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If you mean onboard Dragon, there are physical buttons to control essential functions for that very reason.
I think this one fits here:
arstechnica.com
Weirdly, a NASA official says fixed-price contracts do the agency “no good”
"What really makes me worried is that I think it shows where the heart of the agency is."
arstechnica.com
I think this one fits here:
Weirdly, a NASA official says fixed-price contracts do the agency “no good”
"What really makes me worried is that I think it shows where the heart of the agency is."
Good grief...
Responding, a couple of other NASA folks commenting, one of them saying:
Ugg. Another slow news cycle 'blockbuster' from Berger.
Setting the stage that I come from 20+ years in the space industry of not just only exclusively working FFPs but actively avoiding [the few] cost+ programs that have been adjacent to my orbit (in other words, I'm the last person to defend cost+), its pretty rich that Berger builds the article around the Capitan Obvious statement that FFP's don't provide benefit if you're not getting the product on time...and then somehow turns that statement into a bad thing...
The big problem with cost+ is not that they exist, but the manner in which they're managed. You can't simply give the manufacturer free rein to blow up the cost or schedule, and you can't simply give the customer free rein to blow up the mission requirements (and thus the cost and schedule). It'd be nice for Berger to take that more productive angle and encourage useful discussion on the root problems (and solutions)...but of course, that reduces efficacy of his monthly putting-food-on-the-table SX pep rally. No Berger fan wants to see him go soft on rubbing out All The Other Guys.
FTR, FFP's can and do blow up also. MFGs take advantage of poorly written contracts to bank on change orders. Customers take advantage of desperate MFGs and run them through the ringer. Even compromise solutions blow up. Look at RSGS's OTA...DARPA kept moving the goalpost but [basically] didn't want to pay to move the goalposts.
Setting the stage that I come from 20+ years in the space industry of not just only exclusively working FFPs but actively avoiding [the few] cost+ programs that have been adjacent to my orbit (in other words, I'm the last person to defend cost+), its pretty rich that Berger builds the article around the Capitan Obvious statement that FFP's don't provide benefit if you're not getting the product on time...and then somehow turns that statement into a bad thing...
The big problem with cost+ is not that they exist, but the manner in which they're managed. You can't simply give the manufacturer free rein to blow up the cost or schedule, and you can't simply give the customer free rein to blow up the mission requirements (and thus the cost and schedule). It'd be nice for Berger to take that more productive angle and encourage useful discussion on the root problems (and solutions)...but of course, that reduces efficacy of his monthly putting-food-on-the-table SX pep rally. No Berger fan wants to see him go soft on rubbing out All The Other Guys.
FTR, FFP's can and do blow up also. MFGs take advantage of poorly written contracts to bank on change orders. Customers take advantage of desperate MFGs and run them through the ringer. Even compromise solutions blow up. Look at RSGS's OTA...DARPA kept moving the goalpost but [basically] didn't want to pay to move the goalposts.
Given that it was actually NASA personnel who were quoted, not sure it's correct to lay this at Berger's feet.
In the second half of the article, Berger talks very little of SpaceX, and instead spends the majority of hos writing looking at the issues associated with cost+ contracts and their results... so not sure how that's a "putting-food-on-the-table SX pep rally".
Yes, that’s the point.
NASA guy: “The sky is blue”
Berger: “Look at this effing guy and his old school sky is blue BS. He’s so stupid, the sky is blue.”
You are attributing to Berger things of which I see no evidence.
And to be clear, it's actually:
NASA official Jim Free: "...it does us no good to have a firm, fixed-price contract other than we’re not paying more"
Other NASA officials: ""I can't give him a pass on the fixed-price comment," one of these officials said of Free. "On cost-plus contracts, the hardware is always late, and you pay more. On fixed-price contracts, it's only late. So yeah, his comment was technically accurate but totally tone-deaf. What really makes me worried is that I think it shows where the heart of the agency is."
Berger: Provides historical context and (minimal) editorial comments.
It much more so other NASA folk taking issue with Free than Berger.
Don't comment on articles I haven't read. Hence providing commentary on it's content.I’d encourage you to actually read the article then.
