto three bid: 1) Crew only (full), 2) Cargo only and 3) 1/2Crew+Cargo. Then NASA can choose. Probably Orbital will be cheaper than CST-100 and DreamChase as cargo vehicles. But then, may be, the extra cost of dual Crew providers won't be exactly X2. At X1.3, would it be a wise risk reduction measure? Will they find a reasonable logistic way of accomplishing it? What if ISS is extended to 2025?
It's too early to get any true numbers, it's too early to know what the budget availability will be, it's too early to know the reliability of the Dragon and Cygnus as a service, of the Falcon 9 and Antares as LV and the whole Commercial Cargo as an experience. All I know is that in case of uncertainty you try to keep as many options available.

[Prober]

If maintaining 2 commercial crew providers will cost NASA twice as much, i.e., $1B per year (even if it is combined with cargo), it would help me and others understand the reasoning behind the decision. 

It's been explained time and time again.  And just one is likely to cost about 1 billion per year. 

You just don't like the answer or the rationale. 

Sorry but your back of the envelope calculations aren't very convicing. I am not sure where you get a price of $1B per year either. Gerst made it clear that NASA intends to spend the same amount on commercial crew operations that it pays Russia for ISS transportation which is about $500 million (8 seats x $63M).

Possibly less. Around $300-$400M

What makes you say that?

NASA only buys 6 seats per year from Russia, not 8.

OK but Gerst said in previous hearings that the expected budget for commercial crew operations would be about $480 million per year (8 seats x $60 million). The $60 million price tag per seat is based on what NASA pays the Russians per seat.

from what I gathered upper management has reversed cost plus into giving the plus first.......anyhow looks like they plan on downselecting to 1 & have 830M ( 2014 forward planned) roughly make 3 billion for the laucher design then pay for the seats.

[vt_hokie]

from what I gathered upper management has reversed cost plus into giving the plus first.......anyhow looks like they plan on downselecting to 1 & have 830M ( 2014 forward planned) roughly make 3 billion for the laucher design then pay for the seats.

So, basically any money spent on DreamChaser and whichever of the two capsules that ends up losing is just more taxpayer dollars down the toilet.  Grrr......

[Lobo]

I still fail to see why we needed to "down-select" anything instead of simply having multiple providers like we do for everything else.

And how do you plan to pay for that?

By funding commercial crew at the President's requested level. As mentionned by Gerst at the House Hearing NASA intends to certify 2 commercial crew providers but should eventually have only one CTS provider. However, I suspect that there would be enough room for 2 CTS providers if NASA decided to combine crew (CTS) and cargo (CRS2).

Won’t Orion be essentially “backup” to CTS?  It will be paid for regardless for NASA’s BLEO program.  Obviously it won’t be the primary service provider, but in case something were to happen to the CTS provider, it would be there to use for that, rather than go back to the Russians.  Same with CRS.  Orion is automated and could be sent up unmanned full of cargo to dock at the ISS and resupply.  It could probably even do a reboost if necessary with the SMME.  Not ideal, but it’s overhead program cost are already paid for by the BLEO budget, so the CTS budget isn’t needed to maintain a back spaceship “just in case” the CTS provider’s spaceship or LV is grounded. 
NASA would just want to plan some contingency hardware to have on hand in the event of CTS grounding so that an Orion/SLS mission could be put together relatively quickly for such a situation.  A DCSS/iCPS could be used for it, or perhaps the full up service module could put the capsule into the ISS orbit without the need of the DCSS/ICPS.  Whichever.  Would be overkill to launch a full SLS just to get Orion to the ISS, but it’ll be the only LV rated for crew Orion. 

And you still have the Russians as a Plan C in case an Orion/SLS stack can’t be put together in time.  Another program that NASA won’t be paying to maintain (like they are now). 

So it actually makes sense to be to only have one CTS provider, rather than 2 or 2.5 plus Orion plus the Russians.

However, I think a wise move (and it sounds like NASA might be steering in this direction), is to combine CTS and CRS2, and then maintain two providers that can do BOTH services, and split the manifests equally between the two.  So if one spaceship or LV is grounded, the other can fullfill their obligations until the source of the problem is found, without disrupting SLS’s flow. 

Additionally, this really wouldn’t be like STS’s grounding. These Spaceships and LV’s are very simple comparatively, and they can be launched without a crew to test any fixes, unlike STS.  I think it’d be pretty hard to imagine a scenario where some catastrophic problem arose with them that couldn’t be quickly remedied in time for minimal impact to the manifest, even if there were only one provider for both commercial cargo and crew.  But having two would eliminate even the potential.

My guess is CST-100 and Dragon would be the two.  That gives two different LV’s, as opposed to say CST-100 and DC both being on Atlas V on the slim chance some problem arose with Atlas V grounding it.  So both your providers aren’t grounded on the same LV.  Boeing/ULA and SpaceX gives full redundancy of both LV and spacecraft.  CST-100 is competing for commercial crew, but how hard is it to strip out all the seats and ECLSS systems, as well as the LAS system from the service module, and load it up with cargo.  I’m pretty sure Boeing could whip out a proposal for such a thing to compete for combined cervices in about 10 minutes. 

