As you may have noticed from the earlier post on the subject, the question about the relative roles of the CEV and COTS programs has generated significant debate. And it’s not just here: John Kavanagh has taken up the question at COTS Watch, asking a series of open questions about the roles of the two programs, while Clark Lindsey of RLV and Space Transport News also tackles the topic. In an article in this week’s issue of The Space Review, Grant Bonin offers an extensive summary of the issue, arguing that the overall vision is in trouble because of the concerns about the CEV raised by the Space Frontier Foundation and the GAO in their respective reports.
Bonin, though, doesn’t let the entrepreneurial “NewSpace” industry off easy, postulating the “Fermi’s Paradox of Space Access”: “If the promise and potential” of low-cost commercial space access to LEO “are so great, where are they?” The answer, he says, is due to the lack of available investment capital for the development of such vehicles, which is where NASA must step in for the benefit of both itself and the NewSpace industry: “To such ends, NASA should be providing for the establishment of capabilities that cannot be wholly capitalized by the private space sector, but which nevertheless hold the promise of creating significant wealth down the road. COTS is arguably the NASA initiative with the highest potential for economic reward in the long-term and redundant LEO access in the near-term. But its chances of success are greatly diminished without increased agency support.”
The problem is not lack of capital. There are huge sums of money in the private market today looking for homes. There are two problems with the NewSpace business model.
1. Very high percieved risk.
2. Lack of a clearly defined, measurable market.
These two together equal a lack of investment. NASA does not help either of these problems with COTS, other than to reduce the risk capital outlay for development. The word is that with the COTS commitment that there has been capital raised by most of the COTS contenders. The second problem remains and NASA’s funding is political in nature can can be removed at the stroke of a pen. That introduces a third risk variable.
I wish the news was better. What is needed is a “win” by someone, whether it be Musk in his core market, Rutan in commercial suborbital tourism, or some other contender like Orbital Recovery or Skycorp’s on orbit assembly. Bigelow even is held hostage to the above as without a clear market he has no clients.
Dennis
I agree with most of that, Dennis, although I think the Space Station could be the perceived market if NASA played her cards right for once.
However, I would add that a bigger problem than either of the two you listed is that any potential payoff on the investment is many years in the future, especially in the absence of the ISS market. If we want COTS (or anything like it) to succeed, we’ve got to have a market, not next decade or even next year, but today. NASA has to make it abundantly clear that, if the COTS people caugh up something useful, NASA will use it — at the expense of the Shuttle, the CEV, or anything else.
If politics (agency or Federal) will not allow that to happen, than I agree with you that COTS chances of success are modest, at best. (Not, however, zero, which makes the project worth continuing. . . .)
— Donald
Donald
Many companies have gone bankrupt waiting for the unfulfilled promises of the government to come true. Unless there is a commercial market beyond NASA the likelyhood for extensive private funding is small and generally restricted to true believers in space. Not to say that there are not enough of those to actually make this work but the difficulty level is very high. Not impossible, just high.
Dennis
The (ok, “a”) problem is that there is zero confidence that NASA would use any system developed by an outside entity to service ISS. There’s an extremely high level of confidence that if NASA did use such a service, they’d demand the ability to own it and run it themselves, which is likely to increase costs dramatically.
This is not entirely unreasonable, as any new organization is going to have fairly limited experience in manned spaceflight, and probably can’t be counted on not to ram their spaceship into the ISS the first couple of times.
But in a way it is somewhat unreasonable, since the way any new space station resupply program will save money over the current way of doing things can be summarized as “fire 1000 people from JSC, KSC, and MSFC and use 100 people at ISS Servicing, Inc to do their jobs”, so unless NASA is prepared for that to happen, they shouldn’t be wasting their time and the time of others looking for cheaper ways to service ISS.
Dennis, I don’t disagree with that, but (even in the best of all possible worlds) a significant non-government market to LEO is unlikely to exist in the next decade. That leaves the Space Station.
I just finished reading Mr. Bonin’s article. If you measure the value of an article by how uncomfortable it makes you, Mr. Bonin’s article is excellent. The second half should be required reading for all of us, especially the bit on fiduciary responsibilities, which summarizes in two words our entire problem. It’s why no one but ideological fools such as myself will put their hard-earned money into the public COTS bidders. Until there is a big market in LEO — someone willing to cut checks right now, today — the Space Station market it it, whether it is ideal or not.
That said, while the balance between Dr. Griffin’s vehicles and COTS may be open to change, the strenght of the existing approach is that we are persuing both a “traditional” NASA development and one or more “alternative” developments in COTS. That is greater diversity than COTS alone. Thus, I’d like to see COTS get more money, but not at the complete expense of the technologically conservative “Apollo on steroids.”
And then there is the political “real world” issue that Jake addresses. COTS in its present form may the best that can be achieved, especially going forward. As I’ve stated before, I agree with Al that the EELVs would have been a better strategy, but I fear that revisiting that decision now is the worst possible strategy. The kind of technical indecision we saw in the early Space Station will, at best, create another Space Station, and at worst kill the whole thing.
— Donald
“The second problem remains and NASA’s funding is political in nature can can be removed at the stroke of a pen. That introduces a third risk variable.”
But then this risk variable will exist no matter what. It does not matter if NASA’s COTS funding is $500 million (currently) or the $2 billion that SFF proposes–the COTS players will always know that the money can be withdrawn, by NASA, the White House, or Congress.
Brandt
I agree. That is why I proposed that the $615 million dollar penalty against Boeing for their ethics lapses be applied to COTS and not taken away. It would not cost the taxpayers one cent and would have the beautiful irony of supporting the next generation of space companies.
Dennis
There are some problems with Bonin’s article. For instance, he equates the SFF and GAO reports and states that the government report “validates” the SFF report. But it does nothing of the sort. SFF advocates at the very least scrapping the Block 1 CEV and switching to COTS. The GAO report does not recommend doing this. The GAO’s primary concern is fairly narrow–delaying the CEV procurement contract for an indefinite amount of time until NASA has made a better business case to GAO. In other words, at no point does GAO say that NASA should do what the Space Frontier Foundation suggests. GAO reports are typically narrow and rather bureaucratic, focusing on specific things that are hard to understand outside of the government contracting world. This report is no different. Another common criticism of GAO reports is that they are irrelevant or used as “attack analysis” by a congressman trying to make a point. It’s less clear if that is the case for this GAO report.
