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Sierra Nevada Corp. Files Legal Challenge Against NASA Commercial Contracts
New submitter Raymondware sends an update to last week's news that NASA had awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX to provide rockets for future manned spaceflight. Now, one of their competitors, Sierra Nevada Corp, has announced it will launch a legal challenge to the contracts. The company claims the government is spending $900 million more than it needs to for equivalent fulfillment, and they're demanding a review. They add,
Importantly, the official NASA solicitation for the CCtCap contract prioritized price as the primary evaluation criteria for the proposals, setting it equal to the combined value of the other two primary evaluation criteria: mission suitability and past performance. SNC’s Dream Chaser proposal was the second lowest priced proposal in the CCtCap competition. SNC’s proposal also achieved mission suitability scores comparable to the other two proposals. In fact, out of a possible 1,000 total points, the highest ranked and lowest ranked offerors were separated by a minor amount of total points and other factors were equally comparable.
Leaving out Boeing would be budget suicide for NASA.
No one should be left out because there should be no contract. Instead, NASA should be fostering a spot market for launches. They should have a separate bid for each launch: "We want X satellite in Y orbit, and insured for Z dollars." Then give the launch to the lowest bidder. That way each company can work continuously to cut costs and improve services, knowing that if they leapfrog the competition, they can win the next launch, instead of being locked out for years.
right!! the country of India just proved how they can get the job done, with a satellite that cost less then some moronic movie, and it turned out to be a success.
I'm not yelling at you, but the entire NASA program is a waste of money and time. How one nation can do what NASA does with a cheap but effective solution.
NASA gives out contracts to companies that are infective and expensive, compared to companies that are cheaper but still get the job done. Boeing is a laughing joke to begin with cutting ties with them would save the government billions. Thats the problem with this country, lets not look at another and say WOW, lets just flush time and money down a toilet to pretend we are great.
NASA didn't really have any other choice. They couldn't give the entire contract to Boeing without risking falling into the same defense contractor cost plus revolving door situation that has held back our space program for decades. They couldn't give the entire contract to SpaceX without causing an uproar in the "space belt" congressmen/women that could possibly scuttle the entire CCtCap/CCDev/CCDev2 program (which they've been trying to do anyway). So they took a middle of the road approach, with both SpaceX and Boeing providing launch services they keep enough political support to keep the program afloat but down the road having the two compared side by side either encourages Boeing to keep its prices reasonable to stay in the game or gives NASA the evidence to say "hey, we've got two proven launch systems and one is costing us a whole lot more than the other, why are we still using them" in a public congressional budget hearing. SNC just had the position of being the lesser of the two second chair choices, not saying its right but that's politics unfortunately.
Maybe, probably not. All of the problems with the shuttle were not due to it being a spaceplane per se, but due to it being a sideways stack rather than a vertical one. Dream Chaser is designed instead to be on top of a rocket, either an Atlas V or Falcon 9.
Challenger failed because the failed o-ring between the segments of an SRB caused a jet of flame that impinged on the external tank. Falcon 9 doesn't use any SRBs. Atlas V doesn't use multi-segment shuttle style SRBs, and may not use SRBs at all for manned launches. Either way, that particular failure mode would be the fault of the booster and not the vehicle. In addition, by being on the top of the stack, if there is any sort of catastrophic failure of the booster, the vehicle is equipped with a launch escape system that was impossible on the shuttle.
The Columbia accident, as well as countless near-misses that could have resulted in a Columbia style accident, was due to debris detaching from the external tank and striking the orbiter. If the vehicle is on top of the stack, nothing that breaks off of the rocket can physically come into contact with the vehicle.
Therefore Dream Chaser isn't vulnerable to either of the causes of loss of a shuttle orbiter, and being a spaceplane has nothing to do with it.
I don't think low-bidding should ever be a consideration. That's how Thiokol got in to the STS and boardroom creep killed Challenger. The bottom line overrode safety considerations - the engineers said "You launch, the vehicle will explode", the board disagreed. They wanted to save however many thousands of Dollars on yet another launch hold and just fucking light that thing off. The ultimate price in human life was collected.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel