Although the document praises Sierra’s “strong management approach to ensure the technical work and schedule are accomplished,” it cautions that the company’s Dream Chaser had “the longest schedule for completing certification.” The letter also states that “it also has the most work to accomplish which is likely to further extend its schedule beyond 2017, and is most likely to reach certification and begin service missions later than the other ‘Offerors’.”
Discussing costs, Gerstenmaier says that “although SNC’s price is lower than Boeing’s price, its technical and management approaches and its past performance are not as high and I see considerably more schedule risk with its proposal. Both SNC and SpaceX had high past performance, and very good technical and management approaches, but SNC’s price is significantly higher than SpaceX’s price.”
Touching on why Boeing received a $4.2 billion contract, versus $2.6 billion for SpaceX, he adds “I consider Boeing’s superior proposal, with regard to both its technical and management approach and its past performance, to be worth the additional price in comparison to the SNC proposal.”
Given how subjective such evaluation processes are, it’s not an implausible story.
Ummm, this part seems to be a non sequitur to me;
“Touching on why Boeing received a $4.2 billion contract, versus $2.6 billion for SpaceX, he adds “I consider Boeing’s superior proposal, with regard to both its technical and management approach and its past performance, to be worth the additional price in comparison to the SNC proposal.”
How on earth does contrasting the values of Boeing’s and SNC’s proposals have anything at all to do with why Boeing got 4.2 billion while SpaceX got 2.6?
Boeing asked for 4.2 billion. Since they wanted two suppliers they had little choice but to pay them what they asked.
Boeing knows they are in a supplier led market but SpaceX wants to turn it into something else. Remember Elon originally wanted to put a small experiment on Mars not make actual rockets.
Also SpaceX can reuse a lot more components than Boeing can. So I think their claim that the development costs will be higher is no excuse.
The subjectivity of those born and bred to the “traditional” space arena will tilt to the traditional suppliers. Note how Gerst also slams SpaceX – even while admitting that it’s ahead of the others, he still likes Boeing better.
Boeing’s superior proposal
I wonder if their initial commitment to hybrids and the resulting design change screwed them?
There is no reason to wonder that. The answer is “yes.”
I’ve been in that situation before, where we were up against an outfit (I can’t name names, sorry) that knew how to write seriously impressive requirements documents and software development plans; we were OK in those areas, but our big advantage was that…our stuff worked and theirs didn’t. The AvWeek cover story in advance of the down select, which was fed to AvWeek by the customer, discussed only our stuff, because the other company’s stuff didn’t work. For good or bad, the program was canceled prior to award so I’ll never know how it would have turned out, but I have always felt that there was a real chance we would have lost because the customer was more impressed by the other guy’s paper work than our stuff that worked. It’s endemic in the aerospace business.
By God, I think you hit the mark. Reading the AvWk story It sounds like a victory of paperwork over hardware.
I think one aspect about it, is that SpaceX is dependent on Elon Musk.
Whereas entire Boeing top management could die from Ebola, and it really would not make much difference. It could even be an improvement- fresh blood and all that.
There was a time when the same could be said of Bill Boeing.
From an outsider’s perspective, it makes sense to choose Boeing as one of the suppliers. They do have a long track record. It may cost a lot and run late, but you know they will get the job done.
I think they should have thrown SNC a bone though, a little something to keep them working. Dream Chaser is an incredibly cool vehicle with a worthy heritage of its own. In addition to a consolation prize, NASA should have pressured our international partners to adopt the Dream Chaser. It could have stopped the Euros from developing their own government run space plane program and taken customers away from Russia. It would have been good for American business and foreign policy interests.
NASA should be taking steps to insure our dominance by increasing ties to and reliance on American companies and government agencies but we are dealing with people who don’t even think the USA should control ICANN.
How could NASA have possibly put pressure on the international partners to use a vehicle NASA itself didn’t choose? Can NASA put any pressure on Russia at all, other than a nuclear option of denying access to the American side of the station?
“How could NASA have possibly put pressure on the international partners to use a vehicle NASA itself didn’t choose?”
Ok, I guess the USA has zero influence with our friends in Europe. We never cooperate on anything.
Just because NASA didn’t select the Dream Chaser, doesn’t mean it cant fly or isn’t more affordable than some of the alternatives. It has a lot of benefits and some advantages over a capsule. Previously, SNC had talked about working a deal with the Europeans and there were talks of the Europeans even making their own space plane. ESA using Dream Chaser isn’t that great a leap of imagination.
“Can NASA put any pressure on Russia at all”
Sorry for being imprecise. I should have excluded Russia when I said international partners. It would be silly to think that Russia would adopt another country’s vehicles but getting other countries not to rely on the Russia would reduce their influence. Considering recent events, that would be a good thing.
I think they should have thrown SNC a bone though, a little something to keep them working.
I agree with this. In fact I thought it would happen but probably there are budget reasons why it had to be this way.
Can anyone tell me about the exact procedure NASA uses to determine a winner? Does each “judge” physically read the proposals? Or a team? Is all the data fed into a computer program that spits out points scored for each area?
I ask because if a computer program is used, wouldn’t it be able to be gamed if you knew how the code scores? You write a proposal that the computer will automatically always give high marks to?
From what I can tell, it’s a computer program, written in Bureaucrat.
Doesn’t look like they had a system with scoring and what not. It was a subjective qualitative process not strictly quantitative. They present a good rational for choosing Boeing over SNC but when you get into qualitative reasons for their selection, this is no longer a competition based on merit. This is why I think SNC should have been given a consolation prize.