Boeing, NASA clash over push for Congress to fund new stage for moon rocket, Washington Post
“In an interview, Bridenstine said that while the upper stage will be a great asset for NASA some day, he said “any plan that requires an EUS to be ready by 2024 is a plan that reduces the probability of success. It’s just not going to be ready. … “All of our contractors lobby Congress to achieve what is in their best interest even though it may not be in the best interest of the nation,” Bridenstine said in an interview. “This is another example of that. My job as NASA administrator is to make sure we do what’s right for the country, and for the taxpayer.””
Farther, Faster: The Next Stage of America’s Moon Rocket Takes Shape, Boeing
“As the first Space Launch System (SLS) core stage completes final functional tests ahead of delivery to NASA, Boeing is building the second core stage while accelerating work on a powerful new upper stage that will boost the rocket’s performance for the third moon mission and beyond.”
Keith’s note: This self-serving puffery by Boeing et al obscures the real costs of things and makes it harder to do an apples:apples reality check in the open at a time when no one really trusts any of the costs or schedules associated with Artemis. Indeed bogus claims like this one by Boeing certainly sounds like ‘fake news’ 😉

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

43 replies on “Bridenstine Calls B.S. On Boeing Exploration Upper Stage Claim”

  1. I must say, I’m really starting to like NASA Administrator Bridenstine. Calling out b.s. is essential to having realistic planning and schedules.

    Of course, this was in response to a blog post by Boeing. So of course their blog post would paint a rosy picture.

    A product management co-worker of mine says that there are lies, damn lies, and marketing.

  2. “All of our contractors lobby Congress to achieve what is in their best interest even though it may not be in the best interest of the nation,” Bridenstine said in an interview. “This is another example of that. My job as NASA administrator is to make sure we do what’s right for the country, and for the taxpayer.”

    Hoo boy, them’s fightin words!

    2. A noble sentiment, and one that may keep him in office in case the Dems win the presidency in 2020. However, these words may come back to haunt him in 2022 or so when SpaceX has flown and refueled in orbit their upcoming Starship, and the SLS is just preparing for its second flight. The question then will be, which heavy launch vehicle is best for the taxpayers, one that costs $1.5 – 2.0 Billion per launch, or one that can be bought at a few hundred millions?

  3. Isn’t this basically an S-4 stage minus 2 engines? or a 4 engine Centaur? The RL-10 engine has been around since 1962,in one way,shape or form. I think it should be relatively well understood by this point. Why is this dragging on? Enlighten me please?

    1. I think you could call it a four engine Centaur. But that’s a very different beast. The diameter, mass properties and aerodynamics are all different. And, if memory serves, the two-engine version of the Centaur has never actually flown. So everything from mechanical engineering of the rocket (not the engine) to flight software and avionics are a totally new design. Just look at the mess Boeing got into by putting an existing jet engine on an existing airframe which wasn’t originally designed for it. That’s not excusing the estimated cost and schedule for the EUS. By the standards of NASA in the 1960s, that’s an embarrassment. But the development work isn’t trivial and NASA’s and Boeing’s current practices aren’t what you could call swift and efficient.

      1. Dual engine centaur has flown several missions in the late 90s, and is scheduled to fly next Friday (OFT). EUS is not much at all like centaur- Centaur is crazy rocket science brilliance. The metal on centaur’s skin is as thin as a soda can. The stage must be stored in stretch harnesses so it doesn’t start buckling under its own weight. It needs to be pressurized constantly to support the payload weight. This is all to reduce stage mass and support the most prop and oxidizer possible. EUS, as I understand it, is a more traditional stage.

        1. The current Dual engine Centaur have never flown on any launcher. The DEC flown in the 90’s on the Atlas III are quite different in components and avionics.

