NASA’s Contractors

Not every NASA manned spacecraft must be the product of the agency’s in-house development team. That idea is now firmly anchored in NASA’s institutional culture after its announcement this week that Boeing’s CST-100 capsule and SpaceX’s Dragon 2 spacecraft won the $6.8 billion dollar contest to provide a commercial space taxi to send astronauts to the International Space Station sometime in 2017. This is an important milestone for the commercial manned-space-flight industry, which began with the COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) program during the George W. Bush years and was enhanced during the term of NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver, who served from 2009 to 2013. COTS has evolved into what is now called CCtCap (Commercial Crew Transportation Capability).

Boeing has walked away with the biggest share ($4.2 billion) of the money, as its design was further along than that of the SpaceX proposal and, in the opinion of NASA’s leadership, has the best chance of meeting the schedule. At first glance this looks wrong, because SpaceX is already flying its unmanned Dragon 1 on supply missions to the International Space Station, fulfilling its part of one of the original COTS contracts. While a manned version of the Dragon 1 was certainly possible, Elon Musk and the team at SpaceX chose instead to develop something far more ambitious. The Dragon 2, if it does becomes operational, will be years ahead of Boeing CST-100 and of any other manned spacecraft either now existing or on the proverbial drawing board.

The Dragon has several unique features that make it riskier but, in the long term, a more versatile and effective space exploration vehicle. It will land vertically using a set of rocket engines distributed around the capsule’s waist. This will, according to SpaceX, allow for “helicopter like” landing. The design also has a back-up parachute system in case something goes wrong with the rockets. Previously, Musk said that his ultimate goal was to get to Mars. The Dragon 2 looks like a big step in toward a spacecraft that can land people on the Moon or Mars and, who knows, maybe even take off again. In any case, the SpaceX design is far more sophisticated than a simple orbital taxi.

The CST-100 met all NASA’s requirements, on time and in full, including passing its first critical design review.  SpaceX, on the other hand, while making good progress on its system, missed some of its milestones. Both the CST and the new Dragon will in theory be able to carry seven astronauts into low Earth orbit. The CCtCap contract called for the winners to show that they could safely deliver four crew members to the International Space Station in 2017.

One important aspect of the program is that NASA will not be in charge of determining whether the CST-100 or the Dragon 2 is safe to fly. That assignment will be given to the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, known as the FAA/AST. Over the years, this office has done a pretty good job of regulating the nascent space-tourism industry. The guidelines it established are based on the principal that the government’s main job is to protect the public. If a space tourists or employees of a space-tourism firm want to risk their necks, that’s their business, as long as they can make an informed decision. This test is one that NASA astronauts should have no trouble passing.

Last year there was some question as to whether NASA could afford to go ahead and give the contracts to more than one company. This has been resolved, but one suspects that both Boeing and SpaceX have informally committed to using their own funds if there is a shortfall or a delay in the appropriations process. In public, Elon Musk has said that he will go ahead with the Dragon 2 program no matter what NASA does. This may have been bravado, but given Musk’s record, no one should doubt his will to make SpaceX a strong competitor.

The biggest loser was, as expected the Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser, a sort of mini shuttle launched, like the CST-100, from an Atlas V rocket. The design was elegant but probably needed more time and more money to realize than was available under existing NASA plans. It will be interesting to see if the company can raise enough money from non-governmental sources to keep the project alive.

The other company that received NASA funds for commercial spacecraft development was Blue Origin, owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. This firm was given a relatively small sum to develop components for its long-range program. Bezos’s goal is to build a full-scale reusable launch vehicle, one based on concepts embodied in the old DC-X program developed for the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization during the George H. W. Bush administration and tested during Bill Clinton’s first term. 

The Blue Origin team has been working on a new reusable rocket engine. On September 17, Boeing and Lockheed announced that their joint venture, the United Launch Alliance (ULA), would to procure an expendable version of the new engine to replace not only the Russian RD-180 engines on the Atlas V but perhaps also the U.S.-made engines on the Delta IV rockets. The two kinds of engine now launch almost all of America’s military and civil satellites and probes.

This decision shows that ULA, like everyone else in the space-launch industry, including the Russians and the Europeans, is afraid that what SpaceX has accomplished will render its own plans economically obsolete. The new engine, called the BE-4, should in theory be ready in 2016.

Both of Wednesday’s announcements show that NASA and the U.S. space industry are making slow and painful progress toward adapting to the post-shuttle budget-constrained present era. Since it is doubtful that Congress will be able to significantly increase NASA’s funding increase in the near future, the best thing the politicians on the Hill can do for the moment is to leave the space agency alone to get on with the job.

— Taylor Dinerman is a New York–based writer and author of the satire Subway Lists and Other Writings from the iPhone Era.