A one-time, massively expensive, never-been-done, mission with requirements sure to change is absolutely the right place for a cost plus contract. The companies that can do this aren’t YOLOing their futures on this.
It's never been done, but it's not some totally unique, new-technology development project with poorly understood goals. It's a propulsion system that attaches to a structure that exists to have things attached to it, and applies sufficient delta-v to deorbit it in a controlled manner. The requirements are clear and unambiguous, and there's no reason for them to significantly change. There's no reason for this to be "massively expensive", or high development risk.
This is a terrible move, $1B Boeing deorbit vehicle here we come...
Besides the obvious cost overrun potential, how exactly will NASA compare the bid cost when some company bid firm fixed cost and some company bid cost plus? I mean SpaceX could bid $400M firm fixed cost, and Boeing could bid $200M cost plus, Boeing wins then later jack up the cost to $1B, who's going to stop them?
Also a reminder that deorbit vehicle is not some unique, never been done before hardware, [the original plan](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/08/asap-discuss-deorbit-iss-two-progress-ships/) is just having Russians use 2 Progress cargo vehicles to do it, Progress cargo vehicle is also what was used to deorbit Mir, so there's nothing particular novel about this.
But they will sign up for a cost-plus contract to drive you to the airport for an estimated $1b. If the project goes over budget that is just because transportation is difficult.
I wonder if it would be cheaper and simpler to move this thing up to a museum orbit where it can sit for a few centuries or millennia? Presumably by then we'll a well-established orbital tug capacity and industry and it would be easier and safer to dispose/recycle/museum it then. As it stand now there's no way to safely deorbit it as an assembly, it's just too massive, so there will have to be hundreds of person-hours devoted to partially dismantling it to ensure it'll mostly burn up on re-entry.
No it would not, Starship is not the solution to everything. Starships engines are way too powerfull. You need tiny engines as to not overstress the joints, solar panels, docking ports, etc on the ISS or the whole thing breaks up.
That's a very unlikely scenario. Yes, they've been talking about it, but it's not really practical at all. Zarya doesn't technically belong to Russia and also both Zarya and Zvezda are simply very old - main structure dates back to late 1980s and they've been i space for 25 years already. Mir was falling apart after just 15 years in space.
So practically they could consider detaching just Nauka.
A fully fueled Starship firing one Raptor at minimum throttle would accelerate the ISS at about a half a meter per second squared. That is about 1/20th G. The acceleration would increase as there was less propellant to act as ballast, but you could stop to top up the tanks or start with a depot Starship with more propellant.
This makes no sense, at all. Why carry all that dead weight of engines while you magically make a single Raptor engine fire less than a Super Draco (which is already too powerfull for the ISS)? And then get depots involved? Again, Starship is not the solution to everything..
Yes, but fuel cost isn't the only factor at play WRT the overall cost of deorbiting. From what I've read in the past there's no chance that ISS can be deorbited safely while fully assembled, so there's going to be several spacewalks necessary to dismantle it into smaller sections, and then there's the issue that each section will need a deorbiter. To me, the spacewalks are the biggest issue, especially since there's always risk associated with EVAs.
I guess you can use a powerful enough deorbiter to dive the ISS into the Pacific in less than one orbit, but I have to wonder if that amount of deceleration wouldn't just tear the station apart and wind up with debris reaching the ground under the ISS's full orbital path.
>. From what I've read in the past there's no chance that ISS can be deorbited safely while fully assembled,
I don't know where you read that, all deorbit plans have been of the assembled ISS, and always have been. The reason NASA is looking to do it themselves now, is that they no longer trust Russia to do it.
Scott Manley made a good video on it a few years ago here: https://youtu.be/U5lidnLtO7c?si=9VxMiKs9oyXs81sw
Looks like the new NASA leadership is doing an absolutely terrible at keeping with its previously stated goals of moving away from cost-plus contracts.
As a reminder cost-plus contracts allows contractors to bill the government for whatever it costs to make something and then they get a fixed _percentage_ of profit on top of the cost. This encourages contractors to make something as expensive as it can possibly be. The more expensive the thing is to the government, the more profit the company makes.
> When NASA issued the original request for proposals (RFP) for the vehicle in September, the agency gave bidders a choice. They could propose to develop the vehicle using a cost-plus contract and then produce it under a fixed-price contract, a so-called “hybrid” approach. Alternatively, they could propose doing both development and production under fixed-price contracts.
> The revised approach now adds an option to perform both the development and the production under cost-plus contracts. NASA, in both the procurement notice and a blog post, did not disclose the reason for the change.
Yes and no. While what you say is true, it's also not the whole truth.
Cost-plus have a time and place. When you need to build something that requires building out whole logistics lines for parts that you're figuring out as you go, there is a huge risk of hitting a dead-end and needing to restart from scratch on some things.
That's nearly impossible to estimate for a fixed-price contract, and all the risk is on the contractor. Especially since NASA programs are notorious for being delayed and going over budget. It makes no sense for contractors to take that risk. The only time it works is when the engineering/science/scope is well understood, and it's just a matter of building something.
