The subject of the discussion was not about CSI not being selected as a finalist, the subject was your assertions re: CSI’s systems, and the language of the COTS Solicitation. I provided contravening facts. Since you’re trying to change the subject, I assume that you now acknowledge those facts that I stated. If you do not acknowledge those facts, please feel free to provide other data.

“I guess you forgot that part in the congressional appropriations language that stated that COTS be a vehicle for American solutions to the cargo problem.”

As I said, CSI bid a COTS solution per the Solicitation that was compliant with all U.S. policy and law, including the post-2012 timeframe.

Thomas Matula wrote @ April 27th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
“Yes, another long rant by the alt.space community …”

I’m not sure if that was directed in response to my comment, but if it was, let me say that I provided facts about CSI’s systems and the language of the COTS Solicitation. I don’t understand how that could be considered a “rant.”

“If alt.space firms really believed what they said about free markets and commercial services they would forget playing Washington politics to get a piece of NASA’s 16 billion dollar budget and learn the Wall Street game in order to go after the 110 billion dollar space telecommunications and remote sensing markets …”

The above seems to ignore the actual history of commercial satellite development, much of which has actually intertwined commercial and government activity. For example look at the most successful commercial comsat in history, the HS-601 which is now known as the BSS 601 (I will grant that some would argue that claim, but as an ex-HSC employee I don’t have to agree with them In June 1988, AUSSAT placed the very 1st commercial order for a HS-601 satellite (Optus B1). But the next month (July 1988), the U.S. Navy placed an order for a HS-601, with options for ***9 more***, for the UHF Follow-On program. HSC did not sell a 10th commercial HS-601 until 1991. The government market eventually became an important part of the overall 601 program.

This kind of development also happened in commercial aviation. Sometime the commercial market lead the government (e.g. commercial DC-1/-2/-3 leading to C-47), sometime vice versa (Boeing’s Dash 80 was aimed at the USAF tanker/transport market, resulting in the KC-135’s, and then the 707 was designed for commercial markets). BTW this cross-pollination between markets and govt.-funded R&D for commercial applications has been the bone of contention between the US and Europe for many years in aviation and space trade negotiations — each side claiming the other’s subsidies are unfair.

And to state the obvious, with the demise of MirCorp, there are no currently operating commercial space stations in orbit that need cargo resupply. There is how ever one station which exists today that does need cargo resupply:

“… They succeeded by focusing on real markets instead of ones artificial markets like COTS that are invented by playing backroom games in the beltway.”

NASA has a mission need for cargo delivered to ISS, unless they want to halt their ISS ops. They have stated this need with cargo manifest requirements in publicly available documents starting with the NASA Alternate Access to Station (AAS) RFI’s and 90-day studies back in 2000, leading into the AAS Phase I program back in 2002 the Commercial Space Transport RFI in Sep. 2004, and the ISS Commercial Cargo Services (ICCS) program in 2005, all of which set the stage for cargo manifest requirements specified for COTS.

All that, and NASA’s recent purchase of ISS cargo services from the Russian govt., should show that NASA’s ISS cargo market is real, and is not “artificial”.

Now whether that market is addressable by commercial companies — or even should be — is another matter. But as NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said to the Space Transportation Association (STA) on 11 January 2007: “The collapse of the hoped-for commercial launch market, and consequent higher launch prices for the remaining government customers, are due not to the need for new technologies, as some have said, but for a stable market. With the completion of the International Space Station, NASA can for the first time offer such a market.” He went on to say “Most of the nation’s economy is driven by commercial rather than government interests, and I believe that most of us are thankful for that. In that context, NASA’s announcement that its preferred approach to meeting ISS logistics requirements would be through commercial purchases can hardly be considered “non-traditional”. The vast majority of our economy is fueled by such commercial transactions.”

I hate to break rambling Internet debate tradition, but I must point out that this issue is in fact at the core of what started this debate on “The consequences of NASA’s ISS resupply contract.”

However, some people are intellectually bankrupt, and prefer to sling mud …

cotsfan wrote @ April 28th, 2007 at 12:01 am
“Ben CSI has never sold anything of value.”

For the record, CSI to date has won eight prime or subcontract awards. I don’t know what that has to do with the original subject of discussion here, though.

“They just sniff the fumes of other people’s accomplishments.”

