Suddenly Boeing Has A Way To Speed Up EM-1
Is’nt it interesting that @nasa_sls team suddenly starts to come up with ways to accelerate #SLS EM-1 but only after @JimBridenstine started talking about commercial alternatives. Why didn’t they make these suggestions to @NASA HQ without having a fire lit under them? Just sayin’
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) March 15, 2019
Well, what do you know – the mule’s paying attention!
Or at least feeling obliged to give that impression.
No doubt the SLS/Orion/Congressional axis is also trying to figure out a way to kick Bridenstine into the next county. But it’s a start.
And a more serious answer to “Why didn’t they make these suggestions to @NASA HQ without having a fire lit under them?”
It’s all about risk. Blow up the first SLS launch attempt, and the downside risk for the SLS coalition is huge. Meanwhile, the risk of perpetually spending billions a year to tweak another small fraction of spectacular-failure risk off that first flight (LONG past the point of diminishing returns) has until now been very low. They’ve been delaying one-year-per-year for a long time now with no real consequences.
The Administrator has just changed that risk equation by sharply boosting the (political) risk of further delay. And suddenly suggestions to speed up SLS first flight start surfacing! I expect these suggestions are not new – but were witheld as being “too risky”. At least in comparison to being perpetually funded for perpetual delay.
In comparison to the suddenly increased danger of a wider consensus forming that SLS is indeed a “Rocket to Nowhere”, speeding up first flight is suddenly not so risky.
Best of all they have an excuse if something goes wrong. Administrator Bridenstine didn’t understand because he is not a scientist, so he made us do it. And he did it because President Trump made him do it… Nothing a bureaucrat likes more than an ironclad excuse to blame failure on ?
“It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you place the blame.”
Counterargument: As of 2020 they’ll have had nine years since SLS was mandated plus many years before that on the closely-related Ares 5. If they’re still not ready at that point, then odds are they never would have been.
Exactly! If it never flies than there is no chance of a failure. No failure equals no need to explain to Blue Ribbon Commissions or at Congress Hearings why it failed. With luck the bureaucrats running it will be able to retire without ever risking a failure.?
Elon Musk on the other hand is a risk taker. He is getting ready to risk the hopper test vehicle in it’s first flight just months after a major design, having built it on a beach. Could you imagine today’s NASA doing something like that? Its like a chapter out of a science fiction story and already folks are making plans to view the test flights even though it won’t go higher than mile or two… And if it fails he will just replace it with a better one. Now that is the type of risking taking that created the modern world!
NASA used to take risks like that, but that was before the bureaucrats took it over the from the rocket engineers. What Administrator Bridenstine is really doing is giving the rocket engineers a chance to take NASA back from the bureaucrats, if they are willing to fight for it.
Changed my mind…
You should read the SLS subreddit (I like to read good-faith commentary from the side I don’t necessarily agree with). Those guys love that rocket and really don’t get the idea of taking risks like that. Constantly saying stuff like “You don’t save money reusing first stages” and “can you imagine a serious aerospace company building a prototype in a tent on a beach?”. They sound like the same people who bash Tesla relentlessly despite them winning like crazy the last couple of years. They are so stuck on the old model of the industry that they simply can’t fathom a different paradigm and approach being successful.
It’s telling, though, that the SLS sub reddit has about 1,800 subscribers, and the main SpaceX subs total up around 400,000.
Did you see this? SpaceX is building TWO star ships and boosters at the same time .. one in texas and now another in florida.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Boeing should be penalized, fined, and have additional controls added into all future contracts. They are a blood sucking tick that views NASA, the American Space program, and taxpayers as a cash cow.
Where were you in 2010, 2011, and 2012 Boeing? Why didn’t you “Go at throttle up” back then?
Note to Jim Bridenstine (and I know you will see this) you do not need SLS and Orion. You know it. I know it. Everyone reading this knows it. I just hope you inform the Trumpster too.
This is sickening.
Last time I checked, before a company can be “penalized, fined, and have additional controls added into all future contracts” by the government, they need some sort of conviction in court. Boeing has lots of very competent contract lawyers on staff, with lots of experience with the Federal Acquisitions Regulations. I’m sure everything Boeing has done is within the letter of the law and follows the terms of their contracts meticulously. They are that sort of company. Whether they followed the spirit of the law and those contracts is another matter. But you can’t convict someone for violating the spirit of the law.
