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#920 by TrevorMonty on 27 Jul, 2023 03:37
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If there was fatality from parachute failure customers will see parachutes as weak point regardless of who makes capsules and its flight history.
The optics looks bad. If SpaceX withheld their parachute knowledge from the global industry which could prevent a loss of crew.https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1684242109199527941
QuoteSpaceX provided its knowledge of crewed parachute systems to Boeing and we are happy to be helpful in any other ways.
Designing parachutes for orbital, crewed spacecraft is much harder than it may seem. Was a major challenge for SpaceX.
It's weird that SpaceX would help a competitor. I wonder why this happened. Maybe NASA told SpaceX to do that? Maybe they feel that the real competitor is other countries so it's OK to help a domestic competitor? Do they feel that a stronger Boeing would be helpful to their Mars plans?
On the other hand Dreamchaser would start to look good.
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#921 by SpeakertoAnimals on 27 Jul, 2023 03:53
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Also, it is difficult to think of today's Boeing as a serious competitor.
If there was fatality from parachute failure customers will see parachutes as weak point regardless of who makes capsules and its flight history.
The optics looks bad. If SpaceX withheld their parachute knowledge from the global industry which could prevent a loss of crew.https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1684242109199527941
QuoteSpaceX provided its knowledge of crewed parachute systems to Boeing and we are happy to be helpful in any other ways.
Designing parachutes for orbital, crewed spacecraft is much harder than it may seem. Was a major challenge for SpaceX.
It's weird that SpaceX would help a competitor. I wonder why this happened. Maybe NASA told SpaceX to do that? Maybe they feel that the real competitor is other countries so it's OK to help a domestic competitor? Do they feel that a stronger Boeing would be helpful to their Mars plans?
On the other hand Dreamchaser would start to look good. -
#922 by DanClemmensen on 27 Jul, 2023 04:50
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It's weird that SpaceX would help a competitor. I wonder why this happened. Maybe NASA told SpaceX to do that? Maybe they feel that the real competitor is other countries so it's OK to help a domestic competitor? Do they feel that a stronger Boeing would be helpful to their Mars plans?
I think SpaceX benefits by anything that keeps them from looking like a de facto space monopoly. They dominate the launch industry and currently have no competition for CCP. Currently, NASA is touting the competitive environment, but it is getting pretty threadbare. SpaceX can currently charge a lot and enjoy high profit margins because "the market is competive". If they begin to be perceived as a monopoly, regulators will step in and force the prices down. -
#923 by SpeakertoAnimals on 27 Jul, 2023 05:00
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Quibble, SpaceX can enjoy high profit margins because they have engineered low costs and still undercut the competition. You can't force lower prices when the competition can't match the current prices.It's weird that SpaceX would help a competitor. I wonder why this happened. Maybe NASA told SpaceX to do that? Maybe they feel that the real competitor is other countries so it's OK to help a domestic competitor? Do they feel that a stronger Boeing would be helpful to their Mars plans?
I think SpaceX benefits by anything that keeps them from looking like a de facto space monopoly. They dominate the launch industry and currently have no competition for CCP. Currently, NASA is touting the competitive environment, but it is getting pretty threadbare. SpaceX can currently charge a lot and enjoy high profit margins because "the market is competive". If they begin to be perceived as a monopoly, regulators will step in and force the prices down. -
#924 by DanClemmensen on 27 Jul, 2023 05:12
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When there is no effective competition, regulators can and do enforce lower prices. It never seem to end well, but it does happen.
Quibble, SpaceX can enjoy high profit margins because they have engineered low costs and still undercut the competition. You can't force lower prices when the competition can't match the current prices.It's weird that SpaceX would help a competitor. I wonder why this happened. Maybe NASA told SpaceX to do that? Maybe they feel that the real competitor is other countries so it's OK to help a domestic competitor? Do they feel that a stronger Boeing would be helpful to their Mars plans?
