Just got the news, prior to the announcement. Congratulations to the Lockmart team.

And no, I have nothing profound to say about it. I only saw one proposal, so I don’t have any basis on which to judge whether or not this was a good decision. Of course, I’m on record as thinking the program itself misbegotten, regardless of who builds it.

[Update while listening to the NASA webcast]

I should add that I want to offer my condolences to the NGB team, many of whom I’ve worked with for the last year, and who put in a lot of long hours, for naught. Unfortunately, someone has to win, and someone has to lose. We’ll find out in due course what NASA thought the key weaknesses of the NGB offer were.

[Update about 4:30]

They just showed a model. It has circular solar panels.

A reporter is asking about human space experience vis a vis Lockmart. Horowitz makes the point (with which I agree) that no one has experience in developing manned spacecraft. We’re a new generation.

[Update about 4:40]

I find it interesting (and a little amusing) that everyone in comments seems to think that this was Boeing versus Lockmart. Northrop Grumman was the team lead.

[Update]

On further reflection, I should add that this is a bitter pill for Boeing (not legacy Boeing people, but the former McDonnell-Douglas and Rockwell folks), because they remember the X-33 program, when Lockmart conned NASA, and pissed away a billion dollars of taxpayer money, while devastating prospects for reusable vehicles for years (something from which the agency hasn’t recovered, given its current launcher development choices). I’m sure that a lot of them are thinking that this just happened again. The difference, of course, is that this isn’t a technology development program, but I can understand the bitterness, if it exists.

[Update at 5:45 PM EDT]

An emailer who wants to remains anonymous defends Lockmart:

…it’s worth noting that aside from the inherent problems with the concept, the execution was botched by Skunk Works, due to a combination of handing it to their “second string” team and lingering Lockheed/Martin Marietta rivalries. LMSW wouldn’t listen to Michoud when told that what they were doing on the LH2 tanks was wrong, for example, despite Michoud having the bulk of the corporation’s expertise in that area. For another, LMSW couldn’t *ever* seem to grasp the notion that they were designing a (suborbital) spacecraft rather than a plane, and indeed continued to call X-33 and VentureStar “the airplane” throughout the program.

Thankfully, LMSW has nothing to do with Orion, so the X-33 debacle doesn’t directly apply here (aside from the bitter lessons learned coming from the Michoud side). Denver and Michoud are the primary business units involved, so we at least have *some* clue what we’re doing on this project.

I’ll also add, per a comment, that Lockmart doesn’t share sole responsibility for the X-33 fiasco. I would assign at least as much, if not more blame to Marshall, for letting themselves be snookered. It does take two to tango, after all.

[Update a little after 6 PM EDT]

Boy, CNN is really bashing Lockmart, too. As my anonymous emailer notes, this really isn’t fair, but it’s also not ununderstandable (if that isn’t a word, it oughtta be. As should “oughtta”).

Just got the news, prior to the announcement. Congratulations to the Lockmart team.

And no, I have nothing profound to say about it. I only saw one proposal, so I don’t have any basis on which to judge whether or not this was a good decision. Of course, I’m on record as thinking the program itself misbegotten, regardless of who builds it.

[Update while listening to the NASA webcast]

I should add that I want to offer my condolences to the NGB team, many of whom I’ve worked with for the last year, and who put in a lot of long hours, for naught. Unfortunately, someone has to win, and someone has to lose. We’ll find out in due course what NASA thought the key weaknesses of the NGB offer were.

[Update about 4:30]

They just showed a model. It has circular solar panels.

A reporter is asking about human space experience vis a vis Lockmart. Horowitz makes the point (with which I agree) that no one has experience in developing manned spacecraft. We’re a new generation.

[Update about 4:40]

I find it interesting (and a little amusing) that everyone in comments seems to think that this was Boeing versus Lockmart. Northrop Grumman was the team lead.

[Update]

On further reflection, I should add that this is a bitter pill for Boeing (not legacy Boeing people, but the former McDonnell-Douglas and Rockwell folks), because they remember the X-33 program, when Lockmart conned NASA, and pissed away a billion dollars of taxpayer money, while devastating prospects for reusable vehicles for years (something from which the agency hasn’t recovered, given its current launcher development choices). I’m sure that a lot of them are thinking that this just happened again. The difference, of course, is that this isn’t a technology development program, but I can understand the bitterness, if it exists.

[Update at 5:45 PM EDT]

An emailer who wants to remains anonymous defends Lockmart:

…it’s worth noting that aside from the inherent problems with the concept, the execution was botched by Skunk Works, due to a combination of handing it to their “second string” team and lingering Lockheed/Martin Marietta rivalries. LMSW wouldn’t listen to Michoud when told that what they were doing on the LH2 tanks was wrong, for example, despite Michoud having the bulk of the corporation’s expertise in that area. For another, LMSW couldn’t *ever* seem to grasp the notion that they were designing a (suborbital) spacecraft rather than a plane, and indeed continued to call X-33 and VentureStar “the airplane” throughout the program.

