Eric Berger reports ("Finally, we know production costs for SLS and Orion, and they're wild", Ars Technica):
NASA Inspector General Paul Martin serves as an independent watchdog for the space agency's myriad activities. For nearly the entirety of his time as inspector general, since his appointment in 2009, Martin has tracked NASA's development of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. Although his office has issued a dozen reports or so on various aspects of these programs, he has never succinctly stated his thoughts about the programs—until Tuesday.
Appearing before a House Science Committee hearing on NASA's Artemis program [Wikipedia description], Martin revealed the operational costs of the big rocket and spacecraft for the first time. Moreover, he took aim at NASA and particularly its large aerospace contractors for their "very poor" performance in developing these vehicles.
Martin said that the operational costs alone for a single Artemis launch—for just the rocket, Orion spacecraft, and ground systems—will total $4.1 billion. This is, he said, "a price tag that strikes us as unsustainable." With this comment, Martin essentially threw down his gauntlet and said NASA cannot have a meaningful exploration program based around SLS and Orion at this cost.
In his testimony to the Committee, IG Martin states:
Our broad, years-long oversight has identified several interrelated challenges NASA must address to achieve its ambitious Artemis goals, including unsustainable costs, a lack of transparency into funding requirements, and risks associated with its modified program management and acquisition practices designed to reduce costs and accelerate the mission schedule.
On the first point:
- $53 billion on the Artemis program between fiscal years (FY) 2021 and 2025 [budgeted – Martin provides further argument that this cost is deeply discounted]
- $4.1 billion per-launch cost of the SLS/Orion system for at least the first four Artemis missions
- Multiple factors contribute to the high cost of Exploration Systems Development (ESD) Division programs—SLS, Orion, and Exploration Ground Systems—including the use of sole-source, cost-plus contracts; the inability to definitize key contract terms in a timely manner; and the fact that except for the Orion capsule, its subsystems, and supporting launch facilities, all components are expendable and "single use" unlike emerging commercial space flight systems.
Note the mention of cost-plus contracts which deeply favor contractors who procrastinate and deliberately incur costs to milk the contract. While this was the only time that was mentioned in the testimony, the continued, widespread use of these contracts indicates the fundamental frivolity of NASA's efforts here.
On the second point:
- In particular, NASA does not have a comprehensive and accurate estimate that accounts for all Artemis program-related costs. Because NASA has not defined Artemis as a formal program under the Agency's Space Flight Program and Project Management Requirements, an Artemis-wide full life-cycle cost estimate is not required. Instead, NASA's disparate programs and projects individually submit budget estimates through their divisions and directorates to the Office of the Chief Financial Officer.
- When aggregating all relevant costs across Mission Directorates, we projected NASA will spend $93 billion on the Artemis effort from FY 2012 through FY 2025
In other words, due to lack of a collective estimate of costs associated with SLS, Orion, and other aspects of the Artemis program, Martin's office estimated that costs should be almost double what is officially forecast. There is a lot of hidden iceberg to these cost estimates that would be in the open with an effort to account for them. As Berger noted in the Ars Technica article, this also should means that the $4 billion per launch estimate should be almost doubled as well.
On the third point, here's an example from SLS:
Notably, in our review of SLS Program cost reporting we found that the Program exceeded its Agency Baseline Commitment (ABC)—that is, the cost and schedule baselines committed to Congress against which a program is measured—by at least 33 percent at the end of FY 2019. This was due to cost increases tied to development of Artemis I and a December 2017 replan that removed almost $1 billion of costs from the Program's ABC without lowering the baseline, thereby masking the impact of Artemis I's projected 19-month schedule delay. NASA subsequently notified Congress of its adjusted baseline that reflected both the cost increase —projected to reach 43 percent by November 2021—and the removal of costs identified by our office.