I think SpaceX benefits by anything that keeps them from looking like a de facto space monopoly. They dominate the launch industry and currently have no competition for CCP. Currently, NASA is touting the competitive environment, but it is getting pretty threadbare. SpaceX can currently charge a lot and enjoy high profit margins because "the market is competive". If they begin to be perceived as a monopoly, regulators will step in and force the prices down. -
#925 by Coastal Ron on 27 Jul, 2023 05:40
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It's weird that SpaceX would help a competitor. I wonder why this happened. Maybe NASA told SpaceX to do that? Maybe they feel that the real competitor is other countries so it's OK to help a domestic competitor? Do they feel that a stronger Boeing would be helpful to their Mars plans?
I think SpaceX benefits by anything that keeps them from looking like a de facto space monopoly.
Elon Musk, through Tesla, offered to help Boeing with their lithium ion battery issues they were having with the Boeing 787 back in 2013.
I think with safety issues like spacecraft parachutes, aerospace workers are fine helping their counterparts in other companies to solve problems that are common to both. So I would not be surprised if SpaceX offered up a solution they already had, because that is what competitors should do when national prestige is at stake. -
#926 by Coastal Ron on 27 Jul, 2023 05:59
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When there is no effective competition, regulators can and do enforce lower prices. It never seem to end well, but it does happen.
Quibble, SpaceX can enjoy high profit margins because they have engineered low costs and still undercut the competition. You can't force lower prices when the competition can't match the current prices.It's weird that SpaceX would help a competitor. I wonder why this happened. Maybe NASA told SpaceX to do that? Maybe they feel that the real competitor is other countries so it's OK to help a domestic competitor? Do they feel that a stronger Boeing would be helpful to their Mars plans?
I think SpaceX benefits by anything that keeps them from looking like a de facto space monopoly. They dominate the launch industry and currently have no competition for CCP. Currently, NASA is touting the competitive environment, but it is getting pretty threadbare. SpaceX can currently charge a lot and enjoy high profit margins because "the market is competive". If they begin to be perceived as a monopoly, regulators will step in and force the prices down.
NASA has a contract with SpaceX already for Commercial Crew missions, and SpaceX can't renegotiate that unless there are some sort of trigger event.
However the Commercial Crew contract SpaceX signed is, from what I can tell, an IDIQ contract, which is Indefinite Date, Indefinite Quantity. In other words, as long as NASA wants the exact same service, they can use the same negotiated contract - and the same negotiated prices.
Now, SpaceX could ask for contractual relief of some sort because they are performing more missions than anticipated, but government contracts are audited by the GSA, so SpaceX can't just jack up prices for no reason. Not with U.S. Government contracts.
In the free market SpaceX can charge whatever they want - whatever the market will bear. But with U.S. Government contracts, they can't. -
#927 by TrevorMonty on 27 Jul, 2023 08:21
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NASA will be thankful they insisted on two providers. There was pressure to downselect to one which would've been Boeing. Imagine being reliant on Soyzu for last 18 months.It's weird that SpaceX would help a competitor. I wonder why this happened. Maybe NASA told SpaceX to do that? Maybe they feel that the real competitor is other countries so it's OK to help a domestic competitor? Do they feel that a stronger Boeing would be helpful to their Mars plans?
I think SpaceX benefits by anything that keeps them from looking like a de facto space monopoly. They dominate the launch industry and currently have no competition for CCP. Currently, NASA is touting the competitive environment, but it is getting pretty threadbare. SpaceX can currently charge a lot and enjoy high profit margins because "the market is competive". If they begin to be perceived as a monopoly, regulators will step in and force the prices down. -
#928 by andrewi on 27 Jul, 2023 09:57
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snip...
Also, the knowledge transfer is simpler than you'd think. Both SpaceX and Boeing use the same supplier for parachutes, Airborne Systems, so it would be really easy to transfer any specific information to the team working on Boeing's parachutes with SpaceX's okay.
