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Commercialization

Who Has More Relevant Capsule Expertise?

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
February 27, 2015
Filed under , , ,

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

112 responses to “Who Has More Relevant Capsule Expertise?”

  1. Jeff2Space says:
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    One could argue this either way. The two companies are different and are taking different approaches to solving the problem. This is why NASA should continue to receive funding for both commercial crew vehicles. Having two different designs by two different companies insures diversity and eliminates failure modes common to both. So, if there is a failure in the future, the other company is the backup. We don’t want to rely on the Russians as our backup. And Orion/SLS is overkill and will fly too late to be of use for ISS.

    • EtOH says:
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      Having multiple companies is a good thing, if only to keep them honest. The objection is just to Boeing acting as if they are the real capsule experts, when SpaceX has been flying them for years, and Boeing’s won’t actually fly yet for several more.

  2. tutiger87 says:
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    Who cares? It’s a capsule. call me when we have another man-rated spaceplane…

    • Vladislaw says:
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      Who cares? The person writing the check to purchase transportation to a commercial destination in LEO. 26 million for a capsule ride and two months stay on a BA space station. Versus a 40% – 50% premium if you ride the much heavier dream chaser which requires a larger more expensive rocket to launch.
      The market will provide alternative vehicles once there is a larger and more robust customer base.

    • DJE51 says:
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      Spacex Dragon V2 will eventually have pin-point propulsive landing. No need for wings in space.

    • Todd Austin says:
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      Because the first one turned out to be such an efficient investment of resources that lived up to its quick-turnaround billing, right?

  3. John Kavanagh says:
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    Let’s get the both flying and monitor their real-world performance; move beyond any heritage advantage, computer modeling and NASA HQ process milestones … to actual launch and landing.

  4. Wayne McCandless says:
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    More relevant question is who has more human spaceflight experience and expertise. For capsules and overall non-ISS flight, Russians and Soyuz get the nod. So, who is best positioned to collect, understand, and act on human spaceflight lessons learned? Who can distinguish the things that are “subtle but really important” from the “this is the way we’ve always done this” practices?

    There’s always the risk of an arrogance based on experience where you don’t truly understand what that experience is trying to tell you versus the arrogance born of inexperience (i.e., how hard can this be?) Collectively, we need to drive to the optimum between the two poles.

  5. Granit says:
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    It’s an irrelevant argument, created for an otherwise slow posting day…….

  6. Matt Johnson says:
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    I’m just sad that we’re completely regressing back to capsules and with three different manned spacecraft under development for our cash-strapped space agency, we couldn’t make room for the reusable lifting body Dream Chaser shuttle. At least SpaceX is bringing us an innovative spacecraft and launch vehicle combo with the potential for rapid reusability and significant cost reduction, which is more than I can say for Boeing.

    • Charlie Barber says:
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      Dittos Matt

    • Anonymous says:
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      I don’t completely understand the capsule bashing. If we have fully and rapidly reusable spaceships, I’m apathetic as what form they take.

    • gopher652003 says:
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      Space planes are inherently inefficient. Wings are extraordinarily heavy, and you’re dragging them all the way up to space. They provide you with nothing but a very limited ability to maneuver, and that only works on a small portion of your trip down, not while in space or on your way up. They’re essentially useless.

      Every engineer and manager in the field knows this.

      But if that’s true, why do we see so many winged spacecraft designs? To paraphrase a NASA manager: “the American public won’t accept a spacecraft without wings”. In other words, “wings look cool! People like cool!”

      The cool factor is a high price to pay for such a massive decrease in usability and efficiency, with a simultaneous huge increase in both initial construction expense and longterm maintenance costs.

      To put it into the simplest terms: wings in space do less to help your spacecraft than painting red flames on a racecar does to make it go faster. They aren’t just useless like the racecar paint, they’re outright detrimental. But they sure look awesome. And “awesome” is what pays the bills.

