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Boeing is being selected due to its being the "least risky" option. IMHO NASA needs to start taking some risks. It is amazingly slow and inept. So much so that

Boeing is being selected due to its being the "least risky" option. IMHO NASA needs to start taking some risks. It is amazingly slow and inept. So much so that I would consider shutting it down completely and allocating the money we spend as grants over the next 10 years to get private industry viable. When the Dutch group asked for volunteers for its one way mission to Mars, how many viable candidates signed up? 10,000? NASA ruled during the 60s, since then it has been just another government bureaucracy.

headcanon 12y ago
There's a lot more stuff under the NASA umbrella than manned spaceflight that do a lot of great science (Such as the JPL) and are generally some of the best at what they do, so I wouldnt advocate shutting down the whole program, however I would agree that building launch vehicles is not something they should handle themselves. I would have preferred them to be championing SpaceX, but it seems big, slow, hulking bureaucracies have an affinity for each other. Unless NASA's already got a rocket they've been developing in secret, I'd say SpaceX could put up a person in orbit faster than NASA+Boeing can with theirs, given their respective track record.
- araes 12y ago
  NASA has been developing the Space Launch System (SLS) [1] since the 2010 Authorization Act killed the Constellation program. If it means anything, they're through their Preliminary Design Review and heading towards their Critical Design Review. They expect somewhere between 70 metric tons to 155 metric tons to LEO depending on the version of the design. Whether it will fly, who knows, but they are actually farther along than NASA has gotten on a space vehicle in a while. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System
FD3SA 12y ago
Except Boeing is not the "least risky" option, because their vehicle hasn't even been tested. "Least risky" doesn't just mean the company record. The CST-100 is a brand new vehicle, and Boeing's oh so famous "track record" doesn't apply. Not to mention the rocket it is designed for (Blue Origin BE-3) has also yet to be tested. Doesn't look like a low risk combination to me. Ironically, the Falcon 9 and the Dragon are indeed the "least risky" choice here, by a huge margin.
- makomk 12y ago
  I think the CST-100 is actually further along in terms of NASA's qualification milestones than SpaceX's Dragon, funnily enough. (Also, the Dragon V2 that the crewed version will be based on is a brand new design that hasn't been flown yet either.)

headcanon 12y ago

There's a lot more stuff under the NASA umbrella than manned spaceflight that do a lot of great science (Such as the JPL) and are generally some of the best at what they do, so I wouldnt advocate shutting down the whole program, however I would agree that building launch vehicles is not something they should handle themselves. I would have preferred them to be championing SpaceX, but it seems big, slow, hulking bureaucracies have an affinity for each other. Unless NASA's already got a rocket they've been developing in secret, I'd say SpaceX could put up a person in orbit faster than NASA+Boeing can with theirs, given their respective track record.

araes 12y ago
NASA has been developing the Space Launch System (SLS) [1] since the 2010 Authorization Act killed the Constellation program. If it means anything, they're through their Preliminary Design Review and heading towards their Critical Design Review. They expect somewhere between 70 metric tons to 155 metric tons to LEO depending on the version of the design. Whether it will fly, who knows, but they are actually farther along than NASA has gotten on a space vehicle in a while. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System

FD3SA 12y ago

Except Boeing is not the "least risky" option, because their vehicle hasn't even been tested. "Least risky" doesn't just mean the company record. The CST-100 is a brand new vehicle, and Boeing's oh so famous "track record" doesn't apply. Not to mention the rocket it is designed for (Blue Origin BE-3) has also yet to be tested. Doesn't look like a low risk combination to me. Ironically, the Falcon 9 and the Dragon are indeed the "least risky" choice here, by a huge margin.

makomk 12y ago
I think the CST-100 is actually further along in terms of NASA's qualification milestones than SpaceX's Dragon, funnily enough. (Also, the Dragon V2 that the crewed version will be based on is a brand new design that hasn't been flown yet either.)