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NASA's Manned Rocket Contract: $4.2 Billion To Boeing, $2.6 Billion To SpaceX
schwit1 writes NASA has chosen two companies to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, and those companies are Boeing and SpaceX. This decision confirms that SpaceX is ready to go and gives the company the opportunity to finish the job, while also giving Boeing the chance to show that it can still compete. After NASA has certified that each company has successfully built its spacecraft, SpaceX and Boeing will each fly two to six missions. The certification process will be step-by-step, similar to the methods used in the cargo contracts, and will involve five milestones. The contracts will be paid incrementally as they meet these milestones. One milestone will be a manned flight to the ISS, with one NASA astronaut on board. Boeing will receive $4.2 billion, while SpaceX will get $2.6 billion. These awards were based on what the companies proposed and requested.
...but people are still dying of starvation and lack of water on THIS planet. =\
I know space exploration is very important, but shit, let's get real here. I feel guilty driving a newer model Honda Civic knowing that if I bought something cheaper I could maybe feed someone less fortunate.
It was clarified later that both companies would fly six missions each (not counting the test mission).
I don't know if the director misspoke or was misunderstood, but she said later in the conference call they have the same requirements for the number of missions.
SpaceX will make $2.6 Billion do way cooler stuff than $4.2 Billion to Boeing. SpaceX is a young, hungry company that is on the forefront of multiple industries. Boeing, while still a great company, is older an no doubt bogged down in more levels of bureaucracy.
Boeing - Giant Company - $4.2B for a space vehicle that is still in design.
SpaceX - Space Startup - $2.6B for a space vehicle that works and has been flying missions for two years.
Spend your money more wisely.
Not Boeing alone, and not SpaceX alone. This is the best possible outcome for NASA, not reliant on a single supplier like before.
The fact that to deliver the same development and certification process costs $1.6 billion less for SpaceX over Boeing is also interesting. Some are already saying that it is a bigger win for Boeing and that SpaceX is a backup plan, but since the amounts are what the two companies bid on the project, it shows how economical SpaceX believes they can be.
And that there are two companies still competing should reduce the risk of deliberate cost-overruns and delays. If one can get to full certification a year or more ahead of the other, it will be a huge blow to the second-place finisher's chances to win the final operational contract.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
This is a reasonable move, I'm not sure that Boeing deserves more cash than SpaceX though. I'm also bummed for Sierra Nevada, the Dreamchaser is awesome. To be fair, there have been rumors of troubles with their hybrid engine recently. Hopefully the ESA will pick them up for some flights.
What does it take to kill the manned space programs? Dead guys on Mars? All of the good space science has come from unmanned programs, which are starved of funding to pay for deadly joyrides. Billions are being misspent to promote the space travel fantasies of children.
Does it mean that SpaceX was stupid not asking for 1 billion more ?
I did not think SpaceX even with its excellent track record would have convinced the bureaucrats to give them a solid chance instead of just give everything to Boeing as usual. And actually $2.6b is to SpaceX probably more than what $4.2b is to Boeing. And it might actually force Boeing to actually develop their solution efficiently for once, since I doubt they can count on huge cost overruns if the competing contract is on time & on budget.
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Why the fuck does Boeing get $1.6 Billion extra for the same job?
Congratulations to Boeing. Obama couldn't resist giving more money to his crony Elon Musk who specializes in ripping off the taxpayer.
an ill wind that blows no good
Create humanoid robot that is compatible with oculus rift and develop ultra long range communications. Explore the universe with no loss of human life.
After watching the Commercial Crew presser this afternoon, I was surprised at how lame the NASA people came off.
NASA director Charlie Bolden simply read verbatim from an email he sent earlier to NASA employees. He spent most of his time aggrandizing the Orion space capsule (Apollo-derived) and its launch vehicle SLS (space shuttle-derived) without devoting much time at all to the commercial crew effort.
Commercial Crew manager Kathy Leuders came off like an old Bob-and-Ray skit where she was armed with only three bits of information and that was all you're going to get out of her. Somebody asked her about the Boeing reliance on Russian rocket engines and her answer was not exactly convincing.
There was an astronaut there who waxed poetic about seeing the Milky Way from the space station. One other NASA guy had nothing significant to add.
Bottom line? Each company (Boeing and SpaceX) bid what they thought the job was worth; NASA awarded them what they asked for. Boeing got nearly twice the funding for a conservative, unimaginative Apollo capsule with a Russian-based launch vehicle. Most of the newsmen asking questions were suspicious about this, as am I.
Wow - Java Computer game licensing ... 2.5 billion, the future of America's space dreams ... 2.6 billion.
"the future of America's space dreams" is a little bit of an exaggeration. They bought 6 launches. In some ways, I'm thinking this price tag justifies paying almost as much for Mojang.
"Boeing was the only competitor to complete all of NASA’s design milestones on time." ... That sounds like what you call "bogged down in more levels of beureaucracy" really means "took a more mature, disciplined approach" and won about double the potential profit. (Fee is a percentage of contract award).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Somewhere, the Boeing sales team is getting chewed out because SpaceX ate $2.6 billion dollars of their lunch. Or maybe they count it as $4.2 billion worth? I wonder...
Home depot sells rockets? I must have missed that aisle....
There is an industry expression for this - "Monkey with a lighter", in that SpaceX is the monkey holding a flame under the incumbent's ass to get them motivated to perform.
But can someone please build a real space ship.
nt
What value do you place on inspiring a generation of kids as they play in a lego-like sandbox?
Boeing has no experience in manned spaceflight. Period.
McDonnell built Mercury and Gemini Spacecraft.