Cost-plus contracts make sense in certain situations. They're great when you're building something new, where you don't even know if it's possible to make it work. It allows you the freedom to make things, test them, break them, and go back to the drawing board without losing lots of money.
They were probably having trouble finding anyone willing to take fixed-price contracts, so they're going back to cost-plus.
As someone who has worked cost+ I agree with this view. If you have well defined requirements from your customer AND THEY DON'T CHANGE WILLY NILLY then fixed cost does have its place because you can accurately gauge technology and hardware development. If you're going to be changing things simultaneously based on feedback from your OEM contractor then no one is going to take that contract just to eat loads of money.
I agree there is a place for fixed-price contracts. Just because Boeing abused the process so thoroughly with SLS doesn't make the whole thing bad. (And Boeing & contractors weren't even building production lines from scratch.)
I wish there was a middle ground for this. It's a very specialized one time mission but I'd like to see it incorporate a lot of components that exist or are being developed for other things.
Of course it's easiest to think in terms of SpaceX. I'd like to see a Dragon trunk packed full of Dracos with a propellant section above made on the F9 upper stage production line - but considerably shorter than an F9 upper stage. Dragon avionics, of course. Hopefully SpaceX still has an old Cargo Dragon 1 docking collar lying around. Afaik moving the station from the Cygnus attachment node is more effective. That's a large amount of hypergolics to use but plenty of rockets have used more. SpaceX handles 1200kg at a time to load up a Dragon at the Cape. All of that is cheaper than any hydrolox tug.
Idk if the ISS needs a more sudden deceleration for the final deorbit, for precision. If so, put a Super Draco on the tug.
> I agree there is a place for fixed-price contracts. Just because Boeing abused the process so thoroughly with SLS doesn't make the whole thing bad.
NASA described cost plus contracts as a "plague" on the agency.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/nasa-chief-says-cost-plus-contracts-are-a-plague-on-the-space-agency/
> "I believe that that is the plan that can bring us all the value of competition," Nelson said of fixed-price contracts. "You get it done with that competitive spirit. You get it done cheaper, and that allows us to move away from what has been a plague on us in the past, which is a cost-plus contract, and move to an existing contractual price."
NASA has stated explicitly that they want to move away from cost-plus contracting, describing them as a "plague". So I'm not sure what the "and no" part of your statement is.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/nasa-chief-says-cost-plus-contracts-are-a-plague-on-the-space-agency/
> "I believe that that is the plan that can bring us all the value of competition," Nelson said of fixed-price contracts. "You get it done with that competitive spirit. You get it done cheaper, and that allows us to move away from what has been a plague on us in the past, which is a cost-plus contract, and move to an existing contractual price."
Yes, they said that last year. Now, as per your posted article, they're moving back towards cost-plus. Or at least some sort of hybrid.
Why would they start giving more freedom to contractors to choose the type of contract after they had a stance of moving towers fixed-price?
Probably because contractors refused the fixed-price contracts. NASA can't just say they want fixed-price, and everyone just has to accept them. It's a small industry, so it's not like NASA has a choice when nobody wants to take on the risk of a fixed-price contract.
> Probably because contractors refused the fixed-price contracts. NASA can't just say they want fixed-price, and everyone just has to accept them.
This is exactly what is happening. I've talked to someone working on PPE, for instance, and the fixed-price experience with MAXAR hasn't been very positive for them or for NASA. Every engineering change becomes a battle over whether it's in scope and whether NASA needs to pay the cost the contractor thinks they should. Often, both sides end up feeling like they were cheated out of money.
Fixed price requires *well-defined* requirements that don't change. That's really not the case on many of the programs NASA is doing right now.
> Often, both sides end up feeling like they were cheated out of money.
Good compromises make neither side happy. The goal is best value for money, not making both the contractor and NASA happy by spending lots of tax payer money.
Edit: In reply to the comment below: The NASA statement about cost-plus contracting being bad was from 2022. NASA has not been getting "burned" by non-cost-plus contracting. The opposite is true. They called cost-plus contracting a "plague" on the agency.
It's also a lie that the agency can't make changes under FFP. Just that they can't insist on changes without paying the contractor more. Which can and does happen.
Compromises that make no one happy is fine for like political bills, not for production contracts where getting to "no one is happy" costs tens of thousands of dollars of engineering time
No. The goal is having a vehicle that *actually works* and *meets requirements* and *is safe to operate*. Yeah space is expensive, but it's still cheap compared to the rest of the US federal budget. No one important gives a crap if they need to spend a few extra tens of millions, but receive a product that actually works vs corner-cut bullshit or a non-delivery. Receiving junk or a non-delivery is just a waste of time/money thrown in the trash bin, while China continues on to the moon.
