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posted by Fnord666 on Monday March 22 2021, @04:48AM   Printer-friendly

NASA has begun a study of the SLS rocket's affordability [Updated]:

Original story: NASA is conducting an internal review of the Space Launch System rocket's affordability, two sources have told Ars Technica.

Concerned by the program's outsized costs, the NASA transition team appointed by President Joe Biden initiated the study. The analysis is being led by Paul McConnaughey, a former deputy center director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, as well as its chief engineer.

The SLS rocket program has been managed by Marshall for more than a decade. Critics have derided it as a "jobs program" intended to retain employees at key centers, such as Alabama-based Marshall, as well as those at primary contractors such as Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Aerojet Rocketdyne. Such criticism has been bolstered by frequent schedule delays—the SLS was originally due to launch in 2016, and the rocket will now launch no sooner than 2022—as well as cost overruns.

For now, costs seem to be the driving factor behind the White House's concerns. With a maximum cadence of one launch per year, the SLS rocket is expected to cost more than $2 billion per flight, and that is on top of the $20 billion NASA has already spent developing the vehicle and its ground systems. Some of the incoming officials do not believe the Artemis Moon Program is sustainable with such launch costs.

Update: After this story was published, NASA released the following statement at 11pm ET on Monday regarding the internal study:

NASA is conducting an internal study of the timing and sequence of lunar missions with available resources, and with the guidance that SLS and Orion will be providing crew transportation to the Gateway. The backbone for NASA's Moon to Mars plans are the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, ground systems at Kennedy Space Center, Gateway in lunar orbit and human landing system. We currently are alsoassessing various elements of our programs to find efficiencies and opportunities to reduce costs, and this exercise is ongoing. This will include conversations with our industry partners. Budget forecasts and internal agency reviews are common practice as they help us with long-term planning. The agency anticipates taking full advantage of the powerful SLS capabilities, and this effort will improve the current construct associated with executing the development, production and operations of the NASA's Artemis missions.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 22 2021, @02:56PM (6 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday March 22 2021, @02:56PM (#1127488)

    How would further expanding that possibly be a bad idea?

    When Musk builds Spectre/Hydra/X Æ A-13 into an organization that puts painful leverage on the U.S. population, that's one of a million probable bad outcomes.

    NASA has grown for 60+ years around talent built up in locations like Houston, Huntsville, Melbourne FL, Los Angeles, etc. - these aren't fast food stand workers who can be trained in two hours and "productive" on their first day. They mature, have families, and don't tend to move around quickly or cheaply. Once they've gotten a better offer overseas that they decide to take, odds of them coming back are slim to none.

    Should NASA be more vibrant and nimble? hell yes. However, comparing NASA today to the Apollo program is like comparing a soap box derby to NASCAR - the funding just isn't there to support that level of flash and excitement. Musk is bringing in commercial money, and that is good. But, simultaneously, we are relinquishing government (quasi-military) control of space endeavors to the private sector, and X Æ A-13 isn't transparent about their agendae, or even their existence.

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  • (Score: 2) by Socrastotle on Monday March 22 2021, @06:56PM (5 children)

    by Socrastotle (13446) on Monday March 22 2021, @06:56PM (#1127613) Journal

    Here's a question with an answer that will surprise you: how much do you think NASA spent per year, on average, on the Apollo program? The program ran from 1961-1972. In a budgetary report in 1973 NASA laid out the details on their expenditures. The program, in total, cost $25.4 billion in 1973 dollars. Inflation adjusted that's $150 billion. And that was over 12 years. The program cost an average of about $12.5 billion per year. NASA's most recent budget is $23.3 billion per year. And you'd think when you're starting from 'done' instead of 0%, you ought be able to work a bit more efficiently. Alas.

    NASA and the US government achieved some absolutely remarkable things early on in space. But that really ended in 1969, the year we put a man on the moon. But it was clearly never about space - it was about geopolitical dominance. And once that dominance had been established, space was tossed aside. And we've been in that state for more than 50 years now. SpaceX, by contrast has not only risen incredibly rapidly but has been completely transparent about their goals since their very envisioning. And that goal is the colonization of Mars. Musk laid out his plan for such about 2 decades ago, and has managed to stick to it remarkably well given the fact it's a completely revolutionary notion.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 22 2021, @08:31PM (4 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday March 22 2021, @08:31PM (#1127663)

      And you'd think when you're starting from 'done' instead of 0%, you ought be able to work a bit more efficiently. Alas.