In fact, rather than “validating” the SFF report, one could argue that this GAO report argues the exact opposite. SFF is suggesting giving money to companies that don’t have substantial track records in human spaceflight or large scale space hardware and giving them less oversight. But the GAO is suggesting that NASA do _more_ up-front preparation before signing a contract for the CEV. These seem to be two significantly different philosophies–tighter control (GAO) vs. more open market (SFF).
(It is worth noting that although NASA unveiled the ESAS architecture last year, Congress has still not held a hearing evaluating other options. So if any of the “newspace” concerns about ESAS are valid, they are certainly not resonating within Congress.)
I think that there’s another problem with the Bonin piece–like the SFF paper, it makes too big a deal out of the 2004 Presidential Commission report. It should be clear to everybody by now that nobody in Washington took that report seriously. Neither the White House nor Congress made a big deal out of it. And if memory serves, Congress actually _canceled_ a hearing about the report when it was released. Although I don’t know why they did this, the message it sent at the time was that the White House had indicated that they were not going to pay any attention to this report.
I also take issue with Bonin’s comment: “Many NewSpace companies possess comparable expertise (expertise, to be sure, which exists in people, not companies), but merely lack levels of funding comparable to what NASA is willing to dedicate to its own vehicle.”
I know how companies bid on contracts and one of the key things that they do is list who at their company will work on the contract. The government wants to know the names of the people and their expertise, not vague assertions that “we can find the people if you give us the money.” This is where small companies–like the NewSpace COTS competitors–are really hindered. If NASA determines that building a human spacecraft will require a company with X-thousand engineers with Y-amount of experience, small companies are not going to have those assets in-house. All they can do is promise to hire that expertise. But those promises are not always convincing, because the government will (correctly) believe that it is much easier for a big company like Lockheed-Martin or Boeing to recruit 500 new eployees than it will be for a small company to recruit 2000 new employees. And the big company is always going to have the ability to matrix people from other ongoing work, like military spacecraft. It is because of this that the government has greater confidence that a big company can do the job than it does that a small company (without much of a track record or other existing business) can do the job.
Brant, RocketPlane appears to agree with you. They have teamed with Orbital Sciences to finish developing the Kistler vehicle, and, according to this week’s Space News, Orbital is subcontracting with Lockheed for assembly, integration, and testing of the vehicle. This looks like a transparent (and probably well-advised) attempt to increase their credibility with NASA.
— Donald
Brandt Poole said:
[[I also take issue with Bonin’s comment: “Many NewSpace companies possess comparable expertise (expertise, to be sure, which exists in people, not companies), but merely lack levels of funding comparable to what NASA is willing to dedicate to its own vehicle.”
I know how companies bid on contracts and one of the key things that they do is list who at their company will work on the contract. The government wants to know the names of the people and their expertise, not vague assertions that “we can find the people if you give us the money.” This is where small companies–like the NewSpace COTS competitors–are really hindered.]]
Brandt,
What makes you think that the the NewSpace COTS competitors did not provide the names of the specific executives who have human spaceflight experience to NASA in their proposals?
Have you read their proposals?
There appears to an unjustified bias against the NewSpace companies, based mostly on ignorance about the NewSpace firms.
Please read the posting by Ben Muniz, of Constellation Services International, Inc., near the end of the previous posting on CEV, COTS, etc. He provides a lot of information on this subject.
These companies have hired, and are hiring, lots of executives with many decades human spaceflight experience. They have hired key subcontractors with substantial human spaceflight experience, and who are often best in class in their specific areas.
I think it is time for people to check their assumptions about NewSpace.
– Al
Brandt writes:
But in a way it is somewhat unreasonable, since the way any new space station resupply program will save money over the current way of doing things can be summarized as “fire 1000 people from JSC, KSC, and MSFC and use 100 people at ISS Servicing, Inc to do their jobs”, so unless NASA is prepared for that to happen, they shouldn’t be wasting their time and the time of others looking for cheaper ways to service ISS.
I thought the idea was to use those 100 people at ISS Servicing Inc to allow JSC, KSC & MSFC to focus on the Moon and Mars.
“What makes you think that the the NewSpace COTS competitors did not provide the names of the specific executives who have human spaceflight experience to NASA in their proposals?”
I _never_ said that they did not provide names. I said that this is where they are at a competitive disadvantage. They simply do not have the people already on staff. And the example you provided adds another dimension to this. A company that responds that “we have everybody we need on staff” is going to be treated differently than a company that responds with “we are going to team up with half a dozen other companies that have never worked together before in order to acquire the needed expertise.”
My experience is in the small contractor area and I have seen how this works, and how it can fall apart–a contractor may bid on a contract and promise the government that if they win, they will double their size to do the work. But there is no guarantee that they can actually pull it off, and because they are small to begin with, they cannot hire those people _before_ they win the contract. I also know of cases where two companies competing for the same contract will include some of the same names in their bids–betting that the winner will get the employee, which is not always a safe bet.
In the workforce, Lockheed-Martin has no trouble recruiting, because they have all the advantages of size (like nice benefits packages to offer employees), whereas a small company, even if it wins a big contract, is going to have a harder time recruiting the people to work on the contract. I’ve seen companies do lousy jobs on contracts that they won because they were unable to get the expertise that they needed, or because they did get the expertise, but then did not know how to use them, or lost them due to poor employee management.
The government _knows_ this, and it enters into their calculations when awarding contracts. So when Bonin wrote that “the expertise… exists in people” it is missing the point: the NewSpace companies have fewer people, hence less expertise–thus leaving the question of whether or not they can acquire the people and their expertise. Expertise _does_ reside in companies.
To be fair, big companies can and often do cheat by putting the names of people into their proposals who they never intend to put on the work. For instance, Boeing could have a hotshot program manager working on military space programs who they promise to work on a NASA contract if they win it, and then they never transfer him to the NASA contract.
Dennis,
I agree with you. The problem is not a “lack of capital”. There is huge amount of capital out there for high risk ventures.
The problem is commercial space ventures are competing for this capital against other high risk ventures which look nearly risk free in comparison with a much better chance at future profits.
