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Boeing Shows Off First Commercial Spacecraft

Posted by samzenpus on from the lost-luggage-in-space dept.

coondoggie writes "Boeing today released the first public glimpse of the commercial spacecraft it is working on under an $18 million contract with NASA. Boeing's Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 can hold seven crew and will be bigger than Apollo but smaller than NASA's Orion, and be able to launch on a variety of different rockets, including Atlas, Delta and Falcon.The company envisions the spacecraft supporting the International Space Station and future Bigelow Aerospace Orbital Space Complex systems. Bigelow is building what it calls 'expandable habitats,' that which are inflatable spacecraft would act as large, less costly space stations."

26 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. The Big B finally weighs in. by UncleBex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Interesting that Boeing has finally weighed in with something new for human space transport and that their offering looks very much like a commodity product. Somewhat surprising for such a larger organization that is used to fat government contracts with no competition past the initial bidding. That the capsule will be able to launch on a variety of rockets will hopefully be a boon to the budding commercial space industry. My only fear is that this is a Microsoft-type extend and embrace move to smother the pesky upstarts in the field (e.g. SpaceX, Armadillo, etc.).

    Regardless, it is nice to see that the government and private sectors will soon have an ability to choose, it sure beats the old system.

    --
    "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." - Carl Sagan
    1. Re:The Big B finally weighs in. by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Regardless, it is nice to see that the government and private sectors will soon have an ability to choose, it sure beats the old system.

      Well, it's not like they've actually done more than draw a couple of not-terribly-pretty pictures of their hypothetical spacecraft.

      All we're really seeing here is what Boeing promises to build if the Feds will give them a buttload of money to do the real engineering required.

      Note one key difference between the "previous system" and this announcement - Shuttle actually exists as something more than an advertising brochure....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    2. Re:The Big B finally weighs in. by sznupi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Shuttle actually exists as something more than an advertising brochure....

      Does it? The existing vehicle is quite a bit off from what was advertised.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    3. Re:The Big B finally weighs in. by sohp · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If I were SpaceX founder Elon Musk, I'd be hopping mad right now. After developing Falcon9 and Dragon on the basis of a truly competitive commercial space program, the porkbarrel senators for aerospace/defense contractor states wrote a new NASA budget to basically hand money over to Boeing and the rest of the usual cast of trough-feeders to continue but with changes and more delays the Ares/Orion program. This craft will see about as much reality as the Orion did before Boeing is behind schedule and over budget and requests yet more money.

      The whole goal is to crowd out the smaller guys while maintaining the jobs programs in states like Washington, Utah, and Florida.

      Did anyone notice that they don't say where they are going in this capsule? Where are the senators who called Obama's proposed budget a mission to nowhere? This new NASA program doesn't have a destination, either, but at least the dollars keep flowing to the same interests.

    4. Re:The Big B finally weighs in. by sznupi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Relax a bit. Bigelow is involved with thise Boeing capsule; seems they want a competition in servicing their stations.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    5. Re:The Big B finally weighs in. by camperdave · · Score: 4, Informative

      SpaceX is months away from test flights of the Dragon capsule. It'll be years before Boeing is anywhere near ready to launch. Besides, SpaceX already has a contract to run crew and cargo up to the ISS.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    6. Re:The Big B finally weighs in. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is just moderator abuse. He's not trolling, he's absolutely right. Shuttle is restricted to LEO, takes MONTHS to turn around, spends at least a day out of every mission checking tiles, has only launched ~130 times in 30 years, and 40% of the fleet has experienced fatal crashes. It hasn't come within 5 AU of the hype from back when it was first proposed.

    7. Re:The Big B finally weighs in. by CraftyJack · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In other words, Boeing is a lot more savvy to how the aerospace market actually works, as opposed to how we would like it to work.

    8. Re:The Big B finally weighs in. by Teancum · · Score: 2, Informative

      Did anyone notice that they don't say where they are going in this capsule? Where are the senators who called Obama's proposed budget a mission to nowhere? This new NASA program doesn't have a destination, either, but at least the dollars keep flowing to the same interests.

      Note that Boeing is developing this on their own dime, not as a part of a cost-plus contract where the government takes all of the risk in terms of costs involved in developing the vehicle. That is a huge deal. This is also not a NASA project either, and it almost entirely done with private funds.

      Still, Boeing would really like to get some additional customers besides Bigelow Aerospace, and the only real game in town for the past several decades has been the U.S. government. The executives at Boeing are trying to be realistic here in terms of thinking that commercial spaceflight customers aren't going to be sufficient to justify the engineering expense for building this vehicle, so they are trying to sweet talk some of their fairy god-senators for some extra money to ensure that they can make a profit off of this design.

