Frustration grows as lawmakers continue to penny pinch commercial crew

[Elmar Moelzer]

However, in the scheme of things, if they put Orion with a partial propellant load on an Atlas 552, they could use that for the ISS and not need commercial crew.
Rather than funding Orion develop -and- 2.5 commercial crew providers that can do the same thing Orion can do.

I will take 2.5 commercial crew over Orion and the SLS any day. I would much rather see Orion and the SLS cancelled than commercial crew.
Also, IIRC Orion in its current incarnation can not even dock with the ISS.
Also, IIRC SLS and Orion wont be ready in time before the ISS is dumped into the ocean anyway.

[Chris Bergin]

However, in the scheme of things, if they put Orion with a partial propellant load on an Atlas 552, they could use that for the ISS and not need commercial crew.
Rather than funding Orion develop -and- 2.5 commercial crew providers that can do the same thing Orion can do.

I will take 2.5 commercial crew over Orion and the SLS any day. I would much rather see Orion and the SLS cancelled than commercial crew.

Are you using that "if we cancel SLS and Orion all that spare money will allow NASA to spend it on commercial and such" wishing on a star example?

It's more likely that money will leave NASA for good via all those lawmakers who you know would react badly. It'd be even more ironic of the removed money ended up getting spent as "international aid" in some backwards country where they burn American flags as their national past time.

Oh, if there's any money left over from paying up all the SLS/Orion contracts and making all those highly skilled American workers redundant before funding a skills program that shows them how to flip burgers in their new career at a Burger King near you.

You all think money going to Russia is bad.....it could be a whole lot worse if you start waving the cancel wand all over the show.

"HA, very smart ass of you Chris, so what would you do?"

Refine the plan. I'll set up a thread on that later

[KelvinZero]

I wonder if the fight could have been avoided by having 4 commercial candidates and allowing a bit of jiggering of the rules so that two of them ended up being shuttle derived. I think a lot of the arguments would have evaporated. In a couple of presidential terms maybe you could down select, or even better have fallen so much in the habit that 4 providers happens to match the 'needs' we (represented by all these interested parties) suddenly discover to ferry endless amounts of people and cargo to and from low orbit.

Im not sure jiggering is a word but it sounds right.

[LegendCJS]

He stated the cost of Orion itself, not including the cost to send it up. 

The greatest cost of advanced aerospace products is wages for the employees who build the products.

The conditions under which your calculation of Orion cost is accurate assume that a large team of workers involved just twiddle their thumbs 364.999 days per year drawing $800 million in salary , and when the order comes in for a new Orion it is built instantaneously at no marginal cost.

In reality the program will have instead a team sized such that working only one shift a day and only 5 days a week one Orion can be built and delivered in 1 year.  To first order, if 2 Orions are needed then man hour worked/ total costs roughly double, if 3 then total costs roughly triple, and so on and so forth, keeping the per unit cost roughly constant.  This all assumes that the development and design cost is not factored in, which is isn't when discussing the cost to the ISS specific budget for an Orion flight.  The much lauded benefits of mass production lowering per unit cost are not achieved when talking about single digit deliveries per year.

So, you're saying that each Orion will cost roughly what an entire shuttle launch did, including hardware, processing, all the labor associated in that, etc.?
If four Orion's were ordered in a year, it would cost roughly as much as the entire Annual shuttle budget that averaged around four launches per year in the latter years?  And that's just four Orion CSM's sitting on the floor, not launching into space?

Well, I gotta say, that doesn't sound quite right.  But if it is, then I think NASA should close it's doors and get out of the HSF business altogether.

I'm saying that to first order the model that the per Orion cost stays the same is more accurate than the model that the per orion cost decreases as 1/N.  Of the $800 million estimate of a single Orion per year, I'm sure that a sizable fraction is fixed overhead and its contribution to per Orion costs does decrease as 1/N.  How much is fixed overhead is really in the details.  Some large human spaceflight programs in the past have had huge fixed overhead because their budgets also had the responsibility to keep entire clusters of NASA centers open year around.  But I'm willing to bet that if the $800 million quote was generated by a specific auditing/ cost estimation process, then the assumption of parking center operating budgets in the small print or other such shenanigans is not being taken when coming up with the $800M number. Consequently, I believe that the fraction of the $800 million budget for an Orion that is fixed overhead is going to be in the minority compared to the actual man hours/ wages and materials and parts cost of a new Orion.