Just another SX rah-rah.
It's the hyperbole referring to it I take issue with.
I appreciate that it’s easier to mischaracterize than address, so I’ll again just encourage you to actually read the article and then attempt to understand my point.
If you’d rather move on, that’s ok too.
Indeed:
"Berger: “Look at this effing guy and his old school sky is blue BS. He’s so stupid, the sky is blue.”" - bxr140
Sure, if you're done making dubious allegations, you don't care to defend.
The Berger article is never meant to a comprehensive comparison of different contracting method, it's meant to point out that there seems to be an old space faction inside NASA who wants to kill fixed price contracting and new space along with it.
This is the real money quote:
This is the real money quote:
The rest is just dressing.
Except, that's not what's happening at NASA. There's no conspiracy; there's no faction that wants to kill FFPs and new space. That you and others have drawn that conclusion from Berger's article precisely illustrates my contention. Berger's journalistic brand is not one of metered reason. His articles do not explore introspective analyses of multiple perspectives. His objective is not to instigate thought provoking conversations meant to move the collective ball forward.
Look at the SN article Berger references. Look at the actual quotes. This is a situation where NASA on-high is skeptical of FFPs, not one where they're simply trying to kill FFPs and new space, or in any other way hard-lining against them. How about journalism that asks why they are skeptical of FFPs. What is their history with FFPs? What kind of experiences do they have or are they referencing in their skepticism? Are those concerns valid? What kind of change could assuage that skepticism?
Of course it's all well and good that Berger doesn't take that approach as, again, everyone has to put food on their table (and that's increasingly difficult to do in the firebrand world we live in where many people are only going to consume self-affirming content).
It's just disappointing when folks refuse to accept that Berger is, indeed, just another spade.
Unfortunately, it is not. It is an unattributed bystander quote around which Berger has built a up a story (not to mention, in context of the sentence from which you pulled the quote, it paradoxically contradicts itself). Again, look at Free's actual quotes; consider what he's actually trying to say.
Any journalist can find someone willing to provide a bias-confirming statement. Any journalist can spin words into a sensational story. We get frustrated all the time with the cottage industry of anti-tesla journalists who create anti-tesla content built off of some undercontexted nugget of information or a quote from a disgruntled owner or employee or stock bro. We see similarly dubious anti-spaceX content all the time from Tim Farrar, this forum's Most Hated Journalist.
Berger shouldn't be given a pass on the practice simply because he roots for the home team.
They shouldn't be skeptical of FFP at all, that's the whole point. FFP gave us SpaceX who is single handedly supporting the entire US (if not the entire western) space program. Cost plus gave us outdated overpriced junk like SLS/Orion. There're other examples, but the cost/benefit couldn't be clearer.
You could make a case for cost plus for things like one-off mission to unique destinations such as a Uranus orbiter, but everything in Artemis is repeatable and Artemis itself is supposed to promote a lunar economy, there's literally zero reason anyone - let alone NASA higher ups - should doubt the use of FFP in Artemis. The fact that they're skeptical is a big fat warning flag, and Berger should be commended for bringing this to our attention.
What exactly is Free trying to say then? Enlighten us.
What I see is Free is trying to blame the delay of Artemis III on SpaceX, which is utterly stupid, for multiple reasons.
Berger spends the better part of a page providing the background on exactly the experiences and issues leading up to this:
NASA selected Lockheed Martin to be Orion's prime contractor in 2006, and the agency has been funding the program at an average of about $1 billion a year for the last decade. Orion should finally fly a crewed mission in early 2025—after literally two decades of development.
Five years later, in 2011, NASA finalized the design of the Space Launch System rocket. However, the space agency had been funding related work by the rocket's prime contractor, Boeing, since 2007. NASA, on average, has spent nearly $3 billion annually on developing this SLS rocket for the last decade.
This is a lot of money because the SLS rocket started with some major advantages: It reused engines from the space shuttle program, it used solid-rocket boosters derived from the shuttle, and its core stage diameter was modeled on the shuttle's external fuel tank. It still took a decade to develop before its first successful test flight at the end of 2022.
