NASA Announces Partnership Opportunities for U.S. Commercial Lunar Lander Capabi

[ChrisWilson68]

Really, I suspect the reason for this announcement is that the Morpheus team is looking to justify their continued existence.  If they can give anything to any private enterprise at all, they can use that as a reason for their own program to continue and not be cut.  If that's true, this is really the opposite of COTS, CRS, CCDev, CCiCap, and CCtCap -- an attempt to get the government to keep funding an in-house program rather than spending those funds through a competitive, fixed-price contract with a private enterprise, with additional funds raised by the private enterprise.

[Galactic Penguin SST]

Really, I suspect the reason for this announcement is that the Morpheus team is looking to justify their continued existence.  If they can give anything to any private enterprise at all, they can use that as a reason for their own program to continue and not be cut.  If that's true, this is really the opposite of COTS, CRS, CCDev, CCiCap, and CCtCap -- an attempt to get the government to keep funding an in-house program rather than spending those funds through a competitive, fixed-price contract with a private enterprise, with additional funds raised by the private enterprise.

[citation needed]

[ChrisWilson68]

Really, I suspect the reason for this announcement is that the Morpheus team is looking to justify their continued existence.  If they can give anything to any private enterprise at all, they can use that as a reason for their own program to continue and not be cut.  If that's true, this is really the opposite of COTS, CRS, CCDev, CCiCap, and CCtCap -- an attempt to get the government to keep funding an in-house program rather than spending those funds through a competitive, fixed-price contract with a private enterprise, with additional funds raised by the private enterprise.

[citation needed]

No, a citation isn't needed for speculation when I'm being perfectly clear that I'm speculating.

[A_M_Swallow]

Really, I suspect the reason for this announcement is that the Morpheus team is looking to justify their continued existence.  If they can give anything to any private enterprise at all, they can use that as a reason for their own program to continue and not be cut.  If that's true, this is really the opposite of COTS, CRS, CCDev, CCiCap, and CCtCap -- an attempt to get the government to keep funding an in-house program rather than spending those funds through a competitive, fixed-price contract with a private enterprise, with additional funds raised by the private enterprise.

[citation needed]

The announcement mentions Morpheus so it is the citation requested.

There was also a partnership announcement covering the MMSEV in its rover and short range shuttle forms.

[Tea Party Space Czar]

I found this rather exciting.  Its good policy. 

NASA's new Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (Lunar CATALYST) initiative calls for proposals from the U.S. private sector that would lead to one or more no-funds exchanged Space Act Agreements (SAA). The purpose of these SAAs would be to encourage the development of robotic lunar landers that can be integrated with U.S. commercial launch capabilities to deliver small and medium class payloads to the lunar surface.

No funds exchanged using an SAA.  I know Congressman Wolf was upset with China landing a lander on the moon.  Maybe we can land 10.  The public-private partnership utilizing SAAs are the way to go.

https://prod.nais.nasa.gov/eps/eps_data/159394-OTHER-001-001.pdf

Section 1.3 could do a lot for a firm with some seed capital.

I am curious to see what others here think about this.

Respectfully,
Andrew Gasser

Edit: merged in from new, identical topic started in a different section. - Lar

[JohnFornaro]

NASA funding for commercial programs is a game changer.  Providing free advice and loaning equipment has some benefit, but it is not in the same class.

Bingo.

That said, I am a fan of Non-Reimburseable SAAs, even when they don't lead to follow-on paid work.  For instance, Altius has an NR-SAA working with NASA Langley on some space manipulator technologies. It's been a useful relationship, and could help reduce our cost of getting to a commercially sellable product.

~Jon

Yahbut:  Ya gotta have the internal funding to do this.  Disposable income, so to speak.  Not sayin' it's a bad marketing idea at all; just pointing out that the relationship does have a measurable cost.

[JohnFornaro]

Really, I suspect the reason for this announcement is that the Morpheus team is looking to justify their continued existence.  If they can give anything to any private enterprise at all, they can use that as a reason for their own program to continue and not be cut.  If that's true, this is really the opposite of COTS, CRS, CCDev, CCiCap, and CCtCap -- an attempt to get the government to keep funding an in-house program rather than spending those funds through a competitive, fixed-price contract with a private enterprise, with additional funds raised by the private enterprise.

