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NASA Spends 72 Cents of Every SLS Dollar On Overhead Costs, Says Report (arstechnica.com)
A new report published by the nonpartisan think tank Center for a New American Security shows us where a lot of NASA's money is being spent. The space agency has reportedly spent $19 billion on rockets -- first on Ares I and V, and now on the Space Launch System rocket -- and $13.9 billion on the Orion spacecraft. If all goes according to plan and NASA is able to fly its first crewed mission with the new vehicles in 2021, "the report estimates the agency will have spent $43 billion before that first flight, essentially a reprise of the Apollo 8 mission around the Moon," reports Ars Technica. "Just the development effort for SLS and Orion, which includes none of the expenses related to in-space activities or landing anywhere, are already nearly half that of the Apollo program." From the report: The new report argues that, given these high costs, NASA should turn over the construction of rockets and spacecraft to the private sector. It buttresses this argument with a remarkable claim about the "overhead" costs associated with the NASA-led programs. These costs entail the administration, management, and development costs paid directly to the space agency -- rather than funds spend on contractors actually building the space hardware. For Orion, according to the report, approximately 56 percent of the program's cost, has gone to NASA instead of the main contractor, Lockheed Martin, and others. For the SLS rocket and its predecessors, the estimated fraction of NASA-related costs is higher -- 72 percent. This means that only about $7 billion of the rocket's $19 billion has gone to the private sector companies, Boeing, Orbital ATK, Aeroject Rocketdyne, and others cutting metal. By comparison the report also estimates NASA's overhead costs for the commercial cargo and crew programs, in which SpaceX, Boeing, and Orbital ATK are developing and providing cargo and astronaut delivery systems for the International Space Station. With these programs, NASA has ceded some control to the private companies, allowing them to retain ownership of the vehicles and design them with other customers in mind as well. With such fixed-price contracts, the NASA overhead costs for these programs is just 14 percent, the report finds.
Yes, they stand on that mountain, but they are still building it! As for your comparison with nuclear, health, etc...sorry, the tolerances there are much greater than for space. Certification for use in the medical or nuclear fields is much easier than getting something space rated!
And most times when a "think tank" comes out with "proof" that some agency has too much bureaucracy, it is a prelude to justify budget cuts. It's just another piece of the propaganda war. :-(
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Except we're not talking about profit here.
We're talking about everything that is not manufacturing the rocket. That is... designing the bloody thing.
The thing I find surprising about the 72% figure is not how high it is - it's how low it is. It apparently is only costing 3 times as much to design an entirely new rocket system than it costs to build the first vehicle.
That's really fucking impressive.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking: people just want you to take a hammer and start putting in nails. Architects and engineers are overhead; just start putting up walls and don't worry about if it'll blow over in the first moderate wind.
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Agreed. This report smells like sensationalized bullshit that makes light of what things really cost. The cost to essentially re-tool after decades out of the business of anything beyond low-earth orbit space travel has to be paid, and since NASA has to carry out the mission, they're the ones who first have to have everything in place. Measuring this against what contractors get is a head-fake; contractors should be specialists paid just for the piece of the puzzle required from them, so they should get paid less and later, after NASA has figured out to an excruciating degree of certainty what they need and how to get it done right so that contractors don't wind up making something useless.
Besides, NASA is not for-profit like the private sector. Money doesn't disappear down a profit hole, CEO bonuses or golden parachutes. If money is being stolen or misappropriated at NASA, it will be found out - some of that overhead, after all, goes to paper-trailing all the funding. That's why I'm saying bullshit to this article. Unless there are examples of specific misappropriation, then the money's being spent where it's gotta be spent (it sure as fuck isn't going to big, giant salaries or bonuses). It's easy and fashionable to shit on public-sector spending... 'cause it's public so trolls can see it and troll it and feel smug without taking the time to dig into the details... unlike the private sector where their spending is none of your damn business. Pros and cons. Yes, government agencies fuck up every so often and spend tax-payer money on bridges to nowhere and other shit. But they get caught because of the paper trail and the armies of trolls looking to expose them and feel smug about themselves.
Given the high-exposure of NASA, and how crazy fucking hard it is to get a job there in spite of relatively meager salaries compared to what you could get in the private sector, I don't bet there's too much funny business really going on... except only for pork mandated by Congress, because a congressman wants something sweet in his state or district. In THAT case, don't blame NASA, blame the Congressman (and the people who voted for him).
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