      • Matt Johnson says:
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        The small lifting body shuttle that has come so close to fruition in various forms over the years, from Dyna-Soar to HL-20 to Hermes to X-38 and now Dream Chaser, offers some unique benefits without suffering from the inefficiency of a design like the space shuttle. Obviously the military has found a use for a small shuttle in the form of the winged X-37B (and I still wonder if there’s any truth to the Blackstar story), but I find it unfortunate that we have spent so much money over the years on promising civil lifting body crew transports only to let them wither on the vine.

      • TerryG says:
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        The“Cool Factor” partially accounts for the four small fins on the trunk of the Dragon V2, which is ok, but people pining for full-size wings on a spacecraft seriously need to do the Math.

        http://upload.wikimedia.org

      • tutiger87 says:
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        Essentially useless….

        30 years of a truck called the Space Shuttle says otherwise.

        It’s the 21st century. We should’ve had SSTO, a Tokyo Express, and a Moon base by now.

  7. RocketScientist327 says:
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    Boeing always claims this. We really shouldn’t care. Look how fast we are innovating the sector. Look how fast you can “catch up” in today’s society. Boeing has expertise in manipulating congress to their means as well as using the FAR as a weapon.

    Boeing wants money not a space program. They want the tax dollars not the CST-100.

    Boeing can do anything you want it to for enough money… only Boeing isn’t the only game in town anymore.

    • wwheaton says:
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      Surely it is crazy to think that the Boeing company of today has anything to do with the companies that built the US spacecraft of the 1960s. Not to mention that fact that technology has moved on 50 years since those wonderful days.

      The company with relevant experience is SpaceX, obviously.

    • Paul451 says:
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      Boeing always claims this.

      All the primes claim this. As if expertise was something you could keep in a museum.

  8. MedicT says:
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    Can someone please remind me how much experience SpaceX has accumulated with manned spacefilight? Would the answer be zero?

    • Yale S says:
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      They are staffed to overflow with heavily experienced veterans of crewed space and rocketry. They are not weekend hobbiests. They are the best and the brightest, those who both attracted to the high premiums paid and a chance to actually do something.

      • Spacetech says:
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        Keep telling yourself that Yale.

        • PsiSquared says:
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          Do you have information that indicates that SpaceX scientists and engineers are not up to the task, that they’re all inexperienced, that they are somehow inferior to those at Boeing or Lockheed?

          • Spacetech says:
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            I didn’t say any of those things, Yale claimed they hire only the best and the brightest. I know more than a dozen Space X workers who wouldn’t agree with that statement at all. The people I know describe it as fast paced, chaotic with a huge revolving door. That being said, only 2 or 3 that I know are engineers. I have no doubt at all that many of the staff are the best and brightest in their fields–they could not have accomplished all they have if they were not.

          • Yale S says:
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            “Yale claimed they hire only the best and the brightest.”

            Actually, I said no such thing.
            I said :They are staffed to overflow with heavily experienced veterans of crewed space and rocketry. … They are the best and the brightest, those who both attracted to the high premiums paid and a chance to actually do something.

            The last sentence referred to the first sentence. No implication that all their employees are Demigods.

            They have workers at all level of expertise and experience (and they roll off the bottom 3-5% each year. However, the key people are experienced experts at the top of their fields.

            BTW – if you are fresh out of school, here are some criteria from a former recruiter at SpaceX:

            I ran recruiting at SpaceX for almost 6 years;…
            SpaceX aggressively pursues top collegiate talent; but because the hiring bar (mandate per Elon) is top 1% of the human population – we focus on top ranked engineering programs because their strict acceptance requirements are a good pre-filter and remove 90% of the bell curve, thereby automatically bringing us to about top 10% of the college population; making our haystack much smaller and thus easier to find the proverbial needles.

            Once within the top program populations we again filter aggressively based on:

            1. Hands-on hardware/software development experience – i.e. What problems have you actually encountered and solved?
            2. Experience with engineering competitions, and placement in top positions/brackets at those competitions
            3. GPA/ SAT – other hard scores
            4. Drive/Grit

            The reality is that SpaceX makes some of the most magnificent machines on the planet (and beyond – yes, pun intended :). So the world’s best engineers want to work there. That paired with what I’ve already stated means there is both an ability and a necessity to only hire people after they have in some way demonstrated themselves to be truly exceptional.

