Wall Street Journal's Confused Boeing/Blue Origin Stories

1. Folks:

   Don’t forget, Blue Origin has tested a pusher style launch escape system.

   That alone might give them a chance to work with Boeing, which was lacking in detail in that department.

   https://www.youtube.com/wat…

   tinker

   1. Perfect solution for competition against Spacex and still keep all the good old boys in the game.

   2. What about the Aerojet LAE’s Boeing has already tested for the CST-100?

   3. John was there any data on what the shock factor of landing was? Could humans absorb that shock? Can’t recall seeing anything on it.

2. ISTM this is a Hail Mary to deflect concerns over Atlas V HR, which if it’s to use a BO engine needs to be re-qualified.

   It also doesn’t add much to advance CST-100 itself, which has “progressed” through a series of largely paperwork milestones. Where’s the cut metal, other than the same pressure vessel ETA they’ve been trotting out for 2-3 years? Where’s an integrated into CST-100 abort test if using BO’s abort thrusters? Then there’s the author of the WSJ article, who has been controversial before. Who’s his anonymous industry source, Loren Thompson?

   Lots of last minute smoke & mirrors IMO.

3. If this is true, then it’s utterly revolting. How does the company that has produced the least tangible results for the least ambitious and least capable entry in the entire competition have a prayer of winning? Are we really going to use the Atlas V, Russian sourced RD-180s we’re rushing to replace and all, be the launch vehicle of choice.

   If Boeing wins, it’ll effective be commercial in name only. Sure Boeing will operate it. But it’ll just be another big government contract to yet another name brand major defense contractor. The American Space Program is fundamentally worse off if SpaceX doesn’t play a leading role in it. Can anyone say the same if the CST-100 never flies? Hell no. It’ll just be the latest in a very long line of concept art and CG space vehicles produced by Boeing and Lockheed.

   Way back when Constellation was a new plan, the impetus behind Ares I was the idea of an “American Soyuz”… a cheap no-frill people lifter. Turning EELVs into the basis of the “American Soyuz” was always the better, smarter approach than the Ares I angle. And in that sense, CST-100+Atlas V is a rebirth of that superior alternative. But it’s an idea whose day came and went and was supersceded by superior SpaceX hardware and plans. Had we man-rated an EELV back in 2006, sure we’d probably have sent astronauts to the ISS in something CST-100 like by 2012, but we’d be looking for a cheaper alternative about now in any event.

   So how can CST-100 even be considered. It’s like anti-progress. It’s like everything we learned about the economics of space, and advanced made since 2005 have been entirely forgotten. Hell is Boeing really going to be ready to even have them ready for regular launch in the next couple of years? Oh how I doubt that. This is, after all, Boeing. They’re second only to partner in crime Lockheed Martin in finding new, creative ways to making things take vastly longer, inflate in costs and crimp on capability.

   1. I have no idea who the winner(s?) will be, but one thing you need to understand is that this whole ‘commercial’ crew contract by definition has never been and will never be anything but “another big government contract” that is “commercial in name only” regardless of who wins. It is after all a government contract (or collection of contracts?). All of the various entrants have been sufficiently open about their projected costs for everyone to see that only government customers can realistically afford their services, let alone development costs anyway.

      1. I believe Bigelow Aerospace as a secondary customer has always been a part of the plan.

         1. That’s the happy story everyone seems to tell. But remember that a couple years ago or so Bigelow laid off half his company and pretty well put his space hotel on ice because he said none of the potential human launch providers were projecting costs low enough for his business model to work. I saw that you posted elsewhere today to the effect that the cost per seat of the CCDev contractors is still in the low tens of millions. That’s comparable to what the Russians sold private flights on Soyuz for and it looks like they pretty well tapped that market out already. It’s also pretty much in line with inflation adjusted costs for the Gemini missions and in line with or probably even more expensive than shuttle on a per seat basis when also amortizing the mission cost over the cargo carried.
            The painful reality is that until somebody makes some real technical leaps, there just isn’t going to be enough of a cost break through for the human space flight market to grow beyond the government contract business. It’s a done deal now that nothing in the CCDev contract is going to make that break through, nor the Russians or the Chinese for that matter. At least the British are trying to do some interesting things…don’t know yet if they are on the right track and it’s hardly the only option out there, but at least they are trying something new.

