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SpaceX and Boeing Battle For US Manned Spaceflight Contracts
An anonymous reader writes: $3 billion in funding is on the line as private space companies duke it out for contracts to end U.S. reliance on Russian rockets for manned spaceflight. The two biggest contenders are SpaceX and Boeing, described as "the exciting choice" and "the safe choice," respectively. "NASA is charting a new direction 45 years after sending humans to the Moon, looking to private industry for missions near Earth, such as commuting to and from the space station. Commercial operators would develop space tourism while the space agency focuses on distant trips to Mars or asteroids." It's possible the contracts would be split, giving some tasks to each company. It's also possible that the much smaller Sierra Nevada Corp. could grab a bit of government funding as well for launches using its unique winged-shuttle design.
Contracts this big never go to just one company. They'll both get a slice of the pie - the only question is who gets the bigger slice.
As an astronaut, I wonder which would appeal to me more? The "Exciting Choice" or the "Safe Choice?" On one hand, I'll be strapped to it as it launches it (and me) into space. On the other hand...I'm an astronaut! My choice of car is probably NOT a fucking Volvo.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Does SpaceX got the same load of cash as Boeing to "pursuade" the authorities? At least that's how congress works currently.
Fixed that for you
While commercial corporations interested in launching their product into space may go with the best price/performance ratio, the chances of a USG contract even being written in a vendor-agnostic manner are slim. It's all about whose district or state the potential money will go.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
This will depend on how much each company is willing to fund individual congressmen.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
What is the purpose of these manned "spaceflights"? They seem to be nothing more than habit at this point. Sending people to LEO seems like an extravagant waste and is nothing more than a symbolic gesture.
We've only manged to send 12 people to the Moon and that was almost 50 years ago. So we can manage fine with no people in space.
So besides the symbolic worth, and the corporate welfare, what's the point?
Can Americans use terms unrelated to war and violence?
But oh, watch out! A nipple!
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now I can't get this image out of my head http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...
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SpaceX closed 9 deals, w/possible 2-3 heavies. Four more in the next few weeks, incl one non-GEO, then maybe 4 more before end of the year.
Source: https://twitter.com/AvWeekPari...
I'd like to see both awarded a minimum number of flights (say 1/4 or 1/3 of total planned) at a fixed maximum price, and the price of all additional flights negotiated down from that maximum price, relatively close to the date when the hardware has to be built - say a year before flight. This would also leave an opening for other competitors to come in later. It would probably be beneficial to allocate in lots of, say, three or four up to 10 at a time. I would also require all vendors / vehicles to use the same interfaces - mount points, power, fluid, and data connections, etc. so any vehicle could be swapped out for any other on short notice. Of course, some vehicles are going to have to have special equipment, but that could also be handled using a modular system.
The net result of this would be a continuing reduction in the design, manufacturing, and launch costs, as more components become commoditized to fit all vehicles - all vehicle vendors will benefit. Soon any launch vehicle could be used to launch any 'standard' vehicle. The result of this would be an increase in the economic feasibility of space launches for both NASA and others private and public, making the market larger. Outcome: boom in space development. Boeing and SpaceX would both benefit from this approach in the long term, and possibly others as well. The key to economic space development is just this kind of commoditization, repeatability and increased reliability that long production runs with continuing improvements can provide.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
If Boeing gets a full contract we'll probably get to watch US manned spaceflight end in my generation. Boeing won't do anything worthwhile, they'll burn taxpayer money at an unsustainable rate to launch a handful of astronauts a year, claim every few years they need more and eventually the program will fold under its own weight the same way SLS will once they launch a few of them and claim victory. If SpaceX gets it we may have a few incidents (launch aborts, failure to reach orbit, maybe some fatalities), but I'd wager that they'll advance space travel at an amazing pace with an exponential increase in astronauts, decreasing launch costs and payloads into orbit.