          • Spacetech says:
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            Yale, I stand corrected I inferred you meant they only hired the best and brightest.
            My mistake.

          • Yale S says:
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            Not a prob. My comment could be read the way you saw. I am not always clear enough. It always looks right at first, but I will sometimes look back at my stuff and see how it missed the mark.

          • Spacetech says:
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            No Sir, that was all my fault!

        • RocketScientist327 says:
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          This is the type of mentality you face when you walk into an office… say 1230 Longworth. There is simply out and out arrogance as to what is actually happening. They live in their own bubble in their own world.

          You cannot convince them. You cannot prove arguments, fiscal or scientific, because its all living off of the legacy… its emotional.

    • RocketScientist327 says:
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      This is the kind of myopic thinking that is stifling innovation in the sector. “Only NASA” ie NASA contractors with DECADES of experience can do this.

      This old line and mantra is wrong.

    • Athelstane says:
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      Organizations don’t have knowledge — individuals do.

    • Anonymous says:
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      Can someone please remind me how much experience the Wright Brothers had flying airplanes before they flew an airplane?

      • Shaw_Bob says:
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        Quite a lot, actually. SpaceX is following a similar path to the Wright Brothers so far, though we must hope that Elon Musk doesn’t get bogged down in patent disputes like the Wrights. Both built a little, flew a little, and backed up what they built with R&D. Langley, on the other hand, had the ear of the mighty, and built a houseboat.

  9. Vladislaw says:
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    If Boeing is the such a “goto guy” expert on capsules why did NASA choose someone like Lockheed with no experience?

    • Paul451 says:
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      why did NASA choose someone like Lockheed with no experience?

      To be fair to Boeing, I think everyone asked that. In fact, I ask that about most LM contracts.

  10. John Adley says:
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    If someone wants a taxi, he hires one and pay the fare for the ride, he probably wouldn’t care about who designed cab, and should never be asked to pay the design and manufacturing of the cab. Commercial crew program is government give away by definition, and why should anyone gets surprised if the usual suspects stick out their hands?

    • gopher652003 says:
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      That’s true… unless taxis as an entire category haven’t been created yet. If that is the case you pay an initial startup fee the first time, and the first time only. In the future I wouldn’t expect the newer commercial crew or cargo contracts to include a startup fee, only the price of transport, as you say.

  11. Jafafa Hots says:
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    I don’t know how different it is in the defense.aeronatics industry, but when I was in an industry that took over competitors, they either shut down the acquisition entirely, or they took the top product and shifted it over before shutting down the rest… and used that top product until it ran its course, gradually replacing it with “Invented here” in favor of “not invented here.”

    Plants closed, engineers fired, etc.

    What experience could our “leader in its field” company claim to have about product lines its acquisitions had already closed out years or decades before that acquisition?

    None. Zero.
    There MIGHT be an employee somewhere who had managed to hang on by grabbing an opening in a different department who happened to have saved a few memos or brochures. That’s about it.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      Interesting point. Mercury and Gemini were McDonnell designs. Most of the McDonnell Douglas people have disappeared from Boeing with the shutdown of Delta II operations, MD-80 manufacturing, etc. Apollo and Shuttle were built by Rockwell and although engineering support transitioned to United Space Alliance, half owned by Boeing, the vast majority of the engineering staff was laid off when Shuttle was terminated.

      This isn’t to put down the CST-100, which appears to be a solid design. But to say it places Boeing ahead of SpaceX seems unreasonable. We have two good CC designs. We need both.

  12. Shaw_Bob says:
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    History is good, but what’s happening currently is more important. Would you rather fly aboard a spacecraft which, in various versions, has been launched a dozen times and been on-orbit for months, or aboard one which has had a couple of short shake-down flights at best? SpaceX cleverly played a long game with the result that their vehicle is now the one with accumulated experience, while Boeing has none. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Boeing makes money, SpaceX builds spaceships. I would rather fly aboard a taxi designed by a taxi-company than a bank.

