Boeing likely winner of ISS astronaut contract

[Violent]

Beats what we are paying Russia. I am watching this announcement also. Little pissed Space X will more then likely not get it.

They should do better? I dunno.. Space-X has a HUGE chunk to chew if they want to compete in space applications against 1st-world powers and whatnot.

I myself believe there should be none of this "competition" stuff for space.. I'd really like if we ALL, even other countries banded together more to work on such problems, rather than trying to beat everyone for the chance to solve these problems.
Although I do feel that a healthy competition in industry and knowledge is a good thing, a vehicle to drive innovation, if you will.

But I all and all it would be better to work on stuff like this together, rather than against eachother.

After all, we're all humans, and space has a giant appeal to a great many of us.

[FeedsOnDevTears]

Boeing-SpaceX Team Split $6.8 Billion Space Taxi Award

Boeing Co. (BA) and Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. will split as much as $6.8 billion in federal funding to help the U.S. resume manned missions and end its dependence on Russian rockets.

The contract to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station will pay a maximum of $4.2 billion to Boeing and $2.6 billion to closely held SpaceX, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said today. A third contender, Sierra Nevada Corp., was shut out.

[Rukentuts]

Can't be any worse than MIR.

You were supposed to forget about that.

I can't wail till SLS does a lunar mission.

[Shalcker]

So, 6.8 billion...
Russian contract was 6 seats from 2014 to 2016 (with final return in 2017 included) for 427 million $, making it about 20 million $ per year per seat.
If same calculation is valid for Boeing, going with ringpriest 20 million estimate and assuming no cost overruns that will be about 7 million $ per year.

6800 / (20 - 7) = 523 seat-years... divided by 6 seats actually requested by NASA from Russia, 87.

I guess i was way too optimistic with decade. 87 years, oh my... Unless traffic really picks up this change will not pay for itself in close to century...

[Annoying]

So, 6.8 billion...
Russian contract was 6 seats from 2014 to 2016 (with final return in 2017 included) for 427 million $, making it about 20 million $ per year per seat.
If same calculation is valid for Boeing, going with ringpriest 20 million estimate and assuming no cost overruns that will be about 7 million $ per year.

6800 / (20 - 7) = 523 seat-years... divided by 6 seats actually requested by NASA from Russia, 87.

I guess i was way too optimistic with decade. 87 years, oh my... Unless traffic really picks up this change will not pay for itself in close to century...

Hey, it's only 4 months worth of A/C when we were in Iraq. Not a bad deal, right?

[Ausr]

So, 6.8 billion...
Russian contract was 6 seats from 2014 to 2016 (with final return in 2017 included) for 427 million $, making it about 20 million $ per year per seat.
If same calculation is valid for Boeing, going with ringpriest 20 million estimate and assuming no cost overruns that will be about 7 million $ per year.

6800 / (20 - 7) = 523 seat-years... divided by 6 seats actually requested by NASA from Russia, 87.

I guess i was way too optimistic with decade. 87 years, oh my... Unless traffic really picks up this change will not pay for itself in close to century...

Spend it on our own companies or give money to Russia. Yeah, I can totally see the conundrum.

[Skroe]

Friends, I'm about to go into mega-rant mode here, so bear with me.

_THIS_IS_SUCH_CRAP_

Okay, okay. SpaceX getting selected is indeed great. What's scandalous is that Boeing gets the larger share of it.

The Commercial Crew Competition has been interesting because of how different the approaches are. We had SpaceX's "disruptive" integrated launcher+capsule. We had Sierra Nevada's Dreamchaser, which is a realized version of the old NASA HL-20 design from 1989 - but still a lifting body on top of a EELV. And we had Boeing's CST-100, which as essentially a private stab at the option from 2005 of man rating an EELV and putting a no-frills capsule on top of it, the so called "American Soyuz" approach that lead to the similar idea (but poorly designed) Ares I. All different approaches.

Boeing's proposal however, has consistently been the most underwhelming and the least tangible. Their entire approach is conservative: man rate the Atlas V, which only needs a handful of minor changes to be man-launching capable, and throw a no frills capsule on top. As a result, Boeing has produced no hardware, no test articles and no flights. Everything CST-100 exists in purely paper form. It's as real as Data on a thumb drive. Yet consistently over the course of the phases of the competition, despite offering the fewest amounts of public results, Boeing hit their paper benchmarks and got more and more funding, concluding with this disgrace where the company that yet again, has sold NASA on a purely conceptual vehicle that only exists as a series of studies, schematics and specifications. It's disgraceful because the entire approach behind commercial man spaceflight was supposed to get away from the "concept vehicle" approach that lead to piles of broken dreams going back to the 1990s.

By contrast, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada have produced tangible test articles or conducted launches. The entire SpaceX approach of reusable Falcon 9 first stages would make EELVs obsolete basically overnight.

