11 thoughts on ““We Need NASA To Change Commercial Crew Contracts””

  1. Surprise, Surprise. NASA wants to turn Commercial Crew Procurement (CCP) into Controlled Commercial Crew Procurement (CCCP). This was foreseeable from day 1 of President’s Obama’s policy as I noted.

    But this isn’t the big problem with it as firms like SpaceX could, and should, just walk away from it and focus on true commercial markets. The risk is that NASA’s new safety standards will end up becoming the default industry standards, either by FAA AST just deciding to use them, or even worst, the insurance firm deciding to require them.

  2. No.. that’s not the big problem.

    The big problem is that NASA is giving the commercial crew transportation providers a fake market to aim for, which is easier than going out and finding real markets. What makes one fake and the other real? Productivity. Going out and fixing communications satellites serves a legitimate need – it actually makes more money than if you didn’t do it – whereas ferrying astronauts to the ISS (and, to a lesser extent, even to Bigelow modules) is a money loser and always will be.

    1. Flying a Dragon capsule to GEO to fix a telecommunications satellite would be a rather difficult proposition. Some form of space tug/reusable upper stage and propellant depot would be required to pull that off. If a Falcon 9/Dragon flight to the ISS would cost $140 million, going to GEO would likely cost somewhere in the ballpark of $200 million. Unless the satellite was designed to be repaired (most aren’t because no one can get there), you aren’t likely to find too many satellites worth spending that much money on after they broke or are exhausting their propellant.

      Now, if I’m misunderstanding your intent, say using a robotic platform to service commsats, then I retract my statement.

      1. You’re not misunderstanding.. and yes, I too estimated about $200M for a Falcon Heavy/Dragon flight. An operating commsat is worth around $400M/year.. the business case is so obvious that you may be wondering, what’s stopping them? I’m sad to say that I think the answer is: NASA has never sent humans to GEO so people still think it can’t be done.

        As for a robotic platform, if one could do they job it’d already be there. When MDA finally get their servicing/refueling vehicle flying, we’ll see the limited capabilities.

        1. I’ve visited a satellite construction facility and seen how they’re put together. If a satellite isn’t built to be serviced in space (like the Hubble), then working on it will be extremely difficult for anything more involved than refilling the propellant tanks. Since no one has a servicing capability for GEO, commsats aren’t built to be serviced. Suppose you needed to get to the innards of a GEO commsat to replace a failed circuit board, bad battery, or other component. You’d first have to remove the insulation, remove a bunch of tiny screws, and then get past a bunch of wires that were assembled with difficulty on the ground. Doing that within the restricted confines of a space suit will be hugely challenging.

          Now, if it looks like a viable servicing capability can be built, satellite designers can work to make future satellites repairable in space. That doesn’t do anything about the dozens of satellites that are functioning today.

        2. Trent, you are dead wrong about robotics ( and tele-assisted robotics ) capabilities.
          Even Dextre shows it, and i would not call it bleeding edge robotics.

    2. Trent,

      The problem is that:

      -the viability of Bigelow’s business and business model
      -your GEO comsat servicing proposal
      -Bill White’s orbiting spaceball stadium

      are not actual real commercial markets either. They are your own or someone else’s personal delusions, in a field full of delusions. And Musk or these other companies are not going to throw hundreds of millions of their own money, money they may not have or can get, to service someone else’s personal delusions.

    3. Trent,

      Unfortunately, thanks to COTS & CCDev the private HSF firms have already compromised their potential to serve real commercial markets by designing their systems to meet NASA needs for a 7 person ISS space taxi’s versus what real commercial markets might need.

      For example the human tended commercial microgravity labs likely to evolve from Bigelow Habitats might be better served by smaller two-crew craft with limited cargo capability that could be launched more often and less expensively, perhaps on a vehicle the size of the Falcon 5 SpaceX was exploring before COTS resulted in its being dumped to focus on the Falcon 9.

      Satellite Inspection, Repair and Retrieval missions, for a new generation of inexpensive satellites designed for on-orbit repair, would also have likely benefit from a smaller craft (less mass) with a 2-3 person crew that is easier to boost to the higher orbits needed.

      Tourist craft would likely also carry fewer individuals as well so they could provide more comfort for viewing the Earth, perhaps using a craft designed for only 12 hour orbital stays to allow a number of polar orbits before returning to the launch site.

      Now it’s likely that its possible to convert some of the COTS/CCDev to meet these market requirements, but being already locked in, especially in terms of mass, configurations and launcher requirements, will make them far less optimal from a commercial view point, perhaps making them inefficient to be unprofitable. A good analogy would be trying to convert a C-130, designed for military cargo, into a commercial airliner. Its possible, but not a desirable solution.

      So the industry has in effect already been detoured down a dead end street of serving ISS needs. And yes, NASA safety requirements will just compound the problem, potentially driving a stake into the potential of this generation of human spacecraft to serve real commercial markets.

  3. A better solution might be a system that both delivered a new comsat to a slot while returning the existing one to Earth for disposal/disassembly. Seeing how components age would allow more reliable ones to be developed.

  4. Musk’s concerns about NASA meddling are legitimate. NASA wants to exercise veto authority on the design like they do with cost-plus programs. However, this is a fixed price effort. Giving NASA that authority is a recipe for program disaster. On a fixed price program, you have to operate efficiently to make a profit. Operating NASA style on a cost-plus program, you don’t care if the customer wants to hold meetings to discuss the agenda for the working sesssions to create PowerPoint slides for a program review where managers will make a decision (maybe). All that waste and inefficiency gets billed back to the customer (taxpayers), which explains a lot about NASA’s programmatic track record.

Comments are closed.