Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 1

[obi-wan]

wov ULA complete victory

Wrong, Boeing and Lockheed do not build launch vehicles.

Wrong, commercial (and international) launches on Atlas are managed by Lockheed-Martin Commercial Launch Services, not ULA, just as commercial launches on Delta are managed by Boeing.

[Atomic Walrus]

If you want to stay in business for any length of time as an aerospace contractor, cost plus makes sense.  Fixed price makes sense if you're doing something well understood with clear, firm requirements.  On the other hand, if you're dealing with a customer who constantly changes requirements, you're taking a lot of risk.  Same goes for a program with a lot of technical risk - hard to bid a fixed price when you don't know what you're signing up for.  Cost plus can even be a better deal for the customer - contractors don't have to pad their quotes to hedge risk, and you reduce the risk of them going out of business in the middle of a program because they bid low.  Of course, you're always going to have business people trying to maximize revenue as well.  That's why the customer also needs strong management and requirements.

[raketa]

What was the last complex new aerospace vehicle built by anybody that was delivered on time and on budget?  You've been presented with a list of projects that Boeing has completed on time and budget, which under any reasonable standard represents a degree of competency in engineering management.  How do SpaceX and SNC fare under your standard?

There is no aerospace project deliver on time. But we have two spacecraft Cygnus and Dragon deliver on budget.
Could you imagine if Boeing/Lockheed/.... will be solo contender, they will ask NASA for billions more and we will probably still not have commercial vehicle for ISS at this time.

You are comparing fixed priced contracting to cost-plus contracting with is comparing Apples to Oranges.

Work in IT with one  of big five company for years.The goal was not deliver  solution that will move thing forward. But commit  as less delivery could be done  and still get project and lower risk to be able to deliver on time and budget. Customer was stuck with something that works, but didn't move thing forward.

[raketa]

If you want to stay in business for any length of time as an aerospace contractor, cost plus makes sense.  Fixed price makes sense if you're doing something well understood with clear, firm requirements.  On the other hand, if you're dealing with a customer who constantly changes requirements, you're taking a lot of risk.  Same goes for a program with a lot of technical risk - hard to bid a fixed price when you don't know what you're signing up for.  Cost plus can even be a better deal for the customer - contractors don't have to pad their quotes to hedge risk, and you reduce the risk of them going out of business in the middle of a program because they bid low.  Of course, you're always going to have business people trying to maximize revenue as well.  That's why the customer also needs strong management and requirements.

Most of the project budget overrun cause not by changing requirement,but with the dealing to achieve what was promised and modification that change original plan to achieve it. Troubles during design are not very good handle by big company and cost lot of additional money. Think about catcher/basket for curiosity,it was cancel because required additional several tens of millions dollar.

[LouScheffer]

In addition to being a job title, it [program management] is a term of art. [...] (But for young engineers: if you have never had an opportunity to work on a project with a really good program manager, seek one out! The difference is like night and day.)

I second and third this comment, which is the most useful observation on this thread by far!

Also, if you're managing a project that has to have an external dependency on one or another program in development, choose to depend on the one that has the best program management. It will make your job so much easier!

That's what NASA's ISS/Commercial Crew integration leadership is doing by selecting Boeing: making their own job easier.

This is my suspicion as well.  Also, as many have pointed out, they have done this before.  Sometime well, and sometimes poorly, but they've done many projects of this size.  They are not likely to run into "unknown unknowns" and have likely reserved enough money to resolve the "known unknowns", due to a combination of their experience, a conservative design, and a generous budget margin.

In contrast, SpaceX and SNC are relative newcomers to projects of this size.   The biggest SpaceX project was presumably commercial cargo at $1.6B (but this is extremely relevant experience, clearly).  What is the largest project ever done by SNC? (Not a rhetorical question - I'm asking since I'm not familiar with SNC's business.)

[QuantumG]

In contrast, SpaceX and SNC are relative newcomers to projects of this size.   [..]  What is the largest project ever done by SNC? (Not a rhetorical question - I'm asking since I'm not familiar with SNC's business.)

I applaud your humility at the end there, it's a shame you didn't rethink your entire comment from that perspective. SNC are a 53 year old aerospace company.. this is not their first BBQ.