That's not a bad speculation, I'd say.  A legitimate means to drum up popular support.

[JohnFornaro]

NASA is probably getting some political pressure to do something about going back to the moon.  This allows them to do that with no budget.

They are under no pressure to land half a ton of equipment on the moon. 3 astronauts, maybe...

That said, the RIGHT half ton would be far more useful than 3 astros... I for one want ISRU not flags and footprints.

It seems like you are implying, "I want to establish an infrastructure for creating water, oxygen, rocket fuel, etc.  However, I don't want people there.  At the very least I don't want people there until I have that infrastructure." 

To me it's kind of like saying those that pioneered the West should have never left until after the railroads were established and towns were there waiting for them along the way to move into.

JBF  Go4TLI [Edit:  Whoops! Wrong poster.  My bad.] misses, unfortunately. Lar is not dismissing humans.  He is asserting, and I agree, that the RIGHT half ton of equipment would be more useful than astros at this time.

For example, an operating solar powered parabolic mirror power system (PMP) previously landed at your site, ready to hook up, would be of great benefit to the astros.

[jongoff]

NASA funding for commercial programs is a game changer.  Providing free advice and loaning equipment has some benefit, but it is not in the same class.

Bingo.

That said, I am a fan of Non-Reimburseable SAAs, even when they don't lead to follow-on paid work.  For instance, Altius has an NR-SAA working with NASA Langley on some space manipulator technologies. It's been a useful relationship, and could help reduce our cost of getting to a commercially sellable product.

~Jon

Yahbut:  Ya gotta have the internal funding to do this.  Disposable income, so to speak.  Not sayin' it's a bad marketing idea at all; just pointing out that the relationship does have a measurable cost.

You're preaching to the choir. We probably could've gotten a lot more out of our NR-SAA had we actually had anywhere near the level of IRAD availability I thought we'd have when we signed it. So yeah, if the GLXP teams have no real money (ie most of them), this won't help very much. But for those who do (the 2 or 3 that might fit in this category), especially those who are already paying NASA via a reimbursable SAA (ie MoonEx), this might be a reasonably good deal.

~Jon

[JohnFornaro]

NASA funding for commercial programs is a game changer.  Providing free advice and loaning equipment has some benefit, but it is not in the same class.

Bingo.

That said, I am a fan of Non-Reimburseable SAAs, even when they don't lead to follow-on paid work.  For instance, Altius has an NR-SAA working with NASA Langley on some space manipulator technologies. It's been a useful relationship, and could help reduce our cost of getting to a commercially sellable product.

~Jon

Yahbut:  Ya gotta have the internal funding to do this.  Disposable income, so to speak.  Not sayin' it's a bad marketing idea at all; just pointing out that the relationship does have a measurable cost.

You're preaching to the choir. We probably could've gotten a lot more out of our NR-SAA had we actually had anywhere near the level of IRAD availability I thought we'd have when we signed it. So yeah, if the GLXP teams have no real money (ie most of them), this won't help very much. But for those who do (the 2 or 3 that might fit in this category), especially those who are already paying NASA via a reimbursable SAA (ie MoonEx), this might be a reasonably good deal.

~Jon

Good:  Glad we agree.  CATALYST is a good idea in principle.  If they could just authorize $100K each for, say, five proposers...

[A_M_Swallow]

Good:  Glad we agree.  CATALYST is a good idea in principle.  If they could just authorize $100K each for, say, five proposers...

NASA may be able to think of a way to disguise the $100k payments as a competition prize.  In the aerospace industry $100k will only pay for 1 person for a year.

CCDev got its first $50 million from the 'American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009', there may be a similar Act in a couple of years time.

[Prober]

Good:  Glad we agree.  CATALYST is a good idea in principle.  If they could just authorize $100K each for, say, five proposers...

NASA may be able to think of a way to disguise the $100k payments as a competition prize.  In the aerospace industry $100k will only pay for 1 person for a year.

CCDev got its first $50 million from the 'American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009', there may be a similar Act in a couple of years time.

Maybe Google can redo their lunar landing and kick in say 50 million?  Think today this kind of funding would move this faster this time around.