The first problem is the “market risk”. NASA is a customer which has lots of money, but even if NASA was a good customer (which it is not), it is much riskier to depend on a market with a single customer than a market with many (hundreds or thousands or more) customers. Servicing the ISS is a real market with siginficant potential, as the ISS has clear need for crew & cargo delivery, but it is still risky.
The second problem is “Investment risk”. Typical high-risk commercial ventures ask for a few million to a few tens-of-million in investment. Most high-risk equity investment funds look for investments that only need equity amounts in this range. So when you come in and say “we only need a couple hundred million”, you don’t get the time of day from most of the investors. (There are cases where funds are investing hundreds of millions, but these haven unique characteristics. In many cases they are buying “liquid or hard assets”, or use them as collateral. These assets can be resold, or attached, if there is a problem. In the case of comsates, the investment funds transfer all the risks to other parties, such as is down using insurance, and use much lower cost debt instead of equity.)
The third problem is “political/regulatory risk”. What is the chance you will not get that launch license from the U.S. government? What is the chance you will not get that export license to enable you to use that Canadian or Italian technology? What is the chance you will not get sign-off from the ISS safety panels to dock/berth with ISS?
The fourth problem is “technical risk”. Most investors have very short payback timelines, and want to minimize the risk that the product won’t work, which when combined generally means minimizing technical risk. Anybody has studied finance, knows this is a completely rational view for investors, and you can actually demonstrate this issue unequivocably with numbers. It is basically an implication of the time value of money, and the requirements of a risk adjusted ROI.
In fact, this is the point on which I will conclude. It is the risk adjusted ROI, and the time value of money that drive investors in high risk projects to be VERY GOOD at quickly evaluating all the key business risks, and coming to a conclusion if there is merit. A general rule of thumb is that a financeable high risk ventures business plan will eliminate ALL of the key business risks, excepting one. And then the business plan will describe why the “management team” of the business is the absolutely best team for managing that remaining risk.
When you are a space venture, and you …
– need hundreds of millions in capital,
– use unproven space technology
– have a single identified customer (e.g., NASA), and
– have significant political/regulatory risk.
you will lose the interest of the trillions of dollars of private investment capital out there.
Some may claim that what we have here is an instance of “market failure”. But I believe that economists would claim that what we have is an instance of “market success”. That the market is sending a clear message that this is TOO RISKY for the market to do on its own. Whatever your “spin”, modern economics has done a lot of work on why “markets fail” to achieve some objective, and you don’t need a PhD in economics to figure this one out.
At the same time, the Space Frontier Foundation’s paper is basically a summary of the evidence of “government (e.g., NASA) failure” in Earth-to-orbit transportation. I have read the complaints from various posters on tertiary points about the paper, but it appears that most have accepted the major points of the paper. The paper even points out that a major part of modern day economics deals with “government failure” and is called “public choice theory”.
I suggest we all agree — commercial markets on their own will fail. Government on its own will fail (to achieve the real objective, as set out by the White House.) Is that so hard for the partisans to agree to this?
IMO, where each party is likely to fail on their own, the right solution is probably somewhere in between.
There are many potential solutions which involve various types of partnerships between private industry (with private skin in the game) & government.
COTS is one (1) example of a “government-industry” partnership. The COTS approach of using “other transactions authority” to put NASA skin in the game, while also requiring some private skin in the game, is one possible way to escape the hole we are in. I hope it works. I worry that it may fail, only because of how little funding it is receiving? (Would anybody blame Boeing or Lockheed for failing to build the CEV with only half of $500M? I don’t think so.)
There are other solutions that also might also work, including orbital prizes, tax holidays, investment tax credits, and signing advance service purchase contracts”.
Some day we will get beyond the finger pointing and false debates — by agreeing that neither “100% commercial free markets” nor “100% government ownership/operations” is the solution, and then get down to talking about real solutions.
– Al
Brant
The truth be told, neither Lockmart or NorthBoeing have the people “already on staff”. Ususally what they have is a list of resume’s of people who commit to work on the contract if it is awarded. They do have a core management team that flits from one project to another but to say that the competence is already there in house stretches things.
Dennis
Donald,
BTW, I agree with your general point that you wrote that became the last posting (#41 of 41) in the previous discussion under “CEV, COTS, and the gap”.
Somebody can always argue for something “better”. In which case, you get into a situation of “better vs. good enough”. That is a trap that we should avoid.
The real question, and debate, is what is “good enough”?
– Al
“The truth be told, neither Lockmart or NorthBoeing have the people “already on staff”. Ususally what they have is a list of resume’s of people who commit to work on the contract if it is awarded. They do have a core management team that flits from one project to another but to say that the competence is already there in house stretches things.”
I disagree. But at the very least, they are at a competitive advantage to recruit people that they do not have. In general, I would much rather go to work for one of the big companies than I would for one of the smaller ones, because the big ones can give me things that the small ones cannot, like good benefits, etc.
I’m just curious – has the poster who stated the following:
“The truth be told, neither Lockmart or NorthBoeing have the people “already on staff”. Ususally what they have is a list of resumes of people who commit to work on the contract if it is awarded. They do have a core management team that flits from one project to another but to say that the competence is already there in house stretches things.”
been in Littleton or El Segundo lately?
“I have read the complaints from various posters on tertiary points about the paper, but it appears that most have accepted the major points of the paper.”
Define “most.” Is this most people? Most people who complained about “tertiary” points? Most people who actually bothered to comment about the white paper?
One big problem is that this may be a selection bias–the only people who posted about the white paper were people who already agreed with it, whereas those who disagreed with it simply tossed it aside, rather than spending time refuting it. It’s impossible to draw conclusions based upon the sparse commentary.
I actually don’t accept many of the points of the paper. For instance, the assertion that NASA could forgo the Block I CEV and simply move on to the Block II is a dubious proposition for lots of reasons, including political support.
And in fact, I suspect that because SFF’s paper looks so amateurish (the language in particular needs to be improved), I suspect that many people simply dismissed it out of hand. They didn’t bother reading it because they don’t take it seriously.
