NASA To Invest In Commercial Crew Concepts

xp65 writes "Today NASA released information regarding its intention to invest $50 million in commercial crew concepts. This new program, known as the Commercial Crew Development or 'CCDev,' represents a new milestone in the development of an orbital commercial human spaceflight sector. By maturing 'the design and development of commercial crew spaceflight concepts and associated enabling technologies and capabilities,' the program will allow several companies to move a few steps forward towards the ultimate goal of full demonstration of commercial human spaceflight to orbit."

Comments

Stupid NASA Tricks

[Gary W. Longsine]

If this was funny, it would be a joke. The NASA press release on this says:

"NASAâ(TM)s Commercial Crew and Cargo Program is applying Recovery Act funds to stimulate efforts within the private sector to develop and demonstrate human spaceflight capabilities. These efforts are intended to foster entrepreneurial activity leading to job growth in engineering, analysis, design, and research, and to economic growth as capabilities for new markets are created. By developing commercial crew service providers, NASA may be able to reduce the gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability. All ARRA funded activities must comply with its provisions and will conclude no later than September 30, 2010."

This is yet another Stupid NASA Trick. Are they serious? At this level of funding, which wouldn't even pay for the airlock on the Orion capsule, a private contractor is going to "bridge the gap" that NASA created? If NASA hadn't killed promising R&D programs like the X-33 (VentureStar), we would already have replaced the Shuttle with a system which reduced flight costs substantially, improved safety and reliability, has shorter turn-around times, and can fly more often. Which, by the way, is what is needed to help stimulate a growing space economy. It all depends on reduced cost of, and increased reliability of access to orbit. Constellation isn't going to provide that. COTS, (and this new bit, given a new name to keep 'em guessing) are funded at levels so low as to guarantee NASA will never face competition from the private companies which win these bids. This is not a joke, it's a charade.

If the objective were to create a private market for access to space, NASA could do this easily. All they need to do is announce that they will buy payload to LEO delivery services from the private market, at market rates. Right now market rates for a single launch of a modest payload are higher than the total size of this program.

NASA probably spent more than this on artwork and publicity for Contellation / Orion / Aeries.

Re:Stupid NASA Tricks

[Teancum]

This was originally going to be $300 million (according to the original "Recovery Act" appropriation), but Senator Shelby (R-Alabama) decided to move the funds to the Ares I/V development. What happened here is that Shelby finally "compromised" and admitted that it wasn't intended strictly for the Constellation program.

BTW, Elon Musk and SpaceX were planning on doing this development anyway... with or without NASA funds. What even this little bit does is to help encourage the development of the launch escape system (and the manned version of the Dragon Capsule) slightly ahead of when SpaceX would have built it on their own. In addition, this will allow an alternative to using the Soyuz spacecraft for travel to and from the ISS once the Space Shuttle retires.

Keep in mind that SpaceX wants to sell spaceflight services to private companies (like Bigelow Aerospace and Space Adventures) and to other interested private individuals... as well as to some countries like Dubai who are trying to get into space. Until now, there was no American company willing to sell you a "seat" into orbital flight at any price... and even the Russians have shut down their commercial manned spaceflight slots. As to how many flights SpaceX will make once all this get built... I couldn't guess. I would imagine, however, that NASA would not have even half of the flights that might fly.

The first flight of the Falcon 9 is due to go up in a couple of months... as the hardware is already built and all that is happening now is the final tests to determine flight worthiness. Once that is proven... the Dragon capsule will be fairly straight forward as one more iteration on the development cycle on what will be hopefully a proven launch vehicle. The first unmanned flights of the Dragon capsule might happen as soon as next year... and may be flying before the shuttle is even officially retired. They are that close to being ready.

As far as NASA spending more on the art work for the Constellation/Ares rocket system than this... you may be correct. What is amazing is how much has happened in spite of this kind of paltry effort to support commercial spaceflight.

Re:More Money For Prime Contractors

[FleaPlus]

Any of you familiar with the way the contract system works in the U.S. should agree. The prime contractor (Lockheed Martin, Boeing, etc) will take most of the money and farm out the task to a couple of sub-contractors who will farm their tasks out.

Um, the whole point of NASA looking at commercial cargo and commercial crew transport is to do away with this contract system, or at least find an alternative. Under the traditional cost-plus contracting (where the contractor gets whatever they report cost of development/operations is, plus a percentage), what you describe happens a lot, because if farming their tasks out increases overall cost that just increases their profit.

However, with the commercial alternatives NASA is trying (COTS, this new CCDev program), they used a prenegotiated fixed-price contract, with payments based on prearranged milestones. If the contractor's costs go up due to them poorly estimating or trying to milk out more money, the contractor either ends up losing money or just stops receiving money altogether. On top of that, the contracts will be awarded to multiple competing companies, so that if one of them is trying anything funny or is incompetent, NASA can just drop them and buy from another company.

So yes, the hope is that this program will help fix the problem you describe.

carbon fiber tanks

[Gary W. Longsine]

Engineers from the project claimed that NASA directed the carbon fiber tank exploration in X-33, over the objections of the engineers. (This should sound familiar. This type of bureaucratic snafu created problems on the Shuttle program.) The program goals could have been achieved with a (low-risk) aluminum-lithium tank, apparently. Furthermore, Lockheed Martin funded additional R&D on the carbon fiber tanks after the cancellation of the X-33. Although the technology wasn't quite ready at the time the X-33 was cancelled, it was relatively close at hand, certainly as compared to long range projects like scramjets. X-33: What Really Happened.