    • PsiSquared says:
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      I think you’re shortchanging the engineers and scientists at Boeing. Boeing can and does make some excellent aircraft and has made some excellent spacecraft. CST-100 just might perform its function very well. Corporate strategy is an entirely different beast.

      • Shaw_Bob says:
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        Who can doubt that? But is Boeing the company which it once was – somehow things have not quite worked like that, despite the long history of the core company and the various other enterprises which it has engulfed. Look at the difference between the development of the 747 in the 1960s, and the way that, SpaceX-like, Boeing bet the farm on the success of a world-changing aircraft. Fast forward to the retreat from the equally paradigm-shifting Sonic Cruiser, and you see a company run
        by financiers. Bill Boeing would have felt right at home in SpaceX, and lost in the company named after him.

        • SpaceRonin says:
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          The sonic cruiser was an A380 gun spiking exercise is all.. wasn’t needed even for that as it turns out. If they want to own the new Draw-A-Person tests for aircraft then they really should be pimping their BWBA. Why should they? The Model 450 already owns the old one.

  13. Saturn1300 says:
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    This sounds like it came from the CC hearing. There was some interesting stuff. Not much new, but interesting. The one thing that stood out to me was Gerst. saying NASA could run ISS without the Russians. Does he mean now or 2024 when they split? How about reboost? Crew rotation? Would the current crew stay for 3 years until CC is ready? Or does NASA have a Dragon-1 with an abort tower converted and secretly stashed somewhere. Russia says it will not have their new module ready for a year or so. So splitting would be hard now. Sure would be nice if NASA would tell us. If F-9 2nd. stage could get to ISS and attach, it could give a boost.
    Science Committee probably does not have the money, but here is my mythical project for them. Order a tended Dragon Lab. A science mission. Get school children involved. Enough research could be found. Ask SpaceX how much they would charge if Dragon- 1 was used new or used. A trunk rocket pack or tower would be tested for abort using an old capsule. The current pad would be used. The astronaut would board horizontal. The abort system would be hot. F-9 would be fueled and launched. If a pad fire, the capsule would launch. If a scrub, the fuel would be pumped out, Dragon lowered and be ready to try again. The lab would have a long launch window and launch straight E. Don’t know how long SpaceX could keep it up with consumables from the trunk. 2 for 1. A backup for ISS crew. I think SpaceX would do it for 300 million$. Ought to take a year to launch.No way to justify though to other Congress people . I would think that DTARS likes it and PsiSquared thinks it is hilarious.
    I think everything is locked in place. So I will have no more thought on Dragon-1. SpaceX is just starting their crew launch complex. That will likely take a year. USAF wants to stack vertically and so Dragon-2 will use the same system. An elevator ride to board. A slide wire. The usual. Too late. Doing something different is running into what is actually happening, so no point. ’11. The last test of Crewed Dragon. If SpaceX had continued the pace of that system, instead of switching to V2, it would have been done a long time ago. They had to follow NASA’s pace though.

    • PsiSquared says:
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      The latest Russian statement is that they aren’t looking to split their yet to fly modules from the ISS until 2024 or after. Therefore there is no need for the mythical hotted up, man capable Dragon 1.

  14. DTARS says:
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    @torybruno said that he thinks it is likely that Boeing’s CST 100 will fly crew before Spacex fly’s dragon. He might be right?

    Hasn’t Boeing been awarded almost double the money of Spacex to build a much simpler design? Simple abort system in the trunk?

    SpaceX will do their abort test in a few weeks and their in flight abort test in a few months yet they won’t be able or allowed to fly crew till 1917?? Why not?

    In the catch an asteroid thread someone suggested that even cots is inefficient. All those manager controlled Milestones?

    Seems to me if congress and NASA didn’t want us buying rides from the Russians that they would have simply told Spacex to put their super dracos in the trunk of their cargo dragon and add air and seats. Spacex could likely be flying crew now with such a configuration.

