Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 1

[Sesquipedalian]

That's why there was an agreement to ramp up Soyuz production, which coincidentally would have provided more seats for Space Adventures.. but NASA didn't like that, so they locked them out of the deal. That made it "too expensive" compared to the false promise of a COTS-like procurement of commercial crew seats.

Can you provide more information on this?  I never heard of a proposed Soyuz ramp-up besides the one that boosted the crew from three to six.

And even if you ramped up Soyuz, there are a limited number of docking ports on the Russian size.  You would need three Soyuzes docked whenever there were seven crew on the station, so you'd be limited to only one Progress (or historically, one ATV).  I'm skeptical that this would be enough.

[QuantumG]

Can you provide more information on this?  I never heard of a proposed Soyuz ramp-up besides the one that boosted the crew from three to six.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1101/12soyuz/

The deal died in 2012.

[joek]

This keeps ignoring the fact that with CCrew, they can increase the population of the USOS side of ISS from 3 to 4. While this doesn't sound like a big deal, currently 2 people worth of time is tied up in maintaining the ISS, and only ~2000 man hours per year of research is happening on the USOS side. If there were 4 astronauts, they could nearly double the amount of available research hours per year, and yes right now astronaut time is one of the scarcest commodities on the ISS. So "just buying more Soyuz seats" doesn't cut it on an apples-to-apples basis.

That's why there was an agreement to ramp up Soyuz production, which coincidentally would have provided more seats for Space Adventures.. but NASA didn't like that, so they locked them out of the deal. That made it "too expensive" compared to the false promise of a COTS-like procurement of commercial crew seats.

Agree; Commercial Crew has never been justifiable on a direct cost basis vs. Soyuz.  The only way to justify CC vs. Soyuz is to include other benefits.

A. Based on current trends and assuming:
1. All CCtCap post-certification mission (PCM) options are exercised for both providers.[1]
2. PCMs start in 2018 going through 2024 (12 PCMs total).
3. Then Commercial Crew expenditures (CCDev1,CCDev2,CCiCap...) total ~$8,362M through 2024.

B. On a per-seat basis, given projected per-seat price trends, for Soyuz 2018-2024...
4. 6 Soyuz seats/yr total ~$3,567M
5. 8 Soyuz seats/yr total ~$4,756M

C. Assuming 8 seats/yr requires NASA to pay in full for one additional Soyuz launch (regardless of seats used) 2018-2014...
6. 8 Soyuz seats/yr total ~$5,3516M

D. Assuming 8 seats/yr requires NASA to pay in full for two additional Soyuz launches (regardless of seats used) 2018-2024...
7. 8 Soyuz seats/yr total ~$7,135M

My best WAG is that on a direct cost basis, CC might be more cost effective than Soyuz circa 2032--assuming CC costs don't increase, and Soyuz price trends hold.

[1] CCtCap provides for a maximum of 6 total between both providers.  For this calculation I assume 6 PCMs are awarded to each provider for a total of 12 PCMs, or 2 flights/yr and 6 years total crew service.

[Jarnis]

That math puts no value whatsoever for creating two redundant ways of getting people to LEO (upgrading from the current US capability of "none").

[joek]

That math puts no value whatsoever for creating two redundant ways of getting people to LEO (upgrading from the current US capability of "none").

Right; as I said, "The only way to justify CC vs. Soyuz is to include other benefits."  Having multiple providers and redundancy is one of many potential benefits.  Problem is objective valuation of those benefits, which is why I excluded them.  (Discussed many times on other threads, and the result was endless posts with no objective basis.)

[Coastal Ron]

That math puts no value whatsoever for creating two redundant ways of getting people to LEO (upgrading from the current US capability of "none").

Majority owner of your own LEO space station:  $100B

How much you pay someone else to access your own LEO space station:  $71M/person

How much it will cost to have your own transportation to your LEO space station:  priceless

[Sesquipedalian]

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1101/12soyuz/

The deal died in 2012.

It's an interesting proposed arrangement, but there is nothing in that article that talks about adding a seventh crew member.  In fact it very specifically says ""But the number of seats committed to NASA and Russia and the other partners will remain at 12", i.e. two groups of six.

According to that article, this was not a NASA deal that "coincidentally would have provided more seats for Space Adventures" as you put it.  This was a deal between Space Adventures and Russia which didn't involve NASA at all.

[QuantumG]

It's an interesting proposed arrangement, but there is nothing in that article that talks about adding a seventh crew member.  In fact it very specifically says ""But the number of seats committed to NASA and Russia and the other partners will remain at 12", i.e. two groups of six.

According to that article, this was not a NASA deal that "coincidentally would have provided more seats for Space Adventures" as you put it.  This was a deal between Space Adventures and Russia which didn't involve NASA at all.

Look, you just heard about it and all the research you've done is the one article I linked you to.. so don't go telling me what it was and wasn't.

[Sesquipedalian]

Look, you just heard about it and all the research you've done is the one article I linked you to.. so don't go telling me what it was and wasn't.

I'm doing nothing of the sort.  I'm just pointing out that you cited that article to support your contention that NASA had a plan to use Soyuz to support 4 USOS crew, whereas that article has a sentence that directly contradicts your contention.

[QuantumG]

I'm doing nothing of the sort.  I'm just pointing out that you cited that article to support your contention that NASA had a plan to use Soyuz to support 4 USOS crew, whereas that article has a sentence that directly contradicts your contention.

