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SLS Project Coming Up $400 Million Short
schwit1 writes: A GAO report finds that the Space Launch System is over budget and NASA will need an additional $400 million to complete its first orbital launch in 2017. From the article: "NASA isn't meeting its own requirements for matching cost and schedule resources with the congressional requirement to launch the first SLS in December 2017. NASA usually uses a calculation it calls the 'joint cost and schedule confidence level' to decide the odds a program will come in on time and on budget. 'NASA policy usually requires a 70 percent confidence level for a program to proceed with final design and fabrication,' the GAO report says, and the SLS is not at that level. The report adds that government programs that can't match requirements to resources 'are at increased risk of cost and schedule growth.'
In other words, the GAO says SLS is at risk of costing more than the current estimate of $12 billion to reach the first launch or taking longer to get there. Similar cost and schedule problems – although of a larger magnitude – led President Obama to cancel SLS's predecessor rocket system called Constellation shortly after taking office." The current $12 billion estimate is for the program's cost to achieve one unmanned launch. That's four times what it is costing NASA to get SpaceX, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada to build their three spaceships, all scheduled for their first manned launches before 2017.
In other words, the GAO says SLS is at risk of costing more than the current estimate of $12 billion to reach the first launch or taking longer to get there. Similar cost and schedule problems – although of a larger magnitude – led President Obama to cancel SLS's predecessor rocket system called Constellation shortly after taking office." The current $12 billion estimate is for the program's cost to achieve one unmanned launch. That's four times what it is costing NASA to get SpaceX, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada to build their three spaceships, all scheduled for their first manned launches before 2017.
They're short more money than SpaceX spent to develop the Falcon 9.
if the 400 million is really the only overrun that's an astonishing record for the federal goverment
The SLS is a deep space vehicle.
Uh, no, it's not. There's nothing 'deep space' about SLS that's not 'deep space' about Falcon 9. You can launch a deep space probe on Falcon 9, and you could launch a deep space probe on SLS if it's ever built.
SLS, as designed, is just a very expensive way to put 70 tons into orbit. Maybe, at some point, if Congress funds it, it might become a very expensive way to put 100-130 tons into orbit. Well before then, Falcon Heavy should be putting 50 tons into orbit for less than 5% of the cost of an SLS launch.
http://www.thespacereview.com/...
Doesn't the old saying go "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" ?
What is it when it is fool me endlessly ? NASA does not bring down the cost of space access period. The shuttle didn't none of their boosters ever have. If we get really lucky we get commercial enterprises able to do end runs around them to actually make a little progress.
Really we should have NASA do what it is good at, robotic exploration and high risk high payoff research. Let commercial companies do what they are good at mass production and perfecting technologies.
Was that before or after he finds cures for all diseases, solves the worlds energy and transportation problems and turns water into wine?
If Elon was really smart he'd start a church given how much people on slashdot worship him.
I've been on both sides of this transaction: working for a vendor selling to the government and working for the government buying stuff.
The government CAN go out to bid on a fixed price (binding) basis as you propose. The problem is that any sensible contractor will raise the price above their expected costs to cover the inevitable risks that something goes wrong, or their estimates were wrong. This is particularly so when doing something that has literally never been done before.
So the government buyer has a choice: high fixed price or lower cost based price. With cost based contracts, the contractor gets a fixed fee (cost plus percentage of cost government contracts are illegal). As the cost goes up, the contractor's percentage profit drops, but at least they're not losing money if something goes wrong. The government almost always has the right to cancel at their convenience, too, if things are really going bad rapidly. On pretty much every job, there's a continual computation and reporting (in both directions) of the "termination liability", or what it costs to stop work today, pack everything up, and move on. (Such computations became VERY important during the government shutdown fiasco last fall).
Since the folks in government want to get the best bang for the buck, they tend to like "cost plus award" contracts.. odds are, it will come in lower than they would have paid for fixed price, because government contracting (for technology) has a fairly hefty risk premium. Yeah, if you're buying case lots of toilet paper, or carloads of gravel, fixed price is probably a better strategy on both sides. The contract negotiator on the govt side isn't going to allow profit on a fixed price contract that is more than 10%. (Yes, indeed, even with fixed price, you can't just charge any old price.. you have to justify it after the bid is accepted, and they can and do negotiate, if only because there are inevitably differences between exactly what you proposed to do and what the government wants)
Note well, too, that you probably don't know how much SpaceX thought they were going to spend to develop Falcons and what they actually spent. They're not publically traded, nor do they publish that level of detail. For all you know, SpaceX thought $100M and spent $300M, and Elon's coming up with the difference out of his pocket (or out of payments against future operations).