By “other people’s accomplishments”, I assume you mean that providing improved (and new) capabilities by integrating existing system elements into a new architectures has no value. I wonder what civil architects, who create new building designs from standard components, would think of that. In his speech at Purdue University on 28 March 2007, Administrator Griffin talked in part about the art of engineering design and noted “the fundamental nature of design, which still depends, as it did in antiquity, upon the generation of a concept for a process, technique, or device by which a given problem might be solved.” And in his comments to the STA, Griffin also said “while we sometimes have legitimate reasons to push the state of the art in certain technology areas for a mission, we need to be disciplined in doing so, and to encourage the use of off-the-shelf and commercial hardware in those areas where we don’t need to push the state-of-the-art.”

CSI focused on solving the problem of improving ISS cargo delivery by working on the overall system “technique” using “off-the-shelf and commercial hardware.” We did not focus on creating new “devices,” since they are not needed at this point to solve the original problem.

So in working to solve that problem, CSI focused our capabilities on project management and systems engineering. These are not trivial capabilities. At the NASA PM Challenge 2006 Conference, Mike Griffin noted that the losses of Challenger and Columbia orbiters, the HST’s flawed optics, and failures of Mars Observer, Mars Climatology Observer ’99, Mars Polar Lander and Genesis missions were due to failures in program management and systems engineering.” Focused on addressing that need for the development of our systems, CSI was able to assemble a senior management team in our COTS proposal with significant NASA and commercial space experience and accomplishments that was judged by NASA to be a Significant Strength, specifically “The participant’s management team has considerable relevant experience and demonstrated expertise, providing very high confidence that it can successfully accomplish the COTS goals.”

“Everyone who works for CSI is a whiner and a loser.”

That CSI lost COTS obviously cannot be disputed. But I think an unbiased person looking at the full management team we assembled might come to a different conclusion that yours.

Now I would hope that anyone I’ve worked with in my 25 year aerospace career (see http://www.rain.org/~bmuniz/Ben_Muniz_CV_public_29_April_2007.htm for my CV) would say about me that while I have always held strong opinions, I’ve tried to always conduct myself professionally and treat other people with the respect they deserve.

So I’ll now treat you with more respect that you deserve.

Anonymous writing has a long and valued existence in political writing (including subjects like space policy), helping in highly-charged debates to separate the merits of a position or argument from the background of the author. And anonymity certainly has a place in whistle-blowing, increasing the likelihood that illegal or unethical acts will be reported.

But I think that anyone who hurls personal insults behind such a shield fully deserves the title used in Slashdot — “Anonymous Coward” — with all the implications thereof.

Adam Smith (the economist, not the commenter above) said that it is in the interest of merchants to narrow the competition and expand the market. From the nature of your comments, I’ll assume that you are a CSI competitor (or someone seeking to narrow the market), or perhaps have a personal grudge against someone associated with CSI; your insults should therefore be given the full consideration they actually warrant — none.

For those who wish to engage in civil discourse on the issues discussed here, please feel free to comment here or contact me directly.

Ben Muniz

“Real space commerce” indeed, but probably not in the way you intended.

At best COTS is just a form of alt.space welfare that might produce a cargo capsule on a Falcon 9 that will cost more to fly then the Progress does now.

If alt.space firms really believed what they said about free markets and commercial services they would forget playing Washington politics to get a piece of NASA’s 16 billion dollar budget and learn the Wall Street game in order to go after the 110 billion dollar space telecommunications and remote sensing markets. That is what real space commerce firms like Orbital Recovery are doing.

Microsoft, Paypal and Apple didn’t succeed because they got government contracts to close their business models. They succeeded by focusing on real markets instead of ones artificial markets like COTS that are invented by playing backroom games in the beltway. If I was Zero-G corporation I wouldn’t touch the new NASA RFP for microgravity flights with a 10 ft pole.

Even you CEO has admitted that this was a factor in the selection. Since you have been so free in data so far, you can also publish your proposal debrief so that CSI can set the record really straight.

Lurking Lurker wrote @ April 24th, 2007 at 9:32 am

“The CSI LEO Express was a rebranding of a Russian system …”

The first generation of CSI’s LEO Express(SM) intermodal cargo system uses the existing Progress-M and -M1 spacecraft as a reusable space tug, and a separately-launched Cargo Container, on U.S. or foreign launch vehicles, that is modified from the Progress Cargo Compartment, STS/Mir Docking Module (launched on STS-74 in 1995) and the ISS Pirs Docking Compartment-1 (launched to ISS in 2001).

