Commercial Crew Downselect

[dror]

The price per paseenger is the total price divided by 7.
That is about 140/7 = 20mil$
The rest of the money is the price of cargo freight and the price for the ability and availability.
That is about 140-20*# mil$ , or assuming # is 3-4 that is about half the total cost, but the price per passenger remains a constant because an empty seat can and will  be taken.

[Garrett]

Is there a firm reason that everyone is assuming there will be no short term passengers? No sending up three or four replacements plus two or three specialists for the days the crews overlap?

As guckyfan pointed out, Reisman talked about that topic (short stay passengers on ISS, i.e. scientists) recently. He is in favour of such an operational method and says he has tried to argue its advantages with people he knows at NASA. Apparently, however, it is not a near term objective for NASA.
So unless somebody else has heard otherwise, I think it's a safe bet that there will not be short-stay passengers in the near future (say, from now till 2020).

[Lar]

Is there a firm reason that everyone is assuming there will be no short term passengers? No sending up three or four replacements plus two or three specialists for the days the crews overlap?

Garrett Reisman made a statement in his latest presentation. He not only stated that NASA requests four passengers only, but he thinks, that adding scientists doing their own research for short trips would enhance scientific value of ISS research a lot. He used an expression for NASA astronauts that could be considered denigrating in that context. At least this is what I gathered. English is not my first language.

I thought he said "glorified technicians" which I guess could be disparaging but it's not too bad?

Edit: I'm a technician in a way and I think highly of myself. Just ask anyone.

[Robotbeat]

Only denigrating if you don't think too highly of technicians...

Shuttle had lots of payload specialists, so this wouldn't be any different.

[joek]

... I'm willing to bet, at least for the initial missions we're in the ballpark of ~$50 million per crew member, minimum. ...

Probably closer to the mark than some others, but still likely be a bit optimistic ...

Way back in 2011 Gerstenmaier said "... equal to or less than what we would be paying for Soyuz at that time ... roughly $480M per year ... $80 million per crew seat".  (Based on two flights/yr and six seats/yr.)

... I doubt Gerstenmaier's rough and qualified estimate--the most relevant number being $480M/yr--is less today than it was then.

[guckyfan]

I thought he said "glorified technicians" which I guess could be disparaging but it's not too bad?

Edit: I'm a technician in a way and I think highly of myself. Just ask anyone.

Yes probably that, it spares me to listen to the whole thing again.

It should not be disparaging but some Astronauts may see it differently. But again, english is not my first language and I don't claim to get all nuances. Fortunately Reisman is a former Astronaut. That should take the edge off.

[Proponent]

If I had to pick, I'd pick Spacex, solo award.   I think that gets us there quickest.  Which I think is desirable given the state of Russian relations now.   I just don't believe this can happen given the politics involved.  So there has to be another award...seems likely to be Boeing, but I'll stick with "other".

So Spacex + "other".

For what it's worth, when I created the poll I was thinking of "other entity" as meaning an outfit other than Boeing, SNC or SpaceX.  I should have been clearer about that.

[Mariusuiram]

I thought he said "glorified technicians" which I guess could be disparaging but it's not too bad?

Edit: I'm a technician in a way and I think highly of myself. Just ask anyone.

Yes probably that, it spares me to listen to the whole thing again.

It should not be disparaging but some Astronauts may see it differently. But again, english is not my first language and I don't claim to get all nuances. Fortunately Reisman is a former Astronaut. That should take the edge off.

I would happily quit my "professional" job to become a glorified technician in space. How any astronaut on ISS responds to the insult: "sorry, I couldn't make out what you said through the vacuum of space."

[Mader Levap]

I would happily quit my "professional" job to become a glorified technician in space. How any astronaut on ISS responds to the insult: "sorry, I couldn't make out what you said through the vacuum of space."

Insult? It is exactly what they do - maintain and repair space station and take care for sciencists' experiments. So mechanic/janitor/lab technican. IN SPACE!

[dglow]

Reisman meant it as self-deprecation, not disparagement. His point was that Dragon's extra seats could allow for scientists with specialized knowledge to fly and perform their own experiments, hands-on, with all the efficiencies that brings... rather than watching from afar as 'glorified technicians' do it for them.   

[Lar]

I would happily quit my "professional" job to become a glorified technician in space. How any astronaut on ISS responds to the insult: "sorry, I couldn't make out what you said through the vacuum of space."

Insult? It is exactly what they do - maintain and repair space station and take care for sciencists' experiments. So mechanic/janitor/lab technican. IN SPACE!

No kidding. Where do I sign?

Reisman meant it as self-deprecation, not disparagement. His point was that Dragon's extra seats could allow for scientists with specialized knowledge to fly and perform their own experiments, hands-on, with all the efficiencies that brings... rather than watching from afar as 'glorified technicians' do it for them.   

I saw Gravity, I know how that will turn out.

[Rocket Science]

I would happily quit my "professional" job to become a glorified technician in space. How any astronaut on ISS responds to the insult: "sorry, I couldn't make out what you said through the vacuum of space."

Insult? It is exactly what they do - maintain and repair space station and take care for sciencists' experiments. So mechanic/janitor/lab technican. IN SPACE!

No kidding. Where do I sign?