What are the "extensions" the article points out as giving Boeing a lead in the competition? I wasn't aware that Boeing was any further along then SpaceX in regards to CCDev except in the number of lobbyists they have beating on congressional doors & PR time they're paying for in the press.
You are describing how either Boeing or Space-X would get sub-contractors to compete so they can get good quality components for a decent price. If you take the creativity out of the current bid phase, you'll never get innovation and "new" designs going up in to the sky. Oh and don't forget, it just may be that whoever wins this, might have to comission things from the losing party just to fullfill the contract.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Hey Bozo: Check out this Boeing Bad Boy.
It's everything the Shuttle should have been (second time's a charm). They know how to build things.
So does SpaceX. Unfortunately, the winner will likely be the one with the most political clout (YoYoDyne), but engineering wise, they both are good designs and both companies can execute.
The best we can hope for is that SpaceX gets enough tossed at them to keep going.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It's everything the Shuttle should have been (second time's a charm).
Completely unable to perform a launch escape, you mean? The shuttle did that, already.
Yeah, people's lives are on the line here. You've got to go with the company who's got a proven track record in safely launching a modern human-capable spacecraft.
http://www.spacex.com/dragon
Wait, which is the exciting choice then?
It's peculiar that TFA labels the Boeing design the 'safe choice' when it hasn't flown yet, despite $0.5B of investment from NASA. And the Atlas V launch vehicle may have flown a lot of missions, but it isn't man-rated yet.
The SpaceX Dragon has flown several times, and has spent months in orbit docked to the ISS. Now I realize the manned Dragon has many new systems, but it seems to me SpaceX is a lot closer to a man-rated capsule than Boeing.
how so?
a version without a fairing ala Buren could Jettison itself off the stack and fly off in the even of stack failure. Same with dragon.
Its not hard to do a launch abort when you aren't strapped to the side of the vehicle.
I realize there are a finite number of contracts that NASA can award, but why not have multiple companies with man-rated rocket capabilities? Perhaps that would lead to opening up the manned spaceflight market outside of the public sector, much like how several companies make commercial aircraft.
Maybe Congress will wise up and support the endeavor instead of trying to thwart it. We can dream I guess.
From the article:
“Boeing is the safe choice, SpaceX is the exciting choice and Sierra Nevada the interesting choice,” Loren Thompson, an analyst with Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Virginia-based research group, said in a phone interview.
Loren Thompson, as the COO of the Lexington group has a notorious history of "advocacy" for big air force contractors according to this article from Harpers Magazine. The title of the article is "Mad Men: Introducing the defense industry's pay-to-play ad agency". Here is a quote from the article:
Lexington claims to "shape the public debate" on a wide array of policies (including "the unnecessary intrusion of the federal government into the commerce and culture of the nation"), but its priority is clearly defense. "By promoting America's ability to project power around the globe", reads its mission statement, "we not only defend the homeland of democracy, but also sustain the international stability in which other free-market democracies can thrive", Lexington does not publicly disclose its donors, but much of its funding - about $2.5 million in 2008 - comes from defense giants, including at least three whose prospects are evaluated in this brief. Lexington's free-market pabulum, then, is underwritten by an industry that is beholden to government planning, direction, and money, and that operates entirely outside the constraints of supply and demand.
Loren Thompson, Lexington's chief operating officer and the author of this report, played a supporting role in a 2003 scandal involving Boeing's attempt to secure a lease-to-buy agreement with the Air Force for one hundred aerial-refueling tankers. The contract - which at $24 billion would have cost the Air Force significantly more than simply buying a new fleet outright - was canceled when Senator John McCain discovered that an Air Force procurement official had fixed the deal for Boeing while negotiating a job for herself with the company. McCain also unearthed emails showing that the Air Force had used Thompson to help sell the deal to the press. As a senior aide to Air Force Secretary James Roche put it in one of the messages: "We've got Loren doing the Lord's work again. '3rd Party' support at its best."
