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NASA To Pay More For Less Cargo Delivery To the Space Station (arstechnica.com)
A new report from NASA's inspector general, Paul Martin, finds that NASA will pay significantly more for commercial cargo delivery to the ISS in the 2020s rather than enjoying cost savings from maturing systems. "NASA will likely pay $400 million more for its second round of delivery contracts from 2020 to 2024 even though the agency will be moving six fewer tons of cargo," reports Ars Technica. "On a cost per kilogram basis, this represents a 14-percent increase." From the report: One of the main reasons for this increase, the report says, is a 50-percent increase in prices from SpaceX, which has thus far flown the bulk of missions for NASA's commercial cargo program with its Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket. This is somewhat surprising because, during the first round of supply missions, which began in 2012, SpaceX had substantially lower costs than NASA's other partner, Orbital ATK. SpaceX and Orbital ATK are expected to fly 31 supply missions between 2012 and 2020, the first phase of the supply contract. Of those, the new report states, SpaceX is scheduled to complete 20 flights at an average cost of $152.1 million per mission. Orbital ATK is scheduled to complete 11 missions at an average cost of $262.6 million per mission.
But that cost differential will largely evaporate in the second round of cargo supply contracts. For flights from 2020 to 2024, SpaceX will increase its price while Orbital ATK cuts its own by 15 percent. The new report provides unprecedented public detail about the second phase of commercial resupply contracts, known as CRS-2, which NASA awarded in a competitively bid process in 2016. SpaceX and Orbital ATK again won contracts (for a minimum of six flights), along with a new provider, Sierra Nevada Corp. and its Dream Chaser vehicle. Bids by Boeing and Lockheed Martin were not accepted.
But that cost differential will largely evaporate in the second round of cargo supply contracts. For flights from 2020 to 2024, SpaceX will increase its price while Orbital ATK cuts its own by 15 percent. The new report provides unprecedented public detail about the second phase of commercial resupply contracts, known as CRS-2, which NASA awarded in a competitively bid process in 2016. SpaceX and Orbital ATK again won contracts (for a minimum of six flights), along with a new provider, Sierra Nevada Corp. and its Dream Chaser vehicle. Bids by Boeing and Lockheed Martin were not accepted.
Translated: SpaceX thought they needed to charge a premium to deal with bureaucracy but wildly underestimated just how much bureaucracy is required to interact with a multi multi billion dollar internationally operated property.
Time to put a nail in the "the private sector can do it cheaper" argument.
It only happens when there is competition, and in order for there to be competition there needs to be at least 6 arms-lengh-unrelated choices. In any competative market where the choices have been reduced below six, prices go up, substantially.
Gas stations. At one point in time every city had several brands of gas station. Now all gas comes from one of two sources, and prices just go up. Internet service, the only place with competitive service in the US is in the San Francisco bay area. Mergers of Fox with Disney, Comcast with NBC and Universal, and so forth, have done nothing but destroy competition.
We are absolutely fooling ourselves if we believe these will lower costs. All they do is enrich the board members, maybe some of the largest shareholders, but none of the employees.
From the article: Even so, the report is not all bad news for SpaceX. In comparing prices, the inspector general said that SpaceX should receive credit for the capacity to return cargo to Earth, a capability that Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft does not have. The company, along with NASA, were also credited with lowering costs in the overall launch market by pushing through development of the Falcon 9 rocket. “Officials believe competition has contributed to lower prices for NASA launches,” the report states. “NASA officials reviewed past launch pricing and found the cost for a basic Atlas V configuration decreased by roughly $20 million per launch after the Falcon 9 became eligible in 2013 to compete for launch services contracts through the Agency’s Launch Services Program.
Nope. Read the whole article. Prices are still cheaper because of the private sector's involvement.
At least they rejected the bids from Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Dear lord, what a zillion-dollar clusterf^ck THAT would have been!
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
The Dragon 2 can carry almost as much back as it takes up. Orbital ATK can't bring anything back. Also, Orbital ATK can't carry crew members. That's not exactly a small difference.
And for an encore, they still undercut the price while flying on American-made rocket engines as opposed to Antares' Russian design.
So why are these being compared? Just because they both carry cargo to the same place on occasion?
Say that to all the "too big to fail" companies like banks and car makers.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
You act as if the private sector was in any way more competent. I am "blessed" with the chance to play with the security of a large international corporation. Incompetence and bureaucracy are rampart here. Being fired is possible up to a certain echelon, and up to that level there are actually fairly competent people working, simply because the incompetent ones get fired. Once you get to a certain level, though, you notice that incompetent idiots don't get fired. They get shuffled around. Mostly 'cause firing them is simply too expensive, or because they know either someone, or something about someone.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yeah, SpaceX has invented nothing new, vertically landing rockets have been described as early as 1950 by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Even I could have developed a rocket based on that work, I just thought it was too obvious to waste my time on.
NASA developed vertical landing technology for the Apollo Lunar Module. Yes, that was on the moon, but the technology was tested on Earth prior to sending it to the moon.
If you insist on are more fully rocket-like technology, then take a look at the McDonnell Douglas DC-X (and NASA's subsequent DC-XA). Blue Origin (who beat SpaceX to a vertical landing by a private company) hired a number of the DC-X project engineers and the New Shepard vehicle was at least partly based on the DC-X.
There's an entire history of the development of vertical takeoff and landing technology being developed, so yeah... SpaceX didn't invent anything new by making a rocket (actually a booster) that lands vertically. They refined and enhanced what had already come before. That's how technological advancement works.
