Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from sushi.andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Thu, 11 Jan 90 01:29:04 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <0Zf2SEy00WCNEAVE5K@andrew.cmu.edu> Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Thu, 11 Jan 90 01:28:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #408 SPACE Digest Volume 10 : Issue 408 Today's Topics: NASA Prediction Bulletins: Space Shuttle Still more HR2674 testimony (part 1 of 2) . Re: Nuclear Reactors in Space ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Jan 90 23:56:40 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!helios.ee.lbl.gov!ncis.tis.llnl.gov!blackbird!tkelso@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (TS Kelso) Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletins: Space Shuttle The most current orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are carried on the Celestial RCP/M, (513) 427-0674, and are updated several times weekly. Documentation and tracking software are also available on this system. As a service to the satellite user community, the most current elements for the current shuttle mission are provided below. The Celestial RCP/M may be accessed 24 hours/day at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity. STS 32 1 20409U 90002 A 90 10.79513865 .00052462 00000-0 25599-3 0 72 2 20409 28.4982 131.8483 0014729 53.7862 53.6237 15.80679580 209 -- Dr TS Kelso Asst Professor of Space Operations tkelso@blackbird.afit.af.mil Air Force Institute of Technology ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jan 90 15:09:59 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!samsung!umich!sharkey!itivax!vax3!aws@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Allen W. Sherzer) Subject: Still more HR2674 testimony (part 1 of 2) Testimony of COMSTAC Subcommittee on Procurement to Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications on Implementation of the Commercial Space Launch Act and its Amendments and Space Transportation Services Purchase Act of 1989 9 November 1998 Mr. Chairman: My name is Dennis Dunbar. I am the Vice President of Programs and Technical Operations for General Dynamics Commercial Launch Services, Inc. Today I am representing Mr. Ron Stoneburner who is the chairman for the COMSTAC Subcommittee on Procurement. Unfortunately, Mr. Stoneburner is out of the country at this time, and I have been asked to represent the views of this subcommittee. Some time ago, COMSTAC recognized the extreme importance of the USG procurement policies and their effect on viability and growth of a U.S. commercial launch industry. This led to the formation of COMSTAC's special subcommittee which has been in effect for about two years. Members include representatives for every U.S. launch vehicle company. It also includes several of the spacecraft companies. The most recent product of this committee was a model Request for Proposal (RFP) and a model contract illustrating how the government can realize the maximum benefits in buying commercial launch services. This report was approved by the COMSTAC and forwarded to the Secretary of Transportation with the recommendation that it be forwarded to apropriate government departments and agencies as well as to key members and staffs of Congress. The Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 and the Ammendments of 1988 recognized the importance of a commercial launch services industry to our nation, from both the economic and national security perspectives. Your committee is to be commended for their foresight and for establishing reasonable policies for aiding the development of the U.S. commercial launch services industry. However, it is a long step from setting policy to actual implementation. Statements such as "the government shall procure launch services in a commercial reasonable manner" are subject to a variety of interpretations. It requires a complete change of mind set on the part of those doing the procuring for the government to realize the full benefits of commercial procurement in this arena. The commercialization of this industry has come a long way in the past two years. While we have seen significant changes in the thrust toward the concept of procurement of commercial launch services by the government, cultural and institutional changes are far from total in their acceptance and implementation. Some government organizations previously charged with procuring launch vehicles and overseeing contractor work struggle to find new roles. Other government agencies continue to prefer traditional government procurement methods. The mutual objectives of government and industry can only be met by continued open and frank discussion of these issues -- issues that clearly require our mutual cooperation for their resolution. I commend you, Mr. Chairman and your committee, for your continued commitment to these issues. Our industry is now producing commercial launch services to provide services for various commercial customers. There are some key advantages to the government procuring services in the same manner. 1. The commitment to block production of vehicles on the part of the company provides to the government the economic and schedule benefits fo multiyear procurements but with annually funded requirements. 