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

[QuantumG]

You keep asserting that SpaceX had a reduced incentive and therefore had a slow rocket development. You are probably one of the only people following the space industry who I've heard suggest that SpaceX's development has been "slow". To me, it just sounds like you're incredibly impatient and your assertions that a different incentive structure would have made SpaceX develop rockets quicker sound like fantasy.

10 years and they've launched, what, three customer's payloads? Only two as primary payloads? How is that not slow?

By the way, I do not necessarily favor the current incentive program over any other. All I'm saying is that I think many other factors were responsible for SpaceX's delays, notably their overly optimistic schedule and the challenges involved in developing a new fleet of space vehicles from a blank page.

Oh, you don't have an opinion, you just think mine is wrong.

Also, you need to point to some sort of market survey evidence to back up your claim that SpaceX could have found sufficient alterative customers to satisfy your preferred incentive structure (pot of gold at end). Again, given SpaceX's pretty aggressive entrance into the commercial launch market, you are again one of the only people I've heard suggesting that SpaceX have not been motivated enough to find non-government paying customers.

I don't have to do anything of the sort. The fact is, SpaceX has spent more time servicing NASA than they have any other customer because NASA has given them the most money.

[yg1968]

I found a document that discussed what happened to COTS and CRS in 2008 which is relevant to what QuantumG was saying about the early CRS payments:
http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/hearings/052611_charter_1.pdf

[bad_astra]

10 years and they've launched, what, three customer's payloads? Only two as primary payloads? How is that not slow?

It is only slow based on personal opinion. If you can point out another company that has developed two working oribtal launch vehicles (Falcon 1, Falcon 9), multiple engines (various iterations of Merlin, Draco, Kestrel), have intense work done on future LV's (9 1.1, Grasshopper, Heavy, 1e) and most of the done in house, without a Federal mandate to do so or old ICBM's to base the work of, and can compare their work to that company, please do so.

-Not a SpaceX fan, just observing.

[QuantumG]

It is only slow based on personal opinion.

Yes, it's based on my personal opinion that companies exist to serve customers.

If you can point out another company that has developed two working oribtal launch vehicles (Falcon 1, Falcon 9), multiple engines (various iterations of Merlin, Draco, Kestrel), have intense work done on future LV's (9 1.1, Grasshopper, Heavy, 1e) and most of the done in house, without a Federal mandate to do so or old ICBM's to base the work of, and can compare their work to that company, please do so.

No-one else has done that because it doesn't service customers? As evidenced by the fact that SpaceX hasn't serviced (many) customers?

-Not a SpaceX fan, just observing.

Quite the opposite, you've adopted their measure of success without even thinking about it.

[john smith 19]

I don't have to do anything of the sort. The fact is, SpaceX has spent more time servicing NASA than they have any other customer because NASA has given them the most money.

That was money that Spacex bid for. The money was not given to them by default.  And possibly because the NASA mission is so difficult they have devoted a disproportionate amount of time to it.

I'll not the year between the gaps between the first F9 launch and the 1st Dragon launch and the delays in getting to the 2nd Dragon flight.

However from this.

http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php

It looks like Spacex will be making up for lost time. they have eight launches planned for this year, all of which would have to take place in the next 7 months.

While I guess we would all like things to have gone faster (including NASA) I'll note that Spacex have not just "built a rocket". They've built a development team, two rockets (F1 and F9, including three launch failures, which would have probably killed a govt programme), the factory (including quite a lot of the stuff other mfgs just buy in and stick on the "cost" part of their "cost plus" contract) and the operations team to support it from scratch (not being the division of a larger corporation that you can draw staff and technical resources from), while learning to interface with the NASA HSF bureaucracy at various levels. 

If you have done something like this you'll know that very little of it ever goes according to plan, and the differences are rarely to your benefit. If all your plans have been on paper then you'd be amazed at how slowly they've progressed. If you have done it IRL you'll be quite impressed at their achievement.

[Garrett]

10 years and they've launched, what, three customer's payloads? Only two as primary payloads? How is that not slow?

You mean, how is that not fast? What is your reference point that gives you the right to call 10 years "slow" for the development program that bad_astra so very well summarized in his comment above. Also, SpaceX were incorporated in 2002, so yes that's 11 years ago. But COTS didn't start till 2006 and the first ISS docking was 2012, so from a purely NASA perspective it took 6 years.