The first step would be that Boeing breached their contract.
I really doubt Boeing is in breach of contract. You missed the part about very competent contract lawyers.
I obviously haven’t seen the SLS contract, but these sorts of contracts are carefully worded and make sure cost overruns and schedule slips are not a breach of contract.
The budget and schedule would be very explicitly described as an estimate not something anyone was legally obliged to stick to. The contractor has to follow very specific rules about accounting, has to report regularly on money spent and work completed, and if the schedule or budget has to change, there is a specified process to get approval from the appropriate government official. As long as the contractor follows those rules, they are not in breach of contract regardless of how late and over budget the project ends up.
I think I agree with you.
You stated “Last time I checked, before a company can be “penalized, fined, and
have additional controls added into all future contracts” by the
government, they need some sort of conviction in court.”
I’m not a lawyer, but I would think it would be handled as a violation of contract. Any penalties or fines would need to be in the contract already. Any changes would have to be agreed upon by both parties. This is all standard procedure likely controlled by some federal regulation.
Look , I dont think you understand. As someone mentioned earlier, Boeing has very good contract lawyers but than the government. i have no doubt that Boeing adheres to the contract and NASA is guilty (again) of not negotiating a contract in NASA’s and the taxpayers best interests (imo).
They won’t need to be fined. This acceleration will cost them plenty.
I honestly don’t think ULA can meet that launch date with a Delta Heavy. But ULA wouldn’t do that to Boeing anyway.
I think SpaceX could meet it, if they think they need the business, but it would be difficult. They have no reason to delay Starship’s Moon flight for it though.
NASA, Bridenstien, Trump and Boeing…everyone…can see how bad it would look for Orion to fly an uncrewed Moon loop AFTER Starship flies a crewed one. Boeing doesn’t care how bad it would look so long as they keep getting paid.
Except now they have been made to care, because if the public ever sees SLS as unnecessary then its goose is cooked.
“I think SpaceX could meet it, if they think they need the business, but it would be difficult. They have no reason to delay Starship’s Moon flight for it though.”
If SpaceX can one-up Boeing/ULA without slowing down what’s happening in Boca Chica they’ll run with it, and may already have. Of course the ultimate one-up will be a Starship flying the EM-1 flight plan first.
Mmmmm! Has anyone sat down and worked out how many launches Starlink will need? I think SpaceX will have enough to do servicing that monster.
Musk says the Gen 1 Starlink birds will use F9/FH, but Gen 2 will use Starship. No capacity/launch issue there.
They are talking about 12,000 satellites. I don’t think they’ve announced any detailed specifications, but those are probably going to be a few hundred kilos each. Probably over 500 kg, counting deployment systems. That’s 6000 tonnes or more for the whole constellation. Even at 100 tonnes per Starship/Super Heavy launch, that’s over 60 launches. If everything about the Starship turns out to be what they claim, that’s still a whole lot. Not impossible, but I certainly wouldn’t call it no issue. And since those satellites are down in 350 km orbits, they’ll have to be replaced after a relatively short time.
Indeed but have you looked at the numbers required to be launched in the time required for initial service (i.e. Capex minimization)? I doubt that they are basing their planning on the availability of the BFR. I expect that they have baselined it with F9 and anticipate gains if BFR comes online in time. Flyback F9s can loft 13,000kg to LEO at 500kg a pop that’s about 20 units a launch (assuming 500kg each and a 3 ton adapter). The touted constellation size is 12000!!! The preliminary filing was for over 4000 units. That is in excess of 200 F9 launches., just for that….. They did 20 launches a year last year with existing customers. Even if they doubled the tempo and shed all their commercial customers that would still be 5 years with F9s. Or if we could do them on F9H (which won’t help your tempo and is probably not possible as there are multiple orbits to populate), then it is about two years at current tempo doing nothing else.
SX gains very little making NASA look foolish.
If Starship/Super Heavy is successful NASA will be the one going hat in hand to SpaceX, since it will be hard for them to justify sending astronauts as spam in a can to a bigger can when SpaceX is supporting an commercial base of the Moon. Congress Critters may want their pork, but they also don’t want to look like fools.
