This piece at today’s issue of The Space Review seems to be…incoherent.

I know that this isn’t something that someone in Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA) wants to hear, but in fact safety should not be the highest priority of an agency charged with opening the final frontier to humankind.

The STS-5 decision was needed to solve a problem that seemed simple enough. With the first four flights of the Space Shuttle, only two

Over at The Space Review today.

NASA is cutting off funding to RpK. It was inevitable, as long as they continued to miss their financing milestone.

The question now is–what will they do with the money? Personally, I’d like to see t/Space get a shot. Full disclosure, though–that’s partly out of self interest. If they do, I’ll likely get some contract work from them.

It’s actually kind of complicated, because it’s not clear how NASA will make the decision. Will they have to redo the competition? It’s been over a year since the original awards, and presumably the competitors could argue that a lot has changed. On the other hand, perhaps NASA could just ask for a new Best and Final Offer from the contestants.

[Afternoon update]

Clark Lindsey notes that it’s not quite a done deal. He also notes the chicken-and-egg nature of the problem (just like that of the launch-cost problem in general):

I’ve been told that the issue that kept coming up during RpK discussions with potential investors was the lack of a firm commitment by NASA to a contract for launches to the ISS if the demo was successful.

Self-fulfilling prophecy.

And that’s the problem with any kind of government prize or guaranteed market. The government is fickle. In addition, in this case, the market wasn’t even guaranteed. A COTS participant has to make the numbers close on their business plan without NASA to raise the money, and that’s still a tough proposition, in terms of investor perception. RpK had a bigger problem than SpaceX (and t/Space) because their concept needs so much money.

NASA is cutting off funding to RpK. It was inevitable, as long as they continued to miss their financing milestone.

The question now is–what will they do with the money? Personally, I’d like to see t/Space get a shot. Full disclosure, though–that’s partly out of self interest. If they do, I’ll likely get some contract work from them.

It’s actually kind of complicated, because it’s not clear how NASA will make the decision. Will they have to redo the competition? It’s been over a year since the original awards, and presumably the competitors could argue that a lot has changed. On the other hand, perhaps NASA could just ask for a new Best and Final Offer from the contestants.

[Afternoon update]

Clark Lindsey notes that it’s not quite a done deal. He also notes the chicken-and-egg nature of the problem (just like that of the launch-cost problem in general):

I’ve been told that the issue that kept coming up during RpK discussions with potential investors was the lack of a firm commitment by NASA to a contract for launches to the ISS if the demo was successful.

Self-fulfilling prophecy.

And that’s the problem with any kind of government prize or guaranteed market. The government is fickle. In addition, in this case, the market wasn’t even guaranteed. A COTS participant has to make the numbers close on their business plan without NASA to raise the money, and that’s still a tough proposition, in terms of investor perception. RpK had a bigger problem than SpaceX (and t/Space) because their concept needs so much money.

NASA is cutting off funding to RpK. It was inevitable, as long as they continued to miss their financing milestone.

The question now is–what will they do with the money? Personally, I’d like to see t/Space get a shot. Full disclosure, though–that’s partly out of self interest. If they do, I’ll likely get some contract work from them.

It’s actually kind of complicated, because it’s not clear how NASA will make the decision. Will they have to redo the competition? It’s been over a year since the original awards, and presumably the competitors could argue that a lot has changed. On the other hand, perhaps NASA could just ask for a new Best and Final Offer from the contestants.

[Afternoon update]

Clark Lindsey notes that it’s not quite a done deal. He also notes the chicken-and-egg nature of the problem (just like that of the launch-cost problem in general):

I’ve been told that the issue that kept coming up during RpK discussions with potential investors was the lack of a firm commitment by NASA to a contract for launches to the ISS if the demo was successful.

Self-fulfilling prophecy.

And that’s the problem with any kind of government prize or guaranteed market. The government is fickle. In addition, in this case, the market wasn’t even guaranteed. A COTS participant has to make the numbers close on their business plan without NASA to raise the money, and that’s still a tough proposition, in terms of investor perception. RpK had a bigger problem than SpaceX (and t/Space) because their concept needs so much money.