Slashdot Mirror
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.
Please, while out-and-out corruption is a theoretically plausible explanation, the GAO does audit the finances of major (unelected) decision makers sometimes. If there's a legal alternative, it's more plausible, on the simple grounds that it's easier to fly under the radar.
Think more along the lines of "specifically targeting various regulatory requirements NASA has for contractors" or "having lots of ex-Boeing employees working in low engineering review roles" if you're going the route of believing there's manipulation. It's cheaper for them and its legal.
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
The new powered landing Dragon is a "high risk" design. The Dreamchaser is also a "high risk" design plus you have all the "Shuttle was flawed" group that wants nothing to do with wings in space.
Boeing vs SpaceX? without doing all the number crunching it is hard to make an educated judgment.
As to the Politics SpaceX is in Ca, Tx, and FL. Boeing in in Ca, Tx, Fl, Washington, and Ks but the killer is that there headquarters is in... Chicago.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"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.
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."
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.