The tipping point .. when congressional space state members can no longer horse trade and get the funding votes it needs…. I believe we are close to that point.. all the non space states need is a reason .. a cover story .. to justify saying no to shelby.
Well they will soon be able to have one. The first Raptor was just installed on the Hopper and Elon Musk is hoping to do a static fire as early as tomorrow.
Meanwhile, work on the first Starship has already started, in the open, on the beach. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if he sent an unscrewed Starship around the Moon before EM-1? And while NASA is fishing the tiny little Orion out of the ocean he sends the same one around again? That may be the wake up call that the world has just changed forever! ?
And yet they do it so often !
It’s Boeing & Congress that’ll look foolish. NASA is the innocent child stuck between two dysfunctional parents.
I would think any additional cost would be paid by the government, unless Boeing violated their contract.
Absolutely. Boeing would not accept a change if they were not adequately compensated. SpaceX being privately held can take some risk, and success with the Falcon Heavy is not assured, but the additional government funding SpaceX will get is vital to a company with superb hardware but marginal cash flow.
Boeing is just being responsive to the customer.
The customer wants a prolonged always-defer-flight-risk funding sponge? Boeing delivers.
The customer comes under political pressure to fly on schedule and needs to pretend it’s considering options to do so? Boeing delivers.
Don’t blame Boeing here. The SLS/Orion/Congressional customer calls the shots. Boeing just does its best to give them what they actually want at any given moment.
Put another way, Boeing’s chief responsibility is to its stockholders, not to you. The SLS/Orion/Congressional axis is the one that’s supposed to be responsible to you as a taxpayer.
Or, they were playing by well-understood rules. I am beginning to understand a simple truth: there are different rules here.
That would be a corollary to “Life ain’t fair.”
And it follows that assessing these situations through the eyes of an informed, thoughtful citizen will lead to madness.
If, and I’m not arguing either way because I simply don’t know, Boeing has abused the contract process or been guilty of fraud under the contract, then Administrator Bridenstine should request an IG investigation and if the results appear positive or suggestive, refer the case to the DOJ for prosecution. There are Federal contracting laws and standards and if Boeing or any other contractor is in violation then there is a legal avenue to address it. For my part I’m not sure that the contractors are actually doing anything wrong. I suspect, that at the urging of Congress NASA has simply structured the thing from the beginning as a massive workfare program and really isn’t (or at least not till now) been pushing for any real results. Big Aerospace companies keep people employed. Jobs continue in Sen. Shelby’s backyard and the Congress keeps pumping in money because the wheels are greased. If we get a new Saturn 5 and update Apollo out of that’s great, but not really the point. It’s frustrating to those of us who are real space enthusiasts, but most of the public don’t really care, and it’s a drop in the bucket in the overall budget. Think this is frustrating? Ask yourself what the push for big expensive Aircraft Carriers which will all be prime targets in the first 10 minutes of any peer equivalent war looks like to defense analysts that think what we really need is a smaller, more nimble navy. Or social policy analysts that wonder why we don’t divert more social spending to work programs that improve infrastructure and away from straight up social welfare handouts. A sector of the Federal budget that is also massive in comparisons to NASA’s budget. Nope this little political legerdemain of SLS is nothing compared to some of these programs. Hey, look on the bright side, at least we might get a rocket and a capsule out of it someday.
And thanks to the airliner division, 737 Max troubles, Boeing is now the subject of a DC-based FBI and Federal Grand Jury criminal investigation..
Perjaps the scope should be widened…
Well, imagine that.
Operational rocket programs fly. Soon-to-be obsolete paper rockets die.
I’m not sure I like the way this is going. (Of course, I could have said that about SLS at almost any time in the past decade…)
SLS is, for good or ill, a very complex and labor intensive launch vehicle. We can argue about that being unnecessarily complex and labor intensive, but that’s what it is. That means cutting corners to stay on schedule is not safe. That’s the mistake NASA made (twice) with the Space Shuttle. And cutting corners is what you will get when people are under political pressure to stay on schedule. A rush to launch SLS is even more of a bad idea than SLS was last week.
Yes, I agree. And don’t forget Apollo 1. Administrator Bridenstine should just let it go at it’s own pace and pay SpaceX to send a Dragon2 around the Moon.