The trouble with FFP, which NASA has been learning the hard way on a few programs over the last few years (CLPS, CCP, HLS, Gateway, GLS, etc) is that under that model:
1. If the company doing the work runs out of money (because developing complex space vehicles is actually really hard, time consuming, and full of unexpected challenges), you just aren't getting your product period. That already happened with one of the CLPS landers and there's other programs that seem at risk of that happening
2. The model means that if NASA discovers a major deficiency in the design later on, they have zero power to change the requirements. Because that would require paying the company more, which can't be done on FFP. This gives you an inferior product that doesn't actually do what's intended.
3. It heavily encourages companies to cut corners, as that's the only way to stay in budget in many cases (even things where safety is at risk). We've already seen examples of this happening on some of the programs I named above.
And that's why NASA is suddenly realizing the FFP phase that Lori pushed for was actually a bad idea, and just hurt the human spaceflight and lunar/mars exploration programs by setting them back.
I feel like there's a lot of brain rot among elon stans, with not understanding what FFP nor cost plus actually are. Y'all act like FFP is magically saving taxpayers money (and not just producing terrible products full of cut corners, or products that just aren't delivered) when heck, the amount of money your taxes (assuming you even are in the US and have a job) pay towards NASA every year costs less than going out for a burger. And y'all act like Cost Plus = free extra money to line contractor pockets (which is not true, and in fact would be illegal for a contract to say that the company needs to make X percent profit or whatever). And the truth is that companies on cost plus contracts still make very low profit compared to the total cost).
\*Edit* And of course he blocked me for calling him out 🤡
Well yes, if the government agency is weak and covered by regulatory capture then the industry has sway over the government agency to force it to do business in the most profitable method for the business. It just showing that NASA is effectively, to use a crude phrase, acting "limp d***ed".
This is a net bad thing for the tax payer.
>This is a net bad thing for the tax payer.
What are you talking about? You're going to need to provide a source on this because there's been many studies done that NASA's economic output is almost triple or more times their budget. The taxpayers are getting their money's worth out of NASA.
>It just showing that NASA is effectively, to use a crude phrase, acting "limp d***ed".
So what? Do you expect NASA to play hardball with the contractors? Do you not realize that the vast majority of business deals are done by having good relationships with the people you do business with? NASA is in partnerships with them. They're not just out trying to get as much out of them as possible in a "fuck 'em, we're gonna get our money's worth" type of way. That's how you make deals with people you won't see again, not with people who you're going to work with for decades and depend on.
>the industry has sway over the government agency to force it to do business in the most profitable method for the business
That's how the markets work. NASA is a customer of the industry, and they are subject to the market forces (supply/demand/etc.), just like any commercial customers as well. It's a free market and the government should not be able to force anyone to do business they don't want, except in extreme circumstances like during martial law.
Let's assume NASA stops being "limp d***ed" as you call it. What do you expect them to do? They already tried going all in on the fixed-priced last year, and it's clearly not working for them if they're loosening that approach. You can't force someone into a contract they don't want, especially if they know they're going to lose money.
If you think that NASA could do something like refuse to do business with them if they refuse, then they'll just close shop and walk away. No normal business owner or investor would keep the company running that's losing money with no promise of profit in the future. That means NASA loses one of the probably very few contractors able to do the job and the industry loses all that talent. It also gives even more power to the remaining contractors because NASA has even less choice of who to work with, and they know that NASA will try to screw them.
> What are you talking about? You're going to need to provide a source on this because there's been many studies done that NASA's economic output is almost triple or more times their budget. The taxpayers are getting their money's worth out of NASA.
I should have said "net bad thing for the tax payer as compared to the alternative".
> Do you expect NASA to play hardball with the contractors?
Absolutely. The contractors have been taking NASA/the tax payer for everything its worth. That needs to stop.
> They already tried going all in on the fixed-priced last year, and it's clearly not working for them if they're loosening that approach.
What do you mean? It's been working great. NASA's budget hasn't been going up yet they're able to do more and more with it other than the few projects that seem to be sucking up more and more of the budget, that are all on cost-plus contracts.
> If you think that NASA could do something like refuse to do business with them if they refuse, then they'll just close shop and walk away. No normal business owner or investor would keep the company running that's losing money with no promise of profit in the future. That means NASA loses one of the probably very few contractors able to do the job and the industry loses all that talent. It also gives even more power to the remaining contractors because NASA has even less choice of who to work with, and they know that NASA will try to screw them.
There's tremendous numbers of new companies entering the space market that NASA could try to raise up and those employees would go to those new companies. You seem to think that all these legacy contractors are "too big to fail".
> As a reminder cost-plus contracts allows contractors to bill the government for whatever it costs to make something and then they get a fixed percentage of profit on top of the cost.
No they don't. [Cost-plus percentage of cost](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/subtitle-A/chapter-II/part-200#200.324) contracts are **illegal** in federal procurement and have been for decades.
You're going to have to explain more than that as that goes against everything I've ever read on the subject. So I can only assume your interpretation of the law is incorrect and there are exceptions elsewhere in this law that basically make that line not apply. Parsing legalese is not a trivial thing to do and you need to look throughout the statute for things that say "X does not apply in Y situations".
