NASA selects contractors: t/space is out

[wvbraun]

I think we all saw it coming:<br /><br /><i>NASA Selects Contractors for Crew Exploration Vehicle Work<br /><br />NASA today announced the selection of Lockheed Martin Corp. and the team of Northrop Grumman Corp. and The Boeing Co. that will lead to an award to build the agency's Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). The selection is part of NASA's plan to have two contractors compete in the design and production process for the Space Shuttle's replacement.<br /><br />NASA's Vision for Space Exploration calls for the CEV to carry up to six astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit soon after the Space Shuttle is retired in 2010, and then on to the moon as early as 2015.<br /><br />The CEV acquisition strategy is a multi-phased project. Phase 1 called for industry to mature their crewed vehicle designs and demonstrate their ability to manage the cost, schedule, and risk of human-rated spacecraft development.<br /><br />Phase 2, covering final CEV design and production, was scheduled to start with a down-selection to a single industry team in 2008. To reduce or eliminate the gap between the Shuttle's retirement in 2010 and an operational CEV, the Phase 2 down-selection is planned for 2006.<br /><br />Results of NASA Administrator Michael Griffin's Exploration Systems Architectural Study will be incorporated into a Call For Improvements later this year to invite Phase 2 proposals from the Phase 1 contractors.</i><br /><br />Link<br /><br /><br />Griffin has said he won't fund any parallel development program so I don't see how t/space could still get the 400 million from NASA. <br /><br />Maybe, just maybe they will decide to spend some of the money allocated to the successor of the AAS program (forgot the name) on the CXV...

 

[grooble]

What a waste.

 

[wvbraun]

Yes, maybe it's for the better this way. Assuming t/space can find the money they will probably be better off doing it on their own. NASA would just make things more complicated.

 

[spacefire]

hahahhaahhahahah<br />lockheed and northrop have the most mouth to feed. the government needs to keep the busy otherwise the entire system would collapse and there would be no aerospace and defense industry left. can't you all see the way things are done?!?!?!?! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[wvbraun]

Sooner or later the dinosaurs will have to adapt or they will go extinct. SpaceX will shake up the launch industry, neither Boeing nor Lockmart can compete with them - and they already have a $100 million contract with the military. <img src="/images/icons/cool.gif" /><br /><br /><br />"there would be no aerospace and defense industry left."<br /><br />Nonsense.

 

[frodo1008]

Will you people give me a break! Tspace has yet to even launch its first vehicle, and you are saying that it is a waste because HASA is going to go with the contractors that have actual experience in building actual spacecraft that have flown in space itself!! <br /><br />I admire Rutan very much and would be perfectly happy to see him brought on board NASA's programs. However, even he (who actually has some experience at this time) has said that it is going to take many years before pure private industry can even think of orbital vehicles. NASA dosen't have that kind of time!! Even if it cost somewhat more, NASA is going to have to have experienced contractors that they can "Push" to get the job done!! <br /><br />Eventually when purely private interests (by the way, last time I looked: LM, Northrup and Boeing WERE private companies, at least if you call private a company whose stock you as an individual can purchase on the NYSE) can show that they can indeed safely launch either large quatities of material or passengers into LEO for far less than NASA can, then I would be more than happy to see NASA buy launches from such companies. That is, if the bigger aerospace companies do not buy the smaller ones out first, after all in a pure capitalistic environment which most of the more capitalistic pure private types on these boards favor, money talks far louder than idealism!! <br /><br />As someone who has actually been in the space section of the aerospace industry I know that when you actually start to cut metal (and try to not make the mistakes that inevitably happen) the expenses of developing hardware for the toughest environment imaginable (that of space itself) start to rise, and rise, and rise. <br /><br />As I have stated before, I am NOT against Tspace, Rutan or any of the other purely private space efforts, I wish them nothing but success. However, some of the people on these boards seem to think that such interests can just wave some kind of magic wand

 

[wvbraun]

