Comments on: House to NASA: Down Select to Single Commercial Crew Competitor Immediately

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 20 May 2012 11:12:08 +0000

No they need to downselect it to zero competitors. If their reason to have only SLS. Or they can downselect it to ATK, that’s great – same Ares I + Ares V (aka SLS).
But think differently. If those companies really commercial, they can do everything by investors money until they’ll deliver cargo/crew and have profit. Those money don’t encourage innovation, cause with it SpaceX can use same hardware/technology as Boeing. Nor it doesn’t create competition, cause small innovative companies, not for profit organizations or any nonAmericans was/will not compete (not enough NASA managers “connections”)
But all those COST/CCdev/etc contracts are really development subsidiaries, that makes one companies ahead of others. In any project 3 things – time, money, quality – you can’t get it all. Now American wanna race it to return to LEO, so there will be 3 possibilities – low cost+high quality but very long, low cost low quality fast(SpaceX possible) or much more unrealistic high cost/high quality/fast(SaturnV). But guys in SLS will make much grandiouse scheme – high cost/low quality/long. ;0))))

By: Greg Holden

Greg Holden — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:19:21 +0000

Hi Warshawski, yeah, I hear you!! to be honest I hesitated before pushing the send button on that rant of the day, especially when it comes to politics, but the whole thing is enough to make my brain squeek! Lol! Thinking about it, it seems to me that ANY government money is worth its wait in gold, no matter how much because it adds confidence to the market and encourages private investment… Lets not get into ITAR though; huge legal hurdle!! Anyway, it looks like the momentum has well and truly started for a private space industry, with some very rich (and dynamic) movers and shakers, for example Planatery Resources Inc, just look at who’s prepared to cough up to make that bad boy concept happen!! The way I see it we need to keep the faith and our eyes on the big picture; I think it will be difficult now for small minded politicians protecting their own interests to stop this snowball… Interesting news today from the UK’s reaction engines Ltd too… No ITAR there!

By: warshawski

warshawski — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:02:39 +0000

Greg, That is America promoting free trade around the world but with some of the most protectionist policies in the world such as the Janes act and agricultural subsidies. It is exactly the same approcas with space saying they support an open free market but setting up sole source cost plus contracts for launch services (ULA) and rocket design SLS/Orion. The traditioanl FAR contracts are designed to allow infinate buracratic interfearence in the company wjich slows down progress and drives up cost.
Politics is not about achieving anything but about getting enough sound bites on TV and “saving jobs” is a great sound bite. Just because it causes long term harm and prevents growth of a new industry that would create many more jobs is beside the point.

By: Greg Holden

Greg Holden — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:22:29 +0000

Ok, I understand that congressman have to look after their constituents and look to ‘preserve’ jobs… What gets me though is it always seems to be Republican representatives who want to take Nasa’s ‘seeding’ money away from the burgeoning commercial space enterprises who offer fixed price contracts, actively encourage competition, which of course leads to cheaper access to space and should inevitably blossom into a profitable industry employing hundreds of thousands of people and hand it to the behemoth ‘senate designed’ SLS so they can ‘save jobs and expertise’… I just don’t get it; surely it’s Republicans who stand for free enterprise and competition while the Democrats are ‘nasty socialists’? Seems to me it’s the Democrats (mostly) who are pushing for free enterprise and the Republicans who are trying to save pork and keep spending billions on unsustainable public space projects tied to cost plus contracts that literally never get off the ground!! Is this just me scratching my head at this one or has this irony struck anyone else?… Politics eh!! *shakes head in dismay*

By: Nickolai_the_Russian_guy

Nickolai_the_Russian_guy — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:24:31 +0000

“the Committee believes that the advantages offered by an immediate downselect and a return to FAR-based contracts outweigh the potential benefits of maintaining the current program structure.”

These people have no imagination

By: Dr J R Stockton

Dr J R Stockton — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:24:01 +0000

“Commercial Crew” is up against the inherent monopolistic preference of Americanism. All that those of influence want is to be running a permanent monopoly.

“Commercial Launch” should go for the general passenger and cargo market, accepting Governments as just customers.

Planetary Resources, Inc. will need that.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:12:04 +0000

“Commercial crew is too expensive and will take too long” says Frank Wolf with a totally straight face as he hands bags of money to SLS…

By: reader

reader — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 22:43:49 +0000

“downselect to a single competitor”

Oxymoron alert – single competitor.

By: Marcus Zottl

Marcus Zottl — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:42:46 +0000

A “single” “competitor”? That doesn’t even make any sense at all!

I’m furious about the stupidity of the “responsible” politicians… and I’m not even American.