COTS selection

Heh. Alan's headline says "485 BILLION." No wonder the public thinks NASA spends so much money.

I guess he's just used to writing "billion" when discussing the cost of NASA's other programs.

Posted by James at 08/18/06 15:00:10

Three more Falcon 9 launches for SpaceX. Twenty-nine more engines to build and test. Congrats to SpaceX and RpK!!

Posted by Robert at 08/18/06 15:39:55

Make that thirty more engines to build and test. I don't know how I added 10+10+10 and got 29.

Posted by Robert at 08/18/06 15:43:25

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if I can express a critic...

I think that (e.g.) the SpaceX effort to launch a low cost rocket is a TRUE private venture

the same word ("private") can be certainly used for the Bigelow module (built and launched with "their own money")

COTS don't appear like a "true private effort" but only the "nth" NASA contract like thousands other in the past 50 years

also, names like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman don't seem two '70s Apple-like "garage-companies" that try to challenge the BIG BLU (aka IBM)...

last, the COTS costs don't appear so "cheap"

"$207 Million" ONLY "to demonstrate international space station servicing" (+ the money to build the real vehicles...) is a GIANT amount of money

$207M is (about) the price of SIX-EIGHT Progress launches that ALREADY are able to send 2.4 mT of re-supply (every launch) to the ISS ...and will do that job also in the next 10+ years, until the COTS/cargoCEV will fly!

true... Progress is not an US vehicle... and NASA wants to be independent... but... why (simply) don't buy the Progress licence and build it in America... instead of spend half billion and 5-10 years to "reinvent the wheel"?

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Posted by ghostNASA at 08/18/06 16:19:36

Firstly, I'm utilitarian about these things, not an ideologue. To me what matters is whether one technique works better on average than another, not whether it is "true" this or that.

No, this is not an "nth" NASA contract like thousands of others. As was emphasized in the press conference, the COTS approach is a radical way for NASA to do businesss. These are fixed-price, milestone driven contracts in which the companies only get paid incrementally as they reach their milestones. They don't get bulk payments.

Typical NASA contracts, as it is with big military projects, are cost-plus arrangements in which NASA guarantees the company a fixed percentage profit. This pushes companies to go for the most expensive solutions to every problem. Also, NASA must have lots of people examining the company's books to insure they don't cheat and in turn the company must hire lots of people to deal with all the monitoring and red-tape. The cost-plus system is the best method ever invented for exploding the cost of a project.

Furthermore, COTGS is a fee for service arrangement. NASA is not following the procedure that it always has before in which it hires companies to build a NASA design and to do it under NASA management. The companies will be able to do the development as they see best.

Since the contracts are fixed price, the companies are extremely motivated to keep the development cost as low as possible. Since they will be running the vehicles themselves, they will also be extremely motivated to make sure the vehicles operate as reliably and in as low a cost way as possible.

With regard to your other points:

L-M and NG are just sub-contractors building some of the components. I do think Kistler made a mistake in using mainstream aerospace sub-contractors to build major components. Elon Musk, John Carmack, and others have said many times that whenever they get estimates from such companies for components, they are as much as 10 times the price of the same items from non-aerospace companies.

The Ares I is going to cost many billions of dollars, the Ares V many, many billions more. The EELVs did cost in the billions. If COTS results in a reusable K-1 and a mostly reusable Falcon that can do both cargo AND crew delivery (which the Progress cannot) to low earth orbit for just $500M, that will be the greatest bargain in the history of NASA, if not in the history of US aerospace. A single NASA science spacecraft can cost this much or more.

I believe that when these vehicles are operating, their cost/kg will be substantially below the best the Russians can provide. (I'm assuming a high flight rate that includes servicing other markets such as going to a Bigelow module.)

Finally, I will note if you look at the history of other technologies like electronics and computers, it has been very common for the government to make large purchases that advanced the field. For example, purchases by NASA and the military of electroncis and computers in the 1960s made a huge impact on those industries. It wasn't till the 1980s that consumer markets became larger than the government market. Entrepreneurs like Ross Perot made billions from government contracts to provide data processing services to various government departments.

