He’s pushing back against Shelby’s attempt to sabotage commercial crew.
I don’t think this is right, though:
NASA insists that waiving certain parts of the Federal Acquisition Regulations, which the agency may legally do in certain situations, is vital to getting a commercially designed system safely up and running.
NASA isn’t “waiving certain parts of the FAR.” It is following the FAR, which doesn’t require cost-plus-like accounting for fixed-price contracts. In fact it is Shelby who is trying to change the FAR by demanding that it be used anyway.
Thank you, Senator Nelson.
As far as Shelby goes, this Republican would love to see him primaried, or failing that, ousted in a general election. (He’s up for reelection in 2016). I don’t care that he’s a Republican, and my opposition to him isn’t about space so much as corruption. What he’s doing, plain and simple, is buying votes via pork, and as a side effect trashing the space program. That’s corruption. (Pork is, and always has been, corruption).
FWIW, Shelby is only a Republican for the working day. He was a Democrat who only switched parties when the Republicans gained control of the Senate, so he could remain in the majority.
Rep. Ralph Hall, the erstwhile chairman of the Science Committee, is also a party-jumper who became a Republican when the GOP took over the House. Hall said he “owed” it to the people of his district to ensure they got their fair share of pork.
Hall also managed to negotiate a deal with GOP leadership that allowed him to keep his seniority (which, technically, he lose when he switched parties). That allowed him to gain control of the Science Committee, which otherwise would have gone to Dana Rohrabacher.
Yes. He has no political principles, other than whatever is necessary to get reelected.
Maybe taking a look at the differences between the Dragon and the CST-100 mock up made the difference.
Or more likely Sen. Nelson sees the money flowing to Florida when SpaceX increases it launch rate using Pad39A. Remember, its all about money flowing to states and Congressional Districts.
Most likely while he was letting Sen. Nelson sit inside the Dragon 2 he talked about flights and jobs options for Florida under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and those jobs and flights might go to Texas if he wasn’t working with NASA anymore because of Sen. Shelby’s provision for cost plus accounting.
http://www.click2houston.com/news/money/Elon-Musk-woos-Congress-with-space-ship/26441664
Elon Musk woos Congress with space ship
Musk hopes capsule will one day ferry astronauts into outer space
Author: By Jennifer Liberto
Published On: Jun 11 2014 01:36:38 PM CDT Updated On: Jun 11 2014 06:42:16 PM CDT
[[[More than a dozen lawmakers checked out the capsule including Senators Bill Nelson of Florida and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Reps. Rohrabacher, Charles Albert “Dutch” Ruppersberger of Maryland, Mike Honda and Antonio “Tony” Cárdenas both of California.]]]
It should be interesting to see how many of SpaceX’s commercial launches take place out of their commercial space port in Brownsville.
Given Brownsville’s location and probable launch azimuth constraints, I suspect all of the launches from there will be going to GEO. That’ll likely be a good percentage of all SpaceX launches.
I think the deal SpaceX has to close the nearby public beach on launch days at the Brownsville site is only good, a least initially, for one mission a month. That won’t pinch immediately, but I’d be amazed if SpaceX doesn’t look to up this limit at some point in the not especially distant future.
Is the beach open all year around?
Man that place is starting to sound like Tanegashima. The Japanese can only launch in there so infrequently the launch site is uneconomic.
Late-arriving thought: Gwynne Shotwell recently said something about needing a lot of spaceports in the future. Maybe SpaceX never intended to launch more than a dozen missions a year from Brownsville. Perhaps we’ll see a number of sites in coming years – including runner-ups to Brownsville in this initial phase – selected to host facilities that can support a launch rate comparable to Brownsville. That might just make SpaceX welcome ina lot more places and keep them from wearing out their welcome in any particular place.
Late-arriving thought: Gwynne Shotwell recently said something about needing a lot of spaceports in the future.
Yes, she actually told me that in October.
A thought just occurred to me about those alternate sites. If the Mars Colonial Transport goes ahead, then the Puerto Rico site (I assume Roosevelt Roads) is not at the disadvantage anymore of having no road connection to the mainland. The MCT is 10m diameter in all the concepts I’ve seen, and that is far too large to be sent by any land transport anyway. So it has the same advantages as does the Cape with its coastal waterway access.
Yeah, I would expect any additional SpaceX “greenfield” spaceport sites to be on seacoasts if BFR facilities are part of the plan. Sites limited to launching the Falcon series could conceivably be inland with recovery downrange rather than return-to-launch-site. Actual return to launch site could be either via a hop of the refueled booster itself (that would be way cool!) or, conservatively, via truck.
The RFP says that NASA intends “To waive the FAR requirement for Certified Cost and Pricing Data, prescribed per 15.403- 4(a)(1)(iii), which requires certified cost or pricing for any modification expected to exceed the current threshold.”
That is presumably what Shelby is objecting to.
Since the stated requirement applies only to cost modifications, not the base cost, the implications of this dispute may not be as far reaching as everyone is assuming.
This may also explain why some NASA sources are referring to the contract as “cost plus” while others are calling it “fixed price.” While the contract may not be technically cost-plus, the provision for cost adjustments means it is not truly firm fixed-price, either.
The actual report language is
“In order for NASA and Congress to have the appropriate level of
transparency to ensure that the cost of the program is in line with
the activities undertaken and that it does not grow exponentially,
the Committee directs NASA to maintain FAR 15.403–4, related to
certified cost and pricing data for prime contractors, for any contracts
entered into to support the development of a commercial
crew vehicle.”
If Shelby wanted this to apply only to overruns, the report language would say so. This looks to me to apply to the entire contracts.
Actually, cost accounting is required on all FAR contracts over $700,000 by default (15.403-4). The procurement agent can waive the requirement under a short list of exceptions at his discretion (15.403-1(b)) or after requesting a wavier (15.403-1(b)(4)).
No, it is not required by default. 15.403-4 states, “The contracting officer shall obtain certified cost or pricing data only if the contracting officer concludes that none of the exceptions in 15.403-1(b) applies.”
Which is exactly what I just said.
“Required by default” is not exactly the same as “not-required by default.”
It’s exactly the opposite.
Ya do understand the concept of rules and exceptions, don’t you?
The rule is you need cost accounting. There are exceptions.
No, the rule is that you don’t need it unless the contracting officer determines otherwise. It is not required by default, it is required by special determination.