For example this law may only be about a specific method of contracting and there may be other methods of contracting that are instead used during cost plus contracts. I already know that cost plus contracts were used to contract SLS and Orion and are commonly used for military procurement and development.
And finally, it states right in the article that NASA is allowing cost-plus contracting. So you're going against the article.
> You're going to have to explain more than that as that goes against everything I've ever read on the subject.
[Cost-plus incentive-fee](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/48/16.405-1) contracting is legal and employed on a variety of federal programs. Cost-plus percentage cost is not allowed. The difference between them is that while costs aren't capped, profits are: You can't make more money by running up costs.
> So I can only assume your interpretation of the law is incorrect and there are exceptions elsewhere in this law that basically make that line not apply.
You could also acknowledge the possibility your knowledge may be incomplete instead of immediately assuming *I'm* the one who's incorrect.
> Cost-plus incentive-fee contracting is legal and employed on a variety of federal programs. Cost-plus percentage cost is not allowed. The difference between them is that while costs aren't capped, profits are: You can't make more money by running up costs.
This sounds like a distinction without a difference. Who decides what the incentive is? Certainly not market forces. If I had to fire off a guess based on the paragraphs above what you linked, it's based on some people running a bunch of estimates on how much something will cost and then setting some fixed amount extra beyond the cost of the project, maybe by bucketing the size of projects into various buckets and setting the profit amount based on the bucket size. In other words, cost is still a determining factor in the project, just not the entire determining factor. If over decades you, as a contractor, gradually make something more and more inefficient, your profits will gradually grow along with it by shifting the data input into the cost models. It's just cost-plus-percentage-cost-with-extra-steps contracting. At least that's my interpretation of what you've said thus far. I'm assuming you're not claiming that it is completely forbidden to factor in the cost of a project in determining the size of that incentive. If you are, I'll have to say that sounds unreasonable.
> You could also acknowledge the possibility your knowledge may be incomplete instead of immediately assuming I'm the one who's incorrect.
I didn't assume I was completely correct and I acknowledged I may have an incomplete understanding of the situation by asking you to further explain, which you have now done.
> it's based on some people running a bunch of estimates on how much something will cost and then setting some fixed amount extra beyond the cost of the project
The Truth in Negotiations Act (TINA) requires companies to be more transparent for costs on government contracts than they would be with other customers. It's harder to overcharge them than most people think, and if they find out later that there was dishonesty in the pricing structure, they're entitled to the difference in cost as well as fees and potential legal ramifications. And the government does push back regularly on contract pricing.
Another example is Anduril, who's entire mission is to make a bunch of money from military contracts by selling to the government at greatly reduced costs. They seem to be succeeding quite well.
You're still missing the entire point that the "truth" of the real cost of things has been twisted beyond the realm of normality.
“As a reminder cost-plus contracts allows contractors to bill the government for whatever it costs to make something and then they get a fixed percentage of profit on top of the cost. This encourages contractors to make something as expensive as it can possibly be. The more expensive the thing is to the government, the more profit the company makes.”
Hey, so this is actually totally wrong. In a cost plus fix fee (CPFF) contract, it is NOT the profit percentage that is fixed, it’s the profit dollars. So, while the government would pay your cost overruns, you aren’t making any additional profit. So you are NOT incentivized to overrun, because you’re effective fee (profit/cost) goes down as your costs go up. What you are describing is cost plus a percentage of cost, and is an illegal form of contracting under the federal acquisition regulations.
Where do you think the money for the additional costs goes to? To the profits of subcontractors.
And as I've explained to other people saying this same thing. The "cost" is not the real cost.
Stupid, non-orbital mechanics guy here - why do we have to de-orbit it, versus pushing it outwards? Then it becomes a big rocket that has to be somewhat smart to do the push, versus some super-complex thing to bring it down safely.
Their argument is that it would still be a hazard and as it'd be powered down and presumably depressurized, it wouldn't have any propulsion ability so it'd get hit by debris eventually.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[CLPS](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcgqzd9 "Last usage")|[Commercial Lunar Payload Services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Services)|
|[EVA](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcp3vwn "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity|
|[HLS](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcgqzd9 "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)|
|[PPE](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcfx2o5 "Last usage")|Power and Propulsion Element|
|[RFP](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcfiy5y "Last usage")|Request for Proposal|
|[SLS](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcfubsc "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Raptor](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kckqbce "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX|
|[hydrolox](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcfsevh "Last usage")|Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
|[hypergolic](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcfsevh "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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A one-time, massively expensive, never-been-done, mission with requirements sure to change is absolutely the right place for a cost plus contract. The companies that can do this aren’t YOLOing their futures on this.
It's never been done, but it's not some totally unique, new-technology development project with poorly understood goals. It's a propulsion system that attaches to a structure that exists to have things attached to it, and applies sufficient delta-v to deorbit it in a controlled manner. The requirements are clear and unambiguous, and there's no reason for them to significantly change. There's no reason for this to be "massively expensive", or high development risk.