Most telling? Boeing's $4 billion share will fund 2-8 launches, with most observers predicting that Boeing will only manage to pull off two. But so will SpaceX.. their $2 billion award will fund 2-8 launches, with 8 being the more likely number. Already, it's set up so that Boeing is getting paid more to do less.

Why? Because a few months ago Boeing said that if they don't win, they'll have to lay off about 500 workers in Florida. The end. The fix is in, and the old Space company with nothing but a pile of documents to show for years of work

Equally laughable is that apparently tomorrow Boeing will partner with Blue Origin, another company which has accomplished basically nothing, to develop a new engine for the first stage of the Atlas V to replace the Russian RD-180. Why did they choose Blue Origin? Because they're counting on Jeff Bezos as a public face to counter Elon Musk, the end. Likely actual proposals with dollar amounts and designs by Aerojet and a consortium of Pratt and Whitney, Rocketdyne, and Dynetics... you, companies that actually produce engines... will go no where. For reference, the consortium's approach was the F-1B... yes, the Saturn V first stage reborn.

It's good SpaceX gets funding, but lest there be any doubt, this commercial space contract was commercial in name only. Selecting SpaceX and Sierra Nevada would have truly been commercial. The selection of Boeing renders it really just yet another public-private partnership like every other NASA program to date. Boeing will even build the CST-100 in NASA owned facilities once used the Space Shuttle. This is legitimately Boeing's brilliant plan: to launch a tiny capsule built in a NASA-owned facility on top of a $220 million Atlas V 402, also built in a NASA-owned facility, and call it commercial because mission control will be staffed by the same Boeing employees who launch Atlas V for the Pentagon / NRO twice a month (keeping in mind, the Atlas V is not a commercial launcher, but a government-funded one).

This stinks of the same old soft-corruption that has fleeced taxpayers for years. Boeing loses the Joint Strike Fighter competition, but it's okay, because the KC-X competition which Airbus/EADS won was rebid and rigged so Boeing's KC-767 (now the KC-46) wins. Lockheed Martin wins the SLS contract, but it's okay, because Boeing now wins the Commercial Crew contract. Government isn't just picking winners and losers: it's ensuring everyone is a winner.

Two months ago, I was certain there wasn't a snowballs chance in hell of Boeing winning. It's not even clear exactly to what extent they've made modifications to the Atlas V yet to man-rate it. And with our newly negative relationship with Russia, banking on the RD-180 would have been cringe worthy. Is Boeing truly going to fly the first commercial crew on top of an Atlas V with new Blue Origin engines that have never flown in space before, by early 2017? Two years? Never going to happen. SpaceX can probably fly crew by mid 2017 considering the only component left to fabricate is a flight-worthy Dragon v2. The first and second stages are done and have been done for a year and a half ore more now. But Boeing? They'll need to conduct test flights of the re engined Atlas V before NASA ever puts a human being on top of it. It takes 24 months to fabricate an Atlas V. So yeah, not happening by 2017.

My guess though is that NASA is doing what NASA typically does, which is to pretend the world outside spaceflight doesn't actually exist. I'm guessing they're expecting Boeing to fly the CST-100 on top of Atlas V with RD-180s, pretending that this whole Ukraine thing will blow over. They are of course, as usual, ignoring congressional directives to abandon RD-180 within the next few years, and $1 billion in Air Force funding for FY2015 to explore re-engineing Atlas V. This is of course, independent of the Blue Origin approach. So now we'll have what... two engines for the Atlas V maybe? One paid for privately and one paid for by taxpayers? What a mess of a vehicle. Why are we doing this again?

Granted, the Dreamchaser would have likely flown on Atlas V as well. But it's not a Boeing vehicle and is designed to be vehicle agnostic. It will likely still have life: the ESA wants to fly it on Arianne 5 and Japan is exploring it as well. Dreamchaser could conceivably have flown on top of Falcon. Dreamchaser, not getting a cut over Boeing is wrong. But the dollar amount boeing was award despite how little they have proven is the true scandal here.

Make no mistake: this is not a commercial crew program anymore. It is yet again, defense industry welfare. CST-100 being chosen keeps Boeing in the manned spaceflight business, keeps some Florida jobs in tact and keep the Atlas V relevant despite that odious launch vehicle being pressured from world events and competitors.

It's no wonder Elon Musk didn't issue a statement. He probably spent the day spewing profanities at the rigged games he finds himself in. Between Car Dealerships trying to strangle Tesla in it's sleep, to the laughably corrupt single source contract for the DoD's EELV contract, to finding out that NASA had no interest in commercial crew, he could be forgiven for taking a second to think what the fuck is the point in competing.