What NASA is doing with COTS is completely in line with the normal fee-for-service or product purchase arrangements with the government that have been hugely beneficial for private industry.

- C.

Posted by TopSpacer at 08/18/06 17:19:12

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I've nothing against privates

ten months ago I've suggested on a space forum to build the (already alive?) low cost t/Space project CXV instead of the (very expensive) CEV (that ten months ago I've already evaluated around $1.5B to $2B per launch)

but there is a contradiction in the COTS program

if NASA is SURE that COTS companies will be able to build reliable cargo and crew vehicles in HALF TIME of CEV and at 1/50th the price, why they still insist to build the orbital-CEV and the very expensive Ares-I ?

why (simply) don't build ONE big AresV (to perform Apollo-like single launch moon missions) and use ONLY the low cost COTS vehicles for orbital/ISS jobs?

gaetano

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Posted by ghostNASA at 08/18/06 17:41:02

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text edit: "(still alive?)" NOT "(already alive)"
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Posted by Gaetano Marano at 08/18/06 17:43:27

> why (simply) don't build ONE big AresV (to perform
> Apollo-like single launch moon missions) and use
> ONLY the low cost COTS vehicles for orbital/ISS jobs?

First, NASA can't do an Apollo-style single launch because Apollo on Steroids is too big, even for Ares V. Even NASA's scenario requires two launches.

Second, there's no need to do it with one or two massive launches, if you have on-orbit assembly and refueling. NASA could have sent Gemini on a lunar mission using Titan II and Atlas boosters (Delta II-class rockets, in modern terms).

Posted by Edward Wright at 08/18/06 19:44:41

"if NASA is SURE that COTS companies..."

Griffin has said repeatedly that he is NOT sure that COTS will work. That's why he will not rely on it. Also he has indicated that NASA should have its own vehicles both as backups and to insure the agency maintains in-house expertise on building and operating launch vehicles.

See the recent Space Frontier report
http://www.space-frontier.o...
on exactly the contradiction you refer to: why build the Block 1 CEV (the version intended for LEO and ISS operations) when the commercial companies will have significantly cheaper alternatives?

- C.

Posted by TopSpacer at 08/18/06 20:36:15

Re: buying 6-8 Progress launches instead of 1-2 demo SpaceX/Kistler launches.

As much as I appreciate your website, Clark, I don't think you are as utilitarian as you claim. If the U.S. funded twice yearly Progress flights to the ISS, don't you think the prices on those flights would come down too?

Given the Pratt&Whitney success at licensing the Glushko RD-180, I too wonder about the practicality of just licensing the Ukranian designs. For instance, can Boeing renegotiate some of the complexity out of the SeaLaunch deal, and just launch Zenits directly from Vandenberg?

Posted by Iain McClatchie at 08/19/06 00:52:53

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"...because Apollo on Steroids is too big..."
the AresV and CEV/SM specs changed very much from the original ESAS plan

the latest version of the AresV is able to lift 130 mT to LEO while the CEV/SM (after resizing and 6500 lbs. weight reduction) is now around 21 mT

NASA can (simply) build a 150 mT-payload AresV with three standard SRB + five RS-68 in the 1st stage and two J-2x in the 2nd stage/EDS (like the original ESAS design)

three 4-seg.SRB will give the +20% extra thrust to lift the FULL lunar hardware

and... just imagine how much cargo, modules, lunar space stations, resupply, refuel, rovers, etc. can be sent on the moon with a 150 mT AresV !!!

gaetano

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Posted by ghostNASA at 08/19/06 05:46:17

Hi Ian,
I'm utilitarian with regards to achieving the long term goal of practical access to space. Supplying the ISS is simply a means towards reaching that goal, not an important goal in and of itself.

Practical to me means systems that are not just cheaper to develop and build (or buy) than those available currently but are capable of high flight rates. Only with high rates will low costs be achieved.

Unfortunately, we don't have any markets at the moment that demand high flight rates. So COTS is useful not only because it helps with the financing of vehicle development but because it also contributes towards higher demand for flights.