2. With common government approved, specifications, costs are lower because of volume production. 3. Common hardware provides flexibility and a shorter call-up capability from a large production base. As a result, the cost of commercial launch services is lower to the government than that obtained through traditional government procurement. Let me give you specific example: The Air Force MLV II request for proposal recognized these advantages and called for specific tailoring by the offerors to accommodated the commercial aspects of the program. General Dynamics responded by requesting some specific tailoring of the government specifications and offering a very attractive price based on a combined commercial/government program. In fact, if we compare the recurring costs to put a payload into orbit for the last contract under full-up Federal Acquisition Regulations and untailored military specifications, and the cost we have estimated for the launch service for the Atlas II (our vehicle for the Air Force MLV II) we are confident that it results in a **64% reduction** in cost per pound to orbit. Of this 64% reduction, some 20% is attributed to our commercialization approach, 18% is the result of performance improvements, 15% is due to rate and learning (going from an equivalent of manufacturing one and one-half vehicles per year to eight per year), and 11% is attributed to configuration changes. Our performance to these estimates is substantially dependent on the actions or lack of actions on the part of our government. I would like to review some my company's experiences with several other recent procurements. By coincidence, General Dynamics received a request for launch services from a commercial company about the same time we received one from the government. This was early 1987. Both were for spacecraft of similar size, to be delivered to similar orbits. Our proposal to the commercial company required 91 pages; our proposal to the government required 4,250 pages! After spirited negotiations, GD was able to convince the government that many of their usual requirements just did not fit in a commercial buy. There were many arguments -- we won some and lost some -- but there was a healthy movement in what we consider the right direction. However, a later procurement from the same government agency had many of the same procurement clauses that had been negotiated away in the previous procurement -- a step backwards! Subsequent proposal requests from the same government agency show positive improvements, th4e last of which could be answered in 500 pages and encouraged bidders to propose alternate commercial clauses to the standard government clauses -- a large step forward. I think that this is indicative of the difficulty in making such a drastic change from the previous way of doing business. Procurement officials have a large volume of Federal Aquisition Regulations (FARs) that they live by. There is a personnel risk in their waiver of specific FARs, but thre is not commensurate reward. With the exception of Congress, who established certain policies in the Commercial Space Launch Act and its Amendments, there have not been specific policy instructions promulgated by the Administration (ie. by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy). It seems to our committee that this is a very important missing ingredient. Lacking this, our committee established this model RFP and model contract, hoping that government officials procuring launches will accept all or most of the provisions that we recommend. Let me provide to you a few examples of our recommendations: 1. Payment Schedule -- Formerly, the government made progress payments based on a percentage of completion of the work. Our model contract includes a fixed payment schedule rather than progress payments. This change is necessary because quantities of launch vehicles are being produced on speculation, at contractor risk, and not allocated to specific missions until just before completion. Therefore, there is no specific relationship between the cost of an individual vehicle and the price or payments of an individual launch service contract. 2. Statement of work -- It is limited to mission requirements. This is a "performance type" work statement that specified mission peculiar orbit requirements, interfaces, and environments. How that performance is achieved is within the discretion of the Contractor. It is very important that procurement officials keep in mind that the contract is for launch services not for procurement of launch vehicles. 3. Inspection -- The model contract provides that the USG will have access to all data and a right of examination of all work in progress. However, the USG would only have an approval right at some specified event prior to launch (most likely a Flight Readiness Review or a Quality Report and System Review). 4. Launch Schedule Adjustment -- The contract includes a procedure whereby both parties can adjust the launch schedule without penalty as long as adequate notice is given and as long as the cumulative adjustment is not beyond one year or some similar specified period of time. If adequate notice is not provided, a schedule penalty is imposed. If adjustments are beyond the specified period, the contract is subject to possible termination. 