Last week, a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee passed an FY 2015 bill for NASA, one with ominous portents for the Commercial Crew program. As pointed out in several media sources, the bill contains a “poison pill” provision which appears to be deliberately calculated to increase the administrative costs of the program to contractors, with SpaceX in particular being the prime target.

The bill would force NASA to administer the contracts under extremely onerous FAR guidelines with quarterly reporting requirements, a move which would essentially take the “commercial” out of “commercial crew” and turn it into a classic NASA/defense acquisition project which would all but guarantee rising costs and a delayed time frame. NASA has previously stated that it would administer FAR with a “light hand.” Now that hand may be holding Thor’s hammer, with the taxpayer reeling from every blow.

The Space Access Society has a good explanation of the background here, and a follow up piece, here. It has also been reported in a concise blog piece in the Houston Chronicle, and in Florida Today.

The executive director of the Commercial SpaceFlight Federation, Alex Saltman also came out strongly against the provision, quoted in the Florida Today piece saying

“The language would effectively change an efficient and lean commercial program into a traditional government procurement with all of the associated overhead and cost,”

and

“In addition, if this language were to become law before NASA awards the latest commercial crew contracts, NASA would likely have to restart the procurement with these new rules, pushing back the program up to a year and sending hundreds of millions of more taxpayer dollars to Russia for Soyuz rides,” Saltman added. “If the language were to go into effect after the awards, NASA could be tied up in contract renegotiations and challenges for months if not years.”

While Senator Shelby claims the language is not seeking to target SpaceX, and he is only concerned with “transparency,” his record strongly suggests otherwise.

Senator Shelby’s animosity towards SpaceX is no secret, and has been on full display in multiple Senate hearings, including the most recent March 5th hearing featuring testimony by both Elon Musk and ULA President Michael Gass. It goes much further than that however, stretching back to the very first Falcon 9 launch in June of 2010 as then reported by Politico:

“Belated progress for one so-called commercial provider must not be confused with progress for our nation’s human spaceflight program. As a nation, we cannot place our future spaceflight on one fledgling company’s definition of success.”

And before that

“this commercial provider cannot deliver the trash from the space station much less take humans into space and back,”

Four trips to ISS later, it might be time to revise and amend his remarks, but somehow that does not seem likely. While it is understandable that the Senator might be somewhat ambivalent towards SpaceX, particularly considering the trouble it has caused United Launch Alliance, as Elon Musk pointed out back in 2010, ULA stood to benefit from Commercial Crew in any event. That may have changed. With the future of the Atlas V now in doubt due to its reliance on a Russian main engine, and the House version of NASA’s FY 2015 appropriation’s bill calling for a down select to a single provider, could it be that no longer confident of a role going forward, an anti-SpaceX coalition has emerged which is just as to happy see the entire program delayed, or its budget blown up, as media reports claim?

Given the close relationship between Shelby and ULA, again on display during the March 5 hearing, it seems rather implausible that the language could have ended up in the bill over the latter’s strongly voiced opposition. Or is it really all just about the Space Launch System, and the growing fear that as the NRC Mars report pointed out again last week, there is simply no way the nation can afford a SLS flight rate high enough to ensure safety without massive and highly unlikely increases in NASA’s budget?

If it is the latter, and the language stays in the final bill, then make no mistake, the long smoldering conflict between NewSpace and Arsenal Space, recently papered over, is about to re-ignite.

There is also this to consider. The common assumption is that even as it drives up prices and slows progress, Shelby’s language will primarily benefit Boeing, which has a long history in defense and space contracting, not all of which is happy. That may very well be the case.

On the other hand, Elon Musk made his original fortunes in information technology, and has had plenty of time to see this coming. It is not unreasonable to suspect that SpaceX may be more prepared for this than most expect. Furthermore, with a large percentage of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft fabricated in house, SpaceX does not have to reach nearly as deep into pools of sub-contractor pricing as Boeing, SNC or ULA. (And they don’t have to translate it from Russian either.) Furthermore, having succeeded in COTS/CRS thus far, and deeply engaged in the equally political fight to enter the EELV program, SpaceX is not exactly a stranger to government reporting requirements.

It may turn out then, that while necessarily having to raise its prices to NASA to comply with Shelby’s edict, just as it does to the Air Force to accommodate its own more stringent mission assurance requirements, SpaceX may still find a way to turn it to their own advantage with little of the enormous gap in booster pricing having been eaten away. Having already publicly quoted its price for a prospective Bigelow station mission at $26.25 million, Elon Musk already has a point of comparison to illustrate the price of Shelby’s crusade.

In that case, the “transparency” put on display will be just what one hostile Senator in the minority, an unusually accommodating majority, and an Administration which does not seem particularly engaged have cost other NASA stakeholders.