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WSJ Reports Boeing To Beat SpaceX For Manned Taxi To ISS
PvtVoid writes The Wall Street Journal reports (paywalled) that NASA is poised to award a key contract for manned transport to the International Space Station to Boeing over rival SpaceX: "Recent signals from the Obama administration, according to the officials, indicate that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's leadership has concluded on a preliminary basis that Boeing's proposed capsule offers the least risky option, as well as the one most likely to be ready to transport U.S. crews to the international space station within three years. The officials cautioned that a last-minute shift by NASA chief Charles Bolden, who must vet the decision, could change the result of the closely watched competition." Here is a non-paywalled link to an article at CNET.
"Long-time government contractor with a history of blowing budgets and under-delivering gets new"
???
Long-time government contractor with a history of delivering working system.
B-B2, E-3, KC,RC,C-135, P-8, and on and on.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
We just had a big article about some key congressmen trying to block and sabotage SpaceX's development process. SpaceX is a young and aggressive company with clear drive and motivation to succeed. While they might have been a risky bet because they were new, they would have backed their development record.
Remember this:
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
These three tools of Boeing are using congress to hold back our space exploration. We need competition between these companies and giving SpaceX a chance to shine will make Boeing stop screwing over the U.S.
Anyone in Colorado and Alabama care to remove these idiots from office?
Place something witty here
It is far more likely that this is the aerospace analog to "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."
Long-time government contractor with a history of blowing budgets and under-delivering gets new, lucrative NASA contract. Newsflash: SpaceX was never going to get that contract.
You mean like Boeing bid for the KC-X deal, lost to EADS/Northrop-Grumman, then successfully lobbied for a restart of the bidding process and submitted a bid that secured them the contract leading to EADS deciding not to pursue the deal any further because they thought Boeing's winning bid was so low that Boeing would probably lose money on it? But fret not, I'm sure Uncle Sam will see to it that any losses suffered by Boeing will be made good through some form of kickback and I'm sure that John and Jane Q, Taxpayer will be only too happy to foot the bill. What is interesting about this story is that even US companies are now suffering the same fate as EADS did and falling victim to the Boeing lobby. I sincerely hope that Space X humiliates Boeing and their Washington cronies by somehow outdoing them in cost effectiveness with their private ventures. If there is any single player in the US Aerospace industry that seriously needs to be taught a lesson it's Boeing.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
When you get a government contract, you get government accountability requirements, especially with the high visibility contracts. I'm not kidding when I say the accountability requirements are often more than the technical requirements, and I wonder if SpaceX would be able to shift their business model to handling them. The second source contract may be perfect so they can use it as bridge money before they start doing private space flights.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
Fine, allege whatever you want. But if you want people to believe you, you're going to have to submit some kind of evidence of your claims.
SpaceX is a young and aggressive company with clear drive and motivation to succeed.
Dive and motivation are necessary but not sufficient. Having those attributes doesn't mean they have a good product or the product with the best price/performance ratio. I have no idea of the relative merits of either company regarding this project but just because SpaceX is the new hotness doesn't mean anything. While I have no affiliation I've actually done some work at Boeing (many years ago) so I have at least a basic understanding of how that company works and what their culture is like. (FYI the part of Boeing I dealt with has a combative work culture I didn't enjoy at all) I'm confident they could offer a technologically competitive product. (economically competitive is less certain) Boeing has been sending up rockets for a long time so they are hardly new to the game.
While they might have been a risky bet because they were new, they would have backed their development record.
Boeing has a much much longer development record. Of course that might also work against Boeing but SpaceX does not have a long track record to go on. I'm as impressed with SpaceX as many others here but if they want to play with the big boys it isn't going to be easy and yes they are high(er) risk in certain ways. This means they need to be clearly better (economically and/or technologically) or they stand a good chance of losing to the "safe bet".
We need competition between these companies and giving SpaceX a chance to shine will make Boeing stop screwing over the U.S.
Umm, this IS the competition between these companies. This one bidding competition isn't the end-all-be-all regardless of which firm wins this contract. Plus you haven't exactly proven the assertion that Boeing is actually engaging in corrupt practices here. While I certainly wouldn't be shocked to hear that they were, that isn't anything close to proof. Absent evidence saying that SpaceX should get the contract because you suspect Boeing (without proof) of corruption is not a strong argument in favor of SpaceX.
Boeing paid off Andy Pasztor to write this hit piece. Basically it is being done, I would guess, to push up stock prices so somebody else can make a bunch of money shorting the stock afterward or something silly like that. This "reporter" has rarely been right and deserves to be embarrassed if everything he says fails to happen.
BTW, I agree with you in regards to Dreamchaser. It is a good enough vehicle that the ESA is even looking at using it, and Sierra Nevada is already on record saying they will continue the development of this vehicle even without additional development money from NASA. Indeed the only company that has said they will stop any further development if their vehicle isn't selected is Boeing.