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NASA Asks Boeing, SpaceX To Stop Work On Next-Gen Space Taxi
BarbaraHudson writes Due to a challenge by Sierra Nevada, NASA has asked the winners for the next earth-to-orbit launch vehicles to halt work, at least temporarily. "After rewarding Boeing and SpaceX with the contracts to build the spacecrafts NASA is now asking the companies to stop their work on the project. The move comes after aerospace company Sierra Nevada filed a protest of the decision after losing out on the bid. Sierra Nevada was competing against Boeing and SpaceX for a share of the $6.8 billion CCP contracts. The contracts will cover all phases of development as well as testing and operational flights. Each contract will cover a minimum of two flights and a maximum of four, with each agency required to have one test flight with a NASA representative on board.... According to NASA's Public Affairs Office, this legal protest stops all work currently being done under these contracts. However, officials have not commented on whether-or-not the companies can continue working if they are using private funds."
I really doubt SpaceX is going to stop work on a vehicle they were developing before they were awarded the contract.
Boeing, on the other hand...
Filing a protest after someone else gets the contract is pretty much automatic.
Boeing and SpaceX will, of course, charge NASA for the Delay and Disruption costs caused by the stop work order, and the additional costs to resume work once the stop work order is lifted. This is an example of the stunts that the government pulls that drive up the cost of government contracts, and pushes the smart companies away from government work.
Sorry, but nobody wants your miniature space shuttle, Sierra Nevada. Probably should have thought a little harder before copying one of the most expensive and unreliable space systems used in recent times. Heat-shield > Everything. Now SpaceX/Boeing have to bite the bullet and stop work? Something very wrong with this way of doing things.
I'm so tired of the near automatic protests of gov't contracts. If the challenge is rejected, the loser should pay for the delays/cost overruns instead of taxpayers.
Sounds like a lottery system for publicly traded companies.
Seriously.
It pales to the damage caused by the paring of NASA's budget over the years...
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
...that in 100 years, historians will postulate that the US space program really vanished into the bureaucratic morass, and that politics and special interests combined to torpedo any hope that the private sector would ever make it into space.
-Styopa
If you read the article when sierra nevada submitted the lawsuit; they actually claimed they have never launched a legal dispute over the failure to win a contract in the ~60 years they have existed and bid for government contracts.
They are only suing because the "scoring" mechanism between everyone resulted in basically the same scores across the board, but boeing quoted 6 billion dollars, and Sierra Nevada quoted 5 billion dollars. (spacex quoted something like 3 or 4 billion?).
Not to mention price was listed as one of the strongest factors in the award.
(Not to say NASA basically can't NOT give the contract to Boeing, due to all the pork barrelling in their government they basically have to award it to boeing to appease senators and actually keep getting funded).
Attention ploy by Sierra Nevada.
They've never flown a spacecraft, so they will not be awarded any contract monies under any circumstances, given that one of the contract criteria was that they meet the prequalification deadlines, which they have not.
I expect they're hoping getting their names out there would get them additional investors.
Sierra Nevada's design was a riff on the Space Shuttle, which is just a terrible way to get to space and back. Yes, you have a reusable orbiter, but you add a crapload of launch weight. That means you can carry less. The goal of these current projects is to act as a space-taxi for passengers, not multi-week flights like the Shuttle. No one wants your design, people.
Next generation Space Taxi? Cool! I loved that game. Up, please!
If you read the article when Sierra Nevada submitted the lawsuit; they actually claimed they have never launched a legal dispute over the failure to win a contract ...
Look, Sierra Nevada brews beer, and a damn good swill it is. But they have never successfully designed and launched a spacecraft, and never will. This is a frivolous challenge. Listen an ice cold bottle of Sierra Nevada Stout sends me into orbit. But let them go back to their solar powered factory and keep on brewing great beer, and leave space travel to the professionals.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
While those half communist Government suckling pigs were frittering away your precious tax dollars, we are on our way to the promised land with private industries superior and more efficient offerings.
So now, we'll bring entire programs to their knees with good old fashioned American core values.
The invisible hand of the free market is jacking us off.
With 40 grit sandpaper.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So surely that means that they have to pay them at completion. Y'know... basic contract law.
They'd have to have a pretty crappy 'contract' to be able to ask their contractors to suddenly stop working it.