But SLS/Orion’s “own pace” demonstrably is to consume ~40% of NASA’s Human Spaceflight budget forever. Perhaps better to force the issue – while not placing people on board.
In other words, it’s time to put up or shut up. If Boeing can’t make this thing fly in the time they’ve had and the billions of dollars they’re received, they deserve to have it cancelled.
As it is they’re being rapidly outpaced by the competition. Even Vulcan doesn’t have the luxuries of time and money that SLS has enjoyed.
Let me play Devil’s Advocate here.
If you *don’t* rush them, on their record they defer flying for one year per year – recently, more than one year per year – so why are we funding them again?
And if you *do* rush them and it then turns out they are unable to fly safely after all these years of funding, arguably you are better off having found that out before sinking more billions and years.
Given the main payload isn’t to be crewed, and is also arguably subject to both the above points, first-flight safety isn’t really that much of an issue in any case.
Unless, of course, you’re worried that they might end up flying the beast sideways into downtown Orlando – but the preventives against THAT are long-established, and if they’re truly *that* incompetent, we circle back again to why are we funding them?
It will sometimes launch crews…on trajectories that can put them in very long period orbits. Launch abort towers are only the beginning…a malfunctioning orbit that can’t be corrected can send them away for months…far more than the life support on that little capsule can sustain them.
SLS will fly, and it will fly safe. Boeing has the resources to put to the problem. They have been in this business for a very long time and they will fly. They will fly because if NASA is willing to ditch them, then they are willing to stop running interference for them with the American public.
Two years or so about this time we all here sat and watched the power struggle as Old Space and New Space fought for the favor of this new Administration. Well, is anyone surprised about who won? Trump gave Old Space a chance, but he did not rise from government power. He sided with Commercial space because he is of them and has no patience with Government bureaucracy. In business you get results or you get out of the way.
What died today is cost plus contracting…the policy that pays companies to launch nothing.
Cost plus contracting did not die. It is still around and will continue for high risk projects.
Right. I said that specifically in reference to orbital launch vehicles, which is all SLS really is.
SLS is a derivative of the Space Shuttle and it’s functionality is well understood. This should have been flying 5 years ago!
The Shuttle derived hardware was very substantially modified and used in somewhat different ways. It wasn’t as if they started from scratch, but it wasn’t too far from that. We’re talking about a government agency who isn’t sure a Falcon 9 Block 4 and Block 5 are sufficiently similar for qualification purposes.
“substantially modified,” you say?
FIVE Falcon 9 blocks, some very significant upgrades (Octaweb, grid fins, etc), a Heavy-class clustered booster with a beefed-up center core, TWO spacecraft – one for crews, and THREE major pump-fed engine developments.
Boeing SLS progress: <crickets>, slips and development tanks
NASA required Block 5 and other changes for Crew Dragon, and long ago accepted booster and Cargo Dragon re-use. This month Crew Dragon DM-1 flew spectacularly well.
USAF qualified Falcon Heavy #1 after ONE launch, and it was a mix of two different blocks. Next up USAF will qualify FH Block 5 for boost re-use by flying the ArabSat-6A boosters on STP-2.
Sorry, but it’s time for a reckoning, for both Boeing and their Congressional enablers.
I’m the last person to defend SLS. I’m simply saying it is what it is. They made enough changes to the Shuttle hardware that, according to NASA and Boeing practices, they had to retest, rereview, requalify, and re-how-knows-what. SpaceX has different practices for design changes. That’s one reason NASA is probably better off being a launch service customer rather than a launch vehicle developer.
Right, and correct me someone if I’m wrong, but the shuttle engine mods did not improve the thrust as much as the Merlin improvements did.
Wasn’t it Boeing and the rest of the STS contractors saying they could reuse all those components.
True and this failure of leadership happened back when Mike Griffin pushed Ares I and Ares V upon NASA. Scrapping the shuttle infrastructure in favor of something new that was only very loosely based on the space shuttle was his fault. By the time SLS was Congressionally mandated, it was too late to use anything from the shuttle directly. So, SLS became a warmed over Ares V design rather than something DIRECT from the space shuttle.
The thing that gets me is that they reuse old shuttle components, presumably, for simplicity and cost-savings. SpaceX has demonstrated repeatedly, and is about to redemonstrate epically, how simple and cheap it is to start from scratch and build and operate something totally new from a not so new knowledge base.