Blue Origin (who beat SpaceX to a vertical landing by a private company)
SpaceX landed their Grasshopper rocket in 2013. Blue Origin landed their much smaller New Shepard in 2015. OK, the grasshopper didn't go up to suborbital space because SpaceX decided to skip that step and go straight for an orbital rocket. Calling that "beating them" is a bit of a stretch, though.
I've worked for the government, and that was not the case in the least. I managed private sector vendors, and when I needed to travel 500 miles to go too their office, I got a decade old ford focus to drive there and back. When they came to visit me, they flew first class or took the company jet.
Yes, they technically had competition. But I can tell you right now that a) their competition was not really that competitive, and b) their business model was to look pretty and justify their continued existence while sucking as much money out of the government as possible.
Had we done their work in-house, even if it took 2x as many people, we still wouldn't have been flying first class and maintaining a private jet. Everyone decries government inefficiency, but at the minimum, government salaries, perks, and travel are highly regulated and bare-bones compared to most private sector companies. When multiple private sector companies are bidding for a government contract, they're all building in the cost of their gleaming campus, first class travel, golden parachutes, etc.
The issue with the government is that it's hard to get rid of positions once you make them. Or if you are making limited term positions, it's hard to hire and retain people for them, because the government pays so much less than the private sector. The only real benefit of a government job is that they generally don't go away, so you've got it for as long as you want it. (And here I'm talking true civil servants, not political/appointed positions.)
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Merlins are air-restartable kerolox engines. The US didn't have those before. LM was hypeergolic, so no problems there. Also, LM operated in vacuum and DC-X never had to deal with aerodynamics in any significant way (it flew very slowly), whereas the Falcon stages perform controlled hypersonic reentry. The touchdowns really aren't the interesting part here.
Ezekiel 23:20
Are you kidding? Private sector is all about looking pretty and justifying their existence. In private sector, it is all about the personal brand and making people above you believe that you are valuable, usually via whatever made up metric or strained statistics are popular with whoever holds some pursestrings.
When SpaceX started, the spaceflight community were largely dismissive of the balding software startup guy.
Now that they've accomplished more in re-usable rockets than all other companies combined, the story now is that anyone could have done it
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
NASA developed vertical landing technology for the Apollo Lunar Module. ...
You're right, SpaceX did not invent rocket landing, but they were the first company landing an orbital rocket on Earth, which is quite a fit.
Why is it quite a fit? Because before nobody thought it was feasible or economically viable and even some experimented nobody have done it.
- Moon landing - yes, however Moon's gravity, lack of atmosphere and the Moon Lander size and weight make this undoubtful achievement not quite comparable with Earth landing
- Space Shuttle landing - yes, however not supersonic retro-propulsion landing
- New Shepard landing - yes, still not the orbital landing, but suborbital - quite different speeds/energies involved, difference quite comparable to Grasshopper vs New Shepard
- DC-X - yes, but abandoned and not researched further - no orbital implementation
So to summarize, it's true that SpaceX didn't invent the "wheel", but they undoubtedly and truly changed the game of space access.
I'm curious what government contracts you've worked... Those comments don't reflect my experience in the field at all.
Government contracts are lucrative
Government contracts are indeed high-value, but they also carry far more restrictions than B2B contracts. You must have these demographics on your team, you must use these standards nobody else uses, and you must do all of this vetting and paperwork for your suppliers... Sure, the price tag is high, but the costs and logistics are high, too. I've seen far more profit per contract on B2B deals, where the client doesn't care how something's done, just so long as they don't have to do it themselves.
Selling to the government means that you WILL get paid
...as long as your product passes acceptance and hits milestones. Otherwise, you get a "stop work" order, and your project sits in limbo for a year while the lawyers try to figure out whose fault it is. Eventually, the budget gets cut, your company is accused of never delivering the product, and the whole matter is dropped (without payout), because the company wants to keep the client happy for future business.
you'll have a way to get your money, if only by not paying taxes in return to not getting paid (and if your country doesn't let you do that, well, find a better country).
Please clarify precisely what countries allow you to violate tax law to settle a contract dispute.
government don't go out of business and leave you sitting on raw materials for a contract that you suddenly can't sell anymore and they rarely cancel contracts.
That's adorable. Not only do they often cancel contracts at the whim of politicians, the requirements change in a heartbeat, and you're usually left holding the unused components. As an example, I was working a government contract when encryption requirements rolled out, just after the customer had approved designs including a SAN that didn't support on-disk encryption. A new part was spec'd, new designs approved... and $500K of equipment sits in a rack in a warehouse, with no customer willing to pay for it, because it no longer meets the contract requirements.
you simply don't have to deal with risks you're usually facing when dealing with private enterprises or (worse) consumers.
The risks are different, but there are still risks.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Historically though they were far more involved in the design, development, construction and operations though. There was also the issue with cost plus contracts which effectively encouraged massive cost overruns. The "new" setup is to award fixed price contracts with fixed requirements which are almost entirely ran by the contractor with only a (comparatively) little assistance/monitoring from NASA.
> relied on a over priced shuttle, that they thought would never be shut down.
This is wrong on a bunch of different levels.
1. NASA warned Congress repeatedly that scope creep and R&D spending cuts were dramatically increasing the initial shuttle cost and continuing operational costs.
2. NASA warned Congress about the need for a shuttle replacement in hearings and in public budget requests for more than a decade before the Shuttle EOL.
3. Despite 2, Shuttle replacement programs have been repeatedly killed by congress.
NASA warned Congress and three different administrations that shortsighted oversight would prevent them from fulfilling their mission. It's not fair or right to blame them when that prediction came true.