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#1020
by
Zed_Noir
on 13 Oct, 2023 00:35
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<snip>
The way that I parse it:
Boeing can't abandon the NASA contract despite the huge financial losses as it would have huge implications for other NASA + military contracts
Boeing is not rushing to pay ULA for Vulcan human rating due to the recent rumors of issues with Blue Reef and general global economic cooling
So, things we knew already. No secret squirrel business.
Think Boeing can abandon Starliner without quitting the NASA contract. AIUI Boeing have to provide six operational flights to the ISS after certification. So Boeing could more or less subcontract the six flights off to SpaceX to fulfilled with Crew Dragon and Falcon 9. While the entire Starliner project is wind down including crew-rating the Vulcan Centaur.
As a bonus Boeing get to put the six Atlas Vs they contracted for on the market for whom ever willing to pay top dollars. (hint - a company starting with the letter A in their name)
For NASA this brings order to scheduling ISS flights and maybe not have to pay out as much for the subcontracted flights instead of putting Astronauts on Starliners.
Of course this is the ravings of a Canadian space geek, not a US lawyer.
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#1021
by
DanClemmensen
on 13 Oct, 2023 01:29
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Think Boeing can abandon Starliner without quitting the NASA contract. AIUI Boeing have to provide six operational flights to the ISS after certification. So Boeing could more or less subcontract the six flights off to SpaceX to fulfilled with Crew Dragon and Falcon 9. While the entire Starliner project is wind down including crew-rating the Vulcan Centaur.
As a bonus Boeing get to put the six Atlas Vs they contracted for on the market for whom ever willing to pay top dollars. (hint - a company starting with the letter A in their name)
For NASA this brings order to scheduling ISS flights and maybe not have to pay out as much for the subcontracted flights instead of putting Astronauts on Starliners.
Of course this is the ravings of a Canadian space geek, not a US lawyer.
Boeing as a customer is different than Boeing as half-owner of ULA, but if you look at the total picture I think it would be a win to quit launching Starliner on Atlas and sell those last Atlases to Amazon for early use. the problem is Starliner needs one Atlas per year from 2025 thru 2030. This means ULA must maintain the ability to launch them, including the people and the facilities.
I doubt NASA would accept Boeing as a middleman for Crew Dragon launches, but NASA might just allow Boeing to abandon Starliner without any penalty. I'm vindictive enough to want NASA to force Boeing to honor their contract for all six missions at the fixed price, in payback for Boeing having coerced an extra $284 million from NASA back in 2018. But that does not make economic sense. Best all around is to just let Boeing walk away if they want to.
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#1022
by
Zed_Noir
on 13 Oct, 2023 02:53
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<snip>
I doubt NASA would accept Boeing as a middleman for Crew Dragon launches, but NASA might just allow Boeing to abandon Starliner without any penalty. I'm vindictive enough to want NASA to force Boeing to honor their contract for all six missions at the fixed price, in payback for Boeing having coerced an extra $284 million from NASA back in 2018. But that does not make economic sense. Best all around is to just let Boeing walk away if they want to.
Maybe make Boeing fund one of the SpaceX flights instead of NASA as part of the barter deal for Boeing to exit the Starliner program. Not one of the proposed subcontracted flight.
Yeah, best if Boeing walks away. Then we don't have to get nervous with putting people aboard a Starliner.
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#1023
by
woods170
on 13 Oct, 2023 08:39
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Think Boeing can abandon Starliner without quitting the NASA contract. AIUI Boeing have to provide six operational flights to the ISS after certification. So Boeing could more or less subcontract the six flights off to SpaceX to fulfilled with Crew Dragon and Falcon 9. While the entire Starliner project is wind down including crew-rating the Vulcan Centaur.
As a bonus Boeing get to put the six Atlas Vs they contracted for on the market for whom ever willing to pay top dollars. (hint - a company starting with the letter A in their name)
For NASA this brings order to scheduling ISS flights and maybe not have to pay out as much for the subcontracted flights instead of putting Astronauts on Starliners.
Of course this is the ravings of a Canadian space geek, not a US lawyer.
Boeing as a customer is different than Boeing as half-owner of ULA, but if you look at the total picture I think it would be a win to quit launching Starliner on Atlas and sell those last Atlases to Amazon for early use. the problem is Starliner needs one Atlas per year from 2025 thru 2030. This means ULA must maintain the ability to launch them, including the people and the facilities.
