“I freely admit to being something of a conspiracy theorist.”

And unfortunately there are too many real conspiracies for you to choose from…

The ULA Augustine testimony of Michael Gass can be Googled, and their slide deck shows 4.5 years for Delta IV Heavy, and 4 years for Atlas V (not the -Heavy). I think those are pretty conservative estimates, so I’m sure they could move up given the right “incentive” (sandbagging is a proven contracting technique). But no mention of the Atlas V Heavy, and it still needs to finish development and test, so I think that would not be a choice for Orion near-term. But Orion shouldn’t even need Atlas V Heavy, as Delta IV Heavy has 20% margins and no blackout zones.

Regarding fallback plans in case NASA crash & burns, your’s could be valid, but the problem with the Boeing CST-100 is that they want NASA to fork over R&D money to launch it, and ULA needs $400M to man-rate Atlas V, which will still cost $130M/flight vs $59M for Falcon 9.

SpaceX is putting a lot of pricing pressure on the payload and crew launchers, and if they demonstrate COTS/CRS competently, then it would be hard for NASA to survive a GAO award challenge review if SpaceX is not picked as one of the winners.

If there could only be one winner, the choice would boil down to A.) Working hardware, NASA certification for ISS operations, and lowest prices (SpaceX) versus B.) Hardware in work, historic but not current NASA certification, and far higher prices (Boeing). I don’t want NASA to award one commercial crew contract (which I think would be SpaceX), because I want a competitive crew industry, so let’s hope this doesn’t become an issue.

Regarding the other stuff, I promote ACES whenever I can, and I think NASA should pursue that concept as soon as possible. But the Orion Plymouth Rock idea, to me, is an example of “Apollo on steroids” type thinking – unimaginative to the max. We should be working on true space-only spacecraft to send crew BEO, not spam-in-a-can vehicles that we know will be extremely detrimental to astronauts both physically and mentally. Let’s do it right the first time.

IIRC, the 3 years for Atlas-VH comes from the Augustine Commission too. Either ULA’s presentation or their alternate lunar archetecture paper that came out after the Commission reported. It would have to be from ULA because I remember that Atlas wasn’t considered by Aerospace Corp for some reason. Additionally, again IIRC, it was 3 years for Atlas-V and 3.5 years for Delta-IV.

In terms of budget, crew-rating for Atlas-V is happening through CCDev. Remember that the Atlas-VH’s outriggers are basically extra Atlas CCBs. I’m sure that a lot of flight dynamic testing and development would be needed but, because of the Boeing-Bigelow CST-100, Orion on Atlas-V is measurably quicker than Orion on Delta-IV.

However, I suspect that the real plan is to let NASA’s in-house efforts completely crash-and-burn and then present themselves as the only reasonable alternative (using the ‘untried’ argument to marginalise SpaceX). As Atlas-V has already been earmarked for CST-100 and Dreamchaser, it should be a moderately easy sell as the US default CLV. As Delta-IV could be scaled up to around 35,000kg IMLEO even before introducing a new upper stage by adding solids to the heavy configuration, that is also a fairly easy sell as a cargo lifter. You then present the ACES-41 as a ‘simple, cheap evolution to gain BEO capabilities’. A ‘Plymouth Rock’ Orion-like mission module and ACES-heritage vacuum lander might also be on the agenda.

I freely admit to being something of a conspiracy theorist. However, I genuinely suspect that the EELV ends of Boeing and LockMart have been keeping out of the fight, waiting for the various SDLV factions to annihlate each other and then swoop in ‘to save the day’.

“I’m not sure what they think it will be flying on, although I do remember that they also said it would take 36 months to crew-rate the Atlas-VH.”

According to the Atlas V users guide, the -Heavy was developed up to (or just short of) it’s CDR. I haven’t heard anything about Atlas V Heavy, so it would be interesting to know what your source is (if public).

Delta IV Heavy, which is operational, would take 4.5 years to “man-rate” (ULA Augustine testimony slides) and $1.3B.

Definitely a disconnect there, since you would think that an operational vehicle could be “man-rated” quicker than one that isn’t, but maybe there are extenuating circumstances that are not apparent.

Still your point is a valid one – what would Orion fly on? And more importantly, where is the budget item to support the launcher?

Just to point out another option, SpaceX is advertising their Falcon 9 Heavy for $95M/flight, and you would think that most of the “man-rating” for the Falcon 9 launcher (not including Dragon) could be applied to the -Heavy. It could be ready quicker, and it would be far less expensive.

Just shooting in the dark but I do get the impression that the various commercial providers, both extant and potential, are increasingly working on the assumption that NASA is going to drive itself or be driven by politicians onto a sand-bank. ULA and its parents see no profit in helping the agency that, under Griffin, was barely this side of openly hostile to them. Instead, they’re going to stand back and wait to swoop in to “save” US-indigenous HSF.

http://space.flatoday.net/2010/09/congress-unlikely-to-tackle-nasa.html

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has been negotiating a new blueprint for NASA with Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., who is chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee. But the House and Senate remain divided on issues such as how much to devote to commercial rockets and when to go ahead with a heavy-lift rocket.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat who heads the Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, said action on the space agency’s spending bill must wait until Congress returns after the election for what is called a lame-duck session.

Heaven forbid they actually make a responsible decision in full presence of the electorate … oink oink oink …

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if CST-100 has the capacity to be converted to a BEO model.

I asked Keith Reiley and John Elbon that question at a press conference a couple months ago. They said it is a LEO-only vehicle, and they are not scarring it for anything beyond.”

Boeing most certainly has all the technical knowledge and resources to turn CST-100 into a BEO vehicle. It is a LEO only vehicle BECAUSE NASA is asking for a LEO only vehicle. Boeing is a corporation answering their shareholders and Boeing’s customers include NASA. Boeing will not create a BEO vehicle just in case there is a chance a minor customer wants to buy tickets to the Moon. NASA wants LEO they will provide LEO. If NASA were to want BEO then of course CST-100 would change into a BEO vehicle. And if their design is modular enough it might even be done without too much of a redesign.

Oh well…

The person you are responding to is either ignorant of their facts, or is making up stuff so they can have an argument.

On the SpaceX website, you can find the following:

Q: What is the SpaceX mission?

A: SpaceX develops rockets and spacecraft for missions to Earth orbit and beyond. We are committed to becoming the world’s premiere space services company by substantially improving both the reliability and cost efficiency of space transportation, ultimately by a factor of ten. SpaceX was founded with the long-term goal of enabling humanity to become a space-faring civilization.

I don’t see dates assigned to any of that, nor do I see where they say that they even have to send astronauts to space. All they say is “enabling humanity to become a space-faring civilization“, and that could an outgrowth of their only specified goal, which is “substantially improving both the reliability and cost efficiency of space transportation, ultimately by a factor of ten.” Boeing using Falcon 9 for their CST-100 would qualify under that description.

So far SpaceX has more than $2.4B in customer backlog, and none of that is for HSF. However, Falcon 9 and Dragon were built to accommodate HSF, so it’s an easy growth opportunity for them – that’s called good product planning, in that you design your product to have a upgrade path that leverages your existing assets. If NASA (or someone) wants to foot the bill for adding HSF to F9/Dragon ($300M), then SpaceX will be happy. But they have a solid business through 2015 as-is without HSF, and once Falcon 9 become operational, I think their order backlog is going to grow substantially – all without HSF.