Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 2

[ncb1397]

If you interpret contract this way, then any contractor who hasn't delivered the final product also "failed at what they were paid to do", this include Boeing, twice (SLS core stage and Starliner) and Lockheed Martin (Orion), plus whoever the contractor is for the SLS GSE, plus Northrop Grumman (JWST), and many many others.

Yep, they all have not delivered the product they have been paid in advance to provide. All of them are more or less at the point where they have to deliver. That means no screws shaking off, no exploding capsules, no misaligned floors...none of that nonsense.

[su27k]

If you interpret contract this way, then any contractor who hasn't delivered the final product also "failed at what they were paid to do", this include Boeing, twice (SLS core stage and Starliner) and Lockheed Martin (Orion), plus whoever the contractor is for the SLS GSE, plus Northrop Grumman (JWST), and many many others.

Why not both? All are true statements.

Because it paints a black and white picture without going into important details, including:
1. It singles out SpaceX who is actually ahead of the rest (already flown near completed hardware)
2. It failed to distinguish the difference between a fixed cost, milestone based contract SpaceX is under with the cost-plus contract SLS is under.
3. It doesn't take into account the impact of Congress' early underfunding of Commercial Crew
4. It doesn't take into account NASA's role in the schedule delay.

[watermod]

At this point can SpaceX trust Jim Bridenstine to be a fair player with the FAA when they attempt to get launch permits for Starship?

 

[CJ]

Unless SpaceX has created Dragon 2 delays due to its Starship/SH program, Bridenstien's tweet is outrageous. Also, last time I looked, SpaceX wasn't exactly the only commercial crew provider.

Are there similar tweets calling out other NASA contractors by name in this manner? If not, I think an explanation should be demanded.

If, however, SpaceX has caused Dragon2 delays due to Starship/SH, then IMHO he has a valid point - provided he actually makes that point, instead of innuendo as currently.

This smells of sour grapes. 

[Lars-J]

Ha, well, Jim's not all wrong here. SpaceX failed at what they were paid to do, the end. Now they need to make up for it by actually doing it.

No, they haven't. This is a milestone payment contract, they only get paid if they have done it (i.e. finished the milestone). They don't get paid if they haven't finished doing it.

So, they haven't been paid a dime up to this point?

Milestone payments. Look it up. If you were unaware of such a concept.

Either that or were you... trolling? Nah. I should not assume that.

[DistantTemple]

If you read this literally, I kind of figured this might also be intended as a bit of a shot at Boeing...they're equally (if not more) behind at this point, after all.

Its easy to get carried away. Others will too. However:

Jim Bridenstein re tweeted this:
Edit: attempting to NOT embed tweet!

I would not read this as a shot to SpaceX, but rather a reflection of Jim's desire to see all NASA contractors meet their deadlines for government contracts.

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1177711302296395776

[rokan2003]

If you read this literally, I kind of figured this might also be intended as a bit of a shot at Boeing...they're equally (if not more) behind at this point, after all.

Its easy to get carried away. Others will too. However:

Jim Bridenstein re tweeted this:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I would not read this as a shot to SpaceX, but rather a reflection of Jim's desire to see all NASA contractors meet their deadlines for government contracts. https://t.co/WNMod2wW3T</p>— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) September 27, 2019

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Being charitable is nice, but I fear slightly naive in this instance. He likely only retweeted it in an attempt to walk back his original tweet after seeing the backlash it had caused.

There is no way his first tweet wasn't squarely aimed at SpaceX - he only @'s SpaceX, afterall.

Sent from my BBF100-6 using Tapatalk

[DistantTemple]

If you read this literally, I kind of figured this might also be intended as a bit of a shot at Boeing...they're equally (if not more) behind at this point, after all.

Its easy to get carried away. Others will too. However:

Jim Bridenstein re tweeted this:

I would not read this as a shot to SpaceX, but rather a reflection of Jim's desire to see all NASA contractors meet their deadlines for government contracts.

Being charitable is nice, but I fear slightly naive in this instance. He likely only retweeted it in an attempt to walk back his original tweet after seeing the backlash it had caused.

There is no way his first tweet wasn't squarely aimed at SpaceX - he only @'s SpaceX, afterall.

Sent from my BBF100-6 using Tapatalk

Possibly  he "only @'s SpaceX" because SX is the current big event!
He normally seems good at politics, but I think he just screwed up and only saw it as EB says.

But maybe he's smarter than it appears, and he is laying the ground for criticism to switch back to SLS soon, once SX launches Demo 1. Which other gov space contracts will be behind schedule, and not delivering?

He can't slate SLS, but that is the elephant in the room.

[cebri]

Bridestine has fired shots at SpaceX before. Remember when he accused them of not being transparent enough in relation to the Demo-1 capsule incident.

I'm still waiting to hear the same from him in relation to the incident Boeing had with the starliner during the abort test.

Clearly there is some shady politics behind this statement. RT E.Berger is just an attemp to backtrack. A NASA administrator shouldn't be making these kind of statements on twitter. Which are shady and not very well intentioned.