Something that I would have liked to see in the paper is an attempt to compare launch costs and demonstrate that switching to a EELV booster could save substantial amounts of money. But many of the arguments in the paper were more ideological than financial. And I think that financial arguments would be a better way to convince Congress to change NASA’s approach to CLV.
Brandt Poole writes: “A company that responds that “we have everybody we need on staff” is going to be treated differently than a company that responds with “we are going to team up with half a dozen other companies that have never worked together before in order to acquire the needed expertise.”
At the system level, nearly EVERY company builds teams. Look at the Atlas V or Delta IV, as an example — even with all the in-house capability of Lockheed and Boeing, there are numerous subcontractors on those vehicles. And the large aerospace teams for new programs do not come into being until after they win the proposal. That’s how this business works.
At the small company level, there is also the vague difference between supplier and subcontractor, but in the very broadest of terms, a supplier can be thought of as someone who already has what you need, whereas a subcontractor will have to do some new development work as part of the project.
Brandt: Something that I would have liked to see in the paper is an attempt to compare launch costs and demonstrate that switching to a EELV booster could save substantial amounts of money.
This is an interesting question. Both Al and my arguments for an EELV strategy are often about tertiary benefits, not cost alone. I suspect that using EELVs may be a wash financially, or may even cost a little more for the VSE.
However, there are other stakeholders, and the question is, what would reduce costs for access to space, not just the costs of executing the VSE. Some of the most important reasons I have used to argue that we should have gone with the EELVs include:
Reduced development costs (the EELVs are already existing state-of-the-art launchers), leading to earlier flights to the moon, albeit probably less capable ones.
Reducing the costs of maintaining multiple government medium-class launch systems (two EELVs plus both VSE vehicles, plus apparently the Delta-II which seems disinclined to go away).
A larger market for the EELVs, increasing the number of launches and spreading fixed costs over a larger number of users.
Likewise, greater economies of scale.
A greater chance of commercial success for the EELVs, since they would have a larger base market.
All these factors combined leading to lower costs for everyone, not just the VSE. That, in turn, could lead to a greater constituency for the launch systems used to fly the VSE vehicles, thereby giving the entire project greater political stability.
None of these arguments have much to do with reducing costs for the VSE alone, but are very important to the United States’ greater future in space.
— Donald
“None of these arguments have much to do with reducing costs for the VSE alone, but are very important to the United States’ greater future in space.”
Well, theoretically, maybe. One of NASA’s problems right now is that they’re being gouged by the launch providers, and they suspect that they are paying more for EELV launches than the USAF is. All they know is that every time they go to buy another EELV, the cost has gone up, and nobody will explain why that has happened. The CLV option may have been based in part on this concern. They wanted a rocket that they could control.
But the SSF paper did not contain that kind of high-end analysis. It just wasn’t there. And I didn’t get the sense that whoever wrote that paper really knew how to do in-depth analysis. If this was being done by Aerospace Corp or some other company that is known for analytical expertise, I suspect it would have been a much more complex and detailed paper.
Well, theoretically, maybe. One of NASA’s problems right now is that they’re being gouged by the launch providers, and they suspect that they are paying more for EELV launches than the USAF is. All they know is that every time they go to buy another EELV, the cost has gone up, and nobody will explain why that has happened. The CLV option may have been based in part on this concern. They wanted a rocket that they could control.
********************
Brandt
Where do you have evidence for this overcharging? Under FAR contracting rules for procurements, the contractor cannot charge more than the cheapest price that they charge to other customers, whether government or not.
Now the USAF may get better pricing under a block buy agreement but NASA could easily get the same deal.
Look at the cost of the CLV. It will easily be $4 billion, probably $5B. At this cost NASA could easily buy 25 Atlas V heavies, with an aggregate throw mass of 500 tons to orbit.
Question to the peanut gallery. How many CLV flights would it take to equal this amount of throw weight? Heck this is too much fun, I will answer it. Twenty Five CLV flights. If there are two of these per year to ISS for crew exchange, that means that it would take 12 years worth of flights just to equal the NRE for the development of the system. If you buy two more flights per year for cargo, that means that it takes from 2014 to 2020 just to equal the flight rate of buying Atlas V’s as they are.
Where is the logic here of the CLV procurement?
Dennis
Brandt Poole said:
[[But the SSF paper did not contain that kind of high-end analysis. It just wasn’t there. And I didn’t get the sense that whoever wrote that paper really knew how to do in-depth analysis. If this was being done by Aerospace Corp or some other company that is known for analytical expertise, I suspect it would have been a much more complex and detailed paper.]]
Brandt,
Your point is that the Space Frontier Foundation is not the Aerospace Corporation, and did not do an analysis like the Aerospace Corporation would do? That is accurate.
I don’t think the SFF would try to claim to be the Aerospace Corporation, and if they did make such a claim, they would probably fail. Obviously, the White Paper uses existing analysis from other sources (e.g., NASA’s internal ESAS study) to make its points. Not every white paper has to produce original “cost or technical” analysis in order to produce original “policy” analysis.
In fact, if the Foundation had claimed that the EELV’s would be lower cost than the single stick, 5-segment CLV, then you would have a real point on them. Because this is a conclusion that only can be made from having done the technical & cost analysis.
What they did point out was accurate, and relevant — that NASA made the trade of the 4-segment single stick against the EELVs; but apparantly has not made the trade of the 5-segment single stick (which is a much different LV, and is now the baseline) against the EELVs.
It is hard to argue with their recommendation that somebody needs to do the analysis. If I was NASA, I would want to base my decision on the facts, and NASA has the ability (and funding) to do the analysis. Somebody on the outside pointing out that the analysis apparantly has not have been done is fair.
Considering the national security implications, IMO, this needs to be done. If somebody wants to pay the Aerospace Corporation to do it, great. If the DoD were to direct the Aerospace Corporation to do this, great. If NASA were to do it, and publish the results, great. But somebody should do it.
– Al
Brandt Poole said:
[I actually don’t accept many of the points of the paper. For instance, the assertion that NASA could forgo the Block I CEV and simply move on to the Block II is a dubious proposition for lots of reasons, including political support.]
Brandt,
What you may not realize is that NASA ESMD’s original plan was for the CEV to bypass ISS and go directly to the Moon (after incremental tests in low Earth orbit), so it is hardly “dubious”. There are many people in NASA ESMD who would like to go directly to the Moon, and who consider going to ISS to be a distraction from their real mission.