[woods170]

wov ULA complete victory

Wrong, Boeing and Lockheed do not build launch vehicles.

Wrong, commercial (and international) launches on Atlas are managed by Lockheed-Martin Commercial Launch Services, not ULA, just as commercial launches on Delta are managed by Boeing.

What letter of the word 'build' were you unable to parse?
Building rockets is quite different from managing launches.

[LouScheffer]

In contrast, SpaceX and SNC are relative newcomers to projects of this size.   [..]  What is the largest project ever done by SNC? (Not a rhetorical question - I'm asking since I'm not familiar with SNC's business.)

SNC are a 53 year old aerospace company.. this is not their first BBQ.

That much I knew.  What I did not (and do not) know is their experience, and track record, in managing large projects.  The largest one I could find, apart from DC, was the "Gorgon Stare" project.  One article ( http://www.wired.com/2009/02/gorgon-stare/ )as of 2009 said this was to be a $150M project, but a 2011 article ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/24/AR2011012406320.html ) stated that the project cost was $426M as of 2011, and at that time was not working well.   But as of 2014 they were still involved with a later version (http://www.uasvision.com/2014/07/04/increment-2-gorgon-stare-gets-operational-clearance-from-usaf/) so there should be some history here.

And they must have done other large projects.  What were they, and how did they turn out? 

[yg1968]

I keep saying that I will reserve judgment until I see the full selection statement. But I must admit that the parts of the selection statement that we have seen so far do not justify NASA paying almost twice as much for the CST-100 as Dragon 2. Gerst only says "it's worth it". That's the kind of thing people say when they splurged and bought the most expensive model (TV, car, etc.) there was. You can't really justify it so you try to convince yourself that all of the (useless) extra bells and whistles are worth the extra price that you paid. I can't think of 900,000 reasons why NASA should have preferred SNC's proposal over Boeing's.

The fact that NASA goes as far as saying that Boeing had a better proposal than SpaceX despite the higher price is adding insult to injury. It's obvious that Boeing does things the way NASA likes them but the whole point of commercial crew is trying a different approach. If commercial crew had really been commercial, NASA would have selected the two cheapest proposals.

[Nindalf]

I keep saying that I will reserve judgment until I see the full selection statement. But I must admit that the parts of the selection statement that we have seen so far do not justify NASA paying almost twice as much for the CST-100 as Dragon 2.

Once Dragon V2 was selected, the cost difference between CST-100 and Dragon V2 became irrelevant.

Of the three, Dragon V2 is the "no brainer": lowest price, just about to start abort tests, and they're already flying a version of the spacecraft regularly to the ISS.

If you're going to argue that CST-100 was overpriced, make comparisons with the Dream Chaser cost.  In this case, it's about 27% more, not "almost twice as much", and roughly the same proportional cost difference as between Dream Chaser and Dragon V2.

Furthermore, the actual difference in the price used for comparison is probably smaller than 27%, since the CST-100 is capable of additional services (station reboost, possibly additional cargo) which are (I'm pretty sure) included in the maximum contract value but not used in the price comparison.

It sounds like more when you say $900 million than when you say 27%, but it's just a big contract.  And I'm sure the real difference is going to be significantly less than 27% once the value of the additional services is revealed.

[Brovane]

Right. But that also kind of defeats the whole purpose of the word "commercial" in commercial crew. It's not SUPPOSED to be the same contracting style, the same lack of skin in the game, the same lack of any other market, the same old management style, etc.

I don't disagree.  Everybody is adjusting to these changes.  The problem is the people inside of NASA are used to old way of doing business, it is going to take several cycles of projects like these to change this institutional mindset.   This is a change in how NASA does business and you have interests outside of NASA and inside of NASA trying to make sure that this new way of business fails.  You don’t take an organization as large as NASA and just change people’s thinking that quickly. 

Edit/Lar: Fix quotes.

[yg1968]

I keep saying that I will reserve judgment until I see the full selection statement. But I must admit that the parts of the selection statement that we have seen so far do not justify NASA paying almost twice as much for the CST-100 as Dragon 2.

