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This comment is as misinformed as it gets. This is a DoD contract, NASA is not involved in any capacity. Also NASA never made their own rockets, the fed always

This comment is as misinformed as it gets. This is a DoD contract, NASA is not involved in any capacity. Also NASA never made their own rockets, the fed always decided what rocket NASA will use and awarded contracts to companies on each Senator's state( usually Alabama). That includes the Saturn V, the Space Shuttle etc. NASA provides the requirements and the contractor makes it. These contracts were on a cost plus basis, meaning the contractor had every reason to delay and ramp up costs. The reason people are cheering SpaceX is because they are promoting cheap rockets and competing on fixed price contracts which have much healthier incentives. This is also a fixed price contract so it should come as no surprise that SpaceX is competitive here. Also ITAR is the main legal reason that prevents companies from leaving the USA. Even rocket companies from other allied countries are trying to come to the USA instead of leave it.

twelve40 6y ago
That's one thing I don't get. There is a lot of celebration of the shiny new totally private space programs and all, but wasn't the majority of "heavy lifting" always done by private companies like Lockheed and Boeing? Isn't it mostly business as usual, just with a couple of new players in mostly the same game?
- tankenmate 6y ago
  The game isn't mostly the same, look at the commercial crew program, Starliner failed in its first demo mission, now Boeing needs to pay for another demo-1 mission from their own pocket (they won't get any extra money for the second demo-1 mission); in the past NASA would have paid for another demo-1 mission.
  - twelve40 6y ago
    in other words, they simply got their shit together (making the contractor liable for the actual outcome), plus a couple of new competitors, otherwise things are still ordered by, and directed by the same agencies, no?
    - Tuna-Fish 6y ago
      Well, yes. The one big change is moving from cost+ contracts to fixed price ones. Note that doing this is much harder than it sounds, because NASA does not get to decide what kinds of contracts they sign. This is decided by congress, who is still saddling NASA with billion+ dollar cost+ contracts on the SLS rocket.
    - cyrrus 6y ago
      It couldn’t be much more different. Before Congress said let’s buy a suit for a wedding. There was only really one tailor. Tailor says how much have you got. Congress says $1 billion but that’s all I’ve got so not a dollar more. Tailor says ‘sure I can make that work’... Fast forward, suit is half way done, wedding is tomorrow, tailor says ‘It’s gonna cost your another billion’ or you get nothing. Congress pays and hopes the wife won’t notice. This happens over and over again. Fast forward to 2020. Finally there’s more than one tailor. Several in fact. The suits are already made and bought off the rack and simply adjusted to fit. Now congress gets to go shopping and has a range of suits to choose from. Original tailor is in deep shit. Instead is spending billions on a suit and waiting forever, they pop down to ZOZO and pick one out and pay $100m. What a bargain I’ll take ten. New tailors in this case - SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Blue Origin in this case.
    - tankenmate 6y ago
      No, they no longer micro manage the process and tell the contractor how to design the rocket or what processes to use. They provide overall specifications and let the contractor decide how to design the rocket. These days the various agencies just verify / do due diligence rather than design and project management.
- HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
  There are no private space programs, there are private rockets developed using a combination of private funds and fixed cost contracts which means they are cheap. Old space rockets were developed only for gov contracts and they gouged the price as much as possible. SpaceX is efficient with it's rocket development.
lalos 6y ago
Not sure how people are misreading the comment, but in an alternate world NASA would still have the capability to sell this same service to DoD. Since that's not the case, this void has been filled by private companies. Given that info, re-read my comment.
- jccooper 6y ago
  There was such a world. Travel back to 1990, and NASA is selling launch services to DoD via Shuttle. In fact, every other domestic launcher had been shut down to reduce competition on NASA. It worked out so well (read: sarcasm) that DoD created a program to pay two defense contractors to create essentially-new expendable rockets. Which were hideously expensive, but still less expensive than Shuttle and previous expendable rockets, so this was considered a win. Those two rocket programs were later more-or-less forcibly extracted from their parent companies to become... ULA. There was a point in the early Space Age where government employees designed rockets: Army Ballistic Missile Agency and Naval Research Lab and such. Basically never were they built in house; even the earliest rockets were actually built by airplane manufacturers. It didn't take long for design to move to private firms, with government specification, insight, and funding. Like pretty much all defense technology, rocket development and manufacture in the US is today all done by private firms. The government often owns the designs, but all the skill and know-how is in the private sector and they can easily make close derivatives on their own or for other customers, if they are allowed and want to do so. (NASA's SLS is the major departure from this, as the first rocket NASA has ever designed in house--though still built by Boeing and ATK and friends. It's a bunch of Shuttle leftovers that somehow has still cost tens of billions of dollars and counting and is some 5 years behind schedule.) The point of all this is: the USG isn't handing over the keys to the kingdom of spaceflight to private companies today. They did that in the 1950s and/or never had them in the first place. There's nothing different today except a project and contract structure that better aligns cost incentives, creates competition, and encourages these companies to create a market outside the government.