The CSI system provides a dramatic increase in efficiency in delivered cargo for any given launch vehicle. For example, using a standard Soyuz launch vehicle a Progress M can deliver a maximum of 2350 kg of mixed cargo to ISS @ 400 km, with gross dry cargo max of 1518 kg @ 230 kg/m^3. Using the equivalent commercially available Soyuz/Fregat launcher, CSI’s intermodal CC can deliver 3463 kg gross cargo @ 230 kg/m^3 (3055 kg gross cargo when Progress space tug propellant is subtracted).

CSI was awarded U.S. patent #6,669,148 for this system.

Both of those facts show that even CSI’s 1st generation system is not simply “a rebranding of a Russian system.”

Additionally, once we move to a tug-based architecture, it makes economic sense to invest in space tugs that can operate in orbit for longer periods of time, and with greater re-use. Our intermodal system can accommodate the use of future U.S. or foreign spacecraft in the space tug role, resulting in a major jump in efficiency for space station cargo delivery over those systems used by themselves.

“… which NASA could get cheaper by dealing with the Russians directly.”

System cost is greatly reduced by reusing the Progress that has already been launched, and launching CC’s that contains fewer subsystems that a full Progress.

“Basically all CSI was going to be is a processor of checks with a marketing rake off for doing the deal.”

CSI’s business responsibilities as laid out in our COTS proposal are: Prime Contractor; Program Management; System Engineering and Integration; Flight Readiness Certification; Marketing/Business Development. That is more than just being a “processor of checks.”

“… the solicitation specifically indicated that an all American solution was required)”.

Solicitation Section 4.3.1, “Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act (P.L. 106-178, amended by P.L. 109-112)”, discussed restrictions to be imposed “after December 31, 2011 for work on the ISS to organizations or entities that are now or were in the past under the jurisdiction or control of Roscosmos (the Russian Federal Space Agency), or to any other organization, entity or element of the Government of Russia.”

In the Q&A, NASA specified that “A: Participants will need to explain in the proposal how they intend to mitigate the risk of using Russian equipment post 2011 should the ISNA restrictions exception not be extended.”

Solicitation 4.3.2 “U.S. Space Transportation Policy, December 2004″ requires flight on a U.S.-manufactured launch vehicle per the policy’s Implementation Guideline V(1)(a). Note that the policy does not require that the in-space transportation segment be U.S. manufactured, and Implementation Guideline V(1)(b) expressly permits “the use of foreign components or technologies, and the participation of foreign governments and entities, in current and future U.S. space transportation systems.”

Neither of those requirements, nor Section 4.3.3 “Commercial Space Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-303; 42 U.S.C. 14701 et seq.)” or Commercial Space Launch Act. (49 USC Chapter 701) require “an all American solution.”

For the record, CSI’s COTS proposal was compliant with all those requirements, including the post-2012 timeframe.

“How was that good for American technology?”

The Solicitation background stated the goals of the COTS program as: “implement U.S. Space Exploration policy with an investment to stimulate commercial enterprises in space,” “facilitate U.S. private industry demonstration of cargo and crew space transportation capabilities with the goal of achieving reliable, cost effective access to low-Earth orbit,” and “create a market environment in which commercial space transportation services are available to Government and private sector customers.”

It also stated “COTS is envisioned to be executed in two phases: “Phase 1 – A period of development and demonstration by private industry, in coordination with NASA, of various space transportation capabilities to and from low-Earth orbit (LEO) determined to be most desirable for the Government and other customers; Phase 2 – A potential competitive procurement of orbital transportation services to resupply the ISS with cargo and crew, if a capability is successfully demonstrated and the Government determines it is in its best interest.”

None of that says be “good for American technology.”

Just to note, CSI anticipates that the “market environment in which commercial space transportation services are available to … private sector customers” will not restrict services to “American technology” only. We believe the private sector will procure these services the same way the rest of the private sector aviation and space market currently does, concentrating on values such as price, performance, reliability, service, etc. rather than country of origin. Policy restriction such as ISNA do not explicitly apply to those customers.

richardb wrote @ April 23rd, 2007 at 11:47 am “Given that COTS won’t come on line earlier than 2010 and this contract goes thru 2011, how can in hurt either party?”

CSI provided a response to NASA on JSC RFI NNJ07ISSBG indicating that we could meet all those requirements, including delivering cargo to ISS in April 2009, which is “earlier than 2010″. There may be other companies that provided similar info.