North American Aviation built the Apollo Command and Service modules, Grumman built the Apollo Lunar Module
North American Rockwell (a merger of NAA and Rockwell) built the space shuttle (much of the original groundwork was laid by a Grumman study)
Yes, Boeing eventually bought McDonnell, and then the "North American" division from Rockwell, but the old teams of guys who did those earlier programs decades ago are long gone. Saying that today's Boeing has experience devloping manned spacecraft is like claiming the Electric Boat division has experience in building "tall ships"
It's not even clear to me that having those old teams would be the right criteria - sometimes it's a good thing to have a new young team design using the new techniques and materials... they key is to have the young teams prove they have learned the proper lessons from the earlier efforts; we do not want the old guys who invented the "horseless carriage" designing our cars in 2014 - but we want the 2014 teams to remember that turn signals and parking breaks are a good idea.
Boeing was an appalling political choice. This SHOULD have been SpaceX and Sierra Nevada who both were doing innovation and "commercial" spaceflight - Boeing had already announced they would cancel their project if they could not live off the money from the government teet (they had no actual "commercial" business case).
Welp, they sure split that baby.
(No seriously. Remember, the point of Solomon's judgement was to use a decision that's bad for both sides to determine who the real winner should be in the end. Same here. I'm betting we'll see Boeing whine, delay, and run over budget while SpaceX gets down and builds some rockets, but either way, in a few years we'll see who the manned spacecraft baby really belongs to.)
Seriously. Did you know someone has made a working CPU. FFS it is HUGE.
According to a National Academy of Science Review, NASA and its current contractors will not be able to field a manned space mission to the Moon or Mars for another 50 plus years.
Why?
The persons how will be the astronauts for such a mission have not been born !
Moreover, the educational, science and technology institutions needed to accomplish a Moon or Mars mission do not exits and will not exits for another 50 years!
So for NASA to GIVE AWAY +4 billion U.S. Dollars is the height of the pinnacle of buffoonery !
Boing and Space X are destined to FAIL ! Failure is in their Genes ! and for another 30 years at least so no investment is the best investment.
Ha ha
I'm confused, What does this mean for SLS. Does this mean SLS goes away (if only we could be so lucky).
This is how KSP contracts should work, and not some silly "test the parachute while landed on the Mun"!
You are assuming that $5B will result in improvements.
Remember VentureStar? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VentureStar
Where are the improvements from that boon-dongle?
The real brainwashed dopes are the Libertarians and Republicans suckers. I know, I used to be part of that group--then I grew up.
It's for all those foul-mouthed homeless people that curse at you when you walk by...
SpaceX has promise, but Boeing has shown it can deliver.
...eventually, and only after the requisite pork has been spread across a multitude of states and subcontractors to keep the requisite congress-critters happy. :(
Not to knock Boeing's technical prowess, but damn - they do know how to play the game (which explains why they're getting a piece of the contract most likely...)
As a very apt comparison, go back to the days when the F-16 first came out: relatively cheap, by some upstart company (General Dynamics), a revolutionary design, the first 9-G capable fighter, and was an all-around workhorse that could do (within reason) damned near anything you demanded of it. It's still in production today (albeit as a division of Lockheed-Martin), with a design that stands to be around for decades to come. Compare and contrast this with, oh, the F-35/6/whatever that's been nothing but a massive money-sink to date.
Did you just called GD an "upstart" (relative to the time the F-16 was built)? #youarenuts
GD is a century old tech mega-ass conglomerate (think GE of defense) that builds from armored vehicles to fighters to satellites to naval warships to communication systems to artillery, you name it, with branches all over the world.
If GD was an upstart at the time the F16 was being build, I'm batman!
You can't unwind the tentacles of the military-industrial complex all at once. You also can't ignore SpaceX and how well they have been doing.
This award is simply acknowledging reality. Boeing has to get some pork to keep the lobbyists happy, SpaceX has to get some money to keep them in the running. It will be a slow shift over time as SpaceX continues to deliver for less money.
SpaceX is playing the game... why do you think they are opening a spaceport in Texas? Gotta spread those jobs around to keep Congress happy.
The funny thing is, you can play that government game and get rich while still delivering an excellent product (SpaceX). It takes several generations of bloated military contracts to teach people to stop working so hard (e.g. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc).
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
This shouldn't be couched in terms of who wins, Boeing or SpaceX.
This is a big win not only for both companies, but for space in general. Also, remember that there are several thousand people working on this now.
Not like it was in the 1960-1970's but at least something.
Liken it to cars say back in the 1910's, lets say there were only two companies: Ford and Chevrolet
What would be better that both Ford and Chevy were winners? Or just Ford, for instance.
BOTH is the answer. Great success to both Boeing and SpaceX!
This is what the Government IMHO, SHOULD be doing. Not just giving money away on welfare (not that there isn't some of that necessary). But making training available to everyone who wants it, and funding research efforts, and making jobs and jumpstarting new industries to put those people to work. Help fund BOTH companies, let them hire people, and lets get going on making the economy better for it.
What was that expression?? oh yeah, "It isn't rocket science" which is used to convey that everything is relatively easy compared to rocket science.
It's not an iPhone... even the iPhone is an example of the pinnacle of human manufacturing (note the use of "an" not "the.) A mass produced wireless super computer that fits in a pocket and understands the spoken word better than a congressman.
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Boeing had already announced they would cancel their project if they could not live off the money from the government teet (they had no actual "commercial" business case).
I agree with this statement in spite of it not being entirely accurate. Boeing's business case relied on Bigelow being a customer. If you look at Bigelow's web site you will see that the CST-100 is $10M more per seat than the Dragon. So they kind of do have commercial business, but not really.
Another nice name for one of the ships FYP (of course, Fuck You Putin)
-- 29A the number of the Beast