Blogosphere excitement at the prospect of $150 million, or $80 million depending upon the report you read, going directly to "commercial" development of crew transport to low Earth orbit is all misguided NASA has told Hyperbola
These are the facts:
- NASA is to spend $150 million, not $80 million
- it is to enable earlier Commercial Resupply Services cargo missions
- these early flights will help NASA determine what human rating requirements are needed
- it will also fund work on standardisation of International Space Station docking
This has nothing to do with COTS-D and reports of a crewed launch demo being funded by this money are not true says NASA
And now I am no wiser about this other strange crew transport procurement development
on April 30, 2009 3:13 PM | Reply
Rob, you are among the few on top of the game. Yesterday's misrepresentation (IMHO) read into Scolese's testimony before the House committee shows a dire need for Journalism standards.
This kind of clarification is necessary, and I appreciate it, once again.
*And to note, after an hour of hunting down the docs, I have to remind folks that, so far at least, the planned Armstrong Lunar Outpost on the Moon has not been abandoned. Bad journalism was parroted and went viral way too fast, yesterday. I hope the agency will devote some PR resources to the blogosphere's reporting. (You, per usual, would pass muster regardless of who's manufacture consensus bubble was burst. Thanks again - Joel R.
on May 5, 2009 1:42 PM | Reply
Ron
I have been reading both the testimony and several other websites.. Aviation Week and Scolese written statement both say that the $150 million will go to the Comercial Crew and Cargo Plan of which COTS and COTS D. is a part. AV emphasized that the $80 million was specifically slated for COTS as a means of accelerating the resupply missions in order to advance COTS D according to Scolese response to a question in the Congressional hearing. This leaves the impression that the remaining $70 million is for COTS D and that the funding overall has everything to do with COTS D.
on May 5, 2009 2:04 PM | Reply
Its Rob but never mind. The reason why this reference to COTS-D is wrong is simple. The $150 million is, yes, going towards work that would bring about earlier, hopefully, CRS flights and also provide data from those that would inform man rating requirements. And then you have this ISS docking standardisation work. Impressions or not NASA was clear in waht it told me. This is not COTS-D. It might even be "everything to do" with COTS-D but it is not actually COTS-D. Remember COTS-D is specifically about a crew transport system and the ARRA $150 million is not being spent specifically on that, instead work that could lead upt o that. And COTS-D would only be SpaceX and during the hearing Scolese explicitly said that it would not be COTS-D because ONLY one organisation, meaning spaceX, could be involved with that. COTS is getting the extra money for work that could contribute to another crew transport competition IMHO. I think Lockheed, for all its troubles, could, if allowed by NASA, deliver a Dragon-like capsule in partnership with others for its Atlas V rocket, if the USAF will let it.
on May 5, 2009 11:02 PM | Reply
Aye, there's the rub: "...if the USAF will let it" but remember the USAF, is who backed SPACE X(Elon Musk) to begin with...