      One of the things that has kept Boeing in business when many other aircraft building companies have gone under is an insistence that whatever they make has customers before they start the major engineering designs and the ability to at least break even if not make a profit when that happens. It does make them risk-averse and keeps them from creating very innovative designs, but it does make the company profitable and ensures that they will be around for another hundred years. Sometimes it doesn't help to create a wild and crazy new design if nobody is interested in using it afterward.

      As for the manned NASA spaceflight program.... it is going to be stuck on the Earth for at least a decade, with the exception of going up on Russian Soyuz rockets. Oh the irony in that thought where Soviet-era and designed equipment is keeping astronauts in orbit. Khrushchev would have been proud.

    9. Re:The Big B finally weighs in. by FleaPlus · · Score: 2, Informative

      If I were SpaceX founder Elon Musk, I'd be hopping mad right now. After developing Falcon9 and Dragon on the basis of a truly competitive commercial space program, the porkbarrel senators for aerospace/defense contractor states wrote a new NASA budget to basically hand money over to Boeing and the rest of the usual cast of trough-feeders to continue but with changes and more delays the Ares/Orion program.

      I think you're conflating two separate things, here, which is understandable, because it's kind of convoluted. The thing is, Boeing is involved in -both- the commercial crew capsule, and is also involved with the Ares program (they're contractors on the upper stage, but LM is the contractor for the Orion capsule). If the current push in Congress for a government-designed launch vehicle goes through, Boeing will also probably be one of the main contractors.

      I personally think their cost-plus government-designed launch vehicle work is rather unfortunate, but their fixed-price commercial crew work is pretty awesome. It's important for them to be a competitor in the commercial crew arena, and Elon Musk actually agrees:

      (This is from a May interview, and Boeing's changed their tone a fair bit since then. I could've sworn I saw a more recent interview with Musk where he stated that he foresees SpaceX being a cheaper provider alongside Boeing/ULA, but I can't find it)

      http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/analyst-wire/mi_8077/is_20100415/elon-musk-ceo-space-exploration/ai_n53180745/

      BRENNAN: But when you look at your business, it's a really interesting venture here. But it is relatively untested. We heard from NASA's chief himself who said he might be more comfortable working with a Boeing, with a Northrop Grumman. Why would a start-up like yours really be able to compete in this space? Relatively untested.

      MUSK: Yes, and I agree with that assessment. And I agree with the administrator. In fact, the opponents of Constellation cancellation have tried to strong arm the argument by claiming that Constellation will be cancelled and handed over just to SpaceX, which is actually false.

      In fact, what will happen is that there will be multiple providers of space transport to orbit. And Boeing and Lockheed will in fact almost certainly be the largest recipients of that funding. They just won't make quite as much as they would have made under the old program. So hence their opposition.

      I do think there's a good likelihood that SpaceX will be one of those providers. But we will be just one provider among many.

    10. Re:The Big B finally weighs in. by shadowfaxcrx · · Score: 2, Informative

      The shuttle we have now was supposed to be a proof of concept vehicle. Once we proved that the idea of a reusable space-plane was viable, we were supposed to go ahead and build one that actually worked well. But we didn't. As with so many other NASA programs, the shuttle fell victim to ADD politicians.

      "Well we've BEEN to the moon! So let's scrap the whole program and fire all the engineers that got us there!"

      "Well we've GOT a space shuttle now! Why do we need to build a DIFFERENT one?"

      "Let's go to Mars!"

      "Screw Mars! Let's dismantle our entire manned spaceflight capability!"

      "Well, maybe a little capability .. "

      The political cycle that matters is the presidential one. Every 4 to 8 years a new President takes office, and runs over to NASA to reshape it in his image. Trouble is, an 8 year development cycle for something as complex as a manned space vehicle is incredibly short. And so whatever the previous President had them working on gets canceled in favor of whatever the current President wants them to work on - -which will itself get canceled before completion by the next President.

      We either need to restructure the President's ability to make changes to NASA's goals (i.e. "You can't just cancel a program that's 75% completed when you take office because you feel like it") or we need to let the commercial companies take over, and sit back and hope they build something useful.

      Either way, I think we're screwed.

      --
      "I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
  2. What about SpaceX? by kindups · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't think this is the first commerical spacecraft. SpaceX has been working on their Dragon capsule along with the lift vehicles.

  3. If by "show off" you mean "a couple of paintings" by jfengel · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's an article about it that sucks slightly less, with more and bigger paintings:

    http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1007/21boeing/

    It's still a stretch to call it "showing off" when you haven't even got a mock up.

  4. Re:What about SpaceX? by Pennidren · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think the bad summary is supposed to mean Boeing's first. It was worth saving the 3 extra letters, though!

  5. I saw $18M for the price-tag... by thesandtiger · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... And I was under the impression Boeing wouldn't even get out of bed for that much, you know?

    On the subject of money... There are people who are billionaires to the point where they could easily drop 5, 10 billion bucks on space - why hasn't anyone REALLY wealthy done that?