[HappyMartian]

However, in the scheme of things, if they put Orion with a partial propellant load on an Atlas 552, they could use that for the ISS and not need commercial crew.
Rather than funding Orion develop -and- 2.5 commercial crew providers that can do the same thing Orion can do.

I will take 2.5 commercial crew over Orion and the SLS any day. I would much rather see Orion and the SLS cancelled than commercial crew.

Are you using that "if we cancel SLS and Orion all that spare money will allow NASA to spend it on commercial and such" wishing on a star example?

It's more likely that money will leave NASA for good via all those lawmakers who you know would react badly. It'd be even more ironic of the removed money ended up getting spent as "international aid" in some backwards country where they burn American flags as their national past time.

Oh, if there's any money left over from paying up all the SLS/Orion contracts and making all those highly skilled American workers redundant before funding a skills program that shows them how to flip burgers in their new career at a Burger King near you.

You all think money going to Russia is bad.....it could be a whole lot worse if you start waving the cancel wand all over the show.

"HA, very smart ass of you Chris, so what would you do?"

Refine the plan. I'll set up a thread on that later

Great post!

Offshoring our high tech jobs/capabilities is foolish and won't get us to the Moon and Mars.

Refine the plan.

[yg1968]

Adopting the Senate bill would solve a lot of problems. I am not sure another change of course is a good idea at this point. I am not a big fan of SLS and Orion. But I am not a big fan of changing course every four years either. The compromise that was the 2010 NASA Authorization bill is still the best way forward. The 2013 Senate Authorization bill seems supportive of getting international and private-public partnerships involved in BLEO. Hopefully that means more involvement by Bigelow and SpaceX (the FH) in cislunar space.

[Elmar Moelzer]

However, in the scheme of things, if they put Orion with a partial propellant load on an Atlas 552, they could use that for the ISS and not need commercial crew.
Rather than funding Orion develop -and- 2.5 commercial crew providers that can do the same thing Orion can do.

I will take 2.5 commercial crew over Orion and the SLS any day. I would much rather see Orion and the SLS cancelled than commercial crew.

Are you using that "if we cancel SLS and Orion all that spare money will allow NASA to spend it on commercial and such" wishing on a star example?

No, I was saying that if I had to choose, I would take commercial crew. It was in response to someone who suggested just the opposite (cancel commercial crew and do only Orion). Get it?

[RocketmanUS]

However, in the scheme of things, if they put Orion with a partial propellant load on an Atlas 552, they could use that for the ISS and not need commercial crew.
Rather than funding Orion develop -and- 2.5 commercial crew providers that can do the same thing Orion can do.

I will take 2.5 commercial crew over Orion and the SLS any day. I would much rather see Orion and the SLS cancelled than commercial crew.

Are you using that "if we cancel SLS and Orion all that spare money will allow NASA to spend it on commercial and such" wishing on a star example?

It's more likely that money will leave NASA for good via all those lawmakers who you know would react badly. It'd be even more ironic of the removed money ended up getting spent as "international aid" in some backwards country where they burn American flags as their national past time.

Oh, if there's any money left over from paying up all the SLS/Orion contracts and making all those highly skilled American workers redundant before funding a skills program that shows them how to flip burgers in their new career at a Burger King near you.

You all think money going to Russia is bad.....it could be a whole lot worse if you start waving the cancel wand all over the show.

"HA, very smart ass of you Chris, so what would you do?"

Refine the plan. I'll set up a thread on that later

As the article and this thread is about the commercial crew taxi let the commercial providers come up with the needed added funding so they can be launching crew to LEO sooner than later. After all they were to have non government customers and not rely on possible ISS crew rotation contracts.

We can't and should not wait around for Congress. We should have been seeing commercial space station(s) and Dragon lab(s) ( free floaters ) by now.

[Lars_J]

Are you using that "if we cancel SLS and Orion all that spare money will allow NASA to spend it on commercial and such" wishing on a star example?