5. Termination -- If the USG elects to terminate for convenience, the termination liability is fixed in the contract. This amount will vary with time and become larger as the termination date approaches the launch date. Because the vehicles are being built in continuous production runs, the precise termination costs are impossible to determine. The vehicles may continue to be built with attempts to sell to another customer. If the USG termination is for default, the the contractor will refund all payments made by the USG. The contractor will not be liable for excess procurement costs because launch services from different suppliers are not comparable and because the excess liability could vastly exceed the value of the contract. 6. Cost or Pricing Data -- The contract imposes the requirement for certification of cost or pricing data only in regard to changes made after contract award. Because the vehicles are built in continuous production runs, there is no cost or pricing data available that pertains only to the specific launch services procured. The key to the viability to our U.S. commercial launch services industry is tha the U.S. Government must be a positive force by participating through the purchase of launch services (or space transportation services) on a commercial basis. While there may be valid reasons for the government to wish to except launch of certain high value national resource payloads from commercial procurement, these exceptions should be extremely limited and discouraged. Mr. Chairman, we applaud the past two bills that you have passed and believe that the new bill proposed by Congressman Packard puts more teeth in earlier policy statements. We agree with and support the intent and spirit of this new bill. I appreciate the opportunity of appearing here and I am available for questions. --------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to Catherine Rawlings for sending me all the HR2674 hearings testimony (she's Packard's aide for the Space Science and Applications Subcommitee), and to the Industrial Technology Institute for letting me type this in during my lunch hour on a Lisp machine with a decent editor (what a waste, but it sure beats banging away at 1200 baud on my home laptop). ------------------------------Tihamer Toth-Fejel ttf@iti.org---- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Allen W. Sherzer | Is the local cluster the result | | aws@iti.org | of gerrymandering? | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ ReSent-Message-ID: <0ZexI8y00WB9E7wENQ@andrew.cmu.edu> ReSent-Date: Wed, 10 Jan 90 19:36:24 -0500 (EST) ReSent-From: "Todd L. Masco" ReSent-To: Space Date: 10 JAN 90 02:05:15 CDT From: MARK KINSLER To: Subject: . Comments: Answering received message Re: Gyroscopes whose weight seems to change: They were doing a great deal of flywheel research about ten years ago. They were able to spin 700 lb wheels at zillions of rpm in a vacuum. The idea was to use them to store energy, and somebody actually built a bus powered by a flywheel (kept running by dynamic braking and a small engine after an initial spin). I doubt, however, that flywheel researchers weighed their apparatus. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jan 90 21:07:27 GMT From: vsi1!daver!lynx!neal@apple.com (Neal Woodall) Subject: Re: Nuclear Reactors in Space In article <4756@itivax.iti.org> aws@vax3.UUCP (Allen W. Sherzer) writes: >In article <9547@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes: >>No, they consistently use the phrase "generators". If there is an >>error, it's mine. And yours; there are obvious similarities between >>conventional reactors and RTGs. "Completely different"? Sure, sure. >Outside of the fact that both use similar fuel I don't see much similarities. Sure, there is a fundamental similarity: both use nuclear processes to "store" their energy (as opposed to chemical proceses in a battery). Beyond this, they are dissimilar. It is the fundamental differences which are much more important: 1) The reactor uses a fissionable form of Plutonium which emits fast neutrons and is capable of sustaining a nuclear reaction, while the RTG uses a non- fisionable form of plutonium which emits only (I believe) beta particles..... which you you rather be hit by, a bunch of fast neutrons or a bunch of beta particles? 2) The nuclear reactor gets its power from a sutained nuclear reaction, and as such has the potential to get out of hand, while the RTG gets its power strictly from nuclear decay...no chance of a runaway chain reaction here. 3) Because the nuclear reactor actually has a sustained nuclear reaction going on inside of it, it needs active control systems to dampen the reaction....thus, it is much more complex. The RTG, on the other hand, has no sustained reaction going on, and needs no active control systems....it is much simpler and safer. 4) Of course, the nuclear reactor can put out a lot more energy per its own mass because it is a sustained nuclear reaction. In all, the RTG is an excellent trade-off of safety and power: because it uses nuclear fuel, it has a very high energy density....much higher than chemical batteries. However, because the fuel is not fissionable, it is much safer. Also, because there is no nuclear chain reaction, it is safer than a reactor. Neal ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V10 #408 *******************