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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.
More accurately, the "exciting" choice is the inexpensive choice, and inexpensive means more launches, or more money available for other programs.
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...
As an astronaut, I wonder which would appeal to me more? The "Exciting Choice" or the "Safe Choice?"
Depends... is your surname "Kerman" ?
=Smidge=
"There is no purpose to manned spaceflight. The scientific return comes from unmanned spaceflight."
You are currently modded +4 Insightful for having claimed, essentially, that the HST repair and upgrade missions could have all been done by unmanned systems. I have points, I could have modded you as you deserve. I could just ask for a citation - you're making an extraordinary claim there and you really do deserve to have to back it up or retract it. Instead, I'm taking a couple of months vacation from Slashdot - there's too many like you around - the signal to noise ratio keeps dropping towards an absolute zero, and I join all the 3 digit old farts in saying "This site just ain't what it used to be!" .
Who is John Cabal?
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.
Also, SpaceX is trying to commercialise their systems. Boeing has no interest in anything except the NASA contract. That means that, if Bigelow achieves their goal, SpaceX will not only be flying to ISS, but also to private Bigelow stations. That's a secondary career for astronauts, and an alternative career path for NASA's astronaut-candidates who didn't make the cut.
And for that reason, there's nothing "safe" about choosing Boeing's capsule. That's just spin from Boeing's own PR pukes lobbying for funding. Boeing is the furthest behind of the three main participants. It is the most expensive. It will have the least flight time. It will have no upgrade path, and every development will need to be funded entirely by NASA, at increasing costs as it mutates back into a cost-plus program. Boeing has put it none of its own funding into the project, unlike every other participant, and has been lobbying behind the scenes to remove the current Commercial Crew NASA team and replace them with a traditional NASA cost-plus management structure.
Boeing is poison for Commercial Crew, a cuckoo in the nest. The sooner they are excluded from the program, the better.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
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.
How about the tested choice. Space X has a built capsule, whose first version has returned from the space station several times. They are quite close to flying...they just need to test the launch abort system and the capsule will be almost ready to fly. From what I understand, Boeing hasn't built a capsule yet. They only have a paper/electronic design and a few "mock ups". Given the capsules are supposed to fly in 2016, I think the capsule that has actually been tested is the "safe choice". The article seems to me to be Boeing propaganda.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)