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As if cost+ contracting hasn't been a major factor in projects going overbudget and behind schedule. Even with cost+ the contractor needs to provide an estimat

As if cost+ contracting hasn't been a major factor in projects going overbudget and behind schedule. Even with cost+ the contractor needs to provide an estimate up front of both the time and money needed. While it is understood that it is just an estimate, having projects come in for 5x or more of the original estimated cost is egregious. SLS for example was estimated to cost $1.5B, but instead costs $11.2B and still hasn't launched.

lesuorac 3y ago
> SLS for example was estimated to cost $1.5B I wish it was; lol. The initial estimate was $18B [1]. I suspect you saw the $1.5B number for some sub-component of SLS. That's another common problem with government projects. The media will read some government report that says a new railroad will cost $1B and then report that the entire project will cost $1B while the report only talked about track cost and not about land acquisition, even environmental studies, or etc. That said, yes SLS is over ($23B) the $18B budget and not done. I do wish NASA would move closer to how DARPA does things where you payout a reward to companies that achieve some milestone. Somewhat close to what the FCC did here except the FCC is giving the money ahead of milestone. But there are pros and cons to this as government contracting is a pia so when you get into the situation of a single competitor it gets awkward. Contractors not meeting their bids is a problem though. At the personal/corporate/government level I don't think people account for enough the fact that the contractor might not uphold their side of the bargin. Similar to how many people choose the cheapest insurance and then :surprise-pickachu-face: all their claims get denied. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Funding
- _Tev 3y ago
  > I do wish NASA would move closer to how DARPA does things where you payout a reward to companies that achieve some milestone. NASA already does this for a lot of things around ISS and Artemis. SLS is legacy bondoogle pushed by US Senate.
- jandrese 3y ago
  It was $1.5B per launch. But that figure keeps going up as they have to amortize even more development cost into each launch, and the total number of launches remains constant or even drops.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > I do wish NASA would move closer to how DARPA does things where you payout a reward to companies that achieve some milestone. SpaceX seems to have done well out of how NASA does bids for contracts. And that's for actual work done, not for fudgeable project milestones?

lesuorac 3y ago

> SLS for example was estimated to cost $1.5B I wish it was; lol. The initial estimate was $18B [1]. I suspect you saw the $1.5B number for some sub-component of SLS. That's another common problem with government projects. The media will read some government report that says a new railroad will cost $1B and then report that the entire project will cost $1B while the report only talked about track cost and not about land acquisition, even environmental studies, or etc. That said, yes SLS is over ($23B) the $18B budget and not done. I do wish NASA would move closer to how DARPA does things where you payout a reward to companies that achieve some milestone. Somewhat close to what the FCC did here except the FCC is giving the money ahead of milestone. But there are pros and cons to this as government contracting is a pia so when you get into the situation of a single competitor it gets awkward. Contractors not meeting their bids is a problem though. At the personal/corporate/government level I don't think people account for enough the fact that the contractor might not uphold their side of the bargin. Similar to how many people choose the cheapest insurance and then :surprise-pickachu-face: all their claims get denied. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Funding

_Tev 3y ago
> I do wish NASA would move closer to how DARPA does things where you payout a reward to companies that achieve some milestone. NASA already does this for a lot of things around ISS and Artemis. SLS is legacy bondoogle pushed by US Senate.
jandrese 3y ago
It was $1.5B per launch. But that figure keeps going up as they have to amortize even more development cost into each launch, and the total number of launches remains constant or even drops.
robertlagrant 3y ago
> I do wish NASA would move closer to how DARPA does things where you payout a reward to companies that achieve some milestone. SpaceX seems to have done well out of how NASA does bids for contracts. And that's for actual work done, not for fudgeable project milestones?