NASA’s Commercial Crew Catch 22 as another $424m heads to Russia

[psloss]

This is an epic failure, all around.  A national embarrassment.  If NASA were a professional sports team, the manager would have been fired long ago.

 - Ed Kyle

Actually, it isn't the managers fault, it is the owners (congress and president) and they are dictating to the manager what they want and can run the team to the ground if they so desire.

Yup, and the manager is usually the first one to go (often the only one).

[edfishel]

I agree with Jim.  This one is squarely on Congress and the President.
NASA is being told what to do.

[bad_astra]

This is an epic failure, all around.  A national embarrassment.  If NASA were a professional sports team, the manager would have been fired long ago.

 - Ed Kyle

Agreed, completely. When will anyone be held accountable for failures in positions of responsibility?

[Lar]

This is an epic failure, all around.  A national embarrassment.  If NASA were a professional sports team, the manager would have been fired long ago.

 - Ed Kyle

Actually, it isn't the managers fault, it is the owners (congress and president) and they are dictating to the manager what they want and can run the team to the ground if they so desire.

Right. And for window dressing, periodically fire the managers while not giving them the money to do the right things (buy good team players in the pro sports case, fund cost effective projects in the NASA case) and forcing them to spend money on silly things (excessive statuary in the entrance way ala Tiger Stadium, wasteful projects in the NASA case).

Agreed, completely. When will anyone be held accountable for failures in positions of responsibility?

Never. Not as long as the duopoly control politics in the US and rent-seeking corporations can buy pork for the cost of a few campaign contributions. Eisenhower warned us.

[Kabloona]

The best way to get out of this mess may be for one of the CC contractors (like SpaceX) to take their design the final distance on their own dime. Once one of them do fly a crewed orbital test flight, this farcical nightmare will be over, and Congress will no longer be able to keep their heads in the sand - legally.

I agree with others that the main goal of SLS/Orion backers in Congress is to impose delays on CC through funding until Orion flies first, thus "negating the need for CC". Their panic is growing, because if CC flies first - Orion could be heading to the chopping block.

Yes, and Elon must see the handwriting on the wall and be making contingency plans for getting crewed Dragon across the finish line on the company dime if necessary, I would think.

Unfortunately he probably can't make any public statement suggesting that, as it would give further justification for critics of CC funding...ie "if SpaceX can do it on their own dime, why should we subsidize?"

[jkumpire]

IMO, the blame for this lies much more on the Administration than the Congress. As I read through the thread it more often than not seems to be the Republicans who take the lion's share of the blame, especially the ones in the Senate who represent states where NASA has significant facilities.

The President has not been in support of NASA any time; when he was a Senator from Illinois , a candidate for President (even though some would dispute the statements he did or didn't make during the campaign) and in office. His people develop the budget, make calls, and wrestle with committees over funding. Ultimately it's clear he doesn't care about HSF in any way and wouldn't care if it disappeared.
   
Let's remember too that Mr. Musk also feeds very well at the Federal trough with other businesses, not just for Space X (and he deserves a lot of credit for what Space X has done). While Mr. Bush has to share blame for the problems of NASA HSF, one party has had control of Congress and the Presidency since January 2007 (as a fact or a practical matter) and they need to be held accountable for it. 

[mr_magoo]

Depressing.   All of the crying about domestic crew launches yet Congress continually tries to drag this out.

[JBF]

 
Let's remember too that Mr. Musk also feeds very well at the Federal trough with other businesses, not just for Space X (and he deserves a lot of credit for what Space X has done). While Mr. Bush has to share blame for the problems of NASA HSF, one party has had control of Congress and the Presidency since January 2007 (as a fact or a practical matter) and they need to be held accountable for it. 

One party has not had control of Congress since 2007.  The Democrats had super majorities in both houses for only 3 months. The Republicans have had majority status in the House since 2010.

[jnc]

The situation we are in was created artificially first by Administrator Griffin to force the Ares rockets and then by the current administration to force commercial crew.

Sorry, that's revisionist history. The Shuttle was retired because the Columbia accident board said that it was fundamentally unsafe, and could not be fixed - not because Griffin wanted a competitor out of the way.

"Because of the risks inherent in the original design of the Space Shuttle, because that design was based in many aspects on now-obsolete technologies, and because the Shuttle is now an aging system but still developmental in character, it is in the nation's interest to replace the Shuttle as soon as possible as the primary means for transporting humans to and from Earth orbit."