I doubt NASA would accept Boeing as a middleman for Crew Dragon launches, but NASA might just allow Boeing to abandon Starliner without any penalty. I'm vindictive enough to want NASA to force Boeing to honor their contract for all six missions at the fixed price, in payback for Boeing having coerced an extra $284 million from NASA back in 2018. But that does not make economic sense. Best all around is to just let Boeing walk away if they want to.
I've seen some of the stuff in the CCtCAP contract between Boeing and NASA. Courtesy of a very leaky source (not that I'm complaining though...)
NASA won't let Boeing "walk away" without Boeing having to reimburse NASA for an amount north of $1B.
That would bring total losses for Boeing on Starliner north of $2.6B as well as resulting in Boeing missing out on ~$1.6B of still outstanding revenue from the six PCM missions.
In short: the best way for Boeing to cut its losses on Starliner is to actually go thru with the crewed demo mission and the six PCM missions. Boeing knows this and it explains why Boeing keeps consistently telling the world that they will honor the contractual obligations. Another factor is that Boeing walking away from Starliner will serve to damage its dented reputation even further.
The choice for Boeing is a fairly easy one:
Take ~$2.6B in losses and risk never getting a contract from NASA again
OR
Take ~$1B in net losses while also fixing some of the reputational damage (by flying CFT and the 6 PCM missions).
Now, if the people at Boeing HQ are not total idiots, they will choose the latter option.
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#1024
by
Zed_Noir
on 13 Oct, 2023 09:41
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<snip>
I've seen some of the stuff in the CCtCAP contract between Boeing and NASA. Courtesy of a very leaky source (not that I'm complaining though...)
NASA won't let Boeing "walk away" without Boeing having to reimburse NASA for an amount north of $1B.
That would bring total losses for Boeing on Starliner north of $2.6B as well as resulting in Boeing missing out on ~$1.6B of still outstanding revenue from the six PCM missions.
In short: the best way for Boeing to cut its losses on Starliner is to actually go thru with the crewed demo mission and the six PCM missions. Boeing knows this and it explains why Boeing keeps consistently telling the world that they will honor the contractual obligations. Another factor is that Boeing walking away from Starliner will serve to damage its dented reputation even further.
The choice for Boeing is a fairly easy one:
Take ~$2.6B in losses and risk never getting a contract from NASA again
OR
Take ~$1B in net losses while also fixing some of the reputational damage (by flying CFT and the 6 PCM missions).
Now, if the people at Boeing HQ are not total idiots, they will choose the latter option.
Of course the latter option have the risk of having a fail mission in some manner. Which Boeing have a higher probability of incurring with their recent company history. So how optimistic does the beancounters at Boeing think that the company could finish the Starliner contract without something major popping up? Besides that Boeing getting a contract with NASA depends more on their lobbying than their past work.
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#1025
by
DanClemmensen
on 13 Oct, 2023 15:59
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I doubt NASA would accept Boeing as a middleman for Crew Dragon launches, but NASA might just allow Boeing to abandon Starliner without any penalty. I'm vindictive enough to want NASA to force Boeing to honor their contract for all six missions at the fixed price, in payback for Boeing having coerced an extra $284 million from NASA back in 2018. But that does not make economic sense. Best all around is to just let Boeing walk away if they want to.
I've seen some of the stuff in the CCtCAP contract between Boeing and NASA. Courtesy of a very leaky source (not that I'm complaining though...)
NASA won't let Boeing "walk away" without Boeing having to reimburse NASA for an amount north of $1B.
That would bring total losses for Boeing on Starliner north of $2.6B as well as resulting in Boeing missing out on ~$1.6B of still outstanding revenue from the six PCM missions.
In short: the best way for Boeing to cut its losses on Starliner is to actually go thru with the crewed demo mission and the six PCM missions. Boeing knows this and it explains why Boeing keeps consistently telling the world that they will honor the contractual obligations. Another factor is that Boeing walking away from Starliner will serve to damage its dented reputation even further.
The choice for Boeing is a fairly easy one:
Take ~$2.6B in losses and risk never getting a contract from NASA again
OR
Take ~$1B in net losses while also fixing some of the reputational damage (by flying CFT and the 6 PCM missions).
Now, if the people at Boeing HQ are not total idiots, they will choose the latter option.