Lurking Lurker wrote @ April 23rd, 2007 at 11:02 pm

“The COTS space act agreement was for a demo mission and it was explicitly stated in the SA that there was no pledge from the government to buy services from these entitites after the demo.”

This is true, but overlooks the fact that NASA’s COTS Announcement Number COTS-01-05 specifically laid out annual cargo mass requirements, a manifest of example payloads, stated ‘The participant shall describe the space transportation system’s compatibility with the targeted COTS Service Reference Mission (SRM) …” and also stated in Template 6 – Projected Operational Prices for Capabilities A, B, C stated that “Two copies of this template are required; one with estimated operational prices per kilogram of useful cargo by Government Fiscal Year, the second with estimated prices per launch. … Provide a graphical representation (as in the format shown below) of the estimated average price per kilogram for the period 2011 through 2015.”

Any proposal that did not look beyond just the demo flight and did not provide an analysis for service beyond the demo out to the year 2015 as requested by NASA would have been non-compliant.

Gabriel wrote @ April 24th, 2007 at 8:35 am

“When the shuttle was down, it was only by russian help the ISS was able to survive”

CSI’s System Design Review in the Alternate Access to Station (AAS) program was held in July 2003. CSI worked with ARES Corp. on a statistical schedule analysis, and we reported to NASA that we could launch cargo to ISS using U.S. launch vehicles in 25 months with 50% likelihood and 27 months with 90% likelihood. Had NASA awarded CSI a contract for AAS Phase II, the first launch — baselined on U.S. Delta II — therefore could have occurred between Aug. and Oct. 2005. That would have increased the time for which U.S. launch vehicles could have been used to deliver cargo to ISS.

Gabriel wrote @ April 24th, 2007 at 8:35 am

“To bidd a contract like that out, you need real space bidders and in the short term, don’t see any credible new one (if you forget the usual suspects).”

CSI’s management team — that gathered its experience on NASA, DoD, and commercial programs — was listed as a “Significant Strength” by NASA in their evaluation of our COTS bid. Our subcontractors included ARES, Barrios Technology, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Oceaneering Space Systems, Odyssey Space Research, RSC-Energia, and limited additional support from L3-Titan. I think that team could be considered “credible.”

Thomas Matula wrote @ April 24th, 2007 at 9:30 pm

“And when did COTS become commercial human spaceflight? Last I looked it was for demonstrating an unmanned cargo vehicle that could be used to supplement the Progress for supplying ISS when the Shuttle is retired.”

That happened in the transition from the still-born ISS Commercial Cargo Service (ICCS) program in 2005.

Lurking Lurker wrote @ April 25th, 2007 at 6:45 pm

“The proposals that used the existing U.S. launch vehicles had one fatal problem, they used the Atlas V …”

CSI’s AAS program development, as reported to NASA under contract in 2002-2003, used Delta II as the baseline, with refurbished Titan II and Kistler K-1 as other launchers, and we have reported on the use of other launchers to NASA as well. CSI’s COTS proposal specifically said that our system is “launch vehicle independent” which “substantially reduces the risk of depending on any single launch vehicle, or family of LVs.”

Unfortunately, the NASA COTS proposal process specifically did not allow a standard commercial communications satellite business development approach of bidding several launch vehicles, and letting the customer choose the one that best suits their needs. This was allowed in the AAS program.

Benigno Muñiz Jr.
Chief Technical Officer
Constellation Services International, Inc.

PS A non-technical/program comment: some of the comments here regarding early commercial space ventures border on urban legend. I suggest that those who are really interested in the subject do some research, such as the Dept. of Commerce’s April 1990 report “Commercial Space Ventures: A Financial Perspective.” Although I’ve been told that some behind-the-scenes info is missing, and of course the investment climate is different today, but sources like this still beats folklore when it comes to business planning.

Anyway, prolly a minor nitpick, but still worthwhile to get it right

I totally agree.

Look at the agreement that Griffin made with the DoD to acquire White House permission to build the Ares 1&5 — Griffin got everything he wanted, and in return promised that NASA would buy ISS cargo on either EELVs or other emerging US LVs. When the time comes for NASA to keep its part of the deal, they broke it.

If that is not a total breach of integrity on NASA (and Griffin’s) part, then I don’t know what is. If you are an investor, and you see that NASA does not even keep its agreements with the DoD, how can you trust them to keep any promises to commercial industry?

– WishIcouldTellYa