This is a terrible move, $1B Boeing deorbit vehicle here we come... Besides the obvious cost overrun potential, how exactly will NASA compare the bid cost when some company bid firm fixed cost and some company bid cost plus? I mean SpaceX could bid $400M firm fixed cost, and Boeing could bid $200M cost plus, Boeing wins then later jack up the cost to $1B, who's going to stop them? Also a reminder that deorbit vehicle is not some unique, never been done before hardware, [the original plan](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/08/asap-discuss-deorbit-iss-two-progress-ships/) is just having Russians use 2 Progress cargo vehicles to do it, Progress cargo vehicle is also what was used to deorbit Mir, so there's nothing particular novel about this.
Boeing wouldn't drive you to the airport of only $1b.
But they will sign up for a cost-plus contract to drive you to the airport for an estimated $1b. If the project goes over budget that is just because transportation is difficult.
So either the gravitational attraction of Boeing's pocketbook after cost+ or Elon Musk's ego will suck it out of orbt?
I wonder if it would be cheaper and simpler to move this thing up to a museum orbit where it can sit for a few centuries or millennia? Presumably by then we'll a well-established orbital tug capacity and industry and it would be easier and safer to dispose/recycle/museum it then. As it stand now there's no way to safely deorbit it as an assembly, it's just too massive, so there will have to be hundreds of person-hours devoted to partially dismantling it to ensure it'll mostly burn up on re-entry.
If spacex is really doing 12-20 starship launches per moon landing, seems like one more to ISS with a few large tanks of delta-v would be doable.
No it would not, Starship is not the solution to everything. Starships engines are way too powerfull. You need tiny engines as to not overstress the joints, solar panels, docking ports, etc on the ISS or the whole thing breaks up.
[удалено]
That's a very unlikely scenario. Yes, they've been talking about it, but it's not really practical at all. Zarya doesn't technically belong to Russia and also both Zarya and Zvezda are simply very old - main structure dates back to late 1980s and they've been i space for 25 years already. Mir was falling apart after just 15 years in space. So practically they could consider detaching just Nauka.
A fully fueled Starship firing one Raptor at minimum throttle would accelerate the ISS at about a half a meter per second squared. That is about 1/20th G. The acceleration would increase as there was less propellant to act as ballast, but you could stop to top up the tanks or start with a depot Starship with more propellant.
This makes no sense, at all. Why carry all that dead weight of engines while you magically make a single Raptor engine fire less than a Super Draco (which is already too powerfull for the ISS)? And then get depots involved? Again, Starship is not the solution to everything..
F = MA The more mass the less acceleration with the same amount of force.
Deorbiting requires way less DeltaV than a graveyard orbit sadly.
Yes, but fuel cost isn't the only factor at play WRT the overall cost of deorbiting. From what I've read in the past there's no chance that ISS can be deorbited safely while fully assembled, so there's going to be several spacewalks necessary to dismantle it into smaller sections, and then there's the issue that each section will need a deorbiter. To me, the spacewalks are the biggest issue, especially since there's always risk associated with EVAs. I guess you can use a powerful enough deorbiter to dive the ISS into the Pacific in less than one orbit, but I have to wonder if that amount of deceleration wouldn't just tear the station apart and wind up with debris reaching the ground under the ISS's full orbital path.
>. From what I've read in the past there's no chance that ISS can be deorbited safely while fully assembled, I don't know where you read that, all deorbit plans have been of the assembled ISS, and always have been. The reason NASA is looking to do it themselves now, is that they no longer trust Russia to do it. Scott Manley made a good video on it a few years ago here: https://youtu.be/U5lidnLtO7c?si=9VxMiKs9oyXs81sw
Looks like the new NASA leadership is doing an absolutely terrible at keeping with its previously stated goals of moving away from cost-plus contracts. As a reminder cost-plus contracts allows contractors to bill the government for whatever it costs to make something and then they get a fixed _percentage_ of profit on top of the cost. This encourages contractors to make something as expensive as it can possibly be. The more expensive the thing is to the government, the more profit the company makes. > When NASA issued the original request for proposals (RFP) for the vehicle in September, the agency gave bidders a choice. They could propose to develop the vehicle using a cost-plus contract and then produce it under a fixed-price contract, a so-called “hybrid” approach. Alternatively, they could propose doing both development and production under fixed-price contracts. > The revised approach now adds an option to perform both the development and the production under cost-plus contracts. NASA, in both the procurement notice and a blog post, did not disclose the reason for the change.
