4 ms·

How is it that government contractors can't build this thing on even a 9-year engineering schedule (July 2019–September 2028) when SpaceX is iterating almost ex

How is it that government contractors can't build this thing on even a 9-year engineering schedule (July 2019–September 2028) when SpaceX is iterating almost exactly the same thing, on a timescale of months? They've already launched 4 SLS-sized vehicles, and have very visibly been redesigning the ground-support equipment each time around. The next launch for instance (next month!) debuts mechanical arms attached to the launch tower, which will attempt to capture the flying booster on its return. What exactly is it Bechtel and friends struggling with? The OIG document doesn't answer this in a way I can understand.

deepsun 2y ago
Well, they do a lot of fundamental try/test that others use then, including SpaceX. Didn't want to defend NASAs schedules, of course, but still they are often the first pioneers in many areas. And that plays not really well with public money, unlike private startups that can do whatever.
- DennisP 2y ago
  NASA still does great stuff but SLS specifically is not exactly a pioneering program. It's a disposable rocket using Space Shuttle engines, attempting to go to the Moon again. Meanwhile SpaceX got reusable first stages into production, and recently got the world's largest-ever rocket to orbit and attempted to land the second stage. And it's all powered by newly designed engines that significantly advance the state of the art.
  - deepsun 2y ago
    There are _a ton_ of innovations in SLS, especially in the space ship (payload). Engines is just a small piece of the program, not really important one. Over the years a lot of theory improved, a lot of new technologies developed (e.g. materials, IT) and SLS tests them for space. Kinda "deploy in production".
    - DennisP 2y ago
      Could you be more specific? Because as a launch rocket, it's so absurdly expensive that it will never be useful other than for low-volume national vanity projects. What technologies has it developed that might be usable on other platforms?
fredgrott 2y ago
all space projects are R and D projects....how do I know? jet engine technology took 50 years before we could go years without a test fighter pilot dying.... fun fact...its part of the legal boilerplate astronauts sign...
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  Sure, but the amount of R&D varies. It's frequently called the "Shuttle Launch System" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle-derived_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle-derived_vehicle) because "it uses existing Shuttle tech!" was one of the big selling points.
Nevermark 2y ago
NASA is a political jobs program from a funding perspective. There isn't any way around that. This creates uncertainties, distractions and perverse incentives all around: 0. Everything is dramatically complicated by the artificial divisions of work across states needed to get enough political support. Grossly inefficient from the start, and inflexible into perpetuity. 1. Initial schedules are incentivized to be unrealistic, and not reflective of hard analysis/planning, in order to get funding. Easier to deal with the real details and expand schedules later, even though nobody wants that to be the process. 2. Essentially a cost plus (or cost even) program. There is no hard limit on cost, since the further along a project is, the easier it is to raise its budget, especially along with schedule delays. 3. Creativity flows to the most basic constraint. The most basic constraint is political will to fund, so top level attention goes to managing/manipulating up. When NASA's hard constraint was time (getting to the moon first), creativity went there. They were never cheap, but they did operate with incredible speed. Whereas any private company's basic constraints are relative profitability in terms of net return in a given time frame, so creativity goes to both speed and cost. 4. Boeing and other traditional large NASA contractors operated for decades under NASA's politically driven, cost plus umbrella, so continue to suffer from, and reinforce, NASA's problems. This culture is hard to break, even after switching to a flat cost (still time flexible) regime. See recent Boeing troubles. Not just throw away rockets, but a much delayed, over budget, wonky one-way manned spaceship!! Ouch!
- searine 2y ago
  >NASA is a political jobs program This is the truth, and while you could frame it as a negative, I see it as a huge positive. Because NASA has been subsidizing space for decades the US has a tremendous among of trained workers for aero-space. It was exactly that workforce that venture-capital based space industry was able to source talent from. I doubt spaceX would have been possible without NASA dumping billions into boondoggles. Now it is self-reinforcing. NASA trained talent for/funds industry, industry now trains talent for/supplies NASA. Space economy the easy way, just costs a few hundred billion bootstrap it.
  - Nevermark 2y ago
bumby 2y ago
This is just my opinion, but I think a lot of it has to do with requirements. NASA is first and foremost about prestige (even above science IMO. This is also - again my opinion - why NASA hasn't been back to the moon in 50 years. There's little prestige to be gained for an expensive operation). With prestige as the backdrop, it makes them very risk adverse. There are layers and layers of requirements made to reduce risk. To their credit, SpaceX is willing to fail more than NASA and it allows them to iterate much faster. This is also my opinion part of the reasons why NASA wanted the CCP to begin with: it allows them to skirt many of the requirements. The somewhat ironic part is that NASA pathways to alleviate those requirements, but it's somewhat common that project/programs want to go through the waiver process and formerly accept that risk. There is a fairly well-known dynamic in govt contracting where a contractor low-bids to get the contract and then makes money on change-orders. If they were to accurately bid on all the NASA requirements, they risk their bid being so high they would never be awarded the contract. This is a similar dynamic to the traditional cost-plus contracting paradigm. There is also some irony in that SpaceX may be the victims of the same dynamic. As failure occur, they may layer on more requirements that ultimately slow the process down (see the supplier quality issues related to an F9 strut failure). Given enough time, there is a risk that added requirements turn them into the dinosaurs they are replacing. Also, as others have brought up, NASA has additional requirements they must manage (e.g., political risk) that SpaceX has less exposure to.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > NASA has additional requirements they must manage (e.g., political risk) that SpaceX has less exposure to This doesn't appear to be the issue with ML-2, whose problems are closer to Boeing's subcontracting addiction than e.g. the F-35's sticker-collection approach to manufacturing.