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Uh, yeah.
So, now:
1. You need to redesign it to not need a fairing to protect it during launch.
2. Provide an abort motor which can launch it at several gs away from the exploding booster.
3. Build wings strong enough that they won't be torn off when you're boosting away from an exploding booster at Max Q, said booster probably no longer pointing 'into the wind'.
4. Design your launch trajectory so you can now turn around and return to a runway somewhere.
Which will be simple, right?
Hint: you might want to look at the excitement the X-20 guys went through trying to make it abortable.
Given that each vendor negotiated its own unique benchmarks with NASA, and Boeing's benchmarks were so simple they required no actual hardware to be built, it's a no-brainer that they finished their becnhmarks before the other vendors who acyually had to build and fly stuff... It's funny when multiple "news" sites put out essentially the same stuff on the same day promoting a company who has cleared all their hurdles at just the moment in time when this highly manipulated talking point is briefly valid. (the other guys will soon hit their final benchmarks which are far more technically valid and difficult)
Boeing is the ONE vendor who absolutely should NOT be selected; First, because they offer nothing unique (just an Apollo-shaped capsule, like the Orion Lockmart is building for NASA already, but without many of the capabilities of Orion) at a time when two other companies are offering capsules (SpaceX and Blue Origin) both of which have innovations Boeing's CST-100 lacks (SpaceX pioneering a future propulsive landing after initial parachute mode capability, and Blue Origin exploring the Bi-Conic capsule architecture). Second, Boeing is only planning to proceed if they win the government contract... in other words: they are NOT advancing "commercial spaceflight". This whole push to have NASA launch astronauts on "commercial" crew vehicles is not just intended to lower NASA costs through competition, but it's also supposed to help kick-start commercial spaceflight (NOT be just another crony-capitalist play).
Boeing has built a showroom mockup of their capsule, and have said the jobs associated with their capsule hinge upon NASA contract money.
SpaceX has flown the cargo version of their capsule to the ISS and back already multiple times (the only vendor with a current proven capability) and appears to be already building flight hardware for the manned version; they will be flying pad abort and altitude abort tests this winter. They plan to proceed with or without NASA money, meaning they are actually commercial rather than pure-government dependent.
Sierra Nevada has built an atmospheric test vehicle and flown it on an approach and landing test at Edwards; The flight was successful, proving the aerodynamics and controls but the landing gear, recycled from a fighter for this non-space test version, failed (not an issue for the actual space version). Sierra Nevada has repaired the test vehicle (which survived its gear failure incident remarkably well) and will be flying additional tests this fall (including manned flights). They have already bought the rocket to launch their first orbital vehicle in 2016 and have begun assembly of that actual space-capable vehicle. They have been in talks with the Japanese and the Europeans and have a business model to allow them to proceed with or without a NASA contract, making them fully-commercial.
Blue Origin already flew an abort test. They're pretty secretive about the rest... but then they have that right since they are running purely on Jeff Bezos' money rather than the taxpayer's dime. Blue Origin's business model is absolutely commercial - they have never depended on NASA (taxpayer) money.
There's "the safe choice" and the "boinked by every salor since Pearl Harbor, and used every lobbying agency since soft money was invented" choice.
Guess who *I'd* want to deliver food anywhere.....
I feel like Sierra Nevada, and Orbital Science never get enough coverage on these things. I mean... I get why Blue Origin doesn't, but having worked with Dream Chaser, and watching Antares launch successfully I think they are both significant contenders.
Can someone please explain to me why Boeing should get a cost plus contract for a redo of the Apollo program. The capsule shape was already specified just upsized 25%. We've already been to the moon, so all the UNK UNKs are known. The launch vehicle is just a redo of the shuttle system with minor mods. Every mission listed is just a longer version of what has already been done. With the exception of radiation shielding for the Mars trip, it's just a lot longer version of Apollo. Seems like another gang bang of the American people.