I’m reading it now. It starts out with a nice brief history of space stations in general and of the ISS itself. Apparently it says that commercial crew will cost more than Soyuz. I want to see the basis of that statement.
[Update a while later]
“Although the risks involved in space exploration are apparent and subject to mitigation,
NASA cannot fully eliminate them.”
Someone should write a book about that. Oh, wait.
Boeing sounds a little defensive.
Here’s the story on today’s announcement that ULA is teaming with Blue Origin to develop an RD-180 replacement. Thoughts anon.
[Update a while later, after the presser]
Clearly Jeff Bezos has declared war on Elon Musk. And ULA is showing how desperate it’s become. That’s what disruption looks like. More later, but I have to review our reply to Mann’s latest court filing. Speaking of which, I suspect that he regrets starting this hash tag.
[Update a while later]
Over on Twitter, Trampoline Rocket is speculating that this is vaporware, like Amazon’s drones. He makes a pretty good case.
[Update a while later]
[Another update]
Aaaaaand, Aaron Mehta’s take.
There’s going to be an announcement at 4PM on NASA TV. Jay Barbree says it’s going to be Boeing and SpaceX. Which if true means two capsules, no wings.
[Update a while later]
Here‘s another similar report from the WaPo.
[Update a few minutes later]
Joel Achenbach has more, including the (bizarre, to me) part of the story about ULA getting a new engine for the Atlas from Blue Origin.
[Late-morning update]
OK, now James Dean is reporting that there will be two full awards, not “leader-follower.” I wonder if they have the money for that with a CR?
[Update just before noon]
Alex Brown has a story at National Journal. Annoyingly, everyone is calling them space “taxis” when, at least for NASA, it’s more of a rental-car model (if you insisted on a new car every time you rented). Also, everyone’s regurgitating NASA’s 2017 date. I’d at least note that SpaceX could possibly fly as early as next year, unless there is something else on the critical path than abort tests. Final point:
Boeing’s program is reported to be further along in its development goals.
I think that Pasztor story is BS. How can Boeing be in the lead when they haven’t even flown anything? I love this:
But people familiar with the process said Boeing, with its greater experience as a NASA contractor, appears to have become the favorite partly because it has met earlier development goals in the same program on time and on budget.
Everyone hits their budget. It’s a fixed-price contract. And who cares if they’re hitting program goals, if those are trivial goals (like design reviews)? How anyone can think that a paper vehicle is ahead of one that’s going to have its abort tests in the next few months?
[Update a few minutes before the announcement]
Here’s the link.
[Update after the announcement]
Well, no surprises, except amounts. Here’s Eric Berger’s take.
Let's stop pretending there's some deep journalistic mystery here. Boeing gets more money because they cost more, and everyone knows why.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) September 16, 2014
[Update a while later]
Here is Jeff Foust’s story.
Professor Reynolds supports it.
David Attenborough takes a novel and courageous stand. Let’s “sort out life on earth, first.” [Paywall]
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone make that argument before, except a lot of people, for decades.
“America? Let’s sort out life in Europe first.”
“Europe and Asia? Let’s sort out life in Africa, first.”
It’s obviously a mindless prescription for never settling new territory.
Yes, let’s keep using them:
In this case, the DM series motors passed all of ATK’s and NASA’s inspections and test firings. It wasn’t until ATK was proceeding toward QM series motor segments that NASA requested more thorough inspections of the QM series motors to determine whether the switch to non-asbestos containing insulation liners was having a previously unseen effect.
“The beauty of the solid rocket motor inspection system is that defects will be found and solutions reached to ensure the motors delivered will perform with the highest reliability,” said Reed. “This is a requirement to ensure SLS is a safe and reliable system for human exploration of deep space.”
Yeah. Right.
[Update a few minutes later]
So we have giant SRBs with persistent unpredictable dangerous defects+massive political pressure to get to launch. What could go wrong? #SLS
— Trampoline Rocket (@TrampolinRocket) September 15, 2014
One is planned for November, and the other for January. I don’t know why NASA keeps talking about 2017, except to try to get more money out of Congress. Of course, that only gives them one provider, and they’d still have to accelerate Boeing and/or Sierra Nevada.
A report on new launch sales, Brownsville and new F-9R test flights, from Joseph Abbot in Waco. Sounds like they’ll renewing test flights in a couple months. As I said at the time, it shouldn’t be a big deal to pull a first stage off the assembly line after it’s had three engines installed, and modify it.
Another California rocket company is pulling up stakes and heading to Texas:
King said Firefly was attracted to Texas partly because of its business and regulatory climate.
You don’t say.