Aerospace Commercial Crew Modeling Tool Update

In late 2009, The Aerospace Corporation conducted an internally funded project to develop a model of the business-case of commercial crew space transportation. NASA's Independent Program & Cost Evaluation department subsequently asked for, and funded, an expanded and refined analysis of Aerospace's initial work.

A summary of the tool was presented to NASA senior leadership February 28th.

The Aerospace white paper and presentation were informally and formally presented to Congress during the week of March 28, 2011.

• Aerospace was asked to develop a tool that would be helpful in assessing the business case for commercial crew.


• Aerospace developed a simple spreadsheet-based parametric tool to explore several factors to estimate total cost to the government of commercial crew transportation systems.


• Aerospace did not survey NASA or industry for input data. The inputs used historical data as a starting point in order to demonstrate the capability of the tool. The results were not intended to reflect what the commercial community has been developing.


• We continue to review the material. NASA has informed Congress that other tools and analyses exist and will be provided shortly.


• Aerospace can model many other possible cases and assumption sets to produce significantly different results. Three other cases are illustrated in the full document linked below.


• The intent of this report was not to pass judgement on the economic feasibility of a commercial crew transportation provider, but rather to illustrate the ability of the tool to conduct parametric sensitivity studies.

Questions and answers:

Q: Why did Aerospace do this study?

A: In late 2009, The Aerospace Corporation undertook an internally funded project to develop a tool to examine the business-case viability of a commercial crew space transportation system provider. This research is in keeping with Aerospace's longstanding commitment to stay abreast of trends in space development. We are continually evaluating trends.

Q: What exactly did Aerospace produce for NASA?

A: We produced a modeling tool that could be applied to a variety of data sets to produce conclusions about the costs associated with scenarios for a commercial crew transportation system.

Q: Why is this "tool" needed?

A: In order for NASA to invest wisely in commercial crew transportation systems, a tool is necessary to understand the viability of the resultant government-commercial partnership. As part of the demonstration of the tool's viability, we analyzed many scenarios based on hypothetical data sets. Those hypothetical data sets produced varying results which may or may not be applicable in real world scenarios for the use of commercial crew transportation system.

Q: So the results are to determine what?

A: We produced a modeling tool that could be applied to a variety of data sets to produce conclusions about the costs associated with scenarios for a commercial crew transportation system. The results shown to NASA and Congress recently were not intended to represent any specific real world scenario. We modeled a scenario utilizing data from as long as 10 months ago in order to demonstrate the tool's viability, not the viability of any specific commercial crew transportation system.

The full update with the Commercial Crew Business Case Example is available for download here.

Contact Pam Keeton, 703-812-0648 or Pamela.V.Keeton@aero.org.