  - bumby 2y ago
    I’m sorry, I don’t follow. Can you elaborate? Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but I think sub-contacting is heavily related to political risk mitigation, as it’s a method of spreading project money across many political districts. IMO NASA has done the same with their selection of major center locations. It doesn’t make a lot of logistics sense to have your biggest centers in CA, OH, VA, and TX but it makes a lot of political sense if your goal is to avoid large programs being mothballed.
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
Keep in mind that Starship has never made it to orbit.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- perihelions 2y ago
  Yes, but it *launched* four times, and the launch tower verifiably works, and it didn't take a decade to build. That's the subject of this question, isn't it? The $2.7 billion NASA wants to spend on a steel-frame launch tower.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
    In that case there is no SpaceX equivalent. Is SpaceX's tower used for transporting stacked human-rated rockets from hangar to pad?
- Diederich 2y ago
  This is very technically correct but also misleading. In the last test flight, Starship reached a velocity of 7.3km/s. Orbital velocity is 7.8km/s. Why didn't they make it to 7.8km/s? Because they choose not to. Starship had the fuel, control and capability to burn a few more seconds for another 500m/s. It also (barely) survived re-entry and achieved a fully controlled, powered, soft splashdown.
- robryan 2y ago
  Because the mission profile has been intentionally sub orbital to avoid any possibility of uncontrolled reentry. There would be minimal change in the burn for the last 2 flights to place it in orbit.
mensetmanusman 2y ago
Musk level leadership, delegation, and drive is once in a century. It’s hard to blame contractors for basically acting like every other comfortably large organization.
carabiner 2y ago
SpaceX is like Google, whereas NASA is worse than Oracle because it's the federal government AND a highly regulated industry involving human safety. This is in so many ways, hiring to engineering processes.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > whereas NASA is worse than Oracle A lot of Artemis is dictated to NASA by the Congress. Look at NASA's deep science missions, e.g. landers, probes and telescopes. They're ridiculously advanced, creative and cost effective for the amount of science they deliver.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> What exactly is it Bechtel and friends struggling with? Some of it is reasonable. Covid threw a spanner in schedules and increased costs due to a rise in price levels. Some is from design changes due to new information, e.g. "during launch, the SLS generates exhaust blast plume pressure, random vibration, vibration from acoustics, and heat. These loads can cause damage to the launch vehicle, payload, launch pad, and surrounding structures. After the Artemis I launch, NASA found higher-than-expected thermal, acoustic, and blast loads to the ML-1. ML-2 project management is assessing these lessons learned from Artemis I and anticipates the ML-2 structure will require some additional strengthening to withstand the predicted loads" [1]. A lot of it, however, is laughably-incompetent cost-plus subcontracting nonsense: "While Bechtel revised its IFCs in response to the RFIs, according to ML-2 project management, the company did not allot sufficient time in its schedule to do so, and this iterative process resulted in cost increases and schedule delays. In mid-2023, ML-2 project management found the delays in steel fabrication and delivery resulted in a 3-month schedule slip, leaving Bechtel with no additional schedule reserve to meet the May 2026 contract end date. ... In mid-2021, ML-2 project management noted that Bechtel’s 'interactions and business relationship with the steel fabricator deteriorated to the point of dysfunction,' resulting in unresolved fabrication issues that impacted the ML-2 project’s critical path. Bechtel’s lack of awareness and oversight of critical second-tier subcontractors responsible for steel fabrication contributed to a delayed construction start date. One subcontractor, which Bechtel allocated approximately 46 percent of the fabrication work to, sold all of its shop space to a non-NASA customer because Bechtel's steel fabrication plan lacked a signed contract with the subcontractor. As a result, Bechtel attempted to find another subcontractor with available shop space but was unable to do so in a timely manner. The delay in the steel fabrication process continued to impact the ML-2 project’s schedule" (pp 18). [1] https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ig-24-016.pdf https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ig-24-016.pd... page 20
api 2y ago
SLS stands for Senate Launch System. It's a pork distribution program. Major beneficiaries are the states of Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama (Huntsville) but there are beneficiaries all over the place. Classical DoD/NASA contractors know to locate facilities all over the country to maximize political capital via connection to local jobs in many jurisdictions.

deepsun 2y ago

Well, they do a lot of fundamental try/test that others use then, including SpaceX. Didn't want to defend NASAs schedules, of course, but still they are often the first pioneers in many areas. And that plays not really well with public money, unlike private startups that can do whatever.

