Sorry. I was bored while my student were taking their midterm.ladajo wrote:Hey! I am suppossed to be the one finding those first!
Recovery.Gov Project Tracker
Glad you did. I might not have picked up on it until the weekend. Got a full day tomorrow. Gonna have the family in the office all afternoon.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
Well, I think we just got more information today than we did the last two years or so combined. Unfortuantely, the information is not quite as positive as we all would have liked. Problems are never a good sign and these do look like rather severe problems to me.
What are the opinions by others on these? Tom, can you join in and comment now that this cat is out of the bag?
What are the opinions by others on these? Tom, can you join in and comment now that this cat is out of the bag?
NAWCWD LRAF Spreadsheet
I've looked over the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) Long Range Acquisition Forcast (LRAF) spreadsheet that ladajo posted back on page 69 with emphasis on line 316.
Although I've been out of government contracting for 12 years (and my experience was with AFRL and DARPA), the LRAF is definitely indicating that they were planning on a new contract to be awarded 1QFY12 (that's Oct - Dec 2011). Since we're now in 2QFY12 and they're still extending the initial contract, I have no idea if they've only pushed this solicit/award date back or if the solicitation is up in the air depending on the outcome of the current contract.
The reason the current contract number shows up is that this new contract is expected to be a follow-on to an existing award. If you click the "Field Definitions" tab of the spreadsheet, the description of the "Short Descriptive Title" recommends including the existing contract number for follow-on contracts. This is also indicated by EMC2 being listed as the "Incumbent Contractor".
The new contract will be a two year contract in the $5 to $10 million range. To me this indicates that this will be WB8.1 rather than WB9. My guess is that with the extensions to the current contract, they decided to issue a new contract for WB8.1 rather than exercise it as an option under the current contract.
As Northstar pointed out, this new contract will be as a "Full and Open Competition" award rather than sole source. This tells me that they feel that whatever the scope of work is, it will be mature enough that a company without EMC2's extensive research experience can pickup where the current contract leaves off.
Also, as Northstar noted, the Request For Proposal for this contract will have to include enough information so that a vendor will be able to put a bid together. I expect that the final data products from the current contract will be available either when the RFP is issued or some time beforehand. Whether those documents will be publicly available or only available to "qualified vendors" as part of the bid packet will remain to be seen... if it's even put out for bid at all.
Although I've been out of government contracting for 12 years (and my experience was with AFRL and DARPA), the LRAF is definitely indicating that they were planning on a new contract to be awarded 1QFY12 (that's Oct - Dec 2011). Since we're now in 2QFY12 and they're still extending the initial contract, I have no idea if they've only pushed this solicit/award date back or if the solicitation is up in the air depending on the outcome of the current contract.
The reason the current contract number shows up is that this new contract is expected to be a follow-on to an existing award. If you click the "Field Definitions" tab of the spreadsheet, the description of the "Short Descriptive Title" recommends including the existing contract number for follow-on contracts. This is also indicated by EMC2 being listed as the "Incumbent Contractor".
The new contract will be a two year contract in the $5 to $10 million range. To me this indicates that this will be WB8.1 rather than WB9. My guess is that with the extensions to the current contract, they decided to issue a new contract for WB8.1 rather than exercise it as an option under the current contract.
As Northstar pointed out, this new contract will be as a "Full and Open Competition" award rather than sole source. This tells me that they feel that whatever the scope of work is, it will be mature enough that a company without EMC2's extensive research experience can pickup where the current contract leaves off.
Also, as Northstar noted, the Request For Proposal for this contract will have to include enough information so that a vendor will be able to put a bid together. I expect that the final data products from the current contract will be available either when the RFP is issued or some time beforehand. Whether those documents will be publicly available or only available to "qualified vendors" as part of the bid packet will remain to be seen... if it's even put out for bid at all.
I'll defer to Tom when he posts, but in the mean time, if I may walk out on a limb, let me say this.
It looks to me like the time required to form a Wiffleball is greater than the desired time between pulses and cool-down time is less than Wiffleball formation time. So they want to pulse the machine more rapidly to see if they can get some significant energy out. That's all good at first glance and I never stare at information.
It looks to me like the time required to form a Wiffleball is greater than the desired time between pulses and cool-down time is less than Wiffleball formation time. So they want to pulse the machine more rapidly to see if they can get some significant energy out. That's all good at first glance and I never stare at information.
Aero
Since the new contract is FOC rather than SSA, they won't know the location of the work until a vendor is selected. Since NAWCWD is located at China Lake, they just filled that in as a placeholder.Ivy Matt wrote:I can't seem to see the link from China, so I'm not sure exactly what the excitement is about, but I don't believe the original contract mentioned "1QFY12". At any rate, I would assume there can only be a new contract number if there is a new contract, not if one is "imminent", as ladajo said.
When issuing an RFP, it will be given a Solicitation Number. When the contract is awarded, the contract will be given a Contract Number that's linked back to the solicitation number.
For example, the Solicitation Number of the RFP that led to the current contract was N68936-09-R-0044. The Contract Number that was assigned when it was awarded was N68936-09-C-0125.
Note:
N68936 is the awarding organization id (NAWCWD)
09 is the fiscal year
R for RFP or C for contract
0044 is just a serial number
When (if, but I've got my fingers crossed) the RPF for the new contract is posted, it will have a SN something like N68936-12-R-00XX. Once the contract is awarded, the R will change to a C and it will get a new four digit id. The FY will change as well if the award happens after Oct.
I dunno, they sound pretty committed to continuing the research. I was fearing there would be no more... so based on my expectations, I'm pretty happy.Skipjack wrote:Well, I think we just got more information today than we did the last two years or so combined. Unfortuantely, the information is not quite as positive as we all would have liked. Problems are never a good sign and these do look like rather severe problems to me.
Re: NAWCWD LRAF Spreadsheet
I'm a little confused about how the RFP relates to the quote about EMC2 continuing "basic research to develop an operational Plasma Wiffleball 8 device." Does this mean the RFP work will be done in parallel to the work EMC2 is currently doing?RHarris wrote: As Northstar pointed out, this new contract will be as a "Full and Open Competition" award rather than sole source. This tells me that they feel that whatever the scope of work is, it will be mature enough that a company without EMC2's extensive research experience can pickup where the current contract leaves off.
So they're needing a megawatt of input power on the electron guns alone, not mentioning the ion guns.choff wrote:100A power supply for 10 Kvolt electron guns. Now they're playing with power!
Does THAT number tell anyone anything about how well things are working?
There are strange things done in the midnight sun....
NS, your 1 MW calculation may be valid, but I can't see for sure that the 100 amps is at 10KV, perhaps it is. On the other hand it may be related to input power. As always, information is sparse to the point of bigger than a bread basket, smaller than the sun. If it is at 10KV, the pulse duration must be quite short, but we know that as the machine is not continuous.
Best regards
Best regards
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.