DC and Cygnus are both at disadvantages.  DC won’t make a good cargo hauler from what I gather.  (is it fully automated?  Or does it need a pilot?)  It doesn’t have much weight capacity, just enough for 6 people pretty much.  And it uses Atlas V, so if Boeing is favored, DC probably wouldn’t be so to have different LV’s.
Cygnus is cargo only, making providing both impossible unless they turn Cygnus into a capsule and man-rate Antares.  I suppose OSC and SNC could actually get together with ULA and compete combined services, but maintaining two very different spacecraft, flying on two different LV’s (unless Cygnus flies on Atlas V) might be hard to compete with Boeing and SpaceX who would each have just one LV and one spacecraft.

SpaceX would be in a good position to get a combined contract either way, but on the other side, OSC/SNC would have to beat out Boeing as the Atlas V based provider.  I think that’d be about impossible for them. 

So, for CTS and CRS2 after 2015, Boeing and SpaceX become the only two providers, with NASA/Orion acting as backup, for ISS crew and cargo operations. 
I could see a pretty good case for that.

[yg1968]

from what I gathered upper management has reversed cost plus into giving the plus first.......anyhow looks like they plan on downselecting to 1 & have 830M ( 2014 forward planned) roughly make 3 billion for the laucher design then pay for the seats.

No. I think that the $480M is what they are budgeting for but it could end up being more or less than that. Actually, one of the reason not to downselect prior to CTS being awarded is in order to have competitive bids that could lower the cost of CTS. 

[yg1968]

from what I gathered upper management has reversed cost plus into giving the plus first.......anyhow looks like they plan on downselecting to 1 & have 830M ( 2014 forward planned) roughly make 3 billion for the laucher design then pay for the seats.

So, basically any money spent on DreamChaser and whichever of the two capsules that ends up losing is just more taxpayer dollars down the toilet.  Grrr......

Gerst answered that question at the hearing. Keeping competition all the way to the CTS contract award allows more competitive bids (and thus lower prices) to be made for CTS. In other words, NASA spends more now in order to save more later. It also allows NASA to choose the safer option once the proposals are more mature.

[vt_hokie]

Still, it's a shame that for us spaceplane fans, there's not much to look forward to as it's almost assured one of the capsules will win out over DreamChaser. 

And wasn't one of the purposes of this "commercial" crew thing to give us redundancy by having multiple vehicles operational?

[yg1968]

Still, it's a shame that for us spaceplane fans, there's not much to look forward to as it's almost assured one of the capsules will win out over DreamChaser. 

When asked what was the purpose of certifying two commercial crew providers if NASA only intends to select one CTS provider, Gerst said at the House hearing that they will award one CTS contract that will last from 2017 (or earlier) until 2020. But they would likely have a second contract in 2020 ("CTS2") if the ISS is extended. That second commercial crew provider could be an option for CTS2 if NASA is unhappy with the first provider.

I suspect that the business merits evaluation will be very important in the next downselection which should occur in 2014 under phase 2 of certification. DC could end up having a stronger business case than the CST-100 in 2014. The fact that Boeing is not willing to invest its own money in CST-100 seems to have annoyed NASA under CCiCap. So who knows what will happen?

[Go4TLI]

Still, it's a shame that for us spaceplane fans, there's not much to look forward to as it's almost assured one of the capsules will win out over DreamChaser. 

And wasn't one of the purposes of this "commercial" crew thing to give us redundancy by having multiple vehicles operational?

As much as some will try to spin it, the answer to your original post is "yes".

Of course that could change if the respective companies fund whatever the difference is between development and operations and then have a profitable business case for non-NASA markets.  Meaning that all ops costs are covered and a profit can be generated. 

With respect to the whole "commercial crew thing" the original selling points were to have multiple vehicles for redundancy, to create a new industry and to return domestic capability to the United States. 

Reality has sunk in, while some do not want to accept it, that there will be only one for the obvious reasons and only one of those three selling points now exists.  We are collectively delaying that third one, the one remaining, in order to pretend like the other two are still relevant and always have been. 

[Go4TLI]

Still, it's a shame that for us spaceplane fans, there's not much to look forward to as it's almost assured one of the capsules will win out over DreamChaser. 

When asked what was the purpose of certifying two commercial crew providers if NASA only intends to select one CTS provider, Gerst said at the House hearing that they will award one CTS contract that will last from 2017 (or earlier) until 2020. But they would likely have a second contract in 2020 ("CTS2") if the ISS is extended. That second commercial crew provider could be an option for CTS2 if they are unhappy with the first provider. I suspect that the business merits evaluation will be very important in the next downselection which will occur in 2014 under phase 2 of certification. DC could end up having a stronger business case than the CST-100 in 2014. The fact that Boeing is not willing to invest in CST seems to have annoyed NASA under CCiCap. So who knows what will happen?

There are some problems with that statement. 

When one is selected, what keeps the others from disbanding?  What happens over the course of those 4 or so years, when there is no reason for that vehicle to exist, and then NASA says we want to have another option?  They won't be available and the lead time to have it available will be prohibitive.

As for NASA being "annoyed" with Boeing, I think you are again seeing what you want to see.  They received the highest award and Boeing is investing, but it is limited.  It's very likely they don't see a rationale ROI for significant captial funds and if you take issue with that, they are only the leading airline manufacturer in the world with tons of experience in analyzing market demands and making products to satisfy that need. 

[yg1968]

Boeing had a strong overall rating but their level of effectiveness for Business information was white which was lower than ATK, DC and SpaceX.

I think that Gerst meant that they could have a second option if something went wrong with the first provider.