DennisP 2y ago
NASA still does great stuff but SLS specifically is not exactly a pioneering program. It's a disposable rocket using Space Shuttle engines, attempting to go to the Moon again. Meanwhile SpaceX got reusable first stages into production, and recently got the world's largest-ever rocket to orbit and attempted to land the second stage. And it's all powered by newly designed engines that significantly advance the state of the art.
- deepsun 2y ago
  There are _a ton_ of innovations in SLS, especially in the space ship (payload). Engines is just a small piece of the program, not really important one. Over the years a lot of theory improved, a lot of new technologies developed (e.g. materials, IT) and SLS tests them for space. Kinda "deploy in production".
  - DennisP 2y ago
    Could you be more specific? Because as a launch rocket, it's so absurdly expensive that it will never be useful other than for low-volume national vanity projects. What technologies has it developed that might be usable on other platforms?

fredgrott 2y ago

all space projects are R and D projects....how do I know? jet engine technology took 50 years before we could go years without a test fighter pilot dying.... fun fact...its part of the legal boilerplate astronauts sign...

ceejayoz 2y ago
Sure, but the amount of R&D varies. It's frequently called the "Shuttle Launch System" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle-derived_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle-derived_vehicle) because "it uses existing Shuttle tech!" was one of the big selling points.

Nevermark 2y ago

NASA is a political jobs program from a funding perspective. There isn't any way around that. This creates uncertainties, distractions and perverse incentives all around: 0. Everything is dramatically complicated by the artificial divisions of work across states needed to get enough political support. Grossly inefficient from the start, and inflexible into perpetuity. 1. Initial schedules are incentivized to be unrealistic, and not reflective of hard analysis/planning, in order to get funding. Easier to deal with the real details and expand schedules later, even though nobody wants that to be the process. 2. Essentially a cost plus (or cost even) program. There is no hard limit on cost, since the further along a project is, the easier it is to raise its budget, especially along with schedule delays. 3. Creativity flows to the most basic constraint. The most basic constraint is political will to fund, so top level attention goes to managing/manipulating up. When NASA's hard constraint was time (getting to the moon first), creativity went there. They were never cheap, but they did operate with incredible speed. Whereas any private company's basic constraints are relative profitability in terms of net return in a given time frame, so creativity goes to both speed and cost. 4. Boeing and other traditional large NASA contractors operated for decades under NASA's politically driven, cost plus umbrella, so continue to suffer from, and reinforce, NASA's problems. This culture is hard to break, even after switching to a flat cost (still time flexible) regime. See recent Boeing troubles. Not just throw away rockets, but a much delayed, over budget, wonky one-way manned spaceship!! Ouch!

searine 2y ago
>NASA is a political jobs program This is the truth, and while you could frame it as a negative, I see it as a huge positive. Because NASA has been subsidizing space for decades the US has a tremendous among of trained workers for aero-space. It was exactly that workforce that venture-capital based space industry was able to source talent from. I doubt spaceX would have been possible without NASA dumping billions into boondoggles. Now it is self-reinforcing. NASA trained talent for/funds industry, industry now trains talent for/supplies NASA. Space economy the easy way, just costs a few hundred billion bootstrap it.
- Nevermark 2y ago