It's more likely that money will leave NASA for good via all those lawmakers who you know would react badly. It'd be even more ironic of the removed money ended up getting spent as "international aid" in some backwards country where they burn American flags as their national past time.

Oh, if there's any money left over from paying up all the SLS/Orion contracts and making all those highly skilled American workers redundant before funding a skills program that shows them how to flip burgers in their new career at a Burger King...

With all due respect, Chris, this is a bit of a fear-mongering argument. The NASA budget has remained fairly constant over the last couple of decades (inflation adjusted) STS was cancelled, the budget remained. CxP was cancelled, the budget remained. *If* SLS is cancelled, most of the budget will remain.

The representatives won't simply give up and vote the money to other districts - they depend on being able to provide work to their districts. The trick will simply (or not so simply) be to find ways to apply new NASA projects to the centers and work forces - and the representatives will support whatever to make that happen. Easier said than done, of course.

[john smith 19]

With all due respect, Chris, this is a bit of a fear-mongering argument. The NASA budget has remained fairly constant over the last couple of decades (inflation adjusted) STS was cancelled, the budget remained. CxP was cancelled, the budget remained. *If* SLS is cancelled, most of the budget will remain.

The representatives won't simply give up and vote the money to other districts - they depend on being able to provide work to their districts. The trick will simply (or not so simply) be to find ways to apply new NASA projects to the centers and work forces - and the representatives will support whatever to make that happen. Easier said than done, of course.

Fair points. Except NASA has no centre in Utah and yet, despite this, we keep seeing NASA crew carrying designs with massive lumps of high explosive strapped to their sides.

What's the running total on CxP and Orion? About $12Bn and Ares 1x was the only flight vehicle.

He stated the cost of Orion itself, not including the cost to send it up. 
The greatest cost of advanced aerospace products is wages for the employees who build the products.

The conditions under which your calculation of Orion cost is accurate assume that a large team of workers involved just twiddle their thumbs 364.999 days per year drawing $800 million in salary , and when the order comes in for a new Orion it is built instantaneously at no marginal cost.

In reality the program will have instead a team sized such that working only one shift a day and only 5 days a week one Orion can be built and delivered in 1 year.  To first order, if 2 Orions are needed then man hour worked/ total costs roughly double, if 3 then total costs roughly triple, and so on and so forth, keeping the per unit cost roughly constant.  This all assumes that the development and design cost is not factored in, which is isn't when discussing the cost to the ISS specific budget for an Orion flight.  The much lauded benefits of mass production lowering per unit cost are not achieved when talking about single digit deliveries per year.

Nice point. There is the "learning curve" drop of approximately 15% for every doubling in output that the USAF found, however that only applies for systems which are very labour intensive to mfg, which I guess Orion will be.
If you're right (and with Orion's projected launches I think you're spot on) that would make the Orion the Tesla Roadster of capsules and Crewed Dragon and SCT-100 the Prius 

Sp one Orion capsule could more or less bank roll a large chunk of the CCiCAP programme?

Staggering

On the Griffin, EELV and Ares I points:
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2009/04/study-eelv-capable-orion-role-griffin-claims-alternatives-fiction/

Thanks for this useful reminder Chris. A useful antidote to a lot of wishful thinking.

2009 seems a long time ago in this discusssion 

Bingo.  You beat me to it.  Yes, it would mean NASA reversing policy, but how would that hurt them at this point? 

Obviously NASA has unofficially reversed their stance on EELV's or they'd not allow any commercial crew bidders to be proposing using EELV's to launch NASA crews to the ISS.

I'll take a wild stab and say because you've just eliminated SLS's only real mission, but SLS is the only programme that has to continue.

You have to realize SLS supporters in the Legislature only real concern is the jobs in their districts. They have no interest in wheather it flies or not. 

[HappyMartian]

...
Oh, if there's any money left over from paying up all the SLS/Orion contracts and making all those highly skilled American workers redundant before funding a skills program that shows them how to flip burgers in their new career at a Burger King...