Oh, you don't have an opinion, you just think mine is wrong.

No, you've grossly misunderstood. I have the opinion that nobody can claim which incentive measure would have been better. If somehow we had visual access to a parallel universe where the pot of gold option was chosen, then we could compare the two. As it stands, we only have the results of the current system, so my opinion is that one should refrain from saying which is best, unless one can bring some serious, non-subjective evidence to the table.

Also, you need to point to some sort of market survey evidence to back up your claim that SpaceX could have found sufficient alterative customers to satisfy your preferred incentive structure (pot of gold at end).

I don't have to do anything of the sort.

You don't have to, but you should. Your argument is highly dependent on it.

[QuantumG]

What is your reference point that gives you the right to call 10 years "slow" for the development program that bad_astra so very well summarized in his comment above.

I don't judge SpaceX on how long they took to make what they made (that's obviously impressive). I judge them on how many customers they've actually serviced in that time.

I have the opinion that nobody can claim which incentive measure would have been better. If somehow we had visual access to a parallel universe where the pot of gold option was chosen, then we could compare the two.

We can compare them to companies that succeeded with different incentives. There's plenty of points of comparison, and none of them take 10 years to service three customers.

[Mader Levap]

http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php
It looks like Spacex will be making up for lost time. they have eight launches planned for this year, all of which would have to take place in the next 7 months.

You know that SpaceX mainfest is bad joke, right?

[kiba]

I prefer this to figure out what's the next scehulded spaceflight:

http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

I count 5. Almost certainly, there's going to be delays, though. So, there won't be six launches this year.

[Mark S]

It is only slow based on personal opinion.

Yes, it's based on my personal opinion that companies exist to serve customers.

Companies exist to serve customers? Where ever did you get that idea? Companies exist to create value for their shareholders. Period. Full Stop. Nothing less, and nothing more. Companies only serve customers to the extent that it helps them make money. They will also screw over customers to the maximum extent that they can get away with.

Sure, all successful companies will pay extensive lip service to "serving the customer" and "meeting customer needs". The more the customer buys into this, uh, messaging, the less the company needs to spend on actually making better products. It's called "marketing".

You seem to be a pretty sharp guy, so this post really surprised me.

Mark S.

[deltaV]

QuantumG's point is that a company that doesn't serve its customers is useless. This is true regardless of whether you believe profit is a means to achieve the end of serving customers or serving customers is a means to the end of achieving profit, so discussing the philosophy of corporations would be off-topic here.

[Robotbeat]

QuantumG's point is that a company that doesn't serve its customers is useless. This is true regardless of whether you believe profit is a means to achieve the end of serving customers or serving customers is a means to the end of achieving profit, so discussing the philosophy of corporations would be off-topic here.

SpaceX has delivered goods to and from the Space Station successfully three different times, now, with a new, essentially from-scratch rocket where others are still either catching up (granted, OSC started a little later) or have failed entirely. No one else other than gov'ts have ever done this. Ever.

They aren't just a cheaper version of Delta II, like apparently Quantum G wants them to be. If they had focused solely on that goal, they probably would have a lot more launches under their belt, but it's definitely NOT their goal. They have higher goals, and being a good replacement for Delta II or the base Atlas V is just something they need to do to get to their other goals. Keeping Delta II in service wouldn't profoundly change spaceflight, but what SpaceX is working on right now (inexpensive manned commercial capsule, reusable launch vehicle, inexpensive heavy lift in Falcon Heavy) potentially could.

And yeah, they need to start launching other customers very soon, or even just launch v1.1 at all right now, but to complain about lack of progress towards being a Delta II replacement is ridiculous if you are taking their other goals into account. Of course, if you've got a payload on Falcon 9, then I understand the impatience, but not if you're judging SpaceX by their own goals.

[Robotbeat]

What is your reference point that gives you the right to call 10 years "slow" for the development program that bad_astra so very well summarized in his comment above.

I don't judge SpaceX on how long they took to make what they made (that's obviously impressive). I judge them on how many customers they've actually serviced in that time.

I have the opinion that nobody can claim which incentive measure would have been better. If somehow we had visual access to a parallel universe where the pot of gold option was chosen, then we could compare the two.