I didn't "cite" it. I offered it to you as a place to start reading. Someone would have linked to that article on this forum around the time that it was all going on.

[sdsds]

(Discussed many times on other threads, and the result was endless posts with no objective basis.)

It would be interesting to see an objective analysis of commercial crew transport made with the "cheap lift" assumption, i.e. with the orbital launch component of the provider's cost decreasing rapidly. Soyuz seat prices wouldn't see any benefit from that (Soyuz LV costs can't decrease much further), but SpaceX and ULA LV costs could/would.

In that scenario, does the value gained by having competing commercial spacecraft (Dragon/CST) potentially drive the cost of US crew transport lower than the cost of Soyuz seats?

My best WAG is that on a direct cost basis, CC might be more cost effective than Soyuz circa 2032

Yes, like in that time period, by which point "cheap lift" might be a valid assumption.

[A_M_Swallow]

That math puts no value whatsoever for creating two redundant ways of getting people to LEO (upgrading from the current US capability of "none").

Majority owner of your own LEO space station:  $100B

How much you pay someone else to access your own LEO space station:  $71M/person

How much it will cost to have your own transportation to your LEO space station:  priceless

If you are doing a price comparison include the Shuttle. The US Government was willing to pay its price for access to the ISS.

[QuantumG]

If you are doing a price comparison include the Shuttle. The US Government was willing to pay its price for access to the ISS.

Yep, just unwilling to solve the problem of lifeboats (or accept the reality of spaceflight risk.)

[joek]

It would be interesting to see an objective analysis of commercial crew transport made with the "cheap lift" assumption, i.e. with the orbital launch component of the provider's cost decreasing rapidly. Soyuz seat prices wouldn't see any benefit from that (Soyuz LV costs can't decrease much further), but SpaceX and ULA LV costs could/would.

In that scenario, does the value gained by having competing commercial spacecraft (Dragon/CST) potentially drive the cost of US crew transport lower than the cost of Soyuz seats?

Depends on what costs you charge to Commercial Crew.  My calculations are based on total cost for CC, including prior development (CCDev etc), which is intended to address the question: "When does the investment in CC start to save money vs. Souyz?".

The simple answer: A long time.  On a per-seat basis, the cumulative CC cost for 12 CC flights or 48 seats through 2024 is ~$8.4B.  The cumulative cost for the same number of Soyuz seats through 2024 is ~$5.3-7.1B.  The numbers are squishy as we don't know what 8 seats/yr on Soyuz would cost--likely significantly more than the per-seat cost for 6 seats/yr as it would require at least one, and possibly two, additional Soyuz flights.

Taking 2025 as the baseline, we then enter that year with Soyuz costing ~1.3-3.1B less than CC.  How long does it take for CC to become cheaper (all up) than Soyuz?  Depends on how much subsequent CC and Soyuz seats/flights cost.  If CC is $10M/seat cheaper, it will take ~16 years (payoff ~2041).  If CC is $20M/seat cheaper, it will take ~8 years (payoff ~2033).

[joek]

If you are doing a price comparison include the Shuttle. The US Government was willing to pay its price for access to the ISS.

Shuttle is not appropriate to include in this comparison.  Shuttle was primarily for construction and cargo.  Unclear how to factor out the cost of construction flights.  For cargo the appropriate comparison is CRS.

[TrevorMonty]

There is more to it than seat price. The extra crew member per CC flight (4 seats) allows NASA to double the ISS science experiments. While the 2 crew that are permanently maintaining station is far from wasted time as there is a lot to be learnt from ISS maintenance, it is a large overhead.

[guckyfan]

There is more to it than seat price. The extra crew member per CC flight (4 seats) allows NASA to double the ISS science experiments. While the 2 crew that are permanently maintaining station is far from wasted time as there is a lot to be learnt from ISS maintenance, it is a large overhead.

I wonder why this obvious point is mostly ignored. Without it and without giving independent access capability a value in itself Commercial Crew is indeed barely worth it purely financial.

[QuantumG]

I wonder why this obvious point is mostly ignored. Without it and without giving independent access capability a value in itself Commercial Crew is indeed barely worth it purely financial.

Because the Russians have been offering extra seats for longer than commercial crew existed and NASA wasn't interested (except momentarily in 2011), and "independent access" is a pretty abstract concept for a station that can't operate with Russian cooperation.

The extra seat thing is a rationalization made up after the fact. If the commercial crew program had been pitched as a "Soyuz replacement" instead of a Shuttle replacement, the partners would have been offering three seat vehicles and no-one would have cared. If extra seats were really valuable NASA would be asked for 5 or 6 or 7 seats per flight, or more flights. Four seats is just an accidental benefit, and NASA might not even use them.

[guckyfan]

I wonder why this obvious point is mostly ignored. Without it and without giving independent access capability a value in itself Commercial Crew is indeed barely worth it purely financial.

Because the Russians have been offering extra seats for longer than commercial crew existed

How?  They can have only two permanently parked Soyuz as rescue vehicles. That's 6 escape seats and that is what the station is limited to.

[QuantumG]

How?  They can have only two permanently parked Soyuz as rescue vehicles. That's 6 escape seats and that is what the station is limited to.

Yeah, because it's impossible to add more docking ports. I mean the commercial crew vehicles are going to just be tied to the station with silly string and the astronauts are going to space walk across.

*cough*http://www.russianspaceweb.com/iss_fgb2.html*cough*