True. Most of this is how SpaceX is run and managed. They simply don’t sit still. They are constantly designing, building, testing, and flying. And from the very top, reusability has been pushed as the key to cheaper operations. And it’s working.
It’s going to blow NASA management’s minds when they see actual Starships and Super Boosters being built out in the open at Boca Chica and at KSC. Starship Hopper is supposed to start hopping in the next couple of weeks.
I don’t think it will blow anyone’s minds. I think that NASA knew that this is where COTS and CCDev would end up going in the end.
I’d bet money that ULA will not lift a finger to set aside a rocket for Orion until and unless NASA goes forward with the plan, writes a contract, and Congress approves the funds. I’d bet the same amount of money that SpaceX wouldn’t wait for Congressional approval, but if it looks like that’s where NASA is headed, they’d jump at the chance to launch another Falcon Heavy in 2020. They might even foot all or part of the $100 million just to kill SLS and build a bigger market for FSH and Starship. I read someone speculate somewhere that FH might even be able to expend the boosters and loft the whole package.
BTW…Have you noticed that SpaceX can’t seem to do anything in Texas without someone sneaking a photo of it and selling it to Teslarati and/or arstechnica? When was the last time someone did that with SLS? Folks are excited. People care about Ripley and that silly plush toy, Earthy, gets kidnapped by ISS astronauts and gets as much media attention as the droid that NASA sent there.
SpaceX has created a new energy.
“SpaceX has created a new energy”
Which, I think, will be their chief legacy.
A rich guy wants to go to Mars; finding transportation lacking, he elects to build it himself. Jeff adroitly summarizes the SX ethos: “They simply don’t sit still”.
After all there is really nothing new in F9, aside from an entirely new way of looking at the same problems faced by countless engineers. In many cases they were willing to look at previously “settled issues”, re-opening doors previously closed (9 smaller engines, for instance, re-examine many problems).
Definitely, SpaceX has injected new energy. Their apparent willingness to try approaches previously “closed”, the urgency with which develop new capabilities, bringing the public along for the ride, as well as their willingness to fail all contribute to that. Saturn I had 8 smaller engines, so there is a successful precedent for that approach… I’d personally look more to the orbital class VTVL booster approach as re-opening previously “closed” doors.
I googled a bit for previously proposed VTVL boosters. Most reusable booster concepts seem to have involved wings. There’s the DC-X of course, but it was sub-orbital, and there was a 1964 Douglas Aircraft proposal for a VTVL booster:
http://www.astronautix.com/…
but I couldn’t find much else.
Yep, it’s very hard to keep something secret when you are building it in the open on a public beach. And the 3 days notice they need to provide for closing it to do the hopper tests gives the fans plenty of time to gather. Brownsville is even building a viewing place for them. It will be like a space advocate version of Woodstock when it starts flying.
Too bad he decided not to replace the nose cone for the flight tests. It would make it look more like a rocket than an alien spacecraft.?
Probably later.
In practice, I think SpaceX can count on someone wanting a Falcon Heavy in the 2020 to 2022 timeframe. If NASA wants to buy one for Orion, that’s fine. If not, someone else will, so building one isn’t an investment that’s going to sit around taking up storage space in the high bay. The Delta IV Heavy is pretty much a one-customer launch vehicle and that customer normally orders them well in advance.
Makes sense.
Besides, SpaceX probably already knows that they need two functioning Mark 5 center cores anyway in case they lose one in a landing they can still maintain cadence.
After saying that I learned that SpaceX is indeed building a separate core stage for the rideshare launch later…because the Air Force isn’t ready for the whole reusable thing just yet.
So, barring a failed landing, they’ll have two core stages to choose from to, in theory, fly EM-1.
I’m thinking of what Wayne Hale wrote in his blog 2008 or 2009 “the horse has left the barn” in regards to many asking can they not have Shuttle stop flying in 2010. Wayne mentioned when it was announced in 2004 to stop flying Shuttle in 2010, several small companies that build various parts decided to supply just enough to carry the Shuttle program for six more years then retool and find new customers.
