An article in today’s Houston Chronicle plays down the effect the suite of minor scandals that have dogged the space agency this year will have on the agency’s FY08 budget. The House has already passed its version of the budget, giving NASA several hundred million more than what the president requested; the full Senate has yet to act on its version of the budget, although the Senate Appropriations Committee also approved a budget that gives NASA more than originally requested. The appropriations bill that includes NASA is likely to be rolled up with several other outstanding bills into an omnibus package later this fall, according to the Chronicle.
One Houston-area congressman, Nick Lampson, whose district includes JSC, claimed that the timing of these problems was an issue. “If all of this had happened before we passed the House bill, maybe” it would have affected the budget, he said. But, of course, a lot of it did happen before mid-July. When I talked with Lampson at the ISDC in Dallas on Memorial Day weekend, the scandal du jour centered on NASA’s inspector general, which Lampson shrugged off. “Everything’s a distraction,” he said at the time. That seems to be still true today.
Of course, budget is only one of a vast array of means that congress has to control NASA.
IMHO NASAs budget will remain unrelated to the cause or solution of these minor scandals.
Since Jeff has not started a thread on the latest big NewSpace news (he is probably too busy searching the internet for space story links for spacetoday.net) I will introduce the subject.
What do people think of the news that NASA has given RpK a 30-day notice that their space act agreement will be terminated if they don’t meet their fundraising milestone, and are planning a new competition with the $175M of funding that is likely to become available?
My take:
1) Although it is sad for the folks at RpK, I think it was increasingly clear that the markets were not going to give RpK the $500M, and NASA had no choice.
2) NASA knew that “financing risk” was the number one risk for RpK, and they smartly structured the new agreement to give RpK a chance, but to minimize the financial cost to NASA if RpK failed. The “success based milestone” approach was a clear success in this case, as it only cost NASA $30M to give a private U.S. company the opportunity to develop a strategic RLV capability for the nation. (This was a MUCH better result than previous NASA results, which costs NASA billions, such as the X-33 program and the Orbital Spaceplane Program.)
– COTSadvocate
COTSadvocate: I agree. NASA has bent over backward to give Kistler their opportunity, and at some point they had to draw the line. Also, maybe I’m dreaming, but, since Kistler does appear to be making most of their technical deadlines, it seems possible that NASA’s deadline might actually help Kistler by lighting a fire under both their and prospective investors’ negotiations. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I still wish Kistler every success — In an article, I once compared Kistler’s history to the nine lives of a cat, and I really think this is likely to prove their last life!
Also, it is worth noting that their are other COTS-like activities out there, e.g., the military funding of T-Space’s Quick Reach project. SpaceX continues apace. Whatever happens to Kistler, the COTS game is far from over.
— Donald
“What do people think of the news that NASA has given RpK a 30-day notice that their space act agreement will be terminated if they don’t meet their fundraising milestone, and are planning a new competition with the $175M of funding that is likely to become available?”
It means that the COTS program is working as it should. If NASA is going to serve as a market for, and benefit from, new commercial human space flight activities, then NASA must operate as a commercial customer would, which means dropping the non-performers as soon as their non-performance becomes apparent, moving on, and reinvesting the savings in better performing organizations. The COTS program should be commended for taking such decisive action.
It stands in stark contrast to the continued technical flailing on the Ares I/Orion projects, where very expensive vehicles are being adhered to in the face of lower-cost alternatives, even though these vehicles cannot close the lunar architecture and are reducing safety in the ISS architecture. That said, NASA senior management also deserves kudos for committing to a new COTS competition and not redirecting funds in a vain attempt to buy back some small portion of the slipping Ares I/Orion schedule.
From here, I would urge some careful reconsideration of the criteria to be used in the new COTS competition. The previous one emphasized proposals using new launch vehicles as a means of reducing future costs. But the twin hurdles of developing both a new launcher and a new rendezvous/docking/reentry system are now arguably too much to pull off in a timely fashion for Shuttle retirement and too much to bite off for the small amount of available dollars. I would remove any explicit new launch vehicle criterion and allow new and existing launch vehicles to compete on a level playing field.
The previous competition also emphasized proposals that had some existing hardware built as a means of reducing schedule and risk. But, arguably, the relatively high cost of modifying Kistler’s hardware from the LEO comsat market to the ISS market introduced its own kind of risk that some of the runners-up never had. I would also remove any explicit existing hardware criterion.