      2. >…this whole ‘commercial’ crew contract by definition has
         > never been and will never be anything but “another big
         > government contract” that is “commercial in name only”
         > regardless of who wins….

         Big agree. At best it shows SAR contracting rules really rae 4 times cheaper then FAR, but everyone knew that already.

         Otherwise its just pr and pork to placate space advocates screaming for pork to their favorites.

   2. Sadly, I agree with pretty much your entire comment. The most frustrating part to me is that Boeing is such a sclerotic bureaucracy that they probably *won’t* meet the deadline of 2017 to launch astronauts to ISS, while the Dragon V2 is already scheduled for pad-abort tests this December (and the in-flight abort test is scheduled for January). I would even say that SNC’s DreamChaser is far ahead of Boeing, in that the first flight-capable hardware is already mostly built, and the engineering mockup has been flight-tested and been thru landing tests. It’s first scheduled launch is for late 2016 – so they would almost certainly be ready for manned launch by late 2017.

      An award of the major contract to Boeing serves only to prove that NASA is too beholden to Congress and its lobbyists, and is too focused on the past. This is just sad. I get that SpaceX may be awarded a minor contract, enough to keep development of Dragon V2 alive – but if they or SNC ends up launching anther country’s astronauts before Boeing’s retro-design CST-100 is ready, I hope that serves as a kick in the teeth to the decision makers at NASA.

      1. “sclerotic “!

         Thanks for taking us all back to school:-)

   3. Had we man-rated an EELV back in 2006, sure we’d probably have sent astronauts to the ISS in something CST-100 like by 2012

      Not necessarily. It would have then been the HSF flagship program and everyone would have jumped in for their piece of the pie.

4. Elon Musk for Nobel!!!

   http://www.change.org/p/the…

   Please sign it and spread the Petition.

   1. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is just that – a prize for the science of economics. It has nothing to do with the operation of a business and is given to social scientists for their work in understanding how human interactions work. (Note that it has been given to a political scientist, as well – Elinor Ostrom in 2009.)

5. A few hours late- but glad to see the Wall Street Journal Articles cited here. Wonder if this is a scoop or simply the early release of somewhat embargoed information.

   1. I’m hoping it turns out to be Boeing Co., propaganda as it isn’t a very good solution to the Commercial Crew issue at all.

      The sudden, previously-unannounced involvement of Blue Origin makes me suspicious too. I wonder how many days Blue Origin has been involved in this project – before or since SpaceX sued them over the barge landing plan, I wonder?

   2. He added 2 + 2 and got 22.

   3. More likely to get a Boeing stock price jump this morning, a one dollar uptick equals a $100 price jump on a near term options contract. That is about 1/2 million on 5000 contracts.

   4. Or bullcrap. Anybody know how good WSJ’s “according to people familiar with the matter” are? Do journalists get in trouble if they throw those out left and right? Or only if it isn’t in favor of the people with the bigger pockets?

      Boeing’s CEO’s mom is a man, according to people familiar with the matter.

6. Is the fix in?

7. I can’t believe this. Another public company whose number one goal is to make profit for its stockholders gets more government cake. Boeing must have really embellished their offer with some “promising” technology for NASA to use.
   ??????????

8. Assuming this is all correct, this clip from the WSJ article should be quite alarming for anyone who has ever worked on a spacecraft:

   “Exactly what Blue Origin will end up doing for Boeing remains a subject
   of discussion, according to one person, with both sides interested in
   exploring how to go beyond a current preliminary agreement.”

   Really? Shouldn’t that be, y’know, in the proposal? If they’re still going to spend time figuring out roles after an award for a spacecraft that is supposed to launch in just a few years, that just screams cost overrun and schedule slip.

   1. Well, that’s what I get for assuming it was correct.

9. This might explain why NASA would be comfortable making Boeing the main provider given the Russian engine issue. That said it isn’t over till its over and I am still cheering for SpaceX as #1 and SNC as #2.