Thanks for the info. IMO, if NASA's forgiving the claw-back would result in Boeing just walking away, that would be an excellent result. The actual costs to NASA of a Starliner mission include a lot more than just the mission payment to Boeing. Boeing will still have lost a bunch of money, but not nearly as much. As to foregone revenue, the costs will eat most of that revenue, so mission profit is low, and they (as ULA half-owners) get back some revenue by selling the Atlas launches, plus whatever cost savings accrue from terminating Atlas in 2026(?) instead of 2030. NASA's only conceivable advantage in keeping Starliner alive is to keep SpaceX from jacking up the price for the extra six CCP missions needed before ISS de-orbits, but surely they could negotiate an option now, before they kill Starliner.
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#1026
by
abaddon
on 13 Oct, 2023 16:39
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NASA's only conceivable advantage in keeping Starliner alive is to keep SpaceX from jacking up the price for the extra six CCP missions needed before ISS de-orbits, but surely they could negotiate an option now, before they kill Starliner.
That makes no sense; SpaceX is already quite a bit cheaper than Boeing, so even if SpaceX raised their prices it seems extremely unlikely they'd raise them higher than what Boeing is getting. IIRC SpaceX would also have to justify the price increase, they can't just arbitrarily raise the price with no justification. So this isn't a factor.
NASA's only conceivable advantage in keeping Starliner is the same one it has always been, namely a problem with Crew Dragon or Falcon 9 that could impact crewed flights, and Starliner being able to provide redundancy.
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#1027
by
DanClemmensen
on 13 Oct, 2023 16:56
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NASA's only conceivable advantage in keeping Starliner alive is to keep SpaceX from jacking up the price for the extra six CCP missions needed before ISS de-orbits, but surely they could negotiate an option now, before they kill Starliner.
That makes no sense; SpaceX is already quite a bit cheaper than Boeing, so even if SpaceX raised their prices it seems extremely unlikely they'd raise them higher than what Boeing is getting. IIRC SpaceX would also have to justify the price increase, they can't just arbitrarily raise the price with no justification. So this isn't a factor.
NASA's only conceivable advantage in keeping Starliner is the same one it has always been, namely a problem with Crew Dragon or Falcon 9 that could impact crewed flights, and Starliner being able to provide redundancy.
SpacX does not need to accept another CCP contract extension at a fair price. It is "almost" inconceivable that they would decline, as you say. I was merely covering this possibility.
Dragon 2 has now flown twenty successful missions (7 CCP, 5 crewed non-CCP, 8 CRS). The probability of a systematic flaw requiring the whole fleet to stand down is tiny and getting smaller. They have already been flying without a backup, and by the earliest time Starliner can fly it will have been 5 years, or half the remaining CCP missions since Crew-1. Backup for a Crew Dragon is another Crew Dragon. Deep backup is Soyuz. Statistically, Starliner is more risky, and I suspect killing Starliner no longer has any effect on the overall statistics.
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#1028
by
abaddon
on 13 Oct, 2023 18:52
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I don't disagree, the redundancy at this point seems insufficient. I still think it's a (slightly) more realistic concern than SpaceX suddenly charging more than Boeing.
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#1029
by
vp.
on 14 Oct, 2023 06:12
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Once development is over, how much does a Dragon cost and how much will a Starliner cost?
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#1030
by
DanClemmensen
on 14 Oct, 2023 14:43
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Once development is over, how much does a Dragon cost and how much will a Starliner cost?
Not sure. based on the wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_ProgramAs of 2020, a NASA audit put the per-seat face value (whatever that means) at $55 million for Crew Dragon and the $90 million for Starliner, but you really need to read the refs to figure it out. However, there have been two contract extensions for Crew Dragon, and by Crew-10 the cost will have risen to $72 million/seat, which I think is mostly due to inflation. Crew-10 is will fly in early 2025 if Starliner-1 is not ready then, so these should be comparable.
I'm fairly sure that these are the post-development values only. Development was covered by milestone payments, and I don't think these were factored into the "values". Can a real contracts person please unravel this?
I don't think Boeing can raise the price due to inflation. It's a fixed-price contract, and it's not NASA's fault that Boeing is eight years late.
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#1031
by
lrk
on 29 Oct, 2023 12:17
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However, there have been two contract extensions for Crew Dragon, and by Crew-10 the cost will have risen to $72 million/seat, which I think is mostly due to inflation.