We need a bootstrapping process that overcomes the fundamental dilemma of spaceflight: You need high flight rates to get low space transport costs but you don't have any markets needing high flight rates until the space transport prices are low. This is a situation where rule-breaking is required, i.e. angel investment such as from Elon and government programs like COTS.

With regard to your point about the Progess, I'll note that the COTS vehicles will be capable of crew delivery. This will probably happen sooner with the Falcon system since there has already been quite a bit of development of the Dragon.

In general, I think the COTS vehicles will be competitive with the Russian alternatives on price.

- C.

Posted by TopSpacer at 08/19/06 10:54:23

With regard to just buying Progress/Soyuz launches, you guys are studiously ignoring the elephant on the coffee table. To wit, Russia is _not_ just another service provider, it's a nation-state with a troubled history and strategic aims that are (sometimes bizarrely) antagonistic to those of the US. It's a relatively unstable society and polity, and by hard-earned experience must be viewed as an unreliable partner. (Yes, yes, I know all about NASA's "reliability" wrt the ISS partners.)

A US reliance on Russia for ISS cargo/crew gives Russia, always a capricious and paranoically self-interested entity, a perfect arrangement for manipulating US access to ISS--and the attendant domestic political process--any way they want. They will overcharge out the wazoo, withhold gov't funds at the worst possible times, make all sorts of brazen demands, etc. Forced to bargain in the marketplace, their behavior is a bit better, but giving them a contract with the US government to handle all ISS flights is like giving your 14-year-old son a bottle of Jack Daniels, a couple new credit cards, and the keys to the SUV. Griffin et al certainly understand this, although they can't speak of it freely.

Posted by Patrick at 08/19/06 11:47:27

A Progress or Soyuz "made in America" would not be cheap. Russian launch vehicles are low cost because Russian labor is low cost. Build the same vehicles using the same processes but with American labor and the price tag will shoot up. And this ignores the added costs of U.S. industrial practices (aerospace or otherwise) and the sunk costs that will have to be amortized of erecting or adapting production and launch facilities in the States.

The Russian designs are inherently efficient. Building them in America, even putting them on U.S. launch vehicles, are ideas worthy of merit. It bypasses a lot of RDT&E and reduces the amount of funding that will need to be amortized. But no one should kid themselves that an American-made Progress or Soyuz will be anywhere as inexpensive as Russian-built Progresses and Soyuzes.

Posted by Supernova at 08/19/06 21:47:15

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"...Progress or Soyuz "made in America" would not be cheap..."
true, but, build the Progress in America, will give a full "US indipendence" on launches

but, if "remake" a Progress in America (with zero R&D costs) is too expensive, why COTS (with the same problems + R&D) will cost less?

I suggest COTS companies to buy the Progress navigation technology (like ESA, Japan and China) and avoid to research already known things

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Posted by ghostNASA at 08/20/06 02:45:04

As I said before, the COTS vehicles will be capable of carrying both crew and cargo. The Progress is only for cargo. The COTS systems will be capable of carrying out the missions of both Progress and Soyuz.

Furthermore, the COTS vehicles will be capable of returning cargo from the ISS. There is apparently a returnable version of the Progress but it hasn't been very successful so far according to
http://www.astronautix.com/...

The K-1 will be fully reusable and the Falcon/Dragon system will initially be at least fully recoverable and is intended to become fully reusable
(see http://spacex.com/press18.php),
though currently posted launch prices don't depend on this. Reusability lowers operations costs as flight rates increase. Both Progress and Soyuz are throwaway systems.

The papers on the Kistler site from the past few years have said a fleet of five vehicles could provide one flight per week. (They wouldn't, of course, need this rate for ISS support but the K-1 can do other things such as smallsat delivery to orbit.) Flights would cost $17M according to a 2004 Kistler paper.

The launch prices stated on the SpaceX site are considerably below current US launcher prices. (Yes, until the vehicle are flying, these prices are theoretical but the company believes they can achieve them.)

The COTS vehicles should be quite competitive with the Russian vehicles on price while also offering a considerable range of additional capabilities.

- C.

Posted by TopSpacer at 08/20/06 04:24:29

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