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>The majority of NASA's budget today is being wasted today on the SLS, a launch system that will be at cost at least 10x more per pound than commercial systems.

• valuearb 10y ago
  The SLS cost is going to be over $2B per launch with all costs. NASA is going to spend $20B on development before it's first flight, and the $500M/launch number doesn't likely include annual operating costs for the massive infrastructure it requires. And you assume that NASA, which has never hit it's cost forecast for manned flights,and under-estimates costs as a political necessity, is going to hit those cost levels. And you are quoting launch capacities for the SLS that won't exist until later versions many years later, if they ever exist at sll. Why should any company build a SLS sized booster if NASA is going to build its own? SpaceX already is working on a bigger design than SLS, I imagine they'd invest more and have even more progress if they had a shot at NASA heavy launches. And the SLS doesn't even have a planned mission. I'm all in favor of antarctic research because it didn't cost nearly $300B. Nearly all the science we got out of ISS could have been done far cheaper with robotic probes. It's the most expensive PR event ever, an orbiting destination for school kids projects. Just like when NASA refused to make the Shuttle fully automated, they've refused to allow any ISS experiments to be fully automated, so they can claim in both cases, "see, we need a super expensive manned program". NASA is the hindrance to manned space flight, not its contractors, Every project it does has one key customer, congress. It requires its projects to be built across many congressional districts, and maintains hugely expensive unneeded infrastructure, all to please key congress critters. It tried to kill the air force space program and gutted commercial launch capacity in the early 80s by moving them to the shuttle. And the shuttle was so expensive it was a step backwards, and now the SLS is a repeat of that very same game plan. Soon they'll demand every government launch to ride the SLS, starving companies like SpaceX.
  • hwillis 10y ago
    >NASA is going to spend $20B on development before it's first flight That number (18 billion) includes the Orion flight vehicle and launchpad upgrades. The actual cost to develop is 10 billion. Again SpaceX is the only company that beats that, nobody else comes close. Nobody else could even do this at all, most likely. The SLS missions run from 2018-2030 currently, so development costs are at most 200 million per launch. >the $500M/launch number doesn't likely include annual operating costs for the massive infrastructure it requires. ...The $500M comes from Bill Hill's 2 billion annual production and operation budget, with four launches a year[1]. He wants to get to 1.5 billion. >And you assume that NASA, which has never hit it's cost forecast for manned flights,and under-estimates costs as a political necessity, is going to hit those cost levels. NASA is great about staying on budget. The shuttle is completely different and was a result of military interference. All the mars rovers were on-budget except curiosity, which was 20% over budget not counting delays. If the cost of production and supply rose 20% from 1.5 billion annually, SLS would still be cheaper than the Falcon Heavy. >And you are quoting launch capacities for the SLS that won't exist until later versions many years later, if they ever exist at sll. There isn't even another organization on earth, government or otherwise, that has announced any rocket of this size. Not counting the MCT, because it's reliant on tech that also doesn't yet exist. If you are going to count the development costs, you have to count what is actually being developed, not just block 1. [1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/how-much-will-sls-and-orion-cost-to-fly-finally-some-answers/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/how-much-will-sls-an...
    • valuearb 10y ago
      You keep blaming the military for the Shuttle, but to justify the Shuttle NASA forced the air force to cancel its own space program to fly on the Shuttle, so NASA forced itself to modify the Shuttle to meet Airfirce requirements. And your confidence in their big project budgeting i misplaced. The air force didn't force them to miss their 50 flight a year commitment, they greatly underestimated refurb times/costs for the engines, orbiter and SSRbs. They rstinated $15M a flight and actually cost $1.5B a flight. NASAs own estimates are over $750M a flight over first decade with development (pad costs are dev costs). But they don't even have missions for all those flights, it's extremely unlikely they'll do 4 a year or control their costs when congress is involved. "During the joint Senate-NASA presentation in September 2011, it was stated that the SLS program had a projected development cost of $18 billion through 2017, with $10 billion for the SLS rocket, $6 billion for the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and $2 billion for upgrades to the launch pad and other facilities at Kennedy Space Center.[12] These costs and schedule were considered optimistic in an independent 2011 cost assessment report by Booz Allen Hamilton for NASA.[79] An unofficial 2011 NASA document estimated the cost of the program through 2025 to total at least $41bn for four 70 t launches (1 unmanned, 3 manned),[2][3] with the 130 t version ready no earlier than 2030.[80] The Human Exploration Framework Team (HEFT) estimated unit costs for Block 0 at $1.6bn and Block 1 at $1.86bn in 2010.[81] However, since these estimates were made the Block 0 SLS vehicle was dropped in late 2011, and the design was not completed.[82] The Space Review estimated the cost per launch at $5 billion, depending on the rate of launches." And nothing about the SLS is reusable or hard to duplicate except the blank check they s paying for it. Its reliance on SRBs is low tech, and risky on a manned rated vehicle. It's a far less impressive launch vehicle than the SaturnV. Raptor is already in testing. The BE-4 is on the way. The Russians built Energia. If NASA bid out its heavy launch capability they'd cut their heavy launch costs by at least 70%.