NASA needs billions to get Lockheed Martin’s Orion into space
And NASA thinks it can compete with SpaceX or Orbital Sciences? The agency is asking for billions more to build the Orion capsule.
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And NASA thinks it can compete with SpaceX or Orbital Sciences? The agency is asking for billions more to build the Orion capsule.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Cancel that pork.
> And NASA thinks it can compete with SpaceX or Orbital Sciences? ===
Certainly, after all – they judge the winners, and pork (and NASA inefficiency) are primary products to be maintained. If they were willing to just let L/M and the other contractors do their jobs, costs would go down by at least a factor of 4.
As Rutan found when he and some other new space companies tried bidding to build Orion, they weer simply incapable of spending enough, and hiring big enough staffs. Designing and building it was well within their abilities, but they could not do all the federally required contractual overhead, and support all the NASA “oversight”. So they had to bow out.
Even Musk said SpaceX has little hope of competing and wining more then at best a token commercial crew flight.
Congress is demanding that NASA “refine its procurement, contract management, and oversight processes”. This sounds like the perfect opportunity to scrap the way Orion is being developed, define real requirements for an “exploration vehicle” and develop a milestone based fixed price contract, with independent financing requirements.
I think you expecting a lot out of “refine”. Also NASA has as of yet – pretty much ignored that.
Certainly L/M’s offer to develop Orion for a fraction of the cost if NASA just lets them do it themself to NASA specs, rather then NASA management get so heavily involved, hasn’t gotten much support ni NASA or congress as far as I can see.
As for nidependant financing. Given NASA is pretty much the total market for maned orbital flight. They will have to agree to a contract that one way or the other pays for the development of the craft they demand.