It was only later, because of political pressure, that NASA changed the plan to send the CEV to ISS. So your point about “politics” is relevant, and perhaps the only key issue.
But politics is a lot more mushy than a technical analysis of the CEV. The politics of this issue can change. The fact that Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX) has recently stated that COTS should be used to close the gap is, perhaps, an indicator that something may change.
If Griffin stood up, and stated that he was going to focus the CEV on Block II, but he still planned to fly it before 2014 (in order to end the U.S. human spaceflight gap), I am thinking most of the politicians (Florida, Texas) would be satisfied. Griffin could then (obviously) say we are going to use COTS to create new systems to service ISS, and we will buy ISS cargo & crew services from our international partners until they come into being.
I think Griffin could make this change stick. Whether or not he will want to do it, is another issue.
– Al
“Your point is that the Space Frontier Foundation is not the Aerospace Corporation, and did not do an analysis like the Aerospace Corporation would do? That is accurate.
I don’t think the SFF would try to claim to be the Aerospace Corporation, and if they did make such a claim, they would probably fail.”
You seem to have completely missed the point. My point was that I wanted _better,_ more sophisticated, more professional analysis from SFF, and I used Aerospace as an example of the kind of sophistication I’d like to see them aspire to. Instead, I consider the white paper to be rather superficial (and the tone is unprofessional), and I suspect that that is the way that it was received within the professional space community. For instance, although the GAO report is mentioned in Aviation Week, SFF’s paper is not. I didn’t see it in Space News either. I haven’t checked Aerospace Daily, but so far the only places I have seen it mentioned are primarily blog sites. This indicates that the trade press did not consider the white paper to be worthy of mentioning. Why not?
“What you may not realize is that NASA ESMD’s original plan was for the CEV to bypass ISS and go directly to the Moon (after incremental tests in low Earth orbit), so it is hardly “dubious”.”
It is dubious, because it’s not politically sustainable. Congress has already indicated that it is unhappy with the prospect of relying solely on the Russians for space station access. How much confidence will they have that an untried policy–COTS–will provide American access to space?
{{How much confidence will they have that an untried policy–COTS–will provide American access to space?}}
The flip side of that is, what would it take to get them to try it? After all, they don’t want to spend the kind of money need to build an internal vehicle in the timeframe we are talking about with the capablities needed, nor do they like things like the gap, or the fact that we aren’t doing very much in space – so whats the alternative?
Brendt: Well, theoretically, maybe. One of NASA’s problems right now is that they’re being gouged by the launch providers, and they suspect that they are paying more for EELV launches than the USAF is. All they know is that every time they go to buy another EELV, the cost has gone up, and nobody will explain why that has happened.
So, we’re going to give them even more market power with the United Launch Alliance?
Increasing the flight rate by using EELVs in other projects is a far, far better solution to EELV costs across the space industry than ULA.
— Donald
What they did point out was accurate, and relevant — that NASA made the trade of the 4-segment single stick against the EELVs; but apparantly has not made the trade of the 5-segment single stick (which is a much different LV, and is now the baseline) against the EELVs.
This is incorrect. See section 1.5.2.1 of the ESAS report, p. 40-42. Two different variants of the 5-segment CLV were included.
Off Topic: Article in today’s New York Times (science section) on an interesting possible solution to the odd shape of Earth’s moon.
Scientists Chip Away at Mysteries of the Moon
— Donald
I originally said:
What they did point out was accurate, and relevant — that NASA made the trade of the 4-segment single stick against the EELVs; but apparantly has not made the trade of the 5-segment single stick (which is a much different LV, and is now the baseline) against the EELVs.
Nemo said:
[[This is incorrect. See section 1.5.2.1 of the ESAS report, p. 40-42. Two different variants of the 5-segment CLV were included.]]
Nemo,
I read this section. As I read it, ESAS traded the 4-segment SRB against the EELV upgrade options, and eliminated them. And did the same by trading the 4-segment vs. the 5-segment.
Other than putting them both in the same table, it does not appear that the cost, schedule & risks of the 5-segment SRB and the upgraded EELVs were directly compared.
I also noted, that in Figure 1-26, that ESAS estimated the DDT&E cost of the 5-segment SRB to be 1.3B. But the numbers leaking out of NASA *suggest* that ESAS got this wrong, and that the revised estimates for the 5-segment SRB are now in the $3B range.
Meanwhile the ESAS report states that the DDT&E of the human rated Atlas V is 1.18B and the human rated Delta IV is 1.03B.
Now, the data that is “leaking” is still only rumor. But what if it is true? If the the 5-segment SRB cost data leak is bad data, why hasn’t NASA corrected the record?
I am just asking the question. Considering the long-term national security implications, the commitment of taxpayer dollars, and the implications for commercial space, I think asking pointed questions is appropriate.
The appropriate response is to answer the questions by providing the data.
– Al
Brandt Poole said:
[[You seem to have completely missed the point. My point was that I wanted _better,_ more sophisticated, more professional analysis from SFF, and I used Aerospace as an example of the kind of sophistication I’d like to see them aspire to.]]
Brandt,
It is great to “want” this, but there is a huge disparity in both “access to information” and “resources to do the analysis”. This disparity is so large that it prohibits any non-governmental organization from producing the sophisticated analysis you want.
An outside organization might have the resources (presuming they had large financial donors who were willing to contribute to such a project) but even if they did, they would not have access to the information that would allow such an analysis. Money is the easiest of the two problems to solve.
There is a information disparity problem is not so easy to address.
The individual EELV firms (Boeing and Lockheed) will give their information to NASA and the DoD. ATK will give their information to NASA and the DoD. All 3 of these firms will jump over high mountains to provide additional information (data and analysis) upon request from NASA, because NASA is the customer. They have large marketing teams which do nothing else.
But these companies will not give that information to some outside group that asks for it. Therefore, the outside group has a major information disparity, and must do with what is publicly available.
Let me give a more concrete example, relative to a part of the ESAS report that Nemo just mentioned. Go look at Figure 1-26 on page 41 of the ESAS report. This table is the result of the analysis of a large amount of non-public information.