Contrast that with the Human Landing System. Because so much of NASA's exploration funding was tied up in the cost-plus contracts for Orion and SLS—which pay a contractor's total costs, plus fees, without regard to delays and overruns—NASA did not have funding for a lander or spacesuits. It only awarded the lander contract to SpaceX in April 2021, and the funding did not kick in until about 18 months ago due to a lawsuit filed by Blue Origin. Also, SpaceX is not receiving $2.9 billion a year, commensurate with the SLS rocket. It will receive $2.9 billion total for Starship development costs and two missions to the Moon, the second of which will carry crew on Artemis III.
That seems pretty nuts, right? Well, it gets worse.
A recent report by NASA's inspector general found that efforts to refurbish space shuttle main engines, manufacture new ones, and produce solid rocket boosters for the initial SLS launches have resulted in about $6 billion in cost increases and more than six years in schedule delays compared to NASA's original projections. Because this was a cost-plus contract, NASA had to swallow the expense. Put another way, compared to its total contribution for a lunar lander, NASA is paying twice as much for just cost overruns for engines and boosters that have existed for nearly five decades as part of the shuttle program.
Five years later, in 2011, NASA finalized the design of the Space Launch System rocket. However, the space agency had been funding related work by the rocket's prime contractor, Boeing, since 2007. NASA, on average, has spent nearly $3 billion annually on developing this SLS rocket for the last decade.
This is a lot of money because the SLS rocket started with some major advantages: It reused engines from the space shuttle program, it used solid-rocket boosters derived from the shuttle, and its core stage diameter was modeled on the shuttle's external fuel tank. It still took a decade to develop before its first successful test flight at the end of 2022.
Contrast that with the Human Landing System. Because so much of NASA's exploration funding was tied up in the cost-plus contracts for Orion and SLS—which pay a contractor's total costs, plus fees, without regard to delays and overruns—NASA did not have funding for a lander or spacesuits. It only awarded the lander contract to SpaceX in April 2021, and the funding did not kick in until about 18 months ago due to a lawsuit filed by Blue Origin. Also, SpaceX is not receiving $2.9 billion a year, commensurate with the SLS rocket. It will receive $2.9 billion total for Starship development costs and two missions to the Moon, the second of which will carry crew on Artemis III.
That seems pretty nuts, right? Well, it gets worse.
A recent report by NASA's inspector general found that efforts to refurbish space shuttle main engines, manufacture new ones, and produce solid rocket boosters for the initial SLS launches have resulted in about $6 billion in cost increases and more than six years in schedule delays compared to NASA's original projections. Because this was a cost-plus contract, NASA had to swallow the expense. Put another way, compared to its total contribution for a lunar lander, NASA is paying twice as much for just cost overruns for engines and boosters that have existed for nearly five decades as part of the shuttle program.
We get that you aren't fond of Berger's take that often challenges the old-guard way of doing things (or as you might prefer "a SX Fanboi"), but to assert his articles are essentially tabloid dreck that is devoid of any context or background simply isn't consistent with the articles I've seen published over the last few years....
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Execept, like everything in this world, it's not anywhere near as binary as that. Again, that you and others here have drawn that conclusion from Berger's article further makes my point for me. That usual suspects like @mongo and @scaesare have resorted to disingenuous participation in this thread does the same.
Make no mistake, literally everyone who's worked around the space industry would concur that there's a spectrum where there are both benefits and drawbacks to both cost+ and FFP. Literally everyone who's worked around the space Industry can cite examples of where both FFP and cost+ have proven their worth and proven to be problematic. That folks here simply refuse to accept that is quite disappointing.
Nope, that's exactly not what he's saying. Again, again, that you and others have drawn that conclusion from Berger's article is quite disappointing.
My experience from complex projects in a different field is that if projects have a large degree of technical risk trying to contract using FFP may lead to the best providers declining to bid (and the company that does win the bid failing to deliver - a lose/lose situation).
FFP works best in areas where the deliverable has already been proven to be technically possible. CRS, commercial crew and launch services are good examples.
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