      2. “Just look at the mess Boeing got into by putting an existing jet engine on an existing airframe which wasn’t originally designed for it.”
        It probably wasn’t your intention but as worded it could sound like you are saying that it was a mistake for Boeing to use new engines on an older design. Changing engines from the original on airliners is far from unusual but it does usually require some modifications. In the previous major 737 engine upgrade in the 1980’s they switched to high bypass turbofans with greater diameter which caused ground clearance issues (similar to MAX) requiring that the engines be moved forward, and flattening the engine nacelles on the bottom, giving that generation of 737 its distinctive non-round engine intakes. The new engine has been extremely successful and has helped make the 737 the efficient workhorse that it is today.

        For MAX they also had to change the engine location somewhat, but all indications are that the new engine should work very well. It did create a potential situation of nosing up more than the previous model in somewhat rare power/pitch combinations like might happen in an avoidance maneuver for example. This could have been managed through pilot training and been perfectly safe, however Boeing wanted to be “Airbus like” and for marketing reasons wanted to be able to tout that pilots could switch to the MAX with minimal training. So they installed the now infamous MCAS system which would kick in only during these less common situations and offset any nose up tendency, thus requiring no change in how the pilot flies the plane or is trained. Mistakes however were made in the design of MCAS, leading to the two fatal accidents. Those design mistakes have now been addressed.

        I am not excusing Boeing, far from it. To your point (or what I think was probably your point) changing engines to one different than the original (or previous) is not as simple as it sounds and will usually present some challenges that have to be dealt with. Boeing clearly did not correctly manage the engine change on the 737 MAX.

        1. Well, there was a five year period where Boeing was seriously planning on a new design rather than re-engining the 737. And most of the issues which made them go with the MAX were not about engineering. In hindsight, that may have been a mistake. Sometimes a design gets as far as upgrades and redesigns can take it, and a clean sheet, new design is better.

          But that wasn’t really my point. As you guessed, it was that even things like slightly shifting the engine mounting aren’t as easy as they look. If you’re counting on modified avionics or pilot training (or both) to make it easy, you may not really understand what’s involved, and you need to make sure you do it right. And, not to dump on one company, SpaceX made a similar mistake with Falcon Heavy. Just bolting three Falcon first stages together wasn’t nearly as easy as they expected. But they did make sure to do it right.

          1. A clean sheet airplane, while more efficient and allowing the use of composites, etc., would have cost more, and Boeing determined that for the routes that the 737 flies airlines would prefer a lower cost airplane as a tradeoff for some efficiency. And an operational advantage of continuing with a type that airlines were already flying. Thus the decision to once again re-engine the 737. Again not necessarily a bad decision as there was still a lot of opportunity for improvements, and not just in the engines. But like you said only if they had paid more attention to the details. Now through mismanagement they have lost any cost saving advantage that they would have had over clean-sheet. Sure sounds a lot like Constellation and SLS.

          2. We’re going off on a tangent, but the decision to go with the 737 MAX instead of a new design did involve other things. Marketability of and work required to certify a new design. Time required to get something on the market. Training for pilots. American Airlines deciding to buy a bunch of aircraft from Airbus and saying they’d prefer a 737 with new engines. That’s what I meant when I wrote, “most of the issues which made them go with the MAX were not about engineering.”

    2. It’s a slightly larger version of the Delta IV upper stage, with 4x RL-10 instead of the single engine. The design is almost identical to DCSS: separate aluminum LOX and LH2 tanks with a composite x-frame tying them together.

      1. Compare this effort to build a upper stage with tons of already existing components, like the RL-10, and the engine is usually by far the biggest part of stage development and it was already done decades ago, with Musk and Starship development.
        It’s like we are living in two differing universes with separate laws of accounting and physics.

  4. What I’m curious about is, why the heck is Boeing pushing the EUS? The SLS is already at a crisis point due to delays, costs, and hideous contrast to cheaper options. So why pick a fight with NASA, right now of all times?