    If I was going to fly into space, I would feel much safer flying Spacex’s dragon cargo or V2 on top of a falcon 9 with engine out capability than i would on even the mighty dependable atlas with solid rockets attached.

    • DTARS says:
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      The other day I read that ULA will be receiving About 3/4 of a billion dollars to build their new methane engine. The article said that someone stated, that the concern was not to replace one monopoly with another? No one wants that they said 🙂
      Personally I think it would be great if Mr. Musk had a monopoly for a while. Why? because that nut would spend most of that cash trying get us off this rock.

      How much is congress/NASA paying SpaceX to develop Raptor??

      • PsiSquared says:
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        Again, reality and what you imagine are not congruent. You speak as if you’re an intimate friend of Musk’s.

        A monopoly breeds zero competition, and what’s needed to change the US space industry is competition. Change doesn’t happen over night, but change will eventually happen so long as competition exists.

        • DTARS says:
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          Mr. Squared you know I know and agree with you that any monopoly is bad. My obvious point because of Mr. Musks stated goal to use Spacex to make us a multi planet species that the moneys he gets or makes off our tax dollars would likely go to farther space settlement growth, than does Boeing’s, which mostly goes to shareholder profits.

          And no way does my comment imply that I’m in anyway friends with Mr. Musk.

          • PsiSquared says:
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            Actually I don’t know what you actually think, so don’t claim otherwise. Your points are often very unclear, and you make statements that you later contradict.

          • DTARS says:
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            You usually assume I know less than I do. And yes, I agree, sometimes I am unclear. Sometimes by mistake, sometimes by design.

            Good morning Sir

          • kcowing says:
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            PsiSquared You are being a jerk. Knock it off.

        • wwheaton says:
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          Because Musk is not primarily driven by money, and as long as he is keeping afloat, he is going to sink his profits into further improving his product. Which is actually the right thing to do if you want to make the most money in the long term, and are not totally driven by near-term profits.

        • Vladislaw says:
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          Only a state protected monopoly breeds zero competition. A monopoly that forms by competition soon is getting extra normal profits and capital automatically flows there unless the States is protecting it and puts up roadblocks for capital formation. If SpaceX was a monopoly and had insane profit margins they would have plenty of competition.

          • PsiSquared says:
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            Well, we don’t have that yet, and it’s unlikely that we will, if ever, have that in the very near future. There’s no evidence that we’re headed that direction.

    • PsiSquared says:
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      “…Spacex to put their super dracos in the trunk of their cargo dragon and add air and seats. Spacex could be flying crew now with such a configoration.”

      No. You should note that Dragon V2 has yet to fly. That’s a fairly significant distinction between reality and your imagination.

      • Ben Hallert says:
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        Boeing’s has yet to fly too, you may wish to note that. Another difference is that SpaceX is actively flying new spacecraft that have many systems in common with the V2 so it’s not as if the V2 represents a cleanslate where the learning will need to start from scratch.

        Meanwhile, Boeing completes another paperwork milestone…

        • PsiSquared says:
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          The CST-100 wasn’t relevant to my comment.

          • DTARS says:
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            The CST-100 is relevant because since Spacex is getting money from the government they chose to make a more complex LAS system. If we had just wanted to get in space sooner Spacex could have simply put thrusters in their disposable trunk (like Boeing’s design) and added seats to their cargo dragon. Which they could likely be flying by now.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            The primary reason for putting the super dracos on sides of the capsule is for powered landing. Using them for the abort is a secondary role.

          • PsiSquared says:
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            CST-100 has nothing to do with that unicorn capsule, you know, the cargo Dragon you imagine with rockets in the trunk, padded lawn chairs in the capsule with, canned O2 duct taped to the chairs for astronauts to breathe. It has nothing to do with it because that unicorn, like all unicorns, is completely imaginary.

            You actually believe that the way things would work would be for Congress to tell one specific company to do something? Man, your unchained love for Musk really gets in the way of anything remotely resembling objectivity.

            And you actually believe your unicorn would be any further ahead than Dragon V2 is now?