[newpylong]

Really, I suspect the reason for this announcement is that the Morpheus team is looking to justify their continued existence.  If they can give anything to any private enterprise at all, they can use that as a reason for their own program to continue and not be cut.  If that's true, this is really the opposite of COTS, CRS, CCDev, CCiCap, and CCtCap -- an attempt to get the government to keep funding an in-house program rather than spending those funds through a competitive, fixed-price contract with a private enterprise, with additional funds raised by the private enterprise.

Justification not required. There are toilets at KSC that cost more than Morpheus.

[jongoff]

Really, I suspect the reason for this announcement is that the Morpheus team is looking to justify their continued existence.  If they can give anything to any private enterprise at all, they can use that as a reason for their own program to continue and not be cut.  If that's true, this is really the opposite of COTS, CRS, CCDev, CCiCap, and CCtCap -- an attempt to get the government to keep funding an in-house program rather than spending those funds through a competitive, fixed-price contract with a private enterprise, with additional funds raised by the private enterprise.

Justification not required. There are toilets at KSC that cost more than Morpheus.

There are $60M toilets at KSC?

~Jon

[simonbp]

Yeah, Morpheus is cheap for a NASA internal program, but super expensive compared to its Armadillo ancestors.

But the targets of Partnership in question are much more in the Armadillo model than NASA JSC.

[newpylong]

Really, I suspect the reason for this announcement is that the Morpheus team is looking to justify their continued existence.  If they can give anything to any private enterprise at all, they can use that as a reason for their own program to continue and not be cut.  If that's true, this is really the opposite of COTS, CRS, CCDev, CCiCap, and CCtCap -- an attempt to get the government to keep funding an in-house program rather than spending those funds through a competitive, fixed-price contract with a private enterprise, with additional funds raised by the private enterprise.

Justification not required. There are toilets at KSC that cost more than Morpheus.

There are $60M toilets at KSC?

~Jon

No, but there aren't $60M Morpheus(i?) either. The entire program has only cost $14M since 2010.

[Lurker Steve]

Good:  Glad we agree.  CATALYST is a good idea in principle.  If they could just authorize $100K each for, say, five proposers...

NASA may be able to think of a way to disguise the $100k payments as a competition prize.  In the aerospace industry $100k will only pay for 1 person for a year.

CCDev got its first $50 million from the 'American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009', there may be a similar Act in a couple of years time.

We have much bigger problems if we need another massive stimulus program again.

[john smith 19]

Good:  Glad we agree.  CATALYST is a good idea in principle.  If they could just authorize $100K each for, say, five proposers...

Indeed  $500k is nothing by NASA standards but for the right companies its a fortune.

Is it just me or does part of NASA seem to be shifting into a more partnership approach to development. Creating a sort of "ecosystem" of small companies (which might become large companies) to leverage their skills and staff with it's (huge) IP in devices, environment etc.

I think a key question in this would be how close could a lander place itself relative to a previous lander and how much payload (if any) would the previous lander have to sacrifice in order to enable this?

Just hypothetically a lander that can put down 500kg is pretty impressive. Now put multiple 500Kg packages within, say,  a few 100 metres of each other (ideally on wheels, but sled runners might work), along with some kind of tractor to pull them together and the capabilities don't just add, they multiply. Segmented housing, stages of an ISRU system, large single instruments.

Landing crew will likely be impossible for this but a "trucking" operation that can put xKg within y Km of a site offers the possibility of pay-as-you-go exploration rather than the "big bang" approach we've seen so far.

[A_M_Swallow]

{snip}
No, but there aren't $60M Morpheus(i?) either. The entire program has only cost $14M since 2010.

The $14M is material costs.

Labor cost to the tax payer of the development = ~40 people * 3.5 years * $200000/person/year = ~$28M

Total $14M + $28M = ~$43M

Manufacturing cost of a Morpheus lander should be considerably less.

edit:add a 0

[Prober]

{snip}
No, but there aren't $60M Morpheus(i?) either. The entire program has only cost $14M since 2010.

The $14M is material costs.

Labor cost to the tax payer of the development = ~40 people * 3.5 years * $20000/person/year = ~$28M

Total $14M + $28M = ~$43M

Manufacturing cost of a Morpheus lander should be considerably less.

See now why a Google 50 million dollar prize might work?