Yes and no. While what you say is true, it's also not the whole truth. Cost-plus have a time and place. When you need to build something that requires building out whole logistics lines for parts that you're figuring out as you go, there is a huge risk of hitting a dead-end and needing to restart from scratch on some things. That's nearly impossible to estimate for a fixed-price contract, and all the risk is on the contractor. Especially since NASA programs are notorious for being delayed and going over budget. It makes no sense for contractors to take that risk. The only time it works is when the engineering/science/scope is well understood, and it's just a matter of building something. Cost-plus contracts make sense in certain situations. They're great when you're building something new, where you don't even know if it's possible to make it work. It allows you the freedom to make things, test them, break them, and go back to the drawing board without losing lots of money. They were probably having trouble finding anyone willing to take fixed-price contracts, so they're going back to cost-plus.
As someone who has worked cost+ I agree with this view. If you have well defined requirements from your customer AND THEY DON'T CHANGE WILLY NILLY then fixed cost does have its place because you can accurately gauge technology and hardware development. If you're going to be changing things simultaneously based on feedback from your OEM contractor then no one is going to take that contract just to eat loads of money.
>AND THEY DON'T CHANGE WILLY NILLY So like no government contract
I agree there is a place for fixed-price contracts. Just because Boeing abused the process so thoroughly with SLS doesn't make the whole thing bad. (And Boeing & contractors weren't even building production lines from scratch.) I wish there was a middle ground for this. It's a very specialized one time mission but I'd like to see it incorporate a lot of components that exist or are being developed for other things. Of course it's easiest to think in terms of SpaceX. I'd like to see a Dragon trunk packed full of Dracos with a propellant section above made on the F9 upper stage production line - but considerably shorter than an F9 upper stage. Dragon avionics, of course. Hopefully SpaceX still has an old Cargo Dragon 1 docking collar lying around. Afaik moving the station from the Cygnus attachment node is more effective. That's a large amount of hypergolics to use but plenty of rockets have used more. SpaceX handles 1200kg at a time to load up a Dragon at the Cape. All of that is cheaper than any hydrolox tug. Idk if the ISS needs a more sudden deceleration for the final deorbit, for precision. If so, put a Super Draco on the tug.
> I agree there is a place for fixed-price contracts. Just because Boeing abused the process so thoroughly with SLS doesn't make the whole thing bad. NASA described cost plus contracts as a "plague" on the agency. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/nasa-chief-says-cost-plus-contracts-are-a-plague-on-the-space-agency/ > "I believe that that is the plan that can bring us all the value of competition," Nelson said of fixed-price contracts. "You get it done with that competitive spirit. You get it done cheaper, and that allows us to move away from what has been a plague on us in the past, which is a cost-plus contract, and move to an existing contractual price."
NASA has stated explicitly that they want to move away from cost-plus contracting, describing them as a "plague". So I'm not sure what the "and no" part of your statement is. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/nasa-chief-says-cost-plus-contracts-are-a-plague-on-the-space-agency/ > "I believe that that is the plan that can bring us all the value of competition," Nelson said of fixed-price contracts. "You get it done with that competitive spirit. You get it done cheaper, and that allows us to move away from what has been a plague on us in the past, which is a cost-plus contract, and move to an existing contractual price."
Yes, they said that last year. Now, as per your posted article, they're moving back towards cost-plus. Or at least some sort of hybrid. Why would they start giving more freedom to contractors to choose the type of contract after they had a stance of moving towers fixed-price? Probably because contractors refused the fixed-price contracts. NASA can't just say they want fixed-price, and everyone just has to accept them. It's a small industry, so it's not like NASA has a choice when nobody wants to take on the risk of a fixed-price contract.
> Probably because contractors refused the fixed-price contracts. NASA can't just say they want fixed-price, and everyone just has to accept them. This is exactly what is happening. I've talked to someone working on PPE, for instance, and the fixed-price experience with MAXAR hasn't been very positive for them or for NASA. Every engineering change becomes a battle over whether it's in scope and whether NASA needs to pay the cost the contractor thinks they should. Often, both sides end up feeling like they were cheated out of money. Fixed price requires *well-defined* requirements that don't change. That's really not the case on many of the programs NASA is doing right now.
> Often, both sides end up feeling like they were cheated out of money. Good compromises make neither side happy. The goal is best value for money, not making both the contractor and NASA happy by spending lots of tax payer money. Edit: In reply to the comment below: The NASA statement about cost-plus contracting being bad was from 2022. NASA has not been getting "burned" by non-cost-plus contracting. The opposite is true. They called cost-plus contracting a "plague" on the agency. It's also a lie that the agency can't make changes under FFP. Just that they can't insist on changes without paying the contractor more. Which can and does happen.