          • DTARS says:
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            PSIsquared

            The point is CST-100 is not much different in design than my unicorn capsule yet we are paying a ton for it. Why?

          • PsiSquared says:
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            So what? For one thing, CST-100 is real, and the other is just your imagination. You’ll also not that your unicorn wasn’t submitted as a candidate for the Commercial Crew contract. Finally, CST-100 was not measured against your unicorn but rather against Dragon V2 and Dream Chaser.

            If you’re so knotted up over this, why aren’t asking why SpaceX didn’t make your unicorn instead of Dragon V2? So why isn’t any of your anger/confusion/whatever it is you’re feeling directed at SpaceX for not making your unicorn instead of Dragon V2?

          • DTARS says:
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            I was disappointed when Spacex said they were going to do the draco landing thing. And I posted it here at the time that I thought it would take more time to do, all that extra design work. Which I think it has.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            No more so than the ECLSS, Avionics, Parachutes, and every other system in the crewed Dragon.

          • Saturn1300 says:
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            Gerst. said what Boeing asked for was what they expected. SpaceX said they were much farther along than Boeing, so they could do it cheaper. That could be looked at as a snipe at Boeing. Both were still talking about using F-9. That sounded friendly. SpaceX said they were about done. I guess their money goes into building production launchers and capsules. I have decided to give up On Dragon-1. Getting too close to launching Dragon-2. They could use Dragon-1 for a lifeboat. They send up animals, so it should be good enough for humans. Keep the people up there until Dragon-2 arrives or CST-100.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            the CST-100 is leaps and bounds better than putting people in a minimally modified Cargo Dragon.

          • DTARS says:
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            When you stick with Musk. You don’t have to be objective because most the time you end up being right!

          • PsiSquared says:
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            Guessing doesn’t make your right any more than your cute statements do.

          • DTARS says:
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            And nothing wrong with making educated guesses/predictions.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            except your guess wasn’t educated or even good.

          • DTARS says:
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            The UNICORN!!!!
            Hummm not bad Mr. Squared.
            Should I get my Magic markers out and create a cool logo??
            Good to see you using your imagination a little. 🙂

          • PsiSquared says:
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            That’s the level of response I expect from you.

          • DTARS says:
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            Yup 🙂

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            would such a modified Cargo Dragon be survivable for humans? yes. would SpaceX, NASA, or anyone else ever do this? no.

            it’s as straightforward as that. which is why Psi is calling it a “unicorn”

      • EtOH says:
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        DSTAR is talking about using a Dragon V1, which is quite thoroughly tested, and equipping it with an external pusher LAS based on the Draco. I don’t know how much this would have speeded up the process, but the Dragon V2 not flying yet isn’t relevant to his proposal.

    • Saturn1300 says:
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      I agree. Unless Russia cuts us off today, there is no need. You can propose using cargo one for a lifrboat, with a few mods. I was told that would be a McGiver operation. SpaceX has to build and test several capsules. The launch pad will take a year or so. They just started. Remember how long the first pad took. This one is a lot more complicated. So launching in the last 1/4 of of next year sounds good. It is history now, but Crew Dragon-1 would have been done earlier and 300million$ would be a lot cheaper. I think SpaceX would have had to put up some money. Now not any. I do not like the way it has turned out, but that is the way it is.

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      “SpaceX will do their abort test in a few weeks and their in flight abort test in a few months yet they won’t be able or allowed to fly crew till [2017]?? Why not?”

      testing, testing, testing, and more testing. there’s a lot that has to be done between the in-flight abort test and launching a crew. NASA and SpaceX will be thoroughly reviewing each stage of testing to make sure that all is going well and that the Spacecraft will be safe and will function as intended.

      btw, the CCtCap milestones were released a few days ago, and SpaceX’s first manned test flight is slated for late 2016.

      http://forum.nasaspacefligh

  15. DocScience says:
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    Boeing… we have FIRED more experience than SpaceX will EVER have.

    Nice slogan.

    • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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      Reliable space access comes from using engineering talent, not sneering slogans. For their mean-spirited press releases of late alone, I’m hoping that legacy space gets a little (nonlethal) egg on its face.

  16. Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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    We might keep in mind ehre that the same Boeing that is ” casting shade” on a competing manned capsule is the same Boeing that built the X-37 spaceplane that has flown successfully 4 times now and is in fact reusable. The X-37 was a NASA program for its first 5 years, then became an Air Force program , somewhat secretive. Back in 2011 Boeing announced they would scale up the X-37 B currently flying to the ” C ” variant about 1.6X the size and CREW CAPABLE. We have not heard much about that variant, even since the Dreamchaser lost its NASA support and cleared the way for Boeing to proceed with a manned X-37C spaceplane if that is its intention.

    I agree that Boeing is in fact trying to cast pale aspersions at SpaceX’s Dragon V2 in a common display of corporate rivalry and facesaving. It’s probably not a coincidence that an engineering version of the Dragon V2 capsule will shortly ( this week ? ) make its first pad abort test using the 8-engine array of SuperDraco thrusters from the ground. Once an actual flying abort test takes place later this year from a Falcon 9 and is successful, SpaceX will be greenlighted in the fast lane to fly crew , possibly before the end of 2016 , well ahead of Boeing’s timeline.

    Not being able to compete on the launch pad with actual flyable hardware in the near term , Boeing takes a somewhat lower road by sniping at SpaceX, when in fact they should be congratulating Elon & Company in a display of good sportsmanship. Restoring American manned space capability is more important than brinksmanship and faux braggadoccio.

    • DTARS says:
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      What is the biggest problem with both of these capsules? They are to darn small. Won’t you need to be able to put more people in space at once to make manned spaceflight more affordable? Tonight with luck Spacex and Boeing will be working together to put two satellites in space for the unheard of price of about 30million dollars each. Later this year Spacex will be offering the falcon heavy R. Musk has said that he will not be offering a high energy 2nd stage any time soon.

      Couldn’t Boeing create a version of the X-37 C or D that combines the second stage with a large crew cabin with wings that hauls the “second stage part to orbit? Solving both problems. Isn’t making the second stage and space plane one, sharing reusability tech a good solution? For abort you simply have crew part fly off like dragon V2?

      Imagine being able to buy or rent a completely reusable space plane from Boeing that used only falcon heavies 3 reusable first stage cores?

      Isn’t it Boeing/ULA that has all that high energy second stage tech in house now?

      • EtOH says:
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        Both Dragon and CST-100 are well scaled to the tasks for which they were designed. They can carry up to 7, but NASA has expressed a preference for 4 + cargo. There really isn’t anywhere in orbit to put that many people. So as orbital destinations (hopefully) expand, both designs will be able to accommodate more people, even under optimistic conditions it will probably be a while before they are insufficient to the task. That said, the idea of a spaceplane to re-use the second stage isn’t bad, especially considering the difficulty of carrying off a Falcon-9 style landing with only one engine to throttle.

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      The X-37-C was only a concept design, never intended to be put into production. there was never a budget to build it.

  17. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    From watching the latest House Committee on Science and reading the opening remarks from both SpaceX and Boeing, it seems that SpaceX is putting a lot more effort into fight testing for safety.

    SpaceX will do both pad abort and in-flight abort tests early in the development stage. Boeing will do one pad abort late in development.

    This could bite them where it hurts most if that pad abort test is less than nominal.

    Considering the fact that Boeing got twice as much funding as SpaceX and could afford an extra Atlas V to do an in-flight abort test, they are choosing not to.

    Flying for profit is what commercial spaceflight is all about… but testing for profit is most certainly not!

    I hope Boeing changes it’s mind and puts safety in front of dividends.

    tinker

    • EtOH says:
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      I still don’t understand how they got around the in-flight abort test. Admittedly, this is not necessarily a standard test for all manned launchers, but I thought that it was written into the commercial crew contract. Anybody know?