 - CAIB Report, pp. 210-211

Noel

[Prober]

The $424M is for 6 seats. This means $70.7M per seat. The price has gone up again. Commercial crew should be competitive with those prices.

So the question becomes, how do we fix this mess?  IMHO a rethink of the whole program is in order.
 
Idea: float the same contract, and pick the US based service to do the job at that same price.

The best way to get out of this mess may be for one of the CC contractors (like SpaceX) to take their design the final distance on their own dime. Once one of them do fly a crewed orbital test flight, this farcical nightmare will be over, and Congress will no longer be able to keep their heads in the sand - legally.

I agree with others that the main goal of SLS/Orion backers in Congress is to impose delays on CC through funding until Orion flies first, thus "negating the need for CC". Their panic is growing, because if CC flies first - Orion could be heading to the chopping block.

Ok, your coming to my way of thinking in a round about way. 
 
First let's all agree that under CC one or one 1/2 picks are going to be done shortly.
 
SpaceX could and should be operational before 2015.  Not going to tell you how, but it could and should be done. The CC process is dragging this out.  Not sure about the other CC companies as much is closed to the public.
 
With my idea above it opens the program in pure "commercial".  Much has changed and maybe we can get a better deal then CC.
 
Worth the try?

[clongton]

The option you speak of as well as the Space Shuttle needed to die so that commercial crew could live. That was more of a priority than closing the gap. If we had the Shuttle or a smaller less costly HLV sending Orion and cargo to the ISS by the middle of the decade then commercial crew would have died in congress.

That’s not really correct.

Shuttle had to go because it was a truck designed to haul construction material to the ISS orbit to build the station. That job being completed, it had to give way to NASA’s next mission, which was to return to cis-lunar space and beyond, missions that Shuttle could not do. So whether it was SLS or the other option, keeping Shuttle would not have continued anyway.

As for not being able to develop and deploy Commercial Crew because of the expense of developing and deploying that other option, think about that for a moment. SLS costs FAR more than what that other HLV launch system would have cost – almost double – and the Commercial Crew Program is still happening while paying for SLS, although slowly. Had the other HLV been developed and deployed instead, there would have been billions more available for the Commercial Crew Program than is currently the case.

As for Orion visiting the ISS being a Commercial Crew stopper, well it no more would have been so than it would be when launched on the SLS. Orion is not a LEO spacecraft. It is designed for deep space. Delivering crew to the ISS would only be done if for some reason Commercial Crew was running late, and then ONLY until the program was operational. Crew delivery to the ISS has ALWAYS been a last-resort mission. Orion’s prime mission is - and always has been - cis-lunar space and beyond. Orion delivering crew to ISS is like taking an 18-wheel tractor to the corner store for milk. That’s not something that you want to do often, although it is an option – in a pinch.

In conclusion
1. Shuttle had to go, regardless of which HLV replaced its lift capability.
2. SLS is more costly than the other HLV would have been and is choking the Commercial Crew Program, while the other HLV would have left more than sufficient funding for a robust Commercial Crew Program.
3. Orion delivering crew to ISS is not now, never has been, and never will be a threat to the Commercial Crew Program. Orion can only fly crewed on the HLV and that is far too costly for Crew Delivery.

[Prober]

I agree with Jim.  This one is squarely on Congress and the President.
NASA is being told what to do.

I see the direction of this thread going in the wrong direction.  Let's focus on how to fix this mess.
 
I say you want commercial then lets open it up to pure commercial.

[Prober]

don't you think the Orion could be launched via Delta or Atlas if human rated?
 
Let's start talking about "standards".  If its ok for our people to travel on Soyuz then we should allow those standars + be used for CC

[clongton]

don't you think the Orion could be launched via Delta or Atlas if human rated?

Orion/Atlas - No. Not enough lift capacity.
Orion/Delta - No. The Air Force has no interest in human rating the RS-68.

Commercial Crew cannot happen with Orion - it's too heavy for existing LVs except the Delta-IV. But that vehicle is not human rated so it will never lift a crewed Orion.

The path for Commercial Crew needs to be exactly what is happening - with a spacecraft designed for LEO, and massing FAR less than Orion. Only then are there launch vehicles available to lift them.

[gospacex]

This is an epic failure, all around.  A national embarrassment.  If NASA were a professional sports team, the manager would have been fired long ago.