There is no way for an outside group to conduct an independent analysis of the cost, or reliability, numbers of the various LV options without access to proprietary information.
So, while you may “want” such an analysis, this is just not feasible for outside groups to conduct, even if they had the resources.
But I am willing to be proven wrong. Please tell me how you would put together such a “sophisticated” analysis, if you were part of such an independent non-profit policy group.
– Al
“So, while you may “want” such an analysis, this is just not feasible for outside groups to conduct, even if they had the resources.”
Once again, that was illustrative, not literal. My point was that the overall quality of the SFF report was far lower than it should have been in order to have an effect (and note that I pointed out that it does not seem to have been picked up by the trade press, thus it appears that SFF was not reaching a high-level audience; it’s fine to preach to the blogosphere, but it probably won’t get you very far). They didn’t really try to get into sophisticated analysis of cost, policy, etc. The level of discussion was about the quality you would expect from a college undergraduate, not, say, a high-level analyst capable of applying sophisticated tools to the subject. I’ve seen white papers produced by serious think tanks, like Brookings, AEI, Heritage, etc., and they have high quality people working for them. The SFF paper did not read like it was written by people with sophisticated knowledge of government contracting, budgeting, procurement, development, etc. It was more like an attack piece, and this limits its effectiveness.
And here’s how it works in the real world: the people who have the data (NASA) can always reply that the critics are wrong because they lack the data. In order to overcome that hurdle, it is important that the critics (like SFF) strive for the highest level of professionalism possible. It’s clear that if they did strive for it, they didn’t get very high.
“But I am willing to be proven wrong.”
Sarcasm? Is there any point in continuing such a discussion if you want to take it down that path?
I read this section. As I read it, ESAS traded the 4-segment SRB against the EELV upgrade options, and eliminated them. And did the same by trading the 4-segment vs. the 5-segment.
Other than putting them both in the same table, it does not appear that the cost, schedule & risks of the 5-segment SRB and the upgraded EELVs were directly compared.
I read this section as well and am at a loss to explain how you came to that conclusion, other than perhaps the way the paragraphs are divided (and if so, I think you’re reading far too much into it). There is no explicit wording to support that interpretation nor even anything implicit I could see to draw an inference from.
I also noted, that in Figure 1-26, that ESAS estimated the DDT&E cost of the 5-segment SRB to be 1.3B. But the numbers leaking out of NASA *suggest* that ESAS got this wrong, and that the revised estimates for the 5-segment SRB are now in the $3B range.
You can’t compare the two, because the units in that figure are not billions of dollars. The very first sentence of 1.5.2.1 reads:
“A summary of the most promising CLV candidates assessed and key parameters (cost is normalized to the selected option) is shown in Figure 1-26.”
(Emphasis added). This makes me question the carefulness of your reading of the section.
Actually, I was not intending to be sarcastic at all. I was being completely serious in pointing out that there is an information disparity here, and that this is a major barrier to outside “sophisticated analysis”. However, I am open to being proven wrong, as I might learn something.
I am interested in discussing specific issues of fact (like Nemo pointed out) which lends itself to rational debate. It would be useful to know what specific type of “sophisticated analysis on cost, policy” you would like to see.
Instead, you respond in generalities, which is not too useful. The latest generality is that the paper was not up to par compared to “Brookings, AEI, Heritage, etc.” If you proposed something specific, we could discuss it on its merits. However, we can’t discuss a generality in other than general terms.
So, let me respond in general terms.
Yes, it would be nice if the non-profit space entities had the resources to achieve the level of excellence of Brookings, AEI, Heritage, which have full-time professional staff measured in the dozens.
– Al
Al
If this is what you would like of the Space Frontier Foundation then I would suggest that you, and all who agree with that sentiment, to go to the website and donate sums of money that can help them reach that level of professionalism.
http://www.space-frontier.org
Dennis
Nemo,
You got me. I did not read this section carefully enough. They were all normalized against the baseline.
The section summarizes the technical risks of each of these 3 options. None of them can meet the Initial Operational Capability of 2011. They all have technical risks of one kind or another.
In comparing the EELV options, and the 5-segment SRB option, the human-rated Delta IV would have the lowest DDT&E. Compared to the Delta IV option, the human-rated Atlas V is 14.6% higher in DDT&E, and the 5-segment SRB is 26.2% larger.
Both the Atlas V and the Delta IV options have more payload capability than the 5-segment SRB to 28.5 degrees, but only the Atlas V is better to 51.6 degrees (by about 10%.)
The 5-segment SRB has almost twice the estimated safety as the EELV options. The 5-segment SRB is 4% cheaper in marginal cost/flight than the Atlas V and 15.6% cheaper than the Delta IV.
The conclusion of this section only says why it chose the 4-segment option — “The 13.1 configuration was selected due to its lower cost, higher safety/reliability, its ability to utilize existing human-rated systems and infrastructure and the fact that it gave the most straightforward path to a CaLV.”
Maybe I missed it, but I see no clear basis for determining which of the runner up options was best. As listed above, there are plusses and minuses to all the runnerups.
However, there are some important things missing from the trade. It does not compare the “national security” benefits of the various options, which is an critical factor. Nor does it assess any potential benefits to commercial industry of lowering the costs of EELVs (although I doubt there are many as the EELVs have already left the commercial market). But since “security” and “economy” are two of the 3 White House specific goals, this is a significant thing for NASA to leave out of the assessment.
Maybe it is obvious to others, but it is not obvious to me which of these 3 choices is best. It depends on which of these criteria is more important.
In the end, I am guessing it will come down to “loss of crew” versus “national security”, which is morally equivalent as a different form of “loss of life”.
– Al
Why did Griffin choose the 5 segment SRB for Ares 1? Mars.
The Ares V needs a 5 segment SRB. Liquid fly-back is feasible just far more R&D (time & money) than adding two 5 segment SRBs to the Ares V.
Going with EELV means none of the CLV development costs are applicable to Ares V and any delay in deployment of Ares V means Thiokol’s solid segment production is on hold for years.
What I do not understand is all the passion for EELV. Even if it is “better” how much better?
60 / 40%
55 / 45%
51 / 49%
Perhaps it is just the Moon guys and the Mars guys having it out with Griffin being a Mars guy.