The USAF X-20 DynaSoar was a one-man winged space glider with metallic TPS; it had WINGS (like the shuttle)
The DreamChaser is an HL-20 derivative lifting body (no wings) which was loosely-derived from the unmanned Soviet BOR lifting body which the Soviets had loosely-derived from thier study of three families of earlier American lifting bodies: the HL-10, the M2 series, the X-24(A and B) and the USAF "PRIME"
There are so many differences between the Shuttle and the DreamChaser that anybody attacking the DC based on their ignorant pet theories about the shuttle program is simply an idiot; just a tiny subset of differences:
1. Shuttle was winged space plane, DC is lifing body
2. Shuttle rode on side of stack and was part of launch vehicle, DC rides on top of stack and is launch vehicle agnostic.
3. Shuttle had complex hydraulic controls, thus requiring hydrazine-fueled APUs during launch and entry phases, DC has none of this
4. Shuttle was the size of a small airliner, with huge cargo bay for heavy payloads, making it too heavy to have an abort system, DC has an abort system
5. Shuttle was so big and landed so fast that in required very large runways to safely land, DC can land at most airports
6. Shuttle was very fragile having been built at the cutting edge of 1970s tech, DC is rugged carbon composite and suffered little damage when it rolled on landing when the test vehicle's landing gear (old and borrowed from a fighter jet for that test flight) failed - a crew and cargo would have survived.
7. Shuttle ran on hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells (Apollo derived tech) thus limiting its on-orbit time to a few days, DC could stay on-orbit (unmanned or at ISS) for half a year
8. Shuttle was not suffiently automated to fly unmanned, DC is full-automated and can be operated manned, or unmanned depending on mission
9. Shuttle used highly-toxic fuels like hydrazine, DC does not.
10. Shuttle used very fragile 1970's era thermal tiles, DC (like Dragon) uses much newer and better materials (not the SAME materials as Dragon, but newer just as Dragon uses newer)
I could add more and the guys from Sierra could probably add another hundred differences, but I believe I have shown enough to illustrate how ignorant it is to say shuttle was bad and therefore DreamChaser is bad
SNC is not a publicly held company, it is privately owned by Erin and Fatih Ozmen, who are originally from Turkey. SNC has does well over $1 billion a year in business with the Federal Government, mostly in the defense sector. They follow a business strategy of acquiring small to medium size companies, which is how they got into the orbital crew capsule business. I worked for a small technology start up that they bought (not their space group).
SNC is a big gun in Nevada, because they are based in Reno. Most of the other defense related work in the state is run by big contractors outside of the state. The Ozmens are very well connected politically, both at the state and federal level. SNC has a PAC and they encourage their employees to make contributions (all perfectly legal).
The Ozmens were close politically and personally to former Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons. Before he was Governor, he was a member of the House from Nevada. Gibbons is a real piece of work. Among his dubious accomplishments in office:
Gibbons' alleged attempted sexual assault of a Las Vegas woman in 2006. This happened in a parking garage in a casino, and somehow the security video disappeared.
Investigations into the allegations that Gibbons secured defense contracts for his friend Warren Trepp in exchange for gifts and money during his time in Congress, 1997–2006.
'A newly available document states that Gov. Jim Gibbons "has admitted" that he urged federal authorities to pursue criminal action against a software developer whose business dispute with a friend of Gibbons has prompted a federal investigation.' according to the Los Vegas Review Journal.
And: A nepotism scandal regarding Sierra Nevada Corporation's hire of Nevada first lady Dawn Gibbons as a consultant. Sierra Nevada paid Dawn Gibbons $35,000 at the same time Jim Gibbons helped the company get a no-bid federal contract.
Before Dawn Gibbons was working as a consultant, to SNC she and her husband went on a luxury trip to Turkey with the Ozmens and Gibbons was never able to produce any receipts showing what he had spent. Since he was in Congress at the time, this appears to be an illegal unreported personal contribution, aka a "bribe". There was never any prosecution over this.
Recently it turns out that SNC has a multi-year no-bid contract with an ultra secret Air Force intelligence program called Big Safari. SNC really likes no-bid contracts, and they also like having a very low public footprint. Remember, since they are not publicly traded they have very minimal corporate reporting requirements.
Frankly, I doubt that the Ozmens and SNC are any worse then their bigger competitors in the military-industrial complex. It's just that with the big places, there are all kinds of ways that the top people are insulated from pervasive quid pro quo industry wide questionable behavior. With SNC it's likely that if there are any sketchy dealings, the people in charge must be aware of what is going on.