This article in Spacenews indicated SpaceX was sharing Data with NASA and Boeing back in Feb 2022 and probably earlier. As indicated above Dragon, Starliner and Orion use Airborne Systems large ringsail parachutes (Dragon is 4 chute, Starliner is 3 chute not sure what Orion is) Possibly as a result NASA might have asked more questions of Boeing about parachutes?
https://spacenews.com/nasa-and-spacex-say-lagging-dragon-parachute-may-be-normal-phenomenon/
February 4, 2022 “This lagging parachute phenomenon is something we see with these large ringsail parachutes,” Stich said. “What we think — and this is just a theory at this point — is that aerodynamically the three other canopies may sort of shade, if you will, one of the other canopies, and it just struggles to inflate at times.”
Stich added that NASA did not consider the issue serious enough that it would have switched to Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle for the next crew rotation mission had that spacecraft been certified by now. SpaceX plans to share its parachute data with NASA and Boeing as both Starliner and Orion also use large ringsail parachutes, but with different configurations.
The issue Starliner is having currently is in the soft links not lagging that SpaceX was/is? experiencing.
https://spacenews.com/parachute-and-wiring-issues-to-delay-starliner-crewed-test-flight/
Jeff Foust
June 1, 2023 - One issue is with components in the parachutes called soft links. Those components had a lower load limit than previously expected, decreasing the overall factor of safety in the parachute system “pretty significantly,” said Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager for CST-100 Starliner at Boeing.
The soft link issue, officials said, would only be a concern if one of the three main parachutes failed, putting additional loads on the other two.
SpaceX - Dragon had a lot of issues with parachutes with mk2 Dragon Chutes (which where found not to have enough margin for commercial crew) which resulted in moving to the Mk3 chute system back in 2019 when they had problems with asymmetric loading?
https://spacenews.com/spacex-reaches-parachute-testing-milestone/
December 24, 2019 Parachutes have been one of the key issues with development of Crew Dragon, in particular with what’s known as “asymmetric loading” of the parachutes. “The problem that Dragon has really enlightened the community and basically forced us to go out and understand what this problem is,” said Robert Sinclair, chief engineer with Airborne Systems, which is working on SpaceX’s parachutes as well as those for spacecraft like Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and NASA’s Orion.
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#929 by Vettedrmr on 27 Jul, 2023 10:52
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snip...
The optics looks bad. If SpaceX withheld their parachute knowledge from the global industry which could prevent a loss of crew.
It's weird that SpaceX would help a competitor. I wonder why this happened. Maybe NASA told SpaceX to do that? Maybe they feel that the real competitor is other countries so it's OK to help a domestic competitor? Do they feel that a stronger Boeing would be helpful to their Mars plans?
It has nothing to do with optics or NASA forcing SpaceX to do this. It might be informative if you went back to look at the Crew Dragon videos (I forget which one) after certification I think. Elon offered to do this back then, the NASA official present was quite shocked when he said that.
Also, the knowledge transfer is simpler than you'd think. Both SpaceX and Boeing use the same supplier for parachutes, Airborne Systems, so it would be really easy to transfer any specific information to the team working on Boeing's parachutes with SpaceX's okay.
Do you know if the soft link components Boeing is dealing with is part of the chute system (an Airborne issue) or is it a part of the integration system between the 'chutes and the spacecraft? -
#930 by clongton on 27 Jul, 2023 11:54
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It's weird that SpaceX would help a competitor. I wonder why this happened. Maybe NASA told SpaceX to do that? Maybe they feel that the real competitor is other countries so it's OK to help a domestic competitor? Do they feel that a stronger Boeing would be helpful to their Mars plans?
It's not weird at all when one thinks about Elon Musk's goals and what he has said wrt them. In this case he has stated clearly, many times, that one of his goals is to reduce the cost of HSF by at least an order of magnitude for the express purpose of making spaceflight more commonplace. To that end he has welcomed competition to his own company, SpaceX, even hoping that more companies would enter the market. It's obvious, to me at least, that Mr. Musk does not want to be the only successful launch provider in the field. He wants to see several successful companies competing with SpaceX for their share of the pie. Competition drives prices down, which is exactly what he is hoping to see happen. While he appreciates the business, he does not want SpaceX to be the sole provider. He wants competition - successful competition - including from Boeing. Hence his willingness to share knowledge with his competitors. It may be out of character for the cut-throat "I want everything" businesses, but it is in perfect character for Mr. Musk and SpaceX. -
#931 by Vettedrmr on 27 Jul, 2023 12:31
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It's weird that SpaceX would help a competitor. I wonder why this happened. Maybe NASA told SpaceX to do that? Maybe they feel that the real competitor is other countries so it's OK to help a domestic competitor? Do they feel that a stronger Boeing would be helpful to their Mars plans?
It's not weird at all when one thinks about Elon Musk's goals and what he has said wrt them. In this case he has stated clearly, many times, that one of his goals is to reduce the cost of HSF by at least an order of magnitude for the express purpose of making spaceflight more commonplace. To that end he has welcomed competition to his own company, SpaceX, even hoping that more companies would enter the market. It's obvious, to me at least, that Mr. Musk does not want to be the only successful launch provider in the field. He wants to see several successful companies competing with SpaceX for their share of the pie. Competition drives prices down, which is exactly what he is hoping to see happen. While he appreciates the business, he does not want SpaceX to be the sole provider. He wants competition - successful competition - including from Boeing. Hence his willingness to share knowledge with his competitors. It may be out of character for the cut-throat "I want everything" businesses, but it is in perfect character for Mr. Musk and SpaceX.
Two thoughts come to mind: 1. A rising tide raises all ships, and 2. Play the long game. -
#932 by kdhilliard on 27 Jul, 2023 13:21
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Here's a 2019 article on the subject SpaceX's IP sharing pledge:
Elon Musk says that NASA is free to share all SpaceX IP with ‘anyone it wants’.Quote from: Darrell Etherington · October 10, 2019 · TechCrunchSpaceX CEO joined NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine at SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne today to provide an update on the commercial crew launch program ...
... Musk said that the learnings that SpaceX has gathered from the Crew Dragon parachute development program is free to share with anyone who wants it – SpaceX is working on its third major iteration of the parachutes it will use to ensure the Crew Capsule’s safe return to Earth.
“I’ve been very very clear with Jim that any SpaceX data should not be considered proprietary,” Musk said during the remarks. “It can be used by any of our competitors […] No charge.”
Later on, he reiterated that what he meant was literally any of SpaceX’s IP is on the table for NASA to distribute freely as the agency sees fit.
“I want to be clear: NASA can share all of our IP with anyone that NASA wants,” Musk said. ... -
#933 by DanClemmensen on 27 Jul, 2023 13:43
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Sorry, no. The initial SpaceX CCP award was for at least two missions with a max of six, IDIQ. SpaceX and NASA negotiated for a follow-on IDIQ award for a max of three (Crew-7 through Crew-9) missions at a higher price, and then for a second follow-on IDIQ award for a max of five more (Crew-10 through Crew-14) at an even higher price. I suspect the higher prices reflect inflation and forward cost uncertainties, but they are not the original price. SpaceX did not ask for contractual relief. They negotiated new contracts.
When there is no effective competition, regulators can and do enforce lower prices. It never seem to end well, but it does happen.
Quibble, SpaceX can enjoy high profit margins because they have engineered low costs and still undercut the competition. You can't force lower prices when the competition can't match the current prices.It's weird that SpaceX would help a competitor. I wonder why this happened. Maybe NASA told SpaceX to do that? Maybe they feel that the real competitor is other countries so it's OK to help a domestic competitor? Do they feel that a stronger Boeing would be helpful to their Mars plans?
I think SpaceX benefits by anything that keeps them from looking like a de facto space monopoly. They dominate the launch industry and currently have no competition for CCP. Currently, NASA is touting the competitive environment, but it is getting pretty threadbare. SpaceX can currently charge a lot and enjoy high profit margins because "the market is competive". If they begin to be perceived as a monopoly, regulators will step in and force the prices down.
NASA has a contract with SpaceX already for Commercial Crew missions, and SpaceX can't renegotiate that unless there are some sort of trigger event.