    Either Boeing marketing is insanely tone deaf, or…

    Boeing sees the writing on the wall, and recognizes the lifespan of the SLS project is very limited. Therefore Boeing is trying to squeeze all the money possible out of the SLS while it still persists.

    1. Well, yes. They want the money. I don’t know about their internal plans and projections, but getting congressional appropriations for near-term work on EUS is definitely in their financial interest. Kicking it down the road, for nebulous, plans for a “sustainable” presence on the Moon by 2028, is not the best way to bring in funding. So I think Boeing’s fundamental objective is pretty clear. Their tactics, and when to lobby for what at which time, are less clear.

    2. They’re trying to undercut the Gateway, pushing SLS + EUS + Boeing lander as a Moon Direct system that’s 95%+ Boeing contracts

  5. It is difficult to take Boeing seriously about anything right now. The 737 MAX is still grounded, and likely will remain grounded more than a year after the accidents that were the cause of the grounding.

  6. Why don’t they just adapt the Vulcan Heavy’s upcoming ‘Centaur V’ upper stage stage for SLS? Not as good as the EUS, sure – but it would be MUCH better than the current ‘Interim Upper Stage’ from the Delta IV-Heavy and it is already under development with stable funding? Seems like a no-brainer to me!

  7. EUS is basically the Ares 1 Upper Stage. The work for is it was about done. But Boeing will find a way to state need changes, additional engineering, blah, blah, blah…… MONEY! What the Administrator said is akin to a shot at the Boeing Company and some civil servants. Face it, this cow is long dead, and little meat is left on the bones. Time to move on Boeing and kill some other agency dreams.

    1. If you mean in financial usefulness to Boeing, sure it like the Ares stage. If you mean in design difficulty, it’s not even close. EUS is a very simple and conservative upscaling of DCSS.

    2. Wait.. Ares I Upper Stage was to be 18 feet in diameter and powered by one J-2X. EUS is to be 28 feet in diameter and powered by four RL-10s. How are they the same, other than both using LH2/LOX?

  8. The first and most important job of any good contractor is to make money; lots of it. Boeing routinely laid off their workers on ISS if they tried to save the government time or money. That was NASAs goal, not Boeing’s. They got away with it for the last several decades. Only 1 NASA manager was tough enough to stand up to them and he died several years ago. I am afraid that the real problem with SLS and Orion is that the entire system is under-performing, which means difficulties for the lander and need for Gateway which just makes it all overly complex and less safe. Hopefully Mr. Lovarro’s zero-base review has begun.

    1. “The first and most important job of any good contractor is to make money”

      Out here in the private sector, I’ve found that the best way to obtain a continual stream of money is to make the client look good. It’s very straightforward.

      1. Well when you have reduced the number of competing companies to only 2, Boeing or Lockheed, they pretty much have NASA over the barrel. And both companies are trying to suck as many taxpayer dollars as they can get. They get more dollars by taking longer and costing more. And yet they keep getting their award fees regardless of poor performance. Several investigative reports found issues with the management processes and I suspect that was one reason why Mr. Bridenstine made some changes. The people running both the Lockheed and Boeing human space programs are former NASA civil servants put in place by the former AA. In the future, when a vehicle fails and someone dies then the contractors will make more money fixing the problem.

        1. I don’t buy it.

          Excellence on hardware design does well for any company. But more to the point, finishing a project on time positions a company for the next award, which will not only come faster since there’s little or no backlog, but provide opportunity to move the technical ball forward.

          There’s one thing fairly certain: NASA will have $$$ to hire contractors. So, make a choice: drag your feet, or get a shot at the Next Big Thing.

          1. There are a couple of problems with your logic. Or, perhaps, a couple of places where your logic involves too much common sense.

            First, there is no assurance a company will get selected to build the “Next Big Thing.” In the aerospace industry, and in spaceflight in general, the opportunities are rare. Once they get the contract, there is an incentive to make it last as long as they can. I even see that from planetary scientists: The idea of a short, fast mission which ends and frees up money for a later followup mission isn’t too popular, since there’s no assurance you’ll be involved in the followup mission.

