"...to know that competing against the government is a fool’s game." Read the fifth comment at this post on NASA's decision to give a sole-source contract to the Russians, and its potential impact on COTS:

RpK and any other COTS partner will find fund-raising from private financial markets extremely difficult, if not impossible, as long as NASA’s leadership remains dedicated to spending billions on an in-house competitor in the form of Ares 1 and Orion’s ISS variants. Although Griffin has stated that he is dedicated to standing down Ares 1/Orion if COTS delivers and has even taken one recent step in that direction, Griffin won’t be in charge when the critical decisions between Ares 1/Orion and COTS are made in 2009 and out.

I thought that just in the last couple of weeks NASA issued a stop work order on the cargo version of Orion. The COTS contenders should be jumping for joy.

Dennis

It's entirely more likely that NASA simply decided to BRAC the ISS a couple of years earlier.

And you don't have to be a genius financier to realize that this is nothing new and will continue to be nothing new even after SpaceX is successful (SpaceX is close enough that I dare take that as extremely likely). I believe SpaceX has taken this into account as they should: just like all the established launch providers.

I'm not sure what's more worrying: the general impression of RpK competing against the government rather than hoping and working towards having the government as an additional customer (contrast RpK with SpaceX in this regard) or that the NewSpace community is surprised by Nasa being Nasa.

Then there's the "Nasa + Russia = Department of State" equation which isn't neccessarily a bad thing (especially if it gave the US anything on Moskit/Sunburn --yeah I know it's unlikely).

conspiracy theories are fun, aren't they? But I'm afraid Lurker has it right. The earliest COTS additional cargo contracts are for 2010 anyway, and the passenger variant only follows that.Is RpK planning on putting up the passenger variant a few days after the cargo? If not, there is no way a contract ending in 2011 can conceivably affect the NASA COTS passenger market unless there is so little margin in RpK's financing that they cannot afford a delay of a few months before going on to payment for passenger flights.

If that is the case, that means RpK's financing plan is so flimsy anyway that it at the very least violates the spirit of COTS. It sounds as though RpK is planning for the best and hoping for even better. That's not exactly a recipe for success.

I think NASA is being extremely generous by cutting off the Russian date at 2011. That gives COTS the maximum market without endangering ISS resupply post-shuttle.

I really don't understand the protests. If NASA had made an agreement with RSA through 2015, then I could see the protests.

But RpK's current caterwauling is closer to SpaceX's complaining about the EELV extension in 2004--which it has now become clear it couldn't have successfully competed for (through 2010) anyway, and the courts agreed.

Actually NASA is in the middle of the process to extend our committment to ISS until 2020, again something that should be welcomed by the COTS crowd.