= = =
Of course, if Elon Musk flies his Falcon 9 by 2010, EELV will be deader than a door nail before CEV even flies once. If Falcon 9 is available why buy EELV for anything, DOD or NASA?
Dennis,
Don’t take what I said as an insult. In my opinion, and to my tastes, the existing SFF white paper is professional, and substantive. Although it is passionate, I don’t hold that passion against you like others here, who want a more measured tone. We need a little passion in this industry.
Although I would love there to be a “Heritage Foundation of Space”, I think it is a strawman argument to compare the SFF (or any other non-profit space group) against organizations like Heritage, AEI, Heritage, etc. Space is a minor niche industry, with small amounts of money, compared to the issues those organizations tackle.
The next time the Foundation does such a White Paper, they might tone down the rhetoric just a notch. Some here have a problem listening to the substance, which is the strength of the paper. Let the facts speak for themselves.
– Al
The next time the Foundation does such a White Paper, they might tone down the rhetoric just a notch.
Speaking as someone who saw an early draft, I can tell you that they actually toned it down quite a bit.
Bill, you raise some interesting questions about why the (my) passion for the EELVs. After thinking about it, I have to come to the conclusion that I believe establishing routine, commercial, and relatively low-cost, access to a market in LEO in the immediate future, and later on the moon, is far more important than any preparation Mars at this point in time. I outlined my reasons for why the EELVs might achieve that earlier in this thread.
If Mr. Musk or somebody else achieves that with another rocket, so much the better. But that is not likely in an operational sense for at least several years. The EELVs are available here and now and fully operational, and increasing their market (in the broader, not only commercial sense) would benefit everyone.
Only one of the EELVs has been withdrawn from the commercial market, and AvWeek (I believe) reported that Boeing is reconsidering that decision. Right now, there is a shortage of medium-class rockets, and there is a commercial market for EELVs if the American companies (or their shareholders) had the guts to take the risk.
Also, capsules designed for any medium-class launch vehicle (which is the way I think we should be going) could shift to the Falcon-9, et al, if an when one of those becomes available.
— Donald
Speaking as someone who saw an early draft, I can tell you that they actually toned it down quite a bit.
They toned it down? Rand, do you happen to have that early draft handy?
“Going with EELV means none of the CLV development costs are applicable to Ares V and any delay in deployment of Ares V means Thiokol’s solid segment production is on hold for years.” — Bill White.
I think the true reason for the Ares I CLV selection was to support the Ares V CaLV. NASA really-really wants a Heavy Launch Vehicle and (as originally conceived) the Ares I commonality with the Ares V in effect subsidizes the Ares V development and operational costs.
The problem with that rationale is that the currently conceived Ares V now has as much in common with the Delta IV as it has in common with the Ares I. And the Delta IV is flying now whereas the Ares I is a paper rocket. And even worse for the Ares I, today there is no reason why the Ares V needs the 5-segment SRB anymore. If the 10m diameter liquid tank Ares V switched to using the existing 4 segment-SRB than the Ares V would still reach the original payload goal of 125 tonne to LEO. It doesn’t make sense to spend billions of dollars of extra development cost on a 5-segment SRB just so the Ares V can lift 10% more payload to orbit. Once the Ares V is shed of the 5 segment-SRB, the rationalization for the Ares I is gone.
The Ares I may in theory be safer than the Delta IV for a CLV, but the Delta IV and the CEV would be much much safer than the Space Shuttle. And using the Delta IV should be cheaper and faster to service than the Ares I: closing the manned spaceflight ‘gap’ faster, and saving money that could apply towards faster developemnt of the Ares V.
So instead of the Ares I aiding the Ares V, today the Ares I is really a drag on the Ares V. If the objective is to support HLV, than supporting the Ares I is counterproductive.
Al
I don’t take it as a second as an insult. I sincerely think that whoever would like to see the Foundation do a better job should contribute money to them. They are a 501c3 and the donations are tax deductable.
We need organizations like SFF and the more money they have the better the quality of their output will be.
Dennis
…do you happen to have that early draft handy?
I do, but I’m not at liberty to release it…
Brad writes;
So instead of the Ares I aiding the Ares V, today the Ares I is really a drag on the Ares V. If the objective is to support HLV, than supporting the Ares I is counterproductive.
If shuttle is terminated on 30 September 2010 and CEV flies on EELV and Ares V first flies in 2017 or 2018 then Thiokol needs to keep those SRB segment assembly lines functional without selling any segments. Very expensive and close those lines down and where will the SRBs come from in 2018?
Using a 5 segment SRB Ares 1 keeps the Thiokol production lines (refurbishment, really) running.
On this point I agree with Brad:
I think the true reason for the Ares I CLV selection was to support the Ares V CaLV. NASA really-really wants a Heavy Launch Vehicle and (as originally conceived) the Ares I commonality with the Ares V in effect subsidizes the Ares V development and operational costs.
But why heavt lift? Mars.
Whether Delta IV or Atlas V truly is cheaper is the $6.4 billion dollar question. But even if EELV is “cheaper” how much cheaper?
If this is a 55 / 45 decision there is a whole lot of wasted energy here.
Remember, Griffin went to the Pentagon and got their approval for ESAS. Griffin also went to the White House and got their approval for ESAS. After ESAS was announced, NASA got its first authorization from Congress in a long long time. That presumably signals that Congress is content with ESAS.
Griffin’s bureaucratic ship of state now has a mighty powerful head of steam. Perhaps the NewSpace people should root for SpaceX to succeed as fast as possible so those 5 segment SRBs are used ONLY for Ares V and Ares 1 is cancelled in favor of Falcon.
Again, once Falcon 5 and 9 start flying regularly, both EELVs will be dinosaurs.
= = =
I also believe (correct me if wrong) that a 5 segment SRB Ares 1 cannot compete with Musk’s Falcon series due to a limitation on the number of segment casings that currently exist.
I read somewhere that Thiokol has ceased making new metal casings for the SRBs and intends to merely continue refurbishing existing ones after each shuttle flight until 2010 and Ares 1 flights thereafter. To re-tool and start making new solid casings will be expensive, yet there are plenty for the next few decades (and liquid fly-back strap-ons are intended for Ares V 15 or 20 or 25 years out).
