With a new presidential administration promising to review its human spaceflight activities, NASA on Thursday continued to signal a willingness to consider alternatives to its exploration systems—the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, and related ground systems developed at Kennedy Space Center to support their launch later this decade and in the 2020s.

In its latest request for information (RFI) released Thursday afternoon, NASA seeks solutions from industry and academia to maximize "the long term efficiency and sustainability" of its of exploration systems programs. Essentially, NASA wants ideas on how best to cut the production and operations costs for its SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, which presently consume more than $3 billion annually in development costs. However, the RFI also offers respondents the opportunity to submit ideas about rockets and spacecraft that might compete with NASA's own vehicles for exploration funds.

Specifically, the document requests responses about: "Competing exploration services in the mid-2020s timeframe and beyond if the market demonstrates such services are available, reliable, and consistent with NASA architectural needs." Ars understands this to mean that if private competitors such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance, or other companies produce less expensive rockets and spacecraft within the next five to seven years, NASA will consider using them in lieu of SLS and Orion.

Fixed costs

NASA's preference would be to fly the rocket and spacecraft it is developing under an agreement reached by President Obama and the US Congress in 2011. This plan called for development of a large rocket, based upon space shuttle engines, and a capsule larger than the Apollo spacecraft that carried astronauts to the Moon. However, these vehicles (managed by NASA and built by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, respectively) have proved costly. NASA has very little money left over to use for actual exploration.

In an interview this summer, the engineer who oversees the development of SLS and Orion for NASA, Bill Hill, acknowledged that the vehicles were too costly now to be practical. “We’re just way too expensive today,” Hill told Ars. “It’s going to take some different thinking and maybe a little bit more risk taking than what we’re wanting to do today.”

NASA hopes to reach a flight rate of one SLS and Orion launch per year by the year 2023. As it moves into this operational phase, Hill has set an annual target for these "production and operations" costs to build, test, and fly the vehicles. “My top number for Orion, SLS, and the ground systems that support it is $2 billion or less,” Hill said. “I mean that’s my real ultimate goal. We were running at about three-plus, $3.6 billion during the latter days of the space shuttle. Of course, there again, we were flying six or seven missions. I think we’re actually going to have to get to less than that.”

Cutting costs

RFIs are a common method used by the government to solicit public input. They do not seek specific proposals, but rather the ideas received may be used to inform future acquisition strategies. The new RFI from the space agency, which requires a response from interested parties by December 23, seeks replies across a broad number of areas to get costs down. For example, it welcomes ideas on new contracting methods, such as fixed-price contracts, block buys of materials or systems, and suggestions for changing government requirements that unduly raise costs.

NASA's RFI also lays out a "baseline" of missions the agency expects to fly in the coming decade or so, from Exploration Mission-1 in 2018 through EM-10 in 2030. Nearly all of these missions will take place in the "proving ground," an area of deep space near the Moon where NASA believes it can safely test rockets, spacecraft, and habitation modules for eventual human missions to Mars in the 2030s.

Ostensibly, the RFI seeks replies for how it can make its SLS and Orion production more efficient, and it may simply be a tactic to pressure the agency's primary contractors, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, to reduce costs. Yet, as Ars exclusively reported last week, NASA officials are open to new ideas from competitors of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. “This is NASA taking a breath and looking at alternatives,” one source told Ars at the time. “Part of why they also did it is they are signaling to the next administration that they may be willing to look at alternatives.”

Alternatives

Indeed, there are hints of this openness to alternatives in the new RFI. Not only does it solicit "competing exploration services" in the mid-2020s, it also seeks "synergies between current (SLS, Orion, and/or EGS) and future systems that can reduce total exploration costs." This indicates a willingness to augment NASA's exploration fleet with private vehicles—if those rockets and spacecraft are available and will cut costs.

For example, both SpaceX and Blue Origin (with the Falcon Heavy and New Glenn boosters, respectively) are deep into development of heavy lift rockets in the same class as the SLS launcher. United Launch Alliance is also developing the Vulcan rocket with an upper stage being optimized for use in NASA's "proving ground" between the Earth and Moon. These are all expected to cost significantly less to fly than the SLS.

The RFI allows for other possibilities, too, such as using private components to lower the cost of NASA's vehicles. Presently the SLS relies on large solid rocket boosters manufactured by Orbital ATK to give the rocket a powerful kick off the launch pad. However, there are no other uses for these boosters, so if NASA wants to use them for the SLS it must pay a few hundred million dollars each year just to keep the production line open. A company like SpaceX might offer its Falcon 9 rocket as an alternative, strap-on booster. Since the rocket is already being used commercially, NASA would not have to pay any fixed costs for its use.

It's difficult to read too much into the document, which seems like a product of its times. Yes, NASA is acknowledging that it is spending too much on SLS and Orion. Yes, the agency is concerned about the Trump administration and the desires of some members of its transition team to further privatize NASA and push the agency toward lower-cost reusable rockets. If America's new president considers himself a negotiator, it seems that NASA is now saying it is willing to negotiate, too.