twelve40 6y ago

That's one thing I don't get. There is a lot of celebration of the shiny new totally private space programs and all, but wasn't the majority of "heavy lifting" always done by private companies like Lockheed and Boeing? Isn't it mostly business as usual, just with a couple of new players in mostly the same game?

tankenmate 6y ago
The game isn't mostly the same, look at the commercial crew program, Starliner failed in its first demo mission, now Boeing needs to pay for another demo-1 mission from their own pocket (they won't get any extra money for the second demo-1 mission); in the past NASA would have paid for another demo-1 mission.
- twelve40 6y ago
  in other words, they simply got their shit together (making the contractor liable for the actual outcome), plus a couple of new competitors, otherwise things are still ordered by, and directed by the same agencies, no?
  - Tuna-Fish 6y ago
    Well, yes. The one big change is moving from cost+ contracts to fixed price ones. Note that doing this is much harder than it sounds, because NASA does not get to decide what kinds of contracts they sign. This is decided by congress, who is still saddling NASA with billion+ dollar cost+ contracts on the SLS rocket.
  - cyrrus 6y ago
    It couldn’t be much more different. Before Congress said let’s buy a suit for a wedding. There was only really one tailor. Tailor says how much have you got. Congress says $1 billion but that’s all I’ve got so not a dollar more. Tailor says ‘sure I can make that work’... Fast forward, suit is half way done, wedding is tomorrow, tailor says ‘It’s gonna cost your another billion’ or you get nothing. Congress pays and hopes the wife won’t notice. This happens over and over again. Fast forward to 2020. Finally there’s more than one tailor. Several in fact. The suits are already made and bought off the rack and simply adjusted to fit. Now congress gets to go shopping and has a range of suits to choose from. Original tailor is in deep shit. Instead is spending billions on a suit and waiting forever, they pop down to ZOZO and pick one out and pay $100m. What a bargain I’ll take ten. New tailors in this case - SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Blue Origin in this case.
  - tankenmate 6y ago
    No, they no longer micro manage the process and tell the contractor how to design the rocket or what processes to use. They provide overall specifications and let the contractor decide how to design the rocket. These days the various agencies just verify / do due diligence rather than design and project management.
HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
There are no private space programs, there are private rockets developed using a combination of private funds and fixed cost contracts which means they are cheap. Old space rockets were developed only for gov contracts and they gouged the price as much as possible. SpaceX is efficient with it's rocket development.

lalos 6y ago

Not sure how people are misreading the comment, but in an alternate world NASA would still have the capability to sell this same service to DoD. Since that's not the case, this void has been filled by private companies. Given that info, re-read my comment.

jccooper 6y ago
There was such a world. Travel back to 1990, and NASA is selling launch services to DoD via Shuttle. In fact, every other domestic launcher had been shut down to reduce competition on NASA. It worked out so well (read: sarcasm) that DoD created a program to pay two defense contractors to create essentially-new expendable rockets. Which were hideously expensive, but still less expensive than Shuttle and previous expendable rockets, so this was considered a win. Those two rocket programs were later more-or-less forcibly extracted from their parent companies to become... ULA. There was a point in the early Space Age where government employees designed rockets: Army Ballistic Missile Agency and Naval Research Lab and such. Basically never were they built in house; even the earliest rockets were actually built by airplane manufacturers. It didn't take long for design to move to private firms, with government specification, insight, and funding. Like pretty much all defense technology, rocket development and manufacture in the US is today all done by private firms. The government often owns the designs, but all the skill and know-how is in the private sector and they can easily make close derivatives on their own or for other customers, if they are allowed and want to do so. (NASA's SLS is the major departure from this, as the first rocket NASA has ever designed in house--though still built by Boeing and ATK and friends. It's a bunch of Shuttle leftovers that somehow has still cost tens of billions of dollars and counting and is some 5 years behind schedule.) The point of all this is: the USG isn't handing over the keys to the kingdom of spaceflight to private companies today. They did that in the 1950s and/or never had them in the first place. There's nothing different today except a project and contract structure that better aligns cost incentives, creates competition, and encourages these companies to create a market outside the government.