Four years later much of the infrastructure supplying parts and resources for Shuttle was dismantled and many of these companies (some were mom and pop outfits) moved on to something else, or simply retired. You just don’t press and button and external tanks start again coming out of Michoud. Fast forward to nowadays, maybe that’s why SLS has problems because much of the Shuttle infrastructure was dismantled and now it is being reassembled (or maybe certain portions have not).
“A rush to launch SLS”
How many more YEARS would be considered . not rushing?
As many years as the design calls for. If they designed something that would take twenty years to build correctly, then that’s twenty years. Applying political pressure to get it done in ten years is likely to result in a shoddy product. If twenty years is too long, the sensible thing to do is cancel the project. If you think designing something that would take that long is stupid, I wouldn’t disagree. But if that’s how it’s designed, you’re stuck with that; management fiat won’t change the design.
OK, I’ll take the bait…
Imagine a well- and properly-built rocket at the factory “Out” loading dock after 20 years.
It follows that twenty years was the original design time. Is this a fair extrapolation?
/:-)
Amazing what happens when the gravy train might be under threat.
Because they are lazy. Fat. Stupid. Care more about the almighty dollar than doing great things for this country.
Return to shareholders..
And it is enforced by the SEC as Elon Musk is finding out with Tesla. Its why he will never take SpaceX public. And I suspect Jeff Bezos will keep Blue Origin private as well for the same reasons.
No kidding. It’s hard to execute on a 5 to 10 year plan of investing in new technology when the stockholders (including all the board members and all of the executives) want a return on their investment in the next quarter. Privately held companies don’t have exactly that same sort of short term pressure to perform.
Perhaps some eyes are being opened.
What matters isn’t “Private” vs. “Government” — what matters is competition, real competition.
Back in the 50’s and early 60’s, when USAF procurement worked, there were so many companies competing for each aircraft, and so many different aircraft being procured, that if one was a dog, it could just be canceled. That built the Air Force.
The reason why Commercial Cargo worked is that there were multiple competing suppliers that were all going to go to flight systems. Every time Congress tried to “save money” by cutting it back to one, the community fought to keep it two (frankly, three would have been better). That worked.
ULA and SpaceX are working because they are competing. If SpaceX were a monopoly, they would soon act like one. If Blue Origin joins the market, so much the better.
Exactly! That’s one reason against government monopolies like healthcare. Without competition, it’s difficult to keep costs low or delays from happening without an iron fist like the USSR and many know how that worked out.
In our system, it is very difficult to maintain real competition for a government need — too many ‘efficiency experts’ working to ‘eliminate duplication’ (never mind that you can get more fighters or rockets for your money with that duplication). It’s nearly impossible to allow government to compete with the private sector — since government is then acting as its own supplier, it writes the requirements to favor itself. The reason why going to a more “privately run” space sector matters is not that there’s some magic about it, but that if we can get enough competing companies, then private customers can pick based on price, service, schedule, risk — all the usual things. And government can cancel non-performing vendors. “Too big to fail” is also “Too big to succeed”. Break the project down into smaller pieces, with real parallel paths, so that there is no single piece you can’t afford to do without — then all the contractors know, it’s perform or die.
If we ever get universal health care the government will not be the supplier, it will be the purchaser, just as it is in human spaceflight.
Right now my patients are suffering under the iron fist of vicious private monopolies that have no responsibility except to squeeze every drop of blood patietns who are desperate and often poor. The drug companies arrange it so most critical drugs, even generics, have only one supplier so they can charge whatever they want. I have a patient who needs colchicine, a generic drug that costs almost nothing to manufacture. But now it costs a fortune and she cannot get insurance, because we don’t have universal health care.
“We have never failed to meet a revised schedule.” – actual quote from a contractor during a NASA meeting I attended in the 1980’s to the chuckles of all the government managers around the table. It is this kind of chummy relationship that allows schedules to easily slip to the right.
And we are not aware of any unidentified design flaws.
“We have never failed to meet a revised schedule.”
No… really? Since they always move to the right, who’d a thunk it?
The magic of competition.
In this case the mere threat of competition prodded Boeing into at least the appearance of being responsive to the customer.
It is time to drain this swamp. I hope SpaceX, and Blue Origin completely trash any future for Old Space. Crush their asses into the ground without an ounce of remorse.
Doesn’t anyone feel shame anymore?
This is 2019. Shame is weaponized. Once you get past ever feeling it, you have it made.