Reisman meant it as self-deprecation, not disparagement. His point was that Dragon's extra seats could allow for scientists with specialized knowledge to fly and perform their own experiments, hands-on, with all the efficiencies that brings... rather than watching from afar as 'glorified technicians' do it for them.   

I saw Gravity, I know how that will turn out.

This all reminds me of my “technician-astronaut” proposal thread...

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28276.msg871124#msg871124

[edkyle99]

I thought he said "glorified technicians" which I guess could be disparaging but it's not too bad?

Technicians should be glorified!  But most technicians don't learn Russian, train for years on the ground and in high speed aircraft, learn intricate operational details of the design of the vehicles they use, learn how to find every switch blindfolded in an emergency, absorb big g-forces while measurably risking their lives, accept the uncertain health effects of radiation exposure in orbit, suffer the effects of weightlessness upon arrival in orbit and upon return to Earth, and then calmly give speeches and interviews without ever saying the wrong thing.  Also, most technicians don't have to go to the bathroom in space!

 - Ed Kyle

[Lars_J]

Also, most technicians don't have to go to the bathroom in space!

I would love to have the chance to visit bathroom in space.

[rcoppola]

Guys? Can we stop with this and get back to the topic at hand?

If you want to shoehorn in the ideas Garrett put forth in how to use those extra seats and how that impacts down-selections if at all, fine. But frankly as he said, NASA wants no part of it for now which is their right, so there's that.

[TALsite]

Ouch! the poll is closed. 

I would have voted SpaceX and Sierra Nevada for many of the reasons mentioned before: rocket diversity, dissimilar spacecrafts, precision returns from orbit, fast return to flight status....

Dream Chaser also has the heritage of many of our childhood dreams (HL20, Bor-4, Hermes, Kliper) that we never saw flying: NASA/U.S. has the opportunity to have the first "real one" on orbit.

And living on a shuttle Transoceanic Abort Landing city, my election was easy too 

[Proponent]

OK, TALsite, I'll add your vote for BoeingSNC & SpaceX to the final tally.

Collectively, we strongly expect two winners, with 90% going for this scenario.  We weight a single-winner scenario as much less likely (6.7%) but still more likely than a three-winner one (2.6%).

The preferred outcome is by far SNC & SpaceX (65%), trailed by Boeing & SpaceX (17%).  All other combinations weigh in at 4% or less.

We collectively assign a likelihood of 93% to SpaceX winning a major award, while SNC is a strong second at 72% and Boeing third with 26%.

Although I intended "other entity" to mean a dark-horse candidate like Blue Origin, I gather some interpreted, for example, "Boeing & other entity" to mean Boeing and one of either SNC or SpaceX.  So I'll retabulate the results with "other" meaning one of the other "big three".  In this case, i also count MP99's stated preference for "one on F9 + one on Atlas" as SpaceX & other.  Not much changes with this interpretation:  SpaceX's likelihood of winning stays essentially the same while both SNC and Boeing improve their chances a bit, to 75% and 28%, respectively.

NASA Watch has carried out a poll on the same topic.  After adjustment for block voting, it shows SpaceX (34%) second to SNC (44%), with both beating Boeing (22%).  We're more bullish on SpaceX than is NASA Watch.  NASA Watch's percentages add to 100%, suggesting that its poll allowed for just one winner.  We disagree quite strongly with that implication.

The bottom line is that while we're not quite 95% certain of anything, we'll be surprised if SpaceX doesn't win a major award and if there are not two winners.

EDIT:  Corrected description of TALsite's vote; it had already been counted correctly as a vote for the SNC-&-SpaceX scenario in the analysis.  Removed my interpretation of what MP99's vote would have been had the poll been more general, as I was mistaken, per MP99's post, below.

[Celebrimbor]

OK, TALsite, I'll add your vote for Boeing & SpaceX to the final tally.

Collectively, we strongly expect two winners, with 90% going for this scenario.  We weight a single-winner scenario as much less likely (6.7%) but still more likely than a three-winner one (2.6%).

The preferred outcome is by far SNC & SpaceX (65%), trailed by Boeing & SpaceX (17%).  All other combinations weigh in at 4% or less.

Polls are intended to be light hearted fun, and I get that, but we need to be careful when interpreting their outcome as a sort of collective probability distribution on the future.  Its not correct to say that we collectively agree that a two winner scenario has a probability of 90% or that a single winner is more than twice as likey than a 3 winner scenario.

Remember, we can only pick one scenario.  So even if we individually admit that we weight the scenarios equally, there is a strong bias to plump for the middle of the road (i.e. 2 winners over 1 or 3).

If you'd asked us for individual probability distributions and combined those together (somehow!?!), you'd then have data that you could interpret as our collective guesses about what the future holds.

[Lar]

If you'd asked us for individual probability distributions and combined those together (somehow!?!), you'd then have data that you could interpret as our collective guesses about what the future holds.

That'd be fun to watch! ... because we never overanalyse things here, oh no, not us.

Thanks, Proponent, for setting the poll up and for the detailed analysis.

[TALsite]

OK, TALsite, I'll add your vote for Boeing & SpaceX to the final tally.

Thanks but....
Do you work for Boeing, don't you? 

I said spaceplane... SNC   

Edited:
Mistake with the quote