If he thinks SpaceX is not paying enough attention to the CCP, then say so and prove it with objetive data.

[eeergo]

While arguing who is to blame, and the percentages of that blame, for the delays is a valid discussion - why is it so urticant for some to call out a very obvious cognitive dissonance?

Crew Dragon was promised to be flying its first demonstration crew in 2017, back in 2014 when they won the contract. It won't be doing so earlier than Q1 2020 now, more than 2 years behind schedule (let's pause for a second and reminisce on how the initial goal was to have those missions by 2015-16, but never mind): a 75% increase in schedule, best case.

Starship has been publicized for a year now to be having its first (crewed, circumlunar!) flight in 2023, while presumably having some shakedown crewed missions first: so in less than 4 years. That's equivalent to the initial Crew Dragon schedule, while having none of the heritage technology of the latter (Dragon-1, F9...)

We can argue how these are aspirational schedules,
or how SS/SH's schedule will be *so much better*(TM) because of the great fact Big Government isn't meddling with its development,
or just because its extraordinary retrofuturistic design is the ultimate delay burner while keeping functionality and safety intact, far above other alternatives.

The fact remains: either (I) these schedules will balloon beyond 2026, best case (which so far hasn't been admitted), or (II) the attention (= money = manpower) devoted to this far more complex project, compared to D2's initial crewed capability, needs to be much, much larger than that given to Commercial Crew in the last 5 years. Or both.

(I) goes against all of Musk's PR within the last year.
(II) reflects the Administrator's concerns reflected in today's tweet.

And maybe Brindestine has a datapoint or two more than commentators here.

[speedevil]

The fact remains: either (I) these schedules will balloon beyond 2026, best case (which so far hasn't been admitted), or (II) the attention (= money = manpower) devoted to this far more complex project, compared to D2's initial crewed capability, needs to be much, much larger than that given to Commercial Crew in the last 5 years. Or both.

That is not a fact.
Neglecting  'c) Much of the development comes in as scheduled on existing revenue.' turns it into opinion.

[eeergo]

The fact remains: either (I) these schedules will balloon beyond 2026, best case (which so far hasn't been admitted), or (II) the attention (= money = manpower) devoted to this far more complex project, compared to D2's initial crewed capability, needs to be much, much larger than that given to Commercial Crew in the last 5 years. Or both.

That is not a fact.
Neglecting  'c) Much of the development comes in as scheduled on existing revenue.' turns it into opinion.

Didn't SpaceX also have external revenue since 2014, that in fact it said it was partly investing in D2-related development?

Do you believe adequate levels of funding for SS/SH will, first, be secured in such a short timescale to make the 2023 schedule doable? This is opinion too, incidentally. Unless by "existing" you're saying just the current F9-derived revenue is sufficient, which I think we all agree isn't.

What would those levels of funding be, by the way (keeping in mind D2's were ~$2.6B, and mostly didn't include booster or basic capsule development)?

Do you also believe, or in other words, is it your opinion that revenue $$ are all that's needed to make development go on as currently scheduled, in a much smoother way than what was possible for D2 -- and that we're not talking about my option (II)?

[su27k]

The fact remains: either (I) these schedules will balloon beyond 2026, best case (which so far hasn't been admitted), or (II) the attention (= money = manpower) devoted to this far more complex project, compared to D2's initial crewed capability, needs to be much, much larger than that given to Commercial Crew in the last 5 years. Or both.

(I) goes against all of Musk's PR within the last year.
(II) reflects the Administrator's concerns reflected in today's tweet.

And maybe Brindestine has a datapoint or two more than commentators here.

(I) NASA is saying they'll land human on the Moon in 2024, which is much much harder than DearMoon, nobody is calling out this cognitive dissonance either

(II) There is nothing for Administrator to be concerned about, since D2 is already near completion, once it's completed the resources used on it can be redirected to Starship, so more manpower to Starship (later) and attention to D2 (now) is not mutually exclusive.

(III) You're ignoring the huge amount of knowledge and hardware they can port from D2 directly to Starship, ECLSS and suits for starters. For DearMoon, they can even bolt a few D2 capsules directly inside the Starship cargo bay.

(IV) You're also ignoring the fact that for DearMoon SpaceX wouldn't need the tons of NASA paperwork, they only need informed consent and FAA approval.

(V) There's also the fact that Starship has much more payload capability to play with, which means they can trade mass for complexity/cost of the life support system.

(VI) Additionally, Starship - the spacecraft - would fly many unmanned missions before having people aboard, unlike D2 which only has one test flight before bringing people onboard. This changes the risk calculation and mitigation strategy significantly.

[woods170]

Ha, well, Jim's not all wrong here. SpaceX failed at what they were paid to do, the end. Now they need to make up for it by actually doing it.

By that metric so has Boeing. Why was SpaceX thrown under the bus?

Because SuperHeavy and StarShip are direct threats to SLS and Orion.

That's why.

