Study Finds SpaceX Investment Saved NASA Hundreds of Millions (popularmechanics.com)

schwit1 shares a report from Popular Mechanics: When a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft connected with the International Space Station on May 25, 2012, it made history as the first privately-built spacecraft to reach the ISS. The Dragon was the result of a decision 6 years prior -- in 2006, NASA made an "unprecedented" investment in SpaceX technology. A new financial analysis shows that the investment has paid off, and the government found one of the true bargains of the 21st century when it invested in SpaceX. A new research paper by Edgar Zapata, who works at Kennedy Space Center, looks closely at the finances of SpaceX and NASA. "There were indications that commercial space transportation would be a viable option from as far back as the 1980s," Zapata writes. "When the first components of the ISS were sent into orbit 1998, NASA was focused on "ambitious, large single stage-to-orbit launchers with large price tags to match." For future commercial crew missions sending astronauts into space, Zapata estimates that it will cost $405 million for a SpaceX Dragon crew deployment of 4 and $654 million for a Boeing Starliner, which is scheduled for its first flight in 2019. That sounds like a lot, and it is, but Zapata estimates that its only 37 to 39 percent of what it would have cost the government.

Comments

Re:No Research Costs

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course ULA got nothing from NASA either. Nope, not a single dime from absurd cost-plus contracts.

NASA likely could do a lot of mission cheaper now

Yet they never did. Could of, would of, should of. Too busy lining the pockets of ULA executives.

Thanks, Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

Miss you, buddy.

Re: NASA: get back to exploring

[Rei]

Of course, we know they're not going to be doing that either. Even ignoring the continual delays, SLS is simply an impractical launch vehicle. Way too expensive per launch, and they'll never have enough launches to refine it.

NASA needs to accept that it's not going to be a launch supplier, and switch to what it does best: R&D and exploration missions. And the new launch environment should be embraced. Think of what can be done when launch costs are much less than spacecraft development costs: suddenly you have a much stronger incentive to mass-produce spacecraft designs, since the incremental cost becomes so much less than the single-unit cost. Picture the era where we don't launch, say, 1 Dawn spacecraft, we launch a hundred of them, each to different bodies. We don't launch 1 Mars rover, we launch a couple dozen, each to different parts of Mars. Etc.

Re:Federal Government is Monetarily Sovereign

[sabbede]

Except that the Federal Reserve is in charge of monetary policy, not the Federal Government. The Fed's Open Market Committee regulates the supply of money through buying and selling bonds and T-Bills in order to fulfill its twin mandates to manage inflation and promote full employment. Making sure the Federal government has enough cash is a fiscal, not a monetary, issue and thus a matter for the Treasury not the Fed.

As for your obvious feelings about fiat currency, the one thing people never seem to recognize is that there is no such thing as intrinsic value. Value is an entirely human, thus subjective, concept. Every form of currency is fiat because it is based on a common agreement that something represents value - be it gold or paper. The gold standard just puts an intermediate step between the currency itself and its imagined value.

Re:No Research Costs

[saider]

This is why there is incentive to increase costs. More cost = more profit.

The government often asks for scads of reports and documentation to show that you are following their accounting, engineering, quality, ... guidelines and rules. This needs to be delivered in their format, that they then give to auditors to pore over for years. Then there are "compliance" folks at the contractors whose job is to ensure that all reports are being done according to the contractual requirements. These contracts will often reference multiple contradictory government and industry standards, setting the stage for a number of people to research and resolve these conflicts. All of this extra work is "allowable" (since the government cannot ask you to perform work without compensation) and simply gets worked into the contract, inflating the cost (and improving the profit). If you have a high tolerance for bureaucratic quagmires, then government contracting can be very lucrative.

On the other hand, a commercial entity simply says "rocket costs 65 million dollars". The contract is a standard purchase order. Nothing more.

Will Space X be Musk's only profitable company?

[Nova Express]

Tesla Motors, despite all the hype and love showered here, shows no signs of ever showing a profit.