NASA to Congress: We want to build a launch system that will be the single most important component in the US presence in space for the nest several generations. We need $20B for it from planning to first launch.
Congress to NASA: Screw that, you get $12B.
NASA to Congress: We can almost do it with $12B, we need an additional $400M
Congress to NASA: Justify the additional $$
Military to Congress: We need $10B to build a new strike fighter that no-one really wants.
Congress to Military: Here ya go
Military to Congress: Oops. We've crashed a bunch of prototypes, and still have major design flaws and systems failures. Another $10B should get us on track.
Congress to Military: Here ya go
Military to Congress: Supplier problems, we need another $10B
Congress to Military: Here ya go
Why are we so damned willing to spend money to kill people more efficiently and not to do science that positively impacts all our lives every day?
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
You are factually wrong on several counts.
SpaceX is not working on any version of the CST-100, and their only relation is that the CST-100 is supposedly designed to be compatible with the Falcon 9 launcher (I have reasonable doubt that will happen). They delivered the Dragon cargo capsule, and are working on the manned Dragon V2.
Boeing's CST-100 is orbital, not suborbital. Suborbital means it will not complete a single orbit, like a missile.
Sierra's Dream Chaser is also not suborbital. It also uses many non-NASA technologies, such as the hybrid rocket engines.
You further have many logical errors, the most persistent being the conflation of the launch vehicle with the crew vehicle. SLS, Falcon 9 and Atlas V are launch vehicles. Orion, Dragon, CST-100 and Dream Chaser are crew vehicles.
Orion is NASA's crew vehicle (actually, Lockheed Martin's, but I'll get to that in a bit). It is not suitable for missions beyond the Moon - it has a designed mission length of only three weeks (21 days), which is unsuitable for anything beyond Earth orbit. You are correct that manned deep-space missions will need a super-heavy launch vehicle such as SLS, but Orion itself will not be the crew vehicle.
You also make a mistake in your history. NASA did not produce the Apollo landers or the Saturn V (what I assume you refer to as "what nasa did 30 years ago" or "other NASA firsts"). They set the requirements, and solicited bids from private companies. Just as they're doing now - Orion is being made by Lockheed Martin, the SLS boosters are being made by ATK, Rocketdyne is making the core engines, Boeing is making the upper stage. Really, all NASA is doing is assembling the entire thing, and of course setting the specs and requirements.
Let's look at the Apollo command module, the closest equivalent to Orion/CST-100/Dragon. It was developed by North American Aviation. They merged with Rockwell-Standard during the 1967 to form North American Rockwell, later renamed to Rockwell International, under which name they produced the Space Shuttle orbiter. The Rockwell International space division was sold in 1996 to... Boeing.
Boeing isn't "ripping off from NASA firsts". They're building off work that they did for NASA in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. If anything "NASA" is ripping of them, but I remind you that Lockheed Martin is the one actually building the thing you want to attribute to NASA.
Sierra Nevada is building off SpaceShipOne technology, not any NASA programs. Just because it looks vaguely like the Space Shuttle, that does not mean it actually works the same way. The engines are completely and fundamentally different, as is the aerodynamic design.
And SpaceX is developing everything on their own. The only thing they used from another company is some software/control design from Tesla Motors, a company not coincidentally also owned by Elon Musk. I personally doubt much was even borrowed there except for the basic idea of a single big touchscreen, but I guess it makes for good brand advertising.
tl;dr you're wrong in your terminology, you're wrong in your facts, you're wrong in your logic, and you're wrong in your conclusions.
Yes, the SSL will start at 70t and move forward to (maybe) 155t.
But no, 10 13 ton lauches of the Falcon 9 does probabbly does not get you the same thing as a single lauch of 130t. Assemble is a issue. Some things are better built and have less wastage in large intergated units on the ground than assempbled in space.
We should compare apples to apples, not oranges. Which leads me to my biggest gripe about NASA (and by extension, the American government) – their plans are so murky and ill defined. Each stage of the program was like a rung on a ladder – leading to the eventual goal. How does the ISS fit into going to Mars? How does the SLS? How come we are always punting this thing down the road by 20 years. It is almost a program in search of a mission. Please don't take this as an attack on basic science and research – just how NASA does it.