We projected NASA would have spent more than $17 billion on the SLS Program by the end of FY 2020, including almost $6 billion not tracked or reported as part of the ABC. Each of the major element contracts for building the SLS for Artemis I—Stages, Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, Boosters, and RS-25 Engines—have experienced technical challenges, performance issues, and requirement changes that collectively have resulted in $2 billion of cost overruns and increases and at least 2 years of schedule delays. We reported in October 2018 that Core Stage production was the primary factor contributing to overall SLS launch delays due to its position on the critical path and corresponding management, technical, and infrastructure issues driven mostly by The Boeing Company's poor performance.
In other words, this process which was supposed to reduce cost has the opposite effect with significant schedule slippage and cost overruns.
One important aspect of this funding is that $93 billion is not only roughly four straight years of NASA funding, it's a huge number of potential launches on existing launch vehicles. For example, a couple months back, I found an estimate of how much NASA spent on launches (and other stuff like uncrewed cargo vehicles and crewed vehicles to ISS). It was roughly $82 million per launch for 39 launches (I made the erroneous calculation of $170 million per at the time). So that $93 billion of costs could have bought over a thousand Falcon 9 launches today. So instead of a vast amount of space activity, we're getting token progress towards some lunar missions.
Eric Berger noted at the conclusion of his article that congressional members seemed more interested in curbing NASA's use of cheap commercial launch technology than in fixing the mess:
Lest anyone doubt this, House Science Committee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) took aim at NASA's commercial space efforts in her opening statement at the hearing. The context of her statement concerns NASA's desire to purchase commercial services for spaceflight in the future rather than oversee their development in-house like it did with SLS and Orion.
"I find the sum of these actions to be very troubling," Johnson said. "And it raises the question of whether NASA will even retain the capabilities and workforce within the agency that will be needed to get US astronauts to Mars if all of these privatization plans are realized."
At least it answers the question of where congressional priorities lie.
Related Stories
Rich Smith at The Motley Fool opines that NASA's SLS Rocket Just Got $3.2 Billion More Expensive:
How much is too much to pay for an SLS rocket? And how much is so much that it gets SLS canceled?
At an estimated $1.55 billion in cost per launch, and $209 billion total over its 30-year history, the U.S. Space Shuttle program was easily NASA's most expensive project since the Apollo Moon Program -- but NASA's next project is going to make it look like a bargain. Two years ago, an investigation by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimated that each time NASA launches its new Space Launch System (SLS), taxpayers will ante up "over $2 billion."
As it turns out, OMB was being optimistic.
[...] Last week, NASA awarded one of its main subcontractors on the SLS project, Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC), a $3.2 billion contract to build booster rockets for five SLS rockets that will participate in the Project Artemis moon program.
[...] These boosters are essential to the Artemis program, providing "more than 75% of the thrust for each SLS launch," as NASA explains, but they do come at a cost. Specifically, each rocket booster will cost taxpayers -- and benefit Northrop Grumman -- more than $290 million.
[...] For the cost of just one Northrop Grumman booster rocket (which will be discarded after launch), NASA could buy two entire SpaceX rocketships. For what Northrop is charging to help launch one single SLS, NASA could launch four Falcon Heavy missions.
Your tax dollars at work. Also: Re-usable shuttle engines on an expendable launcher.
(Score: 4, Disagree) by bradley13 on Tuesday March 08 2022, @12:19PM (31 children)
Jerry Pournelle, in 2001, and again in 2009, and probabaly numerous other times: "NASA has spent enough money since Apollo that we ought to have manned ships halfway to Alpha Centauri. Instead we can't get back to the Moon. NASA ate the dream. It's hard to get to space but it is not THAT HARD."
It's not about getting into space, it's about building bureaucratic kingdoms, and has been for at least 40 years. Of course, Congress carries a lot of blame as well, but NASA could have stood up to Congress at any time. Especially in the 10-20 years after Apollo, NASA could have had anything it wanted. It's Pournelle's Iron Law at work, combined with revolving doors to the prime contractors and those juicy cost-plus contracts.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 08 2022, @01:23PM (10 children)
>Especially in the 10-20 years after Apollo, NASA could have had anything it wanted
After Apollo NASA is lucky it wasn't shut down like the overseas expeditionary forced at the end of World War II.