Once Dragon V2 was selected, the cost difference between CST-100 and Dragon V2 became irrelevant.

Of the three, Dragon V2 is the "no brainer": lowest price, just about to start abort tests, and they're already flying a version of the spacecraft regularly to the ISS.

If you're going to argue that CST-100 was overpriced, make comparisons with the Dream Chaser cost.  In this case, it's about 27% more, not "almost twice as much", and roughly the same proportional cost difference as between Dream Chaser and Dragon V2.

Furthermore, the actual difference in the price used for comparison is probably smaller than 27%, since the CST-100 is capable of additional services (station reboost, possibly additional cargo) which are (I'm pretty sure) included in the maximum contract value but not used in the price comparison.

It sounds like more when you say $900 million than when you say 27%, but it's just a big contract.  And I'm sure the real difference is going to be significantly less than 27% once the value of the additional services is revealed.

I agree with some of what you said. But Boeing came ahead of SpaceX too which bothers me as well. There is still talk in the House of downselecting to one commercial crew provider. If there is a downselection to one provider, it seems likely to be Boeing based on the CCtCap evaluation of the proposals. I am glad that there is still competition. But I wish NASA had selected the two cheapest proposals. If commercial crew had really been commercial from the outset, the two remaining companies would be SpaceX and Blue Origin. To me competition includes competition on prices. You could argue that DC should be more expensive because of its different capabilities. But I am not sure that the same case can be made for the CST-100.

[Brovane]

So you admit there's no example and therefore the subjective bias of certain people at NASA to prefer Boeing's project management over others is unsubstantiated. On the other hand, I bet ya can't even name an SNC project, let alone one that was affected by poor project management. I know the goal here is to cast SNC as a hip new company that throws out traditional project management and flies by the seat of it's metaphorical pants, but the fact is SNC is a boring government contractor just like Boeing, with all the same waterfall/spiral/eight-layers-of-management baggage that is a prerequisite of getting contracts to make systems to guide bombs and soldiers into war zones. While it's true that Boeing is 50 years older than SNC, it's the 50 years before Yuri Gagarin flew.. but don't worry, I'm sure someone will be by to point out why the 247, 314 and B-17 are totally relevant examples of Boeing's superiority over SNC.

We don’t know the exact reasons for the decision but the people doing the evaluation have access to a whole lot more information than we do.  These same people gave Boeing a higher ranking in project management than either SpaceX or SNC.  I don’t know the full details and if they will have to justify that ranking someplace in the evaluation document.  It will be enlightening if they have to and that justification is buried in a document and several months from now we will be able to read it and we can all slap or foreheads and say “we didn’t know that”.    NASA could have been very happy with Boeing’s management of the construction of several modules for the international space station.  If we wanted to look at recent experience.   

[Brovane]

I agree with some of what you said. But Boeing came ahead of SpaceX too which bothers me as well. There is still talk in the House of downselecting to one commercial crew provider. If there is a downselection to one provider, it seems likely to be Boeing based on the CCtCap evaluation of the proposals. I am glad that there is still competition. But I wish NASA had selected the two cheapest proposals. If commercial crew had really been commercial from the outset, the two remaining companies would be SpaceX and Blue Origin. To me competition includes competition on prices. You could argue that DC should be more expensive because of its different capabilities. But I am not sure that the same case can be made for the CST-100.

The competition was also based on price.  Points where awarded on price and other items like project management, past experience etc.  I have to wonder when we see the articles in the WSJ etc that say that Boeing's proposal was ahead of both SpaceX and SNC if they are really reffering to just the more subjective parts of the proposal, and are leaving off price.  I hope at some point we can actually see the full document listing out the points in all areas including pricing.  To me the leaking of documentation keeps trying to show Boeing in the best light and SpaceX and SNC in the worse light.  Which makes me owner if Boeing supporters are the one's doing the leaking.  If that is the case would they actually show the document discussing pricing and points awarded because this wasn't Boeing's strong point of it's proposal?  I doubt it. 