bumby 2y ago

This is just my opinion, but I think a lot of it has to do with requirements. NASA is first and foremost about prestige (even above science IMO. This is also - again my opinion - why NASA hasn't been back to the moon in 50 years. There's little prestige to be gained for an expensive operation). With prestige as the backdrop, it makes them very risk adverse. There are layers and layers of requirements made to reduce risk. To their credit, SpaceX is willing to fail more than NASA and it allows them to iterate much faster. This is also my opinion part of the reasons why NASA wanted the CCP to begin with: it allows them to skirt many of the requirements. The somewhat ironic part is that NASA pathways to alleviate those requirements, but it's somewhat common that project/programs want to go through the waiver process and formerly accept that risk. There is a fairly well-known dynamic in govt contracting where a contractor low-bids to get the contract and then makes money on change-orders. If they were to accurately bid on all the NASA requirements, they risk their bid being so high they would never be awarded the contract. This is a similar dynamic to the traditional cost-plus contracting paradigm. There is also some irony in that SpaceX may be the victims of the same dynamic. As failure occur, they may layer on more requirements that ultimately slow the process down (see the supplier quality issues related to an F9 strut failure). Given enough time, there is a risk that added requirements turn them into the dinosaurs they are replacing. Also, as others have brought up, NASA has additional requirements they must manage (e.g., political risk) that SpaceX has less exposure to.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> NASA has additional requirements they must manage (e.g., political risk) that SpaceX has less exposure to This doesn't appear to be the issue with ML-2, whose problems are closer to Boeing's subcontracting addiction than e.g. the F-35's sticker-collection approach to manufacturing.
- bumby 2y ago
  I’m sorry, I don’t follow. Can you elaborate? Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but I think sub-contacting is heavily related to political risk mitigation, as it’s a method of spreading project money across many political districts. IMO NASA has done the same with their selection of major center locations. It doesn’t make a lot of logistics sense to have your biggest centers in CA, OH, VA, and TX but it makes a lot of political sense if your goal is to avoid large programs being mothballed.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

Keep in mind that Starship has never made it to orbit.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
perihelions 2y ago
Yes, but it *launched* four times, and the launch tower verifiably works, and it didn't take a decade to build. That's the subject of this question, isn't it? The $2.7 billion NASA wants to spend on a steel-frame launch tower.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  In that case there is no SpaceX equivalent. Is SpaceX's tower used for transporting stacked human-rated rockets from hangar to pad?
Diederich 2y ago
This is very technically correct but also misleading. In the last test flight, Starship reached a velocity of 7.3km/s. Orbital velocity is 7.8km/s. Why didn't they make it to 7.8km/s? Because they choose not to. Starship had the fuel, control and capability to burn a few more seconds for another 500m/s. It also (barely) survived re-entry and achieved a fully controlled, powered, soft splashdown.
robryan 2y ago
Because the mission profile has been intentionally sub orbital to avoid any possibility of uncontrolled reentry. There would be minimal change in the burn for the last 2 flights to place it in orbit.

mensetmanusman 2y ago

Musk level leadership, delegation, and drive is once in a century. It’s hard to blame contractors for basically acting like every other comfortably large organization.

carabiner 2y ago

SpaceX is like Google, whereas NASA is worse than Oracle because it's the federal government AND a highly regulated industry involving human safety. This is in so many ways, hiring to engineering processes.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> whereas NASA is worse than Oracle A lot of Artemis is dictated to NASA by the Congress. Look at NASA's deep science missions, e.g. landers, probes and telescopes. They're ridiculously advanced, creative and cost effective for the amount of science they deliver.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> What exactly is it Bechtel and friends struggling with? Some of it is reasonable. Covid threw a spanner in schedules and increased costs due to a rise in price levels. Some is from design changes due to new information, e.g. "during launch, the SLS generates exhaust blast plume pressure, random vibration, vibration from acoustics, and heat. These loads can cause damage to the launch vehicle, payload, launch pad, and surrounding structures. After the Artemis I launch, NASA found higher-than-expected thermal, acoustic, and blast loads to the ML-1. ML-2 project management is assessing these lessons learned from Artemis I and anticipates the ML-2 structure will require some additional strengthening to withstand the predicted loads" [1]. A lot of it, however, is laughably-incompetent cost-plus subcontracting nonsense: "While Bechtel revised its IFCs in response to the RFIs, according to ML-2 project management, the company did not allot sufficient time in its schedule to do so, and this iterative process resulted in cost increases and schedule delays. In mid-2023, ML-2 project management found the delays in steel fabrication and delivery resulted in a 3-month schedule slip, leaving Bechtel with no additional schedule reserve to meet the May 2026 contract end date. ... In mid-2021, ML-2 project management noted that Bechtel’s 'interactions and business relationship with the steel fabricator deteriorated to the point of dysfunction,' resulting in unresolved fabrication issues that impacted the ML-2 project’s critical path. Bechtel’s lack of awareness and oversight of critical second-tier subcontractors responsible for steel fabrication contributed to a delayed construction start date. One subcontractor, which Bechtel allocated approximately 46 percent of the fabrication work to, sold all of its shop space to a non-NASA customer because Bechtel's steel fabrication plan lacked a signed contract with the subcontractor. As a result, Bechtel attempted to find another subcontractor with available shop space but was unable to do so in a timely manner. The delay in the steel fabrication process continued to impact the ML-2 project’s schedule" (pp 18). [1] https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ig-24-016.pdf https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ig-24-016.pd... page 20

api 2y ago

SLS stands for Senate Launch System. It's a pork distribution program. Major beneficiaries are the states of Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama (Huntsville) but there are beneficiaries all over the place. Classical DoD/NASA contractors know to locate facilities all over the country to maximize political capital via connection to local jobs in many jurisdictions.