Thankfully, LMSW has nothing to do with Orion, so the X-33 debacle doesn’t directly apply here (aside from the bitter lessons learned coming from the Michoud side). Denver and Michoud are the primary business units involved, so we at least have *some* clue what we’re doing on this project.

I’ll also add, per a comment, that Lockmart doesn’t share sole responsibility for the X-33 fiasco. I would assign at least as much, if not more blame to Marshall, for letting themselves be snookered. It does take two to tango, after all.

[Update a little after 6 PM EDT]

Boy, CNN is really bashing Lockmart, too. As my anonymous emailer notes, this really isn’t fair, but it’s also not ununderstandable (if that isn’t a word, it oughtta be. As should “oughtta”).

NASA will be announcing the winner of the CEV Phase II competition at 4 PM Eastern. And since I’m supporting one of the teams, good news for me will be bad news for Thomas James, and vice versa.

As Thomas notes, NASA has been astonishingly good at keeping it a secret. It’s all the more astonishing when one considers that they had to tell Congress who the winner was a month ago.

NASA will be announcing the winner of the CEV Phase II competition at 4 PM Eastern. And since I’m supporting one of the teams, good news for me will be bad news for Thomas James, and vice versa.

As Thomas notes, NASA has been astonishingly good at keeping it a secret. It’s all the more astonishing when one considers that they had to tell Congress who the winner was a month ago.

NASA will be announcing the winner of the CEV Phase II competition at 4 PM Eastern. And since I’m supporting one of the teams, good news for me will be bad news for Thomas James, and vice versa.

As Thomas notes, NASA has been astonishingly good at keeping it a secret. It’s all the more astonishing when one considers that they had to tell Congress who the winner was a month ago.

Alan Boyle reports that Blue Origin has gotten their environmental assessment approved, which was one of the last hurdles to getting their FAA license as a spaceport. It will be the first private spaceport, but it will also be the first spaceport to be licensed for vertical takeoff and landing (Mojave and Burns Flat are only licensed for horizontal operations). I wonder if Jeff Bezos will be open to allowing others to operate from it? I’ll bet that Armadillo and Masten would like to use it.

Rick Tumlinson, co-founder of the Space Frontier Society, will be on CNBC at 1:40 Eastern

I hadn’t noticed earlier, but Rocco Petrone died last Friday. I worked for him in the eighties, when he was president of Rockwell’s Space Transportation Systems Division in Downey. He was a key member of the Apollo management team. On the morning of the Challenger disaster, he questioned the decision to launch when he saw icicles hanging from the gantry, but he wasn’t part of the MMT.

Is “the Stick” alive and well?

Who knows?

They’ve started the rollback from the pad. Probably the best decision, since the consensus of the tracks is to put the storm right over the Cape when it exits the state, between Cocoa Beach and Daytona.

Well, at least I won’t have to be distracted by taking any trips up to the Cape to watch a launch for the next few weeks.

[Update at 10:30 AM EDT]

It’s starting to look like the storm is going to be a little further west than even the early morning predictions were:

Speaking of RECON, it good to have them back in the storm this morning. The Cuban Government did allow the Air Force reserve plane to fly into Cuban airspace this morning to get a good fix on the storm’s center. We thank them a great deal. Hopefully in the not-too-distant future, Cuban overflights can be acomplished to better warn their citizens as well as ours. The RECON data is so important, a few hours without it can mean big changes! Ok, back to the storm…The latest guidance is again tightly clustered thanks to the valuable data that the NOAA Gulfstream IV jet was able to add to the model suites. This has landfall in extreme southwest Florida and the upper Keys mid-morning on Wednesday as a moderate to strong tropical storm or minimal hurricane, although the odds of Ernesto topping 74mph is very small. The storm should then begin to re-curve to the north and northeast east of Tampa, over Orlando to just southeast of Jacksonville by late in the day on Wednesday into the overnight hours.

We’ll still get a lot of rain over here, but probably the winds will be barely tropical force. If that prediction is true, it also means that they probably didn’t need to roll back. Wonder if they’re thinking about putting the crawler in reverse?

[Update at 3:37 PM EDT]

From my mouth (so to speak) to NASA’s ears. As Mark Whittington notes in comments, they’ve decided to do exactly that.

Good crisis management by NASA. Everything they’ve done so far is exactly what I would have done (well, in the context of this particular mission), for what little it’s worth. The emphasis needs to be on flying this vehicle, early and often, despite the hand wringers.