5 ms·

I'm all for avoiding sunk-cost thinking, but considering that nearly half a billion was spent on this thing and its launch was barely a year away, it's hard to

by hughes 2y ago

I'm all for avoiding sunk-cost thinking, but considering that nearly half a billion was spent on this thing and its launch was barely a year away, it's hard to wrap my head around scrapping it entirely. From the lost talent alone, this seems catastrophic - why would any of the country's best engineers want to work on ambitious NASA projects when they can be rug-pulled so close to completion? Also, where's the accountability or at least lessons learned in this cancelation? Is there a single finding on how to reduce cost overruns for future missions?

dylan604 2y ago
The Superconducting Super Collider was hoping to get to that "too far along to cancel" point as well. They thought that reaching 80% tunnel completion would do it. However it didn't, and it was canceled. I'm sure there's plenty of other examples as well.
choilive 2y ago
Not entirely on NASA, Congress slashed their budget causing a -$500M hole, with future years budget not looking to fare much better so they had to make some tough decisions. Sounds like other missions in the same program are going to pick up VIPER's objectives though.
- bko 2y ago
  Sure looks like they cut it 2% in 2024, but they've increased it every year over the last 10 years, even in real terms (maybe 2022/2023 was a bit under flat) Year Budget Change 2000 13,428 2001 14,095 4.97% 2002 14,405 2.20% 2003 14,610 1.42% 2004 15,152 3.71% 2005 15,602 2.97% 2006 15,125 -3.06% 2007 15,861 4.87% 2008 17,833 12.43% 2009 17,782 -0.29% 2010 18,724 5.30% 2011 18,448 -1.47% 2012 17,770 -3.68% 2013 16,865 -5.09% 2014 17,647 4.64% 2015 18,010 2.06% 2016 19,300 7.16% 2017 19,508 1.08% 2018 20,736 6.29% 2019 21,500 3.68% 2020 22,629 5.25% 2021 23,271 2.84% 2022 24,041 3.31% 2023 25,384 5.59% 2024 24,875 -2.01% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    In real terms that looks pretty flat for both the last 10 years and since the beginning of the list. Doesn't explain the project cut but also isn't really real budget growth either.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    The problem is that most of that budget is earmarked for huge money-wasters like SLS, and those earmarks are growing. So the non-earmarked budget shrinks.
    - xenadu02 2y ago
      This is a huge part of it. Congress might increase the budget by 3% but when they force something like SLS on NASA that eats 6% of the budget in real terms it was a 3% cut. And this assumes the employees don't deserve any raises or bonuses.
  - Retric 2y ago
    You’re looking at the Nominal Dollars (Millions) column which is meaningless. The 2023 Constant Dollars (Millions) has 2010: 26,162 2015: 23,150 2020: 26,559 Then the actual budget in 2023 is down to 25,384, and 2024 is 24,124 a 5% cut from the year before. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
bobmcnamara 2y ago
> From the lost talent alone, this seems catastrophic - why would any of the country's best engineers want to work on ambitious NASA projects when they can be rug-pulled so close to completion? That's the point! By making government dysfunctional we can point out all the wasted funds and slash the budget /Reagan
hansvm 2y ago
> avoiding sunk-cost thinking The past is in the past. The half a billion matters insofar as it's given us our current playing hand. The right mentality is some combination of looking forward (we have many options, some of which were bought for half a billion, but even those might be worthless), backward looking (half a billion is probably worth having a retro over; was the outcome regrettable? If so, how can we do less of that?), and keeping non-obvious systemic effects in mind while doing both of those things (e.g., if you never finish a project, it doesn't matter if you were always working toward the "right" thing, and with that sort of thing in mind your bias toward cancelling projects should perhaps be weaker than the immediate facts might indicate). Imagine you'd invested half a billion in Theranos. You really would have pennies on the dollar in return, and completely scrapping it (or otherwise selling it for parts) could be a logical move. The sunk cost fallacy comes in when you decide that because you've already invested you need to continue in that direction. Your point about it being hard to wrap your head around scrapping it entirely is a little subtle. We very well might have bought something worthwhile for that half a billion. In that case though, you still want to look at the resources you _currently_ have available or expect to have in the future, not the fact that you lost a half billion (except insofar as you can use that as a learning experience to not fuck up so much in the future).
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  The original approval for VIPER was $433M. So at one time they thought that VIPER was worth $433M. Now they need $100M+ to finish it. If it was worth $433M at one point, surely it's worth at least $100M now?
  - hansvm 2y ago
    That was $433M with less information than they have now. To be clear, my personal bias is that there's some sort of graft or other major problem, and it would be worth $100M, but we might have also spent that money as a high-risk, high-reward endeavor and simply found out later that the rewards aren't worth it. That isn't even necessarily a bad outcome, if true.