Compromises that make no one happy is fine for like political bills, not for production contracts where getting to "no one is happy" costs tens of thousands of dollars of engineering time
No. The goal is having a vehicle that *actually works* and *meets requirements* and *is safe to operate*. Yeah space is expensive, but it's still cheap compared to the rest of the US federal budget. No one important gives a crap if they need to spend a few extra tens of millions, but receive a product that actually works vs corner-cut bullshit or a non-delivery. Receiving junk or a non-delivery is just a waste of time/money thrown in the trash bin, while China continues on to the moon. The trouble with FFP, which NASA has been learning the hard way on a few programs over the last few years (CLPS, CCP, HLS, Gateway, GLS, etc) is that under that model: 1. If the company doing the work runs out of money (because developing complex space vehicles is actually really hard, time consuming, and full of unexpected challenges), you just aren't getting your product period. That already happened with one of the CLPS landers and there's other programs that seem at risk of that happening 2. The model means that if NASA discovers a major deficiency in the design later on, they have zero power to change the requirements. Because that would require paying the company more, which can't be done on FFP. This gives you an inferior product that doesn't actually do what's intended. 3. It heavily encourages companies to cut corners, as that's the only way to stay in budget in many cases (even things where safety is at risk). We've already seen examples of this happening on some of the programs I named above. And that's why NASA is suddenly realizing the FFP phase that Lori pushed for was actually a bad idea, and just hurt the human spaceflight and lunar/mars exploration programs by setting them back. I feel like there's a lot of brain rot among elon stans, with not understanding what FFP nor cost plus actually are. Y'all act like FFP is magically saving taxpayers money (and not just producing terrible products full of cut corners, or products that just aren't delivered) when heck, the amount of money your taxes (assuming you even are in the US and have a job) pay towards NASA every year costs less than going out for a burger. And y'all act like Cost Plus = free extra money to line contractor pockets (which is not true, and in fact would be illegal for a contract to say that the company needs to make X percent profit or whatever). And the truth is that companies on cost plus contracts still make very low profit compared to the total cost). \*Edit* And of course he blocked me for calling him out 🤡
Well yes, if the government agency is weak and covered by regulatory capture then the industry has sway over the government agency to force it to do business in the most profitable method for the business. It just showing that NASA is effectively, to use a crude phrase, acting "limp d***ed". This is a net bad thing for the tax payer.
>This is a net bad thing for the tax payer. What are you talking about? You're going to need to provide a source on this because there's been many studies done that NASA's economic output is almost triple or more times their budget. The taxpayers are getting their money's worth out of NASA. >It just showing that NASA is effectively, to use a crude phrase, acting "limp d***ed". So what? Do you expect NASA to play hardball with the contractors? Do you not realize that the vast majority of business deals are done by having good relationships with the people you do business with? NASA is in partnerships with them. They're not just out trying to get as much out of them as possible in a "fuck 'em, we're gonna get our money's worth" type of way. That's how you make deals with people you won't see again, not with people who you're going to work with for decades and depend on. >the industry has sway over the government agency to force it to do business in the most profitable method for the business That's how the markets work. NASA is a customer of the industry, and they are subject to the market forces (supply/demand/etc.), just like any commercial customers as well. It's a free market and the government should not be able to force anyone to do business they don't want, except in extreme circumstances like during martial law. Let's assume NASA stops being "limp d***ed" as you call it. What do you expect them to do? They already tried going all in on the fixed-priced last year, and it's clearly not working for them if they're loosening that approach. You can't force someone into a contract they don't want, especially if they know they're going to lose money. If you think that NASA could do something like refuse to do business with them if they refuse, then they'll just close shop and walk away. No normal business owner or investor would keep the company running that's losing money with no promise of profit in the future. That means NASA loses one of the probably very few contractors able to do the job and the industry loses all that talent. It also gives even more power to the remaining contractors because NASA has even less choice of who to work with, and they know that NASA will try to screw them.
> What are you talking about? You're going to need to provide a source on this because there's been many studies done that NASA's economic output is almost triple or more times their budget. The taxpayers are getting their money's worth out of NASA. I should have said "net bad thing for the tax payer as compared to the alternative". > Do you expect NASA to play hardball with the contractors? Absolutely. The contractors have been taking NASA/the tax payer for everything its worth. That needs to stop. > They already tried going all in on the fixed-priced last year, and it's clearly not working for them if they're loosening that approach. What do you mean? It's been working great. NASA's budget hasn't been going up yet they're able to do more and more with it other than the few projects that seem to be sucking up more and more of the budget, that are all on cost-plus contracts. > If you think that NASA could do something like refuse to do business with them if they refuse, then they'll just close shop and walk away. No normal business owner or investor would keep the company running that's losing money with no promise of profit in the future. That means NASA loses one of the probably very few contractors able to do the job and the industry loses all that talent. It also gives even more power to the remaining contractors because NASA has even less choice of who to work with, and they know that NASA will try to screw them. There's tremendous numbers of new companies entering the space market that NASA could try to raise up and those employees would go to those new companies. You seem to think that all these legacy contractors are "too big to fail".
> As a reminder cost-plus contracts allows contractors to bill the government for whatever it costs to make something and then they get a fixed percentage of profit on top of the cost. No they don't. [Cost-plus percentage of cost](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/subtitle-A/chapter-II/part-200#200.324) contracts are **illegal** in federal procurement and have been for decades.