With all due respect, Chris, this is a bit of a fear-mongering argument. The NASA budget has remained fairly constant over the last couple of decades (inflation adjusted) STS was cancelled, the budget remained. CxP was cancelled, the budget remained. *If* SLS is cancelled, most of the budget will remain.

The representatives won't simply give up and vote the money to other districts - they depend on being able to provide work to their districts. The trick will simply (or not so simply) be to find ways to apply new NASA projects to the centers and work forces - and the representatives will support whatever to make that happen. Easier said than done, of course.

[/quote]


"The trick will simply (or not so simply) be  ....Easier said than done, of course."


Yep, through the guidance and wisdom of Congress and the President, Detroit is doing great in pulling off that not so simple "provide work" trick.

Let's see, American per capita income is around $50,000 or £33,000, however:


"'Detroit is now one of the poorest big cities in the country."

And, "For the 2010 American Community Survey, median household income in the city was $25,787, and the median income for a family was $31,011. The per capita income for the city was $14,118."

From: Detroit    Wikipedia
At: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit#Economy_of_Detroit


Oh well. I really like India, Vietnam, and Nigeria. With some American help and investment, they could eventually build the Orion, SLS, Dragon, Dream Chaser, and lots of other high and low tech stuff a lot cheaper than we could in America. We could save some big money that way, and India might even provide our national security umbrella for free!

Brilliant, right? We could privatize the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, NASA, and all the rest of our government, including Congress and the Presidency, and just offshore everything that costs real money. Then our environment would be clean and green and there wouldn't be any "Frustration".

Yep, America could simply become a great tourist destination for the rest of the world and become almost as impressive as Rome and Athens.

Our tourist guides could gush, "We once were very industrious and built the Panama Canal, Model T, Moon rocket, Mars robots, and other amazing things and today we'll tell you stories about those long gone days and sell you a genuine Saturn V trinket made in Bangladesh."

But why are many of the lawmakers in a rich and powerful country pinching every penny?

Why do we have some millionaires and billionaires paying minimal taxes, making and hiding their money offshore, and really not interested in investing money in their own country? Is their behavior a direct consequence of incompetently devised tax policies that mainly benefit millionaires and billionaires and unfortunately not Detroit and the rest of America?

Could it just be that we have had far too many lawyers and other great talkers in Congress and as Presidents and Mayors, and just not enough folks that have actually run profitable and thriving American manufacturing businesses?

Could it be possible that we voters never ask enough really tough questions and would prefer to intelligently discuss what the movie stars are up to?

Oh! Are real questions no longer encouraged because they make the NS_ and IRS unhappy? And if you make them unhappy, would you too soon be made unhappy? Self-censorship is the best kind, right?

Let's just continue to encourage the rich and powerful to offshore those jobs, OK? Yep, their profitable offshoring of jobs continues day after day and the President says, "Trust us!"

Wonderful! Let rich folks hide tens of trillions of dollars in secret offshore bank accounts and Congress pinch the space and other budgets until nothing is left. Congress always has lots of rich and poor 'friends' that need more money, and we really don't need humans living on that old BTDT Moon, right?

Yes! I finally got it! No questions, fear-mongering, frustrations, and thinking for this happy camper!

[HappyMartian]

....
I'll take a wild stab and say because you've just eliminated SLS's only real mission, but SLS is the only programme that has to continue.

You have to realize SLS supporters in the Legislature only real concern is the jobs in their districts. They have no interest in wheather it flies or not. 

I'm confused. I thought the new secret plan was to splash the 100,000,000,000 dollar ISS in 2020, and that means we really don't need to keep on spending lots of scarce American tax dollars on LEO taxis. Since it has already been decided by the folks with money and power that we really aren't going to the Moon and eventually Mars, then we really don't need the SLS and Orion either. So all this is moot and not worthy of discussion because it has been resolved, right? Let's ask the NS_!

[mlindner]

Honestly, if the contract becomes FAR-based, there is a good chance SpaceX might just drop out of the race. Elon has already publicly stated "we may not bid on it," if anyone's forgotten.

I actually hope this happens. It will show the <expletive deleted> in Washington that this is the wrong way of going about things.