[yg1968]

I agree with some of what you said. But Boeing came ahead of SpaceX too which bothers me as well. There is still talk in the House of downselecting to one commercial crew provider. If there is a downselection to one provider, it seems likely to be Boeing based on the CCtCap evaluation of the proposals. I am glad that there is still competition. But I wish NASA had selected the two cheapest proposals. If commercial crew had really been commercial from the outset, the two remaining companies would be SpaceX and Blue Origin. To me competition includes competition on prices. You could argue that DC should be more expensive because of its different capabilities. But I am not sure that the same case can be made for the CST-100.

The competition was also based on price.  Points where awarded on price and other items like project management, past experience etc.  I have to wonder when we see the articles in the WSJ etc that say that Boeing's proposal was ahead of both SpaceX and SNC if they are really reffering to just the more subjective parts of the proposal, and are leaving off price.  I hope at some point we can actually see the full document listing out the points in all areas including pricing.  To me the leaking of documentation keeps trying to show Boeing in the best light and SpaceX and SNC in the worse light.  Which makes me owner if Boeing supporters are the one's doing the leaking.  If that is the case would they actually show the document discussing pricing and points awarded because this wasn't Boeing's strong point of it's proposal?  I doubt it.

AVWeek and the NYT had access to the entire selection statement according to their articles. But eventually the selection statement will be made public once SNC's protest has been resolved. I am not sure that I agree with the idea of not releasing the selection statement until after the protest is resolved.  I don't see why a protest should prevent NASA from releasing the selection statement. But that's the excuse that is being given for not releasing it.

[Jim]

You are comparing fixed priced contracting to cost-plus contracting with is comparing Apples to Oranges.

Right, but the point still stands. Boeing kind of prefers that contracting style, SpaceX (and perhaps Orbital?) kind of hate it.

I wouldn't say that. Boeing has done many FFP.  TDRSS, every NASA Delta launch since 1992 and there are others.

Edit/Lar: fix quotes

[Space Ghost 1962]

You are comparing fixed priced contracting to cost-plus contracting with is comparing Apples to Oranges.

Right, but the point still stands. Boeing kind of prefers that contracting style, SpaceX (and perhaps Orbital?) kind of hate it.

I wouldn't say that. Boeing has done many FFP.  TDRSS, every NASA Delta launch since 1992 and there are others.

Boeing/LockMart haven't done HSF vehicles before on FFP.

Edit/Lar: Fix quotes

[erioladastra]

I assume you are being facetious, but it was a full boilerplate, not plywood.

Actually no. I know the people who did it. They've made no secret of the fact that it was just a mockup. Boeing has yet to build an integrated vehicle. I keep asking for people who think Boeing has done more than component level testing to show us some evidence but they haven't so far. They certainly haven't been paid for any such work yet under a NASA contract.

Right, I am not sure you understand what a boilerplate is - it is essentially a mockup.  Frequently it is just a mass simulator.  I was NOT a plywood boilderplate - it was metal.  You seem to have some misinformation.  And yes, no one ever tried to imply that it was anything other than that.  It was designed to test airbags and parachutes. 

Agree with you however, that as part of the {b] visible milestones [/b], Boeing only did component level testing.  Nothing wrong with that.   Recall NASA said to get to a crewed flight what are your most critical things to test to mitigate risk.  People have bashed Boeing for having a basic, nothing new system.  The advantage is their pinch points are not the same as others. 

[raketa]

I keep saying that I will reserve judgment until I see the full selection statement. But I must admit that the parts of the selection statement that we have seen so far do not justify NASA paying almost twice as much for the CST-100 as Dragon 2. Gerst only says "it's worth it". That's the kind of thing people say when they splurged and bought the most expensive model (TV, car, etc.) there was. You can't really justify it so you try to convince yourself that all of the (useless) extra bells and whistles are worth the extra price that you paid. I can't think of 900,000 reasons why NASA should have preferred SNC's proposal over Boeing's.

The fact that NASA goes as far as saying that Boeing had a better proposal than SpaceX despite the higher price is adding insult to injury. It's obvious that Boeing does things the way NASA likes them but the whole point of commercial crew is trying a different approach. If commercial crew had really been commercial, NASA would have selected the two cheapest proposals.

good point

[Jim]

Boeing/LockMart haven't done HSF vehicles before on FFP.

Boeing did Spacehab on FFP