However the Commercial Crew contract SpaceX signed is, from what I can tell, an IDIQ contract, which is Indefinite Date, Indefinite Quantity. In other words, as long as NASA wants the exact same service, they can use the same negotiated contract - and the same negotiated prices.
Now, SpaceX could ask for contractual relief of some sort because they are performing more missions than anticipated, but government contracts are audited by the GSA, so SpaceX can't just jack up prices for no reason. Not with U.S. Government contracts.
In the free market SpaceX can charge whatever they want - whatever the market will bear. But with U.S. Government contracts, they can't. -
#934 by Hog on 27 Jul, 2023 16:56
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bold mine
NASA will be thankful they insisted on two providers. There was pressure to downselect to one which would've been Boeing. Imagine being reliant on Soyzu for last 18 months.It's weird that SpaceX would help a competitor. I wonder why this happened. Maybe NASA told SpaceX to do that? Maybe they feel that the real competitor is other countries so it's OK to help a domestic competitor? Do they feel that a stronger Boeing would be helpful to their Mars plans?
I think SpaceX benefits by anything that keeps them from looking like a de facto space monopoly. They dominate the launch industry and currently have no competition for CCP. Currently, NASA is touting the competitive environment, but it is getting pretty threadbare. SpaceX can currently charge a lot and enjoy high profit margins because "the market is competive". If they begin to be perceived as a monopoly, regulators will step in and force the prices down.
Yes, it would have sucked, just like the previous decade of Western Soyuz reliance for human access to ISS. (Nov 2009-May 2020). -
#935 by king1999 on 27 Jul, 2023 20:32
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When there is no effective competition, regulators can and do enforce lower prices. It never seem to end well, but it does happen.
Rocket launch market is different from a regular consumer market. It is a national security asset. When ULA was in a monopoly position, they raised their price year after year and got $1b/y from the military just to maintain their capacity. Regulators nowhere to be found. -
#936 by zubenelgenubi on 31 Jul, 2023 22:04
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Moderator:
I observe another moderator deleted 22 posts from this thread in the week just past.
Some veteran members are serial offenders, stirring the pot needlessly, telling the world how they FEEL (vs. reason) overandoverandoverandover again. Some just love to poke the bear 🐻 🐻❄ 😋 until they get the negative response that I can only assume that they crave.
I have no problem suggesting temporary or permanent bans for said serial offenders to Chris Bergin. But, he sees 👀 the same reports to moderator as I do, and he sees 👀 the moderation log... -
#937 by ZachS09 on 31 Jul, 2023 22:28
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Moderator:
I observe another moderator deleted 22 posts from this thread in the week just past.
Some veteran members are serial offenders, stirring the pot needlessly, telling the world how they FEEL (vs. reason) overandoverandoverandover again. Some just love to poke the bear 🐻 🐻❄ 😋 until they get the negative response that I can only assume that they crave.
I have no problem suggesting temporary or permanent bans for said serial offenders to Chris Bergin. But, he sees 👀 the same reports to moderator as I do, and he sees 👀 the moderation log...
That's not good. -
#938 by SteveU on 31 Jul, 2023 22:42
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Question for those with more experience and insight. Is it possible that Boing and NASA are now being extra careful and slow walking to the manned launch because 1) they cannot survive the PR s. storm that would hit if there was a problem, and 2) with SpaceX doing manned launches there’s no need to rush?
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#939 by Vahe231991 on 31 Jul, 2023 23:18
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Question for those with more experience and insight. Is it possible that Boing and NASA are now being extra careful and slow walking to the manned launch because 1) they cannot survive the PR s. storm that would hit if there was a problem, and 2) with SpaceX doing manned launches there’s no need to rush?
The latest delay for the CFT mission was announced due to the flammable nature of the tape covering the wiring harnesses throughout the Starliner capsule and botched parachute lines. I can't be sure why flammable tape was used as protective cover for the wiring harnesses throughout the Starliner capsule during construction of the spacecraft.