[simonbp]

Nice article about the “quandary” we are in Chris!  Things seemed so much simpler during the Space Race...

Simpler, but no one is seriously talking about nuking each other, so that's rather more pleasant...

As much as we moan about how it slows down the first flight of commercial manned spacecraft, it means that any spacecraft that do fly are going to be really commercial, not a government contractor under a different name.

[yg1968]

Honestly, if the contract becomes FAR-based, there is a good chance SpaceX might just drop out of the race. Elon has already publicly stated "we may not bid on it," if anyone's forgotten.

I actually hope this happens. It will show the people in Washington that this is the wrong way of going about things.

I am hoping that the remaining development will be done under the optional CCiCap milestones. But NASA has already stated that the crewed test flights will be done under FAR.

[Chris Bergin]

However, in the scheme of things, if they put Orion with a partial propellant load on an Atlas 552, they could use that for the ISS and not need commercial crew.
Rather than funding Orion develop -and- 2.5 commercial crew providers that can do the same thing Orion can do.

I will take 2.5 commercial crew over Orion and the SLS any day. I would much rather see Orion and the SLS cancelled than commercial crew.

Are you using that "if we cancel SLS and Orion all that spare money will allow NASA to spend it on commercial and such" wishing on a star example?

No, I was saying that if I had to choose, I would take commercial crew. It was in response to someone who suggested just the opposite (cancel commercial crew and do only Orion). Get it?

Sure, but I personally don't like how it's all turned into a boxing match between between those *two* programs.

The way it stands right now - if these vehicles were people at a party - is you'd have Dragon, Dream Chaser and CST-100 all desperately fighting over the remains of the buffet, while a drunk and depressed (lack of missions) SLS would be on the end of a beer keg with Orion shouting "Chug! Chug! Chug!"

Problem is, JWST would be upstairs rummaging through people's jackets stealing their wallets, but no seems to have a problem with JWST!

Get SLS into a detox program. Use the money saved on beer kegs by restocking the buffet for the Commercial Crew vehicles and send JWST to jail.

I have no idea if that'll make sense, but it might when I set up the "Let's play "refine the forward plan" Thread."

With all due respect, Chris, this is a bit of a fear-mongering argument.

A bit, for sure - but I certainly think there's a threat of that. I heard some big stories about Scorched Earth had FY 11 not been refined.

[Rocket Science]

Nice article about the “quandary” we are in Chris!  Things seemed so much simpler during the Space Race...

Simpler, but no one is seriously talking about nuking each other, so that's rather more pleasant...

As much as we moan about how it slows down the first flight of commercial manned spacecraft, it means that any spacecraft that do fly are going to be really commercial, not a government contractor under a different name.

Definitely more pleasant Simon!  I still remember vividly having to walk single file to the basement of Holy Cross School in the Bronx with the air raid sirens blaring. That kind of stuff remains with you forever...
 
Black humor aside, the point is we were focused on a single goal with all oars rowing in the same direction as opposed to our circular going nowhere with the expenditure of a lot of effort needlessly...

[JohnFornaro]

Now that's a pretty darn good article.

With technical issues between Orion and its launch vehicle, Ares I ...

A quiet, yet devastating summary of the management culture which has led to the current "wholly unsuitable scenario".

[JohnFornaro]

A) So, who is NOT frustrated? 

B)Is there somebody who seeks power or money or the victory of wrong over right who believes that these irrational policies will further their aims?

A) Those whose aims and goals are being met.

B) Yes.

[JohnFornaro]

In reality the program will have instead a team sized such that working only one shift a day and only 5 days a week one Orion can be built and delivered in 1 year.  To first order, if 2 Orions are needed then man hour worked/ total costs roughly double, if 3 then total costs roughly triple, and so on and so forth, keeping the per unit cost roughly constant.

Well, we all know that nine women cannot get pregnant in one month, but this is not that problem.

What bothers me a great deal is that the actual object is so small, that, after the first two or three are made, how can it take a whole year to make one more of them?

It should be possible to at least make two a year with an experienced team.  They cannot be making a good effort to improve their manufacturing techniques.

$800M is too much money for a friggin' capsule.  There is a falsehood in those cost figures somewhere.