"However, even he (who actually has some experience at this time) has said that it is going to take many years before pure private industry can even think of orbital vehicles. NASA dosen't have that kind of time!!"<br /><br />The t/space team has said they they could have the CXV ready by 2008/09.<br /><br /><br />"That is, if the bigger aerospace companies do not buy the smaller ones out first, after all in a pure capitalistic environment which most of the more capitalistic pure private types on these boards favor, money talks far louder than idealism!!"<br /><br />Neither Elon Musk nor Burt Rutan nor Robert Bigelow nor Jeff Bezos have any intention of selling out any time soon as far as I can tell.<br /><br /><br />Don't get me wrong: I think it's only reasonable that NASA would pick a 'prime' for the CEV contract. What I would like to see however is a parallel development effort with a fixed price contract (that's what t/space is actually proposing) awarded to a company with an unconventional approach. Griffin has said he doesn't have the money to do that but I suspect he could do it if he really wanted to: For example he could raid the budget for the commercial cargo services program. NASA is planning to spend half a billion on that over the next four years or so...

 

[formulaterp]

"Neither Elon Musk nor Burt Rutan nor Robert Bigelow nor Jeff Bezos have any intention of selling out any time soon as far as I can tell."<br /><br />Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites designed, built and operated Spaceship One. But when it comes time to actually make money off the project, who is funding it? Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. Rutan sold/leased the technology to Branson. Isn't that "selling out" by definition?<br /><br />As for Elon Musk, just how did he make his fortune? He founded 1 company Zip2 and "sold out" to Compaq, then he founded Paypal and "sold out" to EBay. <br /><br />Bezos has at least stuck to his guns with Amazon, and Bigelow is a career discount hotel guy.

 

[wvbraun]

Ok, let me be more clear: They will not sell out to the big three (Northrop, Boeing, Lockheed).

 

[scottb50]

They,t/space, Rutan, etal., will come out even better. Odds are the CEV fiasco will wind down just like all the rest of the recent attempts. Billions down the drain and nothing to show for it.<br /><br />Too bad everybody depends so much on governments. They seem to be the most incompetent entities in our current society. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[wvbraun]

And for Bigelow. That guy is investing $500 million of his own money!

 

[rogers_buck]

True to a point. Just remember that these are the same guys who would like to take a decade to do this job. A long time considering:<br />1) The requirements are but in the can;<br />2) A good number of the major sub-systems are in the can;<br />3) Since 50 years ago CAD and CAM have come along;<br />4) They don't really have to invent anything to do this;<br />5) Boeing got its but kicked int he commercial air market by the biggest by a beurocratic organisation compiled from the largest beurocracies on the planet.<br /><br />Having said that, I trust the judgement of the new NASA administrator and he likely felt Rutan's outfit wouldn't be able to "scale" to the task without getting ruined in the process.<br /><br />It would be REAL NICE if there was a rocket scientist rock star at with the skills and persona of Goddard, Kelly Johnson, WVB, or Korolov. Rutan would have been a great icon, instead we will get legions of nameless hourly persons. About as exciting as waiting for the Borg to build another cube. Vogon poetry readings also come to mind. Somehow, they need to sex this thing up or the public will loose interest...<br /><br />

 

[gunsandrockets]

So NASA choose two big companies for the CEV competition. So what. So far as I have heard only Lockheed and Boeing even submitted bids for the contract. So of course they were selected!<br /><br />The alternate deal t/Space has been offering NASA, a LEO spacecraft for a fixed price contract, is irrelevant to the CEV contract. And who knows? Until NASA officially declines the t/Space offer it might still fly.

 

[frodo1008]

I put forth a post in which I make many points, and you people jump all over one simple hypothesis. Of course, you all sit on the boards of both the larger and smaller space companies, so I obviously must bow to your superior wisdom and knowledge!! <br /><br />How many of you have actually done any real work in aerospace? Tell me, how large a VTL would you need to be able to turn the aft ring of a large rocket engine? For that matter how large should such an engine be to have the necessary thrust to put a manned vehicle into LEO? <br /><br />Yet you so easily assume (making an a__ of you and me) that the people who have such knowledge (LM, Northrop, and Boeing just to name a few) and have already done these things don’t know what they are doing!. And in the EELV and Sea Launch programs as well as others are still doing them not only for the government, but for private commercial satellite users, don't have the means of doing the very things that they have been doing all along.<br /><br />Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough. I do hope that there will be lots of companies and ways of getting both material and people into space. But Griffin realizes that NASA does not have the time at present to experiment wildly (nor would congress appreciate such a "Waste" of the taxpayers money). Now I would personally love to see a NASA budget large enough that ALL ideas, including some of the wilder ones could be at the very least fully investigated for merit. But, this IS NOT going to happen. <br /><br />If (and despite what some of you may think it IS a big if) one of these purely private efforts proves itself to be both very safe and very inexpensive, and does this over a reasonable time then I would be the first to urge NASA and the military to buy exclusively into such a system. <br />