In 2023 4.1 Billion is about $12 per citizen - say: the cost of a movie ticket. Sounds more sustainable to me than Apollo was. Inflation adjusted, Apollo cost $257 Billion over 13 years, or about $20 billion per year. Four Orion's a year would be a nice pace, and that $4.1 B per launch number should come down slightly with experience, at least when adjusted for inflation.
If I remember the Bush era arguments for Orion they ran along the lines of: this Shuttle doohickey is too complicated for it's own good, let's just go back to capsules like Apollo, they worked fine. Yeah, smartest guy in the room got everyone else to forget about the cost of the capsule programs and restart that money pump into his backyard.
One of NASA's shortcomings has been their lack of commercial focus. $20B per year expenses are perfectly acceptable when balanced with $35B per year income. Do you think US citizens get $0.30 per day value out of space services? That's less than one Starbucks latte per week.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @02:28PM
But rockets with capsules ARE fine. As a matter of fact, this is the cutting edge of space flight now: tiny space ship capsules atop a reusable ROCKET. Not a winged aircraft anywhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @03:58PM (1 child)
I'm sure the 14 astronauts who died in Shuttle failures would agre with this sentiment.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 08 2022, @07:03PM
Apollo I, anyone?
Compared to naval explorers of the 1400s, the space program is ridiculously safe.
Compared to commercial air travel? Yeah, we've put far fewer people in space as had flown on aircraft by the time Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, and of course they're going higher, faster and farther than basically every other form of human transport in all of history, so... there have been problems, and will continue to be a few in the foreseeable future too... otherwise, we'll never go at all.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday March 08 2022, @06:35PM (3 children)
Are you deliberately ignoring the fact that NASA's budget is any times that $4 billion? That just happens to be the most egregious but. In fact, the NASA budget is well over $20 billion per year.
Sure, it's proportionally less than the Apollo program. However, it remains a huge amount of money, for which we have seen little progress since Apollo ended.
The shuttle was a poor concept, but at least it flew. SLS is (obviously) worse - if it ever flies, I will be surprised. It won't fly twice.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 08 2022, @08:00PM (2 children)
>the most egregious but. In fact, the NASA budget is well over $20 billion per year.
The only thing egregious about $20 billion per year spent on a space program for the common good is how little it is.
We spend more on aircraft carriers [themaritimepost.com].
>Depending on the exact configuration of a carrier strike group, its operational cost is anywhere between $6 million to $8 million per day. In total, the annual cost of operating 11 carriers and 9 air wings is around $21 billion.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 08 2022, @09:11PM (1 child)
Just a nitpick: Spending on carriers is not quite the same as spending on a carrier strike group. The carrier, at a guess, is ~80% of the carrier strike group in monetary terms. If I were to point out that the cost of the aircraft carried on the carrier are yet another line item, you would think I am being pedantic. But, an air wing is not part of the carrier, any more than a destroyer is part of the carrier. Like Marines, the air wing just hitches a ride on the carrier, to get to wherever the action is.
Your numbers look about right though.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 08 2022, @09:54PM
It's the same as saying it cost $4.1B per Orion launch, you don't launch an Orion without all the ground support in place, backed up, and running. They're all part of the "launch vehicle group."