            Second, the companies we’re talking about aren’t exactly providing hardware. They are providing hardware and services which are developed and conducted according the the customer’s somewhat bizarre practices and following rules which make accounting for costs more important than keeping costs down. That’s what the customer wants (in the form of lots of regulations Congress passed without thinking through the unintended consequences.) So providing what the customer wants isn’t the same as providing the best services at the lowest cost. What would you do if a client wants to spend extra money on something senseless? Probably the right thing, but many people would warn the client and then go along with it. And many more would just take the money without saying anything.

    2. And one day they will kill more people in human space flight because of all of this. Few seem to learn lessons from the past, especially when greed and ego are involved. Should be taking huge lessons from 737 Max right now.

      1. Fortunately ISS operates in a relatively benign environment so hopefully it will not hit until Artemis. But there was a reason for the LM super weight improvement program on Apollo and that was because every extra ounce they carried meant a slimmer margins for the crew that was landing. The Orion SLS system is marginal at best which means a lot more complexity and mass for the lander to make up for it. That is likely to bite them. Apollo operated on the slimmest of margins and yet they had a lot of capacity with Saturn V and a lot more propulsive capability in the SM, and they could even get the LM down to within 50000 ft before starting their descents. Artemis and Orion are far less capable. If Musk can make Starship work then he has the right idea. Oversized and over powered with plenty of redundancy in things like engines -engines that have been well tested and are super reliable- is the way to go.

  9. By the time NASA gets through finding its “thrust vector controls” with both hands, they can probably hitch a ride on a Falcon Heavy or a Mk 4 or 5 or whatever SpaceX is flying bythat time.

    1. It’s far more tame than that. EUS is a slightly larger version of DCSS. Boeing shouldn’t need 5 years and $1.5B (the current funding rate) to get it to flight.

        1. It’s 1.6x larger on a length scale. That’s less than the difference between Centaur 3 and Centaur 5, and ULA don’t seem to have any problems there.

  11. Always follow the “money” first to find the causes. Then follow the “ego” because its usually not far behind the money.

  12. Nice to see the NASA Administrator acknowledge what many have known for years – contractors say what they believe is in their best interest. Maybe good PR, but someone should check Boeing’s SEC filings to see if they are so bullish with their shareholders.

    I acknowledged likely slips to the 2017 published launch date in interviews such as this from the Orlando Sentinel on September 6, 2013: “Lori Garver, leaving NASA after four years as deputy administrator, said NASA and Congress long have oversold the agency’s ability to build the rocket, called the Space Launch System, and its Orion capsule on an annual budget of roughly $3 billion… “People are more optimistic than … reality,” And perhaps worse, Garver and other critics say, the agency’s quixotic bid to build the largest rocket in history will gut other NASA programs, such as probes to further planetary science.

    NASA and Boeing shot back in the same article:

    In response to Garver, NASA released a statement saying that the budget submitted by the White House to Congress “fully funds the Space Launch System and Orion to launch in 2017 as planned.”

    “I have not heard even rumors of slips on this SLS rocket. In fact, my schedule looks five months ahead of schedule. That’s across the board,” said Virginia Barnes, Boeing’s program manager for the SLS rocket.

    But Garver said she has math and history on her side.

    1. “I have not heard even rumors of slips on this SLS rocket. In fact, my schedule looks five months ahead of schedule. That’s across the board,” said Virginia Barnes, Boeing’s program manager for the SLS rocket.

      ————–

      Snort. I vividly remember that first SLS launch in June 2018.

  14. NASA needs to do what the DoD does I suppose. In the contract there is a stipulation that all press releases must be approved by the contracting authority prior to distribution. This will cut down signifficantly on the BS NASA has to deal with, wasting resources in the process.

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