    --
    Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
    1. Re:I saw $18M for the price-tag... by sznupi · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not dropping money right and left, on any fun looking stuff, might be an important part of becoming a billionaire.

      Anyway, some of them do what you ask for, just in a bit more frugal way - SpaceX and Bigelow, for example.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    2. Re:I saw $18M for the price-tag... by FleaPlus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It would seem that the $18 million was to draw the picture & maybe a mockup or two.

      Actually, there's a fair bit more of that Boeing will have to accomplish if they want the full milestone-based payments, if you look at the Space Act agreement they signed with NASA:

      http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/pdf/444144main_NNJ10TA03S_boeing_saa.pdf

      Boeing/Bigelow ($18M): trade study and down-select between pusher-type and tractor-style LAS, system definition review, Abort System Hardware Demonstration Test, Base Heat Shield Fabrication Demonstration, Avionics Systems Integration Facility demonstration, CM Pressure Shell Fabrication Demonstration, Landing System Demonstration (drop test and water uprighting test), Life Support Air Revitalization demonstration, AR&D hardware/software demonstration, Crew Module Mockup demonstration. It also explicitly mentions that the capsule is designed for Atlas, Delta, and Falcon 9 launch vehicles

      Although the crew capsule has been receiving most of the attention, if anything the escape system is the more difficult and costlier part to develop. Although the Russians have extensive experience with them, nobody in the US has built a capsule-based escape system since the 60s or 70s. SpaceX, Boeing, and Blue Origin are also working on developing novel "push-based" (rather than the typical tractor-based) escape systems, and I'm curious if they'll end up consolidating their efforts if Congress doesn't come through with sufficient commercial crew development funding.

      Finally, I don't think anybody's yet posted the video of the CST-100 (it's somewhat rudimentary, but does the job of depicting the basic architecture):

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn_gXEK5XmQ

  6. Man, that thing has serious lines! by StefanJ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just looking at it . . . wow, inspirational! Like a soaring eagle caught in a trash can, or a supersonic fighter melted down and used to cast an extrusion mold for dog treats.

  7. Re:If by "show off" you mean "a couple of painting by jfruhlinger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That second article has a cutaway view of what it would look like inside w/astronauts in it, to give you a sense of scale. Jesus, they're sure crammed in there, aren't they? What would the point of putting in so many people that they could barely move be? I suppose this thing isn't really for Shuttle-style science, just getting people to and from space stations, so they'd only have to be packed in like that for a day or two at a time...

  8. Re:Dupe by sznupi · · Score: 2, Informative

    To be fair, that's basically a mockup; hardly counts.. Though the proper test vehicle should be in orbit this year.

    Then there are two test spacecraft of Bigelow already orbiting for some time. And plenty commercial telecomm ones.

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
  9. Am I the only one thats disturbed by... by Quzak · · Score: 3, Funny

    Inflatable Spacecraft? If we cant take knives on a plane...just imagine what we cant take on those craft

    --
    Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
  10. Re:If by "show off" you mean "a couple of painting by camperdave · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, they're kind of crammed on the Dragon, too.

    I'd much rather see an HL-42 styled craft. Give me a horizontal landing, on an actual runway. None of this splashing down in the ocean and waiting for the flippin' navy to rescue you.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  11. 18 Million by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 3, Funny

    So it's made out of a special carbon fiber called Papier-mâché.

  12. /. response is the more interesting item here by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When /. first started, this article would have had 100-300 responses. The same is true of any OS type article. Yet, now it is non-intellectual articles such as facebook, pot, and job's statements, that garner the big discussions. It looks like the techs have left the building.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  13. Re:If by "show off" you mean "a couple of painting by camperdave · · Score: 2, Insightful

    for a horizontal landing on a runway, you need wings

    True, but there's no reason they can't be packed away until needed.

    the space shuttle orbiter is 68 freakin tonnes empty, and 78 tonnes with the engines installed, and a extra 24 tonnes for actual payload

    All of which means diddly-squat. The space shuttle is not a crew capsule that sits atop a launch vehicle. The space shuttle *IS* the launch vehicle. As such, it is a completely different beast. Apart from the one characteristic of landing on a runway, it has almost nothing in common with an HL-42/X-38 style vehicle.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  14. Aerospace recycling project... by tiqui · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Looks like they just dusted-off one of the old ACRV (Assured Crew Return Vehicle) designs for ISS from the 1990s. IIRC, Boeing proposed a slightly larger Apollo capsule (they got the Apollo IP from their acquisition of North American) with new docking port and mini service module as an ISS lifeboat. What's cheaper than a little napkin engineering followed by some drawings and a powerpoint? why, re-using some napkin engineering, updating a powerpoint and doing a new CG version of a drawing, of course!

    move along

    nothing new to see here