 - Ed Kyle

Actually, it isn't the managers fault, it is the owners (congress and president) and they are dictating to the manager what they want and can run the team to the ground if they so desire.

Was it Congress or President who told Mike Griffin to design CxP launch vehicles in the most moronic way possible? And then to fight tooth and nail people who tried to fix the mess?

[gospacex]

I agree with Jim.  This one is squarely on Congress and the President.
NASA is being told what to do.

I see the direction of this thread going in the wrong direction.  Let's focus on how to fix this mess.

NASA needs to be dragged (kicking and screaming) out of LV construction business.

[mduncan36]

Regardless of how we got to this point, and I believe there are many to blame, we need to fix it for the future of all humanity. Let us hope that at some point in the near future there is a commercial provider too successful to ignore. The dark forces that orchestrated the current mess by their own incompetence will then be able to claim that success as their own idea. I'll let them if it leads to some kind of forward progress.

[notsorandom]

The situation we are in was created artificially first by Administrator Griffin to force the Ares rockets and then by the current administration to force commercial crew.

Sorry, that's revisionist history. The Shuttle was retired because the Columbia accident board said that it was fundamentally unsafe, and could not be fixed - not because Griffin wanted a competitor out of the way.

"Because of the risks inherent in the original design of the Space Shuttle, because that design was based in many aspects on now-obsolete technologies, and because the Shuttle is now an aging system but still developmental in character, it is in the nation's interest to replace the Shuttle as soon as possible as the primary means for transporting humans to and from Earth orbit."

 - CAIB Report, pp. 210-211

Noel

The CAIB report was not binding policy. Besides that recommendation was to replace it as soon as possible. We can debate what was meant by the word "possible". The CAIB didn't explicitly say to retire it before a replacement was ready.

When the original choice to retire SSP was made the ISS was going to be retired in 2015. Ares I was going to replace the Shuttle in pretty short order. Over the years it became clear that the ISS was going to go till at least 2020, Ares/Orion would not be ready soon or even by 2014, and that Constellation was is serious trouble. That had been known for years yet here we are wondering why there is still no replacement for the Shuttle.

That is not to say there were not options during those years which would have adverted the present situation. There were at least two good ones, both discussed in the Augustine report. They were a Space Shuttle extension, and a smaller shuttle derived HLV. There was and still is the option of flying Orion on the Delta IV. However, none of those options allowed for the Ares rockets or the commercial crew program and technology development the Obama administration wanted.

If the ISS is regularly getting serviced by the Space Shuttle or Orion on a small HLV what need would there have been for Ares I or commercial crew? How would you sell that need to a skeptical congress dealing with shrinking budgets?

I am not arguing for a course change now, the current path we are on with commercial crew and SLS is the best one we can be on right now. There were other options in the past which were not taken and which would have resulted in a better present day situation. There were reasons those paths were not taken.

[clongton]

Was it Congress or President who told Mike Griffin to design CxP launch vehicles in the most moronic way possible?

Neither. Mike Griffin designed the CxP launch vehicles long before he became Administrator and heading NASA provided him the opportunity and the funding to build them. The ESAS study actually recommended a completely different launch vehicle (see Appendix 6) than what became the CxP LVs, but Mr. Griffin sent it back "to committee" and instructed them what the final result "will" be. Ares-I/V was the end result.

[Mark S]

The simple and obvious solution is to properly fund NASA at a level that will allow timely completion of both SLS/MPCV and Commercial Crew. This would not be an exorbitant amount of money in relation to the federal budget. In fact such an increase would be statistically insignificant in relation to either the total federal budget or even just the federal deficit.

One must ask, why is this obvious solution not even being discussed? Why is the Administration putting an artificial cap on NASA's budget, when many other federal expenditures, even other discretionary expenditures, are not? Of course the sequester has thrown a spanner in the works for everyone, but NASA has been short-shrifted continuously since well before the sequester took effect.

I don't have an answer. I just know that the amount of money it would take to properly fund these programs is a pittance. The Administration is derelict in its duty in this regard, and so is Congress for not overriding the President's slow strangulation of NASA.

Of course the real problem is that our entire federal government is so totally dysfunctional now that NASA's problems are lost in the noise. However, that doesn't absolve the space-related committees in Congress and the Senate from doing their jobs. If NASA needs $19 billion or $20 billion, then it's their job to at least raise the issue.