      • Saturn1300 says:
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        I have the requirement documents. They are available at CC. I have been thinking of checking them to see what they say about aborts. DC was only going to do a separation test.
        I checked. They are CTS documents. These are the rules. Boeing said they have a contract. When they signed the contract, they have to follow the requirements in these documents. There is a huge amount of data. In the requirements doc. I did a search for abort and ascent abort. It says test have to been done. Like how how much spin the capsule has. The only way is to do an ascent abort test. It says that a capsule must be clear of any debris from a destruct. If propulsion is not shut off, the rocket could catch up with the capsule after it’s rocket burns out. If the rocket thrust is off, inertia will send it out to sea. Range can wait to see if it clear of the capsule before destruct.
        NASA is not requiring compliance. I am at the last moment before the first flight NASA will find they are not complying with CTS and there will be long delays. NASA should have told Boeing that they could not use solids a long time ago.

    • Saturn1300 says:
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      Boeing wrote the contract. NASA accepted it. I say whatever on aborts. The test flight will test nearly everything. The separation from the 2nd stage will clear a lot.. Some where they will fire the abort engines, like de-orbit, so they are tested. Testing at Max-Q could be tricky. Just shutting down the main engine would probably work. The capsule would probably get far enough away when the destruct happens to clear the debris. I have not heard. I guess an abort needs to be tested at max-q to see if the abort motors are strong enough. If the stack makes it thru max-q, that should be test enough. The odds of an abort in later flights happen at max-q is very low. The stack is only there for a second. The pad abort tests before and separation test after. None of my wishes have come true on CC, so I am not wishing on aborts. That is up to the passengers. I predict they will wave and smile when they board.

      • EtOH says:
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        Interesting point about the test flight separation. I guess I was just surprised by the lack of in-flight abort test because of the choice of a vehicle with solid boosters.

        • Saturn1300 says:
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          I am not surprised. They can’t shut down the solids. I am surprised since they knew this, and the study by the Range that you can’t use solids, that they choose to use solids. Really strange. Bigelow said Atlas, no solids, could lift Orion lite. CST-100 must be a lot heavier.

    • Yale S says:
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      Both Orion and Crew Dragon are having in-flight abort tests. CST-100 had an in-flight test originally scheduled, but yanked it.
      I guess the extra billion and a half bucks they got more than SpaceX for the same taxi service wasn’t enough to do basic safety testing.
      If it was the cost of the rocket, I am sure SpaceX could sell them one at a good cost.

  18. SpaceRonin says:
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    Stress carrying pressure vessel engineering: Evens
    Heat shielding: Evens
    Propulsion/AOCS: Evens
    NAV & Guido: Slight Boeing lead (They do more than big candles)
    ECLSS: Boeing. (Stopping the Self Loading Cargo from whining about the funky smell or passing out is a key objective of aircraft manufacturers. Often negated by their customers operational choices: we don’t need no stinking O2 partial pressure matching)
    OBC/SW: Boeing… How many lines of code do all those Boeing products use anyway.

    That said not much of an advantage to crow about especially at the price differential.. SpaceX could buy in all the capabilities they need and still have enough change in the delta to fund a presidential campaign or two.

  19. rockofritters says:
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    the fact that Mercury, Gemini and Apollo designers are retired or dead is a lot less of a problem for Boeing than it is for NASA itself. Boeing has plenty of grey beards who were mentored under the Merc, Gemini, Apollo guys. and they’ve continuously been building hardware, unlike NASA. The fact that SpaceX has done something recently isn’t some kind of stop the presses defense. Don’t forget that’s a company that has no real corporate knowledge yet. they request the final report of every NASA contract completed to create some corporate knowledge. so don’t think they could have designed dragon without reading all those reports from earlier programs. reports created by Boeing and it’s heritage companies in many cases… that still exist in their archives…

    • Yale S says:
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      ” Boeing has plenty of grey beards who were mentored under the Merc, Gemini, Apollo guys. and they’ve continuously been building hardware, unlike NASA”
      Could you supply some names of active employees mentored by the capsule guys in the requisite crewed capsule techniques?