 

[gunsandrockets]

"True to a point. Just remember that these are the same guys who would like to take a decade to do this job. A long time considering"<br /><br />Give the poor schmucks at NASA a break. The real reason the VSE is stretched out so much is purely because of budget. NASA would love to move faster, but as long as the Shuttle and the ISS are draining the resources of NASA there isn't enough money to spare to move the Vision for Space Exploration any faster.

 

[frodo1008]

I am sorry, but it would seem that there is a great deal of misinformation going around here. Both in his public and other statements the new NASA administrator (who not only seems to have the confidence of President Bush and congress but even of most of the space advocacy organizations). Griffin has stated that he is not going to allow either NASA or its contractors to take more than 5 or at most 6 years to have a shuttle replacement available (and this means flight capable). <br /><br />This melds perfectly with the time to complete to the core completion the ISS. I see no reason why either Boeing or LM could not accomplish this with the current budget and only a 5% increase in the budget per year (which is what President Bush is going for at a minimum). This is in the range of the kind of time frame we had back in the 1960's with Apollo. So I don't see where the problem is? Maybe some of the many internet trained aerospace experts we have on these boards can paerhaps explain their pesimism!!

 

[spacester]

frodo, you might want to be more careful in not lumping eveybody else together in the same camp. Just a thought.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">I see no reason why either Boeing or LM could not accomplish this . . .</font><br /><br />Reason #1: Past history: failure to produce deliverables.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Maybe some of the many internet trained aerospace experts we have on these boards can paerhaps explain their pesimism!!</font><br /><br />See, I don't know if you're talking to me or what. Are folks who have not been priveleged to work in the vaunted aerospace industry not allowed their opinion? Couldn't the industry perhaps benefit a bit from some outside scrutiny? Doncha think the world of cost-plus contracting might be a teensy bit dysfunctional? Mark my words, history will show the precious current aerospace industry to be as bloated and inefficient right now as Detroit was in the '70s.<br /><br />I don't dwell on history, I look to the future. So maybe someone else can remind frodo of all the times BoeLock have failed to deliver what is needed to become space-faring. Make sure you've worked in the industry before venturing an opinion, though. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[wvbraun]

"Mark my words, history will show the precious current aerospace industry to be as bloated and inefficient right now as Detroit was in the '70s."<br /><br />Amen to that. Just a few days ago I talked to someone who is currently studying aerospace engineering. The guy maintained that it was impossible to dramatically lower costs using existing technology - but had never heard of SpaceX (mind you this company is a few months away from their first launch) or Blue Origin or Bigelow Aerospace. These guys are in for a surprise...

 

[wvbraun]

"with the current budget and only a 5% increase in the budget per year (which is what President Bush is going for at a minimum)"<br /><br />Bush is going for a 2-3 percent increase for 2007 and 2008 and that's it (NASA got a 5% increase in 2005 and a 2.5% increase has been requested for 2006). And that should be sufficient. If NASA can't pull it off with that kind of money they are not worth it anyway.

 

[frodo1008]

spacester: You are the one with the belligerent opinions not me. And of course you are even entitled to express those opinions. However, that does not mean that they are anything more than negative opinions which will have no bearing on the real world. Having some experience within that real world does give your opinions at least some degree of reality.<br /><br />Also, I have NOT been negative towards the efforts of Rutan, Tspace and the other start up companies. What I have said is that pronouncements from such companies have to be taken with the knowledge that they are trying to sell themselves. Do you think that every advertizement you see on TV is God's own truth?<br /><br />I have seen some reality from both Rutan and Musk. Rutan himself has stated that it is going to take some time to even get to the next step of launching people in a regular manner into a sub-orbital flight. And I might add that it will take even more time for such efforts to become profitable. Such profitablility will be necessary to pure private efforts to continue. <br /><br />Now I may be wrong here, but I think it is Musk who is behind Tspace. Recently he admitted that it was much harder to develope the Falcon I that he or his people originally thought. If Tspace indeed has peole with this kind of honesty behind then they will indeed go far!!<br /><br />The problem that Griffin has is that none of these private efforts is going to have the capability needed withing the 5 years that he wants for the CEV. These are start-up companies NOT companies experienced in building spacecraft for carrying human beings into orbital space. I am sorry, but that is the current reality of the situation for NASA. Developing a complete system to replace the STS is going to be a very large project. I fully believe that whichever of the two major aerospace companies that eventually wins is going to be using the services of the loser in order to get the job done in the time frame that NASA needs. We m