   1. uh, it is QUITE over WRT CCiCAP.
      Instead, once a private space station goes, hopefully, SNC will be going and competing against Boeing.

10. Well know that Boeing spends millions on lobbyists inside the Beltway , and that is a lucrative investment for them at the end of the day. I’d say superficially here that Rupert Murdoch also may have been the benefactor of some Boeing largesse as well, if he would only agree to publish some presumptive non-news in his flagship business journal. In order to be helpful in this day and age of gutted newsrooms, Boeing people probably wrote the first draft of the article.

11. Old Boy Network wins. Boeing wins because of its long history with the US space program and because lobbyists are basically ex-politicians who who were paid royally by defense contractors while in office, and then worked for defense contractors after losing their seats or retiring. This scratch-each-other’s-back scenario has always been there. The new guys like SpaceX, while being innovators and bringing fresh ideas to the table…..can’t compete with Leviathan.

    1. Or perhaps they win because NASA is fed up with the lack of schedule credibility they are currently getting from SpaceX on cargo. Hence CRS2 where NASA is looking for a third, “grown-up” provider to bring schedule performance back to the table. Just saying …

       1. “lack of schedule credibility they are currently getting from SpaceX on cargo”

          LOL, what nonsense.

          1. Then provide data that shows SpaceX has launched cargo deliveries on time.

             1. define “on time”

                further, please show that NASA has been unhappy (or in any other way thinks that SpaceX lacks “credibility”) due to any launch delays.

                launch delays and schedule slips are the nature of the business in the launch industry. every launch provider must deal with them. SpaceX is no different from any other company in that regard. the most important thing is delivering the customer’s payload safely into orbit.

             2. As it happens SpaceX’s last two launches were essentially on time. Granted the last was delayed for a while as SpaceX wanted to ensure that nothing like what happened to Grasshopper 2 would happen to a launch vehicle. That was prudence, not a mechanical issue.

       2. Um, Boeing (or what is now Boeing’s aerospace division) was prime contractor for the Space Shuttle, which was YEARS late, way over budget, and was never able to launch on anything remotely approaching the schedule that Rockwell/Boeing said it would have. Boeing’s own commercial projects like the 787 have been YEARS late, plagued by technical glitches and subject to constant groundings.

          The nature of rocket launches is that there are often delays, because the cost of rushing a launch is catastrophic, as we all learned in 1986 when Challenger was lost.

       3. While I am happy to point to SpaceX for schedule slip, the fact is, that is COMMON in Aerospace. And Boeing is one of the WORST. Look at the 787, the Shuttle, etc.
          Just saying ….

    2. Actually, they are competing. Right now, Boeing is getting BILLIONS of help. BUT, they have been losing/laying off engineers, while off-shoring. As such, McNearny is gutting Boeing and leaving it even more empty than GE is.

12. Posting here as well-

    Given an $850M a year budget for the Commercial Crew office, with
    little prospects of going up, regardless of shifting from development to
    manufacturing and operations, a decision on spacecraft can not be made independent of the decision on a launcher.

    Hold to the goal of two (2) US crew flights a year, and the numbers say nothing with Atlas really adds-up. Take an Atlas “low” price to NASA of $250M/flight (historical), and a “high” price at 1.5X times this, or $375M/flight (a crew premium), and you end up with high and low amounts of funds left over for the two spacecraft that year, at $175M or $50M each unit. Cargo Dragons go for about $75M a unit now, in a manufacturing and launch operation deemed very efficient by any measure or comparison. So the Commercial Crew question, if an Atlas question, is weather Boeing or SN can make or turnaround two units a year on anywhere from $50M to $175M each unit. The closeness of the numbers to not-closing on the high end of Atlas costs should give pause.

    Assuming the desire for the numbers to add up is very strong at 2 flights a year, inevitably a commercial crew decision is a Falcon 9 decision, leaving more for the spacecraft. This time, assume a Falcon 9 lo of $57M a launch (historical), and a high at 1.5X times (again, as with Atlas) and you are left with a high and low amount of funds left over for the two spacecraft that year, at $368M or $340M each unit. Now that starts to sound better. Could even fit in a 3rd flight a year perhaps, dependent on spacecraft efficiencies.