Now, I realize we get tangible benefits from time to time by imposing a carrier strike group into a particular part of the world where we want to modify local behavior, and that control is worth a lot, but... arguably, the space program from Sputnik through today has been worth far more to people everywhere in their daily lives than even 10 years of military spending, while costing quite a bit less - if you crunch the numbers.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @06:46PM (2 children)
Nobody is talking about four Orion launches per year. They are hoping to ramp up production to one per year by 2030.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 09 2022, @02:12AM (1 child)
If they were talking about 4 launches per year, the cost per launch would be lower, probably a lot lower.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 09 2022, @06:14AM
Less than you'd think. Increased production only works if the increased rate improves manufacturing efficiency. SLS and Orion are hand crafted, artisan vehicles designed from the ground up to be as slow and expensive to produce as possible in order to maximize profit margins. Increasing production beyond one per year would at minimum require a larger factory with that many more production lines and workers. Savings would be minimal at best under those conditions, and that assumes that they don't find a way to make the new factories cost even more per rocket than the old ones. Which Boeing would, since they are renting theirs from NASA for a song.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @02:26PM (8 children)
(Score: 4, Touché) by pe1rxq on Tuesday March 08 2022, @03:53PM
Worse: Without the SLS pork NASA would have had enough money to do these experiments in space instead of on Hawaii....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @06:50PM (6 children)
A submarine isn't a closed system and it doesn't run for over two years straight without resupply, which is the minimum requirement for a crewed Mars mission. That is what those isolation experiments were supposed to figure out how to do.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 08 2022, @09:20PM (5 children)
That piqued my interest. A search (poor search terms?) doesn't offer many hits that interest me, but https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/submarine-patrol-longest [guinnessworldrecords.com]
So, almost 1/3 of a year. No, that's not two years, but no other organization anywhere can show such results. GP's point holds. If you want to study how an isolated crew operates, and the effects of isolation, look to the Navy. There's a huge difference between a bunch of people isolating on a lark, and an isolated crew with a mission. No larkers will be knowingly sent to Mars. Crew, with a mission, will be sent.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 09 2022, @06:26AM (1 child)
The isolation experiments weren't done 'on a lark', any more than Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Station is crewed that way. The research wasn't primarily about the human factor either, although that was part of it, but about building and testing a life support system capable of operating that long without any outside support. That is a much harder problem than it sounds, and they never had a run last more than a few months before running into an unexpected 'everybody died' situation and having to restart. If we are going to Mars we need to complete that project first, or the astronauts probably will die for real.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 09 2022, @12:47PM
But, no lives were at stake during the experiments. Expensive, but a lark. If things don't go as you expect, you might fudge the results, and no one will ever know.
Aboard a sub, all lives are at stake. When a mission critical subsystem fails, everybody dies. With the Antarctic expeditions, lives were at stake. With any Mars expeditions, lives will be at stake.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 09 2022, @01:34PM (2 children)
I wonder how many of these were resupplied or ran for over 2 years straight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HI-SEAS [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 09 2022, @02:00PM (1 child)
It says that "HI-SEAS IV began on 28 August 2015 and lasted until 28 August 2016: 366 days due to the leap year." The HI-SEAS VI ended with "However, the mission had to be halted on Sol 4 (19 February 2018) when a crew member was admitted to Hilo Medical Center."
So, they are probably getting some decent science done, but, once again, lives aren't really at stake. Anyone can just throw in the towel, and no one dies as a result. The entire infrastructure of Hawaii stands ready to rescue them at any time, which will not be so on a mission to Mars. When that happens, everything is right, and/or the crew makes it right with the resources available, and/or they die.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 09 2022, @08:09PM
That's what makes these experiments so important, to figure out in advance what resources a Mars mission needs and what problems can happen so they can survive with it. If we weren't doing it in a place where quick rescue is possible, those researchers would have died, so calling it a 'lark' is uncalled for.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @02:51PM
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday March 08 2022, @03:34PM
Or in other words: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/130452-the-bureaucracy-is-expanding-to-meet-the-needs-of-the [goodreads.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @07:02PM (4 children)
No, NASA could not have "stood up to Congress at any time". The two times they even tried to tug at the leash resulted in Congressional hearings, Bridenstine resigning, and Leuders being demoted, and even that much was only possible because Richard Shelby is retiring after this session.
