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Artemis

Watching The Future Roll By The Past At KSC

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
June 15, 2022

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

22 responses to “Watching The Future Roll By The Past At KSC”

  1. rb1957 says:
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    “they birthed this future” … I’m sure they wish they hadn’t. I’m sure they expected commercial partners to be compliant, more of the same, rather than the “disruptive” ones they got … with their own ideas … geeze !

    • Todd Austin says:
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      Everything I’ve read indicates the opposite. Those who pressed for the commercial option knew it would be disruptive and that’s why they had to fight for it against the status quo. That includes folks in NASA, the administration, and Congress.

  2. R.J.Schmitt says:
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    NASA and Bechtel have spent $1B to date on Mobile Launcher 2 (ML2) on a cost-plus contract award of $383M. I don’t know the cost of that SpaceX Launch Integration Tower now being constructed at KSC, but I would be surprised if that structure costs more than $100M.

    https://spacepolicyonline.c

    That’s what happens when NASA issues a large contract before the engineering specifications are firmly established. In other words, when NASA does business as usual.

    • Terry Stetler says:
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      Congress and the political suits in both parties have more to do with these delays than the line guys at NASA. Those line guys were most likely cheering inside as the tower segments passed.

      • ed2291 says:
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        I certainly and enthusiastically agree about the line guys. The NASA leadership not so much.

    • SpaceRonin says:
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      I do wonder how much of it is structural? Surely funding a space agency on an annual line item basis is simply prioritizing slippage minimization. Contracts are placed and milestones paid off before they are ready and the recovery eats more funds. No space program on earth is less than three years door to door. Those are only the recurring missions. Everything else is closer to either side of ten to fifteen. If you want any chance at cost effective management then your funding cycle should reflect that. But congress lasts two years so I guess NASA is just stuck with it.

    • Juisarian says:
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      And people say NASA is too risk-adverse.

  3. David Kinney says:
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    There’s a time when the parents need to move aside and let the kids take over… it does not diminish the deeds of the parent. But… like I tell my kids… when I get old and senile, and I’m a pain in the ass… just tell me to go play in a busy road please. 😉

    • Bob Mahoney says:
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      The callous attitude toward the value of human life woven into your (admittedly wry) humorous remark to your children is now rampant in our culture and is an underpinning of so much evil today, both that reported in the news and that willfully ignored in the news.

      Something to consider when pondering the ills around us and amongst us and any possible attempts at solutions.

  4. ed2291 says:
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    Keith is right. It is legitimate to say SLS and Boeing compare poorly with Space X. It is legitimate to ask why has it been 50 years since humans were last out of low earth orbit. I am encouraged that NASA is making progress, but Keith is right to mention past performance.

  5. Brian_M2525 says:
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    If the situation with the Mobile Launcher contract were a new situation, then we might be perplexed about how why NASA gets into so much trouble while Space X is moving ahead so quickly. But the situation is a recurring theme with NASA. EVERY human space flight project without exception has gone multiple times over budget while being delayed, usually by a decade or longer. The Launcher, SLS, Orion, ISS, even operating Shuttle, an already flying vehicle. There is something systematically wrong with the way NASA has been working for the last 30+ years.

    • rb1957 says:
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      To be fair I think every NASA project (not just human space flight) has gone over budget. And I don’t mean this as a criticism of NASA (though you’d think they’d learn from previous experience). NASA is in the business of prototyping and experimental projects, which means doing things of unknown complexity. Once things have been done, then the future is more predictable … after the first TDRSS satellite was built, and presumably over-budget, were the later buses more on target (once they had one).
      And do we know if SpaceX is working to their budget ? or only when things are in production ? ie I think SpaceX are in the same camp as NASA when it comes to budgets, although SpaceX are in a different universe when it comes to getting stuff done !

      • fcrary says:
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        Not every NASA project goes over budget. Most of them probably do, at least by a little, but some don’t. I know the MAVEN Mars orbiter came in under budget. But experimental projects and unknown complexities aren’t the explanation (or the whole explanation) for the projects which go over budget. Some of the robotic, planetary missions take existing instruments and send them somewhere new. And all these missions are expected to have 20% to 30% budget reserves to deal with any unexpected problems.

    • ex-NASA says:
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      It’s called Cost-Plus instead of Fix-Rate contracting.

      • JJMach says:
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        I hear lots of complaints about the fact that the Mobile Launcher was built under a Cost-Plus contract and Nelson has stated that he wants to see more Firm-Fixed-Price contracts. I have seen the argument that Bechtel underbid the project to win it. If they had underbid a FFP contract and NASA had an unfinished, unusable launch pad when they ran out the last dollar on the contract and went tools-down, how is that situation any better? Another major problem was that the requirements were in flux. Bechtel would have put their hand out for a change order and more money every time NASA changed its mind about what they wanted, so, again: firmly fixing the price fixes what? There is an argument that FFP avoids the bonuses that Bechtel was incorrectly awarded, but any FFP contractor is going to pad the bid to cover contingencies that, if not realized, become pseudo-bonuses, and even a well-managed FFP can (should?) include fixed awards for meeting performance targets.

        I agree that, FFP contracts definitely have a place, as others have pointed out: when you know what you want and you know what that costs, it is the right choice, but blaming how a contract was structured, when there were many failures in planning and managing the contract seems to me to be just looking for a scapegoat.

        • ex-NASA says:
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          Under a Fixed Price contract Bechtel would be contractually obligated to complete the work as designed. IF the design changed (as often does) THEN they could come back and renegotiate the design changes but ONLY the the changes. So if they underbid the original standard work, that’s on them. Now that doesn’t stop them from overpricing the design changes but it’s still better than the old system of way underbidding the original contract just to get it then having NASA pay ALL overages. It would also give NASA more incentive to be better at creating the original design.

          On a side note, while working for one of the original prime Shuttle contractors under cost-plus, we used to joke that every minor change NASA came to us with would take “6 months and 1 million dollars.”

  6. Nick K says:
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    Its gotten to tje point that no one really believes NASAs plans and dates. ‘Were gonna land the first woman and minority on the moon in 2024? Maybe they really mean 2034?’

  7. ex-NASA says:
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    While I was working on the Shuttle Program, I remember hearing the NASA Administrator (I think it was Dan Goldin at the time, maybe Keith knows for sure) give a speech stating that the prime contractors needed to take a more active role in rocket development instead of waiting for NASA. Sadly nothing really became of it until decades later when SpaceX decided to get involved disrupting the old cost-plus philosophy of waiting for NASA to tell them what to do and pay for it. Where are all the new faster, better, cheaper launch vehicles outside of SpaceX? Unfortunately, they were warned years ago.

  8. Johnhouboltsmyspiritanimal says:
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    So how embarrassing is it going to be if the KSC pad 39A tower and all the other GSE are installed and operational before the end of the year.

    • Zed_WEASEL says:
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      Unless mother nature in the form of hurricanes intervenes.

      The new Orbital Launch Integration Tower at pad LC-39A should be assembled by the end of August with the tower fitting out process for a couple months afterward. SpaceX have most of the pre-assembled blocks and other hardware of the tower sitting at their Roberts Road facility now.

      However there is the issue of building the Starship and Super Heavy at Florida to put on the new pad at LC-39A. Probably sometime in mid 2023 with Starbase Florida operational. SpaceX will roll launchers out from the new rocket shipyard at Roberts Road to the pad.