IIRC, SpaceX admitted that they also somewhat underbid for the initial round of operational missions - there were extra development costs due to parachute issues and other last-minute changes mandated by NASA, which they still needed to recoup.
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#1032
by
DanClemmensen
on 29 Oct, 2023 14:02
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However, there have been two contract extensions for Crew Dragon, and by Crew-10 the cost will have risen to $72 million/seat, which I think is mostly due to inflation.
IIRC, SpaceX admitted that they also somewhat underbid for the initial round of operational missions - there were extra development costs due to parachute issues and other last-minute changes mandated by NASA, which they still needed to recoup.
SpaceX also lost a capsule in a explosion during testing which caused about one year of their 3-year slip. That's three years of salaries, etc. In addition to the 3 years of inflation. So yes, higher than anticipated dev costs. But the price increase for Crew 7-9 (about 16%) is below the inflation rate, with no additional recovery costs. A 2017 dollar inflated to 1.26 in 2023 dollars. The price for Crew 10-14 is about 1.3x the 2017 price, which is still less than likely inflation by 2025. A lot of this is probably due to dramatic improvements in cost of F9.
Pity poor Boeing. That 2017 dollar will inflate even more by 2025 (guesstimate: to 1.40) when they start taking operational revenue, but they have not yet fulfilled their fixed-price contract for six full missions that they insisted on, and they still paid for eight full years of salaries, etc. of their slippage.
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#1033
by
deltaV
on 29 Oct, 2023 18:54
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Pity poor Boeing.
Boeing's problems are probably consequences of Boeing's decisions over the past ~30 years that put short term profits over excellence. There's no reason to pity them.
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#1034
by
Zed_Noir
on 29 Oct, 2023 19:46
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Pity poor Boeing.
Boeing's problems are probably consequences of Boeing's decisions over the past ~30 years that put short term profits over excellence. There's no reason to pity them.
Not for the MBA management types. However the line workers deserves better.
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#1035
by
sauerkraut
on 22 Nov, 2023 14:13
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Zed_Noir;
Sorry about being late to this discussion .. Quote (Maybe make Boeing fund one of the SpaceX flights instead of NASA as part of the barter deal for Boeing to exit the Starliner program. Not one of the proposed subcontracted flight.) Unquote..
If Boeing wants out of the fixed price contract .. Let them walk with the condition they pay SpaceX for the 6 extra flights !!
Why should the taxpayers and NASA bail Boeing out ?? Boeing chose this path they need to pay the repair cost for the mess they made of it !!
The taxpayers that pay attention are getting tired of paying the bill .. The Boeings stock holders should be screaming in the wings about the loss column !!
Edit for grammar .
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#1036
by
DanClemmensen
on 22 Nov, 2023 15:30
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Zed_Noir;
Sorry about being late to this discussion .. Quote (Maybe make Boeing fund one of the SpaceX flights instead of NASA as part of the barter deal for Boeing to exit the Starliner program. Not one of the proposed subcontracted flight.) Unquote..
If Boeing wants out of the fixed price contract .. Let them walk with the condition they pay SpaceX for the 6 extra flights !!
Why should the taxpayers and NASA bail Boeing out ?? Boeing chose this path they need to pay the repair cost for the mess they made of it !!
The taxpayers that pay attention are getting tired of paying the bill .. The Boeings stock holders should be screaming in the wings about the loss column !!
Edit for grammar .
As I understand it, Boeing has not been paid for CFT or for any of Starliner-1 through Starliner-6. Each flight will be paid for when it happens. CFT probably gets a a big "milestone" payment: the last of the development payments. Yes, I think many of us would like for Boeing to be punished in some way for the large extra costs that NASA has incurred in keeping its side of this worthless program running from 2020-2024, but it's better to just let Boeing walk away without getting paid for the last six flights. The alternative is for NASA to pay Boeing about $360M per flight as agreed, and for Boeing to lose money on each flight. But NASA loses too, because they can instead just let Boeing go away, and pay SpaceX about $290M per flight and also terminate their Starliner-related internal costs.
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#1037
by
yg1968
on 26 Nov, 2023 14:19
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#1038
by
DanClemmensen
on 26 Nov, 2023 14:33
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#1039
by
yg1968
on 26 Nov, 2023 14:43
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