by hughes 2y ago

dylan604 2y ago

The Superconducting Super Collider was hoping to get to that "too far along to cancel" point as well. They thought that reaching 80% tunnel completion would do it. However it didn't, and it was canceled. I'm sure there's plenty of other examples as well.

choilive 2y ago

Not entirely on NASA, Congress slashed their budget causing a -$500M hole, with future years budget not looking to fare much better so they had to make some tough decisions. Sounds like other missions in the same program are going to pick up VIPER's objectives though.

bko 2y ago
Sure looks like they cut it 2% in 2024, but they've increased it every year over the last 10 years, even in real terms (maybe 2022/2023 was a bit under flat) Year Budget Change 2000 13,428 2001 14,095 4.97% 2002 14,405 2.20% 2003 14,610 1.42% 2004 15,152 3.71% 2005 15,602 2.97% 2006 15,125 -3.06% 2007 15,861 4.87% 2008 17,833 12.43% 2009 17,782 -0.29% 2010 18,724 5.30% 2011 18,448 -1.47% 2012 17,770 -3.68% 2013 16,865 -5.09% 2014 17,647 4.64% 2015 18,010 2.06% 2016 19,300 7.16% 2017 19,508 1.08% 2018 20,736 6.29% 2019 21,500 3.68% 2020 22,629 5.25% 2021 23,271 2.84% 2022 24,041 3.31% 2023 25,384 5.59% 2024 24,875 -2.01% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA
- zamadatix 2y ago
  In real terms that looks pretty flat for both the last 10 years and since the beginning of the list. Doesn't explain the project cut but also isn't really real budget growth either.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  The problem is that most of that budget is earmarked for huge money-wasters like SLS, and those earmarks are growing. So the non-earmarked budget shrinks.
  - xenadu02 2y ago
    This is a huge part of it. Congress might increase the budget by 3% but when they force something like SLS on NASA that eats 6% of the budget in real terms it was a 3% cut. And this assumes the employees don't deserve any raises or bonuses.
- Retric 2y ago
  You’re looking at the Nominal Dollars (Millions) column which is meaningless. The 2023 Constant Dollars (Millions) has 2010: 26,162 2015: 23,150 2020: 26,559 Then the actual budget in 2023 is down to 25,384, and 2024 is 24,124 a 5% cut from the year before. https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

bobmcnamara 2y ago

> From the lost talent alone, this seems catastrophic - why would any of the country's best engineers want to work on ambitious NASA projects when they can be rug-pulled so close to completion? That's the point! By making government dysfunctional we can point out all the wasted funds and slash the budget /Reagan

hansvm 2y ago

> avoiding sunk-cost thinking The past is in the past. The half a billion matters insofar as it's given us our current playing hand. The right mentality is some combination of looking forward (we have many options, some of which were bought for half a billion, but even those might be worthless), backward looking (half a billion is probably worth having a retro over; was the outcome regrettable? If so, how can we do less of that?), and keeping non-obvious systemic effects in mind while doing both of those things (e.g., if you never finish a project, it doesn't matter if you were always working toward the "right" thing, and with that sort of thing in mind your bias toward cancelling projects should perhaps be weaker than the immediate facts might indicate). Imagine you'd invested half a billion in Theranos. You really would have pennies on the dollar in return, and completely scrapping it (or otherwise selling it for parts) could be a logical move. The sunk cost fallacy comes in when you decide that because you've already invested you need to continue in that direction. Your point about it being hard to wrap your head around scrapping it entirely is a little subtle. We very well might have bought something worthwhile for that half a billion. In that case though, you still want to look at the resources you _currently_ have available or expect to have in the future, not the fact that you lost a half billion (except insofar as you can use that as a learning experience to not fuck up so much in the future).

bryanlarsen 2y ago
The original approval for VIPER was $433M. So at one time they thought that VIPER was worth $433M. Now they need $100M+ to finish it. If it was worth $433M at one point, surely it's worth at least $100M now?
- hansvm 2y ago
  That was $433M with less information than they have now. To be clear, my personal bias is that there's some sort of graft or other major problem, and it would be worth $100M, but we might have also spent that money as a high-risk, high-reward endeavor and simply found out later that the rewards aren't worth it. That isn't even necessarily a bad outcome, if true.