[woods170]

Unless SpaceX has created Dragon 2 delays due to its Starship/SH program, Bridenstien's tweet is outrageous. Also, last time I looked, SpaceX wasn't exactly the only commercial crew provider.

Are there similar tweets calling out other NASA contractors by name in this manner? If not, I think an explanation should be demanded.

If, however, SpaceX has caused Dragon2 delays due to Starship/SH, then IMHO he has a valid point - provided he actually makes that point, instead of innuendo as currently.

This smells of sour grapes. 

Emphasis mine.

Yes. Exactly this. Sour grapes.

[eeergo]

(I) NASA is saying they'll land human on the Moon in 2024, which is much much harder than DearMoon, nobody is calling out this cognitive dissonance either

Oh, plenty of people (rightfully) are. But we're not whatabouting here, are we?

(II) There is nothing for Administrator to be concerned about, since D2 is already near completion, once it's completed the resources used on it can be redirected to Starship, so more manpower to Starship (later) and attention to D2 (now) is not mutually exclusive.

How can manpower from a project that is much less ambitious (= simpler+more already-developed heritage = less people) help much in SS/SH's development? Of course, I gather you're not talking about money, since most of D2's development funding is coming from the public sector and that cannot be redirected / will be gone once D2's development ends.

(III) You're ignoring the huge amount of knowledge and hardware they can port from D2 directly to Starship, ECLSS and suits for starters. For DearMoon, they can even bolt a few D2 capsules directly inside the Starship cargo bay.

Can they? They couldn't do it between the far more similar and interconnected D1 and D2: Musk himself said they're quite different spacecraft in spite of similar moldlines. Certainly it's no trivial task to port a 6-person capable ECLSS designed for a "small" capsule to a long-duration one capable of supporting dozens of crew in a huge ship (as ISS has been proving for a few years now). Suits are not part of SS.

It's clear you're completely misjudging the HUGE differences between D2/F9 and SS/SH.

(IV) You're also ignoring the fact that for DearMoon SpaceX wouldn't need the tons of NASA paperwork, they only need informed consent and FAA approval.

I'm not, that's why I said earlier on "how SS/SH's schedule will be *so much better*(TM) because of the great fact Big Government isn't meddling with its development" (sarcastically, but that's independent of my argumentation).

(V) There's also the fact that Starship has much more payload capability to play with, which means they can trade mass for complexity/cost of the life support system.

That's part of (II), payload capability doesn't come for free, you need a system around it to support it. By the way, a more massive ECLSS will have more failure points - its complexity doesn't come about for being small.

(VI) Additionally, Starship - the spacecraft - would fly many unmanned missions before having people aboard, unlike D2 which only has one test flight before bringing people onboard. This changes the risk calculation and mitigation strategy significantly.

D1 would have more in common with D2 (passive ECLSS, crew space once docked, man-rated for orbital use, equivalent propulsion system...)  than a crew-module-less SS, essentially a reusable upper stage, would have with a crewed SS. Just arriving to an operational payload-only SS with enough margin to develop the crewed version for 2023 would get us into (II) territory.

[ZChris13]

-Snip: this post made me go cool down over breakfast because I believe arguments that don't follow my opinions are lots of aggressive nonsense. Please stand by while I regain good manners. Thank you-ZChris13

The most important transferable between the Crew Starship and Dragon 1/2 programs is institutional experience and trained engineers, which is going to help a lot. They've already designed two capsules, if the timeline says they can develop another (integrated into the as-yet-unproven Starship upper stage) in a few years, then I believe them, although of course Elon time should be applied.

[john smith 19]

Apologies if this has been mentioned before. I only come occasionally to this section.

Here's the thing I don't get.

Boeing won the other contract because they were perceived (I think it's fair to say) as a safe experienced pair of hands. They know what to do because they've already done it. AFAIK Mercury, Gemini, parts of Apollo and Shuttle were all built by successor companies to Boeing.

So logically (despite not having built a human carrying vehicle since Shuttle) they should be romping home, well ahead of SX.  I mean literally years ahead of SX with what they (are presumed to) know about the task.

Yet SX has been delivering cargo to ISS for 7 years now.

So docking <> berthing. I get that. But Boeing had no design to re-design. It could start from scratch with an optimal design for docking from day one. On the flip side that makes Cargo Dragon look like a death trap if it needs 7 years (and counting) to make it fit for human transport. It would be amazing if one of them hadn't failed already while berthed to the ISS (and yet none of them have).

I will note (correct me if I'm wrong) but no funding request for CC has ever been paid in full by Congress. My impression is they have released 50% (or less) of the funds asked for every time.  To then complain about failure to execute (while giving SLS more than NASA ask for) seems pretty unfair.

[ulm_atms]

Guys...the tweet was political...nothing more...move on.

[spacebleachers]

I will note (correct me if I'm wrong) but no funding request for CC has ever been paid in full by Congress. My impression is they have released 50% (or less) of the funds asked for every time.  To then complain about failure to execute (while giving SLS more than NASA ask for) seems pretty unfair.

Incorrect. Congress has fully funded CC since 2017.