The best thing he could do right now is make the Falcon 9 first stage functionally reusable as soon as possible and drive a stake through the heard of the Atlas V, a vehicle that has to die for truly commercial spaceflight to live. Seriously, what is America doing picking a $220 million a flight launch vehicle when Falcon 9 is $70 million and every other competitor around the world is $90m-120m.

- - - Updated - - -

So, 6.8 billion...
Russian contract was 6 seats from 2014 to 2016 (with final return in 2017 the included) for 427 million $, making it about 20 million $ per year per seat.
If same calculation is valid for Boeing, going with ringpriest 20 million estimate and assuming no cost overruns that will be about 7 million $ per year.

6800 / (20 - 7) = 523 seat-years... divided by 6 seats actually requested by NASA from Russia, 87.

I guess i was way too optimistic with decade. 87 years, oh my... Unless traffic really picks up this change will not pay for itself in close to century...

This is just initial flight demonstration contact. Prices are necessarily higher (no matter the winner). The larger, "operating" contract will be awarded after both SpaceX and Boeing complete their test flights to the ISS. The operating contract is what makes the entire program affordable.

There is a direct, recent, precedent for this. Currently, SpaceX flies Dragon's to the ISS a couple a times per year, and will keep doing so through 2024 under an operating contract. NASA contracted SpaceX to deliver supplies at a very affordable price (owing to the low cost of Falcon 9), but this only came after several stages of commercial resupply contracts similar to the multiple stages of the commercial crew launch contract. And just like this, those stages were more expensive before they became cheaper and more flights schedules.

Fundamentally, it NASA sends 7 astronauts to the ISS on a $220 million Atlas V 402, procured under economies of scale (as opposed to made-to-order like they are today) that likely drive it's cost down to the mid $100, it'll still be vastly more affordable than Soyuz and more Americans in space at that. But more ominiously for Russia (and better for American spaceflight), when SpaceX does 7 passengers for $70 million, it becomes hysterically cheap. And further, if SpaceX succeeds in making the Falcon 9 first stage functionally reusable (they're close... they're very close), launches could drop to $6 million per launch (pretty much the cost of fuel, refirbishment, and the cheap upper stage). Imagine that. Seats for sub $1 million.

That's why SpaceX is always the better pick. They'll have to continue fighting tooth and nail against Boeing, but the economics of it will happen independently of NASA's selection.

Either way, Soyuz's day is done.

- - - Updated - - -

Russia space industry consists of playing taxi to astronauts. Not much else going on.

Kind of impressive that the US will have another launch vehicle in the coming year but why continue to spend money the ISS besides basic upkeep and low level projects? Let the ISS go!

We need to start working on a next gen station, not a upscaled space shuttle cargo bay. We need something to get us to the next step of surviving in space. We need a space base and not just a space station, something that could support a mission to Mars because such a mission will probably require some sort of orbital facility(s) to be feasible.

No. We don't need the ISS or a next gen space station. Let commercial companies do LEO. NASA shouldn't spend one time on anything more than buying seats to LEO.

NASA needs to deorbit the ISS by 2024, so it can allocate funds to it's exploration mission based around the SLS. We're already sending a crew to an Asteroid by 2022. But beyond that, we'll have a choice between the L2 gateway outpost, more asteroids, Phobos landing, and preparing for Mars. The lionshare of it's funding should be spent on deep space activities with commercial crew contracts to LEO on the side as needed.

My personal choice is Phobos landing by the late 2020s, and using Phobos as a staging ground for Mars missions in the late 2030s/early 2040s. It'll take years to build the infrastructure needed, but it will considerably simplify logistics and capitalize on investment if anything headed to Mars first heads to Phobos. Furthermore this is a higher level of commonality between landing on an asteroid, the moon and Phobos, than there is between landing on an asteroid, the Moon and Mars.

A new space station except as a lunar staging ground at L2, won't be useful to manned spaceflight in anyway. The existing one isn't even useful. To be clear: nothing used on any of our post-ISS destinations will or has been flown, flight tested or prototyped on the ISS. The only thing the ISS is good for is 3rd rate "rack science" that supports a small army of NASA scientists careers. Certainly building the ISS was a huge achievement but it's ongoing scientific value is negligible. So let's not make the same mistake two. Real Space is not like Science Fiction space, and Space Stations are largely worthless wastes of money. All the interesting stuff that takes place in space that can't be seen via telescope or space probe happens on planets. That's why something like a manned flyby of Venus (an early post-lunar idea for Apollo leftovers) or a manned mission to Jupiter (from 2001: A Space Odyssey) are worthless ideas without any scientific merit.

One thing though: ESA and JAXA is welcome, but no China and no Russia.

[PACOX]

For what I understand Boeing and SpaceX pretty much got what they were asking for. Remember the capsule is just to get aastronauts to the ISS. No bells and whistles, or version of the Soyuz.