Taylor Dinerman’s Take On Commercial Crew

Over at National Review. I obviously take issue with this:

Boeing has walked away with the biggest share ($4.2 billion) of the money, as its design was further along than that of the SpaceX proposal and, in the opinion of NASA’s leadership, has the best chance of meeting the schedule.

I’ve sent them a response. If they don’t run it, I’ll do it myself at Ricochet.

[Update a while later]

OK, my response is up at The Corner.

10 thoughts on “Taylor Dinerman’s Take On Commercial Crew”

  1. My guess is that SpaceX just bid less. By paying people what they bid, NASA’s providing SpaceX an incentive to bid more next time.

    Alternatively, there’s a tax on not being sufficiently politically connected and SpaceX needed to bid billions lower than the losers to guarantee a win.

    1. I wish I was even that optimistic; I’m still worried that, when it comes time to fund commercial crew, Congress will say “Nyet!” to Dragon/F9 and “Da!” only to Atlas 5/CST-100 (a fully domestic American manned space capability – if one ignores the RD-180 engine issue) to “save money” via giving SpaceX the ax. YEs, I know this makes no sense…. but this is congress we’re talking about, and Dragon 2 on a Falcon Heavy is a clear and present danger to the porktastic SLS/Orion (FH will have close to the same LEO capability as the Block 1 SLS, and if you factor in the mass difference between Orion and Dragon 2, it basically cancels out any SLS advantage).

    2. By paying Boeing what they did, NASA _may have_ provided an incentive for others to bid more next time, particularly since…SpaceX did not have the lowest bid. Look at my recent tweets at @TheLurioReport

      How much you need depends upon how much of your own money you put in….

      1. If congress said to choose only one to save money… would it be harder for them to get SpaceX chopped when their bid was so much lower?

        1. @ Vladislaw,

          Well, in a sane world, it would indeed be harder for congress to ax the lower of the bids to “save money”. But IMHO, though on can call many things, sane is not amongst them.

          Mathematically, it’d be insane; it’d double (more than that, actually) the number of flights Boeing would be making, and with Boeing’s much higher per-flight cost, the result would be spending more, not less, money to go with Boeing as sole provider. But, this is the same congress that has done any number of insane things (SLS, to name but one) so I really can’t see sanity intruding upon the political process.

          That’s my cynical take, anyway.

  2. That article sure has some eye-rollers.

    Strictly speaking, some are factually accurate, such as SpaceX did miss some of its milestones (2) while Boeing did not. But, that ignores the fact that Boeing was better funded while having far easier milestones; the two SpaceX missed were the two abort tests, while Boeing doesn’t have those as milestones at all. In fact, none of Boeing’s milestones involved actual hardware at all.

    Another little issue; has does the human rated launch vehicle exist? The human rated Atlas 5 exists only on paper. The human-rated F9 1.1, on the other hand… well, personally, I’d say that fact it’s flying, and has flown often, argues that it exists, but what do I know?

    So, saying Boeing is further along is only possible if one simply counts milestones, ignoring both the fact that the milestones were not the same, and objective reality.

    It’s also looking like Dragon 2 may fly a manned mission as early as next year. I have to wonder; will a crewed Dragon in orbit Vs. a CST-100 that’s still only on paper mean Boeing is still further ahead? Will Boeing be even further ahead if, at that time, the engines for Atlas 5 also exist only on paper?

  3. As far as I know there wasn’t much option for NASA to pick funding levels. The competitors submitted contract proposals, including amounts, and then NASA chose the ones they wanted to fund. The fact that Boeing’s proposal was more expensive is only an indication that Boeing’s operations are more expensive.

  4. NASA hasn’t released any details of the reviews of the proposals or contracts. I know a lot of people (initially me, too) were crying “shenanigans!” immediately after the decision.

    But my guess is that NASA had enough money to support two bids. SpaceX seemingly proposed using Dragon v2, which really does have major differences over v1, so would make the SpaceX bid somewhat risky. There were still many indications that DreamChaser hadn’t settled on a final configuration yet for some important systems, and so it was also risky. Boeing’s bid, though the CST-100 is absolutely uninspiring to me, may well have been the one with the fewest unknowns and red flags.

    Now, I have significant doubts that Boeing can get their capsule operational by 2017. Since we don’t know the details of the contract, we don’t know what payments they are guaranteed. If there is a loophole that gives them all the money without flying out the maximum number of flights, then I’d admit the fix was in. And it does seem NASA only needs a total of 6 flights between the two providers to ensure crew rotation. If that’s the case, Boeing might pocket a cool $4.2B for two flights and still have met the terms of the contract, managing to exceed the per-flight cost of the space shuttle.

    The devil is in the details.

    1. When the shuttle was flying and soyuz, there were flights to the ISS were not always crew exchanges were taking place. Everyone says NASA only needs two crew exchange flights a year, but that does not mean NASA can’t fly additional flights to the ISS and stay a couple weeks and return.

  5. Your article slices through the baloney Rand. I guess that means you ate their lunch?

    Dream Chaser has flown as well (on the wrong landing gear, but that isn’t a real issue.) Since I’m counting drop tests I guess CST-100 has as well (although fly may not be the right term.)

    It seems NASA can’t get away from a cost plus mindset. It should not matter one iota if the systems have cost differences because they are supposed to provide the exact same service. It is not NASA’s job to insure its vendors are profitable.

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