SpaceX was barely done bolting its launch tower together when it
stacked its mega rocket on a launch platform still hot from the welding
a couple days ago. Cowboy, perhaps.
SpaceX delivered Dragon 1 quickly. Dragon2 had some delays, but nothing
very dramatic, and they even had time to do cosmetic stuff like
futuristic interior and fashionable launch/entry suits.
Meanwhile, Boeing Starliner and SLS are taking years to get their act together.
What intrigues me is that when you have a narrow window to launch to
Mars, Vulcan, Jupiter or other celestial body, NASA magically launches
on time. But for certain projects like SLS, it seems like interminable delays.
Are these "make work" projects and NASA/politicians have no incentive/intention to have deliverables because those are not critical
and prefer to stretch the pork $ over as many years as possible for job creation purposes ?
Or is Boeing/ULA truly incapable of delivering Starliner or SLS?
Going forward, does this mean that whenver NASA needs somethingactually
done, it will go to SpaceX, and any work handed off to Boeing/ULA is
just the result of lobbying with no deliverables expected?
If there is a competitive bid with both Boeing and SpaceX winning
separate COTS contracts (eg Dragon/Starliner) does this now mean that
NASA will base its mission plans on SpaceX hardware because it is the
one that delivers while it will ignore Boeing from critical plath
planning because it can't expect deliverables from them?
ULA, and now Falcon, launch interplanetery probes. That's why they
generally launch on time.
No. Government contracts are competitively bid.
SpaceX was barely done bolting its launch tower together when it
stacked its mega rocket on a launch platform still hot from the welding
a couple days ago. Cowboy, perhaps.
On 2021-08-06 13:11, Jeff Findley wrote:
ULA, and now Falcon, launch interplanetery probes. That's why they generally launch on time.
Yes, but how come ULA can launch on time when it counts, but stretch
project indefinitely for others (giving impression they are unable to do space stuff).
No. Government contracts are competitively bid.
RFPs acan be shaped to favour the company with the larger lobbying budget.
Thus spake JF Mezei:
SpaceX delivered Dragon 1 quickly. Dragon2 had some delays, but nothing
very dramatic, and they even had time to do cosmetic stuff like
futuristic interior and fashionable launch/entry suits.
Meanwhile, Boeing Starliner and SLS are taking years to get their act
together.
Doing the suits was a whole different line on the GANTT charts, running in parallel.
Even Elon notes that developing Dragon and developing Starship are very different ... with people on board from the beginning, you can't be blowing things up. Also, Dragon is smaller than CST100, with about half the crew, which obviously means that the propulsion system has to be bigger.
Where Boeing most obviously screwed things up was in software quality control, which is part of what bit them with the 737Max.
/dps
SpaceX delivered Dragon 1 quickly. Dragon2 had some delays, but nothing
very dramatic, and they even had time to do cosmetic stuff like
futuristic interior and fashionable launch/entry suits.
Meanwhile, Boeing Starliner and SLS are taking years to get their act together.
SpaceX was barely done bolting its launch tower together when it
stacked its mega rocket on a launch platform still hot from the welding
a couple days ago. Cowboy, perhaps.
Dragon2 had some delays, but nothing
very dramatic, and they even had time to do cosmetic stuff like
futuristic interior and fashionable launch/entry suits.
JF Mezei is guilty of <fVcPI.1622$805.1341@fx43.iad> as of 8/6/2021 8:52:42 AM
SpaceX was barely done bolting its launch tower together when it
stacked its mega rocket on a launch platform still hot from the welding
a couple days ago. Cowboy, perhaps.
Fit check.
Sysop: | Keyop |
---|---|
Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
Users: | 296 |
Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
Uptime: | 48:30:46 |
Calls: | 6,648 |
Files: | 12,198 |
Messages: | 5,329,988 |