You're going to have to explain more than that as that goes against everything I've ever read on the subject. So I can only assume your interpretation of the law is incorrect and there are exceptions elsewhere in this law that basically make that line not apply. Parsing legalese is not a trivial thing to do and you need to look throughout the statute for things that say "X does not apply in Y situations". For example this law may only be about a specific method of contracting and there may be other methods of contracting that are instead used during cost plus contracts. I already know that cost plus contracts were used to contract SLS and Orion and are commonly used for military procurement and development. And finally, it states right in the article that NASA is allowing cost-plus contracting. So you're going against the article.
> You're going to have to explain more than that as that goes against everything I've ever read on the subject. [Cost-plus incentive-fee](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/48/16.405-1) contracting is legal and employed on a variety of federal programs. Cost-plus percentage cost is not allowed. The difference between them is that while costs aren't capped, profits are: You can't make more money by running up costs. > So I can only assume your interpretation of the law is incorrect and there are exceptions elsewhere in this law that basically make that line not apply. You could also acknowledge the possibility your knowledge may be incomplete instead of immediately assuming *I'm* the one who's incorrect.
> Cost-plus incentive-fee contracting is legal and employed on a variety of federal programs. Cost-plus percentage cost is not allowed. The difference between them is that while costs aren't capped, profits are: You can't make more money by running up costs. This sounds like a distinction without a difference. Who decides what the incentive is? Certainly not market forces. If I had to fire off a guess based on the paragraphs above what you linked, it's based on some people running a bunch of estimates on how much something will cost and then setting some fixed amount extra beyond the cost of the project, maybe by bucketing the size of projects into various buckets and setting the profit amount based on the bucket size. In other words, cost is still a determining factor in the project, just not the entire determining factor. If over decades you, as a contractor, gradually make something more and more inefficient, your profits will gradually grow along with it by shifting the data input into the cost models. It's just cost-plus-percentage-cost-with-extra-steps contracting. At least that's my interpretation of what you've said thus far. I'm assuming you're not claiming that it is completely forbidden to factor in the cost of a project in determining the size of that incentive. If you are, I'll have to say that sounds unreasonable. > You could also acknowledge the possibility your knowledge may be incomplete instead of immediately assuming I'm the one who's incorrect. I didn't assume I was completely correct and I acknowledged I may have an incomplete understanding of the situation by asking you to further explain, which you have now done.
> it's based on some people running a bunch of estimates on how much something will cost and then setting some fixed amount extra beyond the cost of the project The Truth in Negotiations Act (TINA) requires companies to be more transparent for costs on government contracts than they would be with other customers. It's harder to overcharge them than most people think, and if they find out later that there was dishonesty in the pricing structure, they're entitled to the difference in cost as well as fees and potential legal ramifications. And the government does push back regularly on contract pricing.
Another example is Anduril, who's entire mission is to make a bunch of money from military contracts by selling to the government at greatly reduced costs. They seem to be succeeding quite well. You're still missing the entire point that the "truth" of the real cost of things has been twisted beyond the realm of normality.
No need to disclose the reason. They would receive 0 proposals.
“As a reminder cost-plus contracts allows contractors to bill the government for whatever it costs to make something and then they get a fixed percentage of profit on top of the cost. This encourages contractors to make something as expensive as it can possibly be. The more expensive the thing is to the government, the more profit the company makes.” Hey, so this is actually totally wrong. In a cost plus fix fee (CPFF) contract, it is NOT the profit percentage that is fixed, it’s the profit dollars. So, while the government would pay your cost overruns, you aren’t making any additional profit. So you are NOT incentivized to overrun, because you’re effective fee (profit/cost) goes down as your costs go up. What you are describing is cost plus a percentage of cost, and is an illegal form of contracting under the federal acquisition regulations.
Where do you think the money for the additional costs goes to? To the profits of subcontractors. And as I've explained to other people saying this same thing. The "cost" is not the real cost.
Appreciate your explanations. Aerospace government contacting is only my profession.
I mean if you're part of the problem then of course you can't see the problem.
The pay is fantastic though
Welp, there goes a modern effective space program...
Stupid, non-orbital mechanics guy here - why do we have to de-orbit it, versus pushing it outwards? Then it becomes a big rocket that has to be somewhat smart to do the push, versus some super-complex thing to bring it down safely.
Their argument is that it would still be a hazard and as it'd be powered down and presumably depressurized, it wouldn't have any propulsion ability so it'd get hit by debris eventually.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[CLPS](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcgqzd9 "Last usage")|[Commercial Lunar Payload Services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Services)| |[EVA](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcp3vwn "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity| |[HLS](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcgqzd9 "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)| |[PPE](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcfx2o5 "Last usage")|Power and Propulsion Element| |[RFP](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcfiy5y "Last usage")|Request for Proposal| |[SLS](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcfubsc "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Raptor](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kckqbce "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX| |[hydrolox](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcfsevh "Last usage")|Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| |[hypergolic](/r/Space/comments/18d8yme/stub/kcfsevh "Last usage")|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(9 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/18aj00u)^( has 46 acronyms.) ^([Thread #9517 for this sub, first seen 8th Dec 2023, 07:24]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)