Therefore, Ares 1 CANNOT compete with SpaceX for the tourism market (for example) as EELV can. And once Ares V is deployed, using a finite number of casings for LEO-only access would be foolish, opening the door wider for COTS.
Further detail on Brad’s point:
Once the Ares V is shed of the 5 segment-SRB, the rationalization for the Ares I is gone.
True, Ares V does not need a 5 segment SRB. But it does need either a 4 or 5 segment SRB and if Thiokol shuts down SRB processing for 7 or 8 years where will any SRBs come from?
If a 4 segment Ares 1 was powerful enough to get the job done, that would be NASA’s choice. Apparently it isn’t so the extra capability for Ares V just falls into place.
= = =
The debate really is the “O’Keefe/Steidle” vision versus the “Griffin” vision and Griffin has vetted ESAS with the Pentagon, White House and Congress and has gotten their approval, at least tacitly.
Bill, if the money boondoogle of the Ares I continues it could jeopordize the survival of the Ares V at worst or push back first flight by years at best.
Even if SRB production was interupted the billions saved from needless waste on the Ares I more than makes up for that gap. (Plus keep in mind the savings from mass production of the Delta IV/Ares V common RS-68) If reproducing the J-2 engine after decades out of production is not a deal stopper I don’t see how restarting SRB production after a gap of 7 years is a deal stopper.
And that gap will be shorter if overall savings are directed to an accelerated timetable for the Ares V.
Brad, why do you believe an all EELV program would save “billions” over the current plan?
I know all the pro-EELV pundits assert that but why hasn’t Boeing or Lockheed been able to explain that point to Congress? Is every Congress-critter and the White House and the Pentagon all in on the scam?
DoD is a significant purchaser of EELV. They would benefit from NASA buying EELV, but they signed off on ESAS.
That suggests to me there really isn’t any “billions in savings” by going EELV.
“Brad, why do you believe an all EELV program would save “billions” over the current plan?… Is every Congress-critter and the White House and the Pentagon all in on the scam?”
I never mentioned here an ‘all EELV program’, I’m only recommending the modest step of replacing the Ares I/Ares V plan which use a common 5 segment SRB with a Delta IV/Ares V plan which use a common RS-68 engine plus avoid developing the 5 segment SRB and use the existing 4 segment SRB on the Ares V. An all EELV program is something else entirely. Though I would say the current Ares V design is more EELV derived than Shuttle derived.
As for cost savings…
Development cost of Delta IV already flying, zero.
Development cost of Ares I paper rocket, 3 billion for the 1st stage alone and climbing.
I don’t need any conspiracy theory for those numbers to speak volumes.
Now obviously the current Delta IV is not ‘human rated’ whatever that means. I would fly the CEV on the existing Delta IV and it would still be an enormous safety advance compared to flying the Space Shuttle. Now perhaps ‘human rating’ of the Delta IV would cost as many billions as the Ares I is devouring, but even that’s hard to believe since the whole Delta IV rocket development program was less than a billion dollars in the first place.
Mr. Poole writes: “For instance, although the GAO report is mentioned in Aviation Week, SFF’s paper is not. I didn’t see it in Space News either.”
Actually, there is an article in this week’s Space News about the Foundation’s white paper: “Space Group Criticizes NASA’s Plans To Explore the Moon, Mars and Beyond”. It’s on p.11 of the current (August 7) issue. It’s written by Leonard David, and looks similar to his piece on the paper that appeared on SPACE.com when the paper was published last month.
Again, once Falcon 5 and 9 start flying regularly, both EELVs will be dinosaurs.
You really thought that one through. Heh. heh.
This posting is for Brad.
The ESAS report had a section on the human rating considerations for the EELV’s.
nasawatch.com has a copy of the ESAS:
Section 6.5.4 Human-Rating Considerations for EELV at http://images.spaceref.com/news/2005/ESAS.REPORT.06.PDF
Its starts on Page 414 of the report (54 of 150 in the PDF document).
I hope it helps,
i_s_s_alpha
I have heard that the astronauts were opposed to the EELVs because they felt man-rating should be “built in, not added on”, i.e. that unmanned rockets shouldn’t be man-rated. Obviously if the crew won’t fly it, it won’t fly. But this would let out the Redstone, Atlas, Titan, and Soyuz, all of which performed well. I wish a few of the crew could actually look at the real Delta, its processing flacilities, and the launch complex before they consign it to the reject pile in favor of flying forever on solid fueled rockets. I’ve seen both Delta and STS from end to end, and the Delta is dramatically simpler and more efficient, eliminating many of the costs and hazards of SRB and conventional booster processing. I hate to see such elegant engineering go to waste.
ESAS Ch. 6 gives four reasons for choosing the Shuttle-based CLV, yet strangely event he data int he study doesn’t really support them:
1. Cost – but the cost for the Delta even in the study, which insisted the rocket and lauch pad would have to be be essentially redesigned, was essentially the same.
2. Safety – The Delta Heavy was said to be more hazardous because of the need to jettison the two outer core stages. This is very difficult to understand since the actual staging is simple compared to the separation of SRBs from the shuttle, since it occurs at 75km altitude, above the sensible atmosphere, and of course the boosters are shut down first. Yet no consideration was given to the fact that liquid fuel rockets can shut down, or extend burn time, and can be tested before flight, or the fact that solids have some rapid failure modes that might not leave time for crew escape, or the fact that safety assessments are more accurate on a design that is actually flying. The ESAS actually found Delta safety _met_ the requirements, but with “a lower margin” than the CLV.
3. Use of “man-rated” shuttle components. However most of the components of the CLV booster are modified considerably (i.e. to add roll control, a fifth segment, etc), and the guidance, control, upper stage, etc. are new.
4. Use of existing GSE. However it would require very substantial mods to LC-39 and the VAB, since the rocket is much taller than the shuttle, as opposed to the Delta which needs only a crew access arm and a faster elevator in the FUT (the existing one was intended for moving equipment and is quite slow.)
ESAS also required a redesigned booster for the Delta to eliminate the hydrogen flames at launch, although they do not appear to have any impact on safety. However the obvious way to eliminate the flames, if it’s really needed, would be an extraction fan in the flame duct to maintain a flow of air downward around the engines during ignition.