      I tend to think of it more in these terms:

      If the U.S. prioritized a space project financially the same way it did with Apollo the 1960s, the nation would have to spend $702 billion to account for an equivalent share of GDP. [planetary.org]

      Also, if you recall Apollo 1, and 13? We are really trying to do better than that overall, and 2/135 fails is quite a bit better than 1.3/17 where 10/17 didn't even try to reach the lunar surface.

      Apollo 1 didn't start at 0, and Apollo 17 didn't put us at "done" it put us at "been there."

      We should be able to return to the Moon for less than $700 billion, but not on a $25 billion per year trickle that also has to support all of the existing legacy programs, facilities, and yes: pork.

      If you want the true cost of a new lunar expeditionary program (and: expect this one to do more than impress the world with our payload delivery capabilities and bring home some rocks), you need to start at the existing NASA budget and ADD what it should cost to get to the moon, not expect the warehouses full of Wallys to magically grow competence and start contributing to a real development program after 40 years of telling them to sit on their hands. Yes, some of them will Dilbert up to the plate, but probably not the management layers - you know: the ones who decide who to hire, who to fire, and who to give raises to? Yeah, those guys are going to rate themselves A) indispensable, B) 100% overworked, and C) needing more benefits.

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      • (Score: 2) by Socrastotle on Tuesday March 23 2021, @05:57AM (3 children)

        by Socrastotle (13446) on Tuesday March 23 2021, @05:57AM (#1127808) Journal

        What are the prices of goods, services, and labor based upon? It's inflation. Why do you think equivalent share of GDP is not an ingenuous metric?

        SpaceX is private so we don't know their exact budget, but it's safe to say it's nowhere even remotely close to $20 billion a year, yet they continue to innovative and produce at an incredibly rapid rate while simultaneously transforming space itself by continuing to send the price lower, and lower. Why do you think NASA failed to achieve remotely comparable results even given decades and far more funding for such?

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 23 2021, @01:14PM (2 children)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday March 23 2021, @01:14PM (#1127905)

          SpaceX is private so we don't know their exact budget

          More than that, we don't know the true extent of the government support they are receiving, either. Use of Kennedy surely isn't costing Elon what it cost NASA to build, and there's far more that's not so visible.

          they continue to innovative and produce at an incredibly rapid rate while simultaneously transforming space itself by continuing to send the price lower, and lower.

          Partly because they're allowed, even expected, to fail. NASA is held to an impossibly inefficient standard of perfection. Back in the pre-Mercury days, NASA failed spectacularly on a regular basis, and that's when they made the most progress. Anymore, a single failed launch is a huge national embarrassment resulting in total shutdown and navel introspection for as long as it takes to mollify the opposition to progress. Meanwhile, failure is expected of SpaceX. The main brilliant maneuver of SpaceX is getting: "try, fail, try again, fail better next time" back into the playbook.

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          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday March 23 2021, @01:34PM (1 child)

            by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday March 23 2021, @01:34PM (#1127916) Journal

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_Space_Center_Launch_Complex_39A#SpaceX [wikipedia.org]

            In August 2019, SpaceX submitted an Environmental Assessment for Starship launch system at Kennedy Space Center. This document included plans for the construction of additional structures at LC-39A to support Starship launches, including a dedicated pad, liquid methane tanks, and a Landing Zone. These are separate from the existing structures that support Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches.

            SpaceX signed a 20-year lease for one of the "mothballed" pads, and they are spending their own money to add facilities. I don't see the lease amount.

            https://spacenews.com/38660nasa-negotiating-pad-lease-with-spacex-after-gao-rejects-blue-origin/ [spacenews.com]

            Pad 39A costs the agency about $1.2 million a year to maintain in a mothballed state. NASA said this summer it wanted to get a lease signed before Oct. 1. If no lessee could be found, NASA told GAO inspectors, the agency would have been willing to let the pad — from which the Apollo 11 Moon mission blasted off — “rust to the ground.”

            It's probably possible to come up with an accurate amount of how much U.S. taxpayer money is going to SpaceX, even including secret Air Force and NRO missions.

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            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 23 2021, @07:14PM

              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday March 23 2021, @07:14PM (#1128055)

              It's probably possible to come up with an accurate amount of how much U.S. taxpayer money is going to SpaceX

              I'd say it's almost definitely possible to come up with a documented amount of how much U.S. taxpayer money is going to SpaceX through regular FOI channels. Documented, but accurate? Including look-the-other-way tax breaks, inside information on open bidding processes, etc. By definition those are illegal, and so will not be documented, but do they exist?

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