    Of course, the inevitability of Falcon 9 – even with Boeing or Sierra craft aboard, assumes someone has run the math and really wants to fly that twice a year from the US-with margin to spare.

13. I’m on the SNC (Dream Chaser) team and kinda expected this. Boeing was so much farther ahead, while pushing themselves to much high standards of quality. And lets face it, no one was going to lose sleep over putting astronauts in a Boeing built craft on a Atlas-V or Delta-IV.

    The press and advocacy group may have been snowed by the flights of the other Dragon design, and the Dream Chaser glide test craft and think they were ahead, but the reality was far different. When SNC and SpaceX were granted a 6 month slip to finish design development work due by now, which Boeing finished most of a year ago… it was kinda obvious who was the strongest bidder. If anything the CST was beneath them. You’d expect something more like the X-37C mini shuttle… or the DC-X.

    1. When is Boeing scheduled to do their two abort tests?

       1. LOL. WHen are they scheduled to actually have a real module, let alone a test?

    2. You do not work for SNC. You actually suggested that SNC should have simply “ordered a modified X-37 from Boeing”, and all of your comments over the past two or three years have been completely anti-SpaceX, and pro-Boeing. Consistently. You clearly are either a Boeing fanboi, or an employee of Boeing.

       1. Agreed, not a credible source. ‘Kelly Starks’ even once suggested that the STS shuttle cost just 50 million to launch, which I found hilarious, since even when excluding development and support that figure is off by an order of magnitude.

          1. >..the STS shuttle cost just 50 million to launch..

             That is the GAO etc margin cost etc of a Shuttle launch. The other $1.2B is fixed overhead and upfrount costs.

             1. “Although NASA capitalized shuttle-related costs for the space station at $441 million per flight in its audited fiscal year 2000 financial statements, NASA officials stated that its more recent calculation of $759 million per launch more closely reflects actual cost.”
                -GAO circa August 31, 2001
                GAO-01-1000R Subject: NASA: International Space Station and Shuttle Support Cost Limits

             2. Sadly everyone uses various contradictory sets of expenses added into their costs. Some counting all upfrount costs, facilities, etc. Others just direct costs for the individual flights. Others combinations.

       2. His anti spacex go back closer to 6-8 years

       3. > You do not work for SNC. ..

          Actually I do. I’m contracted to one of their subsidiaries doing systems engineering on the ECLSS and TCS.

          > You actually suggested that SNC should have simply
          > “ordered a modified X-37 from Boeing”,

          Don’t remember that, though It wouldn’t be a bad idea.

    3. deleted.

    5. Not even close to factual. DC is MUCH further ahead of Boeing’s CST.
       And it appears that you are suggesting that Boeing is stronger than SpaceX? Get real.

       1. > .. DC is MUCH further ahead of Boeing’s CST. ..

          And you figure this how? Orbitec is teamed with both Boeing and SNC in their design work and development and construction of some of the major systems. Boeing pretty much finished last year, SNC was projecting early next year. Still need to settle on the abort engines, and redesign the configuration for them. Then develop all that. That’s not further ahead.

          Folks get confused by the fact that SNC flew something shaped like the DC, but without the systems in it to carry people, or fly in space.

       2. >..And it appears that you are suggesting that Boeing is stronger than SpaceX?

          They obviously have vastly more experience both in space systems, manned space systems, and aerospace development in general, then SpaceX (or pretty much anyone else) and teamed with the top experts systems and research groups in the country.. SpaceX doesn’t have any of that. also obviously Boeings taken on and completed vastly more advanced and complicated space and aerospace systems then SpaceX has ever attempted. So yeah they are in general a stronger player, and in this case specifically – SNC folks were unofficial told and saw they hadn’t thought of questions Boeing had detailed response reports for worked up in advanced.

          There are advantages to having over a half century of practice at something.

          1. Other than life support, Boeing’s engineers that dealt with all of that are mostly gone.

             1. No most of the personnel and other resources are still available. (note the X-37B was developed and flown by them easy enough.) Though yes the availability across the whole industry has gotten really thin. Disturbingly the push has been in the US to divest ourselves of most all engineering (especially aerospace) expertise.