So when I read that SNC is suing and stopping NASA and it's competitors from working on contracts, I can't help but wonder what is going on behind the scenes. It's hard not to imagine that someone is leveraging political infl
A huge bloated bureaucracy that can't find it's ass with both hands.
Today, it became an anchor. SpaceX should drop out of the bidding and be free to develop its own vehicle according to its own rules.
How can somebody trademark a name that is a geological feature?
How can somebody trademark a name that is a geological feature?
Because they aren't marketing a competing line of geological features, mayhaps?
DATABASE WOW WOW
Butthurt that a subsidy you acquired didn't get a piece of the action. Don't dare let successful companies who have won contracts keep those contracts without getting something out of it.
You might want to have a look again at SNC's bona fides before you go spouting off about no experience. Among other projects they did the landing systems on curiosity. That whole hovering crane thing with the flying knives that went off without a hitch, yeah that was SNC, it's a well financed and privately held company that doesn't really need additional investors. But hey why let the facts get in the way of a good rant, amirite?
I think this is strange. I work in public procurement in Belgium and under European law all participating companies are notified and have a 15 day period to file a complain before the contract is closed. During that period the decision who receives the contract can still be changed. After this period a company could still file a complain, but can only obtain a financial restitution. I'm surprised this isn't used in US government law.
then split the money in three parts and call it CCCP
And every time you masturbate, you kill millions of little potential Einsteins.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Other than the fact that without a government contract they can't see a way of making any profit, of course.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Curiosity's landing system (aka skycrane) was developed at JPL. The overall architecture, the software that controls it (no easy feat), the radar that tells you how high and how fast you're moving, etc. were all done at JPL.
the thing SNC did was:
"SNC's descent brake mechanism was designed and built to control the speed of the tethered descent of the exploratory NASA rover to the surface of Mars prior to a gentle landing on the surface. "
Yes, that's the mechanical system that spools out the tethers. Not that SNC doesn't make nice mechanical devices.. they also made some gear boxes and such for the rover (their website claims hundreds of mechanisms for dozens of spacecraft, and I'm sure it's right) But it's a LONG way from small assemblies/subsystems like that to a complete spacecraft.
Hopefully SpaceX will not adjust what they are actually building.
They may need to adjust how it is funded, but they should have the flexibility to do this.
The contracting stop work rule is to limit the gov't payment obligations to SpaceX in case the contract is canceled.
If SpaceX is willing to accept the risk of not getting paid, then it seems unreasonable for the Govt to have any say over if they can continue work.
This seems a different case that a contractor trying to slip in more work so they can bill more.
(Or course, not govt contractor would ever do that!)
And yet I look at images of the Dream Chaser, a craft that should be designed primarily for space maneuvers, and I see wings. Those wings significantly complicate both launch and reentry, while significantly increasing vehicle mass, and for what? To allow landing on a runway? Meanwhile we've got SpaceX flying a refined version of a more traditional high volume-to-mass ratio space capsule that also promises to be able to land virtually anywhere you could land a helicopter using rocket-control technology they're repeatedly demonstrated.
We're talking about the design for a "space taxi" here - anything added specifically to operate within an atmosphere is pure waste for all it's primary applications. If we were talking sub-orbital flights that would be different, but that has nothing to do with going to space.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Ignoring the facts that Sierra Nevada is a big Obama campaign contributor... Crony capitalism & rewarding campaign money with Federal Government contracts. Are we now in such a banana republic?
the United States of America will not be capable of building nor financially support a manned space mission to the Moon and Mars for another 50-years because the infrastructure to support the people who are not yet born who will educate the engineers and scientists who will accomplish the mission does not exist.
That's circular logic. You only have to worry about educating two generations out if you've already decided your project is going to take 50 years.
OK, give SN/DC a 'fair chance' at failure. Toss another $3.4B into the fray (or round it to a smooth $10B) an have them all be contractors. For the amount of $$ we pee into the wind on the Fed level, this is peanuts. But when doing it, require MORE from the participants, and have checkpoints every $20M along the way. If there isn't demonstrable progress, they don't get paid for that portion. (Or some other such equalizing schema. As well as the full audit of expenditures spent 'around' the project, not just on the project (like 'management reviews in Vegas or Aruba))