Excalibur Almaz CCDev Update
Video Interview: Sarah Waechter, Partner Manager for Excalibur Almaz Inc., SpaceRef Forum
“NASA Public Affairs Officer Kyle Herring talks with Sarah Waechter, partner manager for Excalibur Almaz Inc., on the status of the Space Act Agreement. Excalibur Almaz is one of seven partners associated with the Commercial Crew Program.”
Excalibur Almaz Inc. needs to find (or create) a destination in space. There will be too much competition for NASA people to the ISS.
And… this is the poster child for NASA to tighten up its Commercial Crew Portfolio….
I agree that Excalibur Almaz is very unimpressive. But I don’t see a need to NASA to drop them. They’re an unfunded partner, so the cost to NASA is low — one dedicated employee to work with them plus some occasional time from other employees. The chances of Excalibur Almaz succeeding in anything useful is very low, but the benefit if they do happen to succeed makes it worth the low cost of working with them now.
Besides, NASA learns something from this — by watching some commercial companies succeed and some fail, they learn to better tell what leads to success and what leads to failure, so future commercial partnerships can be evaluated more effectively.
One dedicated employee? Try 10-15 dedicated staffers, plus engineering specialist time as they go into dedicated systems.
As reported by http://www.space-travel.com…
Now, go listen to the NASA FY 2012 budget presentation where Bolden talks about “American Launchers,” and “American Jobs” along with Garver’s comments on “insourcing” from the Russians.
Tell me how that all fits together? Or have you suddenly decided that it’s OK to use surplus Russian hardware but they’re too challenged to build a moon lander?
It was an interesting week on ISS Update.They had reps from all of the of the SAA crew people.No new info though.I really can not see why NASA is sticking it to the Taxpayer with CC.Faster,better,cheaper would be to do it themselves.All the NASA people complaining about private companies taking their work.Why did they not tell us why letting them do it is better?We can not read minds.It may be obvious to them that it would save huge amounts of money and time,but not to everyone.We just thought they were being selfish.
Between the lands of Libertarianism/Tea Party (total privatization) and inefficient government operation/pork barrel world (AKA Texas Republicans acting like socialists) there has to be a bridge, especially when the functions needed — second source manned transport to ISS via at least one U.S. carrier — are critical in operating a $100 billion laboratory.
So, rather than having the government spend 4x on owning its own solution, we spend 1x, thereby saving the government money in the long term and (hopefully) creating a sustaining industry.
But even if you don’t create a sustainable industry, you still need the U.S. flagged second source transport to ISS. Which is what a lot of the Democratic opponents in the House don’t seem to get.
With all the enhancements, such as new ECLSS, will the Excalibur Almaz still be ITAR free?An ITAR free craft can be used to lift people from South America, Africa and Asia without the hassle of getting exemptions for them.
Kinda defeats the primary purpose of Commercial Crew in the first place: U.S. flagged capability.
The Isle-of-Man people can go cut a deal with Arianespace if they want a non-US solution.
One of the aims of competition is to keep the price low. A rival company based in the Isle-of-Man that is suspected of manufacturing in low wage Russia will fulfill that role nicely.
You really need to go look at the NASA FY 2013 budget rollout video. It’s all about America and in-sourcing jobs. Not sending them off to the Isle-of-Man shell company with hasbeen hardware.
Showgirl Mandy Rice-Davies said this best
“Well, he would, wouldn’t he?”
I keep forgetting that this SAA is not just a capsule, the Almaz is a small spacestation that the capsule visits. I hope it is sent to a useful orbit.