Honesty is the most important thing! Once you can fake that you’re in.
https://quoteinvestigator.c…
“Weaponized shame.”
Well, at least now it has a name.
It’s easy to imagine that Boeing’s move was understood in advance by NASA managers.
Everyone operates within a well-known framework the defines the limits of what one can do, or not. And as long as actions fall within this ‘framework’, nobody says anything.
And it appears that the rules have very little relationship to the way ordinary, fair people live their lives, though. The sudden appearance of ‘speed up suggestions’ is easily understood by all of the players. And it’s why nobody is ever ashamed of what they do; nor is anyone surprised when a company plays a well-timed card.
The required level of cynicism is stunning.
This is 2019. The required level of cynicism is the water the culture swims in at this point.
“Accelerate the schedule” = “They gave us an excuse to spend money faster in the near term”.
Call your Senators and Representative. Tell them to defund the Space Launch System and instead support safe economical commercial space. For contact info see
https://www.usa.gov/elected…
This actually works. Email or phone or snail mail – they all get noticed, logged, considered.
Nothing can negate a political deal, or a swapped vote; but personal contact makes the price higher.
I understand some congressmen (or their staff) also sort messages by the level of effort involved in sending them. A hand-written letter takes more work than a quick email, so they assume the letter-writer cares more about the subject. Suggested text is also debatable. Some lobbing organizations like to suggest a particular phrasing when they ask people to write their congressman. That has the advantage of sending a consistent message, but it also makes it pretty obvious it was an orchestrated campaign rather than a large number of concerned individuals.
A hard-copy letter sent by snail mail can take weeks to get through security screening, so it’s good only for things not time-sensitive.
Posted this on another article. Looks like my last paragraph was right
Does the suggestion to use a commercial launcher in 12-18 months make realistic sense to anyone? Everyone is focusing on if the Delta Heavy or Falcon Heavy could launch it as far as performance goes but that is only one factor. Neither launchers are man-rated. There is no way that could be done in 12-18 months to be able to launch in 2020 time frame.
And neither launch site would be able to support manned launches because nether launch towers would have crew access arms at the proper height for access to Orion. SpaceX’s launch complex 39A would emergency escape slide but probably at the incorrect height to support the Orion.
I’m not sure what was the reason that Bridenstein brought this up. Possibly he was trying to put pressure on Boeing to perform better but it doesn’t seem like a realistic option. I wish it was. I’m all for saving $700 million dollars a launch.
The June 2020 circumlunar test of Orion Bridenstine wants to keep on-schedule here won’t have a crew on board. So NASA crew certification for the boosters is not an issue.
Not for the alternative commercial launch vehicles. It is, or should be, a problem for SLS certification. If the launch EM-1 on anything else, then EM-2, with a crew onboard, will be the first flight of SLS. I haven’t seen much discussion of that. Mr. Bridenstine did get one question about that, but he didn’t seem to think it was a problem. Of course, SLS has always had flexible requirements about things like certification…
I wonder how many other government projects Boeing is slow-walking to maintain a revenue flow?
The only way to put pressure on Boeing is: 1. By a cause of action letter and 2. Withholding award fee. The 1st option is going to be hard as the program is directly executed by NASA management. The 2nd is to withhold award fee. Back in 2002 while supporting ISS Boeing threw 2 high pressure gas tanks (est value $750,000), built for the US Airlock away – like the big garbage truck away. When confronted by NASA, the Boeing response was “Nothing in the contract prevents us from throwing away flight hardware.” A few days later NASA responded “Nothing in the contract said we have to give you A $20,000,000 yearly award fee. Boeing paid for the tanks and even put yellow cards on every box, crate or bin of flight hardware to make sure people knew not to throw it away.
In 2007 while on CxP a contract manager told me face to face, they knew NASA could never build Ares I/V and would milk the contracts for every $ they could before the $ ended. Today, more or less all the same contractor/NASA gov employee/players are working SLS. Not one Ares I contract was cancelled, just morphed for SLS. This is why they don’t care and are looking for a graceful way out. Like a loss of flight hardware during test, systems flaws, or significant delays in the critical path (and a graceful way out could be one launch only (with a total $ program cost of 15 Billion $). Keep in mind NO NEW TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT is occurring on SLS.
Keep the jobs, build something else.