Finally, I still worry greatly about the viability of COTS given the mismatch between the available funding (half that of what the USAF put into the EELV program) and the technical difficulty (arguably several times more difficult than EELV). I also worry about COTS viability given the perceived, and potentially real, unfair competition in the ISS servicing market that the in-house Ares I/Orion vehicles represent. Although self-funded entities like Space-X may still pull this off, I have a hard time seeing how institutional investors will ever put money into COTS unless NASA is more realistic about its cost-share and does more to reduce the uncertainty associated with the well-funded, in-house competitor that Ares I/Orion represents. One way to address both of these concerns without busting the bank would be to lock in some minimum amount of future follow-on services for the winner(s) in the new COTS Space Act Agreement(s), i.e., options for services that NASA must exercise if their vehicle demonstrations are successful. (I would also go back and renegotiate the same with Space-X.) I would not give away the entire ISS market, but some small fraction of that future market could be pulled off and legally guaranteed to the winners if they perform. This would both boost the total funding in the award (so that it is more commensurate with the technical difficulty) and demonstrate NASA’s commitment to investors (one of the potential causes of Kistler’s failure), even in the face of continued Ares I/Orion development.
My 2 cents… FWIW.
Anonymous: I agree. In fact, NASA should take some of these actions to demonstrate their greater commitment within the next thirty days, to improve Kistler’s chances.
— Donald
“Anonymous: I agree. In fact, NASA should take some of these actions to demonstrate their greater commitment within the next thirty days, to improve Kistler’s chances.”
Since we’re sparring in other threads, just a quick note of thanks to Mr. Robertson for seconding the motion in this one.
FWIW…
ANONYMOUS: ” I would also remove any explicit existing hardware criterion.”
What “explicit existing hardware criterion”?
I don’t recall any explicit existing hardware criterion. My recollection is that the the RFO was quite general, and fuzzy. In fact, many of those who proposed existing hardware were tossed out at the beginning. Of the six semi-finalists, the highest ranked four all proprosed new LVs. It is very clear that the first round of COTS emphasized new “technology development” over a high-probability of acquiring a U.S. crew/cargo solution (which would drive you to minimizing new technology). The criterion was clearly there in the RFO for new breakthrough technologies.
If anything, I would *add* an “existing LV” criterion for the next round. The problem that needs to be solved for ISS crew/cargo is not the LV, it is the spacecraft.
SpaceDev made the right decision when they adopted the Atlas V in place of their huge stack of hybrid motors.
– COTSadvocate
“What “explicit existing hardware criterionâ€?”
It was not spelled out in the announcement (at least not my knowledge), but NASA managers made several references after the final selection to the fact that Space-X and Kistler were the only two of the six final competitors with hardware built or in process. Here’s one example:
“One of the big factors in the team’s [Kistler’s] favor was that ‘they are using pretty much known technology, repackaging it and trying to take advantage of this reuse,” he [Lindenmoyer] told MSNBC.com.”
From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14411983/page/2/.
“In fact, many of those who proposed existing hardware were tossed out at the beginning… The criterion was clearly there in the RFO for new breakthrough technologies.”
Some of the first round proposals used existing launchers (e.g., EELVs) and upper stages (e.g., ATV/HTV), which the NASA selection process reasoned would not lead to operational cost reductions or affordability over time. That’s different from having hardware (e.g., 75% of K-1 and some pieces of Falcon 9 and Dragon) built and in process (for breakthrough technologies or otherwise), which goes to development risk, not to operational costs and affordability.
My point is that, among other problems, I think NASA outfoxed themselves on Kistler. Despite having a lot of hardware sitting around, the difficulty and costs of bringing that hardware out of mothballs, integrating it after years of being away from it, and adapting it to this new market carried its own unique set of development risks, risks that private investors may not have been comfortable with.
The point I’m trying to make is that to the extent possible, NASA should avoid lazy rules of thumb in the selection process, like existing launchers and upper stages won’t lead to operational cost reductions or affordability, or having hardware built and in process reduces development risk. Instead of relying on an explicit or implicit rule of thumb, NASA should really dig deep to examine the details of each proposal and quantify to the greatest extent possible how the total costs and risks of the proposals stack up against each other.
“If anything, I would *add* an “existing LV†criterion for the next round. The problem that needs to be solved for ISS crew/cargo is not the LV, it is the spacecraft.”
I don’t know if I would bias the criteria towards existing launchers, but I agree with you that I certainly wouldn’t bias in the other direction at this point.
“SpaceDev made the right decision when they adopted the Atlas V in place of their huge stack of hybrid motors.”
I’d really like to see someone try an HL-20 or a hybrid LV or both. But both are new developments. The HL-20 in particular would be more complex than competing capsules, so I don’t see it winning, as much as I love the vehicle. (Another brilliant Ruskie design…) And theoretically, a hybrid of the type Benson proposes would be pretty simple to pull off and a genuinely new low-cost launch technology. But that might still carry more risk than just adopting an existing EELV. Regardless of COTS, it would be nice to see BensonSpace pursue some hybrid LVs for unmanned payloads, beyond (maybe before) their suborbital tourist vehicle.
After the feedback from the first round, there should be some new teaming and concepts this go round. It will certainly be interesting to see what emerges. I’d love to see LockMart’s Atlas V/CTV work for Bigelow enter into the mix…
FWIW…