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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.
I guess Boeing is to big to fail...
Why don't they just have the space station sound stage on earth, like the moon one, why do they need to fake being in space in orbit?
Boeing paid off the right people.
SpaceX aside, Sierra Nevada's Dreamchaser was a better design all around. Essentially the X-20 DynaSoar, it's cheaper, re-usable, and fits the mission. The only advantages for the Capsule design of Boeing and SpaceX is that the mission can be expanded with the same hardware for Moon/Mars missions, and that said, I think SpaceX had the better design -- this contract going to Boeing is a mistake all-around.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
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.
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Lowest bidder??
Last time I looked, Boeing was the highest bidder of the various bidders.
Also the one farthest behind in the design process, since Boeing doesn't do development work until they have a contract signed, while SpaceX has been working on Dragon on its own dime.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
this is smart, at least with respect to space-X. Musk will man rate
his rocket with or without NASA money, so it's a win-win for
NASA
Well, on one hand they have some small company praised by unorganized groups of geeks, and on the other hand - really big player with thousands of employees and way more people directly or indirectly depending on them - Military-Industrial Complex is not a child's toy. So if you are making a political decision (even not considering "campaign contributions"), it's a no-brainer - supporting Boeing gives you much more political bonus points than supporting some small hipster company. Questions of efficiency, final costs, terms and other "technicalities" are absolutely not important in this case. So, of course, it is sad, but highly logical.
Absence of proof != proof of absence.
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
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."
A little of both.
Boeing doesn't do development work without a contract. So, when they got a contract to start development of their capsule, they started.
And then they stopped working on it as soon as the contract ran out. They're waiting on a new contract to resume work.
The only way their thing is going to be flying within a year is if you define flying as "unmanned test launch" (note that Dragon has been doing "unmanned test launches to the ISS for a while now in the form of its CRS flights. Another of which is due this week, as I recall.).
It's quite possible they'll have a usable capsule in three years. It's not the way to bet, but it's possible....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Nope, none of those make sense. What is most likely is that Boeing read the RFP in detail (they have a team that is very good at that) and created a proposal that is tailored exactly to meet the RFP word for word, detail for detail, nothing else, at all. That's very different than Sierra Nevada's approach, which is to continue their dreamrider,or Musk's PR-centric approach to everything. Therefore, when NASA followed federal law, the Boeing proposal won because it was the only one that most closely complied with the RFP. If the NASA administrator than dismisses the conclusion of the review team (which is legal), Boeing will have a legal basis to contest and drag this out until the funding expires.
But the RFP was rigged for Boeing, you'll say ... and you'll be wrong. The RFP process is very hard to covertly rig for big projects. Had the RFP said "powered landing" or "lifting body" then it would have been blatantly rigged. However, this is a requirements driven RFP --- tons to orbit, man-rated, etc. That allowed the conservative capsule design to compete with the advanced designs. Boeing also has the business practices in place (as does SNC, but not SpaceX) to comply with the government's exquisitely complex acquisition law. That gives them an advantage in the program management part of the competition ... we demand that they use our flawed program management process.
As for the argument that Boeing's project will be over-budget ... absolutely. The contract will be a small modification of the Boeing proposal, which flows directly from the RFP. Then, the good people at NASA will realize that they fucked up this and that in the RFP, because Boeing is delivering what the contract states, instead of what NASA wants. So, they'll go to amend the contract, and in those negotiations, the price will go up. Boeing's rate will already be set in the base contract, it's just that the additional scope, plus the cost of rolling back work to re-accomplish it will be significant, since all design changes drive a significant review. Then we'll blame Boeing for the overrun even though they're doing exactly what we asked them to do.
Lose-lose. Fix (not patch) the acquisition law, or we'll keep losing the same way.