14. I think this is really about Boeing / Lockheed and ULA and Blue Origin working together on a rocket to compete against the Falcon 9 in the commercial market in the future and not about the immediate Commercial Crew decision. But who knows when it comes to lobbyists and politics?

15. In order to perpetuate the myth of a civilian and “commercial” space program, no mention at all of the fact that these space missions are actually performed and supervised by the US military.
    45th Space Wing Public Affairs:
    “4/18/2014 – CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, Fla. – The (Air Force’s) 45th Space Wing supported Space Exploration Technologies’ (SpaceX) successful launch of their Falcon 9 Dragon spacecraft from Space Launch Complex 40 here at 3:25 p.m. EDT April 18.
    A combined team of military members, government civilians and contractors from across the 45th Space Wing provided vital launch support to the mission, including weather forecasts, launch and range operations, security, safety and public affairs.
    The mission, designated SpaceX-3, is the third of 12 SpaceX flights contracted by NASA to resupply the International Space Station. It will be the fourth trip by a Dragon capsule to the orbiting laboratory.
    During the SpaceX-3 mission, the Dragon capsule will deliver about 5,000 pounds of cargo to the ISS and return about 3,600 pounds to Earth.
    SpaceX’s Dragon will stay attached to the station’s Harmony module until mid-May when it will detach and splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California, NASA officials said.
    Col. Robert Pavelko, vice commander, 45th Space Wing, who also served as the Launch Decision Authority for this launch, praised the work of all those involved in making this launch a success.”
    Indeed, NASA and it’s corporate “partners” don’t launch rockets; the Air Force’s 45th Space Wing does most military and “civilian” launches. Google them; they are rightfully very proud of their achievements and not shy all about touting them. Most people are oblivious to these facts because all they know about is NASA propaganda.
    The 45th Space Wing accomplishments are:
    Completing the Initial NAVSTAR II Constellation
    U.S. Military Technology Missions
    Foreign Military Missions
    Civilian/Commercial Space Launches
    Missions have included:
    X-Ray, Gamma Ray, Infrared, Microwave Anisotropy, and Extreme Ultraviolet Astronomy Missions
    Solar Wind Missions
    Asteroid Probes and Comet Encounters
    Missions to Mars and Mercury
    Kepler Spacecraft ‘Planetary Search’ Mission
    PALAPA B2R and PALAPA B4
    Britain’s BSB-R2 and Telenor’s THOR II and THOR III
    ASC-2, AURORA II and SATCOM 4
    INMARSAT-2 F-1 and INMARSAT-2 F-2
    DFS KOPERNIKUS 3
    GALAXY I-R and GALAXY IX
    KOREASAT-1 and KOREASAT-2
    BONUM-1
    GLOBALSTAR-1 through GLOBALSTAR-7
    DELTA III, Delta IV, Titan IV and Atlas V Missions
    NASA Space Shuttle launches
    Atlas V Carrying X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle
    NASA’S Geostationary Environmental Satellite (GOES-P)
    Atlas V launch of Solar Global Observatory
    Delta IV launch of Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) high-capacity communications satellites
    Intelsat-14 commercial communications satellite
    NASA Ares 1-X launch
    USAF Delta II final launch in 2009, inactivation of 1st Space Launch Squadron (45th LCG
    45th Space Wing http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
    NASA = a psyop and propaganda
    The Air Force’s 45th Space Wing = the real actual US space agency

    1. Sure. And the Miami Airport Authority runs an airline.

    2. That’s funny. We know what the 45th Space Wing does. Nice try.

16. How are these two stories in conflict? The first quote says that Blue Origin has joined the Boeing CCiCAP team and it will be be “disclosed”. The second says Boeing will get a big chunk of the CCiCAP money.

17. Good story Keith.
    Sadly, the WSJ has become a rag paper.

18. Actually, to prevent monopoly, SNC would have been the better story. BUT, I agree that we need to encourage MULTIPLE companies, as in 3-5, to make launch vehicles, along with space hardware.

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