 

[wvbraun]

"Now I may be wrong here, but I think it is Musk who is behind Tspace."<br /><br />No, the driving force behind t/space are Burt Rutan, Gary Hudson and David Gump. SpaceX is not part of the t/space consortium. <br /><br /><br />"If NASA can't do this then niether is anybody else going to"<br /><br />How can you be so sure about that? Musk has said he wants to win America's Space Prize. That means he will try to build an orbital vehicle capable of carrying a crew of five by 2010. I think it's possible that he will pull it off.

 

[spacester]

Which part of my post was belligerent?<br /><br />You want reality, well great so do I. My reality is that I'm not willing to quietly trust the BoeLock won't screw this up again. Your reality is that anyone who sees things differently belongs to some group called "those on these boards".<br /><br />I've never been one to ignore the man behind the curtain, and that's what it seems you're asking me to do.<br /><br />Questioning authority is belligerent?<br /><br />If NASA can't do it, no one can? Are you serious about that? Do you mean that in general, or just related to the subject at hand? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[frodo1008]

wvbraun: I will NOT say that it can not be done, but perhaps a little bit of history. Which I know that at lest spacester seems to think is worthless. However this history was based on the laws of physics and orbital dynamics with a little bit of common sense thrown in.<br /><br />The sub-orbital flights of Alen Shepard and Gus Grissom were powered by the Redstone rocket. The liquid engine was only a little more powerful than the V2 engine (in the 60,000 lb class). On the other hand when it came to the Mercury flight of John Glenn (still with only one man) it took an atlas rocket with as much as 300,000+ lbs of thrust to reach the far greater velocity required for orbital flight. That is some 3,000 mph as opposed to 17,500 mph. Not only this but as in an orbital flight you are going to be in space for at least 90 minutes (the time to complete at least one orbit) you are either going to have to fly at a far greater altitude that a sub-orbital flight or burn up with the greater friction at lower altitudes.<br /><br />Then when coming back from orbital flight you are going to have to reduce your velocity from the relatively high velocity of 17,500 mph to a landing speed of from 0 to 200 mph. This will either require you to use a whole lot of fuel and oxidizer to slow your velocity before you hit the heavy atmosphere of the Earth (nobody has yet figured out how to do this) or you are going to need some kind of thermal protection system (TPS) like that of the earlier heat shields (which carried a weight penalty) or the relatively delicate but light TPS tiles of the shuttle.<br />Also, as you are going to have to be in space for at least 1 orbit (and quite probably more) you are going to need a life support system capable of supporting human existence in space for far longer that sub-orbital flight. This is just the nature of human flight to LEO!! <br /><br />Of course, if you are going to have a spacecraft capable of taking multiple people into orbit (like the 5 that

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">Yet you so easily assume (making an a__ of you and me) that the people who have such knowledge (LM, Northrop, and Boeing just to name a few) and have already done these things don’t know what they are doing!</font>/i><br /><br />Much of the SpaceX team are Boeing alumni (expats?). Just speculation, but I think they relished the opportunity to do a fresh start and using their accumulated knowedge.<br /><br />It is not uncommon for a team to leave the parent organization in order to start something fresh, in part because of various reasons the parent organization will not embrace the change.</i>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"Now Tspace has yet (and believe me I wish them nothing but success) to even launch the Falcon I. "</font><br /><br />You continue to mix up t/Space and SpaceX.<br /><br />tSpace -- A group of firms including Scaled Composites, Airlaunch LLC, Constellations Services International, Orion Propulsion, Inc, and Universal SPace lines. Has put in a bid for the CXV -- a capsule designed to be launched from a plane to provide taxi service to the ISS.<br /><br />SpaceX -- A firm owned and operated by Elon Musk. Designed and built the Falcon I rocket. Planning to compete in the Americas Space Prize.