Jim, why are you continually spamming the space blogs and forums with a link to your spam blog? That’s very unbecoming of a United Launch Alliance employee. Maybe I should start throwing your last name out here, so your employer ULA knows what kind of person you are and what you say and do in your spare time. Bye the way, you do look really buff in that clean suit.

Concur, on all points. Including the last one.

>>Kelly Starks wrote @ August 4th, 2010 at 3:48 pm

>>> SpaceX will provide the launcher and capsule, and they
>>> have their own mission control and recovery. ==

>>Utterly irrelevant, and likely inaccurate.”

> As long as all you have to pay is $20M/seat, who cares what their
> costs are, ==

Because your (NASA cost are $600M a flight and still counting.

>== look around you to see how the commercial world works. ==

Irrelevant, its how NASA programs and cost work.

…Oh, and this isn’t like getting a airline ticket or buying a standard product in retail.

> Coastal Ron wrote @ August 4th, 2010 at 6:25 pm

>>Kelly Starks wrote @ August 4th, 2010 at 3:48 pm

>>Certainly SpaceX is one of the least credible bidders”

> Why?

Negligible experience, limited resources, adn high political risk if they win.

> Compared to whom?
Boeing and L/M

> Coastal Ron wrote @ August 4th, 2010 at 6:30 pm

>> Kelly Starks wrote @ August 4th, 2010 at 3:48 pm

>>Again your confusing the shuttle program, with operating the shuttle.

> They are one and the same. ==

No, they sound like they should be – but that’s not how the program is done — nor really how NASA generally does big programs.

They are one and the same. One does not exist without the other. The money allocated to the shuttle program each year is the operating costs of the shuttle. Plain and simple, no if’s, ands, or buts about it.

“The test here is if something is needed for the Shuttle to carry out it’s mission, then it’s costs have to be included in the total costs of the Shuttle program”

Exactly, and guess what, everything in the shuttle program is needed to Shuttle to carry out it’s mission. This is where Starks is confused but has a point. The cost to use commercial crew will be the cost that the contractors charges plus a small amount to fund a NASA commercial crew program office*. The program office will manage the contract and provide some insight/oversight duties and will be small like the CRS program office and not add much to the total cost. However, the commercial contractor can still operate without the NASA program office, where as the shuttle program office has a large role in shuttle operations.

“Utterly irrelevant, and likely inaccurate. Certainly SpaceX is one of the least credible bidders, NASA will use their mission controL”

No, your point is utterly irrelevant, and 100% inaccurate. Spacex will control their vehicle from their own mission control, just like ATV and HTV had their own. NASA will continue to control the ISS from the Houston MCC and coordination Dragon ops with Spacex MCC.

* This is how the Launch service program works and when it announces the award of a contract and its cost, it is the total cost, which included launch vehicle contractor cost, mission unique modifications, processing facility cost, telemetry, program office, support contractor, etc. So, when NASA announces launch service costs for a mission that uses an Atlas V at 150 million, it is not proper to compare this to a Spacex F9 cost at 56 million. People are going to be surprised when NASA buys its first F9 and see that the cost is going to be near an Atlas

Starks, since you are the “brilliant” one who advocated jet engines for the shuttle at launch, you are clueless and don’t know what you are talking about. You have now been inducted into the Space Forum Troll Roster of Shame

http://gaetanomarano.blogspot.com/

“Again your confusing the shuttle program, with operating the shuttle. ”

They are one and the same. There is a whole army of people that it takes for the Shuttle to fly, and only the smallest fraction ever fly on it. Are their costs part of the cost of flying the Shuttle? Yes. No Mission Control = No Shuttle flights. No tile inspections = No Shuttle flights. You see the pattern here.

“Certainly SpaceX is one of the least credible bidders”

Why?

Compared to whom?

Other than schedule slips, what have they announced they were going to do that they haven’t? What makes them not credible?

“> SpaceX will provide the launcher and capsule, and they have their own
> mission control and recovery. ==

Utterly irrelevant, and likely inaccurate.”

As long as all you have to pay is $20M/seat, who cares what their costs are, and what services they contract out for? You’re over thinking this.

Do you know how many government agencies airlines end up paying? Lots, and you don’t ever see the breakout in your ticket, because the airline rolls that cost up, and you could care less.

Honestly, get your head out of the cost-plus world, and look around you to see how the commercial world works. That is the debate – the way it’s always been done (cost-plus) vs the way a true commercial space market would run (fixed price).

> Exactly. The Shuttle is a government funded program, one that
> takes in no outside money, and so it lives off of the money allocated by Congress. ===

So’s the commercial crew program.

>== Take away the money for one critical item, like the
> crawler-transporters, and the ability of the Shuttle to carry out a
> flight goes away. ==

Sorry no. Again your confusing the shuttle program, with operating the shuttle. Much if not most of the shuttle program costs do no go to anything necessary to fly the shuttle. The shuttle is necessary to support the shuttle program, but it is only a part of it.
The test here is if something is needed for the Shuttle to carry out it’s mission, then it’s costs have to be included in the total costs of the Shuttle program.

>> More to my point with Commercial crew you ONLY want to
>> consider the launcher cost, not any of the training, KSC/JSC ops costs, etc.”

> SpaceX will provide the launcher and capsule, and they have their own
> mission control and recovery. ==

Utterly irrelevant, and likely inaccurate. Certainly SpaceX is one of the least credible bidders, NASA will use their mission control etc regardless –and whatever the launcher crew does is a small fraction of the commercial crew program. So, again, with commercial crew you only want to count the fraction of commercial crew program cost directly relating to launch costs against the flight costs, but with shuttle you insist on counting total program costs against the flight costs.

“But we weren’t discussing the shuttle missions, we were discussing operating the shuttle.”

To understand this from a commercial perspective, go look at the commercial airline business.

When they buy a new Boeing 747-400, they are not just buying the airplane ($234M), but they are also committing to spending money on type-rating for their pilots, maintenance facilities for the Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines, and a whole host of other 747-400 related costs. This is known as Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Here is the Wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_cost_of_ownership

The 747-400 just happens to be the part of the cost structure that the public sees, but it is not the entire cost the airline incurs to offer that service.

Sure, it would be simple to take the total passengers that fly on a 747-400 in a year, and divide that by $234M to get a per-passenger price, but that is far from the actual cost of offering those rides. The same with the Shuttle, where the External Tank costs $173M, not because of the material & labor, but because of all the associated costs that it takes to build them on a continuous basis.

“But we weren’t discussing the shuttle missions, we were discussing operating the shuttle.

Exactly. The Shuttle is a government funded program, one that takes in no outside money, and so it lives off of the money allocated by Congress. Take away the money for one critical item, like the crawler-transporters, and the ability of the Shuttle to carry out a flight goes away. The test here is if something is needed for the Shuttle to carry out it’s mission, then it’s costs have to be included in the total costs of the Shuttle program.

“More to my point with Commercial crew you ONLY want to consider the launcher cost, not any of the training, KSC/JSC ops costs, etc.”

SpaceX will provide the launcher and capsule, and they have their own mission control and recovery. It remains to be seen whether their costs include any safety training, and this might be handled as a separate charge (like a type rating).

SpaceX operates independently of NASA, and if they do need any NASA or DOD services, then that is taken into account as part of their $20M/seat price. It’s just like with any scheduled transportation company (bus, ship, airline, etc.), where you don’t get charged separately for all their individual operating costs – they roll it up into their current price. This is the model that commercial space wants to get to.