Apollo was shut down by Congress because the public lost interest in it. It took nine years to get the Shuttle flying, and it only got off the ground because it put money in the right districts. As has been repeatedly shown, Congress' only interest is pork and NASA can either feed the pigs or starve.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @10:32PM (3 children)
I found that statement to be remarkably ignorant and laughable as well. To think that NASA had the clout to name its own tune is "not even wrong" as Fermi would say. Barely had the foot been set on the Moon and Nixon was warning NASA of big budget cuts. You can read about Nixon's Space Doctrine [planetary.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 08 2022, @11:49PM (2 children)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 09 2022, @01:35AM (1 child)
It is much simpler than that. The Apollo program was very expensive and there was a lot of budget pressure and unfavorable scrutiny and criticism by 1970. After Apollo 11, the public simply didn't care any more ("been there, done that") and there was a lot of budget criticism. Apollo 13 was a spectacle that gripped the world, but that was because it was a gripping story, not because it had anything to do with going to the Moon. After that, nobody again cared any more. Nixon was very shrewd and if people were excited about the space program, he would have been all over it. The same thing will happen again, whether it is landing on the Moon or Mars. It will be an amazing feat celebrated the world over, then within a year or so, everyone with be like "meh." It happened with Apollo, Skylab, and the ISS.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 09 2022, @04:59AM
Unless public opinion just isn't that important. There's a vast amount of business that has little to no interest in the general public. But it gets done because the few people who are interested pay. Commercial space activities don't need perpetual public support in order to exist. They are self-funding.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 09 2022, @02:19AM (1 child)
Something else Pournelle is neglecting is that little game of sunspot roulette that Apollo played. Staying inside the Van Allen belts has taken a huge ugly aspect of long distance manned spaceflight out of the development and operations budgets.
Musk might play fast and loose with the solar and cosmic winds, but his colony won't have a lot of long term potential if all the colonists are sterile.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 09 2022, @06:58AM
I'm not sure that I follow. Starship is plenty big enough to carry sufficient shielding against the solar wind, can travel during solar maximum when cosmic rays are at minimum, and is fast enough to minimize exposure to the Van Allen belts, Solar wind, and cosmic rays. A Mars colony only needs to be about two meters deep for radiation shielding, and if you can do that then you can go deeper if you want. Cosmic wind [wikipedia.org] only occurs beyond the heliopause, so it isn't a factor. So, what causes the colonists to be sterile?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 09 2022, @05:39AM
I am sick and tired of NASA bashing stories on SN, fomented by takyon and his squishy libertarian cohort, the khallow of very little brain. Sure, let space exploration be conducted by profit-minded capitalists! That should work out well, until we realize the private sector corruption is magnitudes greater than public sector. What if there was no oversight? No real social input? Did you not watch the remake of Battlestar Galactica? Toasters, SN is infested with toasters, who do not know they are skin-jobs. JanrinoK? FatPhil? Boomer? (Broke my heart when Boomer turned out to be just a robot! But, still Hot! )
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 09 2022, @08:27AM
maybe they need a "paperclip v2.0" operation?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @01:02PM (2 children)
Watch this summer as the War takes front stage with Climate taking a backstage pass.
We are going to need to focus on the more pressing matters at hand.
The carbon footprint of Moon or Mars missions is a cheque the Earth just won't be able to cash.
We need more resources to pour into our military now.
And no talks about their carbon footprint or whatever poisons they will dump into our environment this time.
Good Luck humans...you are going to need it!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday March 08 2022, @01:18PM
Except it will be cheap to go with Starship. Especially the Moon. Carbon footprint is negligible, far less than conventional air travel.
Plus Starship is dual-use, being considered for sending troops and cargo around suborbital, and obviously putting payloads in orbit for Space Force.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday March 08 2022, @03:49PM
It must kill you that there's all these real emergencies distracting us from the narrative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @02:15PM
Nothing else matters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @02:59PM (1 child)
NASA can't do stuff like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzhP3Q5fku8 [youtube.com]
After the Challenger disaster, They absolutely cannot fail in any test, rehearsal or live mission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @08:07PM
That problem predates Challenger, and was arguably a contributing cause to both it and Columbia. The 'perfect prototype' development model that NASA uses is appropriate for deep space probes, since those can't be tested properly on Earth, but it is slow, expensive, and produces an inferior product. Congress mandates it for sweetheart cost plus contracts like SLS because it also gives lots of opportunities to pad the bill.
(Score: 5, Touché) by LaminatorX on Tuesday March 08 2022, @03:14PM (4 children)
Look, those billionaires^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H oligarchs who barely pay any taxes have enough money to run space programs as a hobby.