We can compare them to companies that succeeded with different incentives. There's plenty of points of comparison, and none of them take 10 years to service three customers.

Their goal is not to just service three customers. If that was their only goal, they wouldn't be doing so much vertical integration and advanced R&D.

[john smith 19]

I prefer this to figure out what's the next scehulded spaceflight:

http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Thanks for the tip. Handy.

I count 5. Almost certainly, there's going to be delays, though. So, there won't be six launches this year.

That's quite a step up from 1 launch a year but Spacex seem to use a small pad team (Gwen Shotwell said it was in the 10-20 range). The shift to the F9v1.1 may be a  bigger challenge if there are any unexpected problems

5, with 3 of them running at 1 a month seems viabe, and I'll guess more on the order of what Spacex would like as a launch rate.

[QuantumG]

Their goal is not to just service three customers. If that was their only goal, they wouldn't be doing so much vertical integration and advanced R&D.

I'm not judging them by their stated goals. I'm judging them by the same standard that I judge every other startup. Why should they get special treatment?

[RocketmanUS]

Their goal is not to just service three customers. If that was their only goal, they wouldn't be doing so much vertical integration and advanced R&D.

I'm not judging them by their stated goals. I'm judging them by the same standard that I judge every other startup. Why should they get special treatment?

Would the point be for a company to deliver on time by their contract ( COTS demo flights for example )?
So why would we now believe that any company would deliver the crew taxi on time ( by a contract date )?

[beancounter]

It is only slow based on personal opinion.

Yes, it's based on my personal opinion that companies exist to serve customers.

Companies exist to serve customers? Where ever did you get that idea? Companies exist to create value for their shareholders. Period. Full Stop. Nothing less, and nothing more. Companies only serve customers to the extent that it helps them make money. They will also screw over customers to the maximum extent that they can get away with.

Sure, all successful companies will pay extensive lip service to "serving the customer" and "meeting customer needs". The more the customer buys into this, uh, messaging, the less the company needs to spend on actually making better products. It's called "marketing".

You seem to be a pretty sharp guy, so this post really surprised me.

Mark S.

Interesting discussion. 
I'd submit that Elon Musk is SpaceX prime customer and that their efforts are oriented around him and him alone.  He sets the overall objectives and we do know that his objective is Mars.  Anything that doesn't assist him in that is superfluous to requirements.  And without knowing his strategy (which probably changes every so often in response to events and/or thinking) no-one can know how SpaceX well or badly SpaceX is doing for its primary customer.
Cheers.

[QuantumG]

Their goal is not to just service three customers. If that was their only goal, they wouldn't be doing so much vertical integration and advanced R&D.

I'm not judging them by their stated goals. I'm judging them by the same standard that I judge every other startup. Why should they get special treatment?

Would the point be for a company to deliver on time by their contract ( COTS demo flights for example )?
So why would we now believe that any company would deliver the crew taxi on time ( by a contract date )?

Go back and read the rest of this thread.. you're totally missing the point of the conversation.

[RocketmanUS]

Their goal is not to just service three customers. If that was their only goal, they wouldn't be doing so much vertical integration and advanced R&D.

I'm not judging them by their stated goals. I'm judging them by the same standard that I judge every other startup. Why should they get special treatment?

Would the point be for a company to deliver on time by their contract ( COTS demo flights for example )?
So why would we now believe that any company would deliver the crew taxi on time ( by a contract date )?

Go back and read the rest of this thread.. you're totally missing the point of the conversation.

Just to your post.
I'm saying any company should deliver on time.
For the thread we need a company that can deliver on time what is ordered. Who can and is willing to do so?

[QuantumG]

Just to your post.
I'm saying any company should deliver on time.
For the thread we need a company that can deliver on time what is ordered. Who can and is willing to do so?

Fine, I'll consider it a new thread then... whether or not a company delivers on time is entirely dependent upon the incentives of the contract. If you award them the follow on contract before they've even finished the current contract, then it's pretty obvious that they can take all the time in the world, and they will, the whole time claiming that they couldn't possibly go any faster. The question you gotta ask yourself is: does anyone actually want delivery on time? Or is NASA just another avenue for gaining access to taxpayer money?