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NASA Spent a Decade and Nearly $1 Billion for a Single Launch Tower

posted by martyb on Saturday March 21 2020, @07:35AM   
from the But-it's-only-$2-milllion-per-week! dept.

DannyB writes:

NASA spent a decade and nearly $1 billion for a single launch tower:

"NASA exacerbated these issues by accepting unproven and untested designs."

A new report published Tuesday by NASA's inspector general looks into the development of a mobile launch tower for the agency's Space Launch System rocket.

The analysis finds that the total cost of constructing and modifying the structure, known as Mobile Launcher-1, is "at least" $927 million. This includes the original $234 million development cost to build the tower to support the Ares I rocket.

After this rocket was canceled in 2010, NASA then spent an additional $693 million to redesign and modify the structure for the SLS rocket. Notably, NASA's original estimate for modifying the launch tower was just $54 million, according to the report by Inspector General Paul Martin.

<no-sarcasm>
Does NASA understand what a sunk cost is?
</no-sarcasm>

Related: NASA to Launch 247 Petabytes of Data Into AWS - but Forgot About Egress Costs

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Original Submission

• Re:Old ideas (Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday March 21 2020, @12:43PM

  by Arik (4543) on Saturday March 21 2020, @12:43PM (#973803) Journal

  I don't think the comment laid all the blame on Reagan. The blame for what's happening now lays on those who are doing it now.
  
  But momentum is a thing, and Reagan was a likeable face to distract us from some major changes in momentum that occurred while he was in office.

  --
  If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

  Parent

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+2
  Insightful=2, Total=2
  Extra 'Insightful' Modifier		0
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
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