Clearly, these things are not at all related.
(NASA could learn a thing or two from SpaceX's process methodologies though, no joke.)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 08 2022, @05:06PM (2 children)
Speaking of billiionaires who run space programs as a hobby . . .
Where are those BE-4 engines Jeff?
I remember The Musky One's Tweet: if it's more than a hobby, stop complaining about losing and start doing what it takes to win.
DannyB's observation: sub orbital joyrides for the super rich is not a winning strategy to focus your entire business on, while squeezing resources on things that are actually important *cough* BE-4 engines *cough*.
I once had high opes for Blue Origin.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @08:38PM (1 child)
I too had high hopes for them. If anyone could give SpaceX real competition it was Blue Origin, or so I thought. But in the end BO is just Bezos' folly [wiktionary.org] (see definition 3).
Rocket Lab are doing their level best to catch up and fill that role, but it is much harder to do on a small-sat-launcher budget. They really need to land a big contract for Neutron, like SpaceX got for Falcon 9.
None of the other players are even trying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 09 2022, @10:48AM
Outside of mainland China...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @07:20PM
In fairness, those billionaires would go broke fast if they tried to run a pork project like SLS.
SpaceX's methodologies are what NASA used to do, back when they were trying to reach the moon. NASA's current methods, while appropriate for deep space probes that can't be tested here on Earth, only serve to cause delays and drive up costs for anything else.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @03:59PM (3 children)
" driven mostly by The Boeing Company's poor performance."
Boeing's poor performance ? .. What the hell did you expect from Boeing ?
Boeing is a has been space company and now can do nothing right with reasonable costs.
The hell with them. 737 Max anyone ?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @04:21PM (1 child)
I wouldn't really know, but I have read many people comment that the death knell for Boeing was when they merged with their former rival McDonnell Douglas. Supposedly McDonnell Douglas was always far less engineering driven (and more MBA driven) than Boeing was. I would like for people who know aviation to chime in and confirm or refute this.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @07:26PM
That's basically what happened. McDD's management mismanaged them into the ground, and then used their political connections to buy Boeing with their own money. It's an old story that is all too common.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @04:52PM
SLS/Orion MAX
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edinlinux on Tuesday March 08 2022, @04:27PM (5 children)
Although the stated purpose of SLS Orion is to hurl huge amounts of mass into space, its actual purpose is to hurl huge amounts of pork into congress member's districts.
NASA was prevented from designing and building the rocket they actually wanted based on scientific needs (which they would have been able to do at reasonable cost).
SLS Orion money was full of strings attached on overall design (benefiting congress member donor companies), where parts would be built and by whom (more or less) and a bunch of other things.
So if you understand the actual purpose of SLS Orion, its mission was absolutely accomplished as members of congress intended, even if it never flies into space.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 08 2022, @05:10PM (2 children)
It started out as a way to re-use old space shuttle parts. Would be a shame to let those go to waste. Here we are many tens of billions of dollars later, with the first launch still being delayed again and again.
What might have happened if they had ignored the old shuttle parts, and started a new rocket with a clean sheet design?
Probably: same thing. Pork. Because senators.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @07:45PM
Requiring NASA to award cost plus contracts for used Shuttle parts was how Congress forced them to continue the same sweetheart deals that crippled Shuttle in the first place. The only accident is that SLS might actually fly, so they need to kill the project ASAP so they can start over. To 'save money'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 09 2022, @06:59AM
You should consider launching your senators on the SLS/Orion.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 08 2022, @07:07PM (1 child)
>the actual purpose of SLS Orion, its mission was absolutely accomplished as members of congress intended
Mission [thestar.com] Accomplished [cbsistatic.com] indeed.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 09 2022, @07:01AM
Exactly, so now that it might actually fly it is time to kill it and start again, because the big money is in developing new rockets using obsolete technology.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @05:36PM (1 child)
do these work at night or only when the sun shines?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 08 2022, @09:29PM
Yes.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz